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Summary:
Fantastic game with some rough edges due to rushed ship date.
Overview:
Having lurked on Apolyton for ages, I've decided to take the plunge and create an account and become part of the community.
The reason: Civilization IV. The game is so compelling and I think, with some patches, so enduring that we'll be talking and playing this game for years to come.
The game has the best user interface of any strategy game I've ever played that has any significant depth.
The first impression:
The game is a mixed bag. You can see the parts that were planned well in advanced such as Leonard Nimoys voice and you can see the parts they rushed such as video skipping, status text and a lot of raw metal in parts such as loading of scenarios.
To a veteran strategy gamer, seeing the sheet metal in places means nothing. However, new users may not be comfortable with seeing the rough areas. The veteran gamer could care less if they got Spock to talk in the game. I turned that off right away.
The initial menu with the planet is fabulous.
Gameplay:
The game mechanics of Civ IV are better than any previous Civ game. No game interuptions due to angry mobs. No cleaning up pollution blobs. No hard-coded rules about "buid a sewer when population reaches 12" type stuff. The game has been streamlined and allows players to focus on PLAYING THE GAME.
The addition of religion makes the game far more richer. It is also one of the places where sheet metal shows up. I don't think this part was as play tested as it could have been.
Culture is another area that could have been tested. I have conquered cities with culture but it takes immense amounts of effort to do so. It's a lot easier to conquer the world with units than with culture making culture the ugly step-child victory path. At best you can hope for several of your cities to have lots of built up culture but how fun is that?
The fighting in the game is much better but I do miss the Civ 3 armies a little. The new warfare system is just better all around. I love the little ribbons and medals units get as they move up in rank, a nice touch.
The interface is outstanding.
The goto command is very nice. I like seeing how many moves a unit will take to get somewhere on the map. I like the unit queue system. I like the technology queue system. The game really gets everything out of your way to focus on having F-U-N.
Multiplayer
I know some people will disagree with me but I don't like the multiplayer. It's not Civ's fault. Civ IV makes a good case that multiplayer in turn based strategy games is not fun unless you know the people you're playing with. Since I'm a despicable antisocial loner, I don't have friends with hours to burn playing a computer strategy game. They'd rather play board games where they can smear me in a few hours in person.
Civ IV's multplayer is about as good as it can get. It's built in, seamless, lots of options, seamless updating from the built in system. I don't know how they could improve on it. But yet.... I still have never finished a multiplayer game. You quickly get to the point where the turns get too long and someone runs out of time.
Single Player
Not enjoying multiplayer hurts nothing in Civ IV for me. The single player is good. The computer players are intelligent and seem to do a very good job playing intelligently. I can beat the game reliabily at prince at any setting but at monarch I can only win at smaller maps or if I hold out for a United Nations or space race win and then only sometimes.
I don't remember where the AI starts to "cheat" but I suspect it's around Monarch since the AI often progresses far faster than I think it could but I could be wrong.
Bugs
I have not run into any problems other than the ATI bug which was solved easily thanks to Apolyton. The game has never crashed in many many many many hours of play.
Overall
Best game of 2005 period. I will be playing this game regularly for years to come.
Fantastic game with some rough edges due to rushed ship date.
Overview:
Having lurked on Apolyton for ages, I've decided to take the plunge and create an account and become part of the community.
The reason: Civilization IV. The game is so compelling and I think, with some patches, so enduring that we'll be talking and playing this game for years to come.
The game has the best user interface of any strategy game I've ever played that has any significant depth.
The first impression:
The game is a mixed bag. You can see the parts that were planned well in advanced such as Leonard Nimoys voice and you can see the parts they rushed such as video skipping, status text and a lot of raw metal in parts such as loading of scenarios.
To a veteran strategy gamer, seeing the sheet metal in places means nothing. However, new users may not be comfortable with seeing the rough areas. The veteran gamer could care less if they got Spock to talk in the game. I turned that off right away.
The initial menu with the planet is fabulous.
Gameplay:
The game mechanics of Civ IV are better than any previous Civ game. No game interuptions due to angry mobs. No cleaning up pollution blobs. No hard-coded rules about "buid a sewer when population reaches 12" type stuff. The game has been streamlined and allows players to focus on PLAYING THE GAME.
The addition of religion makes the game far more richer. It is also one of the places where sheet metal shows up. I don't think this part was as play tested as it could have been.
Culture is another area that could have been tested. I have conquered cities with culture but it takes immense amounts of effort to do so. It's a lot easier to conquer the world with units than with culture making culture the ugly step-child victory path. At best you can hope for several of your cities to have lots of built up culture but how fun is that?
The fighting in the game is much better but I do miss the Civ 3 armies a little. The new warfare system is just better all around. I love the little ribbons and medals units get as they move up in rank, a nice touch.
The interface is outstanding.
The goto command is very nice. I like seeing how many moves a unit will take to get somewhere on the map. I like the unit queue system. I like the technology queue system. The game really gets everything out of your way to focus on having F-U-N.
Multiplayer
I know some people will disagree with me but I don't like the multiplayer. It's not Civ's fault. Civ IV makes a good case that multiplayer in turn based strategy games is not fun unless you know the people you're playing with. Since I'm a despicable antisocial loner, I don't have friends with hours to burn playing a computer strategy game. They'd rather play board games where they can smear me in a few hours in person.
Civ IV's multplayer is about as good as it can get. It's built in, seamless, lots of options, seamless updating from the built in system. I don't know how they could improve on it. But yet.... I still have never finished a multiplayer game. You quickly get to the point where the turns get too long and someone runs out of time.
Single Player
Not enjoying multiplayer hurts nothing in Civ IV for me. The single player is good. The computer players are intelligent and seem to do a very good job playing intelligently. I can beat the game reliabily at prince at any setting but at monarch I can only win at smaller maps or if I hold out for a United Nations or space race win and then only sometimes.
I don't remember where the AI starts to "cheat" but I suspect it's around Monarch since the AI often progresses far faster than I think it could but I could be wrong.
Bugs
I have not run into any problems other than the ATI bug which was solved easily thanks to Apolyton. The game has never crashed in many many many many hours of play.
Overall
Best game of 2005 period. I will be playing this game regularly for years to come.