CivCity First play impressions

[markduffy]

You don't know why?

You don't know WHY???

lololol

I'm laughing harder now !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Keith Heitmann]

I can assume that someone has it in for me. It doesn't bother me though. I don't pay attention to things like that when I'm on a board, but I found it anyway. I don't have enough posts yet to use if I wanted to.

At any rate, I've given up temporarily on Sarguntum. I moved on to Pelusim instead and finished that one quickly, and just worked my way through Colognia #1. I wiped out with the intended invasion in the opening ow Colonia #2 with my troops that captured the last city and saved the game and quit for the gime being.

Colonia #1 was rather boring. Nothing but repetitive raids over and over again and again. So I waited until all three legions had one full cohort of legionnaireis and two full cohorts of velites. Then sent them on their way. That took some time to build up because of the losses due to earlier raids, the occassional food or population shortage.

Sarguntum is hardest mission in the game so far.

[markduffy]

admin said:

I can assume that someone has it in for me. It doesn't bother me though. I don't pay attention to things like that when I'm on a board, but I found it anyway. I don't have enough posts yet to use if I wanted to.

Keith, besides who we are & what we have said in the past, we also represent CBing & especially COTN & TM itself.

There are Cultists on any Forum. I am a very proud TM & especially COTN Homer. Our history follows us around, for better or for worse.

Some people even hate others who make a lot of posts. I have seen a lot in my travels around the internet. It is why I do more editing in instead of adding a new post. Personalities sometimes clash. Like you and me, for example.

I try to always be honest & actually READ what others say. I am not anywhere to give people a very hard time, nor especially toot my own horn. Then, the cards fall where they may.

[Keith Heitmann]

I remember one guy complained to me years ago that I always answered every post on the board at Sierra and he was upset that he never got first crack at them.

[Keith Heitmann]

Saguntum is mine!

After struggling with it for many attempts only to be crushed by the massive Carthaginian invasion each time, I tried a different ploy.

Instead of waiting for the invasions to reach my city as soon as an enemy is sighted in the empire I dispatch all three legions to Empire service. Each legion was made up of three cohorts of javelins and no legionaries, so I did not open trade for iron. Javelins get made quicker and only require wood. I figured if I caught the enemy far enough away from the city I would have enough time to rebuild parts of my legions before they reached my city and they would be small enough that I could then finish them off in a local battle in my city.

As it turns out, two legions usually did the trick on the Empire map. The first legion usually got wiped out, but the second following on its heels usually managed to destroy what was left of the Carthagian massive army leaving the third legion on the heels of the second legion unscathed. I managed to fend off about 5 or 6 massive enemy armies this way and with my weapon makers producing plenty of javelins for the nearby warehouse my legion losses were quickly and easily replaced.

This allowed me the time to greatly expand the linen and toga production and have three working docks to ship the togas.

I also figured out that just by raising and lowering the pay rate when the happiness level got close to ten and close to twenty I could keep people working, feed them all, have enough money, and get the job done without massive exoduses from my city. I could keep my granaries full and put them all on +4 rations.

On to the last mission of the military campaign, Colonia #2. I had already played the first one and tried #2 earlier but gave up when my legions just kept getting overwhelmed by the waves of infasions from the Germans. I tried wiping out the medium barbarian city with three full legions and all three got wiped out in the attack. Three legions was enough to do the job in the first mission, but not so this time. They probably need to be more heavily armed. So I may have to produce two cohorts of legionnares and only one velites per legion for this mission.

[Keith Heitmann]

I replayed Colonia #1 and spent extra time building that city up for the second mission where I had to develope two Palaces. I found a way around the ferry bug by usig twin bridges to get to the quarry/mine area of the map.

Unfortunately, the victor still eludes me in Colonia #2. You cannot defeat the smallest enemy city on the Empire map, not even with three fully manned legions of legionnaires, 25 men per cohort. I sent three such legions out at the same time and got them stacked together closely to attack the enemy city all at the same time and they all lost. So it looks like taking the enemy city is not possible even though the map doesn't say that they are "not attackable" as in some other missions.

Unfortunately the invasions start coming more and more frequently and they leave you little time to deal with food, money, and building issues in the mission. I spent about 90% of my time getting around the jetty problem and fighting off invasions in my city and on the empire map.

By the end the enemy invasions were getting stronger. They cut through my 3 legions of 3 cohorts of legionnaires like butter. Recovery was slow despite having 10 weapons makers making swords and 7 iron mines working and producing iron. The enemy just swamps you with multiple invasions and you end up facing them off with 1 man cohorts. Switch to velites gets faster replacements but they are very weak and wiped out easily. By that stage of the mission its hopeles as they begin ransacking your city at will.

Very frustrating. There doesn't seem to be a way to win this mission right now.

[Keith Heitmann]

Ha! I have found the key to vidtory in the last military campaign mission, Colonia #2. I've already captured both enemy cities and no only have to face one attack at a time which I easily wipe out on the empire map. Now I have the time to spend building my city.

Now its just matter of getting the last few points for the Civ rating, and developing 2 palaces and I'm done. I've already got one medium domus.

[Keith Heitmann]

I've done it! I just completed the the last military mission of the game. That wraps up both campaigns in the game. On to some open play maps and maybe the editor.

[Phil Walker]

Congrats Keith !!!

Do let us know about the editor and now that you finished let's also hear your overall impression of their work. With your difficulties, I'm sure challenge will be one word we'll see more than once.

Anxious for your review and comments most of all now.


Sincerely,
Phil

[Keith Heitmann]

I started playing around with the editor. It's pretty simple to use. It has a fair number of terrain tools to use. In Emperor it was a paing getting elevations. In CCR's editor it's a snap. There are many buttions for making mountins, depressions, hills, etc. The raise and lower terrain settings have many settings for various elevation types to select from.

The editor has one feature that none of the old CBs had. You can add sound cues to the map. So if you are near trees or a mountain you place one or more "wind" icons there and when the camera passes near that area you hear wind when playing the game. Others are three types of birds, and one for insects.

For rivers ther are sounds for a large river, stream or babbling brooke.

You can see the editor online at their Editor page:

www.civilization.com/civcity/editor/