Journal FortKnox's Journal: Civ4 First Impression 12
Wow... this game is very different. This isn't the Civ1-Civ2 shift or the Civ2-Civ3 shift... its more like the Civ2-SMAC shift... even more so.
The engine is completely different and holds my biggest gripe:
The maps are much smaller than they used to be and the size of the grid spaces are huge. This, along with the inability to have an early city-building boom makes for small small civilizations. Instead of using cities to provide borders, you are much more relied on cultural borders (even more than civ3). Culture has undergone a rehaul, and is more flexible and complex. This is a good thing. Governments have undergone a complete rehaul, and its much more flexible (you can have a free market, police state, free religion, and slavery!). This makes for great replayability and uniqueness to each civ you create. The graphics and sound, which has always been subpar (but you can't complain because of the gameplay), is OUTSTANDING for this release (the engine is great... zoom into to see the battles, or zoom all the way out and see the whole world!). Each unit talks when you click them, and they do in their native language (I played as the japanese, and all my units were speaking japanese... very nifty!).
I found myself a complete n00b at the game all over again, which left me a bit frustrated. It wasn't for a while that I realized that not only was I never at war, the other civs were being quite peaceful with one another (which would be nice for Sol, but I'm more into the 'conflict brings drama which brings challenges' type gameplay... maybe I just need to increase the difficulty rating from the default).
I was a bit disappointed with my first game, but I think it may have more to do with the fact that I was playing as a n00b instead of a regular civ player like I'm used to. I'm going to start over again and see if that improves my outlook. My biggest dealio last night is was I didn't think "Just one more turn." I was able to turn it off easily (which, as I said, may have more to do with my frustration than the gameplay).
Main point: This game is VERY different and will take time to get used to. Is this a good thing? I'll let you know in a month when I am more of a regular of it.
The engine is completely different and holds my biggest gripe:
The maps are much smaller than they used to be and the size of the grid spaces are huge. This, along with the inability to have an early city-building boom makes for small small civilizations. Instead of using cities to provide borders, you are much more relied on cultural borders (even more than civ3). Culture has undergone a rehaul, and is more flexible and complex. This is a good thing. Governments have undergone a complete rehaul, and its much more flexible (you can have a free market, police state, free religion, and slavery!). This makes for great replayability and uniqueness to each civ you create. The graphics and sound, which has always been subpar (but you can't complain because of the gameplay), is OUTSTANDING for this release (the engine is great... zoom into to see the battles, or zoom all the way out and see the whole world!). Each unit talks when you click them, and they do in their native language (I played as the japanese, and all my units were speaking japanese... very nifty!).
I found myself a complete n00b at the game all over again, which left me a bit frustrated. It wasn't for a while that I realized that not only was I never at war, the other civs were being quite peaceful with one another (which would be nice for Sol, but I'm more into the 'conflict brings drama which brings challenges' type gameplay... maybe I just need to increase the difficulty rating from the default).
I was a bit disappointed with my first game, but I think it may have more to do with the fact that I was playing as a n00b instead of a regular civ player like I'm used to. I'm going to start over again and see if that improves my outlook. My biggest dealio last night is was I didn't think "Just one more turn." I was able to turn it off easily (which, as I said, may have more to do with my frustration than the gameplay).
Main point: This game is VERY different and will take time to get used to. Is this a good thing? I'll let you know in a month when I am more of a regular of it.
Graphics card needs (Score:2)
Re:Graphics card needs (Score:2)
Re:Graphics card needs (Score:2)
I actually read "I have an Atari 2600XT..." and that had me wondering when the XT came out.
Though it would be kinda kewl to play Civ on it. Heh.
Yeah, I actually got suckered into buying that Atari Anthology for PS2...w00t! Pixels the size of your fist!
Cheers,
Ethelred
Re:Graphics card needs (Score:2)
I have a ATI 9200 (Score:2)
Sean D.
Re:I have a ATI 9200 (Score:2)
First Impressions (Score:2)
There's a cool new feature though, an alarm. In the advanced settings you can set the game to have an alarm go off every so often. I was going to use it to remind myself to take a break.
I like the graphics, the are nice, I like being able to zoom around.
The City screen looks a little busy for me. It's going to take some time to figure out. And the unit upgrades a re a pretty cool feature.
C4 (Score:1)
The only C4 I'm concerned with is the stuff in Battlefield 2 that I throw on tanks, helicopters, bridges and other players... Then I blow them up.
Going to become a recluse (Score:2)
I realized before I ever ordered the game that the moment I had it in hand I was going to become a recluse. So I did the only logical thing and ordered the Pre-order edition from Amazon with the slowest shipping they have. I'll be leaving civilization to play civilization somewhere between the 5th and the 9th.
I do have one question though. What does one need for hardware to play the game? I can't find that little tidbit anywhere. I have a 1Ghz PIII in my laptop, decent amount of RAM, and it has Windows on
Re:Going to become a recluse (Score:2)
Re:Going to become a recluse (Score:2)
Ah, thanks for the heads up. My poor lappy, the only Windows machine I have hooked up to an actual monitor, is only 1 GHz, so I'll have to find some solution. Maybe I'll commandeer my fiance's desktop which also runs Windows.
First, however, I'll try running it on the 1 GHz machine with 32 MB of video RAM. If that works, I'll take some time out from my being a recluse to let you know.
In the Middle-ages (Score:2)
Now I'm trying to get some of Isabella's cities to flip due to my overwhelming culture. If that doesn't work soon, she's going to get flattened. Once I get this game won, I'm definitely going to up the difficulty. I'm on chieftian right now, I wasn''t sure where to start so I'm just plowing through the research