backward step?

after playing the ps1 version of civ2 for the last decade i decided to buy civ rev yesterday, and ive got to tell you other than the superb graphics it feels like a massive step backwards. decision making comes far to easily, theres a few REALLY NICE TOUCHES in there but at times i felt like the game was literally playing itself... feels like a childs game...

for starters the lack of options has infuriated me.

can settlers/engineers (are engineer units evan in civ rev?) do anything other than build new cities and join existing cities?
one of the fascinations i have with civ is the terrerforming aspect (changing/ improving terrain) - building fortresses with real stratgic value. can settlers still do all of this???

ive got far too many complaints/concerns to list...................................................................................................

Civ2 is the only Civ game where any of what you just mentioned has ever been possible.

Thrallia said:

Civ2 is the only Civ game where any of what you just mentioned has ever been possible.

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Um...no. It's been a component of the Civ genre on PC's from the beginning. Though each iteration changes some aspects, those are some of the elements of the game dropped for a streamlined console experience.

BaconLad said:

after playing the ps1 version of civ2 for the last decade i decided to buy civ rev yesterday, and ive got to tell you other than the superb graphics it feels like a massive step backwards. decision making comes far to easily, theres a few REALLY NICE TOUCHES in there but at times i felt like the game was literally playing itself... feels like a childs game...

for starters the lack of options has infuriated me.

can settlers/engineers (are engineer units evan in civ rev?) do anything other than build new cities and join existing cities?
one of the fascinations i have with civ is the terrerforming aspect (changing/ improving terrain) - building fortresses with real stratgic value. can settlers still do all of this???

ive got far too many complaints/concerns to list...................................................................................................

Click to expand...

You're kinda hitting the selling points.

See, you've got to understand, while many thousands of PC gamers have enjoyed Civ 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the PC and Mac, the audience for Civ on the consoles up to now has bee, well, apparently: YOU.

Firaxis created Civ Rev as a reinterpretation of Civ for the console, without the complexity possible with the mouse/keyboard interface that made all previous attempt to port Civ to consoles such colossal failures.

So it's more a step to the side then backwards.

If you want a better Civ experience than Civ 2 on PS, then you should consider getting a computer and playing the sequels. Once you've enjoyed what the rest of us have been playing for the last 15 years, then you'll really be impressed.

There is no terraforming

you can buy roads, and constructing buildings in a city or reearching tech will give certain terrain bonuses.

Krikkitone said:

There is no terraforming

you can buy roads, and constructing buildings in a city or reearching tech will give certain terrain bonuses.

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so my 10 year old playstation version of civ2 is more in depth than my shiny new ps3 version of civ rev...
i was really excited about a next gen console version of civ...

i was hoping/expecting something that playd similar to civ2, but looked really sexy.

Helmling said:

If you want a better Civ experience than Civ 2 on PS, then you should consider getting a computer and playing the sequels. Once you've enjoyed what the rest of us have been playing for the last 15 years, then you'll really be impressed.

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shouldnt civ on ps3 be a better experience than civ on ps1???

i tryd civ 3 on pc shortly after it came out, but i couldnt get to grips with it, i kept turning back to civ2 on ps1. i would of expected civ rev to be a natural evolution of that ps1 version as the user interface worked fine on that format.

Helmling said:

If you want a better Civ experience than Civ 2 on PS, then you should consider getting a computer and playing the sequels. Once you've enjoyed what the rest of us have been playing for the last 15 years, then you'll really be impressed.

Click to expand...

So well said...

Helmling said:

Um...no. It's been a component of the Civ genre on PC's from the beginning. Though each iteration changes some aspects, those are some of the elements of the game dropped for a streamlined console experience.

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Civ1 had nothing you could do to the terrain except mine stuff and irrigate stuff
Civ2 had engineers that could terraform any landtype into any other landtype(given enough time, that is), along with irrigating, mining, and chopping down trees
Civ3 had chopping down of trees, irrigating, and mining, but no engineers or terraforming, and all of that was done by specialized worker units, not by settlers
Civ4 had an extensive list of terrain improvements, and chopping down of trees...but no engineers or terraforming, and again, all of that was done by specialized worker units.

