Okay, my DS version arrived last night, played it for a few hours.
[quick aside: did anyone notice that the backs-side of the case insert was the Shepard Fairey designed (a.k.a. Andre the Giant has a Posse) advert poster? I saw something through the holes in the cartridge holder and checked it out.]
I agree with the reviews that place it at 7 or 8. It's enjoyable, but its not quite like any other Civ game out there.
The layout looks a lot like Civ 1 with better graphics. There aren't nearly as many units or techs, but it doesn't seem to harm the game play. I actually found the controls to be very intuitive, the stylus works fairly well and the button commands/d-pad allow you to work surprisingly quickly. So far I've played the Chieftan-level tutorial, and using basic Civ skills its turned into a culture/technology rout for me.
A couple of specific thoughts:
- The only micromanagment I miss is the ability to have workers or settlers build irrigation, roads, forts, mines, etc as you need them. The game has instead completely automated and streamlined this process into simple commants. I must say it is nice to have roads instantly constructed --though sometimes I'd like to specify the route.
- All ships but submarines have unlimited capacity(!) This makes staging an invasion much, much more easy than the computer games. There was a nice addition of early boats coming with a platoon of rangers to go and grab gifts seen on shore. It is weird to roll a tank onto a battleship.
- City defense are still very strong; my green platoon of riflemen got throttled trying to take a city from archers
- While the game does a good job of describing what buildings and Wonders do, it helps if you've played the series before to know what you want to do
- the addition of more fabulous secrets (such as finding legendary places like Atlantis) is an interesting addition to get people to explore; you get big bonuses for finding them
- Great people spawn much faster than in CivIV
- the bonus you get for being the first person to discover a tech is a nice touch, if you're the first person to discover the tech --I have no idea what that does for play-balance
- There aren't as many techs, but it works, with 47 it feels closer to the original game
- You don't seem to be able to chose the victory conditions you want in a regular game (only in a handful of scenarios). This would appear to make the games faster. Some of the new victory conditions are interesting and definitely make the game a bit frantic
- Diplomacy isn't very strong in this version, much closer to the original Civ1
- They were able to work in culture, with was a great addition in CivIII
- There appears to be no sadness penalty for units away from cities; which is welcome but makes the game a bit more combat-friendly
- The inability to have a diplomatic agreement to cross friendly opponent territory makes attacking other civs (and to a lesser extent exploration) more difficult.
- The sound and music is good in that it isn't irritating for a game you will play for long periods
- The graphics are fine; nothing great, but that work for the game
