Not a Beginner, bored with the game...

[troytheface]

where is the magic....no sid feel ....lacks soul.....

The specific areas of perceived weaknesses aside, these were interesting comments. The further the original creator is removed from the game the more the game would lose individual quirks. But Civ4 has a soul to me, But its like a dumb soul - if there is such a thing.

 

[CautiousChaos]

Unfortunately, this does not work at least for me. The game is boring and very tedious. It might be something related to the speed of animations and city view screens or zooming. IMHO, the animations are taking a bit too longer than they should. This might add some realistic feature but overall, you keep looking on these swordsmen marching a thousand times and get bored. Aslo, game seems to lag slightly before any action is taken not because of performance issues but of some internal timeout. Or am I wrong here?

I think you are perfectly right on this. The game gets bigger and it just s-l-o-w-s down. I don't mind waiting in between turns for the AI's to think. I really dislike how incredibly long it takes for the map to scroll here, then there, then back again. In Civ3 it was rather instantaneous. It's a problem enough that I am actually debating whether to go back and play a Civ3 Conquests game instead while the Civ bug is biting.

Something else hit me as I was reading the posts. I rarely get that "panic" feeling in Civ4 like I did in Civ3. I remember lots of time when I was expanding only to have an AI sneak in a settler into my empire and drop a city in. I used to hate that. I liked how CIV corrected that with the respecting of borders, but in retrospect, I think this removes that wild element that someone is else going to snatch up that key piece of territory you haven't gotten to yet.

-cc

 

[al_thor]

akots: Excellent post.

Now that you mention it, the TEDIOUS ANIMATION that comes when moving units (workers or military) is a serious detriment to the game. And, yes, I have "Quick Movement" enabled.
There's like a "delay" before the move, then there is the "streaking flash", and then there is ANOTHER delay as the unit settles on the target square, almost as if pausing to determine "Do I have any movement points left?".

When I think about it, it's probably the most irritating aspect of the game mechanics, aside from the problem when the "mouse-over pop-ups" don't work (this seems to be somewhat better with the patch, but it still happens A LOT).

I think that the step from Monarch to Emporer is too big (the AI getting way too many bonus's/freebies).

I also have a "gripe" about AI-attitude:
I'm playing Standard Map, Monarch. I am on a large continent with 5 other civs. On the inter-turn, Washington (from another continent) introduces himself from a Caravel. I say "hello" and ask him to the bargaining table. Guess what? EVERYTHING is red. I think, "Well, that's strange." So I mouse-over one of the red items, and Washington's thoughts are: "We would not trade with you, our worst enemy." What???? We only just met, and I'm your WORST enemy? Further investigation reveals that I have done some trading with "his worst enemy" (which I thought was me, but oh well). So, over the course of a few turns, I sell him my map and give him a deal on GPT for one of my lux's. Ten or fifteen turns go by, but he still holds everything in the red. Just seems a bit unrealistic, don't you think?

 

[schekker]

Well, I did finish my game and indeed, it wasn't the fun a victory in civ2 would give me.

First off, as far as I'm concerned the AI is good enough. It doesn't do blatantly stupid things to my untrained eye, and doesn't cheat anymore than I do In fact while I was pushing for a quick victory, extending my lines a bit too far, it did a very good and unexpected counter offensive. Of course, it didn't matter for the end outcome, but I was pleasantly suprised.

Then, why the victory is not fun: you win more or less by accident. You are building for the space race for instance, and suddenly you get a message you've won. Oh my, I must have completed that last bit this turn.
Similar for domination victories, you are going strong and suddenly halfway a certain opponent you get the message you've won. Oh my, I must have crossed the 60% landcontrol border.
The same for the cultural victory.
It is far more satisfying to win by pressing the spaceship launch button, or by crushing that last city of your opponent. I want to know beforehand that this is the turn I'm going to win, anticipate it. Not the current anticlimax that, oh, it is over?

