In the beginning there was light...
Civilization has been one of the few games were I can say I grew up with it. From the days of the original on the Amiga 500, spanning to Civilization II on the PC and then heading towards Civ III and years later its add-on packs, for me Civ IV certainly has to be one of my most anticipated games of this quater.
The overall feel of the game
Civ has been a game that always brought with it one rule: Dont expect anything of the graphics and certainly do not expect anything other than overwehlming gameplay and longitivity. Well, glad to say my expectations were certainly surpassed when I first launched into Civ IV at 1600x1200 on my AMD 3200+, 1Gb Ram and GeForce FX 5900 with the ole "What the hell its going to run really choppy so might as well put everything on MAX just to see it in all its glory". To my absolute surprise even with AF on x4 the game ran smoothly. SHOCK was the first reaction, absolute delight the next. BUT that is beside the point
Anyway, clocking back the time a bit, the intro sequence with its lighthearted tune immediatly promted an ear worm. What a wonderful tune. Although the intro sequence this time round seemed to be a directors cut of the trailer (which is awsome by the way), it helped prepare for what was to come next.
In the main menu, greeted once more by the now familiar tone of music, I prepared my first game and also asked my first question. Were on earth is Mr. Nimoy? I half expected him to narrate something philosophical in the intro sequence but before I made my first settings there he was, explaining how my Tera came to be. The English had arrived!
The new 3D look certainly took some getting used too. It was hard to make out what field was what and what resources were available. A quick look on the menu and the all familiar "aha" road began. First and foremost it was time to build a city and with that came the new city overview, a heap of numbers and a lot of questionmarks on my head.
Confusion is fooled by the simplicity of it all
Civ has always been a highly complex and mentally stimulating game, even though the AI cheated its codes of in the previous outtakes of the game, long term looks this time round seemed to show it play "nice" for a change.
As stated in a thousand reviews before this, gone are the town rush deals, no more AI building inside my borders and this time round I could really take my time preparing one city while scouting for a nice place for my next city, building a settler and still being the first to arrive there without the frustration of the AI stealing it seemingly out of nowhere. Thank you for that change, it helped emphasise on the beginnings of a civilization were the pre-planning phase has never before been so rewarding and certainly not as relaxing as it has been.
The intuitive design interface certainly has a lot to offer and while it all looks nice and everything seems to have a purpose, delightfully explained in pop-up windows, status changes and so forth there are a few things which could use a little tweak here and there. Although formally these are very subjective opinions, the very cleverly hidden town automation process as well as hurry production keys took me a while to find and figure out. Gone was the immidiate slaughter of inocennt civilians for the purpose of building and gone was the mad rush at getting gold just to perfect those cities quicker.
Give me a stone and I will build a city!
City management and growth certainly has changed conciderably since Civ III. A lot of the key buildings which were a requirement in previous games seem to have lost in importance. From the almighty Granary (to get above 6) and Temple, Marketplace and Universities a lot has gone into confusion for this player. The cities seem to grow by themselves and even those that have reached sizes 12 and above while still missing granaries and being happy made me shudder to be honest, the overall flow of building them has moved from micromanagement to macromanagement. Good for the later stages of the game but for the early stages making a city grow through certain buildings was more appealing than making sure the food was flowing in. Granted, those buildings have changed their roles from helping the city grow beyond a certain size to just plain growing faster the simplicity seems to indicate what had already been anounced previously, new gamers were the target of this game and because there was plenty of warning, this gamer will let the team behind the game off
Promotion
Being busy building up a culture while keeping half an eye on the military aspect of the game, for me the promotion system was an utter delight! Its ease of use and understandability as well as key information through the now all familiar pop-up windows helped explain what the point of it all was. For me personally this was a complete sucess. Just a shame ICBMs are immune to promotions
Graphics
As stated before, the graphics were a surprising aspect. While all reviews so far seem to emphasise the graphics as being good (which by all means they are), good looking does not mean practical.
The scenery as stated before took some getting used too. Gone is the clearly identifiable boardgame style of the iso perspective. Everything is 3D nowadays and even though it helped bring life to the game confusion was around the corner trying to figure out what fields were what.
The strategic resources were very hard to make out. Yes there is a handy tool tip that displays them clearer but having all these handy tool tipps on does clutter the screen at an amazing rate. Having cities and mini cities around those cities, cluttered with mines and animal farms the gameboard quickly becomes very crowded. Yes it looks nice but the overlarge units and overlarge buildings of non-essential gaming elements do not make for a very good thing. I would ask to decrease the size but then the team would sit for months on it rescaling everything so I am just going to have to accept it for what it is.
