They sold an unfinished game. :(

[Urederra]

As for the number of naval vessels, it's the exact same as Civ3, except with no Aegis Cruiser or Nuclear Submarine.

That's funny.

The Great Wall is once again coming in Warlords.

That is exactly my point. They left it out for Warlords. Maybe my post #17 is a bit clearer than my opening post.

 

[marioflag]

Personally i find that the OP is right in all points.
The game has been launched unfinished because T2 and firaxis wanted to make more money so the game was launched while it wasn't ready without any respect for customers.About gameplay the OP is also right naval warfare really needs a big improvement there are only a few units and often it becomes boring.About air warfare i agree that it is dumbed down but at least it is functional anyway it should be improved.I would add also that espionage has been dumbed down and a lot of missions aren't in the game.
I agree also that warfare importance has been decreased since CIV3 it's not only a problem of wonders but also of number of units.In this context the modern era has been the most damaged infact a lot of units have been cut out of the game.
Finishing i must add that while it's unfinished the game is really enjoyable so i have seen worst things.

 

[Quan Yu]

one thing that has never made sense to me is the trading in this game..you have many units that have the same properties...wheat and corn for example..and a rival civ comes to you and wants to trade them..i thought ..oh what the heck..so i did the trade and then 3 civs immediately declared war on me because 'i had traded with their worst enemy"...sadly i got no benefit whatsoever out of this that i was able to see. the lesson? its dumb to do this trade with the comp..

but it could be made useful. what if the more different kinds of resources you have the more your trade and health increase? "balanced diet or ability to make alloys" or if you have say more than one kind of resource than all your opponents combined their trade is reduced "monopoly".

well thats my spin on it
quan yu
master of the black dragon
god of war

 

[Xanikk999]

You are obviously lying or exagerrating. 3 civs arent going to declare war on you at once for just trading with thier worst enemy.

 

[MrCynical]

one thing that has never made sense to me is the trading in this game..you have many units that have the same properties...wheat and corn for example..and a rival civ comes to you and wants to trade them

It makes perfect sense. If a Civ has wheat it gets one point of health bonus, regardless of how many wheat it has. If it has corn it gets one health bonus. With both of them it gets two points of health bonus. Therefore if what has loads of wheat and another has loads of corn, both are better off trading corn and wheat. You're incredibly unlucky, or already in dire straits diplomatically if one deal, no matter how bad an enemy of the other civs your trading partner is, will start three wars.

but it could be made useful. what if the more different kinds of resources you have the more your trade and health increase?

This is exactly how it works.

 

[member66170]

Combat has been dumbed down? Are you a complete idiot? The changes made in combat since civ 3 are:
1) No more hit points, replaced with (almost) continual health
2) Removed attack/defence system
3) added rock-paper-scissors combat system
4) added promotions and experience

Domination is actually one of the easiest victories to achieve. Many players have won that way before 1500 on a large map. Thats almost impossible for cultural or diplomatic.

Armies in Civ 3 where stupid. They had no real purpose apart from creating 1 super unit. Also, the AI had no idea on how to use it.

Naval combat has not improved as much as land combat but is still light years ahead of civ 3. Are you complaining about the removal of units like the cruiser/AEGIS cruiser? Well dont, the promotion system lets you build those units. Do you want a light cruiser? Build a destroyer with combat upgrades, do you want a battle cruiser? Build a battleship with flank and navigation promotions. Promotions let you customise your units in game.

And if you want trebuchets, you can download them from this forum, fully animated and balanced. If firaxis/TT wanted to sell the expansion, why did they let us do things like that? Also your post about releasing the SDK afterwards made no sence at all. We got it for free right? How does getting it now rather than a month ago give any money to firaxis? For future reference, the SDK could only be released on a final version of the game, as any patches would change the game code and, therefore, the SDK it self.

 

[Armorydave]

Fortunately, I got one of the completed versions and have found it quite enjoyable.

Agree with Lord Olleus across the board.

 

[King Flevance]

I Dumbed down is not a good description of the combat. Maybe the AI using its units has been dumbed down. I can see navy as being dumbed down as I feel navy was just put in to be there. I dont see how it can be percieved as light years ahead of 3. Here and there I have used navy ships. only to guard transports though in every case in which I am guarding my land units is all.

Promotions are not complicated though. Yes, they are neat. But certainly not complicated. I know what promotion every unit is getting before they get it. GO full rock, full paper, or full scissors is the best way. No reason to have a 1/3 rock, paper, and scissors as that will result in a dead unit because of worthless promotions.

