Post negative points of Civilization 4 here

[Caranorn]

Tried to read through the other posts to see whether what I have to say was already said. But most posts seem to be replies to others.

1) Settler/Worker production changes. I'm not sure how the change from pop-reduction to 0-growth will help new players, but as an old one I certainly get annoyed by this feature pretty fast.

2) Missing Civs. I really regret that Babylon was left out of the game (iirc Civ I and Civ II still had two of the "Iraqi-Syrian" civilizations (Babylon, Sumer and Asyria) in addition to the "Iranian" Persia...). I almost always played the ancient and classic civilizations, now one of my favorite ones is gone (and Carthago/Phonicia used to be in there too).

3) Unit qualities. At least some of the game's combat units have no relation with their historic counterparts. For instance, spearmen/phalanx should not be cavalry killers, those formations were very vulnerable to cavalry (due to their lack of flexibility and mobility), on the other hand they were excelent against any other form of infantry (including missile units as the aegis and macedonian shields (funny how the phalanx sprite uses a "heroic" age greek shield (held the wrong way) instead of eitehr aegis or macedonian shield) were quite practical in that regard. Cavalry itself is portrayed oddly, why no defensive retreat? Delay is after all one of teh roles of cavalry. It's also unclear what some of the otehr unit types are supposed to represent, I'd hazard that the swordsman due to it's tie to the praetorian (who should really be legionary as the praetorian guard was both small and low quality) is supposed to be heavy infantry like the phalanx but with more emphasis on mobility (the legion originally still had a vestige phalanx like formation (it's rear 3 or 4 ranks iirc)) so that's more or less fine with me (other then the twohanded sword sprite). The axeman on the other hand as a bronze age unit is odd to me (if it's a one handed unit it would be about equivalent to the warrior, so why include both, if it's twohanded then it's really a much later type of unit requiring iron...). And so forth...

Generaly I prefer games that try to match history. As it looks now, CivIV is just an attempt to match RTS games by copying their approach to the game (I play it almost the same way I'd play an RTS game, but that will mean I will play it for a week or two and then not again for a year or two, unlike CivI which I played for some 3 years (until I had a computer on which it no longer ran), CivII which I played and modded for quite a few years, CivIII which I recently picked up again (and actually started to like), CTPI which I played until CTPII came out which in turn I played ever since (though I was obviously looking for a replacement).

Enough rambling which is goign increasingly offtopic.

Marc aka Caran...

[alib4]

Overall great game, However my biggest gripe is how difficult it is to routinely upgrade my units, each time you upgrade a unit, you are taken out of the city screen and back to the game screen and the next turn. As this used to be so easy in previous civs, am i missing something??

[Generaldoktor]

Wow, I posted a couple things the first few days after C4 came out, but whew, look at these gripes. I go on the other threads and there seem to be happy players, but man, I'm really starting to wonder if Firaxis has a turkey on their hands, with this much opposition from the fan base. Sadly, I'm in company.

Hoping not to repeat as I agree with almost every gripe here, but my "original" ones, (I think, there's a lot of text on this thread,) are that Great People opted to give Tech, don't always give it. An artist failed to give me "Military Traditions" as promised, probably only promised as it is derived party from Music

A G-Merchant couldn't give me "Replacement Parts." Had to restart turn to get my money's worth and use them as specialists. (I don't like "open borders" so M-Man wasn't doing any trade missions for me; the criticism some posts above about open borders being outrageously illogical is completely valid.

2. Game doesn't list all prerequisites for certain techs. I forgot to write down examples, but you'll select from the tree and it starts you on a lower tech, because neither the Civopedia or the tech tree tells you that the lower one was required, besides what it does indicate. You can make mistakes that force you to rerun turns or let AI's run ahead rampant in the tech rivalry.

3. The custom game defaults to noble, you only change it from your box, when you select your civ. (By the way, you can change your digital id by hitting the little TV icon next to your box. Non-"custom" games don't let you select your opponents, or their number. I play all mine custom, but was playing (and losing) on "noble" for two weeks before I figured out how to get something simpler, which I think is important in any game, when you're trying to figure it out.

