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So on a whim I decided to buy the Beyond the Sword expansion for Civ IV game by Firaxis. Awesome game but I swear why is it that it's cool one hand but on the other it lacks the obvious. For example:
Diplomacy AI:
- Needs a massive overhaul, and if I remember correctly it hasn't changed at all since the Civ series started. When a civ asks you to go to war it is either a yes or no answer. There should other factors, other ways of contributing to a war whether you are neutral or not. Like agreeing to help but covertly. Whether agreeing to supply weapons, food, resources, money. All this could be done via Spies, Privateers and so forth depending on the time line that the player is in.
- Proxy wars
- Another thing, in Beyond the Sword there are more Random Events. Like I stated above for instance, usually with nations that share the same faith there is an event that said "X nation has met with Y nation in order to discuss helping with their war effort." As well as "Mediator helps with X & Y nation in Peace Talks." all this a player should be able to do etc.
- The ability to talk to more than one civilization at a time aka Peace talks etc.
Combat, Warfare, Armies/Units:
- It would be nice when units fight there is more effects, like if Rifleman fought you could see puffs of smoke etc. The same with Cannons, and Ship of the lines when fighting other units whether naval units or whatever. As well as cities when fighting for, bombed etc. should also burn.
- Refugees should also be introduced when fighting for cities, when capped they should also be increased. This could/should affect your other cities, as well as other nations.
- In Civ: Call to Power there were buildings such as listening posts, you could put on your border etc. Right now you can construct forts but it would be awesome to construct trenches, listening posts, and so forth. Make War more interesting, interactive, etc. War should also take affect on your nation and others as well. Neutral or not. War weariness, increase for unhappiness depending on the event leading to the war(s), Political pressures, slower trade, commerce, increased/decreased production depending on the situations. For example trading with a nation that is in a war could slow down or even stop completely if a trade route from said city is either captured, destroyed, severed, or even blocked. War always has an affect. Fighting or not.
- Flanking, right now it is only frontal or broad side. There should be -/+ % when attacking/attacked from flanks. Even units in the Civ games right now have a flanking move.
- Attrition, it was a known fact that in past wars disease killed more soldiers than actual combat. Armies when fighting in foreign territory(borders) should have increased % to suffer attrition. Stacks would also increase the rate, and attacking/sieging the city per certain # turn should also play be a factor. Of course techs such as Medicine, Refrigeration, could make this lower, even null and void when discovered. But attrition would/should play a factor in early game war(s).
- Supply lines would just add into the strategy/depth of the ultimate TBS experience that Civ games can and should be. Supply lines should affect everything whether it is Ground, Naval, or Air. Ground units could have supply lines from cities, ports, and even vassal/alliances cities. Limited supplies from forts. Naval from Ports, Cities. Air from airbases, cities. Also there should be live off the land option. In captured cities immediately after conquest those units could get limited supplies seeing how they are basically still fighting. Supply % should also scale depending on the pop of said cities and the improvements around said city. Combat could also suffer if out of area for supplies. Especially naval.
- Terrain should also affect fighting even more. Hills offer better defense. Calvary has less attack in swamps, and so forth.
Trade:
- Let us see the routes. Toggable.
- Right now only trade from colonies are visible this should also be a feature for ground from domestic, to foreign export/import. Trade routes, especially the lucrative ones, should also have an increased to be attacked from barbarians, agents etc. There should also be a limited % increase in gold, or whatever resources if they are guarded. Naval, and ground.
- Cities that are between trade routes should also be affected from such routes. More capital, happiness, unhappiness depending on the resource and so forth. If captured the trade route could/can be severed. For example a Trade route from New Orleans to St. Louis could be severed, or have lower value, output if Memphis was captured.
- Air trade routes should also be introduced is some form. But have no idea how they could be affected.
Misc. changes:
- Increased speed changes. For example at start of game time line per turn advances 50 years, then slows down approaching a certain year. This should be decreased. Allowing for more techs, wars, advances, and chances at certain victory conditions. Varying per game length selected. Custom games only.
- Difficulty whether or not on standard, and large maps should also have more civs for more adaptive gameplay and outcomes.
- At certain zoom/view levels clouds, weather etc. Should be seen. Just for cosmetic purposes. Toggable.
- Bug - Pressing F4 brings you to foreign adviser pane, right click a portrait takes you to that leader Diplomacy screen. If you press F4 and F4 again no matter what portrait you click you go back to the leader you talked to before.
