Civ 4

[The_Doctor]

*Runs it Arena and blows warhorn*

Civ 4 Preview at IGN

http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html?fromint=1

WOW

[Kraxis]

Awww... No Colonization 2 in the near future!

[Mikeus Caesar]

I've never got the Civ games, or seen the appeal of them. What's fun about sending units of people across the world and making them fight, when all you see is a person on the map representing one unit? What is fun about that?

[xemitg]

I've never got the Civ games, or seen the appeal of them. What's fun about sending units of people across the world and making them fight, when all you see is a person on the map representing one unit? What is fun about that?

Your missing the point. I love civ 2 and still play it from time to time. It was an amazing game when it came out. It was building the civilization what was so cool. It’s the long term cultural advancements that are fun. The appeal is similar to the sim city games. Many, such as myself, think its fun to build things. I went strait from lego’s to civ 2. These new civ games will never be as popular as the old one because there are better things out there where you can build your empire and have awesome battles.

[DisruptorX]

I've never got the Civ games, or seen the appeal of them. What's fun about sending units of people across the world and making them fight, when all you see is a person on the map representing one unit? What is fun about that?

Because, grand strategy is more enjoyable to us meglomaniac types than tactical strategy. Civ lets you build an entire civilization up and the city building is addictive. Civ isn't all about war.

I strongly disagree with the above post, as well. Sure, Civ 2 look dated, that's because it doesn't use sprites, it just has static images. If that really bothers you, Civ 3 does have sprites, and it rocks.

[screwtype]

I've never got the Civ games, or seen the appeal of them. What's fun about sending units of people across the world and making them fight, when all you see is a person on the map representing one unit? What is fun about that?

I bought a budget version of CivIII, and found it too hard (the corruption thing really sucks). Then I got a budget version of Conquests, Conquests is the best version of the game IMO.

But although some aspects of the game are fun, especially the early period of the game when you are just exploring and building up a handful of cities, over time there is just too much micromanagement, especially of workers. And the combat system - one unit attacking at a time, is really tedious, especially when it's the AI attacking other AI factions. You have to wait longer and longer between turns for the AI factions to do their stuff. I don't know, it's a bit like RTW - you feel there's a great game in there somewhere but it just hasn't been fully realized.

[screwtype]

WOW

Sorry, I just didn't find any "WOW" factor in this preview. The changes they are making sound incremental and conservative, with even a bit of possible "dumbing down" and removal of features I enjoyed.

Can't say I'm impressed with the graphics either. The campaign map looks remarkably similar to the RTW campaign map, which is by no means a thing of great beauty. I mean, haven't these people ever heard of scale? What is it with soldiers that tower above the land like colossi, while wee little animals on a much smaller scale graze nearby? Just looks weird to me.

I'm disappointed to read that combat looks to be much the same as in previous versions. Geez, if only they'd done as much as have a battlefield screen like in the Age of Wonders series, where you get to maneouvre your units around and play to their strengths. It sounds like they've got the same simple (and tediously repetitive) battle system that they had in CivIII, which is a great disappointment.

No, overall this doesn't sound like much of an advance over CivIII at all except for snazzier graphics - and even the graphics aren't that good.

[Efrem]

No actualy it sounds like combat will be much better, with flanking and pikes being good against cav and such. Totally diff to civ 3, much closer to AOE which wasn't that bad.

[frogbeastegg]

I want Alpha Centauri 2! Civ has the better setting IMO, but AC was by far the better game. At least Civ 4 is taking a few of AC's features, like the make your own government system, but it's not quite enough. AC's beauty was its flexability; so many aspects of your faction and units were open for meddling. The diplomacy felt better than Civ 3's too, with more options and, I felt, more logical responses by the AI.

It was just a shame the graphics people decided AC should be brown, with a bit of brownish red, grey or brownish green, and brought to us by the colour brown.

I only played the original Civ 3; I didn't bother with either add-on.

[The_Doctor]

I think it sounds great.

The combat system sounds better.
The abilities sound good.
The graphics look great.
Religion sounds interesting.

There are loads of new stuff that are not mentioned in that preview.

