Fourth
Civ the IVth.
As you may well know, I have always been a fan of the Civilization series. Just a little after playing C&C 95 - my first ever PC game - I played the original Civ. Despite there being many problems which will be discussed later, it was great.
I've never played Civ II or III, I have to admit. I may buy them off eBay sometime in the future, but for now - nothing. So for this review, we'll concentrate mostly on the things in Civ IV rather than the differences. Although there is one difference too big - and fantastic - not to be mentioned.
As with the original Civ, your units are strangely massive. Since you are playing on a scale which has to encompass both vast cities and horseback riders at once, everything takes up one square on the map, as usual. This sometimes provides Godzilla moments in cities, as shown below.
Those are three of my Swordsmen protecting the city. Yes, I was still using Swordsmen in 2010, and I honestly fail to see a problem with this. London was in the middle of my empire so nothing was realistically going to touch it, so I didn't need tanks and all that modern malarkey.
Cities have a fantastic amount of detail in this game. Most buildings will actually show up - see if you can spot the following :
Pyramids, Broadcast Tower, Oracle, Theatre, Colloseum, Observatory, St Basil's Cathedral, Barracks, Notre Dame, The Spirat Minaret, a Fallout Bunker, an Aqueduct, Stone Henge, some City Walls and Oxford University. It's all there in London!
As with many other modern strategy games, there are various ways to win. In some ways I miss the old ways of killing everything until only one person was left, but times change. You can win in various ways, including launching a rocket to Alpha Centurai (like in Civ I) or becoming the most cultured Civ (a new concept).
However, some of these endings are far too hard to achieve. The timed ending - where it reaches 2050 and no other ending has occured - happens far too often. It can be too hard to achieve a different ending in time. The culture victory requires far too much culture for it to be likely in most games while the conquest victory in larger matches is pointless. You're never going to crush eight different players in that time.
No strategy game except possibly Yuri's Revenge gives the same satisfaction of sending a vast army across the map, if only because of the noise tanks make when moving. You'll see what I mean.
I've never played Civ II or III, I have to admit. I may buy them off eBay sometime in the future, but for now - nothing. So for this review, we'll concentrate mostly on the things in Civ IV rather than the differences. Although there is one difference too big - and fantastic - not to be mentioned.
As with the original Civ, your units are strangely massive. Since you are playing on a scale which has to encompass both vast cities and horseback riders at once, everything takes up one square on the map, as usual. This sometimes provides Godzilla moments in cities, as shown below.
Those are three of my Swordsmen protecting the city. Yes, I was still using Swordsmen in 2010, and I honestly fail to see a problem with this. London was in the middle of my empire so nothing was realistically going to touch it, so I didn't need tanks and all that modern malarkey.Cities have a fantastic amount of detail in this game. Most buildings will actually show up - see if you can spot the following :
Pyramids, Broadcast Tower, Oracle, Theatre, Colloseum, Observatory, St Basil's Cathedral, Barracks, Notre Dame, The Spirat Minaret, a Fallout Bunker, an Aqueduct, Stone Henge, some City Walls and Oxford University. It's all there in London!
As with many other modern strategy games, there are various ways to win. In some ways I miss the old ways of killing everything until only one person was left, but times change. You can win in various ways, including launching a rocket to Alpha Centurai (like in Civ I) or becoming the most cultured Civ (a new concept).
However, some of these endings are far too hard to achieve. The timed ending - where it reaches 2050 and no other ending has occured - happens far too often. It can be too hard to achieve a different ending in time. The culture victory requires far too much culture for it to be likely in most games while the conquest victory in larger matches is pointless. You're never going to crush eight different players in that time.
No strategy game except possibly Yuri's Revenge gives the same satisfaction of sending a vast army across the map, if only because of the noise tanks make when moving. You'll see what I mean.
Next, the game has Wonder animations at long last. When you build a wonder you get a video of it turning from architectural-sketch into the final building, and these are generally quite cool. The Space Elevator looks like this when completed :
Combat is generally good although it will sometimes glitch. People and vehicles will die without shots being fired fired or explode without provocation. It sounds a lot worse than it is.
You can play as a huge variety of leaders, ranging from Napoleon to Catherine the Great. Speaking of Napoleon, I was disappointed to see he was the same height as the others. I think extreme comic value could have been added to have had only his forehead showing in the conversation box. This could be enhanced by having the diminutive dictator jumping up and down to make himself noticed.
There are a huge number of gameplay options, so your matches can be customized according to win conditions, map, number of other players, and the rest. Civ IV seems to have very few downsides, although one I would mention :
Lag. I consider my computer to be fairly decent, but if you've got a few players at later stages of the game, the computer can pretend to have frozen up for a good five minutes before you get another turn.
In conclusion, Civ IV is a great addition to the Civilization universe. If you don't live Civ (and live in a room with bouncy walls) then I would still suggest getting it.
Combat is generally good although it will sometimes glitch. People and vehicles will die without shots being fired fired or explode without provocation. It sounds a lot worse than it is.
You can play as a huge variety of leaders, ranging from Napoleon to Catherine the Great. Speaking of Napoleon, I was disappointed to see he was the same height as the others. I think extreme comic value could have been added to have had only his forehead showing in the conversation box. This could be enhanced by having the diminutive dictator jumping up and down to make himself noticed.
There are a huge number of gameplay options, so your matches can be customized according to win conditions, map, number of other players, and the rest. Civ IV seems to have very few downsides, although one I would mention :
Lag. I consider my computer to be fairly decent, but if you've got a few players at later stages of the game, the computer can pretend to have frozen up for a good five minutes before you get another turn.
In conclusion, Civ IV is a great addition to the Civilization universe. If you don't live Civ (and live in a room with bouncy walls) then I would still suggest getting it.
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On a totally different topic, yesterday I took this horrific screenshot from the BBC site. It burns my eyes.
posted by Mkzrj at 8:49 pm
2 Comments:
I have never tried any of the civ games but I might just try one ... they sound quite fun :)
I have never played a Civ game. But having played C&C, I feel that I would like it.
If only my computer didn't have problems loading minesweeper...
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