Civ 4 - Excited? [UPDATED pt.2 - Game is out & now PATCHED! Share your thoughts.]

[mrtauntaun]

Well, I can only get 1 out of every 3 games loaded. If it works, I can bypass nemoy's intro, if not, I have to suffer through it, and the game just DRAGS. Totally weird. Does anyone know if we can bypass the intro by default, so we don't alway have to click or hit esc every time? It's really annoying.

 

[talinthas]

if you click on the city area in the city screen (any spot not being worked by your workers) it acts as an enter key =)

My first game was Gandhi, and second was Saladin, and i'm currently on Persia, which has founded every major religion save buddhism. I prefer playing pacifist, but it's not as long or fun as 3 was. so now i'm deep in a war with china =)

thing about great prophets is that they suck in the late game, once all the shrines are done. and they're the only GP i seem to be getting =(

 

[KenM]

I finally got the game to run. I had to download and manual install the direct x 9 file from online. It was not installing right from the CD. Now to learn how to play.

 

[Simplicity]

There is now a fix for the ATI problem (Failed to initialize renderer).

Go to http://civilization4.net/ for details!

 

[Simplicity]

How do you change what the city is building in the middle of a project?

Hmmmm... Without going into the city screen and without a keyboard, that's probably pretty difficult. If there's some way out of the city screen, it's easy from there. Just click off the thing being built and click on what you want.

 

[Simplicity]

if you click on the city area in the city screen (any spot not being worked by your workers) it acts as an enter key =)

My first game was Gandhi, and second was Saladin, and i'm currently on Persia, which has founded every major religion save buddhism. I prefer playing pacifist, but it's not as long or fun as 3 was. so now i'm deep in a war with china =)

thing about great prophets is that they suck in the late game, once all the shrines are done. and they're the only GP i seem to be getting =(

Oops. I missed that first line. Okay, so it's easy to change production with mouse only then.

Did you try Epic mode, talinthas? What level are you playing at?

You're getting prophets like mad because you have all of the religious wonders. GPPs (Great People Points) are colored by what creates them. Try putting some non-priest specialists in some city not generating as much GPPs, or building non-religious wonders, and you should get some non-prophet GPs. Remember if 90% of your GPPs come from religious sources, then you've got a 90% chance of getting a Great Prophet as your GP.

Super priest specialists aren't as cool as a shrine obviously, but they're better than nothing...

 

[trancejeremy]

There is now a fix for the ATI problem (Failed to initialize renderer).

Go to http://civilization4.net/ for details!

Yeah, it seems that you just have to un-pack one of the compressed "pak" files. Apparently for some reason, some cards can't do it on the fly

 

[KenM]

I played thrugh the tutorial and started an easy single player game. I like it so far. Alot I still need to learn though.

 

[talinthas]

I'm playing normal at warlord difficulty just to get a feel for the game. gonna try epic this weekend.

 

[KenM]

I turn off barbarians in my games (which seems to also turn wild animals off as well).

Doing so makes games much more enjoyable for me.

I don't think I turned it off. But I have not run into any, been playing on easiest. I have run into other enemy units and took them out, but no animals/ Barb.

 

[mrtauntaun]

Normal is just way too quick a game for me i've found out, gonna start epic tonight. And up the difficulty, I actually got bored with my first game on easy, since I was able to found every major religion and get every wonder uncontested. So I quit halfway through, and im gonna restart tonight.

 

[John Crichton]

Just shut it off after 9+ hours straight. I'll post more thoughts later but here's some quickies for now:

* I like the focus on less cities and more techs with many ways to play and customize, all the way down to the units.

* They REALLY changed how some of the city improvements and Wonders work. I raced to get the Great Lighthouse so my ships could take to the oceans and explore the world. Well, I should have read what it actually gives you first. I sat there bug-eyed for at least a minute. It was a good time to take a nacho break.

* I'm about an hour or so in and I have 2 cities pumping along, I'm scouting the rest of the continent for placement of a third. At this point I have a few workers scurrying around building the Might Russian Transcontinental Stone & Mud Road. I zoom back to my capital and I get this message: "A forest has grown near Moscow," folloed by a clump of trees engulfing an area that I was planning on developing next! I was stunned and impressed all at once. Very cool.

* Religion is wacky. I like the way it is used. I had a real challenge trying to isolate my civ from other civ's religion with absolutely no luck.

