A bit dissapointed!

Just read the Gamepro article, and I have to say that I am a little dissapointed. Inspired by 19th Century and Panzer General; one-unit-per-tile; only one leader per civ...

I'll be back after NCIS to elaborate a little, but I just had to get it out there.

One leader per civ???

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.........

Now that means all the leaders I don't like will be back!

Oh well. Hope there's some good stuff in there too.

I thought we knew about one unit per tile and one leader per civ. Also the Panzer General thing.

^No, the one leader per civ wasn't really confirmed yet so far as I know until this article.

I'm not too bummed about the one leader per civ thing, but that might be just me. I always like a civilization to have it's own characteristics, not the characteristics of it's leader. Also, when picking the leader, I felt like I was assuming their role. I don't want to be Napoleon or Elizabeth, I want to be Mattigus.

I'm probably crazy, too.

I can sympathize with the disappointment, but consider this. We tend to think of sequels like "what would happen if the re-made Civ4". We're thinking improvements to existing game. Sometimes a sequel is a ground-up rebuild.

So it feels weird that there's only one leader / civ or one unit / tile, but these things mean very little without the context of the game a as a whole.

My advise is to withhold judgment until the game can be played, or at least seen.

I do understand why people wouldn't care if there were one or fifty leaders per civilization, but to me, having different leaders does allow for a civ to be represented for its different aspects. For example, with India in Civ4, it was no longer just the stereotypical "let's all have peace!" with Gandhi - now you could have the slightly less pacifistic Ashoka. Or, for example, my greatest annoyance in Civ3 was that it was always Mao for the Chinese (especially since I'm strongly anti-communist and I also have felt it was a severe injustice to the rest of China's 4000+ year history to have so modern a leader), but in Civ3, I now had an alternative.


Then again, due to the fact that the new leaders' artwork seems like a lot of... work, I guess there isn't much I can argue against that.

Oh well. Guess I'll have to resort renaming Mao to Emperor Taizong or something again.

I'll go ahead and continue to google "civ5 gamepro scans" every 30 seconds.

Thorburne said:

I'll be back after NCIS

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My opinion of you just doubled.

Enjoy NCIS and then regale us with tales from this magazine.

First off, I know that some may require proof... well, I work long hours and commute a great distance (from DC to Baltimore) and I will have to go to bed soon. Others that read the article will be able to confirm the details and some may even provide pictures.

As far as my dissapointments, I am still very skeptical exactly how one unit per tile is going to work. That seems well fitted for a more focused game, but for the epic time frame of Civ, it could be a bit displacing. Panzer General is mentioned a lot in article as Schafer's inspiration. Soren Johnson is quoted in the article stating that the "current system is not very compelling-big stacks of units smashing into cities." I have previously speculated that cities would hold a garrison, but there was no mention as to how city defense will work. They go on to state that the new system is designed to bring comat "out of the cities". To me, that is a big part of Civ.

I am also skeptical about the management of units. I can imagine that it would get pretty crazy and overwhelming. I am also worried about the scale of the maps. To me, this type of system would work best on more focused maps. If the scale of Civ IV maps is anything to go by for Civ V, it seems to me that the map could get pretty crowded. With an Earth map, I can see France and Spain each being filled with units for one epic battle. On the plus side (depending on how you look at it), there is at least two moves per unit (which is for tactical reasons). As the article demonstrated, a spearman can move to the front lines as your warriors clash with the enemies.

As far as leaders, it is a minor annoyance only having one leader per civ, but I just enjoyed the diversity. Some would be happy to know that Mao has been replaced as the Chinese mainstay. The leaders (and nations) mentioned in the article are:

Washington (America)
Bismark (Germany)
Napolean (France)
Oba Nobunaga (Japan)
Harun al-Rashid (Arabia)
Wu Zetein (China)
Mongolia? (Genghis Kahn)
Caesar (Rome)
Gandhi (India)

That is half of the 18 total. They also mentioned City-States, offering Singapore as an example of one. It is unclear whether they will have leaders (which would be nice for modders...), but they state that City-States offer bonuses when gifted and will play a major part in diplomacy. If you are friends with one, it may give pause for another civ to attack it. That is certainly interesting, yet still needs more details.

That about covers the basics of what the article covers. I don't really want to take too much away from Gamepro (though, not out of love, just out of courtesy), but there are more details about some of the above aspects. The magazine also give a rundown of the history if Civilization (the game). I will reserve further judgement until I learn more and get a chance to try some of it, but, at this stage, I am just a bit dissapointed with what has been shed... especially the one unit per tile. I think the system would be great for scenarios (like ones that focus on particular wars), but I am uncertain just how it will fit in with the overall Civ experience!

This is all news to me, except the one unit/tile rule. I do not know what it means to be inspired by Panzer General, as I have never played that game. But the fact that it is inspired more by the 19th century will be cool - that is a wonderful era to play in Civ, I think.

