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Raserys posted:Almost as if it does... Just because HoMM III is one of the most perfect games ever made doesn't mean the concepts introduced in IV or V turn them into bad games.
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Dec 8, 2017 00:56
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Prav posted:i can't for the life of me get good value out of PHI. like i get the idea behind it but it's just not my thing and it calls for a different approach than i have. The reason I rate Pericles so highly is because my preferred games of civ 4 are marathons on huge maps. I aim for 10-12 cities by 1 AD and pretty much have to run on 10% or even 0 science with a deficit. With Pericles, every city can have a library with 2 scientists to get me to currency, which is when my economy stabilizes and start growing again. If I have stone I'll try to chop the pyramids for that sweet, sweet representation, +3 beakers on all scientists is amazing.
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Dec 8, 2017 01:34
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 How long has it been since I made this? I certainly wasn't expecting to see it here.
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Dec 8, 2017 16:53
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Hogama posted:
dude SPI. explain yourself.
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Dec 8, 2017 17:09
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Not too much to explain. It was either a Civ thread or a 4x thread but in either case I was just deliberately riling the discourse by mixing up the traits, and people seem to take images more seriously. It's also TOO obvious to just put things in total opposite order. "Saladin tier" is just because that's his traits (after the expansions, anyway).
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Dec 8, 2017 17:18
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Fintilgin posted:I always liked creative because it's nice to get that early culture without having to worry about monuments or whatever. Creative is straight up one of the strongest traits in the game, next to Financial and Expansive.
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Dec 8, 2017 17:27
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Prav posted:i can't for the life of me get good value out of PHI. like i get the idea behind it but it's just not my thing and it calls for a different approach than i have. The value in Phi is all about getting your great people sooner, so you can so sneaky bulbs. Example would be grabbing Pyramids/Hanging Gardens so you can pop a great Engineer. Sling MC with Oracle and then bulb Machinery with the GE for early Chu Ko Nus. There's also the Civil Service sling that you can grab by not researching Masonry and bulbing with (I think) a Great Prophet. Earlier academy, earlier GA, etc. Basically you're getting the same number of great persons, but you get them all 20 turns sooner. Also cheap universities save a ton of hammers.
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Dec 8, 2017 17:36
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The best part about PHI imo is getting quick Writing, assigning two scientist specialists and getting an academy in your capital in the early BC years. Then you switch to Bureaucracy as soon as you can and have a mega-capital. Having your first Great Person out that much sooner starts the snowball running early and hard. It's like Babylon in Civ V in a way, feels like cheating if you do it right. But yeah, proper use of GPs for bulbs will help you get value out of PHI all game long. Unrelated but looking at the tech tree from IV to double-check my info makes me remember how much I miss "or" branches in the tech tree. In IV you needed Priesthood OR Animal Husbandry OR Pottery as a prereq for Writing, which I always thought was kinda neat because it meant you could take different paths through the tech tree much more easily. Borsche69 posted:The value in Phi is all about getting your great people sooner, so you can so sneaky bulbs. Example would be grabbing Pyramids/Hanging Gardens so you can pop a great Engineer. Sling MC with Oracle and then bulb Machinery with the GE for early Chu Ko Nus. There's also the Civil Service sling that you can grab by not researching Masonry and bulbing with (I think) a Great Prophet. The Civil Service slingshot was hard to pull off but would easily win the game if played right. However, I believe they patched out being able to do it with a Great Prophet, a Great Prophet now bulbs Masonry if you don't have it (which is to say it's now a higher priority than Civil Service), and will prioritize a lot of low-level religious stuff before Civil Service. I think you pretty much need the Oracle to do it right nowadays. Magil Zeal fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 17:57
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Yea. One of the reasons I like Elizabeth is because I can do the early GP Slingshots then around when my Cavalry/Red Coats come online, if I'm not quite able to pull a domination victory off I can easily transition into a Cottage Economy to really crank the late game science. Though tbqh, if you play the early GP game properly (and you start with some floodplains), you will have 20ish turns of Maces vs Archers, and several more turns of Red Coats and Cavalry vs Longbows which should win you the game anyway. Also even if you are doing a GP economy, financial still get's value for any luxury resources, ocean tiles (with light house), and windmill plots. ate shit on live tv fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 21:26
