EDIT:
I’ve clearly overestimated the amount of information I could fit. I did a test to see how much information bits I can fit in the threads I’ve got, and it shows that it is not nearly enough (only about 78 bullet points on both posts, when in the coming months it could be much longer). Currently on the first post, I've got close to 13k characters already.
Sure, it will take time to fill up what I’ve got now, but when I hit the limit of 30k (for the two posts), I’m going to be in trouble.
So better fix the problem earlier than later. I’ll put up a new thread, but this time the only difference will be that you would not post in it (because I'm not sure how many posts I'll need in the coming months). Either way, blame goes on me, not the people who posted here. ;)
So, click here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=108315) for the new thread, just make sure you don't post. Other than that, everything else is perfectly normal, and no other changes will be made.

RESERVED for future updates.

Needless to say, you will not see any phenomenal combat results such as the infamous “Spearman defeats Tank.” This has caused a lot of headaches for Civ fans in the past:cry:

Rest of it sounds good. Thanks for putting this together! :goodjob:

EDIT: Sorry if this post intrudes.

Thanks for putting this all together, I greatly am looking forward to all of these new features, especially the built in multiplayer, hopefully it wont be as laggy as it is now.

EDIT: Sorry if this post intrudes.

Nope. :)
I only needed one extra post (the reserved one).

Thanks for the info, Civrules. If the "river trade" connection is correct, it not only makes sense, but sounds like it should work well.

@ Tomoyo - so we lose "spearman defeats tank"? I'm sure there will be something equally annoying for folks to whine about. Dare we hope for "religious flips" to replace culture flips?

awesome. love all the features in Civilization IV. i like the idea about contamination, rebellion, and corruption

The units will gather experience from specific enemy units. One advantage also allows your units to use the enemy’s roads inside their territory, something that was not a available in the Civilization III series

This sounds a bit like the Shogun unit. Able to grow and become more powerful as new techniques and abilities are discovered/earned.

I'd be a little disappointed, if you could use an opponents roads/railroads to capture a city deep in an enemies core without having to deal with the border defenses.

I hope they don't make impossible for a group of cavalry units to defeat an infantry unit simply because they are from different eras.

I'm also wondering how a communist government with a buddhist city would relate.

:hatsoff: to the each nation having a unique military

:hatsoff: to the each nation having a unique military

Basically this means that the military plan for CivIV seems to be more flexible with much more options. :)

you said that Atari will publish Civilization IV. but Atari/Infogrames sold the license for Civilization IV. or do you mean they will publish this last game but will be paying a royaltee to the other company?

I still wonder if I should get conquests or Civ4? :undecide:

I still wonder if I should get conquests or Civ4? :undecide:

get Conquest. You will have at least a year to play that and all the wonderful mods. stop missing out. Civ4 will come at Christmas time probably (*bets a waiter ten dollar*). stop missing out and get Conquest.

I don't like using enemies roads, at least just "You can use enemies roads"

I think with that feature, we can't just road and rail every tile in sight. ;)

you said that Atari will publish Civilization IV. but Atari/Infogrames sold the license for Civilization IV. or do you mean they will publish this last game but will be paying a royaltee to the other company?

Well, here (http://www.civfanatics.com/news2/archive.php?show=month&month=March&year=2004) it says that Atari will be publishing it in 2005. Remember that Atari still has the right to publish Civ games until sometime late in 2005 (even though it sold the franchise).


According to the latest issue of the Computer Gaming World magazine, Civilization IV is expected to be released in 2005 by Atari. This info is listed in the Pipeline section on pg 48, which has release dates of upcoming games.

Atari and Firaxis have yet to officially announced Civilization 4. Firaxis's president and CEO Jeff Briggs first revealed Civ4's development last December in an interview on Game Daily, and Firaxis also confirmed the news to GameSpot a few days later. No further info about the game is available at this time.

Thanks to forum member dshamand for posting about it.

