Disappointment number (unknown)

[DemonDeLuxe]

Well, there are some valid points here, altough they are formulated a bit harsh.

For one, it is certainly ok to expect from a game something like the predecessor including expansions - I mean, come on, most expansions are actually enhancemennts, and you ought to expect that those enhancements are built-in in the successor, right? Why should anyone want to step down just in the hope that a future expansion might raise the game to a level one got accustomed to? Just look at cars: It's absolutely normal for newer models to have features as standards that were add-ons in earlier models. Keep in mind here that, while with cars you still have additional material costs, in the software industry it's primarily development that costs. So it doesn't cost too much to include an expansion aspect of a game in the basic version of the successor.

The technical problems are well known, no need to talk about that again. The gameplay, the feeling, that's what's bugging me more. For me, somehow CIV4 lost it's epic perspective. It it very well said to call it "Age of Empires-like" as long as this refers to Age of Mythology / Age of Empires 3.

And one thing is true for sure: There are those people - whom by some others are called "fan boys" - that call everybody names who actually dares to critisize the changes. While I would never say that someone who actually likes CIV4 better was "mentally incompetent", it seems clear to me that CIV4 and especially it's graphical presentation was made to appeal to a broader mass of people - people used to fancy graphics and not as much interested in complex gameplay mechanisms. CIV4 looks as if it was designed very much according to marketing decisions - sadly so.

 

[dsilvia]

Sorry, I apologize for the mentally incompetent remark.

It doesn't change the validity of my statements re: the game itself. I still believe you need to be awfully loyal to Sid and Firaxis, tho' to completely say Civ IV is great. It's not. It's okay, but not up to the standards Sid had set for himself, imho.

The slight, however, was uncalled for and I'm duly chastened!

 

[Rexflex]

Excuse me, "new game"??? It says Civilization IV, not "A Whole New Civilization Game from Sid Meier and Firaxis". It's supposed to be a continuation if it uses a continuation name.

What on earth are you on?

Every time a new Civ number came out, the game was inpendendent of its predecessors. Did you complain about how Civ III came out and it wasn't an add on for Civ II or any of the Civ II spin-offs? Did you complain then because they made changes in the rules, graphics and game play of Civ III?

Besides all that, the point the poster you responded to seems to have been completely missed. Civ III + expansions should only be compared to Civ IV + expansions (when they come out), otherwise you are just comparing apples to oranges. Comparing vanilla releases easily has Civ IV trumping Civ III for features.

 

[Skirmisher]

regarding the new graphics.

Some aspects of graphics actually do have a functional meaning, and is not just eyecandy.

It is quite easy to see what improvements your cities have without havng to enter each cityscreen. Sure some of them are a bit difficult to see. But once you know what each improvement looks like it is easy to see. Others like theatres and coliseums are quite easy to see, even from afar. This a way of using graphics in a strategy game that has a clear function.

The graphics also shows exactly what tiles are being worked, without having to enter the city screen.

Another way the graphics is used in a functional way is that it is now easy to see exactly what the workers are doing, without having to click on the worker. There should howver be a way to keep the worker animation, while turning off military unit animation.

The graphics for military units only have a game function in that you can see if the are fortifed or not, otherwise being able to see battles and movement animation is nice and adds atmosphere, but it does not serve a function important to the game.

The birds that fly away when a unit enters a forrest and the funny waving crabs also adds atmosphere, but serve no important game function.

So ,to cut a long story short, the developers should have been more careful in making different game settings for graphics. So you could choose between functionality and atmosphere, if the machine did not have enough power to run graphics at the max.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

It is quite easy to see what improvements your cities have without havng to enter each cityscreen. Sure some of them are a bit difficult to see. But once you know what each improvement looks like it is easy to see. Others like theatres and coliseums are quite easy to see, even from afar. This a way of using graphics in a strategy game that has a clear function.

I could agree if this was true for the important buildings. As I said in another thread: Give the user the option to highligt certain buildings or paint them a special, glowing color, e.g. barracks in red, docks blue, airports yellow. Even better, make that completely configurable. Or have anicon layer like for resources. I *hate* it if I don't know where I have barracks and have to examine the whole map on search for them.

The graphics also shows exactly what tiles are being worked, without having to enter the city screen.

True, but where in this is the necessity for 3D? Escapes me, sorry. An icon, a border or a tint or something would have done nicely.