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Glidergun posted:FIN top and PRO bottom are definitely right, but just about everything else on that list is wildly out of place. The people at Realms Beyond have been playing Civ IV multiplayer for over a decade; a representative point-buy selection method used the values: For the people who haven't played a ton of Civ 4 I'll explain how this goes, effortpost incoming. Fin = Financial - EVERY tile under your control that generates at least 2 gold generates an extra gold. I can't emphasize how big this is. You research faster, you can support more cities at literally any point of the game, you can support more units militarily, you can get more money to rush buy stuff later on. It's like everyone starts by rolling a snowball down a mountain but you get to start with a loving glue covered baseball or something. EXP = Expansive: +2 Health in every city, 25% increased Worker Production, double production of Granary and Harbour 2 Health per city is useful late game but not so much early on. However, you can build workers 25% faster (it's actually less because Workers are foodhammer but don't worry about that), and since you ALWAYS want Workers, getting them out earlier is great because it lets you improve cities faster and get more chops done and so on. If Expansive was just that, it'd be great, but...it also lets you build Granaries and Harbors twice as fast. Granaries basically let your cities grow way faster (when a city fills up the food bar and grows, it starts at the new size with 50% of the food bar filled up), which lets you work more tiles and make more poo poo. So once again, your snowball is just...improved. The Harbour bonus is just a neat bonus. L CRE = Creative: +2 Culture per turn in every city, double production of Libraries, Theaters and Colosseums. This one is a bit trickier to explain, but in Civ 4, when you put down a city, you can only work 9 tiles initially, after you get 10 culture (basically an extra city resource, like food or hammers, but it can't go down) in your city, your borders expand and you can work the full 21 tiles. So, if you put down a city and you're Creative, your borders expand in 5 turns. Now you're probably thinking "So what?". The catch here is that the only ways to get Culture early game are to found a religion or have it spread to you and convert to it (Religions in this game are a tech first bonus, so founding one is really loving hard and risky) or building a Monument (you're spending 30 hammers on this) and both of these only give you ONE culture per turn. So even with your investment you're behind on the guy who just puts down a city. Once again, it's the snowball effect, you can get your borders bigger which lets you push around other civs and work more power tiles and even box them in, it's loving crazy. Libraries are also a great building because they give you Science and let you assign Scientist specialists to help you get over your initial expansion slump as well as getting Great Scientists out to research faster. Theaters and Colosseums are just neat. India: Unique Building - Mausoleum. Unique Unit - Fast Worker. This is MORE for unrestricted leaders/civs, though neither of India's leaders are bad at all (Asoka is Org/Spi and Gandhi is Phi/Spi). India's unique building is the Mausoleum, their replacement for the Jail, a mid to lategame building that gives espionage and reduces war weariness (unhappiness from fighting in wars). The Indian version gives 2 happy faces. This is okay, but this is not the reason why people pick India. The Fast Worker is a Worker replacement, but instead of moving 2 tiles a turn, it can move 3, that's literally it. However, this is loving huge. Fast Workers can move onto an adjacent hill and instantly Mine, they can move into a Forest and instantly chop, they can move 2 tiles away and slam down an improvement, with roads online, they can move 6 tiles a turn. Once again, you're getting improvements done faster, you're chopping faster, it's the snowball again. Inca: Unique Unit - Quechua. Unique Building - Terrace This one is even weirder. The Incan unique unit is the Quechua, a Warrior replacement that has double strength against Archers and starts with Combat 1. Borsche or someone else can talk about Quechua rushing but it's not the type of thing I'm ultra interested in, it's still decent though, but this isn't the reason why people pick Inca. The Terrace is a Granary replacement (you know, that building you want in LITERALLY EVERY CITY), that also gives 2 culture per turn. This is not a typo. The Terrace is literally the Granary with the best part of Creative stapled onto it. I'm not even going to explain why it's so good, you literally get a trait for free. SPI - Spiritual: No Anarchy between Civic Changes. Double production speed of Temple I love this trait (Hatshepshut and Isabella are actually my fave leaders in the games because I have insane brain damage), but what this trait basically does is... Whenever you want to change a civic (one of your five...government options) from one to another, or convert to a new religion, you have to go through a turn of Anarchy, where all you can do is move units. Spiritual doesn't get this turn of Anarchy, they can just swap civics for free. Now this is okay if you just play the game normally, you'll get around 5ish extra turns or so that the other players don't get, which is fine. But where Spiritual really shines is the fact you can just