Well, here (http://www.civfanatics.com/news2/archive.php?show=month&month=March&year=2004) it says that Atari will be publishing it in 2005. Remember that Atari still has the right to publish Civ games until sometime late in 2005 (even though it sold the franchise).
Actually, Atari won't be publishing Civ4. See the Homeland Fed quote from the sale of Civ franchise news:

http://www.civfanatics.com/news2/comments.php?id=196

HomeLAN contacted Atari corporate PR represenative Nancy Bushkin over the phone this morning who confirmed that the Atari will no longer be publishing any more Civilization games, although it still retains the rights to sell its previous Civ games through October 2005.

I'm suspicious. I hope they don't ruin the structure with these new additions. It's all starting to seem like a TBS SimCity to me...

Actually, Atari won't be publishing Civ4. See the Homeland Fed quote from the sale of Civ franchise news:

http://www.civfanatics.com/news2/comments.php?id=196

Ok, thanks for the info TF.

Civilization III was extremely moldable, so, why shouldn’t Civilization IV be just as modable or even more so? It will be. Our moders will be able to do anything from create new worlds, units, technologies, and historical events (something they have been able to do in the past), to controlling the AI, something that they could not be able to do in previous Civ games. All this brought to you by XML data files as well as the Python scripting language (for those who are familiar with them)
.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592000738/qid=1102382612/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/002-2637115-1322441



One advantage also allows your units to use the enemy’s roads inside their territory, something that was not a available in the Civilization III series

I rather liked that feature. :(


Another thing I should mention about units and new aspects is that, training, employment and other improvements will allow every civilization to have its own unique military


I shall be intrested to hear more detailed information on this as it sounds good.



Needless to say, you will not see any phenomenal combat results such as the infamous “Spearman defeats Tank.” This has caused a lot of headaches for Civ fans in the past



Very good news. :goodjob:

Very good news. :goodjob:
It's about time they did something about that :spear: PROBLEM! [pissed]

OK, I am not TOO worried (yet) about units being able to learn how to use roads for TWO possible reasons.

Firstly, it seems to be in the general context of unit experience and improvement, and so I get the sense that a unit must first have had some experience in utilising enemy roads and/or must forgo some other 'upgrade' in order to obtain this ability. This is good because it allows for an even greater degree of specialisation between different units within a nations army.

Another possibility of course is that, even with an ability to use enemy roads, there may ALSO be a limit imposed on the range to which units can advance into enemy territory before they suffer degredation effects.

Lastly, I will be interested to see how they finally eliminated the 'Spearman vs. tanks' phenomenon. I'm hoping that it is merely a case of the units stats covering such a broad scale (in terms of AS/DS and HPs), that mere 'luck' will simply not suffice for a spearman to do anything more than 'nick' an enemy tank unit!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

When Civ4 comes out I wonder what will happen to this sub-forum? :confused:

the way i understood the use of enemy roads was that it was limited to certain units. I don't know where I got that idea.

that would be acceptable to me.

no matter what, i'd dont think it will a blanket use of enemy roads. if it is, i oppose it.

What I'm most excited about (so far): Non-linear tech tree
What I'm least excited about (so far): Religion

Just sayin ;) I could name a handful of things more requested than religion.

Something else started from scratch is corruption, rebellions, and contamination
City riots, not rebellions. Saying "rebellions" gives the mistaken impression that they've announced some sort of civil war system.

And what is contamination?
Morale and Flags: Like in Pirates!, it seems like morale (yet, a new feature in Civ IV) will be represented by the status of the flags
I don't understand this. The drooping flag is probably no more than a graphics glitch... the game is a year away from release.

Crap. I didn't get to see the screenshot in enough time. [pissed]

The point though, Trip, is that we may have PRECEDENT as far as the use of Flags in other Sid Meier games which would, at the very least, allow us to speculate on what they mean!
As for contamination, I think that they clearly mean pollution!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I seriously doubt that Sid will be involved much with Civ4 (contrary to what the article says). To date this has not been his focus. Since Soren seems to doing a good job, I doubt he'll take charge of it, but rather work on his "next big thing".

Civ4 desperately needs the Sid-meister's input -
CIV3 was a lame arcade game to me, with limited interest until conquests came out.

As of this year, I have fully went back to CIV2 playing.

:)

I guess when they say late 2005 it means sometime 2006-2007

I just hope they don't rush the thing and end up with a patchy mess.

....

Cv 3 had a lot of problems during development, so the issues weren't really the fault of the people involved.

