What do you feel about cIV?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Well, Soren, I know you're reading this, speak up, am I right or not

I think he's taxed full time at the E3 right now.

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by Adagio
From the beginning I told myself not to have too high hopes about this game and kept telling myself that this game is going to suck even more than Civ3, but the more news I hear about this the harder it is to hate this game so now I have high expectations about it

There's always a danger of having too high of expectations for something, the danger being that it won't live up to your expectations. For instance, I have been disappointed by many movies that have been overhyped. For that reason, I will try to have low expectations for Civ 4.

But I have to say, it gets harder and harder to be skeptical with each new information update.

[Zoid]

I was extremly disappointed with the first release of Civ III, but Firaxis redeemed themselves with excellent expansions. Features that should´ve been in the original game, true, but nevertheless. But since I assume much of the crap was due to Atari, this time I´m more optimistic. Only a fool would deliberately make the same mistake twice...

All in all I have a reasonably good feeling about this

[Niptium]

I remember playing Civilization the first one when I was about 8 years old. Then, I followed with Colonization and man oh man ! Did I play that game like a madman. I also played frenetically to Civ 2 but it never reached the perfection of Colonization. In the last few times I played Civ 2, I remember the annoyance of the computer obsession to build cities in your territory, even if it meant the city was on a 1X1 desert tile. The CPU also had the bad habit of roaming on your territory just like if it was an internation zone of passage.

These things got even worse in Civ 3 ! Now with the culture, a CPU colonizing a 1X1 tile that is not within your border (but still you consider it to be in your territory because it's lonely tile witch isn't worth colonizing) he gets borders and reduces yours ! Not only that but the CPU trespassing your borders is even worst then ever - not mentionning the fact that in the later ages, with the CPU moving around, the turns tended to last 4 freaking hours each. I was very disapointed and I remember breaking the damn CD for my Art class in Cégep.

I'm cautiously waiting for these things to get resolved in Civ 4...

[Zoid]

Wow, the CPU roamed your territory?? And I thought the AI was bad...

Sorry, I couldn´t resist

[LDiCesare]

I have quite good expectations about CivIV. I bought CivIII only quite late and still don't play it much, sticking to Civ2, but the government options, Python scripting and the statement that there may be less units on the map make me optimistic. I wish there had been stacked combat and public works, but I still think CivIV looks poised to be better than CivIII. Not sure if better than Civ2. You can't have much fun playing OCC without caravans after all.

[GAZ082]

Im not playing CIV at all. I used to play a lot of CIIV even years later its release, but played CIIIV only few months.

So im expecting CIV a lot.

[pmaura]

Worried

It looks like there dumbing down Civ4 - No more coruption of pollution issues so expand away. Spys are no longer allowed to mean nasty stuff because thats not PC.

There also getting rid of the generals, I kinda of liked the idea of generals in Civ 3

[vovan]

As far as pollution is concerned, I wouldn't worry about it too much, as now you have the health issues to deal with in large cities. All it means is not having to micromanage the workers to clean up the pollution, I think... I don't know about the corruption though... Is there some other concept that will replace it?

[alms66]

Originally posted by pmaura
It looks like there dumbing down Civ4 - No more coruption of pollution issues so expand away. Spys are no longer allowed to mean nasty stuff because thats not PC.

There also getting rid of the generals, I kinda of liked the idea of generals in Civ 3

They expanded the list of great people types (from military & scientific) to 5 various types (economic, military, science, culture, religious) - assuming that's what you meant by 'general', and not armies. If you meant armies they said there are "better stacked movement options", whatever that means.

I agree with everyone that pollution was rather annoying and pointless, but I never had a problem with corruption. It has never bothered me, but then again, I mostly played the DyP/RaR & Rhye's mods (now mostly Rhye's), not the default game. I also never make an attempt to take over the world - I suspect this is why most people hated corruption, because it severely limited the size of a useful empire.

Originally posted by vovan
As far as pollution is concerned, I wouldn't worry about it too much, as now you have the health issues to deal with in large cities. All it means is not having to micromanage the workers to clean up the pollution, I think... I don't know about the corruption though... Is there some other concept that will replace it?

I suspect health will also help to achieve the same thing corruption did - put the brakes on empire expansion, but just in a more unified and rather different way.

[SpencerH]

I'm hoping its a great game.

[GAZ082]

Originally posted by alms66
I suspect health will also help to achieve the same thing corruption did - put the brakes on empire expansion, but just in a more unified and rather different way.

Mmm, corruption was nice coz as you well said, prevented the creation of enormous evil and huge empires. But how healh can replace it? I dont think it has relation each other.

Corruption or another way to limit the number of cities must exist. Corruption was an elegant way to do it, and has a lot of sense, if you get bigger, you will lose control of your people and must rely in other burocrats, and every man has its price...

[vovan]

DP

[vovan]

Well, I imagine the food supplies for example, which affect health in the cities (and the larger the city, the more effect it has, I imagine) will be in short supply, therefore as your empire grows large, you may not have enough food to sustain a large and happy population and hence the core cities will consume the most of your food supplies, and the outliers migh become unhappy and work less, etc.

[Fidel]

i have absolutely no idea about what this game will actually be like to PLAY. it surely looks sweet on the 13 min movie, screenshots are intriguing, etc etc.
some good things are in, and if there ever was something i wanted in the civ, it's social engineering taken from smac. 3d looks nice, world map, etc etc. i never had problem with corruption either, dunno how they will solve it in the civ4, but let's be patient about it. one abstract concept replacing another does not necessarily mean 'dumbing down'. i never felt particularly smart about automating workers to clear pollution.
ultimately, civ4 will have a better start than civ 3 (which i liked and played more than civ2, especially in its c3c variant):
- civics replacing fixed govts sucessfully and balancing civic traits so as to induce 'flourishing of a thousand government types'. i do not want to see fukuyama's prophecy fulfilled in the game (it is plain boring)
- avoiding late eras bogging down
- allowing 2nd or 3rd place civs to catch up through SOME kind of balancing mechanism
- diplomacy improvement

i am holding my fingers crossed, but it seems to me that this will be the best civ so far.