Slitherine

I am now at the 4 games played mark with Nintendo's release of the game for the DS, Civilization Revolution.

I have heard it termed a "dumbed down" version of Civilization.

Is that accurate? or better yet, is it even relevant?

Dumber? no, that would be like telling me Chess is a dumbed down board game simply because it was not as complicated as Squad Leader.

Is Civ Rev a good purchase? Will let me say this much. I have played Civilization's many versions. I liked some more than others and for varying reasons too. I played the original to death. I played the versions in between Civ IV varying amounts. I've likely played a great deal more of Civ IV than anything following the original. I've played Civ IV in equal amounts with the expansions.

I am uninstalling Civ IV from my computer, and I am likely putting the discs in deep storage with no specific expectations of playing it any more.
Why? The game IS great, but it's also a lot of effort that Civ Rev has proven isn't really necessary.
Civ Rev is maximum fun, and minimum effort. It's what a game is supposed to be after all.

Maybe Civ Rev is a good indication of what the wargame world needs. Get yer ass back to where you came from. Get back to being fun, and not about being mindlessly complex.

I bought War in the Pacific, and I think I have an addiction problem. I buy wargames I never needed
I wonder, if they made a great War in the Pacific DS title (or for the other consoles for that matter) and made it basic, fast easy and fun, would we still be able to convince people War in the Pacific "hopelessly complicated" was a good idea?
War in the Pacific is a good example of what going too far likely looks like.

I would much rather War in the Pacific looked much more like Steel Horizon actually.
I think Civ Rev is possibly a step forward to making our wargames look "fun" again.

SSG recently released Karkhov Disaster on the Donets. I wanted it, I had to have it. Then I got a grip on my senses.
Don't get me wrong, it's likely a very good game. But, maybe if it looked more like Panzer Tactics SSG would be selling a lot more copies. I'd like to know how many copies SSG sells of it by the end of the year actually.
I'm not going to get Karkhov Disaster on the Donets, I have this battle already from another company in about the same simulation level already. And that game is also still on sale too.

Interesting points. I actually saw a DS for the first time a few days ago. A friend of mine brought it over, and when I reproached him for squandering his money, he said it was free. Somebody he knows bought a DS Lite and just gave him their old DS...

Anyhow, yes, Civilization. What a franchise. Too bad Sid Meier had to go back to the same well so many times. I personally consider Civ 2 the apex of the series, and the only one I'd still play. I modded the heck out of that, back in the day, and made a ton of scenarios just for my own enjoyment. Civ 4 was utter trash, IMO.

I am vastly amused by your comments on War in the Pacific. I've been saying the exact same things myself for a long time now, and it seemed like nobody was listening at all

Hi guys, I rarely comment other games than the ones I do to maintain a neutral stance. However, out of curiosity what has changed in Civilization Revolutions particularily?
I have played the early Civilization games but feel that while Civ series had a great start the basic gameplay like combat, trade, technology is very much the same now 15+ years later.

Who knows, maybe sometime in the future the Commander series could evolve into something more Empire Buildish game style

A few basic observations (from the limits of my four full playings of the game).

I managed to play 4 full games in under a week. By that I mean I enjoyed 4 games in under a week. I usually get exhausted from a playing of Civ IV and then don't touch it again for often a month or so.

I routinely get to see the entire map on Warlord level. Good luck seeing the entire map in Civ IV even if you are kicking major butt in Civ IV.

In Civ Rev, naval is worth having, in fact if you ignore it you likely ain't going to win.
In Civ IV I usually consider naval worthless until you can build modern naval units. And by then I have usually already won, the naval is just for being a bully.

In Civ Rev all your time is spent playing.
In Civ IV all your time is spent micromanaging.
Decide what you consider important I guess.

In Civ Rev you rarely send units on tours of exploration that seem hopelessly out of sync with reality.
In Civ IV, it seems ordinary to send a unit out mapping and they might neeeeeeever see their homeland again
They leave as club wielding warriors of the tribe, and when they get home, everything they ever knew is gone

In Civ Rev the military upgrades are actually useful sounding.
I have also found that in Civ Rev 3 units are as effective as 30 in Civ IV. The point being, you chase around a lot fewer units.
I have also noticed in Civ Rev you can't just look at enemy units and know everything about them. Nice fog of war aspect there.
There doesn't appear to be much in the way of animations in the DS version. So what, they would only eat hardware resources.

