Civilization IV - An Unexpected Game.

[spiceant]

i think of CV as a game that will allow me to play sim city from the point where i plop down my capitol but that will also allow me to play a mini version of simfarm at a local farm of my towns or citys, that will allow me to make a local law that bans foreign trade for one particular place or a few places, a game that will allow me to micromanage the great battles that have been fought over history's.

CIV:

1. Fights are calculated
2. You can only assign production tile occupation and specialists
3. There is always one leader
4. civilizations will never buckle down into themselves
5. The game starts with more civs then it ends with

what i would like in
CV

1. The ability to micromanage fights down to the scale of games like commando(s), age of empires or warcraft.
2. the ability to micromanage my citys to the level of Simcity 4
3. The ability to do a lot of other things in much more detail
4. Most importandly, to let the computer micromanage it all FOR me, if i dont want to
5. Civil war
6. the game doesnt start with more civs then it ends with, also to be accurate with history (roosevelt in 4000 BC WTF!)

 

[Rhandom]

Actually, I would bet that none of the glowing reviews were based on more than one or two games played. If that. Six or seven complete games is more than enough time to really feel the underlying silliness of the combat and technology trees and diplomacy.

My problem is that I keep taking the apologists seriously, and play again expecting it to get better. I knock it up to higher levels of difficulty, and it becomes clear that all that does is leave behind more and more options for playstyle as too inefficient, until all that is left is a couple of strategies that feel nothing like building a civilization, but a lot like very slow, complex game of tetris where misdropping a block early pretty much screws the rest of the game.

The idea that micromanaging is gone is laughable. Maybe at noble, but you will micromanage even more than any other civ game as you start at higher difficulty, because you also have to micromanage 25 government options, plus religion. You can tell whether a reviewer played the game more than a few times at easy levels by whether they repeat the "micromanaging has been reduced (or eliminated)" line from the promos and other reviewers.

 

[Oggums]

You think like a lazy sheep... and a bossy one to boot.

No need to cast ridicule on those of us who wish to improve the chronostrategic dimension of the game.

Sorry, I just have a hard time enjoying Civ4 discussions, when every thread is polluted with realism fanatics going off on irrelevant tangents.

Not that I had anything to add to this thread, either.

 

[Sorceresss]

Sorry, I just have a hard time enjoying Civ4 discussions, when every thread is polluted with realism fanatics going off on irrelevant tangents. Not that I had anything to add to this thread, either.

You are so elegant that I have edited out my nasty reference to a sheep in my previous post.

 

[Rhandom]

"They really need to start afresh and rethink what a game covering the whole of history could be on modern technology. Above all I think they need to focus on realism. Civ4 is not just a beer-n-pretzel game, it is the mother of beer-n-pretzel games. As some other guy said, the game mechanics are incredibly cheesy. I mean, armies that take 100 years to build? Wars that last 700 years? Ships that take 100 years to sail around the globe? Battles fought one unit at a time? An economy based on city tiles? A single resource tile providing all of a Civ's needs? "

Exactly! Microprose really got it right with Master of Magic - the city had the same 21 square area, but you didn't micromanage wheret he workers were. The terrain affected the output of food and gold and industry each worker or farmer produced, and all you did in the city screen was say "give me 4 workers, 3 farmers, and a side of fries". It worked great, and was so much more realistic AND simpler. It would be a piece of cake to adapt the terrain alterations of civ into that.

The new tech trees are ridiculous. I constantly end up with cannons well after rifles, Hydroelectrics without steam power, and other absurdities that just take away from the feel of the game.

 

[Oggums]

Yes, but if the game were simplfied that way (more of a SimCiv), then I wouldn't like it.

I'll keep the strategy game I have. An historically accurate tech tree just wouldn't be as much fun. I like having the strategic options to choose from.

 

[Sorceresss]

Microprose really got it right with Master of Magic

Ahhh...Good old MoM ! I was about 10-years old when I first played it in 1994. It was my second computer game, after Moo I.

