Front Page

Content

Authors

Game Index

Forums

Site Tools

Submissions

About

KK
Kevin Klemme
March 09, 2020
35133 2
Hot
KK
Kevin Klemme
January 27, 2020
20816 0
Hot
KK
Kevin Klemme
August 12, 2019
7404 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
December 19, 2023
3964 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
December 14, 2023
3484 0
Hot

Mycelia Board Game Review

Board Game Reviews
O
oliverkinne
December 12, 2023
2073 0
O
oliverkinne
December 07, 2023
2582 0

River Wild Board Game Review

Board Game Reviews
O
oliverkinne
December 05, 2023
2250 0
O
oliverkinne
November 30, 2023
2493 0
J
Jackwraith
November 29, 2023
3009 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
November 28, 2023
1971 0
S
Spitfireixa
October 24, 2023
3688 0
Hot
O
oliverkinne
October 17, 2023
2616 0
O
oliverkinne
October 10, 2023
2460 0
O
oliverkinne
October 09, 2023
2286 0
O
oliverkinne
October 06, 2023
2504 0

Outback Crossing Review

Board Game Reviews
×
Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.

× A place for boardgame traitors.

Civilization revolution

More
08 Jul 2008 17:13 #8340 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Re:Civilization revolution
IN Nomine basically made EU3 worth playing and turned it into one of the best games out there--previous to it EU3 was just a buggy unbalanced disaster.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
13 Jul 2008 23:09 #8567 by KingPut
I went to the GameStop at 10:00 AM on Wednesday to pick up my reserved copy of Civ Revolution for the DS. The hung-over store manager showed up about 10:10 and said he needed 5 minutes to open the shop. I ended up racing home after work just to find out my kids had taken their DS on a road trip with QueenPut and they weren't going to be home until real late (yes, I don't actually own a DS, my plan was just to use my kids DS). Thursday, there was no time to check out CIV Rev. with all the packing for the camping trip.

Finally, my wait paid off. The 2 1/2 hour car ride to Rocky Gap State Park, in Flintstone, Maryland somewhere near Blair Which, Maryland flew by playing my first CIV Rev game. I won the first game easily on 2nd level (Warlord level).

Saturday night, after roasting marshmallows and eating S'mores and hanging out at the campfire, the kids and QueenPut finally went to bed and it was my time to pull out a 40 oz. National Bohemian beer out of the cooler and try out CIV Rev on King level. I ended up getting total absorbed in my mini-epic struggle between me, the Romans who lead the game in culture and the AI, Egyptians who were winning the game on Technology.

It must have been about midnight and the campfire had died down when I felt a fury thing run across my leg. I quickly turn my daughters DS lite into a flashlight when I saw the fur was actually a rabid skunk with foam coming out of its mouth. I held out the DS Lite out like it was a crucifix and the skunk was some kind of vampire or were-skunk.

For one brief moment I looked at the scary skunk and the skunk looked at me and we kind of mentally communicated with each other. It was like I was able to speak parsal-skunk or something. The skunk communicated to me “I’m not a were-skunk or rabid skunk. I’m not foaming at the mouth this is just delicious roasted marshmallow and S’mores all over my face”. I communicated back to the skunk take all the s’more droppings you want. Just leave me and my 40 oz Natty Boh, DS Lite and CIV Rev. alone.” Then, I picked up my 40 oz Natty Boh and slowly moved backed towards my tent. At the same time I waved the DS Lite back and forth around as I expected to see hundreds of were-skunks in this Blair Witch hell forest. Luckily, I made it back to the safety of the tent without getting sprayed. The were-skunk may have won our battle over s'more droppings and Egypt may have kicked my butt on my first game at King level but I saved the DS Lite, CIV Rev and my Natty Boh 40 oz.

I’ll post the Review of CIV Rev. later this week. After I finish unpacking from camping.
Attachments:

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
14 Jul 2008 08:32 #8572 by Ska_baron
Put, that's fuckin hilarious. I can't wait to read that review... and find the money to go grab this soon...

