Finally seen the game as it was meant to be seen... oh boy!

[lightnng]

My wife just got her christmas gift - a wee bit early, I know, but she was home when it came and I eventually just gave it to her when she guessed what it was.

And that would be a new laptop. So I spent some time setting it up, and then installed Civ4 on it... since it's the most powerful machine in our house now, for the first time ever I actually got to see the game in its full glory...

The specs: Gateway M460, CPU 2Ghz Pentium M, 1GB RAM, GPU Mobility Radeon X600 with 256MB RAM.

Oh boy.

I had never imagined how pretty this thing REALLY looks when it's given the opportunity to shine. I am so jealous of the wife right now I stay away from the room when she's playing Civ... I mean, this thing is BEAUTIFUL. I wish I could find a laptop for my needs with a powerful GPU, but I'm in the market of 12-13" thin&lights, and there is no such beast to be had.

So I get it now. I get why they did what they did with the gfx, the 3D and all that. I was literally blown away last night, and that's after having played the game for a while already.

Wow

 

[Efexeye]

Not to crap on your good time TOO hard, but I don't think the graphics are that great, except for the terrain -it looks fantastic.

The units look terrible, IMHO- blocky and inelegant.

BTW, have you noticed a difference between low,medium and high graphics settings? The only thing I see that's different is the shadow in the forests...

 

[Artanis]

Not to crap on your good time TOO hard, but I don't think the graphics are that great, except for the terrain -it looks fantastic.

The units look terrible, IMHO- blocky and inelegant.

BTW, have you noticed a difference between low,medium and high graphics settings? The only thing I see that's different is the shadow in the forests...

One thing that comes to mind is the number of models in a unit. On Low (and possibly Medium, didn't spend long in that one), there'll only be one guy in each unit. i.e. instead of a Settler being an entire family, it'll just be one guy with a walking stick and a backpack, while instead of an Archer being three guys, it'll be one big one.

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, though it's certainly possible for me to've missed something as I went down to Low pretty quickly.

 

[Efexeye]

One thing that comes to mind is the number of models in a unit. On Low (and possibly Medium, didn't spend long in that one), there'll only be one guy in each unit. i.e. instead of a Settler being an entire family, it'll just be one guy with a walking stick and a backpack, while instead of an Archer being three guys, it'll be one big one.

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, though it's certainly possible for me to've missed something as I went down to Low pretty quickly.

I thought that was determined by the "single unit graphics" checkbox in the options menu?

 

[Dual]

When I tried out the lowest graphics setting the first time the game automatically checked the single unit graphics box for me. I guess it figured my PC needed all the help it could get. You can go back to multi-units and keep the low setting though.

I notice a huge difference between the high and low graphics setting on my computer. But the difference between the high and medium setting is so small that I just leave it on medium to save my graphics card some stress.

 

[TomOC]

I am so jealous of the wife right now I stay away from the room when she's playing Civ...

Your wife play's Civ... COOL! Consider yourself lucky!

Now I'm jealous!

 

[Efexeye]

Your wife play's Civ... COOL! Consider yourself lucky!

Now I'm jealous!

I think my wife would really like cIV, but she's afraid of it....she likes Spider Solitaire and BeJewelled.

 

[Artanis]

I thought that was determined by the "single unit graphics" checkbox in the options menu?

Heh, could be

My system's far enough below par that I was trying everything I could think of to boost the performance, and that easily could've gotten shuffled in there with me just half-noticing it

 

[calyth]

I think my wife would really like cIV, but she's afraid of it....she likes Spider Solitaire and BeJewelled.

Not too far fetched to convince her to play a game that requires you to think.
Consider finding another computer to play with her

 

[lightnng]

Your wife play's Civ... COOL! Consider yourself lucky!

Well, I dunno about that... seeing how my wife introduced me to Civ

Of course, in return I introduced her to D&D and boardgames, so I suppose it was a fair trade.

 

[Efexeye]

Not too far fetched to convince her to play a game that requires you to think.
Consider finding another computer to play with her

We have 2 computers, but her eyes start to glaze over whenever I start talking about it...

 

[Philips beard]

Hey, you can just play CIV4 hotseat with your wife! I do with my sweet little girlfriend darling, and it's so romantic...... I can just give her a kiss, and tell her I love her, and she will gift me some units in times of war.... She's so cute!