Post negative points of Civilization 4 here

[nyquisj]

Memory!

Also, I don't know if this is normal or not, but one of the games I started I chose 'Terra' and 'Huge' and sometime during the Middle Ages I alt-tabbed back to my desktop and noticed the game was chewing up well over a gig between physical and virtual memory. I think it was somewhere near 950mb just in physical.... multiple hundreds in VM.

From what I recall on one of the 'normal' sized maps that I tried, memory consumption wasn't anywhere near that.

Good thing I added an extra gig to the gig I had.

Newt

[Gelondil]

Originally posted by abenamer
In general, the UI took a step backwards -- kinda disappointing.
Interface is VERY cluttered. The little pieces of bread (for food) and hammers (used to be shields) are everywhere. I prefer it when I can just simply infer from looking at the map what would be going on without the need for "extra" information telling me exactly what was I seeing.

Actually, theres a button for toggling on-map food/shield displays, is that what you mean? (lower right-hand corner) And also, I thought that it was default to OFF?

Originally posted by Akaoz
Earth map doens't have custemizable rules. :'(

Plus, you can't select the second-option leaders on the Custom Game screen, you can't select your victory conditions on the normal game screen, and you can't customize your leader without modding a new game. (Like if you want to be a specific Civ but don't like it's leader's attributes).

Originally posted by Alaric II.
Civilopedia is a BIG disappointment for me!

Yeah, it rates right down there with "No Civilopedia" in information quality and organization method.
My best example of the Civilization's poor Civilopedia or help support is the 3 entertainment wonders.
Rock 'n Roll
benefits:
Provides 5 hit singles (+1 happy)

So WTH is Hit Singles? And why do I get 5 of them? Lets check the manual - nope, not in the index because there is no index. Ok, let's check the Civilopedia - no search engine on the Civilopedia either. So we look up the R&R wonder - DAMN, you can't click "hit singles" in the civilopedia entry of Rock 'n Roll. FYI they are luxury resources, but unless you are looking at a full resource list, you would never be able to figure that out.

Originally posted by alva
IIRC the keyboard shortcut is control -G and there is a button above the minimap that triggers the grid (last time I saw it, it was blue-ish)

Actually, that's the Civ3 hotkey. In Civ4 it's ctrl-T. For some reason, on my system the game takes 10 seconds to draw in the grid lines.

Originally posted by Markgraf
A couple of points for me.

First, in my first game, I'm in 1710 and there has been no conflict except for one war I started. Seems that the aggression level in this Civ is very low. Too many civs locked up tight with each other not to have it. Interested to hear whether others notice this as well. Playing on chiefton level.

I didn't have any war either my first game. Except for a few 1-city civs that got beaten early on, there was no war across the entire planet. I, too, was playing on Noob difficulty at the time. I remember that happening a lot on Civ3 as well.

The game also constantly urges me to build workers, yet I'm inundated with them already and have several in sleep mode. I wondered if there was some advice there, but after many years passing I don't see the need for workers like the AI does.

Do you have 1 worker per city? If not, thats the reason. If so, are you full up on domestic or military in those cities? Maybe the cities don't know what to build because they are just "done" with their military and domestic goals.

I noticed that in the discovery of Animal Husbandry announcement, Nimoy botches the text by pronouncing "kine" as "kind". Just an annoyance when I heard it, since it makes Leonard seem not too sharp.

He also uses the wrong inflection on a lot of quotes, and has some minor mispronunciations (or maybe it's me that doesn't know how to pronounce the words). I blame Firaxis, because Nimoy would have certainly taken any voice-over direction if it was given.
Aside from that, hearing Leonard Nimoy's voice over 80 times per game is starting to get a little old.

Originally posted by Byelotsar
I remember that when WarCraft 2 came out, there was a tip dialogue which would pop up at the start of a game, and one of the tips was "never pet a burning dog." I've always had more respect for companies what put little easter eggs like that in their games.

I love Blizzard's sense of humor!
Many of Civ4's technology quotes are somewhat ironic or silly, especially when taken in context (who said the quote, and when). Unfortunately so many of them are silly or ironic that when you take all the techs together the game sounds cynical about technology. Does anybody else get that vibe, or is it just me?


A lot of people have problems with the interface at first. I did too, and the Civilopedia doesn't help at all. It's akin to playing a mod that has a new set of city improvements and icons. HOWEVER, once you learn to recognize the buttons, it'll be second nature navigating the game.

[Harry Tuttle]

I'm sure the 5 hit singles is a joke.

[thesandtiger]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
I'm sure the 5 hit singles is a joke.

