Civ IV

[SF_Giants]

hey i'm jst wondering who's played Civ 4 yet? I just got it today(never played any Civ games before) and i think its awesome.

[bmoseley07]

I have Civ III. One of the best games ever. I've never played Civ IV, but I no doubt it's better.

[SF_Giants]

yeah the manual list changes in Civ IV. I'm surprised how much fun it is, i never really like many turned based games at all.

[ohms_law]

Civ is definately one of the all time great games, no question.
They've done a great job on Civ IV as well. I think that it was a much better update than Civ II -> Civ III was.

Enjoy the game!
:)

[SF_Giants]

thanks i mainly got it because i've heard so many good things about Civ and it was on sale at best buy for $35

[jdsmoooth]

As a side note Civ IV Warlords add on is now available. When mogul was released, I had to choose between Civ and Mogul. Both games are very addicting. I would check out the expansion pack, I heard it's great.

[TheJay]

I got Civ IV at Half Price Books for $15. It was really slow on my computer (probably because I had the minimum recommendation for RAM) but I enjoyed it. Definitely worth the apparently deep discount I got it for, even if I don't really enjoy turn-based games anymore (although I loved Civ II).

[Mike67]

I picked up Civ 4 when it dropped from $59.99 (canadian) to $29.99 at Future Shop.. like it so far.. Need to play more.. Never got into Civ 3.. Loved both Civ 1 and 2..

[Brewersfan]

Actually i prefer sim III over IV. I just found the interface alot more simpler, although i havent spent much time on IV

[ohms_law]

I think if you did give it some time, you would probably end up liking IV better. It takes some getting used to, but in the long run it really is a better, more streamlined interface.
at the beginning I actually struggled with it myself because it is streamlined. I kept thinking that I was missing something, but it's just that everything that you could possibly want on just about any screen is right there for ya.

[Jeff Olsen]

Actually i prefer sim III over IV.As do I. IV looks great but III is more fun for me, and the original was more fun than II. Apparently I like the odd numbers.

[robinhoodnik]

I've been looking at Civ City. Looks like a fun game but I don't know about dropping the money on a city builder that may have the limitations of some others in the genre. I hate running into building limits when you've got acres of land open for building.

[fizsh]

I love Civ IV. In fact, Sunday I purchased the Warlords expansion pack for the game. It just so happened that I purchased Baseball Mogul as well, and have been playing that instead.

[Jeff Olsen]

I've been looking at Civ City. Looks like a fun game but I don't know about dropping the money on a city builder that may have the limitations of some others in the genre. I hate running into building limits when you've got acres of land open for building.That's why I use a third-party program to give my SC4 cities a trillion dollars.

Have you tried The Settlers: Heritage of Kings (http://pc.ign.com/objects/670/670628.html)?

[robinhoodnik]

No but I've been looking at it for a long time. I got tired of games limiting the number of structures allowed for your city in games like Caesar and the other Sierra game Emperor. You always seem to hit a wall with these games that effectively ends your game. I haven't done Sim City in a while, not even sure if the last version I had was 2 or 3. Is Heritage RTS or turn based? I don't enjoy the rts's anymore. I don't want to race through a game, I enjoy playing it. I have tried Empires: Dawn of the modern World and The Empire Earth's, Stronghold Crusader, I do like Caesar III but don't like the jump in difficulty from moderate to extra difficult in one scenario. I keep going back to Medieval Total War and it's expansion (I use the XL mod and it's infinitely replayable now). I couldn't really get into the Rome Total War game though. I kinda like the CIV series but it doesn't really change that much between versions so I get skeptical about the IV version and still there's the racing to stay ahead of the AI which has in the past been nearly impossible to do without cheating. Europa Universalis is also good but I just cannot get beyond forcing a rival into being a vassal. I don't seem to be able to take a country outright. Then there's my all time favorite Railroad Tycoon II and the subsequent expansions................ But how's SC4? I just haven't been able to talk myself into it because it doesn't look all that different from earlier versions.
I had Heritage and the SC4 pack with the expansions in my hands two days ago but talked myself out of them and went home with The Godfather 1 and 2 movies instead. Dark Age Of Camelot looks good too you tried that yet?

[Mike67]

Then there's my all time favorite Railroad Tycoon II and the subsequent expansions................

