10/25/05 - Civilization IV (PC)

[Merusk]

I did, but I don't have it yet.  It's killing me. It went from Louisville to Cincinnati instead of Florence.. so that's an extra day. Yarg.  I don't get it until tomorrow.  So I shall kill things to make me feel better.

[Sky]

I'm still in denial. I am calling all over town. I'm sure denial will give way to anger, and then, hopefully, acceptance.

See, now you're thinking like a European videogamer. Trust me, acceptance never comes.

The reverse works the same way, though.

Try finding an english copy of the Gothic II expansion in America (two years old now). Or Silent Storm Gold (which should actually hit the US next month...a year late). Fucking Jowood.

And then I saw this! and this! For $20, it's some great rpg action. And for $20 more, some squad-level TBS? Oh hell yeah!

Better late than never, I guess. Turning out to be a better year than I had expected, even if two of the games I'll buy are a bit long in the tooth...

I'm just trying to not think about Civ until I get home and check my answering machine...I also (should) have the pre-order edition. Going to try in-store pickup this time, given my bad experiences with preordering via EB by mail in the past (see Merusk's post).

[Merusk]

Well I tried that send it to the store thing once.  I was working full-time then, so I'd get home and the wife would go to work about 5-10 mins after I got home.  Dragging 2 young kids to the mall so Dad can pick-up his game isn't fun, so I started doing the send to the house thing.  I did it this time not knowing the office was going to be closed-down about 2 days after I ordered it, giving me copioius amounts of time before 4:30 to head to the mall and pick it up.   :-(

[stray]

So far, I like it. I haven't done anything except move some Settlers and Warriors around a bit, but it's Civ....Just a little shinier (Looks a lot like Pirates. Which is to say, good enough...But it won't stress your system).

Sid is still behind this one, and it shows. How could any of you possibly be worried about a little "streamlining"? If he had been somehow removed from the project, then perhaps "streamlining" would have taken on a completely different meaning. But that isn't the case. It's just a lot cleaner and simpler to carry tasks out than before. That's all (from what I've seen at least).

[Rasix]

And for $20 more, some squad-level TBS? Oh hell yeah!.

Man, that would have been my game of the century if they hadn't put giant fucking robots in the end of it.  Makes me sad just thinking about it.  But yah, before you get to the albatross crashing into the mecha, gaming gold. 

[Sky]

Sid is still behind this one, and it shows. How could any of you possibly be worried about a little "streamlining"

Because imo Brian Reynolds (Colonization, Civ2, SMAC) was the man, not Sid ;) And I pretend BR didn't turn into a whore and make RTS instead of TBS.

RASIX WITH THE SPOILERS BLAH

[Rasix]

RASIX WITH THE SPOILERS BLAH

It's not much of a spoiler.  What I've said won't ruin the game for you, the giant fucking robots will.  The game is fantastic.  It's fantastic until they introduce a completely unneccessary and fun killing element.  I blame anime for sticking giant fucking robots where there doesn't need to be giant fucking robots. 

Plus, you can know what's coming just looking at your character sheets or probably even the manual.  Still, 20 bucks is a steal, well worth it.

[stray]

Sid is still behind this one, and it shows. How could any of you possibly be worried about a little "streamlining"

Because imo Brian Reynolds (Colonization, Civ2, SMAC) was the man, not Sid ;) And I pretend BR didn't turn into a whore and make RTS instead of TBS.

RASIX WITH THE SPOILERS BLAH

Dude, Civ IV is to Civ I what the new Pirates! is to the old one. That's the best way to describe it, I guess. If you don't like Civilization I or II, then you probably won't like this game. It's really not much different, gameplay-wise or in theme.

