TheMightyRyon
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2013
- Messages
- 25
What were the random events of civ 4 like?
What were the random events of civ 4 like?
- Thread starter TheMightyRyon
- Start date
Magma_Dragoon
Reploid
- Joined
- May 10, 2008
- Messages
- 2,354
In a word, bad.
All mountains were volcanos that could erupt at any time, destroying the cottages you spend 150 turns growing into towns. Sometimes a hurricane would destroy a random building in a coastal city, or a flood would do the same thing in a riverside city with a hydroplant. Sometimes it would destroy a monastery after discovering scientific method, preventing you from building another one. Slave riots could put your capitol into revolt for several turns or cut its population by like 2. I suspect it was an attempt to "balance" the slavery civic, which allowed sacrificing pop to get hammers, and was widely regarded as the best civic option in game, by doing like what they did to the kris swordsman- tacking on the possibility of severe negative outcomes that are totally outside the player's ability to control.
There were some good ones, +1 food on the grocer, extra commerce on pearls, permanent +happy in a city, reduced inflation (fudge factor that increased unit and city maintenance over time to weigh down runaways a little). There was also a useless one that put a piss poor yield of like 1H2C on a mountain coz some guy found truffles there, in a game where tile yields were significantly larger than in civ5.
Mostly they were rage-fuel though.
All mountains were volcanos that could erupt at any time, destroying the cottages you spend 150 turns growing into towns. Sometimes a hurricane would destroy a random building in a coastal city, or a flood would do the same thing in a riverside city with a hydroplant. Sometimes it would destroy a monastery after discovering scientific method, preventing you from building another one. Slave riots could put your capitol into revolt for several turns or cut its population by like 2. I suspect it was an attempt to "balance" the slavery civic, which allowed sacrificing pop to get hammers, and was widely regarded as the best civic option in game, by doing like what they did to the kris swordsman- tacking on the possibility of severe negative outcomes that are totally outside the player's ability to control.
There were some good ones, +1 food on the grocer, extra commerce on pearls, permanent +happy in a city, reduced inflation (fudge factor that increased unit and city maintenance over time to weigh down runaways a little). There was also a useless one that put a piss poor yield of like 1H2C on a mountain coz some guy found truffles there, in a game where tile yields were significantly larger than in civ5.
Mostly they were rage-fuel though.
Strategist83
King
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2005
- Messages
- 625
They were pretty geeky and clunky, but they added a little touch to the game. There were even small quests encouraging you to attack a specific target or build a set number of one of your buildings. I'd have liked a slightly modified version of the random events to be present in V as well, as least as an option.
Yep, they were bad.
Most people in the CIV4 forums turn them off. When I played 4, I turned them off too. There were a lot of events that would randomly destroy your structure(s), improvements, and units.
Heck, there is a Bermuda Triangle event where your possibly huge navy randomly gets lost and destroyed!
I also remember an event where one type of unit automatically gets the Cover promotion, I think. Which made early warfare ridiculously easy.
So yeah, it was awful. Although some did like it. Said it added flavor and immersion. I think it added frustration and ridiculousness.
Most people in the CIV4 forums turn them off. When I played 4, I turned them off too. There were a lot of events that would randomly destroy your structure(s), improvements, and units.
Heck, there is a Bermuda Triangle event where your possibly huge navy randomly gets lost and destroyed!
I also remember an event where one type of unit automatically gets the Cover promotion, I think. Which made early warfare ridiculously easy.
So yeah, it was awful. Although some did like it. Said it added flavor and immersion. I think it added frustration and ridiculousness.
I really liked them and wish that something similar was in Civ V.
There were some negative ones and some positive ones. I don't remember them all but I think these were some of the more common ones:
There were also specific missions that you could undertake like building X # of buildings/units within a Y # of turns. Most of them were pretty stupid but they were worth doing every now and then.
Although I liked them, I can understand why some players didn't. They can be a needless hassle at times, particularly the negative events.
There were some negative ones and some positive ones. I don't remember them all but I think these were some of the more common ones:
- Plane crash: A neighboring civ has one of their commercial airliners crash in your territory and you get a few choices that can net you diplo boosts, espionage, or tech.
- Eruption: A city built near a mountain will have some of its surrounding improvements destroyed by a volcanic eruption.
- Research boost/penalty: Occasionally you will get a small boost or hit to your tech rate for the current thing you are researching.
