Has Civ 4 lost the plot?

[nstutt]

Anyone remember the simplicity and the gameplay of Civs 1 and 2. They seemed to revolve around creating a great empire and expanding, creating railroads etc.

Civ 4 seems to be in a completely different direction and concentrated more on warefare than anything else. The two expansions seem to reflect this.

Anyone else here feel more than a little bored by the new game? The graphics arent any better than Civ 2 in my view they have gone downhill - the roads look terrible. And the whole gameplay just seems really repetitive. The research and city development parts are now just so unimaginative and seem to get in the way of the gameplay. Thats not what Civ was all about!

Lets get back to massive city views, empire building, exciting developments, diplomacy etc and lets get away from the emphasis on warfare. There are so many games that do this better than civ anyway.

And the games themeselves are so labourious - Ive been playing for ages it seems and have yet to ever get past the Muskateers. I get so bored by the game by then I give up.

Maybe Im just burnt out on computer games generallyor maybe the direction of the game is heading is wrong?

Anyone else out there bored of Civ?

 

[darkwolf29a]

Well, having played all of the Civ games, since I....I don't, honestly, see your point. In the past 10 games, I think I have fought 3 wars. It all depends on your design for the game, but you don't HAVE to fight a war.

 

[Artosoft]

Errr..., no. It is fantastic.

But if you don't like civ4 and prefer civ2, play civ2. Nobody will push you to play civ4.

Regards,
Arto.

 

[SkuIl]

i think civ has completely gone in the wrong direction the game should be about expansion and having a huge empire of 15+ cities like the good old days of civ 2 and having a great diplomatic system not having 5 or 6 cities and complicated armys to micromanage

 

[Bongo-Bongo]

Personally, I have experienced far less wars then I have in any version. Civ I and II in particular seemed to be much more war based, seeing as that it always seemed so much easier, and didn't carry happiness penalties and the like. Also, if you think the graphics are no better then Civ II's, just go back and play it, by todays standards, they are terrible.

I do agree with some of your points though. The way research is handles in the game is getting a little stale now. Trying to make it more flexible failed IMO and I think an overhaul is needed here for the next version. I also agree with you that the late game become labourious. Far too often you know whether you will win ot not and the desire to carry on often fades. As BTS seems to be focusing on this era however, I'm hoping this will be made a bit more interesting.

 

[ferenginar]

Well, having played all of the Civ games, since I....I don't, honestly, see your point. In the past 10 games, I think I have fought 3 wars. It all depends on your design for the game, but you don't HAVE to fight a war.

I don't know how you have managed this, I have played all the civ games too, and almost every game I am attacked by one or more AI Civs. I would say you do HAVE to fight a war, its practically unavoidable.

 

[darkwolf29a]

I don't know how you have managed this, I have played all the civ games too, and almost every game I am attacked by one or more AI Civs. I would say you do HAVE to fight a war, its practically unavoidable.

*shrugs* My usual MO is large militaries, constantly upgraded, combnied with being far ahead on technologies, for the most part. I tend to ignore religions and make a beeline for Caravels, then tanks. You keep a big enough military per city and Monty will try to be your friend, as weird as that sounds.

 

[Mirc]

Errr..., no. It is fantastic.

But if you don't like civ4 and prefer civ2, play civ2. Nobody will push you to play civ4.

Regards,
Arto.

I agree. (with the second part)

I prefer Civ3 to Civ4, and am doing right now a scenario for it.

 

[barton31]

Funny, I've just registered to raise the same issue.

I've owned and played all the civ games and loved them all. When 4 came out I bought it immediately but was very disappointed and uninstalled it soon after. Being bored recently I thought I'd give it another chance yet my experience is still the same;

The maps drive me crazy - tundra and desert next to each other???
Only being able to fit in a few cities due to the poor terrain
Endlessly clicking Enter whilst waiting for things to happen.

I've tried tweaking all the settings to improve game play but to no avail.

I agree totally with the original author's - nstutt - comments and hope any future game will be more about empire building than micro management.

Personally I'm playing 3 again, just downloaded the medieval mod and loving it

 

[marioflag]

It's the opposite for me, i find CIV4 a lot better than its predecessor for the reason that gameplay is not all about warfare.
The areas where CIV4 has expanded are except for promotions mostly diplomacy, culture, city improvements while religions is the best addon even if it isn't yet balanced.Even economy while treated in an arcade way seems a lot better than in civ3 where corruption was more a bug than a game feature.Also expansion in civ3 was just brainless now you have carefully to calculate everything or you will go bankruptcy.
If you consider that Civ3 had a lot more units than Civ4 it's almost clear that warfare was just one of the new features in civ4 to expand, not certain the only field of expansion.
About game mechanics they are a bit harder but at the same time straightforward, devs IMO have found a way to make the game at the same time easy to learn but harder to master.If you compare it to CIV3 it's a real jump forward.

