Initial civfan reactions to Civ 4

[Martinus]

Nerds are dramatic and have no sense of perspective. Film at 11.

 

[MyOtherName]

It shows that people don't understand that everything in life is this way and always has been.

Thank you sir, may I have another?

 

[Menzies]

This thread shows that Firaxis haven't learned anything from previous releases and still makes rushed, imbalanced and unpolished games (why they need to relearn the same lessons with each new game?)

To be honest it's more damning on the community, the same shallow limited view of each release, ranging from "why did you change this", through "but cartoony graphics!!!" all the way through to "why isn't it perfect on release?!"

People whinge after every release.

Yeah, pretty much my sentiment too.

I think a significant amount of the initial unhappiness targeted at civ4 was to do with compatibility & performance than anything fundamental in the game mechanics (there really weren't all that many changes from civ3).

As I had a good rig at the time, and the game ran fairly well for me, my 1st impressions of civ4 were mostly positive.
Though as the game was significantly more demanding than civ3, and quite high up the hardware requirements curve, it's understandable that a significant number of players were unhappy.

While I'm optimistic that civ6 will get better, it's carrying a lot of baggage from civ5 that I simply don't think I'll ever get along with(1upt & city states), so I don't anticipate ever being as satisfied with it as I was civ4.

The AI was utter trash on release though, and to be blunt about it Civ IV wasn't up to a good standard more than a year after the release of Beyond the Sword.

The fact that we're now 7-8+ years on from there is what's washed away all those concerns.

 

[Staal]

Haha... such a good thread. Really puts all the rant threads/posts in perspective. You could replace Civ 4 with 5 or 6 and you'll find the exact same ridiculously OTT rants in each sub-forum. I suspect there is a lesson to be learnt here.

 

[Menzies]

Haha... such a good thread. Really puts all the rant threads/posts in perspective. You could replace Civ 4 with 5 or 6 and you'll find the exact same ridiculously OTT rants in each sub-forum. I suspect there is a lesson to be learnt here.

There is, Civ VII will have a terrible art style, every change will be for the worst, and it'll be the worst game ever made, which will be most disappointing considering that Civ VI was the best.

 

[Windsor]

While Civ4 might get a bit too much praise by some I'd like to point out that there's a few differences between the type of criticism the different games have gotten. Civ4 mainly got these types:

- Techincal issues. Civ4s official system requirements was too low. That caused a lot of anger, but these complaints went away as they got patched out or people got better hardware.
- "Cartoony Graphics". Lots of players want realistic graphics. These complaints remained for Civ4s lifespan.
- It's a vanilla game. Part of the playerbase belongs in the "more is more" camp. Those players will of course not enjoy the stripped down experience of the normal vanilla releases.

Notice that Civ4 didn't get that many gameplay complaints. The complaints about suicide siege and no ranged attack stayed, but core mechanics didn't receive the same criticism. Civ4 never needed the major game design rework. And players where not smashing deity on day 1. Civ4 vanilla deity remained a proper challenge for a long time.

 

[Vaclac]

I remember I had difficulty running it properly at all until a patch came through. There was the black-screen leaders with just eyes appearing, and some crashing. I also remember that the maintenance system took getting used to (perhaps comparable to the necessity of beelining commercial hubs and industrial zones in VI), although ultimately I found it the best designed constraint on ICS yet. Still, once it was playable, I enjoyed it and played it far more immediately than I did with either V or VI but probably most of that has to do with having been a student at the time.

 

[Menzies]

While Civ4 might get a bit too much praise by some I'd like to point out that there's a few differences between the type of criticism the different games have gotten. Civ4 mainly got these types:

- Techincal issues. Civ4s official system requirements was too low. That caused a lot of anger, but these complaints went away as they got patched out or people got better hardware.
- "Cartoony Graphics". Lots of players want realistic graphics. These complaints remained for Civ4s lifespan.
- It's a vanilla game. Part of the playerbase belongs in the "more is more" camp. Those players will of course not enjoy the stripped down experience of the normal vanilla releases.

Notice that Civ4 didn't get that many gameplay complaints. The complaints about suicide siege and no ranged attack stayed, but core mechanics didn't receive the same criticism. Civ4 never needed the major game design rework. And players where not smashing deity on day 1. Civ4 vanilla deity remained a proper challenge for a long time.

