Are you excited about civ 4?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
Zooming in the fashion that you are in favor of doesn't really help. You only need two levels of zoom - a detailed view, and an overall view. More usefull are different map overlays.

Maybe other people prefer having many levels of zoom, or maybe they need to be closer in for detailed.

It does have bombers, fighters, helicopters, paratroopers, and all other manors of air units, however, and there's no reason to think that Civ4 shouldn't expand it's horizons. (even though there's plenty of reasons to think that it won't)

There's not much reason to model nuclear missiles separately from nuclear bombers. It just wouldn't have that much gameplay effect.

Note that I said non-earth-like. The extent that they're frozen would be variable.

So you want a spherical globe because a) it allows you to implement a specific strategy in an unlikely circumstance that only occurs at the very end of the game and b) so that you can play a particular type of custom map as accurately as possible.

Sounds to me more like a rationalization of prejudice against anything that would dare call itself a successor to Civ...

Indeed. I don't think I mentioned anything about hexes, though... But since you have, they are atleast somewhat more flexible than the square grid system which was antiquated even before Civ1.

Unless you're talking about removing some sort of distinct tile system entirely (in which case we can ignore you), you have to replace square tiles with some other shaped tiles that can form a sphere. And AFAIK hexes were used before squares.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
As I said before, you don't have to pass directly over the pole to notice the difference of a globe.

Actually, you do. The curvature as low as the Earth's doesn't have any real noticable effect until your either dealing with airplanes or satellites or units wrapping around the map.

Exactly! And how long ago was Civ1 made? Even despite a decade of amazing strategy games being made in the mean time, the Civ series has remained in complete stagnation, ignoring every advancment made in strategy gaming. No signifigant progression has been made in the series, at all. It's been nothing but Ai/rule tweaks since the original.

Except for changes such as actual resources, culture, religion, nationality, civ traits, a completely different air unit system...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Yolky
Old engine? That is no excuse, but I thought Civ III was on a new engine but that is besides the point, there are so many games that are built on a old engine and they are good games.

Except that C3 was actually built directly on SMAC/X code...

Civ III was being made from nothing as well and looked what happend.

Except that you're factually incorrect on that point.

[Daddy-O]

You posted an opinion about a game that you know very little about. You can't expect us to take you seriously.

I see that my opinion is again being dismissed because it is not agreed with. The facts that I present have yet to be disputed.

You obviously know so much more about this unreleased game than anyone. How can I add anything further?

I am done. Enjoy your game.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by skrobism
I see that my opinion is again being dismissed because it is not agreed with. The facts that I present have yet to be disputed.

It was dismissed because it's uninformed. You said "I'm not excited about cIV because I didn't like C3." Your opinion apparently wasn't based on anything much that's actually been released about the game.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Actually, you do. The curvature as low as the Earth's doesn't have any real noticable effect until your either dealing with airplanes or satellites or units wrapping around the map.

arguing that the earth isn't round, now?

And units wraping around the map? On a cylinder, a unit could be considered to be doing that with every movement it takes along the X-Axis.

Except for changes such as actual resources, culture, religion, nationality, civ traits, a completely different air unit system...

none of which are particularily ground breaking, or even alter the way the game is played. Resources and the new air combat are the only thing among those that was a note-worthy advancements, and niether was even done very well. Fundementally, Civ is still the same game that it was when the original was released.

Maybe other people prefer having many levels of zoom, or maybe they need to be closer in for detailed.

That isn't a personal preferance, it's matter of design. If you have a display that gives you all possible information in an understandable fashion, then you have a detailed view. Zooming in isn't going to give you more detail, because it would not make any new information visable.

I'm sure some people do enjoy zooming in and out and watching everythign get big and small, though. But the same effect can be achieved with a magnifying glass.

There's not much reason to model nuclear missiles separately from nuclear bombers. It just wouldn't have that much gameplay effect.

Yes... no gameplay effect at all, you'd only be skiping an entire period of modern warfare and technology and completely negating the logistics of limited range nuclear weapons from the game.

So you want a spherical globe because a) it allows you to implement a specific strategy in an unlikely circumstance that only occurs at the very end of the game and b) so that you can play a particular type of custom map as accurately as possible.