- Wedding shenanigans: Something happens at a wedding between two prominent persons of two different civs and it can affect your diplomatic standings with the other. There are multiple wedding scenarios from what I remember.
- Fugitive: An escaped criminal from another civilization was caught in your territory and you can choose to extradite them for diplomacy benefits or interrogate them for espionage points.
There were also specific missions that you could undertake like building X # of buildings/units within a Y # of turns. Most of them were pretty stupid but they were worth doing every now and then.
Although I liked them, I can understand why some players didn't. They can be a needless hassle at times, particularly the negative events.
Socratatus
Emperor
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2007
- Messages
- 1,636
Bad? What are you guys talking about? I thought they were excellent. they added spice and a certain unpredictability to the game for example...
1. You`re busy doing your CIv thing and you suddenly get alerted that a an aircraft from another civ has crashed in your territory. what do you do? Allow the other Civ inspectors straight in? Make excuses for as long as possible to see if you can find any interesting stuff? Or outright refuse?
2. During a war you have with another Civ, a situation comes up where you can show compassion to the other side by releasing POWs. this could help end the war peacefully? Do you let them go?
3. Marriage conundrums of one Civs family to another. make good of it positively or negatively? You must decide.
4. Even a bunch of programmers created an unusual game called CIVILIZATION. Do you support it or dismiss it as rubbish? I found this one funny as it was a dig of the Devs at themselves!
Many more.
BAd? no way. You guys have gotta stop thinking Civ5 is perfect in everything, it isn`t. Not by a long shot.
Ximixanga beat me to it.
1. You`re busy doing your CIv thing and you suddenly get alerted that a an aircraft from another civ has crashed in your territory. what do you do? Allow the other Civ inspectors straight in? Make excuses for as long as possible to see if you can find any interesting stuff? Or outright refuse?
2. During a war you have with another Civ, a situation comes up where you can show compassion to the other side by releasing POWs. this could help end the war peacefully? Do you let them go?
3. Marriage conundrums of one Civs family to another. make good of it positively or negatively? You must decide.
4. Even a bunch of programmers created an unusual game called CIVILIZATION. Do you support it or dismiss it as rubbish? I found this one funny as it was a dig of the Devs at themselves!
Many more.
BAd? no way. You guys have gotta stop thinking Civ5 is perfect in everything, it isn`t. Not by a long shot.
Ximixanga beat me to it.
It's part of the common reflex over here of saying everything is bad which is included in Civ 4 yet not in Civ 5. Random events are indeed very fun and immersive. And there is no real justification of leaving them out, since those who don't like them can just turn them off.
Strategist83
King
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2005
- Messages
- 625
Well, it certainly isn't true that any of these events were game-destroying like you describe. The very worst thing that could happen would probably be the volcano event, in case of which a few improvements might be lost (oh my). Mostly it was just a gimmick feature to add a little flavor. The only ones that really had a significant impact were those causing the start/end of a war.
Magma_Dragoon
Reploid
- Joined
- May 10, 2008
- Messages
- 2,354
Yeah, I did enjoy the occasional free great person or golden age. I guess there were quite a few I enjoyed, but there were also alot that made me mad. "Why you do dis? I'm just trying to play you right!"
Thorburne
Centurion
They were only bad for those who prefer having everything go their way. For me, it added a nice element that not only through a wrench into the power struggle as powerful nations would be set back and weaker nations boosted, but also encouraged the player to adapt. I still don't understand why so many people complained, the option could be turned off, if memory serves me correctly.
DudewiththeFood
King
I really liked them because you could also choose how you wanted to react. It let you get more involved in HOW you played even if the advantages and disadvantages were minor.
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2012
- Messages
- 952
I didn't mind the random events in Civ4. It's just that I wish there were more things to mitigate them instead of just having lots and lots of gold. Like requesting aid from another city, or from another civ.
MisterBoomBoom
King
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2010
- Messages
- 700
For the most part I enjoyed them very much and wish they would make a come back...with a simple toggle (like goodie huts in advanced startup) for those not so enamored with random events. I loved the graphics of the volcano btw ...best in the series I thought.
You're mistaking why people are calling random events 'bad'. It's not an objective fact, and can't be, because it all depends on how you experience the game, or what you play a game for. But when people say 'random events were bad', they're talking in terms of their impact on balance and competitive gameplay. Random events with big effects are bad game design from that point of view. Were they fun? Some people thought they were fun due to the immersion of making it more like running a real empire where random things can happen, and some people thought it sucked because they played the game competitively. Neither are wrong, because they're talking about the extent to which they enjoyed a particular feature. But that's a different matter to whether random events had a negative impact on game balance and the strategic aspect of the game, and it would be incorrect to say that people don't like random events just because they like Civ5.