4. AI will fight, (at least on Noble) and otherwise act aggressive, but it is more subtle than Civ 3. Qua-Huang took advantage of my open borders to march around two "death stacks" of elephants and catapults around my cities, before I got sick of it and cancelled the agreement. I had one explorer in his territory at the time. He made a little pout, took his war toys home and did nothing. Same game, Mansa cancelled our agreement the minute I put the explorer over his border, he, unlike the Chinaman, was pretty sore about it. Alexander goaded me into war with Saladin, who fought fairly good, but not great; but when I finally figured out the foreign advisor, I found Alex had withdrawn from hostilities probably a turn after I declared in. How's that for Machivellian, or Tallyrandesque?

5. As I wrote here, somewhere, early in the month. I solved my crash problem, mostly. I downloaded new ATI drivers, as suggested, but also have to disable my firewall, my anti-virus, my separate spyware sweeper (also monitors registry) and unplug my cable broadband, so nothing sneaks in an open port while my defenses are all down. I also have to sweep my temp files before every game. Whew! All this on a Dell, P4, 3.06 gig, with 512 RDRAM and 80 gig hard drive with the 128 mb Radeon card, with its brand new drivers. My system monitor software says I have driver and registry errors every time I run the game, which I endeavor to have it correct afterward. A lot of work for a little leisure. Firaxis, beware the Ides of March!

[deity13]

I just Hate the Game

It crashes no matter what I do. Sure sometimes it takes a few hours but what a waste. I've got a system that exceeds all the recommendations, the latest drivers and versions etc. but I still can't get a smooth game. I also hate listening to Spock every time I start a new game. The trading is lame and the bugs are worthy of a can of Raid! Overall this was not even a good beta version.

[bj]

military advisor is not that helpful and clunky in use, and it always starts with all civs selected. understood with the move to global map view of military units, but it is still harder overall to manage military.

when build queues appear on new turn, cant find any information about the city. EG you can hover a market and find out 'Oh it increases gold 25%' but you cant find out how much gold is actually produced in that city (EG like hovering over a city on the main map would normally provide). So you 'Examine City' and can get the information you need, but are forced to use the mini build queue which is awkward with the scrolling and the pictures, needing to hover each to see and compare build times. So you leave the city without selecting anything, hoping to use the previous build queue display...and it jumps to another city. by the time it returns you forgotten wth you were doing anyway.

multiplayer menu bugs and crashes, and i just cannot get a gamespy game working from behind my router.

have to open the event log to go to an event - often the circle symbols which appear are hard to see or concealed by UI elements so you cant click them. most multiplayer battles are missed as a result... im still doing build queues when i get attacked - tough luck.

civilopedia lack of information and hyperlinking :<

mouseovers quite often flick off before you can read them or change to something underneath EG i can hover a UI button and get terrain information.

wonder movies are...very similar. If you want to remind yourself of the effects, you have to watch through it.

overall the game looks very enjoyable moreso than civ3 which i didnt like compared to 1/2 but a lot of minor things that make it awkward instead of easy to play

[terje439]

Well my biggest complaints are:
1. The lack of an easy to use scenario editor and/or map editor. The one in Civ3 was good, easy to use and pretty hard to do anything "wrong". In this game I have (from what I have read on the web) to be a programmer or comp.engineer to make a new scenario.
2. Heaps of CTD
3. When you get somewhat advanced (like gain armor) you are usually way ahead of that era again before your first armored units starts to appear.
4. If you do not have easy access to iron/copper, you will have a pain with the barbarians.
5. I have to look up every wonder in the 'pedia to see what age that makes it unbuildable, just one problem there... I have yet to see anywere what decides which age I am in, and when/were I will get to the next one.
6. The diplomacy options. The AI's make redicilus demands. An example - I am by far the most advanced, the biggest in pop and area and have the most points, and have built heaps more wonders than anyone else. Then I discover gunpowder, and all AI's want some "help" meaning they want gunpowder. If I say no they tend to declare war. This makes no sense to me, who would attack the bigger, better advanced, better equipped neighbour?

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor 2. Game doesn't list all prerequisites for certain techs. I forgot to write down examples, but you'll select from the tree and it starts you on a lower tech, because neither the Civopedia or the tech tree tells you that the lower one was required...

There is an icon in the upper right corner of some techs that indicates a prerequisite that is required (not optional) for the tech. Mouse over it to get the text if you can't tell what it is.

