Civilization 4

[Oerwinde]

The lag didn't bother me at the beginning, but once you get later in the game and it takes like a minute and a half between hitting the end turn button and the game starting the next turn. The first few times I thought the game had crashed.

[Darth_Schmarth]

I don't think it's worse than the waiting times of Civ3.

[SteveThaiBinh]

The lag didn't bother me at the beginning, but once you get later in the game and it takes like a minute and a half between hitting the end turn button and the game starting the next turn. The first few times I thought the game had crashed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You mean it actually just sits there calculating moves and so on? I don't see any reason why this should take longer than it did with Civ3, unless the AI has been dramatically improved. With Civ3 most of the time was taken with animating opponents' moves, and you could turn that off or switch out of the window while it was doing it. That's a thought - does Civ4 continue to play through opponents' moves when you Ctrl+Esc or whatever and do something else?

[metadigital]

I thought you'd be all over this game the day it came out and run home to install it with a Civ4 t-shirt on to boot, Meta. Are you not the die hard Civ gamer I envisioned you to be?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I haven't had time to do anything in the last two weeks, let alone fun. My partner was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and I've been by her side in hospital whilst she underwent surgery, so life has unfortunately cramped my gaming style, as it were.

The lag didn't bother me at the beginning, but once you get later in the game and it takes like a minute and a half between hitting the end turn button and the game starting the next turn. The first few times I thought the game had crashed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I found the lag in Civ 2/3 (same engine) bad enough once there were more than two dozen cities to manage ...

[alanschu]

Yes. Time is an issue with me as well.

 

And my GPA concerns. I'd like it to stay high like it is

[Darth_Schmarth]

I thought you'd be all over this game the day it came out and run home to install it with a Civ4 t-shirt on to boot, Meta. Are you not the die hard Civ gamer I envisioned you to be?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I haven't had time to do anything in the last two weeks, let alone fun. My partner was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and I've been by her side in hospital whilst she underwent surgery, so life has unfortunately cramped my gaming style, as it were.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm sorry to hear that. It recently happened to my aunt too, but it looks like she'll be alright.

[Oerwinde]

The lag didn't bother me at the beginning, but once you get later in the game and it takes like a minute and a half between hitting the end turn button and the game starting the next turn. The first few times I thought the game had crashed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You mean it actually just sits there calculating moves and so on? I don't see any reason why this should take longer than it did with Civ3, unless the AI has been dramatically improved. With Civ3 most of the time was taken with animating opponents' moves, and you could turn that off or switch out of the window while it was doing it. That's a thought - does Civ4 continue to play through opponents' moves when you Ctrl+Esc or whatever and do something else?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't know what it does. Because I think turns are somewhat simultaneous, its just that the AI is faster than you so they tend to finish everything they're doing first. War was hell because I'd do all my moves, then hit next turn and it would just sit there for a good 1-2 minutes. Sometimes I'd hear another civ's music meaning another civ was trying to talk to me, but it would just hang for a few minutes before it finally started up. Enemy/Friendly moves are turned off by default.

 

 

On a positive note: The alarm function is really handy.

[Darth_Schmarth]

I've been playing it a little more today and was struck by how owned I got on Noble. Well, I suppose that with some getting used to and learning of the tweaked gameplay I'll be back in contention, but you always feel really stupid when you have frigates and the AI has destroyers. I was in the race up until about midgame; then things went awry. I still have to get much more in the feel of how religion works and stuff.

[metadigital]

Features:

• Faster-Paced Fun - Gameplay has been streamlined for a tighter, faster, and more compelling experience.
  
• Greater Accessibility and Ease of Play - An easy-to-use interface will be immediately familiar to RTS and action game players, and newcomers to the series will be able to jump in and play.
  
• Tech Tree - Flexible Tech tree allows players more strategic choices for developing their civilizations along unique paths.
  
• More Civs, Units, and Improvements to enhance and grow your empire.
  
• Multiplayer -LAN, Internet, PBEM, and Persistent Turn-Based Server (PTBS) offer players all-new strategies and ways to play when competing or cooperating with live opponents.
  
• Team Play - Whether playing multiplayer or single player, team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading, and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options.
  
• Civ IV comes to life! - Beautiful 3D world with dozens of fully animated units (including culturally unique units), and totally customizable armies. Cities and wonders will appear on the map. Wonder movies are back!
  

Not due out in UK for four more days yet ...

