What DO you like about Civ 4?

[Aussie_Lurker]

@North King

What You See is What You Get. That is, you can see what you have built in your city FROM the main map-as well as its current SIZE (Population) and-I assume-its state of health and happiness. This means that players no longer need to go into a seperate city screen to know what is going on within their nation-they need only look at the main map. As far as I know, though, a seperate city screen WILL still exist, but you will only need it for emergency situations. This is gonna reduce Micromanagement quite a bit, IMO.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[North King]

oh. Indeed, that is one good feature. I'm up to three now.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

What, don't you like AI personalities, the ability to trade ALL resources, City Health eliminating the or the unit promotion system? I reckon they will all be supremely cool, and thats even without the full info.
What I do find funny, though, is that every time a new version of civ comes out, people complain bitterly how its 'not as good as the last version'. Then, people grow to LOVE the new version, to the point where they don't play the old version any more but, then when another NEW version comes out, many of the same people complain about how THIS version is 'not as good as the last version' . I say, give it a chance, and you will probably grow to love civ4 even MORE than civ2.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[North King]

What, don't you like AI personalities,

Decent, but liable to be poorly implemented and not give them near the intended depth.

the ability to trade ALL resources,

Same resource trading model... same trading model=boring.

City Health eliminating the

It's better, but unless they give real epidemics, health will be poorly implemented, too.

or the unit promotion system?

Interesting, but it looks to be poorly handled.

What I do find funny, though, is that every time a new version of civ comes out, people complain bitterly how its 'not as good as the last version'. Then, people grow to LOVE the new version, to the point where they don't play the old version any more but, then when another NEW version comes out, many of the same people complain about how THIS version is 'not as good as the last version' . I say, give it a chance, and you will probably grow to love civ4 even MORE than civ2.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I'm going to wait until other people release reviews of this game, THEN decide to buy. Make more sense?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You seem unduly negative North King, especially given that we don't KNOW how the resource system is being handled-yet. I am hoping that the size of your nation-and the number of units it builds-will have a very distinctive effect on how likely your resources are to disappear (though I would like it more if resource 'sizes' are in as well). This would make the economic side of the game more interesting as well as helping to curb the Snowball Effect.
Anyway, we hear today that a group of 'hard-core' civ fans will be play-testing the game over the next few months. So here's hoping that they will pass on any feelings of GENUINE disappointment, that the civ community feels, on to the game's developers!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[GoodGame]

Broad direct modding, rather than fiddling with an editor, will be cool (still like the editor for some things, but direct programming will be way more power over game-play, scripting, etc...).

The civics model looks like it's worth a try if it's done with attention to detail and zero redundancy.

The tech tree is a little vague, but already sounds better than CIV3. Adding at least OR's will be good. 'Surfing' in any direction from a known tech would be be better.

World view graphics is a suitably cool upgrade for a new edition. Not really necessary, since I'd be happy with Snoopy graphics. Gameplay is about 50x more important than graphics.

Multiple leaders sounds mostly better than good. Ditto the Religion system. Ditto improving the international politicss

 

[GoodGame]

And a tile-based economics-infastructure system sounds cool too.

 

[oldStatesman]

I like the potential of the new graphics engine. Not thrilled about the graphics being shown yet - but it is still Alpha stage. (BTW, please don't tell me to mod them - I have no graphics skill or talent and anyway feel that if I pay $50 for a game it should be at least a minimum quality and playable as is out of the box. )

I like the civics concept very much.

I like that they are concentrating on improving the AI.

I like the 'open' tech tree.

I too will not buy the game right away - I will wait until I read some real player reviews and probably the first patch release at least - I want to be able to pick the brains of the "expert" players when I play so they need time to figure things out... Plus I hate to learn to play a game with problems only to have to relearn it when they fix the issues. I remember running out and buying Harpoon2 when it first came out - the game was horribly buggy and unplayable. I only was able to play it 3 years later after the playing community was able to fix it. Never again.

 

[North King]

You seem unduly negative North King, especially given that we don't KNOW how the resource system is being handled-yet. I am hoping that the size of your nation-and the number of units it builds-will have a very distinctive effect on how likely your resources are to disappear (though I would like it more if resource 'sizes' are in as well). This would make the economic side of the game more interesting as well as helping to curb the Snowball Effect.
Anyway, we hear today that a group of 'hard-core' civ fans will be play-testing the game over the next few months. So here's hoping that they will pass on any feelings of GENUINE disappointment, that the civ community feels, on to the game's developers!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Here's hoping; but I doubt "hard core" gamers will care much for historical subtleties.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey look, I usually don't end up buying these games right away either-instead waiting to hear from the community-and reviewers-on how good or bad they think the game is. Part of that, though, is because it usually takes me that long to get my computer upgraded sufficiently to play it !
Oh, thats another good thing-no more waiting for ages between turns!!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yes, but I take 'hard core civ players' to be people from such communities as CFC and Apolyton-and you KNOW what a bunch of sticklers for details-both historical and gameplay-we lot are.... !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Nobody]

i Like the game (everything in civ3, civ2 and civ) Plus the new things i think are cool are:

tradeing units, this combinded with some other things will be awesome
coning nations to fight each other
forcing peace upon two partys
civics and the ability to force them on other civs

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Actually, we don't know that unit trading exists beyond the alliance-style MP game. That said, though, I would be GREATLY suprised if it was in MP but NOT SP. Also, given that it IS in MP, then it should not be too hard to add it into the SP game via the editor.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[sgrig]

The best things I like about Civ4 right now are

*Fantastic moddability
*Continuous zoom
*Civics
*More terrain improvements (wineries, windmills etc)

That's the only things so far about which we have quite a lot information and with which I'm completely happy. Hopefully this list will grow as we get more information.