[Sky]

Stray, that didn't make much sense in reply to me, heh. I was just saying there is ample room to worry about Sid if you fell on the Brian side of the equation. I think Civ 2 was the strongest civ, without BR they made CivIII, which was just ok (still great compared to other games in general, but just ok compared to other Sid/Brian games). I thought Pirates was very cool but way too shallow...thus my concerns (along with the many, many dev comments about streamlining gameplay...plus the comments about RTS interface, etc). I'm just concerned is all, I'll probably like the game anyway, since I still play CivIII alot.

Ras - no problem, just busting balls. I'll pretend giant robots are cool or something. Really, though? Giant robots....in WW2? That's just dumb. Bah.

[stray]

The reply was just meant to say


It's Civilization.


What more do you want?

[WayAbvPar]

Well, I should be joining the proud ranks of Civ IV players soon. Just found out that my HDD died (with more than $500 worth of unrecoverable iTunes on it- FUCK). I think it is still warrantied, so at least I can get a new shittily made drive to replace it.

[Rasix]

Ras - no problem, just busting balls. I'll pretend giant robots are cool or something. Really, though? Giant robots....in WW2? That's just dumb. Bah.

It's just sad honestly. One of the most heart-breaking and unfortunate design decisions I think I've ever come across. The spiritual successor to Jagged Alliance 2 didn't need a dash of Voltron.

I'm curious to see if Civ 4 will run on my laptop.  I meet the min requirements but I'm not 100% positive on the hardware transform/lighting on the vid card. 

It's painful not having a desktop pc sometimes.

[Rodent]

I'm still in denial. I am calling all over town. I'm sure denial will give way to anger, and then, hopefully, acceptance.

See, now you're thinking like a European videogamer. Trust me, acceptance never comes.

The reverse works the same way, though.

Try finding an english copy of the Gothic II expansion in America (two years old now). Or Silent Storm Gold (which should actually hit the US next month...a year late). Fucking Jowood.

And then I saw this! and this! For $20, it's some great rpg action. And for $20 more, some squad-level TBS? Oh hell yeah!

Better late than never, I guess. Turning out to be a better year than I had expected, even if two of the games I'll buy are a bit long in the tooth...

I'm just trying to not think about Civ until I get home and check my answering machine...I also (should) have the pre-order edition. Going to try in-store pickup this time, given my bad experiences with preordering via EB by mail in the past (see Merusk's post).

Hey, try to find a copy of the Gothic II expansion in the big fucking part of Europe that doesn't speak or read german fluently... Yepp FUCK YOU ATARI.

In other news, Civ 4 isn't out here until 4/11. This is the kind of shit that makes me pre-order stuff from Canada ( free shipping for the win ) and pirate it at release day until the mail gets here.

[bhodikhan]

I seem to have gotten the EB preorder edition which is the special edition. Nicer box, Soundtrack CD and a spiral bound manual seem like the highpoints for that edition.

The games plays at 1900x1200 and looks great. Time to start thinking about playing games on a high-def TV. It seems more and more games are supporting 1900x1200.

[stray]

So....Has the Civ addiction kicked in yet?  :-D

Some of you haven't posted, so I would assume so.

[edit] Btw, which Nationality are you guys playing as in your first campaign? Mongolian here.

[edit] Damn, this game puts a smile on my face. Good ole fashioned Civ fun. 

[Stephen Zepp]

Argh I'm jealous---won't be able to even think about playing a game like Civ (and the week+ vacation it will take to play it right/i] for another 5 weeks :(

[MrHat]

Argh I'm jealous---won't be able to even think about playing a game like Civ (and the week+ vacation it will take to play it right/i] for another 5 weeks :(

Haha.  Play it right indeed.

I'm actually afraid of opening the box.  Seriously, it's sitting right there..calling to me..

[stray]

Well, games go buy a little quicker than they have in the past. It's still Civ, but you won't need to devote days to it or anything like that.

[Sky]

Well, I was up until 3am, that's a good sign. And it does have the Civ feel. And there are some nice improvements, no doubt.

There, I said the nice stuff. And luckily I left my list at home, so I'll just go from memory.

