Civ IV Reviewed On IGN!!! (you Will Be Very Happy! :) :) :)

[Leuf]

I don't know whether the reviewer actually experienced tanks losing to spearmen or was just citing it as an example of that sort of thing, but this

it just seems wrong that knights can defeat helicopters.

Is just unacceptable :/

It also sounds like raising the difficulty level mainly (only?) affects AI and player bonuses rather than the AI employing better strategies. Which is to be expected but still disappointing.

Otherwise, sounds very good.

 

[icecool]

Sounds very good but I too worry about the Medieval units winning against Helecopters

Cheers, Ice

 

[Thunderfall]

Great review!

I noticed one bit of wrong info there:

Artillery will also help out, not by damaging the defenders inside a city (which it can't do) but by diminishing a city's defense bonus.

That's not correct. Artillery can damage city defenders by directly attacking the city, causing collateral damages. Usually you want to use artillery to bombard the city defense down to zero first, then use artillery to attack the city.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

Great review!

I noticed one bit of wrong info there:


That's not correct. Artillery can damage city defenders by directly attacking the city, causing collateral damages. Usually you want to use artillery to bombard the city defense down to zero first, then use artillery to attack the city.

Thanks Thunderfall, That makes more sense...

 

[Mujadaddy]

Sounds very good but I too worry about the Medieval units winning against Helecopters

Cheers, Ice

Oh, lordy, people... Live with it. If there's medieval units hanging around in the same era as a helicopter, they can certainly pick up an AK-47 and shoot down some helicopters... Mujahideen, anyone?

 

[Sub]

I don't know whether the reviewer actually experienced tanks losing to spearmen or was just citing it as an example of that sort of thing, but this



Is just unacceptable :/

It also sounds like raising the difficulty level mainly (only?) affects AI and player bonuses rather than the AI employing better strategies. Which is to be expected but still disappointing.

Otherwise, sounds very good.

I've never really had a problem with that and I've been playing Civ for years. If you have so much of a technological advantage that you're facing knights with helicopters, chances are you're going to win the war without effort regardless.

 

[icecool]

Oh, lordy, people... Live with it. If there's medieval units hanging around in the same era as a helicopter, they can certainly pick up an AK-47 and shoot down some helicopters... Mujahideen, anyone?

........and then they would be called a different type of unit completely with different strength, Mujahideen perhaps

 

[Juhahu]

Helicopters are special unit to work as tank killers (100% bonus against armor) and by this prevent stack of doom made from tanks. It's not supposed to be the ultimate weapon that kills everyone.

Perhaps you should use helicopters agaisn enemy armor, not knights? Infantry, artillery, armors, cavalry and many other earlier and cheaper units are available before helicopter, so I am quite sure you will never be forced to use helicopters agaisnt knights. Though 50% bonus for helicopters agaisnt mounted units would work very well. There aren't any modern mounted units, so that would change the balance.

Situation was different in civ2 when armor was the best unit and it had no other choise than attack the spearman. Civ4 offers very efective ways to kill obsolote units, civ2 didn't.

 

[PriestOfDiscord]

So how exactly is that helicopter getting killed? Is the Knight throwing his sword at it?

Eh. whatever. I expect freak combat results every long once in a while. Overall that review was fantastic.

 

[icecool]

Maybe the Helecopter crashed as the pilot was blinded by the sun sining on their armour - if would be funny if it wasn't so sad

 

[TheBladeRoden]

A really long lance would do the trick

 

[Leuf]

Perhaps you should use helicopters agaisn enemy armor, not knights? Infantry, artillery, armors, cavalry and many other earlier and cheaper units are available before helicopter, so I am quite sure you will never be forced to use helicopters agaisnt knights. Though 50% bonus for helicopters agaisnt mounted units would work very well. There aren't any modern mounted units, so that would change the balance.

Situation was different in civ2 when armor was the best unit and it had no other choise than attack the spearman. Civ4 offers very efective ways to kill obsolote units, civ2 didn't.

I'm guessing since there aren't any modern mounted units there aren't any modern units that have bonuses against them either. So I'm supposed to keep around obsolete units to kill their obsolete units? Damn these useless helicopters and tanks, where are my archers!

If melee, mounted, and artillery units are rock, paper, scissors.. I'm sorry but an attack helicopter is a freaking acetylene torch that can cut through any of them. And I don't buy the argument that the knight or spearman or whatever would have a rocket launcher because it's in the modern age. If the game intended technology to trickle down like that then guess what? The techs would trickle down. They don't. If there's an animation of the knight putting away his sword and pulling out a rocket launcher then I'll happily eat my words

 

[Zhahz]

Overall I thought it was a very good review (in terms of quality of what was covered) and it even revealed some details I haven't seen in threads or in previews here or from Apolyon - which is kinda shocking. As they stated (it seems like the review had opinions beyond just the authors) they'd been beta testing for a while and they were obviously very familiar with the game.

Not a big deal... but I think 9.4/10 is a little low considering the text of the review... I think it deserves at least the 9.6/10 IGN gave to alpha centauri... the graphics/sound weren't that great there either....

I would agree. The only negative things the reviewer could say were incredibly minor to the point of trivial and/or personal prefs (the 3 whole things I remember).

Ever since they gave Master of Orion 3 a 9.0/10 (If memory serves) I can't put too much faith in them. (Or gamespy, which gave age of empires 3 a perfect score)

I've been really disappointed in Gamespy lately - their standards have fallen, their reviews lately are often questionable, and their articles that aren't purely information redistribution are frickin awful.

There was a time when I felt the same about Gamespot's reviewing but lately they've been pretty solid with both articles and reviews.

 

[Mujadaddy]

........and then they would be called a different type of unit completely with different strength, Mujahideen perhaps

Or perhaps not.

As I said, LIVE WITH IT.

 

[Sullla]

Obviously great news on the review. If the other major sites concur on the high marks, chances are very good that Civ4 will be a huge success.

The reviewer is simply wrong about the "tank beats spearman" phenomenon, however. The odds of a spear beating a tank are considerably less than one in a trillion (it's actually (.125)^35 power, for the curious). The only way for a spear to beat a tank is for the spear to have tons of bonuses from terrain/promotions, or for the tank to be injured going into the battle (more likely, both of them). My guess is that the reviewer didn't understand that, and thus drew an inaccurate conclusion. Ah well, minor gripe at best.

 

[Moosebox]

Obviously great news on the review. If the other major sites concur on the high marks, chances are very good that Civ4 will be a huge success.

The reviewer is simply wrong about the "tank beats spearman" phenomenon, however. The odds of a spear beating a tank are considerably less than one in a trillion (it's actually (.125)^35 power, for the curious). The only way for a spear to beat a tank is for the spear to have tons of bonuses from terrain/promotions, or for the tank to be injured going into the battle (more likely, both of them). My guess is that the reviewer didn't understand that, and thus drew an inaccurate conclusion. Ah well, minor gripe at best.

It was actually a knight beating a helicopter. Watch the video review and you will see it in action. It's quite silly...

 

[Mujadaddy]

Stop doubting the valour of the kuh-niggit!!!

NI!

 

[vbraun]

I can't belive I'm going to be playing this game next week...

 

[Mujadaddy]

I can't belive I'm going to be playing this game next week...

It *does* look incredible, doesn't it

 

[MarcAntiny]

But they said the music is wonderful, too.

You know... they gave the music a low score considering their high praise for it... I think they didn't want CIV IV to score too high... it's a conspiracy, don't let the game where you use your brain score too high, we got too many dumb shooter fans... mooohahaha....