Such encounters occur when a civilization spends all its time researching cultural technologies while an enemy civilization pours its resources into researching military technologies. Likewise, archers can actually destroy fighter planes with their arrows and my unit of skilled cannons can easily destroy almost any modern tank army. It's puzzling that ground units, such as soldiers, appear to have no weapons other than swords, but can attack and defend against planes. But you can find out information about any object in the game by highlighting it and pressing triangle (PS3 version). It's very detailed, but there are no written labels in the menu, only icons, so you must scroll over about 50 of them to find out what each one represents.
If you have a question about how to play, you will just as soon get lost in the "civilopedia" help menu as find an answer to the question. The game's interface, however, has problems. The managing of cities is also done on a macro scale to eliminate unnecessary complexity, and keep city upkeep minimal. Critics will be happy to find that this deficiency is made up for with a convenient grid system that places your cursor in the proper section. While this sounds like the platform of a powerful strategy game, PC-to-console conversion games like Civilization are often criticized because their complication and controls are thwarted by the lack of a mouse. As in all the Civilization games, advances in technology lead to advanced units archers are replaced by riflemen who in turn become modern soldiers. Military units evolve with combat, increasing their effectiveness and special abilities.
Planes for example, can fly a total of eight spaces per turn, while soldiers can only move 2 spaces. Units are also restricted to a certain number of movements per turn according to their type. If you are powerful militarily, for instance, you may want to focus on researching better weapons and technology so you can win the game by overthrowing all the other players' cities.Īll units, as well as buildings and technologies, take a certain number of turns to complete based on the production value of the town's location. You win the game by either surpassing a certain level in one of these categories, or being the lead player in domination when time runs out at 2100 A.D. Everything you build or research improves your rating in one of four categories: wealth, technology, domination, or culture. Once the cradle of your civilization has been constructed you can either build buildings and wonders to boost your stats, decide on a technology you want to research or develop warriors to protect you. If you decide to play any mode other than chieftain (the easiest), you will be able to settle your village anywhere you want, though moving settlers leaves them wide open for attack and often wastes time you could be using researching such things as pottery or the alphabet. The over-the-top caricatures of history's most notable leaders will leave you chuckling at times, especially when you see the modern era's assistant who bears a striking resemblance to Condoleezza Rice.Īfter choosing a culture to play, you are thrown into the wild with only a small group of feeble settlers. Edges are smooth, water is clear, and the characters look more Pixar than polygon. On your first look at 'Revolution' you'll notice the beautiful graphics.