I also agree with the others about the technlogy pacing of the later game. As Catherine I of course use my cossacks, but thereafter I basically just wait till I have the heavy tanks and stealth bombers. I don't bother with the intermediate units. They are outdated before I can launch an offensive with them.

 

[akots]

... Just seems a bit unrealistic, don't you think?

Didn't you know the AIs are mean and evil?

 

[Lucas87]

One thing I will add to the discussion is that it's not really fun to just crush the AI anymore. In previous civs I would occasionally go way back from my usual difficulty to simply massacre the AI. This was fun as you could build a really nice empire, tech to stealth bombers etc and just go on a rampage against at best pikemen. Everything in the game is just less powerful, which makes it a better strategic game and multiplayer game for sure, as there aren't as many gamebreakers that rigidly define your strategy, but there's not just the super crushing power ability as there was before. I don't know, I've tried just playing a super easy difficulty level in this game and having fun with it, but it seemed there wasn't as much fun involved in the crushing of other civs as there was before. I will say that I find civ4 to be a much more interesting game than the others in terms of strategies to pursue against difficult opponents, but the game seems to lose interest once you get to the butt-kicking point.

 

[Shades]

We naturally assumed that players who are "bored" with the game would turn up the difficulty level until it stops being boring for them. Was this too much to assume? Apparently it is wrong in at least some cases

Well, you know what they say about the word assume....

Anyways, difficulty level hardly helps the part of the game that really raises the boredom factor for me... <looks at flashing "enter" on screen... clicks enter... enter again flashing on screen.... clicks enter... tech box comes up... pick new tech... enter flashes... click enter.... enter flashes... click enter...> For too many turns in the game, not just at the beginning, there are a lot of turns of just click enter. Raising the difficulty level doesn't solve that.

I would have to say that I do like the game and still play it. But, it hasn't driven me to a bunch of days of 5 am playing like the previous versions did. To me, it feels like the effort to squeeze every possible loophole out has kinda taken some of the games personality away. It seems a bit bland right now. Hopefully, once the editor is released, we'll see some mods get the game a true personality.

 

[Lucas87]

Well, I did finish my game and indeed, it wasn't the fun a victory in civ2 would give me.

First off, as far as I'm concerned the AI is good enough. It doesn't do blatantly stupid things to my untrained eye, and doesn't cheat anymore than I do In fact while I was pushing for a quick victory, extending my lines a bit too far, it did a very good and unexpected counter offensive. Of course, it didn't matter for the end outcome, but I was pleasantly suprised.

Then, why the victory is not fun: you win more or less by accident. You are building for the space race for instance, and suddenly you get a message you've won. Oh my, I must have completed that last bit this turn.
Similar for domination victories, you are going strong and suddenly halfway a certain opponent you get the message you've won. Oh my, I must have crossed the 60% landcontrol border.
The same for the cultural victory.
It is far more satisfying to win by pressing the spaceship launch button, or by crushing that last city of your opponent. I want to know beforehand that this is the turn I'm going to win, anticipate it. Not the current anticlimax that, oh, it is over?

I also agree with the others about the technlogy pacing of the later game. As Catherine I of course use my cossacks, but thereafter I basically just wait till I have the heavy tanks and stealth bombers. I don't bother with the intermediate units. They are outdated before I can launch an offensive with them.

