Another rarely used method of reviewing a game is to judge it against the developer's stated goals. Perhaps this is hard in many cases because developer's goals aren't always there in anything more than marketing hype. Soren, however, wrote one of the best Afterwords I have read in a gaming manual, and I think his view of CivIV deserves some discussion. First, he acknowledges that “there are a thousand ways to make a great game about all of civilization – we only get to make one of them.” What does he think he made with CivIV, and what do I, Mr. Random Reviewer, think of the results?

NOTE: The “dialogue” here is made up. I'm sure the real Soren would say things far more brilliantly.

1. SOREN: Sticking with turn-based allows for “a series of overlapping mini-goals".

YIN: Keeping Civ a T[urn] B[ased] S[trategy (TBS) game] is obvious enough, but I do believe that there are a number of interesting, overlapping mini-goals in CivIV (increasing my number of cities while not falling too far behind the tech race, for example), though these fall apart the longer the game wears on. Still, SCORE: [+1]

2. SOREN: And people don't like too much micro-management.

YIN: In reducing the number of cities required to play well in CivIV, you've gone a long, long way. Other things like having discontented citizens simply stop working instead of putting the city in revolt or in giving players production overflows are spot on. I do think, though, that it's still too hard to find/manage units and cities under the current U[ser] I[nterface] scheme. Also, workers do little more, in my view, than add needless micromanagement and drag to the game. If workers are interesting until the mid game, consider phasing them out in favor of a Public Works system once you discover the technology? Why not a hybrid approach if you want to keep workers to some extent? Finally, a conquest end game is still as tedious as ever.   SCORE: [0]

3. SOREN: Players in CivIII found the population requirement associated with creating a settler confusing, so now a settler simply holds population growth.

YIN: Interesting decision here. I'd like a mod that does *both* these things, but I'm quite happy with the new system, I must say.   SCORE: [+1]

4. SOREN: Pollution in CivIII created a “whack-a-mole” cleanup requirement, so we added a comprehensive health system instead.

YIN: Nice work on this, too. Same effect with less micro and more interesting decisions. However, you say yourself that “it did put a lot of workers out of a job, though.” Indeed, which argues further for taking workers out of the game!   SCORE: [+1]

5. SOREN: We found a way to limit I[nfinite] C[ity] S[prawl (ICS)] without needing mass amounts of corruption costs levied against the player.

YIN: Of course, you now have city maintenance costs, which are pretty heavy-handed.

SOREN: Sure, but we give you Golden Ages, city specialization tied to resources, and specialized citizens that also help create Great People.

YIN: Golden Ages often come too late in the game to have a real impact, but the city specialization scheme tied to strategic placement of cities by resources is excellent. I think you could do more here (see the RECOMMENDATIONS section of the review), but I think your overall approach to killing ICS is surprisingly fun. Also, the Great People approach creates many of Sid's "interesting decisions": Many times, the creation of a Great Person at one of my specialized cities has offered me some wonderful short-term (and a few long-term) gains in important ways at critical times.

Although I often wish more of them would come, I blame my own strategy more than anything else. Well done. However, please consider a harsher cap on the number of cities you can reasonably hold, because by the end game you can hold dozens and dozens of cities with no penalty (other than tedium).   SCORE: [+1]

6. SOREN: By the way, you can't build more than two national wonders in a city, so we aren't completely tossing out the idea of having a healthy number of cities you need to defend.

YIN: Agreed.   SCORE: [+1]   Next Page...

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