First Impressions (screenshots, etc.)

[yin26]

Yes, that's a point. He could have, though, razed my other cities and kill me entirely!

[Sirian]

Check out the Map Guide for more info on maps.

The only "land heavy" maps that have world wrap are Lakes (X-wrap) and Fantasy Realm (X and Y! -- but not yet released.)

The closest you can get to "random" map script selection is to play Tilted Axis or Ice Age and stick with "Random" landmass sizes. You can get anything from a Pangaea to Tiny Islands.


Yin! Glad to see you enjoying yourself. I can -so- much relate to "Wow, I'm LOSING, this is FUN!" Makes it genuinely satisfying when the winning begins.


- Sirian

[yin26]

Thanks for the map tips, Sirian. I expect great maps from you!

One last round of comments before going to bed: Today, Saturday, was the first full day I could give to Civ 4, and it's been compelling. I'm finally settling in to a strategy having tried some things in the previous games mentioned, and this time I'm paying a lot more attention to diplomacy.

Now, it's too early for me to say, but it really does seem as if the AI's not only have persistent memory but also apply diplomatic pressure in surprisingly good and consistent ways. I found myself giving up techs and making deals to just keep strategic friends, mainly because I learned how challenging it is to try to pull off a militaristic and cultural build up at the same time. That is, I don't have a large standing military, and I can't afford a war with neighbors...and I have seen that the AI *will* come after you if you have too many grievances between each other.

I mean, I just love that in the diplo summary with an AI you get a red negative sentence for "You did not help us in war-time." Cool! Add in to this mix the issue of different or shared religion AND the ability to try to convert your neighbors so that you DO share the same religion, and you have an element of strategy that I have not seen in diplomacy to this degree.

Now, this is still the first impressions thread, and maybe there are huge flaws in all this I have not yet to see. But I can certainly say that what Firaxis is trying to do here is significant and, so far, a whole lot of fun. Sure, it's still the honeymoon phase. Need more playing time.

[Imran Siddiqui]

WOOOOO!! I got the game today and played a bunch (tutorial and a regular game). Btw, THESE are my specs:

1.7 Ghtz PIV
512 MB Ram
32 MB VRam, GeForce4 440 Go

And the game is running nicely . Though at the end of the latest game things started slowwwwing down a lot. Though when I exited, I found a bit of a problem with my new 'unsigned' drivers from Laptop2go. I'm hoping it is because I installed Direct X 9.0(c) after I installed the drivers. If not, small price to pay to keep installing them after 3-4 hours of gameplay (like a clock ). I can only hope it wasn't slowing down because of all the cities and units (I don't think it was ).

Anyway, I'm really enjoying it. Playing it on a SUPER easy level, but I'm feeling things out. Religion seems like an interesting factor, and diplomacy seems much better. Tokogawa is pissed because of my Open Borders with Egypt, which is a nice touch.

Good fun... hope there aren't many more slooowdowns, maybe reinstalling the unsigned drivers will make it good.

[Sirian]

"Need more playing time." - Woohoo! Won't argue that.

For me, it's not exactly "one more turn". I don't say that to myself. I say, "A couple of more turns." I'll just play a couple more turns, until I finish this wonder (to see if I will get it!) I will just play a couple more turns (to explore the rest of this island I found.) A couple more turns for this, a couple more turns for that, next thing you six hours have gone by.




- Sirian

[asleepathewheel]

That terra map is awesome Sirian. Rave reviews for that one. Great job

[Addled Platypus]

man those screen prints from the game are so good, I even tried hitting exit on the screenie . ..and it did'nt work

great reports yin26

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oh, thank goodness I am not the ONLY person who does that, Platypus Rex-thought I was getting a bit wierd there !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Solver]

I like the sounds of it, Yin . Glad to see your first impression is good, that means quite a lot.

