Though I am a Civfanatic since 15 years or more I will not get nostalgic and praise Civ1 and 2 in detail. Civ1 was THE game in the early 90s for me, but I appreciated Civ2 though I missed the Replay after the victoy. When I got Civ3 my system simply was too lame, so only two years ago, when I got a new computer, I actually played Civ3, got Conquest and the RaR-Mod. And I really spent ages playing it, designing maps and creating my own scenarios. Of course there will always be something to improve, but for me Civ3-Conq-RaR was close to perfection.
Now I got a Nice Price Vanilla Civ-4 for X-Mas and once played the giant world map as chieftain until I finally (after about 60 hours) won by being elected world-leader (U.N. Wonder). I still cannot decide whether I really like it. But at least some aspects criticised in this thread (I read the pages 1-2 and 9-10) I I observed, too, though I do not always come to the same negative conclusion.
- slow perfomance: though I do not only match the system requirements but surpass them by far (2.6 GHZ and 1 MB RAM), even "quick-save" takes ages, not to mention loading any savegame (quick or regular). After the end of turn, especially during the last 100 turns, minutes lapsed until the AIs made their move and my next turn started. Turning off sounds and leveling off graphic options improved performance speed slightly, but it still runs very slow. Okay - maybe giant map was a bad idea for starting.
- religion: I founded not less than 3 religions and even got control of the founding city of a 4th. Although I spent lots of missionaries for spreading my state religion all over the world, the outcome was modest. One AI converted his state religion and the others already had religious freedom, before I could convince them. After all I think spreading religion is of less value as measured by the effort it takes. Maybe AIs might change their attitude to me a great deal. But instead of producing, shipping and commanding hordes of missionaries I might rather have produced more combat units so that I did not have to bother about the AIs' attitudes so much but could have started warfaring far earlier. Okay, it's nice to be informed of converted cities' garrisons, but spies can do that as well.
- units: Though I basically appreciate the idea of the promotion system, it can be a nuisance when your army grows. I don't want to RP any single infanterist I built by deciding whether it should be garrison, guerrila or storm trooper. And some ancient or medieval promotions like those against archers and melee units are wasted after the invention of gunpowder. Imho they have overdone it a little here. What I really like is the percentage-prediction of victory chance before you attack. Fireaxis advertised Civ4 as having more unit types than Civ3. Actually they must have counted the missionaries sevenfold, i.e. for each religion. For I think there aren't so much more units than in Civ3. Maybe I am a little spoiled by RaR-Mod, but especially Naval Unit Types seem to be even fewer.
- buldings: Well, there is quite a range of buildings, but again I won't regard 4 religious buildings of each religion as 4X7 or 28 buidlings. Many Civ3 buildings disappeared such as all naval defences (which U don't need in Civ4 since there is no naval attacking in the Civ3 sense but only a city- defense-reducing bombardement). Some others seem to be inspired by RaR-Mod (forge, castle), some sound familiar, but have new functions (aqueduct, supermarket). Well, at least no complaints in that aspect. Though RaR had many more buildings (stock-exchange, highway, mills), one could also say, RaR had overdone this a little.
- wonders: Generally, wonders are not of such central importance as in earlier Civs. No early wonder matches Civ-1-3 Great Library. Only in Modern you can built the Internet. But then you do not need many technologies anymore. But still wonders are nice to have anyway, especially Hoover-Dam, Pentagon etc. Furthermore, all National Wonders (also seem to be inspired by RaR) should be built.
- tile improvements (workers): To build a few villages for money-making is much better than having a road to any tile (as in eralier Civs). I also like the idea of plantation, saw-Mill, windmill and watermill as new alternatives to mining and irrigation. But I still have to adapt to the fact that impassable tiles (ice, mountains) and desert without water or ressources bring in NOTHING and cannot be improved at all as well as some tundra tiles. Railways unlike in Civ3 cost 1/10 movement points instead of zero. There may be arguments for this. But if you consider that even in the 1950s each turn is 1 year, I think it should be possible to bring my troops to any place on a continent by rail within 1 turn. At least on a huge map this is not always the case.
- AI / diplomacy: I basically like the approach of a more developed diplomatic system. I cannot judge yet whether the AI behaves and trades more or less stupid than in Civ3. At least there are more possibilities to take influence on the relationships (religion, see above). But I find it kinda silly that any time I reject AI-demands (those without any counter offer) they dislike me 1 point. AI seems to be more cautious than in Civ3. Even if they hate my guts they won't declare war when they regard it as too risky. Of course this is more reasonable than those silly war-declarations in Civ2 (AI even declared war, when they were alread reduced to 1 city). But I found it rather boring, beacause no one attacked me at all - so I could lean back, gather an invasion force and decide by myself whom an when to attack. Then I collected allies and started a world war against any poor AI-nation which stood in my way - one by one. The AI-Allies said things like "Whom shall we betray this time?" So at least they seemed to notice what I did - but most of the time they were easy enough to bribe and never realised that they could be next. No real challenge after all. Maybe I should try a harder level next time and/or switch "Agressive AI" ON.
- barbarians: Well, at least here Civ4 is a clear improvement compared with earlier Civs. They do not only arise from any unobserved area but even build cities there. Their war technology keeps pace with yours to some extent. So when you have archery or gunpowder, they will have it, too. And though I did not choose the "wild barbarian" option they kept attacking me constantly from 3 cities in North-America, so that my expansion came to a halt there until I could spare enough troops to raze or invade those cities.
- warfare: In some War-Academy-Thread the variation of any invasion force is stressed. Of course this is right, because you have to deal with the many individual boni of the defending units. But even in Civ1-2 and especially in Civ3 it was a good idea to mix your troops (at least until tank warfare). What is it good for to invade a city in Civ-3 with 6 chariots/elephants/crusaders/dragoons/cavallerists, when you lose it again immediately? Except for the suicidal-artillery (which I consider rather unrealistic, though I like the new collateral damage) instead of bombarding artillery I - personally - did not have to re-think my strategy in a revolutionary way. Sure, it's nice to have assault-promoted units when storming a city or terrain-promoted troops for the march or special forces like pikesmen against mounted. But if you lack those specialists you still can compensate this by sheer quanitity.
Well, after all I can say that the most striking new features are the graphics. Though some of the posters in this thread appreciated these, I do not. Of course all the animations and the earth-rotating-view are fancy things. So are the reintroduced wonder films. But for me graphics do not matter so much, I would be content with unanimated Civ-1 graphics, since it does not contribute anything to the strategy but first of all slow down the performance enormously. The gameplay on the first view brings very many new features such as religion, higher developed diplomacy etc. On the second view those features still seem a little embryonic to me. Sure Civ4 is different from Civ3 (surpise, surprise). But so far I think the differences are less revolutionary than some members of the Civ-4-faction or the Civ-3-faction claimed (neither revolutionary good or bad). Maybe I should check out some Civ4-Mods to see if some of you guys made more of the new feats.
I have already studied what the forum says about the Warlords Extension Pack. I was very disappointed and do not think, I will buy it. Not because I already have decided to turn back to Civ3 but because it seems less more than a Mod. Perhaps I should get some information about BTS. Or maybe any of you guys can give me advice wether to get it or not.