# Civ 4 - Excited? [UPDATED pt.2 - Game is out & now PATCHED!  Share your thoughts.]



## John Crichton (Jun 27, 2005)

http://pc.ign.com/articles/628/628695p1.html

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/preview_6128088.html

While I like Civ3, I have come to the conclusion that it's not as engaging as Civ2 was.  The changes were really good but they seemed to be missing a little polish.  From the looks of things for Civ4 it looks like they may knock this one outta the park.

The religion concept, culture tweaking, REAL borders, elimination of pollution squares (yes!) and fully accessable world map all sound like winners.  Anyone else pumped?


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## LightPhoenix (Jun 27, 2005)

I'm pretty excited about it.  By far the thing that gets me excited is the idea of real borders.  I hated the way borders worked in the previous games.

The trailer is hilarious, especially "Edna".


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## John Crichton (Jun 27, 2005)

Yeah, I thought that the borders issue would be fixed from the Civ3 previews but it still didn't keep rival civs from popping a city right in the middle of a small section of your area.

I think my favorite new feature is going to be the pollution fix.  The late game was already too messy and the way pollution was handled always seemed somewhat out of place within the game.


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## Staffan (Jun 27, 2005)

Personally, I wish they'd do an Alpha Centauri II instead. Alpha Centauri is better than all the other Civ games put together.


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## Jdvn1 (Jun 27, 2005)

I'm a bit dubious about real borders.  They've programmed 'real borders' before (IIRC, it was Civ1 where, after you finished the game, you could fast forward the game in a world view to see the borders) but it wasn't always quite right.  I've also never seen real borders done quite right.  If you could establish your own borders and maybe fight for them, that'd be great.


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## John Crichton (Jun 27, 2005)

Jdvn1 said:
			
		

> I'm a bit dubious about real borders. They've programmed 'real borders' before (IIRC, it was Civ1 where, after you finished the game, you could fast forward the game in a world view to see the borders) but it wasn't always quite right. I've also never seen real borders done quite right. If you could establish your own borders and maybe fight for them, that'd be great.



It should actually be pretty easy to impliment.  Instead of the gaps that were left due to culture in Civ3 they would be filled in.  And they've already stated that unless another civ is at war with you that units can't even pass through your territory unless you have an alliance with them.  Basically, it should work the way most of us assumed it would in Civ3.

And I think it's a tad unfair to go all the way back to Civ1 at this point.  The comparisons are too far apart.  But hey, at least they are addressing it as a real issue, ya know?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jun 27, 2005)

Call me a Luddite, but I think both Civ and SimCity aren't benefitting from later versions. I don't want a game that will take forever to learn (both of which are becoming increasingly the case) and require even MORE micro-management to even halfway succeed.

Civ2Net (single player) was pretty much the peak for me. Pretty that up with fresher graphics and sound and I'm a happy camper.


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## trancejeremy (Jun 27, 2005)

I liked the first Civ a lot. But the rest, eh.

I want to like Alpha Centauri, but the political ideology in it turns me off, so I can't play it (the planetary conciousness stuff. <shudder> Makes me want to go club a seal).

What I want to see is a new Master of Magic.  I would be happy with just a remake of the graphics, everything else unchanged.


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## andargor (Jun 27, 2005)

I'm having trouble finding out what the scale is, looking at this picture.

Looks like you can generate any number of different worlds, but they seem "small" in size. Unless the smaller settlements appear when you zoom in.

Anyway, I'm cautiously awaiting it's release. I admit I've been spoiled by Rome: Total War, which I've been playing and replaying ever since I've got it. The main difference: the battle detail is such that you can get those "against all odds" moments and win a brilliant victory. If Civ4 is like its predecessors and "simplifies" combat, I think I will miss controlling my cohorts and archers in battle. 

But of course, playing Civ is like playing about 10 games in one: ancient battles, roman empires, medieval campaigns, napoleonic wars, WWII, and then MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).  So I don't expect a lot of nitty-gritty on the battlefield.

On a side note, I've rediscovered Space Empires IV, a 4x space game in the same general genre. Horrible graphics, but incredibly addictive. A standard to measure all 4x games.

One more turn, one more turn, ... 5 am! ARGH!

Andargor


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## Andre (Jun 27, 2005)

andargor said:
			
		

> On a side note, I've rediscovered Space Empires IV, a 4x space game in the same general genre. Horrible graphics, but incredibly addictive. A standard to measure all 4x games.
> 
> One more turn, one more turn, ... 5 am! ARGH!
> 
> Andargor




Gotta agree. Civ 3 isn't nearly as addictive as SE4. In fact, I haven't played Civ 3 in a couple years, but I'm currently playing a couple games of SE 4 Gold (my own version of DevNull Mod - fighters were too good).

I might look at Civ 4 when it comes out, but it's way too early to tell right now if it will be worth the time.


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## Angel Tarragon (Jun 27, 2005)

Looking forward to it, but not excited. Din't care for three too much.


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## Jdvn1 (Jun 27, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> And I think it's a tad unfair to go all the way back to Civ1 at this point.  The comparisons are too far apart.  But hey, at least they are addressing it as a real issue, ya know?



Well, I only mentioned it because that's the only time I can recall them addressing real borders.


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## andargor (Jun 27, 2005)

Andre said:
			
		

> Gotta agree. Civ 3 isn't nearly as addictive as SE4. In fact, I haven't played Civ 3 in a couple years, but I'm currently playing a couple games of SE 4 Gold (my own version of DevNull Mod - fighters were too good).




[OT, sorry] Yeah, I'm playing one with DevNull171. Didn't get much sleep this weekend. 

Andargor


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## Jdvn1 (Jun 27, 2005)

Same here.  I thought Civ2 was much better.

If I wanted something more complex and in-depth, I'd play Fall of Rome.


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## Nifft (Jun 27, 2005)

A _round_ planet at last? Oh yes yes yes yes yes.

Borders -- SMAC had good borders. Man, I liked that game so much better than any Civ game.

SMAC2 (on a ROUND PLANET) would utterly destroy.

 -- N


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## Agamon (Jun 28, 2005)

I'm not wetting my pants, but I might be come Novemeber (uh, figuratively speaking, of course).  The Civ series is one of my favs, though I haven't been a fan of the knock-offs (Alpha Centauri, Call for Power, etc).  It's the only game I'm really looking forward to (along with Oblivion).


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## Vonlok The Bold (Jun 28, 2005)

I guess I'm in the minority, because I prefer Civ3(if you count ALL of the expansions).  I thought it was more challenging, than Civ2.  I liked the new units and new civs.  I liked the way each civ had their special units.  

Anyway I am looking forward to Civ4.


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## Ranger REG (Jun 28, 2005)

Apparently, it looks good but I wonder if it can play on my 5-year-old PC (P-1.4 GHz, 256MB).

Any chance I can create new tribes on Civ4 like Polynesians (as PC, not NPC barbarians)? Can we have two portraits for existing tribes (one male & one female)?


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## vulcan_idic (Jun 28, 2005)

I'm definitely looking forward to it.

I loved SMAC.  Initially I was really not happy at all about CivIII and much preferred CivII - in no small part due to the way they nerfed spies - eliminating the unit and making it much harder to conquer other civs by basically buying out their cities - which had been one of my favorite tactics in CivII.  It eventually won me over though and I play it regularly to this day - not to long ago I was rocking the world as the Greeks.  I think Civ III is much better once you add the Conquests expansion on to it, there are a lot of little tweks they made that make it much more satisfying at least for me.  I really like what I've seen and heard of CivIV so far.  I can't wait!!



			
				John Crichton said:
			
		

> Yeah, I thought that the borders issue would be fixed from the Civ3 previews but it still didn't keep rival civs from popping a city right in the middle of a small section of your area.
> 
> I think my favorite new feature is going to be the pollution fix. The late game was already too messy and the way pollution was handled always seemed somewhat out of place within the game.




I'll be curious to see how they handle pollution.  I actually liked the slightly porous borders though!!  I loved using them to my advantage.  Once they stopped me ouright buying cities I started popping my cities among theirs and made their cities come and beg to be part of my glorious civilization due to my high culture.


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## Kanegrundar (Jun 28, 2005)

Civ 4 is shaping up to be a great game by the sound of things.  I can't wait for it!

Kane


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## Staffan (Jun 28, 2005)

My main beef with Civ 3 was the super-corruption that happened when you had more than X cities - any city beyond a certain number only generated one trade and one production, no matter what you did in the way of courthouses, government type, and stuff. I *hated* that.


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## Henry (Jun 28, 2005)

It looks good, to be sure. I think a lot of problem with Civ3 was that Alpha Centauri really raised the bar, and Civ3 kinda took the bar back down a notch or two. I loved the governmental micromanagement in Alpha Centauri, and the unit customizations. These will be back in an lesser way in Civ4, and that is a big deal to me.

I'm still curious about how the interface will be handled -- the screen shots are not very clear. But I haven't been disappointed by a Sid Meier game yet!


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## Simplicity (Jun 28, 2005)

Heck yeah, I can't wait for Civ4.  Sure, the units look idiotic.  And they took the hallmark attack/defense pair out (why?).  But the borders look nice, and religions could be interesting. 

Civ3 was good, but the corruption was incredibly stupid, and the developers just refused to do anything about it.  What is the point of a conquest game if you can't conquer the world?
The expansions eventually helped a little with this, if I remember right though.  Somehow, all my civs are now a bunch of commies!

I would love a SMAC2.  SMAC's only problem was that the endgame brought everything to a halt.  You didn't even get to micromanagement problems in the endgame because the plant's units would get in your way first.  Oh gee, I love watching 50000 mindworms moving across the world, thanks!  Other than that, it was a stellar game with an interesting story.


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## John Crichton (Jun 29, 2005)

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> I'll be curious to see how they handle pollution. I actually liked the slightly porous borders though!! I loved using them to my advantage. Once they stopped me ouright buying cities I started popping my cities among theirs and made their cities come and beg to be part of my glorious civilization due to my high culture.



Yeah, it did work to the player's advantage too.  I just found that it got in the way too much.  It's a legit tactic but never really fit with how I like to play the game.

I believe if you read the articles (or maybe other ones not linked) they do get into how pollution will be dealt with.  I'll try and find it...


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## vulcan_idic (Jun 29, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Yeah, it did work to the player's advantage too.  I just found that it got in the way too much.  It's a legit tactic but never really fit with how I like to play the game.
> 
> I believe if you read the articles (or maybe other ones not linked) they do get into how pollution will be dealt with.  I'll try and find it...




I've heard vague references to encapsulating it more into an overall health type stat which food and so forth goes towards, but I'll be curious to see it in play.

I read a lot on it the other night - the Spy unit is back!! :-D  Wonder movies are back too.  Allin all it sounds like it'll be a blast.  I can't wait to use the new government system!!


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## John Crichton (Jun 30, 2005)

Yeah, the new gov system sounds cool but (oddly enough) I'm mostly curious about the newest feature: religion.

I love the fact that the movies are back.  It was one of my favorite things about CivII.  Same with the spies.  Sounds like it's gonna have an old school feel with new graphics and tweaks.  As long as it still feels like Civ I'm sure I'll love it.


