Let me preface this by saying that I am really digging Civ 4. I still need to get a handle on the new way that specialists are handled (I never used them much before) but for the most part the changes are for the better.

And I don’t want to talk too much about the now widely documented technical issues. I’ve experienced slowdowns, some memory leaks and other technical issues but no crashes to desktop and I got the thing to install the first time. If it doesn’t tell me that it detected DirectX 9.0c, I let it install. I trust the little man in my computer to know what he’s doing.

But:

1. Why is Disk 2 labelled the Play Disk when it is not the Play Disk?
2. Why am I known as “VALUE 765G-654” whenever I forget to enter my my own name as a Civ leader?
3. Why do all the Wonder Movies suck? They are all the same thing – they show the building being built and then things are placed around it.
4. Why do the games seem so much faster than in other version? I liked Civ games that would go on for seven hours. Not many of those now.
5. Why does the Civilopedia just show pictures of the items and not their names until you mouse over them? Am I supposed to instantly know a galleon icon from a caravel? And the knight is just a dude with a sword. How can I even tell he is mounted?

Stay tuned for comments as they come up. I’m trying to set up a MP game tonight so expect an after action report once my ass is kicked.