The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Come on.
If you're a fan of strategy games, then by now you're either wishing the release date would hurry up, or you're playing a pirated/imported copy from the USA.
Personally (and I surprised myself here) I've gone down the legitimate route so I'm going to have to wait. A big deciding factor in that was that I could pre-order for £17.99, but still it's frustrating.
Reading the reviews is only making it worse - for example, IGN: 9.4.

So, do you already have it? If so, is it really that good?
If you don't have it yet, do you think it's likely to be?

So close.
:(

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Most people the in the usa will get it today (it shipped yesterday). So no one probably has it yet

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

It's in 3D so I am sceptical

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

It's not "in 3D" in the way that, say, the Command and Conquer series was when it transitioned to 3D with Generals. By all accounts the 3D aspect is used simply to enhance the aesthetics (prettier smoother animations, sparkly water etc) and does not make any difference to how the game is played.
To put it another way, if you could port the new fancy graphics back to Civ III, you'd still have the same game, it'd just look better. Any gameplay alterations shouldn't be from the new graphics, they should be down to decisions taken by the developers.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Big fan of the series and will get it sooner or later, it is on my shortlist with AOEIII and FM2006. :)

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

If they don't use this, they're ON MY LIST.

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Movies/Movie8.shtml

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

from the screenshots to me it looks like theyve put too much effort into graphics. you can ruin a game with that.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

It's the same what I feel when I see the screenshots. The features I've heard about sounds good though. I'll just wait and see.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Examples?

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Panzer general? the first one was a classic. then they made allied commander or whatever, which kind of used more or less the same graphics, but was for windows, so that you had a higher resolution, etc. that was an improvment. then they out all that 3d-crap into it, which completly ruined the game for me.
For all i care they could use different square-symbols for different units. after all this isnt an ego-shooter, were almost everything depends on realism.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

The game is pretty much fully moddable, so if you want symbols, make it so.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

All Civ games were great! even if i was way to young to properly play Civ I i spent a lot of time on it :)

Since then i am addicted and followed through all parts - certainly i will buy Civ4!

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I played Civilization II for waaay too many hours and spent even longer creating scenarios for it, but I didn't really like Civ 3. I'm optimistic about Civ 4 after reading about the changes they've made, but I don't like the look of the graphics at all, I'd rather play it with Civ 2 graphics tbh.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I played civ3 way too long in multiplayer mode, the speed during an online game is godawful, really really ****ing painful.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

There was something just 'wrong' about Civ 3, for me. I think the graphics had a lot to do with it. It didn't feel 'right' to me.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

how does that work anyway? its turn based, so i guess a little later it takes hours until its your turn again?

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I agree. I played the hell out of Civ 3 and while the new features (eg resources) entertained me for a while I finally realised that it was actually not that good. It's ok for the first couple thousand years but then it just drags.

Anyway, from the previews I've read of Civ 4 it looks like they're going back to what made Civ 2 so good and updating it so I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

IMHO all they ever tweaked well was the graphics and choice content. For me civ=civ2=civ´the other number 2´=civ3=civ4.
The only other line where they are reaching my limit is the total war series. Allthough there they could make a special version starting in rome and play on all the way throug BarbInva into medieval.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I would like to have the babies of whoever designed civ4. it's wonderful.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I never really played multiplayer on previous Civs, but according to the IGN review in Civ 4 they've added options to change the speed of the multiplayer games, and you can allow everyone to take their turn at the same time if you wish.
It's all on page 5 of the review.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Been playing the Civ series pretty consistently for about 14 years. I remember doing a presentation on it when I was 8 (don't ask why)
Civ2 is certainly the best, i rarely finish a civ3 game... although the "play the world" add-on got rid of some annoyances.
Civ4 should be good :)

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Same here.. It won't stop me from buying ( :eek: ) the game tho

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Civ 3 didn't grip me as much as Civ 2 (or Alpha Centauri) but I still enjoyed it. So I'll be downloading this when it hits Usenet today/tomorrow, and then buying it when I have the money (I have bought copies of Civ 1, Civ 2 & Civ 3 as well as two copies of Alpha Centauri (plus the expansion pack).

I share the concerns around unnecessary flashiness of some of the graphics, but games like this need their UI to be as slick as humanly possible (even the smallest of flaws becomes incredibly annoying when you have to do it several thousand times).

Plus the modability (some of it based on Python?) sounds sexy.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

heh, from reading the review it looks like they have something similar to social engineering in AC. Which is the best news :)

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Civ II (and Alpha) were designed by Brian Reynolds, who cofounded Firaxis with Sid Meier.

Reynolds then left Firaxis after Alpha Centauri was released, because Sid forced through naming it "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri", which Reynolds thought was a bit steep because Sid had nothing to do with it.

