_Calyx
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2011
- Messages
- 111
Did anyone ever find out of Civ4 works on Windows 7 64bit? I'm guessing not...
Works perfectly for me.
Did anyone ever find out of Civ4 works on Windows 7 64bit? I'm guessing not...
Maybe I'll just join the rest of the gaming world, buy a console and play mindless FPS games.
Civilization IV is a complete game. I have played it to death, and still love it. Yes, I also play Civ V some, but here is what I have found over the course of 10+ years....
IMHO, I think that an expansion would be nice (available as DLC on Steam or purchased in the store) and it should include all previous DLC to catch up Vanilla players with GOTY and DLC players and have single point to move forward with future DLC.
Let me start by saying that I don't want this thread to be yet another 'Civ5 sux because...', or 'Civ5 rules because....'. There are a thousand other threads covering that, and this shouldn't be one more of them.
So, I'm a civver since Civ1. Played them all, loved them all. I just love the idea of Civ, and hope I'm still around when Civ20 comes out (not likely at 1 release every 4 years, but I can hope). For me, Civ is what computer games were invented for.
Now, it's been a while, but I have some very very fond memories of Civ4-BTS-BUG/BAT... etc. Damn but that felt like one sophisticated and polished game.Years later I can still remember particular games and how they unfolded.
I bought Civ5, and all the DLC to date, as I will buy any other Civ thing that comes along (except civrev and civworld because those are for kids). Because I work and am a dad etc, I don't play quite as much I used to, but I still manage to finish a good solid game every few months or so. For the record, I play lots of other games too.
I haven't played Civ4 since Civ5 was released. I have mixed feelings on Civ5.
Ditto, although I've been reflecting on exactly what is worse and what better between these incarnations recently.
At first I loved it: 1UPT fantastic improvement, city states brilliant idea.
Agreed on both.
Then after a few games I felt like it had been dumbed down and 'console-ised'. I really missed religion
I come across this a lot, and it's a friend's biggest issue with the game. But reflecting on it, religion was a great idea in Civ IV that didn't really pan out very well. It could be bad for gameplay - the early game became a rush to try and get the religions first, due to the importance of religious buildings, and the late game was heavily dictated by who won that rush or had the random chance to have someone else's religion 'invade' their territory.
The exclusive nature of each religion was awkward conceptually: hey, I've researched polytheism! Yet somehow none of my people follow any religion or know how to build temples because someone else got Hinduism first; it's a bit like having the first person to reach Currency being the only one to know how to build a market. Yes, there have always been elements of this in Civ (first to get to Philosophy gets a free tech), but at least conceptually a civ that gets Philosophy first still gets philosophers; a civ that gets religious techs but no religion is a glaring oddity in a game that was moving ever closer to being a simulation.
The specific benefits religion provided were certainly well thought-out, but I think that overall randomness of spread was unwelcome (religion only transmitted through missionaries would have been better mechanically), and there needed to be a system to render religions non-exclusive to avoid all of the above. It was definitely something I feel should have been tweaked rather than removed altogether, but far from feeling polished religion (and corporations, the equivalent late-game feature no one seems to want back) felt experimental in Civ 4, at least to me.
, espionage,
Definitely agree with this. Espionage has been in Civ since day 1, and while there's precedent for leaving it out of the base set and then reintroducing it, I think it should be restored in one form or another.
leaders with personalities, and the technology tree/race just seems, well, less important somehow. Wind the clock forward a bit, and despite all the criticisms, I am starting to feel this is actually quite a nice game.
I think there's a lot to be said for Civ V, although I miss some other elements as well (decision-making is, I feel, oversimplified now that cities can work so many more tiles and science/luxury production is no longer tied to trade income; plus although I generally welcome the removal of random elements, I miss random events).
The tech tree may not be as good as a simulation, but a lot of the techs are more sensibly placed in terms of their game effect (granary giving extra food is much more useful early game than acting as a food store).
I think the game now encourages a greater variety of strategies. Other than culture victories, all the victory conditions in previous games rewarded basically the same format of 'expand as much as possible, build up army, win' - conquest victories that relied on large numbers of cities producing troops, science victories that relied on large numbers of cities producing research, diplomatic victories that relied on swarming the map and overwhelming everyone else with your population size. Mechanics in Civ V force different play styles to secure different victory conditions - Diplomatic victories can no longer be won on the strength of population alone but actually require diplomacy, and most economic output is linked to population size rather than number of cities (you get as much research from an extra citizen in your capital as you do by founding a new city, for instance), although obviously the more cities you have the more tech buildings.
Health was never a very useful game mechanic, I feel, and all it really did was force you to build a specific suite of buildings to keep everyone healthy - although it did at least allow the option of poisoning enemies' water...
Well, I sunk the armada even though I wasn't REALLY prepared for it, and a few more of them after that (playing on Immortal, but usually on emperor). The 'potential' is a niced idea, but it remains just that. The trouble I find is that the 'magic moments' are too far between. I can still walk away from the PC and ponder: now if I shaft Arabia, what will China do... and given the advantages and disadvantages I currently have, what strategy should I take now to really leverage my strengths? But it kind of boils down to something like: I'm going for a tech victory (have been since the start of this game), so I should keep trying to increase my population and build some more science buildings (none left, oh well, build some culture buildings then). Hmmm. A little boring perhaps?
To be honest, I think a lot of this just comes down to the fact that the AI diplomacy in Civ 5 is noticeably inferior to that in earlier games in the series, and has less to do with the mechanics.
Phil
I actualyl bash a lot obout civ 5 and how bad it is and nobody should buy it.
But to be honest I actualyl thinx civilization 5 has a better gameplay then civilization 4 especialy the combat and generally the empire management is way easier then it was in civ 4.
There is absolutely no challenge to combat. Give me a Cannon and a rifleman and I can destroy an attacking army of 10 units with ease. Give me 3 cannons and 3 rifleman and I can easily take every city in the game.
I suspect this too is a consequence of the 'board game' mentality. Combat should be deterministic rather than random: if the same unit combination works the same way every time, that's a sign the developers have got it right. Combat in these kinds of games is usually not the objective, but if it occurs at all is done to obtain a strategic advantage. It was rarely useful in board game Civ, and in games like Tigris & Euphrates its only function is to delay an enemy's play; in that game it's not actually possible to eliminate an opponent.
I actually prefer some "weighted" randomness but in truth I could live with either system. It doesn't bother me that a Spearmen could take out a Tank but I just hope it is very, very rare.
I think the real issue is just the dumb AI. If they would at least keep their units out of the range of my city, line them all up, then rush my city as a surprise to take it they would have more success. As it is, bringing in 1/2/3 units at a time to attack is ridiculous.
Did anyone ever find out of Civ4 works on Windows 7 64bit? I'm guessing not...
Having some regard to tech level would help as well - would a general really (as the Babylonians recently did against one of my cities) use a Bowman and a couple of Warriors to attack a city defended by Pikemen? You would at least expect them to compensate with a larger army than they'd need at a higher tech level, but the AI seems to just decide it needs X units to launch an attack regardless of those units' identity. Later in the same game Babylonian Pikemen were just sitting around instead of engaging my nearby cavalry. etc. etc.
Yes. I am playing a game now and the AI keeps attacking my rifleman/cannon with archers/pikeman/swordsman. It is not that I am far ahead of the most advanced AI in terms of technology. This particular AI (Egypt) is just that far behind...