Is there a dedicated Civ thread?

[VoxRationis]

I see a lot of threads dedicated to specific games of Civilization, but not one to discussion of the game in general. Is it just buried deep in the unseen realms of the higher-numbered pages, or does it not exist?

[Zevox]

I did a search for one a while back, and there was one, but it's long past the point where posting in it now would be thread necromancy.

[Illven]

So this can be the new thread!

What are your two's favorite civ.

[Zevox]

What are your two's favorite civ.
Meaning game, or civ within the games?

For the former, well, I've only played 4 and 5, and I'd say I definitely prefer 5. I like a lot of the mechanics it added, and it fixing combat to not be a horrible exercise in RNG-based frustration is a godsend.

For civs within each game? Well, I remember I picked Spain a lot in 4, though I don't remember why. In 5, not sure. Haven't played it enough yet to have much of a preference - there's still a ton of civs I haven't tried.

[VoxRationis]

I'm quite fond of Carthage for several reasons: First, free harbors; second, because it's fun to reverse the outcome of the Punic Wars; third, because their unique units are good (if a little hampered by the difficulty of producing them in numbers before they become obsolete); fourth, because the ability to cross mountains is amazing, especially if you use villagers to build roads over them!

I love ancient Egypt, and the ability to carry it forward indefinitely is one I'm fond of (though I really don't like how it loses a lot of its character going forward—you have to pick a modern religion, for example, unless you found a religion and custom name it "Egyptian Pantheon"). I also love building wonders, and am fond of chariot archers (though I don't really use them that much, in truth).

[Illven]

I'm quite fond of Carthage for several reasons: First, free harbors; second, because it's fun to reverse the outcome of the Punic Wars; third, because their unique units are good (if a little hampered by the difficulty of producing them in numbers before they become obsolete); fourth, because the ability to cross mountains is amazing, especially if you use villagers to build roads over them!

I love ancient Egypt, and the ability to carry it forward indefinitely is one I'm fond of (though I really don't like how it loses a lot of its character going forward—you have to pick a modern religion, for example, unless you found a religion and custom name it "Egyptian Pantheon"). I also love building wonders, and am fond of chariot archers (though I don't really use them that much, in truth).

That's true of every ancient empire though.

[Dhavaer]

China for when I don't want to turtle and wonder-spam (yay paper makers!), Babylon for when I do.

[VoxRationis]

That's true of every ancient empire though.

True enough. Still, I'm quite fond of Egypt.

What do people think of the Celts? It seems to me that they can pantheon-rush incredibly quickly, barring other people's discovery of faith-granting ruins, and that basically translates to a free game-specific bonus.

[Illven]

True enough. Still, I'm quite fond of Egypt.

What do people think of the Celts? It seems to me that they can pantheon-rush incredibly quickly, barring other people's discovery of faith-granting ruins, and that basically translates to a free game-specific bonus.

Sure, but that's really all they have going for them. And the possibility of not having a good faith producing pantheon.

[DodgerH2O]

Favorite Civ game (so far): Civ 5

Favorite Civ that game: I really don't know. If I had to choose one I'd probably end up saying Russia or Morocco. I like going production and gold-heavy. Both of them support both Tall and Wide empires reasonably well, and I'm not a big warmonger really so I don't feel like I'm missing out on Unique Units by picking either one.

I'm ok at conquest, it's just so amazingly tedious vs. the AI, even when you have an overwhelming military advantage.

Speaking of, I have a question for the thread. What victory condition(s) do you lean towards? For any version of Civ, or your preferred version.

[Illven]

Favorite Civ game (so far): Civ 5

Favorite Civ that game: I really don't know. If I had to choose one I'd probably end up saying Russia or Morocco. I like going production and gold-heavy. Both of them support both Tall and Wide empires reasonably well, and I'm not a big warmonger really so I don't feel like I'm missing out on Unique Units by picking either one.

I'm ok at conquest, it's just so amazingly tedious vs. the AI, even when you have an overwhelming military advantage.

Speaking of, I have a question for the thread. What victory condition(s) do you lean towards? For any version of Civ, or your preferred version.

Science. So much science.

Did I mention Science? :smalltongue:

[Zevox]

Speaking of, I have a question for the thread. What victory condition(s) do you lean towards? For any version of Civ, or your preferred version.
In 4, I favored space race and culture. Mostly because diplomatic didn't seem feasible against AI, and I hated the combat, so winning by means that required that was something I didn't want to do.

In 5 I'm finding I tend to do the same, but it might be mostly reflex leftover from playing 4. The combat is so much better in 5 that I feel I could go for Conquest, and while Diplomacy is the one win condition I've yet to actually achieve, it seems a lot more feasible in 5 than I remember it seeming in 4.

[VoxRationis]

In Brave New World, I lean towards Domination and Science. Science has the interesting quality of being the only isolationist victory condition other than the time-consuming score victory (now that the Culture victory is based on overcoming other cultures rather than simply developing on one's own).

Domination has a refreshing honesty to it that Diplomacy and Culture don't have (and is also the only one really practical to attempt before the end of the tech tree)—no pretending to be a friend while undermining the others. It also makes more sense than the Diplomacy victory—why would the other civs listen to a "World Leader" vote that was rigged through massive bribery? Why do civs listen to World Congress/UN decrees in general that a) are detrimental to their aims, and b) are the sole will of one faction, unabashedly rigging the whole affair?

Continuing my victory condition rant—why isn't there a religious victory? Not only does it make sense, but several civs (and the AI, which often prioritizes proselytizing above other objectives) seem to be focused more on it than on other conditions.

[Illven]

In Brave New World, I lean towards Domination and Science. Science has the interesting quality of being the only isolationist victory condition other than the time-consuming score victory (now that the Culture victory is based on overcoming other cultures rather than simply developing on one's own), and

Domination has a refreshing honesty to it that Diplomacy and Culture don't have (and is also the only one really practical to attempt before the end of the tech tree)—no pretending to be a friend while undermining the others. It also makes more sense than the Diplomacy victory—why would the other civs listen to a "World Leader" vote that was rigged through massive bribery? Why do civs listen to World Congress/UN decrees in general that a) are detrimental to their aims, and b) are the sole will of one faction, unabashedly rigging the whole affair?

