Civ 4, worth buying?

[Despair888]

I figured I'd rather ask the Civ 3 board first. Is Civ 4 really worth buying? Please, only those of youj that have played it respond.

Thanks.

 

[taipei_lad]

I figured I'd rather ask the Civ 3 board first. Is Civ 4 really worth buying? Please, only those of youj that have played it respond.

Thanks.

Well, like a lot of questions here, the answer is: it depends. I have both games, and I like both, so there you are.

If you like Civ3 a lot, then sure, pick up Civ4. It's a different game, but once you get used to it, it's fun. If you love micromanagement, it's probably not for you.

One consideration though: if you want it, make sure your computer is up for it. Civ4 is a HUGE game, and it eats weaker computers for breakfast. The minimum specs on the box are a joke; you need much, much more to play Civ4.

Don't know if this helps, but it's the best I can give you.

 

[Despair888]

Well, like a lot of questions here, the answer is: it depends. I have both games, and I like both, so there you are.

If you like Civ3 a lot, then sure, pick up Civ4. It's a different game, but once you get used to it, it's fun. If you love micromanagement, it's probably not for you.

One consideration though: if you want it, make sure your computer is up for it. Civ4 is a HUGE game, and it eats weaker computers for breakfast. The minimum specs on the box are a joke; you need much, much more to play Civ4.

Don't know if this helps, but it's the best I can give you.

Thanks. I still haven't decided. I do like Civ 3 though.

I think my comp would be able to handle it, but I better ask... just incase...

My Processor is 3Ghz, 1.5 gigs of RAM, and just has the random intel video card that came with the comp.

 

[Abaddon]

cIV is poo, just extend Civ3's life with all the mods out there!

 

[Bartleby]

Personally I found CivIV didn't do it for me. However, casting back through the mists of time, I didn't like CivIII at first and the only reason I stuck with that was that Fantastic Worlds failed to install on my WindowsMe laptop.
So I intend to keep trying IV every now and then, and from time to time I browse around the CivIV section here, to see if anything fires my imagination.

My advice is, if your computer will run it, and you're not strapped for cash, buy it anyway. You're a fanatic, right?

 

[Mirc]

The minimum specs on the box are a joke; you need much, much more to play Civ4.

I have an AMD Duron 700 Mhz, with 128 Mb RAM (I just got a Second Hand 256), ABIT GeForce 2 Graphics card, and Civ4 works perfect on anything except Large and Huge maps.

And it depends if you should buy it or not...

 

[Padma]

... and just has the random intel video card that came with the comp.

That could be the deal-breaker, right there. You need a *decent* video card to play Civ4.

 

[Turner]

And you can get a decent video card for under $100, maybe even $50. Check out newegg, they have pretty good deals.

 

[The Omega]

Played civ4 for a week, then was back to civ3. Stick with numero tres.

 

[Red Door]

I play both consistently. Civ 4 is a vast improvement in most things. The only thing that Civ 4 lacks on is the graphics department, they suck.

 

[HolyEmperor]

Played civ4 for a week, then was back to civ3. Stick with numero tres.

I absolutely agree. Civ 4 wasn't really all that bad, but it was nothing compared to Civ III, at least for me. It has a lot of useless stuff, and other stuff that would be good if added to Civ III.
So... I wouldn't recommend you to buy it, no.

 

[Charles 22]

Just a disclaimor first. I'm almost always on the CIV4 forum between the two, but sometimes I'm a bit curious about what's going on over here.

Me, I like Civ 4 better. My main objection to IV was based on the graphics, as I felt they were too stiff from the screenshots. They are, however, just as good if not better in many respects. The level where I'm playing the game the most, actually just a little closer than that, the graphics looks just as good and I can scarcely tell them apart.

There are a number of things I like better about the game, like the ability to actually have closed borders and to not have everybody and their dog jump on you all the time. Actually I think the most major imporvement that used to hack me off about CIV3 was the constant stupid maintenance of having to stop every single pillage even to a fairly worthless road, just so the WW wouldn't go up. In CIV4 they pillage as much if not more, but your WW doesn't go up from that (maybe for pillaged mines and such, but it doesn't appear to matter as far as roads are concerned. And for those generally turtle players like me, you also can fight every single civ at the same time, or so I imagine, and not suffer any WW unless you lose a city or something similar. The WW works off what is lost -and- gained in enemy territory. IOW, I don't think they drive WW up for either side by road pillaging, and they don't drive it up for themselves just by being in enemy territory, but they do drive it up for every unit they lose and every unit their enemy loses (or so I've heard. It can make onslaughts of many nations, should they come, a lot more feasibly survived just because you can keep them in war so long by not giving them peace and keep hitting them with losses in your territory.