Thorburne said:

As far as leaders, it is a minor annoyance only having one leader per civ, but I just enjoyed the diversity. Some would be happy to know that Mao has been replaced as the Chinese mainstay. The leaders (and nations) mentioned in the article are:

Washington (America)
Bismark (Germany)
Napolean (France)
Oba Nobunaga (Japan)
Harun al-Rashid (Arabia)
Wu Zetein (China)
Mongolia? (Genghis Kahn)
Caesar (Rome)
Gandhi (India)

That is half of the 18 total. They also mentioned City-States, offering Singapore as an example of one. It is unclear whether they will have leaders (which would be nice for modders...), but they state that City-States offer bonuses when gifted and will play a major part in diplomacy. If you are friends with one, it may give pause for another civ to attack it. That is certainly interesting, yet still needs more details.

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YES!!! YES!!! YESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(Sorry if you like Mao)
Well, although, this still means some civs will get other leaders some people may not agree with, such as Gandhi for the Indians. I still think multiple leaders would be more interesting, but oh well.

Some of those choices do look really interesting and good, such as Nobunaga for the Japanese and Harun al-Rashid for the Arabians.

NA00 said:

This is all news to me, except the one unit/tile rule. I do not know what it means to be inspired by Panzer General, as I have never played that game. But the fact that it is inspired more by the 19th century will be cool - that is a wonderful era to play in Civ, I think.

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My only problem with that is that Civ is about more than one era. I am worried about how it will affect the rest of the game. For me, I am not that enthusiastic about 19th century warfare. Perhaps because I am American? I don't know, I like the classical periods, middle ages, discovery and modern (along with pre-modern... ie, WWII) the best.

Thorburne said:

My only problem with that is that Civ is about more than one era. I am worried about how it will affect the rest of the game. For me, I am not that enthusiastic about 19th century warfare. Perhaps because I am American? I don't know, I like the classical periods, middle ages, discovery and modern (along with pre-modern... ie, WWII) the best.

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Thats true. It is about much more than just the 19th century. They are all important eras in the development of Civilization. And I imagine playing a game based too much on one era would get boring after a while. Since CivII I have always wanted to see some sort of in-game option to 'hold' development within a certain era - whichever one the player wanted. But you have to admit, we (Americans) had a fairly good run in the 19th century - towards the latter part anyways, lol.

Ugh, disappointing. Why only have one leader per civilization? Sure, Civ3 was a good game with only one leader but to go to multiple leaders and then back again seems like a huge step backwards. LAME.

And the choice of Wu Zetian over Qin Shi Huang is ridiculous, period. Maybe if they had the sense to keep multiple leaders they could throw Wu in there for some flavor, but clearly that won't be happening.

I really hope this is some sort of farce, otherwise my anticipation for this game will have been severely soured.

Thorburne said:

As far as leaders, it is a minor annoyance only having one leader per civ, but I just enjoyed the diversity.

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This is probably a necessary change since now each civ/leader has its own unique characteristic (no more mix and match Aggressive/Spiritual/Commerce). I'll GLADLY take a smaller number of truly different and interesting civs over a larger number of choices that share so much in common. Quality over quantity.

I do hope they keep Unrestricted leaders, though.

Dark_Jedi06 said:

Ugh, disappointing. Why only have one leader per civilization? Sure, Civ3 was a good game with only one leader but to go to multiple leaders and then back again seems like a huge step backwards. LAME.

And the choice of Wu Zetian over Qin Shi Huang is ridiculous, period. Maybe if they had the sense to keep multiple leaders they could throw Wu in there for some flavor, but clearly that won't be happening.

I really hope this is some sort of farce, otherwise my anticipation for this game will have been severely soured.

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To be fair, the article did say, "At the moment, each civilization has just one leader..." I hope that means that they still may make it in, or at least would still be able to be modded in. I guess we'll see!

Thorburne said:

Mongolia? (Genghis Kahn)
Caesar (Rome)

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What do you mean by Mongolia? (Genghis Kahn). Did the article just mention Mongolia and you are guessing Genghis or they mentioned Genghis without specifically adding his country?

Also Caesar - I am assuming Julius, not Augustus (who was in IV). I just hope he's not just called "Caesar" in game!

EDIT: I am pretty excited with this news overall though. I had almost completely quit playing Civ because I got bored with the style of ware-fare in III and IV. Looking forward to the fall now.

Snoopaloop said:

What do you mean by Mongolia? (Genghis Kahn). Did the article just mention Mongolia and you are guessing Genghis or they mentioned Genghis without specifically adding his country?

Also Caesar - I am assuming Julius, not Augustus (who was in IV). I just hope he's not just called "Caesar" in game!

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It mentioned Genghis, but not the country. And, yes, it did just say Caesar. The basic assumption, of course, would be Julius (that would be fine by me as I usually chose him) but it could technically be any emporer of Rome.

BTW, missing from the article, but I assume would still be in are England, Spain, Greece, Russia and Egypt. I am curious to see who would be leading those civs and what other civs made the cut.

This all sounds fine to me, bring it on.

funny side note. In the winter olympics, one of the male Japanese figure skater in the top of the finals (I forget which place) is a direct descendant of Nobunaga Oda. The skater's name was something Oda, and the commentators mentioned the relation. How awesome is that?!? Being related to such an important person to ones countries history. Like being related to G. Washington.