I still have MoM 1.31 on my hard drive. I have succeeded in tinkering with its shortcut to make it run (with sound & music) on Win XP.

 

[zafyro]

In my opinion all this arguments can be true but, that´s why the game was made so moddable.

Tha basic is a fine strategic game that pretends to be more or less historical accurate. In the end is the player who acts with accuracy or not. In fact history is full of inaccuracies like chinesse disovering paper when we all used papirus and medieval cities not being able to build a decent sewer system [like the romans did]. Tech tree is as ridiculous as you can make it with your game stile [beelining to a tech etc...]

Once you get inside the FREE mod comunity you have acces not ony to use but to cooperate in de desing of the game Moderator Action: of your choice. There´re so many variations of CIV III so diferent one from each other that i´m just anxious to see what can be done of civ IV and how many DIFERENT games i will enjoy buying only one.

In the subject of Master of Magic... city management was perfect and simple but it erases a big chunk of actual civilization that is selecting your improvements [more production, more food etc...] of course if you want this automatic now you´re able with a decent [aceptable] IA improving the land for you.

I´d love to have back the stack battle sytem of master of magic... i loved that and it added a strategic element to battles but you would never being able to compensate the magic casting or the heroes habilities [though artillery firing and air strikes could be fun] Of course in Mom thigs were easier as you had access to the same units from the begginng of the game to the end. [no tank vs spearman here... just great demon vs spearman and spearman had not a single chance]

And about the origina poster and his 6-7 games well. This game is not for everyone, it´s good you managed to play 7 games, but it´s bad that you think you understood everything that happened... most of the aspects of the game are made to avoid excesive micromanaging that would ruin the experience bu without leaving a sensation of non controling your empire [like moo III] the game is deeper that it seems... but it takes time to discover it.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Psyringe]

The idea that micromanaging is gone is laughable. Maybe at noble, but you will micromanage even more than any other civ game as you start at higher difficulty, because you also have to micromanage 25 government options, plus religion.

What exactly do you micromanage in the civic system? With making one or two desisions every several dozen turns, I wouldn't call this system micromanagement intensive. The same goes for religion, apart from building some missionaries and spreading your religion around, where's the micromanagement?

On the other hand, research and production overruns are finally reusable. Finally it's no longer useful to micromanage each tech progress to the last beaker, to change the science rate every couple of turns so that no beakers would be lost. Finally it's no longer useful to micromanage the citizens in every city at the completion of every single unit or building in order to prevent production from being wasted.

I micromanage a lot less in Civ4 than I did in Civ3. And no, I do not play on Noble level.

 

[Armr]

I haven't read all the posts yet but i've got to say that comparing sim city to civ is like comparing an apple to a lizard

Not being cynical, they are just different genres.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

i think of CV as a game that will allow me to play sim city from the point where i plop down my capitol but that will also allow me to play a mini version of simfarm at a local farm of my towns or citys, that will allow me to make a local law that bans foreign trade for one particular place or a few places, a game that will allow me to micromanage the great battles that have been fought over history's.

CIV:

1. Fights are calculated
2. You can only assign production tile occupation and specialists
3. There is always one leader
4. civilizations will never buckle down into themselves
5. The game starts with more civs then it ends with

what i would like in
CV

1. The ability to micromanage fights down to the scale of games like commando(s), age of empires or warcraft.
2. the ability to micromanage my citys to the level of Simcity 4
3. The ability to do a lot of other things in much more detail
4. Most importandly, to let the computer micromanage it all FOR me, if i dont want to
5. Civil war
6. the game doesnt start with more civs then it ends with, also to be accurate with history (roosevelt in 4000 BC WTF!)

Well in Civ V I would like to see
1. Entire turns of Fights calculated (each GROUP of units given its orders and the game then auto resolves the combat in between turns)
2. less management of cities (due to less detail available in certain areas of the game)
3. Civil Wars, Rebellions, Revolutions, etc.

Especially # 1 if you want the 'Grand sweep of Human History' you CAN'T have every battle modeled.

