Thoughts on CivRev for iOS

malitano

Warlord
Joined
Jun 12, 2008
Messages
130
I am going on a super long flight next month and was thinking about purchasing civ rev for my iphone. My laptop will not last very long running civ5. Any thoughts if it civ rev for iOS is worth it?

My interests are the following:

average length of each game
difficulty
will it drain my iphone4 battery too fast
is it fun
is it too buggy
can i run it off-line

Thanks!
 
Civilization: Revolution is a terrific game. As a Civ player since Civ1, CivRev is actually my favorite game of the series. I can't say enough positive about it. I've been playing the Nintendo DS version, which I much prefer to the 10 min. or so Ive played on the PS3. I think it's visually beautiful and equally engrossing as the main-series Civ's.

And I recently acquired an iPhone -- I went with it instead of Android (despite my love of Google and hatred of Apple) for the single reason of getting Civ Rev on the go (er, more... the go... than I did on the DS?)

And I'm sorely disappointed. The visuals are somewhat ugly, the controls are more difficult (this one might be subjective; I only used the control pad on the DS, rather than the stylus), the map is just a tad too zoomed in. But... what else was I going to say? Actually, other than that, it's pretty much still a great game. I just place a very high premium on appearance (not graphics; I don't mind graphics on the level of Civ1, as long as they're not ugly, as in CivNet), because I find it difficult to be immersed in the game otherwise. And while CivRev iOS fails in this respect, that is a subjective failing, and it's a solid game otherwise.

Your other points:
* Difficult - Ranges from super easy to moderate-hard. I play on medium difficulty, and it's really fun.
* Battery - It's nothing terrible, as far as I've noticed.
* Buggy - Here it has the advantage of being the youngest member of the family. All the bugs were pretty much worked out by patches for the PS3 and Xbox (but not the DS -- sniff), and the iOS version came out after those. No bugs at all that I've found.
* Online/Offline - It will not make use of the internet in any way -- except for trying to access the manual, which is online. My iPhone is usually running offline.

I hope this helps. It's such a great, great game. And the DS version is so much better than the others. And that's totally my opinion.
 
Thanks for your input! its too bad that the iOS version is zoomed in too much like you mentioned but if it is still a decent civ game comparable to civ1 i will get it.
 
The iPod 2 version sorts out the scale issues and is very nice. We will see if it lasts 10 hrs on an upcoming flight from London to Auckland (23 hrs). Hopefully I can recharge in LA.

Only 'bug' so far is at times I can't manually rearrange the workers in some cities. Also no explanation as to what the different worker configs means in the blue box - I can do nothing with them. Early days yet so maybe I'm missing something - still to scan the rest of this site.

Do we need a separate iPhone / iPad forum ?
 
I have the "demo" version in an Ipod Touch and I also think that is a very funny game, excelente to play "on the go". Maybe the visuals are not well worked (I think that the Ipod Touch or Iphone is capable to manage better graphics), but anyway that does not affect the play experience.

I do not complain about the "simplicity", because that is actually what one seeks in a game that you will play in a trip, waiting room, etc, I think that I will finally buy it.
 
The iPod 2 version sorts out the scale issues and is very nice. We will see if it lasts 10 hrs on an upcoming flight from London to Auckland (23 hrs). Hopefully I can recharge in LA.

Only 'bug' so far is at times I can't manually rearrange the workers in some cities. Also no explanation as to what the different worker configs means in the blue box - I can do nothing with them. Early days yet so maybe I'm missing something - still to scan the rest of this site.

Do we need a separate iPhone / iPad forum ?

If I understand you right, those blue boxes on the left only apply once all of your city spaces are already being used. This is where the extra population go.
 
Thanks for your input! its too bad that the iOS version is zoomed in too much like you mentioned but if it is still a decent civ game comparable to civ1 i will get it.

Too zoomed in? Perhaps I didn't understand the context, but you can decide the level of zooming the same way most iPhone apps do: slide two fingers apart, and it'll zoom in; the opposite movement will zoom out.

Personally, I'm a great lover of CivRev for iPhone. And I've played every single Civ since Civ1. The three things I don't like is that you can't disband units; that there is a civilization (the Romans) that are far superior in mid- to long games (I prefer those to blitz ones); and finally that there's a strategy that usually always leads to a win.

