Let's Play: Civilization IV [image heavy]

[InaVegt]

http://gvegt.nl/lp/Civ40.jpg

In case anyone wants to know what a Let's Play is, I (or someone else) will happily explain it, but for now I'm going to assume everybody knows.

Civilization IV is, as the name implies, the fourth game in the Civilization series, a series about guiding a civilization from birth to, hopefully, achieving some sort of epicness that makes you the leader of the world.

I'm going to play on chieftain (difficulty level) because I haven't played in a while and I think a Let's Play is more fun if the goal is eventually made. I'm going to play on a huge map, marathon speed, and with max civilizations. I don't have any expansions, so this will be vanilla.

Now, for reader participation, choose a leader from the spoilered list, I will be using popular vote for this.

America George Washington
America Franklin D. Roosevelt
Arabs Saladin
Aztecs Montezuma
China Mao Zedong
China Qin Shi Huang
Egypt Hatshepsut
England Victoria
England Elizabeth
France Louis XIV
France Napoleon
Germany Frederick
Germany Bismarck
Greece Alexander
Inca Huayna Capac
India Mahatma Gandhi
India Asoka
Japan Tokugawa
Mali Mansa Musa
Mongolia Genghis Khan
Mongolia Kublai Khan
Persia Cyrus
Rome Julius Caesar
Russia Catherine
Russia Peter
Spain Isabella

In addition, since you can name your own civilization and leader, I will be allowing you to think of names for the civilization and one of it's leaders.

[Gaelbert]

Germans Frederick.
The rest doesn't matter so much to me.

[LordOfXoriat]

-edit_deleted-

[InaVegt]

Can someone explain to me how Let's Play works?

Well, lessee.

You have a videogame (in this case Civilization IV), someone is playing through this videogame (in this case me), and provides screenshots and/or screencaps. Often supplies with commentary (the exact type of commentary depends on the author, but there is often some comment about why the author made certain decisions)

[Dublock]

I always loved Roosevelt or my favorite political figure, Churchill.

[Tichrondrius]

Only from your list?

Mongolia Genghis Khan.

[InaVegt]

Only from your list?

Mongolia Genghis Khan.

There is a difference between the leaders that are programmed into the game, and me renaming them to something else.

I only have vanilla, so those are the only leaders I can choose to actually play.

[kpenguin]

France Napoleon

Vive l'Empereur!
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w118/kpenguin222/Napoleon_flamingchainsaws.gif

[Sucrose]

Okay, I was thinking I'd vote for Napoleon before, and that macro just seals it. My vote goes for France, and Napoleon. If we are allowed to choose names for the civilization and the leader, then I'll request that we name ourselves after the University of Minnesota (partially because it amuses me, and partially because my position kinda dictates it).

Leader: Bobby Bruinicks
Civilization: the mighty empire of the Golden Gophers

[Tichrondrius]

Yeah, I was wondering why you didn't have Stalin or Sitting Bull or Ragnar on your list, my usuals. Then after my post I noticed it said you only had the vanilla game, so yeah, can't go wrong with Genghis.

[InaVegt]

Any ideas for a civilization name? It seems we might otherwise be stuck with being Golden Gophers, and while I don't know what those are, it doesn't sound all that well.

[Sucrose]

Any ideas for a civilization name? It seems we might otherwise be stuck with being Golden Gophers, and while I don't know what those are, it doesn't sound all that well.

You don't like it?:smallfrown:

Well, I'd think that you'd get at least one vote to yourself; suggest something better, and if nobody votes for mine, then you win by virtue of being the one who'll move this country through history.

[kpenguin]

Okay how about this:

Leader: Sid Meier
Civilization: Firaxians

[Tichrondrius]

I usually call my leader Lord and my people The Dread, but I don't know how well that would go though here.

[InaVegt]

You don't like it?:smallfrown:
It's not that I don't like it, it's just that it sounds overly silly, and I was aiming at a somewhat serious tone.

How about this, though, I'll try to work the Golden Gophers into the narrative if it doesn't become the name of the civilization.

