2 cents on cIV from a vet...

[Shigga]

So here we go. Been playing Civ in all it's incarnations including CTP. I will try to keep this short. I must admit that I haven't played more than 8 hrs or so, so a couple of things may change.

The shiny side of cIV

+ Improved combat. I like the promos very much. To my unpleasant surprise I found 3 archers in a barb city on a hill with garrison 1+2 a really hard nut to crack

+ no more corruption

+ no more ICS

+ Greatly improved AI in terms of diplomacy

+ happiness info in the city screen - let's you know whats going on exactly

+ info tooltips in map overview - adds greatly to information accessability


The grimey side of cIV :thumbdown:

- the bugs: scrambled wonder movies, map disclosure when tabbing out of the game and tabbing back in, sudden game crashes with blackscreen (very seldom tg), display errors of leaderheads, slo-mo unit movement...

- iconized civilopedia and insufficient cross reference

- ICS is gone but expansion is so hard. Feels slightly unbalanced. Could be just me since I am a builder type player who likes management and huge civs

- RTS style looks. Sometimes cIV feels like a spin-off of games like Ages of Empires or Empire Earth to me. I definitely DO NOT like that.

- no abandon city function I mean WTH?? Very sloppy I'd say

- there seems to be a large gap between warlord and nobel difficulty. I started out on noble but found it way too competitive for testing all the new features. Haven't played much Civ the last year tho (shame on me )

- I always play with grid on. It is VERY annnoying that some terrain types swallow it nearly whole. Come on, ppl that play grid don't give a .... if it looks pretty. Grid players are usually the ones that turn off all the eye candy. And ppl who don't, turn the grid on shortly to get a clear view on where to go/build then turn it off. So what's the point in masking it by terrain?

EDIT (almost forgot)

- Still no future age. I would really like to see that. Go modders!

-------------------------------------------

Well, that's it for now. So what's my conclusion?

The first couple of games I started there was no one more turn feeling there. That disappointed me. GREATLY. BUT - the last game I started and that I am still playing, well, last night I had the first tiny itches of jomt. Overall, my opinion towards the game can best be described as ambivalent.

Two things will decide me: The quality of the first patch, and the multiplayer experience. I was totally frustrated by PTW. Coming christmas holidays, one of my best friends will stay some days at my place, and we will give the MP a thorough playtest (several days playing straight, interrupted only by a little sleep and a little food).

So what will it be, the Hall of Fame or the Hall of Shame? tbc...

 

[BearMan]

- Still no future age. I would really like to see that. Go modders!

I can so see this in an Expansion.

Civilization IV - Alfa Centauri.
With the Expansion installed, when you win the space race,
well, here we go again

 

[Kudos]

That'd be an entire other game - probably alpha centauri 2.

If that happened it would be cool to have an option to complete a space age game in civ4 and then continue the save in AC2.

 

[BearMan]

That'd be an entire other game - probably alpha centauri 2.

If that happened it would be cool to have an option to complete a space age game in civ4 and then continue the save in AC2.

Remember, with the XML/Python and the 3D engine:

They have alot of work done, they might sell it as a new game, but in work hours, it will just be a very large expansion.

 

[Stilgar08]

So here we go. Been playing Civ in all it's incarnations including CTP. I will try to keep this short. I must admit that I haven't played more than 8 hrs or so, so a couple of things may change.

The grimey side of cIV

- the bugs: scrambled wonder movies, map disclosure when tabbing out of the game and tabbing back in, sudden game crashes with blackscreen (very seldom tg), display errors of leaderheads, slo-mo unit movement...

I agree but very likely most of this will be addressed in the first mod... I'm a little bit worried about the slo-mo-unit movement myself: I mean: I bought a new graphics-card for civ4 (NVidia6800GT256 ) and get that occasionally (with 1 GIG of RAM )

- iconized civilopedia and insufficient cross reference

I wholeheartily agree! Unfortunately the civilopedia is the weakest element of the game so far! But I hope a patch will help... (or a user created improved civilopedia (errr, would that be a mod??))

- ICS is gone but expansion is so hard. Feels slightly unbalanced. Could be just me since I am a builder type player who likes management and huge civs

disagree on this one. Although I see the complaints about winning by conquest or domination being significantly harder than in civ3 = Isn't that what we all wanted?
A more intelligent game is harder to beat, of course... Expansion in the early stages takes it's time but to me it feels right that it does... Another reason for this is that you have so many possibilities of what to build in your cities from early on, that it makes you feel unsure whether it is good right now to invest in a settler and WHEN to invest, IMHO. This is good!

- RTS style looks. Sometimes cIV feels like a spin-off of games like Ages of Empires or Empire Earth to me. I definitely DO NOT like that.

I'm not that much of an RTS player, but I don't see that. I had the same problem with my first two or so games. The game somehow makes you "feel" you have to rush certain decisions and/or moves, but you don't have to...
I had to "force" myself to take my time and check out what I'm really doing, after that it just felt right!

- no abandon city function I mean WTH?? Very sloppy I'd say

For me it's difficult to say... I mean in civ3 it always felt wrong to me that you could wipe-out a city with one mouseclick... I mean it's not that easy, is it?? OTOH I agree there should be a possibility to do this... I'm undecided here... (I think I would prefer MP-Games with the razing-option turned off. But I don't know...)

- there seems to be a large gap between warlord and nobel difficulty. I started out on noble but found it way too competitive for testing all the new features. Haven't played much Civ the last year tho (shame on me )

I'm still on warlord (3rd game on epic - first game I will finish (soory, have to take my time, folks: I've got a real life to handle, too )) so I don't know, but you may be right here. My brother tried noble first and went down to warlord after it was quite hard to get into the game...

Again: Once we are used to the new in-game-concepts it won't mean much bad to us, will it?

- I always play with grid on. It is VERY annnoying that some terrain types swallow it nearly whole. Come on, ppl that play grid don't give a .... if it looks pretty. Grid players are usually the ones that turn off all the eye candy. And ppl who don't, turn the grid on shortly to get a clear view on where to go/build then turn it off. So what's the point in masking it by terrain?

I tend to play without terrain-grid. No idea here. It didn't bother me when I used it, but hey, that's just me...

- Still no future age. I would really like to see that. Go modders!

I'm not into the future age-thing... A mod'll do it for you, I'm sure...

Well, that's it for now. So what's my conclusion?

The first couple of games I started there was no one more turn feeling there. That disappointed me. GREATLY. BUT - the last game I started and that I am still playing, well, last night I had the first tiny itches of jomt. Overall, my opinion towards the game can best be described as ambivalent.

I had exactly the same feeling on my first 2 games. Then I did what I said: I told myself to take my time to decide and get info before doing so. That helped a lot... I'm at work right now and I slept 2 hours last night; those bloody spaniards, you know! I just HAD to declare! They're buddhist, didn't like me and wanted to trade with my only true competitor whose left: Saladin: This bloke.... (You get my point, I think! )

Two things will decide me: The quality of the first patch, and the multiplayer experience. I was totally frustrated by PTW. Coming christmas holidays, one of my best friends will stay some days at my place, and we will give the MP a thorough playtest (several days playing straight, interrupted only by a little sleep and a little food).

So what will it be, the Hall of Fame or the Hall of Shame? tbc...

I'm not that much of an MP-ler but I haven't made up my mind yet, as well. I will decide when I played 10-20 games of different nature (can't wait for the GOTM!!! ) and how addicted I feel after that... But I have good hope I'll be very addicted . HOF very likely, not HOS...

P.S.: I didn't comment on your pro's since I completely agree with that...
Another Con I have (maybe it's just me): I have trouble with created groups and how to use them and how to seperate them again properly. Furthermore I'm not doing stacked combat (except for bombardment) since I'm afraid I'll unnecesserily loose some units I wouldn't have attacked with anyway...

And I have to work on my Great-People-Management... But concerning both: Time will help with these Con's, I think...

Cheers,
Stilgar

 

[pdathert]

- no abandon city function I mean WTH?? Very sloppy I'd say

You know despite the fact that the game won't work for me yet, I have been thinking that this feature should neither be fully in or fully out but an option as the situation dictates.

E.g. You can only abandon a city of size 1 2 or 3, if it hasn't stood for a set number of years or (if it is about to fall to the enemy - and this should mean you simply vacate the city not destroy it.)

something like that would work I think

I do like what i have seen (on friends computer) regarding how cities are now much more like the 'living' entities they are in real life.

 

[Gottschalk]

- RTS style looks. Sometimes cIV feels like a spin-off of games like Ages of Empires or Empire Earth to me. I definitely DO NOT like that.

You know, RTSs used to be 2D too. I doubt anyone said CivI was like Dune or some other nonsense.

 

[Shigga]

You know, RTSs used to be 2D too. I doubt anyone said CivI was like Dune or some other nonsense.

A comparison is perfectly valid, because it describes a FEELING which is a very personal thing and not necessarily based on facts, thank you And it is not because it's 3D now.

@Kudos: I have to disagree, CTP had Future Techs all over the place and it never felt anything like SMAC.

@BearMan: What a happy day that would be!

Concerning abandon city, I would make it dependant on the civics you are using. With serfdom or slavery, it should be perfectly ok that you can delete a city, even with Nationalism or Communism (after all, this is not unheard of in states with communist regimes like China or the former USSR).

However, abandoning a city should hurt you. Previously, you even got a settler back! That is totally out. It should cost some money, too.
This should only apply to cities that existed for more than one turn. Building a city and abandoning it in the same turn should give you the settler back (at least on lower difficulty levels), because I think everybody knows this "Oh crap I placed the city wrong by one tile!"-feeling

 

[MattJek]

Been playing Civ in all it's incarnations including CTP.