BTW, an elaboration on why a Large map has more interesting game dynamics. Standard map is you + 6 AIs. That means that everyone can, under the right condition, found a religion, and that there are usually two blocs, not more. On Large maps, it's you + 9 AIs - ten civs, so at least three end up without a religion of their own (and usually someone gets to found two religions), and the potential for blocs is increased. On a Large map, you can sometimes see three distinct blocs being formed, which does, IMO, make the game more interesting.

[Chronus9]

I'm sorry but I'm a bit slow. From what I gather, there are no true random maps and the maps do not continuously scroll from east to west? Or are you only talking about a particular set of maps that come with the game?

man those screen prints from the game are so good, I even tried hitting exit on the screenie . ..and it did'nt work

I must say, the maps, graphics and such look absolutely gorgeous!

[Fidel]

still waiting for the game. apparently it was sold out in couple of manhattan eb game stores my friend was looking at. he had to come back, so i am now waiting for another friend of mine to bring them over from france in a week time.
these reviews are all that keeps me from going insane
so...there are no truly random maps where you just choose size and everything else get randomized (landmass, archipelago/pangea, age, humidity)? why no such option?
hope i am not sounding like a whiner, just kind of a habit...i usually played on normal maps with everything randomized....

[Addled Platypus]

Originally posted by LaRusso

so...there are no truly random maps where you just choose size and everything else get randomized (landmass, archipelago/pangea, age, humidity)? why no such option?
hope i am not sounding like a whiner, just kind of a habit...i usually played on normal maps with everything randomized....

Wait till you play, you will see

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Trip
Mounted units only get their bonus against siege when attacking, and not when defending.

Okay that explains it, thx!

[Arrian]

I wanted to chime in about the aggressiveness of the AI on "noble" level:

In my third game (second on noble), I found myself on a mid-sized continent with one neighbor - France (Nappy). Given that there were three other similarly-sized continents (and one had only 1 civ on it), I felt the need to grab all that I could. So my first city was placed close to Paris and there was immediate culture border battle (as opposed to a shooting war). The shooting war, however, followed directly, and Napolean made me pay for running a minimal military.

I was able to dig myself out of it b/c my empire was larger & more productive, but I did lose St. Petersburg for quite a few turns and I took pretty heavy casualties in reclaiming that city & taking one more. I eventually wiped France out (easily) later with Knights/Cats/Macemen.

So my strategy of hemming in my neighbor triggered the intelligent response - he hit me, and hit me pretty hard. It seriously screwed up my peaceful building.

Now it's 1938. I've finally gone to war again, this time across the straight to my north against the Greeks (crushed 'em with Tanks/Arty/Cossacks vs. Rifles). I'm the biggest, most productive, and I'm leading in score by a wide margin. But I have a major problem: Bismark. He's the solid #2 in those categories, but he's got a 3-tech lead on me in the space race and has built a slew of components. I doubt I can catch him. Further, b/c he's ahead in tech, he's got mech infantry and I don't. Plus, my army is currently engaged in mopping up Greece. I'm gonna lose!

I should have identified him as the major threat earlier. We were best buds, though! Really good relations w/him, whereas the others were mostly cautious or annoyed. My one other good friend was weak, so it was nice to have the #2 civ pleased with me. The problem began when he beat me to a wonder (the one that triggers a free golden age)... then I started getting beat to all sorts of wonders by the AI (not just by the Germans). I think his late-game GA catapulted him in front of me, and I also think he may have gone more for commerce than I did... I have a solid production advantage, but it's not enough to save me. Plus, IIRC, Bizzy gets a discount wonder building (industrious).

In short, I'm bigger and (theoretically) stronger, but he's gonna kick my ass. That's a really good thing.

-Arrian

p.s. I went out of my way to spread around my two religions, but I can't really say it did all that much for me. I wonder if it was worth it.

[aspvv]

Here is what I noticed on about combat. I lost a well defending city to an AI. Very impressive. I had bunch of infantry, some SAM, and a few Mech. Infantry inside a city. The AI hit it with six canons first, that collateral damage hurts LOL. And the finished up with ground units. Not sure how to counter this yet. Any ideas?