 

[stormbind]

I like...

1. It contains some of the ideas I have been posting in Civ4 suggestions
2. It offers hope for escape from slow Civ3 AI movement

This better have multiplayer as standard. I bought Civ3 because my older versions could not multiplay and... it did not tackle the problem!

I never bought C3C because the game wasn't worth paying for twice.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

One thing I HAVEN'T mentioned yet-like OR dislike-is the combat, diplomacy and trade systems. However, the fact that you can now try and make peace between two civs, or even cause war between them, suggests that they have listened to us to some degree on the whole 'Puppet Master' business. This will be even MORE so if Unit trading is also in the game!! (Actually, on unit trades, they said they took it out because of AI exploits. However, if we have AI 'personalities' now-and a better AI overall-then this exploit factor should be far less of a factor). Anyway, needless to say that I will love diplomacy even MORE if they have better alliances and MPP's, Protectorates, and unit trading.
As for trade, I LOVE the fact that you can trade ALL resources now, though I really REALLY hope you can trade 'food' and 'hammers'-both internally and between nations. The fact that you can see 'the particulars' of your trade network also suggests visible trade routes which-in turn-suggests the possibility of REAL piracy and embargoes. Again, I wait with baited breath !
Lastly, on combat, I do love the multi-figure units-as it will increase the immersive nature of the game for me. However, I still wait eagerly to hear how stack combat will be handled-if at all!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Here, here. These are two elements I found sorely lacking in CivIII... well, not so much sorely, but I will enjoy their addition.

Hopefully, since everything is tradable, we can also trade food and shields throughout our empire. I'd love to be able to found a city on floodplain like terrain and have it ship food up to a city in the hills and mountains, that could then become a production powerhouse, because now it could actually work all the tiles in it's radius. Hey, we ship food from California all over the US, why shouldn't my civ do the same? Or, on the flip side, I have city that's built all the improvements I need it to build and I don't need more units. In Civ III what I was reduced to was building units and sending them to other cities to disband them (which I didn't like, because except for the tanks, I hated pushing the button and seeing my unit cry out in pain). Why not just send the shields directly to those cities? Civ IV gives me hope that this will be a real possibility.

The other element is the cooperative negotiation. I remember one game that I was trying to win through UN victory on an island map. As such, I was protecting a couple civs from invasion and being nice to them so that they would vote for me. We all had MPPs. Unfortunately, this meant whenever one of us would make peace with the offending civs (I think it was most often Japan and I against Eqypt), they would be pulled right back into war the next turn when Eqypt attacked me or Japan. I eventually cancelled the pact and negotiated peace with Eqypt, just so Japan could do so as well, but not before getting royally whooped on one island. Why couldn't Japan and I go see Egypt together and hammer out two peace treaties at once? Again, Civ IV seems like it will put this baby to rest as well as open up a whole new dimension to the game.

 

[Brain]

Why not just send the shields directly to those cities?

Because it would remove a significant strategic element from the game. One of the reasons why Civ is not like any other game is that you can't just accumulate huge amounts of whatever resource and do whatever you want with it. You need to manage production individually in every city.

 

[oldStatesman]

Because it would remove a significant strategic element from the game. One of the reasons why Civ is not like any other game is that you can't just accumulate huge amounts of whatever resource and do whatever you want with it. You need to manage production individually in every city.

But you can do that now - tediously. Create a 'unit' factory that builds nothing but units every turn or two that you then have to manually move to another city to dispand to create shields to build something else in that city. Why not automate and simplify this - it will open up a whole new set of strategic choices - now you will have the ability to actually manage an empire's production capacity on a grand scale - not just mm 50 or more individual stand alone cities.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

Exaaaaactly.

After all, I doubt all the parts for US spaceships (or even one section of our spaceship) come from Florida.

But I do agree with Brain's underlying concern that this will remove complexity from the game. To avoid this, some restrictions should be applied.

1) The shields do not go into some "empire" pool of resources. They have to be sent from a specific city to another city.

2) Movement of shields should be consistent with the movement the civ can expect to experience. 1 movement if the civ does not have horses, 2 if the civ does have horses, 3 if the civ has motorized transport. Roads and rails between the cities should be used as usual to achieve optimal movement. So, if two cities are railroaded, the shields would get there that same turn. If the two cities are separated by an unroaded mountain range, it'll take a few turns.

3) There should be some loss of production. Similar to the fact that a disbanded unit does not convert all it's shields to the new production, the production of one city should not just be added to the recipient city. There should be some loss, due to breakage in transit, transit costs, etc.

4) No stockpiling from turn to turn. The shields (or hammers or whatever) go directly into the city production box. I like the idea (mentioned elsewhere) of having carry-over from one project to the next, so the shield could live on that way, but the shields can't just sit, unused, for multiple turns. They either go to a city's production box or they don't go at all.

That, I think, would allow for the empire view rather than the city view that oldStatesman was talking about.

 

[Portuguese]

Several things:
1 - No more 2D: welcome 3D (and my new comp...)
2 - No more green bars that wouldn't "fit" in the rest of the map: welcome multi-units
3 - Good Civ's choice (although no Port )
4 - New Mod abbilities (Hello Civvers who know how to mod that stuff)
5 - Hello Religion!
6 - Yeah, civics is quite cool
7 - More Diplo choices, much more!
8 - Experience really needed to have more diversity
9 - No more :tank: