Article: Civilization 4 Review by "Yin26" (Part 1/3)

[Arrian]

I came out as like a +4 under Yin's system.

I'm overal quite positive about the game, especially given Firaxis' clear intent to continue patching and whatnot.

I like the new game concepts. I love the new civic & city upkeep instead of corruption and the health instead of polluted tiles. The RTS-ish unit upgrades I'm neutral on, but lots of others really like it. I've never liked the graphics, but I don't really care about graphics.

I don't think the manual is terrible, but it's not great. I don't think much of the current civilopedia.

I agree with Yin somewhat on the interface. I don't really like it. I think I'm less annoyed by it that he is, though. I'll cope and adjust to it, because the gameplay is enjoyable.

The compatibility issues people have had definitely put damper on things, but I'm one of the lucky ones for whom the game works fine.

-Arrian

[yin26]

Wow. A few great responses: I *love* that a lurker chimed in! Thanks, Hutch.

sabrewolf: The fact that we can understand WHY we disagree on certain points is really important, I think. Surely my system is quite crude, but it's interesting to see how all of us seem to value things so differently. By this process, I have come to realize that my expectations are far more extreme than most players of the game, and this has made me a better critic of myself, actually.

I do believe, as does Arrian, that the patching and X-pack process for Civ 4 will be good if only because the underlying gameplay elements are already much stronger. Most of my gripes surround issues that can be improved with patches and X-packs. Frankly, if those things can be addressed, Civ 4 will be huge hit in my personal library!

[Fidel]

the problem with 'do it yourself tests', referendum questions and the like is that the person posing questions has the ultimate control. i simply do not feel that the questions posed reflect topics that i value the most and i am there with cybershy and solver. gameplay is the key. i haven't tried yet MP and i am having a blast at single. started beating AI fairly consistently on noble (although by a whisker on each occassion) so i will probably move up to prince to get clobbered.
frankly, i am not sure how you measure 'innovation'. i like the game, it gobbles up my free time, it screws up my social life so i give it a 8-9 for sure.
but then again, thank you for your review and i am looking forward to the chewing video

[Solver]

Originally posted by yin26
Thanks, Solver. I'm sure being a beta tester has something to do with it. It's also likely that you just have a higher tolerance for certain issues. That's fair. One thing I can say, though, is that it took me a number of weeks of solid testing before I felt I could really understand the changes. While some of this has to do with poor documentation and interface (IMO), a great deal of that had to do with the fact that Civ 4 really does play differently, and I did enjoy probing all the new stuff.

Yeap... and that does contrast with my memories of playing two games of Civ4 and having then to ask the other beta testers like, what I'm doing? Religion, for example, Sulla explained it to me but I had no idea before.

I think, though, that it's a great success for Civ4 that just about everyone, including you, admits that it plays differently. There are people who wanted a slightly improved Civ3, of course, but most are glad to have Civ4 play differently. It's also what I want from a new chapter, a different feel - and that's with me being very strongly against some of the radical ideas that get proposed from time to time.

[yin26]

Originally posted by LaRusso
the problem with 'do it yourself tests', referendum questions and the like is that the person posing questions has the ultimate control.

Thanks, LaRusso for the reply. I agree with you and hope that at the very least you can see in clear print what I value and to what degree. I will, say, though, that Parts 2 and 3 take COMPLETELY different approaches. This is just the appetizer!

[Common Sensei]

I was an on-and-off lurker since the days of Call To Power 1, so I've seen the various shades of Yin's outrage. Even though I know see what Yin looks like due to the posted photo with the review, I am unsure I will ever be able to shake the association of the image of the pit bull avatar circa the release of Civ 3.

[yin26]

LOL! I think Markos actually gave me that avatar...and he ended up hating it himself, so logically I kept it.

My Civ 3 posting days were relatively short, if vocal. I left long before any X-packs came along, and I certainly didn't hang around to disparage a game that I, personally, didn't believe could be fixed. So I have nothing to feel ashamed about.

Civ 4, I think, is already solid if in need of a lot of work still. Thus, I plan to hang around to watch the development, but I have nothing much more to offer in terms of criticism besides this 11,000 word review. People might not agree with many of my points, but at least it's constructive.

Oh, and the avatar now is of a rabbit eating cardboard.

[Solver]

Then again, you have to admit that you wrote Civ3 off as garbage without waiting to see if the problems were fixed. After all, many people here consider Civ3 a game that was absolutely saved by its expansions. I don't subscribe to that opinion myself, as not a single of my top 5 complaints about Civ3 got fixed in Conquests. At the same time, I appreciate the patching of Civ3 - it DID fix the game-breaking and annoying bugs that Civ3 originally shipped with.

