Avian Gamers Network

Dammit!! Just did some investigating at lunch. My usual stores are all sold out of Civ4 already. No word on new shipments coming in... argh

Well at least I'll have an excuse now should I get trounced in Avian MP.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

Amazon.com.. over night shipping. FEED THE NEED!

Although I have been loving Civ4, I do have one problem that is quite frustrating... When I start up a single player game it runs at a fine pace but then after about half an hour it gets really really choppy and eventually becomes unplayable. I reboot and it works fine for another half hour til the same thing happens again. Anyone have a similar experience? Know of a fix?

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TheMole
Section 5
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Now Playing: WoW
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Apparently there's a Civ4 cache folder that needs cleared out periodically. It's in a hidden folder (in explorer, go up to Tools, Folder Options, then View tab and unhide the system folders). It's c:\documents and settings\your name\my games\ and drill down to the Civ 4 folder. I know it's in there somewhere... I'll go check civfanatics.com to verify.

ewww, that's ugly.

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this is the directory, you missed one step \/ Nice find though. Hope this helps.

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\My Games\Civilization IV

if you make a shortcut to the civ 4 file then you can jump in very quickly to delete the file. I haven't tried killing it with the game actually running yet but it worked fine deleting then starting a saved game.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

Not likely free shipping to Canada but I'll investigate. Caught wind that a shipment is scheduled for thurs/friday here.

Man I am chomping at the bit to raze some American cities!!! (oops, was that not my inner voice? )

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

That's ok, they've got some Canadian cities in there too. They're the corrals made for deer, elk, and sheep on the map

anybody else having issues where you go to save your game and it appears to save but just as you think it's done you CTD?

The save file appears when you re-enter the game but once you click to load from it you CTD again.

EDIT:

The CTD isn't so bad, you can just go to one of the auto saves so at most you lose like a turn.

Also - I can't find any cache files...

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I haven't had that problem dbakke... save works fine for me.

I found the cache, and cleared it while the game was running when it got really slow and it fixed the problem, speed was back to normal when i returned to the game. The cache can be found at C:/Documents and Settings/UserName/Application Data/My Games/Civilization 4/cache . There are a bunch of .dat files in there. Just delete the folder.
Did you check more than one user name's directory?

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TheMole
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I've noticed the cache folder is not always under that path. I have found it under \My Documents\My Games\Civ 4. So it can be found in varying locations. Not sure if this is a Windows service pack issue directing it to different locations, but it will be in either of the two.

The point is moot for me now anyway. The cache removal fix was specifically for after you had made a fix to get the game to load you then needed to clear the cache sometimes to get everything to work. I am having serious slowdown issues on the big map in late game with many civs still around. The game has a serious memory leak or coding issue. Clearing this cache file is doing nothing for me. I have heard that alt tabbing in and out of the game is solving an issue with slow downs after you bring up communications with an ai leader. Perhaps this is solving some issues and not removing the cache file.

I can barely scroll the map when there is one of my ships in view. This is odd and very strange.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

Very odd that this kinda problem exists. Wonder if the dev cpus had extra memory devoted to compensate for this, otherwise you'd think they'd have pick up on it.

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

got the same problem...when you zoom out with 7+ civs still in the game my machine chugs along trying to spin the globe. 2.5ghz athlon 2000mhz FSB, x800xt video, 10k disk, 2GB RAM

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Yeh I should have more than enough system to run this game.

Did have some luck today playing on a clean boot. I went in to msconfig and killed all my startup files. Played well for about an hour, but had to go to work and don't know if it was long enough to have the leak crop up.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

Yeh I should have more than enough system to run this game.

Did have some luck today playing on a clean boot. I went in to msconfig and killed all my startup files. Played well for about an hour, but had to go to work and don't know if it was long enough to have the leak crop up.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

ROFL!

If you haven't noticed it already, open the Civilopedia to the Projects section and note the icon for the Internet project.

Or just read this next line...

The Internet project is represented by the goofy, grinning mug of Al Gore!

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

Yeah I saw that! lol

This sounds like ALOT of fun...I absolutely loved Civ3...

may have to go look for this so I can join in on some of this MP fun

I finally tracked down a copy at the local Toys R Us!!

So, when's our first MP match gonna start?

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

just got an email saying the Civ4 is available on Digital Download.

If we have any MP game starting let me know. I'll join in!

here is a great review of Civ IV MP play
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/civilization-iv/662021p1.html

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Moge

Got mine at Walmart, got it installed and guess what......


GRRRRRRR its time to leave....

Although looking at the book and the foldout sheet all I can say is WOW what a change on the Techs and resources from Civ3....


