New IGN preview

Hey gang,

Unlike the last one, this one actually has details.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1075587p1.html

Enjoy!

boom, first paragraph. win.

IGN said:

Some fans feared that the leaner (and loonier) style that Civ displayed on the consoles might bleed over into subsequent PC sequels. Based on the pre-alpha version we saw, that doesn't seem to be the case. There's a fine line between making a game easier and making it easier to play, of course, but Firaxis is committed to maintaining the depth the fans have come to expect.

Click to expand...

called it

Loads of new screens too!

Oracle and Elizabeth confirmed via pictures!

the songhai are in as the african civ

SONGHAI CONFIRMED. Okay, I'm done spamming.
EDIT: Beat me to it.
EDIT 2: Turks are in! I SO HAPPY.

As is Cathy and Monty (and by extension, the Aztecs)

Excellent preview...will be awaiting release with great anticipation

Interesting things I saw:

You can defend cities without a unit

Allied troops can swap hexes

You only need capitals for conquest

Askia and Oda as leaders? Not quite sure who they are though...

Only a few resource units per resource

More diplomacy requests possible

So those sounded good. Thanks for the notice too.

David7 said:

Interesting things I saw:

You can defend cities without a unit

Allied troops can swap hexes

You only need capitals for conquest

Askia and Oda as leaders? Not quite sure who they are though...

Only a few resource units per resource

More diplomacy requests possible

So those sounded good. Thanks for the notice too.

Click to expand...

Oda is the Japanese leader, Askia is a Songhai leader.

so, we can add Songhai and Aztecs to the list of Civs bringing us up to 13/18 confirmed. any other big news from this preview?

This sounds great

Thanks for the heads-up on this one Mrbree-you've always been so good to the CFC community . Everything you've said-so far-makes me extremely happy. The one huge exception is the removal of espionage & religion. I know you've explained why they've done it, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. When culture was first introduced in CivIII, it was very gamey & highly exploitable-but that didn't mean they dropped it-because it was such an important step forward for the franchise. Instead they refined it in CivIV (and again in CivV by the sounds of it). The same could have been true of Religion & Espionage. If polls are anything to go on here, then Firaxis faces a massive fan revolt over this decision-though being a pre-alpha build that you saw, I guess they still have time to reverse this awful decision!
Anyway, enough ranting-thanks for the preview. I hope next time we get to learn more about Social Policies-'cause that seems to be the *BIG THING* for CivV.

Aussie.

this preview did alot to take me from cautiously optimistic to full blow "SQUEEEE" mode. very excited about ciV now. still alot we don't know though.

the AI scheme sounds brilliant. i would not have thought of basicaly assigning 4 specialized AI's in a command chain to each AI player. i sure hope it lives up to its potential.

I'm worried at some of those numbers.

6 Warriors!! when only one Warrior can be in a tile.
5 units from 1 Iron source.

Unless there are some Really Strong unit Costs/Limits this game will be military micromanagement hell.

They will certainly have to allow some kind of group movement system to reduce micromanagement, or else this is going to be a major drawback for this game!

Aussie.

Abremms said:

i sure hope it lives up to its potential.

Click to expand...

It wont. I'm going to remain excited for the game, but remain pessimistic on whether it'll live up to its potential. It's a great idea, however its new and will therefore need tweaking and will be bugriddled.

It'll still be a great game and this is undoubtedly a big leap forward with Civ AI.

Krikkitone said:

I'm worried at some of those numbers.

6 Warriors!! when only one Warrior can be in a tile.
5 units from 1 Iron source.

Unless there are some Really Strong unit Costs/Limits this game will be military micromanagement hell.

Click to expand...

He was plucking numbers out of thin air. He was using them for illustrative purposes. Niether he nor anyone else knows how many units one iron source will supply in the final release (it'll be one of those things that Firaxis will be working on balancing).

But micro is inevitable in a game like CiV. The key part is knowing which bits of microing are inavoidable and which bots arent.

Krikkitone said:

I'm worried at some of those numbers.

6 Warriors!! when only one Warrior can be in a tile.
5 units from 1 Iron source.

Unless there are some Really Strong unit Costs/Limits this game will be military micromanagement hell.

Click to expand...

that 5 units per 1 iron source seemed to be an arbitrary number by the wording:

IGN said:

One iron deposit, for instance, will only grant you the right to build and maintain, say, five iron-based units.

Click to expand...

my guess is its not a final number and subject to balancing.

This had some great info in it. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting Civ V when I get my new laptop next April. For now, I shall BTS it up, maybe even try some GOTM games

I'll paraphrase new things we learned...

1) Apparently its going to be as deep as the long time fans expect it to be.
2) No more end of turn button, instead a "choose production" button for individual cities
3) the interface is going to be like civRev's
4) Golden ages are still here
5) cities automatically defend themselves, and their effectiveness is based on buildings or technologies, though you still can garrison 1 unit in the city if you want to.
6) a few powerful units will be able to own many many weaker units for sure. No more spear defeats tank.
7)adjacent allied units can switch places
8)AI uses 4 subsystems to determine what it needs to do. At the lowest level, Tactical AI to decide what to do in the field of battle, then Operational AI, picks the battles to fight, and makes sure it has enough units to win those battles. Third is the Strategic AI, deciding where to build cities and what to do with them. Last is the Grand Strategic AI, that decides how it wants to try to win the game. It basically fans from the top down so the AI won't be nuking barbs or marching around its armies anymore just for the sake of it.
9) Katherine and Russia are in.
10) Elizabeth and England are in. Lizzy will try to dominate the seas.
11) AI leaders won't be very predictable. Their flavors will randomly adjust 2 levels, so if Napoleon is an 8 for conquest, then you may see him with a 6 or a 10 conquest flavor.
12) Every trait will be 100% unique to each leader
13) 3D environment for both LH's and their backgrounds. Flowing rivers ect.
14) the "tech sharing" is a 15% boost for both players for 20 turns, for an upfront cost for each
15) Only strategic resources are quantified. In IGN's example they said 1 iron resource could supply 5 iron based units. If you lost that iron, you can still have those units for and increased maintenance cost, but you won't be able to keep building them till you re-hook the resource.
16) the city states will give you more benefit to befriend them than to attack them.
17) no more culture bombs. Cities now expand one tile at a time, and usually you will be forced to work it because in coincides with population.
18)no more city defections
19) Rameses' and Egypt are in
20) Terrain features look different for africa, asia, america, and europe. For example the forest will look different for each region.
21) Shakespeare's Amphitheater is in as a world wonder.
22)Montezuma and Aztecs in for sure
23) cotton is a resource and you need "calendar" tech to see it
24) Oda is Japanese leader
25) Askia is Songhai leader
26) Suleiman is Turkish leader

maybe missed some things, but thats about it. Really great review, I'm even more excited now!