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## Dark Jezter (Jun 30, 2005)

I Loved Civ2, and I also loved Civ3.  I do agree with John, however, that Civ3 wasn't quite as engaging or addictive as its predecessor (although one change I absolutely loved about Civ3 was each Civilization having it's own unique military unit).

I'm definately looking forward to Civ4.  The new religion feature sounds like it could really be cool if implimented well.


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## DaveMage (Jul 1, 2005)

One thing I don't like with Civ 4 is that they said they are reducing the number of turns in the game.

It always seemed to me that non-space-race games are over too quickly.  I want MORE turns, not less turns - that's what helps conquer the world.


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## vulcan_idic (Jul 7, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> One thing I don't like with Civ 4 is that they said they are reducing the number of turns in the game.
> 
> It always seemed to me that non-space-race games are over too quickly.  I want MORE turns, not less turns - that's what helps conquer the world.




And some people had the opposite problem - the game took to long.  I read an interview about this the other day and the developer being interviewed mentioned that to solve this the new game will have three selectable game lengths with all variables scaled to fit each of the speeds.  One speed is a quick game designed to be faster.  Another speed is normal (standard CivIII length game), and the last (the one I am most looking forward to) is Epic, which presumably will take longer.


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## DaveMage (Jul 7, 2005)

That's interesting. 

I always figured that those who wanted a shorter game would simply play on a smaller map, and those who wanted the longer game would play on the largest map (like I do).

I want a longer game that gives me time to try to take over the entire world if I want to.  I used to love doing that in Civ II.


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## Ron (Jul 7, 2005)

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> And some people had the opposite problem - the game took to long.  I read an interview about this the other day and the developer being interviewed mentioned that to solve this the new game will have three selectable game lengths with all variables scaled to fit each of the speeds.  One speed is a quick game designed to be faster.  Another speed is normal (standard CivIII length game), and the last (the one I am most looking forward to) is Epic, which presumably will take longer.




This is pretty good, as I would be able to adjust the game pace to my time availability. I will try Civ 4 but I am still faithful to Civ 2. Civilization 3 lost me when it made too critical the natural resources, placed too many emphasis in the graphics, and didn't allowed me to play in Earth with every civilization starting in the right place. I have to concede though that the trade, diplomacy, culture, and happiness rules were improved.


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## Brandigan (Jul 12, 2005)

I liked Civ II more than III, I never called in sick because I was in the middle of a war in Civ III! Are they going to milk it with releasing the game as single player, so they can sell it all over again as multi-player? 
 One thing I really missed from CivII was building caravans/freight and establishing your trade routes that way instead of it happending automatically by building a road or port. It was fun and rewarding when you arrived at the destination, maybe having to navigate through warzones or whatnot, to get that nice fat payday. Anyone else miss that?


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## DaveMage (Jul 12, 2005)

Brandigan said:
			
		

> Anyone else miss that?




Yes.


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## Andre (Jul 13, 2005)

Brandigan said:
			
		

> Anyone else miss that?




I miss using caravans to stockpile production when I didn't have anything good to produce. Made completing Wonders so much easier, and you never knew when there would be a need for some quick military units. (Though using caravans for units resulted in a 50% loss, IIRC)


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## JamesL85 (Jul 13, 2005)

Never played any of the Civ games, but wanted to put another vote in for Alpha Centauri II (if there is such a thing).....

I lost more hours of sleep due to that game than I care to think about.....I remember looking at my watch (needing to get up at 6:00 in the morning) and seeing 3:00 in the morning, and thinking.....One more turn.....

Shortly after, the alarm clock went off in the bedroom......

James


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## vulcan_idic (Jul 13, 2005)

Brandigan said:
			
		

> I liked Civ II more than III, I never called in sick because I was in the middle of a war in Civ III! Are they going to milk it with releasing the game as single player, so they can sell it all over again as multi-player?




According to interviews I've read it should be incorporated from the get go...  but then they were saying that about Civ III too.  The advantage of Civ IV though is they're basically rebuilding from the ground up rather than tweeking an existing design, so as long as you're doing that why not build it in.  So far I've heard it supports multiplayer in many varities from various online methodologies to hotseat.


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## Dinkeldog (Jul 13, 2005)

Yup!  I need something for Tuesday mornings when World of Warcraft is down.


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## vulcan_idic (Jul 14, 2005)

*Modding*

THe new Civ is also supposed to be extremely modder friendly with data stored in XML format and coding done largely in Python...  Perhaps it would be interesting if a tech smart type gamer made a Civ IV D&D mod...  could be fun.

The other nice thing about it being easily moddable is that if there's a feature that enough people don't like someone will probably come up with a mod to change it.  It'll be interesting to see what that moddability produces along the lines of this article...
Tapping Into Tinkering


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## vulcan_idic (Jul 14, 2005)

Thought some more on the mod idea, I think it'd be a blast to play on Faerun, Greyhawk or Eberron as a map... The civs would be easy enough to choose.  You could play the Cormyrians (unique unit the Purple Dragon - replaces a standard knight) trying to overcome the evil Thayan culture (unique unit the Red Wizard - replaces a standard wizard)!!


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## Hatchling Dragon (Jul 17, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> What I want to see is a new Master of Magic.  I would be happy with just a remake of the graphics, everything else unchanged.




It must not taunt us with the precious...


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## Arbiter of Wyrms (Jul 17, 2005)

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> Thought some more on the mod idea, I think it'd be a blast to play on Faerun, Greyhawk or Eberron as a map... The civs would be easy enough to choose.  You could play the Cormyrians (unique unit the Purple Dragon - replaces a standard knight) trying to overcome the evil Thayan culture (unique unit the Red Wizard - replaces a standard wizard)!!



Since I first encountered D&D, I've always wanted to play a D&D Civ.  It wouldn't be easy to do right, but if it was done well, I believe it would sell really well - I suspect that there's a great deal of overlap in the two markets.  They could do Eberron or Forgotten Realms themed games, or they could market this as the return of Birthright.  Doesn't matter.

I have enjoyed every version of Civ (except, of course, for Call to Power), and CivIII Conquests is my favorite so far.

Borders!

Even distribution of resources!

I need it!


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## vulcan_idic (Jul 30, 2005)

You folks might like to look at this, it's a sight run by CivIV fans where they gather up all prerelease info they can get into one location.  I don't know exactly how reliable *all* of it is, but it serves as food for thought at any rate.

Civilization IV Prerelease Information


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## DaveMage (Jul 31, 2005)

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> You folks might like to look at this, it's a sight run by CivIV fans where they gather up all prerelease info they can get into one location.  I don't know exactly how reliable *all* of it is, but it serves as food for thought at any rate.
> 
> Civilization IV Prerelease Information





Wow!  Thanks for posting that!


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## John Crichton (Oct 10, 2005)

Okay, the game will be here before we know it.

I'm pumped.  Looks great.  I'm hoping it ships relatively bug-free.  

Anyone else have their pre-order in?


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## babomb (Oct 10, 2005)

Meh. Just play freeciv.

Civ 1 and 2 compatible? Check.
Choice of flat, round, traditional Civ E-W only wrapping or N-S only wrapping? Check.
Choice of hexagonal tiles? Check.
Completely customizable rulesets (e.g., change tech tree, change units, change buildings and their effects, change nations)? Check.
Free (as in both beer and speech)? Check.


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## Bront (Oct 10, 2005)

Civ 1 was cool.  Civ 2 was ok, and Civ 3 became unfun because it became too complex.  Sometimes, simple ideas can be the most fun.

I still want a new or remake of Railroad Tycoon.


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## John Crichton (Oct 10, 2005)

babomb said:
			
		

> Meh. Just play freeciv.
> 
> Civ 1 and 2 compatible? Check.
> Choice of flat, round, traditional Civ E-W only wrapping or N-S only wrapping? Check.
> ...






			
				Bront said:
			
		

> Civ 1 was cool.  Civ 2 was ok, and Civ 3 became unfun because it became too complex.  Sometimes, simple ideas can be the most fun.
> 
> I still want a new or remake of Railroad Tycoon.



I'll take that as a "No pre-order for me, thanks."  

As for complexity, this version is supposed to really streamline things and cut down on micro-managing.  If so, that will make me a happy gamer.


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## mrtauntaun (Oct 10, 2005)

I haven't pre-ordered yet, i usually don't.  But I can't WAIT for this game!


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## Shard O'Glase (Oct 10, 2005)

pre order is in, can't wait for it.  Civ shall be mine, oh yes.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Oct 11, 2005)

Excited?  I don't think I'd say that.  I played CivI and especially CivII until the wheels fell off.  CivIII, for reasons I never bothered to figure out, just did not do it for me.  Maybe I was burned out on Civ - except then why did I go back and play CivII a number of times rather than CivIII?

Oh, I'll buy it all right, and play it (since nothing else on my hard drive is demanding my attention anyway now that I got round to finishing HL2) but I'm not exactly holding my breath in anticipation.


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## Mercule (Oct 11, 2005)

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> the way they nerfed spies - eliminating the unit and making it much harder to conquer other civs by basically buying out their cities - which had been one of my favorite tactics in CivII.




Ah, but we got culture, which is a mighty fine tactic, if used right.

What amazes me about all the Civ games is the variety of play styles that are possible.  I was comparing notes with a friend a while back and we play totally different.  I rush to Monarchy ASAP, even neglecting other techs; then on to Democracy as soon as things settle down some.  He keeps Despotism until Communism comes up.  In the late game, I usually have many thousands of gold on hand and buy several buildings each turn, while occasionally goading an enemy into attacking me, so I can try to take his land.  My friend can never afford to spend gold on construction, is regularly at war, and has massive armies marauding.  We play on the same difficulty and have about the same win rate.


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## vulcan_idic (Oct 11, 2005)

No pre-order for me...  I can't wait for it, but I've been informed it's going to be a Christmas present. It's OK though - anticipation is half the fun anyway!


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## Lizard (Oct 11, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> I liked the first Civ a lot. But the rest, eh.
> 
> I want to like Alpha Centauri, but the political ideology in it turns me off, so I can't play it (the planetary conciousness stuff. <shudder> Makes me want to go club a seal).
> 
> What I want to see is a new Master of Magic.  I would be happy with just a remake of the graphics, everything else unchanged.




Except that I, Chairman Lizard of the Hive, have SUBJUGATED the planetary mind to my INDOMITABLE WILL countless times. Er, uhm, in the Name Of The People, of course.


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## vulcan_idic (Oct 14, 2005)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Ah, but we got culture, which is a mighty fine tactic, if used right.
> 
> What amazes me about all the Civ games is the variety of play styles that are possible.  I was comparing notes with a friend a while back and we play totally different.  I rush to Monarchy ASAP, even neglecting other techs; then on to Democracy as soon as things settle down some.  He keeps Despotism until Communism comes up.  In the late game, I usually have many thousands of gold on hand and buy several buildings each turn, while occasionally goading an enemy into attacking me, so I can try to take his land.  My friend can never afford to spend gold on construction, is regularly at war, and has massive armies marauding.  We play on the same difficulty and have about the same win rate.




