Part of what's happening at this point is we long ran out of tech tree. I'm on Future Tech 4 by this point, and this becomes disappointing. Not only have I closed my tech gap with other civs, but there is now no longer any gap in any tech anywhere – and there never will be in any meaningful sense. We've all maxed out (the relevant players anyway), and Future Tech does nothing important. I would recommend that Future Tech at least provide military upgrades or something so that tech at this point still has some kind of significance beyond health and happiness.

Future Tech

Let's stop in on religion, though, to see what the advisor says. I'm pretty sure this is telling me something important, but I never use this screen.

Religion

Here is what the U.N. has done. Basically, we have made the 2nd tier civs, well, exactly like us. They have had to adopt our civs, we've taken away their nukes, and we've upped trade all over the place. We are turning Earth into a forced Garden of Eden! “War! What is it good for!?” Well, at this point, a little war might be kind of fun…and I would start one, but I'm a bit tired. Maybe I'll just vote for Gandhi in the upcoming elections and get this over with.

U.N.

This screen is mildly helpful, especially if you want to know your relative military power at an given point (I generally was a disappointing 5th or 6th here, which suggests the AI could have given me a hard time, if they had wanted to). Yet, if you toggle the various civs to get the rainbow index to tell you anything, good luck…it's pretty bland.

Tally

I end this game by voting for Gandhi to stop the tedium. Nothing was going on at this point, and the idea of starting a war to win the game was not appealing as already turns were very laggy, there were no new techs to be had, and the world had settled into something of a monochromatic love fest. Still, a lot of interesting choices in the early to mid games kept me playing. Even the late game had a few turning points when diplomatic loyalties were tested, but I just can't help but feel that with all the dead time in the late game we should have spend more time with our units and our techs in the earlier eras. Where had all the other eras gone? The pacing, it seems, is off.

Maybe the light-speed jumps through the tech tree make for a faster game that can be played in an evening, but just as likely it results in the top civs all becoming carbon copies of each other with little willingness to engage each other in anything more than U.N. resolutions to keep the city streets free of litter. Thus, while the process along the way is quite fun at points, the end game can default to something like this. Perhaps I should leave on timed victories or the space race next time? I guess that forces the time issue on the player, but those just aren't victories that mean much to me.

GAME 2: “Infinite Attack Sleaze”
For this game, I kept Kublai Khan, went to a standard Highlands map, and added 3 extra AIs for a total of 10 players. My goal here was to have enough AIs so that we would form blocs that might effectively join forces against each other. This is still Noble level, so I pretty much expect to win, but I'm hoping for something fun.

I've made mention of an “engaging early game,” and the screen below tells some of the story. Part of what makes the early game the best part of CivIV is that seemingly small decisions have a huge impact (should I build a worker now or a warrior?), and by virtue of having so few cities to think about, you tend to zoom in more and enjoy the lush landscapes and sounds. By the mid to end game, all this gets lost as you zoom way out over a sprawling empire that becomes as much about wrestling the interface as it does about crushing your foes.

Anyway, I've jumped ahead in my start to illustrate some interesting decisions: I built my second and third cities on a river because the river counts as a road, which gives me a little added commerce for free and, importantly, no need to actually build a road between them (a wonderful small decision that can be made). I had iron available to me early, so I decided to focus on iron working to build swordsmen to attack cities (the relationship between your natural resources and your build/research decisions is also very good early on); copper is also nearby, which will also help my early attack options. And stone is really powerful for building wonders. A good start, resource wise. Finally, you'll see that I built 7 workers by 300B.C. I found that this way I can actually control my growth while setting up these three cities for some tremendous productivity. Here, too, the decision to go for more workers vs. more early population or more cities is quite fun and engaging.

Game 2

It's 200 b.c., and the attack force is gathering. Thus begins Step 1 of Infinite Attack Sleaze. NOTE: One thing that makes attacking enemy cities at this level so darned easy is you can simply mouse over the city and see what units are guarding it! This should be cut from CivIV post-haste! Make this type of information require a spy, which would also then give that unit more meaning in CivIV. Of course, the spy unit would need to be available much earlier, but that would be a welcome change, I think.

Attack Force

I've taken two enemy cities (which is much, much more economical than founding two more of my own, especially considering the gold I get for conquering each one and *not* using up core city time to build settlers). My horde of workers were on standby and are hard at work. My biggest sacrifice is I'm at 60% research to keep the gold positive. If I stop my attacks now, of course, this could bite me long term because I would leave the enemy AI enough resources and tech lead to strike back. My goal is to amass enough cities now so that I begin to go back in a positive gold flow at 90-100% research despite city maintenance costs.

Taking Cities

With one AI crippled in the North, I head South because Bismark is making annoying threats. I suppose a tenet of Infinite Attack Sleaze is to finish off one AI before hitting the next, but I couldn't help taking on AI #2. Those two catapults, by the way, will prove powerful…perhaps too powerful? With them, I'll take down the city defense and weaken the city defenders so much that taking the city will be quite easy.

Research still at 60%, but my cash flow is rising, now at 33 g.p./turn. Not great, but moving up. Also, despite my warmongering, I'm only second in the rankings behind Louis (though happily ahead of #3). I wonder if Louis, too, is taking over his neighbors?:

Going South

Well, Louis didn't like me, I guess, so he attacked. In return, I took one of his cities away, which seems to have the effect in CivIV of putting total fear in the A.I. for several turns. At this point, I've taken cities from 3 different A.I.s. I wouldn't say that I've been very efficient about it or anything. I'm still learning the game, but it's clear that going on the offense keeps the AIs in check…and I'm back on top of the rankings now after taking Louis' city.

Taking Louis

Jumping way ahead, it's now 2100 a.d., and by virtue of constantly attacking, I have 20 or so cities, am over 700 points in the lead, have since discovered every tech available and so have 70% culture spending. All the while, the AIs never made any concerted effort to stop the onslaught. There were a few attempts, again by Louis and then a few times by the Chinese, but each time I would take away a city or rout their armies, and they would beg for peace. Meanwhile, I'll leisurely eat away at the AI cities to my West.

After all, the maps don't even wrap around (which baffles me), so I load up my Eastern border in case somebody happens to attack. At this point, the tedium is acute. Painful, really. I suppose I should have kept the timed or space race victories since this is gonna be a slog, but I'd really prefer a conquest victory that keeps me engaged.

2100

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