Well, I'd think that you'd get at least one vote to yourself; suggest something better, and if nobody votes for mine, then you win by virtue of being the one who'll move this country through history.
I'd prefer just asking as a tie breaker and perhaps verbally influencing votes, but not giving myself any votes.

[ArlEammon]

Armin : China Qin Shi Huang

[Haven]

Civilization: The Empire of Tropers
Leader: Xanatos

[pingcode20]

Just to seal the deal, France Napoleon.

Civilisation Name: Playground
Leader Name: The Giant*

*Bonus: We'd be playing Napoleon, no less! :smallamused: And yes, I'm aware that Napoleon was not, in fact, short for his time. But with words like 'Napoleon Complex'...

[SolkaTruesilver]

Just to seal the deal, France Napoleon.

Civilisation Name: Playground
Leader Name: The Giant*

*Bonus: We'd be playing Napoleon, no less! :smallamused:

Does that mean we'll have to keep this Let's Play under the radar to avoid banning?

[pingcode20]

Hmm... I haven't the slightest idea. Only one way to find out, I guess. :smallbiggrin:

I still think we ought to call our pet nation the 'Playground', though. Then we can start naming pet armies after ourselves.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I totally support the "Playground" nation. And please have the leader being the "Giant", indeed.

Now, however, about city names. We could either take OotS/Erfworld names, Forum-related names (Gaming (Other), Order of the Stick, etc...) or have playgrounders being the names of the cities. I personnally support the option of having cities named after ourselves. And don't change the name of cities that we have conquered. That way, we'll make the difference between dominions and pure-breed original playgrounders

[InaVegt]

So, it seems the consensus is the civilization being The Playground (France), and the leader being the Giant (Napoleon).

I propose our first city will be named Azure City.

I was going propose to name units after playgrounders.

So, basically, for the first part:

Infantry, Cavalry, Archery, Siege, or supplemental?

If you wish, you can opt for being included later on, if you wish to be another type of unit.

[sun_tzu]

Can't go wrong with Napoleon, the quintessential Magnificent Bastard.

[pendell]

Agree with France/Napolean.

Civ name: Hobgoblins.
Leader: XYKON!
First city: Azure City
City names also taken from Tolkien's Sauron: Angmar, Dol Guldur, Minas Morgul, Barad-dur.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I would like to represent the French Musketeers, if possible...

If not, I'll be happy with the Dragoons.

[Selrahc]

Name the cities after the various different forums and subforums. First city being called the Playground.

If we name them after Order of the Stick places, we only have maybe five or six locations. Cliffport, Greysky, Azure, Sunken valley, Dungeon of Dorukan, Lirians Forest, Girards Gate, Tynnaria, Unnamed Small Town... I think we're going to end with more than 9 cities.

[InaVegt]

With my usual strategy, a most of our cities will not be named by us, I don't intend on renaming.

If it seems like we're going to build the 10the city, though, we can always think of something then.

[Sucrose]

Please name the Archery units after me.

[InaVegt]

http://gvegt.nl/lp/Civ41.JPG

This is the screen that shows us the details of our civilization. It holds many key things to keep in mind during the game.


Aggressive, Industrious
Starting technologies: The Wheel, Agriculture
Unique Units: Musketeer (Musketman)

Now, what does all this mean. Well, first, the top two items are the qualities of our leader, Napoleon. These provide us with actual tangible benefits. Aggressive makes it easier to build two military core buildings (barracks and drydock) and gives some of our units a free promotion from onset. Industrious makes it easier to build wonders and forges.

The starting technologies should be self explaining. Unique units are a more powerful version of a standard unit, usable by only one civilization. Ours is the Musketeer, replacing the Musketman. By the time we get to producing these units, we should remember to actually use them.

The remainder what is in that screeny is fluff.

Archeological evidence shows that Azure City has been founded in the early 40th century BCE, evidence suggests that they already knew the basics of wheel producing and agriculture. Even so, there has been little growth in Azure City for quite a long while, suggesting that the people where still working hard to pacify the lands. Enclosed is a small map of Azure City as it most likely was like when it was just founded.
http://gvegt.nl/lp/Civ42.JPG

As you might notice, I put several boxes and circles to explain stuff to you.

