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Civilization Revolution - Under the radar?

Zzoram

Member
As a huge Civilization 4 fan, I'm interested in Civilization Revolution. If it's good, I'll definitely get it for DS because it's Civ on the go. I'll also consider the Xbox 360 version since it'll have Game of the Week maps/modes every week with a leaderboard to see how you rank worldwide. Since the game has to be streamlined and sped up for consoles, it might even be possible to have a good multiplayer component, something the Civilization series has struggled with (other than full day LAN parties). For hardcore Civ fans, you know that on the PC side, there is a Civ3 and Civ4 challenge put up regularly where people follow the same rules/settings on the same map and attempt to best each other's scores.

I'm just curious because it's slated for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo DS Spring 08 and Wii Fall 08 yet there's almost no media or mention of the game.
 
No media and marketing campaign yet combined with lacking gamer interest.

It puts itself in a challenging position since it's not exactly a style of game console gamers are eager for (or more importantly, know whether or not they'd even like it). With a classic PC FPS, it's an easy transition. "Shoot stuff in the face? Wicked." But with Civilization it's going to take some effort in marketing to garner hype for it.

It's less about the quality of the game and more if they can get console folks to give it a chance.
 

StarEye

The Amiga Brotherhood
Hasn't Sid Meier's games always had very little shown from it until it's a couple of months or so close to release?
 

Kosma

Banned
It's not under the radar. There just isn't any media.

Also, what is it with the weekly 1UP show catch phrases?? Every time they coin one like "pile of shame" or "under the radar" half of GAF jumps in.

IMHO it should be the other way around. Them quoting us.
 

Aaron

Member
Maybe because it's a dumbed down Civ game, lacking much of the things that make the series challenging and interesting? Just a guess.
 

Ghost

Chili Con Carnage!
BobJustBob said:
wah



wah wah


Considering you have a spore avatar, I'll forgive you for not realising this game looks like crap, and not 'graphics dont matter anyway' crap, actual 'This destroys the atmosphere and gravity of the games subject matter' crap.
 

tizer111

Member
Lobster said:
Waiting for Wii Version..its makes the most sense to play console RTS on Wii..

It's turns based though, not RTS. I'm curious to see what they do with the Wiimote though. Otherwise some keyboard/mouse support on the PS3 version would be nice.
 

Kinan

Member
I do not see much problem with the look:

civilization-revolution-20071017082404647.jpg



With no keyboard and mouse you ought to make changes to both graphics and gameplay, and dismissing that is stubborn. Personally I'm cautiously optimistic, looking forward to some previews/reviews. We had here one of the devs posting, btw. Maybe he can shed some light on the current status of the project?
 
Ghost said:
Considering you have a spore avatar, I'll forgive you for not realising this game looks like crap, and not 'graphics dont matter anyway' crap, actual 'This destroys the atmosphere and gravity of the games subject matter' crap.

I love the new art style.
 

StarEye

The Amiga Brotherhood
Aaron said:
Maybe because it's a dumbed down Civ game, lacking much of the things that make the series challenging and interesting? Just a guess.

Can't see how it can be dumbed down much further. It's always been a pretty simplistic and accessable game, just like most of Sid Meier's games. His games are console games by default.
 

Ghost

Chili Con Carnage!
StarEye said:
Can't see how it can be dumbed down much further. It's always been a pretty simplistic and accessable game, just like most of Sid Meier's games. His games are console games by default.


Civ 4 is not accessible by todays standards
 

Kabouter

Member
Ghost said:
Civ 4 is not accessible by todays standards
You act like it's Victoria: Empire Under the Sun or something. It's really not that complex. They streamlined it a lot to make it more accessible compared to previous Civ games. And given the continued sales of Civ IV, I think it's been a success in the market too.
 

Ghost

Chili Con Carnage!
Kabouter said:
You act like it's Victoria: Empire Under the Sun or something. It's really not that complex. They streamlined it a lot to make it more accessible compared to previous Civ games. And given the continued sales of Civ IV, I think it's been a success in the market too.


By console game standards it's about as straight forward as a 'build it yourself' nuclear warhead kit.
 
As a huge fan of Civ4 and as close to a "scholar of the game" as you'll find on these boards, everything I've read about CivRev is that the game doesn't look to be very dumbed down at all-most of the core Civ mechanics and design ideas have, from what I have read, been translated pretty faithfully.

2K hasn't really started any marketing for the game yet, though I would expect some more stuff to come out in the next couple of months. It's a spring release (meaning it could come late as June anyway, in videogame-speak), so it's got some time before it is finished. Apolyton has a nice big fact sheet about the game here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=170373

I'll be getting this for my 360 when it comes out, and making the rest of you feel like six year olds in multiplayer.
 

Ranger X

Member
I want to buy this game. That's the kind of game i want to see more and more on consoles. I've always been interested in Civ3 and 4 but my computer can't really run them and well, i could start with something a little less complicated than Civ4 i suppose.

I truly hope this game will be good and they should push more effort into marketing it. Seriously. This sounds like the underdog of 2008.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
I really hope this paves the way for a Galactic Civilization or Master of Orion (1 or 2) style console game...or maybe a handheld game....