Culture is a mighty fine tactic - it Civ III it replaced the spy/economic buying of cities as my favorite mode of domination...  but I still miss all the things I could do with a spy.


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## Zog (Oct 14, 2005)

I will probably pick it up.  I played Civ1 & Civ2 a LOT, SMAC TONS (SMAC2 must happen!) and of course, the precious MOM.

My 3 main complaints about Civ3, and the reason I didn't play it as much are:
Combat system failure.  CIv2 had a great sombat system.  SMAC had a brillant terrific combat system.  Civ3 took several giant steps backwards.  Bah.  
The oft mentioned corruption - I eventually learned to play on smaller maps.
The random resources/luxuries.  A Civ with good r/l was golden.  Poor r/l, well, poor.

We shall have to see what this one is like. 

And of course, my main concern: How easy is it to control with Speech Software?  No typing, no mousing for me - RSI BAD.  SMAC is great with the voice control, all you need is patience. Civ3 is OK, not quite as good...


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## TheAuldGrump (Oct 16, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> It looks good, to be sure. I think a lot of problem with Civ3 was that Alpha Centauri really raised the bar, and Civ3 kinda took the bar back down a notch or two. I loved the governmental micromanagement in Alpha Centauri, and the unit customizations. These will be back in an lesser way in Civ4, and that is a big deal to me.
> 
> I'm still curious about how the interface will be handled -- the screen shots are not very clear. But I haven't been disappointed by a Sid Meier game yet!




Civ 3 dropped the bar three or four notches. SMAC was _so_ good, and Civ 3 wasn't.

The odds were stacked in favor of the computer, rather than making the AI smarter. As for alliances... (my favorite part of SMAC - alliances that _worked!_), corruption that went up to ungodly levels, AIs that new exactly which cities were lightly guarded, etc, etc. I still dust off Civ 2 now and again, but Civ 3 remains in its case.

The Auld Grump


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## DaveMage (Oct 18, 2005)

I will not be pre-ordering, but I'll pick it up next week most likely...


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## Kanegrundar (Oct 18, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I will not be pre-ordering, but I'll pick it up next week most likely...



 Same here.  I'm looking forward to it.


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## Dinkeldog (Oct 19, 2005)

I'm very excited.


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## Dark Jezter (Oct 19, 2005)

I probably won't be picking up Civilization IV for a while yet.  I'm still too addicted to World of Warcraft, and I don't want to juggle two seperate gaming addictions.


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## Simplicity (Oct 19, 2005)

Bront said:
			
		

> Civ 1 was cool.  Civ 2 was ok, and Civ 3 became unfun because it became too complex.  Sometimes, simple ideas can be the most fun.
> 
> I still want a new or remake of Railroad Tycoon.




Ummm...  There's been a one or two of those remakes.  Perhaps you should try Railroad Tycoon *Three*?  Great game.  I highly enjoy it.

Civ 4 has been focusing on simplifying the annoying parts of the Civ series significantly.  You will have fewer units (maybe half as much), fewer workers (an order of magnitude less), and fewer cities (slightly) in Civ 4 as opposed to 3.  Attack/Defense has been combined into Strength.  Corruption has been removed.  Worker automation is supposedly much better.  All build choices come with recommendations.  Combat success probabilities can be displayed before attacking (if you like).  

That said, unit promotions, religion, and civics are incredibly cool additions...  I can't wait until the 25th (it's gone GOLD you know!).


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## Simplicity (Oct 19, 2005)

babomb said:
			
		

> Meh. Just play freeciv.
> 
> Civ 1 and 2 compatible? Check.
> Choice of flat, round, traditional Civ E-W only wrapping or N-S only wrapping? Check.
> ...




FreeCiv is useless.

Horrible graphics? Check.
Worse than the original game graphics?  Check.
Horrible interface? Check.  Ooooh let's play File Menu: The Game.

Civ3 w/ expansion packs is superior to Civ2 and way superior to FreeCiv.


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## cignus_pfaccari (Oct 20, 2005)

Pre-ordered a month ago.

I'm worried, though.  I HATED Civ 3.  Could not stand it.  I'm worried that Civ 4 will also be a grand disappointment.

Pity that Civ 4 won't have anything like, say, Battle Armor Infantry or Mecha Cavalry units, at least not out of the box.  That's really one of the things I want, to have a bunch of useful post-modern units.

Brad


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## John Crichton (Oct 20, 2005)

cignus_pfaccari said:
			
		

> Pity that Civ 4 won't have anything like, say, Battle Armor Infantry or Mecha Cavalry units, at least not out of the box.  That's really one of the things I want, to have a bunch of useful post-modern units.



That's what user-mods are for.  Civ has always been a game that the community gets involved in and goes beyond the designers packed in game.  Units, senarios - you name it.  I fondly recall playing a few rounds of Star Wars/Trek themed matches in Civ II.

Good times.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 20, 2005)

So if they've done away with corruption, does that mean all cities regardless their distance from the capital all have the potential to produce the same ammount of shields and such?


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 21, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> So if they've done away with corruption, does that mean all cities regardless their distance from the capital all have the potential to produce the same ammount of shields and such?




Each city has a maintenance cost in gold that you have to pay based on the distance of your city from the capital.  There's also a maintenance cost based on the number of cities you have.  Maintenance for individual buildings is gone.

So I think they can be equally productive, but if you have too many cities or cities too far from your capital, it'll weigh *all* of your cities down.

Having my border cities totally crippled by a lack of production was one of the most annoying parts of Civ3, in my book.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 21, 2005)

I've been reading up on all of the *many* previews (including ones done by beta testers), so if people have questions about what the game is going to be like, I can give pretty detailed answers in most cases, actually.


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 21, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> I've been reading up on all of the *many* previews (including ones done by beta testers), so if people have questions about what the game is going to be like, I can give pretty detailed answers in most cases, actually.




Is conquering the world still a viable option for winning?


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 21, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Is conquering the world still a viable option for winning?




There's two types of conquering wins...  Conquering (take every city) and Domination (take 60% of the land mass).  Obviously, you can't "conquer" unless the domination victory type is turned off for that game, but that's doable.

The other ways to win are: 
1) The Space Race (much harder in this version, supposedly...  more components, each of which require more work to be done).
2) Diplomacy (Get enough votes in the UN to win).  You must first become Secretary General, and then put this to a vote.  Obviously, it's unlikely for others to vote for you, since they don't necessarily want you to win.  (There are a variety of other things you can put to a vote as Secretary General as well...)
3) Cultural Win.  Reach a cultural threshold in a single city, and another threshold for the whole civilization to dominate in culture.
4) Timed Win.  After too many turns (540 in a normal game, I believe) the maximum score is computed and a winner is chosen.

As to whether conquest is viable: Yes, it's definitely viable.  Most of the beta testers seem to favor conquest according to the polls I've seen.  The space race is harder, so that's become a bit less of an easy way out.  The cultural victory has become considerably more viable as well with the addition of "Great People" as one of the core mechanics of the game
(the Great Artist is referred to as a "culture bomb" due to his ability to quickly expand your nation's borders from a high influx of culture).

Why combat is cooler:

Bombardment units play a bigger role in this game.  They can cause collateral damage to units in a stack or reduce city defenses (i.e. make defending units get less of a defense bonus in a city).  

Civ4 also removed the capability to switch production on the fly...  That means if someone declares war on you, you can't just switch everybody to producing defense units (well you can, but you'll have to produce them from scratch...).  So you have to be much more strategic about your defense.

Mixed stacks are used much more as well due to the way the unit promotion system works.  Having a single unit with a medic promotion can be a big boon to a stack.  But you might also want some units who are specialists at attacking cities or cavalry...

Railroads are no longer infinite movement.  Only 10...

You can pillage villages, towns, hamlets, and cottages (these are like "suburb" improvements to a city) for *money*.  So now you can do damage to their improvements and gain some cash at the same time.


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## mrtauntaun (Oct 21, 2005)

So many changes.  So much for my insto-polluting cleanup crew, no longer able to travel via rail across the continent in 1 turn 
I like the space race, I'll still have to give it a go my first play through, harder or not. 
I DO like how they made those strategic resources more abundant.  I HATED that about Civ 3, where I needed coal to make my railroads, and the greeks had it all.  Then I gotta take 1 city and hold it, while trying to back out of the war


----------



## Gulla (Oct 21, 2005)

They postponed the European release by a week. I'll have to wait not 3 days, but 10 days longer than the Americans. It's not fair, I tell you.

And the only pre-order company shipping to Norway estimates 8-12 days delivery. So I'll just have to wait for my locally preordered copy   

(Yes, I'm excited, if you couldn't tell)

Håkon
who reinstalled Civ2 and got a mild case of one-more-turn-isites yesterday


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Oct 21, 2005)

How large are the maps going to be?  I've always enjoyed the long games on big maps, although wars that take 500 years to resolve get me down...

How is espionage handled?


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 21, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> So many changes.  So much for my insto-polluting cleanup crew, no longer able to travel via rail across the continent in 1 turn
> I like the space race, I'll still have to give it a go my first play through, harder or not.
> I DO like how they made those strategic resources more abundant.  I HATED that about Civ 3, where I needed coal to make my railroads, and the greeks had it all.  Then I gotta take 1 city and hold it, while trying to back out of the war




Indeed, so much for that crew.  Especially since there's no pollution to clean up anymore. 
(Except in the case of nuclear attack, I think).


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 21, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> How large are the maps going to be?  I've always enjoyed the long games on big maps, although wars that take 500 years to resolve get me down...
> 
> How is espionage handled?




The largest map is slightly smaller than the largest in Civ3.  The game is meant to be quicker to play this time around, but there is still an "Epic" mode for those of us (myself included) who like the looooong games.

Espionage is one thing the beta testers haven't talked about yet.  But I do know that there are invisible spy units that you can move to your enemy cities.  So it's handled less abstractly than it was in Civ3.


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 21, 2005)

Thanks, Simplicity!


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## John Crichton (Oct 22, 2005)

The first review is up.  I watched the video review and read the print one and I'm really pumped for next week.  The game looks awesome visually and 95% of the improvements are things that I've really wanted - even if I didn't know I wanted them.  

http://pc.ign.com/articles/660/660495p1.html

It is IGN so expect a certain amount of gushing.  The Gamespot review will probably be a high 8 or low 9.  I haven't played it yet so that's just going on history.  IGN gives out more 9+ in general than Gamespot (who I trust more).

Final Note:  The customizable government sounds and looks great and will change my playing experience the most as it was the most troublesome and restricting thing in the past.  Being able to essentially create my own should be really fun.


----------



## Staffan (Oct 23, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Final Note:  The customizable government sounds and looks great and will change my playing experience the most as it was the most troublesome and restricting thing in the past.  Being able to essentially create my own should be really fun.



Not like it's a new idea, we've been able to do that in Alpha Centauri since, well, 1998 or so.


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## John Crichton (Oct 23, 2005)

Staffan said:
			
		

> Not like it's a new idea, we've been able to do that in Alpha Centauri since, well, 1998 or so.