Rusty Edge
Deity
Well spoken, Camikaze.
I heartily approve of random events. They make each game unique.
For the most part, if you maintained a treasury so that you could deal with emergencies and capitalize on opportunities they had small effects and were balanced. They could help you or hurt you, but the A.I.s would be at the same risk.
Some stand out as being more game changing.
The Vedic Aryans- Early in the game you are notified that they are at your borders. It's a stack of barbarian archers. Maybe the qualifier or trigger had something to do with barbs replacing animals and the discovery of archery, I don't know. It was often a game over event.
There I am with one or two little cities, defended by one warrior each, with a worker each. My other scouts and warriors are exploring and can't return for 10 turns, and I don't have the ability to rush build defenders. So figuring I had nothing to lose, I used my fleet-footed worker to approach the stack, and try to decoy it away from my capital. They followed. I led them to the neighboring empire, which they promptly captured and converted to poorly defended barb cities. Expansion problem solved! So that event could be a game over, or it could mean the end of your dangerous neighbor, depending how you learned to improvise and adapt. Either way it's a civ-killer, but one outcome is much more satisfying, especially when you work it out for yourself.
There's probably no bigger hammer sinkhole than the Bermuda Triangle mysteriously swallowing up your invasion task force. It's incredibly frustrating. Potentially it's a game re-balancer, although a human's much more likely to plan a large scale amphibious assault. Sometimes it's only a single ship. But it's later game, you can rebuild, and not as critical as some early events.
Another big late game event was the inflation event- some economist reduces your inflation by a 4th or 5th, which could make you wildly happy, or could make one of your rivals competitive again if they made the discovery.
The discovery of Tower Shields, which gave the cover promotion free to swords ( or was it all melee ?) was probably the most pivotal one. If you were busy building wonders you had to reconsider your strategy. If an aggressive civ got it, you had to reconsider your strategy.
There were other similar promotion-conferring events, such as improved flintlocks, but coming later in the game they had less impact.
I think my favorite one is the Herbalist one. Early in the game your herbalists have discovered a new plant which they believe will confer health benefits. You decide whether to ignore the discovery, or experiment upon the populace. If you do experiment you risk population loss, with the potential benefit of permanent health boosts. Whether you choose limited or widespread experiments raises the stakes. I usually gamble big.
I think the Civ series is about decision making, and that random events introduce more decisions. I think that the "One...more...turn..." factor was a function of the suspense created, waiting to finding out the consequences of my many decisions. I think that Civ IV was the most replayable game I ever enjoyed, by far, in no small part because of random events. I think that adapting to the unexpected is a test of mental flexibility as much as playing a predictable game over and over is a test of skill.
I heartily approve of random events. They make each game unique.
For the most part, if you maintained a treasury so that you could deal with emergencies and capitalize on opportunities they had small effects and were balanced. They could help you or hurt you, but the A.I.s would be at the same risk.
Some stand out as being more game changing.
The Vedic Aryans- Early in the game you are notified that they are at your borders. It's a stack of barbarian archers. Maybe the qualifier or trigger had something to do with barbs replacing animals and the discovery of archery, I don't know. It was often a game over event.
There I am with one or two little cities, defended by one warrior each, with a worker each. My other scouts and warriors are exploring and can't return for 10 turns, and I don't have the ability to rush build defenders. So figuring I had nothing to lose, I used my fleet-footed worker to approach the stack, and try to decoy it away from my capital. They followed. I led them to the neighboring empire, which they promptly captured and converted to poorly defended barb cities. Expansion problem solved! So that event could be a game over, or it could mean the end of your dangerous neighbor, depending how you learned to improvise and adapt. Either way it's a civ-killer, but one outcome is much more satisfying, especially when you work it out for yourself.
There's probably no bigger hammer sinkhole than the Bermuda Triangle mysteriously swallowing up your invasion task force. It's incredibly frustrating. Potentially it's a game re-balancer, although a human's much more likely to plan a large scale amphibious assault. Sometimes it's only a single ship. But it's later game, you can rebuild, and not as critical as some early events.
