happy reading


http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html


Mali is a civ

Hotseat is in

looks like the english, germans, spanish, persians, russians, japanese, egyptians are all in the game.

I really like the "global view", very cool.

i hope the map generator will be better - this one seems to be full of small islands. i hope continents will be shaped a lot better than in the previous civ games.

What?! They eliminated armies?
I don't like the way this si going.
Though graphics are definitely better, only cities look a bit empty?

when they said they got rid of armies, i think they meant they got rid of the way it was done in civ3, where units would "load" under a leader unit - it seems like u can still stack units together and somehow combine their different advantage points together, so it shud still be ok...

Eventually see a good high-resolution screenshot.

This is big:

We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related. You will, however, create spy units and move them around as you did in previous versions of Civilization. In diplomacy, you will be able to broker peace between two warring Civs or ask a Civ to go to war with another even if you are not currently at war with that Civ.

It's more power to the human players: let AI fight and you watch!

And different levels of customization:

Civilization 4 will be the most moddable version of Civilization ever. Players can edit basic stats and attributes in XML files. On a higher level, much of the game will be exposed to Python so modders will be able to edit events and have more control over how the game works. On an even higher level, we are planning to provide an AI SDK to allow experienced programmers to dig very deep into customization.

On an even higher level, we are planning to provide an AI SDK to allow experienced programmers to dig very deep into customization.

I can't tell you how happy this makes me. An AI SDK? Man, so much for my job and family....

Arathorn

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/620/620513/img_2785567.html

Land of the Giants! :D

From this pix compared to the earlier ones we have seen - notice the multi unit only has three men compared to the five we have previosly seen - could be a way to see the units hit point strength? 2 figures for conscript, 3 for regular, 4 for vets, 5 for elite? No more hit point bar....

...hope that guy on the left watches his step or that village will be eating hamburger for dinner not steak... ;)

it's nice to see the map a bit smoother and colorful than previous screenshots, still a bit too boxy compared to civ3, but a def. improvement.

looks like oil can be in the ocean too. i wonder if u'll see all the resources from the beginning of the game, or if they'll only show after certain techs r gained.

What?! They eliminated armies?
I don't like the way this si going.
Though graphics are definitely better, only cities look a bit empty?
I like that. To me armies skewed the gameplay as the AI could not use them properly nor knew how to attack them. They were too much of an exploit. Once you got a lot of armies it made for a less interesting game - plus you could trend to use elites less becasue armies are so powerful thus lessening your chances of getting leaders.

Well, I cannot say that I am convinced by what I see...and what is worse, is that they probably won't alter the graphics. So I will play SMAC and Civ2 until Civ5 will convince me.

Is it me or is the map a globe ??? :eek: :scan:

Apart from that, a good read. Some bits are confusing to me, or at least make me think I don't like them, but I'm too lazy to sum them up here. ;) The game is taking a nice direction, but of course we will only know if it is excellent after a few months of gaming.

No point in not buying it because of lacking graphics, even in Civ3 you can make custom graphics. I dont doubt you can do the same in civ4 ;) .

EDIT: From the look of that river it wont be sailable, seems like its part of the "land" tileset so to speak. Thats too bad if thats the case, what do you think?

EDIT2: "unit movement and combat will be much more interesting and exciting than ever before."

Sounds pointless, Im not interessted in exciting unit movement. I hope they dont go too far in trying to please the RTS crowd.

I dont doubt you can do the same in civ4 ;) .

I'm sure you can.

looks like the english, germans, spanish, persians, russians, japanese, egyptians are all in the game.
Oh geez! They still not learned the difference in English & British :mad:

Have you noticed how big the models are. It looks clumbsy, I hope there will be an option to scale them down to about Civ3 (or smaller) sizes.

It looks nice, but there are a few downpoints too in this preview:
- missionars and spys are single units which travel across the map, bah...
- food trade is not possible :(

I'm sure, the graphic (which is not that bad) will be improved just a lil' bit more and then it will be fine. But, in one pic of the gallery, I see the town indicated, but no town (St. Petersburg or so), in another pic (Novgorod) it's clear that they've taken out the normal graphics so that we can better see the city improvements (wall), nice, but it says nothing about the graphics. I'm concerned about the global view. This could become quite messy with the time (the pic is from the beginning!).

I myself am quite happy to see Mali in at last, and do we already know their uu: the camel archer? Btw. do we already know something about civ traits/specialities?
I am also happy that now everybody can build War Elephants, it deserved. Conclusion: the elephant becomes a strategic (and luxury?) resource.

mfG mitsho

Although i'm obviously just as exited as everyone else about civ4, these screenshots make me worried that civ4 may just be trying to be something it isn't.

One of the best things about civ is the simple, uncomprimising interface - and i'm worried by the look of civ4 screenshots that Firaxis are trying to make it seem more "sophisticatedly user-friendly", through hidden controls and smarter graphics, when one of the best features of civ is it's simplicity and straight-forwardness, whilst a great and complex gae underneith.

Also now it seems there will be only 18 civs before the expansion packs - not the 19 we first heard...

Excerpt from http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html
IGNPC: Tell us about some of the new civs. I imagine we'll have the usual suspects from the European and Mediterranean sets but are there other, less obvious choices in store? Will we be seeing a return of the civ traits?

Barry Caudill: We will definitely have the usual major powers like France, Germany, England, America, China, Japan, etc. We will also be including many Civs that are either new or usually saved for expansions like the Incas or the Aztecs or the totally new Mali. In all there will be 18 Civs in the shipped version of Civilization 4

We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related. You will, however, create spy units and move them around as you did in previous versions of Civilization.

Will that mean that sabotaging production won't be possible anymore? What about stealing troop plans etc? Will there only be spy units or will they also have a decent espionage system? If they only revert back to spy units and cut back on espionage, that will be too sad.

When I look those global pics it gets a bit of dizzy in my head :crazyeye: Really! Since I'm used to way civ is I try to lean my head all the time, huh weird! And it's really hard to figure hexes. I guess it will be first time when I put grids on. And funny thing was that I searched where's the town. There's name but where's town, but then I realized that it's made kind of interesting way :) You have city view in your map.

i'm guessing the globe view is optional. i'll sure u can flat map view it if u want.

- food trade is not possible

I think you might be wrong.

The system has been greatly expanded with the addition of many more resources, all of which are tradable. Some of the new resources, like marble, help to increase wonder production, some are food resources

Hopefully not having any spy operations that are terrorist related will only mean that you cant do things like poison watersupply and plant nuke (I think thats the case).

Wow, the floodgates have opened up! A lot of interesting things presented in that interview.

Gabryel: the Firaxis guy interviewed explicitly said that you could not trade "food" to allow cities to grow faster, but could trade them as resources to increase a city's health.

IGNPC: Maybe I'm sick but I really miss being able to poison a rival city's water supply. Are you going to be including new options for espionage and its more "honorable" cousin diplomacy?

Barry Caudill: We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related.

Why? Terrorism has been around all throughout history under different names ... Why be so sensitive about this and not about using real religion names which can also cause dissent? Ostrich behavior IMHO.

Although i'm obviously just as exited as everyone else about civ4, these screenshots make me worried that civ4 may just be trying to be something it isn't.