My tech tree poster is in French.

The installation cds (ever hear of DVD? Please to not release games on cds, dammit) were mislabelled. Install disc was actually the installer, but the second disc, labelled Play, was not. The install disc was.

No 1280x720 support. This one really chafes, since 1280x768 cuts off the bottom of the screen, and they moved UI elements up against the borders of the screen (boo), so in the closest res to my tv (and indeed, all widescreen resolutions that work on my monitor), I can't select the second row of icons along the bottom. So I'm playing in stretched 1024x768, just like I did with CivIII. Fuck you, Firaxis.

The camera. What the fuck? Zoom distance and angle being tied together BAD, I had bad flashbacks of Freedom Force. At useful zoom levels, you have maybe a dozen tiles total on the screen, it's very annoying imo.

I was going to list the way it displays multiple units, I didn't like that...but it's a toggle, so I got it back to the old way. I don't know why the sense of scale in this game bothers me more than any other game in the series.

The tutorial was buggy. Sid tells you to order your worker to build a quarry...but I can't. I have to deselect the worker and reselect him, then I can issue the quarry command. This happened several times. I also saw several typos in "Sid's Tips".

The tutorial crashed on my first playthrough, making a wonderful impression after all the above. The game was still active, playing sound and animating, but no mouse-overs and I couldn't interact with anything.

I was kinda pissed about the tutorial crash, because I didn't want to sit through another hour of "move your warrior here!" just to see the changes to the game I hadn't gotten to before it crashed. So I started a normal game, on Terra (because it said it was HUGE) and selected Huge size. Played through for a while, and in my long standing tradition, I retired from my first game before going to bed. When I saw the extent of the hugest map option I could create...well, that's not my definition of huge.

Was this thing shoved out the door or something? I expected that streamlining bullshit, but the low level of QA was surprising.

And...a FRENCH TECH TREE. Thanks, Firaxis. Enjoy your money hats, bitches. I take back my request to remake Colonization. Don't fuck up my good memories. Same for SMAC. One comment from the head dev in the manual mentions people were frightened by the complexity of SMAC's unit creation. WTF? Just shut up. Stop shitting on intelligent gamers.

[El Gallo]

Because imo Brian Reynolds (Colonization, Civ2, SMAC) was the man, not Sid ;)

I cast thee out!

[Toast]

I have only been able to play for a couple hours, and I am having a great time.

The graphics are greatly improved over CivIII. The terrain is pretty richly detailed. There are little animations everywhere that reall make the world feel more alive. For example, units moving through forest send little birds flying up out of the trees. There's also contextual sound. When moving into jungle squares, subtle jungle background sound effects kick in. The little touches are very nice.

The interface is much better this time around, as many have said. It makes the workings of game algorithims more accessible to more casual players.

Diplomacy already seems much richer and meaningful. The NPC rulers kept asking me to diss rulers that I had trade agreements with. In the early part of my last game, one ruler came around asking me to declare war on another civ.

The early part of the games moves slower for me while the later turns seem a little bit faster. Settlers are harder to come by, so early expansion feels slower.

So far so good, but I need to devote a lot more time to playing.

[stray]

Only problem I've run into so far is when a "Wonder" video comes on, the sound gets all choppy.

[Descended]

About an hour past a reasonable bedtime last night, I'd hit 1400 AD.  Played a peaceful nation (as Napoleon, ironically) almost the whole night.  Did a poor job of early city placement which left me a bit crunched for territory space, but was able to get Stone and build a bunch of wonders.  The great people rock, and I managed to get three Great Engineers who each let me complete a wonder in one turn; cultural powerhouse, baby!  Just before I forced myself to go to bed, my allies to the east, the Americans, decided it was time to off the Romans so tonight will let me know if my superior culture and technology can make up for middling production, in a war.  Should be a fairly safe test environment, though, since the Americans are between me and the Romans :P

[Nija]

Hey I was up til 3am too!

