YOUR REVIEW of Civ4

[proviisori]

Originally posted by SystemError

Major points that irritate me:

-Resources are still infinite. one resource unit should supply enough of that for so many product units(i.e. 100 units of iron, allowing you to build 10 swordsmen if they cost 10 iron each). Or something like that.
-Food. How early on did civs start shipping food about? The Egyptians built cities in the desert with no farmland near and supplied them. Food should be empire wide if there are roads!
-Why no civil wars? It might be bloody annoying to see your empire fly apart but id love to fight a civil war! They were so cool in civ2 when you took an enemy capital and caused an internal war...

Sounds a lot like Colonization.

I like Civ4 very much, but I agree that some thing should have done differently.

All we can do is to wait for Colonization 2... that would be sweet.

[smithldoo]

I have played 4 games of civ 4 after a few practices, then it won't load anymore on my system after I downloaded the patch. I refuse to upgrade just to play one game, and may (unlikely) revisit civ 4 when i have my next upgrade.

Those 4 games would be just about the biggest disappointment from a new game that I can remember. Very little new, the 1 v 1 combat system sucks so much I won't repeat myself over it, seemed to me like very little was new, much was pinched from other games and the mix just did not mesh for me, historically.

If I were to describe Civ 4 in brief, it was micro management gone mad, extended to everything possible. The unit promotions, 46 extra decisions to do what, I select one unit and the computer auto selects its best defender. The civics are just government features spliced up and represented, the result is as they needed to have something for each one, is things like you cannot trade wine until the middle ages, or get mace man from the civil service, work than one out. This extension of micro management to me was totally contradictory, given the otherwise broadening of the scale of the game, i.e, less cities, smaller maps etc.

The downsizing of the scale I did not like and I think means some points raised by SystemError are not really applicable at that broad scale.

As far as workers go, childish and unrealistic IMHO (live forever and build for nothing) and led in a couple of my games to me having no buidings left to build in cities as every possible tile in my territory had an improvement on it.

I wish i had the time to build my own mod. Anyone know of any good ones?

Well I am playing Ages of Man, testing AOM III for stankarp now.

http://www.theagesofman.net/

It has supply for military units, stacked combat, sieges, succession, religion (and religious wars), aggressive AI, and diplomacy changes that leave the original CallToPower2 for dead. The map generator actually can produce 4 million different types of maps (that is just based on percentages of features you pick and does not take into account location of tiles (unlike the civ 4 ones I played on that had a real sameness about them). AOM has real barbarians, some curly historical events, rebellions, plagues, famine and bonus harvests, and so on.

One really good feature i reckon is where the presence of a resource drives associated technology, as opposed to the resource mysteriously appearing when you research the technology. e.g. if there are lots of horses and camels about, you can spend resources to acquire some of the early horse related techs such as horse riding, horse armour, mobile tactics etc.

Food. How early on did civs start shipping food about?

My impression is that food was shipped round mainly to protect from famine, rather than to promote growth. In this way, In AOM you can "ship food round" in an abstract way. Outposts, a tile improvement like a colony can be placed on any resource on the whole map in territory that you own. Each outpost generates some benefit as long as it is in owned territory (and there are 4 tile improvements that can claim terriotry). If you have an outpost on a food resource, it does the following.
-generates a little public works (the pool of production used to supply troops and build tile improvements).
-reduces the chance of famine by 3% per city per event.
-increases the chance of a bonus harvest by 3% per city per event.

The net affect is that as you get more and more outposts on food, eventyually you get a net increase in city size over a period as famine has less affect and bonus harvest more affect. Buildings and certain wonders also contribute. The natural disasters/bonuses code in AOM is the best most comprehensive coverage of this aspect I have ever seen in a game. Unlike civ where one resource (say cattle) gives one big benefit to the whole empire and you canot get any more for your civ no matter how many cattle you have access to(unless you can trade), in AOM every resource has a cumulative affect. Gradually adds up.

Why no civil wars? It might be bloody annoying to see your empire fly apart but id love to fight a civil war! They were so cool in civ2 when you took an enemy capital and caused an internal war...

You can in AOM, tied to succession issues and overall happiness of the empire. There are a couple of periods where there is a random chance of a rebellion regardless of how good you are, based on history (the Dark Ages and the Black Death).

Why cant you get access to techs anymore?