Trade and Diplomacy
This area of the game has changed a great deal. The AI has become more interactive, it reponds well to requests and gets cheesed quickly when denying their threats. In the complex world of politics and diplomacy what Civ does here is create a fantastic overview of why someone dislikes me or why someone likes me. All in one screen without being cluttered full with information overflow! Everything is neat and tidy and diplomacy now not only has become fun, it has become a very important aspect of the game that was completely ignored due to frustration in previous outings of the game.
LAG!
A few rounds down the road and the game suddenly becomes very slow. Granted the graphics. So I put them down and am pleased to note that the gameflow has increased once more. Gone are the endless waiting rounds of AI from the original game even though the technology was on par and way above what the previous games needed, it was a terrible wait in later stages of the game. That for the most part is gone in CIV. Yes, I can hear so many screames stating it be not the case, but it is and it really is noticable so a thumbs up from me in the direction of yet another promised kept, revined gameflow!
Sound overall
The music, the narration, Mr. Nimoy, perfection in my opinion. The atmosphere of the ambient sounds, the cheers of the crowds and the drums of war all put into one large stew, stirred until well sizzled and then poured onto a plate as near perfection! Dispite the occasional stutter in the Wonder Videos (that be not the game but the Bink Player taking its own memory during the game), I wound it to be a pleasing and very entertaining atmosphere even after several hours of gameplay.
Stability and technical issues
Modern reviews should always take into account the overall stability and compatibility of a game. As games become more complex with less development time available (and trust me I could write a book on that one), it is imporant to note that amongst those screaming the loudest, the actual stability and compatibility of the games plays a vital role in deciding upon purchase. Going hand-in-hand with the technical support of a company or an agency, patch development, opinions, community suggestions and feedback, whiners and cryers, lovers and haters, all these aspects are rolles into one great big stability box... thing.
Anyway, less of the ranting!
From the roar of those poor souls having ATI cards (no they make great cards, just shame about their drivers) to the desktop homegrowers (no pun intended there), gamestability is as complex as the code itself. Litterally millions of factors are taken into account and usually those factors that are not taken into account are those that blow up in our faces. Yes, there are some problems for certain hardware vendors (would not be the first time and certainly not the last) but those problems will be solved.
Gamers can quote the technical support all they want, the real opinion is made within the team so if you do have problems, cut those trying to help some slack and dont always bind them to their word, in essence they have no influence in game development no matter how much you would like them too.
Passing on, the overall stability is great. Personally I had several crashes in later stages of the game but those do not bother me, load up the last savegame and hope for the best, but I am an optimist and someone who has enough experience in the field to know that crashes happen no matter how good the code is, there is always something that needs to be fixed at either end (customer, team). Its a team effort. Modern games start their Charly phase once released. Patches are developed to address issues and then bits and pieces are added that were "nice to have" in the original development plan but never made it into release.
So the conclusion, a good range of stability just lacking a little compatibility which I am sure will get addressed as soon as a cause was found, tested, retested, fixed again, tested, retested until they are sure it is applicaple.
What I do miss though...
I miss certain aspects of the original games though. My beloved emporer palace. Why oh why remove it? Yes it has no real purpose in the game but it does for us gamers, egotism! I should like to have it back please
Space Race victory has been a dislike for me since Civ III. As stated in other reviews, I miss the mad rush of Civ II. That was most amuzing! Shame it remained the same in Civ IV. Maybe in an addon pack or a patch even?!? Who knows!
Conclusion
After this long rant, it is time to place some of these thoughts and opinions in somekind of a conclusion that would actually be usefull for those that have not decided yet wether or not to go and buy the game.
There are pros and cons to consider:
Pros
Cons
So, there are a couple of things that might help. And now for the ever helpful starsystem:
GAMEPLAY: 5/5
SOUND: 5/5
INTERFACE: 3/5 (Miss the right click do everything menu on cities)
COMPLEXITY/LONGITIVITY: 5/5
USERFRIENDLYNESS: 4/5
STABILITY: (GENERAL 4/5), (ATI USERS 3/5)
GRAPHICS: 3/5 (Too full in later games)
OVERALL: 4/5 or 87% rating from this reviewer!
An overall good attempt at changing a lot of aspects that nagged while cutting bits that were deemed uninportant, Civilization IV delivers what it does best, a game that will certainly stand the test of time!
Civilization has been one of the few games were I can say I grew up with it. From the days of the original on the Amiga 500, spanning to Civilization II on the PC and then heading towards Civ III and years later its add-on packs, for me Civ IV certainly has to be one of my most anticipated games of this quater.
