270 replies to this topic

[Lord of Oop North]

So, I saw Civilization 4 (Game of the Year Edition) at the shop today for $25 and was thinking about getting it (finally). I've played all the other Civ games to death, and was wondering what people thought of this one. Does anyone here still play it? Is it different enough from Civ 3 to warrant purchasing and playing it? How taxing is it on your system? Also, what exactly does the Game of the Year version feature? Is there another expansion that I would have to buy?

Thanks.

[Werthead]

I got it and it didn't do much for me. I got Civ 1 on the Amiga back in 1992, loved it and played it on and off for six or seven years, even after I got my first PC. Picked up Civ 2, really enjoyed that and played it off and on for about five years.

Bought Civ 4 on the week of release. Have played it a fair bit, but it didn't work as well as the originals for me. It seemed to lack that 'just one more go' feeling the earlier games did.

OTOH, it came like third on the Best PC Game Ever poll we did last year and some people on here play it more than any other game, so who knows? Give it a crack, especially for that price if it's got the two expansions included.

[Mister Manticore]

Lord of Oop North, on Sep 14 2008, 19.48, said:

Does anyone here still play it?

Probably.  Not me at the moment.  Too distracting.

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Is it different enough from Civ 3 to warrant purchasing and playing it?

Very.  It's quite different, especially with all the available mods.

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How taxing is it on your system?

It's not for a system that's barely chugging along.  It's not a graphics hog, but it's a fairly hefty program.  Especially if you install some of the fancier mods.

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Also, what exactly does the Game of the Year version feature? Is there another expansion that I would have to buy?

IIRC the game of the year edition has one of the expansion packs(Warlords), but there's another one (Beyond the Sword) as well the forthcoming Colonization (which will not require Civ IV to run).

[beniowa]

Yup, I play Civ 4 quite a bit and I love it.  I've had all the Civilization games and liked them all so it's hard for me to compare 4 to the others.  It's certainly the most graphic intensive so you'll need a machine bought in the last couple years.  Some of the new elements in this edition include religion and Great People (Great Scientist, etc).  It does get a little bogged down in the later ages because there's so much information to go through to calculate the next turn but it's still a great game.

[EHK for Darwin]

Personally I think Civ 4 is the best of them. Ditched alot of the inexplicable concepts (far away cities taking 2,000 years to build a barracks due to Uber-corruption), fixed the chronic city spamming/expand early and often strategy that was damned near a requirement on Civ 3, improved and eliminated much of the micro-management, the most intuitive and user-friendly menu's the game has seen, revamped/simplified/and improved the combat system, enough additions and subtractions to warrant a new game and refined just about everything from the previous entries. I still play it years later. (though mainly with mods these days)

I love the game. YMMV.

[Lord of Oop North]

So far, I like what I'm hearing. Mostly I play in CivDemocracy games these days, but I think I'll give Civilization 4 a go.

[Jaxom 1974]

I'm still dying to get this game.  I so very want it.  For now, I'm contenting myself with Civ3.

[Starkess]

I have it. I love it.

Then again, it's the first Civ I've played since I played Civ on my SNES when I was quite young and later on an emulator on my computer, so I don't know how it stands up to Civ 3. I have the Game of the Year edition, it has entertained me for endless hours. I want the Beyond the Sword expansion pack, but I'm not gonna spring for it until I get bored with my current version, and that hasn't happened yet!

[tzanth]

Civ 4 is a far cry better then civ 3, but I think civ 2 still holds the closest place to my heart.

And ya, there are some pretty cool mods for civ 4.  Not that you need them, but it keeps it interesting.

[diabloblanco18]

tzanth, on Sep 14 2008, 21.03, said:

And ya, there are some pretty cool mods for civ 4.  Not that you need them, but it keeps it interesting.

Up until just recently, I was playing with the Fall From Heaven mod, which is amazing. Well, amazing once you get over the fact that it's still very much in development. Even so, I think it kept me occupied and having fun for as long as vanilla Civ4 did. The pronounced differences among the various factions are, IMO, its biggest strength. You can find it here.

[EHK for Darwin]

diabloblanco18, on Sep 14 2008, 23.49, said:

Up until just recently, I was playing with the Fall From Heaven mod, which is amazing. Well, amazing once you get over the fact that it's still very much in development. Even so, I think it kept me occupied and having fun for as long as vanilla Civ4 did. The pronounced differences among the various factions are, IMO, its biggest strength. You can find it here.

Played Fall from Heaven a bit, but I'm a staunch Total Realism loyalist. Awesome improvements to the combat systems with military doctrines and new promotions. Love the more extensive, more powerful and better balanced civics. The immense variety of nation-specific units are interesting, the national units are awesome, differences in religions, buildings, everything.

Only problem is they still don't have a Beyond the Sword version yet. Which is why I keep the Warlords disc in the CD dish instead of BtS. I'll switch when they switch. :)

[dits]

I'm currently playing the Beyond the Sword expansion. Civ IV is probably my top 4 favorite PC game ever just below Starcraft, Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate II.

