Civ 4

Farcear

Hey,

I'm considering getting this as Chrsitmas (you gotta treat yourself once in a while, ya know ) so I was just looking for some more opinions.

Few questions:
1. How does it compare to the rest of the Civ series?
2. What is the solo AI like?

Sand

I got it there last weekend.

1) It completely beats the others in the series stupid, and then just engages in pure inhuman cruelty. Only hopeless nostalgics will try to argue that anything in the Civ series did Civ better.

2. Ive restarted my game three times and havent gone past medeival yet so I cant comment too much - Im still trying to learn the best start strategies etc and how the game works.

The AI seems better in that it now respects your borders - it means war to cross a border so the AI is less inclined to annoy you by settling in that last free square on the coast like in Civ 3. Other than that, its hard to say. The AI seems to be at its best in the early stages when youll be beaten to wonders time and again, but as you progress you slowly start to edge ahead in production/research/gold etc etc. But then, thats true if youre playing right anyway.

Branoic

1) As Sand said, it really does beat the crap out of every other Civ game out there. The interface is better, the health / corruption is better, the combat is better. And of course the graphics are better. Civ has never been about its graphics, but if the core gameplay is as lovely and perfect as it is in Civ IV, then having lovely graphics on top of that is a huge bonus.

2) The AI is smart. You'll be hard pressed to steam out in front of them, they'll definitely give you a run for your money. They make logical trade and diplomacy decisions, and they're much easier to actually barter and haggle with. Combat-wise, they still do tend to send armies at you in dribs and drabs. Occassionally they'll lauch a big invasion, and that can be impressive. They'll also flank you by sea a lot. I've had cases where I've lauched an invasion on an enemy to the north and they've sent transports all the way around the continent to my lightly defended cities to the south. If you have a weakness, they'll probably find it and exploit it.

Also, I like the way the nations develop. In Civ III there was no real sense of "country". Factions had cities and bits of territory higgildy piggildy all over the place. Now, with the focus on fewer and more important cities, there is a greater sense of an actual nation or motherland.

In short, get it!

Farcear

I think I well may.



A sence of country!? In Civ...

*awe*

RoyalMarine

im tempted to get it aswell.

whats the civ editor like? civ3 editor was impressive when it worked... with the right updates it was fine. so im hoping civ 4 will be similiar with a few more features.

any ideas on that?
thanks.

BadCharlie

Been playing this game of late allot. Playing it to much to tell the truth. But very good and very addictive.

Sand

I actually havent used the civ editor too much - I looked at it when I started hitting buttons at random to see what they did. Basically you can edit the map and everything in it in the game youre playing and continue on. So its cheat central if you want, or you can simply tweak a game as well.

Branoic

Yeah, the World Editor is a bit of a mixed bag. It's pretty powerful and you can change and edit nearly everything - but you can only seem to access it from within a game in progress. In other words, you don't seem to be able to simply load up the editor and design that fantastic fantasy world you've always dreamed of. I hear they're releasing full editor abilities in the new year though.

RE*AC*TOR

Its a good game but its very feckin buggy.

Sand

Ive not had any issues with it?

RE*AC*TOR

lucky you...
its awash with problems - especially playing the largest map size and longest game (epic). There a memory leak issue, but also problems with certain graphics cards, crash to desktops, hard reboots!!

check out some of the civ forums - lots of unhappy people.

BadCharlie

I think its great, just play it on Large as huge is to slow.

stag39

Sand wrote:

- I looked at it when I started hitting buttons at random to see what they did.

hmmm!! sounds like u have urself a free copy of it:eek: ....denounce urself!!!:rolleyes:

Goodshape

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

Its a good game but its very feckin buggy.

I haven't had any game threatening bugs or crashes so far, although I haven't tried a huge or epic game yet.

Have you installed the latest patch?

Sand

hmmm!! sounds like u have urself a free copy of it ....denounce urself!!!

Hardly - just hate manuals. Theyre either up their with the Bible in complexity and contradiction, or down at Dick and Jane level...how to move a unit etc etc.

RoyalMarine

lol. thnx for the info on the editor.
im gonna buy it so...

i downloaded the demo version aswell, and that kept booting to the desktop when ever it started the game... :-(
but then again i was in the middle of upgrading the p.c...
so maybe it was that. all my games didnt work at the time but they do now... hopefully they will all work aswell as civ 4! :-)

well, keep the info pouring in. im excited already.

RE*AC*TOR

Goodshape wrote:

I haven't had any game threatening bugs or crashes so far, although I haven't tried a huge or epic game yet.

Have you installed the latest patch?

yes I installed the patch - no longer getting hard reboots, or windows has recovered from a serious error message, but I still get occasional crashes to the desktop, major slow down, memory leak etc.

