Will we see a backlash on Civ4 like we did when Civ3 was released?

[alva]

Aah you scare me...the very thought of erasing the memory of my first time playing Civ....!

You would be able to enjoy that same feeling again...think about it.

[Mace]

Originally posted by alva

Aah you scare me...the very thought of erasing the memory of my first time playing Civ....!

You would be able to enjoy that same feeling again...think about it.

Oh yeah...good point. Well that would be nice then.
I still get into "Civ Trance" when I am playing. A hurricane could be blasting outside and I would not notice it.

[Brutus66]

I don't think there will be nearly as much backlash.
Everything I have seen about IV looks promising.

The backlash back in the old days was deserved.
Anybody remember the Limited Edition rip off?
How about PTW, which was really "play a couple people, slooowly."

[hanZ]

Originally posted by Mace

I still get into "Civ Trance" when I am playing. A hurricane could be blasting outside and I would not notice it.

dont play civ4 in florida folks!

[sophist]

Originally posted by LaRusso
there are inevitably going to be two types of complaints:
- ' i do not like concept X and concept Y. they are idiotic and i want to burn firaxis people on the pole
- concept XY and concept Z could have been better implemented.

There's also option 3: I wish they had included X. There are features that are not in the game that could make sense, such as supply lines or military leaders or finite resources. My general feeling is that what they have included will be well thought-out and well-implemented; any dissatisfaction I might feel I expect to come from them not reaching far enough. But I'm not going to try to come up with reasons to dislike the game before I get it in my sticky grubby hands.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Verenti
I know my biggest Qualm with Civ3, didn't survive over to Civ4. Maybe it did.

It was how one Spearman of the computer could wipe out about a dozen archers of yours, Inversely One archer could anhilate your garrisons of Spearmen. This was on the lowest Difficulty level. (I don't play the higher levels)

So the only way to effectivly combat the Computer was make a B-Line for republic and get a huge Tech Surplus and use your advanced tech to crush them, however this (ai combat advantage) was slightly curtailed in Conquests.

It sounds to me like you had some runs of bad luck and were so intimidated by them that you stopped trying to fight early-game wars. The Civ 3 AI is actually pretty easy to defeat in early-game combat if you learn how to do it. The simplest way is with concentration of force, overwhelming the AI with numbers in the places where fighting is taking place and not worrying about keeping a garrison in cities behind the lines. Since the AI tends to send attackers in a few at a time and spreads its defenders throughout its civ, that makes it possible to use local weight of numbers to shift the odds in your favor, with AI units that win their initial battles having to fight injured against your healthy units, even if the AI's military starts off larger and more powerful overall.

[Grumbold]

I haven't been involved in following Civ 4 anything like as much as I was with Civ 3, but I have noticed the same trend in the massively multiplayer game forums that I've been spending my time in: Anticipation vs realisation.

Civ 3 was promising to do everything better than its predecessors. Then multiplay got cut. The "best scr1pting evar!" boast became a lame editor that couldn't do some tasks Civ 2 could, let alone rival SMAC or CTP. The AI nations howled like a baby the second one of your units inadvertently strayed over the border (or the border expanded without alerting you) yet thought it was fine to send settlers and guards plodding all over your lands any time it wanted etc. The AI was about as sharp as promised about expansion but couldn't negotiate a trade properly until it was savagely overhauled. It just could not, in the cold light of day, live up to the expectations that had been created back in the early days of its production. That disappointment led to some pretty petty complaints as well as the justifiable ones.

Personally I don't have that sort of weight of preconceptions about Civ 4, so I expect to enjoy it more. About the biggest thing I hope has changed from 3 to 4 is the resource scarcity issue. Personally I hate researching say, railroad, and being incapable of building a single strip of track because all the coal is on the other side of the planet, but the dumb natives don't know it so you can't trade them for it. Now that I've learned how to stop the AI colonising through my country and turn off the RNG lock, that is about the only thing I still seriously dislike about Civ 3.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Personally I hate researching say, railroad, and being incapable of building a single strip of track because all the coal is on the other side of the planet, but the dumb natives don't know it so you can't trade them for it.

You could always enlighten the dumb natives with technology gifts, though, or if they are too far backwards, 1-2 galleons with riflemen (resourcefree) and some cannons would do too.

The rest you wrote was spot-on.

[Mirkwood]

i am always fascinated by the boards when a highly anticipated game comes out like this ...the anticipation hits fever pitch the game comes out and then the gripes and the whinges and the disappointment. This release will be no different even if the game is substantially better and more fun.

The obvious complaints will be the speed of the game,the graphics[the large units etc],multiplayer,the cartoony leaderheads,the sluggishness on older machines etc etc and yet it will be a wonderful improvement and at least is another way to play this great game when we have all probably had our fill of civ 3 as we had civ2 and SMAC on Civ 3's release. Yes they are still great games but are consigned to occasional play once everything has been discovered and played hence the reason for the new release in the first place. To make money and feed our addiction.

So i will laugh when here in the UK we have to sit and wait for its release whilst you in the USA start the complaints board.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


You could always enlighten the dumb natives with technology gifts, though, or if they are too far backwards, 1-2 galleons with riflemen (resourcefree) and some cannons would do too.

The rest you wrote was spot-on.

Oh I know, but how do your scientists come up with a coal-burning method of locomotion without coal? I like the idea of strategic resources but think they would be better employed if 2 coal meant you could have 6 settlers working on railroad construction per turn, or 3 iron menat you could be building 3 legions, not an on/off switch for an entire nation.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Grumbold, what you have said is the reason why I hope to mod this game to include making certain techs resource dependant. So, if you have no source of oil or coal, then maybe you can't pursue combustion (or, at the very least, it progresses a lot slower!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Grumbold]

Sounds interesting. Some wonders being discounted if you have stone or marble makes it sound like a promising avenue to take. If nothing else, I think it would help if you can see resources shortly before you are given the option to research the dependant techs, not afterward.

I like the cost multiplier rather than the ban. I've been playing a lot of Hearts of Iron 1 and 2 in recent years and the issues of making synthetic oil and finding alternative methods of production to cut down on the use of scarce metals or minerals was a big issue in WW2. For that matter, Ancient Egypt managed to adopt chariot warfare despite the rarity of local supplies of wood or horses. All that in an era where Civ IV seems not to have the techs in place for international trading - but I look forward to playing before speculating more about ifs and maybes

[Bubba Hawking]

Civ 2 was THE GAME. A friend gave me the CD in 1997 and by 1998 I was divorced, but I did get a 667% rating on king level, huge world so it was an even trade.

SMAC was ok. I still play it occasionally. Choose the scientist, destroy Miriam, fight everyone else, melt the ice caps, launch solar shade, over and over. General tediousness.

Civ 3 I hated. I did not like losing cities to AI armies and I did not like the corruption. I did enjoy the idea of strategic resources but it was ridiculous that the resouce you need is across the world. Go to war, get the resource and then it disappears. Too bad the war continued.

I rushed out and bought Civ3 right after its release. I will not buy Civ4.

Although Civ2 was what got me into computer gaming, I now prefer MMORPGs. Maybe one day Sid Meier will lend his hand to a MMORPG.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Bubba Hawking
I will not buy Civ4.

You ungrateful heretic.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by MrFun


You ungrateful heretic.

Better an ungrateful heretic than the many thousands who will spend $50 on a game that ought to play on their computer, only to find out that they now have to spend $100s upgrading their systems to play at all.

Shouldn't oughta be that way. I'm not buying, at least not for a long, long time (and that will be a greatly reduced price).