So, what do we find "bad" about Civ4?

[kuldiin]

I hope Firaxis (or whoever managed Civ4) reads and takes note of things mentioned here.

I was like a kid at Christmas waiting for the UK release, but now with all the things that are mentioned, Im half tempted to cancel my pre-order for now and wait until the expansion (which hopefully corrects these).

I hope Civ4 isnt going to be an Everquest 2

 

[hclass]

The civiliopedia: Incredibly poorly made. Civ3 did it almost perfectly, but here it is a mess, with few "encyclopedia" entries, and overall confusing. A major setback.

It will be worse after few patches since Firaxis will need to rectify an originally badly done "civiliopedia" then add the "changes" made by patches...

I wish you could access the Civilopedia from the main screen when it gives you a list of the techs to research next, without having to enter the Tech Tree. And yunno the little icons that show what the Tech allows (like new buildings, wonders, civics, etc.), I wish you could look up those things in to Civilopedia by right clicking them instead of having to look up the tech first. It would save 1-2 steps if you could just right-click to the Civilopedia. It sounds minor, I know, but this early in the game when you're trying to figure things out you're doing this A LOT so it's a persistent problem.

The white lines between techs seem to be pretty much meaningless. I'll click on a tech and things not even connected to it will light up as a prereq - dunno what in the world happened there.
How can I easily see if a city has an airport to know where to send units for an air drop? Do I REALLY have to go into each city to see it? No handy icon on the map???

So the interface is not that good as previewers, reviewers and Firaxis diehard supporters claimed

The biggest problem I have is Domestic, Finance, Foreign, and Military Advisors. Domestic, Finance, and Military are practically USELSS and don't do much of anything... I can't locate units by type or by city... But you can't select a particular unit and jump to it from the Military ad,.. The new Military Advisor IS TERRBILE!!

The Foreign advisor ... it doesn't show how many sources are available... I wish your Civ would preserve resources for your own use, but it gave you the option of overriding this.

You beat all the 200 beta testers. Did any of them play Civ3 or Civ2 before?

Like do I want to give my Praetorians City Assault promotions or bonuses fighting melee units ... but I was kinda upset because it about 20 turns those bonuses will be negated because archers will be obsolete ... upgrading unit strength is kinda pointless early in the game because ... The problem is that the manual isn't any help in this regard. Sure, it gives a list of the promotions and what they do but it doesn't explain what I did above...

Some will argue it is your problem, you need to try things out or consult experts from forums, but I will support you and it is the damn manual which is to be blamed.

Production times are way too high. On Epic mode (the only mode where the game doesn't fly by in the blink of an eye), unit production costs are insanely high ... Long story short, after almost 4000 years have progressed, you have maybe four cities and three buildings, and have never even had the ability to wage a war had you wanted to.

You want to play a really boring game, play with 15 civs like you could/did in CIV III and tell me it isn't boring for the first 4000 years...
I believe people are enjoying the game, I don't believe these people are playing max civilizations on the maps though, probably playing the large/huge maps games with standard civilizations of 7 ... sadly if one wants to play a full blown maxed out game, it's the most pitifully boring game you'll play.

Like I have speculated before, there could hardy be fun for Epic and huge map. Ha, ha worse case is max civs and go the conqueror way. No wonder no one dare to say anything on these in any preview.

I haven't played yet... but I have played all the other Civs... and I really hated ICS... I always liked a compact civ with almost every city having nearly every improvement...

No one like ICS. ICS is always initialized by A.I. players in Civ3 and it is very hard for human player to not follow.
The point is, removing ICS does not equivalent to removing the possibility to have a huge empire with reasonably high #cities where each are quite well improved.
Whenever one talk about huge map and big empire, many (inexperience civ fans) immediately take it as ICS. I think ICS means blindly expands, never care for strategic settlement and improvements, but what if one care for both but still want to expand as big as possible?

Here is what I simply hate: the tech speeds are sooo fast compared to the unit production speeds, the worker speeds, and the time it takes to build city improvements. My current civ (rome) has legionaries and spearmen and the technology for nukes and tanks.

