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

Staffan · Jun 28, 2005

My main beef with Civ 3 was the super-corruption that happened when you had more than X cities - any city beyond a certain number only generated one trade and one production, no matter what you did in the way of courthouses, government type, and stuff. I hated that.

Henry · Jun 28, 2005

It looks good, to be sure. I think a lot of problem with Civ3 was that Alpha Centauri really raised the bar, and Civ3 kinda took the bar back down a notch or two. I loved the governmental micromanagement in Alpha Centauri, and the unit customizations. These will be back in an lesser way in Civ4, and that is a big deal to me.

I'm still curious about how the interface will be handled -- the screen shots are not very clear. But I haven't been disappointed by a Sid Meier game yet!

Simplicity · Jun 28, 2005

Heck yeah, I can't wait for Civ4. Sure, the units look idiotic. And they took the hallmark attack/defense pair out (why?). But the borders look nice, and religions could be interesting.

Civ3 was good, but the corruption was incredibly stupid, and the developers just refused to do anything about it. What is the point of a conquest game if you can't conquer the world?
The expansions eventually helped a little with this, if I remember right though. Somehow, all my civs are now a bunch of commies!

I would love a SMAC2. SMAC's only problem was that the endgame brought everything to a halt. You didn't even get to micromanagement problems in the endgame because the plant's units would get in your way first. Oh gee, I love watching 50000 mindworms moving across the world, thanks! Other than that, it was a stellar game with an interesting story.

John Crichton · Jun 29, 2005

vulcan_idic said:
I'll be curious to see how they handle pollution. I actually liked the slightly porous borders though!! I loved using them to my advantage. Once they stopped me ouright buying cities I started popping my cities among theirs and made their cities come and beg to be part of my glorious civilization due to my high culture.

Yeah, it did work to the player's advantage too. I just found that it got in the way too much. It's a legit tactic but never really fit with how I like to play the game.

I believe if you read the articles (or maybe other ones not linked) they do get into how pollution will be dealt with. I'll try and find it...

vulcan_idic · Jun 29, 2005

John Crichton said:
Yeah, it did work to the player's advantage too. I just found that it got in the way too much. It's a legit tactic but never really fit with how I like to play the game.

I believe if you read the articles (or maybe other ones not linked) they do get into how pollution will be dealt with. I'll try and find it...

I've heard vague references to encapsulating it more into an overall health type stat which food and so forth goes towards, but I'll be curious to see it in play.

I read a lot on it the other night - the Spy unit is back!! :-D Wonder movies are back too. Allin all it sounds like it'll be a blast. I can't wait to use the new government system!!

John Crichton · Jun 30, 2005

Yeah, the new gov system sounds cool but (oddly enough) I'm mostly curious about the newest feature: religion.

I love the fact that the movies are back. It was one of my favorite things about CivII. Same with the spies. Sounds like it's gonna have an old school feel with new graphics and tweaks. As long as it still feels like Civ I'm sure I'll love it.

Dark Jezter · Jun 30, 2005

I Loved Civ2, and I also loved Civ3. I do agree with John, however, that Civ3 wasn't quite as engaging or addictive as its predecessor (although one change I absolutely loved about Civ3 was each Civilization having it's own unique military unit).

I'm definately looking forward to Civ4. The new religion feature sounds like it could really be cool if implimented well.

DaveMage · Jul 1, 2005

One thing I don't like with Civ 4 is that they said they are reducing the number of turns in the game.

It always seemed to me that non-space-race games are over too quickly. I want MORE turns, not less turns - that's what helps conquer the world.

vulcan_idic · Jul 7, 2005

DaveMage said:
One thing I don't like with Civ 4 is that they said they are reducing the number of turns in the game.

It always seemed to me that non-space-race games are over too quickly. I want MORE turns, not less turns - that's what helps conquer the world.

And some people had the opposite problem - the game took to long. I read an interview about this the other day and the developer being interviewed mentioned that to solve this the new game will have three selectable game lengths with all variables scaled to fit each of the speeds. One speed is a quick game designed to be faster. Another speed is normal (standard CivIII length game), and the last (the one I am most looking forward to) is Epic, which presumably will take longer.

DaveMage · Jul 7, 2005

That's interesting.

I always figured that those who wanted a shorter game would simply play on a smaller map, and those who wanted the longer game would play on the largest map (like I do).

I want a longer game that gives me time to try to take over the entire world if I want to. I used to love doing that in Civ II.