3. The custom game defaults to noble, you only change it from your box, when you select your civ. Non-"custom" games don't let you select your opponents, or their number. I play all mine custom, but was playing (and losing) on "noble" for two weeks before I figured out how to get something simpler, which I think is important in any game, when you're trying to figure it out.

This is adequately covered in the manual.

4. AI will fight, etc. etc.

This is negative??

[Paul_Pearce]

The game is so slow on the Huge map even from the start its virtually unplayable. Is this a bug?

System spec is big enough:

512 RAM
AMD athlon 2800
128 MB Video ram on GEForce 5200 card
XP SP2

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Stuie


There is an icon in the upper right corner of some techs that indicates a prerequisite that is required (not optional) for the tech. Mouse over it to get the text if you can't tell what it is.

As I stated earlier, I have to totally disengage from the Internet to run the game, so I'll come back with concrete examples. With a little squinting and my state-of-the-art/maximum possible correction bifocals, I can see most of the icons, though I agree with some critics here they are small and needlessly ornate, obscuring their functionality. I still maintain there are some prerequisites for later techs, including some key early-game ones, that are not listed, examples to follow later.

This is adequately covered in the manual.

Okay, I didn't read a lot of the manual. A lot of gameplayers just want to get on and not read all that stuff, which is rarely, unlike the separately published strategy guides, in a pleasing, reader-friendly format.
The better quality games have an interface easy enough to use that you can figure them out by playing; and I've started over two dozen single player games since purchase on 10/27.

This is negative??

My description of fighting AI's was in a response to earlier posts, which claimed they didn't fight at all and there was no war unless the live player(s) started it.

I am the biggest fan of any of the earlier games, especially Civ3, which I didn't find difficult even in its widely criticized PTW variant. I was also a big CTP fan, but feel their inability to continue to publish because of ongoing legal disputes with Firaxis, made them after a time irrelevant, but my commitment to this type of game is solid. This one has just got a lot of problems and I refer to my earlier comment that I see validity with virtually all of the dozens of gripes listed by numerous people on this thread. The fact that they are listed on this Apolyton site at all, is a reliable indication of their overall commitment to this type of game. I just hope the designers, who I know monitor a lot of Apolyton correspondence, get some ideas here to make it better in a future variant, which I guess I would be willing to throw good money after bad to purchase.

My biggest gripe, which Stu didn't address, was the continued technical problems. My ATI video card has been good to me for three years and seems to be a good production effort by that company. I was confused where to get new drivers, Microsoft, Firaxis and others don't seem to understand layman computer users might have problems with learning how and when to do this. Even with the new drivers, I still have problems, which I think is unfair; my experience elsewhere gaming and using other computer graphics functions suggests my equipment is not obsolete.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by terje439
6. The diplomacy options. The AI's make redicilus demands. An example - I am by far the most advanced, the biggest in pop and area and have the most points, and have built heaps more wonders than anyone else. Then I discover gunpowder, and all AI's want some "help" meaning they want gunpowder. If I say no they tend to declare war. This makes no sense to me, who would attack the bigger, better advanced, better equipped neighbour?

The demands are ridiculous, right? Sorry, I correct everybody's spelling, should have been a teacher.

There is some rationale for this and we see it in the current affairs debate about nuclear proliferation. North Korea gets A-bombs right? (I do think they already have them, late for breakfast again, Bushie.) This is a superweapon, as gunpowder was undoubtedly when introduced. Other powers, (at least certain other powers,) feel a need to attack North Korea because they have the superweapon and so many don't. Get it?

A similar rationale recently existed real-world for fighting a war over some other power's alleged acquisition of various other "weapons of mass destruction." (WMD's.)

In the movie version of the excellent novel, "The Egyptian," the Hittites acquisition of iron weapons is also considered disruptive of the balance of power and cause for war. Germany's pre-WWI acquisition of a large dreadnought fleet was also generally considered part of the grounds for that conflict.

Germany and the Hittites were not minor powers, even if Iraq and North Korea in today's terms are. Nevertheless, they were attacked to prevent their potential abuse of superior military technology. There were a lot of reasons to go to war again against Nazi Germany, but their dabbling back in the Thirties and Forties with nuclear technology was certainly among the supplementary ones.

