Why am I so frustrated with Civ4?

[Gaius Octavius]

Yarr,

I had similar problems when I went from Civ 2 to Civ 3, so it's probably just the natural period of adjustment to the new tactics/systems that you are experiencing. I could play on Deity in Civ 2; I've never gotten that far since.

Here's one suggestion (and this should take care of all the specific problems you've listed)...play as the Romans for a few games on Noble/Prince level. I realize I'm probably a bit biased in this regard, but they are very good if you're having military-related difficulties. Problems with barbarians? Send your legions out to take care of them. AI declaring war on you? No, my friend...you'll be declaring war on them! Bad start location? Just do whatever you can to get iron, and you can pretty much pick whatever city you'd like through conquest. After of few games you'll get the hang of various strategies and can branch out to new game styles and new civs.

 

[tomart]

Yeah, I had much the same grief at first - there's a learning curve with new games, especially one as rich and complex as CivIV. Let yourself start easy, like at the lowest difficulty level: that's why it's there. If certain things, like barbarians, are ruining your day, go to the Custom screen and tone them down - it's only temporary, til you know how they work, and how to counter them. That's the beauty of solitaire Civ, you can adjust to your heart's content, to get the play experience you want. I hated the barbarians at first, til I found out how to deal with them, and realized their purpose: to give me promotions!

My biggest annoyance at first was neighbors too close, and beating me to the best resources, even grabbing things right on my doorstep... I found that in the Custom setup, where my civ is at the top, if I changed the next two or three civs (#2, #3, #4) to "None", then none would start right next to me. This gave me some games of early peace, where I could concentrate on my development (and barbarian-harvesting.) Many starts (and some good War Academy articles) later, I could spot good city locations and plan (escorted!) settlers to get there first.

Many have commented on the fact that CivIV doesn't let you skimp on the military. Back in Civ3, you could get by with a spearman in each city, and send settlers out unescorted ... but not in CivIV! As a warmonger, I enjoy building (and using) a lot of units, so I'm rarely attacked; being on the offensive is so much more rewarding...

An effective defense isn't hard. Two civics (Vassalage and Theocracy) plus building only in Barracks gives your archers two full promotions, right off the bat. Archers with City Defense I and II, fortified in a city, are a decent defense in that crucial early phase. And if the city is on a hill, that's another little boost, and playing an Aggressive leader gives another boost, and of course you know about using the benefits of terrain, etc. You want to accumulate all the advantages you can; that's what Sun Tzu means when he says the successful warrior wins before he goes to battle.

One more tip: workers are perhaps your most powerful, useful units. Build one or two very early, and connect all your cities and valuable resources with roads. That way, you can zip to and fro through your interior lines, to meet any barbarians at the outskirts, before they can do any damage. They're really very predictable, once you get to know them: they go straight for empty cities and developed resources. If you can get a strong unit to the spot first, they'll still stupidly attack (unlike in Civ3.)

 

[K.F. Huszár]

City razing is really disturbing. Just remember you can not demolish the fat-grown towns (cottage improvment) with one click, but you can do it in a city.
it is illogic and not realistic.
Okay, there were cities in history completely destroyed, but most of them experienced a rebirth after.
Carthage (Carthago) was TOTALLY demolished by the Roman legions, and its soil was salted and its site was cursed officially - but it was rebuilt.
Rome itself was burned down and ransacked several times and now it lives.
Samarkand was a ghost city for some decades after the invasion of Genghis Khan but now it lives.
So, I could continue it for long (as i am a historian) thue sum is: the CITY RAZING option IS bullfeathers in this form.

 

[Sisiutil]

City razing is really disturbing. Just remember you can not demolish the fat-grown towns (cottage improvment) with one click, but you can do it in a city.
it is illogic and not realistic.
Okay, there were cities in history completely destroyed, but most of them experienced a rebirth after.
Carthage (Carthago) was TOTALLY demolished by the Roman legions, and its soil was salted and its site was cursed officially - but it was rebuilt.
Rome itself was burned down and ransacked several times and now it lives.
Samarkand was a ghost city for some decades after the invasion of Genghis Khan but now it lives.
So, I could continue it for long (as i am a historian) thue sum is: the CITY RAZING option IS bullfeathers in this form.

I get your point, but you or another civ can send a Settler out and resettle the same site. You can even give it the same name if you want.

 

[Breunor]

I get your point, but you or another civ can send a Settler out and resettle the same site. You can even give it the same name if you want.