 It's a totally new idea to Civ and a welcome one as the government structures have always annoyed me in an otherwise enjoyable gaming experience.  I've never played AC, so this is a big deal to me.  Having a feature available in other games, no matter how close they are to one another, doesn't really mean too much when all I really care about is the newest iteration of this one.

I've heard/read great things about AC (first off being that it's sci-fi and better version of Civ2) and I would be first in line to pick up a sequel but this is as close as we're going to get for now.


----------



## KenM (Oct 23, 2005)

Latest Best Buy ad in today's (10/23) paper says Civ 4 will be here Wendesday. I'm going to pick it up. I never played the older ones. Sounds fun.


----------



## KenM (Oct 23, 2005)

IGN has a review up:  http://pc.ign.com/articles/660/660495p1.html


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## babomb (Oct 23, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> FreeCiv is useless.
> 
> Horrible graphics? Check.
> Worse than the original game graphics?  Check.
> ...




You clearly place much greater importance on graphics than I do. I will take better gameplay with worse graphics anytime, and in my opinion FreeCiv has superior gameplay. However, I disagree that the graphics are worse than Civ I. (Civ I was 16 colors, after all.) I own both Civ I and II, and I'll go so far as to say the graphics are no worse than Civ II. There are multiple graphics sets to choose from as well. A while back, someone made one where the world looks like Tolkien's maps, for example. There are also some 3d sets in the works.

As for the interface, it's in a window, so yes, it looks like normal windows. I don't see how that's a problem, but perhaps the version using GTK is more to your liking?

In any case, I feel the gameplay and configurability outweigh these concerns.

(Sorry for the hijack.)


----------



## KenM (Oct 23, 2005)

Does anyone have a link to the specs for Civ 4? I look all over the official site but could not find them.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 23, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> Does anyone have a link to the specs for Civ 4? I look all over the official site but could not find them.




You mean system requirements?

MIMIMUM
# Windows 2000/XP with SP1 or higher
# Intel Pentium 4- or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1,2 GHz
# 256 MB RAM
# 64 MB graphics card with Hardware T&L (GeForce 2/Radeon 7500 or better)
# DirectX 7 compatible soundcard
# DVD-ROM drive
# 1,7 GB free hard disk space

RECOMMENDED
# Windows XP with SP1 or higher
# Intel Pentium 4- or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1,8 GHz
# 512 MB RAM
# 128-MB graphics card with DirectX 8 support (pixel- and vertex shaders)
# DirectX 7 compatible soundcard
# DVD-ROM drive
# 1,7 GB free hard disk space


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 23, 2005)

babomb said:
			
		

> You clearly place much greater importance on graphics than I do. I will take better gameplay with worse graphics anytime, and in my opinion FreeCiv has superior gameplay.




I didn't mean that the graphics were worse than Civ1.  I meant that they were worse than Civ2.  The interface is *much* worse than Civ2.  FreeCiv uses system windows calls rather than developing its own windows code as the original game did.

I don't put all importance on graphics.  I still play SMAC (which looks like it was designed by Jackson Pollock on LSD), but I don't appreciate amateur coding, which is what FreeCiv is (by definition, really).  In terms of configurability, Civ3 is infinitely moddable (try Escape from Zombie Island) and thus is much more configurable than FreeCiv.

Civ4 looks to be even more moddable than Civ3, which is a very good thing.


----------



## KenM (Oct 25, 2005)

I was told at my local EB yesterday that the game would be in today. I go there today and they say it was pushed back until tomorrow. I hate it when they lie to you like that.


----------



## Henry (Oct 25, 2005)

> I go there today and they say it was pushed back until tomorrow. I hate it when they lie to you like that.




Especially since my local Gamespot store has been telling me it's due 10/25 all along. 

I'll be picking it up (GOODBYE, SLEEP! ) but it will be about two weeks or so, when finances permit. I was going to let my wife pick it up for me for Christmas, but I can't wait that long!


----------



## Dinkeldog (Oct 26, 2005)

I went to pick it up at the EB by me yesterday and apparently it's not a "big release."  Should be getting it later today, although I won't be able to touch it until Thursday night.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 26, 2005)

NOT a big release?!?!?!!?  This is because consoles are so big with the short attention span generation.  Civ is only one of the biggest and most influential PC games of all time.
Sheesh.  Im gonna go pick up during lunch, but I too won't be able to play it until thursday, but I can read the manual and look at the pretty pictures!


----------



## Kanegrundar (Oct 26, 2005)

My local Gamespot had it listed on their computer as a pre-order only release.  I went ahead and paid for it and should have it this afternoon.

Kane


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## DaveMage (Oct 26, 2005)

The Best Buy web site lists its relesae date as the 27th.

If anyone actually gets their copy today - please post!


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## mrtauntaun (Oct 26, 2005)

From what I can tell, best buy is estimating shipping for the 27th, if ordered as of yesterday.  The official release, as far as I know, was yesterday.  EBgames has it on their website as the 25th.  I'll post when I get back from lunch, there is an EBgames, gamestop and Best Buy all within minutes, and im gonna hit all 3 until I find it!

EDIT:  I called gamestop, they have it, just not unpacked yet.  They told me to check back in an hour, so they should have it when I get there.  The guy said if I didn't have it on reserve there'd be slim pickings, so fingers crossed....


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## Kanegrundar (Oct 26, 2005)

The offical ship date got pushed back a day Monday night/Tuesday morning.  It shipped yesterday and should be in stores today.  It could be morning on the East Coast, afternoon in the Midwest, and tonight or early tomorrow on the West Coast from what the guy at Game Stop said last night.  (He's pretty good with his info, though I may have got the coasts flipped.)

Kane


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## DaveMage (Oct 26, 2005)

I've called both Best Buy and Circuit City today and got the same answer: We expect to receive it on our truck today, which arrives around 1:00 p.m.  Check back at that time.


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## mrtauntaun (Oct 26, 2005)

Just picked it up!  Made the guy at game stop go unpack it from the back room 
Can't play it for awhile, but im listening to the soundtrack now.  
I read a little of the manual, apparently corruption is still around 
But there are techs to eliminate it completly.


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## Shard O'Glase (Oct 26, 2005)

I'm picking it up on my way to work, at 12:30.


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## DaveMage (Oct 26, 2005)

Got mine!

So, after I finish the boards, I'll be absent for a while...


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## Kanegrundar (Oct 26, 2005)

Dammit!  The more time passes, the more I want to call it an early day and go pick up my copy also!


----------



## Henry (Oct 26, 2005)

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> Dammit!  The more time passes, the more I want to call it an early day and go pick up my copy also!




Nah, why would you want to do that? It's only some middling game that allows you to *build a civilization* from stone tools to high-tech polymers, *shepherd an empire* from grass huts to towering skyscrapers, create a religion and *spread it to the far reaches* of barbarism, build a benevolent civilization or *crush opponents* and enforce your will *with a jackbooted foot on their peoples' necks*, and *conquer the mysteries of space and utopia*. 

Why would you want to do any of that?


----------



## Kanegrundar (Oct 26, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> Nah, why would you want to do that? It's only some middling game that allows you to *build a civilization* from stone tools to high-tech polymers, *shepherd an empire* from grass huts to towering skyscrapers, create a religion and *spread it to the far reaches* of barbarism, build a benevolent civilization or *crush opponents* and enforce your will *with a jackbooted foot on their peoples' necks*, and *conquer the mysteries of space and utopia*.
> 
> Why would you want to do any of that?



 ...

I hate you, Henry.


----------



## Henry (Oct 26, 2005)

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> I hate you, Henry.




My work here is done.


----------



## KenM (Oct 26, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> The Best Buy web site lists its relesae date as the 27th.
> 
> If anyone actually gets their copy today - please post!




  I just picked it up at my local Best Buy. Installing now.


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## frog (Oct 26, 2005)

Just hope that you don't have an Intel graphics processor...it seems that they are not supported with the game.


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## KenM (Oct 26, 2005)

After i installed the game,  i got a D3DX9_26.DLL was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.          WTF?? I tryed that and I got the same ing thing. I called tech suppport and guess what? I get cut off. This is my fisrt Sid Meier game, my first Take Two game, abd the way things are going, the last.


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## trancejeremy (Oct 26, 2005)

THere have been reports that a lot of people with ATI video cards can't get the game to run.

Not everyone, but a lot of people, with a lot of different ATI cards, new and old.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133003


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 26, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> After i installed the game,  i got a D3DX9_26.DLL was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.          WTF?? I tryed that and I got the same ing thing. I called tech suppport and guess what? I get cut off. This is my fisrt Sid Meier game, my first Take Two game, abd the way things are going, the last.




Yeah, there's apparently some ATI card problems...  Follow the link.  A lot of the reports seem to be coming from laptops as well (basically any card without T&L support).

I've got my copy...  but I have yet to try it on my ATI card at home.
Please don't crash, please don't crash...

A number of people with ATI cards *are* getting it to work as well...  The true problem has not been discovered yet, so all may not be lost!  It sucks, but I'm sure Firaxis is working like mad to patch whatever is going on.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 26, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> I read a little of the manual, apparently corruption is still around




The manual uses the word "corruption", but you won't really find that to be the case in playing.  There is a "maintenance" penalty, which can increase based on the distance from your capital and the number of cities you have.  This penalty is a GOLD penalty.  So, you won't have useless cities that can't produce buildings, but your empire may be dragged down if you expand before you can support yourself economically.


----------



## KenM (Oct 27, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> Yeah, there's apparently some ATI card problems...  Follow the link.  A lot of the reports seem to be coming from laptops as well (basically any card without T&L support).
> 
> I've got my copy...  but I have yet to try it on my ATI card at home.
> Please don't crash, please don't crash...
> ...




  I have a Nvidia Card.


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

Well, I did get mine to work without too many problems (though the tutorial flaked out on me).

I haven't kept up with alot of the changes, other than a quick read through.  I will say this, there are some things which, not having read the manual, are not intuitive, even if you've played Civ II and III.  So, I guess I'd better read the manual before I do anything else with it.

First impression is....I'm not sure I like it....


----------



## KenM (Oct 27, 2005)

I can't install the version of direct x 9.0c that comes with the game, and you need that version to play.  VERY PO'ed. I hope everyone at take 2 games, there families, childerns, pets and friends burn slowly in hell for this. VERY FRUSTRATED.


----------



## trancejeremy (Oct 27, 2005)

Try downloading that dll from this page

http://www.toymaker.info/Games/html/d3dx_dlls.html

Apparently MS has gotten somewhat cute with Direct 9.  Sure, it's the same 9.0c, but they keep puting out numbered dlls, 24, 25, 26, etc


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 27, 2005)

Mine is on its way from EBgames.com.  Scheduled to be on my doorstop tomorrow afternoon.    I'm getting a bit concerned.  I'm running everything off my laptop right now and it has an ATI video card - so it'll probably run a bit slow as I don't meet the recommended specs.

Pentium M 1.6
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo Card (128 version)
1 Gig of Ram

I hope I don't have problems or they at least release a patch soon.  Been looking forward to playing this game for many months.  If it doesn't go smoothly I'm going to have some choice 4 letter words...


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 27, 2005)

And Gamespot's review - a *9.4*!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/review.html

Wow!  Same score as IGN.  I'm a little creeped out now, to be honest.  Both places love the game.  That means I'll either love it (likely) or be really dissappointed because of the hype.

