Every Generation Needs a New Revolution
August 23, 2008 12:03 am Games for Fun, Gaming
Civilization is one of my all time favorite game series. I have fond memories of playing the original Civ on a friends PC and later playing the graphically superior Mac version for hours on end. Watching the Civ series grow and get better over time has been awesome for me. There’s been multiple ways the game could have been fucked up (hey, lets not make it turn based!), but it only seems to become more fun. Sid Meier rules, and his Civilization games have stolen hundreds, if not thousands of hours from my life. Not bad for what basically amounts to a fancy video board game.
Now that you know I’m fully biased towards the Civ series, you can probably guess that I thoroughly enjoyed Civilization: Revolution (Civ:Rev). However, just like all previous Civ iterations, I was extremely worried that something would go terribly wrong with the next iteration. I feared that Firaxis might make the game too complicated, or that the controls might suck, or that they might over simplify the game for the console. However, Firaxis did a great job finding the right balance of complexity (it’s roughly as a deep as Civ 1 or 2, although some might argue less) and found a control scheme that works really well on the 360.
Civ:Rev feels more streamlined than previous Civ iterations. For example, Civ 4 had many more buildings and units to construct, all of which had many more sets of abilities which affected the game in numerous ways. Civ:Rev on the other hand feels like it’s gone back to Civ 1 both in terms of the building and unit abilities and the amount of buildings and units available to construct. For comparison, Civ 4 has 54 city improvements which can be built where as Civ:Rev only has 14. Another example: Factories in Civ 4 give off one pollution unit, increase production by 25% (50% with power), can turn two citizens into engineers and are required to build certain other buildings. In Civ:Rev, the factory simply doubles the cities production.
There are a few other examples of the simplifications done in Civ:Rev. Players no longer have to worry about pollution. The tech tree is much smaller. Workers are eliminated so there is no need to worry about irrigation or road building tile by tile. Roads can be purchased between cities and have unlimited movement. Maps are much smaller in general. Civics and religion are gone. There is only one leader per Civ, and only 16 Civs total. These are just a few examples of the streamlining done to make the game move along faster and take less time. Gone are the epic 12 hours sessions from previous Civ games. Most games of Civ:Rev can be completed in a few hours.
Firaxis didn’t just take stuff out of Civ 4 and press the “ship it” button. There are plenty of welcome additions and improvements as well. On the art side, the visuals and animations are much better than in previous games. Large, vibrant characters representing the various leaders and advisors make the game feel more alive and interesting. The combat animations and sounds are more entertaining than in previous Civs. The movement of the Spies and Great People are good examples of this. Each Civilization now has a more discrete bonus that is given at each age of the game (including a start bonus), rather than just the beginning. This shakes the game up a bit and make things more interesting as each age is reached. However, I can’t help but feeling some of the Civs are unbalanced, such as the Aztecs which receive an automatic unit heal after every fight. Since taking damage and keeping that damage between fights is such a crucial balancing factor, the Aztecs can blitzkrieg the shit out of other Civs. This allowed me to breeze through the game, even on Deity difficulty.
Oh, another cool addition is the inclusion of relics which once discovered, give the Civ a huge bonus, such as some future tech or unit. Giving a Civ a tank when everyone is still rolling with warriors is awesome and scary. The trophy room is cool too. Being able to see all the wonders you’ve built, all the great people that have found, the leaders you’ve defeated, plus all the other rewards you’ve earned in the game becomes a nice in-game achievement system.
The combat system has been altered and made more like Civ games before Civ 4, such that each unit has a defensive and offensive score. I’ve always liked this system better, because it lends itself to more strategic thinking and unit building. Archers have always made sense to me as mainly defense units, while legions would be the more offensive units and so on. If there’s a unit that fits into both categories well (like a tank), then they should have near equal defensive and offensive values. Stacking together units and forming armies gives a huge advantage and is basically required (except in the very early stages of the game) to be successful. The promotion system from Civ 4 still exists, but what’s cool is that the promotions are shared between all units in an army when stacked.
I wasn’t feeling the changes made to sea and units though. In previous games, air units and sea units could be used to attack units freely. They could also bomb cities to weaken units in the city and reduce the population count. However, in Civ:Rev, air units feel like less powerful ground units. Airplanes can be shot down by ground units, even units without arrows or guns, which just feels strange. Sea units give an offshore offensive / defensive bonus to nearby ground units, but it takes so much work to build a sea unit and get it there that it’s not really worth it. For the most part, you’re better off building ground units, avoiding air units all together, and building ships only if you need to ferry something around.
It’s always worrisome when a highly specialized PC game tries to come over to the console since the controls are so different. However, because Civ:Rev has been streamlined and there’s hardly any micromanagement, the controls in Civ:Rev work really well. A is you selection button for units, cities and so on. If a unit is selected, the left stick tells units where to move to (followed by another press of A). Using the right stick breaks away into free look mode (the magnifying glass) and disengages the unit you have selected. X does the unit abilities, like fortifying and defend, and Y brings up any sub-menus, like upgrading the unit for example. The D-pad allows you to cycles though units (especially useful when a ship unit is selected and people are on board), and the left trigger does map zooming. The left bumper brings up the city menu, and the B button does turn skipping, healing selected units, ending the turn, and so on. Once you get the hang of switching between the left and right sticks for movement, the controls feel very natural.
I could go on, but I’ll keep it short. The design is solid (aside from a few balancing issues), the controls work well and art and sound have stepped up their game. Civ:Rev is a nice break from all the other shooters and action games out right now. It’s worth checking out if you’re into strategy or empire building games at all.