Civ 4 had working multiplayer last February. That means over a year and a half of development AFTER that point... I would say that it will get plenty of development time and be a great game at release. :)

City riots, not rebellions. Saying "rebellions" gives the mistaken impression that they've announced some sort of civil war system.


I'll fix it. ;)

City riots, not rebellions. Saying "rebellions" gives the mistaken impression that they've announced some sort of civil war system.

There were rebellions in Alpha Centauri, when you lost a city to another faction due to revolt. This can happen in Civ3 but I tihnk only through culture flipping when there's a nearby civlization

Yes, culture flipping, but that's not what Soren was talking about.

Pooface? :p

Cv 3 had a lot of problems during development, so the issues weren't really the fault of the people involved.

To expand on Trips point, I think that "Rewritten from scratch" should help to prevent most of the problems that we saw in Civ3.

I seriously doubt that Sid will be involved much with Civ4 (contrary to what the article says). To date this has not been his focus. Since Soren seems to doing a good job, I doubt he'll take charge of it, but rather work on his "next big thing".

Let's hope that this next great thing is: Colonization II!!!!!!!

I don't understand this. The drooping flag is probably no more than a graphics glitch... the game is a year away from release.

Trip,
It should be obvious that morale is probably going to be in Civ IV. The best way to represent this is by the flags, and like I've been saying, Pirates! does a pretty good job at representing this.

Basically, this is why there are flags with units in CIV.
And how can it be a graphics error if the flag's status is so obvious? :p

Trip,
It should be obvious that morale is probably going to be in Civ IV. The best way to represent this is by the flags, and like I've been saying, Pirates! does a pretty good job at representing this.

Basically, this is why there are flags with units in CIV.
Well, considering you and Soren are good chums, and you are so important to the development of CIV I guess that is pretty obvious. :p

And how can it be a graphics error if the flag's status is so obvious? :p
Because it's a year from release and all sorts of graphical issues tend to plague games at this stage? :p

:lol:
We look like a bunch of kindergarteners, if you look from aside.
Basically you have your own thought, I have my own, and I stand by it.
We will see when the game is released.

I rather not have these little kiddy pointless arguments, if you know what I mean. ;)

Well, considering you and Soren are good chums, and you are so important to the development of CIV I guess that is pretty obvious. :p

Oh, right, like you have any inside information either. :lol:

I keep watching you telling us that Soren said this and Soren said that. As far as I can tell, Soren hasn't said very much at all, but some folks are trying to read the tea leaves for us. :lol:

A few screens from a magazine preview start circulating, and folks gather to see what they can divine from the glimpse at grainy pictures before the lawyers swoop in and make everybody take down the pics. I'm sure Fiery Axis is pleased to know that fans are all hyped up, but since the game is still probably a year away, maybe we should try to pace ourselves. :)


- Sirian

All I'm going to say is :lol:.

I never really understood why you couldn't travel on your enemies' roads. I mean, the road is there, why can't you use it? How are they going to stop you? Do they have peasants stationed on it every 5 miles saying, "get off! get off!"?

All I'm going to say is :lol:.

Oh, sure, laugh away. But there will be No Sheep For You. :crazyeye:

While I've got you here, Jon, what is up with all that color in your signature area? Blue? Red? Gold? You've gone all Madison Avenue on me here. Where's the green? Surely my bland "plain text" signature looks wimpy and old school by contrast. Is that fair? Oh, and where the heck is the pink? Everybody knows where the real action is taking place. :mischief:

There's your Civ4 "revelation" of the day. The Real Action(TM) is found at Pink Dot. :cool:

Now can we get back to something else, like, oh, I don't know, the AI or something. Diplomacy. Railroads. The proper color of the French.


- Sirian

I never really understood why you couldn't travel on your enemies' roads. I mean, the road is there, why can't you use it? How are they going to stop you? Do they have peasants stationed on it every 5 miles saying, "get off! get off!"?

Fine, but how do you use enemy rails? And if the enemy has rails, can you not be able to use them but still be able to use the roads?

What is the purpose of even bothering to have cultural control over tiles if not to give the defenders some advantage? Would the gameplay be improved by going back to Civ2 style "rape the entire enemy nation in one turn by using their rails against them" style of gameplay? Not in my view. :)


- Sirian

Fine, but how do you use enemy rails? And if the enemy has rails, can you not be able to use them but still be able to use the roads?