One of the best things about civ is the simple, uncomprimising interface - and i'm worried by the look of civ4 screenshots that Firaxis are trying to make it seem more "sophisticatedly user-friendly", through hidden controls and smarter graphics, when one of the best features of civ is it's simplicity and straight-forwardness, whilst a great and complex gae underneith.
It says they are aiming for WYSIWYG so cities will look unique on the map. This will be a bit like Civ3 city view.

I already mentioned (in an edit) that the large size of characters is my biggest concern.

Any idea what the minimum requirements might be?

The more screenshots I see, the more these giant figures bother me (just a little though). Anyways, I like the variation in resource purpose such as marble giving you increase wonder production.

honestly, it looks horrible. The units look like oversized titans, and the graphics remind me on disney land, beside, its still ugly. The good news: it can only gets better! :D

Ouch, just saw the globe-world view, I really hope they clean up the graphics and make the tiles more seamless before rlease.

Populous had a better 3D globe view, so I would expect the screeny to be a prototype.

The more screenshots I see, the more these giant figures bother me (just a little though).
That's true. They have WYSIWYG and 3D, but they haven't adjusted the size of the units. Hm.

So far everything looks pretty good. Except i'd like to see the unit models scaled down.

The graphics look very weak: the globe shot is OK but those circular things with units in them look aweful; the units are gigantic and look clumsy hovering over the cities; I do not like the way the borders look... Civ3 looks way more appealing. Please God let it be just a prototype...

I join the gang up on hating these giant units... :)


But now I have a question concerning the IGN screenie that has
Novgorod as a city (the one with 3 swordsmen (?))
Question:
Just where is the city Novgorod on this picture? I mean, graphically...
I see two clusters of structures:
one is close to the right of the name "Novgorod",
the second is "under" the middle unit icon.
None of them I suspect is the graphic for the city...

So, where it is? :confused:

The graphics look much better now! I also like the globe view. Finally in Civ we'll have a spherical world!

However I'll join others in asking for either the units do be scaled down, or (better) the terrain and terrain improvements to be scaled up.

Concerning Novgorod in the pic, I guess there is nothing there to show the city because it does not have any improvements yet. If you look at the other screeshot with St Petersburg - it only shows a city wall, which I guess is the only improvement in that city. I would prefer however something to point out that there is a city in the given square.

EDIT: Just read the full interview and although I like many of the things said, I'm not too sure about techs having only one prerequisite. However with the amount of customization freedom they are providing, I'm sure that can be modded.

the graphics look pathetic... i think civIV shouldn't try to excel too much in the graphics. no matter how hard it try, it just won't be those games like counterstrike or ageofempire. i hope the game still play well... i like the civIII pictures more... yeah. those giants are really ugly.

I do not like the way the borders look...

I think the borders look cool ;)

I have some complaints, and other parts look really, really good.

Not that graphics is what I buy games for :mischief:

food trade between cities wasnt specifically specified, but they said food is no longer for a city growing, but the citie's health

Mali is in! :goodjob:
Which means, no more Zulus! :D

I count 16 civs from the various sources we've seen (names of cities on screen shots, reports of civs from various mags, and now IGN), which would mean the following, if those represented who was in, and they haven't decided to get rid of anybody:

Arabs
America
Aztecs
China
Egypt
England
France
Germany
Inca
India
Japan
Mali
Mongols
Persia
Russia
Spain

Plus Rome & Greece?

Also, I like that rivers act as roads for trade goods.
I like that on the global map it appears that you can see where your units are.
I really want to find out more about the diplomacy. That was something they really needed to steal from CtP.

Where have you seen the Inca? I definately think, Rome and Greece are in. But where are the Mesopotamians? They have to be in someway. But they probably wanted even cultural groups (if they still exist).
In my eyes, there are just too prominent civs missing of that list:The Turks and the Mesopotamians, all others are nice-to-have-civs (including the Inca).

Imho, the reason that no city is shown in the picture is that they switched it off for the screenshot to have a nicer screen that shows us that the improvements are on the main screen. :)
mitsho

Mali is in! :goodjob:
Which means, no more Zulus! :D

I count 16 civs from the various sources we've seen (names of cities on screen shots, reports of civs from various mags, and now IGN), which would mean the following, if those represented who was in, and they haven't decided to get rid of anybody:

Arabs
America
Aztecs
China
Egypt
England
France
Germany
Inca
India
Japan
Mali
Mongols
Persia
Russia
Spain

Plus Rome & Greece?

Also, I like that rivers act as roads for trade goods.
I like that on the global map it appears that you can see where your units are.
I really want to find out more about the diplomacy. That was something they really needed to steal from CtP.


So no more Zulus or Babylonians? That's the first time since Civ1 !

:( dont feel like quoteing but he said no Terrorism

but the rest is great

It is indeed awesome info. If you wanna read it up in a hurry check the sticky.

I love the diplomatic changes that are taking place. I've wanted these for a long time!

food trade between cities wasnt specifically specified, but they said food is no longer for a city growing, but the citie's health

from IGN:
"some are food resources (these help with the overall health of your cities)"
"You will have the ability to trade food resources but these affect the overall health of your cities, not the growth potential."

I think they more meant that food resources are for the health of your city. Like the idea that fresh meat is healthier than a diet of just grain. So, does that mean they have two aspects? That they contribute to health and to food? or just one? Because from the screenshots its clear food still is in the game (and must determine your city growth rate).

It sounds like there are still three types of resources, now all tradeable:

1) Food resources. provides health.
2) Strategic resources. provides military/production.
3) Luxury type resources. provides culture? or happiness?

Now, they said that it an answer to a question about whether you can trade between your own cities. So how many resources can you trade between your own cities? and for what purpose?

Where have you seen the Inca?

Barry Caudill: We will definitely have the usual major powers like France, Germany, England, America, China, Japan, etc. We will also be including many Civs that are either new or usually saved for expansions like the Incas or the Aztecs or the totally new Mali. In all there will be 18 Civs in the shipped version of Civilization 4.

from IGN:
"some are food resources (these help with the overall health of your cities)"
"You will have the ability to trade food resources but these affect the overall health of your cities, not the growth potential."

I think they more meant that food resources are for the health of your city. Like the idea that fresh meat is healthier than a diet of just grain. So, does that mean they have two aspects? That they contribute to health and to food? or just one? Because from the screenshots its clear food still is in the game (and must determine your city growth rate).

It sounds like there are still three types of resources, now all tradeable:

1) Food resources. provides health.
2) Strategic resources. provides military/production.
3) Luxury type resources. provides culture? or happiness?

Now, they said that it an answer to a question about whether you can trade between your own cities. So how many resources can you trade between your own cities? and for what purpose?
That makes sense to me mudblood. Perhaps every city that is connected to a food resource recieves the health bonus just like in Civ 3 where every city connected to iron would be able to build Swordsmen.

@mudblood thanks, totally overlooked it :D

That makes sense to me mudblood. Perhaps every city that is connected to a food resource recieves the health bonus just like in Civ 3 where every city connected to iron would be able to build Swordsmen.

