Best advice would be to choose a victory condition you want to achieve and go for it by focusing on those parts that will get you to your goal. If you don’t, you’re likely to head straight to the end at 2050 and the “win” will go to the civ with the most points.
Okeydoke. It probably doesn’t help that it randomly put me on archipelagos so there’s no interaction.
H.
Oh well, just restart then. Archipelagos suck. Play on pangaea, or if you really want to use ships, continents. Also, I hope you’re playing on a small map; otherwise your game will take forever. The most expeditious victory condition is to conquer every enemy capitol. Everything else takes a long time to achieve.
Man, you ain’t kiddin’. I started and finished another game on a standard map, continents. I was always ahead and won the Space Race, but it took forever. I’m not sure I can commit to a game that takes six hours to finish a single . . . game.
H.
I am a bit in the same boat as you Houngan , I’ve finished a game on the largest map with small islands and won the space race, I really feel I’ve seen all I want to see, my 3 total games have take around 16 or so hours.
I don’t recall Civ games being such time sinks, then again I was 10 years younger that last time I really invested myself in one.
Very fun game though, its just repetitive now for me.
I’m with you, it’s just too much speed-bumping. I enjoyed the combat bits and the expansion bits, but the main meat of it where everyone is friendly and you’re just grinding science/production is numbing.
H.
Civ games were always that long… really. :) But you can play on a smaller map to cut down play time to maybe 2-3 hours. Much shorter than that isn’t really feasible since IMO you want at least 4 civs to have some diplomatic interactions.
Strato
5568
I’m sure I remember reading in the Civfanatics forums that games of Civ III could go upwards of 90 hours each, though that was from players who loved the micro management, squeezing everything they could out each turn to ensure maximal efficiency.
People can play as they want, but if you want the CIV experience now , I would suggest Oval or Pangea maps, and don’t use auto - explore on land, barbs will get em.
If you want to make it on higher difficulty, city placement is vital and a fun part of the game.
KevinC
5570
If you’re concerned about game length, there are options for game speed, map size, and number of players to customize how you’d like.
If all else fails you can always save the game as well. It’s not like Bioware expects you to finish a 30 hour game in one sitting either. :)
Seriously though, if you hit a point where you’ve got the game in the bag, don’t slog through to the end if you don’t want to, just start a new game or a walk away.
Andrew
5571
This is why space race victories are very tedious. I don’t think I’ve bothered with them more than, say, once, since Civ 2. Turn after turn of just clicking “next”. Conquest victories usually happen much earlier than space race ones, and are more interesting. Embrace your inner Khan!
Enidigm
5573
The Pangaea Plus map included in one of the DLCs is a much more interesting map than what came with the standard game. Also post patch the AI seems easier on lower levels, maybe has fewer bonuses?
Yeah, space race is pretty much always tedious and boring. Go pick a fight, you’ll have a lot more fun :)
Quitch
5575
Are there any other 4Xs which handle such victory conditions better? I always feel a big part of the problem is the lack of people moving to stop you achieving them. It should be a tense thing, down to the last turn, but often you just click next and nothing happens.
Shogun’s realm divide is the obvious example, but that game has the benefit of only having the one goal.
In broader 4X terms, the problem is that developers have to skate the line between “tense fun as you push toward victory” and “fuck me everyone just declared on me, this sucks.” See Civ III for what happens when you end up on the wrong side of that particular line.
I do agree that space vics are boring and cultural vics (in both IV and V as far as I’m concerned) are poorly designed. That’s why you should go pick a fight with a neighbor ;)
Quitch
5577
I recall that Gal Civ II changed it so that as someone approached a tech victory (I think it was tech) the galaxy was notified that they were going to win this way. I don’t know if this made a difference or not.
I just played a game as Emperor in which the AI declared war on me from about 30 hexes away in a pangaea world.
There were a couple of neutral city states in the way that I didn’t want to conquer yet, so I wasn’t interested in actually attacking the foe. I just waited and watched as every other turn for about 12 turns in a row, a single enemy catapult would emerge from the neutral state’s fog of war, move to the same hex on my border, get half damaged by one of my crossbowman, move two hexes closer, and get killed. It ran like clockwork with never any other force except the every-other-turn catapult bravely charging into battle. Eventually the enemy gave up and offered me some gold for peace.
And people wonder why some of us think the AI is bad… I don’t want to play at higher levels than Emperor because I don’t want to micromanage my cities so closely, but really, at Emperor level this is just a bad joke. At this level the AI already has some truly enormous production and happiness bonuses, yet it can’t even seem to manage its own production, much less figure out what to do with its units.
Something about dealing with neutral territory/city-states definitely breaks the AI, yeah. At the same time, it can actually run a credible city assault if it doesn’t have all that territory in the way.
KevinC
5580
Assuming the AI isn’t using its swordsmen to push its catapults to the front line… that part, at least, seems a little improved since release!
