New Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword expansion

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Do the expansions have any greater hardware requirements than the original?

The original comes up with a "You don't have the hardware requirements to play this game" message when ever I start it up, but still seems to run fine on lowest settings, so I'm worried about getting the expansions.

 

Minimum and reccommended specs are the same for both BtS and Warlords. It will likely need another 1.7Gb of hard drive space. It's well worth it. Likely the most addictive Civ yet.

 

I finished my game with Charlemagne easily enough, and I also handily won another random startup game in which I got the Native Americans. A couple comments on the Dog Warrior:

It is absolutely essential that your first two techs are mining and bronze working. If you happen to discover a nearby civ before they have researched archery, they are absolutely toast. The archer is the only thing that can slow you down (inside a city they have a defense of 4.5, even if the civ isn't protective, meaning your odds are poor). However even if they do have archery, it's still easy enough to eliminate them although it takes another step. Basically, you need to research iron working for swordsmen, and use your dog warriors to continually pillage the country side so they can't get access to copper/iron which will ruin your strategy.

In my game with them, I could have eliminated both of my rivals on my continent quite quickly. The Vietnamese where pretty much toast from the start, as I got a dog warrior there before they researched archery.

However, the above referenced strategy became a bit harder when the other civ is the Aztecs. It's the one civ your opponent can get that will screw you over. They got archery before I got my dog warrior there, and then they quickly researched iron working before I could get swordsmen over there. While the dog warriors could easy take a Jaguar warrior, taking their cities was much harder because I had to send my swordsmen in to take care of the Jaguars. If I attacked with a Dog Warrior the archers would be the defenders instead. I still eventually did it, but it would have been much easier if I was playing against a civ that didn't get a axe/spear/sword unit without resource requirements.

I started a game and got Pacal (it's quite strange, I've done three random starts and got one of the new leaders each time), and I thought that would be interesting as well because their spearmen (forget the name) do not require copper to make. I tried rushing the spearmen, but they just don't do too well as rush units. Lacking the melee bonus that axemen get, they have some problems even against fortified warriors in cities.

 

The who? Are you referring to the Khmer? If so, they're Cambodian.

I too have had great luck with Holy Rome, though I do think they're an unnecessary civ (since they're essentially Germany). I would much rather have seen them take it a step further by putting Switzerland in this spot, replacing the Landskenecht with the famed Swiss Pikemen. But that's a minor gripe, since technically Switzerland was part of Holy Rome at one point.

Secondary gripes: I'm still annoyed that after two expansions there's only one Japanese leader, when USA, France, Russia, and England all get three. Come on - did we need DeGaul? I also think it's lame that Stalin and Mao are included, yet Hitler was not.

I must say I've tried the "any leader" option a few times and still find it to be pretty cheesy. To me it throws the game balance out of wack. I think the game designers have done a good job of balancing the leaders with their respective civ's benefits. Making such unintended pairings just feels too powergamy for me to enjoy playing. Kind of like a BG mod that gives you a -5 AC suit of armor for 10gp or something.

So far, my favorite early rush units - by far - are the Dog Soldier and the new-and-improved Phalanx. That said, I've consistently had great games with the Khmer, Holy Rome and the Byzantines.

 

Actually, I meant the Koreans. I don't know why I said Vietnamese. The point being, anyone who doesn't get a similar no resource required unit is screwed. The only one I can think of that MAY have a chance is the Malinese, with thier improved archers, as they would give swordsmen some trouble, and perhaps the Babylonians, although I must admit that offhand I do not know what bonus the Bowman gives over the standard archer.

To me knowledge the HRE evolved into the modern Germany, so yeah, I agree. Still, since other nations have three leaders it doesn't seem too bad. I agree with you on Hitler, simply because the German UU is the Panzer - which doesn't make sense seeing as how both the German leaders are from the second Reich.

Out of curiosity, who would you propose as another leader beyond Tokagawa?

I agree, especially if you don't totally randomize the process. It's one thing if you say any leader with any civ, and then you randomly set the civs, including YOUR civ. At least that way, it gives the possibility of you letting the AI get a really good combination, and you get a really bad combination.

