My Civ 4 Review

Civinator said:

I sometimes wonder myself, why civers (like me) do that Civ 4/ Civ 3 discussion.

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Well, I'm glad somebody noticed this. People who play CIV IV and want to play CIV IV more than CIV III LIKE IT MORE -- people who play CIV III LIKE IT MORE.

Its not because the opposite camp doesn't understand the 'true' strategies, the finesse, or whatever. They do. Trust me, none of these posts will change the attitude of the people in the other camp. I have to admit I don't understand why people are now arguing this, probably in about the 30th discussion of 'Civ IV vs. CIV III', over and over.

I prefer CIV IV. Telling me I don't understand why CIV III is so great aren't going to sway me, I've played CIV III more than IV and know it quite well. So do the other psoters. And I'm not going to try to convince you, whoever is in the other camp, that CIV IV is better. I can tell you why I like it, that's it.

CIV IV made changes INTENTIONALLY to the game that Soren indicated. Some of us like that, as these changes came from peoplw wanting these changes. Some don't. That's really all there is to it.

Please, people in the other camp aren't stupid, they do get it -- they just have other preferences. Will these posts ever stop?

Best wishes,

Breunor

This is a rather silly thread, so I'm just going to make one small addendum to my original post. Again, there's nothing wrong with some people preferring Civ3 over Civ4. That's a personal preference - hey, play whatever you happen to like, ok?

My disagreement with T.A JONES is where he states that Civ3 has more choices available than Civ4. That's patently false; obviously opinions may vary, but I think there's generally a consensus that there are a lot of different ways to play a Civ4 opening to a game, and pretty much only one way to open a game of Civ3.

T.A JONES made a lot of different statements in this thread, but they more or less fall along the lines of "You guys might have one effective way of playing Civ3, but I can choose to ignore it, and that means there are lots of choices!" Something like that. The problem is, you can't have it both ways; you can't DELIBERATELY IGNORE what are clearly superior gameplay options, then claim that a game is rich in strategic choice. That's pulling the wool over your own eyes. In Civ3, I think all expert players agree that popping out an early granary and then spamming settlers is ALWAYS the right choice to start. Never doing your own research and buying/trading from the AIs is ALWAYS the rich choice. And so on.

If T.A JONES doesn't want to play that way, no problem. He can do whatever is the most fun. But that means he's PLAYING A VARIANT! It's not a valid comparison. It would be as if I tried to enter a race walking on my hands, then tried to draw a bunch of conclusions out of that. Not only would I look silly, I'd make some incorrect comparisons. What look like strategic choices to T.A JONES only exist because (sorry about this) he's almost certainly playing Civ3 in a severely sub-optimal format. That's an unkind thing to say, but it makes the most sense based on the posts I read earlier in the thread. If T.A JONES would follow some of those "horrible" GOTM strategies, perhaps he would see this.

T.A JONES, you're welcome to play any game any way you choose. But please stop with the Civ4-bashing, alright? There's no need for it, and it only makes all of us look bad.

T.A JONES said:

Just one question, random seed. you play ON or OFF
You have to understand Im not lying but you are accustumed to cheating. that why you don't believe me ( you forgot all the times you hit restore!! - or did that never happen playing SID level?)

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Missed this before, and it was so funny, I had to repost it. Accusing me of turning off "Preserve Random Seed"? Cheating accusations?

You have absolutely no idea who I am, do you? Makes that response above even more hilarious.

Wow, accusing Sullla of being a cheater at cIV? Thats something i never tought i'd see

I suggest you check out his website and read about his Civ games. Yes he has done some amazing games, but there has been holes not even he managed to pull him self out of. And that comforts me in a weird kinda sad way

Sullla said:

Missed this before, and it was so funny, I had to repost it. Accusing me of turning off "Preserve Random Seed"? Cheating accusations?

You have absolutely no idea who I am, do you? Makes that response above even more hilarious.

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ya I even laughed but minutes later Im thinking, what are the odds? I left it there being it was hours and you still had not replied (honour code) Sadly it was who I think you are (not sure now) that made everything make sence to me

Im sorry I called you a cheater with the restore button I would have liked to erase it seconds after I posted. Thats how fast it was made known to me of Your acheivments. Bah!,my bad lol , so I bore the brunt of embarresment to acknowledge (at a time like this) and to also show Im averge joe no knowledge of the structure here.

If your not like what I discribe then put this on ones like it. I figured master 'reamers' of "legenday" status are the ones responsable for the series's undoing and Civ4's charging away from the strategy core that made it possible to exist.

They rebuillt with no choice of a player becoming a 'reamer', but this also means no chance to enjoy the other side, true to life strategy with concessions where the players sees fit.
They made use of all 'expliot proof' design but forgot THE AVERAGE JOE was never fond of playing with them, even had a great editer to erase them with. They are not the celebrated online CIV champ who needs to get top score and open any expliot door to rape repeatedly for self satisfation in the HOF.

