First off, let me say I've been playing the Civ series since Civ 1, and have played every single Civ game since. This is hands down, the best incarnation out of any that I have seen. From what I gather, the game was unstable when it first came out, leading to alot of bad reviews. Now that 2 expansion packs and plenty of patches have been released, I find it runs fine (though a bit slow) on my HP Laptop from 2005.
As for the actual gameplay itself, it has the SINGLE BEST AI I HAVE EVER SEEN! I am continually amazed by the level and depth of strategies the computer will employ, taking advantage of any player weaknesses, attacking when it sees openings, streamlining the production and research of its cities, expanding at just the right pace to balance growth with territorial gain. There are 9, YES 9, levels of difficulty! I typically can (just) hold my own at the 5th level, and that is after playing this off and on for 4 years straight.
With the 2 expansion packs, this is by far the most expansive turn based strategy game I have seen as well. The tech tree takes many, many hours to get through, and I find an average game will take me about 8-10 hours on a standard map. In all fairness, the game can get a bit hard to get through if you are trying to take over the world on a standard sized map late in the game, managing hundreds of units. Still, it is easy to group units and move them around, and the interface is about as well done as it can be. Its more just the scale of the game that causes this one sticking point, though you can always just play on smaller maps. (Or win the game by means other than conquering the world, though what fun is a diplomatic victory?)
If you have never played a turn based strategy game, this will probably seem like a pretty boring game to you. For fans of the genre, or people that enjoy a game which keeps you on your toes, where after 4 years of playing you are still thinking of new strategies, this is money well spent. Just keep in mind though, if you are looking for a brainless form of recreation, you will be sorely disappointed. |
I'm a newcomer to the Civilization series, and likely to draw ire from fanboys of the fanbase. But while I started off hating Civilization for no real reason, I grew to love it and become addicted to Civilization IV. Then that addiction fell off quicker than eight months in rehab, and I came to realize just why that addiction ended so abruptly.
This game is not really a "game", but more a pleasant little time-waster for two or three hours a week, then two or three hours a month, and so on.
My first encounter with the Civilization series was Civilization III, which unfortunately I could not get over the fact that each turn ended passed some 500 years, in which the most primitive and basest of technologies, such as the wheel or fire, would take 10,000 years to acquire, and thus by 300 BC, where most civilizations in reality are conquering huge landmasses, conquering rudimentary plumbing, and developing philosophical and scientific theories that would dominate the cultural landscape for THOUSANDS of years to come, my Civ3 Civilization had just learned how to ride horses, and learn how to count, but not how to read.
It also didn't help that my city spend some 3,000 years on fire. I suppose that fire was supposed to represent unrest, but considering it's a FIRE, and fire was a VERY HUGE DISASTER in ancient times, I thought it was both highly inaccurate and highly offensive.
Civilization IV doesn't suffer as much from this, but unfortunately it does do this system whereby the natural evolution of civilizations is not at all organic and dependent upon the location, the people, the religion, the government, etcetera, but is all on a fixed line where your civilization advances at the same rate as everyone else. You can be guaranteed to research certain technologies around the exact same time period each game---gunpowder circa 1300s - 1700s AD, that sort of thing. There is absolutely no chance of a sudden sharp advancement in civilization---unless you waste valuable resources building a certain monument FIRST that grants you certain privilages, you can expect to not be able to experience such things as Democracy in an ancient Athens, or free speech in a Medieval kingdom.
You have to have certain ideals happen in certain times, and there is no way and no chance of defying the rigid construct and having a revolution occur in your civilization that defies all others (such as a Democracy in Athens, or a Republic in Rome or Carthage). As such, it would be impossible to recreate such civilizations as the Roman Republic (because Rome can't be a Republic in this game until some time in AD, well AFTER the Republic was long dead and gone). You can't have Alexander the Great spreading religious tolerance in the 300s BC. You can't defy the median civilization setup, you have to have your civilization develop on a straight and narrow line.
Because of this, not only is there no chance for innovation, but almost all the other civilizations on the map will you will advance at the same rate and advance with the same technologies. This means that there is no chance for an encounter such as that of the Imperial Spanish/French/English with the "New World" Native Americans---in this game, they would be just as heavily armored and gunpowdered as the Europeans, though maybe without the compass invention.