...for the fucking PSP
 

Ranger X

Member
Gattsu25 said:
I really hope this paves the way for a Galactic Civilization or Master of Orion (1 or 2) style console game...or maybe a handheld game....

Master of Orion 2 remake would be awesome. Or a totally new one with nice graphics. I'd take that any day on DS or Wii (seriously, i want to pointer or stylus play there)
 
Kinan said:
With no keyboard and mouse you ought to make changes to both graphics and gameplay, and dismissing that is stubborn. Personally I'm cautiously optimistic, looking forward to some previews/reviews. We had here one of the devs posting, btw. Maybe he can shed some light on the current status of the project?

Things are going well, we're finishing everything up to go into certification. Sid is constantly improving the AI while the rest of us are trying to finish off the bugs to get the game in a great shape before release.

There is certainly a risk to the look of the game; there have been very few brightly colored strategy games that have done well (particularly on the 360!). That's the style that Sid sees the game in and I think people will enjoy it if they give it a chance. The leaders are funny and have great animations and the curved world is really cool to look at and play around in.

CivRev is streamlined compared to Civ4 due to a variety of reasons: lack of keyboard mouse, fewer pixels on SD tvs (less room for text), and the difference in play session times from console games to PC games. I'm more of a console player by nature and I enjoy Civilization Rev most out of all the Civ games. I can't go back to Civ4 at this point because it lacks so many of the features I love in Rev. (Armies, crazy great people/wonder powers, artifacts, widely varying civilization abilities, the pacing, etc.)

I don't mind CivRev being under the radar right now, but I sure hope that it's not when the game is released! I think it's a great game and it has a chance to be a huge hit.
 
I'd like to say that it's actually awesome that Firaxis went and made a Civ game for consoles. Even if you're just a fan of the PC versions of the game, CivRev is obviously a sort of breeding ground for fresh ideas into the series (and Civ4 proved, if nothing else, that the series really benefits from new ideas).
 
What happened to the old thread on this?

I'm quite excited about this game despite being a being fan of the PC version. I hope they have made a lot of changes to streamline it and make it more console friendly and personally I like the art style so all the PC "they dumbed it down" crowd can go shove it.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
DeathMonkey said:
Things are going well, we're finishing everything up to go into certification. Sid is constantly improving the AI while the rest of us are trying to finish off the bugs to get the game in a great shape before release.

There is certainly a risk to the look of the game; there have been very few brightly colored strategy games that have done well (particularly on the 360!). That's the style that Sid sees the game in and I think people will enjoy it if they give it a chance. The leaders are funny and have great animations and the curved world is really cool to look at and play around in.

CivRev is streamlined compared to Civ4 due to a variety of reasons: lack of keyboard mouse, fewer pixels on SD tvs (less room for text), and the difference in play session times from console games to PC games. I'm more of a console player by nature and I enjoy Civilization Rev most out of all the Civ games. I can't go back to Civ4 at this point because it lacks so many of the features I love in Rev. (Armies, crazy great people/wonder powers, artifacts, widely varying civilization abilities, the pacing, etc.)

I don't mind CivRev being under the radar right now, but I sure hope that it's not when the game is released! I think it's a great game and it has a chance to be a huge hit.

Cool. I'm looking forward to CivRev. I haven't played Civ since 2 was released. I much prefer turn based strategy games and having a good one on the 360 will be awesome.

Is there the possibility to play co-op??
 
The art in Civ games has always been a bit silly, so I don't see the direction taken in Revolution as much of a departure. I'm cautiously optimistic about the DS version, but I can't find any info on it. There's screens and previews for the 360 version, but nothing for the DS.
 

Takeda Kenshi

blew Staal
Jon of the Wired said:
The art in Civ games has always been a bit silly, so I don't see the direction taken in Revolution as much of a departure. I'm cautiously optimistic about the DS version, but I can't find any info on it. There's screens and previews for the 360 version, but nothing for the DS.

The Art for Civ 2 wasn't that silly.

After the debacle that was Railroads!, I'll remain cautious regarding this title.
 
It probably also hurts that the game is so rooted in the PC gaming world. How many console gamers are even aware that a game called Civilization exists? When the game was announced I read about it on both a console gaming forum and Civilization forum. On the console one many of the posters were trying to figure out what Civilization was while on the Civilization forum they were trying to figure out whether the Wii or the 360 had the remote you swing to play tennis.

Anyways, I've been a Civ fan since it came out on the SNES so I'll definitely be gettng the DS and Wii versions. I played Civ and SimCity with a controller before, not doing that again.
 

bengraven

Member
I love me some Civ. But I hate the RTSation of the series. The fun of just chilling out, building agriculture areas and taking out random bandits was great.
 
Jon of the Wired said:
I'm cautiously optimistic about the DS version, but I can't find any info on it. There's screens and previews for the 360 version, but nothing for the DS.

