Civilization V!!

[Monk]

Civ 5 might already have received some work as I'm hearing that there's a big day 0 patch which downloads after installing the game. Perhaps Monk can fill the picture in here and confirm whether it's a patch proper or something to do with the unlocking process?

Um... No. I installed from the disk and went right into the game without downloading anything. If I did download something it was small enough to escape notice. I'll verify my game cache to make sure i'm 100% up to date while i write this.

Scan complete. One file failed to validate and was reacquired. Not sure who is claiming there was a day 0 patch, but I ain't seein' it. The only download i'm aware of is my pre-order DLC, which I recieved the code to just a few hours ago. I've yet to enter it. Maybe that's what people are talking about?

I never did get around to asking why. So, why not? If you don't mind elaborating.

Everything felt incredibly cramped and constrained, i felt lost from the moment i pushed "go", not once did the game offer a hand in helping me grasp the finer points of the system it was expecting me to play with. Try as I might i just couldn't get into it.

On the into video, the thing is finicky. I started up the game to check the game version and noticed that it was really hard to click through, i had to alt-tab to force it to skip the movies. Really odd.

[frogbeastegg]

Um... No. I installed from the disk and went right into the game without downloading anything. If I did download something it was small enough to escape notice. I'll verify my game cache to make sure i'm 100% up to date while i write this.

I wonder if it was for downloaded versions only then? A lot of the people I saw mention it had preloaded the game.

i felt lost from the moment i pushed "go", not once did the game offer a hand in helping me grasp the finer points of the system it was expecting me to play with.

I'm surprised. Civ 4 is widely considered to be one of the most beginner friendly games in the entire genre, aside from the fact that we strategy vets don't tend to like playing on lower difficulties and so end up missing most of the help without realising! Disguising the tutorial as the easiest difficulty level isn't the best way to lure gamers with experience in to play it.
On settler difficulty the game gives a lot of good advice; you can play in whatever direction you want and it will guide you. I may be a trifle fortunate as I learned with the vanilla game at release; the expansions added more plates to keep spinning, which make it harder to learn.

Anyway, you've got civ 5 and appear to be finding it better. They must have made some further improvements.

My first game of civ 5 will be on settler since it's the same 'tutorial disguised as dumbo mode' set up. Civ 4 vanilla was an easier game to learn than civ 4 complete. Small map, few AI, dumbo difficulty. More educational than fun. Ho hum.

[Monk]

I wonder if it was for downloaded versions only then? A lot of the people I saw mention it had preloaded the game.

It's quite possible there was a problem with preloading, allowing only a portion of the game to be downloaded? Perhaps an older, "review" version of the game was allowed for preloading? I dunno. I do know my installation was even smoother than L4d2 (which i also got on a disk), which was very surprising.

I wonder if it was for downloaded versions only then? A lot of the people I saw mention it had preloaded the game.


I'm surprised. Civ 4 is widely considered to be one of the most beginner friendly games in the entire genre, aside from the fact that we strategy vets don't tend to like playing on lower difficulties and so end up missing most of the help without realising! Disguising the tutorial as the easiest difficulty level isn't the best way to lure gamers with experience in to play it.
On settler difficulty the game gives a lot of good advice; you can play in whatever direction you want and it will guide you. I may be a trifle fortunate as I learned with the vanilla game at release; the expansions added more plates to keep spinning, which make it harder to learn.

Huh.. Well . Don't let my curmudgeon stance fool you. I hated the game but I could definetely feel something there. It just didn't feel right for me. Civ 5 feels like a good step up and is finally on par with what i like in my strategy games. Ho hum indeed.

[Krauser]

I think the one day patch is not any kind of patch. I visited one of my friends that got the game to try it out. He bought the digital deluxe version. After the regular install, he had to download an additional 1GB "patch" which turned out to be the Making Of video and soundtrack. The video is about 22 minutes and 720p HD quality (~650MB). The soundtrack is about 30 short mp3 tracks (256kb quality) with themes from each civilization and the title themes (~300MB). Both of these came with a cover JPG file in case he wants to burn them onto actual CD/DVD. So that's the "day 0 patch".

If you got a standard version, you would not have that extra download. If you got the retail collector's edition you would already have physical media of the Making Of and soundtrack.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I'm kind of on the same page as monk regarding 4 v 5. I didn't hate 4 so much as I had zero interest in playing. I'm finding 5 more interesting (at least if I can get a coherent plan together for what I want to do in a particular game).

As for besieging cities, I don't think it's worth it unless you're willing to become a warmonger. In a current game as the Greeks I started out hoping to ally with all the citystates (something I'm slowly doing now) but decided to take a nearby city (the Babylonians put a new city exactly where I wanted to expand to). It took maybe 30 turns to build up enough hoplites and cavalry to take it (strangely, cav is better than inf for attacking cities, at least in the classical/medieval eras). However, I now had a big enough force to finish off the Babylonian capital and destroy another city the English dropped near me. So now I'm behind on cities, tech, production, and culture but I've got a potent land army. Unfortunately the nearest other civ is hostile and has loads of units around me. Fittingly it's Darius and the Persians. I do have one military ally and a maritime ally though, so I will probably be able to deal with them.

But yeah, long story short, to get an army capable of challenging cities I needed to stunt most of my other areas of growth. Which makes sense, gameplay-wise. I think siege units proper are too cumbersome though. They take forever to get anywhere and their range isn't any better than a standard ranged unit. I think a better mechanic would be to allow units to build stationary siege units (and the build time would be based on unit strength). So the defender has to work on killing attackers as they build siege units. And it would take roughly as long as dragging siege units along does with less frustration.

[al Roumi]

I must say I'm I'm surprised at the grief for Civ 4, IMO it is the most complete Civ yet. That said th game's enormity is a possible issue in itself, not to mention the flaws (e.g. usualy boring by the time you get to the modern age -but that migth be my play style). I'd be intersted to know how long your CIV5 games are lasting...

[LeftEyeNine]

Which Civ game does not evolve into a stuck, railroadz-everywarez bore pack after certain ages ?

I like the game's primal eras a lot. I can start some Civ game over and over. However I don't remember a single game in Civ 4 which I could stand so long as to have reached modern times.

[Lemur]

So did anybody spring for deluxe? How's Babylon? Worth it?

[frogbeastegg]

:looks at copy of civ 5 lying abandoned on her table and tries not to think about the fact she could be playing it if it weren't for this infuriating unlocking business: It comes with a big tech tree poster and a pamphlet which tells you your legal rights. I find that latter item amusing. The poster has a lot of good information since it contains every tech, civic, unit promotion, hotkey, terrain info, and improvement info. Unfortunately it suffers from the usual drawback of these things - the size makes it completely unwieldy and useless as a reference tool.

Which Civ game does not evolve into a stuck, railroadz-everywarez bore pack after certain ages ?

I like the game's primal eras a lot. I can start some Civ game over and over. However I don't remember a single game in Civ 4 which I could stand so long as to have reached modern times.

Civilisation: Revolution. Mostly. That's why I've finished 40+ games in it despite preferring civ 4 by a long way.

I'm the same. As soon as I exit the medieval section I'm losing interest fast. I do manage to finish some games of civ 4, more often when I play the vanilla version as BTS makes the late game still more a complete nightmare of tedium. 'Some' can be defined as not many, probably fewer than 1 in every 5 started. Civ 3, Civ 2 and the two call to power games, I barely finished any games in at all because I didn't like them much.

So did anybody spring for deluxe? How's Babylon? Worth it?

I didn't; that one civ effectively cost £10. It will be available later as DLC and surely won't cost as much as that.