Civilization IV: the end of my world
July 22nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm ET
I’ve come to the end of a long, involved game of Civilization IV, and it’s time to take stock.
This game, which I played as Gandhi (whose color on the board is that lilac purple) was by far the longest, most involved, and most interesting game I’ve played so far. I did win a time victory (when the clock ran out, I was at around 3500 points, more than 1000 ahead of my next rival, and almost triple the score of my sworn enemy Montezuma. Great game, with several active civilizations and a dozen zones of triple or quadruple cultural influence.
I concentrated this time first on territorial advance and consolidation, second on cultural dominance, and only after that on research and on militarization, which may explain why I ended up in a hundred-year war of attrition with Montezuma. It didn’t affect my lead, but it sure did consume a lot of resources. Lesson learned: arm earlier, arm everywhere, and think carefully about how remote colonies will be supplied and protected.
Speaking of which, it was the first game in which I ended up with three or four completely separate and significant areas of influence, including most of the northern icecap, due to two things: an early bid to range as far as possible and plant colonies early, as soon as I got oceangoing transport; and the success of my long campaign against Montezuma (who, it must be said, declared war on me and not the other way around), who lost two large cities on his home continent of Montezumaland, and would have lost more if the clock hadn’t run out. Montezuma harried my polar cities, but only took two of the remotest ones (razing one and keeping the other); I’m not sure why, but I’m assuming he was just overextended.
It was my first game with such a heavy sea component, and because the icecaps effectively divided the world into a western sea and an eastern sea (with my continent at the middle, of course), I had to run two completely separate sea supply and defense operations, which I didn’t get figured out for a while. That cost me. In the early days, I depended on an alliance with Mao for an outlet to the eastern sea, and after he closed his borders I briefly had to go to war with him (with the help of Peter, who took Chengdu and opened the sea lanes again), but we made peace right after that. I tend to play the way I live, which is to say relatively amicably with almost everyone — that may explain why at the end of the game, despite my victory, I was rated with the strategic prowess of Ethelred the Unready (worst of all save Dan Quayle), but I think it makes the game interesting.
To my amazement, I held Darjeeling throughout the hundred years’ war, despite light defenses, a century of bombardment, and a land border with Montezuma (at a city he’d taken from me). This was for the same reason that it had originally been hard to settle: the city itself was cut off by a mountain from the adjacent lands, so it would have had to have been attacked by sea, and he must have not had marines or the capacity to use them. (See the bottom photo below.)
Here are a couple of photos. Click through to see larger images, or to see the whole set, which is also here.
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Rich Mintz blogs on online fundraising and social media, American history and culture, bicycling and urbanism, food, technology, and other topics. Professionally, he's an expert in fundraising, constituency development, and social media for nonprofits, cultural organizations, cause-related marketers, and corporations. He is based in New York, where he serves as Vice President, Strategy, for 
August 30th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
[...] video game of choice for the summer, as you know, has been Civilization IV. But with Civilization V due in less than a month, I’m giving it a rest, and resurrecting two [...]