Only Civ2 has had terraforming to any true extent.

BaconLad said:

so my 10 year old playstation version of civ2 is more in depth than my shiny new ps3 version of civ rev...
i was really excited about a next gen console version of civ...

i was hoping/expecting something that playd similar to civ2, but looked really sexy.

Click to expand...

It isn't necessarily more in-depth, some parts are(such as the terraforming aspect), but in general, CivRev has just as much strategy, and much better AI than Civ2 had.

And if you were expecting a game more similar to Civ2 than you got...well, you should have read more about it before buying it...or played the demo.

an average campaign on civ2 can last for weeks, probably 100's of gaming hours, where i can build anything between 50 and 100 cities. i can have 10-20 cities before the timeline reaches ad.
ive played thru 2 campaigns on civ rev in the last day and a half, both lasted about 3-4 hours each, and both times i only managed to build 6 cities. ad can be reached in a matter of minutes.
the game feels miniscule and claustrophobic...
theres no sense of acheivement...

you don't build dozens or hundreds of cities in Civ4 either, that doesn't make it not Civ.

I understand your gripes with it, and they are the gripes that probably a lot of PC civ players will have, I probably would have felt the same if not for the fact that I rarely have time for such long-winded games anymore, and I find the strategy in CivRev is great enough to satisfy me in shorter sessions.

well if you got time for a 100+ hour game then play on the PC, it would take me a half year to finish a 100+ hour game so I quite like the shorter games.

BaconLad said:

shouldnt civ on ps3 be a better experience than civ on ps1???

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If Civilization was a first person shooter then yes, but Civilization is not a game series that necessarily benefits from more power from the system running it. They probably could have made civ:rev for PS2.

BaconLad said:

shouldnt civ on ps3 be a better experience than civ on ps1???

i tryd civ 3 on pc shortly after it came out, but i couldnt get to grips with it, i kept turning back to civ2 on ps1. i would of expected civ rev to be a natural evolution of that ps1 version as the user interface worked fine on that format.

Click to expand...

wow.
you mean you could play civ3 on the PC yet still play civ2 on PS1?
I remember at the end of the game there's a 5-10 minutes wait between turns. Ps1 versions was a lot slower than the PC version as well didn't have all the options of Gold.

If you don't have a PC I understand where you are coming from since that why I got civ2 on the PS years ago. If you got a pc and still love civ2 then you should consider getting the pc version and then a copy of Alpha Centuri which also allows terraforming.

If you are a TBS and a RTS fan then you made a mistake buying a console since PC rules when it come to strategy. PS1 probably had more strategy games than any other console.

Civ Rev as got me back playing Civ again. I am usually a builder type in Pc Civ but with CIv Rev I have developed a blood lust! I am now playing until the finish now rather having to stop and go to bed and play again. I think they have developed this for the Civilization (the first one) vetrians who now have families. It is so good that when the kids go to bed and can sit down and have a Civ fix knowing I can finish a game over one night rather that over a week. There a flaws in it but what a great start. It is very playable and instead of the one more turn from previous it is now you can finish a game in one go. So for me some may say it is a step back but for me it is a step away from Civ main to Civ mainstream with a big future.

so basically Sir Meir sold out. This game reminds me of some mindless shooter compared to Civ4.

I just posted this same post in a thread where a guy asked if he'd like Civ IV. It's better suited to this discussion though... I've been considering what's in each version of civ in terms of a game concept... Now of course Civ II had some things over Civ I, but still...

In general CivRev is actually a little more fun than I expected, but I was thinking about it, and I'm likenning the depth of strategy and complexity to that of about Civ I. To me, that's a HUGE step back.