Oh, and I just found this on the gamespy forums for ATI card users - 

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetcivilization/topic.asp?fid=15498&tid=1771119

And once I get the game - Anyone interested in getting a multiplayer game going?  The multi is supposed to be the best yet.


----------



## KenM (Oct 27, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> And once I get the game - Anyone interested in getting a multiplayer game going?  The multi is supposed to be the best yet.




  I'd be interested if I could get the damn thing to run. My problem is not the game, but the version of Directx 9.0c that it comes with, it FORCES you to put it on your system or the game won't run. So when I try and install the game, the direct x install come up and I run that, but I get "A cabinet required for installtion cannot be trusted" error box, and I have to click on that and it says installtion failed. No option to retry, ect. . Why they force you to do that???


----------



## trancejeremy (Oct 27, 2005)

Hmmm. There seems to be 3 basic problems with the game people are having.

1) What Ken has, which is due to Civ 4 requiring a super-duper new version of Direct X 9.0c.  (Apparenlty there are lots of versions of 9.0c. Which doesn't make sense to me...)

2)  An unknown problem for people with ATI cards. There doesn't seem to be a common thread, except most people with 9700s seem to be able to get it to work.  Some people with one model can get it work, others can't.

3)  Some older cards that do support T&L (which is supposed to be requirement) actually don't work properly. You also might need at least Shader 1.0 support.


----------



## KenM (Oct 27, 2005)

trancejeremy said:
			
		

> 1) What Ken has, which is due to Civ 4 requiring a super-duper new version of Direct X 9.0c.  (Apparenlty there are lots of versions of 9.0c. Which doesn't make sense to me...)




  This is Microsoft we are talkng about, when has Microsoft made sense?


----------



## vulcan_idic (Oct 27, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> This is Microsoft we are talkng about, when has Microsoft made sense?




Microsoft makes tons of sense - if you think about it all with the $$$ in mind.  It's all about the Benjamins.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> First impression is....I'm not sure I like it....




That was my initial thought with Civ 3.  But after learning the game, it is still one of my all time favs.  I have faith I will love this one too.  
I managed to get it installed ok, no problems there.  I did play about 10 minutes of the tutorial, so far no run problems.  Though I do have a GeForce (this is just one more reason to justify my hatred of ATI!   )
While I am looking forward to some MP action, it's gonna take me many a game to wrap my brain around all these newer rules.


----------



## talinthas (Oct 27, 2005)

i've been playing it for hours and hours and hours since i got my review copy on saturday.  it's freaking wonderful =)

my review ended up being too long for the site, so i posted it in my 1up blog here- http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=5949087&publicUserId=5548290

get it, if you love civ at all.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

Nice review, talinthas.  You mentioned in the review that there were a few balance issues, could you elaborate?


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> That was my initial thought with Civ 3.  But after learning the game, it is still one of my all time favs.  I have faith I will love this one too.
> I managed to get it installed ok, no problems there.  I did play about 10 minutes of the tutorial, so far no run problems.  Though I do have a GeForce (this is just one more reason to justify my hatred of ATI!   )
> While I am looking forward to some MP action, it's gonna take me many a game to wrap my brain around all these newer rules.




I still have to learn things about it, like the value of missionaries, etc.

One of the things I don't like so far, is that the number of villiages that provide freebies seemed very small on my first run-through.  Also, did I understand it correctly that you are limited in the number of wonders you are permitted to build?

I hope that isn't the case...


----------



## Henry (Oct 27, 2005)

Aw, Yeah! Alarm and a CLOCK, BABY! They've thought of everything this time around! I may not go to work with 2 hours of sleep every day after all...


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> One of the things I don't like so far, is that the number of villiages that provide freebies seemed very small on my first run-through.  Also, did I understand it correctly that you are limited in the number of wonders you are permitted to build?
> 
> I hope that isn't the case...





Oh no, not the goody huts!!!  Man, those are great.  I hope that can be tweaked.
I hadn't heard that about wonders, that would totally suck.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

I just finished reading the section on wonders (I brought the manual to work to read  )
It says that you may only build 2 national wonders (like wall street) during the game, but does not mention anything about a limit on the Great Wonders (pyramids, statue of liberty) that we all love.


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> I just finished reading the section on wonders (I brought the manual to work to read  )
> It says that you may only build 2 national wonders (like wall street) during the game, but does not mention anything about a limit on the Great Wonders (pyramids, statue of liberty) that we all love.




When I was playing, it said something like "World Wonders remaining: 1"

Edit - maybe that referred to the number available for the time period?


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

Which wonder did you complete, was it the first?  It could have been a national wonder.


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> Which wonder did you complete, was it the first?  It could have been a national wonder.




I built Stonehenge and then was preparing to build the Pyramids...


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

Hmm, that is classified as a world wonder, not a national wonder, so im not sure.  I can't possibly see them as limiting you to the number of wonders, at least not to 2.  But who knows.  Maybe its the number of wonders stilla available to build?


----------



## BradfordFerguson (Oct 27, 2005)

I played it last night and found the game to be challenging even at the noble level (noble=normal).  I found combat to be difficult against an entrenched foe and early on it is necessary to have catapults (to weaken stacks on city tiles) and spearmen (to counter chariots/mounted).  I'm not a Civ veteran, so I'm getting used to it.  It was frustrating to have to send axemen with City Attack against archers and have them come up short 1/2 of the time, but I didn't weaken the archers with catapults.

Building and researching stuff seems to go at a slower pace, but that's fine with me.


----------



## talinthas (Oct 27, 2005)

missionaries are awesome fun.  There are indeed a lot less goodie huts in this game, but i've built practically every wonder in my current game, so there are no limits on that at all.  There are limits on how many national wonders (heroic epic, pentagon, wall street, broadway) that can be in a particular city, but nothing else.

World Wonders=1 means how many of that particular wonder can be built.  It likely is there for mod-makers.

as for balance issues, the more i play, the more i notice that the game is actually very well balanced--i just didnt understand how it worked initially =)

all i know is that i've been up playing nightly from 6pm to 3-4 am =)


----------



## Kanegrundar (Oct 27, 2005)

I'm glad there's an alarm feature, or I'd be falling asleep at my desk at work!


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

talinthas said:
			
		

> missionaries are awesome fun.  There are indeed a lot less goodie huts in this game, but i've built practically every wonder in my current game, so there are no limits on that at all.  There are limits on how many national wonders (heroic epic, pentagon, wall street, broadway) that can be in a particular city, but nothing else.
> 
> World Wonders=1 means how many of that particular wonder can be built.  It likely is there for mod-makers.
> 
> ...




Thanks, Talinthas - that helps!


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 27, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I still have to learn things about it, like the value of missionaries, etc.
> 
> One of the things I don't like so far, is that the number of villiages that provide freebies seemed very small on my first run-through.  Also, did I understand it correctly that you are limited in the number of wonders you are permitted to build?
> 
> I hope that isn't the case...




A few advantages to missionaries:
1) Having your neighbors be your religion helps to keep them on friendly terms with you.  Different religions can quickly lead to war.
2) Build a shrine with a Great Prophet.  Every converted city gives you a gold.  This is a big chunk of change as the game progresses.
3) YOUR cities can be converted to your state religion, which will give you more culture and happy.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 27, 2005)

I posted this on Apolyton, but I'll post it here too:

Game 1:
Asoka of the Indians. Prince.
Founded Judaism.
Lost first settler to some lions.

Game 1 Comments:
Well, crap. That didn't go well.

Game 2:
Alexander of the Greeks. Prince.
Missed founding every major religion by 1 turn.
Founded a second city.
Dead last in score.
Lost second settler to some wolves.

Game 2 Comments:
Okay. I get it! Protect the settlers! Damn it. It used to be so much easier to sneak a settler out to your borders. Let's tone down the difficulty... My score was looking pretty bad there. 

One thing I noticed, there sure are a lot of improvements to research. It'll take a while to understand the full implications of each one.

Game 3:
Saladin of Arabia. Noble.
Went for a pure culture approach this time. 
Tried to found Hinduism. Nope.
Tried to found Judaism. Nope.
Managed to found Christianity.
Up to three cities now... Settlers move with warriors.
Built Stonehenge and got Moses, the Great Prophet.
Built a Christian Shrine... Already getting 6 gold from it.
And then the Persians decided that they'd had enough of me. A small group of immortals razed my third city without much effort.

Game 3 comments:
Ouch. It's very easy to fall into the trap of not building ANY military. Archers (the best early defensive unit) are on a dead-end track... When I went down I still had warriors in my cities. It's nice to see that the AI can take advantage of weakness.

Strategy comments:
There are *major* strategic choices that need to be made in each game:
1) On Meditation. It's a one-shot chance at getting a religion. Whereas the Polytheism route can lead to Monotheism if you miss the first religion. BUT... Meditation gives you Monasteries, which give you +10 research each (very useful in early game) and let you build missionaries (only useful later).
2) Archery. It's a dead-end tech, but otherwise you'll be using the more expensive axemen to defend yourself. Spearmen are specialist defenders now, not really the backbone of defense.
3) Copper/Iron. Everything needs it. And it's hard to find... At least it has been for me. Mining can apparently *reveal* copper/iron... That's a nice addition.
4) The Inflection Point. At some point your cities will start producing unhappy people. It's important to make some specialists to curb the growth just BEFORE this happens. Then, when you find more happy, you slowly let the city stretch its legs a bit more.
5) On cottages. Cottages are the most worthless *seeming* improvement. Compared to the other improvements, they're almost painful to build. But, they grow... It really hurts to watch your towns get pillaged.
6) Alphabet. You need this to trade techs. Remember how important that was in the last Civ? It's *still* that important. You just have to go way up the tree to get it. 
7) Great people. Build some wonder. Any wonder. If you aren't producing *some* GPPs, then you are wasting an opportunity. Just don't build something that everybody else is already working on.
8) Scouts. You want to scout with scouts, not military. And not just because their movement is higher. They have a better chance of getting goodies from "goodie huts".


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

I turn off barbarians in my games (which seems to also turn wild animals off as well).

Doing so makes games much more enjoyable for me.


----------



## Zog (Oct 27, 2005)

How is the interface?  Imagine you have no keyboard - only a mouse.  How playable is the game?  How many simple right or left clicks versus shift clicks or click and drags to accomplish basic tasks?  (for example, a build queue in a town, or to bring up infomation on a square, or switch from overland view to city view?)

I ask because that is basically how I, and my RSI damaged arms, will be playing.  Hopefully.

I really want to play the game - but not if I can't play without further injuring myself.   :\


----------



## Kanegrundar (Oct 27, 2005)

You need to be able to hit the enter key.  Beyond that it's all mouse driven.


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 27, 2005)

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> You need to be able to hit the enter key.  Beyond that it's all mouse driven.




Do you?  I thought you could click on the little red dot to end your turn as well...

(Or do you need the enter key for some other reason?)


----------



## Kanegrundar (Oct 27, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Do you?  I thought you could click on the little red dot to end your turn as well...
> 
> (Or do you need the enter key for some other reason?)



