Civilization 4

[alanschu]

I can't believe that PSU suppliers can just say anything and get away with it! I mean, can AMD say they have a 3GHz CPU and it only clocks @ 2.5GHz? Or if you buy 1GB RAM and it actually only is 768MB? What's up with that?

 

Sheesh!

 

(It was a fantastic cartoon: Sam was the sheepdog, and Ralph was the coyote, iirc.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

Oh yeah, I'd seen that cartoon. Sam and Ralph. They were good buddies who went to work together. They were just on the opposite ends of things.

 

My quotes weren't from them though, unless it was cryptomnesia.

[Spider]

How much RAM have you got? And where are you reading up on the crashes?

 

I have 1 gb. It's possible doubling that takes care of the problem. If it is a RAM problem at all, could be the graphics card.

 

I've been going to the tech support forum at civfanatics.com. Not official, but I think Firaxis people post there as well (and more importantly read).

 

I just noticed someone who posted a solution for him that worked, rolling back to older drivers for his card. I'm going to try this sometime during the weekend. Hopefully it'll work for me too since I have the same card.

 

Regardless, I just played a game on a small map and had no problems at all.

 

Edit: I've looked a little more and found two more persons with similar experiences. Apparently older drivers work better with Civ 4. This for both ATI and Nvidia users.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Spider

[Nartwak]

An interesting walkthrough.

[Cantousent]

Maybe I'm too sick to leave the house today. ...Or maybe I just want one more turn of Civ 4. Whatever. Anyhow, I have some observations to make.

 

First of all, I've played the game on several difficulty levels to some point or another in the ADs. I've not had a significant slow-down at those levels.

 

I've played an entire game in Settler level just to see what happened when some of these things were described. I wasn't trying to milk the score (something virtually impossible at anything other than the highest difficulty settings anyhow) but I did want to do as much as possible in order to see what would happen. So, I built every wonder except for the Collosus, Lighthouse, and the Buddhist religious special. I research every regular tech and got up to Future Tech 9. By discovering Sattelites, I uncovered the entire map. Finally, I built the spaceship.

 

The verdict? There were only two noteworthy glitches in that entire time. First of all, the wonder videos had "hicups." The video actually wasn't bad, but the sound would stop. Regardless, I believe my video card was the culprit. Second of all, after the whole map was uncovered, it took 14 seconds for the grid to show when I toggled the grid back and forth. I'm less inclined to think that's a video problem.

 

Every video setting was maxed and my resolution was set at 1600x1200 (my desktop).

 

I'm running this game on a 3.00 Pentium 4 CPU with 1GB of Ram.

My video card is a Radeon 9800pro with 256 MB of memory.

My sound card is a (rather old) Creative SB Live!

My operating System is Windows XP Home Edition version 2002 w/SP2.

 

So, I don't know what this says about the game, and I'm sympathetic to the trials other folks are having, but I've been quite lucky.

 

BTW: I always worry about power supplies. With all the draws on power, I hate having to worry about false advertising! :Eldar's scowling and generally pissed off icon:

[Spider]

A lot of people have no problems at all. And for those I'm happy (and a bit jealous).

 

I mostly wanted to prepare people for what can happen, because there are some issues. At this point it seems to me (without out doing a ton of research, but a little) like it's a driver issue with some cards, but I haven't been able to verify that yet. Will try a rollback during the weekend though.

 

Eldar, just out of curiosity, the settler game you played how large was the map? I've only encountered problems on a huge map (10 players in my case) and only after a significant portion of the map has been revealed (I don't recall the exact year, but others with the problem mention that it started somewhere around 1600 or so).

[Deraldin]

Eldar, just out of curiosity, the settler game you played how large was the map? I've only encountered problems on a huge map (10 players in my case) and only after a significant portion of the map has been revealed (I don't recall the exact year, but others with the problem mention that it started somewhere around 1600 or so).

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Yeah, the slowdown doesn't start until you've revealed a fair chunk of the map. Only played the one game so far and it was on a huge terra map so I can't tell what it would be like on smaller maps.

[Cantousent]

The map was set at huge, terran, and with the max number of players. I'm going to be playing around with various maps and the goal is to complete a noble game before I head up to the higher levels.

 

One thing I really enjoyed was playing a game without being at war with anyone. I did wipe out the folks over in the "New World," but only to get their cities and land.

 

EDIT: You know, I always hated the slowdown areas in IWD2. I'm a completenik, and so I had to do everything, even if it took forever to get through them. I rather enjoyed IWD2 despite the areas, but I can certainly sympathize with folks who face these weird glitches.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Eldar

[Spider]

It definitely seems to be a driver issue, at least for me. I rolled back to a previous driver and loaded a game that would suffer graphic lag and crash within 3-4 turns.

 

The graphic lag was nowhere to be seen (except for the occasional stutter when the camera went from one side of the map to another, but that is so minor it's hardly worth mentioning). The game did crash though, but it took a lot longer for it to do so.

 

The person with the same card as me (GF6600 256mb) rolled back even further than I did though, so I'm going to try with those drivers as well and see what happens.

