Apology

[Ronald]

What is the problem with the current patch? Can you tell us why you don't want to use this patch?

[pholkhero]

It may not be any specific problem. Remember that the patch has been expected "soon" and "in the next few weeks" for a bunch of weeks now. Perhaps it was simply that they wanted to wait until the patch came out, thinking at first, it would actually be out soon and they didn't want to be caught mid-patch on an epic. and now, the patch keeps getting pushed back, you're still stuck in the same problem: having a patch come out mid-epic. In hindsight, it seems we very well could've had another game (perhaps thus the apology thread??), but, of course, in hindsight, i should've majored in something other than philosophy ~ it is 20/20 after all!

[Timon of Athens]

@Ronald:

I just looked at your signature, and all I can say is: "Das Wort sei die naturnotwendige Verkörperung eines Gedankens - und nicht die gesellschaftsfähige Hülle einer Meinung." I enjoy reading KK every time and I'm glad that someone out there knows him too .

On topic:

I guess nobody knows when the patch will come out except the Firaxians. Maybe even they don't know it due to the quality management process. Sirian and his RB Civ staff made the right decision in waiting anyway - so for me there is no reason for an apology.

LT

[dathon]

From what I remember of this discussion early on, certain changes in the last patch rendered play at Epic speed somewhat unbalanced, thus the delay for new Epics. And the "real soon" announcements probably delayed the Adventures, as pholk pointed out.

dathon

[Dantski]

Off topic question for you.

Any plans to have Marathons?

[Sirian]

Any plans to have Marathons?

Not at the moment.

[Sirian]

Civ4's legs are showing no sign of buckling for me. Although I haven't been playing SP, pending the patch and a spurt of activity to come, I have still been playing MP over the last month and a half, and the game still feels quite fresh for me. I don't hit irritations, which I -do- hit with other games, which too often have me rolling my eyes. I find I still get in to the flow of the game from one turn to the next with little or nothing to distract me, almost no tedium, with a high rate of "fun stuff" compared to tasks I don't relish.

For me, at least, I think the game will have rather long legs.

I'm curious how others are feeling, especially those who may be feasting in Charis-like fashion. Kylearan's been pushing the envelope, and the SGs are going pretty far down the variant pathways. However, I still find fun in the root game. How is it going for you?


- Sirian

[Atlas]

I think the opening is the most interesting part of the game for me, the first 100 turns or so (I think I could still play an opening in Civ 3, the opening moves are just the most fun), So I see Civ 4 have long legs for me.

MP is fun, but it is sort of like Always War, and for me must be taken in moderation. The real plus to it is that humans play so differently from the AI and are highly unpredictable-a real bonus over the AI, I mean you know what the sign means that says Izzy just switched to Vassalage and Theocracy . Unfortunately picking up games in the gamespy lobby with random people results in having all of my opponents sending me messages to hurry my turns , I prefer to play MP with RBers (unfortunately starting at 8pm is no good for my as I rise at 5am). MP is also good because the strats are often very different. SP though is my favorite and represents 95% of my games.

As to the SG variants, I don't know why besides that Variants are fun . I would happily play a vanilla SG at a high (all relative of course) difficulty level. If someone wanted to play a vanilla Emperor game (or higher) SG I would gladly play.?

[Knupp715]

The game has long legs for me too. I find that the end game can get boring at times but it is still definitely fun.

I must say that MP can be much more enjoyable over SP, but only when you don't have the quitters and people who like Atlas said "hurry up, you're taking so long! blah blah " Most of the online community is good though.

I just started back playing some MP games every once in a while now that I have learned so much from the SG's I read and play in. I just had a game a few days ago where I was playing against somebody who I had played before I took my MP break (when I was still prince level). I knew that he would go for some conquest immediately as this was what had led to my doom in previous games. This was a team game and my partner and I were far away while his partner was right next to him. All I had was warriors and archers and the only bronze nearby wasn't hooked up yet. He started gathering axes around my borders (when I still had warriors 8) ). Luckily though, through some new strategies I beat him back and played defensively while building up a large naval invasion force. I knew I wouldn't be able to break through his border cities so why not go for his production city way in the east next to his capital. I easily razed that city, his capital, and eventually captured his two border cities. Good move by me even though later his partner did the same thing and captured my partners capital. Getting to the point, it's good to know that I was able to fend off his attack and eventually win which I wouldn't have been able to do before.

My most enjoyable SP games atm are ones on monarch. I can consistently win unless Gandhi or Musa try to run away with a space race but that makes the game a lot more fun. I have tried around 10 games on emperor but I always get so frustrated. Despite my efforts, I always seem to be 10 techs behind the AI. :mad: I am confident though that one day I will be able to beat it, hopefully sometime soon

[VoiceOfUnreason]

However, I still find fun in the root game. How is it going for you?

I've been unmotivated by the root game lately. My most recent game (Highland Map, Prince, playing as... I'm not sure, Cyrus perhaps) I was somewhere in the gunpowder era, tech leader with a huge production and power edge, having already rendered Alex irrelevent, with Ghandi, running low on power as my immediate neighbor... and I just couldn't be bothered. I felt like I had learned the lessons of that game, and I just stopped.

I haven't been able to persuade myself that going up a level will make the game more interesting (although I'm sure it will be harder).

I tend to play for concepts (ie: figure out how foo works), but I haven't discovered a next bit that's been worth starting the game for. And while I've got some ideas for gambits that I want to try - I haven't been dealt the hand to play them.