Continuing my victory condition rant—why isn't there a religious victory? Not only does it make sense, but several civs (and the AI, which often prioritizes proselytizing above other objectives) seem to be focused more on it than on other conditions.

I'd like a religious victory option.

[Winter_Wolf]

I always play Vikings as my first pick, but Civ V Complete makes it easy to try most of the civilizations. Rarely ever finish a game, though. Tried the Shoshone, but the early game is too easy if you've got forests all over. Russia is a steamroller for the way I play, so it gets boring quickly.

I have to turn off culture victory condition, otherwise I never actually manage to get any other kind of victory before I win. It's weird, because in pretty much every 4x I play that's the easy passive win. The next easiest for me is science/space race. Domination is rough, because I love huge worlds. It takes forever to crush a civilization because of that one, one hex island city hidden away from everything.

[factotum]

Played every Civ game since the first, and I prefer 5 if only for the reason that they finally switched to using hexes rather than squares for the "board"--that was a long overdue move. There's plenty of other things to like about it, mind you! The removal of the "stack of doom" helps immensely, despite all the complaints about it at the time; Civ 4 was basically "the guy with the biggest stack wins", often even if they had a technological disadvantage. Also, adding the ability for cities to defend themselves without requiring a unit to be based there makes the early-game barbarian attacks much easier to handle.

Which civ do I prefer? Probably the English, simply because I naturally picked them for my first playthrough and was *one turn* away from achieving a cultural victory when the clock ran out. I hadn't even set out to win culturally, it just sort of happened that way, and ironically I've had a much harder time doing it in any game where I deliberately go for it!

[Winthur]

Civ4 was best for being the best evolution of Civ concepts. Corruption was replaced with a better mechanic, not having to settlerspam, not having to settle thousands of trash cities with no infrastructure, diplomacy options weren't awful, more than one leader per Civ, Leonard Nimoy and Baba Yetu, absolutely massive, unsurpassed modability, cool victory screens, etc.

When Civ5 was released, it was pretty damn bad and exploitable. I hear it's gotten better with the expansion packs, but I haven't bothered to shell out for them when I still have fun with Civ4.

Favourite Civ is Civ4's Hatshepsut of Egypt. Versatile as hell, good start, with two of my favourite traits, Spiritual and Creative.

[VoxRationis]

Ooh! I know another reason I like Egypt. Ancient Egypt is the civilization that makes the most sense for the viewpoint of a Civ player. After all, it was ruled by self-claimed god-kings, with a high degree of social control and planning! If you go for Tradition or Order, it gets especially appropriate.

Edit: @DodgerH20: I too like Morocco. I'm not sure where it is on the list, though. It plays well for Culture or Diplomacy victories if you play Freedom, focusing on trade routes and a few cities spaced widely through a desert patrolled by Berbers.

[Grif]

Been trying out Fall from Heaven 2 on Civ IV recently, and my did it change the game up substantially. The only caveat is that the AI don't seem to do very well with the new mechanics they introduced, so that's a bit of a bummer.

[DodgerH2O]

Been trying out Fall from Heaven 2 on Civ IV recently, and my did it change the game up substantially. The only caveat is that the AI don't seem to do very well with the new mechanics they introduced, so that's a bit of a bummer.

I really really wanted to try Fall from Heaven, being a huge Master of Magic fan. But something about the aspect ratio and fonts made it incredibly painful for me to deal with. I'm pretty sure I looked around and nobody else even identified it as a problem, so there were no fixes for it at the time.

[Silfir]

To be honest, I'd much rather fire up Civ II or Alpha Centauri again than anything made since. To me those were the pinnacle, and everything since has been progress sideways more than anything else. There's always a couple of features in every Civ game that I think would be neat additions to Civ II, but they also discard many things I liked about Civ II and replace it with stuff that leaves me cold or annoys me to no end. I think city states suck, I think the restrictions on expansion suck, I think One Unit Per Tile sucks. (Civ II didn't have a stack of doom problem - if your stack got attacked and its defender was killed, the entire stack died, so you were heavily encouraged not to fight in stacks. It's mystifying to me why that approach was abandoned to the extent that the stack of doom problem was allowed to develop.)

This review (https://web.archive.org/web/20150219075513/http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/bnwreview.html) of Civ V resonated with me quite a bit. Though I wasn't ever really keen on Civ IV either.

I do realize that because the game that brought me in was Civ II, I'm likely to prefer its particular mixture of mechanics - while the people who fell in love with Civ IV or even V are in turn unlikely to have had the same reaction to Civ II in their places. Similarly, without Civ II driving my interest in Civ games in general, I might not ever have gotten Civ IV or V - or I might have played them and felt they were pretty good, but missing something I couldn't quite get my finger on. (Contrary to now, where I have a clear image of what's missing.) There's no such thing as the perfect strategy game for everyone.

[Winthur]

To be honest, I'd much rather fire up Civ II or Alpha Centauri again than anything made since. To me those were the pinnacle, and everything since has been progress sideways more than anything else. There's always a couple of features in every Civ game that I think would be neat additions to Civ II, but they also discard many things I liked about Civ II and replace it with stuff that leaves me cold or annoys me to no end. I think city states suck, I think the restrictions on expansion suck, I think One Unit Per Tile sucks. (Civ II didn't have a stack of doom problem - if your stack got attacked and its defender was killed, the entire stack died, so you were heavily encouraged not to fight in stacks. It's mystifying to me why that approach was abandoned to the extent that the stack of doom problem was allowed to develop.).

I really like Civ2, but on the other hand, I've also managed to "solve" it for most normal games, and as such, on Deity, I will pretty much always be able to win by just making 50+ cities (while the AI hardly bothers to get more than eight) and going Monotheism for either Crusader spam and conquest of the whole map or Michelangelo's Chapel for easy Republic/Democracy growth. To really challenge myself, I have to play OCC or try to compete for the best possible spaceship date, I figure. For Civ4, I'm still stuck on Emperor and I feel like I have more ways to go, even if some things are as set in stone as in older games (beeline Currency->Civil Service->Lib race to Nationalism/Rifling/Chemistry/Steel etc.). Also, Civ2 Gold, which works better on modern machines, completely breaks diplomacy and makes it pointless.