No, I want a globe because

A) It would give a purpose to the 3D graphics

B) It would better represent reality and be an actual globe, with all the things that entails.

Sounds to me more like a rationalization of prejudice against anything that would dare call itself a successor to Civ...

That isn't much of a dare, it's pretty easy to call something a successor to Civ. There aren't exactly alot of standards, here.

Unless you're talking about removing some sort of distinct tile system entirely

I certainly am. Tiles are absolutely absurd for a strategic game - they only work on the tactical level. It's well past time for civ to get with the times and adopt a province based system, or try something new, but that's not likely to ever happen in this franchise. Fortunetly there are people out there making good strategy games while civ chugs along as though it was still 1991.

And AFAIK hexes were used before squares.

It's not really a matter of what was used first, but even chess uses a square grid. How many games older than that used hexagon tiles?

[ISTANBUL]

Unit size and the global view

Originally posted by CyberShy

Of course the units are large.
They were in cIv, cIIv and cIIIv as well.
You don't want to stare at the map looking for your units, do you?

Not being able to pass the poles? C'mon, that's not a reason to not like the game. you've never been able to pass the poles in any civ game to date.

Hate the game because it has a globe?

Please, come with better reasons to not like what you've seen in the cIV previews.

Regarding the unit size:
1. Civ4 has bigger units than civ3, civ2 and CTP2, if the zoomed screen-shots are not misleading. I don't know civ1.
2. I never had to stare at the map to see the units, they were clearly visible in Civ2, CTP2 and Civ3. Making them too big may make you stare at the map to see the buildings in the city square.

Regarding the poles and the global view:
1. Which army ever passed through the poles? It wasn't possible until 20th century. I don't want settlers, spearmen, cavaliers, etc. walking through the poles. It's OK for modern era aircrafts and ships, though.
2. The global view is not the only nor the main reason, as well stated in my original post. I just think it does not serve any function at all. In addition it is not appealing to the eye either, at least in the screen-shots I saw. As it doesn't add anything to gameplay or to visuals, I'm against it. I didn't think anybody would say "Wov, there is a global view, it's awesome!". But no problem, if it's an option I'll deselect it, otherwise I won't zoom out. The point is they're wasting time and effort with such unnecessary details, rather than concentrating on more significant aspects of the game.

[ISTANBUL]

It's not about the looks at all! Is it really?

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Who in his right mind would judge about a turn based strategy game based solely on graphics? Graphics is fluff, not more.

Whaaaaaa whaaaaa I don't like chess because I can't stand the look of the rook. It looks like a buttplug! . And the bishop, which isn't even close to how a real bishop looks. And alternately colored squares are teh suck!!1!

You are definitely underestimating the visual component of the gaming experience. It is true that turn based strategy games are not supposed to be all about the looks. However, they are not chess either. Then, why do you think the guys in Firaxis are releasing the screen-shots, advertising about 3-D graphics improving leader portraits in the diplomacy screen, etc. , rather than putting a .txt file about the novelties of the gameplay on their website to keep the fans informed? What I love about Civ is the epic feeling of leading a nation through history, besides other stuff like micromanaging resources, following the tech tree, etc. I don't have that kind of feeling in chess. Chess is all about thought, it's very blunt and plain to me, hence uncomparable to a computer game. My personal experience was that when I tried to go back to CTP2 after playing Civ3, the map in general was bad-looking. It didn't feel right and I didn't feel like playing CTP2 again.

Do consider that the average Civ3 buyer may not be as hardcore as you seem to be. Furthermore it's personal choice and taste, where one thinks the right balance between the gameplay and the visuals is.

[ISTANBUL]

Go ahead and ask for nukes in the stone age

Originally posted by CyberShy

I'm playing 4000BC to 1950, why would there be a global view anyway? It's ridiculous before the space age.

This argument sums it all up

I want to add some more arguments to hate cIV already, in the spirit of this argument:

- it's plain stupid to have a view on your civ from a great height before planes are available anyway. Untill then there should be a from the ground view

- How can any civ leader live for 6000 years? That's ridiculous

- Why do the cities grow in big leaps
I mean, first there are 10000 civilians, and then out of the sudden there are 30000

- Why does my spearman need 150 year to cross europe in the early ages? That's so dumb!

- How can I provide all my armies with horsemen if there's only 1 horse found on that certain tile!