Another big late game event was the inflation event- some economist reduces your inflation by a 4th or 5th, which could make you wildly happy, or could make one of your rivals competitive again if they made the discovery.
The discovery of Tower Shields, which gave the cover promotion free to swords ( or was it all melee ?) was probably the most pivotal one. If you were busy building wonders you had to reconsider your strategy. If an aggressive civ got it, you had to reconsider your strategy.
There were other similar promotion-conferring events, such as improved flintlocks, but coming later in the game they had less impact.
I think my favorite one is the Herbalist one. Early in the game your herbalists have discovered a new plant which they believe will confer health benefits. You decide whether to ignore the discovery, or experiment upon the populace. If you do experiment you risk population loss, with the potential benefit of permanent health boosts. Whether you choose limited or widespread experiments raises the stakes. I usually gamble big.
I think the Civ series is about decision making, and that random events introduce more decisions. I think that the "One...more...turn..." factor was a function of the suspense created, waiting to finding out the consequences of my many decisions. I think that Civ IV was the most replayable game I ever enjoyed, by far, in no small part because of random events. I think that adapting to the unexpected is a test of mental flexibility as much as playing a predictable game over and over is a test of skill.
Callonia
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2010
- Messages
- 2,180
Ahh random events, I loved them so much, they're the only reason why I haven't bothered to post on this forums because I was too busy playign civ 4.
Bermuda Triangle I have gotten this few times, but they're very avoidable event. I remember when I first got this event it was back when I was exploring in terra incognita in my dessys. I sailed right through three islands and ran out of movement.
Next turn, my destroyer vanished! Bermuda Triangle! I was like omg what the hell they actually put that into the game, ( I used to read about bermuda triangle alot back in elementary skool, it fascinated me back then.) Then went lol awesome. To be honest they're very easy to avoid. All you have to do is use single ships as explorers.
Find locations of islands particularly if there's three of them together close enough and it forms a triangle. Bam bam bam you found it without losing a ship! With that said, I lost like maybe five destroyers to triangles while I was exploring blind in terra incognitas and that tend to happen when destroyers ran out of their movements and end their turn in a triangle when I haven't found the islands yet.
And for Vedic Aryans.. they never was a problem for me, they always failed to kill me because I got paranoid trait. I always have lots of troops in my capital. Only way they'll succeed is if they spawn on like turn 2 when I only have 1 warrior in capital without fortification bonus set up. This event is a demon from hell for people with certain play styles like always skimping on troops but is nothing for people that loves to have lots of soldiers like me. xD
I had a certain rule that I always follow.. 2 units for 1 pop town, 3-4 units for pop 3 town, then 5 units for pop 5 town. then Finally 7-10 for pop 6-10, and 15-30 units for size 13 metropolises and up.
Invading AI forces tend to face up to 100+ units of mine as garrisons really quick especially if i peel them from interior cities to reinforce the frontlines.
And the tsunami event screwing over my rush for wonders? Been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt. life happens and move on. They screw Japan for centuries and Japan is doing just dandy. No?
Volcanoes smashing my cottages, Been there, done that, and repaired cottages.
And there is tons of good events. Like health one that posters above me mentioned xD
Remember, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
And there was times where I was drowning in rebellions But I kept enough eyes on the outside world while I dealt with rebels. And AIs that saw me in rebellion and thought free cites got shown how wrong they are.
I just hope in civ 6 that maps will become bigger again and retain 1upt but bring back events at very least. Including all the bad ones. They help make the game way more immersive for me anyways. Just include a tickbox for competitions and whatever. Problem solved. Both parties win.
They shouldn't be omitted cuz someone hate and someone likes, that's forcing other people to play their way.
Bermuda Triangle I have gotten this few times, but they're very avoidable event. I remember when I first got this event it was back when I was exploring in terra incognita in my dessys. I sailed right through three islands and ran out of movement.
Next turn, my destroyer vanished! Bermuda Triangle! I was like omg what the hell they actually put that into the game, ( I used to read about bermuda triangle alot back in elementary skool, it fascinated me back then.) Then went lol awesome. To be honest they're very easy to avoid. All you have to do is use single ships as explorers.
Find locations of islands particularly if there's three of them together close enough and it forms a triangle. Bam bam bam you found it without losing a ship! With that said, I lost like maybe five destroyers to triangles while I was exploring blind in terra incognitas and that tend to happen when destroyers ran out of their movements and end their turn in a triangle when I haven't found the islands yet.
