22-01-2006, 20:48 | #11 |
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No, I do not like civ 4. It is too slow and the things that made civ 3 fun are more or less gone. I guess the main 2 reasons are the lack of empirebuilding due to corruption and the carryover of shields/cash to the next unit/tech.
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22-01-2006, 22:38 | #12 | |
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@ Ginger_Ale : Based on how many games ?? I think I know what you're talking of, but I still don't have the answer myself, since I'm still trying to make up my mind on that. The last thing I want to do now is to deliver my conclusions that Civ4 isn't a good game, after just a few games. I don't want to make the (negative) show. @ Kingreno : The building of large empires a la Civ 1/2/3 is almost gone, and for good, for me. I tend to take as much time for my games in Civ4 as in Civ3, but instead of MMing hundreds of cities that won't have an impact on the game, I'm now using that time for more interesting things. And while still being a MMer, I like the hammer/beaker carryover a lot. That, combined with the inability to swap projects in a city with the carrying-over of hammers to the new project makes for a more interesting game, methinks.
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22-01-2006, 23:46 | #13 |
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I must agree to a certain extent with Kingreno here. Civ4 is a pretty dull game overall imho. It plays very similar to 5CC in Civ3 to a certain time point. Once you are past this point, it does not matter, since the game should be pretty much already won. On the other hand, 5CC is rather winnable on Deity level in Civ3 and AI in Civ4 is not stronger. It has more bonuses though, both declared and hidden. That makes the game somewhat less attractive and more routine while indeed it is somewhat easier to win imho. But this is a rather personal opinion formed so far based on about a dozen games, some finished and some abandoned. The way the patching process goes, there is essentially a new game to be learned after every patch.
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23-01-2006, 01:20 | #14 |
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Well, I'm definitely in the other camp than some of you as far as the level of intriguement the game offers is concerned, to me the game is far more exciting that the ever-repeating standard games that civ3 had to offer in SP. I also do not agree there are more bonuses for the AI (and yes, plenty of bonuses are present for it in civ4 I know), especially compared to sid level of civ3, and I most certainly do not agree that playing large immortal, (let alone deity!) maps is easier to win than any challenge civ3 had to offer (especially considering we're dealing with civ4 vanilla here).
But most of all, I think that continuing to compare everything the game has to offer with what civ3 used to do (thus staying inside the safe boundary of entertainment that people were used to see in a game of civ) is already starting off with a mindset of not being willing to appreciate what civ4 might have to offer. Nothing wrong with that as civ3 was truly a great game, however civ4 is much more complex, and I think the way the AI is able to handle these added complexities (and I do recognize there are lots of flaws to be found in the AI as well) deserves a big hats-off to those responsible. Some people might always like civ3 better, after all still people are playing and declaring civ2 as the best game too... but whether it is easier to win or that civ3's AI was at the same level as civ4's AI is, in my opinion, greatly unjustified.
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23-01-2006, 02:09 | #15 |
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That is confusing but I must agree with Kemal here as well on many points. At least there is a decent try to make AI more intelligent in civ4 compared to civ3 with more options which are more logical. Still some features of the game are very annoying and make it somewhat less playable for me personally compared to civ3. I'm also rather clueless as to how MP/PBEM is supposed to be played except that may be on the continents map. It seems based on my very limited experience here (a few MP games) that whoever builds the second/third warrior first and gets to the rival's capital basically has won the game. Same is true apparently for higher difficulty levels. I bet on Emperor and above AI can just walk in into any human capital for an instant kill around turn 20 or so and in many cases the city would be undefended. It seems that AI is just forced not to attack the human player early in the game. Civ3 had some pluses here because it was actually possible to play always war on Emperor level on continents/pangea maps.
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23-01-2006, 02:29 | #16 |
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Pitboss is my new favorite way to play. Assuming that the players can get online at the same time. Whomp & I only played two sessions before Whomp surrendered.
As a note, I also learned a lot from that game. It allowed you to progress through the game just slightly slower than a solo game. but it was against a human. -> chop forests around your cities in AW games. The defense that the forests allow (especially on hills) is something not to be reckoned with. I had all of my forests chopped around my capital (which I normally don't do). Peter didn't and Whomp took Moscow. Since Whomp didn't raze the city, I used the forests to get within 1 tile and then just slammed him with 5 axes.. I lost two but the other three killed his three jags defending. I don't know if Whomp saw this but you can also tell your AI partner to attack a specific city which would have been nice if Peter wouldn't have been building a settler with 5 of Whomp's jags surrounding Moscow right before he took it
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3/2006 : Now, surely that must be because some fists might have caused internal damage to certain delicate parts? |
23-01-2006, 09:09 | #17 |
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I'm not really trying to compare Civ4 to Civ3, but for some reason the game just doesn't appeal to me as much as Civ3 did.
The game is slow and very similar (to me anyway) each game, so that SP Civ4 very quickly lost it's "newness" to me. I realize that this game can be played with a lot of different styles, but that would require a large amount of time being put into it to learn to play like that. Unfortunately, I don't have time to spare, and even if I did, I would in all likelyhood not invest it in Civ4. So, I haven't played single player Civ4 since before christmas and I doubt I'll take it up again any time soon. MP is more fun, but that fun mostly comes from playing against another human. The gameplay is still the same -> boring. In my game against grs it's now 600 BC, and I get to move maybe 5 units each turn. Maybe I'm just a louzy player, but moving five units doesn't exactly make me feel like I am building an empire or something like that. All in all, I am quite disappointed with Civ4. I had expected more of it.
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23-01-2006, 10:43 | #18 | |
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Quote:
As for PBEMS...i can't see myself ever committing the time to these again. I still hav'nt finished my first solo civ4 game yet...i've been playing the same one since November |
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23-01-2006, 11:29 | #19 |
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I know the feeling. I finished one game, then started on the second one, but couldn't find interest to finish it. Then I played RTW again for a month or two, until I thought "let's Civ4 another shot!" I played a game at monarch level, lost, prince level, lost as well , now at noble again, and am winning, barely. I'll try prince next time again and do find it fun again and challenging to search for the possibility to win!
Think about this: there are a lot of experienced Civ-players who have beta tested and still play the game thoroughly, trying to get the highest score possible. Who do find Civ4 fun, game after game. And I thought I'd seen it after one game, but 'refound' it. Perhaps you should give it another try as well. (Unless you want to perform optimally at school/work. )
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23-01-2006, 13:11 | #20 |
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I find civ4 fun. I like the randomness that each game offers. If you want predictablity, you prolly won't like civ4 ever. I never realized what Darkness is saying about not building an empire due to a low number of units/cities. But you are able to develop the cities more and not just have a bunch of cities with irrigation around them with a bunch of specialists in them as you do in civ3.
I won't try to defend civ4 because I think that it's really not for everyone.
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3/2006 : Now, surely that must be because some fists might have caused internal damage to certain delicate parts? |