Any one here play Civ 4 yet.

[Sin]

If you don't play any games this series is quite good. heres the link to the main web page for much better description then I could give.
www.civ4.com

I'll sum it up for newbies to it. basically you play the history of the world all the way to 2050 ending year. you advance through the ages developing new techs and essentially evolving man from the dawn of time till now picking and choosing your own path.


For others that do play it what do ya think.
This has to be the best one in the series from my point of view
The religion upgrades and the way they deal with it has been done quite well.

(+ voice overs from Leonard Nimoy are quite nice with every new tech you you develop.)

+ with the Mod's that could be made for it I sure hope I see the fsm show up down the road. :)

lets hope the IDers and Fundy's don't find out about it they will want to burn all the copy's of it because worse then infecting there kids heads with the ideas about sex it just might spark Knowledge and reasoning in there in stead.

[Az]

1. May be what I have been looking for

Been a real drought of good games recently.

[ozone_man]

2. Today, the beginning of a new era.

I open Civ 4, the best strategy game ever (so far). I'm just about to sit down and read the manual. So much has changed, the tech tree, culture war, etc.. Think I'll start on Noble level, Epic mode. Epic mode was designed for people like me who wanted to slow the tech development down. Nothing worse than units that become obsolete before they get a chance to fight.

Sid Meiers is a god, well, sort of. :lol:

OK, I started reading the manual and noticed the tech Devine Right, one of the alternative prerequisites for Nationalism (prerequisites Civil Service and either Philosophy or Devine Right). That's certainly hitting the nail on the head.

[PinkUnicorn]

3. Goody

Now to see if my order came in.

I'll be curious to see what they did for the tech tree, as tech was my primary strategy. Get those railroads down and forget supply problems. The catch was to keep one step ahead of the enemy in tech, which got difficult as the opposition started stealing or copying it. (No more "Panzers vs Spearmen" *sniff*).

Let us know how the AI is and if they have improved it. While the civ AI has been miles ahead of other strategy games, it still had it problems.

[ozone_man]

10. Fascism allows the wonder

Mount Rushmore. :rofl:

[progressoid]

4. How is this for teens/preteens?

Am looking for something for my girls for their spare time instead of the ubiquitous teevee.

[Az]

5. The civ games

Are traditionally strategic/tactical games. Imagine a board game played on your PC. Its going to have animated battles and war and such. But nothing like Doom or Quake level violence.

Here are some video that show you what to expect.

Actual game trailer
http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads.htm

Video review
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/620/620513/vid_1290978.html

[progressoid]

8. Thanks - even if they don't like it, I probably will.

[PinkUnicorn]

6. The game

Is far more like a merging of "Sim City", "Risk" and "Diplomacy" than anything else. There are war elements, but as far as Civ 3 is concerned you have tiny "unit icons" waving stick like swords/arrows/guns at each other with a "bang bang" or "clank" noise and then one unit falls over or disappears in a puff of smoke. No blood/gore whatsoever. Think "battle chess" type combat. Even then combat is a tiny part of the game as you have to balance resources, keep your people happy, cut deals with other nations, trade, etc. War tends to be bad as it consumes resources you could be funneling into something else, but if the enemy has a resource you need....(just like real life).

The main thing to realise though it that it is (a)Addictive and (b)a single turn can take hours and there are many many turns in a game. It makes Sim City 3000 seem like a five minute wonder. The good thing is that it is "turn based" so you can make a few moves, leave and come back later, make a few more, etc.

[progressoid]

7. Cool, that sounds like it might work for them. Thanks

[ozone_man]

9. Its great for girls.

The combat is fairly abstract in a roll the dice sort of way, though the graphics are supposed to be updated over previous versions. Like Progressoid says, its a bit like Risk, but a much more complex version. The strategy, depth, and historical civilization aspects of Civ are unmatched in any game that I've seen.

Also, there are several ways to win, domination, culture, space race, diplomatic victory. In other words, if you are a lover, not a fighter, you can still win :). My preference is domination (control 70% of world), and sometimes space race (first to leave Earth for Alpha Centauri). Civers fall roughly into two categories, builders and conquerors. It is possible to win as a builder only, and many, who are not so much into the conquering thing, play that way. But you will still need to defend yourself against AI agression, maybe take a city or two of theirs away before they learn their lesson. So, you still need a fairly strong army, even if you don't like to use it much. The AI can sense weakness.

Best way for the kids to start is with a small world, easiest level, normal, not epic mode. They only have so much time and attention, so you don't want to bog them down in one of these marathon games.

Some of my favorite aspects are the early exploration and contact with other Civs, the game diplomacy, the quest for control of economic and strategic resources, and of course the military strategy. The new civilization advancement chart (tech tree) is quite amazing as they've gone a few steps beyond the previous versions models, making it more possible to develop with different priorities and paths. I can't give a review yet, because I've yet to play. Still reading the manual.

[funflower]

13. Aha. We knew you were a neocon.

(snip)
My preference is domination (control 70% of world),
(snip)

Actually, my son is quite the little Cheneyite when he's playing Civilization.

[ozone_man]

14. And Risk is the same way.

At least the AI doesn't have bruised feelings to deal with, they get even, or at least try to. Of course some like Multiplayer on-line, with other human opponents, but I'm quite satisfied with single player mode.

Civilization is one of the few games that I would actually encourage kids to play. It involves a great deal of deep thinking, strategy, tactics, not to mention the understanding of civilization advances, economy, diplomacy, culture, and religion.

