Civilization 4

Skip this post if you aren't interested in Civ4, just me gushing about it for a while.

I just finished my first game of it with a Diplomatic Victory. 4 hours and 13 minutes. I have to admit, the Diplomatic Victory is the second least pleasing of the victory conditions ( the least in my mind is the Score Victory when the date reaches 205 and the game ends ) but as this was my first game through I am happy at just getting a victory.

It was on the lowest difficulty ( Settler ), as I still haven't even scratched the surface of a lot of the changes to the gameplay from Civ3, and it was as the Chinese since I set it to pick an empire and choose a leader for me at random since I didn't know enough yet about how it worked to be able to appreciate the distinctions between them yet.

World map is a lot prettier then Civ 3. The units stand taller and are more obvious, natural resources are a little more subdued but still obvious looking, rivers clearly flow, windmills turn, etc.

Yes, windmills. They changed the worker options from the old "Irritage, Plant Forests, Mine" to add a lot more variety and complexity to how you develop your cities. The first three terrain improvements you'll get are likely : Farms ( learn Agriculture tech ) which require fresh water ( until you learn about irrigation ) add +1 food to a square, Mines ( learn Mining tech ) which have to be build on hills ( or resources like Gems ) add +1 hammers / shields / buildpoints to a square, and Cottages ( learn Pottery tech ) which start as a little hut and add +1 gold output to a square but after a few turns of being used by a city will grow to be a Hamlet and have a higher gold output and later can continue growing to be villages and towns ( basically, suburbs of your city ). But those are just the starting options, you can research Animal Husbandry and if you have a square in your city radius that has cattle or horses or pigs or sheep on it you can then build a Pasture improvement there for added food income and added health for the city. In the same way you learn Monarchy to build Wineries to harvest the 'wine' resource, Masonry lets you build Quarries so you can get to stone and marble resources, Hunting lets you build Camps so you can get ivory and fur resources, etc.

Health is the new restrictor to city size growth, multiple types of food supplies and sanitation buildings like Aquaducts increase a cities health and its maximum size, previously it was hardcapped for non-river cities nad you were required to build an aquaduct to get past size 6 and a hospital to get past size 12. Some buildings like Forges or Factories can add negative health to a city, and later you can build a recycling center which cancels out building un-health factors.

Military units no longer promote from Regular to Veteran to Elite, instead when they gain experience through battle they get advances to more specialized abilities. The very basic Warrior unit for example can get an advance to give him added defense in forests or a 20% bonus attacking cities, or a 10% strength bonus in general. The bonuses you can choose from are set by unit type, but you can choose something different each time, or the same one more then once apparently. Barracks therefore no longer give you Veteran units, they instead start units with 4 experience which gives them one free advance right at the start.

Government options are no longer simply Despotism, Monarchy, Republic, Feudalism, Democracy, Communism, Facism. Instead it is the much more complex and very cool system of Civics. Civics have five categories: Government, Legal, Labor, Economics, and Religion. You start out as a Despotism / Barbarism / Tribalism / Decentralization / Paganism. Take too long to describe all the choices, five in each category counting the starting one, you gain the other four as your civilizations technology advances and you can choose to adopt them or not as you wish, with a small period of anarchy as you make the changes. I ended the game at Universal Suffrage ( so I could spend gold to rush completion of buildings ), Free Speach ( Culture bonus from Towns (advanced Cottages) and more Gold income ), Emancipation ( Cottages grow to be Towns faster, makes the population in nations that aren't emancipated unhappy as they want to be emancipated too ), State Property ( Maintenance costs don't increase with distance from center of government, workshops and watermills give added food ), Organized Religion ( Cities with the state religion construct buildings faster ).

Religion was a nice added feature too. Several wonders and buildings benefit cities that adhere to the state religion. Religions are discovered and founded as your technology advances, only the first nation to reach a tech in a game founds a religion and then must send missionaries to other nations to convert them. But if your state religion differs from your neighbors they will be less then happy with you and may not be willing to engage in diplomatic talks with you.

Much more to ramble about. But brain is bouncing around too much and I need to play more to figure out more of the details and depth still. Anyways, very very cool game. Definately recommend it.