CivFanatics -- Hands-On Civ4 Preview

Niles Caulder said:

OK, so you mean to tell me Civ IV maps will be, like, spherical? You know, like planets shaped like...you know...globes?

I'm not sure I've ever experienced an alternate historical timeline that wasn't on a cyllindrical planet!

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I think the consensus is, that the world will still be cylindrical in game play, but that the zoomed-out view shows it as a globe.

Quick question - if you can gift units to the other side, what happens if you gift your Civ's unique unit? Is this even possible?

Thunderfall said:

In the next day or two, we will have something really really big coming too, so be on the look out!

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My bet is on some kind of contest where you'll be able to win a Civ4 pre-order edition signed by Sid or such nonsense.

Chieftess said:

A Multiplayer Preview may be out shortly (within a day or so). It has been sent to the editor, so to speak.

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I am predicting stuff on, hmm, let's see, maybe alliances, and some early warfare? Could be...

Civrules Awesome job! Read everything but the modding (I'm not much of a modder) and it looks just fabulous.

Could you tell us this, or did Firaxis not allow you to reveal this yet? What are the difficulty scalings? What are the easiest and hardest difficulties, and what are the AI bonuses? Does the hardest difficulty give a 6 cost factor to the AI like Deity?

Civrules,

A couple of questions if you can answer them:

1) The previews keep telling us that automated workers work better this time around. Have you tested this, and if so, what is your opinion?

2) Originally, Firaxis said there'd be no more pollution. It looks like they changed their mind about this. Is pollution as pervasive as it is in CivIII? Are we going to still be spending all the latter game cleaning it up?

Marc

Well, I have now had it confirmed that We won't be getting Civ4 here until the 3rd of November. So, come on all you Septic Tanks , I'm counting on you guys to take out enough time from your gameplay to come here and answer the important questions of us poor, languishing Aussies!! Huh, and you call yourselves ALLIES?!?!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I'm just twitching with exitement, can't wait another day (and I've got 11 days to beat sid in Civ3 )

The Dutch site where I pre-ordered said Nov 4th, but it has changed today: Nov 2nd! I hope they are right in indicating that it's a CD, and not a DVD as people claim it will be in Europe.

Aussie_Lurker said:

Well, I have now had it confirmed that We won't be getting Civ4 here until the 3rd of November. So, come on all you Septic Tanks , I'm counting on you guys to take out enough time from your gameplay to come here and answer the important questions of us poor, languishing Aussies!! Huh, and you call yourselves ALLIES?!?!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

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What're you worried about? You're not buying Civ4. You quit, remember?

Marc

Says WHO??? I have wanted this game since they first announced it all those months ago!!! Sure my enthusiasm has 'waxed and waned', but it has never diminished my desire for the game. The best part is that these previews have left me on a perpetual state of WAXING enthusiasm!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Drakan said:

That remark that you could switch multi-units to single units has made my day.

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http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=119380

My mind is a swirling miasma of scintillating thoughts and turgid ideas.

Any info about the maximum map size?

Roland Johansen said:

It is great how you were able to write all the pre-release information without violation the NDA. Must have been tough but I guess the people at Firaxis trusted you not to leak information.

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Oh, it's not about trust. They had to let Firaxis approve the previews before releasing them to the public. Disclosing information without prior approval would have Serious Consequences. Besides not being a beta tester next time around, there could be civil penalties. Or, they may even append a new section to the Civ5 EULA:

"That filthy, no-good, double-crossing CivRules isn't allowed to play this game."

Not to say that our esteemed moderator is any of those things, but should he arouse the ire of the Lawyer...

Aussie_Lurker said:

The best part is that these previews have left me on a perpetual state of WAXING enthusiasm!!!

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If enthusiasm persists for 4 hours or more, seek immediate medical attention to prevent long-term injury.

apatheist said:

Oh, it's not about trust. They had to let Firaxis approve the previews before releasing them to the public. Disclosing information without prior approval would have Serious Consequences. Besides not being a beta tester next time around, there could be civil penalties. Or, they may even append a new section to the Civ5 EULA:

"That filthy, no-good, double-crossing CivRules isn't allowed to play this game."

Not to say that our esteemed moderator is any of those things, but should he arouse the ire of the Lawyer...

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I was talking about the pre-release article that is constantly updated by Civrules, not the preview that he wrote now.

a space oddity said:

The Dutch site where I pre-ordered said Nov 4th, but it has changed today: Nov 2nd! I hope they are right in indicating that it's a CD, and not a DVD as people claim it will be in Europe.

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Oh, that would be AWESOME! Everyday counts and I'd assume if you get it nov, 2nd, we will get it then, too!

P.S.: Sorry: I'm not capable of writing DECENT posts right now! I'm just too excited!!!

Stuff from Civrules preview that really made my day has been:

-Ability to gift units to other civs: Could bring huge impacts on gameplay and the turnout of wars. You surely could hereby use a weaker civ as a protective wall against another more aggressive civ sitting on the other end of him/her. Or just help the AI out to keep it around longer...

- Ability to use one tile for different civs (even the cities and forts as Civrules stated! ). You can hereby travel safely and it will improve overall speed of troop-setup when fighting a non-direct neighbour!

- Improvement of Navy-units

- Better overall AI

- Obviously better automation of workers

- Much better diplo-options

- Great people!

- The overall sound and obvious excitement stated in the Preview (from our Civrules and also from Solver from Apolytonl!)...

... I could go on like this forever!

One question remains: What about trade and trade-routes? Anything new about THAT? Have I missed something or have more depp info's on trade-routes not come up yet?

Oh, YES, Baby! I can hardly wait! BTW: Just bought myself a new Graphics-card, just for civ4 (6800GT with 256MB from MSI! )! I AM addicted and obviously doomed! I hope my girl-friend will forgive me for totally not being available in the nearest future! I will start to block dates for Winter as much as possible!

Stilgar08 said:

... You surely could hereby use a weaker civ as a protective wall against another more aggressive civ ...

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I'm in the game!

darkdude said:

I think the consensus is, that the world will still be cylindrical in game play, but that the zoomed-out view shows it as a globe.

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Oh well...at least that's still progress....

It's a great re/preview, I'm just sceptic about one thing:

Civrules said:

If founding a religion early on in the game is not a priority, or the AI simply beat you to all the early religions, you can still throw your focus at the later religions such as Islam and Christianity.

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Does this mean that only one civ can have each religion? I don't hope so, 'cause that would be very very very annoying. (Did I say very?)