Civilization 4

Wow, got this game the other day, it rocks!

I've been an avid Civ fan since back in the days of Civ1.

What I like about this version:

• The idea of Great People. Finally, not just scientists get all the glory in Civilization. Great engineers can rush build your Wonders, Great Artists can significantly boost culture, etc.
• Much more smoothlined overall
• Better graphics (of course.)
• Change of government structure. Instead of an overall "government" you must choose from various "civics" (broken down into government, legal, labour, economic, and religion.
• Religion adds a new flavour to the game
• Overall, the way concepts such as culture, war, etc make more sense.
• Annoying things like your city going into revolts because of unhappiness, etc, are removed. Your cities just become more innefficient. You also don't have to make trade routes with caravans anymore; simply connecting cities and diplomacy works well enough.
• The exact information you need (ie defense bonuses, why a leader won't trade with you) is presented in a much clearer way
• being able to upgrade your units with different abilities making them better for offense or defense. The whole experience thing makes continuing battles more interesting. It is also more realistic; true veterans of war are only made by wars themselves, not just training in barracks. Veteran units gain even more abilities (+city attack, etc) and are more powerful than previous Civ games.
• Lenord Nemoy as the narrator. Good quotes for the technologies.
• Quotes such as Ford's "I think people should be able to have the Model T in any color, as long as it is black". Heh. Very insightful on the significance of various technologies.He said shit like that all the time apparently, you wonder why people rumoured his was in league with the Nazi's ;)
• Tons more fine touches.

There's only 1 thing that's not as good as in previous Civ games: the look of your leader/other leaders doesn't change with the age. I barely noticed this since the music changed on the eras wonderfully. There's also no upgrading your palace anymore. This are very, very, minor complaints.

Ugh, though, when you get near the end of the game, it's a RAM PIG. 512MB RAM ran the game smoothly at first, but at about 1800AD with 5 civs on one map, all battling it out, the game ran as smoothly as driving over a bumpy road with no suspension.

An extra 512 MB ram smoothened things out nicely.

Played 3 games so far on "noble" difficulty (that is , the difficulty neither you or the AI is given an advantage);

• One as Romans, my strategy was to focus on early technology/growth, access to iron ASAP, and pump out the Praetorians (Romans special unit, replacing swordsman), and taking over a few of the civs near me.
• One game I didn't finish as the Persians; I wanted to experiment with cultural takeover. I realized the "organized" trait that the Persians have (less Civic/city upkeep) is not nearly as good as the "financial" trait that the Russians and other Civs have (+"1 Gold" any square with 2 or more gold). Ofcourse, like the previous Civs, "Gold" means commerce/science/culture depending on your % rates. I also realized staking out territory near rivers is the utmost importance early game (near rivers, you can farm, and get more commerce, so your cities grow much quicker and build more "gold".
• The final game I played was with the Russians, because of their "financial" and "Creative" (+2 culture/city, your borders expand way quicker early on.) My strategy was to expand as quickly as possible early on to grab land from my competitors (usually you start with multiple Civs on your continent.) I didn't allow open borders with my fellow Civs. This way, I made a "border" of culture they couldn't pass. I then concetrated on improving my cities, and expanding to the rest of my land (expanding too fast can strifle your economy in Civ4, unlike the previous Civ games.) I then went for a "cultural" victory: concetrate on culture/technology, and "take over" rival Civ's cities with "culture" bombs from Great Artists. I only conquered 1 Civ, the French, because they were becoming too powerful for me to control culturally.


Well, Civilization has eaten away a week of my life; I think that's enough for now. Perhaps I'll come back to it during Christmas. :)