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
14 Jul 2008 12:00 #8583 by mikelawson
Michael Barnes wrote:

For some reason, none of the games past CIV II grabbed me like the first two did. I never really got into III and I've barely played IV. I think II was just the right mix of elements all around- and I'd probably call it the best PC game ever published. I'd love to try this console edition...if they'd put it out on Wii.

What about ALPHA CENTAURI? That's a damn good game...it's a shame they've never revisted it.

You MOO lovers need to get GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS II...nostalgia be damned, there's things I think are better than MOO. Expansions are a must.

The Civ game I favor these days is EUROPA UNIVERSALIS 3...it's both more epic and more vast than CIV but also more focused and specific. I love the open-ended gameplay, you set your own goals and decide your own course through the game. And there's more versatility than in CIV- you can run a mercantile empire, wage a holy war on heretics, colonize the new world, or go for European hegemony. Good, good stuff.


Classic Civ was an incredible piece of work, as was the original SimCity and MOO. Same with Ultima IV and V. Civ III is better for me than Civ II, mainly because with Civ III you can go to war over resources (real life come to life), and Civ II was just Civ I with bigger hardware requirements.

The last time I played an electronic game that had me up all hours of the night was Medieval: Total War some years ago.

--Mike L.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
14 Jul 2008 12:27 #8584 by mikelawson
Kingput, is the DS version the original Civ? I have to ask because I'll weep knowing that 16 years ago it cost over $1300 to buy a machine that could barely play Civ....

--Mike L.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
14 Jul 2008 13:16 #8589 by mikoyan
Replied by mikoyan on topic Re:Civilization revolution
I liked the original Sim City. You could build a city and your only concern was powering it up. In the later versions they added water, trash pickup, and you actually had to put the wires in for electricity. I don't want to actually manage a city down to the minute detail.

And that's one of the things that I like about Civ IV is that it took some of the micromanaging out of the game and there isn't that damned Senate..

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
14 Jul 2008 15:43 #8606 by KingPut
Replied by KingPut on topic Re:Civilization revolution
mikelawson wrote:

Kingput, is the DS version the original Civ? I have to ask because I'll weep knowing that 16 years ago it cost over $1300 to buy a machine that could barely play Civ....
--Mike L.

It's funny to here people complain about a $50 board game when millions of people (including me) have spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their electronic gaming systems every day. I think CIV Rev. is probably most like CIV 2. Not bad for playing on a $120 DS LITE.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
14 Jul 2008 15:51 #8610 by mikoyan
Replied by mikoyan on topic Re:Civilization revolution
KingPut wrote:

mikelawson wrote:

Kingput, is the DS version the original Civ? I have to ask because I'll weep knowing that 16 years ago it cost over $1300 to buy a machine that could barely play Civ....
--Mike L.

It's funny to here people complain about a $50 board game when millions of people (including me) have spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their electronic gaming systems every day. I think CIV Rev. is probably most like CIV 2. Not bad for playing on a $120 DS LITE.

But if you play that $50 game just once, it's not really worth you're money. Unless a video game is complete shit, I'll get quite a bit of play out of it.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
15 Jul 2008 18:49 #8677 by TheDukester
Woot! The UPS guy just delivered my copy for the DS ... this will be first attempt at playing any version of Civ. on a computer or console.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
17 Jul 2008 16:54 #8763 by KingPut
The Good: The fun is back with CIV Rev. CIV Revolution is most similar to CIV 2 with some extra fun goodies. The game strips out some of the boring stuff like moving workers around to farm, mine and build roads but adds in some nice extras.

The Bad: Poor graphics on a 2 inch screen. Not flexible in terms of map size and number of players. I’m questioning the long term re-playability because of the standard map size and number of nationalities.

Who will like this game: Fans of the Sid Meier’s Civilization PC game who want a portable version of the game. Also, people who are looking for a turn based strategy game for the DS. I think if people have a choice they'll still play the PC version just because of the better graphics, depth and flexibilty. However, it real nice having a great portable strategy game.

Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase of Civilization Revolution. I’ll be packing it along with me on every trip for the next few years. I have a much longer review I’ll be posting on Friday.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
18 Jul 2008 16:50 #8811 by KingPut
As I mentioned in my first post, I'm a big fan of Sid Myers Civilization series. I didn't mention that I'm not a fan of hand held games. Maybe, I'm getting old but I'm use to watching a 40+ inch TV and playing and working on 19+ inch computer monitor. Playing anything, especially an action game on 2 inch screen is slightly painful for me. I owned a Gameboy Advanced for about 5 years and over the years, I've tried a number of games on the but I've always reverted back to killing time playing something like Texas Hold'em for 15-20 minutes while on plane trip. This is why I very excited about the launch of Civilization Revolution for the DS.

Civilization Revolution starts out very similar to the other games in the series. You are given a choice of single player mode or you can play other players through a Wi-Fi. I've only played the single player mode. You also have a choice of playing a random map or a scenario or pre-made map. I've only played random map so far but I flipped through the pre-made scenarios. I was surprised to find that there was no map of the world or Europe or Eur-Asia. All the maps were randomly generated. There was also only one map size which was fairly small compared to the computer game. This is when I began to realize that CIV Rev. was pretty stripped down compared to the computer version.

You have a choice of 5 difficulty levels. I would recommend skipping the Chieftain level and start on Warlord for your first game. I won this level easily but it was still pretty challenging as I was getting use to the game. You also get to choice your nationality and (leader). Germany (Bismark), Russia (Catherine), China (Mao), America (Lincoln), Japan (Tokugawa), French (Napoleon), India (Gandhi), Arabs (Saladin), Aztecs (Montezuma), Zulu (Shaka), Mongols (Genghis Khan), English (Elizabeth), Romans (Caesar), Egypt (Cleopatra), Greek (Alexander) and Spain (Isabella). I was happy to see that they included a decent number of nationalities. I played Catherine the Great of Russia in my first game because she was pretty hot looking and she had nice cartoon breasts. I played Caesar of Rome in my 2nd game. Each race starts with a special ability. Russia started with a local area map and Rome started with the knowledge of Republic. A nice feature is that each race gets unique Era Bonuses. Russia gets +1 food from plains in the ancient era, defensive bonus in medieval, 1/2 price riflemen in industrial age and 1/2 cost spies in modern era. I'm hoping that they will include this feature in Civilization 5 for the PC.

The game starts you off with 1 settler in 4000 BC. You'll spend your first turn building a city and then the next couple of turns building your first warrior unit. Once you build your first unit you'll start exploring. This is when I started to realize the map was pretty small. I think a typical world will have 1 – 2 small continents and a handful of islands. The standard game will support 5 total players. There is probably room for about 25 total cities on a typical map.

Probably the worst part of the game is crappy 2D graphics. It's not much to look at on the tiny 2 inch screen. During combat there is a simple cartoon combat sequence that you can skip over but I watched it every time because you can see if you’re winning or losing the battle. From what I've seen, I'm sure the 360 and Playstation 3 graphics look great.

The interface was very easy with the game. Most of the actions you can use the pen but about half the time I used the buttons. To move a unit you just selected them with a pen and then dragged them where you wanted go. City management was also very easy. There is about 5 things you can do on this screen. First you can decide your city focus. You could focus on gold, food, production, science, balance or custom. I was lazy so I just left all the cities to balance focus. Next you can decide what to build either units or buildings including the Wonders of the World. I believe they included most of the buildings and units from CIV 1 and 2. Ground units include: Warriors, archers, spearman, horseman, pike, knights, catapults, cannon, rifles, artillery, infantry and tanks. Air units include: fighters, bombers and nukes. Naval units include: Galleys which can't go into the oceans, gallons, cruisers, subs and battleships. I felt they covered all the major units you would need. Combat is simple but units can gain bonus after every 3 victories. Also, you can take 3 like units and create an army group which is pretty strong in combat.

Additional units you can build are caravans and spies. Caravans create trade routes with other nations. The payout is instantly and the other nation gets a cut of the payout. A typical payout is $50 for the player and $20 for the other player. Spies can do a variety of things steal money, blow up stuff, lower defense of city and my favorite is to kidnap leaders.

Buildings were similar to CIV 2. Here are some of them that I remember: Granary, temples, cathedrals, city walls, barracks, iron mine, factories, workshop, harbor, trading post, banks and library.