 

[Eagle'sStrength]

I can still remember playing civI and always ALWAYS going for the city spam strategy... then i just changed cvilization and do it again so that i can see the different colors during playback at the end.

as reflected by some here in this thread, civ IV is much much more interesting and less war-freakish. and each time i play, i have to really adapt to the situation and see what type of victory is feasible. the level of realism is also umphed in civ IV, although there are still many aspect that can be improved.

to answer the question, no, the plot is still there - much richer and fuller than previous incarnations of the game.

 

[Brentimus]

I've played Civs II, III, and IV. I have to say I think they're getting substantially better every time.

I like the addition of religions. Feedback indicating why a civ likes you or doesn't. Unique personalities for leaders . I really like the interactive map. Resources are handled very nicely. I like the flexible tech tree. I could go on. But I would like to see almost every one of these features built upon and tweaked, that being said IMO this game has really moved the bar higher.

 

[civvver]

Civ4 is way better than civ2. I HATED civ3 because of the corruption problem. I guess it was fixed in an expansion but I never got that far.

Civ4 provides so much more control over your civ. Diplomacy is awesome. The civics are awesome, although it would be nice if they were a bit more dramatic like in civ2 when democracy was the ultimate tech gov and fundamentalism was the ultimate war gov. Although the flexibility of civics is nice.

Warfare is way better. Unit promotions are very cool, as is the idea of bombardment. In civ2 if you were attacking fortified riflemen behind city walls and you didn't have tanks you were screwed. If the ai had mechs you might as well give up until howitzers. Civ4 you can actually use lesser units and win if you promote right and bombard right.

Resources and trading are sweet.

I do understand your point though that empire building is not what it once was, and end game wars can make those last few turns take hours. But in general the game is way better.

 

[Grimus]

Civ 4 is the best... without question. I've played them all, even Call to Power. The graphics uprgrade wasn't necessary, but are very nice nonetheless if your computer can handle them.

 

[baboon]

I always got bored extremely fast with new civ titles, but not this one. Every game is exciting for me. I can use a different tactic every game. I do agree on the need of warfare being a little over the top.

The combination of civics with specialists is great fun, and I don't miss rioting cities or corruption most of the time

 

[Dida]

On higher difficulty level, I depend heavily on constant warfare to weaken AIs. On Emperor or above, I am almost always at war.
I do feel civ4 is a little too complex, empire management, army management, and worker management can all be streamlined a bit. Workers should be replaced with abstract public work system. It should be easier to load/save/modify city building queue. Instead of moving each individual units, there should be army groups. Instead of units attacking one by one, there should be stacked warfare, more focus should be placed on combined arms.
Civ4 requires ridiculous amount of micromanagement to win on higher levels. I enjoy winning by superior tactic, not by doing grunt work.

 

[nullspace]

empire building

nstutt and barton30 both said they want this but Civ 4 doesn't have it. Can any one explain what this actually means? Does empire building = lots of cities?

I'd rather have specialists, religion, great people, cottages, and national wonders so I can do some interesting things with my cities, even if I have fewer of them than in Civ 2.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yeah. I've got some complains about the game, but too little empire management is not one of them.

 

[civvver]

nstutt and barton30 both said they want this but Civ 4 doesn't have it. Can any one explain what this actually means? Does empire building = lots of cities?

I'd rather have specialists, religion, great people, cottages, and national wonders so I can do some interesting things with my cities, even if I have fewer of them than in Civ 2.

I think they mean infinite city sprawl. This was the staple of civ2. Build as many cities asap and then after you'd subdued your neighbors you'd delay victory as long as possible until the entire world was terraformed and colonized. Then you'd set luxuries to max for that last turn to give you the max happy citizens and milk a huge high score. I remember having cities that we're size 50 and a pop so large it rolled over the counter (it rolled over at 100 million I think). Civ2 you basically played to see how high of a score you could get by empire building, since winning the game was easy.


One thing I would like in civ4 is terraforming. Let biology or some other late tech allow us to change land like deserts into plains, plains into grasslands etc.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I don't know how you have managed this, I have played all the civ games too, and almost every game I am attacked by one or more AI Civs. I would say you do HAVE to fight a war, its practically unavoidable.

I managed to win a game without fighting a single war. I thought 6000 years of peace was a major diplomatic accomplishment. The computer called me Dan Quayle.

I haven't gone that route since.

I played a lot of Civ I in the 1990's. I don't think a win without a war was possible. Yes, you could fly to alpha Centauri. But I don't think you could play a game without Shaka or Napolean attacking.


I see Civ IV as having more peaceful possibillities.