- And the #1 reason to hate cIV: HOW THE HELL is it possible in cIV to play a muslim civiliation and have judaism as a state religion! That's SO SILLY! ABANDON THE GAME NOW

My objections were not about the time/turn at all. Thus your arguments are counter-intuitive. The units on the map are representative of whatever many troops, and each turn counts as whatever many years. I don't have a problem with that either. The nation-religion issue is, I believe, properly refered in Civ4. Conversions, propaganda etc. Nations do change religions, from Pagan to non-Pagan, though not frequently. Being realistic and accommodating the facts in a representative manner is essential to Civ.

The reason why I wouldn't have a global view in 4000BCE is based on the same logic that you do not see iron resources nor do you have universities and tanks in 4000BCE.
The discovery of radar clears the fog of war in previous Civ's. I'd prefer to see a similar timing implementation with the global view.

[Ninot]

it is quite possible for a civ to discover that

1: the world is round

and for a civ to

2: make a map of the entire globe

far before satelites or radar or whatever you want to argue come into existance.

Having a globe view shouldn't be dependant on a discovery. It would just be frustrating, not a cool game feature.

[Yolky]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


You posted an opinion about a game that you know very little about. You can't expect us to take you seriously.

so WHAT is my opnion that I gave? I asked if you were excited, I am not, how is that an opnion of a game?

[Yolky]

So what half left Firaxis? Maybe the good half left and the bad half stayed? So should I be excited now? That is no excuse.

The fact is, no matter who is to blame, Infrogames\Atari (wich I believe is really to blame) could be at fault, but Firaxis as a company released the game out early,(wich most likely they were forced to do) but the fact is, they have to accept responsibility no matter what.

Just like you going to a job interview and were held up because of a traffic light, get to the interview late, and found out they gave the job to someone else, YOU are to blame. You can't blame the traffic lights, because all the company will say is sorry job taken.

Blaming others is just an excuse, Firaxis has to take the responsibility for a shabby game release. Maybe they shouldn't have said they could release the game at a certian time, baybe this baybe that, but they still released a shabby game at release. no excuse since I played only 3 days of vanilla Civ.

Mind you I gave Civ III a chang and bought both expacs and enjoyed them.

Remeber all I am saying is I want a good game at RELEASE and not patches later or expacs later so that is why I am not excited.

[Robert]

It doesn't matter who's to blame.
What matters if we should worry that cIIIv may turn out like cIIIv (which was a good game imho, though most people who're negative about cIV are so because they think cIIIv didn't meet their expections).

For those people I say, the most important reasons why cIIIv was what it was came because of those 3 reasons.

- Half the design team left. That does affect a design process deeply. I'm a developper myself, are you? Not to mention that the lead-designer (Brian) left, he got the ideas and the vision about the game.

- Infogrames putted much pressure on Firaxis to release the game early, without MP and with much bugs. It doesn't matter if Firaxis is to blame for that or not. What does matter is that the company that putted that pressure on Firaxis has no responsibility for cIV

In short: who's to blame for cIIIv does not matter since all involved parties are gone. Don't base your expectations on cIIIv.

[Yolky]

Originally posted by CyberShy

In short: who's to blame for cIIIv does not matter since all involved parties are gone. Don't base your expectations on cIIIv.

Well I am not basing all my expectations on Civ III, but in all games in general. It started before Civ III with other games, but that was expected but once Civ III came out we never expected that from Cid Miers(oh did I spell it wrong?) game.

Then for me it was made worse from
Masters of Orion III and other games as well.

I am sick and tired of games being released before they are ready and I am FED UP WITH IT!

That is why I am not excited about Civ IV anymore. I hope it is an awsome game and proven wrong but we will wait and see.

[ISTANBUL]

Originally posted by CyberShy

Opinion: Civ4 will not be better than Civ3 because it is
Fact: not moving to a 3D globe.

Fact: 3D globes are impossible anyway when you use a 2D computer screen. If something seems to be 3D it's just that your eyes are cheating you.

The cIV globe appears to be 3D
I just does not appear to be a ball or a globe. It appears to be a cylinder, which still is very 3D.

Thanks for the clarification of the subject, I'm sure everybody was expecting the spearmen to walk out of the monitor.