Funnily enough, I never got to play Alpha Centauri. I have it sitting in my GoG library, and it looks like it would be pretty awesome for someone who played so much Civ2, but I just didn't fire it up yet. Perhaps I should now.

Civ2 has the single best WW2 scenario, though, esp. if you challenge yourself to win as French, Neutrals or Turks.

[factotum]

I find the problem with Alpha Centauri is the UI. The game is awesome, but it's so hard to play when you have to select everything from a menu even to move a unit from one place to another!

[Sian]

IMO Civ 4 is by far the best ... Civ 5 was to much of a train wreck on arrival. Still playing quite a few PBEM's in Civ 4, and a couple of different mods, two of which are balance mods, respectively for vanilla (making traits and civilizations more evenly strong so there's a lot more viable options to pick when going unrestricted in a competitive multiplayer environment with no duplicates), and for FfH2 ... and two of which are variants on Rhye's and fall of civilization respectively focusing on Medieval Europe, and Middle East

[The_Jackal]

So this can be the new thread!

What are your two's favorite civ.

Favorite Civ games: Civ II and Alpha Centauri.

IMO, Alpha Centauri is the apogee of Civ-type games, before feature-creep took over. Civ II was a very solid, straightforward, and well-designed game. You had wonders, armies, cities and and a pure 4X (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X) strategy design. SMAC iterated on it to provide a modular government system, expressing values and virtues rather than purely historical antecedents, and an awesome unit designer, and terraforming, TERRAFORMING, I tell you!

After that, the series nosedives into bad design choices, abject abandonment of AI improvement in lieu of adding 'hobble-the-leader' mechanics, and just plain infuriating aesthetic choices. In no particular order, I found the removal of zones of control, addition of religious proselytizing, strategic resources, and the inversion of the CivII hit point mechanic most aggravating.


To be honest, I'd much rather fire up Civ II or Alpha Centauri again than anything made since. To me those were the pinnacle, and everything since has been progress sideways more than anything else.

Agreed, obviously. Art went up, gameplay went down, is my assessment.


I find the problem with Alpha Centauri is the UI. The game is awesome, but it's so hard to play when you have to select everything from a menu even to move a unit from one place to another!

Wat? The 'g' hotkey maps 'goto' and lets you set a destination city. Or, you can do, I think, shift+g to send a unit to any square. I've always found the AC interface remarkably intuitive. There's a hotkey for just about every action you can take.

[Winthur]

After that, the series nosedives into bad design choices, abject abandonment of AI improvement in lieu of adding 'hobble-the-leader' mechanics, and just plain infuriating aesthetic choices. In no particular order, I found the removal of zones of control, addition of religious proselytizing, strategic resources, and the inversion of the CivII hit point mechanic most aggravating.



Agreed, obviously. Art went up, gameplay went down, is my assessment.

See, I kinda don't get it. I played a ton of Civ2 and Civ4. The latter doesn't have you figuring out cryptic stuff like the oedo years and the AI doesn't cheat nearly as blatantly, mostly restricting itself to massive maintenance bonuses and starting techs you already agree to by playing on a higher difficulty level. The AI of Civ2 needs stuff like infinite fuel planes or being able to bribe the player's capital just to thrive, and it can still be worked out in a typical Deity game because it doesn't expand or leverage its advantages too well. Civ2 Gold's AI, which is endlessly hostile to the player and quickly forgets favors has way more "hobbling-the-leader" [usually the player[ than any other Civ game. What does it even mean? The AI isn't more likely to hamper you or anyone based on whether you're one turn away from a victory type.

Civ4 has flaws, but even if it's simplified, in some ways it's way more complex; in Civ2, the most efficient way to play is spamming settlers endlessly and putting them in an infinite city sprawl, with little regard as to city placements. You simply can't afford the food costs from maintaining settlers for actual improving cities, so you just spam small towns and feed a single Super Science City/Wonder ciy with caravans. There's a ton of busywork involved if you want to squeeze the best out of every turn, with carefully managing all production [something Civ4 does for you and has overflow mechanics to make sure it works better]. Wonders in Civ4 are a much greater actual investment given the lesser amount of PURE AWSUM they can give you, more directed towards actual strategies. Civ2, you can start building the Pyramids because caravans are so good, and if they go awry or you just don't want them anymore, you can immediately change into Marco's/Leo's/Michelangelo's/Copernicus/some other ridiculously strong wonder that is cool for most everyone. And it's so, so much easier to manage a late game empire in Civ4 than Civ2, without having to micromanage every engineer to turn every plot into a grassland railroad farm.

Civ2 didn't even have strategic resources, and they're pretty decently implemented in 4 at least [less so in Civ3, where they had problems, but also cool stuff like the Colony mechanic]; what's the problem here? Religion is a pretty small mechanic overall, but works nicely and adds at least a tiny bit of depth into diplomacy, managing happiness and expansion, or even world wonders and victory types. Zones of control would have made Civ4 multiplayer so, so much more defender-oriented than it already is; the only reason you get to be recklessly on the offensive vs the AI. I admit I liked the way Civ2 prevents stack of doom mechanics from occuring, but on the other hand, Civ is less about immaculate warring, rather than putting out the proper production/tech lead/stack composition to make that war work. You have collateral weapons, bombardment, units countering each other, etc. and it's much harder to just Crusader spam everything to win. You can't just park a stack of murder next to the dumb AI and roll them over in two turns using their own railroads and gullibility, either [and Spies].

I really like Civ2, but it's pretty simple on a macro level [it's much less challenging on its highest level than a contemporary game such as Master of orion] and a lot of its needless micromanagement was pretty well dealt with in the sequels. Maybe I need to properly compare SMAC to Civ4, but I really do figure that the series evolved nicely. The AI of Civ4 is certainly a much better challenge than Civ2's.