I agree here. I think the examples cited agree with this. These cities were sacked (many other examples) but are in generally good sites. So SOMEBODY settles there and a new city is created. Archeological evidence shows that the site we call 'Troy' was destroyed and rebuilt 6 or 7 times.

Note that many of these have had different civilizations building the 'new' city. Samarkand is a good example. It was an important city in the Persian Empire (Achaemenid), the capital of the Province of Sogiana. It was sacked by the Mongols in about 1220 after a substantial influx of different ethnic peoples.


It later became prominant as the capital of the Timurid Empire (itself an offshoot of the Chagatai Horde), effectively a Mongol/Persian city. Samarkand was more abandoned than destroyed, as the rival Bukhara became the new capital.


It was again resettled, and eventually conquered by the Russians.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Lonkut]

Meh the only stupid and frustrating thing is when a spearman kills your tank. I mean civ has been around since '91 and they still can't make a decent combat system where higher era units have the upper hand in most one-on-one fights.

 

[vilemerchant]

Meh the only stupid and frustrating thing is when a spearman kills your tank. I mean civ has been around since '91 and they still can't make a decent combat system where higher era units have the upper hand in most one-on-one fights.

I dunno, it's a bit hard to drive a tank when you left the hatch open and some crazy dude jumped in and put a spear thru your head

 

[Elandal]

Higher era units do seem to have the upper hand in most one-on-one fights.. Infantry vs Rifle? I think >95% chance of winning. Rifle vs. Mace? >95%. Mace vs. Axe? >95%. Axe vs. Warrior? >99%.

All those comparisons are I believe "basic footslogger of the era vs. basic footslogger of the previous era", with warrior upgrading to axe to mace to rifle to infantry.

The tank vs spear has I believe been calculated many enough times already.

 

[Elandal]

Actually, I had this vision of a tank that's found a rest point at Spearman Highway, so I had to calculate the odds..

See, this green tank (it's green so it blends into the woods at the rest point and can better prey upon the spearmen) obviously has no promotions. It's green, and green units don't have promotions. Anyway, it's there in the woods, behind the bench, waiting for spearmen to come so it can eat them. I'm not sure if tanks eat spearmen, but let's assume that's the case for now. So, a pair of spearmen is walking down the highway. "Hey Bob, let's stop here and have a sandwitch. I'm getting a bit hungry and could use a rest before we continue walking down the highway." So the spearmen walk towards the bench, and Bob notices some weird marks on the ground. "Look at that, Jack. There might be some wild beast here, we'd better be careful." So Jack and Bob take their spears, assume defensive stance, and start looking around to find the beast. The Tank (maybe it has a name, but we'll call it The Tank not knowing the name) notices that the spearmen aren't coming down to the bench for easy picking, and decides to CHARGE forward.

Using the combat calculator, I see that the odds of a tank beating a spearman are somewhere around 99.999% or whatever (there were many nines). But hey! It's TWO spearmen, not ONE! OK, The Tank has to blitz (tanks have two moves and blitz, so it can do that). Bob gets run over, and so does Jack. The chances of this happening are something like 99.999% (there were fewer nines this time). Now, The Tank munches on its lunch, then carefully sweeps the tracks and retreats back to the woods (I don't think it's very good at sweeping tracks, so maybe it has to do something ingenious, like carrying humans inside it to handle the sweeping). But lo and behold! Before it has had any chance to rest at all, another pair of spearmen comes down to the rest stop. The slightly tired (but probably not wounded) Tank charges forward, running over one, then blitzing over the other. As it is, there's a small chance that it's been hit at some point, running over four spearmen. The chances of killing four without breaks are only 99.93% (see, only three nines this time).

I'd try to see how many spearmen The Tank can eat until the chances drop to 50%, but seems that the combat calculator doesn't handle very many units so well, and freezes my browser completely as I try to calculate odds against 8 spearmen. Sorry for that. But I'm quite sure The Tank can handle at least 8 spearmen without breaking sweat anyway (do tanks sweat? Maybe I should say "without breaking oil" instead?).