WOW

I had not read the article when I posted here. I had only looked at the screenshots.

[doc_bean]

I sounds pretty good, but not worth the 50€ it will sell for at first, I'll wait until it sells for 30€ or something.

I hope you can choose your starting period and the length of a turn in more detail, in Civ3 the game is mostly over once you reach the medieval times (which always start late with me, I'm not a good player).

[The_Doctor]

More E3 stuff. The screenshots are a lot better.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...w_6124000.html

[English assassin]

Being able to choose the start period would be a big plus, you could in CTP and it gave more replayability. As the game progressed I always found that once the map was explored, you had maybe had a small war or two, and you were pushing the modern age, it gets a bit dull. so being able to start in say the renaissance would be good.

I'm not sure it sounds all that different to Civ 3 otherwise to be honest. Might wait for it to be discounted i think.

[Ser Clegane]

From the Gamespot preview:

Firaxis says that Civilization IV will feature a faster pace than earlier Civilization games, with a much more streamlined game.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this statement, but I have a bad feeling about this ...

[doc_bean]

They might be referring to the 'quick' campaign option from the IGN preview, at least that's what I hope they mean.

Another thing I'd really like is the option to play on an actual world map, with all civilizations in their rightful place, it would need more than 18 different ones though.

[screwtype]

More E3 stuff. The screenshots are a lot better.

Looking at those screenshots, it seems pretty obvious the map grid is still based on squares. I can hardly believe that. The industry standard has been hexagons for many years now, why the heck haven't they got up to date yet?

The maps look pretty but ominously similar in function to the previous game. It just confirms my impression that they haven't really taken this game far beyond the previous title. Why do they think people will want to buy essentially the same game twice?

I'll probably end up buying it, but only because I'm desperate for a halfway challenging strategy game. Won't be paying full price for it though.

Thanks Martinus for digging up these screenshots. Much appreciated.

[The_Doctor]

Being able to choose the start period would be a big plus, you could in CTP and it gave more replayability. As the game progressed I always found that once the map was explored, you had maybe had a small war or two, and you were pushing the modern age, it gets a bit dull. so being able to start in say the renaissance would be good.

They where sceranios somebody made and where put into the x-pac

Another thing I'd really like is the option to play on an actual world map, with all civilizations in their rightful place, it would need more than 18 different ones though.

There are loads of maps like that now. Some are huge with 32 civs on.

Looking at those screenshots, it seems pretty obvious the map grid is still based on squares. I can hardly believe that. The industry standard has been hexagons for many years now, why the heck haven't they got up to date yet?

Hexs? I have only see a hand full of games with hexs. All the Civ games have had squares.

The maps look pretty but ominously similar in function to the previous game. It just confirms my impression that they haven't really taken this game far beyond the previous title. Why do they think people will want to buy essentially the same game twice?

What would you like to see in it?

Thanks Martinus for digging up these screenshots. Much appreciated.

Thank you

[DisruptorX]

I bought a budget version of CivIII, and found it too hard (the corruption thing really sucks). Then I got a budget version of Conquests, Conquests is the best version of the game IMO.

But although some aspects of the game are fun, especially the early period of the game when you are just exploring and building up a handful of cities, over time there is just too much micromanagement, especially of workers. And the combat system - one unit attacking at a time, is really tedious, especially when it's the AI attacking other AI factions. You have to wait longer and longer between turns for the AI factions to do their stuff. I don't know, it's a bit like RTW - you feel there's a great game in there somewhere but it just hasn't been fully realized.

Corruption isn't bad. If you keep your Empire at a decent size, its no beef. Civilization was already "realized" with civ 2, 3 is fun, but isn't as great because it adds corruption etc and doesn't really move the series forward.

If you do not agree that Civ 2 is one of the top ten greatest strategy games ever, well then, keep in mind that my words are backed with nuclear weapons

[BDC]

Civ will be great, but it needs some proper combat ala TW series, better scale and stuff like that. I want a proper 3d map, where you see cities sprawling out and can see huge armies looking like tiny dust mites moving across the board and setting up defences and things like that. I want to see refugees streaming from war zones and huge swarms of locusts eating crops. This just doesn't realise it. However much I like Sid Meier's games, they need some more new blood.

