Good Company

On turn 323 I get queried for my vote in the "Apostolic Palace Election"; I could vote for one of the other leaders but not myself. I have no idea what this is so I choose to abstain. The next turn I'm informed that Pascal II has won the election. Well, good for him, I guess. I know Civ III had the United Nations which you could use to win the Diplomatic Victory, but I don't think they'd add another such possibility... This must be just some minor business. It still bothers me a bit that no one explains me what's going on.

On turn 324 I found Sanchu on the Beaver Island -- in the south-east corner, next to a source of iron. The terrain is mostly desert over there but the place is strategic.

Around this time I also complete the Assembly Line technology, which enables Infantry. Naturally this is not enough so I set the technological target to Robotics, which enables Mechanized Infantry.

It is clear that at some point I must declare a war against England because I want the resources of the Beaver Island. I try to be arrogant towards Churchill and demand that they give me the Music technology for free, but he just gives me the know-how smiling, remarking that he's happy to help. Well, we'll see later how happy he is doing business with me...

Then, a Great Engineer Norbert Rillieux is born in Karakorum! I immediately use him to start the Mining Inc. corporation. Corporations are one of the new features of Beyond the Sword. They work a bit like religions. Mining Inc. consumes coal, iron and some other minerals and increases the production of the cities that it is present in.

Beaver Island Revisited

Bad news... Churchill has also spotted the Beaver Island and quickly established two cities there. The cities have several resources within their reach, including coal and uranium. I also rush to establish Tiflis near a source of oil, north-east from Circassian, and Otrar, north from Circassian, to hopefully conquer the uranium from England with just its culture.To keep up the good neighbor relationships, I exchange a couple of minor technologies from Churchill for the Replaceable parts. Next, I am contacted by the Mayans who wish to exchange their world map with mine. I deny this request but negotiate another deal: I give them Physics and they give me Drama, Literature, Liberalism and Democracy! Not the worst deal, I think. I choose to change my labor civic from Serfdom to Emancipation and the economy civic from Decentralization to Free Market.

Edit/Add: The Liberalism technology, like all the technologies in the game, comes with a quote from a famous person, in this case Benjamin Franklin. I thought this one was particularly wise:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Spreadsheets and the Wiki

Here is a table I crafted with Google Spreadsheets: Civs by leader traits. The main point is to show the traits the various leaders have and as such possibly make it easier to choose your leader and civilization. There is also a view with the civilizations sorted alphabetically and a view without the expansion packs.

I have also been working on the Civilization IV Wiki. I was made an administrator there and I have really been revising it. I have pretty much got rid of duplicate work and concepts that would cause duplicate work to be done, and I have started adding data about units and such. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Beaver Island

It's turn 300 when I suddenly realize that one of the cities on the map is not inhabited by the Mayans, the Englishmen or even the Babylonians, but by barbarians! This was not possible in Civilization III. The city, called Circassian, is on an island north from my main continent. The island also contains a lot of beavers which are a good source of furs. I shall call that island the Beaver Island from now on.
Naturally it's clear that the city cannot continue under a Barbarian reign so I immediately begin shipping my riflemen out to the Beaver Island. I conquer the city after just eight turns. In the process one of my rifleman units gets killed against Barbarians with longbows but other than that it's a flawless victory.

Somewhere along the way Hammurabi contacts me and we negotiate a deal: they give me 150 gold and the knowledge of Nationalism and I give them Replaceable Parts. The former technology enables the Nationhood civic and the latter one leads to Rifling and also allows building lumber mills. I then change my legal civic from Vassalage to Nationhood, mostly because it is cheaper and I have some budget issues. I have already begun building courthouses to cut the maintenance costs of my cities as well as groceries and markets to increase commerce.

Peace

What was left from the previous diary entry for the sake of continuity was that on turn 277, 1814 AD, my civilization entered the Industrialization era. Also right after that I exchanged some technologies with the Babylonians: I gave them Printing Press, which makes villages and towns produce more commerce, and they gave me Education, which enables building Universities. There was also a gold rush in Tenochtitlan, which increased the city's population.

On turn 283 the Versailles was completed in Tenochtitlan. It reduces maintenance costs in nearby cities. On the same turn the Mongolian empire reached 10 million souls -- only about 30 turns after reaching 5 million souls! My scientists also finished researching Steam Power, which "makes a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck"!

On turn 290 I established Tabriz to where Shangian used to be. A while after that Churchill contacted me, demanding that I stop trading with the Mayans. Too bad, not going to happen. Instead I made an Open Borders deal with the Babylonians and agreed over trading ivory.

