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The official Civilization IV thread

Well I was able to play through 7 turns before it bluescreened my machine.

The labels on the CDs are baffling. The install CD and play CD labels aren't swapped. The install CD IS the play CD. The second CD only serves to host a .cab file that holds some more of the install information.

There is a great intro on there by Leonard Nimoy which starts :lol AFTER the game world is created and the game is waiting on you to start the first turn.

This game was rushed rushed rushed and its painfully obvious. Still not sure how it managed to bluescreen my machine- that is something it has had a unique ability to do. What I'll do for now is read through the book and get a feel for the game. The whole beginning of the game where you're getting ready to start the game and you pick races and such is excellent.

There is a level of complexity to the game which I thought would be hidden, but is there. Its no where near as bad as that steaming pile of feces Master of Orion III (if I ever meet the designer I would have no problem slaping him Charley Murphy style) - but it is definitely more intimidating an interface than the old games.

The game also makes some sill recomendations at times. In a land locked location with only one tile of water around the game actually suggested that I spend time researching Fishing FIRST over other technologies. It is nice that they do give you recommendations for Growth and Millitary though. Man I'm still trying to figure out what all of these new tile types are.
 
What's your machine spec Phoenix? I've run this game on my old clunker circa 2003 upgraded rig and it was fine.
 
It's run for a whole game for me w/o a single hitch. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

The AI definitely seems to be improved. There's certainly more flexibility with diplomacy, for example.

I've gotten to the point where the interface is a lot more natural, which helps a lot. The City View is still a bit foreign to me, but it's very well-designed through and through.
 
I miss the 20 turn deals. I was able to build some pretty interesting financial instruments by getting one AI to pay me gold per turn for 20 turns, then flip the cash around + tech or whatever to another civ etc.

But then again, Firaxis considered those kinds of deals human exploits and tried to kill it by keeping deals on a per turn basis. No more locked in for 20 turn deals :(
 
Omg the game is awesome. I slapped in an old Geforce 2 GTS I had lying around to check it out since it doesn't friggin run on my Radeon. Pure bliss!
 
siege said:
Omg the game is awesome. I slapped in an old Geforce 2 GTS I had lying around to check it out since it doesn't friggin run on my Radeon. Pure bliss!
Click to expand...

Try reintalling the game and install the DX package from the installer disc. Apparently there are some Civ4 specific files in that installer.

1. Install Civ4 and DirectX
2. Uninstall Catalyst Driver.
3. Install 5.10 Catalyst Driver.
4. Reboot
5. Launch CivIV
 
Deku said:
Try reintalling the game and install the DX package from the installer disc. Apparently there are some Civ4 specific files in that installer.

1. Install Civ4 and DirectX
2. Uninstall Catalyst Driver.
3. Install 5.10 Catalyst Driver.
4. Reboot
5. Launch CivIV
Click to expand...

:lol I've done that about 12 times today. Nothing works.
 
I've got fucked up skipping/glitching video on my gf6800 with the latest drivers

less annoying than not working at all, but the world map is covered by horizontal orange streaks (this seems to get worse as the game goes on, and shows up really badly in the history replay at game end), and all of the civ videos have about a 10% chance of actually displaying correctly. The rest of the time, they hitch and skip, or don't display

and that's ignoring the copy protection issues (I have to eject and reload the disc each time to make it spin up, or it claims the disc isn't in the drive)

bleh

I'm getting tired of computer game issues
 
Is diplomacy still totally incredibly basic, devoid of options, and run by poor AI? Because I've always though the great weakness of the Civ series is the shallow diplomacy...
 
Optimistic said:
Is diplomacy still totally incredibly basic, devoid of options, and run by poor AI? Because I've always though the great weakness of the Civ series is the shallow diplomacy...
Click to expand...

Diplomacy requires a human mind so an AI based diplomacy is never going to be as sophistacted as a human player.

From what ive played Firaxis has fixed the diplomacy in two ways. Improve AI (they are less predictable and follow their own agendas) and the diplomatic systems, the trading system in particular, has been modified so that human advantages in trading (the 20 turn deal in Civ3) is now gone, replaced by a straight up trade (ie: 1 resoursce for gold) all of this is per turn, so you can go to war, and the deal stops. Same with tech, no more trading away a 20 turn deal for a tech then breaking it the next turn with a war for a quick profit.

It literally took months of playing to find the flaws and weaknesses of the Civ3 diplomatic AI and that was improved through several patches and XP. It'll probably take a same tame frame before the final verdict is in on Civ4 AI. I know for a fact Firaxis worked ver hard on it, since the lead designer of the game is an AI programmer and designed the Civ3 AI, which IMHO is the best of the series, depsite its shortcomings.
 
Tech tree has turned up online (officially) because some US copies were shipped with the French version of the tech tree. Maybe it was online before i dont..care, i have to wait 7 days!!

Me =
mr_angry.jpg


Linky:

http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads/civ4-techtree.zip
 
Optimistic said:
Is diplomacy still totally incredibly basic, devoid of options, and run by poor AI? Because I've always though the great weakness of the Civ series is the shallow diplomacy...
Click to expand...

