Sullla's Civ 4 Testing Reports

[Eauxps I. Fourgott]

These are some interesting extra insights in this thread, Sullla. Might I suggest adding them to an "extras" page once all the reports are up so that more people can see them?

[MJW (ya that one)]

The reason why the AI never attacked in the second always war game is because it plays with fog-of-war hack. Combined with the then cap of 6 units per tile it couldn't find any good attacks. It only uses it for war purposes so it's not obvious unless you suspect it.

[MJW (ya that one)]

This is also why AI attacked New Khoisan as soon as you cleared out units to attack Pasargadae and then flaked out as soon as you moved units back.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

From Sullla's MP3 report:

>This is something that I wish had become more popular after release: teams of players going up against an AI team, basically the Single Player experience but with your friends as allies. Maybe we can set up one of these games for the Friday Livestream, I think that would be fun.

One variant I've enjoyed is two human players on a team against 6 unteamed diety AI on a standard pangea. Never tried setting up anything like that 7v7 game.

[Zalson]

These are absolutely delightful to read, Sullla.

I am enjoying the emphasis on religion (I remember what a HUGE concept this was at the time) and also the bizarre, sub-optimal openings. Multiple worker-less openings with religions pursued without mysticism is pretty funny to read about now -- but I remember that being THE thing at the time. Without a religion, you were TOAST. (I only played the release version and that was a huge point of emphasis).

The retrospective understanding of the economy is also fascinating. I remember panicking at dropping science below 50% and the mind-blowing revelation of binary science, which I did not trust for a long time. Nowadays, I turn off science before a war starts to bankroll unit costs, unit supply costs, and maintenance -- but that's with 20 years of experience.

Thank you for sharing these insights, Sullla. It truly is a jewel.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I think mounted units are weaker in SP were AI has fog of war hack and wasted units in garrisons.

[MJW (ya that one)]

The cure was much worse though so I agree that alexman didn't know what he was doing.

[GeneralKilCavalry]

Heard Baba Yetu on KUSC radio a few hours ago. Nice start to the day.

[civac2]

That question has a very simple answer: because Civ4's gameplay was better with Slavery in its final state. It's not that Soren was unaware that Slavery civic emerged as a staple of high-level Civ4 gameplay, it could have been nerfed back into a weaker state if the developers desired. It was left alone because the gameplay was improved having it in place: Civ4 plays faster and involves more decision-making with the use of Slavery civic as opposed to not having it in place. Try playing a game without using the civic, it feels slow and sluggish in comparison. With Slavery civic, the player is constantly checking their cities and thinking about should they whip something, is the pop cost and unhappiness worth it, creating ongoing dynamic player interactions. It's very, very good at sucking in the player and keeping the "One More Turn" feeling rolling along. Slavery civic also creates an even greater contrast between "good" and "bad" land on the map, as the desirable high-food portions of the map can accelerate ahead of the low-food plains and tundra wastelands. This is a good thing! There needs to be stronger and weaker portions of the map to create conflict over high-quality land; Civ7 tried to make all land equally viable and it resulted in a dreadfully boring game.

That's an interesting perspective. Slavery does make the game more dynamic. The downside it has it that offensive warfare is horrifically expensive in Civ4 because the defender will whip everything to the ground to make obscene amounts of units which in turn forces the attacker to do severe damage to his/her economy as well with the whip. This is often even true if the attacker has significantly better military tech.

[williams482]

These old reports and other tidbits were really cool to read through. Thank you for sharing them!