On turn 299 my civilization learns the art and science of railroad building and my workers begin a huge road upgrading task.

Other Worlds

After conquering my continent I realized I had almost completely neglected the research of anything related to naval vessels. This became apparent when I tried to explore the island with the remaining Aztec cities but the Aztec ships quickly sunk my poor boats.

Luckily I already had a prospering research organization and the necessary technologies were quickly studied. On turn 249 I also achieved my long-term scientific goal, rifling, which enables the training of riflemen. Around the same time I was also informed that Mongolia now holds five million people.

So, back to the seafaring technologies. I quickly trained some new ships and sent them out to explore. I soon met Pacal II of the Mayans, Hammurabi of the Babylonians and Winston Churchill of England. Pacal was a bit hostile but it was only words, Churchill on the other hand sold me their world map. No good deed goes unpunished, though: my new fleet of privateers, unmarked rogue ships, destroyed one of Churchill's caravels as well as some other ships by some other civilizations. Tough luck for them.

I then also destroyed the naval resistance of the Aztecs and unloaded my units onto the other island. My first victim city there was Shangian which I burned down because I didn't want to use my resources to defend it. I then captured Texcoco, north from Shangian's remains and finally Tlaxcala, east from where Shangian used to be. This ended the war, because the Aztecs are no more! Here is my current map:

Renaissance

In 1290 AD (turn 189) my civilization reaches the Era of Renaissance! This happy piece of news is slightly shadowed by the fact that right after this event Montezuma declares a war on me. It was supposed to be the other way around! Montezuma immediately moves a large stack of units towards Beshbalik, but fortunately that was exactly where I had stacked my units too.

At this point I complete the Notre Dame, which adds happiness, which is good because of war weariness. A great engineer also emerges from one of my cities. I use him to start the Golden Age, which enhances the production and commerce output of my cities. I also adapt the Police State civic which reduces war weariness and speeds up the training of military units. A couple of turns only and I have destroyed Montezuma's first wave of attackers, and can begin my counter-offensive.

A great general has also emerged in one of my cities so I use him to lead my troops, which gives them more experience. In turn 206 I capture Teotihuacan from the Aztecs and loot a good amount of money from their vaults. By the turn 226 I have also conquered Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan, which makes the continent mine and only mine. The Aztecs still have some cities in a nearby island...

Noon of Time

Because Montezuma requested a "donation" from me in quite a rude fashion, I'm building up my army. I also had the Pyramids in construction in Karakorum, they were completed on turn 122. I then establish Ning-hsia to what might be called the south-western part of my continent, next to a nice river, and Old Sarai (I'm confused: how can it be "Old" when it has just been founded?) next to a source of iron in the middle of the triangle formed by Karakorum, Turfao and Ning-hsia.

Very soon after acquiring the source of iron my civilization enters the Medieval Era and I also complete my first National Wonder, the Moai Statues. This concept of National Wonders is new to the Civilization IV, too -- I hadn't even realized the concept's existence before I got the message informing me about it. Nice.

A while later I establish New Sarai (d'oh) to the southern coast of my continent. I also adopt the serfdom and vassalage civics that allow workers to build improvements faster and new units to receive some experience points, respectively. I also establish Samarqand to the west, south from Turfao.

I have now pretty much filled my continent with cities. I think any new cities would start to overlap with the old ones' areas or just have too many tundra or such tiles that it wouldn't be worth it. I'm also almost ready to attack the Aztecs to make some room for myself. I have been stacking units to Beshbalik, close to the Aztec city of Teotihuacan...

Observations

I have been meaning to describe how the game actually feels like after Civilization III. My first impression was that the game has been sugar-covered into something like The Sims. Pastel colors, round shapes, etc. Luckily I have already gotten over it and to be honest it isn't that bad.

The city view has lots of stuff going on, which is pretty confusing at first. There is a large section reserved for listing the resources (silk, ivory, coal, iron, horses, ...) the city has an access to. Then there is the map with the yielding symbols (food, hammers and commerce) like before, but the people have new professions and some space has been reserved for handling them. Previously there were just scientists, tax collectors and entertainers, but now you have merchants, engineers and such. A nice addition is the production queue. I haven't tried completely automating the cities yet.

The 3D graphics are very nice and the fighting animations are fun to watch. Archers, for example, use knives to defend themselves but bows when attacking. You can zoom the camera out into the orbit or very close to the cities. The orbit view actually provides different commands to the closer view. You can use it to see the influence of religions, unit locations, and such. The cities actually expand over their tiles and you can literally see all the improvements in the city when you zoom in.