One thing I think was bad to take out was colonies. I dont know how many times I have been 8 cities sites away from copper. I would love to be able to walk a worker over there, have him build a 1x1 tile colony with no maintenance and conect a road. if they made coloies only cost 1/2 maintenance from capitol distance or maybe 1/3-1/4 they would be worthwhile. If culture borders over take a colony, the civ owning the culture takes over the colony (mine/farm/quarry/etc) You could also have civs you have colonies by take any colonies close to them into account. This COULD result in the AI seeing copper that is close to you and rushing to put a colony on it before you. Colonies on these smaller maps (even huge is fairly small) would instigate more war possibly.

Diplomacy is good. I am still impressed with all the changes made to it. Honestly, it alone makes me enjoy my games of Civ 4. Without diplomacy as good as it is, I would not even bother with Civ 4.

Great people are cool but I fail to see how they overlooked not having a military Great Person. Again I think it was because they hadn't gotten to it yet when T2 said "RELEASE! RELEASE! RELEASE!" I think alot of warlords is what ideas they still had on paper when T2 was on their tails to release. I think all of it was wanted into v1.00 but they werent allowed to keep at it. Any additional expansions after warlords will be an actual expansion IMO. I think Civ vanilla was released and warlord is the "now we can finish it since there is no more time table." Warlords will no doubtedly be alot better release than v1.00. It's easier to focus on completeing everything you want when someone isn't hounding you to "HURRY! RELEASE IS NEXT MONTH!" I have no doubt that Warlords will not even need a patch to fix any technical issues right off the bat. Even if it does the problems will be sizably smaller than the initial release of 4.

That being said, I again repeat T2 will not get full price out of me because I paid too much for half a game as it is. Anyone holding out for the double pack will get the "real price" of Civ 4. If you havent bought it yet, wait for a double pack to come out. The game will be good, the price will be fair.

 

[The Great Apple]

...
So, remove great leaders (I presume they are difficult to program even with the SKD available)...

Actaully great military leaders are easy. There have been great leader mods around since before 1.52 was out, let alone the SDK. If you think this sort of thing is hard then you have seriously underestimated how much Civ 4 can be modded.

As far as I am aware the only hard-cap that has really been run into is the 18 civ limit. As far as I am aware nobody has attempted to mod something yet and found it impossible, apart from that.

 

[Smidlee]

id=6148499]gamespot:[/url]



Bolding is mine. So, in my opinion, they sold an unfinished game. It is true that you can enjoy the game, have some cultural, space race or even domination victories, but, compared to the other iterations of the series, the game is not completed. It will be when they release Warlords.

Brad at the Galciv2 forum noted anytime you added more to a game even with a patch there will be people claiming "it was shipped unfinished." Also Brad mention of plans for expansion with Galciv2 (including multiplayer is there enough demand) but this doesn't mean the game was shipped unfinished.

This is more likely true with Firaxis. With the new engine they didn't wwant to added too much at one time for balanced and AI purposes. I hated how armies was made useful in Conquest but the AI didn't use them.To me It's just important to make sure the AI can use the extra units and features.
In the article he mentiion he added a lot in the expansion request by the fans.

 

[Gogf]

That's funny.

Now that I think about it, I was wrong. Privateers are gone too, but they were never really an important presence. The curragh and cruiser from Conquests have also been removed, but these were in reality add-ons in an expansion and not inclusions in the core game.

I love naval warfare and certainly wouldn't mind having them in the game (especially privateers for free-for all MP games), but I find the current system to be more than fine.

That is exactly my point. They left it out for Warlords. Maybe my post #17 is a bit clearer than my opening post.

No they didn't. They renamed it "Chichen Itza," presumably because of complaints over the Euro-centricism (meaning Old World- and North American-centricism). Just because they decided to add the Great Wall back into the game means that they intentionally left out a feature.

 

[Uniqueuponhim]

And conquering 2/3 of the world is easy in real life?

Well, I'd say it isn't any harder than oh, having the entire world unite behind you as supreme leader, building a spaceship to send to Alpha Centauri by 2050, or having such an amazing culture that the entire world envies you. None of these are any more realistic in real life than conquering 2/3 of the world.

Trebuchets are known to be coming in Warlords. They weren't included in the original versions of Civ3 either.

The Great Wall is once again coming in Warlords. Chicken Itza is effectively a version of the Conquests Great Wall in Civ4, so it would really be hard to argue that that feature is missing.

You seem to have missed the OP's point: He is alleging that Firaxis intentionally didn't include things like this just so that they could put them in the expansion.

How is naval and air warfared dumbed down? The new combat system, along with various promotions and collateral damage makes it seem much more complicated to me.