Black Circle: Map of the city and it's general surroundings, the purple area is our cultural influence. Also, do note the village just outside of our cultural influence, it will be automatically picked when our influence grows.
Red Circle: City Growth and Production, this shows the time needed for population to grow and production to finish. As we're currently producing a worker, there is no population growth. It also shows our population and health markers, good to pay attention to, though I won't be explaining yet.
Blue box: How much money and science I produce, I currently favour a speedy advance of science, slowing down our economic growth.
Green Box: Building's I've produced, basic effects are listed with icons. The Palace, which you get for free with your first city, provides 1 happiness, 8 commerce and 2 culture. Commerce gets invested with those sliders from the Blue Box. Culture grows our cultural territory.
Yellow Box: Cultural bars, upper one should starts at 100% and preferably stay there, dropping of the bar means someone is gaining cultural hold upon your city. Lower one should slowly fill up, increasing the number culturally influenced squares.
White Box: Production queue, production list, minimap, same old. I'm producing a worker as you can see.

A short time after Azure City was founded, an arena for battles was created, used to throw the hunter gatherers and let them fight against the best trained men of Azure City.


I got a free worker from a village of barbarians or whatever their official term is. This allowed me to skip the worker and get to creating a barracks. I've shifted the people so my total number of production points is as large as possible, fully abusing my speedy production of barracks because of my aggressive trait.

Tools found in Azure City dated to halfway the 39th century BCE prove that the Playgroundianss and the Malinese had already had contact by then. Similarly, the Malinese had Playgroundian tools from the same period of time. This event marked the beginning of a new era, as the Playgrounders realized they weren't the only settled people in the world.

http://gvegt.nl/lp/Civ43.JPG


While exploring, I stumbled upon Mansa Musa, and had no options beyond declaring war and not doing anything with him, so I didn't do anything. This seems like a good moment to stop.

[Sucrose]

The explanations of game mechanics are appreciated; I can't speak for everyone following this Let's Play, but I've never understood exactly how the game works, recommended builds, or anything (I expected some sort of tutorial in the game when I tried it, but it just plunks you down and expects you to know what you're doing.)

Also, the archeological style is entertaining to read.

[pingcode20]

Building a worker first? Usually I spend a couple of turns churning out an extra warrior so the food production has time to make the city a size 2 or even 3 before I start rerouting it to make a worker or settler.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I want to raise the same concern. What about explorations? Surely, we must expand the Playground! Do you think you might have the time to churn out a scout or two?

[Iliad]

My strategy is build at least one or two warriors/scouts so the city grows and then build a settler. Then build a some buildings and then a worker to work on the lands.

[InaVegt]

A fast worker allows you to quickly cultivate the lands. The cost of building a worker is offset by the increased growth because of the additional farms.

In the end, this depends upon playstyle, workers, warriors, scouts, and settlers are all seen as first productions, even at high level play.

I generally produce a worker first if I start out with agriculture (Because I can immediately produce farms), a settler if I start out with mining (Rushing to bronze working to provide myself with an early bronze mine, increasing my early military power), and a warrior or scout otherwise. My second build is either something from this list, or a barracks if I'm aggressive (Barracks are a vital part of any military, and they are much less expensive for aggressive folks.)

As I started with agriculture, but not mining, a worker. As one was provided to me by the barbarians soon after, I decided to throw away the small amount of hammers to produce a barracks.

Also, I'll switch styles a few times during the game, depending on what I think would be appropriate. As writing hasn't been developed yet, I cannot use a narrator from the era, and as such I'm using an archaeological style.

[Selrahc]

My strategy is build at least one or two warriors/scouts so the city grows and then build a settler. Then build a some buildings and then a worker to work on the lands.

Speaking from my experience, build the worker as soon as you have something meaningful for it to do. The sooner you have it up and running the better. Since we have the wheel, starting it now is absolutely fine. We'll have pottery by the time it finishes, and then we can really start exploding up the tech tree. Don't build a settler for a good long while. It's not worth it.

Don't bother building farms unless you want to run a specialist economy. Just get cottages on every grassland and floodplain.