[Ekkest]

My review of Civ 4:

 

Gameplay: The map being 3D makes a big difference, and being able to zoom in all the way and see your buildings or zoom all the way out and see the entire planet is cool. It is still Civilization, and you still start with a settler and build cities, but there are a lot of interesting new features. To tell the truth I thought it was actually a lot slower than Civilization 3, as after four thousand years I still only had three or four cities. The new political options are neat, and you can change your government fairly easily to get new bonuses. You can also upgrade you units as they get XP from killing things, but it doesn't seem to affect gameplay much - my riflemen were still slaughtered by longbowmen even after three or four ugrades (you get upgrades after 2, 5, 10, 17 XP and so on)

There are a ton of new units and technologies and wonders.There are also a hell of a lot of new terrain improvements (like windmills which give small amounts of food, gold and production, or cottages which provide a small amount of trade income) as well as a lot of resources. Also, barbarians can attack and capture cities, and even found new civilizations. So far I've seen Navajo, Mycenean and Bulgarian Civilizations spawned by barbarians. They can found cities and improve terrain, but you can't talk to them. Nifty.

 

Problems: For starters, some of the problems that have existed throughout the Civilization series still exist. It is still possible for a spearman to take out a tank, and for knights to take out helicopter gunships. As well, the Civilopedia thingy is a jumbled mess, since somebody decided that words were too complex and used icons for everythings. Seriously, instead of writing the word happy, they put a smiley face in the middle of a sentence. However, the major problem for me at least is the bugs. Every five minutes the game crashes (and not crashes to desktop, but instead crashes that reboot my computer). Occaisionally the game freezes. I've had the game turn completely black, or turn into a rainbow of wierd colours. Without a fix, this game can't run on many ATI cards (I have an ATI card, by the way, but the games 'works'). When I try to play a scenario the game restarts but never loads up again. This game really needs another month of polish.

 

Overall Score: Despite the technical problems, Civ 4 as a massive amount of new features and is very fun. I give it a seven.

Edited October 30, 2005 by Ekkest

[metadigital]

...

Problems: ... As well, the Civilopedia thingy is a jumbled mess, since somebody decided that words were too complex and used icons for everythings. Seriously, instead of writing the word happy, they put a smiley face in the middle of a sentence.

...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That sucks. I don't like dumbing down; I think it would make more sense to make the tools even more useful, like a super-effective index to look up stuff in the Civilop

[Darth_Schmarth]

They tried to make the Civopaedia easier to navigate and made a poor job of it. You have the list on the right, but if you click on "Units" for instance, you'll get a bunch of icons and still have the original list on the right. The icons make it tedious to find what you're looking for (they're still in "alphabetical" order, though), but when you click on one you get the unit list on the right anyway. It effectively ensures that each time you want information from the Civopaedia, you have to make an extra click of the mouse until you've memorised all icons and their positions. Whoever came up with the idea must be a top of the line doofus...

[Oerwinde]

Does anyone know how to get to the city view? I've seen screenshots of it but don't know how to access it. I'm talking the big picture of your city, not where it displays what parts of the land are worked and such.

Edited October 31, 2005 by Oerwinde

[Deraldin]

Does anyone know how to get to the city view? I've seen screenshots of it but don't know how to access it. I'm talking the big picture of your city, not where it displays what parts of the land are worked and such.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I assume you're not talking about just doubleclicking on the city. Can you give us an example of what you're looking for?

 

EDIT: I just realized that I screwed myself over in my game. I didn't expand enough to hem in the two people on my sides with my cutural borders, so they decided to move in and take the arctic land north of me. I didn't expand as much because I figured that I would be able to get a settler to the other continent on the map and have it all to myself. I didn't realize just how far along ocean going vessels are in the tech tree. I'm at 1600AD and I'm still about 50 years from getting ocean going vessels.

 

EDIT2: If you were talking about a city view like this then it's just zoomed in all the way.

Edited October 31, 2005 by Deraldin

[Oerwinde]

Does anyone know how to get to the city view? I've seen screenshots of it but don't know how to access it. I'm talking the big picture of your city, not where it displays what parts of the land are worked and such.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I assume you're not talking about just doubleclicking on the city. Can you give us an example of what you're looking for?

 

EDIT: I just realized that I screwed myself over in my game. I didn't expand enough to hem in the two people on my sides with my cutural borders, so they decided to move in and take the arctic land north of me. I didn't expand as much because I figured that I would be able to get a settler to the other continent on the map and have it all to myself. I didn't realize just how far along ocean going vessels are in the tech tree. I'm at 1600AD and I'm still about 50 years from getting ocean going vessels.

 

EDIT2: If you were talking about a city view like this then it's just zoomed in all the way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I meant like this: http://civilization4.net/files/gallery/051...2_screen002.jpg

 

But it turns out thats just a screenshot of the cultural victory video. But yeah, I'm talking about the Civ IV equivalent of this: http://files.mrfixitonline.com/s/1/c3-cityview.jpg

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

SMAC was fun although it dosnt have the familiarity of history that Civ does it does have elements of gameplay that Civ lacks. I would have bought Civ IV if it had been out on the 28th like it was supposed to be (it's in the warehouses, its just not in the shops). But since I've got Xenosaga II and two versions of FireEmblem arriving on thursday Civ missed the boat as it were.

[Darth_Schmarth]

All the buildings in a city are shown on the actual map. I don't think there's a city view like in the old games (but don't quote me on it).

[Spider]

I think Civ 4 is excellent. It took me a lot of time to get it working (it had issues with my soundcard drivers of all things) but once that was out of the way it's been great.

 

The release is somewhat buggy though. I spent some time on support forums due to my own issues and learned that ATI users are suffering greatly. There is a fix for the major problem though.

 

There are also some issues with XML-implementation that can prevent some from playing the game without a few adjustments.

 

The lag people are talking about when moving units is there for me as well and I think it has to do with the animation of units. I started using the to move units instead of the keyboard (just right-click where you want to go) and that moves the units MUCH faster without any lag (or animation I think).

 

What I'm most impressed with is diplomacy. I'm playing a game that's reached 1800 and I haven't been in a war yet AND I am the leader in both points and research. Oh, and I'm sharing my continent with two other nations. That has never happened to me in a Civ-game before.

[metadigital]

...

I don't think there's a city view like in the old games ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Darth_Schmarth]

*falls off chair in hearty laughter*

 

It seriously took me a few moments to realise what the hell it was supposed to mean.

[metadigital]

...

The lag people are talking about when moving units is there for me as well and I think it has to do with the animation of units. I started using the to move units instead of the keyboard (just right-click where you want to go) and that moves the units MUCH faster without any lag (or animation I think).

 

What I'm most impressed with is diplomacy. I'm playing a game that's reached 1800 and I haven't been in a war yet AND I am the leader in both points and research. Oh, and I'm sharing my continent with two other nations. That has never happened to me in a Civ-game before.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's faster to use the mouse rather than the keyboard? What's the world coming to?

 

It sounds like the diplomacy has been improved out of sight. (I have never lasted more than a dozen turns before a nation on my continent decided that I was too much of a threat, regardless of my technology and military levels.)

 

Sucks that ATi hardware is having trouble; they have just released a patch that apparently speeds up all OpenGL games by 35% (tested in CustomPC, only for the latest X1000 series models and possibly the X800s later, though).

[Cantousent]

I had a friend over and he installed Civ IV on my wife's computer. It ran just fine on her ATI card. In fact, I think they've done a great job with this one and I intend on buying it when I get the chance.

[Oerwinde]

It sounds like the diplomacy has been improved out of sight. (I have never lasted more than a dozen turns before a nation on my continent decided that I was too much of a threat, regardless of my technology and military levels.)

 

One of the best things is being able to cause others to go to war, without going to war yourself. And the best thing about that... is that the AI uses that option. I was sitting there on my peaceful throne, not threatening everyone, being on bad terms with only two of the like 10 civs I was competing with, then BAM, Cyrus, who I had I think "Pleased" relations with at the time suddenly declares war on me. I guess someone paid him enough to do so.

[Darth_Schmarth]

I've been playing some more, but started a new game. I stuck with Noble and this time I'm owning my neighbours playing as the Arabs, but I must lift my hat off for the AI. I had previously declared war on the Aztecs to lay claim on an area they managed to settle only two turns ahead of me (I'd done the dirty work and razed a barb city just to get to that site). I actually founded the city next to the ruins (because the AI wasn't quite as clever when picking his city site, going for a spot two tiles from the ocean which is a real no-no).

 

The population of the city I founded (on the coast) was actually 3% Aztec and 3% Barbarian, so the game remembered what cities had been around the same tiles earlier, which was really ultra cool (I had to go to the loo and...). What was even more stunningly ultra cool was Montezuma's course of action a good while later. I'd reinforced the border cities (the other one was a bit further up north and safely out of reach, or so I thought) and gone about my business without fearing the backward Aztecs particularly. I even neglected my army a bit and went for wonders and other buildings.

 

That's when Montezuma declared war and he actually went for his old baby instead of the closer cities. What actually really impressed an old kook like me locked in a Civ I-III frame of mind, though, was that he made a massive sea assault with three galleys and several military units plus a settler! All of a sudden I had three horse archers and an axeman standing safely in the woods outside a city I thought was well out of danger (and thusly only guarded by a single axeman). He didn't stand a chance and now I'm gonna have to try and retake the city, which actually might prove tricky because of the lack of quality units I have in the area. Nifty!

[alanschu]

I'd figure the performance would be similar to that of Pirates. I can't imagine why ATI people would be having problems if they weren't having problems with Pirates (unless of course they were having problems with pirates).

 

 

Pirates runs fantastic for me, so here's hoping.