*Updated
12-30-2008
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Are you any good at this game? I always liked it, but I have trouble beating the computer past chieftain difficulty. >.< This was also true for me with Civ III.
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I like 3 better, i don't know why, maybe i'm just attached to it, but i do have 4 too and i wish the diplomacy ai was better. I don't mind the graphics as much like the puffs of smoke, but you're right a yes or no answer to war seems dumb. I'm trying to beat both on monarch.
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I can currently beat the AI on Monarch but I play very conservatively and try to keep the same faith as most of the civs, and vary between guns & butter depending on the game and it's situation. But I still lose occasionally.
Updated peeves/changes.
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I loved Civ 2. Civ 3 was pretty good too. What are some of your opinions on 4 vs 3/2?
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United States47024 Posts
On December 29 2008 15:43 fanatacist wrote:
I loved Civ 2. Civ 3 was pretty good too. What are some of your opinions on 4 vs 3/2?
Civ 4 is about as good as 2, and better than 3.
3 introduced good concepts, but didn't refine them that well compared to 2. 4 refined those concepts and introduced some new ones of its own. Its definitely the best of the series IMO, so if you like the others, you should like Civ 4.
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On December 29 2008 15:44 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2008 15:43 fanatacist wrote:
I loved Civ 2. Civ 3 was pretty good too. What are some of your opinions on 4 vs 3/2? Civ 4 is about as good as 2, and better than 3. 3 introduced good concepts, but didn't refine them that well compared to 2. 4 refined those concepts and introduced some new ones of its own. Its definitely the best of the series IMO, so if you like the others, you should like Civ 4.
Cool [: Thanks.
Ever since Heroes of Might and Magic IV, I've been wary of sequels to good turn-based strategies of the 90's :p
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United States47024 Posts
On December 29 2008 15:00 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:So on a whim I decided to buy the Beyond the Sword expansion for Civ IV game by Firaxis. Awesome game but I swear why is it that it's cool one hand but on the other it lacks the obvious. For example: Diplomacy AI: - Needs a massive overhaul, and if I remember correctly it hasn't changed at all since the Civ series started. When a civ asks you to go to war it is either a yes or no answer. There should other factors, other ways of contributing to a war whether you are neutral or not. Like agreeing to help but covertly. Whether agreeing to supply weapons, food, resources, money. All this could be done via Spies, Privateers and so forth depending on the time line that the player is in.
- Another thing, in Beyond the Sword there are more Random Events. Like I stated above for instance, usually with nations that share the same faith there is an event that said "X nation has met with Y nation in order to discuss helping with their war effort." As well as "Mediator helps with X & Y nation in Peace Talks." all this a player should be able to do etc.
Agree with these, though some of these would be harder to program than others.
It would be nice when units fight there is more effects, like if Rifleman fought you could see puffs of smoke etc. The same with Cannons, and Ship of the lines when fighting other units whether naval units or whatever. As well as cities when fighting for, bombed etc. should also burn.
A graphical thing. Graphics has never been Civ's main focus, and keep in mind the game isn't that new. It certainly isn't enough to detract from the game, IMO.
War should also take affect on your nation and others as well. Neutral or not. War weariness, increase for unhappiness depending on the event leading to the war(s), Political pressures, slower trade, commerce, increased/decreased production depending on the situations. For example trading with a nation that is in a war could slow down or even stop completely if a trade route from said city is either captured, destroyed, severed, or even blocked. War always has an affect. Fighting or not.
Um, this DOES happen. Maintaining military units costs money. Losing roads cuts trade routes and resource access.
Attrition, it was a known fact that in past wars disease killed more soldiers than actual combat. Armies when fighting in foreign territory(borders) should have increased % to suffer attrition. Stacks would also increase the rate, and attacking/sieging the city per certain # turn should also play be a factor. Of course techs such as Medicine, Refrigeration, could make this lower, even null and void when discovered. But attrition would/should play a factor in early game war(s).
Supply lines would just add into the strategy/depth of the ultimate RTS experience that Civ games can and should be. Supply lines should affect everything whether it is Ground, Naval, or Air. Ground units could have supply lines from cities, ports, and even vassal/alliances cities. Limited supplies from forts. Naval from Ports, Cities. Air from airbases, cities. Also there should be live off the land option. In captured cities immediately after conquest those units could get limited supplies seeing how they are basically still fighting. Supply % should also scale depending on the pop of said cities and the improvements around said city. Combat could also suffer if out of area for supplies. Especially naval.