What is the purpose of even bothering to have cultural control over tiles if not to give the defenders some advantage? Would the gameplay be improved by going back to Civ2 style "rape the entire enemy nation in one turn by using their rails against them" style of gameplay? Not in my view. :)


- Sirian
Well, the enemy rails are a different story - for a start you'd need to regauge them all! :p (which is what the Germans did in Russia IIRC). And the infinite movement is a bit silly too.

But the roads should be used IMHO, for fairly obvious reasons.

Unrestricted use of the roads is slightly different. Would be quite interesting if there was something to simulate things like retreating armies blowing bridges and mining (landmines) roads to halt the enemy advance. Maybe this could be simulated by not getting the full road movement bonus of enemy roads?

I wonder how similar the new flag/morale factor will be related to the way it was done in Gettysburg/Antietam?

Sirian, Trip...might want to watch your tone there.

Oh, sure, laugh away. But there will be No Sheep For You. :crazyeye:
I think you may have me mixed up with someone else. ;)

While I've got you here, Jon, what is up with all that color in your signature area? Blue? Red? Gold? You've gone all Madison Avenue on me here. Where's the green? Surely my bland "plain text" signature looks wimpy and old school by contrast. Is that fair? Oh, and where the heck is the pink? Everybody knows where the real action is taking place. :mischief:

There's your Civ4 "revelation" of the day. The Real Action(TM) is found at Pink Dot. :cool:

Now can we get back to something else, like, oh, I don't know, the AI or something. Diplomacy. Railroads. The proper color of the French.
I dunno Bob, maybe your old age is catching up with you... :mischief:

Sirian, Trip...might want to watch your tone there.
LOL :goodjob:

Well, like I have said before, I DON'T mind enemy units being able to use my roads (but NOT my rail) so long as they have a limited range of action. That way, if they go too deep into my territory-and if I can cause them to be 'out of supply'-then they will be truly stuffed ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I dunno Bob, maybe your old age is catching up with you...

Woops, the teacher caught us talking during class. :banana:

Sorry, Jon. My eyesight must be going, as I clearly missed the obvious green and pink that must have been there in your sig all along. :bounce: For the record, you're not particularly upset by anything I might have said, right? :cooool:


- Sirian

For the record, you're not particularly upset by anything I might have said, right? :cooool:
That depends on whether or not you've changed your mind about my AI proposal... :mischief:

I've updated it to include the two new pieces of info from the magazine.
parts marked with "http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/NEW3.jpg" are updates.

I didn't say anything about rails; obviously, that's another matter. And, for the record, I never played Civ2, so I can't relate there.

Civ2 allowed the player to use enemy roads and rails. 'Twas not a pretty picture. Players gained enormous advantage as a result.

In fact, in Civ2, more often than not, the player can stand against all the AIs combined, player vs the world, and triumph over them all. A large part of that is letting the player use the enemy's roads. In my view, it would be a mistake to go back to that.


- Sirian

There's a big difference between allowing use of enemy roads and use of enemy rails. ;)

Not if rails stop being infinite, as you have called for. Then rails are just faster roads, and that is true even if they are infinite.

Forget realism for a moment. How is it bad for gameplay to allow use of enemy rails but good for gameplay to allow use of enemy roads? That's like saying it's bad to allow someone to build longbows, but OK to let them build normal archers because those are only half as strong. I don't buy it.


- Sirian

The distances involved will still differentiate roads from rails. Moving along rail will, under most reasonable circumstances, allow at least 10 free tiles of movement. This is obviously unacceptable given the pattern of cities. This is not the case for roads.

I would prefer if the road movement bonus was dropped to 2x. Maybe you've heard it, maybe you haven't, but I'm a big fan of mobile warfare. I think that allowing units to use enemy roads is one way to "open up fronts." Right now, warfare in Civ is very very defensive oriented. In most circumstances, an attacker will march forward, have to weather a defender's first strike, and then if he has enough left over he can continue attacking. The only times when this mold is broken is when A) cities across a border are spaced 2 tiles apart, allowing fastmovers to break through a city's defenses with enough numbers, or B) the use of "Fort Cities" or "Settler Blitzing" to steal culture, and therefore, roads or rails, so that enemy cities can be reached in the manner mentioned in A. Obviously neither of these is realistic NOR particularly good for gameplay.