The much mentioned in the past "how did that archer kill my friggin tank unit" has not gone away. Deal with it.
It doesn't kill the game any more than it ever did. You just don't send one tank unit into a swarm of low tech anything.
Mobs kill.

Techs are totally redone. It's a new tech tree, much the same look, but don't expect a carbon copy replay of Civ IV.
The Wonders are about the same. They do a lot of the same old thing, but not a carbon copy at all. And as always, you want them for the perks.
In the new Civ Rev, the guy that gets the tech first usually gets a neat freebie unit. Being the only Civ with a critical military unit can be quite impressive. Speed is everything, having it for 5 turns before anyone can adapt means a lot actually.

Government types are important, but Sid booted the whole religion thing from Civ IV out of Civ Rev. Civ Rev is again all about the best tech and the best army.

Great people, these guys are cool. You get them likely sort of as fast as in Civ IV (seems that way). But what is fun, is a spy unit can actually kidnap them Did that once. And then you put them in one of your cities and get their effect for yourself. Spy units though seem to get caught fairly often. Well I lost 2 out of the 3 I have used so far at least. They don't seem all that invisible.

I've missed the Great Generals of Civ IV though. Well it appears they didn't make it to Civ Rev.
In combat, it appears you MUST have supporting units. In the early game naval support and archer units look like key items to ensure you have. Naval support is auto engaged, you just need to be adjacent to your ground unit that is attacked. I've won some battles I am sure I would have lost without that naval support fire. Late game bombers rule.
It also seems that the person with the best navy is hard to beat. If you have galleys and they have galleons you got nothing. And the person with cruisers won't impress the person with battleships.

City building. It appears making settlers reduces the size of the city that made it. But there is nothing wrong with more and more and more cities. Make em as much and as fast as possible. But make sure you make them produce culture fast.
And walls, you WILL make walls in your cities.
Walls keep them from converting to the rival. And your cities will quit you the second your rival's culture looks better. I played one game where I stole almost half of the cities I ended the game with. It's not hard to do either, so expect it to not be hard to happen to you.

Strictly software speaking.
I am not happy there is no form of zoom, but it's not like the map is really large so it's not the end of the world.
The interface is very easy to use, and learning to run the game is very basic too. Manual is not really required.
The tutorial is part of the actual game. Each time you do a new "thing" in the game, you get an adviser that tells you about it. Each time the adviser also allows you to turn off the adviser function.

The combat animations are basic, and handy. In Civ Rev, if it "looks" like you will lose, you can hit the panic button and run away to fight another day. But you are punished for cowardice, the victor gets 3 upgrade credits instead of one.]

The game allows several saves, but, it appears the game doesn't keep much of a memory of past gaming.
They offer a "game of the week" option, but it doesn't look there is any way of accumulating these beyond the current playing. All you can do is find a way to port the roms data elsewhere and that is NOT my idea of a solution.
With Age of Wonders: Age of Kings, the more you played, the more valuable defacto speaking your specific game rom became. Mine is sure worth something to me.
I had a Steel Horizon rom die on me right near the beginning, and I was NOT happy needing to re acquire all that I had lost.

I've seen Civ Rev played on my friends PS3 and it looks apparently no different (other than a big screen HD experience is graphically much more amusing).

Ok that is I think the limit of my observations to date.
I have seen much buzz about many rpg DS titles. I am unsure how many will enjoy a classic turn user strategy title. But I DID uninstall Civ IV today. I DO like the DS game that much.
No I am not going to play it all day for an entire month though I might average a few games a week for the first month or so. But, if Panzer Tactics wasn't safe just because it has tanks, I think it would have lost first place with me.

possum wrote: Anyhow, yes, Civilization. What a franchise. Too bad Sid Meier had to go back to the same well so many times. I personally consider Civ 2 the apex of the series, and the only one I'd still play. I modded the heck out of that, back in the day, and made a ton of scenarios just for my own enjoyment. Civ 4 was utter trash, IMO.

