Civilization 4

[Atrokkus]

Bah, art design is crap. 3d-engine is prolly crappy too.
Dumbed down strategy with very popular 3D, but lame design: how typical these days (hi, Homm5).

Anyways, most strategists will play Civ3 anyways. JUst as serious gamers always prefered Homm3 to Homm4.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Why is that house in the middle of that lake? Is that supposed to be the acclaimed 'innovayshun!!' or what?

It really does look like Firaxis used a tweaked version of the engine that powered SMAC.

 

[Araanor]

To give an example of just how serious Firaxis is, consider that you will no longer be able to transfer production from one project to another, a major exploit since time immemorial.

That isn't an exploit. Three turns before you complete a wonder, your opponent builds the Great Pyramid. Now you can't convert those lost production points to try and complete a new wonder before your opponents. Good game, Firaxis.

Able to build your own government as Firaxis prescribed? Done in SMAC. Able to not only build a variety of land (and sea!) improvements but stack one with another? Done in SMAC. Siege weapons being used as a stack killer? Done in SMAC.

Save myself some money and just boot up SMAC. Civilization 4 probably uses the same SMAC engine and that is why it is so fugly, hee, hee, hee.

Oh, and it looks like Firaxis is going to try a new flavour of corruption.

This is pretty amusing.

Some background: Brian Reynolds was the lead designer on Civ2. He joined Firaxis and became the lead designer on Alpha Centauri. Some time after its release, he and a few other people left Firaxis to form Big Huge Games where they eventually would come to release Rise of Nations. Meanwhile, Firaxis made Civilization 3, bereft of pretty much all improvements Alpha Centauri had introduced.

It's great they're catching up to Reynold's designs. It's only 6 years since Alpha Centauri was released, after all.

I have to say Rise of Legends looks a tad bit better, just a shame on it being another RTS.

 

[LlamaGod]

Civ 4 looks fine and will probably be fine, you guys are just hos.

 

[Zli]

I dunno about it looking fine, or about the gameplay... I mean, when I saw the tb part in R:TW, i thought damn, this is what Civ4 graphics and gameplay should be like... I mean, what's the point of the grid, other than to make old civ players feel more comfortable? It would be a better game without it.

Religion, changes to production queues and different government systems are all things that can be done in a patch. And doing it in 3D is worth only a .5 increment (or -.5, the way it looks like now). What they're doing now is one the things that's giving sequels a bad rep.

 

[NOVD]

I mean, what's the point of the grid, other than to make old civ players feel more comfortable? It would be a better game without it.

Religion, changes to production queues and different government systems are all things that can be done in a patch. And doing it in 3D is worth only a .5 increment (or -.5, the way it looks like now). What they're doing now is one the things that's giving sequels a bad rep.

What do you mean by the grid? You could turn off the grid overlay in the past two Civs and SMAC. For Civ 4, religion reasonably appears to be too large to put in a patch. A change to civics from the government type choices of previous sims is a major change. Civ 4 seems to be a fairly large step in the Civ line: from what I can tell, Civ 4 adds pretty much all the good stuff from Alpha Centauri while modifying bad stuff from Civ 3 (while capitalizing on good things, like resources). It's not clear how good the AI is, which is pivotal, but at least Civ 4 is going to provide an AI SDK.

In later news, there are two new previews on Civ 4 at gamespot (such as http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civ ... 33927.html )

The reviewer, apparently, never spent much time playing Civ II, Civ III, and SMAC considering his repeated reference to worker automation, but it sounds nice regardless. According the the reviewer,

For example, you can now build windmills atop hills, watermills on rivers, wineries in vineyards, and much more. It can seem a dizzying array of choices, but thanks to automation, all you have to do is let the artificial intelligence take control of your worker, and it will go about building the best available option on each square, as well as link your cities together by roads. It's such an efficient process, and it improves the pace of the game immensely, since you no longer have to worry about micromanaging all those workers, like you did in previous Civs

. . . Neglecting the fact that you could automate workers in Civ II and subsequent games.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Ugh, that game gets more hideous every time I look at it.

 

[Chefe]

I haven't been a fan of the Civ games, but I did like Alpha Centauri and still play it occasionally. The thing that I find most intriguing about Civ4 is the religious elements in it.