[factotum]

Wat? The 'g' hotkey maps 'goto' and lets you set a destination city. Or, you can do, I think, shift+g to send a unit to any square. I've always found the AC interface remarkably intuitive. There's a hotkey for just about every action you can take.

That's still an extra keypress you have to use every time you move a unit, compared to the much simpler single click to move a unit that was implemented in later Civ games. I still don't understand why they didn't just make Beyond Earth "Alpha Centauri but with Civ5 UI", because that would have been approximately 1,732 shades of awesome.

[Silfir]

I can't speak for the Jackal. I never got to the point where I played Deity - I know from casual reading what the ideal strategies for Civ 2 to beat Deity with entail, that there are various unbalanced mechanics in the game that can be exploited to the point of trivializing everything else, but I never actually played that way. It's very possible that Civ IV is the best Civ game at the highest difficulty levels; it definitely is in multiplayer (Given that Civ II added it as an afterthought).

I am not into Civ for either higher difficulty levels or multiplayer. That places me firmly in the majority of the Civ playerbase, as it happens. I just always felt the least constrained in Civ II. I enjoyed being able to expand rapidly and having lots of cities very quickly, and I disliked Civ IV for punishing me for doing the same. I do agree that the game ought to be balanced in a way that the best strategy doesn't involve mindless expansion, where it doesn't matter at all where you plop down a city, but that doesn't mean I agree with more or less artifically limiting expansion the way Civ IV and V did.

As for strategic resources - I don't mind them. I don't think they're particularly necessary either. I'm somewhat less keen on luxury resources. These are mechanics that don't really affect large, successful empires, since they will have access to every resource almost automatically, but hobble the smaller empires just a bit more. Not that I mind even that - after all, large empires ought to wipe the floor with small ones, all things being equal. It does feel like the main point of having strategic and luxury resources is to have something else to use to trade with the AI, and that was never a part of the game that was super interesting to me. (Which is also why I despise the city states of Civ V.)

I know I didn't like IV as much as II (though I certainly felt it was quite a bit better than Civ III), but I also didn't play much of it. I owned the Complete Edition, but have mislaid the DVD. I should probably pick it up in a Steam sale and give it another shot. I might remember more about what I didn't like, or I might come to fall in love with it proper.



EDIT: Say, talking about Alpha Centauri - I could have sworn you could give units long range move orders via mouse dragging, actually. What's this about needing extra keypresses?

[Douglas]

That's still an extra keypress you have to use every time you move a unit, compared to the much simpler single click to move a unit that was implemented in later Civ games. I still don't understand why they didn't just make Beyond Earth "Alpha Centauri but with Civ5 UI", because that would have been approximately 1,732 shades of awesome.
Only if you're giving a long distance multi-turn movement command, in which case the fact that it's a multi-turn command means you don't have to do it that often. For single-turn movement, each direction has its own key for a one-keypress command to move one square diamond in that direction.


EDIT: Say, talking about Alpha Centauri - I could have sworn you could give units long range move orders via mouse dragging, actually. What's this about needing extra keypresses?
It's been a while since the last time I played AC, but I think click-and-hold can issue a goto order.

[Silfir]

It's been a while since the last time I played AC, but I think click-and-hold can issue a goto order.

Yeah, pretty sure that's it. I did that all the time.

[Winthur]

I am not into Civ for either higher difficulty levels or multiplayer. That places me firmly in the majority of the Civ playerbase, as it happens. I just always felt the least constrained in Civ II. I enjoyed being able to expand rapidly and having lots of cities very quickly, and I disliked Civ IV for punishing me for doing the same. I do agree that the game ought to be balanced in a way that the best strategy doesn't involve mindless expansion, where it doesn't matter at all where you plop down a city, but that doesn't mean I agree with more or less artifically limiting expansion the way Civ IV and V did.

I really like your whole post and think it's a good address, but I'd like to say that if you're not gunning for super-high difficulties, rapid expansion is alive and well in Civ4, and there are leaders that faciliate the approach very well (Joao II and Catherine being extreme in that regard). You can easily get dozens of cities before 1 AD with a good economic/expansion oriented leader, large map, and a mediocre difficulty level (up to Monarch). You just need to get a lot of commerce or other means going, like specialists, cottages, Currency, courthouses, war plunder, bulbing trade-bait, Great Merchant missions for burning gold for tech. Placing cities close together is also smart, having them share improvements and resources for greater growth.

I'd encourage you to give Civ4 another spin and whip a whole bunch of Settlers with someone Financial, Organized or Imperialistic. Bigger in Civ4 is, generally, better.

[The_Jackal]

That's still an extra keypress you have to use every time you move a unit, compared to the much simpler single click to move a unit that was implemented in later Civ games. I still don't understand why they didn't just make Beyond Earth "Alpha Centauri but with Civ5 UI", because that would have been approximately 1,732 shades of awesome.

I totally agree, but I suspect that there may have been legal and aesthetic reasons they didn't go that route. As for the SMAC user-interface, I've always used the number pad to move units, or set a rally-point base, rather than rely on 'go here'.


I can't speak for the Jackal. I never got to the point where I played Deity - I know from casual reading what the ideal strategies for Civ 2 to beat Deity with entail, that there are various unbalanced mechanics in the game that can be exploited to the point of trivializing everything else, but I never actually played that way. It's very possible that Civ IV is the best Civ game at the highest difficulty levels; it definitely is in multiplayer (Given that Civ II added it as an afterthought).

I did get to the point where I could routinely beat both CivII and SMAC on the highest difficulty levels, and yes, the criticisms about infinite city sprawl were legitimate. I don't take issue with nerfing ICS. But I did find other gameplay innovations just as, if not more, pernicious. Strategic resources were a profound design flaw, amplifying problems based on your starting position. Removing zones of control was another bad choice, as it magnifies first-mover advantage in a turn-based game. The whole point of ZoCs was the offer the player the ability to hold and reinforce a strategic point instead of merely filling every available square with a unit, on the undertaking that in real time, armies had the opportunity to react to each other, and prevent them being flanked as if they were mere statues on the battlefield. Denominational religions, added in Civ IV, were just offensive; adding a magical set of seven approved religions, nevermind the wide and diverse set of beliefs which not only span the world today, but also colored the swath of history in multiple variations. Zoroastrianism? Shinto? Sufi? Irrelevant.

