So I just came home with Civilization IV Complete - I'm so excited I really loved II and III.
Thing is it just loaded 4 different games onto my system when it installed and I'm confused. I understand that Colonization is really a completely different game and needs to be loaded separately but what about original Civ IV vs. Warlords vs. Beyond the Sword?
From reading reviews of these games its unclear if Warlords and Beyond the Sword are fundamentally different games then basic Civ IV or if they are just expansions with extra units and more cool stuff.
If its just extra units and more cool stuff it would make sense to just play the latest of the three (Beyond the Sword) but if they are more like tweaks to the basic game to give one a different play experience then presumably I should Civ IV basic until I'm ready for a tweaked version.
I'm honestly stumped on which version to play!
Yep, Warlords and Beyond The Sword are just expansion packs. Really, unless you plan on playing multiplayer, just install Beyond The Sword.
Yep, Warlords and Beyond The Sword are just expansion packs. Really, unless you plan on playing multiplayer, just install Beyond The Sword.
Thank You.
I highly recommend the Fall from Heaven Mod http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398
Its Civ IV dark fantasy setting.
Its a big download 300megs or so, and another 300 for the media.
You will also need to patch to the latest version of beyond the sword
however this is Civ like you have never seen before.........
|
The easiest way to rack up points in the game is to work as hard as possible to be insanely aggressive at the very start of things. I think my best ranking was 3rd when I had conquered 3 of the 7 other civilizations in the first like 4 turns of the game.
I'm sure that's not very impressive to a lot of people, but it's the best I or my friends have ever managed to score.
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
Each of the three has something to add, but honestly for sheer versatility, I tend to use BTS
I've yet to get past Noble, but here's some of the lessons I learned:
Don't kill off everything on your starting continent before you have a chance to quickly resettle without going bankrupt. Really. Large empty spaces lead to barbarians (so-so.. they found citys in a nearly sensible manner) and lack of income from foreign trade (real dealbreaker)
Try hard for a holy city. Really. Found a religion or capture a holy city as soon as you can manage. Shrine income saved me time and again. Build all wealth enhancers in this city with absolute priority, and go on a missionary binge.
Settler rush = Dead civ. Maintainance will kill you before you can get any real payoff from the space you got under your thumb.
Try to keep research at 70+ - do not dip below that unless you really know what you are doing (going for cultural victory, for example). The AI is trying hard to get a tech lead this time around.
Diplomacy can make or break you this time around. In line with the more competent AI, really.
Go to war when you can win. No brainer, but I've time and again seen a juicy target, got my still-fledgeling military over there.. and didn't get past the defenders that would have been toast had I waited another 2-3 turns.
Use your ruler traits. Yep. Think about them occasionally. They may not be huge, but having them on the back of your mind might make a tough decision easier.
I highly recommend the Fall from Heaven Mod http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398
Its Civ IV dark fantasy setting.
Its a big download 300megs or so, and another 300 for the media.
You will also need to patch to the latest version of beyond the sword
however this is Civ like you have never seen before.........
There's a small FFH scenario that comes with one of the expansions (and thus would be in the pack the OP bought). I'd recommend playing that before downloading the whole mod. FFH is really well designed but not for everyone.
I highly recommend the Fall from Heaven Mod http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398
Its Civ IV dark fantasy setting.
Its a big download 300megs or so, and another 300 for the media.
You will also need to patch to the latest version of beyond the sword
however this is Civ like you have never seen before.........
Sounds cool but playing with fantasy Mods is not going to be something I'm likely to do until I've at least played with the main game for a while.
Each of the three has something to add, but honestly for sheer versatility, I tend to use BTS
I've yet to get past Noble, but here's some of the lessons I learned:
Don't kill off everything on your starting continent before you have a chance to quickly resettle without going bankrupt. Really. Large empty spaces lead to barbarians (so-so.. they found citys in a nearly sensible manner) and lack of income from foreign trade (real dealbreaker)
Try hard for a holy city. Really. Found a religion or capture a holy city as soon as you can manage. Shrine income saved me time and again. Build all wealth enhancers in this city with absolute priority, and go on a missionary binge.
Settler rush = Dead civ. Maintainance will kill you before you can get any real payoff from the space you got under your thumb.
Try to keep research at 70+ - do not dip below that unless you really know what you are doing (going for cultural victory, for example). The AI is trying hard to get a tech lead this time around.
Diplomacy can make or break you this time around. In line with the more competent AI, really.
Go to war when you can win. No brainer, but I've time and again seen a juicy target, got my still-fledgeling military over there.. and didn't get past the defenders that would have been toast had I waited another 2-3 turns.
Use your ruler traits. Yep. Think about them occasionally. They may not be huge, but having them on the back of your mind might make a tough decision easier.
Thanks for the tips - I've been searching high and low around the net for beginner strategy guides.
Do you (or any poster really) have any recommendations on which kinds of worlds are fun to play on? I'm interested because there were certian constraints in this regards in Civ III.