I also think that the victories in civ4 are less satisfying than before. The Space Race is just awful. It's not fun at all. I would love a civ2 style space race where you get to build it up to whatever you feel necessary and then you launch it and hope to win. Meanwhile, if your capital gets destroyed, your whole spaceship dies or even returns to earth. I think space race should be more a scientific victory than a production victory, with the parts coming generally later on the tech tree. I also think that it should be a challenge to get the thing off in time as opposed to the ridiculous wins by 1900. I like culture strategically, but yeah there is very little anticipation in winning in general. There is no intuitive way to see how close you are. You can take time to look at the victory conditions are every turn and figure out when you will win but there's not much build up to it, I find

 

[Lucas87]

One more note. A lot of people have commented that they've made a determined effort to make the game better for multiplayer, which has come at the expense of single player. They have definitely tried to make sure there is nothing that is unbalanced at all, which probably would make for an unbalanced game. But I haven't seen a whole lot of commitment to making multiplayer easy. They didn't set up a battle.net or anything like it and the games I've played still involve a lot of waiting around for opponents to do their moves even on simultaneous. They would have to revolutionize the game design to make it work ideally for multiplayer, but I think this would be amazing. Unfortunately, what they seem to have done is make a singleplayer game balanced towards multiplayer. They should probably have tried to pick one or the other and commit really strongly to it.

 

[CautiousChaos]

Well, you know what they say about the word assume....

Anyways, difficulty level hardly helps the part of the game that really raises the boredom factor for me... <looks at flashing "enter" on screen... clicks enter... enter again flashing on screen.... clicks enter... tech box comes up... pick new tech... enter flashes... click enter.... enter flashes... click enter...>

Ah ha! There's another thing that hurts my experience. It _does_ feel like quite a bit of menu management. I don't recall having to make so many technology and building choices in such a short time in Civ3. I feel like I make a decision on technology, then three turns later have to make another pivotal decision. By mid-game, I'm just picking whatever's next in line because I always seem to be able to research everything anyhow.

Poo.
-cc

 

[THARN]

I have to agree here- I'm lost my initial excitement and find myself quitting sometime after the years 1980 - I think alot of it has to do with the AI attitudes- It seems to me that no matter how hard you try to use diplomacy- It always feels" like the its you vs the rest of the AI as a team.
I have yet to feel loyalty from any of the AI no matter how good our history has been. I even went so far as to turn off tech trading so I could keep up with the AI on 'noble' difficulty..Noble? its not even the halfway point!
I thought CIV was suppose to allow diplomatic gains more so than the rest.
I've tried playing without going to war but every game so far has me being attacked by the most powerful nation sooner or later who is way ahead of me on techs with zero tech trading.(I know it's because of the 'great person' birthrate on their side. I cant seem to ever get mine going early enough without severe penalty.. but I still have science on 90%...
I usually playon Noble/ continents / normal size map/ 8 AI/ no tech trading/ and always end up being in 3rd or 4th place at endgame... I can never get over the hump so to speak. Sick of being Dan Quayle.
Im thinking its because I pick too broad of a selection on techs and dont get my great ppl production going.. still think the AI knows the map from the first turn...

 

[Pratputajao]

I think this is probably the source of your trouble.

Hmm, could be but I have played on higher levels and got beat ( 1- king/ 1- prince) but I still don’t have the desire to pick up the title to avenge my losses? So just because I said I beat the game 3 times on Noble please don’t assume ( as we all know about that word) that I haven’t tried higher levels.

The AIs are designed to be smarter. If you are way ahead of them on material, they will focus more on catching up, rather than on falling farther behind by spinning their wheels in wars they have no hope of winning..

Without a doubt- the AI is better! No debate from me on that- it is competitive- something that was lacking in Civ3. Please Don’t get me wrong, there are definite improvements!

We naturally assumed that players who are "bored" with the game would turn up the difficulty level until it stops being boring for them. Was this too much to assume? Apparently it is wrong in at least some cases...

As noted above the assumption is correct- I tried it on higher levels. First king, got whipped! then went down to prince beat in a closer game. Then I waited a while ( didn’t have desire to go at it again) and then beat it on Noble again... Haven’t played a real game since. But I haven’t said I wont play again, just that the pull is not there as strong as I thought it would be.

My advice to folks in your shoes is always to turn up the difficulty level. At least TRY it at a higher setting. If that doesn't work for you either, then perhaps you'll be in a better position to explain what you find to be missing.