Ultimately, the feature creep of the series continues to detract from the simple core gameplay: 4x strategy which rewards strategic expansion and sound management. And please don't pretend that the new innovations have changed the nature of game balance at the highest levels of play, all they did is alter the formula for determining what the most effective playstyle was.

[VoxRationis]

Civ has a pretty cynical view of religion in general, or so I see from V, where religion is a tool planned by the central authority of a civilization to further the ends of said central authority.

[Illven]

Civ has a pretty cynical view of religion in general, or so I see from V, where religion is a tool planned by the central authority of a civilization to further the ends of said central authority.

Worrying that this is edging close to the forum rules.

What was everyone's favorite fictional religion in the GMR games.

Mine was the Burning hate.

[Knaight]

Civ has a pretty cynical view of religion in general, or so I see from V, where religion is a tool planned by the central authority of a civilization to further the ends of said central authority.

On the other hand, it has that view of literally everything if you base the evidence on the player getting to choose things and representing a central authority. It's more the effect of the 4X genre than anything else.

[VoxRationis]

On the other hand, it has that view of literally everything if you base the evidence on the player getting to choose things and representing a central authority. It's more the effect of the 4X genre than anything else.

True enough.

What sorts of strategies do people like to implement with religion? I myself have a fondness for pumping out wonders*, so the +2 faith/Wonder tenet is a must-have.


*Something I understand isn't effective as a multiplayer strategy, but then again, I've never played a MP game of Civ, so...

[Winthur]

Strategic resources were a profound design flaw, amplifying problems based on your starting position.
Civ4 makes it a point to normalize each player's starting position, making sure they always start with a food resource, no useless, unworkable tiles around the starting area, and a strategic resource nearby. I think dealing with some resource deficiencies can be a fine strategic element, esp. in Civ4, where you have four possible strategic resources you can hook up in the Ancient/Classical era, so it's unlikely to be completely shafted, and you might find yourself making bigger decisions, like whether a far-away city eating at your maintenance costs is worth securing copper. Wonder resources are also good for such decisions. They also diversify civilizations; it makes resourceless units more attractive in civs that would otherwise seem subpar (like Aztecs).


Removing zones of control was another bad choice, as it magnifies first-mover advantage in a turn-based game. The whole point of ZoCs was to offer the player the ability to hold and reinforce a strategic point instead of merely filling every available square with a unit, on the undertaking that in real time, armies had the opportunity to react to each other, and prevent them being flanked as if they were mere statues on the battlefield.
While I think ZoCs were nice, they were ultimately not an obstacle in dealing with the AI; they promote defensive play, which rarely surfaces against the AI, due to its inept nature. Moreover, ZoCs have a flaw in that they would be out of place in a game that already favors the defender humongously in battles. You can already choke someone pretty hard by parking Jaguar Warriors, Archers or Warriors on his forested hills. ZoCs could make that utterly destructive. I think they had to go.


Denominational religions, added in Civ IV, were just offensive; adding a magical set of seven approved religions, nevermind the wide and diverse set of beliefs which not only span the world today, but also colored the swath of history in multiple variations. Zoroastrianism? Shinto? Sufi? Irrelevant.
Civ has always had that problem - they always had to include some concepts and remove others. The Polish scene was petitioning to add Poland into the game since at least Civ3 for a long time, citing a lot of good reasons and the relative lack of Eastern European representation aside from Russia. Some Civ concepts are just plain wrong, like the Sioux Empire of Civ2 ruled by Sitting Bull or stuff like HRE or Native American Empire in Civ4. I think the designers' decisions to choose those religions was fair given their impact, to add a certain flavor, and they have been tentatively not made to stand out too much from one another to not generate controversy. I don't think they could satisfy everyone. The denominations of Christianity alone could have an entire game built around them, and the usual "we all love our bros of faith" lovefests that religion builds are also very "video gamey".

As they are, Civ4 religions are still kind of underdeveloped. Typical game will only see Buddhist, Hindu, and an occasional Jewish bloc dominating the game. Sometimes, bulbers will get Conf/Tao/Christianity, but mostly for secondary religion purposes. Islam is almost never a factor in Civ4 games due to its late game nature. I think it's a nice touch that they resemble real life religions, but I never dwelled too much on accuracy.


Ultimately, the feature creep of the series continues to detract from the simple core gameplay: 4x strategy which rewards strategic expansion and sound management.
Civ4 eschews needless micromanagement (managing overflows and waste and somewhat obscure, dig-under-the-core mechanics) and strategic expansion has been vastly improved because there's actually more timing to expanding.


And please don't pretend that the new innovations have changed the nature of game balance at the highest levels of play, all they did is alter the formula for determining what the most effective playstyle was.

Of course not. I am aware that there are some staple tactics and techs. 99% of games will want a Currency rush, a Bureau capital, and domination by Cuirassiers or Cannons timed against Longbows.

Still, Civ4 still offers you more. There's more diversity to be had even right at the start, with world map generation customization or the choice of traits. Financial was thought to be the absolute best for a long time, but the meta changed and more value was seen in Spiritual, Industrious, Philosophical and Creative, or even Organized. You may base your economy on masses of cottages, specialists, or even sheer production, or just spamming wonders in a small, centralized empire, and still win on Deity. You can play a subpar Civ like Mao's China just for that one edge that the Cho-Ko-Nus allow that no other units do. You have to specialize cities and you have more ways to do so, with some very specific applications of strategies like the Globe Theater draft city or National Park specialist city; strats you can't pull off in every game, as playing the hand you're dealt matters more.