The overall feel of the game
Civ has been a game that always brought with it one rule: Dont expect anything of the graphics and certainly do not expect anything other than overwehlming gameplay and longitivity. Well, glad to say my expectations were certainly surpassed when I first launched into Civ IV at 1600x1200 on my AMD 3200+, 1Gb Ram and GeForce FX 5900 with the ole "What the hell its going to run really choppy so might as well put everything on MAX just to see it in all its glory". To my absolute surprise even with AF on x4 the game ran smoothly. SHOCK was the first reaction, absolute delight the next. BUT that is beside the point
Anyway, clocking back the time a bit, the intro sequence with its lighthearted tune immediatly promted an ear worm. What a wonderful tune. Although the intro sequence this time round seemed to be a directors cut of the trailer (which is awsome by the way), it helped prepare for what was to come next.
In the main menu, greeted once more by the now familiar tone of music, I prepared my first game and also asked my first question. Were on earth is Mr. Nimoy? I half expected him to narrate something philosophical in the intro sequence but before I made my first settings there he was, explaining how my Tera came to be. The English had arrived!
The new 3D look certainly took some getting used too. It was hard to make out what field was what and what resources were available. A quick look on the menu and the all familiar "aha" road began. First and foremost it was time to build a city and with that came the new city overview, a heap of numbers and a lot of questionmarks on my head.
Confusion is fooled by the simplicity of it all
Civ has always been a highly complex and mentally stimulating game, even though the AI cheated its codes of in the previous outtakes of the game, long term looks this time round seemed to show it play "nice" for a change.
As stated in a thousand reviews before this, gone are the town rush deals, no more AI building inside my borders and this time round I could really take my time preparing one city while scouting for a nice place for my next city, building a settler and still being the first to arrive there without the frustration of the AI stealing it seemingly out of nowhere. Thank you for that change, it helped emphasise on the beginnings of a civilization were the pre-planning phase has never before been so rewarding and certainly not as relaxing as it has been.
The intuitive design interface certainly has a lot to offer and while it all looks nice and everything seems to have a purpose, delightfully explained in pop-up windows, status changes and so forth there are a few things which could use a little tweak here and there. Although formally these are very subjective opinions, the very cleverly hidden town automation process as well as hurry production keys took me a while to find and figure out. Gone was the immidiate slaughter of inocennt civilians for the purpose of building and gone was the mad rush at getting gold just to perfect those cities quicker.
Give me a stone and I will build a city!
City management and growth certainly has changed conciderably since Civ III. A lot of the key buildings which were a requirement in previous games seem to have lost in importance. From the almighty Granary (to get above 6) and Temple, Marketplace and Universities a lot has gone into confusion for this player. The cities seem to grow by themselves and even those that have reached sizes 12 and above while still missing granaries and being happy made me shudder to be honest, the overall flow of building them has moved from micromanagement to macromanagement. Good for the later stages of the game but for the early stages making a city grow through certain buildings was more appealing than making sure the food was flowing in. Granted, those buildings have changed their roles from helping the city grow beyond a certain size to just plain growing faster the simplicity seems to indicate what had already been anounced previously, new gamers were the target of this game and because there was plenty of warning, this gamer will let the team behind the game off
Promotion
Being busy building up a culture while keeping half an eye on the military aspect of the game, for me the promotion system was an utter delight! Its ease of use and understandability as well as key information through the now all familiar pop-up windows helped explain what the point of it all was. For me personally this was a complete sucess. Just a shame ICBMs are immune to promotions
Graphics
As stated before, the graphics were a surprising aspect. While all reviews so far seem to emphasise the graphics as being good (which by all means they are), good looking does not mean practical.
The scenery as stated before took some getting used too. Gone is the clearly identifiable boardgame style of the iso perspective. Everything is 3D nowadays and even though it helped bring life to the game confusion was around the corner trying to figure out what fields were what.
The strategic resources were very hard to make out. Yes there is a handy tool tip that displays them clearer but having all these handy tool tipps on does clutter the screen at an amazing rate. Having cities and mini cities around those cities, cluttered with mines and animal farms the gameboard quickly becomes very crowded. Yes it looks nice but the overlarge units and overlarge buildings of non-essential gaming elements do not make for a very good thing. I would ask to decrease the size but then the team would sit for months on it rescaling everything so I am just going to have to accept it for what it is.
Trade and Diplomacy
This area of the game has changed a great deal. The AI has become more interactive, it reponds well to requests and gets cheesed quickly when denying their threats. In the complex world of politics and diplomacy what Civ does here is create a fantastic overview of why someone dislikes me or why someone likes me. All in one screen without being cluttered full with information overflow! Everything is neat and tidy and diplomacy now not only has become fun, it has become a very important aspect of the game that was completely ignored due to frustration in previous outings of the game.
LAG!
A few rounds down the road and the game suddenly becomes very slow. Granted the graphics. So I put them down and am pleased to note that the gameflow has increased once more. Gone are the endless waiting rounds of AI from the original game even though the technology was on par and way above what the previous games needed, it was a terrible wait in later stages of the game. That for the most part is gone in CIV. Yes, I can hear so many screames stating it be not the case, but it is and it really is noticable so a thumbs up from me in the direction of yet another promised kept, revined gameflow!