Yeah, remember the screenshot with the +2 "+" (= a red cross) for being near fresh water? Maybe what's in the city radius improves health, which would be that cross, and then in addition you can trade that improvement on if it's a food resource? So everyone who has access to steak or wheat or fish has an improved health because of improved diet?

very cool, though I'm depressed over the continuing outlook that UU's wont be present in the game, and that civlizations from America, to Mali, to China will get to build Romes mighty legions.

No suitcase nukes or tainting the water supply? Ugh, so espionage will be something I don't bother using in this game too.

Where have you seen the Inca? I definately think, Rome and Greece are in.

I know I for one wouldnt bother buying the game if they werent in ;)

Wont not having UUs limit the moddability somewhat for players wishing to make scenarios and such. I would hate if there is no way to prevent USA from building SS Panzer-divisions in a WWII scenario :p :confused: .

I too hate these huge units. It detracts from the overall game. Civilization is more about the empire then the units in my opinion.

I also think the no terrorism comment is absurdly PC.

I'm sure, the graphic (which is not that bad) will be improved just a lil' bit more and then it will be fine. But, in one pic of the gallery, I see the town indicated, but no town (St. Petersburg or so), in another pic (Novgorod) it's clear that they've taken out the normal graphics so that we can better see the city improvements (wall), nice, but it says nothing about the graphics. I'm concerned about the global view. This could become quite messy with the time (the pic is from the beginning!).



Maybe they're showing us one of the mapviews? Because of course if cities and wonders appear on the maps it will get confusing, so perhaps they have views that strip everything but the military view?

The two global views appear to show different aspects of the game. One showing unit locations, one not. If these maps are zoomable, then there should also be a difference when they're zoomed in.

And yes, no terrorism is uber-PC.

Wont not having UUs limit the moddability somewhat for players wishing to make scenarios and such. I would hate if there is no way to prevent USA from building SS Panzer-divisions in a WWII scenario :p :confused: .

"Still, there are some units that haven't been part of previous versions like Grenadiers and Horse Archers and War Elephants that are not specific to only one Civ."
I think that and the 2k Games site confirms UUs. That there are units that are "not specific to only one Civ", implies that there are units that are.

I'm wondering if they will add to diplomacy the possibility to sign Nuclear proliferation treaties

I think that and the 2k Games site confirms UUs. That there are units that are "not specific to only one Civ", implies that there are units that are.

The 2k site does say that there are "culture specific units." Hopefully that implies civ specific units.

Ok, thanks, I feel a little bit better now ;) .

Its shaping up a bit better than I expected. One thing that bugs me is the scale of the units. If they could change the scale based on how zoomed in / out you are, it'd be great.

Scale of units is bad, but can't that be modded in graphics like anything else?

@p dandy- you've made my day :D

*that said, world maps are gonna look hellishlly cool all zomed out to the rounded global view

What in the world is going on? The scale of the units is bad? What have we been playing with in the Civilization series for the past 15 years? Tiny accurate things you can't see? The graphics are beautiful and the game sounds great, I really want to play it.

...the scale of the units is bad? O_o What in the world is wrong with you people? Most of the pictures seem to be close zoom-in. Compared to the tiles we've seen, the units don't look much bigger than the Civ 3 units compared to their tiles...

I wonder what the minimum pc requirements will be for playing Civ4.

"The first Civilization to discover a technology attached to the founding of a religion will establish a holy city for that religion and it will begin to spread, although slowly."

I wonder if Holy Cities will play any other role in the game? If the Holy City of your religion belonged to a civ that belonged to another religion, it would be cool if you had to go to war with them to win it back, or were considered a traitor if you didn't. Or, better yet, if other civs had to go to war with you to win back their Holy City.

This isn't looking too bad, I'm concerned about the lack of details regarding the resource system, though. If it still works on the civ3 model, with resources not tradeable in discrete quantities and arbitrarily disappearing that's going to take a lot of the potential fun out of the game.

Looks like we get ice floes and polar caps, I wonder if we can make risky voyages of discovery to the polar regions and have our explorers dance on the poles to increase our culture? :D

Here I made a little experimenting with unit sizes, see pic below:
50% of original size is far left on the pic,
75% of original size is left-bottom from original group...

Which one do you like?

Nice job V Soma. The smaller versions are definitely better.


I wonder what is gonna happen when a holy city is destroyed? :evil:

@V.Soma: You perfectly proved how crappy that over-large units look. I for my part could live with the 75%, but would prefer the 50% size.

Here I made a little experimenting with unit sizes, see pic below:
50% of original size is far left on the pic,
75% of original size is left-bottom from original group...

Which one do you like?

50 percent looks infinitly better then the original. :goodjob:

Since the game will be in 3D, having different sizes would not be a problem in regards to scaling (unlike Civ3's 2D units). I for one would love a preference option of choosing unit size.

...the scale of the units is bad? O_o What in the world is wrong with you people? Most of the pictures seem to be close zoom-in. Compared to the tiles we've seen, the units don't look much bigger than the Civ 3 units compared to their tiles...
Then the question is, why did they plant Bonsai trees?

Yay! Mali!!!

V.Soma, 50% looks nicer imo :thumbsup:

I'm getting the itchy feeling that a patch is being plotted, and the game isn't on the shelves yet :lol:

Then the question is, why did they plant Bonsai trees?

I said "seem". :p If that's the standard zoom, I'm personally disappointed but I can change the zoom at any time without it looking pixellated anymore. But then, the trees in Civ 3 look a lot smaller than that at standard zoom. :p

Oh no. The graphics are terrible. What will we do? :sad:

"The first Civilization to discover a technology attached to the founding of a religion will establish a holy city for that religion and it will begin to spread, although slowly."

I wonder if Holy Cities will play any other role in the game? If the Holy City of your religion belonged to a civ that belonged to another religion, it would be cool if you had to go to war with them to win it back, or were considered a traitor if you didn't. Or, better yet, if other civs had to go to war with you to win back their Holy City.

That would be so perfect.

Not only can I think of the Crusades, but to other situations as well. BTW, I think extremely religious civs might not even want a secular government holding the birthplace of a religion.

EDIT: the 75% looks the best, the 50% is way too small.

BTW, does anyone else think health could make sieges more interesting? (if you cut off the city's food supply, it could cause health problems inside)

Actually i like the 75% graphics better. I think that the 50% units would get lost easily, espcially with the terrain so big. Unless there was another way to notice units.

Also, it says that tech trees are basically individual to the civ (war-only, wonders....etc). Does this mean that you become diluted (scientifically) and fall behind if you only stick with multiple paths?

No terrorism = No fun :cry: If i wanna blow <Snip> up, that should be my God given right!!!!!!

Language removed. Don’t try avoiding the auto-censor and don't post excessive language.

I think the graphics look horrible. The units are huge and the terrain just looks like crap. Right now, the games not looking so good to me. One positive is that the diplomacy ideas sounds good as well as the civics thing.

ROUND EARTH!

Some other thing I like:
Super zoom, way out to satellite veiw.
Mali, at last.
Units have faces!
Able to disable/enable different parts of the city veiw.
Spy/missionary units.

But I don't like how they lowered the number of units. Not that important but still.

Which one do you like?

i like the 75%, 50% looks just too small to me.