In AOM in addition to normal research, diplomacy and espionage, you can acquire advances from resources and possibley "capture" an advance from captured enemy cities, as well as get a bonus one if the empire surrenders to you. Just realised, I forgot to mention, AI rarely if ever fight to the death in AOM, there is a nifty surrender code so that that empire will not fight to the last settler if you have it down and your foot on its throad and sword pointed at the jugular. It certainly does not spawn cheat bonus units just to delay your rightful and honourable triumph. And yes, there is a little triumph movie for you and bonus gold and empire happiness if you conquer an AI or capture an enemy capital.

Artillery has gone back to pre-civ3 style. Rubbish.

In AOM artillery can bombard and counter bombard so you can have artillery duels, you can have sieges where enemy units in a besieged city cannot resupply so you can gradually grind them down (and the city in the process).

Just a few things I can think of.

[murphy54]

strange one...hmmm

[Gunter]

Originally posted by smithldoo
I have played 4 games of civ 4 after a few practices, then it won't load anymore on my system after I downloaded the patch. I refuse to upgrade just to play one game, and may (unlikely) revisit civ 4 when i have my next upgrade.

Those 4 games would be just about the biggest disappointment from a new game that I can remember. Very little new, the 1 v 1 combat system sucks so much I won't repeat myself over it, seemed to me like very little was new, much was pinched from other games and the mix just did not mesh for me, historically.

If I were to describe Civ 4 in brief, it was micro management gone mad, extended to everything possible. The unit promotions, 46 extra decisions to do what, I select one unit and the computer auto selects its best defender. The civics are just government features spliced up and represented, the result is as they needed to have something for each one, is things like you cannot trade wine until the middle ages, or get mace man from the civil service, work than one out. This extension of micro management to me was totally contradictory, given the otherwise broadening of the scale of the game, i.e, less cities, smaller maps etc.

The downsizing of the scale I did not like and I think means some points raised by SystemError are not really applicable at that broad scale.

As far as workers go, childish and unrealistic IMHO (live forever and build for nothing) and led in a couple of my games to me having no buidings left to build in cities as every possible tile in my territory had an improvement on it.



Well I am playing Ages of Man, testing AOM III for stankarp now.

http://www.theagesofman.net/

It has supply for military units, stacked combat, sieges, succession, religion (and religious wars), aggressive AI, and diplomacy changes that leave the original CallToPower2 for dead. The map generator actually can produce 4 million different types of maps (that is just based on percentages of features you pick and does not take into account location of tiles (unlike the civ 4 ones I played on that had a real sameness about them). AOM has real barbarians, some curly historical events, rebellions, plagues, famine and bonus harvests, and so on.

One really good feature i reckon is where the presence of a resource drives associated technology, as opposed to the resource mysteriously appearing when you research the technology. e.g. if there are lots of horses and camels about, you can spend resources to acquire some of the early horse related techs such as horse riding, horse armour, mobile tactics etc.



My impression is that food was shipped round mainly to protect from famine, rather than to promote growth. In this way, In AOM you can "ship food round" in an abstract way. Outposts, a tile improvement like a colony can be placed on any resource on the whole map in territory that you own. Each outpost generates some benefit as long as it is in owned territory (and there are 4 tile improvements that can claim terriotry). If you have an outpost on a food resource, it does the following.
-generates a little public works (the pool of production used to supply troops and build tile improvements).
-reduces the chance of famine by 3% per city per event.
-increases the chance of a bonus harvest by 3% per city per event.

The net affect is that as you get more and more outposts on food, eventyually you get a net increase in city size over a period as famine has less affect and bonus harvest more affect. Buildings and certain wonders also contribute. The natural disasters/bonuses code in AOM is the best most comprehensive coverage of this aspect I have ever seen in a game. Unlike civ where one resource (say cattle) gives one big benefit to the whole empire and you canot get any more for your civ no matter how many cattle you have access to(unless you can trade), in AOM every resource has a cumulative affect. Gradually adds up.



You can in AOM, tied to succession issues and overall happiness of the empire. There are a couple of periods where there is a random chance of a rebellion regardless of how good you are, based on history (the Dark Ages and the Black Death).



In AOM in addition to normal research, diplomacy and espionage, you can acquire advances from resources and possibley "capture" an advance from captured enemy cities, as well as get a bonus one if the empire surrenders to you. Just realised, I forgot to mention, AI rarely if ever fight to the death in AOM, there is a nifty surrender code so that that empire will not fight to the last settler if you have it down and your foot on its throad and sword pointed at the jugular. It certainly does not spawn cheat bonus units just to delay your rightful and honourable triumph. And yes, there is a little triumph movie for you and bonus gold and empire happiness if you conquer an AI or capture an enemy capital.