 To close the city screen...unless there is a button I missed.  (Which is possible since I didn't get to play it a whole lot last night.)


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 27, 2005)

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> To close the city screen...unless there is a button I missed.  (Which is possible since I didn't get to play it a whole lot last night.)




You can use the red dot to end turns...  I'm not sure how you'd get out of the city screen though...  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way.  Besides, you don't HAVE to go into the city screen in the first place...


----------



## Kanegrundar (Oct 27, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> You can use the red dot to end turns...  I'm not sure how you'd get out of the city screen though...  I wouldn't be surprised if there is a way.  Besides, you don't HAVE to go into the city screen in the first place...



 How do you change what the city is building in the middle of a project?


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 27, 2005)

Well, I can only get 1 out of every 3 games loaded.  If it works, I can bypass nemoy's intro, if not, I have to suffer through it, and the game just DRAGS.  Totally weird.  Does anyone know if we can bypass the intro by default, so we don't alway have to click or hit esc every time?  It's really annoying.


----------



## talinthas (Oct 27, 2005)

if you click on the city area in the city screen (any spot not being worked by your workers) it acts as an enter key =)

My first game was Gandhi, and second was Saladin, and i'm currently on Persia, which has founded every major religion save buddhism.  I prefer playing pacifist, but it's not as long or fun as 3 was.  so now i'm deep in a war with china =)

thing about great prophets is that they suck in the late game, once all the shrines are done.  and they're the only GP i seem to be getting  =(


----------



## KenM (Oct 27, 2005)

I finally got the game to run. I had to download and manual install the direct x 9 file from online. It was not installing right from the CD. Now to learn how to play.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 28, 2005)

There is now a fix for the ATI problem (Failed to initialize renderer).

Go to http://civilization4.net/ for details!


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 28, 2005)

Kanegrundar said:
			
		

> How do you change what the city is building in the middle of a project?




Hmmmm... Without going into the city screen and without a keyboard, that's probably pretty difficult.  If there's some way out of the city screen, it's easy from there.  Just click off the thing being built and click on what you want.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 28, 2005)

talinthas said:
			
		

> if you click on the city area in the city screen (any spot not being worked by your workers) it acts as an enter key =)
> 
> My first game was Gandhi, and second was Saladin, and i'm currently on Persia, which has founded every major religion save buddhism.  I prefer playing pacifist, but it's not as long or fun as 3 was.  so now i'm deep in a war with china =)
> 
> thing about great prophets is that they suck in the late game, once all the shrines are done.  and they're the only GP i seem to be getting  =(




Oops.  I missed that first line.  Okay, so it's easy to change production with mouse only then. 

Did you try Epic mode, talinthas?  What level are you playing at?

You're getting prophets like mad because you have all of the religious wonders.  GPPs (Great People Points) are colored by what creates them.  Try putting some non-priest specialists in some city not generating as much GPPs, or building non-religious wonders, and you should get some non-prophet GPs.  Remember if 90% of your GPPs come from religious sources, then you've got a 90% chance of getting a Great Prophet as your GP.

Super priest specialists aren't as cool as a shrine obviously, but they're better than nothing...


----------



## trancejeremy (Oct 28, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> There is now a fix for the ATI problem (Failed to initialize renderer).
> 
> Go to http://civilization4.net/ for details!




Yeah, it seems that you just have to un-pack one of the compressed "pak" files. Apparently for some reason, some cards can't do it on the fly


----------



## KenM (Oct 28, 2005)

I played thrugh the tutorial and started an easy single player game. I like it so far. Alot I still need to learn though.


----------



## talinthas (Oct 28, 2005)

I'm playing normal at warlord difficulty just to get a feel for the game.  gonna try epic this weekend.


----------



## KenM (Oct 28, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> I turn off barbarians in my games (which seems to also turn wild animals off as well).
> 
> Doing so makes games much more enjoyable for me.




  I don't think I turned it off. But I have not run into any, been playing on easiest. I have run into other enemy units and took them out, but no animals/ Barb.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 28, 2005)

Normal is just way too quick a game for me i've found out, gonna start epic tonight.  And up the difficulty, I actually got bored with my first game on easy, since I was able to found every major religion and get every wonder uncontested.  So I quit halfway through, and im gonna restart tonight.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 28, 2005)

Just shut it off after 9+ hours straight.  I'll post more thoughts later but here's some quickies for now:

*  I like the focus on less cities and more techs with many ways to play and customize, all the way down to the units.

*  They REALLY changed how some of the city improvements and Wonders work.    I raced to get the Great Lighthouse so my ships could take to the oceans and explore the world.  Well, I should have read what it actually gives you first.  I sat there bug-eyed for at least a minute.  It was a good time to take a nacho break.

*  I'm about an hour or so in and I have 2 cities pumping along, I'm scouting the rest of the continent for placement of a third.  At this point I have a few workers scurrying around building the Might Russian Transcontinental Stone & Mud Road.  I zoom back to my capital and I get this message: "A forest has grown near Moscow," folloed by a clump of trees engulfing an area that I was planning on developing next!  I was stunned and impressed all at once.  Very cool.  

*  Religion is wacky.  I like the way it is used.  I had a real challenge trying to isolate my civ from other civ's religion with absolutely no luck.

*  And has anyone else been crushed by another civ completing a Wonder mere turns before you do?  I got 300 gold, sure - but I lost hundreds of years of improvements.  

*  *NO. MORE. LOST. AT. SEA.*

All said, I love this game.  Much better than Civ III which was cool at times but was more frustrating than Civ II.  I think they got it right this time.  It can be as simple or as complex as I want it to be so far.  I'm honestly surprised it's *this* good.  To me - Civ is back.

Graphically the game chugs at times which drives me nuts.  I need to either get a new computer or finally get around to fixing my custom rig that had a HD crash earlier this year.  Never thought I'd be saying that about a Civ game.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 28, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> *  Religion is wacky.  I like the way it is used.  I had a real challenge trying to isolate my civ from other civ's religion with absolutely no luck.




It may have been that they were sending missionaries.  Remember, you can't see them...
The best way to stop their religious spread is to close your borders...  But that creates 
tension as well.



> *  *NO. MORE. LOST. AT. SEA.*




I didn't realize that...  I still haven't even tried the normal navies yet (I haven't gotten to play that much yet).  Awesome.  



> Graphically the game chugs at times which drives me nuts.  I need to either get a new computer or finally get around to fixing my custom rig that had a HD crash earlier this year.  Never thought I'd be saying that about a Civ game.




The only part that really bothers me is the fact that at the end of turn, there's this text fade that takes a couple of seconds.  It's kind of annoying, but not enough to make me not love it so far.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 28, 2005)

KenM said:
			
		

> I don't think I turned it off. But I have not run into any, been playing on easiest. I have run into other enemy units and took them out, but no animals/ Barb.




Easiest (Settler) is very, very easy.

The difficulty levels get hard REAL fast as you go up though supposedly.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 29, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> It may have been that they were sending missionaries.  Remember, you can't see them...
> The best way to stop their religious spread is to close your borders...  But that creates
> tension as well.



Yeah, I knew about the missionaries.  I was trying to spread my religion first but that didn't work.  My cities were too far apart.  



			
				Simplicity said:
			
		

> I didn't realize that...  I still haven't even tried the normal navies yet (I haven't gotten to play that much yet).  Awesome.



It's great.  Although I do miss being able to risk sending a caravel to it's doom for the reward of it possibly making it to a far off continent that it will take other civs forever to reach.



			
				Simplicity said:
			
		

> The only part that really bothers me is the fact that at the end of turn, there's this text fade that takes a couple of seconds.  It's kind of annoying, but not enough to make me not love it so far.



Yeah, that bugs me too.  I figure a better VC should fix it.

I would also like to mention that it looked like my first map was set in what looked like a scale version of Europe.  Turned out not to be the case but it was fun finding out.     And, oh yeah, I had no trouble installing or playing on my ATI 9600 card.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Oct 29, 2005)

What are the min system reqs for installation?


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 29, 2005)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> What are the min system reqs for installation?



This was posted earlier and is correct - 



			
				Simplicity said:
			
		

> MIMIMUM
> # Windows 2000/XP with SP1 or higher
> # Intel Pentium 4- or AMD Athlon CPU with at least 1,2 GHz
> # 256 MB RAM
> ...



My system doesn meat the recommended (I have a 1.6 processor) and the game runs fine.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Oct 29, 2005)

Thanks John. Looks like this is officially going on my wishlist.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 29, 2005)

Frukathka - Cool.  Have you played the earlier versions?

To all - We should set up a few multiplayer games once we're all a little more comfy.  Anyone try it online yet?

Also, which version did y'all buy?  I picked up the Special Edition for the Soundtrack CD and the faux-leather case (the keyboard guide is nice, too).  But did anyone else get a French Tech Tree Poster?  I did, but 2KGames is sending out replacements.  I've already ordered mine.  I was worried the that game was the French version, too.  That would have been annoying because I certainly would have at least tried to play it.  

PDF and replacement link for the French Tech Tree Poster - http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/support.htm

There's also the ATI Video Card "offical fix" there.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Oct 29, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Frukathka - Cool.  Have you played the earlier versions?



Yes. I have played 2 and Multiplayer Gold Edition. Saw 3 in action, and didn't care for it too much. The screenshots alone make 4 worth the purchase.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 29, 2005)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> Yes. I have played 2 and Multiplayer Gold Edition. Saw 3 in action, and didn't care for it too much. The screenshots alone make 4 worth the purchase.



 The map really is the highlight of the game.  The FMV isn't great but once the game gets moving the world map has so much going on that it really feels like the world is alive.  I never thought graphics would mean so much to this franchise but now my mind is changed.  Seeing and controlling just about everything from one screen makes a ton of difference.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Oct 29, 2005)

The game chokes my video card late in the game.  I'm stuck in 1785, and my system crashes/locks up at the end of the turn every time.  I've tuned the graphics down a bit and its still happening...  Looking for a solution on various boards...


----------



## Dinkeldog (Oct 30, 2005)

KC, try going into your .ini file and turn off the movies.  That was what was killing me.  (Remember to make a backup of your .ini first, and if you're still having problems, you can always call me at home and I can walk you through it.)


----------



## talinthas (Oct 30, 2005)

i'm running the game on a garbage HP pavillion dx4000 lappy, with a crappy integrated vid card that doesnt even meet the bare minimums.  The card shares ram with the system itself, so i just added a gigstick, and BAM, civ 4 works just fine on low to mid grap settings.  Runs slower than dirt, but it's civ--speed doesnt matter much in a turn based game =)

//oh, and anybody up for mulitplay?


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 30, 2005)

talinthas said:
			
		

> //oh, and anybody up for mulitplay?



I am.  I'm up at weird times, tho.

Do you have PM capability here?


----------



## talinthas (Oct 31, 2005)

unfortunately no.

and your weird times might be perfect, since i live in Japan anyway, and have something like a 20 hour difference with EST =)


----------



## DaveMage (Oct 31, 2005)

Well, after playing it some more - I like it.    

I still have a LOT to learn about HOW to play it, but overall I'd say it's a good game.