I kind alike the 50%, though suggest 60% may be best; which ever, I kinda liek how the troops are smaller then the trees around them, yet niether obscure the surrounding areas terrain ;)

I don't know... if the units got any smaller it would be really hard to see them. It's already more difficult than in Civ 3 since everything is in 3D, I don't know if we want them to make it any worse.

OK, for the hell of it:

What I like so far:

1) Units are good against certain other units, encouraging combined arms.

2) Units improve in specific ways due to success, further differentiating units from different civs.

3) Civics.

4) Moddability.

5) Improved Diplomacy.

6) All resources are tradable!

What I don't like so far:

1) The return of unit-based espionage.

2) The overly large and ungainly units.

3) The way in which religion is implemented.

4) The overly PC nature of espionage.

5) The complete lack of genuine new victory conditions.

6) The almost certain return of worker-based terrain improvement.

7) The fact that unit micromanagement-and micromanagement in general-is certain to leave the Modern Age as boring as ever (and could even make the industrial age monotonous as well!)

What I still don't know enough about, but which could be good....

1) Trade routes (and trading in general).

2) Internal Commodity trading (i.e. can shields and food units be traded-as well as strategic and food resources?)

3) City Health and how well epidemics will be mimicked in the game.

4) Is civil war back-yes or no??

5) How does the AI personality thing REALLY work??

6) The cultural slider, and how culture now actually works in general (and is it in ANY way tied to religion??)

So, it seems that on balance the items I find disappointing (or know too little about) far outweigh the good news for this game. I just hope and pray that I start hearing LOTS of good stuff about this game in the coming months (and hear a few retractions regarding existing information-like spies and missionaries!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie: It seems odd to me to so closely follow a game which you seem to have little hope for.

7) The fact that unit micromanagement-and micromanagement in general-is certain to leave the Modern Age as boring as ever (and could even make the industrial age monotonous as well!)

I don't disagree that this is one of the most boring, frustrating parts of the endgame. But for me the issue was not necessarily the number of units, but the way in which you could never group them together or get them to work together effectively. The patches helped, but certainly didn't resolve the issue. If unit management were improved, I think it might ameliorate a lot of what you're complaining about though.

If units progress in combat and experience, does that mean individual units will become more valuable? And that you may wish to build fewer of them? Or that you'll be managing many different units all with different traits?

I don't know if I mind missionaries and spies as units. It depends upon how they're implemented. They seem like a way of letting people who want to play peacefully use noncombative means to influence civilizations around them. CtP's lawyers and environmentalists were awful, but a little of this kind of unit, which I can use as much or as little as I want depending on how much I like the concept, I don't mind. A number-based system works best for me too, but I'm only part of Firaxis' intended audience.

For a VERY simple reason, Vael. Because by the time they brought out Conquests for civ3, the game had well and truly exceeded my original expectations. For that reason I will ALWAYS have hope for the Civ genre. I am disappointed right here, right now-but things to come could always tip in favour of me buying it. I guess the big thing right now is that I probably won't be RUSHING out the door to buy it, but will wait to hear what people here and at Apolyton think of it first!! Just wait and see, I guess.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Well, Civ 4 already sounds a lot better than Civ 3 Conquests to me.

I agree. The graphics aren't to my taste, but I think modders will have that changed 5 different ways within a month, so I'm not worried about that.

I'm wondering if they will add to diplomacy the possibility to sign Nuclear proliferation treaties
Don't you mean nuclear NONproliferation treaties? :thumbdown :nuke:

:p

In some ways, Vael, I 100% agree with you. In other ways, however, they seem to have gone backwards-in much the same way as they did going from Civ2 to Civ3-via SMAC. i.e., they introduced all of these great new concepts, but then tossed out a whole bunch which were good-but perhaps needed a bit more work (i.e., throwing the baby out with the bathwater :(!) Espionage and trade are both perfect examples of this. Moving towards a more abstract system was a GREAT idea, they just needed to improve the way in which it worked to make both of them more viable strategies. Instead, it seems that trade is going to be pretty much automated (which I hope I just misread) and we get spy units from Civ2 back :(! This is not the way to solve the problems which existed within the trade and espionage systems IMHO.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I agree. The graphics aren't to my taste, but I think modders will have that changed 5 different ways within a month, so I'm not worried about that.

This should not be an excuse for the game maker. I don't want to depend on the modders. If the official graphics suck, the modded ones won't be much better.

There are some good graphics mods for CIV3, but most of them are works based on the official game. Not even mentioning units.

I noticed on one of the world view maps that there were a couple lions. Are we making wild animals the barbarians now? :shakehead

I noticed on one of the world view maps that there were a couple lions. Are we making wild animals the barbarians now? :shakehead
Yeah...seems that is that is their tweak for the barbs. :sad:

Personally I liked the Civ2 Barbarians - only played the game once, but I liked that barbs were present most of the game, and that they could actually take over cities and actually evolved as the time line in the game moved on... I liked those cute little fundamentalist guys... :mischief:

IMHO Firaxis is missing the boat in not incorporating a barb model like that - combining it with 'minor' nations, independent city/states, and modern 'splinter' groups. (Yes, to those pc challenged, I mean terrorist states! :lol: )

As far as spies and missionaries go, I think the three (well, four actually) major problems I have with them are that, as units, they require constant management and guidance. It also seems to fly right in the face of Soren's 'Simplify, Simplify, Simplify' mantra that he has stated in the past. Thirdly, there is the danger of these units being majorly overpowered, as spies and diplomats were in Civ2 (I always felt it foolish that a diplomat/spy could damage a tank!!) Last of all, why go in this direction when perfectly simple and reasonable 'abstract' systems exist to model the same thing?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Those legions look great, but the terrain and city information box-thingies look worse now than what I've been seeing in some of those latest magazine scans. Other than that, the game just sounds better and better.

Oh, and the return of spies as units is dope.

Here I made a little experimenting with unit sizes, see pic below:
50% of original size is far left on the pic,
75% of original size is left-bottom from original group...

Which one do you like?


I prefer the 50% view.

It gets better and better each time new information is released about Civ4. I didn't really think the graphics was bad until after I read all the comments and went to take a second look.

Most of my opinions have already been voiced by others - I also don't like the graphics and certain decisions that have been made with the game. It does look promising overall, but I can't convince myself that everything's going to be allright - too many worrying details.

I didn't notice anyone commenting on this one: We have also removed the idea of separate attack and defense values and replaced them with a single Power rating. Maybe the combat system has been developed in other ways so that this won't become a problem, but I really don't want to see a simpler combat system.

I like the most of what I read and looked at so far. I´m definitly in to buying civ4 asap :)
What I´m really looking forward to is
a) The new "government"-system. Choosing a combination of 5 traits will result in lots of possible settings. That improves the very limited choices in civ3 imensly. I´m already looking forward to the "republik vs. democracy"-threads being replaced by hundreds of threads! :crazyeye:
b) The huge improvement of diplomacy. That was really needed and will allow for more strategies and styles of playing.
c) The new unit system. I´m not all clear on how it will exactly work, but I like everything I read about it so far. Sounds like it will be more individual and allow for more customisation of the units. :goodjob:

I share the reservation about workers, though. I always found it quite strenuous to watch after your 200 workers in modern times on a larger map. Hope they will do something about it, because I´ll NEVER automate anything.