[The Iceman of the North]

So what are people's favourite mods? I'm a bit annoyed that Total Realism isn't available for BtS as I never bothered to buy Warlords. Lately I've played some Rhye's and Fall of Civilization.

[mormont]

I just bought the complete edition and am loving it.... unfortunately, the graphics card on my machine isn't quite up to spec (despite it being a relatively new machine). It'll run the basic game but not the expansions. :(

It took me longer to get into, but now it's taking up a lot of what little spare time I have. Religion is a real improvement - I don't think I ever built a temple in Civ before now. :P

[Brude]

I just got the Beyond the Sword expansion finally and I'm loving it, though I still haven't figured out Corporations yet (I'm only on my second game really, so I haven't gotten to it yet in this one to be fair).  Beyond the Sword is a superior expansion to Warlords, if only because it keeps all of the worth-while stuff of Warlords (all of the extra civs, leaders, the warlord unit) and doesn't include the stuff that wasn't so interesting - namely the scenarios which didn't hold my interest very long.  Beyond the Sword includes a full-on mod that is Civ in Space, with some very different concepts.  I've so far only toyed around with it, but it's quite different in some ways - the same in others.

Definitely get Civ4 and I would highly recommend Beyond the Sword, if not right away, then eventually.

Some New Civ4 Concepts over Civ3:

Religions - can be very powerful.  Being the first to found certain techs mean you are the founder of a religion associated with it (Judiasm comes with Monotheism, for instance).  State religions can be a way to spread your nations influence, gain intelligence on foreign lands and generate considerable wealth.  They also help the happiness of your people.

Great People - sometimes great people are born who can greatly influence the advancement and history of your civ.  Great Artists can create "Great Works," which are often called a "culture bomb" in the game - greatly expanding the cultural influence of a city.  Great scientists, prophets, engineers and merchants also all have their own abilities and special things they can do.  Warlords adds the "Warlord" great person unit, who attaches to armies and adds a lot of bonuses and Beyond the Sword adds the "Great Spy" great person, who is useful in the expanded espionage rules in that expansion.

Beyond the Sword adds:

Corporations - which function similar to Religions but for later in the game.  I've heard they can be difficult to use and if run improperly can drain resources and money rather than help add to something.  Again, this is still new to me too.  

Random events and missions - right now I'm trying to find the Holy Mountain of my state religion, which will give me some kind of big bonus if I do it before the Industrial Age.  Random events are fairly common and give you choices as to how you want to respond - like a mine colllapses and you can either spend money to restore it, or let it go, maybe a disease outbreak happens and you have 3 choices as to how to combat it, etc.

Anyway, I"m a big fan of the BtS mod so far, and have only heard good things about it.  The main game is of course great, so yeah, I highly recommend it.

[Galactus]

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I just got the Beyond the Sword expansion finally and I'm loving it, though I still haven't figured out Corporations yet (I'm only on my second game really, so I haven't gotten to it yet in this one to be fair).

Basically, corporations consume resources to provide things. (Eg. Sid's Sushi provides culture and food, for every rice, fish, crab or clam you have) so you can use them to boost your own economy in certain areas (production, or whatever)

They cost money to operate though, however, if you own a corporate headquarters and have enemy cities "infected" they'll provide you with a portion of the maintainance cost, so you can get a ton of money that way.

[Lord of Oop North]

EHK for Obama, on Sep 15 2008, 03.03, said:

Played Fall from Heaven a bit, but I'm a staunch Total Realism loyalist. Awesome improvements to the combat systems with military doctrines and new promotions. Love the more extensive, more powerful and better balanced civics. The immense variety of nation-specific units are interesting, the national units are awesome, differences in religions, buildings, everything.

Total Realism was an awesome mod for Civ 3. With Civ 4 doing a lot of the things that the Civ 3 TR mod was attempting to do, I can only imagine how awesome this newer version has become.

[Arlingzen Bill]

Anyone else see that there is a new Civ 4 expansioncoming.  Colonization loooks intriguing, but I am concerned it could end up being like the some of the Civ 3 expansions...

[Mr Merdle]

I'm very fond of Beyond the Sword but I wouldn't expend too much on completing the mini-missions within the game, unless the goal is something you were planning to achieve anyway (the Greed mission) the reward isn't really worth the additional effort.

One minor note - the Great Wall is incredibly useful and relatively cheap - build it.

[mcbigski]

Civ IV is quite excellent.  I'd recommend getting the Beyond the Sword expansion eventually as well, but core game is complicated enough to master without getting into all the expansion ideas all at once.  I prefer IV to all of the previous versions because the AI is somewhat less stupid.

Colonization looks interesting, I'll almost certainly pick it up, but if it stays relatively faithful to the original version it will probably be too much micromanagement, to narrowly focused and not have enough historical sweep for continued replayability.  But if get just 10 hours of entertainment out of a $25 purchase then that's a good investment, I suspect I'll still end up playing it for even longer than that.