perfidy

I thought Civ II was the perfect incarnation of that game. Despite the more sophisticated trade and diplomacy in Civ III, I never could stand the "improvements" of adding cutesy graphics, which just made a long game longer (you know, the little animated battles and settlers using pickaxes, etc.)

Your mileage may have varied, though. I wasn't even aware that Civ IV was coming out. I'll be interested to read your impressions of the game.

Assuming I ever get the damn thing, you can be sure I'll be putting up a review.

I loved civ i, with its named regiments and retarded graphics. I think I actually only played civ ii once, liked it but was too broke at the time to spring for a copy. By the time I had money for booze and computer games, civ iii was out. I dug iii, mostly because the trade and dimplomacy were light years better than in i. The graphics were't that annoying, and of course you could turn them off. I did like the prettier interface. As cool a game as i was, the graphics were rather painful.

I'm really looking forward to some of the improvements that have been reported in the gaming press - like religion, multi-role leaders, and a vastly expanded government model.

Geeklethal and I have talked about doing a multiplayer game, as rumor has it that the new m-p is built in from the start, rather than a tack-on kludge.

I can see that multiplayer Civ might be the "killer app" for me to get this game. I played many an all-night Risk game (sometimes, games) with my college buddies back in the day. I'm just not sure I can afford any more lost sleep than I already suffer.

I have just about exhausted the single-player satisfaction of Halo2 and am planning to get Xbox Live so that I can get my ass kicked by a bunch of kids in online head-to-head combat.

I have heard one cool thing about multiplayer civ - you can switch modes mid game - so you can go from live play to email to simultaneous turns to account for time constraints of the players.

We used to do Axis and Allies in the coffee shop at our school until all hours of the night. I think my wife is still pissed about that almost ten years later.

JohnL,
For my $$, the single greatest advancement of Civ3 over 2 was the implementation of borders. Call me crazy, but that alone might made the game more fun, never mind other tweaks, bells, and whistles.

Your Civ2...uh, civ...was really just a motley, at times random, collection of largely independent city-states held together in a federation by your sheer will and absolute authority. Unless you had your city borders interlocking just so, or units exerting ZOCs every other hex down the whole border, the AI thought nothing of sneaking in settlers and building new cities anywhere in what was clearly your territory.

I loved Civ2. See the earlier post. But the clunky trade and the lack of borders pissed me off. Not because it was less fun, per se, but because I thought those things would make a great game greater.

So Alpha Centauri comes out, which I personally found less than fulfilling, but loved the introduction of a border. Not only was it there but the AI recognized it and understood the consequences from violating it. Same in Civ3 soon after, but there the border can grow by cultural influence, not solely through conquest.

Now Civ4 has religion. That's just spiffy.

Let me tell you one thing I'd like: I'd like to play on Earth, but one where the enemy civs start in places that make sense to our actual timeline. Indians in South Asia, for example, Germans in Europe, etc. There's probably a mod for that, but I find so many Civ mods are clunky and weird or just not quite what I want and therefore, disappointing. Mebbe Civ4 has such a scenario?

B, we're gonna make PBEM or whatever happen with this game. A Russian owes me $$, and when I get it I think I'm gonna get Civ4. Lady Lethal can get me SOCOM 3 for Christmas.

I'd definitely second GL on the borders thingy. I think the religion aspect will really improve game play - if an enemy city converts to a religion you founded, you get line of sight into that city. That's going to be cool. If only the m-effers at Amazon would get me my damn game...