The units now only have one strength-value instead of separate attack- and defense-values. They have, however, been divided into logical categories such as mounted units, gunpowder units, melee units, etc. The siege weapons exist pretty much like in Civilization III. The units now have special attacks against different types of units. For example, pikemen excel against cavalry units, like they should. This is definitely a nice, intuitive update to the units. However, I'm not yet as convinced about another update, the promotions. The units can be updated in a role-playing fashion with promotions such as City Defense (which makes them better at defending cities, d'oh) or Amphibious, which enables them to attack straight from a cargo ship. Previously this option was only available for the Marine unit. I guess they do make the game more interesting and especially the Medic-promotion is useful, because it enables one unit to slowly heal others.

The technology tree has been expanded a lot, which makes it difficult for a newcomer to know what are the key technologies. You can also choose multiple paths to the same tech, which is interesting. There are, however, some techs that do not seem to have any prequisite techs yet they still have them. I haven't quite figured out the logic behind this yet. Maybe it's just that they need one of the techs that are on the previous "level" behind them in the tree, I don't know. You can still click on a tech and the game then automatically chooses to research everything that is needed for it so it doesn't really matter.

All in all the game is just as or even more addictive as the previous versions of the series, which is either a good or a bad thing, depending on the point of view. :) Also check out this Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword gameplay video I found from YouTube.

8 to 11am of Time

So, I have explored my continent (minus the Aztec parts) and am sending out my settler to establish another city. I choose to place it south-east from Karakorum, near the Aztecs just to stop them spreading my way. I call the new city Beshbalik.

Right after founding Beshbalik I discover Confucianism. It becomes my main religion. After that I also change my labor civic from Tribalism to Caste System. I should probably mention here that I have automated all my workers after some initial playing with them. I believe they are quite capable of doing their job without me micromanaging them.

I finish my first great wonder, the Stonehenge, on turn 81 (850 BC) in Karakorum. After that I train a settler who proceeds to found a new city, Turfan, to the western end of my continent, right next to not only one but two gold veins.

I proceed by adopting the Hereditary Rule -civic, which actually makes people draw happiness from military units garrisoned to cities. That suits me well, because I am going to start producing more military in fear of the Aztecs... My fears actually come true just a couple of turns later when Montezuma requests an audience and demands that I pay him some money. I don't wish to start the war just yet so I pay him, but this only makes me haste the production of military units. I'll get the money back many times when I loot their burning cities...

Dawn of Time

Very early on, on turn four, my scouts meet with Montezuma's scouts. We have a quick meeting and agree to go in peace. I'm just hoping he doesn't expand too fast, or else I may have to destroy the Aztecs altogether...

On turn seven my great nation learns the animal husbandry technology. We also spot a herd of horses near Karakorum. This gives my scientists the funny idea that it might actually be possible to ride a horse. We'll see about that, but I'll let them work on it anyway...

In other news, Montezuma wanted Open Borders and I agreed. I then found his capital city, Tenochtitlan, while exploring my continent. The continent spans to east and west and is quite narrow in the north-south axis.

First Game!

Right, time to start my first game of Civilization IV! I'm choosing fractal map, small world size, medium sea level, temperate climate and chieftain difficulty. I'm commanding the Mongolian empire with Genhis Khan as the leader. Mr. Khan is aggressive and expansive. I'm renaming Genghis to ZeroKhan, though. The special unit of the Mongols is the keshik that is a cavalry unit.

My settler starts with a scout in a forest next to some hills, plains and a river. I'm founding my capital city, Karakorum, right there...

Installation

I install Civ IV and BtS and use the in-game update query tool... and the game freezes. :O I can move the mouse and it changes shape, apparently per what's on the Windows desktop under that point, but that's all. I cannot even load the task manager with ctrl-alt-delete, so I have to reboot my computer the hard way. Oh well, I'll just download the newest patch from the web. I suspect my firewall blocked the in-game query and the game didn't exactly like that.

I then managed to download and install the patch from the web, so the next thing to do is to start playing!

Pre-Game

Hello. I started this blog to keep a track of my Civilization IV games. My Civilization history starts from the lower elementary school, when our teacher gave us a slide full of text to copy and meanwhile played Civilization I behind his desk. Then in the 1990s I got Civilization II and played that. Later I got Civilization III and the Play the World expansion pack. I made two diaries about those games and was in the middle of a third one when the game crashed and never recovered. Now I have just received Civilization IV and its Beyond the Sword expansion pack...