If you have any ideas on how to shift Civ away from a defensive feel, I'm all ears. ;)

Up until relatively modern eras, warfare was a failry slow paced thing sometimes taking months or even years to resolve a seige (of course there are exceptions to this). I feel that the Civ3 approach was much better than the Civ2 approach.

Yes, but everything is relative. Right now it's pretty much impossible for an attacker to outflank a defender because the defender will always have the advantage of roads for 3x movement or rails for ?-infinite movement. This forces the attacker to slog in 1 tile at a time, or 2 tiles if he's lucky enough to have horses (or later Tanks).

While the wars themselves may be slow, this style of warfare belongs almost uniquely to the Western Front in WWI. Sieges can be represented by bonuses for units in cities, but I would like to see the actual battlefields themselves be as fluid as history has shown them to be. If I'm an attacker, I want the possibility of outflanking or cutting off an enemy army. With the current system that's impossible, whatever the era.

When has flanking ever been carried out on the scale of hundreds of miles?

Inch'on? That's like loading a few units onto a ship in port, moving a tile, and offloading on the tile behind the enemy. Whooptedoo in Civ terms.

Blitzkrieg through Belgium? Nah. That is like moving around the small line of forts called the Magninot Line. We're talking ONE TILE's worth of flanking, and in Civ3 strategic terms, the game accounts for that on par with what it was really worth.

Methinks you are too married to the nonsense "official" stance that tiles only represent ten square miles. Care to bet cash they don't stick with that line when it comes to Civ4? :lol:


The defender is already GREATLY disadvantaged by the vulnerability of fixed positions to defend. The SoD phenonomenon advantages attackers all the way. The attacker can pile all his forces into one stack, then charge. No risk. For defender to pile all his forces into one stack, he has to choose one point to defend and leave the rest wide open.

And you want to give the attacking SoD access to roads as well? What are you smoking? :smoke: [pimp]

There's already a game with all offense, no defense. It's called GalCiv. :lol:


- Sirian

Personally, I would just be happy if enemy roads-under normal circumstances-simply NEGATED the movement penalty of any underlying terrain. This would basically reflect the fact that the units are getting the overarching BENEFIT of the road (a nice, clear, relatively flat and graded surface) but are having to move slower because they ARE in enemy territory! Alternatively, if you were to give units full or partial use of enemy roads, but give them a limited range of operation in enemy territory, I would be equally happy!
Also, I think that imposing stack limits will be a good way of defeating both the Stack O Death AND the Fortress City strategy! After all, as I said in a previous thread, when was the last time anyone saw the equivalent of 6 units worth of troops in even a metropolis like London or New York? With Stack limits, cities would be limited to around 4-6 units, at BEST, thus forcing sides to fight on battlefields more often, rather than within cities as currently often happens!!
Having too many troops in a city proper should be the most effective way of making the population incredibly unhappy-even in wartime! Also, improved representation of sieges in the game might also be a good way of balancing offense with defense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

When has flanking ever been carried out on the scale of hundreds of miles?

Inch'on? That's like loading a few units onto a ship in port, moving a tile, and offloading on the tile behind the enemy. Whooptedoo in Civ terms.

Blitzkrieg through Belgium? Nah. That is like moving around the small line of forts called the Magninot Line. We're talking ONE TILE's worth of flanking, and in Civ3 strategic terms, the game accounts for that on par with what it was really worth.

Methinks you are too married to the nonsense "official" stance that tiles only represent ten square miles. Care to bet cash they don't stick with that line when it comes to Civ4? :lol:

The defender is already GREATLY disadvantaged by the vulnerability of fixed positions to defend. The SoD phenonomenon advantages attackers all the way. The attacker can pile all his forces into one stack, then charge. No risk. For defender to pile all his forces into one stack, he has to choose one point to defend and leave the rest wide open.