Now you've really got to be kidding me. Come on, you have TWO types of airplanes in this game that you can't use in a realistic manner at all. In real life you would have Dive bombers, tactical bombers, strategic bombers, interceptors, escort fighters, multirole fighters, and air superiority fighters. In Civ you just have Fighters and Bombers, and you can't even use Fighters for anything except Intercepting. No Air General in history would send out a squadron of bombers without at least as many escort fighters covering their tails, yet in CIV you don't even have that option. Air superiority doesn't even exist in this game, since you can never attack an airplane, only ever defend against it.

The Naval combat system is almost as bad: All you have in CIV are transports, destroyers, subs, battleships and carriers. The game completely excludes all classes of cruisers. Furthermore, it doesn't take into account the complete obsolescence of battleships once Carriers began to emerge. In real life, you need a balanced fleet of Carriers, light cruisers, heavy cruisers and destroyers if you want to have any hope of winning a naval battle, yet in CIV all you need is a big stack of Battleships. Now how is that realistic? The primary function of Subs in real life - the disruption of transport lines - is non-existant in CIV, and in fact they are completely useless for anything except reconaissance. Realistically, a fleet of Battleships not protected by destroyers would be ripped apart by a wolfpack in moments, but in CIV no sub stands a chance against a Battleship unless it's already been severely wounded.

 

[Older than Dirt]

I emphatically disagree with the OP's belief that Domination victory is too hard. As an inverterate warmonger, I find that Domination Victory is far too easy. Cultural and Space victories are much more difficult; the take longer and the AI is much more capable of pursuing a Space Victory than it is any other. Diplomatic can usually be had by a warmonger just before obtaining Domination victory in my vast experience of playing the last 5 months.

Of course it was an unfinished game! It came out when? But, there is a tradition to follow - remember Civ 3? Being old, I knew not to buy Civ 4 until at least the first patch came out. We Civ 4 addicts will buy any Civ product. We are hopeless.

 

[Figaro]

Domination and Conquest victories may be harder than the others to win, but, you get a much higher score when you do, so it balances out. I do think there are some siege weapons missing (also cannons come in way too late. Cannons were the FIRST use of gunpowder, not the last) and some of the ships too, but I don't think the warlike game is much different than in previous games. The combat system is much better than ever before, and I really love the XP system.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

To the OP

"A game is never finished, only published"
-I forget who

This can be seen by the continual mod ideas that appear,
The fact is the designers have new changes they want to make to the game and would NEVER stop doing that, which would a lot of fun for them, but WE would never get to play this great game they never release.

I do agree that the Cannons should be revised (probably a new 'Siege gun' with gunpowder and engineering...7 strength, -20% to bombard (and move the Catapult back to -10% to bombard))

but they specifically Wanted to cut back on the warmongering (not well enough, I think)

Also Domination is not the hardest, it just involves the most activity (the most micromanagement on the part of the player)

 

[DarkOpus]

[...]
No they didn't. They renamed it "Chichen Itza," presumably because of complaints over the Euro-centricism (meaning Old World- and North American-centricism). Just because they decided to add the Great Wall back into the game means that they intentionally left out a feature.

I agree with your point that Chichen Itza performs the same functions - but the euro-centricism is a little off in this case. The Great Wall is in China, not, as I'm sure you'll agree, in Europe or North America.

 

[Yzen Danek]

I'll only address the one point I found most false in the original post.

Domination is in my opinion, far and away the easiest victory to assure, to a fault. I win all my games by domination. It's the only victory condition which you can plan reliably, and more importantly, it's the only victory condition that you can force early. On higher difficulty levels, the insane bonuses to research given to the AI make it nearly impossible to retain the technological lead in the late game required for a space win unless you outsize your rivals by a huge margin. Of course, if you outsize your rivals by a huge margin, you've already done most of the work for a domination win, and you might as well just finish it.

The chief reason domination is so easy to win is that it's the only winning strategy that positively reinforces itself. The harder you push technology, for example, the more expensive it becomes (since no one else has discovered those techs), and the less expensive it becomes for your rivals. In contrast, the more cities you take from your opponents, the weaker they become, making it easier to take more cities, and the stronger you become, enabling you to build larger armies in less time, enabling you to take more cities, and so on. Once I've taken out two or three of my lesser rivals, I'm unstoppable; the game is typically a forgone conclusion by the year 1000 AD (Emporer) or at worst 1500AD (Immortal). Many games are actually over by those dates.

 

[Urederra]

Combat has been dumbed down? Are you a complete idiot?

I am not an idiot. And you'd better watch out your language or I'll report it to the mods. And, by the way, I said naval and air combat, due to the lack of vessel options. So you should read better before replying in such a unpolite manner.

Domination is actually one of the easiest victories to achieve. Many players have won that way before 1500 on a large map. Thats almost impossible for cultural or diplomatic.

...and many players have achieved domination victory even before 500 AD in Civ III. Cultural victories weren't as easy in CIV III as they are in Civ IV. And the space race is the type of victory you seek when you see that the domination is not longer possible and your turns are running out. I haven't said anything about diplomatic victories, so, again, read better.

