Will civ 4 be a good game.

[warpstorm]

BTW, those are not out of the box Civ3 graphics. Unless I'm mistaken, that is Sn00p's water and trees on the hills. The irrigation is also a fan mod (sorry, I don't remember who did them).

 

[SonicX]

I think you haven't looked closely at the Civ fan demographics. Males around 30 are the median, IIRC.

I meant adolescant and above ofcourse. I just wanted to point out that this large group of adolescant and adult males aren't the ones who usually like cartooney styles

 

[Raggamuffin]

I'm absolutely thrilled by the changes in AI, rules, gameplay ect etc. Hopefully it will work out great in reality as well. But since the playtesting seems to have been thourough I'm confident that it will.

Must say though that I'm a bit thoughtful about the graphics. The units are still a bit out of scale in their default setting and the general picture gives it a bland feel. The Civ 3 graphics were more colorful. Saying they are prettier though is rather ridiculous. Civ 4 is a vast improvement! After I had played Civ 3 I remember looking at Civ 2 and feeling it looked like hell.

Saying that graphics doesn't matter is something I can not understand, of course they matter! They give a game a certain atmosphere, a feel, makes it what it is.

 

[Commander Bello]

I don't mind about the graphics, as far as they don't concern the game.

As they do, yet, I very much dislike the decision to go 3D. Anyway, we will have to live with that.

OTOH, there are much information present which raise my doubts that Civ4 will become a "great" game.
Some of them have been stated already, as the "religious" thing.
Others are the trend to make it "easier" / "more accessable" by reducing turns, game length, number of units, size of maps etc etc.
Additionally, as expressed in another thread, I do think that we already face a wrong decision: collateral damage as being a measure against SOD's

Furthermore, information about certain aspects of the game are so low that I doubt that they are already finalised (think about trading,diplomacy and espionage). Since Civ4 is reported to being worked at since at least 18 months now, this seems to be very low.

So, at the moment I expect Civ4 to become mediocre.

 

[Chose]

Well, I hate to point out the obvious, but that close zoom level on the civ4 game is NOT what you're going to be looking at most of the time. Let's see what they look like at the zoom you WILL be playing at!

u say this is not what your going to be looking at it for most of the game maby i will be the zoomed every game i play. and u cant zoom in in civ 3 so both of those images r the MOSE ZOOMED u can have it.

Also the graphices look much better zoomed in or not.
http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=30&original=1&c=2

Aside from that, its not the terrain graphics etc ... its mostly just the leaderheads. Bobbleheads. Ugh.

im not shure if i know what guy(s) u r talking about with the bobbleheads. Could u poste a link or picture if im rong one what person ur talking about. if its the person with the cross in this picture
http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=40&original=1&c=2
then compare it to the other people they r the same size

EDIT ok i gess i agree with u on the boblehead of leaders

Not that I worry overmuch about graphics, its just that I don't understand why they (obviously) spent all that much time on them. Civ is badly in need of lots of work in other areas.

im glade ur not worrying over the graphics but
what areas do the game need work on its not even out yet??????????

 

[Black Flag]

Yeah, alright after looking at all the screens... I've realized I don't care about the graphics... the gameplay looks real promising!

 

[T100]

Chose: I think that he was talking about this Bobble Head
It really makes sense when you look at the videos.

 

[JtheJackal]

Luckily for us, graphic artists in most games (including Civ4) are going the creative route.

 

[frekk]

im glade ur not worrying over the graphics but
what areas do the game need work on its not even out yet??????????

I'd rather the developers devote more time to things like AI, better default ruleset, more features and more civs - rather than shallow things like graphics that are probably going to be replaced by modders anyway. The time, money, and imagination put into development of a game is limited, so if you spend alot of time on one feature it means others are not going to be as good as they could have been.

Also the graphices look much better zoomed in or not.

Even that's not the zoom you'll be playing at, unless you've only got one city. Gotta be able to see what the heck is going on without scrolling around all over the place all the time.

I figure this is the sort of zoom most ppl will be playing in most of the time:

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=33&c=2

Is it "better"? Dunno. The terrain looks awfully nice. But the cities look ugly as sin!

