Am I the only person who is mad?

[Mobilize]

I absolutely hate what this game that I've been waiting for, for several years, has come to look like.

I am relentlessly angered by what I see. The screenshots made me upset, but furthermore, the demo videos, have made me disgusted..

This game does not look like a Civ game, I don't think it deserves to be labeled as CivIV, very much like I don't think Warcraft III deserved to be labeled as Warcraft III.

Here are some reasons why I absolutely loathe CivIV:
1) Terrain looks to generic and ugly.. it's too large, there is one mountain per mountain tile, I just think the terrain is absolutely non-realistic. Terrain is also too few and too square. Those continents look absolutely terrible.
2) Units are too large and how they have 3 soldiers is completely moronic. I never ever cared much for multi-units because they tend to clutter your map.
3) City tiles look rediculous, and how come in all the screenshots/videos there are too few and too spread apart. It seems to me like a whole nation has a total of 3 cities. I wish they would return to the CivIII, one city per tile look.
4) Leaderheads are too cartooney.. c'mon Gandhi's head is huge. CivIII most definantly had better looking leaderheads.
5) National borders are too colorful and distracting, CivIII's were much much better because they were more defined.
6) There are too few civs, unit types, wonders, and improvements. Also, how come they couldn't have 2 leaderheads for every civilization instead of 2 for only a few.. I really don't think that's quite fair.

Well there you have. I probably missed a few things.

I wish CivIV was more realistic looking. I think 3d is worthless if it's unrealistic. Hopefully terrain will be moddable into 2d.. or else I will never buy this game. Hopefully everything I hate will be moddable.

Firaxis, I demand an apology for making me wait for several years for CivIV and come up with a piss-poor looking game. You have betrayed me, you have betrayed the modding community, and you betrayed yourselves.

That's all from me for now.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I agree with you on all but 2 points. First, I like the look of the leaderheads *slightly* better than Civ III. But they are still cartoony and dissappointing.

The other point is, I am still hopeful.

 

[Vael]

If you want graphics so bad go buy Age of Empires III instead.

 

[MeteorPunch]

If you want graphics so bad go buy Age of Empires III instead.

He listed more problems than graphics. besides graphics are important for immersion. I'm not too concerned though, because i trust our modders will be excellent.

 

[oldStatesman]

I agree with you on all but 2 points. First, I like the look of the leaderheads *slightly* better than Civ III. But they are still cartoony and dissappointing.

The other point is, I am still hopeful.

Very Disneyish. If they went cartoon I would have preferred a more realistic Ralph Bakshi style such as in the early LOR animated movie or even better Cool World....

It would have been great to see a very realistic World..much easier to loose yourself in history...but at least it will make a great base for fantasy mods...

 

[Vael]

Maybe it's just me, but I find it funny to demand an apology for a game one has never bought, let alone even played before.

 

[ainwood]

Firaxis, I demand an apology for making me wait for several years for CivIV and come up with a piss-poor looking game. You have betrayed me, you have betrayed the modding community, and you betrayed yourselves.

Apologise? For what? For having a different opinion to you?

Firstly, I think they have most certainly NOT betrayed the modding community! They are delivering a game that will let you mod basically anything you like.

I like the look of the terrain (although the units are a bit iffy), but what's important to me is GAME PLAY.

If your only beef is the graphics, then there is always PS2 or Xbox.

 

[narmox]

And I find it funny how people get angry over such a thing as a computer game. It's just a freakin game, not life!

 

[Vael]

It would have been great to see a very realistic World..much easier to loose yourself in history...but at least it will make a great base for fantasy mods...

Hmmm... The thing about Civ for me is that it's a strategic game. The reason a game like AOE3 can get away with super-realistic graphics is because when you see a house and 20 men on screen it actually represents that. On the other hand, what you see in Civ represents something different - a few buildings represents a huge city, or one figure represents a massive army. Seeing each individual tree and blade of grass finely detailed takes away from that.

Not saying I agree with the way Civ is looking now, just that I'm not sure that super-realistic is the direction that Civ would be best going in.

 

[p dandy]

I have posted before that I felt the map looked cluttered also.

