jeffelammar
Space for rent
I have debated about posting this since, but I felt I should at least post my feelings. This is not a final judgement, or a statement that I dislike the game. Just a venting of some of the things that drove me crazy on the first two nights of playing.
First Impressions
The box was shipped to work, so for several hours I had the manual and tech trees next to me while I attempted to accomplish my actual job. Some work was accomplished.
When I got home, I started the install. Normally with games this is a painless and uncomplicated procedure. In this case, it was close.
The big problem I encountered here was that when prompted for the second CD, I switched CDs and then hit <enter>. At this point the install hung indefinately. After 10 mins I killed the process and restarted the install. This time I noticed that the default was "D:" instead of "D:\", by adding the backslash I was able to complete installation.
Then I made the mistake of trying to run through the rather infuriating Tutorial. At first it seemed pretty good if slow paced. Then I got in a situation where it just stopped. It told me to go ahead and explore with my scout, but anywhere I tried to move it I was told "You cannot move there". Grr, I replayed the tutorial and got past this. Then before any interesting info was learned, the tutorial ended. It introduced me to the other nation and showed me diplomacy, but never once gave any tips on this "hopefully" vital part of the game.
At this point, it's about 1:00 AM, and I'm done. Bed Time.
Off with the training wheels
Ok now it's Saturday night, and I'm going to try playing a game on my own. I've been through the Manual and Tutorial, so hopefully a nice Noble game isn't too far beyond me.
As I go through the first turns, I keep thinking of all the publicity about "making the game more accessable". I think they failed utterly.
As a civ fan, I think I approve of the many options for improving terrain, but I have to say that the number of options here will probably drive new players to the looney bin.
The Zoom function is nice, and I find that a lot of the control problems I had in the Tutorial don't exist in the real game. They must have been because of the tutorials attempts to guide me. This is good.
On to my next major gripe: Diplomacy.
1. I meet Spain. There is no obvious reason that there are absolutely no options for trading. Since I cannot trade, I prepare for war.
2. Later I meet others and as I have gone through I have learned techs that allow trading. That makes more sense. Now I meet China and Japan and can really try this whole trading thing.
3. How do I know if a trade is fair. I suspect that there is something in the leader's actions, but I really miss the civ3 advisor. Finding what they will accept feels a lot harder than it was in the previous version. This is not a good thing.
Side Note: One thing I do like is that they will trade some things and not others. It makes sense not to trade Astronomy to someone you don't trust. Keep them penned up till you explore the world and take the land.
One other minor thing
The Civilopedia is hard to use at first. I may get used to it, but the choice of Icons without words is a very bad one in my opinion. Once I learn all the units, it won't be so bad, but the idea is to give me an easy way to learn. I get a new tech and mouse over it. It tells me I can now build a Galley. I call up the Civilopedia and click "units". Now I have to mouse over things till I find the one for Galley. Very annoying.
One other minor thing. "THE" should not be part of alphabetizing names. Many of the wonders are things starting with "The". While you can look at a couple things to find them, this is not very intuitive.
The organization of the Civilopedia also leaves much to be desired. If you go through the right clicks, you can get a nice word based list of buildings in the right column. I'd be a lot happier if that was the default. Finding things like "inflation" are even harder. It took me 10 minutes of searching the Civilopedia before I found an entry that explained what it was.
Concluding Thoughts
I will keep playing to see if some of these things fade away as I learn the game.
Civ4 is not bad, but there are several things that irk the heck out of me as a long time civer (Since civ1). Only time will tell if these are truely flaws, or merely barriers to entry.
First Impressions
The box was shipped to work, so for several hours I had the manual and tech trees next to me while I attempted to accomplish my actual job. Some work was accomplished.
When I got home, I started the install. Normally with games this is a painless and uncomplicated procedure. In this case, it was close.
The big problem I encountered here was that when prompted for the second CD, I switched CDs and then hit <enter>. At this point the install hung indefinately. After 10 mins I killed the process and restarted the install. This time I noticed that the default was "D:" instead of "D:\", by adding the backslash I was able to complete installation.
Then I made the mistake of trying to run through the rather infuriating Tutorial. At first it seemed pretty good if slow paced. Then I got in a situation where it just stopped. It told me to go ahead and explore with my scout, but anywhere I tried to move it I was told "You cannot move there". Grr, I replayed the tutorial and got past this. Then before any interesting info was learned, the tutorial ended. It introduced me to the other nation and showed me diplomacy, but never once gave any tips on this "hopefully" vital part of the game.
At this point, it's about 1:00 AM, and I'm done. Bed Time.
Off with the training wheels
Ok now it's Saturday night, and I'm going to try playing a game on my own. I've been through the Manual and Tutorial, so hopefully a nice Noble game isn't too far beyond me.
As I go through the first turns, I keep thinking of all the publicity about "making the game more accessable". I think they failed utterly.
As a civ fan, I think I approve of the many options for improving terrain, but I have to say that the number of options here will probably drive new players to the looney bin.
The Zoom function is nice, and I find that a lot of the control problems I had in the Tutorial don't exist in the real game. They must have been because of the tutorials attempts to guide me. This is good.
On to my next major gripe: Diplomacy.
1. I meet Spain. There is no obvious reason that there are absolutely no options for trading. Since I cannot trade, I prepare for war.
2. Later I meet others and as I have gone through I have learned techs that allow trading. That makes more sense. Now I meet China and Japan and can really try this whole trading thing.
3. How do I know if a trade is fair. I suspect that there is something in the leader's actions, but I really miss the civ3 advisor. Finding what they will accept feels a lot harder than it was in the previous version. This is not a good thing.
Side Note: One thing I do like is that they will trade some things and not others. It makes sense not to trade Astronomy to someone you don't trust. Keep them penned up till you explore the world and take the land.
One other minor thing
The Civilopedia is hard to use at first. I may get used to it, but the choice of Icons without words is a very bad one in my opinion. Once I learn all the units, it won't be so bad, but the idea is to give me an easy way to learn. I get a new tech and mouse over it. It tells me I can now build a Galley. I call up the Civilopedia and click "units". Now I have to mouse over things till I find the one for Galley. Very annoying.
One other minor thing. "THE" should not be part of alphabetizing names. Many of the wonders are things starting with "The". While you can look at a couple things to find them, this is not very intuitive.
The organization of the Civilopedia also leaves much to be desired. If you go through the right clicks, you can get a nice word based list of buildings in the right column. I'd be a lot happier if that was the default. Finding things like "inflation" are even harder. It took me 10 minutes of searching the Civilopedia before I found an entry that explained what it was.
Concluding Thoughts
I will keep playing to see if some of these things fade away as I learn the game.
Civ4 is not bad, but there are several things that irk the heck out of me as a long time civer (Since civ1). Only time will tell if these are truely flaws, or merely barriers to entry.
