Civ 4

[12th Doctor]

     Never played it, though from what I heard they did away with pollution. If true, that would suck.

Heard wrong.

[12th Doctor]

Always loved the Civ series. Im a Culture Monger, but Civ Rev is so simplistic I have been able to try some other things as well, like military and economic. I love that you can make the games last anywhere from an hour or two to days on end. The customization and complexity (or lack thereof in Rev) makes it one of my favorite strategy games.

I never really try to "win" as it were.  I enjoy playing just to play.

I play with 15 civs, usually, more than that and you never get to seriously interact with most of them.

I also usually start slightly advanced (I love that you can do that).  Start with enough points to have two cities, and all of the first column techs (the wheel, agriculture, etc).

Now that we are talking about it, I really wanna play.  I have all the expansions as well.

[12th Doctor]

Civ 2 owns

Yeah, I really loved how you could basically launch an ICBM and then repark it on the otherside of the world without it going off.

[12th Doctor]

I really like Civ 4.  Used to play it more, enough for a really fun game of being the Buddhist Holy Roman Empire and taking over half the world at Prince difficulty level.  So when I tried again after a few month hiatus I didn't fare very well, but alas

Most, if not quite all, of my victories are either Scientific or Diplomatic.

Yay! Another non-war monger! I find it all but impossible to do without it being a deul on a small map. I cannot stop the urge to build.....so many buildings.....and by the time you have a theatre, stonehenge, obelisk, and a great artist, well hell, you might as well just try and go for the 'ol culture kill. And that my friends is the story of just about every game of Civ I have ever played lol.

I'm not a war monger either.  I actually get pissed off when wars interrupt my building and expansion.

I usually only go to war if attacked, but though not the aggressor, I am aggressive once I get into the fight.  I usually keep five carrier groups, if I can (a group for me is one carrier, a battleship, and four destroyers) and focus my army around the notion of blitzkrieg.

[12th Doctor]

How do you respond when you share borders with your enemy? You mentioned naval, but what about ground?

I mentioned ground.

To expand, pre-mobile warfare, I usually employ a defensive army.  Once I have tanks, I build an army around blitzkrieg-type tactics.  Alot of air units, tanks and airborne divisions to hit them fast and hard.  Take key cities quickly and leave them having to fight me in their cities.  Offensive war is very difficult in the game (as I am sure you know), so prior to having decent mobility, I really don't bother, unless a target city is right on my boarder, and next to a couple cities that can pump out units quickly, and even after tanks, planes and trains, I usually don't attempt large take overs.  Basically, I get aggressive quickly and then slug it out, let them get tired.  In early ages, I just slug it out.

[12th Doctor]

I also attack their strategic resources as quickly as possible, either with bombing runs, or nukes.

I don't usually use nukes to target cities, because simply beating up one or two cities really isn't going to do much to an enemy.  50% population reduction does not justify the effort and negative press, in my mind, so I use them to take out oil fields, iron and aluminum mines... other things that are going to prevent the enemy from building good units for several turns.  That has a far greater impact on the over-all strategic situation.

[12th Doctor]

I'd also like to note that 8.9% of my iTunes Library consists of Civilization IV songs, showcasing my depressing lack of music pirating

Their musical selections are excellent, though.

[12th Doctor]

I also attack their strategic resources as quickly as possible, either with bombing runs, or nukes.

I don't usually use nukes to target cities, because simply beating up one or two cities really isn't going to do much to an enemy.  50% population reduction does not justify the effort and negative press, in my mind, so I use them to take out oil fields, iron and aluminum mines... other things that are going to prevent the enemy from building good units for several turns.  That has a far greater impact on the over-all strategic situation.

That is a good strategy. I tend to spend turns lining up troops right along my borders and attack when I feel like it. The bad thing is that these guys are prone to making alliances, and that makes me weak on the backside (I only do this in early times when mobility is an issue).

I only get caught off guard if attacked early in the game.  By the industrial era, I usually know who I ought to suspect, and have developed some plan for almost every possible wartime scenario.  There is no such thing as a losing war if you make a plan ahead of time.  And there is no reason you cannot position your forces to react to multiple attacks, or even take on multiple opponents at once.  You just need to plan ahead.

My navy usually dominates the seas, by the modern era (navies are too expensive and ineffective prior developing destroyers, so I don't do much with them before hand), and I can react to literally any situation, anywhere in the world with in a couple turns, even if my response is just a solid blockade and bombing runs.

[12th Doctor]

Anybody play any of the mods?  I'm in love with the Rise of Mankind 2 (must have BTS exp).  The F3 screen is freggin awesome(totally revamped), the tech tree is a million times better than stock.  One sucky thing (other than the fact that it's hard as hell) is that you can only "create" one religion.  It forces the spread of different religions instead of always just coming up with 2 or 3 main ones.  I still force Buddhism down everybody's throat, often at the tip of a shortsword.

If you've just got the Warlords exp, Total Realism kicks ass.  At least it did a year ago.  Excellent tech tree.

I mainly do the standard Earth maps with all the civs in their proper location.  I'm normally Germany or Rome.  Those Praetorians are nice, although toned down a lot in the mod I play (because Iron is much further down the tech tree, it's after Monarchy).  I'm mildly aggressive militarily, especially if I get a head a little on the tech tree.  I blow up around the time gunpowder and ocean ships come around and just start kicking everybody's ass.  It's good to wait a bit, if you attack to early you have to build TONS of settlers to fill in the gaps.  If you wait until 500BC, the Russians, Persians, Chinese and Mongals have all the good locations taken with fairly large cities and if you time it right, can be easy pick'ns.  It's fun to roll across Asia with Knights, spreading Democracy, the Free Market and Buddhism to the heathens.

I played Civ Gold for years.  Right now I am playing the History in the Making Mod, which seems pretty good.  It adds a few civs, Zoroastrianism as a religious option, reorders the tech tree to make it truer to life and adds some resources, like coffee, tea, etc.