Civ 4 - Huge Disappointment

[bardolph]

My biggest disappointment with Civ IV far and away is the system requirements. There's something wrong when a TURN-BASED strategy game can't run on the same system that runs World of Warcraft without breaking a sweat.

That's just crappy engineering. Shame on you, Firaxis!

HOWEVER, once I upgraded my system (fifteen months after buying the game), I've found CIV 4 to be a great game. I wholeheartedly welcome the "less micromanagement" policy in the CIV 4 design. Civil disorder and pollution cleanup were never fun, and the new health/happiness system is IMO much better. Civics are a fantastic addition, as well as Religion, and the Maintenance overhaul was sorely needed.

The "rock/scissors/paper" aspect to combat is fine, if you ask me, since resource and technology requirements may limit your access to different parts of the triangle, and the collateral damage mechanics give a nice counter to "stack of doom" strategies.

I actually love the fact that civs naturallly hit a "dark age" at the end of the Classical era, that requires careful planning to avoid or to escape (my first army strike was a shocker!).

I do think that combat would be served by "zone of control" mechanics. For example, why would you EVER build an Ironclad if you already know that Galleons can sail right through your blockade without penalty?

Also, I'd love to see some "civil war" mechanics, only because I find it disappointing that there always seems to be only 3 or 4 civs left by the time you hit the modern era. Maybe the Vassal State rules in Warlords helps preserve a little flava in the world as time goes by.

 

[MoonZar]

In my opinion the only thing to change completely in this game is the combat system. I dont think to be the only one that lost a unit when statistics gave me 99.7 % to win. I always appreciated the combat system used in the game Panzer general, where each units has his peculiarities as in Civ4, but each units has a value of 10. When it faced a battle it can have some casualities but never gone lost if not under particular conditions, for example surprised with an ambush. In this way you can have heavy casualities but you dont lose the whole unit only because a random number decides this turn you have to lose even when you have 75% or more to win. Even the chance to get a leader with some special qualities for a winning unit it would be nice in that game, I would like to see it on Civ4.

Hello,

Actually i lost two time in a row with 99.9 % chance to win... I was very very very unlucky or the combat system have bug.

MoonZar

 

[Jedi_Otis]

I have to admit, when I first purchased this game last November and played steady for about 3 weeks, I didn't like it very much either. I didn't hate it but it just didn't tickle my fancy. There were some things that greatly annoyed me. Wild animals was one of them. Since when did herds of ravenous lions prowl forested tundra?(yes, I used the term herds)

So I put Civ4 aside and went back to Civ3, but the Civ4 disc sitting on the back corner of my desk continued to haunt me. Kind of like the bowling ball in those Sundays are for bowling ESPN commercials. So I gave it another go and I've come to love Civ4 over the last month or so. One of the things I think turns some players off is the steep learning curve coupled with the radical difference from Civ3. Civ4 isn't the usual evolutionary step forward from the previous generation game. Its a revolutionary step forward.
It is as if the designers went to the Civ3 War Academy and said "OK, lets make sure none of this stuff works anymore."


So if you still don't like Civ4, don't give up on it. Keep working at it. Once you get the feel for where you need to go in the tech tree, what you need to build, and the many, many different tools you can use to specialize your cities, it is a very rewarding experience.

 

[Dubai Vol]

You know, it's funny, but I had horrible trouble playing Civ III, and really didn't like it, after loving Civ and Civ II. A visit to this forum helped me understand how to play Civ III, but frankly I still didn't care much for it. As a result, I hardly played it, just a few games, and usually didn't bother to finish. Playing "whack a pollution was annoying, and when victory was assured, it was just too easy to say "oh well, I'm done." Guess I could have used that game finishing service I saw on here recently!

Happily, CIV has brought back the magic for me. I guess it just suits my style. I like all the choices and layers. There's no "only best choice" that always works. I like that. CIV has a replayability that Civ III had lost for me.

 

[Fajita Jim]

SMAC is the best Sid game still, but IMO CivIV is the best of the Civ series. I never played the first but I picked up Civ2 about 10 years ago now and I've been an addict since.

CivIV fixed the one thing that always pissed me off about the others: border control. I try to encircle a good bit of land with my cities and keep other civs out so they don't settle, and in previous Civs this meant 'reminding' friendly AIs every turn to GET THE HELL OUT OF MY TERRITORY...AGAIN!

Then their settler/escort pops out on the other side anyway and well, that's just war.

But still, SMAC:

Sensors
Elevation
Planet Busters
Making Sister Miriam beg for her life.

 

[kelvSYC]

Civ1 was okay, but Civ2 seemed a lot more polished. Problem with that was that I kept stepping into someone else's territory by accident, and the fact that a good player could build an insurmountable tech lead.

Civ3 was great: I liked the culture and resource factors introduced, but hated that the AI could get units "trapped" in my territory. However, the downside was that you could easily cover the terrain with reckless pattern-based city placement, as well as its crippling corruption.

Civ4 is also great, but being used to Civ3 I am having lots of trouble in Civ4 (I'm so far 0-5 in Civ4 - on Settler no less, and all by conquest - and all before Renaissance). I'll agree with the fact that it's a big learning curve from Civ3 to Civ4 (to be fair, I've only had this game for a week). IMO, they elaborated a lot on the antiquity part, but at the expense of the modern era - I'd like to see a paratrooper promotion, a transport helicopter, a navy helicopter, a supersonic fighter, missiles, combat engineers, and maybe a few near-futuristic units. Perhaps even a vehicle with firing ports for archery/gunpowder units.

I'd like to see someone try to recreate Civ1-3 with the Civ4 engine to the best of their ability. Should be interesting.

 

[Wodan]

I'm still trying to figure out how to get my hands on a copy of SMAC and AC. My copies are for Mac, but I don't have a Mac anymore.

Wodan

 

[Drakan]

All I can do is shake my head at the OP and wonder along with some of the other people here, "Why come here and post this negative crap?"

You only played the game for two days - you don't think there's any chance that two days isn't long enough for a fair evaluation, do you? And you don't feel you should 'have to study for hours to play a game good'? You DO have to study for hours to 'write English good'. Perhaps your free time would be better spent in that area.

You don't like the game and you come to a fansite to tell us that? And let me get this straight, you're NOT trying to start a flame fest? Oh OK, sure, I believe that.

For your reference:

# 1 - We don't care. You don't like it? Don't play it. You know, you can still play Civ I, II, or III. Have a nice life.

Moderator Action: Warned - flaming.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

# 2 - See # 1.

Exactly. I have won on Deity Civ 4 and that doesn't mean I like the game, in fact I don't. Some of us more civ veterans than yourself Chazcon are also entitled to our opinion whether it's positive or negative.

I'm really glad the vast majority like Civ4 because that will allow the franchise to endure and hopefully Civ5 will be more similar to Civ3 which I think was the best out of the four despite its well-known flaws.

All of us are fans of some Civ installment or another. Try to take it easy next time you post.

 

[franlato]

no offense but I don't understand why some people take to time to open their computer, open firefox, register to a forum, write a message to say what thousands have said before... If you think the game is weak you could at least bring some new facts so that we could learn how horrible of a game it really is.

I propose a official [all thing negative] tread

 

[Drakan]

no offense but I don't understand why some people take to time to open their computer, open firefox, register to a forum, write a message to say what thousands have said before... If you think the game is weak you could at least bring some new facts so that we could learn how horrible of a game it really is.

I propose a official [all thing negative] tread

Erm, I registered before you did. I'm not going to whine on and on why I dislike this iteration of Civ, I already posted all the reasons back in 2005 and I'm sure you've heard all of them before.

My point was that one must respect fellow civer's opinion and not act like some fundamentalist waiting to drive a stake through the heart of someone just because they differ in opinion.

I like Civ and I like this forum, that's why I post here. No offence taken.

 

[franlato]

I'm not going to whine on and on why I dislike this iteration of Civ,

my post was not really about you , but some do whine on and on
(and I understand why you don't like this iteration of civ)
but I also think that it's not the forum for the "civ just sucks" type of argument... It seem I hear it a lot...

again, it's not what you said

 

[Drakan]

Ok......

 

[gamedude107]

the combat does suck, it changed which can be annoying, now tehre can only be 1 unit fighting another 1 at a time! not like Call to power (the last CIv game ive played) which was better with stack fighting stack