I am going to call this a hands-on preview because the game is still in beta. Yes, it is playable, but there are many bugs in the game that pop up, disappear, re-appear and then make the game frustrating. That’s not to say the game isn’t playable or interesting, it’s still very much a work in progress and we can appreciate that.
When I was at a social gaming conference someone once said there are three types of social gamers:
- Collectors - When they play a game, they need to get everything in the game before they’ll quit.
- Competitors - Are there to play and win. Nothing gives them more pleasure than being the top of the crowd.
- Casual - Those that will come and play everyday for maybe an hour but won’t try to be the top of the pile or try to collect everything they can.
Now, I’m not exactly sure which I am, maybe a combination of the three. What I do know is that I’ve been putting a lot of time into the game. In fact, I’ve started playing two different game instances now. In the first I’m 10 in the world. In the second, I’m 83rd. There’s definintely a great learning curve in the game but once you’ve got that down it’s quite an interesting and well made game.
The Gameplay Socialized
I read an article somewhere that said the game wasn’t properly socialized. What they meant was that you can’t constantly invite friends to do things for you like you can with Zynga and other gamers. Frankly, I’m glad. I never respond to those and at any given time I have 200 or so requests. I wish there was actually a way to just block all of that in one fell swoop instead of having to do each app separately.
No, there’s certainly none of that in CivWorld. But what there is, is a new way to socialize. Each player is given a town or if you like, a nation. In that nation you are totally in control. There’s nothing really social about that. Where the social side comes into play is when you join a Civilization, and that is a necessity to be more successful as you get a group of players working towards a common goal, win a Global era by completing specific goals. Each era has a set of goals that are tied directly into your daily gameplay.
- Combat - Win a battle against a particular size of enemy (usually # of players in a civ)
- Science - Discover a certain technology (done through a massive, interwoven tech tree)
- Culture - Build a specific Wonder of the World or a specific number of them.
- Finance - Attain a certain amount of gold.
This all ties directly into the game’s interface as well as you can see below.
From left to right: TOP - Construction, Science, Culture, Market, Combat, Friends Awards, World View. BOTTOM - Personal Throne Room, Tech Maze, Culture Puzzle, Trade Game, Chat, Help, Your Civilization.
The really great thing they did is made mini-games to get you culture, science and gold. So if you don’t want to pay for CivBucks, you don’t have to and that makes the CivBucks more of a time saver than a game changer which is an almost perfect balance.
