Yesterday turned in a snow day, and because of it a Civ IV day with a friend I gave my old copy to. It is a worthy successor to the civilization franchise and the best of the bunch so far, but as a strategy game and even more so as a history game it always lets me down.
They always mess up the history and it isn't even possible within the game to recreate it as it should be, this bugs my desire to setup historical reenactments. At least this game was religion adverse, but buddhism being essentially always the first religion discovered ruins any immersion as a history sim.
I wish instead Firaxis had made this quality of a sequel to Alpha Centauri. Now that was a great game where you designed all your own units. Firaxis is also getting better with "social engineering", or declaring your fictional society to have certain attributes. It has been the most fun part of all these games lately.
But the biggest letdown to all these games is the challenge curve. Generally if I get a solid lead on the computer opponents in the early game I can't be beaten and if they get a lead then I can't come back. These games need to have more ways of bringing challenge and intrigue back into a long campaing game.
Now it is time for me to play Galactic Civilizations 2, or as I call it "Master of Orion 3 as it should have been"
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