And you want to give the attacking SoD access to roads as well? What are you smoking? :smoke: [pimp]

There's already a game with all offense, no defense. It's called GalCiv. :lol:
Bob, ever heard of Napoleon's Maneuver of Ulm? Napoleon jumped hundreds of miles, outflanked the Austrian Army and forced it to surrender with nary a shot fired. All the way across Germany, and then Napoleon went on to win the battle of Austerlitz. There are other cases... what happened in the Soviet Union in 1941 is another example. And not even you can trim that down to a single tile. ;)

In the end it depends on one's taste. You're entitled to believe that things are already in favor of the attacker, but I disagree. ;) The ability to muster your units at a border and use 3x normal movement to concentrate on things heading your way seems very defensive to me. I don't consider that fun. Every battle ends up like WWI where the attacker faces a horrible wrath of the defender. You need numbers to win, which isn't historical and isn't fun. That's not how I want to play my games. And before anyone says "well the larger army usually did win," I say that I'd rather have a chance to win with my smaller army by using strategy than by relying on the RNG to give me a few gifts. I don't play Civ to dance with the RNG.

And I thought we didn't really care about "realism," but only gameplay? If so, then throw out your miles-per-tile argument and focus solely on the gameplay concerns. I don't like things as they stand now, and assuming Firaxis does something like create a unit which damages all units in a stack (the long-requested "Collateral Damage") that will be even worse... just keep a few of these guys in reserve, throw them at the approaching enemy stack and watch it burn.

Yes, allowing attackers to use those roads would definitely cause a shift towards the attacker, but other things can be brought into the mix to help reestablish the balance again. For example, attrition, like exists in Rise of Nations. However long you sit in enemy territory your units lose HP. Give units a higher defensive bonus while in cities... that way the attacker can road around the countryside while the defender remains holed up in the cities or the forts. If that doesn't mimic history, then I don't know what does.

My point is that I like mobile warfare. :p War in the past has often been a race between armies to acquire the superior position, the upper ground, the "good spot." This doesn't exist in Civ right now. Strategic vs. tactical concerns aren't really as much of an issue because in the past, even large armies often had trouble finding each other. Right now you can instantly see anything heading your way and prepare to meet it, knowing exactly where it is at all times and knowing exactly when to strike it.

Things like this are lost through abstraction, the necessary evil. In Civ, finding and engaging enemy troops is a matter of scrolling around the screen. One of the things I'd like to see is something which balances out attacker vs. defender on the battlefield, rather than the defender getting the first strike being a foregone conclusion. There are ways to prevent the attacker from running wild. I just want my wars to be more interesting.

Well, here is a thought for you: Profile and Spotting Number.

The former relates to how VISIBLE a unit is, the higher the number the easier it is to see. Units in a stack combine their profiles for the purposes of determining visibility.

The latter number determines how easy it is to SEE an enemy unit. The spotting number of a stack would be equivalent to the highest number in the group. Both of the numbers would be effected by the DISTANCE between units, and the terrain that each set of units is in. This could mean that a stack of units might not SEE enemy unit(s) sitting in a square, and could end up their movement turn in the same square with these units. If the latter units DID spot them, then they could get the jump on them-giving each unit in the stack a free attack.
This idea would work best with a seperate movement/combat system, and it could be possible for units to actively HIDE in terrain, thus decreasing their profile! Lastly, it would also make scouting units very useful too, as they would have a MUCH better chance of spotting units in a square that its stack is about to enter!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

In the end it depends on one's taste. You're entitled to believe that things are already in favor of the attacker, but I disagree. ;) The ability to muster your units at a border and use 3x normal movement to concentrate on things heading your way seems very defensive to me. I don't consider that fun. Every battle ends up like WWI where the attacker faces a horrible wrath of the defender. You need numbers to win, which isn't historical and isn't fun. That's not how I want to play my games. And before anyone says "well the larger army usually did win," I say that I'd rather have a chance to win with my smaller army by using strategy than by relying on the RNG to give me a few gifts. I don't play Civ to dance with the RNG.