 

Emporer Meiji (aka Mutsuhito). In a heartbeat.

Meiji ruled over what was considerd Japan's age of enlightement known as the "Meiji Restoration" during the late 1800's. This is a period where Japan saw a cultural explosion where they modernized extensively and did away with Shogun rule, which is what Tokugawa was. His traits could be Industrious and Creative (or Protective).

Another option is Hirohito. His was by far the longest rule in Japanese history, and he lead during the Sino-Japanese war and World War II. For him, I would say Organized (or Aggressive) and Imperialistic.

EDIT - Hax! How could I forget about Oda Nobunaga! Aggressive and Imperialistic, easily.

Anyway, I think I've established there's more than enough room for Japanese leaders, moreso than the need to bring in a lamer like DeGaul.

[ August 06, 2007, 17:59: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

Interestingly enough, the 11 traits offer 55 possible combinations. The three that are neglected are:

Imperialistic and Philosophical (Deemed too powerful)
Organized and Protective.
Charismatic and Creative.

I'm finding that Boudica of the Sumerians runs out of gas about Feudalism or Machinery...

 

Tonight I'm going to make my first go at a specialist economy, and I'll try it using Elizabeth. She's philisophical and financial. That means big money and bigger great peeps generation. I'll try to found and spread my state religion early to my neighbors to fend off potential conflicts.

I wish there was a way to set up custom continents so you could guarantee you'd start on your own continent. I know it makes things more challenging, but I hate that the game will always start you on a continent with one other opponant while every other civ gets one all to themselves (when you set custom continents to "one per team"). It would make more sense to leave it up to chance. Never once have I gotten an island to myself without a major early rush.

That said...that wouldn't be much of an issue with Huana Cupac...hmmm...

 

I bought the new expansion over the week-end and I am in the process of playing my first game. Unfortunately I decided that since I had not played Civ 4 for a while I would start off on settler difficulty level and work my way up in subsequent games. Apparently I had forgotten how mind numbingly stupid the AI is on settler level. The new features proved completely pointless as I am running around matching my modern armour against guys with pointed sticks.

 

There's no way you can absolutely guarantee it, but there are lots of ways to increase the chances of you starting on your own landmass. Chose things like island maps or high sea levels to keep civilizations apart for longer periods of time.

The other way that greatly increases the odds of you starting on your own continent is doing a custom game and setting the number of AI opponenets to be fewer than is standard for that map size. I typically play on either small or standard maps, which allow 5 or 7 civs (including the one you are playing). By reducing the number by just one, it seems you greatly increase the odds that you get a big size land mass to yourself.

That having been said, it is not always a good idea to be all by yourself. For one, there's no one to trade technologies with. There's a bunch of civs (the Indians especially) that seem to always go the tech route and are more than happy to make technologically fair trades. Secondly - and this is more of a problem when playing on island land masses, but it is true whenever all civs get their own starting continent - is resource acquisition. Sure, if you get your own starting continent, you likely will get 3/4 of all the resources available. It gets annoying though when you realize you entered the modern era, and you have no oil anywhere on your continent. So you build an army of infantry to seize some, only to realize that your AI opponent is using their oil to build tanks.

The best case scenario is to start some where with one other opponent and get rid of said opponent early. I have found that the bigger land masses are the ones that have more than one civ on them. If you get paired with another civ and kill them off quickly, you get the best of both worlds - your own continent and (because of it's increased size) a potential to have all the resources you need.

 

Still trying to get my elusive Deity Cultural win.....

 

OK, I have started a new game as the Dutch with the difficulty cranked up a couple notches. I am still having a really easy time of it but it isn't the pathetic joke that is settler difficulty.

I like how the espionage system works. I am nowhere near advanced enough on the tech tree to be able to properly try out any of the corporations though.

 

It takes a long time to get that far. Not only do you need the Corporation, but you also need a higher tech and a Great person...

 

Warlord is probably an appropriate difficult setting for trying out the expansion. Well, let me rephrase that a bit - the appropriate difficulty would probably be one difficulty setting lower than what you normally play the game. HB is playing on Deity level, so he would probably have to play on Monarch, just to find the game challenging.