The epic game setting should slow down research, but not building/improving speeds. I don't want to spend 25 turns waiting for a settler to come out of one of my 5 cities. I definitely don't want to spend 25 turns waiting for a settler and simultaneously complete 6-8 research projects.

Well it looks like Firaxis is a bit bombastic with the #beta testers they have. May be they have only 20 beta testers and all have never tested the EPIC game. I suggest the next patch they simply make EPIC game option unavailable, wait another few months, when things are well tweaked for EPIC game then only enable that option again.

Only had the game two days, and I am already getting this feeling of "what went wrong".

You have reminded me on my first few Civ3 games.

 

[Matte979]

Agree with reznap. This game is diffrent and its a new play style when you play epic and start in ancient times you will have a much more realistic progression of a civilization its slowly grows. If you dont like this part start in a later age. Maybe its a play style problem. I liked to play with smaller empires where every city and unit counted so for me CIV4 is a wish come true. I just wish they could have fullfilled all peoples wishes.

Some gripes though.

Advisors needs work, civelopedia could use some work.

I also think difficulty level is affecting how the game plays, Increase the difficulty if its boring try a higher difficulty.

 

[reznap]

"fast tech, slow production"???

Sorry but I never noticed that problem in Noble level. The technology development pace in my game is very historical. The production speed is also fast enough.

Actually I really hate "slow tech" in CIV3. That rips off lots of expectation, achievement & fun from the game. I would rather research techs myself than get them mostly through trading. In CIV4, you still have to trade techs, but you know that's because you choosed to pursue a different research path so AIs natually will have some of technologies you don't have. Not like in CIV3, you trade tech with AI simply because you don't want to do enough research and have to exploit them to keep pace. I can see no fun from that.

All the things that seem really annoying to me, like fast tech, slow production, can be fixed fairly easy in mods, and or patches.

Then again I wouldn't know since I dont know since Idont have the game yet.

 

[reznap]

"Originally Posted by Soryn Arkayn
Like do I want to give my Praetorians City Assault promotions or bonuses fighting melee units ... but I was kinda upset because it about 20 turns those bonuses will be negated because archers will be obsolete ... upgrading unit strength is kinda pointless early in the game because ... The problem is that the manual isn't any help in this regard. Sure, it gives a list of the promotions and what they do but it doesn't explain what I did above..."

Again I don't quite understand here: your archers will be outdated soon even with many promotions. BUT, couldn't you just upgrade them and let them keep all the promotions?! I know at least you can upgrade archers to "longbowman" and get much higher strengths.

Yes, upgrading units cost a lot of money. But in this new game it's not that hard to save enough gold, since you won't have much chance to spend them out (cannot accelerate production, gold return after losing a wonder race...). So I could always keep my research spend rate at 100% until my gold deposit level was very low. Later in the game when I found I needed to upgrade my army, I simply lower research level to 70-80% and start saving money and spend them ALL on unit upgrading. I felt the cost was quite acceptable, if not well balanced.

Do you really think the game designer would be so stupid no to consider unit upgrading? Come on ...

 

[bshock727]

Some of you guys seems like you've been playing Civ III for so long that your mind is still stuck in it. Civ IV isn't Civ III with better graphics. It's a completely different ball-game and I think some of you need to give it more than a day's worth of play before writing it off.

I agree the Civlipedia is a bit of a mess and the advisors need some work, but the game is as solid as I could have asked for. It's the most 'fun' Civ yet.

 

[gunburned]

Put the dificulty higher, seems like you guys are having too easy of a time winning. I agree with some of the little problems like the cvilodepa. You have to much Civ3 stuck in your head, get rid of it to unlock the potential of Civ 4, or you will never enjoy it. All i think is that the tech rate should go by slower so that unique units dont go out of date to fast. It apears that were getting to many untis too fast. Just gotta get the hang of it.

 

[reznap]

I agree the Civlipedia is a bit of a mess and the advisors need some work, but the game is as solid as I could have asked for. It's the most 'fun' Civ yet.

With a very informational poster & a decent manual, I don't think Civelopedia matters that much.

