Salgado wrote:
I got this game a couple of weeks ago and it's another great offering in the Civ series. Some massive improvements in basc gameplay (I unit per tile the most important). But as has been mentioned elsewhere a couple of things that need to be fixed up in patches/expansion packs. It's a really good game now and will hopefully be a great one in a month or so.
I bought this game a couple of months ago and was so annoyed by having to register on-line with some 3rd party gaming site ("Steam"). Whilst there were a few gremlins in the installation process (with Steam taking care automatically of making sure you're running the latest patches), I've soon managed to totally forget about Steam. In fact, I might be taking to them!
As Salgagdo says above, it's a beautiful version of the old classic and the gameplay now rocks.
Eg.
Your cities now have their own built-in defences that allow them to take the hit points of an aggressor's attack. In turn, the city itself can fight back by bombarding the attacker. This helps so much, early game, in that it allows you to go off exploring / war-mongering. (You can garrison upto 1 land unit, 1 sea unit and 1 other unit in a city MAX. - Any land units in a city also gets to have a turn attack on any would-be attackers should you have one stationed there, adding considerably to your chances of surviving.
It follows, you're going to have the vast majority of your units outside a city, the majority of the time. Each occupying it's own hex alone.
Though I've not quite experienced it yet, I know this game is going to have the best battles of any CIV. I've seen "Highlander" images of a long line of warriors stretching along a common border (I just didn't have the defence to provide the complimentary line of units for the battle to come.
). One day, the tide will turn and it'll be me crushing enemy forces in the most famous battles imaginable.
To compare it with the Age of Empire evolution, I must say I hated it when AoE decided to include a "deck of cards" in the gameplay engine. It totally spoiled the AoE experience for me. Civ being sedate to AoE's maniacal nature, has now gone and introduced "social policies" which have a similar function to AoE's cards. It just it works for me in Civ, this time, in contrast with AoE's FAIL.
Units are now allowed to disembark (with the necessary tech advancements, that is) which removes all of the ball-ache that earlier CIVs had where you had to send your boats over to pick up units only for peace to break out as they were half way across the water. Now, war runs so much more
smoothly, I find.
Sound effects are of course fantastic though I do miss the Civ 4 late-game tune that precedes glory. In fact, there's a whole repertoire of tunes for each nation you elect to play.
And so for my very best tip. By the time you've got your destroyers, be sure to swat all approaching disembarked land units (they're defenceless in the water). And when it comes to promotions, for your first 3 (for naval units, but it might also apply to land units, for all I know), you'd be wise to have a number of units specialised with one promotion type. Because after 3 promotions for bombarding land units / 3 promotion for naval battles, you then get the chance to adopt the promotion that allows your unit to attack twice (on your next promotion, should you desire).
With no stacking, double-attacks for a unit can make so much difference to your firepower when cracking the toughest of nuts.
It's a great game and
so re-playable.
And probably nowhere near good enough to take the on-line challenge. Must admit, it is quite some game though!