* And has anyone else been crushed by another civ completing a Wonder mere turns before you do? I got 300 gold, sure - but I lost hundreds of years of improvements.

* NO. MORE. LOST. AT. SEA.

All said, I love this game. Much better than Civ III which was cool at times but was more frustrating than Civ II. I think they got it right this time. It can be as simple or as complex as I want it to be so far. I'm honestly surprised it's *this* good. To me - Civ is back.

Graphically the game chugs at times which drives me nuts. I need to either get a new computer or finally get around to fixing my custom rig that had a HD crash earlier this year. Never thought I'd be saying that about a Civ game.

 

[Simplicity]

* Religion is wacky. I like the way it is used. I had a real challenge trying to isolate my civ from other civ's religion with absolutely no luck.

It may have been that they were sending missionaries. Remember, you can't see them...
The best way to stop their religious spread is to close your borders... But that creates
tension as well.

* NO. MORE. LOST. AT. SEA.

I didn't realize that... I still haven't even tried the normal navies yet (I haven't gotten to play that much yet). Awesome.

Graphically the game chugs at times which drives me nuts. I need to either get a new computer or finally get around to fixing my custom rig that had a HD crash earlier this year. Never thought I'd be saying that about a Civ game.

The only part that really bothers me is the fact that at the end of turn, there's this text fade that takes a couple of seconds. It's kind of annoying, but not enough to make me not love it so far.

 

[Simplicity]

I don't think I turned it off. But I have not run into any, been playing on easiest. I have run into other enemy units and took them out, but no animals/ Barb.

Easiest (Settler) is very, very easy.

The difficulty levels get hard REAL fast as you go up though supposedly.

 

[John Crichton]

It may have been that they were sending missionaries. Remember, you can't see them...
The best way to stop their religious spread is to close your borders... But that creates
tension as well.

Yeah, I knew about the missionaries. I was trying to spread my religion first but that didn't work. My cities were too far apart.

I didn't realize that... I still haven't even tried the normal navies yet (I haven't gotten to play that much yet). Awesome.

It's great. Although I do miss being able to risk sending a caravel to it's doom for the reward of it possibly making it to a far off continent that it will take other civs forever to reach.

The only part that really bothers me is the fact that at the end of turn, there's this text fade that takes a couple of seconds. It's kind of annoying, but not enough to make me not love it so far.

Yeah, that bugs me too. I figure a better VC should fix it.

I would also like to mention that it looked like my first map was set in what looked like a scale version of Europe. Turned out not to be the case but it was fun finding out. And, oh yeah, I had no trouble installing or playing on my ATI 9600 card.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

What are the min system reqs for installation?

 

[John Crichton]

What are the min system reqs for installation?

This was posted earlier and is correct -

MIMIMUM
# Windows 2000/XP with SP1 or higher
# Intel Pentium 4- or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1,2 GHz
# 256 MB RAM
# 64 MB graphics card with Hardware T&L (GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)
# DirectX 7 compatible soundcard
# DVD-ROM drive
# 1,7 GB free hard disk space

RECOMMENDED
# Windows XP with SP1 or higher
# Intel Pentium 4- or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1,8 GHz
# 512 MB RAM
# 128-MB graphics card with DirectX 8 support (pixel- and vertex shaders)
# DirectX 7 compatible soundcard
# DVD-ROM drive
# 1,7 GB free hard disk space

My system doesn meat the recommended (I have a 1.6 processor) and the game runs fine.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Thanks John. Looks like this is officially going on my wishlist.

 

[John Crichton]

Frukathka - Cool. Have you played the earlier versions?

To all - We should set up a few multiplayer games once we're all a little more comfy. Anyone try it online yet?

Also, which version did y'all buy? I picked up the Special Edition for the Soundtrack CD and the faux-leather case (the keyboard guide is nice, too). But did anyone else get a French Tech Tree Poster? I did, but 2KGames is sending out replacements. I've already ordered mine. I was worried the that game was the French version, too. That would have been annoying because I certainly would have at least tried to play it.

PDF and replacement link for the French Tech Tree Poster - http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support.htm

There's also the ATI Video Card "offical fix" there.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Frukathka - Cool. Have you played the earlier versions?

Yes. I have played 2 and Multiplayer Gold Edition. Saw 3 in action, and didn't care for it too much. The screenshots alone make 4 worth the purchase.