I agree on point 3. They abstracted too much for my taste. I liked the spanning empires you could create in Civ3 with tons of cities. I believe they also scaled down on the techs and units.

I don't have a problem with the leaderheads. That's just nitpicking. Oversized head = big deal.

I agree on point 6. There should have been 2 for each civ.

Although I do have similar concerns, to "loath" it for these reasons seems a little overboard. This is kinda analogous to what's happening with the new Star Wars films.

 

[Trade-peror]

Mobilize, correct me if I am mistaken, but it appears that most of your complaints are concerned primarily with the graphics. As Civ has rarely, if ever, been at the industry forefront in terms of visual appeal, I am surprised that you would hate Civ4 just for that reason, a reason that has always plagued the Civ series. Also, since Civ4 has not yet been released, and you have not actually played the game yet, isn't it too early to pronounce such a judgment?

That said, however, I do agree with some of your points, including the cartoon heads still looking goofy and the world seeming too sparse for my liking, but I am in no rush to pronounce a judgment.

As MeteorPunch says, there may still be some hope, from the next 6 or 7 months of work before release...

 

[Aks K]

@Mobilize:
1. Terrain looks ok to me. All I want is that adject titles of the same type get a different look.
2. Dont like it either. 1 unit - 1 "man". If you had 5 different units in a title they could all show at the same time. If there were more than five some would be hidden.
3.-4. Doesnt matter for me.
5. Sure that there will be an option to get less coulor on the national borders.
6. This is for the expansion . I would also have liked many more civs!

Like Trade-peror and MeteorPunch said - there is plenty of time left to work on the project

Maybe it's just me, but I find it funny to demand an apology for a game one has never bought, let alone even played before.

I would agree on this one .

Off topic: cool avatar Vael. Where is it from?

Aks K

 

[Vael]

Off topic: cool avatar Vael. Where is it from?

Thanks! I thought so too.

I actually just searched for "Shadow Angel" in Google and found something that looked cool.

Here is the full image:

http://www.warriorofjah.blogger.com.br/shadow angel.jpg

 

[Aks K]

I actually just searched for "Shadow Angel" in Google and found something that looked cool.

Good one . Did you look at the sight? You did a nice cut - you avatar looks better than the picture itself. I searched Far Side - and found something goofy .

Aks K

 

[Quentin]

1)Not a problem to me. Has always been like that in Civ no?
2)You don't care... so you hate
3)I won't even comment on that until the game is released.
4&5)I like them.
6)I actually agree, but I don't find this a big deal.

Am I the only person who is mad?

Yes, apparently.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Its funny that you should mention Civ being a 'Strategic Game', Vael-given that Firaxis insists on representing so many 'strategic' elements with tactical level units (like espionage, religion and infrastructure development !), my chief complaint about the game so far.
That said, I don't think I could EVER feel the level of vehemence towards the game that Mobilize feels. Yes I complain about certain misgivings I have, but only because I have such high expectations for the Civ franchise and its designers. I would certainly NEVER demand an apology from them just because there are 1 or 2 things which I think they have done wrong!!!
For me, Civ4 is-as it stands-already better than Civ3 Vanilla in sooo many ways. I therefore feel quite certain that, by the time the last expansion comes out, the game will be the best game-of its genre-on the market. But that is just my personal opinion.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[OxfordPferd]

An Apology? Why the hell would they owe you an apology?
Don't like the graphics?
Simple solution: Don't buy it or get used to it.
Don't like the number of civs, units, etc.?
Why should more unit-types be better? Apparently you can specialise your units with the new experience system. You can probably make quite unique units this way. With the new strength system, more units would probably be pretty pointless and just for flavor.
If you want sheer numbers then look at the civics instead of governments: If there are 5 * 5 civics, then there are exactly 3125 different options you can choose as a government. Thats a 39062,5% increase compared to C3C
Other than that, you can just wait for expansions and additions from the modding community.
The only thing I'm a little bit worried about is the new type of leaderheads. I don't know too much about 3D-Modeling, but those Leaderheads seem pretty hard to make. We have hundreds of different civ3-leaderheads for every region on the earth, I wonder if it will be the same with civ4-leaderheads in a few years..