I am aware that there's some schematics, templates and staple strats that consistently produce wins. But even Chess has those. Civ4 simply has more ways to shake it up between jumping the hoops, and more ways for the AI to handicap you and surprise you. It's, at the very least, a better challenge, and that's what tips the scale in the end for me. And it's not even any more complex; in Civ4, I will know when post-revolution anarchy ends precisely when I want to. In Civ2, I'm expected to know what Oedo years are just for pure micromanagement. In Civ4, I don't have to micro 40 cities for trivial stuff like a few shields here and there; I can semi-trust the governor and the overflow mechanics to take that edge off and focus on the macro stuff.

But Civ2 is certainly an amazing game, don't get me wrong, and I sometimes come back to its simplicity and solid concepts. I adore it. And I'm usually the guy who is the first to claim that all sequels lead to inevitable decline. But in this case I think Civ4 is a better game, and it's, at the very least, a good 4X game.

It still has some awful concepts like the BTS' Apostolic Palace or the stupid colony system, but they can't all be winners.

I still have to play SMAC, and I certainly will. Thanks for the discussion, I'll be happy to read your rebuttal, if any.

[The_Jackal]

I still have to play SMAC, and I certainly will. Thanks for the discussion, I'll be happy to read your rebuttal, if any.

I don't really have a rebuttal, per se. Nothing you've said about Civ IV is untrue, and to be honest, I gave up on it before any of its expansion packs had hit the market. I think what we're mainly differing on is "What philosophically makes a Civ game good", and the space between 'abstract 4X game and ultra-detailed simulation game' will carry a wide variety of possible options.

Instead, I'll expound on what I feel are the strengths and weaknesses of SMAC, which is without doubt my favorite game in the Civ-type genre. Biggest strength: SMAC is a game which really rewards assiduous resource-management. Fast implementation of new bases, terraforming and resource-increasing technologies make for a very rewarding game that offers traction for multiple playstyles, from builder, to hybrid, to momentum play. Each faction's native qualities make them more natively attuned to one style of play than the others, but every faction is quite capable of supporting any playstyle.

Biggest weakness: The AI is as terrible as any other Civ title, without benefit of any hobbling mechanics that normally benefit the AI to keep them in the game. That tends to express itself both in terms of the AI opponents being weaker than they otherwise might be, and in the AI-automation that the game offers you for your own side.

The key, in my opinion, to Civ's dynamism and strength is the Society Effects system, which is SMAC's answer to government types in earlier games, and what Civ V implemented as 'Social Policies'. These society effects, in combination with bonuses from facilties and native faction bonuses, conveyed advantages or penalties to your play which could be quite powerful, if well managed, or quite crippling, if tackled unwisely. It's less complex than Social Policies, but offers, in my opinion, more weighty choices, as you choose between a representative or a repressive government, a free or controlled economy, and a society which treasures strength, wealth or knowledge. Most factions have one SE choice they can't use, so, for example, the research-minded University of Planet can't take the Fundamentalist government type, but otherwise you get to switch your policies as your needs change, instead of the Social policy model where your choices are permanent changes to how your faction works.

Oh, and when you play, make sure you make the game go full-screen at desktop resolution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=118326). It makes the sprite-based graphics hold up surprisingly well.

[Sian]

the closest thing that we've gotten to SMAC's social policies are not ciV's Policies, but rather cIV's civics, although few if any of them have explicit negatives beyond opportunity cost and the question if something else is better.

cIV is just as many other civ games somewhat mediocre out-the-box vanilla, but IMO it solidified itself into a strong game way faster than ciV

[factotum]

Each faction's native qualities make them more natively attuned to one style of play than the others, but every faction is quite capable of supporting any playstyle.


There are some oddities in the way that works, though. For instance, as I recall you can get +6 growth in your colonies by having a Creche, some other tech I forget, and Democracy--this means the colony will increase by 1 population unit per turn until they're limited by food. The only faction this doesn't work for is the Human Hive, because they can't go Democracy, and their native +1 growth isn't enough to compensate for losing the +2 Democracy gives! Always struck me as odd that the one faction whose fluff is about growing faster than anyone else can't use the most ridiculous growth strategy in the game.

[The_Jackal]

There are some oddities in the way that works, though. For instance, as I recall you can get +6 growth in your colonies by having a Creche, some other tech I forget, and Democracy--this means the colony will increase by 1 population unit per turn until they're limited by food. The only faction this doesn't work for is the Human Hive, because they can't go Democracy, and their native +1 growth isn't enough to compensate for losing the +2 Democracy gives! Always struck me as odd that the one faction whose fluff is about growing faster than anyone else can't use the most ridiculous growth strategy in the game.

Every faction can get a population boom (+6 or more growth), some factions just have to work harder than others. The possible growth contributors are:

1) Planned Economy +2
2) Democracy +2
3) Children's Creche +2
4) Golden Age +2

So the factions that can't boom without a Golden Age are Morgan and Yang. But that doesn't preclude either from pursuing a builder strategy. For Morgan, Golden Ages are pretty easy. For Yang, your powerful industry, steady growth and powerful police rating make for a more sprawling strategy, but one that still allows building peacefully. As for Yang's fluff being about growth, I don't agree, their fluff is about being a repressive, collectivist society. The inability to easily boom is merely to keep them from sprinting away with every game, due to their strong police and industry ratings. And finally, there's the Cloning Vats, which synergizes so well with the Hive faction that it may as well be thought of as their own private project.

[Winter_Wolf]

Don't forget the Eudaimonia SE choice. Granted it comes really late in the game and if you're playing a conqueror strategy you might well never see it.

One thing that I always wondered about, the Gaians naturally don't touch free market, but a planned economy is at least equally hard on the planet with the industry bonus and population booming. An eco damage of 300 per turn is entirely possible with crawlers, and I was pumping out prototypes like a madman to deal with the mind worms. 'Course if you turtle a bit, you crush the late game with democracy/green/wealth/cybernetic and then every victory is equally possible. I often see whether transcendence or conquest will be the way.

