Civilization IV, Baddest Beat of my Life

[Gugel]

Civilization IV, 5-handed
Hero is dealt a Gunship.
Hero sends Gunship to Villian.
Villian shows Archers.
Hero attacks.
Villian defends.
Archers destroy Hero's gunship.

This is the baddest beat of my life. How the hell does a modern, heavily armored helicopter get shot down by godamn arrows!? I DUNNO HOW THESE [censored] FISH KEEP CALLING DOWN WITH INFERIOR HOLDINGS AND DRAWING OUT ON ME. WTF WTF ARE THE ODDS? THIS [censored] IS SO DAMN RIGGED.

Civilization IV is like electronic crack.

[kipin]

***

The archers could be fortified in a city, or your gunship could be really hurt, which makes it weaker in combat.

Also, the p*ker terms are a big no-no on this forum.

Edit: *

[Skip Brutale]

You obviously dont know anything about civilization. Did you want the archers to not try to fight your helicopter? That copter getting shot down is good because now he's going to think its a smart idea to keep fighting with the archers.

I get happy when my helicopters are shot down by archers...

[webmonarch]

First, funny. When I laugh out loud at a post, I am happy.

Second, I saw the attack, and I'm pretty sure those arrows had those plastique explosive tips. Robin Hood capped one of those babies in your fuel tank, and that was that.

[TheMainEvent]

I predict this thread will be the new baddest beat of your life

[lastchance]

Don't mess with the
http://civfanatics.com/civ4/info/units/unit0108.jpg
n00b.

And I know what you mean with the Civ4 = Electronic Crack comment.

[bugstud]

ok, even a teetering barely alive gunship with only a sword and a pair of matches should beat an archer.

[TheRover]

[censored] the haters. I laughed. I haven't played the new Civ yet, but I have fond memories of my Panzers dieing at the hands of ancient spearman from Civ3.

Also, this trend of posts consisting entirely of "*" is gay as hell.

[BobboFitos]

this game has consumed my life, too

[d10]

Archers can shoot off arrows with quite a bit of force and accuracy, it's conceivable to believe that a well placed shot could hit the pilot and take your helicopter down. Also your helicopter is probably not as well armored as you think it is, there's really no such thing as a heavily armored helicopter. Armor=weight.

[ScottyP431]

D10,

Gay.

[ QUOTE ]
This is the baddest beat of my life. How the hell does a modern, heavily armored helicopter get shot down by godamn arrows!? I DUNNO HOW THESE [censored] FISH KEEP CALLING DOWN WITH INFERIOR HOLDINGS AND DRAWING OUT ON ME. WTF WTF ARE THE ODDS? THIS [censored] IS SO DAMN RIGGED.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You obviously dont know anything about civilization. Did you want the archers to not try to fight your helicopter? That copter getting shot down is good because now he's going to think its a smart idea to keep fighting with the archers.

I get happy when my helicopters are shot down by archers...

[/ QUOTE ]

These are two of the funniest posts I've ever read. Both dangerous close to that card game. And I agree that posts consisting of "*" are dumb.

[Blarg]

LOL I had the same thing happen, my helicopter got totally pwned by a single musketman. WTF?

Honestly, civ 4 is a decent game, but the combat modeling sucks so bad that it takes away a huge part of the joy to me. If I use it either to defend myself or as an alternative way of winning to cultural victory or dominance, I get very bored by how lackluster it is and how much of an afterthought it is. Honestly, it kind of sinks the game for me when such a central part of it is so clumsy and washed out.

[theben]

is it just me, or is people typing in *, or **, or *** just not funny? I think anybody who replies with a post just of stars should actually be given a star!

anyway, i just bought civ IV. I own all previous civs and was addicted to them all. im kinda bummed since civ IV doesnt seem to be working at all.

but anyways . . . i thought as the game has evolved, the game designers pretty much made it impossible for something like what happened to occur? I remeber in the days of civ-1, that pesky veteran phalax could beat a battleship. but they made a whole new combat system so this basically would never happen!

