This is topic Just tried Civ 4, my first civ game in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Gecko (Member # 8160) on :
 
A little daunting at first, but wow, addictive. A single game took me six hours. It felt like a minute. I'm really enjoying it.

I saw an video interview with OSC, he said he likes civ, but prefers 3. I havn't tried 3, but might. Anyway, what civ do you like OSC? I perfer French.

Btw, could you tell me what aspects of civ 3 are better than 4, so that I may consider buying it also?
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
I don't think he's tried Civ4, infact I'm pretty sure he's mentioned he found Civ3 a disapointment but liked Civ2 for the modible attributes and went for culturedemocratic win.

And ya, I so want the honour of playing with/against him, as for myself interestingly enough the game is so well balanced yes if you want to you can be aggresive but said aggresiveness is limited and may effect relations with other players.

A prepared AI will mostly have a large army, with alot of obselete units as well, but they upgrade, ooooohhhhh they upgrade, I watched a stack of musketeers to my horror become infantry one day *cries*.

I've found a slow but surefire way of winning a war against the ai as long as you have about 8 turns of preparation, however no way would they work against a human player, my strat is usally to take large stacks of artilly to within 1-2 turns reduce defences to 0 then attack with +50-75% city attack arties.

However a human would use his own arty to good effect by damaging my whole stack and prevent me from mounting succesful attacks, a solution would be to disperse my troops and would allow me to easier besiege a city.

However isolated units can be overwhelmed easier and leaves me in more predictiments.

While the pacing allows wars to be fought between 2 moderately similarily equiped armies but the overal result however is to fight a prolonged war taking only a few cities slows down development, it isn't noticible at first but over time you see yourself falling behind as your unable to divert war productiont to culture/economic production which leaves you in a poor position.

And finally even if you WIN the war and completely wipe put the enemy off of the face of the earth (not recomended), you'll be behind with only a small but well trained military because of the nature of attrition leaving you overal weaker until you can recover.

Short wars to sieze a border city is preferred, since it disrupts your economy the least, allows a quick gain and if the enemy assents to it allows you to quickly go back to economic development.

Long wars I'lll restate while leaving you with more resources generally will leave you at the mercy of powers who quietly build up a military, with alot more border to defend and alot less in means to defend it.

Also modern war is pretty well balanced, only big nations like in real life can fight z war to its fullest extent utilizing all the tools needed, small nations can't cpmpete militarily but their votes with the UN can make the difference and their importance as allies can't be underrated due to their capacity as a buffer zone and allowing you to fight better elsewhere wiht only a token force to beef up their defences.

I'ld say that a modern war would require a peace time standing army of (between two moderatly sized powers):

-10-20 bombers
-1-2 fighters per city
-5-30 Armoured divisions
-10-20 mechonized divisons
-15-40 infantry divisions

Navy:

3-6 carriers with a full assortment of bombers/fighters

6-10 destoryers
5 battleships
~submarines

That is what I consider to be the force nessasarily between 2 modern and moderatly sized empires to fight the war to the best of their abilities, though the actualy size will probably be about a quarter of what theotetically is needed to fight the war to the best of the nations ability (damn politicians).

Nukes:

Havent gotten there yet, but what I want to do is build 10-20 submarines and about 50 nukes in them and act as boomers, THEY'LL BE MY DETERRENT **TCH! Muahahaha.

Think about it, as long as I can field a sufficient force of subs with nukes the enemy can never wipe out my ability to respond inkind thus MAD is assured.

Though the funny thing is in the games I have so far, its an unwritten agreement that the first person to get nukes is the first person to BE nuked and/or attacked, essentially both me and Dan being the big boys are afraid of any small tough guys (cough Peter) from getting nukes and unpredictably using them on us.

Oh the irony...
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
Generally my peace time budget will be about 1/5-1/4 of what I think my country (if medium-big) should have due to the need to build schools for orphans and what not.
 

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Posted by Gosu (Member # 5783) on :
 
So let's say you don't want to fight a war of attrition. What do you do?
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
To fight a war quickly, as stated above build a large army of tanks and bombers and blitz him, the planes reduce the citis def to 0 immediatly and the tanks get the lovely job massacreing the defenders, with infantry following behind to consolodate the advance.

Another good thing to do is to build a large fleet of anphib craft with carrier support and try to take a few rear echelon cities to A) sidetrack the enemy, and B) [insert circumstance driven adjective here].