I still haven't figured out the best tech path, and I have to figure out how to wage war a little better...


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 31, 2005)

Played two full games this weekend, both as the Americans/Roosevelt.  Won space race both times on different difficulties.  I enjoy the gameplay a great deal, the game in and of itself is great fun.  What drives me crazy is that it's buggy. There is no way a game with those min/recommended stats should chug on my pc, and yet it does.  Sometimes halts on load of a new world, and just draaaaaags at the later stages of the game.  Moving the mouse around just chugs the screen, the adivsor screens can take up to a minute to open.  I have a gig of ram, 256 mb vid card and 2.4 Ghz CPU, so Im at a lost other than to blame the designers.  Half life 2 and other high end games run flawlessly.  I hope a patch can resolve this.

EDIT:  Oddly enough, setting all graphics to low made the bugs show up more, for me.


----------



## LogicsFate (Oct 31, 2005)

First time I played, only certain graphics came up. All I could see of the leaders, their eyes and the backround. The only thing I could see of the map, the cities everything else was black.

I'll try cranking down the grapghics, and some other stuff, I guess


----------



## TheLe (Oct 31, 2005)

I have played for about 12 hours so far, and overall I am not pleased.

I liked all the new game mechanics to it, but the visuals makes it feel like a cheap Civ knockoff.

The old 2-d graphics gave it nice epic feel to it. 

With these graphics, everythings feels smaller and the game play suffers. On my 2ghz 750mb computer, the graphics still need to be set on low.

around the year 2000, there are so many units around that the game just chugs and chugs and chugs.

And I can't see anything. Have to zoom out to see the map of things, but I have to zoom in to even see my railroads. So there is no happy medium.

As for crashing, check out the README file in your start menu. It tells you right there how to edit your INI file to turn off the movies.

This is a sad sad game. And don't get me started on the Colorful, yet UGLY cultural borders.

`Le


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 31, 2005)

One thing i do not like about the game is the map size.  Even huge is small, no where near the size of  Civ 3 and previous.  I set up for continents, and there were only two continents.  One was just a big island.  WTF?!?!?!
I want CONTINENTS!!!!!  Not one huge chunk of rock and a couple of islands.


----------



## talinthas (Oct 31, 2005)

my main complaint with the game is that it is too dang short.  I should _not_ be able to finish an entire game of civ in one sitting.


----------



## mrtauntaun (Oct 31, 2005)

Have you tried the Epic setting on a higher difficulty?  The first game I played was Noral on Chieftan, I think.  That was pretty quick.  But with Epic combined with AI actually meddling in my affairs due to higher difficulty, THAT game took awhile.  Although, I'll likely never play one of those super long games of old, due to the lack of usable map space.


----------



## Simplicity (Oct 31, 2005)

I think the "Terra" maps are supposed to be even larger than huge...
I'm not certain about that since I've never played them yet though.


----------



## DaveMage (Nov 1, 2005)

mrtauntaun said:
			
		

> One thing i do not like about the game is the map size.  Even huge is small, no where near the size of  Civ 3 and previous.  I set up for continents, and there were only two continents.  One was just a big island.  WTF?!?!?!
> I want CONTINENTS!!!!!  Not one huge chunk of rock and a couple of islands.




I was wondering about that.  I've reduced my opponent/AI civs to 4 or 5 just to have some breathing room on the huge map.

Maybe I'll try the setting that has less ocean and more land - low sea level or somesuch.


----------



## talinthas (Nov 1, 2005)

epic doesnt make the game longer, it just makes you progress slower.  it's not all that fun =(


----------



## mrtauntaun (Nov 1, 2005)

While it does make the progress slower, it does make for a longer game.  That works for me.  On normal noble, I was still cranking out techs a 2 or 3 turns apiece.  Epic has a better feel for me.


----------



## Vigilance (Nov 18, 2005)

I just wanted to say (besides the fact that the game rocks) that everyone should play the game on Terra (called New World in some of the manuals oddly enough).

It gives a much more "real world" map, with a lot more islands to be discovered and importance of sea power and exploration.

And of course the kicker is that there is a "new world" waiting to be discovered on every Terra map.

All the Civilizations start on one continnent, while the New World is loaded with Barbarian cities and villages/goodie huts.

I find Terra makes much more interesting games than the Continents map.

Chuck


----------



## John Crichton (Nov 18, 2005)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> I just wanted to say (besides the fact that the game rocks) that everyone should play the game on Terra (called New World in some of the manuals oddly enough).
> 
> It gives a much more "real world" map, with a lot more islands to be discovered and importance of sea power and exploration.
> 
> ...



 Sounds like fun!  I'm still getting the hang of the regular game but my current one has me winning the race to sea where I've found the only 2 islands and colonized.  That was a nice in-game rush.

Thanks for the tip.


----------



## Joshua Randall (Nov 18, 2005)

Random question... is there an option in the game to slow down the rate of advancements -- either a toggle to do just that, or a way to require more beakers for each advancement.

I enjoy Civ the most when it's in the early Renaissance tech era, so I'd like to be able to "shut off" scientific advancement after that point (or at least drastically slow it down).


----------



## John Crichton (Nov 18, 2005)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> Random question... is there an option in the game to slow down the rate of advancements -- either a toggle to do just that, or a way to require more beakers for each advancement.
> 
> I enjoy Civ the most when it's in the early Renaissance tech era, so I'd like to be able to "shut off" scientific advancement after that point (or at least drastically slow it down).



 Yes, there is an option to slow the whole game down.  Play a custom game and change the speed to Epic.


----------



## John Crichton (Nov 18, 2005)

For those having any kind of trouble or just can't figure out certain things in the game, the Gamespot guide is a good place to go -

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6140006/index.html


----------



## Henry (Nov 18, 2005)

Still playing, but finding that my game slows down DRAMATICALLY when I've got more than 3 or 4 civs on the board in the modern era. With the whole map exposed, and all the civs of large size, my computer chugs like a fat man running uphill. Unfortunately, this means one thing:

I've got to start thinking about upgrades.


----------



## Henry (Nov 18, 2005)

P.S. Anyone seen the patch released yet? Last word I had was it was in QA, and due to be released sometime next week. I believe that among the other fixes, they also said something about speed improvements.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 18, 2005)

I've been checking www.civfanatics.com for updates.  So far nothing.  I'm hoping it will be out this weekend or early next week.


----------



## Kanegrundar (Nov 18, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> P.S. Anyone seen the patch released yet? Last word I had was it was in QA, and due to be released sometime next week. I believe that among the other fixes, they also said something about speed improvements.



 "Soon" is the last thing I've heard.  Granted "soon" has been tossed around since the week after launch, so who knows?


----------



## John Crichton (Nov 18, 2005)

What would the patch fix?

I'd like to see the annoucements on the be a little bigger or have the option to place them somewhere else on the screen.


----------



## Kanegrundar (Nov 18, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> What would the patch fix?
> 
> I'd like to see the annoucements on the be a little bigger or have the option to place them somewhere else on the screen.



 For me, I get the blue screen of death late in the game.  It's a conflict with Nvidia drivers.  I would like to get that fixed since I'm not playing it much now due to that.


----------



## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 18, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> What would the patch fix?




The issues with a gazzillion graphics cards that (theoretically) are adequate for the game, yet cause Blue Screens of Death, Crashes to Desktop, and indcredibly bogged down play on largers maps.  I've had to shelve the game for the past two weeks due to the issues.  When the patch comes out, I'll give it another shot.  Until then, I prefer not to have my PC blow up every third turn.


----------



## DaveMage (Nov 18, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> Still playing, but finding that my game slows down DRAMATICALLY when I've got more than 3 or 4 civs on the board in the modern era. With the whole map exposed, and all the civs of large size, my computer chugs like a fat man running uphill. Unfortunately, this means one thing:
> 
> I've got to start thinking about upgrades.




Yeah, and when you begin to wage war in that era, it's a nightmare, and I'm running on a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 w/1 GB RAM and 128MB 9700 graphics card.


----------



## John Crichton (Nov 19, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> The issues with a gazzillion graphics cards that (theoretically) are adequate for the game, yet cause Blue Screens of Death, Crashes to Desktop, and indcredibly bogged down play on largers maps.  I've had to shelve the game for the past two weeks due to the issues.  When the patch comes out, I'll give it another shot.  Until then, I prefer not to have my PC blow up every third turn.



 Ah, interesting.  I still haven't played a game past 1750 yet (keep restarting to try and master the early eras) so I dunno if I'll have the same problems. Hmmm.

The only graphical problem I'm having (fixed the skipping wonder movies a few weeks back) is that the mini-map distorts a bit whenever my turn ends.  Tweaking the anti-aliasing setting in-game fixes it but it happens often.  It would be nice if they could fix that and optimize the graphics a bit more.

I'm running a:

2.8g P4
1 gig ram
GeForce 6800 (128mb)

I'm happy overall with the performance on my PC. Gonna test those late-game bugs later today... *crosses fingers*


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## cignus_pfaccari (Nov 21, 2005)

So, I'm posting from my parents' house, and discovered that neither of their computers will actually handle the game at all.  The new one doesn't have much of anything of a graphics card (Dad didn't think to add on from the default Dell), and the old one needs new drivers, and isn't hooked up to the Net, and is in a crappy position, and, well, ugh.

So, instead of stomping over some poor defenseless other civilization, I'm reduced to shooting pool and watching TV and petting an older dog until Friday night, when I go home.

Dang it.

Brad


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Nov 22, 2005)

I had just bought a new Emachine and topped it off with a nice, added PCX from Radeon in order to try Quake4 so it has no trouble whatever with C4.  I've played through a couple games at low difficulty to try and get a feel for the new workings.  I think I have a fair amount of it now but without anyone actually attacking me - ever - it's not giving me a proper demonstration of the military side of the game.  I just crank out turn after turn opting for all the science and culture techs and proceeding to space race victory.

Only after stepping up one difficulty level did I get a wake-up call in the late game that I still had single warriors for defense of cities against gunpowder units and that I'd been dithering around so much with this and that to where I hadn't noticed how far behind one of the other civs I actually was.  When I saw them building spaceship parts and I hadn't even gotten the tech for it yet I realized I was in trouble and ultimately ran out of time.

Culture sure doesn't seem to have any significant effect upon the computer civs.  I've had my cultural borders surrounding size 1 enemy cities.  A single square 2 deep within my own borders and buliding every cultural wonder without any effect.  Although the first game I played one neighboring city did defect to my side about 5 turns before I won.  But obviously you can't effectively take computer territory through culture.  Lesson #1.

Haven't yet gotten to tinkering with creating specialists at all except adding a few Great People as permanent specialists.  I don't feel like I've quite gotten the point or effectiveness of religion yet and I've been assuming it simply doesn't have a big effect until higher difficulty levels kick in some of the need for micromanagement.

The "less land available = fewer cities" makes for an interesting change in dynamics of expansion.  I think having "new world" maps with all the civs starting on one continent and everything else being ripe for picking is going to be where it's at for me.  This last game I played I hadn't really bothered with navy or ocean exploration until well into the modern era.  Found an "untapped" continent and as soon as I started to colonize it walked away with the game - and simultaneously faced my only military "challenge" in having to fend off streams of waiting barbarain units and beat down their size 11 and 12 cities (yet too easy with late-game gunpowder/tanks vs. archers and early gunpowder.)  Other computer civs had a few ciites off the original continent but apparantly had trouble just holding their own or something.

