Civ V Screenshot Analysis

H

hewhocaves

Chieftain
Joined
Nov 6, 2003
Messages
30
Location
Morgantown WV
We only have 3 screenies, what can we say about the game so far?

Terrain -
hills, forest, plains, desert, mountains, deep ocean, shallow ocean, SWAMP?, and possibly some sort of badlands (though that may be copper). Hills can have forest. rivers appear to move along hex borders.

Resources -
Horse, Cow, Deer and the possibility of Copper.

Improvements -
farms, pastures and what looks like a fort (#2), roads in the city and one cow hex.

Units -
Archers, warriors, spearmen, catapults. Archers firing across a pond.
 
The major thing to get out of the screenshot would be the hexes. Completely new, completely different. Big change. I'm surprised that they went with it, to be honest. Such a large change suggests that they won't be shy with making large changes, so from the screenshots I think we can infer that we can expect to be surprised with new and exciting game features.
 
First thing from seeing the hexes: Assuming the city radius stays 2 tiles out, that means 2 less tiles available for a city. More importantly, EVERY route to the city will have to go through 2 enemy tiles, i.e. cannot attack a city directly with a 2 move unit anymore by roading up via the blind spot in the corner.
 


^^ this screenshot the thing that i noticed is the city borders, are more importantly the tiles not within your cityborder. You can see that that tile 1NE of the horses is not within cultural borders, but the tile 2 west of the city is. This leaves me to believe that borders most be determined by more then a growing radius of culture. I do hope they change the border lines to look more like the rivers or landmass, something more natural then lots of squiggly lines.



^^ here you can see an example of the new combat system. No more SoD, instead you have front lines, catapults in the back. Way more realistic, and fun.



^^ the thing I noticed here is the farms. Each hex tile that has a farm is broken down into smaller farm squares, but some of the square outlines dont have a farm on it yet. Leading me to believe that you can "grow" a farm, to get more out of it as time goes by. You can also see that the farm on the left is built on a hilly landmass.
 
Very good observations. I will be a very happy camper if some suggestions for the reduction of SoDs have been taken on board, and military strategy is allowed to diversify.
 
Take a closer look at this picture:
Spoiler :

Is it just me or are those archers firing across the lake tile towards what look like, perhaps, warriors? Does this mean that archers will have ranged capabilities?

Edit: I see the OP mentioned this.
 
Don't like what I'm seeing about ranged attacks.

Guess it depends on how big a hex is, though.

But if archers and catapults have ranges of 100 km, that is teh stoopid. Definitely not more realistic.
 
America IS confirmed. IGN has a LH for Washington.

Also, I think it can be logically concluded that either Japan or England is in this game, due to a bright red border.
 
Looks like there are hints of weather... I wonder whether that will interact with gameplay at all, or if it's just a visual effect.
 
Camikaze said:
Take a closer look at this picture:
Spoiler :

Is it just me or are those archers firing across the lake tile towards what look like, perhaps, warriors? Does this mean that archers will have ranged capabilities?

Edit: I see the OP mentioned this.
Click to expand...

Yes, good catch.
It looks like archers have range capability over two tiles.

Something else we can see here is that the number of actual units varies from tile to tile.
This may mean that instead of stacking units they are actually combining them into one larger unit.
This means that when attacking with larger units the damage is much higher.

This may work similarly to “Heroes of Might and Magic V”.

So no more SoD’s.
 
MosheLevi said:
Yes, good catch.
This may mean that instead of stacking units they are actually combining them into one larger unit.
This means that when attacking with larger units the damage is much higher.
Click to expand...

If true, that means units in a tile fight together with combined abilities, instead of one unit fighting at a time while the rest watch. That could be better and more realistic, depending on how they implement it.
 
Yeah, there are some very interesting implications for combat coming from those screenshots, and the promise of a whole new combat system. Could it be combined arms? The creation of 'armies'? It certainly seems to be the death of SoDs, but that could just be the way it was shown in the screenshots.

Lord Parkin said:
Looks like there are hints of weather... I wonder whether that will interact with gameplay at all, or if it's just a visual effect.
Click to expand...

I was thinking this, but surely they couldn't manage to fit that in with the normal time scale of the game. A purely visual effect seems more likely.
 
frizzy said:
If true, that means units in a tile fight together with combined abilities, instead of one unit fighting at a time while the rest watch. That could be better and more realistic, depending on how they implement it.
Click to expand...
Yeah. It could also mean near-invincible stacks though, if all units fight together.

I wonder if the units we see in the screenshots are made up of several individual units combined? This might mean that there's some kind of "unit per tile limit" imposed... e.g. can't have more than 10 or 20 units on the same tile. This would work against the "invincible stacks" thing, and at the same time be realistic (because there's only a finite number of troops you can fit into a certain space - i.e. tile).

