Woah. Your wife wont even let you go near the game? That's a harsh woman you've married there...

Hey, I noticed the lion AI too!

she remembers how many nights i said "just one more turn" in civ3 and didnt come to bed for 3 more hours.

Is "civ3" code for the twenty year old nanny from Finland?

Played for about 2 hours today.....and so far, I really like it. The promotions really do feel right. I guess my main gripe so far (too early to be certain) is the speed of the game. In that short amount of time, my civ has advanced to 1300AD, and it just doesn't feel like we've gotten that many techs and such.

Definitely a different feel than any of the previous games, so the developers got that right. I can't wait to play a few SP games, then dive into MP.

sounds like just bad AI progamming

how did you know we have a 20 year old nanny??? she isnt from finland though.

dola, about the game, for people playing on their laptops, what is the control like to move around the map, without a number pad, it was a little bit of a pain in the ass.

I assume you mean without a mouse plugged in?

actually i phrased the question pretty poorly....how easy is it to move UNITS around the map without the number pad of a full keyboard...is the mouse more functional than it was in civ3...having to drag all the way accross a large continent was a pain, or go one square at a time with the keyboard

I hope this isn't true. My main computer has one of the newest ATI cards :(

Lame. My laptop has the failed to initialize renderrer problem, and my desktop has SkyDog's black problem (only grassland and flood plains show up).

Hmmm, well dragging the mouse over continents never bothered me THAT much in previous games, so maybe my opinion won't matter as much. I can tell you that, set to default, the maps are a bit smaller, so there isn't as much dragging. Also, you can bypass the dragging entirely by clicking on the globe (map of the world) and then right clicking the square you want the unit to go to. If you hold the right click down, it will tell you how many turns it will take to reach that spot. I haven't played civIII in years, so I don't remember if you could do that before, but hope this helps.

you tryin to start somethin'?

:p

Ive got it, but I am hesitant to play it. Will fire it up soon though and check out the tutorial at least. :D

I have a Dell laptop with a ATI Radeon 9000 with 64 MB... should I be worried?

Hmmm...that actually had been my biggest concern, that they would turn this into a RoN/one sitting game because gamers nowadays are too impatient to play it out for 20-30 hours. But, I have no idea if this is just bullshit on my part or not.

To all civers: For comparison purposes, how long did an average main game of Civ3 take you?

I am also amazed at those trying to play strategy/3D type games on laptaps. I had never thought it would have been possible.

I threw Dungeon Siege II on my laptop just to see what would happen, and was surprised to find that it plays quite nicely.

Pumpy is my hero

I could kiss you.

Dola:

On the mouth.

i played knights of the old republic 2 and the bards tale on mine, no problems at all

Wow. I don't see how you could play KOTOR2 on a laptop or desktop without problems.

Played through the tutorial so far. Now, these impressions come from someone that has never played Civ III. I have played plenty of Civ II though. Just from playing the tutorial the pace of the game seemed better. I really only had one complaint with Civ 2, and that was the endgame. I enjoyed playing upto the industrial age, and then I just got bored with it. I think there was too much micromanagement needed to play during the endgame for my tastes. It will be interesting to see how Civ 4 handles that.

Sorry, that last post got way off topic. I liked what I see so far. The whole city, hamlet thing is different, although I am not sure it is much better than say roads everywhere. And the growing over time thing is more realistic I think. I will try to post more thoughts once I actually start my first game.

SkyDog gonna kiss me on mouth

If you don't have hardware transform and lighting on your video card, will the game run?

Just be glad you're not an inflatable penguin.

SI

What better, a kiss on the mouth from SkyDog, or good AI?

jb would want both if you could cuddle afterwards.

Sorry Pumpy...Bucc is my new hero. :D

Eerie...my Seinfeld DVD that I bought today displayed a "failed to entertain RendeR" message when I tried to view it....

That seems to be the problem causing the black terrain / invisible leaders. My wife's laptop is having it (Dell Inspiron 700m, only a few months old), mine is not.

I love the AI, I Want to Kiss the AI :)

I just finished my first game. I only played on Cheiftain, so I could get a feel for it. I won with a space victory in 2020 - I did not have any goal other than to test the game, so I am sure that I could have won earlier.

Only one war, I was England and I fought Spain and Japan. All the right units won...my War elephants lost to machine guns, my infantry beat archers, etc.

It was a pretty easy level, I was far ahead in technology, but I had very little military. So when I went to war, I was unprepared. I was left to pillaging, so my antique military could at least accomplish something. I built some fighters and bombed cities but I had no real ground troops.

Overall, it feels like a very good game.

It is a little disappointing to know that you finished in such a short time. I generally look forward to playing a nice, long, multi-night game of Civ. However, if the time is compressed because you aren't having to direct workers or manipulate units, then this may not be a bad thing.

Any thoughts as to why the pace seems to be quicker, and whether or not that is a good thing? Anyone?

Well, for one, there are three time scales - Quick, Normal, and Epic. They affect how quickly units & buildings are built / research is completed / etc.

that boz

Thanks!

Also recall he was playing on Chieftain and did not have to build that many units. At the higher levels with more military, and probably more wars, the game would go longer.

Isn't it something like... if another civ adopts the religion you discovered, there's a better chance of them liking you?

Yep, plus you get gold from them, and an easier chance of exerting cultural control I beleive.

I'm really loving the "great gerson" aspect of it.You really can boost your individual cities or even your civ as a whole depending on what you choose to do with them.

Here is a beta tester who created a walkthrough for everyone who is on the fence buying the game, or something to tie over the people who are waiting for it.

http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/civ4intro.html

Why would they make this game so graphics heavy that you need an advanced video card to run it properly?

Crap.

32 MB of video RAM is NOT and advanced video card. Not since 1998.

The T&L support appears to be the problem. I'm getting the black screen of death on a 4-month old laptop. I can run AOE 3 on it, EE2, and SimCity4, but not really Civ4. That's a problem for a TBS game. It would be easier to swallow if it were an RTS with pretty graphics, but this is a freakin' TBS. Anyone with sense even turns off the animations after about 15 minutes of playing the first game in Civ games. I really don't get it either.

I find fewer & fewer TBS out there, most these days seem to be determined to be eye candy that happens to include some words. YMMV, but that's how I feel about them.