This tactic would shorten the war considerably by about 2/3's for as long as a few things apply:

-You catch your enemy offguard by attacking him in a hopefully wide open front with a dispersed defending army.
-By attackign with overwhelming numbers at a few key cities and with the bombers anniliate his decneces even before your tanks reach his cities.
-That you keep pushing your enemy into a corners, and by keeping the war moving and mobile prevent him from moving and being mobile.
-Once the war begins for as long as your enemy is a weak nation you'll undoubtably wipe out his main forces within the first 2-5 turns of the advance, however if its similar size to you, you'll be virtually counting down until he recovers and uses similar tacts against you, utilize your bombers to make long range attacks on his supply lines, strategic resources, and finally on roving army stacks to weaken and incapacity or at the vert least slow down his recovery.

For if you can make it so that his recovery and subsequent counter attack takes 10-15 turns instead of say 4-6 the probability of success sky rockets as your forces with each turn of occupation of his land increases your preparations to consolidate your holdings.

Now if your war is so lightning fast and so successful that inspite of being a major power you cripple him and subsequntly prevent him from offering a challnege with either his beaten standing army or his subsequently drafted reserves its possibly you may not even have to face him in a position of recovery.

This ends any possibility of it being a war of attrition... unless you screw up (btw even if circumstances were completely going to plan and he somehow manages a lucky counter attack then it counts as you screwing up) inwhich case it will become a war of attrition under the pretense of making build-up offencives.

For you see if you lose the initiative then it becomes a matter of you rebuilding your depleted stregnth and healing your exhausted forces, then offencives from there become a matter of timeing and intelliegence gathering.

And the longer this war draggs on the more liekly it'll spread and escalate, fighting a war against an opponant who is your equal is one thing, if you capture 25-75% of his land you have the advantage, but if it becomes a matter of fighting a two front war it'll take exception brilliance on your part and your opponants making constant mistakes for you to win.

Since in Case A where its just one enemy, he'll probly be afraid to send out his navy until he's desparate and then its too late, (unless by ill-luck he's viligent enough with his territorial waters to give you a fight for it right away) but add in 1-2 more navies even if they're only 1/2 to 1/3 your navy he'll send out his navy and it'll become a matter of naval attrition, forcing you to make more and more strategic decisions and forcing you to reconsider how much your willing to sacrifice to win the war.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
hmm... lightning war... what shall we call it?
 

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Posted by tmservo (Member # 8552) on :
 
Civ4 is strongly geared to reward those who make compromise, treaty and peace work. I've played it relentlessly in numerous different strategies, and it is both easier, and more rewarding in points, to win via the diplomatic means if you play it right
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
That too, sometimes if the war will only enivitably end with your annaliation, you can make a peace even if you lose only a single city if the enemy is pressured enough.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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I've played it relentlessly in numerous different strategies, and it is both easier, and more rewarding in points, to win via the diplomatic means if you play it right.

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Originally posted by tmservo:
Civ4 is strongly geared to reward those who make compromise, treaty and peace work. I've played it relentlessly in numerous different strategies, and it is both easier, and more rewarding in points, to win via the diplomatic means if you play it right

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My hubby likes to play it as war games and annihilates the rest of the world, and my diplomatic game approach usually gets higher scores compared to him.

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Scoring strongly rewards peaceful victory, given the way scoring is calculated. For this reason, if you're on the verge of a military victory, you'll usually get better scores if you stop just shy of winning and leave one empire around as essentially a vassal state.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
buffer states are always good and if they're human you can always keep them in line with a few nuclear subs off the coast.

and wtf, a tan? huh?
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
In the games I've played, if you haven't won by the time you have nuclear subs, you've been doing something wrong.
 

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Posted by Gosu (Member # 5783) on :
 
Someone tell me quick! How many cds does Civ 4 have including all installation cds?
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
i think its one dvd.

And Tom, some of us like to extend the game and have it last longer and enjoy the experiance of playing with close friends.

I like the Cold War feeling I get with the UN.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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How many cds does Civ 4 have including all installation cds?

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quote:

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

quote:

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My hubby likes to play it as war games and annihilates the rest of the world, and my diplomatic game approach usually gets higher scores compared to him.

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Scoring strongly rewards peaceful victory, given the way scoring is calculated. For this reason, if you're on the verge of a military victory, you'll usually get better scores if you stop just shy of winning and leave one empire around as essentially a vassal state.

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quote:

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In the games I've played, if you haven't won by the time you have nuclear subs, you've been doing something wrong.
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