First Impressions

[Ironwolf]

Spatzimaus, must be nice to play all night then all day. Guess I will end up taking a few days vacation from what I have heard here.

[Steve Clark]

I still don't understand folks' obsession with the world map and "realistic" locations and resources. That may be useful at first when learning the game but nearly all games (as evident with Civ2) will be played on RANDOM maps with RANDOM resources. That's where the replayability and challenge will occur, not in knowing the geography before hand (which is cheating in a way).

[LarryM]

Some brief impressions after 3 to 4 hours of play:
Gameplay is vastly different than Civ II (in a good way). The previews led me to believe that gameplay wouldn't be that different in the ancient era, that the differences would become more apparent later. So far, I haven't gotten out of the ancient era - and it still feels like a completely new game. Some specifics:

(1) The terrain is a little less friendly - more desert, more jungle, much more mountains.
(2) Shield production is much more affected by corruption.
(3) The fact that settlers cost two population points is largely (but not entirely) offset by (a) faster city population growth, and (b) no food support cost for settlers.
(4) Playing on a normal map with 8 civs is quite crowded. Of course, one can always play on a bigger map or with fewer civs.
(5) Getting monarchy takes a lot tougher - only 4 prerequisite techs (still more than Civ II, if I recall correctly), but one of the prerequites and monarchy itself are very expensive in terms of science points required.

[Green Giant]

This is kind of an important thing for me so if anyone who has played can answer it:
Does the diplomacy AI still make ridiculous demands?

[Comrade Tribune]

Thank You!

Originally posted by Spatzimaus
Also on my hemisphere were the Americans (started about where Seattle would be), Aztecs (amazingly enough, starting near Mexico City), and the Zulus (Argentina). Not wanting my Unique Unit to go to waste, I conquered all of them quickly; Spearmen and Impi are no match for elite Immortals. I've built every Wonder in the game (managed to beat the computer players to ALL of them! Luck, and the fact I have three times as many cities as anyone else), so I've got a massive advantage (they're using Bowmen, I'm about to upgrade to Modern Armor).

I must admit this scares me a little, because it sounds way too easy. Hope this is Chieftain or Warlord level?

[faded glory]

Aha

So here I was building roads like a tire spoke around the horse resource. And I didnt think about a colonists?

No wonder

[Ilkuul]

Originally posted by campmajor!
By the way, how good or bad is Chips & Bits concerning delivery times?

Not too good! I emailed them to ask how soon they'd be sending out the LE's (I'm in the UK), and they replied with a LOOONG set of excuses about how they concentrate on reliability rather than speed, etc. etc. They wouldn't commit to any definite delivery date. So I don't expect to receive my LE before next week at the earliest...

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
I still don't understand folks' obsession with the world map and "realistic" locations and resources. That may be useful at first when learning the game but nearly all games (as evident with Civ2) will be played on RANDOM maps with RANDOM resources. That's where the replayability and challenge will occur, not in knowing the geography before hand (which is cheating in a way).

I wouldn't call it an obsession. It's just something some of us like. I don't see why it wouldn't be an option, since it was in Civ 1 & 2. It just seems like such a no-brainer that Firaxis would continue this tradition; if they didn't I would be... annoyed. Like the pop-ups in Civ 2, it's an annoyance; not the end of the world, but something to tick me off just a little . I hope I can at least open up the map in the editor and place starting cities where I want them to be.

Thanks for the news (though bad) on the large map, Boris. In a way I prefer it when inferior maps are included; it gives me that much more incentive to do a better job myself.

[Steve Clark]

And that was my point, El. If one does not like the world map, you have three options:
1) live with it since it's not supposed to be cartographic realistic (due to the tile-based projection system);
2) play on a random map; or
3) make a more playable map yourself, or download one soon.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Green Giant
This is kind of an important thing for me so if anyone who has played can answer it:
Does the diplomacy AI still make ridiculous demands?

They will make steep demands, but you don't have to accept their terms and can mix-and-match a renegotiation. Also, refusing their offers didn't seem to lead to war. If you reject their offer, they will usually ask you to come up with a counter-offer. Only once did the Russians declare war for me refusing a demand, which was tribute because I was puny and they mighty. They have since learned the error of their ways...

[Deathray]

Am I the only one that didn't bother with Monarchy in Civ 2 then? I always just rushed straight for The Republic. You gotta love that government so early on, if you play it right you can end up so far ahead of the AI in science. Even on Deity I've had some quite funny instances like once I just discovered Industrialisation and then the next turn the Americans (backwards people them ;-)) discovered warrior code.

Anyway, that brings me onto an on topic point. Do the ages sort out the problems that existed with the tech tree? Namely being into the modern advances and not having discovered some of the starting ones...

[scientific civ]

Originally posted by Faboba


So THATS where my disk space went..... bye, bye JC Denton.....

I realise it won't take THAT long but with the autosave it will add on a little time every few turns.

I hope they do what Civ2 did with the file ancestry style back-up. That was a good idea.

I thougt SMAC had a great auto-save system. You could juxt pick the year you wanted to return to from a list. CivII had an irritating auto-save system. Sometimes your save was your previous turn, sometimes 6 turns back. And u didnt know which auto-save you had to load, so had had to check 2 auto-saves.
btw. deus ex was a really cool games wasnt it. i think i put it at no.2 on my best game ever list (with civ2 on top of course)

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
And that was my point, El. If one does not like the world map, you have three options:
1) live with it since it's not supposed to be cartographic realistic (due to the tile-based projection system);
2) play on a random map; or
3) make a more playable map yourself, or download one soon.

Yeah, but fundamentally it's not really the map that's the problem here, it's the fact (if it is a fact) that you can't start in the proper location, or indeed in any predetermined location, proper or not. OK, so Firaxis maybe didn't do a good job making maps; that's fine with me since I will make my own, and I enjoy doing so. But no matter who makes the maps, or how good or bad they are, I still want to be able to set starting locations. It's an aspect of the game that adds a little enjoyment for me, though I understand it's not a concern everyone shares. To each his own.

[Chowlett]

Originally posted by faded glory
Aha

So here I was building roads like a tire spoke around the horse resource. And I didnt think about a colonists?

No wonder

If the resource is in your borders, a colony won't help. If the resource is out of your borders, spaghetti junction won't help.

If it's in, just one road to the rest of your network. If it's out, a coloy and then that one road.

AFAIK - I haven't got the game, of course

[Green Giant]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


They will make steep demands, but you don't have to accept their terms and can mix-and-match a renegotiation. Also, refusing their offers didn't seem to lead to war. If you reject their offer, they will usually ask you to come up with a counter-offer. Only once did the Russians declare war for me refusing a demand, which was tribute because I was puny and they mighty. They have since learned the error of their ways...

That sounds great. In SMACX I hated being at war with everyone because they kept wanting some ridiculous amount of money or tech and i was vastly more powerful than they were. My worries are put aside, I can't wait till it arrives at my doorstep. :salivates: