Civ V Screenshot Analysis

For those that don't want to have to go searching for the screenshots:

I'm pretty interested in the fact that in several of the screen shots showing borders, they don't seem symmetrical. The borders expand to different lengths in different directions, implying that it's not a static expansion in a set shape.

Maybe you can choose which way borders grow, or otherwise affect them? Maybe the tiles you work, or occupy with units, affect your borders?

OK, so if we already established that number of resources will affect how many units you will be able to build, and if someone already mentioned one horse means one horse unit, that could mean that ANY unit build will require certain resource to be build (kind of goes hand in hand with only one unit being able to occupy one tile). Than cities will have much more time to build what? More buildings?
Will this game have an emphasis on infrastructure much more than previous games?

Edit: Maybe population will limit how many land units (no resources needed units in Civ IV) you will be able to build!

I read (I think it was the civ5 website) that you will be able to trade land with other civs. This may explain the effect we are seeing.

I really think that the interpretation/translation of a Danish article, with questionable actual experience with the game, has us grasping at straws here. The whole idea that 1 horse resource = 1 horse unit seems weird to me.

The idea of 1 horse resource = 1 city can produce horse-based units makes more sense to me.

Inverse Icarus said:

I'm pretty interested in the fact that in several of the screen shots showing borders, they don't seem symmetrical. The borders expand to different lengths in different directions, implying that it's not a static expansion in a set shape.

Maybe you can choose which way borders grow, or otherwise affect them? Maybe the tiles you work, or occupy with units, affect your borders?

Click to expand...

That does indeed seem very interesting. Although it could just be, as someone else has said, a matter of selling off land tiles to someone else. It would be neat to have your borders growing in different directions by different amounts, but I wonder if it would add too much complication/micromanagement to the game? We'll have to see, I guess.

Inverse Icarus said:

I really think that the interpretation/translation of a Danish article, with questionable actual experience with the game, has us grasping at straws here. The whole idea that 1 horse resource = 1 horse unit seems weird to me.

The idea of 1 horse resource = 1 city can produce horse-based units makes more sense to me.

Click to expand...

I suspect that the truth is probably a halfway point: 1 horse resource might allow for a limited number of horse units, perhaps 5 or 10 but not 1. You're right that we may be reading too much into this small article though.

Have to agree with icarus: more likely that resources limit simultaneous production rather than simultaneous possession. I wonder if hooking two marbles will help build Sistine Chapel faster?

If resources are exhaustible, then I can see the whole global warming, renewable resources conceptual complex being introduced - which would be nice to play around with.

On the varying number of soldiers in hexes: maybe thats just the visual representation of experience/strength (instead of the bar). I found 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 16 soldier varieties. Or it could be that same type units can reinforce each other by combining, up to a limit. Or both. BTW, I am not crazy happy about hexes - they have two fewer adjacent tiles from tile. However, I loved hexes in Panzer General, so we'll have to see.

The sun and shadow effects on the terrain graphics, especially impassible mountains, are fantastic. Also, the glimmers of sun on the ocean are beautiful.

Love the two line infantry/artillery battle formation mechanic - that should make early game battles more interesting. It also looks like terrain effects on fighting will be even more important. The line up of archers across a swamp from a melee unit in one of the shots tells me that swamp will heavily penalize melee (like a river) - which makes sense.

I liked religion mechanic in Civ4, but I think it was not the best way of representing the concept of religion. Religion can be a very hot topic, so it may be better that they are leaving it behind. Hopefully, a similar mechanic will remain in Civ5 under a new name.

Cant wait to sink my teeth into this one.

A few things I like so far.

Graphics
Impressive so far.

Leaders
They are good looking, but I hope they keep with the usual style and not make them too realistic looking. I always loved how the team would take a creative approach to the leaders.

Military
Looking good too, I love the ethnic diversity, a BIG, BIG, BIG plus in my book which is what I loved in Revolution.

I am a artsy kind of person and always loved how in the newer Civ games they took such creative approaches at unit designs. As Shao Ting said, "My eyes have smiles!"

My gripes though are...

Hexes
I personally do not mind, though they do seem alittle unnecessary.

No Religion
Ashame really. One of the things I liked was how religion played in Civ4. Though I guess we can go back to temples and pretend our people worship whatever religion we think they are(IMAGINAAAAAAATION)

Resource limitation
If its just like Civ3 and just random, thats okay, but Id hate to have a situation happen to me where I really need those resources and they all happen to run out on me when I'm under attack.

I may have missed it, but are they going to bring back regular governments? The one thing that bothered me about Civ4 is the whole traits thing. If I could select a government and its policies, thats okay, but forming my own government makes it hard for me to feel like my nation is a communist nation.

Nook said:

Have to agree with icarus: more likely that resources limit simultaneous production rather than simultaneous possession.

Click to expand...

True, that could be a possibility. Having 1 horse allows you to build 1 mounted unit at a time, and so on. That might be cool.

Nook said:

I wonder if hooking two marbles will help build Sistine Chapel faster?

Click to expand...

Having some benefits (even if small) for having multiples of the same resources would certainly be nice.

Nook said:

If resources are exhaustible, then I can see the whole global warming, renewable resources conceptual complex being introduced - which would be nice to play around with.

Click to expand...

Thing is, that was one of the things from Civ3 that was not so fun: resource exhaustion. Nothing I hated more than hooking up my only source of Iron only to have it disappear the next turn. Although I guess if it was controlled and predictable, it might be better - i.e. a set number of times you can use a resource before it runs out, rather than resource exhaustion being a random event. But I still have the gut feeling that permanent resource exhaustion would be a bad thing. Temporary resource exhaustion may be okay.

Looks like the number of units displayed is not fixed and may indicate unit strength/hp/promotions/etc. See the spearmen on the left of http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/62125...nounced-20100218060454245.html?page=mediaFull

(other spearmen units show 16 spearmen in 4x4 columns, macemen 4x3, archers 2x6)

The hexes are fine, they were standard for a lot of good strategic board games.

For mapmakers it could be a little bit more challenging, all even lines most be placed skew, so the whole map must be skew.

I did not see any workers. Did this mean an improved agriculture system?

Cities look completely generic, unlike in Civ IV where the graphics changed according to what was built in them.

Howdya know they actually built anything in them ?

Inverse Icarus said:

I really think that the interpretation/translation of a Danish article, with questionable actual experience with the game, has us grasping at straws here. The whole idea that 1 horse resource = 1 horse unit seems weird to me.

The idea of 1 horse resource = 1 city can produce horse-based units makes more sense to me.

Click to expand...

uh? ... toss me a link would you then i could try to decipher it (and rate how trustworthy the souce is) ... i'm danish afterall

robcheng said:

Looks like the number of units displayed is not fixed and may indicate unit strength/hp/promotions/etc. See the spearmen on the left of http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/62125...nounced-20100218060454245.html?page=mediaFull

(other spearmen units show 16 spearmen in 4x4 columns, macemen 4x3, archers 2x6)

Click to expand...

That makes sense. Using the number of animated people in a group to represent the health was done in Civ4, but with less people in total for the healthy unit (typically 3). I guess it might be possible to start off with (e.g.) 12 units, lose 6 in a battle, heal back those 6, and gain an extra 4 from experience, making the total unit consist of 16 animated people and be stronger for the next attack. I can see a system like that working.

RIVERS: City borders use a bright line which follows the edges of the hexes (smoothed out to be curvier). What about rivers? In one screenshot they follow the hex edges for a while, but seem to cut through one tile as well. Are they edge features or tile features?

SUBGRIDS: As pointed out earlier, the farms have subgrids that apparently indicate how developed they are (maybe it takes time to grow, like cottages. Or, maybe you can invest many worker turns to create a super-farm - more granularity in tile development from worker turns). If you look closely, the cities are also drawn on a subgrid - is that used in any way, or is that just a visual representation of how developed the city is?

RESOURCES: If 'resources are not infinite', presumably 4 dye resources will be more useful to your empire than 1 dye resource (in addition to the benefits of trading surplus resources). Again, more granularity. The flip side of this is that more resources should be available - e.g. if each individual resource hex is weaker, then there should be more hexes with resources. Or the map should have more hexes. Yet I don't think we're seeing super dense resources in the screenshot, and we see two cities that are only 3 hexes away from each other, so it's not like the map is bigger.

SCALING: Following on from the above, if archers can shoot 2 tiles and siege lines up behind the front lines, I would expect the scale to be much bigger, and empires to be much larger and more spread out (maybe 3 rings of tiles in the Really Big Fat Hexagon). But, as above, two cities 3 hexes away from each other doesn't seem to imply that.

beestar said:

RIVERS: City borders use a bright line which follows the edges of the hexes (smoothed out to be curvier). What about rivers? In one screenshot they follow the hex edges for a while, but seem to cut through one tile as well. Are they edge features or tile features?

Click to expand...

I must say the rivers don't quite seem windy enough to be natural to me. But perhaps they'll change this later.

beestar said:

SCALING: Following on from the above, if archers can shoot 2 tiles and siege lines up behind the front lines, I would expect the scale to be much bigger, and empires to be much larger and more spread out (maybe 3 rings of tiles in the Really Big Fat Hexagon). But, as above, two cities 3 hexes away from each other doesn't seem to imply that.

Click to expand...

I don't think we can really make any conclusions from that. The screenshots could have been taken by testers who'd only had the game for an hour and thus had no idea how to play properly. Or they could have been just chucked together in some equivalent to the Civ4 WorldBuilder in a few minutes. Either way, the main purpose of the screenshots is for showcasing the graphics, so I highly doubt we can draw any conclusions about proper city placement from them.

The grids are not made up of uniformed size rectangles and there is a farm building sometimes
And in the last of Camikaze what is the line in the worked cow resource

It could be a road. It looks similar to what is in the city in the 4th picture, which I assume would be a road.

It could be roads, they are curved in the City which would suggest roads.
But since only on improved tiles maybe no road building as such!!
Maybe they only come when you build farm, pasture etc
No road spamming - Lack info really
Maybe screen shots testing units not roads