Civ I:
- Contains concept of population happiness. This is the ultimate determinant of how large your city can grow.
- Can't remember if Civ I had luxury taxes (divert commerce into luxuries to make people happy) or if it was just from making city people do entertaining instead of working a square.
- Contains concept of consumed food - each citizen consumes 2 food so to grow you need sqaures that provide surplus.
- Contains concept of maintanence costs. Each building costs gold to maintain.
- Contains concept of terrain movement cost - hills, forest, etc take 2 turns of movement, roads only 1/3 turn. Railroad provides unlimitted movement. The obsolesence of Railroad in CivRev sort of bothers me - it was a critical turning point into industrialization in Civ I and Civ II. Probably the biggest turning point in the game, IMO.
- Concept of unit maintanence - units cost gold to maintain once they're built.
- Biggest difference: Civ I has concept of Workers - units that build and improve on terrain squares - they build roads on individual squares, build farms, build mines, etc.

But there are things in CivRev that aren't in Civ I...
- CivRev contains concept of culture (although very simplified)
- CivRev contains concept of Great People.
- Contains concept of Attack Strength / Defense Strength, and damaged units (Civ I just had unit strength)
- Contains concept of Armies and also of unit promotions.

So in general I'd say CivRev is just slightly less complicated than Civ I. Civ IV though, is a whole other animal. It has everything in Civ I and Civ Rev, plus:
- Concept of health. As a city grows it becomes unhealthy and that will waste food production, which then limits growth. It's a second growth-limitting factor besides happiness.
- Concept of controlable resources: Luxuries (like gold) to make people happy, food resources (rice, wheat) to add health, and strategic resources (iron, coal) to make certain types of units and to build railroads, etc.
- With controllable resources comes trade of those resources among civs.
- Expanded concept of culture - each cities culture clearly determines borders and territory between neighbouring civs.
- Concept of religion (affects happiness as well as wealth generation).
- Corportations (use controllable resources to generate wealth)
- National Wonders - these are wonders that are available to every nation independant of other nations, but only after the nation reaches a milestone (like, after building so many banks, you can build Wall Street). Incidently, are wonders in CivRev able to be duplicated? If so they kind of (unfortunately) act like national wonders. World Wonders can only be build by one person, so the "Wonder Race" is a critical part of every Civ game since Civ started.
- Civ IV replaces building maintanance of Civ I with city maintanence. Each new city costs gold/turn; more if it's further from the capital.
- Concept of other government states (called Civics) beyond just one type of "main" government. There are 6 civic categories (market system (free market), representation (voting system), religion (organized or free religion, etc) and each category has 5 options.

Hmm, I think that's a pretty good comparison between the three. I probably missed some concepts here and there; feel free to chime in if anyone else has more. Ultimately it's the interaction between all the elements of complexity in a game like Civ IV that make it such an in-depth strategy game...

actually Civ 1 had Attack/Defense... what it didn't have was hp
Civ IV was the first to get rid of Attack/Defense
which illustrates that getting rid of a concept isn't necessarily a step back

Civ Rev has a REALLY big thing Civ I and II didn't, Civilization bonuses (not present until III... I remember the outcry over that being added)

Civ Rev has Treasury bonuses (never seen in any other civ)

Civ Rev has 'first discovery bonuses' definitely not in I or II, in ?III?






Civ Rev is definitely Much Less Complex than Civ IV ... but that is not a step Back, it is a step in another direction... a Direction they Said it would be in. So if you want a deep complex Long game, play Civ IV if you want simple short game play Civ Rev. Either can be equally fun (results may vary by personality and situation).

One giant step forward is the workers and the roads. Is there any knockers for that?

Felgar said:

So in general I'd say CivRev is just slightly less complicated than Civ I. Civ IV though, is a whole other animal. It has everything in Civ I and Civ Rev, plus...

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In addition, Civ 4 has vassal states - this is one of the biggest additions.
I have Civ Revolution on my X360, played through the first tutorial level and it really wasn't what civ4 used to be.

Too childish, very little complexity, etc. For me, Civ4 is the best one atm.