Another problem is the diplomacy. To put it simply, there is none. This is in no way advanced enough to come close to reality during these times, save for maybe the most ancient pre-historical examples.
I've played half a dozen games, and the diplomacy in ALL of them has consisted of this:
New Leader meets me, offers alliance. I choose alliance.
Ten turns later, they offer Open Borders.
Fifty turns later, they offer a heavily unbalanced trade that I reject.
Five turns later, they demand I cease trade with another civilization. I do so. That civilization comes back and re-offers trade. First civilization seems to completely ignore this fact.
One civilization randomly threatens me with war for no reason. I tell them the equivalent of "bring it on", they never do.
There is no advanced diplomacy here. There is no intelligent AI. All other civilizations ever do is offer peace, then trade, then try to get you to give them your researched technology for inferior ones that take less time or you already have being researched and completed in one turn, or just plain don't want (like Communism). They sometimes threaten hostile actions against you for no reason, and proceed to never follow up. They sometimes threaten you to give them a technology or else, and that "or else" turns out to be nothing, then they have the OBNOXIOUS AUDACITY to come back to me a turn or so later, demanding THE EXACT SAME TECHNOLOGY, but this time with a cock and bull story of how their civilization is suffering and they need charity.
No civilization ever goes to war with me unless I declare first. No civilization ever asks me to mediate disputes. No civilization ever asks for trades that are not routine "One corn for One rice, yes?" or "Nationalism for Gunpowder and 100 gold, yes?". No civilization ever asks for military assistance or cultural exchange.
Even the diplomacy in Rome Total War is better than this! At least the RTW factions randomly declare war on you for some reason of necessity or greed.
The map interface itself is quite simple in itself, but the larger your civilization gets, the more cluttered it becomes. Towns and farms and mines and windmills and roads all take up individual spaces, making for a highly inaccurate display where cities are evenly distributed, and not resemblence of reality, where larger congregations of people would flock to seaside areas rather than in the middle of a desert. This is also a horrifying ordeal to handle in times of war, when some random pack of enemy jerkwads come and start destroying minor towns and farms and the like. You move your city garrison out to attack them, only to have ANOTHER pack of enemy jerkwads have the OBNOXIOUS AUDACITY to fly RIGHT PAST YOUR UNITS and completely destroy a city two or three squares away from you!
The worst aspect is the military. I am a military historian and I love games like Rome Total War and Medieval II Total War.
There is no military aspect in this game. It's all literally an arms race for getting the best unit first for a slight advantage against the randomness of a dice roll decision. It's frequently common to see ONE enemy warrior successfully defeat THREE of your enemy warriors. The animation only proceeds to enrage you, as ONE BY ONE your warriors stand up in front of the enemy, only to be beaten aside by their club or sword, without ever swinging first themselves.
There is no concept of realism in military conflicts, as I've once had a pair of enemy swordsmen DEFEAT a fresh new pack of WAR ELEPHANTS. I've had chariot riders be killed flawlessly by enemy crossbowmen. I've had MONGOL HORSE LANCERS defeat TWO UNITS OF MACHINE GUN INFANTRY. And not the WW1 style machine gunners, but the type who hold a machine gun in one hand, AND A ROCKET LAUNCHER IN THE OTHER HAND!
How is that supposed to be a part of a grand and pleasant game experience when your space-age civilization has half its army destroyed by MEDIEVAL HORSE LANCERS? Just because they outnumber you?
One of the worst parts involves destruction of cities. All it takes is ONE enemy unit of ANY KIND to wander into your city with no defending units, AND THEY COMPLETELY DESTROY THE CITY! BURN THE RUBBLE, CLEAR THE ASHES, SALT THE LAND, EVERYTHING GONE!
So I lost my capital because I sent the units away to attack a pack of RANDOM BARBARIAN ARCHERS only to have those archers SOMEHOW slip past my units from another square, enter my capital, AND COMPLETELY DESTROY IT!
Repetitive, singular, with virtually no replayability. Make sure never to go to war, because it will always be a disgustingly short, plodding, ridiculous affair where 50% of gameplay is hitting "End Turn" and waiting.
Update: The expansion packs COMPLETELY change much of the AI and "randomness" experience for the better. It's an immensely more playable game with them. |
"The best turn based strategy game of all time"
"Addictive"
"Addictively flawed"
"Boring but addictive"