Another way the graphics is used in a functional way is that it is now easy to see exactly what the workers are doing, without having to click on the worker. There should howver be a way to keep the worker animation, while turning off military unit animation.

Again true, but again this has nothing to do with the graphics engine and could have been implemented in CIV3 (or even 2) easily without changing a single pixel.

The graphics for military units only have a game function in that you can see if the are fortifed or not

It's quite common to show this by, say, drawing trenches around units, which is a bit easier to spot than all those different "fortify poses", too.

otherwise being able to see battles and movement animation is nice and adds atmosphere, but it does not serve a function important to the game.

I wonder how many people keep the battle animations after the first week?

So ,to cut a long story short, the developers should have been more careful in making different game settings for graphics. So you could choose between functionality and atmosphere, if the machine did not have enough power to run graphics at the max.

I agree whole-heartedly, although for me it's not as much about machine performance but about clarity of information.

 

[oldStatesman]

True, but where in this is the necessity for 3D? Escapes me, sorry. An icon, a border or a tint or something would have done nicely

I like this idea. Icons, ala Civ3 style were fine. It was very easy to zoom out and find harbors, airports and barracks.

AFAS worker actions, if you pay attention to them, in Civ3 you CAN tell what the worker is doing by their animation. Mines - pickaxe, Road/Rails - shovels; irrigation/pollution - hoes ; forts- masons; forests/jungles - machetes. Nothing new here.

 

[Rexflex]

I wonder how many people keep the battle animations after the first week?

I do, although I can leave the tank bolts in the battle animations. Seeing that makes me wonder if thr group responsible for those animations had put that animation in early and just forgot about it when they were polishing up the rest of the animations. I would prefer that one switched off simply because of how stupid it looks.

 

[Skirmisher]

AFAS worker actions, if you pay attention to them, in Civ3 you CAN tell what the worker is doing by their animation. Mines - pickaxe, Road/Rails - shovels; irrigation/pollution - hoes ; forts- masons; forests/jungles - machetes. Nothing new here.

The problem in CIV4 is that if the graphics are set to low you can' t see what the workers are dong. They just stand there like they are doing nothing. Then you click on them and it says they are doing something.

 

[upstart]

You joined in October and are throwing around complaints about new users? Yikes...

Venger

yeah joined in october and already have 60 posts. i find it funny all these new users all of a sudden that all have the same bs trolling nonsense to say to rile up all the 'fanboys'. too bad this board doesnt show ip addresses. im sure there would be some dupes.

 

[Blackluck]

I don't know how many out there feel as I do, but here's my slant on Civ IV

It costs almost twice as much

It has about half as many choices/options/preferences/features

It takes about 100 times longer to start

It takes 3 times the computing power to run

You have to be one of 2 things to say "YEAH!, Civ IV is great". Either a dyed-in-the-wool complete Civ fan with no reservations and a blind eye OR mentally incompetent.

This is not #4 in a series, it's a completely different game with some basic similarities to Civ, but a look and feel like Rise Of Nations and the like.

I was looking for the next great chapter in the saga, not an also ran.

JMTCW,
Dave S.

Let me get this straight:
Either we agree with you, or we're stupid?

I have to wonder, just what is the point of posts like these?
Are you and your ilk going to decide for me just how I'm supposed to have fun? Which foods to eat, what shows to watch, clothes to wear, and otherwise decide how I spend my money and enjoy my free time?

Here's where I think Civ IV blew it:
If a Civ has Free Speech and The Internet Wonder, the entire empire loses a tech due to exposure to idoicy.

 

[oldStatesman]

The problem in CIV4 is that if the graphics are set to low you can' t see what the workers are dong. They just stand there like they are doing nothing. Then you click on them and it says they are doing something.

Thanks. As I said, I can't really play the game until a patch fixes it; from the few hours I have spent playing I did not pay attention to this.

 

[Dragonlor]

It costs almost twice as much

Cost me almost the same if not the same as Civ3 when I got it.

It has about half as many choices/options/preferences/features

Which choices exactly are you missing and wanting?

It takes about 100 times longer to start

Um, no.

It takes 3 times the computing power to run

Judging by how fast computer technology evolves, I expected as much. I was fortunate to have Civ4 run just fine out of the box.