swap Civics whenever the gently caress you want. You can go into your normal civics (let's say Slavery and nothing else), then you whip out a bunch of Settlers, once your Settlers found the cities, you switch into Caste to use a specialist to pop the borders quickly. You can then go back to Slavery 5 turns after and then wait 5 turns, you then whip a bunch of units out, however, before rolling over the turn, you switch into Theocracy and Vassalage, all your units now come out with 4 more experience. So on and so forth, you basically have to play really smart and map out EVERYTHING with Spiritual. The temple bonus is...let's just say it's neat. IND - Industrious: Double production speed of Forges, 50% Wonder production Forges are a good, albeit expensive building that gives a city more production. You want them in every city that makes poo poo (so in pretty much every city). The wonder production bonus is interesting. I don't really have to explain WHY it's good, but the issue with this trait can basically be summed up with that Syndrome line from the Incredibles. If everyone is IND, then no one is. If just one player has IND, then they have pretty much carte blanche on building wonders assuming everything else is equal. If two players are IND, then the two of them do, if three are...you get the point. Then if almost everyone is IND, you might as well just NOT pick IND and snowball with loving FIN/CRE and kill the other players who built wonders and take them. ORG - Organized: -50% Civic Upkeep, Double production of Lighthouse, Factory and Courthouse There's three things you spend money on in Civ 4 before you're able to convert your commerce into Science/Culture/Espionage: City Maintenance, Civic Maintenance and Army Upkeep. Organized cuts the price of one of these in half, which allows you to found more cities before you get into the lovely zone of having to kill your expansion before Currency. However, Currency is only one part of getting your economy back on track, the other part is Code of Laws, which lets you Courthouses, which cut your city maintenance in half. Organized can build them quicker, and since you want them in every city, it's good. Basically, this trait functions like Financial's little brother. FIN just gives you more money, ORG takes less money away with you, and they actually go together in an ultra hosed up way. Lighthouses are something you want in every coastal city due to the fact they give every water tile an extra food, which turns them food neutral at worst, and really good in all other conditions. Factories are a late game building that you also want in every city. Basically this trait is the definition of 'solid' IMP - Imperialistic: +100% Great General Emergence, 50% production on Settlers Imperalistic is straightforward, but...weird. You always want to get Settlers out faster because you always want more cities, but, sorta like Expansive, Settlers are foodhammer units, so only a certain amount of your production will be boosted by the trait. Great Generals are a 'new' type of Great Person that were added in Warlords, they show up when you get X experience by killing units and you can do a few things with them. You can merge them in a city as a military instructor, which makes all units made there come out with an extra 2 experience (this is good), they can also merge with a unit, giving them a ton of exp and unique promotions, the most common of which are Medic 3 and Woodsman 3, which gives you a unit that basically heals everything in its stack for a fuckload (this is great), and in late game, they can be consumed to build a military academy, which makes units produce there get made 50% faster (this is also great). Imperialistic lets you get more of these since you just have to get X/2 experience to get one out. The problem with IMP though is that it doesn't give you any building bonuses or boost your cities in any meaningful way, so your main strat is to REX, try not to self-destruct, and then go to war...and then self destruct anyway because you took a bunch of cities. PHI - Philosophical: Double GPP generation rate. Double Production speed of University This one also needs some explanation. But specialists and Wonders generate Great People Points (GPP) of a certain type, the specialists generate ones related to their type (so Scientists generate Scientist points, Artists Artist points etc). When you get X points in a city, you get a great person, X then doubles and the process sorta starts over again. Great People let you discover techs, merge with a city to give them more science, food, commerce etc, trigger a golden age for increased production, gold and GPP generation, as well as a certain bonus for that great person (Scientists can build something for extra science in a city, prophets can build a shrine that gives culture and money, artists can just generate a ton of culture in a city, engineers can just finish a building (including wonders) and merchants can just go to another city and give you several thousand gold). Basically you get more of these guys in the game, which lets you pull weird poo poo like getting key techs faster, getting a wonder out quicker etc. However, it doesn't do much else compared to the other traits. The double production university is neat, it gives you more science and lets you get Oxford University built, a National wonder that generates a ton of science in a city. Agriculture: This is a tech that lets you build Farms and improve Corn, Rice and Wheat. Several civs start with it. Food is king in Civ, the first thing you do in a game is improve your