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

[John Crichton]

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.

The map really is the highlight of the game. The FMV isn't great but once the game gets moving the world map has so much going on that it really feels like the world is alive. I never thought graphics would mean so much to this franchise but now my mind is changed. Seeing and controlling just about everything from one screen makes a ton of difference.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The game chokes my video card late in the game. I'm stuck in 1785, and my system crashes/locks up at the end of the turn every time. I've tuned the graphics down a bit and its still happening... Looking for a solution on various boards...

 

[Dinkeldog]

KC, try going into your .ini file and turn off the movies. That was what was killing me. (Remember to make a backup of your .ini first, and if you're still having problems, you can always call me at home and I can walk you through it.)

 

[talinthas]

i'm running the game on a garbage HP pavillion dx4000 lappy, with a crappy integrated vid card that doesnt even meet the bare minimums. The card shares ram with the system itself, so i just added a gigstick, and BAM, civ 4 works just fine on low to mid grap settings. Runs slower than dirt, but it's civ--speed doesnt matter much in a turn based game =)

//oh, and anybody up for mulitplay?

 

[John Crichton]

//oh, and anybody up for mulitplay?

I am. I'm up at weird times, tho.

Do you have PM capability here?

 

[talinthas]

unfortunately no.

and your weird times might be perfect, since i live in Japan anyway, and have something like a 20 hour difference with EST =)

 

[DaveMage]

Well, after playing it some more - I like it.

I still have a LOT to learn about HOW to play it, but overall I'd say it's a good game.

I still haven't figured out the best tech path, and I have to figure out how to wage war a little better...

 

[mrtauntaun]

Played two full games this weekend, both as the Americans/Roosevelt. Won space race both times on different difficulties. I enjoy the gameplay a great deal, the game in and of itself is great fun. What drives me crazy is that it's buggy. There is no way a game with those min/recommended stats should chug on my pc, and yet it does. Sometimes halts on load of a new world, and just draaaaaags at the later stages of the game. Moving the mouse around just chugs the screen, the adivsor screens can take up to a minute to open. I have a gig of ram, 256 mb vid card and 2.4 Ghz CPU, so Im at a lost other than to blame the designers. Half life 2 and other high end games run flawlessly. I hope a patch can resolve this.

EDIT: Oddly enough, setting all graphics to low made the bugs show up more, for me.

 

[LogicsFate]

First time I played, only certain graphics came up. All I could see of the leaders, their eyes and the backround. The only thing I could see of the map, the cities everything else was black.

I'll try cranking down the grapghics, and some other stuff, I guess

 

[TheLe]

I have played for about 12 hours so far, and overall I am not pleased.

I liked all the new game mechanics to it, but the visuals makes it feel like a cheap Civ knockoff.

The old 2-d graphics gave it nice epic feel to it.

With these graphics, everythings feels smaller and the game play suffers. On my 2ghz 750mb computer, the graphics still need to be set on low.

around the year 2000, there are so many units around that the game just chugs and chugs and chugs.

And I can't see anything. Have to zoom out to see the map of things, but I have to zoom in to even see my railroads. So there is no happy medium.

As for crashing, check out the README file in your start menu. It tells you right there how to edit your INI file to turn off the movies.

This is a sad sad game. And don't get me started on the Colorful, yet UGLY cultural borders.

`Le

 

[mrtauntaun]

One thing i do not like about the game is the map size. Even huge is small, no where near the size of Civ 3 and previous. I set up for continents, and there were only two continents. One was just a big island. WTF?!?!?!
I want CONTINENTS!!!!! Not one huge chunk of rock and a couple of islands.

 

[talinthas]

my main complaint with the game is that it is too dang short. I should _not_ be able to finish an entire game of civ in one sitting.

 

[mrtauntaun]

Have you tried the Epic setting on a higher difficulty? The first game I played was Noral on Chieftan, I think. That was pretty quick. But with Epic combined with AI actually meddling in my affairs due to higher difficulty, THAT game took awhile. Although, I'll likely never play one of those super long games of old, due to the lack of usable map space.

 

[Simplicity]

I think the "Terra" maps are supposed to be even larger than huge...
I'm not certain about that since I've never played them yet though.

 

[DaveMage]

One thing i do not like about the game is the map size. Even huge is small, no where near the size of Civ 3 and previous. I set up for continents, and there were only two continents. One was just a big island. WTF?!?!?!
I want CONTINENTS!!!!! Not one huge chunk of rock and a couple of islands.

I was wondering about that. I've reduced my opponent/AI civs to 4 or 5 just to have some breathing room on the huge map.

Maybe I'll try the setting that has less ocean and more land - low sea level or somesuch.

 

[talinthas]

epic doesnt make the game longer, it just makes you progress slower. it's not all that fun =(

 

[mrtauntaun]

While it does make the progress slower, it does make for a longer game. That works for me. On normal noble, I was still cranking out techs a 2 or 3 turns apiece. Epic has a better feel for me.

 

[Vigilance]

I just wanted to say (besides the fact that the game rocks) that everyone should play the game on Terra (called New World in some of the manuals oddly enough).

It gives a much more "real world" map, with a lot more islands to be discovered and importance of sea power and exploration.

And of course the kicker is that there is a "new world" waiting to be discovered on every Terra map.

All the Civilizations start on one continnent, while the New World is loaded with Barbarian cities and villages/goodie huts.

I find Terra makes much more interesting games than the Continents map.

Chuck

 

[John Crichton]

I just wanted to say (besides the fact that the game rocks) that everyone should play the game on Terra (called New World in some of the manuals oddly enough).

It gives a much more "real world" map, with a lot more islands to be discovered and importance of sea power and exploration.

And of course the kicker is that there is a "new world" waiting to be discovered on every Terra map.

All the Civilizations start on one continnent, while the New World is loaded with Barbarian cities and villages/goodie huts.

I find Terra makes much more interesting games than the Continents map.

Chuck

Sounds like fun! I'm still getting the hang of the regular game but my current one has me winning the race to sea where I've found the only 2 islands and colonized. That was a nice in-game rush.

Thanks for the tip.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Random question... is there an option in the game to slow down the rate of advancements -- either a toggle to do just that, or a way to require more beakers for each advancement.

I enjoy Civ the most when it's in the early Renaissance tech era, so I'd like to be able to "shut off" scientific advancement after that point (or at least drastically slow it down).