The game LOOKS great and I have no complaints as yet as I start to move to higher difficulty levels and learn more of the changes.


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## Simplicity (Nov 22, 2005)

Man in the Funny Hat said:
			
		

> Only after stepping up one difficulty level did I get a wake-up call in the late game that I still had single warriors for defense of cities against gunpowder units and that I'd been dithering around so much with this and that to where I hadn't noticed how far behind one of the other civs I actually was.  When I saw them building spaceship parts and I hadn't even gotten the tech for it yet I realized I was in trouble and ultimately ran out of time.




Deja vu.  The single warrior defense is a serious invitation for a war.  Even friendly AIs will attack you if you leave a very weak military around.



> Culture sure doesn't seem to have any significant effect upon the computer civs.  I've had my cultural borders surrounding size 1 enemy cities.  A single square 2 deep within my own borders and buliding every cultural wonder without any effect.  Although the first game I played one neighboring city did defect to my side about 5 turns before I won.  But obviously you can't effectively take computer territory through culture.  Lesson #1.




There are certain situations where culture will not work unless you change options.  It wasn't one of your old cities, was it?  Basically, every square has a percentage culture.  If this percent gets too low, then there's a chance of revolt every turn.  You can see these effects in your affected cities.  It works the same way for the AI.  It's VERY hard to culturally flip an established, large city.  Supposedly not that hard for smaller ones (though I've never seen it happen myself...  Haven't really tried though.  Usually easier to just wheel some catapults up and take the dang thing).



> Haven't yet gotten to tinkering with creating specialists at all except adding a few Great People as permanent specialists.  I don't feel like I've quite gotten the point or effectiveness of religion yet and I've been assuming it simply doesn't have a big effect until higher difficulty levels kick in some of the need for micromanagement.




Religion = CASH + diplomacy effects + culture/happiness.
Building shrines from Great Prophets can be very profitable.
At higher difficulties, Temples are one of the only early ways to increase city happiness without luxury resources.  But, when you build a religion, you risk alienating your neighbors if the religion isn't adopted by them.  A religious difference between you and a bordering neighbor is almost certainly going to lead to war.

There are various strategies here.  Found a religon and go for cash...  Stay in a No-State-Religion, and keep your neighbors from declaring you heathens.



> The game LOOKS great and I have no complaints as yet as I start to move to higher difficulty levels and learn more of the changes.




Things start to make more sense as you move to higher levels.  At the low levels, the theaters, temples, colloseums all seem superfluous.  The culture slider... who the heck would use that?  But as you get higher, there's one less happy guy and one less heathiness point per city...  They become invaluable.  Police stations start to be something you'd actually consider building.

And the barbarians...  Ouch.  They get mean.


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## John Crichton (Nov 23, 2005)

Man in the Funny Hat said:
			
		

> Culture sure doesn't seem to have any significant effect upon the computer civs.  I've had my cultural borders surrounding size 1 enemy cities.  A single square 2 deep within my own borders and buliding every cultural wonder without any effect.  Although the first game I played one neighboring city did defect to my side about 5 turns before I won.  But obviously you can't effectively take computer territory through culture.  Lesson #1.
> 
> Haven't yet gotten to tinkering with creating specialists at all except adding a few Great People as permanent specialists.  I don't feel like I've quite gotten the point or effectiveness of religion yet and I've been assuming it simply doesn't have a big effect until higher difficulty levels kick in some of the need for micromanagement.



Culture is huge, but just like war, you have to try and win that way.  If there are cities near my civ with less than size 7 they will be mine shortly.  Drop a Great Artist or move the culture sliders up plus making a wonder or 2 in the area will certainly make the city revolt and join my civ.

And as for taking computer territory through culture, you most certainly can.  Now if you are trying to take areas that are already secured by a few huge cities than that is dumb but if they are a bit smaller than yours and away from the capital you can absolutely cripple the other civ by using the same methods I mentioned above.  They can do the same thing but the key is to stay ahead.


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## TheAuldGrump (Nov 23, 2005)

I have an oddball question (and I do mean odd...) How good would Civ IV be for creating the background for a campaign?

Strange as it may sound that is part of how I created the background for my homebrew - using Civ II way back when D&D 3 came out, taking screenshots evry turn or two to cover what was going on with the war that is raging in the background (using a Thirty Years War scenario that I found on the web for the tech tree and etc. and creating the map by hand - looking strangely like a slightly larger Europe...)

I never finished playing the Civ 2 game, just running it to the point where I thought the players would reach level 10 or so, and became a factor in the game world. Unlike the real world someone is deliberately causing the war... and the PCs can end the war a bit early.

The Auld Grump, what a miserable war that was...


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## John Crichton (Nov 23, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> I have an oddball question (and I do mean odd...) How good would Civ IV be for creating the background for a campaign?
> 
> Strange as it may sound that is part of how I created the background for my homebrew - using Civ II way back when D&D 3 came out, taking screenshots evry turn or two to cover what was going on with the war that is raging in the background (using a Thirty Years War scenario that I found on the web for the tech tree and etc. and creating the map by hand - looking strangely like a slightly larger Europe...)



There's no reason that you couldn't do the same thing with this game.

Personally, I would use the World Builder to create my own map and print it out for the gameworld.  The maps are beautiful.


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## Simplicity (Nov 23, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> There's no reason that you couldn't do the same thing with this game.
> 
> Personally, I would use the World Builder to create my own map and print it out for the gameworld.  The maps are beautiful.




Agreed.  You can directly edit the maps and place units with the world builder.  Plus, you have quite a bit of control over your camera.  It would work for anything from battlefield maps to campaign maps.

You can even place lines and labels on the Civ4 maps using the "Strategy Layer".  So, I can name landmarks like "The Sea of Sorrows".  Or "Exfrenchieland" (Louis is always declaring war on me).


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## John Crichton (Nov 23, 2005)

Simplicity said:
			
		

> Or "Exfrenchieland" (Louis is always declaring war on me).



Many of my save files have titles.  A common title is "Stupid French attack.  Again!"

I just started a new game yesterday and no sign of them.  Yet.  I still haven't met the last 2 civs...


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## TheAuldGrump (Nov 24, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> There's no reason that you couldn't do the same thing with this game.
> 
> Personally, I would use the World Builder to create my own map and print it out for the gameworld.  The maps are beautiful.






			
				Simplicity said:
			
		

> Agreed.  You can directly edit the maps and place units with the world builder.  Plus, you have quite a bit of control over your camera.  It would work for anything from battlefield maps to campaign maps.
> 
> You can even place lines and labels on the Civ4 maps using the "Strategy Layer".  So, I can name landmarks like "The Sea of Sorrows".  Or "Exfrenchieland" (Louis is always declaring war on me).




Cool, that is what I was hoping for! 

The Auld Grump


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## Jupp (Nov 24, 2005)

John Crichton said:
			
		

> http://pc.ign.com/articles/628/628695p1.html
> 
> http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/preview_6128088.html
> 
> ...




I am playing the Civ series now since about 13 years or so including Colonization and Railroad Tycoon. The first one was Civ1 on the Amiga and I dunno how many hours I have "wasted" by playing those games but I imagine it is a heckuvalot   To me Civ4 is a perfect improvement over Civ2 because I never really liked the micromanagement of Civ3, which I didn't play for too long. Most games I've played have been Civ1 and 2. But now with Civ4 I can finally have pretty graphics while sending my civ down the gutter  

Having religion in the game does change the game alot and some tactics that were valid in civ1-3 are not longer working, and the different mindsets and philosophies of the different rulers are just great to play with/against. Now you really have to adjust your strategy depending who your neighbour nation is.  All in all Civ got a tad harder to beat and a fair bit more complex. You have to watch over all aspects of the game while in older versions of Civ you were able to somehow ignore those aspects you didnt like. 

Overall I would give this game a rating of 9/10...I'll leave that 1 point for Civ5 since if it would be a perfect 10 there wouldnt be a next Civ


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## John Crichton (Nov 29, 2005)

Patch released!

http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads.htm

http://www.2kgames.com/index.php?p=...ilization+IV,PC,2K_Games,civ4&section=patches

I'm installing right now.  Will report later...


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## Henry (Nov 29, 2005)

I've had the patch for a few days now - and I have to say, it didn't do a darned thing for me, except make the wonder movies run smoothly. The game still locks up on me at unpredictable times (anywhere from 45 min. of running to two hours). I've taken to playing on small and tiny worlds, and it doesn't lock up; however, the game is nowhere near the same experience. :/ It's still fun up to the modern era, though.


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## Kanegrundar (Nov 29, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> I've had the patch for a few days now - and I have to say, it didn't do a darned thing for me, except make the wonder movies run smoothly. The game still locks up on me at unpredictable times (anywhere from 45 min. of running to two hours). I've taken to playing on small and tiny worlds, and it doesn't lock up; however, the game is nowhere near the same experience. :/ It's still fun up to the modern era, though.



 Same here.  Since the patch didn't address any conflicts with Nvidia drivers, I still get the BSD.  It's aggrivated me enough to uninstall the game until a patch comes out that may work for me.  It's a shame, when the game ran it was fun.


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## Simplicity (Nov 29, 2005)

The patch works great for me!  The game ran for me before...  but now it's slick.  Much, much faster than before.


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## Henry (Nov 29, 2005)

Question: Has anyone here had problems with the sound in the game? When I play it, all music and FX are very muted, as if running through a speaker covered in a blanket. If I take the SAME MP3's (found them in the directories) and play them with winamp or Windows Media Player, they are clear as a bell. Anyone have any ideas?


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## Kanegrundar (Nov 29, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> Question: Has anyone here had problems with the sound in the game? When I play it, all music and FX are very muted, as if running through a speaker covered in a blanket. If I take the SAME MP3's (found them in the directories) and play them with winamp or Windows Media Player, they are clear as a bell. Anyone have any ideas?



 The only problem I've had with sound is that it will sometimes get a little crackle at the end of a wonder movie.


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## James Heard (Dec 5, 2005)

I've got an Intel Celeron 700Mhz, 256 RAM, GeForce FX 5200 128 meg video card running Win Media Ed. and I don't have any problems running cIV on any normal size maps, from start to finish. Huge maps make the game an exercise in patience, but only the 18 civ Earth map really makes the game unplayable. The patch sped up my gameplay some, but did something really weird to the eyes of the leaders where they've got these strange eyewhites that are kind of annoying. I don't even have much trouble playing the game at high resolutions on Small maps.

Anyways, I guess this is just a neener neener message...but I wanted to get it out that the game isn't automatically unplayable on systems that are waaaay below specs. I'm thinking that some of my lack of problems might be from having already had horrific problems with DirectX 9.0c with The Sims 2. cIV didn't even try to install DirectX on my installation, so I might have fixed a major problem months ago?

Now, if I can only kick the occasional clipping I get from Wonder movies I'll feel like an official Old Skool Stud.


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