Arioch's Analyst Thread

Johnny Be said:

Arioch,

It just occurred to me that Oasis seem very rare... In fact, I only recall seeing one!

Could it be that the Oasis is a Natural wonder also?? (from Africa)

I would bet it is. (As I said previously, I also think the crater is one)

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But an oasis seems a litle to small compared to the yellowstone or the great barrier reef. So i think it will just be a tilebonus.

The crater could be Ngorongoro between the Kilimandjaro and the Serengeti (been there ) The region is said to be the cradle of humanity (East African Rift Valley).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngorongoro_Conservation_Area

Or a similar crater in Yellowstone Park. Hope they don't focus too much on North American natural wonders, BTW.

Or:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Garita_Caldera

Hamil said:

But an oasis seems a litle to small compared to the yellowstone or the great barrier reef. So i think it will just be a tilebonus.

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Yes, they might be smaller, but they aren't exactly small... Here's a random citation, from the web, about about al-Hasa Oasis, one of the largest.

The oasis lies 65 km from the Persian Gulf and is the largest in the country and one of the largest in the world, with an area of about 120 km² and a population of 600,000 (2003 estimate)

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I think the desert "tile bonus" is floodplain... kind of. I looked around on the most recent screenshots, and counted more than 60 desert Hexes, from which a dozen are floodplains. But only one Oasis.

Compared to other bonuses, I can see several horses, corn, irons, etc...

I'm only basing my assumption on statistics

Also, it's not Yellowstone - it's Old Faithful. Which you can walk around completely in 5 minutes (I speak from personal experience). Yellowstone as a "natural wonder" wouldn't make sense in Civ, because the park is extremely diverse, with widely differing regions of mountains, forests, a huge lake, and the area with the vast majority of geysers which is pretty flat.

Perhaps that's what you meant, so if it was, nm my post!

Johnny Be said:

Arioch,

It just occurred to me that Oasis seem very rare... In fact, I only recall seeing one!

Could it be that the Oasis is a Natural wonder also?? (from Africa)

I would bet it is. (As I said previously, I also think the crater is one)

Click to expand...

If it's going to be a Natural Wonder then it wouldn't be "an oasis" so much as some grand, mythical, legendary type of place associated with or similar to oases. Like, The Fountain of Youth? There's a more obvious and direct example but it's escaping me at the moment.

That said, I'm guessing Oases are bonus tiles they way they've always been.

I'd just like to point out that I could swear I saw a screenshot or video out there of a missile truck bombarding three tiles away, whereas your site claims that all bombardment ranges appear to be 2. I could be wrong though.

Peng Qi said:

I'd just like to point out that I could swear I saw a screenshot or video out there of a missile truck bombarding three tiles away, whereas your site claims that all bombardment ranges appear to be 2. I could be wrong though.

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I think you mean this:



Sorry for the crudely drawn hexes.

Nice find!

mjs0 said:

I think you mean this:



Sorry for the crudely drawn hexes.

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This means that we'll be able to concentrate A LOT of firepower on one or two hexes...
I hope they balance ranged units well enough so that they don't become too powerful!

Arioch, on your site you state that there appears to be a tier left of pottery with stuff like Agriculture, Fishing and Hunting, but in this picture from youtube it appears that theres only one tech before it:

Awesome mechaerik, thanks!

It certainly looks like that first tech is Agriculture.

Peng Qi said:

I'd just like to point out that I could swear I saw a screenshot or video out there of a missile truck bombarding three tiles away, whereas your site claims that all bombardment ranges appear to be 2. I could be wrong though.

Click to expand...

What I said on the site is, "The bombardment range for ranged units appears to be at least 2 hexes." I fully expect some modern units to have longer ranges.

Johnny Be said:

It just occurred to me that Oasis seem very rare... In fact, I only recall seeing one! Could it be that the Oasis is a Natural wonder also?? (from Africa)

Click to expand...

It could be, but Oases are relatively rare in Civ IV.

unfortunately the account of drunkprometheus was deleted. I hope it wasnt for this video.. however, I cant find it on youtube anywhere any more. Is there other link possibility to get this video?

Semmel said:

unfortunately the account of drunkprometheus was deleted. I hope it wasnt for this video.. however, I cant find it on youtube anywhere any more. Is there other link possibility to get this video?

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*coughs*

Not too sure if I'm allowed to post these

Moderator Action: No, it isn't.

It just occurred to me that Oasis seem very rare... In fact, I only recall seeing one!

Click to expand...