 

(for those interested, I am currently on 77.72 and the ones I'm trying next are 71.89. ATI-users with similar problems could try Catalyst 4.12, since people have reported similar progress with those drivers)

[Walsingham]

This may be inappropriate, but I noticed adverts in the tube saying play.com was selling civ 4 for 18 quid. So if it isn't as good as all that, may as well pay less.

 

I'm still not buying it, btw. I spent the money on a new jacket.

[metadigital]

That beats amazon selling it for

[metadigital]

Newsflash: graphics patch released next week.

[Cantousent]

I'm quite happy about this. I don't have significant problems, but I would like to see the movies without the little hicups.

[Darque]

So? How does it compare to Civ 2 or 3?

 

And how does it stack up against the all time champ Alpha Centauri?

[Reveilled]

So? How does it compare to Civ 2 or 3?

 

And how does it stack up against the all time champ Alpha Centauri?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's a lot like Alpha centauri, actually. A lot of what's new to the game, like the unit promotions, civics, and the UN, is taken either directly from SMAC or based on aspects of it. Obviously, it doesn't have the storyline or the atmosphere, and it doesn't have the 3D terrain, but such things are unavoidable with it being CivIV rather than SMACII. The voiceovers you get when you discover technologies are very poor compared to those of SMAC, sadly, and the wonder movies are nothing compared to those of Civ2 or SMAC (where SMAC mixed computer animation, video footage and spoken voiceovers to make great movies, in Civ4 they are just CGI of the wonder being built).

 

There are many other options, though, that fell more like logical extentions of things in the original civ games, such as randomly generated maps that include specific features (such as Ice Age worlds with widespread glaciation, Highland worlds with lots of hills and mountains or "Terra" worlds, that start every Civ on one or two continents, and then have several uninhabited continents that can only be accessed on civs can cross oceans).

 

All in all though, the game plays much more like we all wanted Civ3 to be (that is, Civ 2 with better graphics and including lots of aspects of SMAC), than like Civ 3 actually was (that is, bland and boring).

 

My advice would be to buy it if you liked the first two civs or SMAC. You may not like it as much as either, but that could simply be familiarity; and it's still a great game in any case.

[metadigital]

... And I really must but SMAC.

[Spider]

So? How does it compare to Civ 2 or 3?

 

And how does it stack up against the all time champ Alpha Centauri?

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In my opinion (if we overlook the frequent crashes that may not occur anymore) it's the best Civ game so far. The change I feared the most (no offense/defense, only power) actually wasn't a big deal and I think the game is better for it.

 

Comparing to SMAC is harder for me because I didn't love that game the way I should. I think the mechanics in it were great, but I had some issues with the setting. So while I think Civ IV is a better game than SMAC as well (or will be when it's been patched a couple of times, at least in my case), I'm not the most qualified to make that comparison.

 

The only issues I have with the game is that the fluff is kinda dull. One actor doing all tech voices is kinda monotone (and isn't made better given that Nimoy doesn't exactly do his best work) and the wonder movies are so boring that they I stopped watching them after the first five.

[Deraldin]

Am I the only one that liked the wonder movies?

[SteveThaiBinh]

Am I the only one that liked the wonder movies?

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I like them, too. However, there should be greater variety, not just 'from blueprints to construction'. Some work better than others, and the Statue of Liberty is a bit annoying because I think it was crafted in France then shipped out to the US, not built from scratch in its place. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.

 

By the way, the game is really good.

[alanschu]

Am I the only one that liked the wonder movies?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I like them, too. However, there should be greater variety, not just 'from blueprints to construction'. Some work better than others, and the Statue of Liberty is a bit annoying because I think it was crafted in France then shipped out to the US, not built from scratch in its place. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course.

 

By the way, the game is really good.

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That is true, but this is a new Civ. I mean, if you build the thing when you're at war with france, then what?

[Missy]

That beats amazon selling it for

[Reveilled]

Oh, and with regards to SMAC, the folks over at Apolyton are planning on recreating SMAC for CivIV, which may interest those of you who want to compare the two.

[Guest Cantousent]

I like it better than SMAC, and I liked SMAC about a millions time more than the imposter Civ (civ III). SMAC and Civ IV, however, having pretty major setting differences, so I'd like to see a SMAC II as well. This one restores my faith in the Civ franchise.

[Oerwinde]

I wish I could get SMAC to work on my computer.

[Missy]

I like it better than SMAC, and I liked SMAC about a millions time more than the imposter Civ (civ III).  SMAC and Civ IV, however, having pretty major setting differences, so I'd like to see a SMAC II as well.  This one restores my faith in the Civ franchise.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I liked Civilisation III well enough really.

 

Alpha Centauri however, was definitely higher up on the awesome scale. Fantastic game.

 

This morning I "patiently" await the arrival of the postman. Will he or will he not bring me a padded envelope with an address label marked "play.com"? He'd better.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I wish I could get SMAC to work on my computer.

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There is an XP patch which worked for me. If thats the problem.

 

Still comes up with an error but if you click past it, the game seems to work fine.

 

Too much micromanagement in SMAC I find. Too many cities. I like Civ IV's needing to have less cities.