Greencardman
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2005
- Messages
- 114
I'm having trouble getting excited here, and I think Firaxis dropped the ball. I was hoping for a fun new game and instead got the old Colonization with updated graphics. Badly updated graphics, mind you. And while Civ 4 initially came out with a lot of bugs, they were fixable bugs. This version of colonization doesn't seem fixable, unless anyone actually thinks they're going to redesign the interface in a patch. A few of my irks and annoyances:
Blurry, ugly graphics. "Ye old pioneer" style is ok for some people, but I want a sharp image. Its an interface, not a sketch of an interface.
Bad interface design: Buttons are often spaced too far apart, or not nearby the thing they modify. Often-clicked buttons are right next to not-so-often used buttons, like delete. Its not easy to tell what is going on. Is that colonist on my ship, or not? And for goodness sakes, get rid of that curved design, it takes up room!
Lack of shortcuts: highly annoying. It might be fun to drag and drop the first few turns, but dragging those goods in Europe from all the way from down the bottom to all the way up to your ship? Annoying. Not being able to right click a colonist and give him a profession? Annoying. Not being able to right click a good and automatically load all units onto a ship. Annoying.
Game play isn't fleshed out. Easily changed, but still. Why is my ship wandering around for 20 turns looking for land at the beginning of a game? Hello, not fun at all, very annoying, and serves absolutely no purpose at all, except to annoy. Most people want to find land and actually have fun. Put the map closer, and if someone wants it far away, they could choose it that way in a custom game. When they remade Civ for Civ 4, one goal was to reduce all the silly things they made you do for no reason in the interface and in micromanagement. It seems they didn't go through Colonization with the same fine-toothed comb this time.
More interface bad choices: Why switch all the buttons from Civ 4? Do you think the majority of buyers won't already have civ 4? So putting the civilopedia buttons and the others on the left, does it serve a purpose except to annoy civ 4 users? Not to mention how tiny they are. Get rid of some interface down below, and make them bigger up top. Put them into the interface instead of freestanding, it makes things easier to find and click.
Bring back my opponents on the lower right hand side.
Put the selected unit above the interface, like civ 4. Its very hard to tell who you have selected, what its carrying, etc, when its way down at the bottom.
It seems this game was remade without adding anything extra to make it more fun. Its more of an update, so we can all play colonization again with new screens. But thats about it. Its very lacking in complexity, which I know will be a plus for some users, but leaves others kind of feeling empty.
On the plus side, there were some improvements I really liked, such as the indian villages now tell you what profession they will teach and what goods they want.
Blurry, ugly graphics. "Ye old pioneer" style is ok for some people, but I want a sharp image. Its an interface, not a sketch of an interface.
Bad interface design: Buttons are often spaced too far apart, or not nearby the thing they modify. Often-clicked buttons are right next to not-so-often used buttons, like delete. Its not easy to tell what is going on. Is that colonist on my ship, or not? And for goodness sakes, get rid of that curved design, it takes up room!
Lack of shortcuts: highly annoying. It might be fun to drag and drop the first few turns, but dragging those goods in Europe from all the way from down the bottom to all the way up to your ship? Annoying. Not being able to right click a colonist and give him a profession? Annoying. Not being able to right click a good and automatically load all units onto a ship. Annoying.
Game play isn't fleshed out. Easily changed, but still. Why is my ship wandering around for 20 turns looking for land at the beginning of a game? Hello, not fun at all, very annoying, and serves absolutely no purpose at all, except to annoy. Most people want to find land and actually have fun. Put the map closer, and if someone wants it far away, they could choose it that way in a custom game. When they remade Civ for Civ 4, one goal was to reduce all the silly things they made you do for no reason in the interface and in micromanagement. It seems they didn't go through Colonization with the same fine-toothed comb this time.
More interface bad choices: Why switch all the buttons from Civ 4? Do you think the majority of buyers won't already have civ 4? So putting the civilopedia buttons and the others on the left, does it serve a purpose except to annoy civ 4 users? Not to mention how tiny they are. Get rid of some interface down below, and make them bigger up top. Put them into the interface instead of freestanding, it makes things easier to find and click.
Bring back my opponents on the lower right hand side.
Put the selected unit above the interface, like civ 4. Its very hard to tell who you have selected, what its carrying, etc, when its way down at the bottom.
It seems this game was remade without adding anything extra to make it more fun. Its more of an update, so we can all play colonization again with new screens. But thats about it. Its very lacking in complexity, which I know will be a plus for some users, but leaves others kind of feeling empty.
On the plus side, there were some improvements I really liked, such as the indian villages now tell you what profession they will teach and what goods they want.
).
The Trade Routes seem a bit more clunky than they needed to be and there are a few other minor quibbles, but so far I really like the game.
I tend toward EU and TW. Not really sure why I have never given Civ a try. I think it is the fact that it is too wide open and sandboxy. I prefer games that stay closer to history. That's why I am trying Colonization. It has a definaite historical taste.