Sand

One problem I do get is choppy video play when wonders are built. Not a game killer though.

The limit on national wonders is rather tricky Im finding. It does seem you really have to plan ahead and think, what am I going to use this city for? Currently Id love to have my "Heroic Epic" and "Westpoint" national wonders in the same city, but I didnt think ahead - first game, so forgive me. Second time around Im going to actually have to look at the technology tree/build tree and think ahead rather than on the spot.

Im playing on Noble, to ease into the game and its going well. The AI has put up a good fight - launching naval invasions and the like effectively - but Im in the driving seat and its 1964, and everyone loves me ( This is the real crowning achievement of Civ4, no more lazy "youre powerful, everyone hates you" excuses) - except for the Japanse, they hate me, but they started it. Only real threat is the Aztecs building a space program, but to be honest there only ahead at all because Im occupied with finishing off the Japanese(City Raider/Combat promotions own all tbh). Once Im done with them my production will beat the Aztecs hands down. Hopefully anyway. Or Ill invade the Aztecs and force them to switch to military production to compete. One way or the other the game is in the bag I think.

Branoic

Yeah the damn space race is annoying - a wimp's victory. I recently lost to the Greeks because they built their spaceship before me. I was having a fantastic game, i was the most culturally strong by far, and could wipe the floor with a lot of the other civs. Early in the game I identified Greece as my allies for the game, and in 6000 years they never had anything less than love for me. We traded constantly, had mutual defensive pacts etc etc.

Therein lies the problem - with the constant trade I made them too powerful. At end game i was far superior culturally, but technology and military-wise we were equal. Actually I think they had a slightly larger military, and that's no mean thing because I had a very large army. The problem was, i was busy assimilating all the other minor nations and gobbling up their votes in the UN so that I could declare myself king of the universe and get a diplomatic victory.

On the other hand, the Greeks were lucky enough to have an entire continent to themselves from the start of the game. With their military might no-one else dared to lauch a naval invasion of them, and they were uninclined to start any wars. In fact, I think the only war they ever started was when the Mongols built a cheeky outpost in the frozen wastes in the south of the Greek continent. They didn't like that - declared war - wiped out the Mongol settlement and then ended the war.

Thus they used all of their production to build a starship under my nose. In the end I was still about 15 turns away from completing my own starship, a diplomatic victory escaped me each time by a mere 5 votes, and I was 6% away from a Domination victory - when they built their damn spaceship and won!

I was furious!!

I've accepted that they won fair and square. They were loyal friends and allies throughout history and I salute them. But I am definitely going to engage in a little time travel and "alternate history". I've got a huge aresenal of nukes saved up. I'm going to reload my last saved game about 6 turns before they won their space victory and I'm going to nuke every one of their goddamn core cities. If that doesn't wipe out their spaceship production I don't know what would! I'll then invade and kick their insolent arses. How dare they presume to beat ME!!! :mad:

BadCharlie

Where can i dl the world map for this game ?
Thanks

Branoic

if anything Civ related exists anywhere in the world, chances are that http://www.civfanatics.com/ will have it

Goodshape

BadCharlie wrote:

Where can i dl the world map for this game ?
Thanks

I'm fairly sure there's a world map included. Have a look in the sceanarios.

BadCharlie

Thanks guys will try that. Why i ask is cause im on 56k and cant spend much time on line. will try what yee said maybe tonight.

halkar

I have never had a crash with any Civ games, from first till third but with this one I haven't gone pass 1700AD in any game. :mad: Crashes, freezes it sucks. I am back to civ 3:D

tba

Anybody interested in a PBEM game?

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054867793

theCzar

Love Civ4, but I'm still very Civ3 programmed, and there's a lot of changes to assimilate.

my only negative point is the interface, which is a complete tosser IMO. Having spent so much time with Civ3, I find it very hard to select the unit I want when there's lots of units in a square. Probably just takes getting used to.

e.g. I prefered the way ctrl-j used to move all ACTIVE units of same type, not just all units of the same type. Also the way I could rightclick a stack and mousewheel up/down thru a detailed list to find the unit(s) I wanted, now I have to scroll through list slowly, and it only shows detail when I hold the mouse over it :mad: :mad:

Bar'El

i agree takes a little gettin used to but to put simply

'' a beautiful game''

and voice overs from lenord nemoy that SPOCK for christs sake

class

theCzar

Bar'El wrote:

i agree takes a little gettin used to but to put simply

'' a beautiful game''

and voice overs from lenord nemoy that SPOCK for christs sake

class

thought Nimoy's narration to be highly overated, every review I read gushed but I think they're all trekkies... Some the quotes themselves are very apt but you can keep Spock

theCzar

BadCharlie wrote:

Where can i dl the world map for this game ?
Thanks

one comes with it, it's a scenario.