New Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword expansion

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1. Click Play Now
2. Click Custom Game
3. Uncheck box in "Victory Conditions" that allows space race victory.

I hate diplomatic victories, and thus disable that victory condition - especially as it involves the religion version of the diplomatic victory.

 

Barbarians raze cities don't they? In the case I was referring to the city was named "Gaul" so I don't believe it belonged to Isabella.
Sure realism and games don't mix up that well but sometimes you need a lot of willing suspension of disbelief.

 

@ Aldeth,

That's what I always do. I never play standard games anymore for that reason. I also always turn off Time victories for the same reason. Sometimes I turn off Barbarians when I'm not in the mood for their dumb asses.

 

DR,

Also keep in mind that in the expansion, that the AI launching the space ship does not end the game, as it did in the earlier version. You can still win using a different victory condition if you acheive it prior to the space ship arriving at Alpha Centauri. Also, I understand (although I have not attempted this myself so I cannot verify) that seizing the AI's capital city causes the space ship to be recalled, and they have to start back at square one. Now granted, if you have more than one opposing civ to do this too, that can get very tricky. Finally now that you can customize your ship I suppose it is theoretically possible to launch your ship second, but because of a superior design you'd actually get to Alpha Centauri first. (As an aside - I agree with the Ghandi example - it's always Ghandi that is going for the space race.)

I never turn off the barbarians. While it can be annoying getting the message "You are expected to bear the brunt of the barbarian invasion" message, having barbarians on a newly discovered island can be a convenient way to begin the colonization, as you don't even need to bring a settler.

On a somewhat related note, I have to say I kind of like the Portugese unique unit, the Carrack. It doesn't sound like much, but the ability to carry units at the caravel stage makes finding other islands and colonizing them much easier.

 

I'm finding I have trouble on larger maps. Sure I can make someone's life a living hell when I get the notion that they are the one I want to take out, but civs from halfway across the map come for me, they invade, I have to sacrifice part of the attack stack I'm trying to build back up to repel a senseless invasion against a power I have no hope at retaliating against. It gets to the point where I want to expand in their direction to specifically stop them.

That and the fact that it takes so long to get to the point where I am ready to fight a neighbour that conquest or domination is not easy to pull off. They are well enough defended that a standard Axe or Sword rush are difficult to execute...

I've also noticed that cities won't want to stay a part of your empire if another civ's culture encrochas severely. I've looked at that as a reason to fighyt the next war--especially if I thought I had the tech edge and a good stack to fight...

 

I like smaller maps just to make the game more managable. I much prefer having 5 total civs on a small sized world than 7 civs on a standard world.

I also have made a switch in going for epic game progression. The one thing that I didn't like about the tech race in the past was in the time it took you to build a stack to go on the offensive, there was already a better unit available. When you play on epic, everything seems to take about three times as long to do. So a tech that required 10 turns to research would now require 30. A road that could be built in two turns now takes 6, etc. However, the years that elapse each turn are way less. The most you ever see is 15 years per turn. So you don't advance through the tech tree any faster than you otherwise would, nor do you build your empire faster you otherwise would, but you essentially get three times as many turns - which matters in the military sense.

 

Hmm. That's a very good point about the tech race. It's never even occured to me, actually, as I've never tried adjusting the game speed. You're right - it does make it lame to build a big stack of units only to have to upgrade them all by the time you're ready to march to war.

As for maps - I generally stick to Standard size, and often do Large, but no bigger. Even on my rather beefy PC, the huge maps end up causing pretty massive slowdown in the Industrial Age and beyond, when all civs are revealed and my espionage is giving me visuals of most of them. Plus, I think 7 total civs is plenty.

 

One thing I will warn you about in regards to playing on epic game speed - the game takes a LOT longer. In fact, now that I think about it, I think the game turns are 1/4 as long as normal, because by the modern era, it takes 4 turns to advance one year. For example, in 1950 you'll have four turns: January 1950, April 1950, July 1950 and September 1950.

Whereas in a standard civ game if you have a couple of hours to devote to a game you can get through most of it in a single sitting, there's very little chance of you doing so with these game conditions. The early years still go fast, because it's move your warrior one space, advance 15 years of game time. But once you start getting lots of units you start seeing a big difference in the advance of years.

The other thing I will warn you about is if you are using a civ that gets an uber unique unit early on (like the quechua) you will f'ing own for a LONG time. As I'm sure you're aware, the AI is rather single minded in it's tech tree development, and most civs place a priority on getting archery very early, whereas bronze working is acquired much later, and you can usually interrupt metal supplies anyway. Unless you happen to get stuck next to the Milanese, Babylonians, or Native Americans where you will find you quechuas much less effective, you can pretty much conquer everyone on your continent before they even get off the ground.

