Had another go at Civ IV

[ProPain]

Went on holiday for a week, packed a more than decent laptop and Civ4 just to give it another go.

First game : Prince level, continents, standard size
After doing ok initially I got hopelesly behind. Apart from sucky civ4 skills I blame the map. Was on little continent alone, discover Romans on a big island next to it. By the time I made contact with the other civs I was still banging rocks together for fire and they were building riflemen. I had immense trouble getting my finances going only went up in the endgame. 75 turns before the end Cyrus launched his spaceship and I was building cavs or something. Played the remaining 75 turns and managed to get even in tech (that is get all techs there were) even beating the Romans to the last tech by one tech. Ended up first in score after those 75 turns were done, benefits of having a continent for yourself

second game : Prince level, continents, standard size
Doing quite ok techwise untill my best friend showed up at my border with some immense SoD's and attacked out of the blue.
Lesson learned: Having civs on friendly terms doesnt compensate for being weak


third game : Prince level, continents, standard size
started, got GPT troubles again, bought Warlords as the lack of internet prevented me to download the 1.61 patch which I needed to get the game to perform a bit better speedwise.

Warlords
Took me quite a while to notice the difference between the vanilla and warlords version. Looks like something that a decent modder would have come up with after a weekend. But then I discover the real benefit of warlords: revised civilopedia! Apparently they found out the icon driven civpedia in vanilla was a disaster.

Conclusion: € 25,- for better civpedia and 1.61 patch, what a waste of money

third game, 2nd try : Prince level, continents, standard size
Did some more aggresive expansion, build more hamlets, pruned Roosevelt in an early war. Still got a little behind in techs in the late ancient era, again lack of GPT. Caught up and build up my civ. Launched my spaceship in 1982 and claimed vitory.

overall conclusion
I had more fun playing than a year ago when I bought it, will give it a go some more for sure. Still wondering why I have troubly keeping up commerce wise after the initial fase. Can use tips on that Also I feel the game favors more peacefull routes as going to war is a cumbersome ordeal with the reduced movement.