Civilopedia? Thumbs up or down?

[Melloj]

Since I dont have the game yet I've been reading every bit of info I can get.

Ive read some disturbing things on CivFan about the Civilopedia not being up to par, ie. no alphabetical lists, incorrect info in some respects and some entries with no information.

Can anyone who has the game comment on the civilopedia?

[Akaoz]

The new CivPedia is not up to snuf. It's also missing a few entries...

[Gaias]

Not only that most of it is in icon form with bare information popup when you hover your mouse of it. It also has no ability to right click and get specific information about an object like you are able to in CIII. Definitely not userfriendly in design either, everything is blocked to close together for my liking.

Definitely have to give CIV Civilopedia a D...

[Novaya Havoc]

Thumbs down. Especially for Catherine II's bio entry. Apparently, she was super-cool for sleeping with everyone in sight, as the 'pedia alludes to.

Other than that, the icons are a pain, and there is no quick referencing, which is a must.

[samsmithnz]

The mouse over popups are awesome, the civiopedia is not an improvement. I found it really confusing to navigate and find things, especially in my first game.

[Stuie]

Thumbs sideways. I hardly ever refer to the civilopedia in any Civ game. SMAC might have been the exception since everything had "futuristic" names that didn't translate easily into what they would do in the game.

[conmcb25]

its ok but nothing toi write home about. I used it several times over my 14 hour marathon session yesterday and did not find it particularly helpfull.

For basic stuff its fine, if you want clarification on any finer points forget it.

[Atahualpa]

After searching around the screen for 5 minutes to find the icon that opens the civilopedia, I opened it and BAMM thousand icons jumped at me.. I couldn't close it quick enough to get a real shock from it... I definately won't open it again. I think this deserves a

I've noticed already that the game is based too much on icons and too little on text.. in the city screen choosing what to build is so frustrating sometimes... ofc I think that will go all away, but I have to note, that the learning curve makes a very sharp rise right in the beginning due to all these icons.

As of a short quick game that I aborted still quite in the middle I'd have to say: Civ4

[wilebill2]

Halfway through my first game. Haven't found it yet, so I don't know about my thumb direction yet.

[Traelin]

Hrm this is the only area of the game I have complaints about. Personally I'd rather just have a good, standard help system with an awesome search engine built into it. I hate trying to ascertain what an icon is.

[Jim Cobb]

It's incomplete, ill-organized with just the minimum of info. Keep the manual handy.

[Kassiopeia]

The lack of an alphabetical list is really bad, when you want to find for example what you need to construct a unit, like what you need for ironclads or galleons. Took me way too long to find the right entries from the icon list Luckily I don't refer to Civilopedia that often and the popups are almost as good, but this is certainly something that hasn't changed for the better.

[RickBlaine]

I've always used the Civlopedia a lot and the new one seems to be a large step back from Civ III--significantly clunkier to use (especially from the tech tree) and sparser, less helpful information. And it still (apparently) lacks accessibility from the city screen, which should be a no-brainer. I'm willing to suspend final judgment though until I'm more familiar with the game.

[evizaer]

The civilopedia is poor in Civ4. It's not very well designed (too many icons) and it's not crossreferenced. You have to navigate back to the main civilopedia menu, then navigate to whatever else you want to see. This makes finding certain information take much longer than it should.

Definite thumbs down.

The rest of the game is really good, though.

[Sava]

yeah, to the civlopedia

the icons suck... I can't tell what is what, I have to hover over everything to try and find what I want

it is not intuitive and stuff (especially buildings) is not alphabetical I don't think... it seems to be alphabetical, but then the wonders seem to get meshed in with other buildings and everything is screwed up!!!

Also, it would be nice if there was a section in the options that explained what all the hotkeys were.