 

Unfortuntely it has been a while and I don't remember what difficulty level I was playing at previously.

I did try out some of the corporations in my settler game but my civ was so powerful that they were almost pointless. Espionage was similarly useless in that game so I am hoping at the higher difficulty level that corporations will be useful too.

 

I'm falling in love with the Incans all over again.

Aldeth - I started a game last night on Noble, custom continents (1 per team) and low sea level. I also tried out the lovely "advanced start" feature - where with only 300 points to start out (default is 600, so I lowered it) I founded 2 cities, built 4 Quechuas and founded a religion. Built 4 more quecheas when the time started, which was more than enough time to discover my fellow island-mate, Ethiopia. I took out both of their cities before even getting to pottery.

The nice part about this was that low sea level tends to make the continents closer together - so I was able to make contact (and thus begin trading) with my neighbors Bismark and Augustus fairly early. I absolutely dominated, making everyone friendly to me (minus William of Oranje, who was merely pleased since he founded Christianity and by this point I'd spread my state Taoism to everyone else). I actually had to vote against myself to avoid a Religious Leader victory (apostolic palace) just before the Industrial era. I'd also spread myself out to a second continent that was occupied solely by barbarian cities (which thankfully I noticed before William, who was much closer to said continent than I was).

Arguably the best game I think I've ever had, and it's still going. I'm such a Wonder whore that I prefer a the diplomatic / expansive route to the military dominative one.

 

Cool DR. Sharing a religion is almost mandatory to stay on people's good side. A common religion gives a huge +5 bonus to your relations, so even if you share borders, and turn down demands from other leaders you usually remain on pretty good terms.

A couple of questions - you say everyone is Taoist, yet with the exception of eliminated Ethiopia, none of them started on your continent. How did you spread your religion so effectively to other continents? Did you take boatloads of missionaries over on boats with an "open borders" agreement?

I must admit that I don't do well with spreading my religion, mainly because it means having an open borders agreement, and I flatly refuse to do that if there is any unsettled territory remaining near me. The AI is SO annoying when it comes to building cities in your empire. It seems like they will build one in a spot that is totally unsuitable - surrounded by tundra, ice and no resources, but it still ticks you off that they have a city there, espeically when aluminum shows up on an otherwise seemingly worthless piece of real estate.

With me I usually go the other way with religions. I am more apt to convert to whatever religion my neighbor(s) have rather than trying to get them to convert to my religion. I readily admit that your way is better - especially assuming you build that relgion's holy shrine - but sometimes good relations are worth a small drop in income. I usually make an early push for liberalism anyway, so by mid game I have no official state religion.

My current game is with the English - Victoria specifically (I always random start - there was no particular reason or desire to pick that civ or that particular leader). I just got the rifling technology so the redcoats are coming.

I really am stuck on difficulty settings. I consistently win on the level above Warlord (I forget if that is Prince or Noble) and I consistently lose on the level above that. (Which makes HB's accomplishment of being competitive on deity level very impressive.

 

Bingo.

Since as I said, there was only coastline between myself and Rome, I loaded 3 missionaries into a boat and set them over to spread the love. This was my first priority when I found out I had such close neighbors, and noticed that William hadn't spread to anyone else. Now that I think about it - Bismark was indeed seperate from me by only 1 plot of ocean, so the minute I got Optics I sent a mish over on a Caravel. Then I created two more Caravels and loaded them with 1 missionary each, and set them on auto-pilot. Within 10 turns or so I'd located the remaining civs, and immediately offered them open borders upon introduction. I did run into a problem where my founded Confucianism spread to Persia on it's own to 5 different cities (and Taoism stayed at one) before he switched his state religion to it, but it only resulted in a -1 relations so I didn't sweat it. Soon enough I'd sent enough Taoists over to change him back.

The cool thing is everybody HATES William and are itching to pick a fight with him, so if I decide to take him out, I won't get any guff for it. I've already settled on an area of his continent with 4 gold plots was half-covered by his capital city's culture border - but I rush-produced a Terrace, Taoist Mission and Pagoda, and Theatre in four straight turns - easily the best 1000 gold I've spent all game. Boosted by Free Speech, I had control of all 4 gold plots in about 20 turns. And I was far enough away that it didn't cause an "Our close borders spark tensions" relations penalty.