[Douglas]

One thing that I always wondered about, the Gaians naturally don't touch free market, but a planned economy is at least equally hard on the planet with the industry bonus and population booming. An eco damage of 300 per turn is entirely possible with crawlers, and I was pumping out prototypes like a madman to deal with the mind worms. 'Course if you turtle a bit, you crush the late game with democracy/green/wealth/cybernetic and then every victory is equally possible. I often see whether transcendence or conquest will be the way.
Oddly, I feel like the Morganites actually do a better job of Planet-friendliness than anyone else (in human player hands, anyway). Energy has an immensely important threshold at +2, where every square in your entire faction gets +1 energy, and Free Market is the only way to get that before the really late game options like Eudaimonia. Thus, I feel like I have little choice but to go Free Market all the time to get that fantastic bonus to research (because research comes from energy) - except when playing Morgan, because then I can get it with just Wealth, making Green with its efficiency bonus a much more appealing option than normal. Thus, playing the Morganites with their stereotypical Planet-trashing ways is actually the one circumstance where I voluntarily treat Planet well, typically going Democracy/Green/Wealth.

[factotum]

An eco damage of 300 per turn is entirely possible with crawlers, and I was pumping out prototypes like a madman to deal with the mind worms.

The best method of dealing with mind worms as the Gaians is to use their faction ability to capture them and set them on each other. In the basic game, when Resonance armour isn't a thing, mind worms are also excellent against other player troops, because the only defence they have against them is their level of experience (e.g. veteran units will defend better than novice ones)--that strategy works less well in the expansion, of course.

[Douglas]

Little known fact about eco damage mechanics: The game maintains a count of how many eco-damage-reducing buildings you have built and fungal blooms you have triggered, starting after your first fungal bloom, and that number is a flat reduction to eco damage throughout your empire. Trigger that first fungal bloom, and then build (and scrap and rebuild if necessary) enough eco damage reducing buildings, and there is no limit to how high you can get production while having 0 eco damage.

Even if you don't want to exploit the scrap-and-rebuild aspect of it, this means that you should not build any eco damage reducers at all until after triggering one fungal bloom. You might even want to intentionally pump up eco damage early to trigger one and let the count start.

[The_Jackal]

Don't forget the Eudaimonia SE choice. Granted it comes really late in the game and if you're playing a conqueror strategy you might well never see it.

I mentioned the ones I did to show that every faction could reach 6 growth without too much trouble. Reaching Eudaimonia is not what I'd consider 'too much trouble'.


One thing that I always wondered about, the Gaians naturally don't touch free market, but a planned economy is at least equally hard on the planet with the industry bonus and population booming. An eco damage of 300 per turn is entirely possible with crawlers, and I was pumping out prototypes like a madman to deal with the mind worms. 'Course if you turtle a bit, you crush the late game with democracy/green/wealth/cybernetic and then every victory is equally possible. I often see whether transcendence or conquest will be the way.

It's because Free Market has a planet rating penalty, and planned economy doesn't. That 300 eco-damage would be much higher if you were able to switch to Free Market Economy. Now that fact is certainly a failure in verisimilitude, since we have plenty of examples of horrific pollution and ecological damage in planned economies, but translating the real world into game mechanics elegantly doesn't always work.

As for dealing with mindworms, resonance armor isn't a thing, but the 'trance' and 'empath song' abilities are still in the base game, so it's entirely possible to make counter-worm units. Also, pro-tip: native life, having no attack or defense values, gets utterly crushed by bombardment.

[Winter_Wolf]

The best method of dealing with mind worms as the Gaians is to use their faction ability to capture them and set them on each other. In the basic game, when Resonance armour isn't a thing, mind worms are also excellent against other player troops, because the only defence they have against them is their level of experience (e.g. veteran units will defend better than novice ones)--that strategy works less well in the expansion, of course.

Hundreds of really pissed off mind worms. Per turn. My poor Gaians never had a chance. Actually that's not true, they stomped the ever loving goop out of them, but they hit the soft cap on capturing mind worms and there were huge puddles of goo everywhere. That particular game had the Gaians trying to drown the world via global warming. Not the most viable strategy.

[VoxRationis]

Does anyone find it odd that in Brave New World, the machine gun upgrades into a bazooka?

[Dhavaer]

Does anyone find it odd that in Brave New World, the machine gun upgrades into a bazooka?

No more so than pikeman -> lancer -> anti-tank -> helicopter.

[Winter_Wolf]

No more so than pikeman -> lancer -> anti-tank -> helicopter.

Ugh, I always hated that progression. If you don't pay close attention it just screws up a whole war campaign. At least my war campaigns. I prefer to take my chances with pikemen. I have so much trouble with any kind of air units in Civ V anyway. Helicopter upgrades are like the kiss of death for me.

[VoxRationis]

My pet peeve are all the early game cav archers or cav-archer equivalents, which the game insists on upgrading into melee-only units and therefore wasting all your upgrades.

[VoxRationis]

What speed do people prefer to play on? Impatience has thus far driven me to pick only the very fastest speed, but I feel sad sometimes that you can't usually get much done in the early tech levels. You have to really, really blitz (on a favorable map) to have a chance of winning by conquest before the Renaissance.

[Zevox]

What speed do people prefer to play on? Impatience has thus far driven me to pick only the very fastest speed, but I feel sad sometimes that you can't usually get much done in the early tech levels. You have to really, really blitz (on a favorable map) to have a chance of winning by conquest before the Renaissance.
I just leave it on the default speed when playing solo. So far though it looks like a faster speed is used in the GMR games around here.

[factotum]

I always play Normal. Been tempted to try out the slower game, but never the faster one.

[thirsting]

I like lower speeds. That way, my units won't get obsolete by the time they finally arrive to their destination, which they wouldn't always manage, as I play exclusively on largest maps.

Hey, is there any need for additional players in ongoing GMR games currently? I might be able to take over a slot from AI now, if there is.

[Ryuho Tsugu]

Hey, is there any need for additional players in ongoing GMR games currently? I might be able to take over a slot from AI now, if there is.

I left 14 and 15 for personal reasons; you could check with the hosts of those games.

[Zevox]

I like lower speeds. That way, my units won't get obsolete by the time they finally arrive to their destination, which they wouldn't always manage, as I play exclusively on largest maps.