[yin26]

Sure, I wrote it off (I thought the core gameplay elements were unsalvageable) but didn't keep spamming the boards. Frankly, I still think I was right about Civ 3 just listening to people, but I didn't willingly try to ruin anybody's enjoyment of Civ3 after I reached my conclusion.

Civ4, though, seems worth seeing it through at least the first X-pack. But if the game is still as plagued as it is now, for example, by performance issues, then I wouldn't blame anybody for returning the game and moving on.

[Solver]

That is exactly the part where I am the great optimist. The first patch had to resolve the most critical issues, so the second one can probably deal with things like performance, etc. I do expect Civ4 to be in a great shape, technically, after the second patch.

[Marid Audran]

Thank you Yin, for getting around to your much expected synopsis and summation of CivIV.

As for moi:

OVERALL EXPECTATIONS

[+1] I want CivIV to improve some old stuff, add some good new stuff and get rid of some bad old stuff.

This has been the course of the series' development over time and it has worked with fans and critics alike, representing the last bastion of the TBS franchise, par for course. In particular, I wanted Civ IV to adopt many of the SMAC elements light-years beyond the limitations of Civ 2 (never played Civ 3, derisive braying from the peanut gallery steered me clear). Too many departures results in it not feeling like Civ, bottom line. A smoother and more integrated trade syste, for instance, has been very welcome, but the severe downgrading of espionage is a real killjoy.

THE MANUAL

1. [-1] The manual should explain all important concepts in detail. Also, I need an index (or searchable PDF version).

The indexless manual was a disappointment, almost like a Cliff Notes version, condensing most of the concepts and gameplay. Civilization is too complex an enterprise to give us a skinny primer on running an empire and then throwing us into the water. The civilopedia, however, is the real criminal.

THE TUTORIAL

1. [-1] Considering that the tutorial can form your first impression of the game, it should be helpful and inspiring.

Same problem with the manual above, too lightweight a tutorial to really give us a "feel" for turn-by-turn empire building. Mostly seemed there to give us the benefit of listening to Sid's pleasant voice. Bit of ego-gratification? I don't know. SMAC's tutorials were better by far, and some were packaged in specific tutorials too, explaining one concept in particular.

GRAPHICS AND SOUNDS

1. [-1] Good graphics and sounds in a strategy game should never come at the expense of computer performance from beginning to end.

Civ IV rather bombs in this area. With the performance, map scrolling, city zooming, combat, and everything else in the main map this sluggish and dilitory I could give two figs about the 3D model and all the carefully rendered polygons and worker animations. I'd rather go back to clean, efficient, 2D sprites. The patch (and up-to-date drivers) helped some, though not enough. Too many slowdowns and long load times takes aware from immersiveness big-time.

THE INTERFACE

2. [0] I think an interface can be greatly improved with player feedback and know that a patch will likely make
things better.

I remain optimistic about improving the interface...certain things like the build queue in the city maps drive me crazy but on the whole I've adapted to it nicely. The interface should respond to a logical learning curve but doesn't need to be spoon-fed to us.

UNDERSTANDING GAME CONCEPTS

2. [0] I do not expect to understand everything all at once, but between the manual, forum discussions, and feedback from Firaxis, I hope eventually to understand everything in detail.

Basically, strategic-wise, I expect to cull from the game as much work I put into it, so long as nothing is needlessly obtuse. Part of SMAC's charm was that I kept learning odd ins and outs to its mechanics even years after first playing it. I've never been much for micromanagement, or formulas, or ideal optimized strategies in early game, preferring to play from the gut and using a flexible paradigm (Doctrine: Flexibility). Little less efficient? Maybe. But it spares me a lot of grief in milking every last resource in the empire for what it's worth, and that ensures I'll have some resolve left in me come endgame.

COMPUTER AI

3. [+1] I like an AI that abides by friendships earned over the course of the game in understandable ways, even if this means games can end up being very friendly. The reverse should also be true: enemies should stay enemies.

Unless their name is Santiago or Miriam, I don't like schizoid AI behavior and prefer them to honor agreements, reputation, and basically behave in a shrewd, but civilized, manner. Especially so-called "pacifist" civs. War-mongering is fine but it should be under believable pretext, more or less. Civ II was atrocious at this; I'd never experienced such a coterie of vindictive, seething malcontent rival leaders in my life. SMAC is much better. Civ IV seems so far to also be an improvement from the old guard. However, the diplomacy screens are stream-lined a little too blatantly (in what is and isn't attainable) and the glib badinage betwixt rival leaders is off-putting; it doesn't have the flavor of the tense bargaining sessions with SMAC.