Armies in Civ 3 where stupid. They had no real purpose apart from creating 1 super unit. Also, the AI had no idea on how to use it.

But they are going to include Warlords in the expansion.

And if you want trebuchets, you can download them from this forum, fully animated and balanced.

Or I can make them myself, but then It would be to fulfill a necessity not covered in the vanilla version of the game.

If firaxis/TT wanted to sell the expansion, why did they let us do things like that?

Already explained.

Great people are cool but I fail to see how they overlooked not having a military Great Person. Again I think it was because they hadn't gotten to it yet when T2 said "RELEASE! RELEASE! RELEASE!"

Yeah, that was my first thought, maybe T2 pressed for release, but then you see what is included in warlords, and most of the things included are warfare improvements. And when I say most I don't mean all. In fact, the game has cultural, religious, economic, expansive, scientific and warfare aspects, and by the information we have so far, the side they are going to improve the most with the expansion is the warfare. My impression is that they did leave the warfare part of the game unfinished on purpose, rather than because of time constraints.

Firaxis introduced the religion, they improved the culture and now cultural victories are more feasible than in civ III, which is good, But after playing a while and having won some cultural, domination and space race games, the only type of victory you want to repeat is the domination one. And that is the side of the game that they left for improvement in the "expansion".

I think alot of warlords is what ideas they still had on paper when T2 was on their tails to release. I think all of it was wanted into v1.00 but they werent allowed to keep at it. Any additional expansions after warlords will be an actual expansion IMO. I think Civ vanilla was released and warlord is the "now we can finish it since there is no more time table." Warlords will no doubtedly be alot better release than v1.00. It's easier to focus on completeing everything you want when someone isn't hounding you to "HURRY! RELEASE IS NEXT MONTH!" I have no doubt that Warlords will not even need a patch to fix any technical issues right off the bat. Even if it does the problems will be sizably smaller than the initial release of 4.

So, basically seems to me that you think the game is not finished but was because of time constraints, rather that they purposedly left things out to be able to sell the expansion.

That being said, I again repeat T2 will not get full price out of me because I paid too much for half a game as it is. Anyone holding out for the double pack will get the "real price" of Civ 4. If you havent bought it yet, wait for a double pack to come out. The game will be good, the price will be fair.

Well said.

Actaully great military leaders are easy. There have been great leader mods around since before 1.52 was out, let alone the SDK. If you think this sort of thing is hard then you have seriously underestimated how much Civ 4 can be modded.

Nice to know that. Maybe it seems that I am saying the game is crap. That is not my intention. I am actually quite happy with it, so much that I haven't played with any mod so far. My complaint is that Firaxis intentionally left many warfare things out to be able to sell the expansion. And if great military leaders are so easy to program that you don't need the SDK, then the " we didn't include them due to lack of time" option is more difficult to believe.

 

[Urederra]

To the OP

"A game is never finished, only published"
-I forget who

OK, Maybe I shouldn't have typed "They sold an unfinished game" but rather "My impression is that Firaxis intentionally left out warfare improvements such as military great people in order to be able to sell a game in two installments" but unfortunately, that is a bit large for a title.

but they specifically Wanted to cut back on the warmongering (not well enough, I think)

Then, Why are they going to sell an "expansion" called warlords?

Also Domination is not the hardest, it just involves the most activity (the most micromanagement on the part of the player)

Well, it is a matter of opinion.

I emphatically disagree with the OP's belief that Domination victory is too hard. As an inverterate warmonger, I find that Domination Victory is far too easy. Cultural and Space victories are much more difficult; the take longer and the AI is much more capable of pursuing a Space Victory than it is any other. Diplomatic can usually be had by a warmonger just before obtaining Domination victory in my vast experience of playing the last 5 months.

OK, I shouldn't have said that. Domination victories are not the hardests, maybe more difficult than in Civ III? Anyway, it doesn't affect much to my final point. IMHO. There is a wise guy who started a poll or thread discussing that issue.

Of course it was an unfinished game! It came out when? But, there is a tradition to follow - remember Civ 3? Being old, I knew not to buy Civ 4 until at least the first patch came out. We Civ 4 addicts will buy any Civ product. We are hopeless.

Yes, we are.

 

[GrandMatt]

I do agree that things have intentionally been left out to enhance the sellability of the expansion

However, At the games current state it is fairly balanced play. I have only had one game where i have not gone to war out of like 70+ games. Warmongering is well built in the game! The expansion will only add on to a good game base.

The modding comunitty is not far behind firaxis, i already have seen Trebuchets and Military GP in mods

modders might even make the expansion obslete b4 it arrives...!