 

[SonicX]

They look ugly primarily because of the units on top ... they should just show a flag that means "fortified units inside" instead of showing a unit on top.
If that would be possible, it would look quite nice.

 

[HourlyDaily]

Bobbleheads - I think it is because they have thin little pencil necks and large bulbous heads.

 

[I am the Future]

It just seems like no dosnt it.

Will wait b4 I do anything drastic

 

[warpstorm]

Drastic? What's drastic about buying a new game? You make it sound like this is some urgent and life altering decision rather than just buying a computer game.

 

[Fredric Drum]

Good? Yes. Fantastic? Don't know.

 

[Phoenix_56721]

There is a revolution coming to the Civ. world its called Civ.4!! It will be the best selling Civ. made to date!! The decision to go 3d wasn’t just to improve the look of the game but also to improve the interface!! Now you can just roll your mouse around the world without have to right click to see terrain info. You won’t have to go to city view to see how things are doing, simply put your cursor over top of the city. You will be able to see what worker are doing (going in and out of mines) and you can zoom right down to see the battles as they unfold, the world will really come to life! It’s not all about 3d either they have added some great features, Civic options, Religion and so on. Its claims to be the most mod friendly strategy ever released, don’t like something just change it yourself! For the first time they focused on multiplayer opening up a whole new world for a lot a Civ. fans. All these features are going to bring in a lot of new people into this game, people with fresh idea’s and partnered with a very mod friendly game only great things can happen. Civ.4 will be Turn-Based Strategy Game of the Year, Age 3 will be overall Strategy game of the year, but Civ.4 will be up near the top! There is a revolution coming my friend, you can bank on it, Firaxis’s is!! I say its money in the bank!

 

[T100]

Just to add, I think that although the graphics do appear to be "colorful" which others call childish I think that to make things realistic lead games to be boring after a while. I understand that it is comparing apples and oranges but look at popular games such as Doom3, the textures were hyperrealistic and yet people complained because they were board of the same old thing over five hours of gameplay. Can you imagine looking at the same dull "realistic" civ screen for months of gameplay. Sure the few fanboys who read text books on the French ecomony in the 1500's might find it fine but for the "game" player, variety is the way to go.

Edit: Also if you are unhappy with the look of the game, change it but don't call Civ4 a bad game because the graphics are less then your par. Thats just ignorant.

 

[Coffeedragon]

At least they are going away from the simplistic 'Mine the Green, Water the Brown' style. There is too little to discover in CivIII, my greatest gripe with the current game. They are sure trying to add variety, many different terrain improvements, civics, promotions, religions, great people; basically good, but game will be hard too balance, perhaps they have gone over the top, maybe find it out when trying to make AI work, panic and cut all the features like with MOO3, who knows? It´s really too early to say anything definitive. I certainly remember, not much what they said early on about CIVIII was true: Promised: extremely moddable, and it was- after 2 expansions! Also promised: no more ICS; ICS is alive and well iIrc.

I believe this time they are serious about putting the brakes on expansionism. Basically good again, but again hope they haven´t gone over the top and imposed an enormous silly punishment tax for creating new cities. I´ll buy it anyway, but wouldn´t be surprised at all if two expansions and countless patches are again needed to remove crappiness and deliver a (half-way) finished product.

 

[Raggamuffin]

A game like this is extremely hard to balance. Even after one year and say 20-30 game balance testers you wouldn't be 100% sure of a well functioning game. What it needs is at least 2 years with thousands of dedicated gamers testing every flaw they can find. Remember that Firaxis actually do need money to keep them going, surprise surprise, so of course they will try to release whenever they feel certain that the game works alright. You can always patch the little things later that hasn't been discovered yet.

But it do seems like they are putting more effort into testing than they did with Civ 3 and that makes me sleep better at night. Still, remember that every instalment is 10 times more complex then the previous. I'm expecting bugs, but as long as they are minor and gets fixed with a patch or two I'm not worried one bit. Why? Because Firaxis have always showed a will to fix them.

 

[Coffeedragon]

Because Firaxis have always showed a will to fix them.

There are still bugs in Civ3.

Nevertheless, I do expect them to fix the grossest errors; though it will take years and not be for free: We will have to pay for a couple expansions, as always. [Not that I am against expansions; it´s just they shouldn´t be needed to fix the original.]