food tiles with your workers. Agriculture lets you improve half of the food resources in the game. Animal Husbandry lets you improve the other half. You need Agriculture to research Animal Husbandry. I'm sure you understand. CHM - Charismatic: +1 Happiness in every city, +1 Happiness from Monuments and Broadcast Towers. Units require 25% less exp to level up. We're getting to the not very good traits now. 1 Happiness is literally starting next to a luxury resource. Monuments are something you generally don't want to build anyway, Broadcast towers are a late game building that gives a ton of culture. The only really useful part of this trait is the discounted exp since it lets you pull some weird poo poo with level 5 units. Compare this to the earlier traits and you'll get what I mean. AGG - Aggressive: All melee and gunpowder units start with Combat 1, Double production of Barracks, Stable and Drydock. Aggressive is good if you want to go to war. However it offers absolutely no advantages in getting your empire in a good state to go to war. The free promotion and the faster bonuses to buildings that give your units more starting exp is good though, there's just no economic bonuses, which is what makes this trait not that good. PRO - Protective: Archery and Gunpowder units start with Drill 1 and City Garrison 1, Double production of Walls and Castles. This is a trait that just makes it more annoying for people to kill you, that's all it does. The bonus from building Walls is pretty much the same defense bonus you'd get from Creative culture (did I mention that increased culture in a city boosts its defense). The only useful part of this trait is some hosed up Crossbow rush you can do with Sitting Bull of China and the fact Castles give a trade route. It's legitimately the worst trait in the game. Chucat fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 22:10
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Cho-ko-nu's are fun. It's too bad crossbows occupy that weird niche where the only reason you build them is because you don't have Maces/Longbows yet and they can't get City Raider. I guess if you are trying the cho-ko-nu rush you just promote them down the combat line, and give them either shock or cover depending on what the enemy has (probably mostly cover is what you want). Either way, they come right at that point in time where you shouldn't be going to war anymore.
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Dec 8, 2017 22:32
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It should be noted that Food is (arguably) even more king in IV than in other iterations because of Slavery. Could go into a long post about how Slavery is broken and radically changes the game, but the short version is that you can convert Food into Production at a good rate once you get the hang of it, and there's a rhythm you can establish where you can produce things and research very efficiently via 2-pop whipping over and over, taking advantage of the fact that your growth is limited by happiness in the early game anyway so you might as well grow, whip off pops and then regrow over and over (and over). And the Granary? Super important for this, another reason why it's a must-have and Inca is an amazing Civ in IV.
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Dec 8, 2017 22:54
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Slavery in Civ4 is a great early game mechanic, and I really appreciate how it diminishes in value fairly quickly around the renaissance era.
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Dec 8, 2017 23:11
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Chucat posted:*everything i was confused about Civ 4, and probably never properly learned when I played Civ 4 as a kid.* Holy poo poo, thank you!
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Dec 8, 2017 23:39
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Chucat posted:A very good post e: also Imperialistic (+50% settler production, +100% great general rate) Paul.Power fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 23:50
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Paul.Power posted:Just to let you know, you missed Organised (halved civic upkeep, double production of lighthouse, courthouse, factory - pretty nice for the buildings with double production alone). Yeah I was doing other stuff while I was doing this, I'll go back and add them.
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Dec 9, 2017 02:05
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The only civ tradition that matters is having OP Incas. Since I re-installed Civ5, how about a Civ5 goon game?  Any takers?
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Dec 9, 2017 03:33
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Chucat posted:The Fast Worker is a Worker replacement, but instead of moving 2 tiles a turn, it can move 3, that's literally it. However, this is loving huge. Fast Workers can move onto an adjacent hill and instantly Mine, they can move into a Forest and instantly chop, they can move 2 tiles away and slam down an improvement, with roads online, they can move 6 tiles a turn. Once again, you're getting improvements done faster, you're chopping faster, it's the snowball again. This is why I maintain that Master Control is maybe the most powerful wonder in the game in Beyond Earth. It upgrades your workers with +1 movement up to 3. poo poo gets bananas if you then luck out and get the artifact boon that's +2 movement to workers. Yes, it stacks with Master Control so you can have 5 movement workers.
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Dec 9, 2017 03:36
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turboraton posted:The only civ tradition that matters is having OP Incas. Since I re-installed Civ5, how about a Civ5 goon game? Yeah I would be up for this. I've been really getting back into Civ5 recently. Wait, are we talking hotseat or live? Live would be harder to fit into my schedule but it's doable. As for hotseat it looks like http://multiplayerrobot.com/ is still going so we should be good there
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Dec 9, 2017 10:51
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The most fun slingshot I did once, just to see if I could, was an Oracle-Great Scientist bulb to Education in ~1400 BC. Turns out pre-AD universities do gently caress all to help you snowball.
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Dec 9, 2017 11:04
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Spitballing this because why not: Interest check on LP of Civ 4 where I and the other people here who know a ton about Civ 4 just explain as much stuff about the game as humanly possible. (Let's Learn as opposed to a narrative thing or whatever the gently caress). Comedy option, Succession game.
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Dec 9, 2017 16:11
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Chucat posted:Spitballing this because why not: Interested.
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Dec 9, 2017 16:14
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Chucat posted:Spitballing this because why not: I've been waiting for a good informative LP of civ4 for years.
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Dec 9, 2017 16:31
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Chucat posted:Spitballing this because why not: Yeah. I can win on monarch readily enough, but I mostly just throw down cottages and generalist cities. When I read about high level play I realize how much I actually suck at the game. 
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Dec 9, 2017 16:35
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I'd read it
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Dec 9, 2017 16:38
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With an AI mod like "Better BAT AI" I find Civ 4 challenging on Prince. I only dip into it every so often though.
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Dec 9, 2017 16:49
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I’d read that thread so hard, I love systems + meta analysis.
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Dec 9, 2017 18:48
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Chucat posted:Spitballing this because why not: Interested. Civ 4 is one of those games that I really like to see others report on, but I'm not terribly good at it myself. I get way too stressed out thinking about the smaller details.
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Dec 9, 2017 18:59
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Chucat posted:Spitballing this because why not: Yeah, let me go reinstall Civ 4 now.
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Dec 9, 2017 19:21
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Also interested.
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Dec 9, 2017 20:15
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my favorite part about small continents on civ 5 is that you get to see the tiny ways the AI cheats. when you go to war, they'll teleport units near your borders. i just found an aztec trireme by my cities during a classical era war, but our continents are separated by at least ten ocean tiles  why are we at war? well, i noticed he had a bunch of ethiopian cities, but ethiopia was nowhere to be seen, and i wanted a permanent voting ally Fur20 fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 9, 2017 20:44
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Chucat posted:Spitballing this because why not: voting comedy option
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Dec 9, 2017 22:48
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I realized that I never got around to playing Civ 4 in any real capacity for some reason or another, so I checked on Steam and the complete edition with all the dlc is only $7.50 until Dec 15th.
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Dec 9, 2017 23:09
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If possible getting it from GOG makes your life easier for modding
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Dec 10, 2017 00:58
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Wilhelmina of the Netherlands announced according to well of souls!
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Dec 10, 2017 04:56
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Eric the Mauve posted:If possible getting it from GOG makes your life easier for modding I checked there, it's 30 bucks for everything.
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Dec 10, 2017 04:56
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Polders on coastal tiles. Very nice!
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Dec 10, 2017 10:02
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Since people are considering Civ4 LPs and what-have-you, is there any interest in a Civ4 multiplayer game? (either hotseat or live?)
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Dec 10, 2017 10:28
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turboraton posted:Wilhelmina of the Netherlands announced according to well of souls! they showed her on a gossip program of all places. they got quite a bit wrong, like the release date and they thought it was a console game, but thats to be expected  her ability is radio orange after the resistance radio she operated in london and here's the polders  personally im glad to finally get a leader that isn't william of orange but shes a bit ... too fat and orange for me. the umbrella is weird too, not exactly something she was known for (although one PM did always bring an umbrella when meeting with her to hide from her attacks)
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Dec 10, 2017 15:00
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| # ? May 14, 2024 18:31 |
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:Since people are considering Civ4 LPs and what-have-you, is there any interest in a Civ4 multiplayer game? (either hotseat or live?) I had a blast playing Civ4 Multiplayer back in university. SIgn me up for live if possible, and timing works out.
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Dec 10, 2017 15:51
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