[Shoe]

Yeah, it is ridiculous sometimes.

I am hoping for a Colonization II.

[MrMon]

Stupidest cliche scene in the movies is an unarmed helicopter chasing down some guy. The sad truth is, against an unarmed helicopter, a guy on the ground with a large rock or stick can easily take it down if it did chase him. Simply toss large rock or stick straight up into the rotor blades.

Now, against an ARMED helicopter, I imagine the archers are winning due to maintenance issues. Gunships are delicate things and sometimes they just fall out of the sky.

[Blarg]

I read a book called "Chickenhawk" by a guy who was a chopper pilot in Vietnam. He regularly landed in clearings that were too small to land in, as did all the other pilots, by actually chopping through foliage on the way down. So a stick isn't going to do much. If you got hit by one of those blades it would cut you in half.

[bugstud]

[ QUOTE ]
LOL I had the same thing happen, my helicopter got totally pwned by a single musketman. WTF?

Honestly, civ 4 is a decent game, but the combat modeling sucks so bad that it takes away a huge part of the joy to me. If I use it either to defend myself or as an alternative way of winning to cultural victory or dominance, I get very bored by how lackluster it is and how much of an afterthought it is. Honestly, it kind of sinks the game for me when such a central part of it is so clumsy and washed out.

[/ QUOTE ]

if the better tech always won finland, afghanistan, vietnam, hell russia US and germany would all be speaking different languages right now...

sometimes, weird [censored] happens. I agree I hate it when it happens in the game, but you can lose.

[MrMon]

By stick I meant something 2 or 3 inches in diameter. No pilot wants to hit something that big. For that matter, they really don't want to hit a human being either. There's a good chance of them going down as well.

The tip of a rotor blade is going roughly 500 mph. If it hits anything of substance, it will destroy that thing, but also damage itself. And an unbalanced rotor, which the damage will cause, is not a good thing.

[whiskeytown]

I wrote an original Slashdot published review for Civ III about 3 yrs ago - I got a nice little line in there about telling the Linux community this was a game that one should buy Windows for.

I've played Civ 4 and I really like it - feels more streamlined - but I've NEVER played it generally from a military standpoint unless I could justify it - (me and a guy on an island where he has no iron and I do, for example) -cause it's a toughie to protect EVERYTHING -

You sort of have a hedgehog defense - with stacked strongpoints, and there's just too many damn ways for armies to get around you - no such thing as static lines in this game unless you wanna cough up a LOT of units - LOL.

but as a whole, I really like it - bitching aside about bad beats - I'd love to get a group together to try the multiplayer option sometime.

RB

[Blarg]

I think bicyclekick is really playing this heavily. Maybe you can hook up with him. In a gaming way.

[BobboFitos]

[ QUOTE ]
I wrote an original Slashdot published review for Civ III about 3 yrs ago - I got a nice little line in there about telling the Linux community this was a game that one should buy Windows for.

I've played Civ 4 and I really like it - feels more streamlined - but I've NEVER played it generally from a military standpoint unless I could justify it - (me and a guy on an island where he has no iron and I do, for example) -cause it's a toughie to protect EVERYTHING -

You sort of have a hedgehog defense - with stacked strongpoints, and there's just too many damn ways for armies to get around you - no such thing as static lines in this game unless you wanna cough up a LOT of units - LOL.

but as a whole, I really like it - bitching aside about bad beats - I'd love to get a group together to try the multiplayer option sometime.

RB

[/ QUOTE ]


ive played a little bit multiway w/ my roommate. its OK, you really need to set aside alot of time in order to do this though. (nature of the game!!)

[diebitter]

There's a Civ 3? wow!

[danvh]

[ QUOTE ]
How the hell does a modern, heavily armored helicopter get shot down by godamn arrows!?

[/ QUOTE ]

Rambo only needed 1 arrow. With a team of archers this would be childsplay.