Have you ever played CIV2? I never use the Civelopedia there, not even the in-game Tech Tree. Since CIV II shipped with a good poster and a decent manual, I felt it much fun to check the poster like generals review their maps. I can even check it on my bed and plan for tomorrow's game.

CIV III needs a good Civelopedia since it didn't even provide us printed Tech Tree, like a game with no manual absolutely needs PDF help file to compensate.

 

[King Jason]

My biggest problem was the speed as well, normal really wasn't that bad, but I could have gone for slower, as I tried that, EVERYTHING was so slow, as someone said already, it woulda been nicer if just the tech's were slown down... So... That's what I went and did!

If anyone would like it so their epic games only slow down the tech tree and nothing else, head to your Civ folder and go through it and get to the "Game info" XML
(C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Assets\XML\GameInfo)

Open up the "CIV4GameSpeedInfo" XML file using a simple word device (I'm just using wordpad) and here you'll see a list of stuff that looks like code. For anyone who instantly thinks "uh oh... I really shouldn't touch this", trust me, it'll be simple.

Alright, let's see what we've got here:

<Type>GAMESPEED_EPIC</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC</Description>
<Help>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC_HELP</Help>
<iGrowthPercent>150</iGrowthPercent>
<iTrainPercent>150</iTrainPercent>
<iConstructPercent>150</iConstructPercent>
<iCreatePercent>150</iCreatePercent>
<iResearchPercent>150</iResearchPercent>
<iBuildPercent>150</iBuildPercent>
<iImprovementPercent>150</iImprovementPercent>
<iGreatPeoplePercent>150</iGreatPeoplePercent>
<iCulturePercent>150</iCulturePercent>
<iAnarchyPercent>150</iAnarchyPercent>
<iBarbPercent>150</iBarbPercent>
<iFeatureProductionPercent>150</iFeatureProductionPercent>
<iUnitDiscoverPercent>150</iUnitDiscoverPercent>
<iUnitHurryPercent>150</iUnitHurryPercent>
<iUnitTradePercent>150</iUnitTradePercent>
<iUnitGreatWorkPercent>150</iUnitGreatWorkPercent>
<iGoldenAgePercent>125</iGoldenAgePercent>
<iHurryPercent>67</iHurryPercent>
<iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>150</iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>
<iInflationPercent>18</iInflationPercent>
<iInflationOffset>-150</iInflationOffset>

Woah! look at all that jibberish! . Seriously though, it's simple - if you look at the top it says "<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC</Description>" which means epic, it's the one we want to edit. None of this needs to make sense to you really if all you want to do is just increase the research cost and nothing else. So... look to the next quote to see what we've got.

<Type>GAMESPEED_NORMAL</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_NORMAL</Description>
<Help>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_NORMAL_HELP</Help>
<iGrowthPercent>100</iGrowthPercent>
<iTrainPercent>100</iTrainPercent>
<iConstructPercent>100</iConstructPercent>
<iCreatePercent>100</iCreatePercent>
<iResearchPercent>100</iResearchPercent>
<iBuildPercent>100</iBuildPercent>
<iImprovementPercent>100</iImprovementPercent>
<iGreatPeoplePercent>100</iGreatPeoplePercent>
<iCulturePercent>100</iCulturePercent>
<iAnarchyPercent>100</iAnarchyPercent>
<iBarbPercent>100</iBarbPercent>
<iFeatureProductionPercent>100</iFeatureProductionPercent>
<iUnitDiscoverPercent>100</iUnitDiscoverPercent>
<iUnitHurryPercent>100</iUnitHurryPercent>
<iUnitTradePercent>100</iUnitTradePercent>
<iUnitGreatWorkPercent>100</iUnitGreatWorkPercent>
<iGoldenAgePercent>100</iGoldenAgePercent>
<iHurryPercent>100</iHurryPercent>
<iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>100</iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>
<iInflationPercent>27</iInflationPercent>
<iInflationOffset>-100</iInflationOffset>

