ravinhood
Posts: 3891
Joined: 10/23/2003
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Actually with a few modifications CIV IV can be made to play very much like CIV I & CIV II.
I went in and modified the timeline so the first 4000 years are the first 400 turns, adjusted the research values so there aren't modern tanks in bc and turned on "aggressive ai" feature. Holy cow, I haven't won a single game and this is playing Prince and Monarchy level of difficulty. I could at least have some pretty tight games on Monarchy of CIV II.
With 400 turn ancients play and slow research, you'll be using and defending with your ancient units for a long long time. At least 200 turns. Getting to Bronze and Iron working to get the spearmen/swordsmen will take a considerable amount of time (and this still doesn't mean you automatically get them, unless you get copper and iron in your provincial areas). Archers will be your life savers and caveman wars will be nothing unusual. Chariots will appear and then the fun really begins as 12 stack AI armies come marching across your border, taking pretty much what they want. ;)
Also by changing the timeline, you can get to 10 cities pretty quickly even taking 25 turns to build a settler (this like CIV I & CIV II). So, you can still get the game you enjoyed with the new perks of CIV IV like religion, which is really pretty neat, you can use it diplomatically to try to keep your borders secure from your neighbors, just adopt their religion or hope they adopt yours. Having the border restrictions is pretty sound, I never liked alien armies marching across my territories freely in the first place like in CIV I, II and III. But, the AI is sneaky it will be your friend, you'll open up your borders for trade cause they will be peaceful towards you, you'll seemingly have many years of peace and harmony as they slowly and tactially move combat units near one of your cities, maybe even your captial and then BOOM declaration of war and bye bye city or capital...YEAH THE FLIPPIN AI BACKSTABBED ME LIKE THAT!! lol A neat trick humans always do to them. ;)
It doesn't take a wiz to modify this game to be any of the CIV's before it. I hate modding, but, I found this so simple a 10 year old could do it. It's nothing more than a few lines changed in the timeline dating system and a little trial and error getting the research values correct so modern tanks don't hit the scene in bc. (took me about 3 games). If you play on a PANGEA map with 14 civs, it's a blast. Adjust the HUGE map size from the default 32x16 to 80x60 or 100x60 and you'll get a rip roaring warmonger of a game. If you want a more diplomatic game, just turn the aggressive ai back off again and turn off barbarians altogether (these just hamper both you and the AI) I tend to like all nations to get the same start without barbarians bringing in that random screw me or them up feature. It works great for me this way, all nations will usually have 7 to 8 cities when I get my 10th.
Some will have already started wars also in this time frame. I watched India smoke America each had 6 cities to start and when the flames cleared America had been decimated, but, Germany had also entered the war on America and they took a couple of cities also. hahah Poor poor America wiped out by India and Germany.
Out of the box CIV IV IS an RTS players turn based game come true. All the games even EPIC HUGE play too fast for my tastes, to say one could play a game in 8 hours or less isn't incorrect. It does play fast, too fast for old CIV grogs that's for sure. But, the game comes with the easy to use "OPTIONS" and easy to modify "scripts" that it can be any game you want it to be with just a few changes and a little trial and error. EPIC HUGE PANGEA games are simply the best I've ever played of all the CIV series after I modded it. The AI aggression is there and/or the diplomacy is there whichever you prefer. I suggest turning off "first to alpha centauri" as a victory condition as well. Work for domination, culture or diplomatic victories, turn off timed victory as well. You'll get the challenge you want then. ;)
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