A little help getting back into the Civ franchise...

[trojanrabbit.gg]

Ok, Ill be honest, I have never played Civilization I-III, and haven't played Civilization IV for at least a couple of years. Latly I have been getting bored with my real time strategy games, due to the fact that they are all over far to quickly. An example would be Supreme Commander II. The game is fun, and cool at times, but just doesn't last very long. Each match is only about a half hour. This is why I wanted to get back into Civilization IV and its expansions. I bought the complete edition of Civilization IV back about 10 months ago for around twenty bucks at my local game stop, but then never got around to playing it. I remember when I had the original edition when it first came out, I played non stop all the time, it was really quite addictive, but that was back when I didn't play real time strategy games.

But back to my main post. My problem is that I believe that the real time strategy genre has brain washed me out of playing turn based strategy games :(. If that makes sense. Yesterday I installed Civilization IV the complete edition, and started up a medium sized game, with a moderate difficulty on, and started to play. About twenty minutes into the game, I found I was getting bored of it. The funny thing is, I remember this game being totally addictive and fun a few years back! So what happened?

I really want to get back into the turn based strategy genre and take a long break from the real time strategy games, but I need a little bit of help. Anyone have any tips on getting back into the genre? Perhaps I just forgot the fun of Civilization? Lost touch with the core game play mechanics? Any input would be greatly appreciated, because I would really like to get back into the turn based games before Civilization V comes around.

[Europhoria]

You can either bump up the difficulty to Monarch, or insert a few more civilisation to make things more challenging. I guess the big difference between the two genres is that you're using fighting pitched battles with the enemy within 10-20 minutes in RTS games. It could take 30-60 minutes in a TBS game before anything happens. I suffered from the same boredem as you and eventually got back into the swing of things after a few false starts.

[Tericc]

Civilization for some the love comes from the empire building. to pump out the best cites possible wile contending with the game elements. for others its the "omg! get off my lan.. YOu?!:eek:
you..you put your settler there? :o
Mine..
that was mine I tell you scum!"

If you love the chaos then play on noble difficulty and up. with lots of AI opponents. around the medieval age. world war usually breaks out then the tandem of "where should I build this farm for this here city?" turns into a holy war wile hoping your not the center of attention.
Also same thing during the modern age.. but a little more tactical ..if the nukes aren't flying. If so then it turns into a survival game

[Europhoria]

I've lost count of the number of times the AI has plonked down a city a turn before my settler arrives :mad:. Or worse still, they plonk a city right next to your cultural boarders so you now have strained relations with your neighbour(s). That's exactly how the last war (still going) started. I flipped one of their cities that was foolishly placed next to mine (and I demanded gold). It wasn't a smart move by the AI since the master and the vassal is stuck between myself with my two vassals (east and south) and another master plus vassal in the west who decided to take a share of the spoils. That is what keeps me playing Civ4, the brutal carnage.

[Bobsama]

I usually most-enjoy the Marathon games. 11 opponent on a Huge map and starting in Ancient times... first task is always to clear the continent. Depending on luck, that can be easy to tough to downright impossible. For example, I had a tough time clearing a continent with 3 other civs on it. I did, but it took a pair of flash wars and then a drawn-out war. The game following that (after loading Next War mod), I have a single opponent who's quickly dispatched (with a single warrior; I found them fast and killed them faster).

Then it's a game of empire-building; how many cities can my frail economy support? How can I manage at 0-20% research to get the techs I need to support the cities I'll need? Will I be behind other civs when I break off my continent? By the time I'm off my continent, I've usually settled 50-80% of it. The game changes quickly to play politics and religion. I was lucky and founded Judaism and later Taoism, giving me a slight edge. With a bit more luck, I was able to convert four civs to Judaism with a few settlers, and set the political stage for one-sided wars.

It became a game of command-and-conquer in addition to wonder-building and tech-spamming. I ended up eliminating Caesar (Rome; a tiny island nation without much of anything), then Peter (Russia; a medium-sized nation on the continent adjacent to Rome), followed by Saladin (Arabia; a major but low-tech civ on the far side of the world from Russia), and finally by Pacal II (Maya, a civ on the far end of Arabia's continent and with more wonders than population). Gearing up for my final war (against Greece AND Sumeria, just so my Domination win doesn't come early) and have stacked hundreds of Modern Armors, and am researching most very-late-game techs in <10 turns... on Marathon... with +4100 beakers, a >800g surplus, and 40% research. Not to mention universally extraordinary production (I founded Mining Inc and have made a point to capture any resources it uses; I started at +11 hammers and am now to +25 hammers).

I guess what I'm doing is a fairly boring method; I don't dabble in politics but rather select new buildings to make and spam the Enter button.

[Europhoria]

I love the religious card. They're excellent for starting up wars and forging alliances. Poor old Justinian was already angry with Pericles over a few border disupts. I thought I'd stir the pot by converting Justinian to Judaism and it didn't take long for Pericles, the founder of Buddhism to take offense. No land changed hands though.

Ragnar, the founder of Hinduism copped it pretty hard when everybody declared war on him except me who was still just spreading mischief by converting Darius to Christianity. Christianity was pretty popular spreading organically to Willem to my south west, and to Saladin to my north east (I think Darius to my east played a big part there). Willem was actually quite nice sending food twice when two cities risked famine and he, like Saladin became my vassals without me having to fire a shot (neither were at war either). I tried converting Suryavarman II to Judaism too, but he founded Taoism and foiled my plan to have a Jewish alliance strike at the Christians, mostly for me to absorb Darius's and Willem's territory.