Here we have the normal speed settings, all the info that is coded to get you what you want in the normal game. Notice - everything is set at 100 (xcept inflation), as in 100 percent, i.e. the normal rate, you can confirm this by scrolling lower to the fast game style and you see all the values have decreased again. Anyway, this is what we needed to know, just what makes a normal game normal. So what it looks like you'll need to do, scroll back up to the Epic style section and manually change all the values to 100 EXCEPT the research value.

this is the research value of an epic game - <iResearchPercent>150</iResearchPercent>

That's what you want. So actually, I've already done it myself, and here's what you should end up with:

<Type>GAMESPEED_EPIC</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC</Description>
<Help>TXT_KEY_GAMESPEED_EPIC_HELP</Help>
<iGrowthPercent>100</iGrowthPercent>
<iTrainPercent>100</iTrainPercent>
<iConstructPercent>100</iConstructPercent>
<iCreatePercent>100</iCreatePercent>
<iResearchPercent>150</iResearchPercent>
<iBuildPercent>100</iBuildPercent>
<iImprovementPercent>100</iImprovementPercent>
<iGreatPeoplePercent>100</iGreatPeoplePercent>
<iCulturePercent>100</iCulturePercent>
<iAnarchyPercent>100</iAnarchyPercent>
<iBarbPercent>100</iBarbPercent>
<iFeatureProductionPercent>100</iFeatureProductionPercent>
<iUnitDiscoverPercent>100</iUnitDiscoverPercent>
<iUnitHurryPercent>100</iUnitHurryPercent>
<iUnitTradePercent>100</iUnitTradePercent>
<iUnitGreatWorkPercent>100</iUnitGreatWorkPercent>
<iGoldenAgePercent>100</iGoldenAgePercent>
<iHurryPercent>100</iHurryPercent>
<iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>100</iHurryConscriptAngerPercent>
<iInflationPercent>27</iInflationPercent>
<iInflationOffset>-100</iInflationOffset>
<GameTurnInfos>

It's tried and true folks, I've already tested it and it works, all production speeds and worker speeds are the same and technology is slower to learn. Obviously I this shouldn't be the only way we should have to do this if we want a slow game, but hey, atleast it isn't as hard as it really looks.

Lastly, you can use all sorts of values in when editing these files to COMPLETELY customize your gameplay, even how many years go by in a turn. Just by simply editing the # value.

Although you might want to save an extra copy of the original just incase, I always do.

Anyway - Hoped this helped!

 

[MeteorPunch]

Too many different military units types. In Civ 3 this was streamlined. Here you can have several increments of units power and they go obsolete too fast. upgrading is too expensive.

War is toned down, which was the funnest part of civ for me. Take a look at the civics and the ones that are war related have the highest upkeep. This may be realistic, but other civics that should have high upkeeps and other penalties simply don't.

Totally screwed up the civilopedia. I'm perplexed that the beta-testers on this site and other reviewers haven't said anything negative to Firaxis about this - that's their job.

Cities have to be built at least 3 tiles apart from each other. Nice way to get rid of ICS.

Marketplaces come too late in the tech tree. This is *the* build improvement to allow you to have and support a larger empire without going bankrupt, yet it innacurately doesn't arrive until the mid/end Medieval Age.

The Icons! Why? Can we we not read? They don't even look good.

The city screen got worse for the first time in Civ history.

The graphics suck. But this is true in all civ games.

Don't like the whole "Religion" concept taking over. Personal preference I guess.

My mine gripe is that you have a monopoly on an excellent concept such as Civ, and yet don't take the effort to give it what it deserves. $$$...

On a positive note, some of these can be fixed. Also, the best improvement of Civ 4 is that all production and science that would have been wasted in Civ 3 contributes towards the next project.

I'm glad so many people enjoy it,and maybe I can lower some expectations so they'll like it even more, but to me it just feels like a rushed product. I can't see myself playing this for more than a couple months at most.

 

[King Jason]

Also, to let people get a feel for the tech increase, I started two games as the greeks, both in the same location (preloaded map) and the one with the normal research value made sailing for example, 11 turns, where as in the epic style it was 17.