Interesting the differing view points on a game. I've played the Civ series from Civ2 through Civ4, and I feel Civ4 is by far the more mature game. Granted, each of them have their strong points, but Civ4 allows for more deep consideration beyond just combat. The civics system and the city management options provide for great gameplay, IMHO.

As for CivRev, I'm playing my 11th game atm. And, if you enjoyed Civ2, you should like CivRev.

firepowerjohan wrote:Hi guys, I rarely comment other games than the ones I do to maintain a neutral stance. However, out of curiosity what has changed in Civilization Revolutions particularly?

Given that I am a self-professed Civ-lover, CivRev is a streamlined version of all that is good in the Civ series (empire management, city management, combat, technology, culture, and victory conditions). Diplomacy is along the vein of Civ2. The AIs oscillate wars against you if your weak or in the lead regarding technology and land area. There are some folks complaining about this, but I feel it adequately meets the goal of achieving a playable game that runs no longer than 2-3 hours.

City management is different by far. Rather than micromanaging individual workers, which you can still do, you simply choose between "city governors" for focusing on the following areas: gold, science, production, or a balanced arrangement. Also, there are fewer units and technologies. All unit graphics are the same in the DS version, differing only by name and stats (dependent on whether which civ your playing and its unique units. Like Civ4, each civ has bonuses. There is a bonus for each age, and they're cumulative - meaning, whatever your bonus is in the first age, you keep it throughout the game. So, by the end, you have four civ-specific bonuses.

Also, there are 5 civs in every game, with no option to vary the field. The game comes with some scenarios, but I've not had any desire to play them yet. There is also MP, but again I've not played any MP games to this point.

All this said, I am eagerly awaiting Pocket History: Rome on the DS. I love GoT and hope that same feel comes across in PH: Rome. I just wish Nintendo would get it processed ASAP.

DSWargamer wrote: The much mentioned in the past "how did that archer kill my friggin tank unit" has not gone away. Deal with it.
It doesn't kill the game any more than it ever did. You just don't send one tank unit into a swarm of low tech anything.
Mobs kill.

However, in CivRev the archer is actually gains strength if it had any combat experience. Since unit upgrades are only possible through building Leonardo's Workshop, the archer usually remains an archer (only 1 civ builds LW). So, an archer maxed on promotions has a much better chance against a tank w/ no promotions. I wonder if one soldier ever took out a tank during WW2? Of course it happened, not often, but it happened.

DSWargamer wrote:I've missed the Great Generals of Civ IV though. Well it appears they didn't make it to Civ Rev.

Generals are in CivRev. They are generated through victories. I don't know the values required, some chance percentages, but I've had them and fought them. The nice thing about them in CivRev is that a General's modifiers assist all units in a stack, rather than the General having to be attached to a single unit.

DSWargamer wrote:I have seen much buzz about many rpg DS titles. I am unsure how many will enjoy a classic turn user strategy title.

In North America, the first shipments of CivRev has sold out.

Missed that Generals detail up till now.

Actually, I haven't yet gotten around to creating a 3 unit army yet either. And I have not as yet felt like fiddling around with city management specifics, so that means I am actually having a riot, and not even playing the game full tilt yet

Sold out eh, glad I was constantly watching my local retailer.

Unsure if they will rush to re stock though, it's a small town, and once it goes out of stock a game often stays that way.

Over on the official Civ forums there sure is a lot of annoyed people though. Well maybe it only looks like a lot

What I am finding funny is all the clamouring for a patch. WTF? Aren't console games supposed to be all about not chasing after patches

DSWargamer wrote: Over on the official Civ forums there sure is a lot of annoyed people though. Well maybe it only looks like a lot

What I am finding funny is all the clamouring for a patch. WTF? Aren't console games supposed to be all about not chasing after patches

Yeah, the PS3 MP is fraked. The 1.20 patch is coming, which is supposed to fix that issue and other tweaks. I feel, by and large, the majority of people are pleased with the game. Of those, there are some who are commenting about what they would've liked in it. I love my DS version!