For those of you who don’t know, the 4X label stands for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate, and represents all those turn based conquering games like the Master of Orion series, Alpha Centauri and obviously the iconic Civilization series. Essentially they give you your own world to own, and then encourage you to take everyone else’s worlds through any means necessary. It’s a simple premise, but the games typically require a lot of dedication and prior knowledge of the complex unit interactions, resulting in the genre steadily declining in current years.
It was with this knowledge that I apprehensively approached Civilization Revolution. From the little research I had done before heading out to the preview, I knew it was a console version of the classic Civilization series. It was supposed to be easier to pick up and play, which went against everything I knew of the genre. Still, it’s the first 4X game in while, so I was eager to try it.
I started a new game, the Romans my civilization of choice. I went with the easiest difficulty as it apparently contained a tutorial which would make up for the lack of paper instructions. The difficult decisions done, I was ready to command a country.
The game produced a short written spiel about the ins and outs of city management, though I was informed that the finished product would also include spoken advice and instructions. The written information however was more than enough, and I set about the task of building a city.
The first thing I noticed about the game was how pretty it was. It was bright and colourful, the character models were crisp and clear and it was simple to identify the different units and areas. The game started me with some Warriors, easily defined by their characteristically Roman armour. Low on resources I sent them off on an adventure south and it wasn’t long before they found a Barbarian King who needed smiting.
Controlling your units isn’t a complicated task, simply a matter of moving the cursor onto the correct hex and clicking, the game intuitively telling you what you can do on each hex. The Barbarian’s village gave me crossed swords, indicating battle, so I clicked it and we attacked. Of course, the might of Rome was too much for this Barbarian, and it wasn’t long before his small village was mine.
When you establish a new town in your civilization, the game gives you a few choices of town name, or allows you to create your own, so I called mine the same thing I’ve called every first establishment since SimCity, Joabonia. I immediately set the town to building a Library, intent on it being a capital of learning, the reasoning being it was situated in a peninsula and therefore strategically worthless so early in the game.
Giving the city a build command was initially confusing as it wasn’t immediately apparent I would have to assign people to do the building, but once I worked that out I was on my way. One thing I do hope they fix is the people assigning section. It utilizes the right stick to select people and it seems foreign. I can’t help but think maybe a simple command interface to select people would be easier.
The idea of building a library brought about the Tech Tree, something I hadn’t yet investigated. The Tech Tree is heavily simplified and laid out well, making it easy to see what you need to research to accomplish what. It’s not even necessary to use the Tech Tree as the game seems to give you a list of recommended Techs, but it can help if you want to streamline your learning.
With my second city established my Empire was growing and growing Empires need military. Fortunately while distracted with Joabonia Rome had been set to autobuild Warrior units so I already had a couple. I’d created an army by combining 3 Warrior units when the Chinese Empire marched its way into my lands demanding tribute. It was their last mistake.
Declaring war and annihilating their pitiful warriors, I stormed through their lands killing peasants with ease until they made a peace offering of technology. The warmonger that I am, I accepted and then amassed an army outside their capital, ready for the moment our Peace Treaty ended.
This actually highlighted another cool element in the game; the use of the directional pad. If you press right on it the game allows you to talk to any of the rulers you’ve previously talked to. This made it easy to demand more tribute from the pitiful Chinese empire under threat of annihilation and made taking Beijing so much sweeter when they refused.
By this point in the game I was about 20 minutes in and it was time I established a third town (Beijing didn’t count). I named it Sneztopia, after my 2K Games guide, and designated it a military city. It seemed like as good a time as any to build a road, so I built a surprisingly modern road through Rome to Joabonia using maybe the most annoying part of the entire game. You need to press and hold A and then press in the direction you want the road to go. I think. I actually never successfully built a road, both times having to get my guide to build it for me. I can only hope it works better in the full game.
With roads built between my cities I ramped up production of my armies, using the horse-riding tech I’d stolen from the Chinese to create a mounted army of terror. Through some amazingly poor judgment, it was at this point the Mongols invaded.
I’d just made friends with Shaka Zulu of the Zulu, and Isabella of France when Genghis Khan of the Mongols marched into my massive kingdom demanding gold. What he received was the thundering of hooves upon his doorstep as I razed his towns. The game from there was the typical Civilization experience although it seems to run a lot faster. I easily completed 100 turns before I finished playing.
I could have easily continued playing all day but alas, preview code must come to an end some time and about 40 minutes in the game simply froze. I hadn’t saved it since about 3 minutes in so I was done.
When it comes out next year it looks like even the hardcore 4X guys like me should enjoy Civilization Revolution. It might be “dumbed down” for consoles but it’s definitely a smarter approach to the genre. It takes the elements of 4X games which turn people away and makes it ultra accessible for new players. The best part is, with Civilization Revolution being as easy to play as it appears I may even find someone to play against me.
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