And I´m curious about the city-mechanisms. Will food only be good for health and city-growth be only affected by culture? We´ll have to wait and see later I guess.

Just one word on the graphics: I don´t give to much for that. I´ll get used to what the game looks like after the first 100 hours of playing-time anyway...

I didn't notice anyone commenting on this one: We have also removed the idea of separate attack and defense values and replaced them with a single Power rating. Maybe the combat system has been developed in other ways so that this won't become a problem, but I really don't want to see a simpler combat system.

Might be because this has been already been known for awhile. I actually prefer it this way. I never could understand why there were seperate attack and defense values. Some units will still naturally be better suited for attacking or defending(/tanking) due to their speed, HP, combat advantage, etc.

I'm afraid that the '3d-ness' of Civ will add nothing to the overall experience, except higher system requirements. And by the looks of these screenshots I think my fear is justified. Guess it's to late to switch back to simple and clear 2d graphics :(

...they seem to have gone backwards-in much the same way as they did going from Civ2 to Civ3-via SMAC. i.e., they introduced all of these great new concepts, but then tossed out a whole bunch which were good-but perhaps needed a bit more work (i.e., throwing the baby out with the bathwater :(!) Espionage and trade are both perfect examples of this. Moving towards a more abstract system was a GREAT idea, they just needed to improve the way in which it worked to make both of them more viable strategies. Instead, it seems that trade is going to be pretty much automated (which I hope I just misread) and we get spy units from Civ2 back :(! This is not the way to solve the problems which existed within the trade and espionage systems IMHO.

That is exactly what I think! "Simplify, simplify, simplify" should not mean to toss out valuable (more abstract) concepts, IMO.

I didn't notice anyone commenting on this one: We have also removed the idea of separate attack and defense values and replaced them with a single Power rating. Maybe the combat system has been developed in other ways so that this won't become a problem, but I really don't want to see a simpler combat system.
I think - hopefully I got this right - that they have moved to a better combat system and so dropping the separate attack/defense values doesn't seem to be that bad.
From what I understand the concept is more indvidualized (pikemen are good against horsemen, but will do bad against other units, possibly archers, while horsemen are good against archers or so). So there is no need anymore for the more generalized combat system that works with attack and defense values.

I'm afraid that the '3d-ness' of Civ will add nothing to the overall experience, except higher system requirements. And by the looks of these screenshots I think my fear is justified. Guess it's to late to switch back to simple and clear 2d graphics :(

I only can agree to this.
Currently, I don't see any added value in the new display of units. Instead, they even look more strange than in Civ3, as that display WAS abstract by concept. 3D now means a more realistic graphics model, but then why having units being able to step over an entire settlement?
What concernes me even more: how will that turn out when we are using the zooming functionality? Will there be different zooming rates for the units and the environment? And perhaps a third rate for the improvements?

As by now, I don't like the graphics. They just look like kid's building blocks thrown together. :sad:

I'm afraid that the '3d-ness' of Civ will add nothing to the overall experience, except higher system requirements. And by the looks of these screenshots I think my fear is justified. Guess it's to late to switch back to simple and clear 2d graphics :(


Nah... (This is me, saying no, you're wrong, and can't be bothered explaining why you're wrong. :D )

But I will say this, since it is 3D, you can have your old top-down view or if you like you can have it at isometric view, I really don't think there is that much of a problem with clarity.

having played Civ from the beginning (Civ1), I have to say the graphics presented to us are plain awful right now. what are they thinking? They truly look like clumsy bits and pieces, monstrous units...and to say modders can fix it...
what we need are clear, simple graphics. after 100 hours of gaming, all those fancy animation like 'once resources are workered' don't help. The global view looks worse than Civ2 IMHO.

As for the gameplay, it sounds pretty good, but we need to play the game to find out how it 'feels'. It sounds to me as if they listened to our feedback. It's good that armies are gone given that the AI was unable to use them. I particularly like the promotion system.

Well Snoopy and Warpstorm, two of the best Civ III terrain modders, have said that it will be easy to mod the graphics. Imo, much easier than Civ III.

I really, really hope they include some kind of SDK, which most PC games now offer. This way anyone could mod the graphics as they wish.

Well, Civ 4 already sounds a lot better than Civ 3 Conquests to me.
If I were to be completely honest, Civilization has never impressed me. Thus, Civ4 stands the greatest chance of impressing me because none of the others have. I play because it is a strategy game, and as far as modern strategy games are concerned, it is playable and has some connection to reality (i.e. It is about humans).

Civ Win:
Very repetitive because the AI are the same in every game. Graphics aren't so much a problem because that is not what the game is about.

Civ 2:
Now the graphics are a problem! It looks boring but I haven't played it. I have played the clones though.

Civ 3:
Animations and music make the early game exciting, but late game becomes tedious. Late game is also more repetitive because you have by then overcome geographic difficulties.

Civ 4:
Looks like animated Collosus stepping on shrubs, but because the game is still largely unknown there is still hope...

All versions:
British & Russian Commonwealths (a bit like devolution) demonstrated that it is really the only way to manage a huge empire, but somehow the game about empire building doesn't even have the option. That is just flawed and could also be the illusive answer to improving end-game.

Here I made a little experimenting with unit sizes, see pic below:
50% of original size is far left on the pic,
75% of original size is left-bottom from original group...

Which one do you like?

I like the small one

but you can see why there will be problems with having units at that size considering how much more detail the terrain has.

Maybe the example units are just poorly coloured to show the true possibilities of playing at that scale.

After playing for a little while you would soon know what to look for, so I don't think spotting units is an issue - especially if they are animated (breathing motions &c.)

The world is round! :eek: How are they going to combine that with square tiles? Because you can also see the tiles being square shaped on those two globe screenshots.
Here I made a little experimenting with unit sizes, see pic below:
50% of original size is far left on the pic,
75% of original size is left-bottom from original group...

Which one do you like?
Have you seen the orange line around Novgorod? I think that is one tile. Those units aren't oversized, they have simply zoomed in a lot! Trying to determine whether 50% or 75% is better is nonsense - you should simply zoom out. :p

Matrix, what about the size of Novogrod? :hmm:

What if we want soldiers that are not bigger than cities?

All this obsessing over the graphics when most of you said it was the gameplay that was important...*shakes head wonderingly*

All this obsessing over the graphics when most of you said it was the gameplay that was important...*shakes head wonderingly*

Well, as long as the graphics are somehow consistent, I don't care about them to much.
So, at this link: (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screenindex_6124000.html) you can see some "bird's view" screen which I think are quite nice. Nevertheless, when zooming in, it becomes much distorted as the units are WAY too big - IMHO.

It is about getting a ballance, warpstorm. If graphics are distractive then you have a problem...

I'm just a little scared of the graphic engine, think I read it was the same as in Pirates. Which were rather buggy and slow at times. Combined with civilization...just dont feel right.

In one of the pics there are Russian Roman Legionaries. Does that mean there will be no more UU for each civ? Or did they went back to civ2 on this?

IMHO the terrain graphics are ok if a bit square but i really don't get the giant soldiers. I noticed that in some other screenshots the units were about the right size do what's going on?