If you look at the 1595 strategic view screenshot, East of Arretium and around Argos there are a ton of oasis. Unless I am mistaken and those are floodplains? but the icon sure looks like oasis to me

edit: ok looking at the clipped screenshot in the posts I see that is a different graphic, seems over the top for floodplains compared to civ4 but I guess floodplains are deserving of being easily recognized / noticed.

So the floodplain is the river with trees on the sides and the oasis is more of a pond?

Thanks alien, got them. These should keep me busy for quite a while.

Some notes after an initial viewing:

The graphic engine has changed a lot from the trailer videos. Coast has visible waves lapping on the shore. The civilization borders now look more like they did in Civ IV: there is a line of the primary Civ color, and a gradient of the secondary Civ color that spreads inward. The City-State border is a dotted line. The city bar looks a little bit different, and the Pop number and production queue have swapped sides (as hinted at in the Strategic view). Rivers look the same, but you can see that they flow downstream. The selected unit is marked with a ray of sunshine beaming down from above.

Social Policy trees: you start the game with access to Tradition, Liberty, and Honor, and other trees unlock "as you go forward in time." Some Social Policies are mutually exclusive: Freedom is incompatible with Autocracy, and Rationalism is incompatible with Piety.

Geneva is a Cultured-type city-state. Clicking on a city-state brings up a menu of options.

Stonehenge is out on the map like pyramids and chichen itza.

Fur resource appears to be foxes.

Cavalry can move an extra tile after combat.

Deserts have sand dunes.

The Glory of Rome: +25% production towards any buildings that already exist in the Capital.
The Great Warpath: Units spend only 1 Movement Point entering any tile with a Forest.

Birds flying over Fishing Boats... nice touch.

AriochIV said:

Some Social Policies are mutually exclusive: Freedom is incompatible with Autocracy, and Rationalism is incompatible with Piety.

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The implication of that is that a cultural victory doesn't require 6 out of 10 policy trees to be filled, but 6 out of the 6 or 7 ones available (I'm pretty sure that was at least a third incompatible pair of policies). Which makes it sound more of an achievement than it sounds initially.

When an attacking unit entered British territory, the border "moved away", Britain lost control of the tile!!!


Also, will the decision between social trees be forever? do I have to decide between freedom and autocracy for the whole game? May I switch, like in reality? Are the culture points lost? If yes, this would mean you'd better never switch if you want to achieve cultural victory.

If you need 6 full trees to get the Utopia project, and some are incompatible to others, this seems to mean "unlock all".

EDIT:

After being hit by 2 frigate volleys, the British city had 60% HP left. An unit of riflemen could take it afterwards. This might not be final, anyway.

Tomice said:

Also, will the decision between social trees be forever? do I have to decide between freedom and autocracy for the whole game? May I switch, like in reality? Are the culture points lost? If yes, this would mean you'd better never switch if you want to achieve cultural victory.

If you need 6 full trees to get the Utopia project, and some are incompatible to others, this seems to mean "unlock all".

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That's an important question that I forgot I had. Because yeah, there ought to be some way to switch with a not too outrageous penalty.

As for the second comment, I'm pretty certain the the ones that are listed as mutually exclusive are the only ones that are mutually exclusive. None of the others look like they would be. So that would mean unlocking 6 of the maximum 8.

Tomice said:

Also, will the decision between social trees be forever? do I have to decide between freedom and autocracy for the whole game? May I switch, like in reality? Are the culture points lost? If yes, this would mean you'd better never switch if you want to achieve cultural victory.

If you need 6 full trees to get the Utopia project, and some are incompatible to others, this seems to mean "unlock all".

Click to expand...

Interesting question about switching social trees. There are gameplay complications both ways.

IIRC, the non-compatible policy pairs are Piety-Rationalism, Commerce-Patronage, Liberty-Autocracy and possibly Freedom-Tradition (btw, which desinger thought it was a good idea to have both Liberty and Freedom as policy names, they're pretty much synonyms)

Calouste said:

IIRC, the non-compatible policy pairs are Piety-Rationalism, Commerce-Patronage, Liberty-Autocracy and possibly Freedom-Tradition (btw, which desinger thought it was a good idea to have both Liberty and Freedom as policy names, they're pretty much synonyms)

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Either YDRC or there's news I missed. The only paths I've heard confirmed to be mutually exclusive are piety-rationalism and liberty-autocracy. I also think tradition and freedom are two of the three than begin unlocked (unfortunately the only one I'm sure about is the other one-- honor). If I felt like digging up that old thread I'd know for sure, but eh.

Definitely agree about the freedom/liberty thing, hopefully when we see the options in each of those trees we'll see some semantic difference.