Fuck.

Anyways, if you got a french poster go here - http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/techtree_support.htm

[Sky]

Thanks for the link.

Nobody else feels the huge maps aren't as huge as older civs? Or the camera/zoom/tilt levels suck?

I know my love of expansionism was going to take a hit, but if people thought the worlds were too big, they could have just played smaller maps. I'm bummed out about that part. For me, the game is all about building a HUGE empire. I like the gameplay, and I'm holding off on an opinion until I get a lot more playtime, but something tells me I won't be uninstalling CivIII when I want an EPIC game.

[WayAbvPar]

I am also a fan of ginormous maps. I am distressed to hear that they were left out.

The good news is I got a call from EB last night and my reserved copy is in :mrgreen: . Just waiting to hear from the PC repair shop...

[El Gallo]

omg no, I loved the hugenormous maps

[naum]

Mac users will get Civ IV early next year.
http://www.insidemacgames.com/news/story.php?ID=12295

Aspyr Media Inc. on Thursday announced plans to publish Sid Meier’s Civilization III: Complete for the Macintosh in December 2005.
Aspyr also announced plans to publish Civilization IV for the Mac in early 2006.

Civ3 expansions in December, then a few months later Civ IV…

[Merusk]

Just got and installed about 2 hours ago.  Ran through the tutorial and am starting up my first game now.  Lenoard Nimoy reading the text from the original Civs as your world builds is too damn cool for words.

[WayAbvPar]

The only thing that would make it better is if the cheesy synthesizer theme from the original "In Search Of" was playing in the background. Either that, or a Shatner appearance  :-D

[stray]

I guess I can agree about the small maps Sky, but I'm not much of an expansive player to really notice. I prefer to just make a half dozen or so wimpy, cosmopolitan, culturally rich cities, and just try to win the game that way.

[Big Gulp]

I guess I can agree about the small maps Sky, but I'm not much of an expansive player to really notice. I prefer to just make a half dozen or so wimpy, cosmopolitan, culturally rich cities, and just try to win the game that way.

Ah, shit.  I'd thought that they'd actually expanded the available map sizes, so this is a letdown.  I'm a big fan of imperial stretch.

[stray]

Well, it can be fairly big. Big enough to hold all civilations/races in a match at least (maybe a couple a dozen or so).

[Toast]

http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/civ4intro.html

This guy, who worked on Civ4 says:

"And for those people who were whining about the maps being smaller in Civ4: try running a Huge Terra map. The thing is gigantic; it's significantly larger than a Civ3 Huge map. Don't think we weren't paying attention to you. "

[Yoru]

Got it yesterday and played it until way too late in the AM, just like the old days. I the new UI, the religion system and the replacement health/happy systems for the old pollution/riot systems. The new terrain system seems cool and fun so far, although the random generator seems to love deserts far too much. I'm mixed on the camera; it's fun to be able to do a Black-&-White-style zoom-out from a single city to the orbital view, but it's not much more than eye candy in general. I like how they removed or nerfed most of the horribly game-breaking-gotta-build-it wonders, or made nerfed versions as 'national wonders'. I like the naming of the Great People; it gave me a chuckle to have Louis Daguerre and John Roebling pop up on my doorstep, ready and willing to do my nefarious bidding. I will have to find the name file and edit it with my own favorite semi-obscure Great People.

The Nimoy VOs are pretty good, but it sometiimes sounds more like a professor reading from a book than someone putting any emotion into the lines. Sid VOing the tutorial is neat for about 2 minutes, and then you realize that Sid has a terrible voice for VOs. I don't like the new wonder movies; they're pretty but, unlike the SMAC videos, they don't really have any 'heart' to them. I'd guess they don't have quotations/VOs in order  to hold localization costs down...

I haven't had any stability or performance issues. It's not the chocolate robojesus, but I'm pleased at the surface level. Whether it will hold up to scrutiny, I can't tell.