Topic: Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword

[Sir_Stabbalot]

I'm saddened by the fact there's no thread for this game. So I'm starting it. And there's nothing you can do to stop me.

You all should know what Sid Meier's Civilization series is about (or at least be able to figure it out by the title), but for those of you with the brainpower of a lobotomized chimp I'll explain it. It's a turn-based strategy game with out as the leader of your civilization taking it from the stone age to the modern world. Civilization III was pretty stat heavy and complex, on the higher levels there were only a few strategies that worked. Civilization IV is perhaps the only game that the developers succeeded in simplifying without dumbing it down.

Civilization IV puts more importance on the choices you make. Should I expand now and take that iron resource and leave myself open to attack, but gain bonuses in the long run? Do I warmonger or become a peace lover? Should I take a side in the wars of my neighbors, stay neutral or wait for them to wear themselves out and strike then? Do I take Vassalage or Serfdom as my civics? Should I found my own religion and risk getting a holy war sent against me, or adopt the religion of my neighbors? Should I research to Monarchy or get Alphabet first? Spearmen to fight Chariots, or Axemen to fight Swordsmen?Decisions, decision, decisions.

I love Civ4, but I seem to always reach a point near the modern age where I know I'm going to win and it slows down. However, this expansion seems to be set to change that. Just look at the box art. More stuff for the modern world like spreading corporations, advanced espionage and new units. Plus random events. For more information, see the Civilization Fanatic's Center.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it.  

[UncleBob]

I miss Civ1.  That was a beautiful game.  Not that the later ones were *bad* by any means, but Civ1 was just wonderful.

[Kairon]

I can play Civ one for DAYS. Oh god I love that game. I got a Win98 machine my roommate and I just built so... hehehe...

Edit: Old habits die hard

[18 Days]

I wish I had a computer that could handle it. Will just have to stick to Civ 3 with it's hilariously useless bombardments.

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Yep, this is a bump.

Anyway, I had to drive to three different stores to get it, but I did. So far I'm enjoying the game. It does what an expansion pack should: Add new content. It doesn't re-invent the wheel, so if you didn't like Civ4 before chances are you still won't like it now. I still have yet to scratch the surface of the new espionage and corporation systems, but they both seem useful. There are some bugs, but all minor and no game-breakers for me yet.

Anyway, I better not be the only one playing this here.

[Khushrenada]

No, you're not the only one interested in this. I'd been watching the release of details about this expansion pack for awhile and was so glad the Byzantines were included. That was the only news I was hoping for and meant an instant buy for me. Of course, now I just have to pick it up sometime. Maybe later this week.

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Yep, Byzantines are in, and Cataphracts can cause a world of hurt. I was surprised Justinian I was chosen as their leader, though. I would have preferred Basil II, to be honest.

[UERD]

I'm having serious performance issues even with minimum settings with Beyond the Sword, which is really strange because I was able to run the previous two at high settings without any issues at all.

Espionage is kind of cool, although it's not as cool as the previews had made it seem. The best feature is the ability to steal your opponent's technologies. Otherwise it's basically temporary riots, temporary unhappiness, temporary unhealthiness, a crappy 'steal gold' option that gives you like 20 gold a run, 'destroy production', and some other random stuff.

Corporations are kind of unbalanced right now. You can ruin your AI opponent's economies by founding a corporation and spamming it into all their cities. Each corp is like -16-20 gold initial maintenance per city and goes up because of inflation. You can eventually bring their research to a standstill. Apparently they will do this to themselves as well.  

[Sir_Stabbalot]

Quote
Originally posted by: UERD
I'm having serious performance issues even with minimum settings with Beyond the Sword, which is really strange because I was able to run the previous two at high settings without any issues at all.

Wow, that's strange. Did you try and patch it? There was a mini patch released that fixes some things, but your problem seems to have something to do with it performing XML checks to much.

Quote
Espionage is kind of cool, although it's not as cool as the previews had made it seem. The best feature is the ability to steal your opponent's technologies. Otherwise it's basically temporary riots, temporary unhappiness, temporary unhealthiness, a crappy 'steal gold' option that gives you like 20 gold a run, 'destroy production', and some other random stuff.

I had thought that would be how it is. True, a lot of the espionage stuff is simple,  but there's also the passive ablities like telling what they're researching and being able to examine their cities.

Also, I've heard that on Marathon setting not only is the duration of the unhealthiness and unhappiness spy missions tripled, but the effect is too. That's -24 happiness for 24 turns. Yipes! That really needs a patch.

Quote
Corporations are kind of unbalanced right now. You can ruin your AI opponent's economies by founding a corporation and spamming it into all their cities. Each corp is like -16-20 gold initial maintenance per city and goes up because of inflation. You can eventually bring their research to a standstill. Apparently they will do this to themselves as well.

So the AI treats corporations as religions? That's no good. Then again, I haven't seen it yet, as I tend to try and beat whoever has a tech lead into the dust as soon as I can.

Wow, guess there are more bugs then I thought...

[UERD]

Quote
Wow, that's strange. Did you try and patch it? There was a mini patch released that fixes some things, but your problem seems to have something to do with it performing XML checks to much.

Yeah, but it didn't help. I know they 'optimized' the graphics code, so that might have something to do with it.

Quote
I had thought that would be how it is. True, a lot of the espionage stuff is simple, but there's also the passive ablities like telling what they're researching and being able to examine their cities.

Good point. I actually went back and paid closer attention. There are some interesting options that I missed: you can plant your culture in their cities (I guess that would help if you wanted to culture flip), you can destroy improvements like granaries, and you can force them to change their state religion or civics.

Quote
Wow, guess there are more bugs then I thought...

Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a patch coming out.

On another note, the AI is kind of ridiculous now. I used to do decently on Noble. Now, I was playing a Warlord level game, and the Ottomans declared war on me. They had a stack with like 30 infantry units, 15 artilleries, and 20 tanks or something. Needless to say, it was pretty painful. I'm pretty sure the AI cheated somehow, because they had gotten Industrialism like 10 turns earlier (unless they were rushing tanks every turn or something).