What patch and mods to begin with ?

[Burberryan]

Hello I am a noob and I'm very confused and overwhelmed with all the patch and mod options for CIV4.

I want to start playing CIV4 and I don't want to change the out-of-the-box game too much, I just want to have important bugs fixed and basic gameplay shortcomings improved.

What patch and mods should I install ?

Thank you very much.

 

[Manick]

I was going to start a thread very similar to this one so I'll go ahead and ask my related question here I guess. Is there a mod that improves worker AI so it is actually viable to automate them? I always get bored of late game because of how many city tiles I have to improve by the constant micromanagement of workers. It takes up more than half of the turn usually, and gets really tedious especially when im trying to concentrate on moving armies and waring with other civs. If there are no mods like this, would anyone have suggestions on what I should do to make my turns much quicker?

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Hello I am a noob and I'm very confused and overwhelmed with all the patch and mod options for CIV4.

I want to start playing CIV4 and I don't want to change the out-of-the-box game too much, I just want to have important bugs fixed and basic gameplay shortcomings improved.

What patch and mods should I install ?

Thank you very much.

The most recent (and final) patch for plain Civ4 is version 1.74. Download this and you're good to go.

As for gameplay mods, I don't play with any, so I can't recommend any.

I was going to start a thread very similar to this one so I'll go ahead and ask my related question here I guess. Is there a mod that improves worker AI so it is actually viable to automate them? I always get bored of late game because of how many city tiles I have to improve by the constant micromanagement of workers. It takes up more than half of the turn usually, and gets really tedious especially when im trying to concentrate on moving armies and waring with other civs. If there are no mods like this, would anyone have suggestions on what I should do to make my turns much quicker?

There is no worker automation mod that I know of. You can search in the Creation and Customization forum though, as well as the Downloads database (link above), to see if there is one, though I highly doubt it.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Do you have "vanilla" Civ4 or do you have "Beyond the Sword" (BtS)?

The latest "official" version of BtS is v3.13, but there is a great patch called "Bhruic's" v3.13 patch that fixes more then Firaxis did without changing anything from the base game.

 

[JonBrave]

The most recent (and final) patch for plain Civ4 is version 1.74.

Actually I would recommend considering version 1.61 instead. When I tried 1.74 I fell foul of that "missing DLL" issue you'll see people complaining about, and it's a real pain to sort. I stick with 1.61. I'm single-player-only, and as far as I understand it there is little in 1.74 I would miss --- is that right/wrong, anyone?

 

[Milly]

I enjoy the Wolfshanze mod for BtS. It adds in lots of new naval units, a few more aerial units, and new tank units, only adds in one new tech, and contains new graphics.

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

If you want mods, go look for FFH. More people downloaded the latest Fall from Heaven patch than did 3.13.

 

[Wolfshanze]

I doubt someone new, confused and overwhelmed would know what "FFH" is... might want to spell it out and let them know it's fantasy-based... which doesn't seem much like what the OP asked for (doesn't want to change much from the out-of-box base game, and great it may be, but FFH is nothing like the boxed game).

 

[Ur_Vile_Wedge]

Sorry. I forgot.

Anyway, now that I've already damaged my credibility and admitted my idiocy. Fall From Heaven (or FFH) is a dark fantasy mod. It's hugely complex, IMO far more than regular civ, and is amazingly well dynamically balanced. (The different civs are far more different from one another than they are in civ vanilla)

Here's a link if you want it http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398

 

[nbcman]

A good basic mod that helps with some of aspects of managing cities, trades and diplomacy is the Hall of Fame Mod. It doesn't change the base game at all but it does take some of the tedium out of micromanaging. It can be found here:

http://hof.civfanatics.net/civ4/mod.php

 

[ggganz]

I doubt someone new, confused and overwhelmed would know what "FFH" is... might want to spell it out and let them know it's fantasy-based... which doesn't seem much like what the OP asked for (doesn't want to change much from the out-of-box base game, and great it may be, but FFH is nothing like the boxed game).

Why didn't you?


To Burberryan: I don't like Mods very much. I stick with the normal game. But I do recommend that you one day get Beyond the Sword.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Why didn't you?

Because I took to the time to read the original question and knew FFH was not what he was seeking... duh...

 

[Burberryan]

Would the following be the way to go in order to get the most out of Civ4 ?

-Install Civ4;
-Install Warlords;
-Install Beyond The Sword;
-Get latest BTS patch.

Or would that be overkill and ruin the game with too many bells and whistles, possibly even losing the original game experience for those of us common folks with simple tastes ?

 

[Wolfshanze]

Would the following be the way to go in order to get the most out of Civ4 ?

-Install Civ4;
-Install Warlords;
-Install Beyond The Sword;
-Get latest BTS patch.

Or would that be overkill and ruin the game with too many bells and whistles, possibly even losing the original game experience for those of us common folks with simple tastes ?

No, that would actually be the recomended thing to do... BtS is da-bomb... no need to waste time with Vanilla or Warlords... jump straight into playing BtS v3.13.

 

[Refar]

This is how i installed and it works just fine.

You can skip warlords however, unless you want to specifically play WL scenarios. Everything else is included in BTS.

For BTS - if the latest patch is 3.13 you should get Bhruics inoffcial patch as well - it does fix some real fun-killers.

 

[arstal]

As for mods- the Wolfshanze mod might be the best one- since it mostly closes logical gaps and adds units. It still needs a bit of work on the air end of it (Merged Mods mod adds a bunch of combat tweaks that include that to Wolfshanze, but lags behind the Wolfshanze mod, and those combat tweaks do adjust play), but it does add and fix a lot.

 

[Refar]

I would try and get accomodated with the 'clean' game before going for mods.