In AOM artillery can bombard and counter bombard so you can have artillery duels, you can have sieges where enemy units in a besieged city cannot resupply so you can gradually grind them down (and the city in the process).

Just a few things I can think of.

Reading your post I discovered the existence of AOM and looking to AOM II screenshots and game concepts it seems to me that it has all the feature that Civ IV marketing men have missed to pleasure shoot'n'up players that now are fans of Civ IV.

The strategy and above all the atmosphere of old Sid masterpieces seems to be definetely gone for ever in favour of a game inclined to games like SIMS et similia, that I will never play even if I had 6 lives.

To better understand this " concept " you can see AOM III video,very poor graphic but excellent concepts,marvellous overall atmosphere and all the things that made Civ series a masterpiece ( except the patethic IV th episode of course ).

I hope the game will be good as it seems,I would like to try it out........

I loved for ages Civ I,II and III.

AOM III seems anyway to have a very old graphic but if it is like it promises I will play it, I love having 287 to choose from and all the gorgeous features it promises.

How can I play a demo of AOM III ?

When it will be out ?

May I contribute to it in someways ?


Thanks


Gunter

[smithldoo]

If you go to the AOM home page and either download AOM II for the time being (if you have CTP2) or for a small charge get a AOM II disc and a 2nd hand CTP2 disc from that site.

http://www.theagesofman.net/

I reckon the graphics are not so bad myself, I certainly liked them better than Civ 4, but they were not as good as Civ 3.

I am playtesting what we are hoping is the final of AOM III as a lot has been added and it resulted in a stability problem. Keeping fingers crossed.

BTW, be warned, to play AOM you need to put aside your prejudice to the original CTP2 and also enjoy REAL history. The latter was completely lost from Civ 4 for me I am afraid.

[Lord_Icewind]

Well, now my review, which shall be short, as I don't have much time (later on, maybe I'll post some more).
I've been a TBS fan since...well, ever since I played Civ I loong ago (I'm just 19, so that isnt -that- long). But altough I liked Civ II and Call to Power, my favorite game EVER is Alpha Centauri...and yes, a long time ago (3 years or so) I was an usual poster in the SMAC/X forums, but with time (and a broken down computer, and more serious studies..) I eventually stoped posting.
But Civ IV has done it! I'm back, so far just to post here, altough I've only played 10-20 games of it.

And now, my opinion:

Good Points:

-Government system: Yes, as a SMAC/X lover I appreciate what they've done with it. It great (altough I still think the Pyramids are abusive! )

-Tech tree: Wondrous. To investigate almost what you like without having to know "Fishing" or things like that gives you much more freedom.

-Religion: Ah, I just gotta love the power it gives ya (BTW, my fav so far in the game is Hinduism :P)

Those shall do fer a start. Now...the bad ones:

-Combat: For kami-sama's sake! One-on-one unit combat after seeing what it could do in CTP2 is...I don't know, so passe I guess...but it is true it can lead to the ever-feared "stack of doom"

-Too much system requirements. I had to wait until I got a decent PC to play it, for some months...Imagine that, having the game, unable to play! They could have concentrated less on the graphic side...

-No caravans. Yet, that is not a -real- problem is it?

Well, that's it I suppose. Now, I'm off to play a bit!

[Hunter007_PL]

Idea is great, graphisc is great, playing is amazing! But there are some extra things, that should/shoutl not be in Civ 4...

There should not be:

1)Stalin in Warlords (???) (this is my opinion, this man was not so good, he murderd thousends of people, and many people told the same, as me... I have one Russian buddy friend - Ivan, I don't know, what does he think about Stalin, because a haven't talk to him about this yet...). I don't know, if Russians accept Stalin. If they do-It's OK :P... I have no opinion about Stalin in Civ, If Russian like him... But if I remember well, they like Lenin better, but I don't know exactly...

And there the list of what shouldn't be ends...

There should be:

1) More Civs (Polish , it should be because in middleages, betwen 1500 and 1772, where was a time when it was the second millitary power in Europe , and the third of the biggest (afret Russia and Ossman Empire), More Civs in America (Canada is great country, byt young, and Epmires of Middle and South America (Olmecs, Mays etc...(If Cartaghine is they should be too ), Civs of South America like Brazill, Argentinam and others (but they young, but if USA is? ),Indonesian empire, and Civs in Europe (It is good, that scandinavia appeared in Warlords , but other, like Portugal, Switzerland, Check Rep., Ukraine, Jugoslavian, Crovatian, etc... ))

More Heads of Civs (I ca't find a good word, I mean people, like Catharine of Russia, Elizabeth of England, ghandi of India etc...)...