The fact is, since Civ 1 there has been a tension between the military aspect (something best modeled in hours to weeks) and the civilian aspect (something best modeled in months to decades). What they did is adopt the civilian aspect's time scale and rammed the military aspect into it. (which is why I think the military aspect needs to be further removed from detailed player control... since military units dont get their detailed orders on timescales of decades or years... the orders you should be giving them in a civ game are 'defend the North eastern border'/ 'conquer eastern Germany'.. which they then either fail or succeed at in one turn). Unit should be smaller and naturally groupable (All units buildable in less than a turn, with a fraction of an area's productive capacity.)

Ideally I'd have the game start in 2000 BC and have turns the Same length throughout the game (1 year still sounds good)... turns should go by fast, with changes in orders only needed every several turns.

More realistic would indeed be good for most things (making things more intuitive)

 

[BirraImperial]

The Civilization series has been so successful because of its gameplay, not because of micromanagment "SimCiv" game styles. Sure, there is still a lot of room for improvement, but altering the game's structure and style would certainly hurt the game, and turn it into something that is not civ.

 

[croxis]

It is the design policy of Firaxis to make one great games as opposed to several good games in one package. To make the game of all games would require very powerful computers- think of all the data that will needed to be processd and kept tracked of. Not just for the human player, but the AI. The AI will have to know sim-city management, civ-stratagy, and roam battles. That is a very tall order and will require even more processing and development time. Civilization is a 4X game, and the series are excellent and I have enjoed every version (except i have not played civ 1).

I am quite sure that Civ V will be influenced by Will Wright's Spore that will be releaced next year. Thats a game with a very interesting concept that i think will help revolutionize games across all generas, if it is pulled off successfully.

 

[Smidlee]

Sorry If this should be somewhere else, I didn't see any thread or forum for player reviews and comments though.

I bought Civ IV a few weeks ago and I've played six or seven games of it and now I'm ready to stick it on the shelf and get on with playing other games. It's a decent enough game but I've got other new games to play.

I wouldn't normally post a topic for such a game but I was expecting so much more from this game. The reviews said it was addictive, the players said it was addictive, the name and description said it was huge.

Well, seven games times 8 hours average equals 56 hours. (that's less than a dollar an hour) To play that many games in a short time sounds close to addictive and huge to me. The about how long a RP games last.
I'm a type of gamer who plays a few civ game then shelf it then a few months later playing a few more and shelf it again, so on and so on. As much as I like civs game I haven't play 7 games in a row without playing something else yet I keep coming back to Civs especially with all those mods.

 

[Doppelgänger50]

Evidently plenty of people like Civ IV the way it is. If you don't like it, maybe that's simply a clue that you're better off playing other games that suit your personal tastes better? Different people like different types of games. If they didn't, every game would be the same. There's no "one right way" to make a strategy game.

If you prefer Imperialism 2, play Imperialism 2. Firaxis, sadly, were unable make a game that satisfied every single person in the entire world. Can people get over it, please?

 

[BirraImperial]

Evidently plenty of people like Civ IV the way it is. If you don't like it, maybe that's simply a clue that you're better off playing other games that suit your personal tastes better? Different people like different types of games. If they didn't, every game would be the same. There's no "one right way" to make a strategy game.

If you prefer Imperialism 2, play Imperialism 2. Firaxis, sadly, were unable make a game that satisfied every single person in the entire world. Can people get over it, please?

I completely agree. That's why there are other games like AOE, Empire Earth and Imperialism

 

[Sparr]

I also think the game play and style for Civ is getting a little old. Another thing I noticed was how Firaxis game seem to be goofy, yet a lot of people seem to utterly miss this, and when they see the leaderheads saying something silly, for example, blow a gasket because "Caesar wouldn't say that".

I honestly think a game where you can actually build your culture and society and 'get involved' with every aspect (without micromanaging) would be more fun for most people. For instance, I don't consider fighting battles in Rome:Total War micromanaging; it's a feature unto itself and blast to play. If Civ combat was like this, a spearman could kill a tank if you the general knew how to win (and you were lucky, of course).

