In last year’s
Civilization Revolution hands-on preview, I entered apprehensive and left pleasantly surprised. When 2K Games invited us to check out a multiplayer build of the game, I was more than eager. Finding out it was at the "Players Lounge" at 10am on a Tuesday curbed that enthusiasm somewhat. I mistakenly thought the Players Lounge was a strip club - and nobody wants to be in a strip club at midday on a Tuesday.
My excitement returned when I found out the Players Lounge is a "dedicated Xbox 360 console lounge in Sydney." The PL is set out nicely - comfy chairs and decent sized TV's make the idea of playing 360 in the same room as 30 other people more appealing than you would expect. Instead of 30 of us though, we had the place to ourselves - it was head-to-head, or one-on-one time.
We jump right into a game - the server browser works just like a PC game browser, so it's naturally intuitive. I hop in a game against another punter and pick Isabella of Spain as my nation leader because she has great opening bonuses and I'm not expecting to survive long enough to get any late era bonuses. He runs with India and we're ready to rumble.
I drop a town down without wasting time making up a funny name for it; multiplayer is serious business - so “Madrid” is built. Warrior production begins immediately, and while everyone is building their first Warrior the game speeds through the turns. Once the Warrior finishes I shift
all my resources to production to make more warrior units and send my first group north.
And that’s where the game grinds to a halt and Civ Rev’s main flaw rears its head. If you're playing against a micro-managing opponent and you're something of a Civ cowboy, you have two choices. You can either heckle your opponent into moving faster, or you can sit and wait. I'm not in the habit of swearing at people at events, so I sit back in the comfy chair and order a Coke.
Despite the delays, I'm still having fun some five minutes later expanding my borders with gusto. The game is good looking and AI Barbarians keep me occupied with consistent skirmishes – when suddenly I lose the game. I didn't notice the Barbarian army which marched its way into my (shamefully) unguarded capital. I've lost my first game in less than 10 minutes.
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| Let slip the fogs of war! |  |
We start over. It's quick enough getting in that my Capital finishes being built before the taunts about my last game subside. I run the same game plan as before, except this time I'm five turns behind because I make a stay-at-home warrior. This one is a blowout as well though - my opponent declares war on every AI on the map and he's annihilated after about 15 minutes.
The third game starts - this one's the main event. If we lose this one early I'm not sure I'll have the patience to repeat my favoured opening 40 moves again. I get lucky early and I stumble on the Alphabet (free technology), a castle with a bonus elite Templar unit, a transport ship, and two spies. I’ve got a formidable army within the first 40 turns. I casually gauged my opponent’s forces while grabbing another Coke - he might as well pack it in already. With all my extras I'm flush with cash, troops and resources - I ramp up my population and production to bust out a Settler before pouring everything into research - my bonus technology gives me a head start for a technological win so I have a strategy now.
Not wanting to waste my elite units I form an army - instead of just marching all your guys to the same place Civilization Revolution lets you combine three units to make an army which will fight as one unit - and I march them in the direction I last saw another country. Hoping to march on my Indian opponent for an easy victory I encounter Queen Elizabeth instead. Feeling invincible I demanded tribute from her pitiful nation - which she refused.
Declaring war was what made me notice the game's greatest flaw again - the game comes to a grinding halt when you attack someone because you’ve got nothing to do except sit there while you lay siege. All you can do is click “End Turn” and wait for your opponent to do the same, which can take time with a slower player.
When in Rome, do as the Romans. Roam.
Online this mightn't be a giant issue. There's the heckling option, or you can just establish a group of friends who play the same style of game as you - but here it was maddening. I just wanted to conquer England already. One of my armies was consistently successful - I had two full armies now - and it was able to upgrade as an elite unit. There were two choices to upgrade - a city attack bonus or a unit defence bonus. I went with the city attack option for two reasons - first, I was attacking a city at the time so it seemed like the logical step and second - defensive bonuses are for people planning on needing to defend. My limited foresight rewarded me with a Ninja army - and these guys were the money.
They made mincemeat of the AI defences, but the AI appeared to have almost unlimited units at their disposal. It was about eight units into my siege that I got my first glimpse of my human opponent - he was marching his Indian army towards
my capital. I left my ninjas on offence and dragged the rest of my army in a race back to my capital. I had units in defence but they probably wouldn't stand against massive force he was sending their way. Happily for me the game crashed before he reached my capital - he was definitely going to beat me there. The build I played was only at about the 80% completion mark and they were expecting a crash - even still, in the 60 minutes we'd played in that game
and taking into account my opponent’s turtling we'd gotten a lot done.
The games ramped up speed helped the flow of the action immensely. Sometimes turn-based strategy games can suffer in multiplayer by disinterest from the involved parties - especially when you hit the second hour mark and you've barely made a dent in the game world. Civilization Revolution shouldn't suffer from this, but that remains to be seen. We'll watch out for this game when it gets closer - stay tuned.
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