2) More buildings and wonders (It is good what in Warlords is Great wall of China )

3) More units

4) More scenarios...

)))), If Civ 4 pack will include 2 DVD, why not? , I know, they have only one 1 CD, maybe in next extra packs Will appeare somem of this ... It is only a dream, byt, who do not dream? ))

In one sentence... Game is GREAT, realy great, the best game I have ever played... Fantastic ))... I recommend it every of my friends )...

And about Stalin,
"The Katyn massacre"
Write it in wikipedia and read... No comment, I won't say anything about Stalin in Civ if Russians like him... But Europe know about the German man, A.H., who started II warld war, etc... What if he apperare in next extra pack to Civ 4? I hope we won't appeare...

So, this is Only one think, I don't like too much in Civ, another things are great... There are many mods, with many new Civs, buildings, wonders, and units... Idea of make it so easu for players to do mods was graet... Firaxis done great work to do game, which is much better than their 3 great games before... My opinion:

999/1000 points for Civilization IV )))

[TheCabal]

Hello,

I'm not a hardcore civ gamer, but have my experience! I've played most of the Civ games came out the last years.

A friend of mine recently bought Civ4, I directly went to him (because I knew he would play something else) and borrowed it. My First impression of the game was:

Nice and smooth 3D graphics (I love to see a city expand and kept modernized with "aqueducts" and stuff, nice effect!), in my opinion a bit too over animated/childish. => Am I getting to old?

Ok, checked everything out, nice leader selection (each with its own personaltiy and bonuses). So I started to play my first session (after going through the tutorial stuff).

Guys, there were more negative impressions than positive after completing my first session. (@possible flamers: played it not only once!!)

This game is simply for me as Rainbow Six Lockdown was for me as a Rainbow Six fan... I think in these times every good old game concept gets KISSed. (Keep it simple stupid).

No improvements (except of active AIs giving the game more life and of graphics, religion-stuff and some more), extrem shorter gameplay (no time to make some wars or something else... ), too few units, focus is too much on researching, plenty of missing stuff in there.... I AM SHOCKED.

Comparing this to Civ2, Alpha Centauri or CTPII AOM III this Civ looks like it's just for beginners in the age of under 12 years or for the next generation players focusing on graphics and on non-complex quick game sessions.

What Firaxis produced there is not as extrem as with what happened to Rainbow Six Lockdown... but the direction they are going to is the same. I hope they will not make the same mistake when they start to produce Alpha Centauri 2... turning this game into some kind of cartoon with sweet animations and graphics... I think its not what you all (especially the pro's) want. Question here is: Does a turn-based game need 3D-graphics? Its the gameplay! Thats important. It should have a wide range of possibilities not just KISS a game concept, turning form 2D into 3D and => there we have a new game.

The todays gaming scene just sucks, its all about dirty marketing strategies, graphics, disruption of great game concepts and of course => ca$h

After I played through the first session (failing to launch the space ship first): so this is the end? Waste of time. Remember many great long sessions in SMAC, with many wars and storylike actions... but Civ4 was just about waiting to get technology and thats it. My ships even didn't have the time to sail around all continents... the other sessions were some kind of odd too.

Well I hope that the Civ series will find back in its tradition and make the doors open for everyone, means that you can setup everything so that you can have a civ2-like session or if you want a more simple like like civ4...

Reducing the game has nothing to do with improvement, or do you all want a Civ5 with just an autopilot option in which you just have to do what the computer is recommending? (Yes or No on this?)

Thats my small review about what I think of civ4. I know its mostly contains negative things about civ4, but thats the way I feel about this game. Its a victim of the todays wrong-way marketing strategy.

The poster above mine post is an example. Perhaps started off with Civ4 as his first Civ game saying that:

"Firaxis done great work to do game, which is much better than their 3 great games before..."

That I mean with next-generation player. Never got his hands on the real civ games... but why? => Graphics! If the graphics are ****ty the whole game appears to be it too, if its good (not caring about gameplay itsself) than the games rules the world.

Hope for opinions on my small review.

Greetings,
Cab