 

[PriestOfDiscord]

Here are some reasons why I absolutely loathe CivIV:
1) Terrain looks to generic and ugly.. it's too large, there is one mountain per mountain tile, I just think the terrain is absolutely non-realistic. Terrain is also too few and too square. Those continents look absolutely terrible.
2) Units are too large and how they have 3 soldiers is completely moronic. I never ever cared much for multi-units because they tend to clutter your map.
3) City tiles look rediculous, and how come in all the screenshots/videos there are too few and too spread apart. It seems to me like a whole nation has a total of 3 cities. I wish they would return to the CivIII, one city per tile look.
4) Leaderheads are too cartooney.. c'mon Gandhi's head is huge. CivIII most definantly had better looking leaderheads.
5) National borders are too colorful and distracting, CivIII's were much much better because they were more defined.
6) There are too few civs, unit types, wonders, and improvements. Also, how come they couldn't have 2 leaderheads for every civilization instead of 2 for only a few.. I really don't think that's quite fair.

1) We are complaining about graphics for a product not even close to beta. Hmmmm.
2) I've never had a problem with multi-units, though I never personally used them. I like how they visualize hit points easily though.
3) Absolutely disagree. I always thought it was silly that even the most massive of cities that hold millions upon millions of people share the same amount of space as a village of 10,000.
4) Alpha graphics, and personally I liked how Ghandi looked.
5) I somewhat agree with you here, but I don't think it is too distracting.
6) The only thing I totally agree with you on. While I really like the revamping of the combat system and the RPGish unit experience system, that is no excuse for lowering unit count. Give me more varied choices to choose from, which you would think would be easier to do now that combat relies more on all the modifiers they are adding in.

Most of your complaints are about graphics, which I think is kind of sad. I thought the general thinking around here was that graphics were always secondary to good gameplay for any turn-based strategy game. Oh well.

 

[Gogf]

Here are some reasons why I absolutely loathe CivIV:
1) Terrain looks to generic and ugly.. it's too large, there is one mountain per mountain tile, I just think the terrain is absolutely non-realistic. Terrain is also too few and too square. Those continents look absolutely terrible.
2) Units are too large and how they have 3 soldiers is completely moronic. I never ever cared much for multi-units because they tend to clutter your map.
3) City tiles look rediculous, and how come in all the screenshots/videos there are too few and too spread apart. It seems to me like a whole nation has a total of 3 cities. I wish they would return to the CivIII, one city per tile look.
4) Leaderheads are too cartooney.. c'mon Gandhi's head is huge. CivIII most definantly had better looking leaderheads.
5) National borders are too colorful and distracting, CivIII's were much much better because they were more defined.
6) There are too few civs, unit types, wonders, and improvements. Also, how come they couldn't have 2 leaderheads for every civilization instead of 2 for only a few.. I really don't think that's quite fair.

1. I love the new terrain! It makes it somewhat harder to distinguish the squares than Civ3, but I always liked the graph anyway. I can get used to it without it though.
2. You can zoom out. I think the new way of representing unit HP is much better (and more realistic) than before.
3. What you're saying doesn't make sense. Each city appears to take up one tile, it's just the level of zoom that may be confusing you. It appears that whoever played the game played with a more loose build than some might in Civ3, which is perfectly fine.
4. I like the leaderheads, they aren't too realistic, but not too unrealistic either. I like the Civ3 Ghandi a bit better, but not because of how "cartoony" the Civ4 one looks.
5. I like the Civ3 borders better as well, but I'm sure they're relatively easy to get used to. Plus, they're probably moddable.
6. Some Civilizations have slightly more obscure leaders than others. Plus, it seems like more of a way of balancing two famous, effective leaders with different personalities, rather than just favoring one Civilization. We don't know enough about wonders or improvements enough yet to complain about there not being enough.

 

[Sid]

Yep, you're probably mad -- part of a group who are never satisfied. I've had more fun from Civ than all of my other games combined, and Civ4 will be no exception. The leader animations are so much better and I can see parts of the combat system that will be engrossing, particularly creating and sustaining veteran units.

There will be so much more to tease us in the coming months and some of it will appease the thread-starter's angst. In the meantime, I'm just pretty impatient, but I've got Cossacks 2 and Empire Earth 2 to keep me happy + Civ3 of course.