The Civ Franchise has always been a staple of my 4x games. I sat on the fence when I saw the huge price tag for Civ IV. But on release I decided to take the plunge, after all it Civ how bad can it be. Well if this was an Early Release game I would say it was in great shape. However, it seems Fraxis and 2K did not learn from the release of CIV V and delivered a unpolished diamond in the rough.
That is not to say that the game is a horrible, as it is certainly playable. There are some great changes around how cities are developed. You have to be careful picking spots as a bad spot can hamstring your city in the later part of the game. The biggest changes is the districts, and wonders, you know longer just build them you have to select a spot for them within your boundaries. There are some real tradeoffs here as you may see a wonder you want but can’t build due to no room, or you are not on the right tile set, or it will take so long in the production queue that it is not worth the wait.
Barbarians they are a pain in the early play, as they are aggressive and if they find you will attack. Typical first turns are around building slingers and units to survive until you can get another settler out, and then rinse and repeat as you clean the Barbarians from your door step. Mind you they can pop up anywhere and anytime period, so building walls to get bombardment becomes a must for fledgling cities.
The game falls short here with the AI, many who play find out very quickly that the AI just hate you. Int spends it time denouncing you every few turns, and that is annoying in itself. With the new hidden agenda, AI declares war with regularity for no discernible reason. They will be your friend one moment and then invading your space the next. The rules for AI diplomacy and what you can do, seem to be different. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to the AI both in Production, strategy and diplomacy.
As always there is plenty to keep you busy, but there are many missing parts that make previous CIV’s in my opinion much more fun to play. You can’t rush production that is queue; sure you can buy units, using gold or faith, but can’t rush it along. On normal maps resources can be very scarce, forcing you to go to war or hope you can make a trade with a neighbor. In one game I missed a whole tier of units as I did not have a resource to build them, in fact after winning that resource never was on the map for anyone.
Research has the usual feel, but it seems to come to the future tech way to soon, you can be building modern units in the mid-1800s. Civics is the other half, it drives the type of governments you can have and the amount of policies you can put in place. I believe the separation causes the tech tree to feel short changed. Religion can play a big role, and can cause some WTF moments when you lose as you failed to develop a religion and find yourself adopting another civilization.
There is a lot to balance in this game to keep your city productive, is there a good one more turn feel, you bet. Does this game have great potential, you bet. Does the game deliver a total OMG this is the greatest AAA game since…… nope falls short. Where the 9/10 comes from the Gamespot reviewer came from I am not sure. Given an expansion and a few DLC I am sure this game will be all it was meant to be. But forcing me to buy expansions and DLC’s to give me the game I should have gotten on release is disappointment.