I honestly liked the first one best.. I didn't like RRT 2.. And I have RRT 3, which I think is marginally better.. But the first was my favourite

[Jeff Olsen]

. Is Heritage RTS or turn based?It's sort of a mix. Battles are RTS but they have specific triggers, like going to a certain point on the map or talking to a certain NPC. Everything else is in turns.
But how's SC4? I just haven't been able to talk myself into it because it doesn't look all that different from earlier versions. Yeah, they look similar but with SC4 you don't just choose a city to play but rather an entire region. Each city in the region interacts with all the other cities like always but here you get to see how they interact if you have the Rush Hour expansion. There's also some technology from the aborted Simsville: you can have some Sims move to your city, where you can keep track of their daily lives. I'm not sure if The Sims is required for this or not, could be that it's only needed if you want more choices than the default ones.
Dark Age Of Camelot looks good too you tried that yet?That's a MMORPG, right? I don't really do MMO, just City of Heroes/Villains. I do have Guild Wars because there's no monthly fee but haven't played it in a long time, too many little annoyances.

[disposablehero]

I do have Guild Wars because there's no monthly fee but haven't played it in a long time, too many little annoyances.
"

[robinhoodnik]

I'll have to but Heritage and SC4 then. I didn't realize that Dark Age was MMORPG. That's out then.
By RRT original, do you mean the really old one with the awful graphics? I could never get into that one if it's what you're talking about. RRT3 in my opinion was somewhat prettier (but also caused worse track laying problems) but lacked the depth of RRT2. I'd hoped for an improvement on an awesome product, but it seemed that most of the time was spent on making it into a 3D game rather than a better overall product.

[Rongar]

I share robinhoodnik's love of Railroad Tycoon 2, but don't care for Civ 3, I got the hump over not being able to use my camels to make Wonders any more...if they've restored this feature in Civ 4, I might be interested...?

[ohms_law]

it's not exactly the same, but they have put back in ways to speed up wonders building.

[Jeff Olsen]

it's not exactly the same, but they have put back in ways to speed up wonders building.It was in Civ 3 too but you did it with Great Leaders. Same for Civ 4 but along with Great Leaders you also have Scientific Leaders.

[Rongar]

Thanks guys...I'll take another look at these later Civs - when I can stop playing BM !

[Jeff Olsen]

The thing about those leaders is that if you use them to increase production it'll result in that item, no matter what it is, being completed on the very next turn.

[shoggoth]

I found Sim City 4 a bit dry. Graphically it looked good - I liked the pollution haze effects for example. But too often graphics are knocked up at the expense of gameplay, and I think SC4 is a good example of that. There were three things missing which I wanted:

-larger scale cities than sim city 2000
I really appreciate scale. Like a previous poster im just fed up of having to build my city in a small box. Even knowing there is a boundary nearby lowers my enjoyment of the game. I kind of liked Sim City 2000 a bit more in this regard because it somehow felt more vast. I guess they put the graphics up so much they just couldn't do this.

-computer AI
At least in Sim City 4 they actually had some concept of competition from neighbours even if it was just a number that increased exponentially over time (until it grew ridiculously fast). Neighbouring towns or cities which grew as yours grew and you could actually visit them would have been nice. Competition adds challenge and that's what makes a game really. This would have actually expanded the playability of SC4 which unfortunately reaches it's enjoyment peak far sooner than simcity 2000 did (once you get so far there is nothing else to add)

-More emphasis on city simulation than city building
They did this a bit - I liked that you could set tax rates for different income groups. Reason I liked this was that it added more possibilities to solve problems. In sim city 2000 all you could do in terms of economic problems was "raise taxes" or "lower taxes". Would have been cool if they could have offered such finer grain control in other areas too and thrown in a bit more politics. Combined with competing AI this could have been very interesting. Ie you could have been able to promote specific types of industry (shipbuilding for example) to try and promote faster growth than your neighbours. You could have arranged subsidies for industries not doing too well in your sity. Or you could sit back and let the market sort it out. You could forge trade agreements preventing you from setting up subsidies. lots of possibilities (war? I'd love to nuke a sim city)

I felt they piled way too much time into the graphics, the terrain engine and terrain editor to be honest and would have prefered more emphasis on the above 3 even if the graphics were Sim City 2000 style (I can say this about a lot of game genres. Quake4 was ok but I would have prefered loads more giant vast levels in a remodelled quake2 engine)

[SirKodiak]

Anyone ever try Colonization? or from Paradox, the Europa Universalis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Universalis) games or Hearts of Iron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_of_Iron)? I loved the EU and HoI games.

[robinhoodnik]

I love Colonization, still one of my favorites, and one of the first things I install in my machines. Europa Universalis was pretty cool too but I could never actually take over an enemy state. I could beat them down to nothing but still only wind up with a vassal state.

[SirKodiak]

I like both EU's but I like 2 better

[FRENCHREDSOX]

I like both EU's but I like 2 better

EU2 definitely better:D

[ohms_law]

Europa Universalis 1 & 2, Hearts of Iron 1 & 2, and Victoria = best games ever.

sorry Clay...
;)

FYI: Victoria: Revolutions (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/vr.asp) and Europa Universalis III (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/eu3.asp) are on the way.

[robinhoodnik]

III looks to be a good game.