Techwise, I'd say we go for pottery, and then back down to get mining and bronzeworking. Slavery is the most useful civic in the game, and using it essentially turbo charges your early expansion(Thats why you leave a settler until later. It can be whipped up out of nowhere, or made out of wood from forest chops).

I'd say we also have a pretty good chance of pulling off the civil service slingshot, since this is vanilla. The civil service slingshot is the practice of building the oracle after having researched code of laws, to get the expensive technology civil service in record time, and for free. Civil Service is the requirement for bureaucracy which makes the capital 50% better at everything, something which is pretty darn useful in the early to mid game. To cap it all off, it represents half the techs needed to create macemen. And macemen are brilliant. In the expansions, you need mathematics as well as code of laws, which makes it hard to pull off since there is a high risk of an AI Building the oracle if you stray from the tech tree path too often.

[InaVegt]

Speaking from my experience, build the worker as soon as you have something meaningful for it to do. The sooner you have it up and running the better. Since we have the wheel, starting it now is absolutely fine. We'll have pottery by the time it finishes, and then we can really start exploding up the tech tree. Don't build a settler for a good long while. It's not worth it.

Don't bother building farms unless you want to run a specialist economy. Just get cottages on every grassland and floodplain.

Techwise, I'd say we go for pottery, and then back down to get mining and bronzeworking. Slavery is the most useful civic in the game, and using it essentially turbo charges your early expansion(Thats why you leave a settler until later. It can be whipped up out of nowhere, or made out of wood from forest chops).

I'd say we also have a pretty good chance of pulling off the civil service slingshot, since this is vanilla. The civil service slingshot is the practice of building the oracle after having researched code of laws, to get the expensive technology civil service in record time, and for free. Civil Service is the requirement for bureaucracy which makes the capital 50% better at everything, something which is pretty darn useful in the early to mid game. To cap it all off, it represents half the techs needed to create macemen. And macemen are brilliant. In the expansions, you need mathematics as well as code of laws, which makes it hard to pull off since there is a high risk of an AI Building the oracle if you stray from the tech tree path too often.

All good points, though I should note I generally play specialist economies (They're more needed at high difficulty games, but work just as well at low difficulty.)

Also, everyone, do note that what might be a few turns in normal speed becomes dozens of turns at marathon speed, which is what I'm playing.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Do we aim to create our own religion?

Hinduism is always a personnal favorite. Cultural boost, and money by the shovel if you have done your missionnary work properly. Not to forget you might create a small federation of Religion-like minded civilisations.

[InaVegt]

The creation of an early game religion depends on the AI, it's not my early focus, and as such the AI might just gobble them all up.

If I do not invent an early game religion it depends on other events, but I most likely will create a late game religion.

Also, the most important part of religions is the spying, if you have the religious wonder of a religion you can look into any city with that religion. (Big reason to defend such cities, and to try and capture such cities early on in wars.)

[Selrahc]

All good points, though I should note I generally play specialist economies (They're more needed at high difficulty games, but work just as well at low difficulty.)

Ah. Interesting. I've never been as good with those, so it should be fun to watch.

I take it you'll be going for the pyramid then?

[InaVegt]

Ah. Interesting. I've never been as good with those, so it should be fun to watch.

I take it you'll be going for the pyramid then?

Yes, I will.

[Sucrose]

Also, I'll switch styles a few times during the game, depending on what I think would be appropriate. As writing hasn't been developed yet, I cannot use a narrator from the era, and as such I'm using an archaeological style.

Fair enough. I will point out that an oral tradition could've been passed down, but the archaeological voice is probably more interesting than a storyteller version.

[Rogue 7]

I personally always go with a warrior first, just because I feel the need to explore like crazy. Then I usually crank out a worker- I almost always have one before my first settler, usually to improve resources.

Personally I'd have settled one square north, as doing so gives you all the resources you've got right now but axes that one desert square. What did you get from the village (or have you not expanded yet?)?

As for religion- if you don't start with mysticism, getting hinduism or buddhism is futile, in my experience. Judaism or Confucianism are my two preferences, but getting a religion is rarely a top priority. Saying that, I'm a huge fan of the Organized Religion civic.