The strategy in question relies on following three basic rules:
1) Get Feudalism as soon as you can, since the Cataphract unit is far superior to any other one in the game until the modern ages, and the AI for some reason doesn't prioritize it, so militarily you have an edge;
2) Colonize quickly, and densely. Don't give any credit to what your counselor says: build a city every two squares, and get a courthouse in each one as soon as you can; and, finally,
3) Develop the Oracle of Delphi: it's an invaluable monument, it'll tell you with a more or less 80% accuracy the outcome of a combat. This third one is optional, and can be impossible if the Egyptians are in play (since they start with a monument of their own...).

Hope it helps!
 
I get the "too zoomed" in thing. I find it much harder to browse the map on the iPhone vs. PS3 and hence I never feel as connected to the game world. I haven't tried the iPad version, though.
 
How do you guys like the latest update? I like how there are more options in the scenario generator, however I feel that it still misses some of the most important options for making the game more challenging. For instance, it would be great if you could have other civs start with a tech advantage or more money than you or something. Options are there but nothing that puts you at a disadvantage. The game is generally still too easy on deity and they failed to provide a real challenge unless you simply make a decision to limit yourself in certain ways in-game. Maybe there will be yet another update? It could really give the game legs for more experienced players.
 
How about this latest update?

v2.3.0

What's new

- 10 All new Scenarios for new challenges
- The Units woke up! (New Animated Units)
- Can you conquer the Game Center Victory Point Leaderboard?
- New Achievements added to show off your Leaderboard prowess.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
 
Liked this but the biggest drawback is that you can't see the battle odds before attacking like you can on the Xbox/PS version - or have they "fixed" this yet? It wasn't in the DS version either.
 
My first post in this forum, but I have to vent somewhere.

I've been a Civ fan since Civ II. I installed CivRev on the iPad about a month ago and really appreciate the fact that the basic game (play/structure/principles) is consistent with other Civs. Like any other Civ, it has taken over my life while I explore. And it's great that I can take it with me anywhere I go. I think they did a good job with simplifying while still preserving what makes the game fun.

But I do have some issues. My primary one being reporting sucks! I can't tell what's already built in a city. For example, Egypt starts with a free ancient Wonder but I have no idea what Wonder it is as there's no listing of buildings in the city screen...I basically have to figure it out through trial and error which wonder it is (OK, if I can change governments at the beginning of the game, I must have gotten the Pyramids).

Also, no military reports or economic reports (which I find really valuable in playing other Civ4/5). No diplomacy report (so I have to manually keep track of who is at war with whom...in fact, there are times I forget who I'm at war with and have to do something stupid like route a unit into territory to see if it can go or not).

My other dissatisfaction is with random map builds (which I had read somewhere isn't really random). No big continents...nearly the entire world can be explored by boat...puts a lot more importance on naval technology than before. I know there's a certain amount that you can do in the scenario generator, but I don't want to have to use the generator everytime I play...random should be random.
 
I just got CivRev for my iPhone and fired it up last night. I felt like a newbie even though I am a long time/good civ player. Do the strategies listed in the Strategy section apply to the iPhone version as well?
 
I just got CivRev for my iPhone and fired it up last night. I felt like a newbie even though I am a long time/good civ player. Do the strategies listed in the Strategy section apply to the iPhone version as well?

They should as Civilization Revolution has been the EXACT same game across all systems over all of these years. Sure the UI changes to adapt to its host device and I think we iOSers may have gotten a few bonus scenarios never included in the other releases, but the innards are identical (AI scripting and gameplay mechanics).
 
I just got CivRev for my iPhone and fired it up last night. I felt like a newbie even though I am a long time/good civ player. Do the strategies listed in the Strategy section apply to the iPhone version as well?

I can't remember if you can sell off units for extra gold in the iOS version, but otherwise it's the exact same game and the vast majority of strategies will thus carry over.
 
I can't remember if you can sell off units for extra gold in the iOS version, but otherwise it's the exact same game and the vast majority of strategies will thus carry over.

I think they left that function out in the iOS feature which is complete BS. :cry:
 
I think they left that function out in the iOS feature which is complete BS. :cry:

They left it out of the DS version, I know that much for sure. Honestly, it's an easy feature to miss even in the PS3/XBox versions since they assigned it to one of the thumb sticks and never really mention it. :/
 
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