What Video Games have you been playing #13 Now with CGA graphics!

[Chukchi Husky]

Chieftain, I think.

Oh. If you want to improve your play, go up at least to Noble (neither AI nor human has bonuses), playing on lower difficulties just allows you to develop bad habits. I'm not being sarcastic or anything, if you're fine where you're at that is also fine.

I tried playing Civilization IV at Chieftain level and kept losing.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I lost the first time I tried, but that was partly because I was stuck on a small island with the Portuguese and I only had three cities to work with.

 

[AdamCrock]

How do you know it's not completely legitimate?

Exactly ! It's all proof that extraterrestrial Civs have been visiting us from 3985 BC ! xD

 

[Takhisis]

I lost the first time I tried, but that was partly because I was stuck on a small island with the Portuguese and I only had three cities to work with.

Why are you not counting the Portuguese cities?

 

[AdamCrock]

It's actually easier than you think. You're probably smarter and better at video games than I am, I've no doubt you can do it.

The tricks in Civ 4 are:
-Always build a worker first
-Most games are decided in the first 50-100 turns, and worker actions are the most precious resource during these turns
-Most buildings are not worth building, wealth or units are better: all cities get Granary and Forge but every other building is situational and many are not worth building under any circumstances

Agree on all the points Lex made + more tips

- Catherine, Monty (Montezuma), Shaka (+maybe a few leaders I can't remember right now) will always DOW (declaration of war) even if on "friendly" with the player if they have military advantage and see a "juicy" city they can take. Otherwise You're always safe on friendly.
- Do not DOW yourself, instead bribe opponents to DOW another and then backstab them.
- Flood plains
- Have cities make (if possible) only one certain type of specialists (further specialize with national wonders) aka specialization, also build infrastructure with goal in mind , not "just everything" that You can.
- If You start with a lot of commerce potential for capital make it "tech central"
- You'll get lots of commerce for trade routes and health bonuses with cities on coast (although health is much less important than happiness)
- Sid Sushi ! xD

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I remember in one of my games from a decade back, always making a city named Science City. I was a little weird.

 

[AdamCrock]

I remember in one of my games from a decade back, always making a city named Science City. I was a little weird.

Some people name them like tags for example [ou] and [ne] or [he] nad [iw] which are the names of national wonders they're planning to put in them like oxford U. + national epic or heroic epic + iron works It's not at all weird for me

 

[tjs282]

I always found it funny that you could get chariots before horsemen. Apparently the idea of hooking up a horse to a giant wagon is easier to figure out than just climbing on the horse's back.

This is, AFAIK, historically accurate, though: it is indeed easier to break a horse to a wagon (not a giant one! The earliest chariots were extremely lightweight constructions) than to break it for riding. Mainly because for a (wild) horse, the only thing that's likely to climb on its back without warning is a lion or other predator; so they tend not to react very well to that. Even today, the main purpose of horse-breaking is to habituate the animal to the idea that the naked monkey-thing attempting to climb onto its back isn't really going to try and eat it.

Also, the first varieties of horse to be domesticated (about 3500 BC), were generally smaller than modern horses on average: humans have spent the intervening 5500 years or so selectively breeding them for increased size/ strength/ speed/ stamina, primarily in order to make them better able to bear the weight of a human (and his weapons, and armour) directly on their backs, rather than pulling him in a wheeled vehicle behind them (where the vehicle is bearing most of the weight, not the horse).

According to Wikipedia, the earliest archaelogical evidence of chariot usage dates to about 2000 BC; but mounted spearmen/archers weren't used routinely in warfare until around 1000 years later (Philip's -- and later Alexander's -- empire-building didn't start until around 360 BC). As an illustration of the transition, the Iliad is estimated to be set during the late Bronze Age, about 1200 BC, and contains multiple mentions of both the Greeks and the Trojans using chariots, but very few (if any?) mentions of anyone riding on horseback (even though the terrain in Greece was/ is really better suited to mounted fighting than wheeled fighting).

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I think one of the reasons the Mongolians were so successful is because they figured out how to use stirrups.

 

[Lexicus]

I think one of the reasons the Mongolians were so successful is because they figured out how to use stirrups.