You have to be one of 2 things to say "YEAH!, Civ IV is great". Either a dyed-in-the-wool complete Civ fan with no reservations and a blind eye OR mentally incompetent.

Just a trolling attempt.

This is not #4 in a series, it's a completely different game with some basic similarities to Civ, but a look and feel like Rise Of Nations and the like.

If it looks like a Civ game, talks like a Civ game, then it must be a Civ game. It has a bunch of changes, some good, some bad, but all of the same concepts and many of the units, tech, buildings, etc are all still there.

 

[Sorceresss]

i find it funny all these new users all of a sudden that all have the same bs trolling nonsense to say to rile up all the 'fanboys'. too bad this board doesnt show ip addresses. m sure there would be some dupes.

Got to phone the NSA to have them decypher that.

 

[karadoc]

Yes, it is a new game. It's not a civ3 patch, or an expansion pack. It is a completely new game. The reason it is called Civ4 is that the theme is the same as the other Civ games. Same theme, similar gameplay; What the hell did you expect? The connection between Civ 1, 2 and 3 is pretty much the same.

By the way, what is the point of this thread? You just want to world to know that dsilvia, the mentally competent, doesn't approve of Civ4?

 

[snepp]

yeah joined in october and already have 60 posts. i find it funny all these new users all of a sudden that all have the same bs trolling nonsense to say to rile up all the 'fanboys'. too bad this board doesnt show ip addresses. im sure there would be some dupes.

Does this mean I can rip on you for your first post being useless flamebait, because I have more posts than you do?

 

[Mythrl]

I think people are completely missing the point the poster made about this not being Civ 4.

Consider any software release where there is a version 3.0. Some time later that software is improved to a version 3.5 which is built on 3.0 but not changed significantly enough to warrant a 4.0 designation.

When this company does eventually release a 4.0 version it will generally have significant changes to the fundamental generation 3 program but ultimately continue some of the basics that people are familiar with.

Now in evaluating 4.0 chances are you aren't going to say it's only fair to compare to 3.0. Paying customers will compare to 3.5 because it's what's they are running. And if 4.0 doesn't exceed 3.5 they should complain. It's pretty half ass to release a version 4.0 that doesn't possess all the functionality of 3.5

It's like if Mac released OSX with less functionality than an updated version of OS9 or however Mac OS's are numbered, or if the upcoming Windows Vista had less functionality than XP SP2.

Now that being said some of the options that have been left out such as extra civ's you should have expected. In the game itself there are now many more options and decisions and paths you can follow to play and win the game. But I believe the poster is referring to the initial settings where you choose the map type etc.

As far as people saying deal with it about people having trouble with the game running properly on their systems, that's just silly.

If GM makes a car that runs well for half the people that buy it and breaks down for the other half the conclusion is that GM makes crap cars. If Toyota makes a car that runs well for 99% of the people that buy them and breakdown for 1% then Toyota makes great cars. Fact is there are a lot of people having trouble running the game who are meeting the minimum specs and in some cases exceeding the recommended specs. This is a fault of the game and not the customers. Hopefully the patch will fix these problems but if it doesn't then OVERALL they have programmed a weak game because being able to play is critical to having good gameplay.

 

[AbuMusaab]

The game is awesome. After the patch, it'll be even better. Most of the people *****ing are people who can't run it correctly and can't afford a better pc. Part of life...deal with it.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Good points, Mythrl - as opposed to the guy trolling right after you.

 

[panzooka]

Excuse me, "new game"??? It says Civilization IV, not "A Whole New Civilization Game from Sid Meier and Firaxis". It's supposed to be a continuation if it uses a continuation name.

Yes, I'd have less to complain about, as would anyone, had they not chosen to call it Civilization IV, but they did and it isn't.

so u will be glad if the game is called civ 3.5?

from software engineer's view,
this is how version update works
+0.01 : small bug fix, small change
+0.1 : new feature, major change
+1.0 : major update

 

[Venger]

yeah joined in october and already have 60 posts. i find it funny all these new users all of a sudden that all have the same bs trolling nonsense to say to rile up all the 'fanboys'. too bad this board doesnt show ip addresses. im sure there would be some dupes.

Volume is not a substitute for quality, and there have been just as many newly registered users posting the opposite of this user. Why weren't your posts "new user bs trolling"?

Hard to make that charge of yours stick when your presence has been, in the grand scheme of things, no less recent than his...

Venger