Beyond the Sword features

[Bobchillingworth]

And FFH?

Yes :P


Civ 3 Conquests was the greatest 4X game ever made. I say that with complete sincerity.


I still play it occasionally. Would totally be up for an Adventure revival or something.

[GermanJoey]

They boosted the AI's bonuses in Warlords only because the AIs were so incompetent. The AI's play incredibly better in BTS (though they still leave a lot to be desired), so much that they rolled the bonuses back to compensate.

[sunrise089]

They boosted the AI's bonuses in Warlords only because the AIs were so incompetent. The AI's play incredibly better in BTS (though they still leave a lot to be desired), so much that they rolled the bonuses back to compensate.

But with the consequence of leaving fewer viable difficulties for skilled players, so IMHO it's not a strictly positive change.

[GermanJoey]

Fewer viable difficulties? What does that mean?

[Qgqqqqq]

That the removal of the pretty absurd boosts means there's less room to be challenged. No one would argue that Deity BTS approaches Deity Warlords, let alone with Blake's AI. So there's a lower cap, and that pushes together the difficulty of the ones below, too - I can pretty handily beat Emperor AI, despite not using any SP tricks, even the obvious ones (like tech trading), and I basically never play SP. I've even beaten Deity once. So to the SP crowd at CFC, there's much less options for a equitable game, and a whole lot more score milking as the boundary to be expanded.

All from an outside observer who doesn't really follow the scene much. Sunrises' point was probably different.

[Brian Shanahan]

The AI was significantly improved for BTS as well.

And then they went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like cutting back on the high level AI bonii.

[Krill]

BtS balance for MP is shite. Warlords is simply better in every way. That so many people thought that siege being able to kill is what broke the game shows how little people still understand about combat in Civ 4. HA and swords still beat the shit out of those cat stacks. You didn't even need much siege to damage the few true defensive units like axes/spear/longbows that guarded the stacks and they they all died.

[Bobchillingworth]

That the removal of the pretty absurd boosts means there's less room to be challenged. No one would argue that Deity BTS approaches Deity Warlords, let alone with Blake's AI. So there's a lower cap, and that pushes together the difficulty of the ones below, too - I can pretty handily beat Emperor AI, despite not using any SP tricks, even the obvious ones (like tech trading), and I basically never play SP. I've even beaten Deity once. So to the SP crowd at CFC, there's much less options for a equitable game, and a whole lot more score milking as the boundary to be expanded.

All from an outside observer who doesn't really follow the scene much. Sunrises' point was probably different.

I feel compelled at this juncture to point out that the final version of Warlords actually uses Blake's AI as well- an iteration which I believe is in fact superior at economic management. It has been a while since I played, but as I recall all of the non-Montyesque personalities will cottage like mad and are quite good at teching. Bear in mind too that the AI in Warlords isn't crippled by an espionage system that eats up a significant amount of its science / gold, plus fewer wonders that it derives no real benefit from.


@ Krill- Time for a Warlords PBEM, maybe?

[GermanJoey]

Are so many of you guys really that disappointed by the challenge of the deity-level AI in BTS? I've played so many games against it and yet I'd be happy to win two out of every 5 I'd actually start, even with every trick in the book. So many others end up in an impossible situation, where you'll be boxed in before your first settler is out, or some runaway on the other side of the map pops Lib or lands a half dozen wonders before you've even had a chance to make contact.

[Bobchillingworth]

No. Even when I played non-FFH Civ IV SP I never really got above Emperor; that reached the roughly 10% chance of failure challenge sweet spot I was looking for.


I just liked playing Warlords a lot more. AI put up a good fight, sieging cities didn't take forever, less disparity between leaders, fewer random-ass techs and units burdening the game with filler, no stupid luck-based espionage system which enabled you to fuck up a single target in a completely uninteresting and unmanly way. Oh and holy cities were fucking awesome.