Also, the game in development, 'Spore' I think could benefit a system like Civ the most. Even using Civ's basic graphics style, you could easily create a planet, make a culture custom to you, make your own units, art, and buildings quickly and easily. Although, even with all this power and customization, I'm sure you guys would still complain it lacks 'The essence of Civ's gone by'.

 

[King Flevance]

I think they need to rebuild from the foundation itself. Like, a hexigon map. I understand we started with the grid, but we also started over a decade ago. They DID say in the manual -Page 175 'Afterwords' By Soren- that they rebuilt the infrastructure of the game from 'ground zero' but they didn't really. They still kept the core game. This may be at Sid's discretion.
I remember when CIV 1 came out, I had my 'video game guy' at my fav gaming store recommend I try it based off the games he knew I liked. The way he described civ, made me yearn for it for a month. Then it was released and I was a Civ fan from day 1. The little 'bladadadink' as you hit [End Turn] from 1 still takes me waaay back. But as old as those sounds/graphics are, so is some of the core elements. Going to a hex grid would be way more logical. And if the basic grid can be improved, so can alot of other features.
I don't know how popular Age of Wonders 2 is, but they could model city attacks after it. That is turned based also, and I love the system there where your whole army attacks at once and you can manage the battle turn by turn. I recommend you try it even the demo. Just so you know what I am talking about, it has more to do with mage wars so magic is a military tool but still the combat is pretty cool on the basic level.

My basic point is, no game never needs improving. All ideas have to evolve in the game world. Why buy CIV 2 if its is just the rerelease of 1? They can only modify the original formula so much before they will have to break it down finally. Then there will be a fan civil war that makes this release look like nothing. CIV 4 has gave me faith in 5, although 2k ownership has me not about to buy it on release. 5 could be great as they showed us they are thinking of restructuring the game with 4.

I just dont like the dumbed down default appeal to 4 though, this will probably be amped later through player feedback though.

P.S. Take 2 Interactive, you suck.

 

[Hozchelaga]

Whoever said Civ was the mother of beer-and-pretzels games had a pretty good point.

I love the series, but it's... well, a little gamey, a little cartoony. The Civ series doesn't take itself seriously enough to appeal to people genuinely interested in history (I can't imagine how it could be used to help educate university students, as it is alleged to have been in recent weeks).

In my opinion, the high water-mark in playing history is probably Europa Universalis II. Buggy, at least until patch v1.05. But then, that's nothing special for anyone reading this forum, and indeed, a delight for all the apologists who insist that Civ IV was a great technical release and that the problem is YOUR computer. Not a perfect AI, of course, but good enough. And it was history. 150 countries to play, to create your history. 1419 to 1820, historical events, war, religion, disease, exploration, colonisation, revolts, civil wars -- in short, history. Real history. Hardly any cartoons.

Unfortunately, it looks as though there is no hope of downloading the most recent (v1.08) patch, as the Paradox forums have been down for a very, very long time.

Subsequent releases in the genre, including Hearts of Iron, HOI II and Victoria, were interesting, of course (I had very high expectations for the last, especially)

But I mean, EUII -- if you want real early modern history, you're wasting your time on Civ.

 

[drjones]

Actually, he has every right to judge. 6 - 7 games may not be a lot to you, but to others it is; 'cause I imagine 6 - 7 games is enough time to formulate a solid opinion.

This is correct. I played AOEIII demo for about 3 min before I was falling asleep and promptly uninstalled it. Should I have 'given it a chance'? Hell no It's my time on this planet I can waste it however I want. If I believed that I would have to sit through the entirety of Cheaper By The Dozen 2 before I could decide it was crap even though the promos for it make that absolutely clear.

My main issue with Civ iv at this point is that you have a good deal of flexibility but it is still not enough. What it needs is a Rise and Rule job, make it impossible to build everything so you actually have to make more choices and can give your civ more character. It would still not be the super-game of world building/manipulation but I don't think we will see that till strategy games start making money WoW style.

-drjones