As to the AI building cities on your continent...I tend to let them these days, though it used to piss me off something fierce. Now I just build near them and out-culture them. I spread my religion to that city, and build nothing but culture-boosting buildings in that city. Soon enough, there's a revolt and I disband the city and chunk the ruins. If I'm desperate - which has happened when they've built right on top of a valuable resource that I can't afford to wait for - I'll start a quick war to get rid of the city and end it immediately after the "Refuses to talk!!!" period subsides...usually about 10 turns or so. Usually the -3 relations can be overcome eventually if you toss a nice tech their way, but I always keep a close eye for them to get frisky later on.

I teeter between Warlord and Noble. If I'm going for a straight-up conquest, I agree with most that Warlord is generally too easy. But like I said, I'm a Wonder whore. I usually play with Industrious or Philisophical civs and often restart if I don't get either Marble or Stone within a decent distance of my city when I start. I have a lot more fun when I have a culturally impressive civ with interesting cities than I do as a military juggernaut. I also love having a monopoly on religions, if I can help it. It makes spreading whatever religion you want that much easier.

I suppose you could do some soft fight-picking by monopolizing the religions and then sending out different non-state missionaries to your rivals. It also has the effect of turning them on each other, also to your benefit. But I don't think I'll try that one any time soon.

EDIT:

Really? The best I've ever had is +4, and that was only when I'd founded the religion and spread it very early on. When I spread things to Rome, it was only a +2 boost.

 

I should have said "up to +5". It also depends on if you converted them or they converted you. The +5 is when you switch to their religion. The most I've seen from converting them is +4.

I've never succeeded with that. There are two potential pratfalls with getting them all. The first is right from the get-go. You have to decide whether you want Buddhism or Hinduism first, and picking the wrong one usually results in the computer getting the other one, especially if you're up against a religious civ that starts with mysticsm, meaning they can research meditation or polytheism as their first tech.

The second one that causes me problems is usually judaism. I've nothing against priesthood, but I usually hold off on it right from the beginning because after I get either Buddhism and/or hinduism, I usually start researching land worker improvement techs. Of course, priesthood is on the way to code of laws, and it's never a good idea if you can't get courthouses going fairly quickly.

I guess I'm too single-minded in my game plan. My priorities are getting worker techs, then getting code of laws, then currency, then drama, then calendar (calendar and drama are sometimes reversed if playing a cultural civ and/or if there are a lot of plantation eligible resources in my empire). I usually pick up bronze and/or iron working along the way so I can improve forest and jungle squares. After that, it's usually guilds and banking, followed by liberalism and democracy. After that, it's very much up in the air, depending on what type of victory condition I'm pursuing. I guess my play style reflects the fact that I always try to have a good economy and healthy science rate, and the means of getting there are the same regardless of what your eventual game plan is.

 

Try this, as it works for me almost every time.

Don't avoid Priesthood - shoot for it. Priesthood allows you to build The Oracle, arguably my first early wonder. I know, a free tech doesn't seem all that great, but early in the game it can give you a huge advantage. While you're building the Oracle, research the techs that open the way to Code of Laws and Theology - namely, Polytheism, Monotheism, Writing, and Priesthood. If you can get the Oracle built before other civs, which is usually not hard if you plan for it a little, when you're a turn or so away, assess your situation. If I think I'm about to go to war or be attacked, I'll do Theology first to boost my army's strength with Theocracy. If not, and I can focus on my economy, then it's Code of Laws time, obviously preferable.

If you do a bee-line to the gateway techs I listed, it'll put you WAY ahead of other civs. Usually when I get it for free, I'm anywhere from 20-40 turns away from researching it normally. Either way, you get to found a religion, and in the case of getting Code of Laws, you don't have to wait so long by researching it out of sequence. Also - I've found that building Stonehenge and The Oracle provides enough of a boost to science that it's OK to hold off on making libraries for a few extra turns, but not too long. I generally build them as soon as I can, as much for the cultural boost as for the science.

See? Told you I was a wonder whore.