The expansions got pretty much trashed though. Warlords was one of the worst expansions seen in the series, while even Beyond the Sword was mostly bloat. The Corporation system was never properly balanced, the AI couldn't handle it, etc. It actually took a community patch for Beyond the Sword to be playable.

Much of the complaints about Civ V long term came from "it's different". There existed a significant fraction of the community that didn't like the direction the series took. That's understandable at some level, but there comes a point where you should try and appreciate what is being done with the new one. Civ VI has brought a lot of that minority back out of the woodwork though.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

To be honest it's more damning on the community, the same shallow limited view of each release, ranging from "why did you change this", through "but cartoony graphics!!!" all the way through to "why isn't it perfect on release?!"

Nobody expected perfect game on release, but it's worse than I thought. We already discovered (5 days after release) such 'features': production overflow exploit, science overflow exploit (yes, it's back!), disbanding units exploit, diplomacy deals exploits, etc...

 

[Whiterussian]

Everything was better in the past. Even the future.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Nobody expected perfect game on release, but it's worse than I thought. We already discovered (5 days after release) such 'features': production overflow exploit, science overflow exploit (yes, it's back!), disbanding units exploit, diplomacy deals exploits, etc...

Heh, you didn't play CivIV on release, did you? No exploits there! No . . .

 

[Sebmono]

This was an amazing post, thanks OP!

 

[Menzies]

Nobody expected perfect game on release, but it's worse than I thought. We already discovered (5 days after release) such 'features': production overflow exploit, science overflow exploit (yes, it's back!), disbanding units exploit, diplomacy deals exploits, etc...

I take it you've never played a Civ game before.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Besides--after going through the tragedy that was SimCity2013, I'll never complain about the condition of new title releases again.

 

[Big J Money]

Well done, sir. Well, done. King of threads.

 

[StrideColossus]

Nice bit of civfanatics archaeology, well done indeed.
Civ4 was a good (great?) game but people need to get some perspective and remove those rose-tinted specs before they start making wild comparisons.

 

[IronfighterXXX]

Heh, you didn't play CivIV on release, did you? No exploits there! No . . .

It only proves that Firaxis hasn't learned anything from previous releases and still makes rushed, imbalanced and unpolished games.

But why they should care if (as I see) many people think it is nothing wrong with it (because it was always like this)?

 

[Kwami]

While Civ4 might get a bit too much praise by some I'd like to point out that there's a few differences between the type of criticism the different games have gotten. Civ4 mainly got these types:

- Techincal issues. Civ4s official system requirements was too low. That caused a lot of anger, but these complaints went away as they got patched out or people got better hardware.

Civ VI has had a fair share of technical issues, though far fewer than Civ IV. That's a good thing.

- "Cartoony Graphics". Lots of players want realistic graphics. These complaints remained for Civ4s lifespan.

These complaints are more or less identical with Civ IV.

- It's a vanilla game. Part of the playerbase belongs in the "more is more" camp. Those players will of course not enjoy the stripped down experience of the normal vanilla releases.

And yet, look at how full-featured Civ VI is! It's basically Civ V + 2 expansions + new stuff. It's not at all like previous vanilla releases. That's a good thing, too!

Notice that Civ4 didn't get that many gameplay complaints. The complaints about suicide siege and no ranged attack stayed, but core mechanics didn't receive the same criticism. Civ4 never needed the major game design rework. And players where not smashing deity on day 1. Civ4 vanilla deity remained a proper challenge for a long time.

Civ IV had plenty of complaints about gameplay. Even in the OP, you can see complaints about bad AI, ruined features, and so on. Let's be honest, here. Vanilla Civ IV kind of sucked. The AI was horrible, the game was very simple, and there were tons of bugs. It got better, just as Civ VI will.

 

[Ramkhamhaeng]

Comparing the reactions (meta-information) about two products say less about them, didn't it?
The critic to Civ4 did not improve Civ6.
Moreover the critic to Civ:BE not improved Civ:BE (enough) . I think this is much more important than a comparsion with Civ4 because the staff&politics are much more simmilar.

 

[cephalo]

Civ4 was a buggy mess when first release. I couldn't even play it without wide swaths of land turning black. It was pretty boring too. I didn't even look at the Warlords expansion. BtS however, made the best PC strategy game ever.