So, and I'm not criticizing anybody who wants to make valid criticism of this game, which I feel does need considerable help (i.e. revision,) in this particular case, art does imitate life.

[TomVeil]

The victory screens took ridiculously long to process. I'm on a machine that barely meets the minimum specs, but my game was humming along speedily, mainly b/c I have all graphics options turned off, even movies (edited the ini file).
It took about 10-15 minutes for the History, Dan Quayle, and HOF screens to load -- by far the longest lags that I've experienced, at the one time when I most want to wrap it up and move on. I suspect that the problem is the intentional design feature of making it possible to return to the game after victory; as a result, the victory screens have to be loaded on top of everything else that's already in RAM or in the video memory.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor My biggest gripe, which Stu didn't address, was the continued technical problems.

Alas, I don't have an answer for everything.

I have an ATI card and I am experiencing the occassional reboot. By "occassional", I mean once every five or six hours of play, usually in the later stages of a game. It's frustrating, I hope it's fixed, but I'm dealing with it for now because the gameplay (in my opinion) is just that good.

I also get slowdowns on any map above Standard late in the game. But that happened in Civ 3 as well, so I guess I expected more of the same. I've also come to realize that I actually like the Standard size map better anyway - I don't like having too many cities to micromanage.

That summarizes my negatives thus far. The actual gameplay makes me happy.

[terje439]

Originally posted by Generaldoktor


The demands are ridiculous, right? Sorry, I correct everybody's spelling, should have been a teacher.

There is some rationale for this and we see it in the current affairs debate about nuclear proliferation. North Korea gets A-bombs right? (I do think they already have them, late for breakfast again, Bushie.) This is a superweapon, as gunpowder was undoubtedly when introduced. Other powers, (at least certain other powers,) feel a need to attack North Korea because they have the superweapon and so many don't. Get it?

A similar rationale recently existed real-world for fighting a war over some other power's alleged acquisition of various other "weapons of mass destruction." (WMD's.)

In the movie version of the excellent novel, "The Egyptian," the Hittites acquisition of iron weapons is also considered disruptive of the balance of power and cause for war. Germany's pre-WWI acquisition of a large dreadnought fleet was also generally considered part of the grounds for that conflict.

Germany and the Hittites were not minor powers, even if Iraq and North Korea in today's terms are. Nevertheless, they were attacked to prevent their potential abuse of superior military technology. There were a lot of reasons to go to war again against Nazi Germany, but their dabbling back in the Thirties and Forties with nuclear technology was certainly among the supplementary ones.

So, and I'm not criticizing anybody who wants to make valid criticism of this game, which I feel does need considerable help (i.e. revision,) in this particular case, art does imitate life.

Ok, I stand corrected (both in spelling an demands)

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Stuie



I have an ATI card and I am experiencing the occassional reboot. By "occassional", I mean once every five or six hours of play, usually in the later stages of a game. It's frustrating, I hope it's fixed, but I'm dealing with it for now because the gameplay (in my opinion) is just that good.

I also get slowdowns on any map above Standard late in the game. But that happened in Civ 3 as well, so I guess I expected more of the same. I've also come to realize that I actually like the Standard size map better anyway - I don't like having too many cities to micromanage.

That summarizes my negatives thus far. The actual gameplay makes me happy.

Pretty close to my experience (with my ATI card) also, but I love to micromanage (which is why I haven't jumped on the bandwagon about worker automation issues, they do what Fearless Leader tells them, only when he tells them) and I love big maps. Yeah, I like playing it too, so I'm putting up with it. I'm contributing here to mainly help in the patch effort; and according to the official Firaxis website, what at least will be the first patch should be along within days.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by terje439


Ok, I stand corrected (both in spelling an demands)

Well, not to lay it on too thick with the history lessons here, but the other example that occurred to me today was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI.) Gorbachev went bananas when Reagan suggested it might someday be feasible for the good old USA to have its own anti-nuclear shield, invalidating anybody else's deterrent; and Russia's Putin, much more so than nuclear sabre-rattlers like China or North Korea, has been about as vocal opposing it when Bush tried to revive it as old Gorby was. We haven't got a war out of it yet and I sure hope we don't; but that's another example of how superior technology MIGHT goad a nation into war with the holder of that technology.