Oh please, you know what these graphics reminds me? You remember the games produced by Koei back in the early 90's for the super nintendo? games like Aerobiz, aerobiz supersonic, PTO, Romance of the Three kingdom, Ghengis Khan, Liberty or Death? ring a bell? well if it does you 'll agree it looks the same. If it doesnt go grab a SNES emulator and try one of these games and you'll see.

Alright, full disclosure before I post. Over the winter, Rome Total War took over as the strategy game I play the most and I still rank it as the best strategy game I have ever played (although the Civilization 3 is a close second, I never did get to play Civilization 2).

Personally, I like the idea of the large unit frames although I must say, the scaling down to 75% did make the graphics look cleaner. In the interests of not having this game require exorberant amounts of RAM and large video cards, hopefully they will provide a scaling slider in a graphics preferences menu.

One thing I do not like about the unit graphics is that they do not look good stacked on top of cities. Going back to Rome Total War for a second, the armies are similarly disproportionate to the terrain but when in settlements, the army disappears. In order to see it, you must click on the settlement and the pictures of the various units in the army appear below in addition to various pieces of info (experience, equipment upgrades, number of men). Perhaps that would also help to clean up the graphics a bit for Civ4.

Other things I like:

New government system - I think the civics idea has huge potential and am quite excited about this. Not only will it add new elements of strategy to the game but it will really allow players to customize their empires in new ways.

Religion - I think that they have done a good job in introducing religion but also balancing it in a way so that no religion will have preference. I would have had no problem if they invented religions to further prevent any issues arrising from it but I believe the system in place again shows quite a bit of promise (don't let me down Sid!)

New Culture System - Culture level tied to happines...hurray!

Trade - Using rivers as roads is a great idea. With rivers giving +1 commerce last time due to the justification that rivers can be used for commerce, allowing trade over them simply strengthens this element. Well done! I also like the idea of having to agree with a leader to give trade rights and then allowing automatic trade. This is taken directly from the Rome Total War model and I am very pleased by this too.

Food as Health - I agree with one of the people above, this could make seiges much more interesting. Perhaps this is one of the ideas they had in mind to eliminate the infamous "stock of doom" battles.

Hybrid Artillery Units - I want to see more about this but I am glad they have changed artillery. I found artillery relatively useless in Civ3. In order to be useful, you needed far too much of it.

New Unit Properties - When gaining experience, units gain new abilities--AWESOME! Also, I love the idea of units being stronger or weaker against certain types of units and eliminating the a/d/m statistics. This should make combat less about crunching equations and more about using certain unit types strategically. New military strategies are a huge bonus!

5 types of great leaders - I liked the addition of scientific leaders, we shall see what these bring. Not a bad idea though :)

Diplomacy - Looks like some nice changes to the model from last time, should be good.

Espionage - I love it. I am very very pleased about having actual spy units. I am assuming that we will move spy units on the map and be able to plant them in cities for long periods of time. That way we can gain complete information about that city and conduct missions. I am assuming that is how it will work, again, applying the Rome Total War model (and I think the designers certainly looked at that model).

Missionaries - Maybe similar to the spying model I put above? I wonder if you can plant missionaries in cities and try to convert their culture slowly? That was the system in play in Medieval Total War, if religious characters converted enough people in your provinces so that the religion of your empire was substantially in the minority, the provinces had a good chance of revolting. By this token, will that mean we can use missionaries in our own cities to destroy other cultural influences?

Tech Tree - goes back to the government argument

Moddability - one word - WOOHOO!

What I do not like:

I haven't heard anything about changing the method in which you acquire money. I would much prefer income tied solely to improvements. This would mean that if a city has a resource, it could build an improvement to exploit that resource and make money. By that token, I also haven't heard any mention about being able to hire mercenaries which is a disappointment.

More to come later, I have to run, I am EXCITED!!!

So, at this link: (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilizationiv/screenindex_6124000.html) you can see some "bird's view" screen which I think are quite nice.

I think this zoom level is more where I would play the game. Seeing only 5 tiles like the close-in shots showed, is useless for actually playing the game. The zoomed out shots look a lot better.

No one ever bought Civ because of the graphics and no one ever will! Nevertheless I'm the type who likes being soaked into a game by graphical gimmicks and movies (Thank God they're back!)
The graphics engine from Pirates! is fine. The land-combat wasn't one of the major priorities there and therefore the units weren't either. For cIV this has changed and that's good As far as I can see from those Screenshots that's what they've done: Improving the looks of units.
What about not having smaller units (because I like zooming in and seeing "real detailed" units - My guys and the bad boys! ;) ) but bigger cities? Concerning terrain improvement and trees it has to be de-scaled to maintain a good overview! BTW these screenshots are very likely zoomed in to a high degree so if you want to see a more strategic map just zoom out! Great!

I love the world-view and hope you are wrong concerning barbs being replaced by animals; that would be awful. Goody huts yould be from gone civilizations or aliens? Nope!
If they stay to what they said and implement a more cineatic feel to the game, that's just great! I loved the wonder-movies and I love sequences, when something special happens. I know it adds NOTHING to gameplay at all but to the way a game "feels", which is extremely important to me (next to a good story or an in depth-strategy-experience).
I like to win, but don't need to at Sid, when it means I need a calculator and make it a scientific approach each turn I play. What about fun?? ;) It's always a problem keeping the balance between being in-depth and just being looking-good, but I trust in Firaxis (and the modders) on this one!

More importantly (Thanks, warpstorm!) I believe that many aspects of the gameplay will be improved, especially the civics! It will be great to play with them and have a much wider variety of how to rule your country than in Civ3. I like the improved personalities of the leaders you play. Hopefully they won't only shake their heads if you don't listen to them but will have a certain power in "making you do" what they want. This might help very much adding the feeling of ruling a state of people with their own minds made up rather then just "do as you like" , like Aussie Lurker stated in other posts. It's not implemented the way you, Aussie, wanted it to be, but IF the leaders will have a certain power to direct you into what they want because otherwise you're in trouble somehow it IS implemented, which is good anyhow. (gee, what a sentence!)

Religion: I was very sceptical when I heard it the first time, but I think it should be ok in the end, especially when they really put some reason and meaning behind this mentioned "holy city" (won't repeat anything already stated here, now). Concerning missionaries: They've been important in history and should be in cIV!

Trade routes hopefully will be viewable on the map (sounds like that to me!). I agree with most of the people here that espionage won't be improved at all and that spy-units won't be helpful, although I never tended to use "terrorist action" very much!
And I hope all of you are wrong concerning workers! This is the most un-fun part in the whole game IMO. Why do you think they are still around?? Have you seen them or did anybody mention them being still there? Just an idea, which maybe now comes too late or already has been discussed somewhere else: What about a little bit of CtP and a new approach: In the first x years you can do improvements every turn. They cost you a certain amount of "investment". The no. and type of improvement you can do in each turn depends on the no. of Cities you have and/or the people in your country/civ. The further the game proceeds, the less often you have the chance to do those improvement, e.g. every 5 turns, then every 10 turns (this should be linked to a certain turn, e.g. each turn until 1000b.c., then each 2 turns until 500a.c. ! At the end of a turn where you are allowed to do worker-tasks you see, how much "worker-potential" you have available to use up, you use it up and then you can forget about workers the next 10 turns, 20 turns, whatever... Bad idea? Ok, just go ahead :D

Cheers, Stilgar

I like the improved personalities of the leaders you play. Hopefully they won't only shake their heads if you don't listen to them but will have a certain power in "making you do" what they want. This might help very much adding the feeling of ruling a state of people with their own minds made up rather then just "do as you like" , like Aussie Lurker stated in other posts. It's not implemented the way you, Aussie, wanted it to be, but IF the leaders will have a certain power to direct you into what they want because otherwise you're in trouble somehow it IS implemented, which is good anyhow. (gee, what a sentence!)