Dude, CTP is like the middle ages of CIV!!! what about civ1 and 2

 

[Stuie]

I never understood the "abandon city" crowd. If you didn't want a city there, you either a) shouldn't have built it or b) should have razed it upon capture. You need to focus on long-term strategy and make sure your city is where it needs to be.

Of course, I never understood people's fascination with the Civilopedia either. I used it now and then in Civ, maybe a couple times in Civ 2 and 3, and haven't even bothered with it in Civ 4. All the information you really need to make decisions is already available elsewhere. The mouse-over info is excellent, in my opinion.

Oh - and don't worry about expansion. Once you get used to the game it's not as hard as it seems at first.

 

[Venger]

I think he was including CTP as outside the normal Civ box, not as being the oldest...

Venger

 

[Venger]

To the original post...

Alot to agree with.

But I am starting to really agree on the RTS look - it really does feel like Rise of Nations, very RTS like - I am now convinced I prefer the look of Snoopy's terrain in Civ3 to the new world. By alot in fact. I like that there is life in the trees, and on the map, but it's too cartoonish for my taste.

Certainly not a game ruiner, but Civ3 with Snoopy's terrain and City graphics was so elegant...

Venger

 

[Reg Pither]

- RTS style looks. Sometimes cIV feels like a spin-off of games like Ages of Empires or Empire Earth to me. I definitely DO NOT like that.

I think the graphics really improve the whole game experience immeasurably over the previous Civ incarnations. Much more atmospheric, much more detailed, and everything's easier to distinguish and recognise than before.

I was sceptical about the move to 3D when I first heard about it, thinking that it would be too much for a TBS game, but was really knocked out by how good it looked when I first played it last week.

Yes, it does look a bit more like an RTS, and the hardware requirements are perhaps a bit steep, but the results are worth it, IMHO. Especially as I've now got my brother hooked on the game after he'd spurned all the rather dull looking versions he'd seen previously. I was going to get Age of Empires III, until I played the demo and was disappointed by how much they'd messed about with the brilliance of AoEII. But then I found out Civ IV was due, and now I'm very glad I waited and plumped for the far superior game.

 

[Renata]

Re: the slow-mo unit movement -- try moving units with the right-click pathfinder thingie rather than using the number pad. That way they just zip right over to where they're going.

 

[Stuie]

Re: the slow-mo unit movement -- try moving units with the right-click pathfinder thingie rather than using the number pad. That way they just zip right over to where they're going.

... or go into options and turn on "Quick Moves".

 

[IglooDame]

- iconized civilopedia and insufficient cross reference

I think that the civilopedia organization (mostly icon-driven, but also other aspects, like it being unavailable as easy linking direct-from-units, and it being in the far top right corner so that to click on it, you're probably going too far and moving the map) is so far the worst annoyance. But, the goods so far are definitely outweighing the bads.

 

[tegilbor]

- RTS style looks. Sometimes cIV feels like a spin-off of games like Ages of Empires or Empire Earth to me. I definitely DO NOT like that.

It's not only the look of the game, but also for example the fact that events now pop up during the turn instead of showing all the relevant events at the beginng of each turn. So first the game asks you what you want to build in the city that just defected to your side and 30 seconds later you are told that the city defected. Weird.

It gets really bad when you progress rather quickly but there are a lot of events to display, because the events that don't show up in this turn will just be displayed in the next. At times, I have events pop up several turns late. I even lost a city to this once, because I foolishly relied on the "The enemy has been spotted near..." message (yes, still my mistake, but why tell the player that the enemy is near in the first place if the message may be severely out-dated by the time it is displayed?). I think that was an attempt at making the game seem more RTS-like, when in fact displaying the results of the previous player's turns is one of the most important parts of a turn-based strategy game.

 

[DaddyBird]

I can so see this in an Expansion.

Civilization IV - Alfa Centauri.
With the Expansion installed, when you win the space race,
well, here we go again

There was future age in CTP2, and I liked it alot. In gameplay C4 disappointed me, I had more fun with the older games, cause they have waaaay less bugs and it plays more secure.

 

[Renata]

I think that was an attempt at making the game seem more RTS-like, when in fact displaying the results of the previous player's turns is one of the most important parts of a turn-based strategy game.

I think it more likely that this is an artifact of how they chose to display such information: in a little bit of pop-up text that only stays on-screen for a few seconds. If all of them showed up at once, they'd be gone before you'd read them all. I understand they probably wanted to reduce the amount of annoyance clicking you have to do, but it is a bit odd.

 

[THARN]

Something you can do if you dont want a city-I know it's not a good idea if your not in good power standing -but its an idea.

I ended up getting a city from the aztecs by culure envelopment-it was on the northern part of the map on some icy tiles- I just gave it to one of the weaker civs who were in good standing with me- egypt-
not only did she build it up nicely but it helped her get back on her feet-
30 turns later the aztecs were takin out by germany- and now I have egypt as an ally in case Germany wants to continue into my lands,,