Civilization Revolution 360

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Civ Revolution on the 360

I finally found another console game that I can sit down and enjoy for hours on end! Graev and I have owned Civilization Revolution since it released on the Xbox 360 July 9th, except I never bothered to play it because I’ve been so busy. Yesterday I found a block of time with nothing else to do so I sat down and decided to give Civ Revolution a try. Short version: I love it! Long version: It’s a lot more user friendly than the past version I’ve played on the PC. The first thing I noticed was how the game requires less micromanaging. You’re not having to worry about the health or happiness of your civ – yay. I’m also enjoying the graphics. There’s something about them that feels slightly more light-hearted and less serious; if you’ve played it you know what I mean.

In my game yesterday that lasted about three hours I was playing as Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongolians, against Queen Elizabeth of England, Shaka of the Zulu, Isabella of Spain, and some really whiny Aztec guy who kept threatening me if I didn’t teach him the alphabet he would crush my backwards people into the ground. Hah! It was because of this annoying Aztec man that I decided to play for a domination victory which requires me to take all the enemy palaces in military combat. Just my style actually. I decided to start off slowly and do a lot of exploring and early expanding in order to get a strong economy going. It actually worked really well. I had more gold the entire game than I could spend even if I wanted to. Where I was strugglign though was in my research options. I wasn’t really paying attention to what research trees I was following and before I knew it I had a bunch of smart people with no means of defending themselves.

England took advantage of this weakness and sent a massive army my way. It took me by surprise because I was playing on easy mode! Easy mode ai isn’t supposed to send armies! They’re supposed to sit there and look dumb while I invade. This encounter with England forced me to pay attention and I teched up to gunpowder very quickly. By now though everyone had realized my weakness and began demanding I give over my technology and knowledge or be crushed. Since I’ve never been good at sharing, you can imagine how many enemies I made. I lost four out of seven cities within minutes and all was about lost until my army of rifleman was done. They alone pushed back England’s archers and simple medieval mace men back to their palace where I smashed them into pieces. By now several of my rifleman armies were complete and I began work on Knights and Catapults. (I know right? Knights and catapults when I have Rifleman, heh).

Suddenly the peace offerings were starting to flow in and I decided the charade was over. I declared war on all of them and kept my people under my iron fist of despotism. To war! It wasn’t long before my military units had seen enough battle to get them several upgrades. I had Ninja catapults and Ninja rifleman (Ninja means they’re extra good at attacking cities) and lightning (2x actions per round) artillery and all that good stuff.

Very fun game! I can’t wait to get online and play against others in the multiplayer mode over Xbox Live. I’m a little worried about how long people will take on their turns since the entire game is turn based. There will probably be a time limit though.

Definitely check out Civ Revolution on the 360 if you like these types of games. It’s good old fashion fun.

  • I love turn based strategy games like Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic, but I am reluctant to play it online multi-player because of excessive wait times during other player’s turns. I guess I’m missing out on that experience, but I’m a very impatient person 🙁

  • Oh, you young people. Micromanaging your cities is half of what civilization is all about! I’m really surprised they removed health and happiness from the game, that seems like a major change that removes a lot of the ‘governance’ aspect and makes it more about war. There’s nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it just sounds like a civ game missing an arm and a leg :p

  • I have played Civ since the first one, and I am not disappointed to see the micromanagement gone. It is all fun and games in the beginning, but as time goes on it gets bogged down. of course, the only way to play civ is on a huge map, that may have something to do with it 😉

  • Hey, I was micromanaging armies in strategy games back when I was five years old. 😉 This 23 year old whippersnapper can do it with the best of ’em but there was something about the health and happiness in Civ games that got rather old on larger maps (The size I like to play on).

    It did streamline the game a tad but I think it found the sweet spot between optimal fun and obligation.

  • This game released while my wife was out of town on business. Needless to say I got no sleep without her telling me to get to bed 🙂

    Excellent version of the game, been a long time since Civ II

  • I played the demo on PS3 and it wasn’t bad, I’ll probably go pick it up one of these days.

  • I haven’t tried multiplayer yet, but I’m looking forward to it… especially the possibility of co-op. Hopefully, I can crush foes with artillery while an ally controls the air and seas. Or something like that.

    I’m a little annoyed that I still can’t redeem my code for extra goodies.

    My greatest shock so far is realizing that the Great Wall doesn’t ensure peace through the whole game… only until an enemy unlocks some technology. So far, it seems worth building anyway.

  • Keen, don’t hesitate to try the multiplayer, it’s actually handled really well. If you play ranked, turns have a 1 minute timer, but the really neat thing is that the timer will only begin once a player has finished his turn, the turns are taken simultaneously. It’s a good mechanic that works fairly well.