Besides the normal building there is the usual Great Wonders. My guess is there is about 6-8 per age or between 24 – 32 Wonders. My favorite wonder of CIV 2, Leonardo Workshop is back. This great wonder upgrades all units so that your spearmen that have been sitting around are upgraded to riflemen and horsemen are upgraded to knights.

All that may sound like a mini scaled down version of CIV 2 but here are some key differences. There are 4 ways to win CIV Rev. 1. Domination Victory. Capture all 4 enemy Capitals not the whole world. 2 Economic Victory. For this you need $20000 then you can build the World Bank wonder. I haven’t tried this path to victory but I can see pumping out trading post, banks and caravans to try to win like the Swiss. 3. Technology Victory. For this you need to complete all 48 technologies and then you can build the space ship. 4. Cultural Victory. You need to have a combination of 20 wonders and great people or culturally flipped cities and then you must build the United Nations.

After playing CIV Rev a couple of time I realized what I like about this game so much. Dispite having such a small board, poor graphics and limited flexibility. What I like about the game was that they kept what was great about CIV 2, 3 and 4 and stripped out the boring Euro stuff.

There is no boring workers in CIV Rev. I enjoyed using the workers early in the PC game but I end up switching the workers to automatic anyway. CIV Rev basically assumes that if you have a hill or mountain you'll be mining it and if it's a plain you'll be irrigating and farming it. Road building is done with a press of the button. You want to build a road from Rome to Pompeii the computer will say it cost $40. You click the button and it's done. Technological advancement will automatically add irrigation and railroads.

My favorite part of the CIV games is the battles and warfare. In CIV Rev. the other nations will start bothering you early on in the game to give them technology or money. You can basically be a pussy and hand over the stuff or stand up to the bullies and start a war. I ended up in a constant war for more than 50% of the games because I wasn't willing to share my stuff with them.

My second favorite part of the CIV games is that during times of peace there is a race for stuff. Early in the game it's the race for the goodie huts, then it's the race for technology and wonders. The designers of CIV Rev. must have realized that race for stuff is the really fun part of the game. It's fine building nice temples and farms but it's much more fun racing the other nations for stuff.

The first race in the game is very much like an adventure game. For CIV purest they may hate this part of the game but I thought it was a lot of fun. The first task is to conquer barbarian villages. Conquering barbarians isn't too difficult but you get goodies like money for taking over their villages. Next there are some goodie huts to find. Finally, there are 4 secrete temples located on islands away from the mainland. The secrete temples give you really good stuff. I ended up getting a knight and cannon and I was still in ancient times.

The second race in the game is the land grab. With a small tight map this becomes more critical. You don't want to be squeezed with only 2 – 3 cities. The other competition is the technology contest. In CIV Rev. you are rewarded for being the first person to reach a technology. For example the first person to discover the auto gets a free tank. You also have the build the Wonder of World race against the other nationalities.

Through out the game there are also little rewards for hitting milestones. When you hit $100 you get a free settler. When your culture is high you get free leaders that gets you bonuses.

All these little contests and milestones keeps the game interesting and moving. I really think they designers did a good job of putting the fun back into the Civilization series with Revolution.

My biggest worry is about long term re-playability. With the big flexible PC games there was lots of re-playability. Sometime you could play a small quick game or large long game. Sometimes you could play with lots of islands and ships or play with one giant land mass. With CIV Rev. the number of players and board is similar each time. For now I plan to pack my CIV Rev. on every business trip and I plan to steal one of my daughters DS.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
16 Sep 2008 09:07 #11391 by Citadel
Replied by Citadel on topic Re:Civilization revolution
Don't know if anyone else has spotted this but in two weeks time a new version of Colonization is being released.
www.2kgames.com/civ4/colonization/
I am pretty excited. The Pirates remake was great.

On a different topic, I have been playing Viewtiful Joe. I am playing on the Adults setting and I just spent the last few hours playing through the Magnificent Five level. It was way too hard. I have bruised the inside of a knuckle and the side of my hand, and my left index finger is red raw near the fingernail. I think that was the hardest level of any computer game I have ever played. Man, I hope the final level is a little easier.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

Moderators: Gary Sax
Time to create page: 0.225 seconds