Sid Meier's Civ III wasn't designed by Sid either, and it was released with literally no playtesting - hence the immense problems in every part of the game.

Sid Meier's Civ IV is, again, not designed by SM, but it seems to have a more coherent approach towards the game than Civ III ever did. Whilst I'd still prefer a BR game, Civ IV does look a lot more inspiring than Civ III.

Hardly a new feature, you could do that in Alpha Centauri. But they removed it in Civ III. Like most of the really excellent things.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I agree that Panzer General I was ace.
Allied General was riddled with bugs, even with the patch. Noticed how many units the AI could make, for instance at Pskov?
Panzer General II was nice too.

Panzer General III with 3d graphics was totally f***** up, and it was hard to even get a overview of the battlefield.

So, I agree with you about PG3, but not on AG :)

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

It just seemed BUGGY to me, specially since the AI cheated even more than usual :(

Civ I for the win, I think I have used over 1000 hours on it.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

What did people think of Civilisation : A Call To Power?

I know it's not technically one of the Civ series.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

i never really got into allied general or what it was called. i think it didnt work on windows98 or with more than 256 colors or something. it was just an example of graphical improvement without ****ing up the entire game. The total war-series is another one. Rome - total war certainly looks a lot better than Shogun, but the feeling of the game is the same. After seeing the screenshots of Civ IV i dont think that will be the case this time.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

As long as you just read the instruction manual and strategy guides, and didnt play the actual game, it was one of the best computer games ever made.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I didn't enjoy playing it. Dunno why but I consider it a waste of the money I paid for it.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

You say that about most games.

I actually bought that one many moons ago.

Why, why, why, for the love of God!

Anyway it sucked and I played that silly dos civ with more pleasure. But maybe that's because monochrome colored games so turn me on erotically.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Indeed, it had the complexity of something like Alpha Centauri, but had absolutely none of the elegance.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

There aren't many computer games that I have played but I loved Civ I and liked Civ II even better. I still play that at home quite a bit though much prefered playing it at work.:)

I bought Civ III as well as Call to Power. I thought they were both the shits. I wiped them off of my hard drive and threw the disks away.

I hope the IV is good. I will probably buy it fairly soon.

However, I have a question. I have a mac, I currently run Civ II through the virtual pc program. Is there a mac version of IV being released? If not, should IV run through virtual pc?

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Play Alpha Centauri, there's a mac version.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I thought Civ 3 was dope!
infact ive liked all releases of Civ from 1-3 but i never found alpha centauri fun..

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Battle Royale?

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

It's not really the waiting for the other players (which can be long already after some while), the general speed of the entire game is shit when you play over their gameservers and we haven't found a way to get the direct isp connection thing working :(

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Brian Reynolds, so BRAC rather than SMAC.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Just a heads up: Gamespot have now reviewed it, and gave it a 9.4 - including 10/10 on gameplay.
Looking good...

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

First impressions : It seems OK. Not a dramatic change from Civ 3 (obviously).

The look and feel of the game at first was a bit disconcerting - the menus are a little more cumbersome than I was expecting, but you soon get used to it. The 3D stuff doesn't really affect the game much, although it does look prettier (although the text used in the game doesn't look particularly good). You can use the world map as a globe of some kind which is pretty cool.

The addition of civics, religions, great persons and unit experience upgrades all seem fairly interesting (although I'm not sure how they alter the game balance throughout the game - I'm still early on in a game). There's quite a few more automation options in the game now, which removes some of the micromanagement necessary in Civ 2/3.

Overall I'm enjoying playing it, although it's not as immersive as Alpha Centauri was (so far) - Leonard Nimoy's voice talent notwithstanding.

p.s. The game now has little tip boxes which says "Sid says : " which is mildly stupid.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

My key question would be do you enjoy it less or more than Civ III (so far), as I was one of the many who found Civ III to be lacking compared to the others.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I preordered it from play.com and I thought was out today, was a disappointment when I checked it it was dispatched this morning and the release date was pushed back to 4th November :(

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Everywhere has it but here - possibly because they didn't want to compete with AoE3, but god knows.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Do you mean "here" as in play.com or "here" as in country? (if country, which? UK?)

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

UK, possibly Europe.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

It's the same for Europe (I checked Amazon.fr)

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

I'm enjoying it more than Civ 3 so far. I too was disappointed by Civ 3, although I'm not sure what I was expecting really.

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

Eat healthy, kids.
Sounds cool flav. Only a few days to go for me!

Re: The big ole Civ 4 thread
 

:( I am still playing Civ II Gold Edition & Alpha Centauri

Going to go pick 4 next weekend! :D