Great article thanks for posting it. I am truly shocked at the direction this thread has gone. Very little discussion of game mechanics and a lot on semantics.
IMHO I don't think which leaders and Civs are in the game matters very much if the game turns out to be a dud. After all... the rest will be included with downloadable content/expansions at a price. Obviously that is what most of you care about, so why not charge a premium for more leaders and civs? That is what I would do. Personally I could play the game with Cultural leader Artsy Fartsy and scientific leader Smarty Pants as examples.
As to the realism vs gameplay debate. You guys are all arguing on the same side of the argument, but from different angles. The Civ developers have tried to make a somewhat realistic and playable strategy simulation out of the history of mankind. I know the game in itself is not uber realistic but every step it gets closer to realism we all seem to like the game much better. As crazy as this sounds... as it gets more realistic the gameplay seems to be getting better as well. In fact as a community we can't even stand it if it takes a step back in the wrong direction. i.e dropping religion and espionage. So to all of those people who say it is all about gameplay I say this... Great gameplay brings about realistic results. If the game doesn't feel realistic few people will play it. To all those who think it is all about realism. Without gameplay you are not playing a game. So just go and settle a village in the wilderness somewhere and we will see where you get in a few thousand years.
Now back on topic.
I find the generic statement "game is as deep as long time fans want" a bit too vague to give me any comfort at all. Every other game developer has let me down in the past except Sid. Please Sid don't fail me now!
I am concerned about naval warfare/transport and how it will be managed. Some of the ideas in this thread have been very interesting like units transporting themselves through a city. We will see soon I hope.
I truly like a cities culture and borders growing slowly hex by hex. The innability to pick which hexes you want to include in your cities culture will make it hard to specialize cities to certain tasks. Perhaps specialized cities are a thing of the past? Are national wonders for specializing cities included in CiV? I haven't read anything about them.
I like the idea of cities defending themselves and building structures can increase that defense. Also garrisoning the city with a unit is a great option to have. With the one unit per hex rule I can already see a battle frontage where each side has units on either side of a city and that city hex changing sides several times before the battle is over.
Units can replace each other is great but can 3 units in a triangle switch spots?
The tech sharing is definately better with a small boost to participant nations. I may even play with it turned on. I have never played a game with tech trading on in CIV 4.
I find alliances with city states very intriguing and hope they pull it off. I wonder why just taking their city will not be as beneficial to you? It always has been in the past.
I love the idea of maintenance costs for strategic resources. This will make warfare much more necessary to aquire vital resources. It will also make a target of nations who have the most resources. So when you get big and have the most everyone will try to knock you down and take what you have. This could balance the game a bit instead of the snowballing I see in many of my games where the big just keep getting bigger.
The concept of writing the AI in layers sounds great. I just hope it has the flexibility to change with map position, availability of resources, and the changing game. Here's to hoping!
Cities flipping always seemed unrealistic and by definition bad gameplay!
I'm glad that is changing. I hope it becomes more of a civil unrest situation. Thus having cities like this become a drag on the empire. The partisan idea could be cool as well. This could tie up your troops from more important matters.
The individual traits for the leaders has me very concerned. As was previously mentioned. When leaders shared traits there was competition for wonders, culture, religion, large empire, attack, defense, etc. There was always another leader with the same or opposite traits to compete with. Also the example given was horrible. forests as roads? If they are going that route then I am truly worried. I could get a seafaring trait only to be stuck in the middle of a continent. I see very little flexibility if they are going for traits like that?! I can also see a situation where a couple of leaders will have the most desired trait and everyone will want to play with that leader/civ.
As for the graphics news. Great extra but I don't really care a whole lot. Gameplay
and Realism that is what I care about!