No, it isn't - it's a luxury/happiness resource that you can trade. When you build broadway you get 5 hit shows, too.

Basically, they make your people happy, and you can trade them to other civs.

[Wolfgang76]

Hopefully this wont get lost in all the "this sucks/bites" but my only REAL complaint so far is some of the missing features.

Now, not everyone enjoyed the Throne/Pallace and the ship views but I actually did.

I could visually look at how the ship was coming along and see how i was doing.

As for the Pallace or Throne room, I miss that as it was one more layer to try and achieve in the game that I always liked.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by thesandtiger


No, it isn't - it's a luxury/happiness resource that you can trade. When you build broadway you get 5 hit shows, too.

Basically, they make your people happy, and you can trade them to other civs.

Woah. That's kind of neat actually.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

What I think is most neat about this is the fact that it raises the possibility of modding in other wonders-or even improvements-which generate 'resources' for trade to other nations. For instance, it might be fun to have an automobile industry wonder (iron, oil and rubber to build), or a jewelry industry (you need gold and gems to build it), that kind of thing !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[thesandtiger]

I was actually thinking about wonders that do a sort of cultural homogenization:

I develop, say, Hollywood, Broadway and Rock & Roll. I then can trade those movies/shows/songs to other nations and they will start to slowly change over time to a culture similar to mine - their civics change to match mine, that sort of thing.

OR

I develope Hollywood, Broadway and Rock & Roll and then trade the results to neighboring civs. This helps make their people happy, BUT it also helps promote culture flipping on border cities. Or, maybe if not culture flipping, makes people emigrate from those "enemy" cities into mine.

[RickJay]

I love the game, but I may as well put my two cents in here too.

I don't generally like the graphics; I much preferred the open style and palette of Civ 3. IV feels more restricted; you can't see much unless you zoom way out, at which point you still can't see much. The button placement isn't quite as good, the units are sometimes very difficult to tell apart, and it gives the impression of being dark and ugly, like SMAC was, as opposed to bright and pretty, a la Civ3. I also intensely dislike the Age of Empires-style pictures for selecting what to build in the city screen; at least with regards to units I'd prefer to see pictures of the units so I'm not asking what the hell they are when they get built.

That's my one major complaint. To be honest, it doesn't matter that much; I'm focusing on the gameplay, which is outstanding beyond compare.

[gingergus]

I am hoping this game grows on me cause right now it is rubbing me the wrong way. It feels sooo much like Age of Empires. It lost it's unique feel. I also do not like how dark it is. And I am being asked to care about way too many things at once.

Ginger

[TechWins]

Originally posted by MxM
My problem with this game is that
a) it is difficult to see food/hammers on the tiles that are not darkened, when the tile value display is turned on, or when settler is selected.
b) in the city screen, same problem. Plus it is difficult to see where the people work. In the tutorial it is said that thouse tiles should be marked by circles (I think I have seen it in screen shorts) but in the game, it is just larger icons. Not easy to see for me at all.

I never had problems in civ games seeing the tile values.

I am having similar problems, too. It is difficult for me to tell what values I am receiving from a particular tile. And seperately one of the first things I noticed about the game within a couple of minutes was the lack of an exit button in the city screen, like you mentioned.

[ashbery]

Originally posted by Mace
Oh, and I had trouble getting the CD's out of the stiff cardboard cd folder. (heheheh)

This better be adressed in the patch or me not buy!

[Mace]

Originally posted by Sava


that vid card is not good enough probably... that's my guess...

You are probably right. 64 mb card doesn't cut it anymore. When upgrading, I will go with no less than 256 mb on the card. Can't decide between ATI and nVidia, I have for years been an nvidia customer...

[Mace]

Originally posted by mikeasdf
first thing is to get rid of the geforce.

I upgraded my 64mb card to a geforce 128mb and it was so choppy it was unreal...


Now, I have tried two different ATI cards and both have worked much better than the geforce.

That is interesting because on the other game I play, Flight Sim 2004, the geforce cards work much better than the ATI cards...

So I don't know which way to go....but no doubt it is probably time to retire my 3 year old monster I built. Back when I built it, the 128 mb vidcards were just coming out and were at price premium.

[ERLoft]

Overall, I'm very happy with the game. That being said, the one thing I've noticed so far to change is that I can't see how many of each resource I currently have. I can go to the foreign relations screen once I've got contact with another civ and see what's tradable, but it doesn't say how many if each resource I have...

I'm not sure yet how I feel about the lack of a plant forest command, although having seen a couple of forests grow thus far (in the Medieval period currently) makes me think it might be ok.