And for Vedic Aryans.. they never was a problem for me, they always failed to kill me because I got paranoid trait. I always have lots of troops in my capital. Only way they'll succeed is if they spawn on like turn 2 when I only have 1 warrior in capital without fortification bonus set up. This event is a demon from hell for people with certain play styles like always skimping on troops but is nothing for people that loves to have lots of soldiers like me. xD
I had a certain rule that I always follow.. 2 units for 1 pop town, 3-4 units for pop 3 town, then 5 units for pop 5 town. then Finally 7-10 for pop 6-10, and 15-30 units for size 13 metropolises and up.
Invading AI forces tend to face up to 100+ units of mine as garrisons really quick especially if i peel them from interior cities to reinforce the frontlines.
And the tsunami event screwing over my rush for wonders? Been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt. life happens and move on. They screw Japan for centuries and Japan is doing just dandy. No?
Volcanoes smashing my cottages, Been there, done that, and repaired cottages.
And there is tons of good events. Like health one that posters above me mentioned xD
Remember, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
And there was times where I was drowning in rebellions But I kept enough eyes on the outside world while I dealt with rebels. And AIs that saw me in rebellion and thought free cites got shown how wrong they are.
I just hope in civ 6 that maps will become bigger again and retain 1upt but bring back events at very least. Including all the bad ones. They help make the game way more immersive for me anyways. Just include a tickbox for competitions and whatever. Problem solved. Both parties win.
They shouldn't be omitted cuz someone hate and someone likes, that's forcing other people to play their way.
Magma_Dragoon
Reploid
- Joined
- May 10, 2008
- Messages
- 2,354
There are so many thing wrong with that post Callonia...
That isn't how the bermuda triangle event works, it's a totally random water tile.
You shouldn't PUT cottages next to mountains!
And the very worst, Vedic Aryans. They were the civ4 equivalent of the civ5 map script bug where the player starts without a settler and gets game over on turn 0. If Firaxis put that in civ5 on purpose, you'd be pissed, but call it a random event, and now its "immersion". Including an event like that is bad design, and gimping yourself every game to prepare for some thing with ~1% probability of occurring is bad play.
That isn't how the bermuda triangle event works, it's a totally random water tile.
You shouldn't PUT cottages next to mountains!
And the very worst, Vedic Aryans. They were the civ4 equivalent of the civ5 map script bug where the player starts without a settler and gets game over on turn 0. If Firaxis put that in civ5 on purpose, you'd be pissed, but call it a random event, and now its "immersion". Including an event like that is bad design, and gimping yourself every game to prepare for some thing with ~1% probability of occurring is bad play.
Yeah.
I got the Bermuda Triangle event on my invading navy stack. Poof! There goes my whole navy, true story.
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
Even if you can defend against the Vedic Aryans if they target you, it's still ridiculous that they literally magically spawn a stack right next to the capital. Sometimes they target the AI and wipe out one of them. I usually restarted the game even when they took an AI out, because it was ridiculous.
The random events had some events that were too good, and some that were too bad like the examples above, sometimes it threw the game off balanced. I like the random events in a game like Europa Universalis IV. They offer good immersion with good and bad events, but nothing too extreme like CIV IV did.
With that said, if they added in random events again, in a DLC or the next installment, I wouldn't mind it. If they are still rage inducing and broken, would just turn them off.
azzaman333
meh
Poorly implemented at best, downright stupid at worst. Slave revolts are a favourite for criticism, but they were nothing compared to others like Bermuda Triangle, free Combat I for all Muskets, free cover for all melee, the Vedic Aryans or the grand daddy of awful events, the hurricane that wipes 5 pop and a heap of buildings if your city is size 6+, or razes the city if it's 5 or under.
Civ5 has the CS quests which are a much better way to go about random events, but it'd be nice if they expanded the quest possibilities. For example, a military CS might give a bonus for the first civ to build 5 archers. A maritime CS might give a bonus for connecting 8 sources of fish. A mercantile CS gives a bonus for building 3 cities on different landmasses. They're a bit samey as is, with them all being make the most of X in 30 turns.
Civ5 has the CS quests which are a much better way to go about random events, but it'd be nice if they expanded the quest possibilities. For example, a military CS might give a bonus for the first civ to build 5 archers. A maritime CS might give a bonus for connecting 8 sources of fish. A mercantile CS gives a bonus for building 3 cities on different landmasses. They're a bit samey as is, with them all being make the most of X in 30 turns.