BUGS

2. [0] While I'm patient, I don't tolerate broken games either. The game needs to be very playable with only the occasional issue.

The bug-free game is now a myth of the past when games still came on floppies, but really, the thing should at least run without crashing every 15 minutes, and mechanics in the game should behave as elucidated within the manual.

MP

4. [+2] I will only play single player, so with MP/Editor or
without, I will simply play.

Personally I couldn't care less about multiplayer (sorry). Mostly, I'm impatient with the glacial pace of a human game, as I learned from my one attempt in the SMAC MP forum, where one is looking at six months to a year to finish a single game! I think human-made scenarios are terrific, though. The SMAC community continues them to this day, including a stellar "earth" scenario from Blake!

SERIES INNOVATION

2. [0] I don't expect Firaxis to reinvent the wheel, but I expect a few radical departures from the formula by now.

Simply because, being fourth in a series it needs to innovative itself to remain fresh and novel. And I think on the whole this incarnation accomplished this aspect well (religion, city maintenence, settlers/workers, civics, elimination of corruption/waste, pollution, resources, unique traits/units, promotion), while retaining the basic city-build, food/shield/trade arrow, facilities/Wonders ideas of old so the baby wasn't thrown out with the bathwater. Enemy civs are still something of a homogenous affair, though.

My score tallies +1, but my impression/emotional response is closer to 0:

[0]: In general, you'll find some good stuff and nothing really to complain too hard about. At other points, though, you'll find yourself a bit bored or bothered. But patching will likely really turn things around for the better.

I find Civ IV involving and entertaining, but not really engrossing or awe-inspiring, like SMAC is. It has that "just-one-more-turn" appeal, but I find myself not loading up the game as much as I'd hope. It doesn't "stick" in my mind as much as SMAC or even CivII did. I think I could have safely waited for it to hit the bargain bin...oh well, can't unring the bell. I'm not disappointed per se, but maybe a tad underwhelmed. However, mostly, I think if the performance issues alone were cleaned up I'd be much happier overall.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

While I will agree that Civ3 was somewhat 'rescued' by Conquests (not PtW, which was simply a waste) I ultimately feel that there was little they could do to genuinely 'save' civ3. Now, don't get me wrong, I DID enjoy playing Civ3 for many months and I DID enjoy many of the new concepts (a nascant Great People system, Culture and Resources amongst them). However, it never truly 'gripped' me the way Civ1, Civ2 and-now-Civ4 do/did (obviously Civ4 is still present tense ) I mean, I find myself often here at work thinking 'how many hours until I am playing civ4 again?' and having to decide between playing, writing about or modding Civ4 (oh, the AGONY!!!) I was never that engaged by Civ3 (or Civ2 really, for that matter).
What the Civ3 expansions did show, though, is that Firaxis is ALWAYS willing to listen to-and try to adopt-the ideas of its fanbase but-in the case of Civ3-I think their ability to adopt ideas was somewhat hampered by the inflexibility of the underlying engine. So, given Firaxis' penchant for wanting to listen to its fans and adopt the ideas with genuine merit and broad support combined with the much greater flexibility of the Civ4 engine, I think we can truly look forward to great things from future patches and expansions. I, for one, am hoping that they 'break away' and give us a non-binary resource system, even deeper diplomacy (its great now, but can always be better), an even deeper focus on both the religious and naval elements of the game AND further improvements to the modern age (which, IMO, still remains the weak link in the game-though it is much, MUCH better than in civ3!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Solver]

Aussie - I've been dying to hear a good response to this for two months - what about Conquests (MP notwithstanding) fixed anything about Civ3 or made it a better game?

That's not Conquests-bashing, mind you, I really want to hear an opinion from a person who thinks that Conquests rescued Civ3.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Perhaps 'rescued' is too strong a term Solver. Lets just say that it added a few 'neat' concepts (like buildings which produced units and the Scientific Great Leader) and opened up the editor a lot more. The actual scenarios were pretty cool too, and I did have a lot of fun playing those. However, all of the underlying flaws of the game still remained-for the reasons I mentioned above.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[yin26]

Marid Audran: Thanks for taking time "to do the system." I can see and understand your scores thanks to your explanations.