I was lucky that the three civs that were annoyed/furious at me were either on the other side of the map (Charlemagne and Ragnar) while Justinian was preoccupied with with Pericles. Mansa Musa became a vassal of Hammurabi who never dipped below cautious with me. Favourable trade deals and help meant they never became aggressive towards me.

Suryavarman II would eventually subjucate Justinian and I even joined him in the war but never had the chance for any spoils :mad:. Didn't matter anyway, I culture popped my border cities to provoke both of them while building up an army of unassailable strength in my industrial heartland.

It worked. I flipped one of Justinian's citys' and pushed the Suryavarman II's borders back. It didn't take long for all hell to break lose. At first it was Suryavarman II and Justinian against myself (Bismarck), Saladin and Willem. With the war progressing well, Hammurabi and Mansa Musa decided they wanted a piece and pinched off two of Suryavarman II's cities :mad:. With a Panzer popping out every turn in my two top cities, and three others popping them out every 2 turns, the tide turned into a Tsunami.

[SunfighterLC]

Ok, Ill be honest, I have never played Civilization I-III, and haven't played Civilization IV for at least a couple of years. Latly I have been getting bored with my real time strategy games, due to the fact that they are all over far to quickly. An example would be Supreme Commander II. The game is fun, and cool at times, but just doesn't last very long. Each match is only about a half hour. This is why I wanted to get back into Civilization IV and its expansions. I bought the complete edition of Civilization IV back about 10 months ago for around twenty bucks at my local game stop, but then never got around to playing it. I remember when I had the original edition when it first came out, I played non stop all the time, it was really quite addictive, but that was back when I didn't play real time strategy games.

But back to my main post. My problem is that I believe that the real time strategy genre has brain washed me out of playing turn based strategy games :(. If that makes sense. Yesterday I installed Civilization IV the complete edition, and started up a medium sized game, with a moderate difficulty on, and started to play. About twenty minutes into the game, I found I was getting bored of it. The funny thing is, I remember this game being totally addictive and fun a few years back! So what happened?

I really want to get back into the turn based strategy genre and take a long break from the real time strategy games, but I need a little bit of help. Anyone have any tips on getting back into the genre? Perhaps I just forgot the fun of Civilization? Lost touch with the core game play mechanics? Any input would be greatly appreciated, because I would really like to get back into the turn based games before Civilization V comes around.

Youve caught the Wii Virus. You can only enjoy brainless stupid gameplay now. The only known cure is to stop playing those brainless activities (used to be called RTS games, then de-evolved to action games, and finally de-evoloved again into brainless activities) for a few weeks and play a game that requires actual electrical activity between brain cells.

[trojanrabbit.gg]

""Youve caught the Wii Virus. You can only enjoy brainless stupid gameplay now. The only known cure is to stop playing those brainless activities (used to be called RTS games, then de-evolved to action games, and finally de-evoloved again into brainless activities) for a few weeks and play a game that requires actual electrical activity between brain cells."" -quote-

Hehe, "wii virus" that is hilarious.:cool:

But the funny thing is, I can't "enjoy" brainless games anymore. They are boring, and to easy. Even on the hardest mode, RTS games are becoming dull for me. And since I made my original post a while back, I have been steadily getting back into the civ world. And you are right about the fact that I de-evolved to a lower level of brain activity. I now recall that after I originally stoped playing civ iv that I started playing RTS games. Which at the time, were quite brainless in content. The only RTS game I recall that ever made me think about what I was doing, and building, was the 3rd installment of warfcraft. But that was due to the heavy micro management that was in place. Now that I am thinking about it, I can remember what really made civ iv fun for me. It was amazing customization of military and resources that civ iv made you think about. A game like command and conquer has de-evolved to such a stoop, that it requires you to only collect one resource, tiberium. This is just ridiculous, and ludicrous. I was playing a small map in civ iv, and I found truffles! For the first time. I did not even know the game had that resource! And not to mention all of the other resources and the different eras that you will be using them. I found that I did not have a real need for mining at first, because I could not use it for a while. I found that the agriculture research and research of basic military was all I needed for the first twenty minutes of turn taking.

This sort of complex innovation is what made the game fun a long while back for me.

Thanks to all who helped me out here. I still have a LONG way to go to get back to a semi-professional level of gameplay. And the game does tend to still get a little dull at times. But I am finding more and more that I am returning to the game for a few minutes each day...:)

[Simon_Love]

Hi trojanrabbit.gg :D
the most exciting Civ 4 games I have played were multiplayer LAN games with friends (we had both human and computer players), with the game settings on "raging barbarians", and medium-length timed turns. I think we might have chosen "aggressive AI", too.... You can also make AI leader personalities random, to make them less predictable, or you can purposely choose the enemy leaders you prefer, such as aggressive or expansive ones. :D

Also, there are many scenarios that you can choose in Civ 4, such as the fantasy "RPG" type Civ 4 mod "Fall from Heaven", or Civ 4 games that start on Earth in 1000AD, with nations already built up quite a bit and ready for diplomacy and conflict (with more of the world already owned by other nations, there is also a race to take control of the last empty areas of land).... :D And with Beyond the Sword's "random events", things are more exciting.... ;)

If you can't play LAN multiplayer games, then maybe you can play multiplayer games over the internet? :D

Also, you might be interested in the Total War games, which are a sort of cross between Civ 4 and RTS games. ;)