Them graphics are just ugly though. I know it's the gameplay that matters, but I couldn't stand looking at that for hours on end. They should have stuck with 2D. The cartoony look in the pre-renders are awesome, but in-game it's a nightmare.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

I've listened to lunatics that made more sense than what I see in this screen shot!

 

[Chefe]

I like how they've created a nice, attractive, and streamlined interface.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Indeed, have you seen the pictures of those deeply philosphical, rational proverbs that make complete sense in our everyday lives?

 

[Chefe]

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

The game was released yesterday, or so a little bird told me.

No, wait, those are the drugs again. Gah!

 

[CrusaderTemplar]

i was playing it today for 3 hours. looks okay for now. now must sleep.

 

[Crnobog]

What the hell is up with civ games and those giant single units anyway? I know that this huge warrior that looks like it wants to stomp my city to pieces is meant to represent an entire army, but that was appropriate in civ1 where it was probably forced by hardware limitations. Now that they're going with the ubar-realistic-1337-3d, why do I still have to watch some fucking Clash of Titans?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

<snip>

Heh. I know. That's one of the things that upset me too. I expect to see Jason and the Argonauts come out of nowhere to save my town at any moment.

 

[DarkPhantom]

And that is really annoying when you're trying to click on the city and that huge unit blocks your click.

But, even with some flaws, I still find it pretty addictive. But, that's just me, the not-much-demanding-gamer...

 

[kris]

For someone like me who was sorerly dissapointed in Civ3 this installation was a clear positive development. they finally made it viable to actually be involved in wars and being able to fight your enemies without meeting hordes and hordes and it still being fairly challenging.

Of course much of the challenge may be due to me not being able to tech rush in the little I played over the weekend.

AI is better than I expected, not that I expected much. For once diplomacy doesn't consist sorely on "make sneak attack and otherwise be a bitch".

 

[LlamaGod]

surprise, surpirse

I was right

The game is good and you guys are whores.

 

[kris]

to say a bit more. Gameplay wise it is a clear improvement and a good game, but I find it lacks in depth and subsequently in bit in replayability due to that. the customisation of the random maps is also a bit less than I can remember eariler ones where. I personally don't rate it as high as Alpha Centauri.

 

[Crnobog]

Religion in this game is a big joke. There are 7 religions in total, the first civ to discover a specific tech becomes a 'founder' of the respective religion, the only problem is THEY'RE FUCKING IDENTICAL. They all grant the same cultural bonus, the temples, cathedrals and monasteries work exactly the same, except they look different, the missionaries work exactly the same. It's like the same old temple and priest from the previous games only in 7 flavours.

You can change the religious civics (paganism/organized religion/theocracy/pacifism/free religion) but it's completely independent of your chosen state religion

About the civics in general, the government types in SMAC had imho much more depth and greater impact on your play style than in this game. Much like in previous civs, the police state/nationalist and other 'bad' governments are only good for war and fast unit production, while democracy gives you fastest research and happiest citizens...it's not bad, but there's much room for improvement.

I also dislike the looks of the interface and general graphic design, looks a bit like The Sims game...even chairman Mao looks like some fucking carebear

Good game overall, but nowhere near SMAC

[edit] Forgot to add, the game lags like a dead crackwhore

 

[RuySan]

you guys are annoying and the game fuckin rules. I mean, this one is better than all the other civ games (altough maybe not as good as Alpha Centauri), so if you don't like this one, you never liked Civilization

 

[kingcomrade]

I just got this. I'm really, really bad at it. I'm playing against 1 comp on a tiny world on the third difficulty from the top, I get bogged down to the point where nothing seems to be happening. You shouldn't have to outnumber defensive troops 5 to 1 to get into a city. Of course, the computer can kill all of my troops no problem. I can't seem to keep my cities productive, either. I suppose it might be fun if I were good at it.

 

[Goliath]

Civ IV is the best game of the series so far! Much deeper, much more strategic options than in previous games. It almost restored my faith in PC gaming. While all new RPGs try to hit new dumbing down lows the new Civ is more complex than every before. I just love the civics, religion, unit upgrades etc.

 

[MarFish]

Someone complained about not terrorism options. Fine. I can live with that.

But the fact that they removed Darwin's Voyage as a wonder stinks of caving in to the fucking creationist / ID movement.