[English assassin]

Civ will be great, but it needs some proper combat ala TW series, better scale and stuff like that. I want a proper 3d map, where you see cities sprawling out and can see huge armies looking like tiny dust mites moving across the board and setting up defences and things like that. I want to see refugees streaming from war zones and huge swarms of locusts eating crops. This just doesn't realise it. However much I like Sid Meier's games, they need some more new blood.

For me, I don't really care about the graphics and I am Ok with the fairly abstract combat. For a Civ game I want to run my empire not be a general. I'd like to see the micromanagement reduced (Civ 111 was a bit better but your cities still did things like starting to build frigates when you had a perfectly good fleet of battleships if you didn't watch them), diplomacy improved, and the "pace" of the game worked on. There were quite a few little things about the Civ 111 interface I didn't like and I think Civ 11 was better there.

Some of the changes seem to be improvements (more detail on governments, hopefully the AI not wandering into your empire every two minutes) some definitely do not (units getting special abilities like "good in jungle? Woot now I can spend half an hour looking for the special jungle unit in case there is a battle on a jungle tile I don't think so. and "oh good" spies are back, along with lawyers and diplomats the most tedious units in the game. ) The big one (will the AI be reasonably inteligent and maybe stop fielding spearmen against your panzers in 1950) I have very little hope on, if they are spending their time working on graphics.

One thing that would be good would be being able to set the end date and length of turns, so if you want to play the whole game a year at a time between 4000 BC and 3000BC with only ancient technology, you can. I'd buy it if you could do that.

Wait and see I guess but this looks like a brush up of Civ 111 for people who didn't buy it.

[Kraxis]

I'm between very impressed and not very impressed with the screens.
They simply look cluttered with people, and if you notice there aren't that many units considering the number of civs close to each other.
But I do like the little farms and the new mines, but they can't make up for the claustrophobia I get when I look at those screens. The cities look too small, at least that was better in Civ III.

I like that the wonder-movies are back, good. But what about the small wonders of Civ III? They were good in making those slightly backwards civs being able to compete with the fast ones.

Two leaders with traits... Fair enough, and a nice consideration. And I like the political/religious ability as with Alpha Centauri, that was great fun. And here you have many more abilities, so it is easier to tailor the civ to your taste.

All in all I might buy it, but I won't buy right away, not by a longshot.

[The_Doctor]

An other preview at IGN:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/616/616871p2.html

You can select which era you start in.

[doc_bean]

moddable AI ...

[The_Doctor]

moddable AI ...

I hope the AI will use artillery.

[kiwitt]

I am still playing CivIII:Conquests. I will be buying CivIV. CivII introduced me to RTS and I have enjoyed the genre ever since.

MTW: With it's Province Building is Similar to Civ's City Building (and If I want to do do just City Building, I have CaesarIII, SimCity 4). I still think MTW with it's agents, leaders, troop types and the period "Medieval" will keep this on my HDD.

[player1]

If things I read in reviews about modablity, I gues this will be the most modable strategy game ever.

+ Map editor
+ all data files modable in XML,
+ Python scripthing,
+ SDK for AI and many other functions that can be complied inro DLL

Take that RTW!

[Mongoose]

WOW , those modding options put RTW to shame.

[BDC]

WOW , those modding options put RTW to shame.

Probably saves them having to bother so much.

"Hey, we're really not going to get this ai up to scratch... I know, some guy will do it for free for us if we just give him the tools! Score!"

[Kraxis]

Probably saves them having to bother so much.

"Hey, we're really not going to get this ai up to scratch... I know, some guy will do it for free for us if we just give him the tools! Score!"

Perhaps, but then there is the case where you get neither.

[player1]

Probably saves them having to bother so much.

"Hey, we're really not going to get this ai up to scratch... I know, some guy will do it for free for us if we just give him the tools! Score!"

On the other hand, leader of Civ4 project is Soren Jonhson, a "master genius" for Civ3 AI, which while surely not better then human, or in some case lacking (artillery), is miles away compared to earlier civilization games.