- Sirian

Without a doubt I will.... Its just a matter of when. Maybe I have romanticized the Civ feeling with the previous installments and this happened after all three? - got tired of it only to return with a new found vigor. If so I really don’t recall that. I seem to remember playing the game solidly for at least six months before putting a new game in the fore? Now I ask please don’t take the OP as a serious- don’t buy the game - type criticism. Its NOT!! The game is solid in the mechanics ( if not the actual programming.. at least on my machine- took over a month to get it to run acceptably on a large map... still cant play on huge or 'earth' and have Massive slowdown after seeing leaderheads) I didn’t want this to be a Lets slam CIV post. I was just curious if others had experienced what I have and why. I got some good answers some of which i really hadnt thought of. Like I said - I have definitely got my moneys worth on the program but I expected a longer period of.. Must.. play.. game.. syndrome. I will add that someone else had posted that maybe the Tech problems are taking away from the game as well?
This could be. I mean If the game was 100% smooth for me maybe it wouldn’t seem like a chore (at times) to play it? I mean though It plays better for me now, It still doesn’t feel as though the game is finished OR that my Comp. is below Min specs ( NOT the case) I guess all I can do is wait and see on that one. ( i hope I will be able to play the game as intended someday without upgrading my Computer )

Since I have your ear ( as it were) I would recommend in the next installment ( add-on ?) To bring back some of the little things we all love- interactive advisors, even if it is just text! A better civelpedia,( this has got to be the one UNIVERSAL complaint) towns that reflected 4 or 5 different 'culture types' ( for lack of a beter term- Asian style housing in Asian Civs, Islamic/arabic, European etc...).Just A few off the top of my head. It may seem like really minor stuff but, at least in my case, I didn’t realize how much I really liked the little touches until they were gone.


Having said all that let me thank you for coming onto the boards and interacting with the community. This really means something. I think for every one of me there are probably 2 or 3 who cant put it down.. Again I just wish i were one of 'em. With future mods/ add ons I am almost certain I will be.

Thanks again for listening.

 

[Danielos]

It seems as for every Civ-game they take two steps forward and one step back. They have made huge improvements to the overall game since Civ 1 but a lot of good things have for some reason disappeared in the process. If they could melt all the good parts of each Civ-game and expansions/mods into a new Civ 5 that would make for the one Civ-game to rule them all.

 

[MeteorPunch]

...towns that reflected 4 or 5 different 'culture types' ( for lack of a beter term- Asian style housing in Asian Civs, Islamic/arabic, European etc...).

If you look in the CivilizationInfos.xml file, these were originally planned but scrapped or demoted to an add-on. The good thing is with the SDK I believe even more than 5 culture groups will be available, but Firaxis will give us 5 in the add-on.

<Type>CIVILIZATION_EGYPT</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_CIV_EGYPT_DESC</Description>
<ShortDescription>TXT_KEY_CIV_EGYPT_SHORT_DESC</ShortDescription>
<Adjective>TXT_KEY_CIV_EGYPT_ADJECTIVE</Adjective>
<Civilopedia>TXT_KEY_CIV_EGYPT_PEDIA</Civilopedia>
<DefaultPlayerColor>PLAYERCOLOR_YELLOW</DefaultPlayerColor>
<ArtDefineTag>ART_DEF_CIVILIZATION_EGYPT</ArtDefineTag>
<ArtStyleType>ARTSTYLE_MIDDLE_EAST</ArtStyleType>
<bPlayable>1</bPlayable>
<bAIPlayable>1</bAIPlayable>

 

[Pratputajao]

If you look in the CivilizationInfos.xml file, these were originally planned but scrapped or demoted to an add-on. The good thing is with the SDK I believe even more than 5 culture groups will be available, but Firaxis will give us 5 in the add-on.

Very cool, Thanks

 

[Vinlander]

Wish i could get the game to run nicely on my computer.. i struggle to have it run even fairly..