In Civilization terms, the Iraqi insurgents are probably on the level of Riflemen or Grenadiers. Yet they're not exactly rolling over for our stacks of Mech Inf, Modern Armor, and Stealth Bombers. The archers probably picked up some modern technology. Maybe they're strapping sticks of dynamite to their arrows.

Speaking of dynamite arrows, has anybody played Gun? Fun little game. I was a little surprised that more hookers get killed in that game than in Grand Theft Auto.

[Blarg]

I'm playing Dawn of War now. Needed something more quick and explosive.

[ansky451]

They are armor piercing arrows.

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
They are sup bro's personal arrows.

[/ QUOTE ]

[scott8]

All,

For a total noob at these games, as in I have never played even once, should I pick up CIv 4 or go to an earlier version.

Thanks,

Calda

[4_2_it]

[ QUOTE ]
All,

For a total noob at these games, as in I have never played even once, should I pick up CIv 4 or go to an earlier version.

Thanks,

Calda

[/ QUOTE ]

Go right to 4, there is no story continuity to worry about.

[Blarg]

Pick up the new one. It has smooth multiplayer for one, and that's a very nice option. There is no reason to go to an earlier version on this one, if you could even find it.

[Grisgra]

It's all about the choprush.

[wayabvpar]

I have heard that there is a patch (1.09) out now- time to fire up Civ 4 again!

[Blarg]

You were waiting on a patch to play? Hmm.. one of those guys with video card problems?

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]
You were waiting on a patch to play? Hmm.. one of those guys with video card problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

There were only about, maybe, a billion of us . . .

Yay patch! Movies are still jumpy and I can't play on a world larger than "small" without it freaking out on me after the middle ages, but it still kicks ass. Friend of mine has a new top-of-the-line computer and the movies are jumpy even with his setup . . . bizarre.

[Blarg]

I know the vid card issues are legit, but I've seen some nutty or just ignorant complaints, too. People complaining that they can't play anything bigger than a small map without experiencing lag ... when they have only 256 meg of RAM in their system and onboard video. That was too little to run Civ 2 without hitches, years and years ago. Some people also expect to max out their visual settings in a game and crank the resolution to 1600x1200 and can't believe the game doesn't run smoothly when they do. It's kind of sad when they say, "But it's a new computer!" without realizing that just because it's new doesn't mean it's not a total piece of crap for running games.

Have you tried using a bunch of different drivers, even pretty old ones? Firaxis keeps on harping on the need to have the latest video drivers, but my video drivers on my ATI 9800 Pro are dated April 2004 and they work great. I don't even want to upgrade them since they work so well on everything. If you've tried everything else but that, maybe that would help.

[Ulysses]

All,

I am pretty sure if I ever got this game, I would never stop playing.

[wayabvpar]

[ QUOTE ]
You were waiting on a patch to play? Hmm.. one of those guys with video card problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

No vid card problems- just the memory leak. The end game becomes incredibly tedious- it takes forever to scroll in and out, move around the map, etc. Even a freshly loaded save game is bad, but if you play it in one sitting it becomes completely unplayable eventually.

I have also been playing more p***r and Battlefield 2 these days /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You were waiting on a patch to play? Hmm.. one of those guys with video card problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

No vid card problems- just the memory leak. The end game becomes incredibly tedious- it takes forever to scroll in and out, move around the map, etc. Even a freshly loaded save game is bad, but if you play it in one sitting it becomes completely unplayable eventually.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is a memory leak fix here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309) Even if you have a high end machine, this fix helps a lot.

[Grisgra]

[ QUOTE ]
I know the vid card issues are legit, but I've seen some nutty or just ignorant complaints, too. People complaining that they can't play anything bigger than a small map without experiencing lag ... when they have only 256 meg of RAM in their system and onboard video. That was too little to run Civ 2 without hitches, years and years ago. Some people also expect to max out their visual settings in a game and crank the resolution to 1600x1200 and can't believe the game doesn't run smoothly when they do.