I have the feeling that only the leaders of foreign nations will be 'angry' or 'pleased' by your choices in the game and not the leader of your civ (yourself!). I guess they took that from SMAC where leaders had built-in personalities and definite prferences about how an empire should be managed.

eg. You find yourself at the head of the pacifist theology of Egypt and Bismarck becomes angry at you because, say, he doesn't like pacifist types...

I guess that's what they are doing and I'm not too happy about it because it may mean that certain civs will tend to follow the same paths. Maybe that's why they included two leaders for some civs?

Frankly, I'm shocked by the negativity expressed in this thread. Why so much hate floating around around out there? None of you have ever played this game before! You have no idea how it will actually work in practice! I don't mean to offend, but jeez guys, cut Firaxis a little slack here before you slice a game you've never played before to ribbons.

As for the graphics, maybe the units look a little goofy, but on the whole I think it looks pretty darn good. As others have said, these screenshots look like they were zoomed way in so that you could see the detailed unit models (and many of you have ripped Firaxis for letting you see some new units up close :rolleyes: ). Let's take a look at the Civ3 swordsman just to compare how far things have come:

http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/sullla/Epic8romandance.jpg

And then the just-released image of this swordsman/legion (?) thingie:

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/614/614551/civilization-iv-20050516030621271.jpg

I, for one, think the graphics are much improved! And, seeing as how we have no clue how the gameplay will shake out yet, I'm not about to fall all over myself with doom and gloom predictions. For "CivFanatics", much of the group here seems pretty masochistic! :)

Absolutely agree, Sullla! Glad you said it first :)

The game looks to be progressing great, I like most, but not all, of the changes mentioned in the article.

We all need to just remember the game is still in the PRODUCTION STAGE, everything that you see in the screens now will most likely change -- does anyone remember the old Civ 3 screens when first released? They looked very different to the current game now. EDIT: Example from Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/civilization3/screens.html?page=30):

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/gs/feature_previews/civilization3/civilization_screen001.jpg

A lot of games have alplha/beta test screenshots like these, you see it with the vast majority of games months, or years, away from release. Lets just wait until we play the game or get at least a month or so away from release before we all jump on the 'the graphics look horrible' bandwagon. Besides, the graphics in CIV3 are nothing to gloat about either and we all love the game regardless.

Seriously, I LOVE the graphics. Although 'eye candy' is less important than gameplay, I confess that it is so much nicer to play if its 'easy on the eye'!
Now, I am sorry if I have come across as intensely negative-I only do it BECAUSE I have such high expectations of Firaxis and the Civ franchise. I have bought, played and-eventually-LOVED every game in the series, and had I seen this info from any other game producer, I probably would have not been bothered-but this is FIRAXIS!!!!
Anyway, as I have said elsewhere, if they simply abandoned the idea of a unit-based espionage system, and brought in a more fun and productive form of abstract espionage system-then I would probably enjoy this game even MORE than I have Civ3 (which is REALLY saying something ;)!)
Well, that and abandoning this overly PC attitude towards sabotage!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I have the feeling that only the leaders of foreign nations will be 'angry' or 'pleased' by your choices in the game and not the leader of your civ (yourself!). I guess they took that from SMAC where leaders had built-in personalities and definite prferences about how an empire should be managed.

eg. You find yourself at the head of the pacifist theology of Egypt and Bismarck becomes angry at you because, say, he doesn't like pacifist types...

I guess that's what they are doing and I'm not too happy about it because it may mean that certain civs will tend to follow the same paths. Maybe that's why they included two leaders for some civs?

You're right, checked it in the article :blush: . Nevertheless I don't believe this will turn out to be a bad idea; hasn't been in SMAC, won't be in cIV...

Sullla: You are absolutely right! As I mentioned, personally I like the graphics I've seen so far and I love a lot of the ideas and implementations in the game. I'll be in stores as soon as IT will be, I'll wait for a patch or two ;) and will become addicted in a shocking short period of time, just as it had been with civ1,2,SMAC,civ3............ :mischief:
I really believe cIV will be a step in the right direction, even if the journey won't be over!

Anyway, as I have said elsewhere, if they simply abandoned the idea of a unit-based espionage system, and brought in a more fun and productive form of abstract espionage system-then I would probably enjoy this game even MORE than I have Civ3 (which is REALLY saying something ;)!)
Could be also that spies will simply replace scouts, explorers and conquistadors as reconnaissance units and abstract espionage system will remain intact...

The more I read, the more I see many features from CtP making it into Civ4 - hopefully they took the best of CtP, best of Civ3, cut out the bad stuff and added new wonderful things, and will release without too many bugs, and this could be really great!

You were quicker than me on this, narmox. Having some features from CtP and others from Civ 2 (spies are great! That's what one of the major complaints I have against Civ 3) should definitely make a nice new version of Civ!

I wonder if I should mention this at all, but since I'm the one who posted this first, I feel like I have a responsibility to correct my error, if it was an error.

I count 16 civs from the various sources we've seen (names of cities on screen shots, reports of civs from various mags, and now IGN), which would mean the following, if those represented who was in, and they haven't decided to get rid of anybody:

Arabs
America
Aztecs
China
Egypt
England
France
Germany
Inca
India
Japan
Mali
Mongols
Persia
Russia
Spain

Plus Rome & Greece?


Something doesn't quite add up here. The new (Gamespot) screenshots have cities named 'Cherokee' and 'Agade'. Which would imply that the Cherokee and the Bablyonians were in the game (but is that wrong?). But then .... um ... where do you put in Rome and Greece?? Obviously there's a mistaken assumption somewhere. But where? Arabs and such were thought in (not just by me) because Mecca and other capitals showed up in earlier screenshots (and honestly, how can you have Islam without the Arabs??). The Mongols were thought in because someone said that Genghis Khan is a leader. Should we not assume civs are in unless someone explicitly tells us? or are Rome and Greece not in the game?

Obviously by putting in new civs, they're going to make people unhappy by removing old civs. Someone's going to be hurt. But who and why?

Oops, you are right Peepers, NONproliferation treaties, sorry

I think we shouldn't take the interviews literally. In the last interview, it said "civs that are left for expansions such as (!!) the Inca or Aztecs". That lets me assume that one of them is out for the Cherokee (or North America?, which would be a bad solution!).

We have seen many hoplites, so I presume, the Greeks are also definately in.