Fail, just fail. Civ isn't an RTS. It's not a wargame either, and was never meant to be. If you're playing Civ just for combat, you're going to be sorely disappointed(though there are plenty of mods that remedy that).
Terrain should also affect fighting. Hills offer better defense. Calvary has less attack in swamps, and so forth.
Did we play the same Civ 4? Because last I checked, terrain DOES give bonuses.
Right now only trade from colonies are visible this should also be a feature for ground from domestic, to foreign export/import. Trade routes, especially the lucrative ones, should also have an increased to be attacked from barbarians, agents etc. There should also be a limited % increase in gold, or whatever resources if they are guarded. Naval, and ground.
Cities that are between trade routes should also be affected from such routes. More capital, happiness, unhappiness depending on the resource and so forth. If captured the trade route could/can be severed. For example a Trade route from New Orleans to St. Louis could be severed, or have lower value, output if Memphis was captured.
This has to do with the way trade is implemented. Right now, trade routes just supply resources to all cities connected by roads to the resource. The game doesn't check WHERE the road goes through, but just that there's a road that connects the resource and the recipient city.
Air trade routes should also be introduced is some form.
They are. Build an airport and you get a trade route to that city.
Increased speed changes. For example at start of game time line per turn advances 50 years, then slows down approaching a certain year. This should be decreased. Allowing for more techs, wars, advances, and chances at certain victory conditions. Varying per game length selected.
Difficulty whether or not on standard, and large maps should also have more civs for more adaptive gameplay and outcomes.
At certain zoom/view levels clouds, weather etc. Should be seen. Just for cosmetic purposes. Toggable.
Again, are we playing the same Civ 4? You can set the game length, which determines the rate of time advance (the game always starts at 4000 BC and ends at 2050 AD, unless someone wins in between). Number of civs can be set independent of map size and difficulty. Clouds can be seen when you zoom out (though that might depend on graphics settings).
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United States47024 Posts
On December 29 2008 15:04 LeperKahn wrote:
Are you any good at this game? I always liked it, but I have trouble beating the computer past chieftain difficulty. >.< This was also true for me with Civ III.
Until Prince/Monarch difficulty, the game can be won fairly easily by chop-rushing axemen, and taking down your nearest neighbors. After that, you can sit back, slowly build cities, and fill in every square of your empire with improvements and you should win.
Prince and above, the same general idea can be used if you play Incans, just using Quechas instead of axemen (and conquering everyone instead of sitting back to the end).
The above actually sums up MY pet peeves about Civ 4. The lower difficulties are trivialized by axe rushing, and on the higher difficulties, Incans have a HUGE advantage over other civilizations due to their ability to rush to war from the get-go.
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Terrain does ahve an effect on fighting you know.. Attacking units on hills, attacking across a river or attacking a unit which has been "entrenched" for more than 5 turns all give nice bonuses to the defender.
My only really big pet peeve about civ4 has got to be the borders on the map... In civ3 you could see your country in a certain color on the minimap, just like in civ4, but you would also be able to see where your territory met with the water. In civ4 your entire country is just shown by its total territory with no regards for water or other map features. No countries look like that. Wtf. Every game your country looks the same: A bunch of boxes placed next to each other.
Also the whole leader aspect annoys me. I don't want to fight Caesar, I want to conquer ROME
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Um, this DOES happen. Maintaining military units costs money. Losing roads cuts trade routes and resource access.
Not military costs. Refugees, trading partners at war should also affect civs who are not at war didn't mean unit, buildings etc. My bad.
Fail, just fail. Civ isn't an RTS. It's not a wargame either, and was never meant to be. If you're playing Civ just for combat, you're going to be sorely disappointed(though there are plenty of mods that remedy that).
True it's a TBS.
Did we play the same Civ 4? Because last I checked, terrain DOES give bonuses.
Needs to affect more so.
They are. Build an airport and you get a trade route to that city.
Again let me see animation such as in CTP.
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my biggest pet peeve for Civ IV:
it doesn't work on my old P2 667 Mhz, 128MB SD-RAM, no sound card, integrated video computer.
I totally forgot I had it actually, gonna install it on my non-made-from-scrap-parts computer.
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Check out the Fall From Heaven mod. It's significantly more fun than the regular game, although it has a steep learning curve and the AI kinda sucks at it.
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United States47024 Posts
On December 29 2008 16:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Not military costs. Refugees, trading partners at war should also affect civs who are not at war didn't mean unit, buildings etc. My bad.
This I agree with.
On December 29 2008 16:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Needs to affect more so.
Eh, personal preference IMO. The combat model doesn't need to be exceedingly complex for a game that isn't focused on combat. Still, I can see it doing good for the game (for example, making the previously dreadful jungles squares somewhat useful, since they can act as a defensive barrier rather than fodder waiting for workers with nothing better to do to clear them).
On December 29 2008 16:17 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Again let me see animation such as in CTP.
Animation for air trade routes? When you don't have animations for land trade routes to begin with?
IMO trade routes are something that don't really need to be animated, since having a bunch of camels, planes, or trucks moving across your field of view while you're trying to move your units could get irritating.
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The one thing I always hated about Civ4 is that capturing an enemy city lowers the culture to 0. It makes it completely impossible to hold that city if there are any neutral parties with a city nearby, and even if there aren't, it will become completely ineffective unless you conquer any nearby remaining enemy cities. Not to mention it loses a ton of effectiveness for quite a while (although this is a bit realistic).
Yeah, you can wipe out a Civ, but it takes forever. I shouldn't have to culture bomb a city if I want to stop a war and not have a worthless city, especially when you're giving me increasingly large penalties for maintaining war.
I'm curious, what kind of settings do you use besides Monarch? What type of victory do you usually win? I haven't played much Beyond the Sword... I used to be able to beat the difficulty below Monarch (Noble? I forget), but with the expansions I had to go down a notch because the AI is an even bigger prick. Oh, and I guess I never had any idea what half the crap in BTS was. I didn't do much better in Warlords and I didn't feel overwhelmed there though.
Edit: Further pet peeves: My army is technically "the weakest" out there and every AI decides to declare war on me. Then they throw masses of archers or something stupid and almost beat me, but I somehow manage to hold out and slowly conquer them over a few hundred years. I swear this happened like every game. On the one hand it was strangely fulfilling, BUT WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PICK ON ME!?!? Even when I go to great pains to keep them friendly, they turn on me.
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United States47024 Posts
On December 29 2008 18:14 zer0das wrote:
The one thing I always hated about Civ4 is that capturing an enemy city lowers the culture to 0. It makes it completely impossible to hold that city if there are any neutral parties with a city nearby, and even if there aren't, it will become completely ineffective unless you conquer any nearby remaining enemy cities. Not to mention it loses a ton of effectiveness for quite a while (although this is a bit realistic).
Yeah, you can wipe out a Civ, but it takes forever. I shouldn't have to culture bomb a city if I want to stop a war and not have a worthless city, especially when you're giving me increasingly large penalties for maintaining war.
Keep damaged and obsolete troops in captured cities. Troops can quell insurrections and prevent cultural assimilation. The obsolete troops get used for something, and the damaged troops can recover health (make sure you keep at least 1 stack there of fresh troops though, in case the city actually gets attacked).
On December 29 2008 18:14 zer0das wrote:
I'm curious, what kind of settings do you use besides Monarch? What type of victory do you usually win? I haven't played much Beyond the Sword... I used to be able to beat the difficulty below Monarch (Noble? I forget), but with the expansions I had to go down a notch because the AI is an even bigger prick. Oh, and I guess I never had any idea what half the crap in BTS was. I didn't do much better in Warlords and I didn't feel overwhelmed there though.
A lot of people play on huge Pangaea for an easy win with Incans (since you can reach everybody, and huge means you can get lots of neighbors). IMO its actually harder to win on a map with continents, because it forces you to stay competitive on tech at least until you can get ships to cross the sea, rather than going all out war right away. I choose the map size and number of enemies based on how long I want the game to take (the game should rarely last the full length unless you turn it down extremely short, because even if the game's drawing to a close, you can fall back on UN/Apostolic Palace victory).
I don't usually "go for" a given victory (though I probably could get higher scores if I did). Generally, you can grab Conquest or Domination if you have a good start. Cultural victories usually happen by from almost-complete Conquest turned into a mad wonder-grab across your empire. Space victory I go for if I haven't been able to destroy everyone, but have crippled them enough that I have a huge science advantage. Apostolic Palace and UN are for when I've got no other option, or I feel like I've had a pretty lackluster game and want to finish and start again.