[/ QUOTE ]

All my graphics resolutions are set to the lowest possible setting, running it on a year-old Pentium (admittedly not one made for gaming) with a gig of ram.

I'm not bitching about not being able to run really large worlds on it -- not much, at least. I *am* bitching that there were a bunch of assholes pre-patch claiming that the reason it wouldn't run had nothing to do with Firaxis screwups, that it was all us. Yeah, I get dark terrain playing the normal game, but in the global editor I can see everything just fine . . . sure, all my fault. Shees.

BTW you could run CivII on 256meg of ram -- or even less -- without many problems at all. I know I did. This new puppy is a hog. Fantastic game, though. All my old strategies just got tossed out the window . . .

[wayabvpar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You were waiting on a patch to play? Hmm.. one of those guys with video card problems?

[/ QUOTE ]

No vid card problems- just the memory leak. The end game becomes incredibly tedious- it takes forever to scroll in and out, move around the map, etc. Even a freshly loaded save game is bad, but if you play it in one sitting it becomes completely unplayable eventually.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is a memory leak fix here. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309) Even if you have a high end machine, this fix helps a lot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice...thanks! I will give it a shot.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I know the vid card issues are legit, but I've seen some nutty or just ignorant complaints, too. People complaining that they can't play anything bigger than a small map without experiencing lag ... when they have only 256 meg of RAM in their system and onboard video. That was too little to run Civ 2 without hitches, years and years ago. Some people also expect to max out their visual settings in a game and crank the resolution to 1600x1200 and can't believe the game doesn't run smoothly when they do.

[/ QUOTE ]

All my graphics resolutions are set to the lowest possible setting, running it on a year-old Pentium (admittedly not one made for gaming) with a gig of ram.

I'm not bitching about not being able to run really large worlds on it -- not much, at least. I *am* bitching that there were a bunch of assholes pre-patch claiming that the reason it wouldn't run had nothing to do with Firaxis screwups, that it was all us. Yeah, I get dark terrain playing the normal game, but in the global editor I can see everything just fine . . . sure, all my fault. Shees.

BTW you could run CivII on 256meg of ram -- or even less -- without many problems at all. I know I did. This new puppy is a hog. Fantastic game, though. All my old strategies just got tossed out the window . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm with you on the crap that fanboys spew about there being nothing wrong with a game as long as they can run it. Game fanboys are among the most degenerate species of mankind, not quite as bad as child molesting priests, but they'll probably grow up to be them or, if already adult, probably admire them.

Not with you on the 256 RAM being okay for Civ 2 though. I ran it on a very nice machine for the time with a gig of RAM and still found very notable hitches when panning across the screen. A gig of RAM for strat games with lots of units, and RTS's, has been standard for years now, since well before Starcraft.

Many people claimed basically if there machine wouldn't freeze up totally that it ran any game fine. These buggers were accursed wretches when they joined a multiplayer game online and bogged it down to a crawl, claiming it wasn't them and their machine was fine. For a huge number of people, admitting their machine is underpowered is tantamount to publicly broadcasting that they have a tiny penis. This is as it was, is, and ever shall be.

I seriously wouldn't expect smooth play out of any game these days with less than a gig of RAM, and that prescription goes back all the way to my Total Annihilation days in what, 1997 I think. Now that is one long, long ass time, centuries in gaming years.

Back then computers still had a touch of the DOS to them and had a geek and afficionado vibe, not a mom and pop thing nearly as much as today. It hadn't been long since computers were a totally geek thing. People expected you needed some savvy and a good system to play games. Now I think it's more common that people just assume that any computer can play anything and even get angry at the game if it doesn't. Me, when I see Civ 4 recommending 256 megs of RAM to play, I laugh. And at the recommended specs, I'm still laughing.

I got the original Civ as a graduation present from elementary school and have never been so hooked on a game in my life (except maybe Doom). I still remember a game I played where I was the Americans, and took over the Americas and Africa, before running into the Indians, who were the dominant force in Eurasia. They were pretty f-ing big, so I bided my time and built my spaceship, and everything was going great until...