I meet the rec requirements.. it always slows down as my cities grow in size.. and as i make terrain improvements. *sigh*

Jack the difficulty high and have a go.. im sure that would be fun.

 

[Cyberstar]

My Dear Praputajao,

Perhaps you've just changed, matured and need something along the lines of a Star Trek halo-suite to fill you needs.

For me, I enjoy Civ4 about as much as Civ3. To me it's kind of like a mod to civ3. You also might find the game more challenging if you use the automated workers and governors more. This way you won't run ahead of the other civs so much.

 

[Huszar]

I also think that the victories in civ4 are less satisfying than before. The Space Race is just awful. It's not fun at all. I would love a civ2 style space race where you get to build it up to whatever you feel necessary and then you launch it and hope to win. Meanwhile, if your capital gets destroyed, your whole spaceship dies or even returns to earth. I think space race should be more a scientific victory than a production victory, with the parts coming generally later on the tech tree. I also think that it should be a challenge to get the thing off in time as opposed to the ridiculous wins by 1900. I like culture strategically, but yeah there is very little anticipation in winning in general. There is no intuitive way to see how close you are. You can take time to look at the victory conditions are every turn and figure out when you will win but there's not much build up to it, I find

I also think that at least some of the victory types are not satisfying at all. Take culture for example. At some point you get a message that you won a cultural victory and that's it. Boring. But then it is difficult to come up with a good idea on how to make it more rewarding, I admit.
On the other hand, for the spacerace victory there is a precedent, they should just pick it up. I definitely enjoyed in civ2 when someone launched its spaceship and I was only a few parts away to launch it as well, so I was trying quickly to build 2 more engines (or whatever they were called) and send my faster ship to the same destination, hoping that it will arrive earlier. Another possibility was to throw your whole army against the spaceship launcher and hope to conquer him before the ship would arrive. That was fun.

It seems to me that the designers decided that winning is the most important part of the game, that the fact that I won is rewarding enough, but it is not. Not for me. I need some reward for being the most "civilized", not a boring "you won" message. Same is true for eliminating a civ; again we get this insipid "civ x was eliminated" message which stays about 10 seconds on the screen and it is not even easily visible.

We get no reward for having the most cultured city or civ in the world, or the biggest financial center or whatever. I'd like to see at least a tiny "+1: we admire your culture", if nothing else. Think about it: millions of people go to New York or Paris, only to see the city and it's great wonders and feel its atmosphere. There is nothing like this in civ4.

I know civ is a strategy game. It always was and pursuing a valid strategy that leads you to victory was always the most important part of the game. However, civ is also an empire building and in the same time a war game, and somehow it seems to me that the strategic aspect went too far at the expense of other fun elements. There are always strategical decisions to take, which is good, but it seems to me that there is nothing else to do.

I'd like to join the chorus that says that the game is good; it is definitely not a bad game, it seems only to lack some of the magic of the previous versions (especially civ2). It's a pity, because the potential is there.

 

[Pratputajao]

My Dear Praputajao,

Perhaps you've just changed, matured and need something along the lines of a Star Trek halo-suite to fill you needs.

My dearest cyberstar, Sawatdee kap,


Um, Maybe? But seeing that I still love NWN and AoWSM ( Both games 3+ years old) I dont think I will need that halo suit any time soon; thanks for the rec though.

 

[Wodan]

Then, why the victory is not fun: you win more or less by accident. You are building for the space race for instance, and suddenly you get a message you've won. Oh my, I must have completed that last bit this turn.
Similar for domination victories, you are going strong and suddenly halfway a certain opponent you get the message you've won. Oh my, I must have crossed the 60% landcontrol border.
The same for the cultural victory.

Something that would fix this is periodic messages, just like the "X TURNS LEFT!" message in the upper right. e.g., "ASOKA IS 95% TO DOMINATION VICTORY!"

Wodan