Sound overall
The music, the narration, Mr. Nimoy, perfection in my opinion. The atmosphere of the ambient sounds, the cheers of the crowds and the drums of war all put into one large stew, stirred until well sizzled and then poured onto a plate as near perfection! Dispite the occasional stutter in the Wonder Videos (that be not the game but the Bink Player taking its own memory during the game), I wound it to be a pleasing and very entertaining atmosphere even after several hours of gameplay.
Stability and technical issues
Modern reviews should always take into account the overall stability and compatibility of a game. As games become more complex with less development time available (and trust me I could write a book on that one), it is imporant to note that amongst those screaming the loudest, the actual stability and compatibility of the games plays a vital role in deciding upon purchase. Going hand-in-hand with the technical support of a company or an agency, patch development, opinions, community suggestions and feedback, whiners and cryers, lovers and haters, all these aspects are rolles into one great big stability box... thing.
Anyway, less of the ranting!
From the roar of those poor souls having ATI cards (no they make great cards, just shame about their drivers) to the desktop homegrowers (no pun intended there), gamestability is as complex as the code itself. Litterally millions of factors are taken into account and usually those factors that are not taken into account are those that blow up in our faces. Yes, there are some problems for certain hardware vendors (would not be the first time and certainly not the last) but those problems will be solved.
Gamers can quote the technical support all they want, the real opinion is made within the team so if you do have problems, cut those trying to help some slack and dont always bind them to their word, in essence they have no influence in game development no matter how much you would like them too.
Passing on, the overall stability is great. Personally I had several crashes in later stages of the game but those do not bother me, load up the last savegame and hope for the best, but I am an optimist and someone who has enough experience in the field to know that crashes happen no matter how good the code is, there is always something that needs to be fixed at either end (customer, team). Its a team effort. Modern games start their Charly phase once released. Patches are developed to address issues and then bits and pieces are added that were "nice to have" in the original development plan but never made it into release.
So the conclusion, a good range of stability just lacking a little compatibility which I am sure will get addressed as soon as a cause was found, tested, retested, fixed again, tested, retested until they are sure it is applicaple.
What I do miss though...
I miss certain aspects of the original games though. My beloved emporer palace. Why oh why remove it? Yes it has no real purpose in the game but it does for us gamers, egotism! I should like to have it back please
Space Race victory has been a dislike for me since Civ III. As stated in other reviews, I miss the mad rush of Civ II. That was most amuzing! Shame it remained the same in Civ IV. Maybe in an addon pack or a patch even?!? Who knows!
Conclusion
After this long rant, it is time to place some of these thoughts and opinions in somekind of a conclusion that would actually be usefull for those that have not decided yet wether or not to go and buy the game.
There are pros and cons to consider:
Pros
- Complexity of Gameplay with Simplicity of Interface
- Userfriendlyness
- Atmosphere
- Turn-based in a relaxing way
- Heaps and heaps of gameplay options
- Heaps and heaps of replayativity
- Longitivity (barring stability of course)
- Mr. Nimoy! (Yes, I am a Trek fan)
- Its a Civ game! what more needs there be told!
- Multiplayer out of the box
- Fantastic and detailed manual
- New poster! Yes, techtree but new poster!
- DVD and multilingual support (except voices)
- Sid making a guest appearence in the Tutorial!
- Easy to learn very difficult to master!
- Brings perfectionism out in everyone
Cons
- ATI users read the helpful installation guide!
- Its not REAL TIME so those people might not like it
- Religion system too complex and hard to follow
- NON-Critical buildings (mines etc.) too large
- Very complex graphics in late games and hard to follow
- Zooming out is very GFX hungry
- Memory leak at the moment killing longterm games
- Occasional crashes turning to regular crashes with UN built
- Not really for the casual gamer
- Sleepless nights
- Daydream filled days
- Warmongering motivated
- Too much emphasis on Religion (did I say that already?!?)
- Expensive purchase
So, there are a couple of things that might help. And now for the ever helpful starsystem:
GAMEPLAY: 5/5
SOUND: 5/5
INTERFACE: 3/5 (Miss the right click do everything menu on cities)
COMPLEXITY/LONGITIVITY: 5/5
USERFRIENDLYNESS: 4/5
STABILITY: (GENERAL 4/5), (ATI USERS 3/5)
GRAPHICS: 3/5 (Too full in later games)
OVERALL: 4/5 or 87% rating from this reviewer!
An overall good attempt at changing a lot of aspects that nagged while cutting bits that were deemed uninportant, Civilization IV delivers what it does best, a game that will certainly stand the test of time!