THAT BASTARD GANDHI SNEAK-ATTACKED ME WITH A NUCLEAR BOMB!!!! MAHATMA [censored] GANDHI!!!

My life hasn't been the same since.

In Civ IV, is there any way to start a normal-ass game on Earth like in previous games? I've always enjoyed playing games with all Civs starting in their historical homes, but I can't figure out how to do this. When I load up the Earth map, the only starting Civs it will allow are those in Europe or Asia - all "old world" Civs. I want to renew my America vs. India fight, dammit!!

[bicyclekick]

[ QUOTE ]
I think bicyclekick is really playing this heavily. Maybe you can hook up with him. In a gaming way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I play it from time to time. Haven't in a few weeks. I'm actually doing a good job of not overdoing it with this one.

[Blarg]

I'm pretty sure I saw a way to do something like that in Civ 4. And you can have an American leader, Franklin Roosevelt, in any game. It's under one of the custom scenarios or something, more toward the bottom of the screen when you're just starting. You can play on a map of continents configured like Earth's regular cast of characters.

[Blarg]

Ah that's cool. Last I saw you post on it, you were in deep. I was figuring you were multiplaying up a storm with some of the OOT vets.

I was getting nuts over it for a while too, like I do with anything new I start. Enjoyed working on my Roman rush strategy.

[ QUOTE ]
A gig of RAM for strat games with lots of units, and RTS's, has been standard for years now, since well before Starcraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well before Starcraft? A gig? Standard?

[ QUOTE ]
I seriously wouldn't expect smooth play out of any game these days with less than a gig of RAM, and that prescription goes back all the way to my Total Annihilation days in what, 1997 I think.

[/ QUOTE ]

1997? My god, what kind of computer did you have and how much did you spend?

Edit: It came from Linksville (http://www.xicomputer.com/reviews/1997/lantimes-aug.html)!

[Voltron87]

i used to be really into computer games when i was 12-15 but now they don't do too much for me anymore. there are still some games i definitely enjoy but not too many.

[dizong]

funny [censored]

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A gig of RAM for strat games with lots of units, and RTS's, has been standard for years now, since well before Starcraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well before Starcraft? A gig? Standard?


[/ QUOTE ]

Heck yeah. Total Annihilation, AOE2, and CIV2 all needed as much memory as you could get, or you could expect pauses. Total Annihilation let you get up to 500 units per side! All 3d models. Civ2 was just a hog. AOE2 had plenty of units and big maps. You bet 1 gig was standard for a good experience. I noticed a HUGE jump in playability from 512 megs to 768, and a smaller one from 768 to a gig, but it was there both times. 512 was hopeless in many RTS's once you got online and were past the beginning and the unit counts got high.

[ QUOTE ]
I seriously wouldn't expect smooth play out of any game these days with less than a gig of RAM, and that prescription goes back all the way to my Total Annihilation days in what, 1997 I think.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
1997? My god, what kind of computer did you have and how much did you spend?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't remember what I was running then, but I've always bought or made computers one step below the maxed out CPU, which is always going for an outrageous premium even if it's just a little faster than the next step down. I think at the Total Annihilation days I was running either a Riva TNT card or the GeForce3 Ti500, can't remember which. Whichever, it was the top one at the time. Everything was pricey those days, too, but video cards hadn't hit the 400 and 500 range yet. I think they maxed out at more like $250. However, sounds cards and especially RAM were very pricey, as were hard drives and CD's.

[ QUOTE ]
Edit: It came from Linksville (http://www.xicomputer.com/reviews/1997/lantimes-aug.html)!


[/ QUOTE ]I never click on unexplained links from strangers. Mommy warned me about those.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
i used to be really into computer games when i was 12-15 but now they don't do too much for me anymore. there are still some games i definitely enjoy but not too many.

[/ QUOTE ]

They'll always beat t.v. for me. Except for reading, I've outgrown passive entertainment. Oh, and the occasional movie.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Edit: It came from Linksville (http://www.xicomputer.com/reviews/1997/lantimes-aug.html)!



