Forums | MacLife

r6rome wrote:

Father of the Bar Mitzvah wrote:

Hmm. Well, we'll just have to wait and see.

How can you wait any longer?

You've been wanting this one for so long!

Well, I just made the leap of faith that my iMac G5, 1.8 GHz, will be up to speed for Civ 4 and preordered  it on Amazon! Amazon says that it is shipping July 7th. I'll post about how it performs once I play with it a bit.

Zaimejs wrote:

Where do you see July 7th?  I see June 30th?  And I read somewhere else that it will start shipping tomorrow.

I sure hope I don't have to wait another two friggin' weeks!

In my Amazon receipt:

Shipping estimate for these items:  July 7, 2006 - July 14, 2006
Delivery estimate:  July 13, 2006 - July 22, 2006

Now realize that I placed my order yesterday, so I may be at the bottom of the list for shipping.

What are the specs of the computer you will be playing it on?

beaverfever wrote:

ssr wrote:

I have been playing Civ since my LCII days.

Yeah, well I've been playing it since my setting it up on the kitchen table days. I found the rule book in an old box a while ago - blast from the past!

Considering what CivIII does to my current comp, I suspect CivIV will require an investment in hardware for me (which, unfortunately, I hadn't planned for another year or so).

...but I digress: does anyone play the multiplayer CivIII? I wanted to pick it up, but I've only noticed a Civ III game on GameRanger once in the past month, since I started online gaming again. If nobody is playing it, I won't bother with buying the new box set.

GameRanger has never had many devoted strategy gamers. The few times I tried to play Civ II MPG on it the other players would bail after a half hour or so.  Go checkout Apolyton.net and go to their forums. there are a bunch of devoted mac users there willing to play online. That's were I'll be hanging out once I get my feet wet with Civ IV. My old screenname there is "MacUser", assuming that it's still valid. (for awhile I helped with the Mac Civ II page and answered Mac related questions)

Lord Isam wrote:

2) Civ III is frustrating me, because no matter how much I tweak things to max my science output, I'm always getting left behind in the science race.  And the other nations are reacting accordingly, with their disparaging comments.  Never had this problem with Civ I or II.

The other nations stay ahead with Science because they trade advances amongst themselves. You can try to keep up in a number of ways:

Trade advancements with them - If you want to do this, plan ahead by funding linear advancement, which can put you ahead in one area and give you advancements to trade with; the other civs typically advance across the board, instead of following a path. Advancements which allow the building of great wonders are most valuable.

If you are militarily weak, keep in mind that some advancements, such as Literature, Printing Press, Democracy, Navigation and Economics, can be very valuable for trading. If you are first to get these and you are weak, expect to be threatened for them, so it's sometimes wise to trade them as soon as possible, to get maximum value in return.

It's still difficult to keep up this way.

Trade advancements for resources/luxuries - not always practical, and you'll still be at least a bit behind this way.

Build the Great Library - this will keep you up with the others until you reach Education, but then you're close to Democracy, which can give your civilization a big boost if the others don't have it. Once you have the Literature advancement (which allows you to build the Great Library), you need to hold onto it and not trade it or the other civs will start building too. A big downside is, if you are the first to have Literature, you can expect other civs to threaten you for it - giving it away is a huge waste - plan ahead so you can fight a war and defend it!

Win advancements - start a war you know you can win (or even a senselessly destructive war of attrition-lots of pillaging of improvements) and demand advancements in exchange for peace. Once you've beat the crap out of one or two civs, you can bully them or start a new fight once in a while to get more advancements from them.

Build Libraries and Universities - If you manage to defend Literature and the other civs are lazy and don't bother pursuing Literature on their own for a long time, these will help you keep up.

Last edited by beaverfever (2006-07-07 4:32 pm)

Lord Isam wrote:

I'm a newbie.   Hello, and how are you?

I have two dumb Civ/Mac questions for you masters:

1) If my friend has a PC and I have a Mac, can we both play the same Civ IV game online?

2) Civ III is frustrating me, because no matter how much I tweak things to max my science output, I'm always getting left behind in the science race.  And the other nations are reacting accordingly, with their disparaging comments.  Never had this problem with Civ I or II.

Thanks!

Based on the manual and what I've read, I have not seen any restrictions on PC's and Mac's playing MP together. That said, I don't know, it's a "silence means consent" thing. The best thing to do is check with the real masters at www.apolyton.net.

As to the Civ III question. Don't know. I've never played, but beaverfever seems to had wrapped that up pretty tightly!

Excellent!  Thanks!  (Wanted to know if it was possible before I shelled out the dough - though I probably would have done so anyway...)