I *love* the DS version of the game. It lacks the splendor of the next-gen versions, but the on-the-go speed is awesome. Plus, it has the same game rules.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
DeathMonkey said:
I *love* the DS version of the game. It lacks the splendor of the next-gen versions, but the on-the-go speed is awesome. Plus, it has the same game rules.
I didn't even know this game was in development until the most recent Game Informer...so forgive my absolute noobish question: is the game out already?
 

zaxor0

Member
I recently started to try out civ3. I am more than wiling to buy it but I think i will buy civ4 instead since it is on steam (unless civ3 ends up on there somehow).

Are there any screen shots of this yet? I would like to see it. I am interested in this, but I do not know which version I would rather have, DS or Wii. I would lean more to Wii since I play my Wii more. But is there any mention of online at the moment? I would definitely get this if it had online. I can see myself and my friends playing this one online for a while!
 
There are 360 screens here and there on the net, such as at Worthplaying:

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=44518

360 and PS3 are online for sure, with the 360 having some snazzy features like Game of the Week and other stuff confirmed (not sure about how the game will use PSN). Wii version is not due out until the fall (unlike the Spring releases for everything else, including the DS), and I don't know if online has been confirmed for that platform.

Civ4 is far, far superior to Civ3 btw, if you are going to play a Civ game one the PC at this point for god's sakes people play Civ4.
 

Zzoram

Member
I think the DS game sounds awesome, it's exactly what I've been waiting for on the DS. I'm not a huge fan of the turn-based-strategy games so far that are all modelled after Advanced Wars.

On the home console side, it sounds like the Xbox 360 version is the one to get. It has the most online features like Game of the Week leaderboards, and will have the best graphics (tied with PS3 no doubt).

If it came out for PC I'd probably just get that version, but since it's 360/PS3/DS/Wii only, I'm going to take a very close look at the 360 and DS reviews. The Wii version is coming 6 months later so I doubt I'll be getting that one.

That said, I trust them. I dabbled in Civ2 back in the day, but was totally confused and never really understood how to play the game, I just goofed around. It wasn't until I bought Civilization 4 (which got great reviews all around) that I really took the time to learn the mechanics of the game and enjoy it. I was lucky enough to have 2 friends who also got into the game (after I introduced it to them) and we would just LAN party on weekends during the summer. Civilization Revolution is one of my most wanted titles in 2008, along with Starcraft 2 and Spore, so I hope it turns out well.
 

zaxor0

Member
I can see a DS version working really well. I would rather have a Wii version I think, but I feel like the Wii version might get the Shaft, as sometimes happens. Sometimes too often. So if anyone out there can read this, don't let the Wii version suck and have no features, please.

I am more than willing to wait 6 more months for the game if it has good features (like online ones).
 

Zzoram

Member
zaxor0 said:
I can see a DS version working really well. I would rather have a Wii version I think, but I feel like the Wii version might get the Shaft, as sometimes happens. Sometimes too often. So if anyone out there can read this, don't let the Wii version suck and have no features, please.

I am more than willing to wait 6 more months for the game if it has good features (like online ones).

It's not exactly easy to do online features with the Wii, Nintendo made sure of that. If Game of the Week challenges involve downloading free custom maps with custom rulesets like what Sid has implied so far, then that's not going to be possible on the Wii.
 
Zzoram said:
It's not exactly easy to do online features with the Wii, Nintendo made sure of that. If Game of the Week challenges involve downloading free custom maps with custom rulesets like what Sid has implied so far, then that's not going to be possible on the Wii.

As someone who has participated in community-driven variants of "Game of the Week" for some time now, I can say without hestitation that this style of play is really the best way to play Civilization competitively. The problem with Civ MP up until this point is that there are so many variables that can determine how well a Civ "starts out" and many Civs are just better in MP than others (and it's not really balanced with MP in mind).

Game of the Week style play fixes that by playing the game for what it is tuned and balanced for (player versus AI) while giving the player the same allocation for taking the time and care to consider all choices and make the best ones without everyone else having to wait an eternity.
 

Azih

Member
I demand that Frag change his avatar to include "except for CivRev"

and I hated Civ 3 and loved Civ 4. Still has that annoying million unit movement end game issue though.
 

Zzoram

Member
Fragamemnon said:
As someone who has participated in community-driven variants of "Game of the Week" for some time now, I can say without hestitation that this style of play is really the best way to play Civilization competitively. The problem with Civ MP up until this point is that there are so many variables that can determine how well a Civ "starts out" and many Civs are just better in MP than others (and it's not really balanced with MP in mind).

Game of the Week style play fixes that by playing the game for what it is tuned and balanced for (player versus AI) while giving the player the same allocation for taking the time and care to consider all choices and make the best ones without everyone else having to wait an eternity.

And so far they've only confirmed Game of the Week for Xbox 360, so that's the best version of Civilization Revolution as it stands. Also, all their demos have been on the Xbox 360, and you can see pictures of them holding the controller, so it's clearly the lead SKU as well.

You are correct in saying that the game is best tuned for play vs the AI. In fact, Civilization 4 is the only strategy game that I actually enjoy playing skirmishes against the AI over and over again using the same or different settings. In real-time strategy games, it is never fun to play against the AI. Maybe it's the turn based genre, or the incredible gameplay and AI of Civilization, but somehow it does skirmishes vs the AI right.
 
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