You want to play Europa Universalis II, or any of the other Paradox games (Hearts of Iron, etc.)
 
in other news mine installed fine (go nvidia!)

i lucked out and seemed to get a good package (tech tree etc) altho the discs are mislabled as said earlier (play disc is labeled INSTALL DISC)


civ4.jpg





never played a civ game before, I guess im in for a treat :D
 
man this game feels like Civ 1...

Except that my capital basically died (never grew higher than a 1) and it took me like 50 turns to create a settler to create a new city. Of course...

That didn't stop the barbarians from raping my new city! :<
 
I just tried the tutorial to see what is new. Major major flaw. :lol It asks you to build a farm before introducing the tech tree. Problem is, you need bronze working to build a farm. So you are stuck, tutorial frozen. Good work Take 2.

Edit: :$ It was the random terrain's fault. It was a forest the first time.
 
It works fine for me, except for one thing:

If I zoom out to "globe view", all my terrain tiles turn into blue and white stripes... with some black and white moving cloud texture over them.

Pretty annoying... this is on a 6800 GT with the latest drivers.

Anyone else getting this problem?
 
Wow. Sounds like this game need a patch, stat!!

Why couldn't they have worked on this for a few more weeks? Did it Absolutely have to be relased this week?
 
That's great news Tre. If I recall, your setup is almost identical to mine. I might have to stop and pick it up now!
 
It's really an odd case. On some systems with the same hardware it runs and then on others it doesn't. Some people are getting the game to work with Omega drivers, while others with the same hardware can't. I don't know what the deal is and neither does Firaxis. :lol

Hopefully they get it straightened out within the next few days.
 
For the inevitable Civ 5, I hope they somehow figure out a way to make the last 100 turns play out more like the first half of the game. I love Civ to death, but the first half of the game is always more fun...
 
Kon Tiki said:
I just tried the tutorial to see what is new. Major major flaw. :lol It asks you to build a farm before introducing the tech tree. Problem is, you need bronze working to build a farm. So you are stuck, tutorial frozen. Good work Take 2.

Edit: :$ It was the random terrain's fault. It was a forest the first time.
Click to expand...

Wow, the tutorial worked perfect for me, not one problem, and it was a real treat to see Sid up in the corner walking me though the instructions.
That Sid Meiers makes one sexy toon. ;)
 
Wow. A few of my best friends have been longtime fans of Civilization, and sometimes our LAN parties got to be these oddly quiet uncomfortable moments where they would all play Civilization 2 or 3 in complete silence with eachother. I just sat and tried to understand.

Last night my friend got Civ 4, and let me install it as well (we swap the discs out when one of us wants to play while the other one is playing). I started a game on easy mode at around 10 PM. It seemed like next thing I noticed the sun was coming up.


I don't feel the need to discuss the gameplay, as I'm sure I'd be preaching to a choir who already knew it all too well, but dear god the game is cool.

I played nearly 100 hours of Advance Wars Dual Strike, which was my first real strategy game, and I guess the trend continues with Civilization 4!

EDIT- Also played it for nearly 10 hours straight on an X800 XL with settings all the way up with no problems. Really unfortunate those strange issues bogging everyone down :(
 
I managed to get it working on my X850PE, much like an earlier poster, by reinstalling DX9 off the Civ4 install disc... what a beautiful game.
 
So Radeon issues are gone now?

The PC is on fire lately with releases. Best platform for gaming this winter it seems.
 
Worked for me immediately on my 9800 Pro, even with ancient drivers, strange. (I use Omega Drivers, I wonder if that made a difference?)

Got the French tech chart though. :P
 
lol, anyone check out the tutorial yet? I skipped it since I've been playing Civ games for years, and have been following closely the development of this one, but my girlfriend got interested in the game after seeing me playing it, and so I loaded the tutorial up for her. Much to my suprise we found ourselves looking at a creepy as hell 3D rendering of Sid Meier himself giving us a walkthrough.
 
DEO3 said:
lol, anyone check out the tutorial yet? I skipped it since I've been playing Civ games for years, and have been following closely the development of this one, but my girlfriend got interested in the game after seeing me playing it, and so I loaded the tutorial up for her. Much to my suprise we found ourselves looking at a creepy as hell 3D rendering of Sid Meier himself giving us a walkthrough.
Click to expand...

Tutorials are for losers.

I never check them. The civ3 tutorial bored me so i just kept playing the epic game where I lost badly... and learned fr m there.

May I ask what difficulty you guys played Civ3 at and what difficulty you're currently playing Civ4? Be honest.
 
I'm playing at the third pussiest setting -- the one above Chieftain -- while I figure the interface out. I only remember this because I initially started a game on Chieftain, felt like a total wuss, and restarted with a difficulty bump.
 
Has anyone been able to play this baby in a window? Seems like an awesome game to keep running while you're doing other stuff.

I've seen those windowed shots on the preview/walktrough, but I havent't been able to figure out a way to play that way myself.
 
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