Yes, this is correct. One historical fact of this is between Alexander and Dorius.
Dorius once had an army of 200,000. Alexander with just 40,000, won the battle when they met. How did he do it? And what did Dorius do wrong?
The thing is that Alexander knew his enemy, and so he went for the weak point. He cut through Dorius's forces and headed for Dorius himself. What Dorius did wrong is that he did not stand his ground, like a real leader should have. He simply ran away, because he was a weak leader. And what about his army? Well, an army without a commander is no good (no matter how big it is), so they dispersed as well. The thing is, Alexander won more than a few times against him, and all in the same manner. I guess Dorius never learned his lesson.

The point here is, how do you model this into CivIV? Well, as I think, it has probably been done already. IF morale is in, I guess it will no longer depend on who has more forces. The thing we do not know is how it will be modeled, and what depends on it. If Firaxis does this right, it can indeed make for interesting wars.

You see, though, this is why if you have the following:

Operational Range; Stack Limits; Morale; Profile and Spotting No., then you can simulate a large number of effects much better, and move away from the simple 'I have more units so I will now win'. Fighting wars closer to the home front (where possible), capturing important cities and fortresses nearer to your border, to secure supply lines, ambushing, outflanking, gaining the high ground and scouting/reconnaisance would ALL become vital parts of Civ4 strategy IF those 5 things I mentioned above were added-IMHO!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

As far as the roads are concerned, there needs to be a difference in movement from the pre-motor vehicle days to the post-motor vehicle days. This kind of mixes in with the rails... after a significant amount of rails had been laid, it was a boon to movement of armies, since forces otherwise had to march where they were going. The horses were limited to pulling supply wagons, cannon and caisson. The cavalry had their horses, obviously. Just like a fleet is as fast as it's slowest ship, the bulk of the mounted units had to stay with the foot units. Obviously this all changed after armies switched to vehicles. After then, the rail became the way to move heavy supplies, and masses of men long distances. Of course, there is a limited amount of things that can move on a rail system at any one time. Then you have to figure the resources that move on the same rail system to industrial centers, and finished goods to depot.

I don't know if you want to even worry about these things in a civ game, but there ought to be some limit to how many units can be on a rail or road at any time. At the very least some kind of stack limit.(which should be in effect everywhere, IMO) Simulating road an rail capacity is probably much to detailed for civ. The only logical, albeit clumsy way to do this is to build railheads, either as a city improvement or a worker function similar to airfields. Units loaded on rail were virtually useless for combat. The problem is turns are 1+ years in civ, so you can't really simulate loading/unloading time.

I've never been a big fan of the roading/railing of every bloody tile in site, and there definateley shouldn't be so many road/rail connections between different civs. The upside to roads or rails in was the faster movement, the downside was it put you in an tactical disadvantage, since your forces where concentrated on the road/rail, and movement was limited to ahead or backwards.

It would probably add too much micromanagement to implement these things. So, I've probably wasted alot of time and space to say there needs to be stack limits, and no complete road/rail coverage. :crazyeye:

The problem is turns are 1+ years in civ, so you can't really simulate loading/unloading time.
I'm going to ignore your entire post because you said this. :p

You've just prompted me to change my sig. SHAME ON YOU!!! :cry:

Yes. Your sig is now appropriately monochrome, and I feel better now. :lol:

By the way, we cannot advance this discussion for now because we've used all our movement on this turn. :crazyeye:


- Sirian

Civ4 sounds like fun!

I hope it will come with a built-in cheats/editor like civ2 does. Making units in civ3 is a hell of a danged headache!

To expand on Trips point, I think that "Rewritten from scratch" should help to prevent most of the problems that we saw in Civ3.

And will introduce a whole bunch of new bugs... It's software, there are ALWAYS bugs...

What I'm most excited about (so far): Non-linear tech tree
What I'm least excited about (so far): Religion

Just sayin ;) I could name a handful of things more requested than religion.

Most excited i'm about the possiblity to occupy territory without building cities. It's about time... Hope one can trade territory as well. I want to buy alaska for a couple of milions from the russians or manhatten from the indians for $50...

Most excited i'm about the possiblity to occupy territory without building cities.
Where did you hear this?

Most excited i'm about the possiblity to occupy territory without building cities.

Are you sure it's not just some wishes people had? I mean, if it were true, I think we'd have picked it up pretty fast. :)

Yeah, I reckon that he has read this on another forum, and believes its going to be IN the game!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I reckon that this is the first / only post he's read so he assumes that we're wishing, and so he's joining in.

