Kotaku - preview of civ5

[V. Soma]

http://kotaku.com/5489814/civilizati...ig-differences

Reading now

[NinjaCool]

Thats like 3 preview today so fare

[Thormodr]

Cities have health bars now. That's the only new thing I saw in the article. Good find though.

[ColdFever]

"The current minimum spec Firaxis is hoping to accommodate are 256 MB video cards and dual core processors. That target might change."

Arghh. I do not have a dual core. Hopefully they can lower the specs.

[V. Soma]

info gathered:

On system specs:
As good as those graphics looked, the game is supposed to be able to run on the widest range of PC hardware specifications supported by the series yet, from laptops Civ fans use on planes to high-end PCs.
The current minimum spec Firaxis is hoping to accommodate are 256 MB video cards and dual core processors. That target might change.

Cities:
And cities, which now have health bars, [and] can fire back.

Victory options:
as a tease, the developers said there will be surprises as to how non-military ways of winning the game, the standard cultural and technological victories, for example, will be designed.

On Mac version:
No Mac version is planned for launch, but the producer noted that all Civ games have eventually come out for Apple computers.

[V. Soma]

Originally Posted by ColdFever

[B][I]
Arghh. I do not have a dual core. Hopefully they can lower the specs.

I second you in this hope, very much

[Willowmound]

Those specs are already very low.

[Tamed]

Originally Posted by ColdFever

"The current minimum spec Firaxis is hoping to accommodate are 256 MB video cards and dual core processors. That target might change."

Arghh. I do not have a dual core. Hopefully they can lower the specs.

Huh? A Dual core processor is only literally $20. o_o

Even a mobo to support one is like $30!

Any PC that can run a modern game of Civ 4 even on low settings should be able to hit minimum on Civ 5 provided they have even the dinkiest of dual cores. If people are still using a single core, which means they are probably using an AGP motherboard, you can still get a mobo+proc combo to support the dual for $50. Meaning, if you can afford Civ 5, you can afford to get your PC up to date to play it, unless you're honestly planning on buying ZERO new games or other expenses this year aside from Civ 5. =P

[Pakhawaj]

Man, I don't want to upgrade my computer again. I just did it and it was a right hassle.
I don't think I'll be getting this game for a few years yet, hopefully I can avoid places claiming Civ V is the best Civilization game ever.

[Mef]

Originally Posted by Pakhawaj

Man, I don't want to upgrade my computer again. I just did it and it was a right hassle.

You just 'upgraded' your PC with a single-core CPU?

[bonafide11]

Originally Posted by Mef

You just 'upgraded' your PC with a single-core CPU?

Exactly, how does someone recently upgrade their computer and still have a single-core CPU? For probably at least five years now, all computers have come with dual-cores, and some with quad-cores.

[Shiggs713]

willowmound is right that is low, you can buy a PC today, not even getting a good deal, at Best Buy, that exceeds those requirements, for less than $500. You could probably spend around 150-$200 and do a mega upgrade to your processors or gfx card if you don't wanna buy a whole new pc.

[thwump]

kotaku just added a new post about roads. They said they were told that roads were being reworked to avoid "road spaghetti" but they don't seem to have all the details of how things will work now.

I never understood the complaint about the roads apart from the visuals. Each square represents so much land area that it seems natural you would have roads everywhere. All those farm goods and hammers need to get to town somehow.

[Willowmound]

I think that's great news!

http://kotaku.com/5489834/civilizati...road-spaghetti

[Akka]

I hope that roads will still be quite relevant :x
I like to see them stretches to the four corners of my empire !

[WeaselSlapper]

Originally Posted by Tamed

Huh? A Dual core processor is only literally $20. o_o

Even a mobo to support one is like $30!

Any PC that can run a modern game of Civ 4 even on low settings should be able to hit minimum on Civ 5 provided they have even the dinkiest of dual cores. If people are still using a single core, which means they are probably using an AGP motherboard, you can still get a mobo+proc combo to support the dual for $50. Meaning, if you can afford Civ 5, you can afford to get your PC up to date to play it, unless you're honestly planning on buying ZERO new games or other expenses this year aside from Civ 5. =P

You're assuming he has a desktop. If he's running a laptop like me that means buying an entirely new computer, as the laptop I'm using now has a single core processors with 128 MB shared video memory. From the specs they listed they will be eliminating anyone with a laptop that's designed to be portable from playing Civ V, including me. My current computer can run Civ IV perfectly fine, but if these specs hold out I won't be able to run Civ V.

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by thwump

I never understood the complaint about the roads apart from the visuals. Each square represents so much land area that it seems natural you would have roads everywhere. All those farm goods and hammers need to get to town somehow.

Originally Posted by Akka

I hope that roads will still be quite relevant :x
I like to see them stretches to the four corners of my empire !

But Civ is an abstraction, and the large scale is precisely why you shouldn't see and build every little country road. What matters to the empire is the major arteries, not the tracks and trails. In war when playing Civ you can't can't usually cut off cities from an empire except for very early in the game precisely because there is no discrete road you can sever, but in real life there would be, there would be main roads vital to an empire which the spaghetti which is all the minor roads could not instantly replace like it does in Civ IV.

[vsipinen]

Originally Posted by Tamed

Huh? A Dual core processor is only literally $20. o_o

Even a mobo to support one is like $30!

Any PC that can run a modern game of Civ 4 even on low settings should be able to hit minimum on Civ 5 provided they have even the dinkiest of dual cores. If people are still using a single core, which means they are probably using an AGP motherboard, you can still get a mobo+proc combo to support the dual for $50. Meaning, if you can afford Civ 5, you can afford to get your PC up to date to play it, unless you're honestly planning on buying ZERO new games or other expenses this year aside from Civ 5. =P

Would I then be able to upgrade my processor to a Dual Core processor, when my current processor is (looking directly from the order of my old computer) INTEL P-4 3000 MHz 478 800FSB Prescott, without need to buy a new motherboard ?

[Thormodr]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

But Civ is an abstraction, and the large scale is precisely why you shouldn't see and build every little country road. What matters to the empire is the major arteries, not the tracks and trails. In war when playing Civ you can't can't usually cut off cities from an empire except for very early in the game precisely because there is no discrete road you can sever, but in real life there would be, there would be main roads vital to an empire which the spaghetti which is all the minor roads could not instantly replace like it does in Civ IV.

Maybe you should be able to upgrade one road connection between cities into a superhighway. It will appear much more prominent than the other roads.

Maybe Roman roads with construction and Superhighways with Mass production or something like that.

So you'd have a Roman Road connecting cities and roads that look like dirt tracks for the others. Superhighways would look much more bigger than the other roads that are either gravel or paved and much more subdued.

Likewise with railways, you could discover Mag Lev railroads and have it connect major cities to each other.

[Oda Nobunaga]

Originally Posted by WeaselSlapper

You're assuming he has a desktop. If he's running a laptop like me that means buying an entirely new computer, as the laptop I'm using now has a single core processors with 128 MB shared video memory. From the specs they listed they will be eliminating anyone with a laptop that's designed to be portable from playing Civ V, including me.

"Anyone with a laptop that's designed to be portable"? Uh?

I mean, even my old 2006-vintage Thinkpad has a dual core and 256MB shared video memory. Granted, that was a fairly high-end laptop back when I bought it, but it's still four years old - positively antique in computer terms!

My new laptop, which was a lightweight, cheap-end Acer I bought a year ago, has a dual core and even more shared video memory.

I mean, netbooks probably won't be able to play it, but netbook kind of aren't meant to play games...