Of course, the initial problems people had with the game, me being one of them with those problems, tarnished this game for some time, as my 2.8G machine was crashing fairly frequently, but that was fixed some time ago but of course is still a problem for probably anything below 1.2 or so.

 

[Mirc]

having to stop every single pillage even to a fairly worthless road, just so the WW wouldn't go up.

I didn't know that WW goes up when someone pillages something...

 

[Charles 22]

I didn't know that WW goes up when someone pillages something...

That's what I more recently understood about Civ3. For the first six monthes I played the game I wasn't aware fo that either, but hten I sawthe bit in the manual I believe it was, about what drove WW up. It does seem that it wouldn't work when you weren't at war, but I can't be completely sure there. The idea is that the enemy, and who else could pillage your improvements but enemy, so that solves my earlier doubt, is destroying bits of your empire, therefore driving the desire for war down. I know there were things that also lowered WW, and I think one of them was causing losses to the enemy. You start to wonder though, that when you're winning at a 5-to-1 clip or better and the WW keeps going up, something else is causing it, and in my case it was the pillaging. The Civ4 WW method is a bit more simple, but sort of doesn't make sense. Civ4 makes turtling up against masses very plausible, more than Civ3 anyway.

Of course barbs can be a major problem concerning pillaging up to the mid-game point, but I'm betting you could be completely at peace and still get WW (of course Civ3 has a seperate WW causing agent in that it drives it higher for the amount of time you're at war). I don't think Civ 4 does that, but that is a guess again. The thing about barbs though, when you think about it, they ARE at war with you, as everybody else is. It's just that their pillaging would probably have to be really extreme to drive make the civ not at war with anyone else to suddenly get some unhappiness.

 

[boneys26]

I've had civ4 from november05 and i love the game but as its been said before min spec for the game isn't much good i upgraded my comp's ram to play it. it's a good game and you can do alot more with it modding wise than any other civ game. if i was you I'ld get it its worth having allthough i've gone back to civ3 as my pc's bust and my laptop won't play civ4

 

[gmaharriet]

I pre-ordered Civ4 when it first became available, bought a brand new computer with a super graphics card just so I could play the game and looked forward to it with great anticipation. I had no technical problems running it, but after about 2 or 3 weeks of playing the game, I was bored to pieces with it, so I came back to C3C.

It didn't have the "just one more turn" feel that Civ3 still gives me. It takes too long to get started in the early game and then the tech speed picks up so fast your units are outdated as fast as you can build them. The view of the map zooms around like a camera on steroids and I don't care for the 3-D graphics at all.

That's just my opinion. I know some people really enjoy the game, but I didn't.

 

[eke4500]

I'm playing civ III vanilla, no patches, no update's, no mod's, nothing.
Bought IV about a month ago and played it 'bout 2 times.
Still think III rules...

Greetz E.

 

[Bartleby]

^Even if you don't want to upgrade to C3C, I'd strongly recommend patching vanilla up to 1.29f.

and welcome to CFC, eke.

 

[AndrewN]

I would say yes it is worth buying.

It is a very different game than , just as was different from 2. A few of the changes are strange, but I have played it so much that I can't go back to .

The game took a bit of getting used to initially, but most of the changes are for the best and I have problems understanding those who don't like it.

 

[gunkulator]

I completely agree with AndrewN. I'll always have a place in my heart (and on my hard drive for Civ3), however for me at least the game is pretty much played out.

Civ4 brings new game concepts and more varied strategies with far less pointless MM. After playing Civ4 for a while now, I can't imagine going through the bother of setting up and tending to yet another tedious settler pump or playing whack-a-mole with pollution ever again. Civ4 did drop the ball in some areas (sea and air units) but these were never all that big of a deal for me anyway.

That said, I have two computers and the older one can't run Civ4 at all. When I'm stuck with that machine, I'm fine with firing up a game of C3C, especially some of the conquest scenarios which I think are mostly well done. Then again, I frequently borrow an ancient laptop that I never got around to installing Civ3 on. On that machine I will happily play Civ2! But with both older games, I no longer bother trying to beat the hardest levels because it necessitates too much MM for my taste.

My advice: Buy 'em all. Try 'em all. They're all good.