Hey, is there any need for additional players in ongoing GMR games currently? I might be able to take over a slot from AI now, if there is.
16 has an opening, and is still in the early game period. Be warned that the whole gimmick for that game is that we all picked the worst Civs in the game though - the one you'd be able to take over is The Netherlands.

[DodgerH2O]

I'd like a replacement for the Portugal AI in GMR 15. Not the host though, so can't generate an invite for you.

[Mando Knight]

Trying to decide where to build my first city (http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/447359296969449898/F0CF7E925B174FA3DC37E048B1AB4121BBB3A92A/) as the Maya in a fractal map: at the source of the river, in hills and next to gold and stone, or at its mouth 3 hexes away, where I'll be able to work pearls and fish? One location will preclude me from building my second city right at the other.

[The_Snark]

I'd go for the river mouth; it won't be quite as productive from the get-go, but once you get a lighthouse up your population will boom, and you'll eventually be able to reach everything but the stone (whereas founding at the source means you won't ever get those sea resources with this city). Better medium- and long-term potential, I think.

[Illven]

I'd go for the river mouth; it won't be quite as productive from the get-go, but once you get a lighthouse up your population will boom, and you'll eventually be able to reach everything but the stone (whereas founding at the source means you won't ever get those sea resources with this city). Better medium- and long-term potential, I think.

If he moves, he should go where the warrior is. Same amount of turns, and he keeps the stone.

[The_Snark]

I'm pretty sure the stone is 4 tiles away from the warrior? But yeah, that's the spot I meant.

[Mando Knight]

The stone is 4 hexes away from the warrior, same distance as from the hex across the river. Both hexes on the shore are two turns away, and besides the choice between immediate access to a desert hill or a forest, their effective differences are pretty much unknowns at this point.

[Illven]

I'm pretty sure the stone is 4 tiles away from the warrior? But yeah, that's the spot I meant.

NM. I'm an idiot that can't count. :smallredface:

[Douglas]

This thread got me to start playing SMAC again, and I just got a good laugh from a tech description I don't remember noticing before. According to the information text for Industrial Automation, the category of "repetitive unskilled jobs" includes "VP of Sales".:smallamused:

[thirsting]

Just found this: http://new.multiplayerrobot.com/. It's in alpha, so still bit buggy apparently. No idea if or how long they are going to keep supporting the old version once this gets properly released. The saves between old GMR and this new one are apparently incompatible, so it would seem reasonable to expect they don't just shut the old one down without a long, long notice.

Tested it a bit, and sadly, it doesn't seem to work with Beyond Earth yet. Once it does, eventually, hopefully soonish, would any of you be interested in playing it (preferably with the Rising Tide expansion)?

[Illven]

Just found this: http://new.multiplayerrobot.com/. It's in alpha, so still bit buggy apparently. No idea if or how long they are going to keep supporting the old version once this gets properly released. The saves between old GMR and this new one are apparently incompatible, so it would seem reasonable to expect they don't just shut the old one down without a long, long notice.

Tested it a bit, and sadly, it doesn't seem to work with Beyond Earth yet. Once it does, eventually, hopefully soonish, would any of you be interested in playing it (preferably with the Rising Tide expansion)?

I don't have beyond earth.

But seems a good time to start another civ 5 game!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?492713-GMR-17-Onto-new-pastures&p=20932582#post20932582

[VoxRationis]

You know, looking at the multiplayer games, I thought of a feature that could be an interesting gameplay option:
It's always bothered me that every civilization in the game starts from the very beginning (both because the birth of new cultural groups is a very important factor in history and because it bothers me to see the Byzantines, who can only really be understood as the inheritors of civilizations, rather than the builders of them, as a force from the Stone Age), and I'm noticing that it kind of sucks that a player can be eliminated so early in a game that goes on for so long.

So what if there were an option to have an eliminated player take over a barbarian encampment and turn it into a new civilization?

Obviously, certain details of the process would have to be worked out, and it would be a feature that would require an extensive mod or even introduction into a new game to work. I just want to know what people think of it.

[Winthur]

You know, looking at the multiplayer games, I thought of a feature that could be an interesting gameplay option:
It's always bothered me that every civilization in the game starts from the very beginning (both because the birth of new cultural groups is a very important factor in history and because it bothers me to see the Byzantines, who can only really be understood as the inheritors of civilizations, rather than the builders of them, as a force from the Stone Age), and I'm noticing that it kind of sucks that a player can be eliminated so early in a game that goes on for so long.

So what if there were an option to have an eliminated player take over a barbarian encampment and turn it into a new civilization?

Obviously, certain details of the process would have to be worked out, and it would be a feature that would require an extensive mod or even introduction into a new game to work. I just want to know what people think of it.

It was a feature in Civ2, except it worked differently. There were eight colours, to each colour there were assigned three civilizations. If a colour is occupied in a game, that means the two other civilizations of that colour can't be in it simultaneously. If you have Romans in your games, you won't meet Russians or Celts, for instance. But if you kill the Romans, then the Russian or Celt civilization will pop up, every civ once per game.

I always turned it off (by default it was on), because it was stupid annoying to play a conquest game and have to constantly clean up tiny little civilizations popping up all over the place at random. "Hooray, after vanquishing the Chinese I now have to do painstaking scouting with all of my ships just to find that in their place Abe Lincoln has just founded Washington in the North Pole where it can't grow!" If you're not an utter completionist/beat-the-AI player like myself, it's a cool simulationist feature, I guess...

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Just found this: http://new.multiplayerrobot.com/. It's in alpha, so still bit buggy apparently. No idea if or how long they are going to keep supporting the old version once this gets properly released. The saves between old GMR and this new one are apparently incompatible, so it would seem reasonable to expect they don't just shut the old one down without a long, long notice.

Tested it a bit, and sadly, it doesn't seem to work with Beyond Earth yet. Once it does, eventually, hopefully soonish, would any of you be interested in playing it (preferably with the Rising Tide expansion)?
They're looking into ways to get a Pitboss server up and running?????? That's hype.