We're more analyzing and rephrasing than wishing.

I found the whole spearmen vs tank thing quite amusing, personally. Though, I can see how that can be annoying. Ah well. Never actually happened to me.

Heh. I can just imagine the whole being able to use the rail thing. A warrior steps onto a rail...

"WHAT are you doing?"

"What do you think? Im going strait to the capital!"

"Whats that sound in the distance?"

WHAMMO!

Would the railroad enginner guy just stop? OH! That looks like a lovely bunch of chaps. Wonder if they need a ride somewhere?

Anyways, so far its sounding pretty good. Im a little nervous on somethings, but so is life.

I watched a hoplite wipe out EIGHT TANKS while fortified in a mountain tile, AI on AI warfare, in RBCiv Epic Fifteen.

I lost plenty of battleships attacking settlers in Civ1.

Tank vs Spear is alive and well. Not sure how it will work in Civ4, though. Each Civ game has made progress reducing it. Civ2 added hit points, and Civ3 added tank ability to retreat. Maybe Civ4 will add something else good.


- Sirian

You see, the problem here is that under the circumstances you have described, Sirrian, I can understand that these Hoplites would be VERY difficult to dislodge (though not impossible given the power of a tanks main gun!) At the same time, though, I don't think that said tanks should recieve any kind of SIGNIFICANT damage when they try to dislodge said hoplites. This is why I feel that we need some kind of 'stacked combat' and 'attack/counterattack' mechanism. In this instance, the defense bonus gained by the hoplites would make it very difficult for the tanks to dislodge them, but the counterattack (if any) by the Hoplites would also fail to damage the tanks (except under very rare situations). If morale is also implemented, then the position of the Hoplites-if it becomes dire enough (surrounded by units in all adjacent squares, for instance)-might lead them to abandon their fortification and flee the square-giving much the same result as the tanks owners wanted!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Civrules in post #66 made a correct point about an historical battle. The problem with trying to recreate something like that is that the game would have to go to a tactical battle system that would consume much of the design effort. What he describes in post #66 can be recreated in a game like "Rome Total War" for instance. I play that game. It often takes me 30 minutes to fight one complicated tactical battle. I like that, but it would be very time consuming for civ which covers a time period of 6000 years instead of just 274 years. You have to beware of successful game systems that reach too far -- like "Heroes of Might and Magic III" was great whereas Heroes IV stunk.

The bottom line is this -- playtest, playtest, playtest! And don't release it until it works.

Squares rather than the diamond style: It looks like from the screenshots that were available, Civilization IV will not be using the diamond style squares as previous Civilization titles


This is a big improvement for me. I quite never managed to play with diamonds and the grid off.
Keeping the grid on was so tiring

Well, we're not sure what to expect yet, so what I'm about to say is pure speculation...
Maybe the camera can move around, and for this reason, the squares look like they did in the screenies?
It is a possibility.

Huh! 25 november, can't wait. Great improvments through

Huh! 25 november, can't wait. Great improvments through
I put this date there only because it was on a larger gaming site, although I don't think it can be as reliable as if it were on GameSpot, or if it were officially announced.
So... We'll see. :)

This sounds great, I cant wait, gimme the demo ! :cry: :cry:

Given the form for the prevous versions of Civ, anyone want to hazard a guess when we can expect to start seeing Civ4 demos? Is it likely to be 6 months before release or more likely 1 -3 months? Anyone care to speculate?

Never. There was no Civ3 demo.

[Dec22]I've put up an update with information I found on the new Firaxis site.
[Dec23]A quick update I posted today is that we now know Jesse Smith will be the producer of CIV. :)

Well, we're not sure what to expect yet, so what I'm about to say is pure speculation...
Maybe the camera can move around, and for this reason, the squares look like they did in the screenies?
It is a possibility.

I think the game, being interely 3D, will be played on a 3D globe (one of the parameters of a game session will probably be the 'planet' radius - maybe thats the reason for that box cover). The camera as you say will move, or rather rotate, the world around. All this is just me speculating of course :)

The discussion will be continued in this thread, as Civrules needed to reserve some posts for future info. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=108315)