Civilization 4

[Kadarin]

It's well worth the $10 if you like TBS games. Though I'd really like to see a SMAC update with modern graphics.

 

[minmaster]

why doesnt anybody make a SMAC mod for civ4?

 

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: minmaster
why doesnt anybody make a SMAC mod for civ4?

Done right, that could be seriously awesome.

 

[9mak9]

What are the recommended mods to install?

 

[acheron]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
What are the recommended mods to install?

The only mod I use is Blue Planet, which is a nice graphics mod.

There are a couple of popular gameplay mods -- Fall from Heaven, and Ryhe's and Fall of Civilization seem to be the most popular -- but note they change the game completely, it's not just an addition. Both of those come with the Beyond the Sword expansion, too.

BTS is a great expansion, I'd recommend that before trying any other gameplay mods.

 

[imported_Lothar]

Originally posted by: caivoma

Originally posted by: Lothar
I hated the fact that they neffed the British empire in the expansions.
I spent more time on the 18civ maps than anything.

Start out as Elizabeth, build 3 cities on main and 1 on Scotland, form an alliance with Russia/Catherine, Invade France ASAP, then march straight to Rome. Conquer Spain and Germany.
Once I got Redcoats, I just marched entirely to the east killed Persia, India, and China. Backstabbed Russia.

Man...That was fun.

I remember trying the 18civ map using America and it was completely boring and uneventful.

I just played the 18 civs map first time a couple day ago. I started out as Rome, beeline to Iron work and mass praetorian to conquers all my neighbor. Work out pretty good,

Baha, yer cheap bastard.
Luckily, England has the advantage of being an island, so you still need a boat.

It is typical for Rome to have the entire European continent(besides England) on their knees.
France is the worst country to play as on the European continent on an 18civ map.

 

[NLOCliff]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
What are the recommended mods to install?

If you don't have BTS, you should download Rhyze and Fall (I think that's how Rhyze is spelt.)

Link to Civ IV mods: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=1

IIRC, you don't have to sign up to download the mods. There's also a forum for Civ IV: Colonization.

 

[caivoma]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
What are the recommended mods to install?

I use BUG mod, it is enhance UI for BTS expansion. That is the only mod i use so far.

 

[acheron]

I played a couple games of Civ4 this week, and then I went back and started a game of Civ 1 last night. Man, it still is great. I'd forgotten how simple it is compared to the later installments, but it is still crazy addicting; I was up until 1:30am playing it. And I miss building the palace.

Now I'm wondering where my Civ 2 CD is. I pulled all my old DOS games off an old hard drive a couple years ago, so I still had Civ 1 floating around, but I'd need to find the CD to install Civ 2. It's probably at my parents' house or something; the last I remember playing it was in 2001 when I was there on break from college.

 

[paperfist]

Originally posted by: acheron
I played a couple games of Civ4 this week, and then I went back and started a game of Civ 1 last night. Man, it still is great. I'd forgotten how simple it is compared to the later installments, but it is still crazy addicting; I was up until 1:30am playing it. And I miss building the palace.

Now I'm wondering where my Civ 2 CD is. I pulled all my old DOS games off an old hard drive a couple years ago, so I still had Civ 1 floating around, but I'd need to find the CD to install Civ 2. It's probably at my parents' house or something; the last I remember playing it was in 2001 when I was there on break from college.

That's what I miss the most from the newer CIV games, no damn palace to build I can't believe no one ever made a mod for it.

I just checked and there seems to be a mod for CIV4 that's as close to SMAC that we'll get, it's called Planetfall Link

 

[minmaster]

good find on the smac mod. not sure if i like the graphics though.

 

[paperfist]

Originally posted by: minmaster
good find on the smac mod. not sure if i like the graphics though.

Yeah they don't seem to blend very well..

I haven't played this mod yet, but Rise of Mankind looks epic in detail and play time

Well I guess I'm off to reinstall CIV IV

 

[ravenish]

Funny coincidence, I just finally bought CIV 4 and started playing about 3 weeks ago. I'm someone who probably logged thousands of hours on the original, I still remember how psyched I was when I was able to install it in black and white on the old Mac Plus my brother gave me. In my opinion each version gets better overall, but always includes some changes that just don't work, the absolute worst for me being fundamentalism in II, I think badly of II just because of that. The amazing thing is how close to optimum the original was. The sad thing is even though it gets more and more refined, its still basically the same thing again and again, so there is less and less motivation over time to do it. The married guys here know what I'm talking about.

 

[9mak9]

damn there are way too many good looking mods to try and use. These mods you are recommending are complete changes to the game; so I cannot play the vanilla version anymore unless I remove the mods?

Can I instill several mods of the vanilla version and just choose which one I want to play at that time?

 

[acheron]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
damn there are way too many good looking mods to try and use. These mods you are recommending are complete changes to the game; so I cannot play the vanilla version anymore unless I remove the mods?

Can I instill several mods of the vanilla version and just choose which one I want to play at that time?

In BTS you can. Don't know about the original version. But with BTS there's an options menu that allows you to load and unload mods while running the program.

 

[9mak9]

Originally posted by: acheron

Originally posted by: 9mak9
damn there are way too many good looking mods to try and use. These mods you are recommending are complete changes to the game; so I cannot play the vanilla version anymore unless I remove the mods?

Can I instill several mods of the vanilla version and just choose which one I want to play at that time?

In BTS you can. Don't know about the original version. But with BTS there's an options menu that allows you to load and unload mods while running the program.

Too late on the response, already playing BTS with some mods

There are so many scenarios to play I'm trying out as many as I can.

 

[acheron]

There was just a surprise official patch for BTS released last week too. I grabbed it last night, haven't had the chance to start a new game with it. Sounds like a few random bug fixes and such mostly, but it also removes the CD check, which is pretty cool of them.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Civilization 4 is amazing, and I spent many an hour playing that game. However, once you start moving up in difficulty, you realize that the games start getting very predictable and repetitive because there are certain things you need to do to stay ahead of the super-powered AI. For example: you pretty much have to abuse tech-trading to stay ahead on Monarch or higher, since even if you micro-manage everything perfectly, the computer just has too large of a numerical advantage with research rates.

I could go on and on, but when you start getting into the crazy difficulty levels, you essentially have to abuse the same "features" over and over again to remain relevant, since the AI is given crazy statistical advantages.