I bought Civ4 first thing when it came out, the special edition pre-order. So I was dismayed to find that though the manual was in English, the foldout chart of technologies and other information was in French. And my French just isn’t all that good. A helpful comment pointed me to where I could ask for an English chart. It finally arrived this week, so today I decided it was about time for me to give the game another try.
I haven’t played the game for a good while. Been a bit busy with other games (like Guitar Hero and the unrelentingly addictive World of Warcraft) as well as outside stuff. Yes, RL stuff! Anyway, I have tried to see if people are talking about the game. I’m really curious for when the full release of the tools for modding Civ4 will be released. Despite some snide comments I made about how moddable the game is, I’m ever hopeful for something intriguing and different to be done to the game.
In any event, I read some stuff on the wiki, some forum posts, and really found nothing out there. Apparently, people are trying to piece together what all the XML files do with a little help from someone who worked at Firaxis, but it isn’t official help or anything.
All this has little to do with the game(s) I played today. The interesting thing to me was that even after all these iterations and all these changes, the way I do things remains the same as it was in Civ2, at least in high level strategy in the early game. The early game is so important, and I feel it’s become even more so in Civ4 than in previous versions. If you don’t get off to a good start and grab the best places to put your cities in the first few turns, you will lose. And now, even worse, you really really have to manage to found one of the six religions available, and preferably one of the ones that’s earliest in the tech tree. Religion is massively important - having a national religion spread to all your cities is a must - it helps with happiness and can even make your military stronger, or increase production depending on what civics you take.
I had one game I was playing where I had not managed to snag one of the earlier religions. Your score and ranking are always viewable in the lower right of the screen, and so I could see I was in last place. Then I managed to found Islam, the last religion you get to, and everything turned around. My economy shot up, my cities became happier, and I shot forward to the top of the pack.
All this results in a lot of pressure to get everything just right in those first 50 turns or so. Which means, for me, that I restart a lot. I think I started three games before I finally got everything just right. Sometimes I restart after only two or three turns. But one of those restarts was after maybe 30 - 45 minutes of playing. I don’t know if there is another viable strategy (save every single turn and only backtrack to where you went wrong? But that’s really labor intensive), but I both love and hate the early game the most. If that makes sense.
I’ll continue my Civ4 ramble as the game progresses. I have to say that the quick paced option makes things much better, in my mind. I probably got about a third of the way through a game today. Can’t usually do that (without playing through the night!)
I’m off to get away from this crazy beast we call a computer, at least for a few hours.
6 Responses to “Back to Civ4”
I find that the higher the difficulty level, the less important religion is.
This is mostly due to the fact that people get quite angry at you based on your religion. Not having a state religion means they don’t get mad at you over that, which can be key to preventing many wars from starting. Obviously, AIs don’t like it on lower levels either, but they don’t go to war over it as much.
Don’t get me wrong, if you start with Mysticism go ahead and run out to Budhism or Hinduism right away! But spending vast time and resources trying to get a religion you might still fail to reach only compounds the problem. If you’d spent those tech points and citizens on something else, you won’t be as far in the hole for not having a religion.
Hmm, interesting. I was just having a conversation with one of my co-workers and he said the same thing. I’m playing at Noble level, and the AIs definitely get upset about religion, but a manageable level. I could see how it would be even worse at the higher levels.
Certainly, having lots of religions in your cities is nice for the cultural benefits. You can build a temple for each religion and help spread your culture even more. I like culture.
I’ll have to see what happens when I graduate up a level to Prince (that’s next, right?). I’m not quite ready yet, though.
Wait a minute. Who are you Mr Jingle? I know you, don’t I! Ha. For those of you following along at home, Mr Jingle is the co-worker I was having this conversation with. Trying to trick me into thinking multitudes share your opinions JoD, but you have been found out.
Is it a requirement for your society to have religion at the more advanced parts of the game?
You certainly don’t need religion in the later parts of the game. It always helps, and the most “advanced” religion civic, Free Religion, encourages having many, many religions in your cities. Unless you’ve founded those religions, though, you help someone else by spreading religions more than you help yourself.
If you can control the U.N., you can also potentially force Free Religion as a World Civic, screwing up anyone who is really depending on their religion civic.
And yes, I’m the nonfamous (rather than infamous) JoD. I’m definitely amused to be reffered to in the third person and second person at the same time, but alas, I am found out. (When I repeat myself in person and online fairly verbatim, I’m glad to see your deductive skills are up to the task!)
Yeah, I agree with Mr Jingle (I’m gonna call you that all the time now, it’s too funny). You don’t need religion, but it’s hard to avoid getting it. The other players will spread it to you, and you cannot build a temple (to make your people happy and to spread culture) without one. Or two. Or five. (You can build a temple for every religion you have in a city).
And no more impugning my deductive skills! Just because I didn’t immediately know it was you doesn’t mean I can’t deduct! I just wasn’t trying, ya see?