I've calculated Marine vs Spearman as well. Took a Gallic Spearman with Woodsman2 and Guerilla2 (I was assuming Gallic Spearmen that were trained in the Dun can get Guerilla2 - normally that's not available to melee units), as well as Combat6 and whatever else I could think of (I did make a Warlord Spearman unit and give it all promotions possible for a spearman, including that Guerilla2 with the assumption of Gallic Spearman), set it to stand on top of a forested hill, fortified for max effect. It got quite respectable adjusted strength really. Then I took a marine, dropped it down to half health, and counted the odds as being quite even. So it only took some stacking of odds for a Spearman to stand against a Marine - although it did require that the Marine was half dead and still decided to push forward and attack the highly promoted spearman that was fortified in best possible defensive terrain.
And now that I'm thinking about that spearman, maybe it would be better to take a Phalanx instead of gallic spearman, as it has one higher base strength and added defense bonus on hills. Might be the WL ultra-promoted Phalanx could handle a Marine that's only wounded for a third of its health or something.

 

[kcbrett5]

- City razing. I realize this has been around for a while, but never before have I seen it happen so often. A well defended city gets taken down by a couple of lucky rolls on the part of the AI, and suddenly a million people and thousands of years of city improvements are gone in the blink of an eye.

I love CIV4. I realize many of you are taking issue with Yarr's statements but I actually agree with this one and I honestly never thought about if before now.

Shouldn't it take more than 1 turn to raze a city? Especially if a city is huge. Maybe the amount of time required to raze a city should be linked to the size of the city and the era. Pre-explosives it would take a much longer time to completely destroy an entire city, all its infrastructure, and to murder all of its people. Which brings me to my next point. Shouldn't some of the people in a razed city be allowed to relocate to a nearby friendly city? Its unlikely that nobody would escape the invasion force and that millions get murdered. Maybe that would make the decision to raze or not to raze more interesting. You can raze a city, but it will cause the nearby enemy cities to grow by 1 or 2, making them stronger.

For a large city, it can take upwards of 10 turns to calm the unrest after you capture it, yet you can completely murder all of those people and level every building in less than 1 turn.

Or maybe you should get a bonus if you found a city on top of city ruins. Like some of the buildings might already be there or it can start at a higher population than 1.

Just some thoughts.

 

[kcbrett5]

I mean civ has been around since '91 and they still can't make a decent combat system where higher era units have the upper hand in most one-on-one fights.

You don't think the higher era units have the upper hand in MOST one-on-one fights?

Are you playing the same game as me?

Strength 28 vs. 4. How is that not having the upper hand in most fights?

 

[Lonkut]

the combat is flawed, nuff said.

 

[T.A JONES]

The graphics are weaker then CIv3 mod and cause performance issues for 9 out out ten computers its played on(whether it happens on a tiny 'large 'map with a few CIvs or a Huge map /max civs /modern age., ever computer falls victim to the 3d performance bug)

 

[br_casino]

does raising the city destroy wonders? I vaguely recall reading that wonders arent destroyed, but maybe that meant when the city is captured, I dont know Im a noob.

either way, Settlers should be able to move in and re populate the city, and most buildings should still remain

Razing the city destroys everything including wonders.

 

[grumbler]

The graphics are weaker then CIv3 mod and cause performance issues for 9 out out ten computers its played on(whether it happens on a tiny 'large 'map with a few CIvs or a Huge map /max civs /modern age., ever computer falls victim to the 3d performance bug)

What has this to do with the topic at hand (CIV's combat system)?

 

[T.A JONES]

What has this to do with the topic at hand (CIV's combat system)?

Sorry I never read the whole thread. I though it was only things that frustrate us about CIv4. The combat system only eh? Man, Id rather just link a few pages for this debate. It goes on an on an on.. um on second though me sleepy Good night!

 

[K.F. Huszár]

Breunor,

After thinking for a while Samarkand was a bad example. But Rome and Babylon not. Even more, I could say Jerusalem.

So, city razing is a silly thing. THE ENTIRE POPULATION DYES IN ONE TURN.
It is not good anyway.

 

[CivMonger]

I think having a system where you need so many military units and possibly workers per population point(s) would be a decent system. Not flawless mind you, but few things are. Or maybe you need so much power per population, so a tank could raze a city faster than a warrior. And if it takes more than a turn for the raze, as it should, the people remaining would probably get a higher chance to revolt.

 

[Wodan]

the combat is flawed, nuff said.

Not 'nuff said.

Exactly HOW is it flawed?

Wodan

 

[KMadCandy]

I dunno, it's a bit hard to drive a tank when you left the hatch open and some crazy dude jumped in and put a spear thru your head

they always tend to go for the eyes too. mean as heck. it's all fun and games til somebody loses an eye.