Civ5 PAX East Preview from Gameshark

V. Soma

long time civ fan
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Gameshark has a nice Civ5 Preview from Pax East, and though it is published on 1 April, it seems to be serious and also informative!

Interesting bits:

  • Roman leader is Augustus Caesar
  • Unique units will also be more distinct from each other, with different powers and abilities instead of simply slightly stronger or cheaper generic units.
  • Civilian units can stack with others, but army units cannot so you get one unit per hex.
  • Firaxis to introduce ideas like flanking bonuses (seen in the combat calculations but not commented on) for attacking enemies you've surrounded.
  • Transoceanic invasions will involve less micromanagement (any unit can become its own transport – and a stackable civilian unit when it does so) but more naval warfare preparation (since these transports have no defensive power whatsoever).
  • Pete Murray assured the audience that the idea of religion being represented has not been entirely cast aside, but he would not elaborate on how this crucial component of human history would take form in the new vision.
  • Lead designer Jon Shafer is putting his own imprint on the series, emphasizing some things (larger differences in play variety) and de-emphasizing others (the production arms race).
Thanks for CFC member NeverMind for this great news info!
 
I don't see anything that indicates it's a joke, so I'm going to take it seriously for now.

Augustus Caesar (not Julius as has been widely reported)
Augustus, hm? At first I was surprised, but it does make sense. He was the first true emperor of Rome, after all.

Unique units will also be more distinct from each other, with different powers and abilities instead of simply slightly stronger or cheaper generic units.
This I like.

flanking bonuses (seen in the combat calculations but not commented on) for attacking enemies you've surrounded.
Also interesting.
 
Yep - The combat in this will be awesome! Unit's winning in combat will only cause them to retreat... Encircled units that cannot retreat are destroyed making for tactical game play!
 
I'm glad the concept of religion is still play. It is a major cultural component of humanity ~ civilization.
 
Seems like this is one of the few reviewers out there that was actually paying attention to the gameplay they showed and not just gushing over the sparkly new graphics.
 
Finally some news since the initial release notice that I'm happy about! Things are making sense, although Julius Caesar has always been a staple, and it doesn't look like they're making double leaderheads :)eek:) I now see more reason to lean towards CV and start slipping away from CIV, although I'll probably play all the Civ games I have still (I'm still addicted to CIII :D)
 
If they make Religion dumb, then Nero might as well be the Roman leader too.


EDIT: is that an April fool about using RoN style transports? :)
 
If they make Religion dumb, then Nero might as well be the Roman leader too.


EDIT: is that an April fool about using RoN style transports? :)

No, it has been mentioned in several other articles, however no one knows the specifics of how the transfer from land to water will be penalized.
 
Unless the penalty is that thing they mentioned, where transports are treated as absolutely defenseless units. I really think though, the Civ IV way of doing things of actually having water units that transported sounds a lot more accurate unless they introduce a new river, coastline tile which is where this transfer from land to water is meant to occur...
 
I think that the new troop transport mechanic sounds reasonable. In general I think that troop transports have been unarmed or effectively unarmed compared to the combat ships of the day. Atlhough it would be very unfortunate to loose your mechanised infantry (or C5 equivalent) to a galley. It just means that you have to protect your convoys. A troop transport is not a warship as such so the new mechnanic just means that you need to support the transports.
 
I cannot access the gameshark article. Has it been removed?
 
The whole site is down

<Mad Catz, Inc. is currently offline for scheduled Maintenance
for 1 hour.>
 
Being able to stack transports seems to be very inconsistent.

Indeed, and a bit hard to conceive how well it could work since before leaving or returning to the shore they wouldn't be able to stack, so you'd end up with bottlenecks anyway.

Not to mention that the bit about civilian units being stackable with others contradicts the Eurogamer interview where Jon Shafer said:

We've got three layers of units - civilian units can stack with military together. You can have a worker unit and a warrior unit on the same tile, but not two of either.
 
They need to keep religion, just make it harder to convert other cities by making it only possible to convert a city if you have a city that shares its' border.
 
Indeed, and a bit hard to conceive how well it could work since before leaving or returning to the shore they wouldn't be able to stack, so you'd end up with bottlenecks anyway.

Not to mention that the bit about civilian units being stackable with others contradicts the Eurogamer interview where Jon Shafer said:

We've got three layers of units - civilian units can stack with military together. You can have a worker unit and a warrior unit on the same tile, but not two of either.
Maybe it was true at the time, and then they thought it through and decided for civilian stacking
 
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