[/ QUOTE ]I never click on unexplained links from strangers. Mommy warned me about those.

[/ QUOTE ]

A link to a system from 1997 with a gig of ram.

I really think you are misremembering dates. An average ($1000-$1500) PC in 1997 came with 16 MB, or maybe 32. High end systems more, but not 50 times more...

One or the other of us "needs" to go browse old PC Magazines.

[Blarg]

Total Annihilation was released September 30, 1997 and I played it with a gig. This was well past the days of 16 megs of RAM. You're talking about DOOM days, not Total Annihilation days.

Notice the machine you linked was on an EISA bus and used two CPU's, had a RAID controller with 128 megs of ram and six 4 gig drives. The last thing this could possibly be compared to is anything like an average rig or even a good gaming rig. As noted, it was a server made to compete with quad-processor machines.

You've misconstrued what's really exceptional about that machine. It's every last thing about it, to the extreme. But not really the gig of RAM.

[ThaSaltCracka]

Have you every seen Rambo 2?

In December 1997, 128 MB of SDRAM cost (http://web.archive.org/web/19990502230252/www.gamecenter.com/Hardware/Roundup/Extreme/ss02.html) $655, it seems. Also, a friend of mine who has worked in the tech support industry since about that time thinks you're on crack. However, if your memory is clear, I will defer to you. God knows mine isn't. I spent a lot of late 1997 drinking heavily. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Blarg]

Looks like I misremembered. The motherboard you linked carries up to 384 RAM, so if that's from 1997, I couldn't have been playing Total Annihilation from the very start with a gig unless I started out on a lesser system and moved up to another one and caught a sinificant technology change as I kept playing, which I did for years. Not impossible, but who knows. At any rate, if I got up to a gig on that game, it looks like I didn't start at one. It came out almost in 1998 though and I played it to 1999 or 2000, so it's hard to guess exactly how high my RAM was during that time.

However, it's interesting to note that the 384 gigs that board holds in 1997 is still more than some games cite as their minimum requirements today -- and isn't Civ 4 one of them?

I do know that RTS's were my genre of choice, and I always eventually bought enough RAM so my machines were maxed out or pretty darn close.. And found I needed every last bit of RAM, and even that often wasn't enough to not have slowdowns and hitching, especially when panning. RTS's and and strat games with lots of units on board absolutely devour RAM.

If I didn't hit a gig at any point in TA, then it must have been either in TA: Kingdoms or AOE2.

[tubalkain]

[ QUOTE ]
[censored] the haters. I laughed. I haven't played the new Civ yet, but I have fond memories of my Panzers dieing at the hands of ancient spearman from Civ3.

Also, this trend of posts consisting entirely of "*" is gay as hell.

[/ QUOTE ]

*

[astroglide]

want a prop bet on TA's memory utilization?

[Blarg]

Why would you think I would think there is any gamble in you?

[astroglide]

i've actually never installed/played TA, but i don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell of it having that kind of footprint.

[Blarg]

What I do know for sure is that it ably swallowed up all the memory you could put in a top notch gaming PC at the time, and that that's been the case in every RTS I played since.

[scott8]

Just bought the game. Damn cool.

[New001]

Quick reply...

So if I have just about a semester off from school and no job, I should buy this game? Or will I regret that decision around March when I decide I'm dropping out permanently? This game sounds really good.

[lastchance]

This game = pwnage, but you probably need the $50 for BR purposes.

[ChipWrecked]

[ QUOTE ]
Quick reply...

So if I have just about a semester off from school and no job, I should buy this game? Or will I regret that decision around March when I decide I'm dropping out permanently? This game sounds really good.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a condition suffered by Civ heads, known as JOMTS.

Just One More Turn Syndrome.

Next thing you know, it's getting light out.

"[censored]."

--- or, if you're married, you may hear, "Did you play that [censored] game all night?"

"[censored]."