Sid Meier and team just keep getting better and better at making this game. For adults, well, some of us still like to play games. Used to play chess, but Civ is so much more fun and open ended.

[funflower]

12. Our preteen son and his friends LOVE this series. It takes a bit of

effort to learn to use it initially, in my opinion.

[WhollyHeretic]

11. I just got it yesterday. I haven't gotten to play it much yet. But

there are some problems with it. The reviews I read on amazon showed a lot of people have problems installing it. It installed fine on my computer but it did have a couple problems when shutting it down, twice it restarted my computer when I went to close out of it. Civ 4 uses over 400MB when you're playing so I really wouldn't put it on any computer with less than 512MB of RAM.

It seems like it's going to be a lot of fun and has some interesting new features and technology development.

[HamiltonHabs32]

15. Tell my parents im ok.

If they come asking for me, I will be locked in my room for the next 4 monthes. I might surface for fresh air or food, but I have a good stock of MRE's that should last me the duration.

I am off to play Civ 4.

[ozone_man]

16. First impressions

Are that they made another masterpiece, going way beyond other versions in the simulation of civilization development, and the 3D graphics are a delight. At first immersion, it's a bit overwhelming, so without reading the whole manual, I played the tutorial, and got the gyst of the changes in the User Interface, etc.. Thankfully, the R, G, B, W, and space bar keys have the same function as they always have. "The space bar is your friend" - anonymous Civ II legend.

So, about 4 hours into a game on Noble, normal mode, standard six map, Pangea, temperate, Mongols (Ghengis), I feel the makers of Civ 4 have achieved a remarkable improvement of this "one more turn" game. I'm in the overall lead slightly, but not first in tech, power, or population yet, just wealth, land area, and production. On normal mode, tech development occurs to rapidly, so the next game will be epic mode. But, normal is the best mode to play the first game. Noble level is where the AI has no production bonuses over the human player.

On game stability, if you haven't found out, there may be a fix reqired, mainly if you have an ATI graphics board.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140859

Also, make sure your PC meets the suggested requirements and has the most recent graphics driver and probably sound board driver. With the updates in place, the game is perfectly stable, for me anyway.

Overall, they've made some great improvements in eliminating the ICS (Infinite City Sleaze) development scheme, removing some of the more tedious micromanagement, and the combat promotion system is quite remarkable. Have to ramp up my army now and look for a nice place to put my Forbidden City, while triggering my Golden Age. Neighboring England looks pretty nice. ;-)

Culture and religion are much larger influences in the game now. Religion is historical reality and is now a complex part of game play, and it's especially obvious in Civ that it's used to pacify the masses.

It's also great to hear Leonard Nimoy narrating the civilization advances. From what I see so far, I give it a 9.8 out of 10. I like to leave room for perfection, for when the patch comes out. :-)

[NoodleBoy]

17. been playing civ 3 for a couple months now...

and it's great to be playing AI that can beat you and often do. alot better then Age of Empires, although I'd prefer real time, but in every other area civilization just kills AoE.

probably won't justify getting civ 4 to myself for a few months-- I only got civ 3 after my girlfriend recommended the civ series as a good way to relax without my mind turning to jelly, and even then it was bought used, with a 5 dollar off thing. Even then, I'll wait for more extensive reviews before getting it, to make sure I'm not just buying the same game with Nimoy and a couple other things tacked on to it.

[ozone_man]

18. Try Rome Total War?

It's combines some of the deeper turn based stategy of Civ with real time battles of AoE. The thing I tired of with AoE, was the frantic game play, like if a few seconds were wasted, you might lose the game. A guy I know at work put all the real time parameters into a program and computed the fastest way to reach the Bronze Age. Online players could not believe he got there so fast.

Civ is more like meditation, sink back in the chair, listening to those ancient tribal rythyms, as you develop your civilization. Civ IV takes a quantum leap in every area of the game, but listening to Nimoy is a really nice touch. It wouldn't hurt to wait a month for some solid reviews to come in, but so far I'm impressed.

[leftofthedial]

19. Civ=most addictive game ever

no IV for Mac though!

:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

[ozone_man]

20. Excellent Wikipedia write up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_4

A great overall summary of the game. Looks like an average 9.4 rating by reviewers, which is as high as I've seen it for a strategy game. Sid Meiers with AI expert Soren Johnson have set a new standard for excellence in Civ IV.

As you can see, religion plays a much more influential role in the game. OK, I forget this is an atheist forum. :)

Explaining the role of religion in Civilization IV in greater detail is Barry Caudill, producer on the game at Firaxis...

"Religion has always played a critical part in human history. Through religion, man has sought to make sense of the universe around him and to determine his place in it. Religion has inspired, enlightened and ennobled man; in its name men have erected beautiful buildings, written books of great wisdom, and made music of surpassing beauty. In its name men have also murdered and enslaved their fellows. Given the importance of religion throughout history, it seemed fitting that we should try to address it in Civilization IV.

"Through our tests, it was determined that the optimal number of religions for gameplay purposes was seven (a number that seems to come up quite often when designing versions of Civilization). We then set about making a list of seven important and recognizable religions. After a lot of deliberation and more testing, we narrowed the list down to these: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism.

http://tinyurl.com/amn99

I think most Civ players just accept the religious aspect as part of gameplay, though some try to play as atheists.}(