 

Yeah, quechuas on marathon speed are unstoppable, even at Deity level, whereas they are far less useful on Quick speed.

On the other hand, cultural victory on Quick speed is much much easier than on Marathon.

By the way, I just got Beyond the Sword yesterday, so I now qualify to actually post on-topic in this thread.

 

Tried the Broken Star scenario today. I like how you can buy an extra unit or promote a unit for extra cash. I find myself running a Merchant heavy Hybrid economy to generate the gold I need.

I think I may switch back to Small or standard sixe maps for my regular games. I find that Unrestricted leaders when you leave it random can give you some interesting challenges, both in terms of what you get and who you have to deal with. I had Churchill for a neighbour in one attempt today. He led Japan. That's one scary neighbour...

 

Here's a question - what happens when a unit seems to fall under two different categories - does it count as one, the other or both? Is there a priority system in place? Some things are easy to classify - an axeman is melee, crossbowman is archery, rifleman is gunpowder. Some are more vague.

For example, the first unit you encounter that could fall under two different categories is the horse archer. Is the horse archer considered a mounted unit, an archery unit, or both? Or the cavalry unit - mounted, gunpowder, or both? Or the tank - armored, gunpowder or both? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Gunships get their 100% bonus versus tanks so they must be armoured.

I don't have the expansion (yet) but I assumed that all mounted units didn't get defensive bonus from terrain and no fortify command and that is the case for both horse archers and cavalry (horse archers can be upgraded into knights and cavalry so it would seem logical that they'd count as the same unit type... still cavalry can be upgraded into gunships, are those "mounted"?).

Is it even possible that they'd fall into several categories?

 

Mounted units class as Cavalry, and that's the way they promote.

Played through the Broken Star scenario. If you can run a specialist economy with as many Merchants as you can cram in the city, you can ammass a nice strike force when you need it, and promote them quickly...

 

Finally got my hands on the expansion, sure it is nice but it is more of hte same and I doubt I will run more than a couple of new games. One thing I sorely miss from both Civ2 and Civ3 is the ease of making your own maps. I have looked at it little in Civ4 and everything is just so much more cumbersome.

 

I'm finding that the better my starting location, the worse my neighbours are. I had a game start with 5 seafood resources, and I end up right next to Napolean with the Mongols on one side and Victoria of the Vikings on the other. I saved the start, only to find that beyond I have Montezuma of Germany on the Viking side and Shaka of Japan on the other.

I've given up on small Maze maps with 18 civs. Up next, Standard Pangea with 18 civ (but I keep the unrestricted leaders). This time it gives me Churchill of the Celts and Louis XIV of the Native Americans to hold me in a peninsula. Louis drags a war out longer than it needs to be, so I believe myself to be behind the 8-ball technologically. He'll pay for that when I get my War Elephants up...

 

Hmmm... I asked the question poorly. I wasn't really asking in terms of what promotions the units receive, but rather for figuring out bonuses applied to defense against them. For example, I know a unit like a pikeman gets a bonus against mounted units, and that it gets the bonus whether the unit is a knight or a horse archer. What I'm asking is does a defensive unit that gets a bonus vs. gunpowder units get the bonus against, say, a cavalry unit?

 

I have had the expansion for a week now and I still haven't installed it, because I am too busy trying to achieve a One City Challenge Conquest Victory on Continents. This is on Noble level so shouldn't be hard, but it takes a while to get used to the idea of trying to do it all with only one city.

 

AFI, No, they don't. Cavalry are mounted units, despite the fact that they have rifles and require rifling. They only count as one type of unit.

Still playing Unrestricted leaders, but letting the computer pick who I get. Current game on the go is Boudica of Korea. Basically playing a game of generic Urban Renewal. I did found Hinduism, but have been negligent in spreading it. Eventually I'll try to get the shrine built, but for now, I'm gearing up for another axe rush. I think that the Maya should be next. They have the Buddhist holy city, so it's tempting...

 

Bah! I couldn't bother with such a campaign. The only point in doing it is to say that you have done it. (Although I guess that's the point of any campaign.) I don't think I would get any satisfaction of playing through a game with those conditions at a difficulty lower than what I am used to, just to be able to say that I was able to do it. I would prefer a less restricting scenario, but with a higher level of AI. And that is one thing that I will point out - maybe it's just because I am out of practice but the AI in the expansion appears to be much better. I am only being successful when I am playing one difficulty level lower than I was pre-expansion.

 

I have found that as well, the AI is much better and it seems even smarter. I would like to say though that the way the Apolostic Palace is implemented is completely and utterly retarded. What the hell where they thinking? Being to win the game completely on your own by only building one wonder? The UN people can vote in and you get votes based on how strong you are, the fact that they implemented the palace like it is now boggles the mind.