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On December 29 2008 18:14 zer0das wrote:
Edit: Further pet peeves: My army is technically "the weakest" out there and every AI decides to declare war on me. Then they throw masses of archers or something stupid and almost beat me, but I somehow manage to hold out and slowly conquer them over a few hundred years. I swear this happened like every game. On the one hand it was strangely fulfilling, BUT WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PICK ON ME!?!? Even when I go to great pains to keep them friendly, they turn on me.
it's because you have fewer troops, so even if your quality is high your overall military power rating is very low, so they view you as a weak target. If you build up more units they'll go after you less, and if you have a lot more than them you can bully them around. The AI in Civ 4 is actually pretty sophisticated, once you understand how it "thinks".
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by the way, would anyone here be up for a multiplayer game of Civ 4 BTS? It's pretty fun.
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On December 30 2008 03:48 Luddite wrote:Show nested quote +On December 29 2008 18:14 zer0das wrote:
Edit: Further pet peeves: My army is technically "the weakest" out there and every AI decides to declare war on me. Then they throw masses of archers or something stupid and almost beat me, but I somehow manage to hold out and slowly conquer them over a few hundred years. I swear this happened like every game. On the one hand it was strangely fulfilling, BUT WHY DO THEY ALWAYS PICK ON ME!?!? Even when I go to great pains to keep them friendly, they turn on me. it's because you have fewer troops, so even if your quality is high your overall military power rating is very low, so they view you as a weak target. If you build up more units they'll go after you less, and if you have a lot more than them you can bully them around. The AI in Civ 4 is actually pretty sophisticated, once you understand how it "thinks".
Yeah, but it's a bunch of garbage because the AI gets a massive production bonus that accumulates into hundreds of units over time. And my army is weak when compared to every single one of them combined.
I was more interested in {CC}StealthBlue answers to the questions. :d
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Pfft, don't listen to him, he's just a chobo monarch player. I can beat it on emperor  .
Anyway, that's like, the single most important thing to learn in the game, build lots of units. Numbers can defeat quality, almost every time. The AI production bonus isn't nearly as much in BTS as it was in vanilla, so you should be able to keep up. You don't need an army bigger than all of them, you just need one that's one of the biggest. Especially if your enemy is an aggressive AI like genghis khan, you need a big army or he'll always attack sooner or later.
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On December 30 2008 03:49 Luddite wrote:
by the way, would anyone here be up for a multiplayer game of Civ 4 BTS? It's pretty fun. If enough people are interested I'd be willing to play...although I think I'm probably severely outclassed since I can just barely beat the AI on noble.
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I'd play, but I have no idea what the crap half the stuff in Beyond the Sword does.
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United States47024 Posts
On December 30 2008 06:09 zer0das wrote:
Yeah, but it's a bunch of garbage because the AI gets a massive production bonus that accumulates into hundreds of units over time. And my army is weak when compared to every single one of them combined.
Which is why on higher difficulties, early warfare is almost a necessity. If you don't bump off 2+ neighbors (dependent on how big of a map you're playing on), the enemy outgrows you so much that you can't keep up. Once you've taken the land from your immediate neighbors, you should have enough land that, when it develops, you can keep pace.
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The trade routes could be toggable. That and if troops are near/los or on them a graphic could let you know etc.
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Added Proxy wars. Right now anything close is the sabotage feature in BtS. Nothing really achieved on my end except - diplomacy with affected nation(s). Proxy wars could be used with Barbarians etc. But this would require a barbarian city to be located etc. etc. Or some type of state or other source.
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United States47024 Posts
On December 31 2008 07:19 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Added Proxy wars. Right now anything close is the sabotage feature in BtS. Nothing really achieved on my end except - diplomacy with affected nation(s). Proxy wars could be used with Barbarians etc. But this would require a barbarian city to be located etc. etc. Or some type of state or other source.
Proxy wars are in the game. You can tell other people to attack your enemies, even if you aren't war with them. The problem is that in the current system, world diplomacy is completely transparent, so your common enemy usually ends up attacking you anyway.
IMO the transparency of diplomacy comes from a limitation of the AI. If the AI doesn't automatically know what deals you make, it has to have some means of finding out, and have different responses to different subsets of partial information, which is much more complicated to program.
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interesting.....thjis is still happening?
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EPT