Sorry Im not a great Civ player I play monarch Civ3 its got less handicaps. I find I use the editer when I can and common sense where it applys.
I posted a picture here once to show my 2D terrain. It had my citys spred out "fatcross" across the land. A guy named Smidlee here on the site said, "my GOD! you never even settled right!" Huh? I look closer and see a few tiles where my T's crossed that could have sqeezed in a mine or two.
This shocked me. Not that I gave up few points, lord forbid!, but would a real City planner make such a statement? I mean unless the settler he wanted to encroach with was building a suburb, I saw no reason to crowd another city in its shadow especially not have to come up with a name for just a measly 2gold and added support savings. But to bother to mention confidenlty I failed to make use of two lousy tiles? I new something was wrong. It wasn't my playing style that was the problem but the stream of complaints from these guys who think we need every point to play right. Is that City spamming? what I keep hearing this need to be anal about? Its no big dealto me a few spaces, Im wondering who helped design the game and if they the the right ones to have done it. Countrys have ten citys now. Thats what I mean

I expand with a iron fist not crowd together like a class photgrapher desperately depriving others of space for the perfect compisition That is completely anal! but, thats how you get the highest points. Its nothing to do with winning the game!. I win you hear me! For me thats what building armys is for. I get more land with a expansion plan so I give up some parks for the citizens to play in.

So shoot me. Im the average guy these players once where, but have since read to many online expliots in pursuit of HOF glory. I'll be the bad guy Sadly guys like them where given an axe to make Civ3 'better' and now the majority, are the one's left to feel the brunt of it all.


That long speil was to better understand the common dude that made this series. You don't think GOTM type people could support this franchise do you? Im sure many still enjoy the highest point platue. But the majority never feel the need to put up with such tedius means of exhaustion it required in Civ3. So you see know the designers did us no favour but destroyin everything sound in a famous strategy game then, take away our editer to boot. For what? to overcome the behavior of so few.
Its a game and thats how most play it. No pressure to farm every last bit, no need to save every soldier by building a gazillion artillary riding under army, or desire to ring out every doller with dubious means. Some like the added realism CIv3 exuberates and this why the masses enjoyed it. Its the freedom to exercise choices on our own behalf that made CIV4 a step in the wrong

T.A JONES said:

I think some ideas for a more fair GOTM in CIV may have ended up hurting the majority of casual gamers. The ones you mentioned who are passionate and thats goog god bless em, but its about finding the right glitchs on web sites to stay competitive, not about making a more balanced game and getting rid of those expliots through modding or just not going out of their way to ream repitive 'reload' type manovers.

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So your problem is that Firaxis has removed the cheesy exploits, rather than leaving it up to the modders to mod them out?

ainwood said:

So your problem is that Firaxis has removed the cheesy exploits, rather than leaving it up to the modders to mod them out?

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No. its that they took everything good with it . My prob is much more clearly illistrated above. That quote's specific problem comes from what I figure is the originater not getting a "goog" enough sleep. I passed out 5 minutes later only cuz this placed crashed first.

so ya Im done, Ive said enough thanks I just didn't want to ignore you question

Why don't you mod civ4 to put ROP rape, tedious negotiation and corruption back into Civ4 then?

redsittter said:

lol..no I mean he thinks civ 3's only viable option is to spam settlers, and civ 4's only viable option is to have a small nation.

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Eh? I seem to win dominations just fine in CIV. I like to run a SE with plenty of scientists and merchants, and my economy never suffers much even with a huge empire.

ainwood said:

Why don't you mod civ4 to put ROP rape, tedious negotiation and corruption back into Civ4 then?

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Corruption was not an exploit in Civ3. What do you mean?

ainwood said:

Why don't you mod civ4 to put ROP rape, tedious negotiation and corruption back into Civ4 then?

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Eight months away from civ3 and I'd nearly forgotten just how irritating those three 'features' were (and you can throw in pollution, checking every civ for new deals every single turn, and the lack of overflows). It was still a great game, but the continuous petty tasks were more than a little frustrating.

To my mind, there's nothing in civ4 that's anywhere near as annoying as that lot. Micromanagement is now much more of a tactical/strategic thing, rather than a repetitive job to be carried out each turn. And the new elements (religion, promotions, GPs, sophisticated diplomacy) all present choices to the player, so that your time is spent figuring out how best to build up your empire and deal with your opponents, without having to focus on loads of minor details all the time.

Don't get me wrong: I loved civ3. But now I've gotten into civ4, there's no turning back.

i have nothing but praise for civ 4. as someone who has played every civ game made as well as most the knock offs i still stuck to starcraft 90% of the games i played as ive played it since 1998. civ 4 has kept me entertained enough to keep me playing over and over again. ive played 100's of pc games since 1998 i have a xbox 360 ect ect. but i kept playing starcraft. so for this game to keep me away from starcraft it deserves nothing but praise from me

I will make the obvious observation that no one involved in Civ4 GOTM play has ever complained that it is an unfair competition.

ngraner42 said:

I will make the obvious observation that no one involved in Civ4 GOTM play has ever complained that it is an unfair competition.

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Hey thats great but so what? I don't understand the point your trying to make. So to be clear, we were talking about GOTM conditions in Civ3.