Anyways I'll check in on WoW whenever I get home before playing this to see what happened with the signing

I just played the tutorial missions through. I kicked Ghandi's A*S!!!

Jasonia Rules all!

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Moge

Hmmm Jasonia needs to meet Scotoria

Anyone up for an MP game today?

YES! I'll make a seperate post and set a time.

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Moge

Well I just finished a 7.5 hour slug fest. I did a single player game in Noble mode with 3AIs on a Pangea Huge map.

I was placed in the center of the map and was surrounded on 3 sides. All was well and I was building up my tech for mech tanks and SEALs without much care what the others where doing. Once I got Riles I set out to attack. I chose the Greeks to the north as they where getting to close to me for comfort.

I made a few mistakes early on and the travel times of 8-10 turns to bring in fresh troops was killing me. I made a few stupid errors that caused me to get bogged down. While I was hacking it out with the Greeks I could see the Chinese building a huge force with Tech nearly matching mine.

My hopes where to wipe the map before anyone could compete with my soldiers. But with the mess I had with the Greeks this when out the window fast. I finished off the Greeks and made a treaty with the Chinese for both of us to attack the Spanish on the far coast. I opened my boarders and through came a huge mass of Chinese soldiers. Instead of attacking the Spanish I positions my troops in defensive places incase the Chinese finished off the Spanish to quickly and turned on me. During all this I build the UN and starte dthe space race. No way I could with with might so I went for these options.

The UN backfired. I started the vote and the damned Spanish - even after making peace and giving them huge gifts every turn- would not vote for me and China had 80 more votes. Withh Spain Abstaining I was screwed. I got lucking in that China was burning all of Spain instead of taking it over. Had they done that I would have lost to the vote.

I poored all I had into my last hope. Space.

With litterally one vote to go on the UN for China to win I made it to space. It was a major nailbiter. I was plopping down cities 3-5 per turn to catch up my votes but it was far to late. I thought I was done for.

After I won I looked and China has 8mil troops to my 1.6 and 1400 mats to my 700. No way I could have won a fist fight.

I learned a lot in that one. But the biggest lesson is "Don't get in a Land War in Asia!"

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Moge

Land war in Asia...lol That cracks me up everytime I see it. I am more and more convinced the AI cheats it's filthy little silicon arse off. I started another game Sat evening. After maybe 50 turns in or so (maybe much less, we were still developing pottery and such) the American AI adopted Universal Suffrage. That's just impossible that early and goody huts don't deliver advanced tech like that, that early in the game. AI caught red handed again!

I have a few basic questions:

I got this game via Digital Download (stupid) and it does not come with a manual.

I know there is a way for you to be able to create troops and have them rally at a single point. What is that command?

Also:

In Map view (normal view) is there a way to Tab between my cities?

Finally: What are the Music Icons and what good do they do?

I never seem to go broke and have a hard time tracking what resources I have and such.

How to do you make people happy when it is over crowded?

Im tempted to go out and buy the retail just for the Manual. Usually there is a PDF manual I print out and a keymapping option what I can learn the kepmap but there isnt in Civ IV.

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Moge

Let starvation run rampant until enough people die off so the remainder are happy.

Actually, I found that the auto-assignment of workers on city tiles maximizes the total overall effect, meaning that it may let a 3 food tile to unworked if there's a 1 food, 1 productivity and 1 gold tile to be had. Manually managing tiles (occassionally) may help.

Another solution may be to distract them from the fact that they're starving. Colisseums work. Not a good choice for the long run.

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Liro
"The english language is not a wedding gown, it doesn't get better the more lace you add. It is instead a thong. Less is more." From /.
I need to remind myself of this regularly.

Peon, "I'm hungry...ooo look at that guy who just got his arm hacked off!!!!...I'm hungry!"

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Are you positive they didn't build the pyramids?

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

On map view there is no city scroll but if you double click a city you can use the arrows at the top to look at each one.

Music icons are culture, they are what drives the expansion of your borders.

You can build buildings to make people happier. Because culture buildings make people happy you should be building them constantly. Once you get the appropriate tech you can move people from production to happiness manually by adding entertainers.

The manual should have come with the download in pdf format. If you don't even get a digital manual I would say you got royally ripped off.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

yeah I looked. No manual at all

I usually just build a crap ton of workers and let them loose on free for all. Its fun seeming them swarm on a newly built city. I also never really manually change people from workers to ents. I just go with the auto setup. I think once I get more into the game I may need to start that.

I play at Noble lvl so it is challenging but not really hard.