Can't wait to play this.

Firaxis, if you need anyone else to test... just saying... ;)
 
Camikaze said:
I was thinking this, but surely they couldn't manage to fit that in with the normal time scale of the game. A purely visual effect seems more likely.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I guess so. Although having it represent climate (i.e. on a longer time scale) could work. I wonder if we'll see that.
 
I really hope there's a maximum number of "troops" on a tile, even if they go with one mixed "unit" on a tile.

If I can convert 10 axemen and 10 archers into one "unit", that's still 20 units on the tile.

If there's a hard limit to the number of "troops" on a tile, the whole "Stack of Doom" idea will be out the window, which I greatly approve of.
 
No arbitrary limits. :mad:

Not that I've got that out, I would think any difference in the number of individual people on each tile comprising a unit would just be a visual feature, and not an indicator of there actually being more troops, and several units combined. Having said that, though, I bet they went for an army thing, where you combine units on the same tile into one unit. And I bet they arbitrarily limited the number of units you can fit into one army.
 
Cutlass said:
Please do squares instead of hex or diamond... :sad:
Click to expand...
I like the hex. :)

Just found this: http://apolyton.net/forums/showpost.php?p=5753192&postcount=23

- Switch from squares to hexagons changing the way the game plays. More room for maneuvers and more tactical options.
- Changes to combat. More depth in combat, no more stacking of units. This will lead to bigger focus on terrain.
- Inspired by Panzer General.
- Reintroduction of Bombardment, now archers and siege equipment can shoot over melee units.
- Better diplomatic AI.
- More diplomatic options between players.
- Less "cheating" AI.
- Religion is not a factor anymore.
- Ressources are not infinite. For example one source of horse only supplies enough horses for 1 unit, but when that horseman dies the horses will respawn as a unit. (this confused me alittle, i guess we will have to watch it in action)
- City States as a sort of small countries that never develop beyond their single city. They can provide bonusses if you befriend them, or you can take over their land.
- Civics are out, now there is something called "Social Policies".
- About the same amount of wonders, the tech tree will feel familiar. Great People still in.
- Some victory conditions changed. For example in Conquest you only have to capture all the other capitals. Eliminates boring mop up phase.
- Unique Civ leader bonusses, no more standard "Spiritual" or "Financial".
- DirectX 11 support.
- Built in webbrowser. Sid Meier is also working on a facebook application of Civilization.
Click to expand...
Looks like my stab in the dark might have been right about limits for units on the same tile. I just hope the limit won't be ONE unit per tile, that'd be silly. But 10 or 20 I'm fine with.

No religion? Aw, that's a shame. I thought that was a pretty cool feature of Civ4. Guess they got too PC or something... :(

Resources not being infinite sounds intriguing, but it doesn't entirely make sense if you follow through to the later years. For instance, when your Tank dies, do you get your Oil back? :confused:

Social Policies... sounds no different to Civics, I guess we'll have to see though.

Conquest victory requiring only capital captures... hmm, interesting, but could make it a bit too easy to win on a naval-based map with a sudden stab attack strategy. At least thinking from Civ4 combat mechanics. Maybe the limit of units per tile will make such a strategy near-impossible in Civ5. We'll have to see.

Unique leader bonuses... sounds great, I'm all for it. I just hope they can come up with enough unique bonuses so as not to make them repetitive (especially when the expansions start arriving).
 
Lord Parkin said:
No religion? Aw, that's a shame. I thought that was a pretty cool feature of Civ4. Guess they got too PC or something... :(
Click to expand...
:( - I really liked religion as mechanic, one of the best innovations of CivIV. Meh, but who knows what they did to other subsystems (like culture), that may make up for that.
Lord Parkin said:
Resources not being infinite sounds intriguing, but it doesn't entirely make sense if you follow through to the later years. For instance, when your Tank dies, do you get your Oil back? :confused:
Click to expand...
Possibly this is sort of an "upkeep" mechanic -after all, in Civ, turns represent years - so resource consumption is really supplying tanks with fuel, cavalry with young horses, warriors with new swords etc.
Lord Parkin said:
Social Policies... sounds no different to Civics, I guess we'll have to see though.
Click to expand...
Might be something more like the social engineering from SMAC, so this might turn out great.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

King Phaedron
Secret of Evermore - World Map Scenario for you
Replies
2
Views
737
Planktonic
P
King Phaedron
3 Civilizations are China locked on this map - Secret of Evermore
Replies
3
Views
1K
fomrat
F
SultanRedSnake
Spain 1.17 (+Git) 600AD/Monarch/Epic
Replies
7
Views
2K
banzay13
banzay13
PDX Firefly
Developer Diary | After the Demo
Replies
5
Views
958
Sephi
S
D
Idea for civ 7
Replies
8
Views
2K
Askii2D
Askii2D
Top Bottom