The way I heard it, it was the Huns, but this idea has been seriously questioned by modern scholarship, IIRC due to both lack of archaeological evidence and the mechanics of riding a horse while carrying weapons, with and without stirrups.

Also related shout-out to @Ajidica who showed me a blog post by Guy Halsall which notes there is actually very little real evidence for the typical picture of the Huns as Mongolian-style mounted archers.

 

[tjs282]

I think one of the reasons the Mongolians were so successful is because they figured out how to use stirrups.

The earliest stirrups appear to have been developed around 200 BC. The Mongol expansion didn't start until around 1100 AD, though, so they took their own sweet time about it...

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Also, the first varieties of horse to be domesticated (about 3500 BC), were generally smaller than modern horses on average: humans have spent the intervening 5500 years or so selectively breeding them for increased size/ strength/ speed/ stamina, primarily in order to make them better able to bear the weight of a human (and his weapons, and armour) directly on their backs, rather than pulling him in a wheeled vehicle behind them (where the vehicle is bearing most of the weight, not the horse).

The main theory I'm aware of is that there were originally four basic types:

• Pony Type 1, northwestern Europe, close to Exmoor Pony
• Pony Type 2, northern Europe, close to Fjord Horse
• Horse Type 1, central Asia, Akhal-Teke
• Horse Type 2, western Asia, Caspian horse

 

[AdamCrock]

I think one of the reasons the Mongolians were so successful is because they figured out how to use stirrups.

I think they were successful because they were able to move great masses of people - armies and their families- over great distances. Logistics are easy when You can sustain Yourself with just a horse milk, a rug for sleeping and a tent.

 

[JPetroski]

...I need to find my Civ II disc now. Will it even run on Windows 10?

I didn't see that anyone answered you... Yes, Civ2 runs on Windows 10 (well, at least Test of Time and The Test of Time Patch Project does... Not sure if MGE does).

If any of you folks used to enjoy the game and especially the scenarios you really ought to come visit the Scenario League forums in the Civ2 section and see what we've been up to. The patch project, and especially lua, have broken the game wide open. Soooooo much cool stuff is possible and being implemented.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

- Do not DOW yourself, instead bribe opponents to DOW another and then backstab them.

How do you do that? Everyone just keeps saying "we would have nothing to gain."

 

[AdamCrock]

How do you do that? Everyone just keeps saying "we would have nothing to gain."

That means they like them too much, You might try to mess with their religion but it doesn't always work. There's a good indicator when they say "we have too much on our hands" and that means that AI is plotting a war already. Sometimes it's just hunting for opportunity.

 

[Lexicus]

"We would have nothing to gain" does NOT mean they like the war target too much, it usually means that the civ you're trying to bribe doesn't border the target. However I think some leaders make the "nothing to gain" call at drastically different thresholds, so it should be a lot easier to bribe, say, Genghis Khan or Shaka into a war where they don't border the target as compared to someone like Gandhi or Zara Yaqob.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I remember in one of my games from a decade back, always making a city named Science City. I was a little weird.

I name my cities after psychiatric drugs. You think you're weird?

 

[Arakhor]

I liked renaming captured cities, but if I gave my native cities custom names, it would interrupt the naming scheme and that annoyed me unreasonably.

One game, years ago, where I was playing the Chinese, each conquered city was renamed to sound like a bad "Chinese takeaway" dub of their original, e.g. two former US cities became Wah-sin-ton and Shi-kah-go.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I always found it funny that you could get chariots before horsemen. Apparently the idea of hooking up a horse to a giant wagon is easier to figure out than just climbing on the horse's back.

It is actually. People were pulling and pushing "plows," even if the plow was just a stick, for a long time. The move from pushing to "hey if I tie myself to it I cam pull and it's easier" was a big leap (and yes, part of that was if I push and tie YOU to it so you can pull at the same time...") So it really wasn't a big leap to "hey, what if we tie the plow to that big animal and have it pull instead of harnessing up your skinny ass." Once you have the horse pulling the plow having it pull something else isn't such a leap either...but climbing on top of that beast? That's one for the books.