Civilization 4: Who plays?

The only Civilization is Alpha Centauri.

I tried, but never got into Alpha Centauri. I suppose because I didn't understand the tech or the weapons or how one applied to the other or ...

and that creepy pink stuff.

It was just too confusing.

They need to bring unit creation like inalpha centauri into a civ game.

I've only played a few hours - had quite a few parties this weekend.

My first impression is that it is far more like Civilization: Revolutions (the console game) than it is like any of the previous civ games. Things just feel more "simple" in general - the map seems more closed in with less room to expand, and combat is *very* different.

If I don't go play poker tonight, I'll be playing this, and should have more opinions later.

I bought it civ five installing it now.

Civ 5 is very disappointing following Civ 4, but it's still playable.

Civ 4: Beyond The Sword is probably the best game ever made as far as I'm concerned. I'll kick any of your asses.

Necroing this thread thread.

I might take you up on that, Rick. And anyone else who wants to join in.

I have a preference for the Fall From Heaven 2 + More Naval AI, or the RevolutionDCM or Destiny mods for BTS, but I'll be up for vanilla BTS.

Let's get something going sometime.

I still play BTS -- just the vanilla version

I useta play BTS vanilla, but at the moment don't have a system capable.

Vanilla it is. Just make sure you have the 3.19 patch.

I have a nvidia 550 with 2 gig of video ram plus a 3.6 quad core.

Pfft, that's under spec for Pong, Baba. Better upgrade.

I finally got Civ IV a few weeks ago. Not bad. I like II and III better though.

I've been playing the Civilization series since Civ1. I liked Civ1, thought Civ2 was damn near god like, Civ3 was a disappointment but still had some interesting ideas, Civ4 with all the expansion packs was without a doubt hands down the best game of the genre no doubt in my mind (Heck, I still play it), but Civ5... Well, Civ5 is a complete piece of shit with no redeeming features. Just epic fail all around. I bought it on release day and still wish I hadn't despite being a massive fan of the series and being a regular poster at two different Civilization fan forums for over a decade.

I mean it, Civ5 is a piece of shit.

Supposedly, the expansion pack coming out is going to help redeem V.

Perhaps, but I'm pretty out of practice with Civ IV at this point.

My preference is playing against the AI

Civ III was my favourite - nothing quite like 200 stacked Modern Armour to put down the foreigners.
I also made a point of always nuking Mecca

Who do you play and why?

At first I was going with the Romans, get access to Iron quick enough and set my early economy/tech to military and when you get Legionnaires you could take out a couple of your neighbors while you had the edge. Then just hunker down and start working on internal improvements.

But then my buddy got me hooked on the Indians. I love those little fast working bastards. Build Stonehenge right off the bat, then basically just shift to settlers with a worker thrown in. Rapid peaceful expansion early on, then just play defense while you work on being the richest/most technologically advanced...
... until you get the Cav. Then it's game over.

I love playing as Catherine (and she's soft on the eyes in Civ 4 too!). Being creative means I don't have to worry about HAVING to build culture producing building, and then I'd build Stonehenge just to deny anyone else from having it and so I can produce Great Prophet points. Found as many religions as possible (usually starting with Judaism) so my Great Prophets can tax the fuck out of the churches by building the holy buildings... try for Colossus and Great Lighthouse... and hang on while expanding as much as possible till Riflemen and Cossacks.

Then everyone's fucked.

Civ4 was designed specifically to be a multiplayer game so from day 1 it had a huge and thriving MP community. To compare, no one, and I mean no one, bothers to play Civ5 MP. You'll go to the servers and literally be the only one there. It's sad to see a game which topped many ladder communities in activity level go from hero to zero with the sequel. That's a botched job.

BTW the info on the expansion is looking like a very mixed bag. They're including religion and some form of espionage which should make the game less boring but then they're slowing combat down even more which will make the game more boring. The number one complaint is it takes too long to build stuff and then after you spend 1000 years building your one warrior it takes 2000 years to get him to the enemy city where he has no hope of ever taking the city. They think that's something that needs to be slowed down?

You need the old republic, confederate sun.

I was hot to buy it when it first came out but then got scared off due to bad word of mouth and poor reviews.

I played some over the last few days trying to get ready for a competition on another website. I forgot how much micromanagement is needed (moving pops around to specific tiles and such) when you're trying to squeeze that absolute max amount of gold, food, or production per turn. It's easy to be lazy, hit automate, and still have fun but to be competitive takes some micromanaging.

I was playing a game of the Fall From Heaven II mod as a seafaring financial civs with all 19 civs in the game, founded all seven religions and six of the holy buildings (I just couldn't get a great prophet or artist )... was nice to make 1,000+ gold a turn while I was still researching techs; once I hit a couple Future Techs, I turned down the science to make over 3,000 gold a turn.

And during one of the long, major wars, I had to fend off a 130 unit stack of doom. With about 30 units. At about the same tech level (and they had better strength because they had mithril and I only had iron -- bronze, +1 strength; iron, +2; mithril, +3). And won.

What difficulty were you playing?

Noble

A couple of forums are currently organizing a Civ4 tournament called the Civ4 Beyond the Sword Multiteam Democracy game. Basically each forum is a team, they set up a private subforum for the democracy game, and everyone on each team decides what moves they want their team to do. Maybe WordForge should make up a team and play though I couldn't be on it since I'm already on the team for another forum.

Civ V: Gods & Kings is out this weekend.

I've been finally getting into Civ V, and hopefully this will improve the experience further.

EU games are fun.