You can experiment with different values to get the tech speed you want. To encourage longer use of X- age military units, i might actually up my speed to 200 rather than the epic 150.

This way, the times wont fly past as your doing everything else, for example several complaints have been scenarios like this;

you build up your army of X unit to attack, but by the time your ready it's already obsolete. OR, you already have the most advanced techs over all other civs, but by the time you finally reach them and start fighting, they've already discovered the tech you have and can opose you.

this definately eliminates that aspect.

again I wish all that are gonna try this good luck, and I'll stick around for a bit if you guys have questions.

 

[ThERat]

I can't see myself playing this for more than a couple months at most.

this coming from you sounds scary, really.
MP, tell me something about the AI, do they give you a proper challenge due to intelligent behaviour? Do they ever use those culture bombs etc?

Reading your comments, I fear I would have the same reservations....

 

[move_quietly]

that i couldn't play the game i found somewhat discouraging that's the only thing i have seen wrong with it so far lol

 

[MeteorPunch]

this coming from you sounds scary, really.
MP, tell me something about the AI, do they give you a proper challenge due to intelligent behaviour? Do they ever use those culture bombs etc?

Reading your comments, I fear I would have the same reservations....

Good, just lowering your expectations so you'll love it more. Seriously though, I got bored of 3 and with 4 not seeming to be as great as I expected the boredoms will carry over.

But about your post, videogames are just programmed to follow patterns and once someone figures them out, then we exploit those patterns. I think it may be years (just like Civ 3) until some things are uncovered. I was expecting Civ 4 AI leaders to be more personable - Ghandi is peaceful Ghandi, Mongols are viscious, etc., but again, they have no descernable personalities and I think it is just a matter of appeasing them through the game mechanics. I was expecting a lot more with this game, but it is just a facelift on the civ series.

 

[ThERat]

But about your post, videogames are just programmed to follow patterns and once someone figures them out, then we exploit those patterns.

maybe I should do what I did with Civ3 and C3C. i did not read any exploits and tips for around 2 years. Once we start all the SG's here, we will kill our fun too fast, maybe. Compounded learning isn't too good maybe. I thought Soren really tweaked the AI.

I read Sullla's walkthrough and the their first SG, and I get a feeling the AI is too weak, no challenge at all, very very boring. I mean, Sullla/Sirian are basically steamrolling the AI, not the fun I was looking for.

 

[JavalTigar]

And ravinhood gives the horse another whack.......

We get IT! you think its boring, so stop boring me, sell your copy on ebay & go to the C3C forums.

 

[massemo]

The whole damn game design is bad to me, most boring CIV I've ever played and I have them all even CIV-NET. I'd like to do more than press the end turn button.

EXACTLY!!!

 

[MeteorPunch]

maybe I should do what I did with Civ3 and C3C. i did not read any exploits and tips for around 2 years. Once we start all the SG's here, we will kill our fun too fast, maybe. Compounded learning isn't too good maybe. I thought Soren really tweaked the AI.

I read Sullla's walkthrough and the their first SG, and I get a feeling the AI is too weak, no challenge at all, very very boring. I mean, Sullla/Sirian are basically steamrolling the AI, not the fun I was looking for.

Yep - I'm avoiding their game because of spoilers. However I think some cool things could be learned too. I really want to learn about military so I can do that on the higher levels. I think it got weakened, so any tips here would be cool.

 

[massemo]

I gotta agree with most of your guys' complaints.

Plus I think they tried to get too fancy with the interface. It was fine before. There was no need to modernize it and make it confusing, time consuming, and jumbled full of clutter. And yes, some of the advisor screens are now pointless.

I actually find the interface in Civ III WAY more "modern".

 

[massemo]

Some of you guys seems like you've been playing Civ III for so long that your mind is still stuck in it. Civ IV isn't Civ III with better graphics. It's a completely different ball-game and I think some of you need to give it more than a day's worth of play before writing it off.

I agree the Civlipedia is a bit of a mess and the advisors need some work, but the game is as solid as I could have asked for. It's the most 'fun' Civ yet.

WRONG. Civ IV just plain sucks.