Essentially in Civ III if you where stuck on some small island it was game over right there. Also the AI could not handle islands or crossing water particularly well so it was not a very interesting game if lots of the AI players were either on other continents or stuck on little islands. I ended up playing Civ III on high water/low land mass on a huge young (rough terrain lots of interesting resources) pangea and then found that I had to actually start the seed and play the first turn, immediately concede the game so that I could look at the land mass and make sure that it really was mainly one big continent and that almost all the AI players were founding cities on the big land mass. If everything was in order (usually after seven or so tries but I once sat there and did this 36 times before finding a good seed) I'd hit 'play last world' and be off to the races. The problem with the AI was if to many were stuck offshore or on baby continents the game would be both too easy (I'd easily found to many cities early on due to lack of competition) and worse yet to boring (not enough neighbors to have interesting interactions - nor would they have interesting interactions with each other).
Thanks for the tips - I've been searching high and low around the net for beginner strategy guides.Do you (or any poster really) have any recommendations on which kinds of worlds are fun to play on? I'm interested because there were certian constraints in this regards in Civ III.
Essentially in Civ III if you where stuck on some small island it was game over right there. Also the AI could not handle islands or crossing water particularly well so it was not a very interesting game if lots of the AI...
I tended to use the pangaea and terra maps, but all of them are viable, IIRC. More islandy worlds are more of a challenge because you need to make sure you focus on building a navy and settling on new islands, but note that I say it's a challenge, not more frustrating. In other words, you have to think about your resource management and techbuilding more, but the AI will not screw you over. One of the most interesting games I played was actually on an archipelago map.
The only exception might be if you get started literally on a one-square island but I think generally that's unlikely.
Starting on a large or small land area, I find it's more important to pay attention to resources you are near. Those might screw you over more. If you discover you're not near any copper or iron, you may be in trouble (although it's not an impossible scenario either) because there's a load of units you won't be able to build (if I could afford to, I tried to research bronze working and horsemanship early so I could see where copper and horse resources were). Alternatively, if you're the ONLY person on a continent with a valuable resource, expect to get attacked a LOT because everyone will want that resource.
Well, I'm not good enough at the game to give you any actual advice, but I can link to the advice of other, better players.
Also, check out The Apolyton Civ Site for some good guides.
Civilization Fanatics is another good web site for strategy tips and mods. Link here.
My tip for new players is, map size dramatically changes what tactics you should use, small maps are good for Alexander style of play and huge maps are better for technology wins.
I love the game, my only gripe was I was never able to figure out how to culturally convert AI cities properly as they usually lost all their land, died from starvation and shrink to nothing before finally converting.
Some of that is inevitable no matter what you do, but generally the "culture bomb" tactic worked for me pretty well. Make a city that's focused on generating culture with buildings that increase the chances of producing a Great Artist.
Then send the Great Artist to the city closest to a border area where you can tell your culture is already overtaking the region and there's an enemy city sitting on your border (IIRC if you check the enemy city's stats, it'll tell you how strong their own culture is--it should probably be at least 50/50, or already in your favor toward your culture), then spend the Great Artist in his ability to massively expand culture generation. Borders will expand instantly, and usually overtaking the nearby city in a couple turns.
Things like having the same religion and other things help. Sometimes the AI will manage to build a strong enough "counter culture" within a city that it won't work--you have to pay attention to that. I never tried this, but with the Beyond the Sword expansion, maybe use Spies to sabotage culture-generating buildings in the enemy town?
|
|
I love the game, my only gripe was I was never able to figure out how to culturally convert AI cities properly as they usually lost all their land, died from starvation and shrink to nothing before finally converting.Some of that is inevitable no matter what you do, but generally the "culture bomb" tactic worked for me pretty well. Make a city that's focused on generating culture with buildings that increase the chances of producing a Great Artist.
Then send the Great Artist to the city closest to a border area where you can tell your culture is already overtaking the region and there's an enemy city sitting on your border (IIRC if you check the enemy city's stats, it'll tell you how strong their own culture is--it should probably be at least 50/50, or already in your favor toward your culture), then spend the Great Artist in his ability to massively expand culture generation. Borders will expand instantly, and usually overtaking the nearby city in a couple turns.
Things like having the same religion and other things help. Sometimes the AI will manage to build a strong enough "counter culture" within a city that it won't work--you have to pay attention to that. I never tried this, but with the Beyond the Sword expansion, maybe use Spies to sabotage culture-generating buildings in the enemy town?
Thanks, I forget the setting I usually play at but I imagine it's high enough that the "counter-culture" must be negating my efforts most times.
|
Its been awhile since I played just BtS, I have been having fun with Fall From Heaven's modmod Fall Further lately, it has lizardmen!
If I remember correctly the spy unit has the ability to cause a revolt if that would help you take over culturally.
Oh, Warlords had some interesting senarios before I got BtS and started playing with the spy unit, they might be worth checking out.
Hmmnnn... I never really played Civ IV, despite owning it. I may have to go through a few games.