Civilization IV Review by djRoME

Aight, so when you read IGN's Civilization IV Review you REALLY want to go out an buy it. I mean, it's on the top of their rating list for PC Games this year with a COMMANDING 9.4 rating.

This release features tons of new features to the game as well as holding true to what has made this game great for years.

I'm still amazed at the way information is presented in this game. While all versions of Civilization have allowed players to dig down into the numbers behind the game mechanics, Civilization IV offers such ready access to these figures that you'll get a really good sense of how the game is working. Mousing over terrain tiles tells you what the defense bonus is, the resource yield, any special resources (and the improvement needed to utilize them), as well as the ownership of the tile. What's more, it will even list all the units in the square, their strength, movement, identity and any promotions they have.

- IGN.com Review

One of the largest improvements to this release of the game is the incredible amount of information they shove down your throat. All of those little bonuses and percentages that you have wondered about in previous versions are now spelled out clearly in the UI for all to see. It has helped my game immensely!

Civ IV has also improved on the way diplomacy works. While you can still make nice with your neighbors (and you can even win the game with a diplomatic victory condition), you have more options than just trading goods, cities, technologies, and/or relations. You can attempt to influence your neighbors to make war or peace with other neighbors, and you can even fence everyone out of your backyard using the game's new "open borders" system.

- GameSpot.com Review

Achieving Diplomatic Victory is something that I prefer to war. The Open Borders system is also a great system if you would like to keep only one religion in your country, or can be useful for fencing the neighbors out of your yet undeveloped back yard.

All in all this game is an incredible time sink, don't plan on playing a game with 8 players to completion in under 3 hours, it's just not going to happen. The great news is that the turn based system allows you to save the games and come back later at your convenience and still enjoy the epic nature of the developments in the game.

I know you all would like to hear about the war stuff because everyone loves to bash. The best news about Civilization 4 is that they have placed a lot more weight in the technology of war. The tech advancements are a lot more important in this version than before, and you gain a larger advantage to developing your weapons than in previous versions. This will cut down on problems in previous versions of the game with an old warrior defeating a tank in some cases. In fact, I haven't seen many lop sided unit defeats, and I respect that.

GRAPHICS:

The graphics in this game are not the best, nor are they meant to be. They serve a function and the existing graphics in the game give it more of a "board game" look and feel. Previous versions of Civilization IV were not 3D, and the good news is that CIV is now 3D! You can mousewheel zoom in and out quickly from space to an individual unit quite easily. The perspective choices are relatively limited but it's a marked improvement, and a large on at that. There are a few bugs in the animations of some things; selecting many units simultaneously uncovers another small bug in the presentation, and the animation of traveling with many units simultaneously exposes a bit more ill-refinement. Nothing major, and in fact if you're not picky you probably won't even notice. The GameSpot boys described unit animations as "fantastic" though I wouldn't go that far.

If you're looking for a riveting cinematic experience, this game is not for you. It is a turn based RTS game. The graphics fit the bill for that genre.

On my NVidia GeForce 6800GT OC, I do have a problem with this game. It currently will not run very dependably (for 5 hours at a time) in full screen mode without a video crash after a while. The screen pixels get distorted and the system completely locks. I'm fine when I run the game in windowed mode, just NOT full screen. Upon searches for problems, there have been more than a few mentions of Civilization IV in the new driver releases for NVidia cards, so I'm assuming they are addressing this problem as more reports come in. ATI card owners may have a bit of problems as well initializing the video. There is a fix at the Civilization Support Site for the ATI card init errors.

As of yet I cannot run the game full screen mode dependably. That'll take away a couple of points. :)

USER INTERFACE:

The improved UI is great, though will need some more refinement in future versions just for aesthetic appeal. They probably could have done a bit more with it, but it functions well as is and is an improvement over the previous version(s).

The Civilopedia isn't the most intuitive thing in the world, nor is the technology tree. Both of those screens are presenting lots and lots of information, but there's got to be some kind of revolution to these two screens to make them a bit more intuitive for the casual user. This is one area that newbies always feel overwhelmed, and rightfully so. I have no suggestions to offer to improve those screens, I'll just sit and hope that the next incarnation of CIV has an improvement in this area.

SOUND:

The sound in the game is pretty decent, with the special nod going to the quality of the music in the game. It fits the bill so well that many players won't even notice the music is playing. Civilization IV features a classical score during the game that morphs with the age and amount of activity that you have going on. VERY nice work in this department from the devs.

Unit sounds are consistent with what you would expect, and it appears (I'm not an expert in EVERY language on Earth) that all races speak their native language accurately. All I really know is English, Spanish and German, and it appears to be the case. Another nice little touch to Civ IV.

GAMEPLAY QUALITY:

The gameplay in CIV is straight forward and somewhat intuitive. I have the luxury of being roommates with a newbie to the Civilization series, and I got to find out first hand the aspects of gameplay that weren't very intuitive. The good news was that there were only a handful of things he couldn't do, and those things were usually fixed by a simple SHIFT-Click or RIGHT-Click of things.

The game comes with a veritable novel for an instruction manual, that's a problem. I know that there's tons and tons of information to be given, and most CIV players will appreciate this manual over time, but there needs to be a quick start guide separately packaged so that players aren't so daunted by the game's complexity. The poster of tech info and icon info is rather informative but I'm sure there's a better way to present that information.

The above info IMO does affect gameplay slightly, and will be figured into my score...

One great aspect of multiplayer gameplay is the new "Simultaneous Turns" feature of the game. This allows all players to take their turns at the same time, and gets rid of a lot of the waiting experienced before while playing CIV. You'll still find yourself regulating the player that's picking his butt instead of ending his turn, but it's a vast improvement and that seems to be today's theme with CIV.

BOTTOM LINE:

DON'T buy this game unless you've got a lot of time to spend playing a game. This is a time sink, and it's the turn based nature of the game that makes it so. If you're detail oriented (which you will be) with your cities and units, the game will progress slowly but will be a riveting experience for you, the player.

The early releases of the game are mildly buggy, and there's already one patch out as we speak. I'll eagerly await a couple more and the game should be nice and polished.

If you liked Civilization III, get this. It's better, and you won't be wasting your money.

The $50 price tag is a bit steep for me. I prefer to only pay $50 for a game that I'll play for a few years. The previous incarnation of this game was installed on my rig for about 9 months, and I expect the same from this.

Multiplayer still isn't viable as of yet, there needs to be a way to speed up the game to be completed in one hour, and you may see some competition leagues around teh Intarweb. It's a good experience if you have plenty of time on your hands and all players play relatively quickly.

I give it an 8.9 out of 10, a bit of a contrast from IGN and GameSpot, who both gave it a 9.4. Maybe it's because I'm an FPS lover.