The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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4:38pm on Tuesday, 22nd October, 2019:
Anecdote
For the past couple of years, my background game of choice has been Civilization IV. Civ6 was a terrible disappointment and Civ5 had its own problems, so I thought I'd try good old Civ4 again. That has problems, too, among them: the ease of cultural victories; the build-the-UN-or-you-lose aspect to diplomatic victories; spies; vassal states; its cheating ways with regard to wonder-building. All but the last one could be switched off, though, and the last one wasn't so bad if you knew always to use engineers or chopped-down forests to finish essential wonders that opponents had also discovered the technology for building.
So it was that I embarked on a series of 52 games, playing a different leader for each one. All were at warlord level (which is quite easy) on huge maps (the largest available) with an ancient start (the default) at marathon length (which is quite difficult). I switched off espionage, vassal states, tech brokering, cultural victories and diplomatic victories. For maps, I either used fractal continents or Earth2 (which is random but vaguely based on the continents of Earth, with an old-world start). I always selected random opponents, although if there'd been an option to exclude some opponent civs I might have done that to the Aztecs (who invariably attack until you eliminate them).
Each game took something like 20 hours to finish, so this project was always a long-term one. However, on Sunday I managed to finish my final game (as Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia — I played them in alphabetical order), so I'm now done.
My top score, of 68,834, was achieved playing as the Inca. Next was Egypt on 67,824 and England on 64,193. I don't know which leaders of Egypt and England were involved, because I foolishly relied on the high-score list to record that; it actually recorded it as "Richard of Egypt" or whatever instead. My lowest score was 11,170 for China.
The top scores were all obtained by domination victories (that is, conquering more than 55% of the map's land surface). The rest were all obtained by winning the space race. My best space race score was 38,856 as the Ottomans; my worse domination score wasd 24,816 as France. Although the high-score list doesn't record the maps used, I think most of the big ones were on Earth2. This is because if you can get to the random equivalent of North and South America first, you can colonise practically all of it before someone else joins you: your explorer will almost always pop a goodie hut that gives you astronomy, and with it the ability to build galleons 50 turns before anyone else. Colonising random Australia also helped, but the highest scores of all came if random Africa wasn't attached to random Europe and I managed to colonise that, too.
Knocking out other opponents usually came only at certain points: at the start (if I had a warrior, I'd send it out looking for a nearby unguarded capital owned by someone who started with a scout); after two or three cities had been built (throw archers at the enemy); when I got rifles; when I got tanks. There's nothing quite like chucking 70 tanks at a civ that's using macemen and knights to defend itself. That said, the most satisfying wars involved either Roman legions or English riflemen, both of which are splendidly overpowered.
My usual opening tactic was to race to start a religion (which brings in money). I usually aimed for Hinduism, but if I was beaten to it then I'd go for Judaism. I'd build Stonehenge if at all possible, for the engineers (free wonders!) and the automatic shrines (free city expansions!) it gives. If I had a location with nearby hills and forests (for production bonuses), I'd also aim for certain other wonders that I might have had a chance of building first, with the Great Wall (no barbarians) and Oracle (free technology — I always went for metalworking) being priorities. It was 50/50 whether I'd get the Great Wall, but I usually managed Stonehenge and the Oracle. If later I could spare the output of a city or two, I'd also try to build the Parthenon (+50% great people production), Statue of Zeus (doubles enemy war weariness), Hanging Gardens (because it increases the chance of getting an engineer) and Colossus (for the money). I occasionallty half-heartedly tried to build some of the other early wonders, too, in the hope that one of my opponents would splash out on an engineer at the last moment to complete it first, thus providing me with a sudden cash boost when my own, failed effort was converted into gold instead.
Later game wonders I would try to get if I could were the Pentagon (increases military unit starting experience), Sistine Chapel (extra culture, for if I wanted to culture-bomb cities), Eiffel Tower (ditto, as it increases cultural output in all cities), Versailles (reduces maintenance costs for nearby cities) and Spiral Minaret (more money from religious buildings). Others, such as the Statue of Liberty, were nice but I wasn't too upset if I didn't get them. I usually saved an engineer for Versailles and the Eiffel tower if I could, but wasn't always able to build them. I usually failed with the Three Gorges Dam, too, so much so that I only ever really tried to build it as a smokescreen so that an enemy might waste an engineer on completing it first and I could complete the wonder I really wanted to complete instead.
As I said, technology-wise I started out going for polytheism (for Hinduism) and if I failed that then monotheism (for Judaism). What I went for after that depended on local conditions, but I wouldn't leave bronze working too long as it was needed for tree-chopping and so wonder-building. After doing a few more low-cost ones, I'd then go for currency because I'd inevitably be short of money. I'd continue by doing more low-cost ones, then aim for optics. This would let me build caravels, for exploring other continents. It usually meant I'd end up able to build knights and macemen later than my opponents, but if I looked like being attacked I'd change tack rather than be overwhelmed. After optics, my next major goal would be nationalism (because the nationhood civic it enables has no upkeep and my sprawling empire would at this point be low on cash) then astronomy if I hadn't popped it exploring new worlds. At this point I'd try for liberalism (for a free tech) and invariably find I'd been beaten to it.
The most important tech in the late-middle game for me was communism. This enables the state property civic, the killer effect of which is to remove the maintenance penalty for cities that are far from the capital. As I usually had a vast empire by this stage, it was a game-changer: I'd go from losing 50-100 gold a turn to making 250-350 gold a turn. It also has the bonus of making corporations have no effect, so I didn't ever have to worry about them. After that, I merely needed democracy so I could implement the emancipation civic (which gives civs that don't have it a happiness penalty) and I was set. My final civics were almost always: hereditary rule (prefered over universal suffrage because of the happiness bonus for troops in cities); nationhood (which gives happiness from barracks, although free speech is pretty good too); emancipation (prior to which I'd be using serfdom for the worker production bonus); state property; pacifism (zero upkeep good, extra military unit cost bad, doubling great people production very good).
With regard to interactions with other leaders, my general rule was never to accede to any request for open borders. This stopped early ships from exploring my coast, later ships from landing on the coasts of continents I hadn't explored the interior of, and missionaries coming in to spread their heathen ways among my enlightened populace. Also, they couldn't map my empire so didn't know what they were attacking. I did trade with other civs, but not perhaps as much as I would have done on a harder difficulty level. Oh, and I never gave any civ anything they demanded as a threat, because they're just going to keep asking if I do (maybe — I don't actually know, as I've never said yes!).
I didn't win every game, by the way. It took me four attempts to win as Asoka of India, mainly because of serial wars I couldn't end (enemy A attacks, then after a bit gets enemy B to join in, then A sues for peace but B won't speak, then by the time B will speak the truce with A is over and it attacks again). The result of this is that I wound up in a perpetual state of war, with war weariness grinding my economy to a halt, but my opponents had time to freshen up before wading in again.
Overall, though, it was an enjoyable exercise. The space race vistories tended to take longer than the others and got grindy, but on the whole it was fun. I still prefer Civ2, but don't have that on my PC and Civ4 isn't too far behind it in enjoyability.
As for what to play next when I fancy some strategy action, hmm, well I started a game of Imperator Rome last night. I'll see how that goes...
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Copyright © 2019 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).