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Moge

Just got my ass handed to me on prince level. I had an awesome empire and was really outgrowing my opponents but I went bankrupt and could not turn the thing around.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

Positive. There had barely been enough turns to have a second city. Which he had two, so there's no way the pyramids could have been built. I'm catching more and more things like this with the AI.

Just had my first real big Civ4 game session last night since couldn't get into WoW.

I selected the Japanese, mainly just for the samurai unit. Lotta love the look of them. I was kinda taken back how slow things started off as I didn't recall making new settlers taking that many turns in others versions. But whatever, I got my empire going nicely, with a heavy culture focus, had an automatic scout running around checking the map out, finding neighbors, etc. Basically, things were good for a large number of years.

But I was growing too big for my britches and had to expand. However, a conveniently placed mountain range on the west, and ocean to the east, left only a small 3 tile wide landbridge to get across, exactly where the Romans decided to plop a city.

Even tho I had good relations with them, it was no where strong even a bond to let me buy the city from him. It was only lvl 3 so no way I'm paying 70g for it!!

So, within a few turns I crank out a small army that I think should lay waste to the small town. Pffff, welcome to the world of city raiding! Man oh man, let me just say I was awakened to the strength longbowmen fortified in a city with walls, coupled with spearmen melee units is a tough shell to crack. They laid waste to my first army, second army, third, fourth, and likely fifth (I was getting too mad to count at this point).

Finally I break through and take it over and in my rage proceed on to the Roman's next closest city. That one fell much easier (no walls perhaps).

This basically cut the Romans off and secluded them to their little 3 town peninsula. Once the war ended borders remained closed with them so they are basically done. Peace ensued for a good number of years after that as I sought to bring my culture back up to par after the war effort.

My attention then turned to the Chinese to the north as I saw they had some nice resources sitting in their lands, including marble (which doubles production of certain cultural wonders/buildings) that I wanted. I tried to slowly creep into their lands by expanding my culture but that was going too slow.

When word spread about the Mongols from even more north declaring war on the Chinese, the opportunity came and my war machine fired up again. Learning from my earlier battles, I cranked up production even more this time, and Shanghai fell quite quickly. Beijing was next in line, but given that I played "just one more turn" for a good hour already, I saved it and will return to the battle soon. Mao Zedung won't know what hit him!

Man I love this game!

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"I built me a bomb and dropped it on every MFer who got in my way!"

You'll really like war in a MP setting then. When going to war with other players or AI's, I'll establish (or capture) a city near where the action is going to take place. I usually call it Embassy City. Having open borders with my allies, it allows it to be a beachhead of sorts where other players can muster troops. I can build an army there, my allies can put troops in there. And together we can march out into enemy territory with one great powerful offensive. If you get beat back, you've still got the power of ther players that can help protect that city too.

Hehe, don't want to be argumentative but if they got masonry from a goody hut early they could build pyramids in 25 or so turns if they really wanted to. I haven't experienced anything like this yet, just find the game has a lot of penalties for the player the harder the level. Currently playing prince (lvl 5) and had a real hard go of what would have worked fine on a lower level.

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"Chatfield, I think there's something wrong with our bloody ships." Admiral David Beatty, upon watching the battlecruiser Queen Mary explode at the battle of Jutland.

My name is Tobias Smith and I approved this post.

I won't argue that point, but there was no notice of the wonder being built, and when I retired, none of the top cities had any wonders or was in the playback /shrug. The Civ3 AI was notorious for cheatnig early on, so I'm always a bit suspicious. Don't get me started on the "first" Civilization 3 from another publisher thatt bought the rights. Cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat

Patch came out today that had:
1) PDF Game Manual and Tech Tree added
2) Patch fixing the "no voice-over" issue
3) Missing Tech Sound error fixed

so I now have the manual.


Im in the middle of a game right now where Im playing the Japanese - agree on the Samurai. I quickly got boxed in my the US and the mongels. I battled America and used there towns and my expansion then turned on the Mongels.

I was fighting a 3 front war for a while. Attacking the Mongels defending the lands I took form America and also the Mongels where attacking as well as Barbarians in a few of my cities. It was madness.

Luckily I had enough cities to just feed Warriors into battle.

Use your Siege weapons! Getting the city def down to 0% is key. Also use a variety of troops. I mix Samurai, Spearmen and swordmen for a strong attack after my catapults tear the city apart.

For defense I have 2 2man teams of Spearman/Samurai that rover around killing and reinforments that they bring in and have 3-5 troops in each attack city. 2 of which are Crossbow or longbow which rock for Def.

This is by far the best battle/game Ive had yet. Im working insane hours this week so I will not be able to load it up to finish until Sunday

I like playing 4AI on Pangea Large (huge is just that, to huge).

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Moge