So we have babylon left to be put in somehow.

three options:

The number of civs which are said to be in varies, so maybe 20 is ok (which would also be an even number)
the Aztecs from whom we haven't seen a city yet (the only civ If I remember correctly), are replaced by Babylon/Mesopotamia.
They haven't decided yet on the final civs and have put in some too much (like Babylon, Spain, Cherokee, Mali or so), and then cut some out again. (It's not that much work to put them quickly in with leader name and city list, probably me thinks).


mfG mitsho

My obligatory comments:

I think the graphics look absolutely fantastic. The "world view" rules. As for the relative size of the units -- to me, this is relatively unimportant, as it's purely cosmetic. It's the gameplay and core mechanics that we should be worried about (IMO).

Fewer units? What are they going to take out? Likely I think we going to go back to 1 type of tank for the entire game, no jet fighter, 1 archer type, basically less upgrades of units which I don't like. :(

I thought, he said more basical unit. the war elephant for everybody, horse archers he mentionned too, plus the missionary and the spy, no no, the number of units rises... :)

mitsho

I thought, he said more basical unit. the war elephant for everybody, horse archers he mentionned too, plus the missionary and the spy, no no, the number of units rises... :)

mitsho
I am sorry, but I doubt that. Though it would be great... But he said:

In order to streamline the process as much as possible and to highlight the new promotion system, we decided to actually reduce the number of units some.

He didn't say anything about basic units or so. Perhaps they will reduce UUs and have only UUs for each culture group which will reduce the overall amount of units drastically. So if they reduce the number of units only "some" then they could even add new types of units while reducing the overall number.

That could be a possibility, but I somehow doubt it. They want to have different civs (the concept all approved in civ3, traits, uu', etc.), and now they cut it?

Yeah, it's possible. But isn't is difficult to find one uu for the America culture group, or even the European one? It's easier for Mediterannea, but well... .
But I'm sure, the units I mentionned above are added,.. let's drink tea and wait.

mitsho

"Units can gain experience and level up, and then you can assign it special bonuses, such as enhancing its urban combat ability, or give them bonuses against mounted units, and so on."

So, while there may be less predefined units, once these babies get experienced the number of minor unit variations jumps up.

And what I try to read into this is something done against the snowball-effect (like the new culture-model seems to do): You can defend a small nation with experienced units (need to fight some wars though) against a bigger advanced enemy, that just cranked out all that new cavalries, while you still are stuck with lesser defenders.. :)
*hope*

mitsho

GRAPHICS ARE IMPORTANT. But not how people think. The graphics need to be fluid and easy on the eyes cause you play the game for so long. Civ 3 graphics actually gave me a headache after playing for several months. And I like that the world seems more alive, helps me to feel apart of my empire.

Is anyone nervous about the AI trying to choose what upgrade to take?

Well after reading these articles I have to say, things look decent. After reading all the fantastic ideas put up in the civ 4 suggestions thread, ideas that were very revolutionary for Civ, I let my expectations get to high and I hvae had to accept that most of those ideas would never get in, no matter that they would make an incredible civ game.

That no terrorist thing so infuriating and so ignorant. We get a game a week about killing and violence, but we cant recreate a common historical act and tactic performed by soldiers the world over, not by some "terrorist". Somewhere in the chain of command there is a really ignorant and cowardly person working at Fraxis.

IGN now has a preview up:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/616/616871p1.html

"We did confirm that each civ will get a unique unit."

"I know a few folks dislike the large size of the units. Personally I'd rather be able to see them clearly than have to hunt around for them among the cities and trees."

"The difference between fighting against Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth will be considerable."

"The National Epic, for instance, magnifies culture by a factor of two."

"One of the more legitimate complaints about previous games is that the speed tended to drag too much in later ages. It definitely helps that you don't have to watch the AI turns anymore." OK, but how do you know what the AI is up to? And you could always turn off that option anyway. I don't know that this addresses that issue.

You know, i'm getting more and more used to the appearence of the units just by looking at more screenshots. Sure, they're different from previous civs, but thats because they're in 3D - it may take some gettting used to, but they're definately growing on me

From that IGN preview, it sounds like there will be significant differences in the way culture works in Civ4. I like it :).

"The National Epic, for instance, magnifies culture by a factor of two."

At first I had a little trouble getting my mind around this. For example:

The English Cultural Ledger
1 Beowulf = 1 Shakespeare, 1 Newton, 1 Locke, 1 Hobbes, 1 Durham Cathedral, 1 Queen Elizabeth, 1 Hitchcock, 1 Beatles, 1 Darwin, 1 Churchill, 1 Jane Austen, etc. etc.

Then I thought of a solution. Why not assign cultural points for military victories? Not all cultural points in Civ IV are city-based now. Each time a city is captured, grant cultural points equal to its population. Each time a lesser military unit defeats a stronger one from another civ, add the difference in their strength points. And then let the National Epic double these points. Military victories are a part of culture. That would make more sense, and would involve one new figure.

But, strangely enough, this to me is actually reassuring. There have been a number of things we've been told about that have made me go "huh?" over the last couple of days, among all the things I've been really happy about. But I really do believe there is a great group of people over at Firaxis who really are trying as hard as they can to provide a great and balanced game -- one that will please other audiences as well as myself -- but still with the game's best interests at heart. There have been things they've clearly been listening to the fan community about, such as including Mali. But that there's something this out of whack in the game makes me believe that they've been working out how the game functions work together, how graphics interface with gameplay, etc, and that some of these numbers are just place holders until they can focus on them more closely. There's still a lot of tweaking with gameplay left to come, and figures like this one need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Because there's no way doubling an entire civ's culture with one early small wonder is going to make it into the final game.

Having looked at the E3 video, I am disappointed to see that barbarians work the same as ever :(, and it looks as though not only do your units still fight one-on-one, but it doesn't even appear as though we can STACK them. Hope I am wrong on BOTH of those last points!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Having looked at the E3 video, I am disappointed to see that barbarians work the same as ever :(, and it looks as though not only do your units still fight one-on-one, but it doesn't even appear as though we can STACK them. Hope I am wrong on BOTH of those last points!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie, "The absence of evidence for something does not prove the absence of something." We're probably only seeing the parts of the game Firaxis wants us to see. Which may mean that higher-end combat just isn't ready for prime time. Or that they want to put out information as slowly as possible to ratchet up the excitement.

Having looked at the E3 video, I am disappointed to see that barbarians work the same as ever :(, and it looks as though not only do your units still fight one-on-one, but it doesn't even appear as though we can STACK them. Hope I am wrong on BOTH of those last points!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
Why do you think we will have to stack the units? I think they said that instead of having hit points they will now use multi-units. So one unit in such a multi-unit represents something like a "hit point", thus fewer people mean a weaker (multi-)unit.

Hey CellKu. We have since discovered that those multi units actually represent the units 'strength' in hitpoints-not actual multiple units. This means that stacks and stack movement will still be an issue in the game. They stressed in the early days how important Combined Arms would be in combat-and I can only see that being an issue if stacks fight as ONE against their opponents. Still, maybe they are witholding this tidbit of info for later release ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hey CellKu. We have since discovered that those multi units actually represent the units 'strength' in hitpoints-not actual multiple units. This means that stacks and stack movement will still be an issue in the game. They stressed in the early days how important Combined Arms would be in combat-and I can only see that being an issue if stacks fight as ONE against their opponents. Still, maybe they are witholding this tidbit of info for later release ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
That's true. With all the information flowing in, I got a bit confused... :crazyeye: