Making of Civ 5 video up with animations at gamespot

http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6265330/civilization-v-qanda-first-e3-details?tag=topslot;thumb;1

Pretty cool, the animations of the Hind (is it?) is pretty cool. The game world looks very good and better IMO in the video than in static screenshots.

Thanks! I'm gonna go watch this.

Edit: Finaly some new info! And it seems like there will be more in the coming days! I can't wait! This is obviously a must read. Unrortunatly I was unable to watch the video because of my dumb iPhone But the pics look great! This game is going to be epic! They also say they are gonna talk about mods soon, sounds like maybe in the expo, I hope!

Some nice looking animations in there - and a few more indications of the features to expect. I spy (at least some of) the tech tree!

(I've noted the new music and tech tree information in a post in the sticky)

Looks great! Just one thing I am a bit worried about... one picture states "Civ V has a newer, slimmer interface with advisors to help beginners figure out what to do next." but I would say that 99.9% of all Civ V games wont be played by beginners, sure everyone will be a beginner at first and it is great that everyone can learn to play but I really really hope that all beginner stuff can be turned off after a while...

The pictures shows the first view of the city screen! It looks good, perhaps a little bit empty?

Sorry for the double posting here folks . Does anyone know how to get the video viewable for iPhones? Would anyone be willing to upload this to you tube? I'd surely be happy!

Wow, great link. A HUGE amount of screenshots and gameplay here. The Battle animations look very, very good... I have to say my initial thoughts on the interface is that it looks a little cartoonish, but I'm sure I'll adjust to the new look.

Early observations from the very first gameplay shot (@ 29 seconds):

1) All the military units have their promotions available to see. I'm sure this is a toggle function, i.e. just like seeing resources or not in CIV IV. That's a great thing, great adjustment to the interface.... no more clicking on the unit or scrolling over to find the right guy.

2) The Total Strength odds/rankings are well displayed. In the battle shown:

One Muskateer has a base of 20 strength. He has a 15% flanking bonus, giving him a total of "2300 strength"

&

A Pikeman, with a base of 10 strength, but with a 15% "Friendly unit adjacent bonus", a 25% terrain bonus, a 25% fortification bonus, and a 25% "Great General Near bonus." Total strength is 1900.

So we see that they've added more combat bonuses/factors, and they are displayed front and center for battle preparation.

Also, you can see the Pikeman's upkeep cost, which is 2 gold.

Note the big jump in strength from era to era. In CIV IV, Pikeman are much closer in strength to Musketeers (only a 1.5X jump in overall strength; here it's a full 2X). Just speculation, but this could likely be an across the board jump, i.e. pushing the emphasis towards modernization of units... decreasing effectiveness of outdated units.

Also, both units appear to be at partial strength, with color-coded bars. It's unclear if the units were facing off against each other, or if they were combining to siege a city, or something else.

*Edit, I think they are facing off against each other, and the Muskateer is about to wipe out the Pikeman. The Green Bar reads "Total Victory." Contrasted with a later screen @ 39 sec, which says Major Victory (Trebuchet vs. Healthy Pikeman)

CTH said:

Looks great! Just one thing I am a bit worried about... one picture states "Civ V has a newer, slimmer interface with advisors to help beginners figure out what to do next." but I would say that 99.9% of all Civ V games wont be played by beginners, sure everyone will be a beginner at first and it is great that everyone can learn to play but I really really hope that all beginner stuff can be turned off after a while...

The pictures shows the first view of the city screen! It looks good, perhaps a little bit empty?

Click to expand...

It also says there is options to put more info on the screen as well, so I only assume we can turn advisors off, would only make sense!

Awesome vid!

So on Advisors, so long as they can be turned off and on (which, I'm almost certain will be an option), I like them, as they will undoubtedly speed up the learning curve of most players.

The Military advisor @ 32 seconds alerts of a besieged city, and there are three links to the civpedia:

How does City Combat work?, What can be done to help defend a city?, and How does constructing units at a city work?

At risk of riding the ridicule train as I did last time I mentioned this, I'd like to point out that despite more modern and more expansive views of civs, I still see no sign of cottage/hamlet/village/towns. As much as I liked the "worked" process of the tiles in Civ IV, it wasn't aesthetically pleasing and became my new expansionist aesthetics bugbear over roads. So I'm pleased I'm not seeing them in the vid.

As far as terrain, it appears as if a Farm will now give hammers, too.

Again @ 32 sec:

We seem to have two farms (plains?) that are on a river and seem to provide two green (food?), two gold, and two hammers. We have another farm, not on the river, that is just two green and two hammers.

Three unfarmed plains hexes show one green and two hammers base.

There appears to be a hills mine (grass or plains?) on the river, with three hammers and two gold. But no green.

And lastly, there appears to be some kind of special resource on a hill. It's giving 3 food, two gold, and two hammers. Also, there's a white building at the Northeast corner of the hex, that looks like a plantation or something.

*Edit: @ 45 seconds, the scroll over reveals that it is a Banana Plantation on a Plains Hill (Note: odd to have Bananas in plains).

On the Trading screen with Ramses, we see some cool options.

First off, we see the human player, playing as Napolean, about to offer his strategic resources in return for something from Ramses.

On his screen he clicks on the Horses, with a 5, but then adjusts it to be a 2. So, we can gather that just as strategic resources are finite in how many troops it can support, so, too, can you split up and divide a strategic resource to sell/trade. Still, it's only for 20 turns. One assumes that Egypt could build two horse units and the units would remain when the deal expires... but if the units were killed, then he'd have to trade again for the horses to build more.

Also, both sides have a lot of gold. Napolean's got 700 Gold, with 50+ per turn.

It's a 90MB .mp4 video. Downloading now.

Wow, who's the guy 4m12s in? He looks scarily lifelike.

They are going to follow this one up with pictures of 2K shareholders swimming in their money bins
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Curious - anybody else noted the two different hex "grid" references that are quoted on the mouse pointer info? I remember discussion on this forum about the two different ways you can reference hexes - and it looks like they display both.

On that note, we are also getting a better idea about the map sizes as well.

Just looking at the gameplay, I feel the advisors immediately gives more life to the game. It would be nice, if they sometimes featured in the leader animations, even as static background. Just like in Civ1 where the number of advisors on screen reflected the relative strength of the civilization. The stronger the nation, the more advisors.

Some observations from watching the video:

01:24: Two Frigates are bombarding each other across several squares. There seems to be no defense value when bombarding is done, as the strength of the second Frigate is 0. Also the bombardment does 7 damage.

01:35: Notice the separation of buildings on the right. Wonders, Buildings and Specialist Buildings. Bank, Garden and Temple supply Specialists. Great People anyone?

01:37: Tech tree yay! It looks less complex than the Civ IV one. Also note the mouseover on the Trapping Technology.

Also allows Workers to construct the Trading Post, which increases the Gold output of map tiles

Click to expand...

This combined with no visible cottages makes me wonder whether they will be in at all.

2:09: Bananas plantation. Banans are in!

2:15: Cavalry have a movement of 3, Strength of 25. All the other units so far had a movement of 2. Also the Cavalry destroyed a unit of Cannons. So no siege equipment capturing, I guess.

2:17: Tanks have a movement of 4, Strength of 50. And they're fighting against Mechanized Infantry.

4:06: Farmed grassland gives 4 Food. Plains Forest 1 Hammer, 1 Food.

4:13: Plains give 2 Hammer, 1 Food. Interesting.

Of course the first 30 seconds are full of goodness too. Didn't start writing down though. I think this looks really promising. I can't wait to get my hands on the demo and the final game!

Nicolas10 said:

As far as terrain, it appears as if a Farm will now give hammers, too.

Again @ 32 sec:

We seem to have two farms (plains?) that are on a river and seem to provide two green (food?), two gold, and two hammers. We have another farm, not on the river, that is just two green and two hammers.

Three unfarmed plains hexes show one green and two hammers base.

There appears to be a hills mine (grass or plains?) on the river, with three hammers and two gold. But no green.

And lastly, there appears to be some kind of special resource on a hill. It's giving 3 food, two gold, and two hammers. Also, there's a white building at the Northeast corner of the hex, that looks like a plantation or something.

*Edit: @ 45 seconds, the scroll over reveals that it is a Banana Plantation on a Plains Hill (Note: odd to have Bananas in plains).

Click to expand...

Your observations of the tiles is correct (Plain is 1 food/2 hammers), but that means the farm is just adding 1 food to make the farmed ones 2 food/ 2 hammers (there is one next to the city). Rivers add 2 gold now (at least with the player's current tech/buildings/etc.). I'm also noticing the 3 hammer/2 gold tile near the city. I'm curious if that is a mine on the tile, but with Civ4 thinking the hill plains would have 3 hammers (-1 food/+1 hammer from hill to the base 1f/2h of plains in Civ 5). So if it has a mine doing the -1f/+1h then there might be no base yield difference for hills?

Just read the interview with John Shafer as well. It's loaded with new information, so you should really check it out. Some highlights:

- Culture is used to purchase Social Policies, which build upon another and are required for the cultural victory.

- City States have one vote in the UN election, the same as every other Civ, so they're important for the Diplomatic Victory.

- City States com in three flavours: Military, Culture, Maritime.

And a whole lot more plus like information about the new science and gold mechanic.

Yeah, the battle mechanics of Ranged Attack are going to very, very important to get right. Tactics are everything now, because ranged attack is devastating, but the units doing the ranged attack could easily be wiped out by the right force if allowed to get close, i.e. fast-moving units.

At 45 seconds, there's a Ranged attack between Trebuchet and Pikeman. The Trebuchet has only a base 6 strength, but a Ranged Attack of 20. Interestingly, the Trebuchet has a lot of potential bonuses, i.e. 25% great general proximity, but they don't seem applicable to a ranged attack (but would presumably factor if attacked directly in melee combat).

The Pikeman have the 10 base strength but a strength of 0 against a ranged attack. And also we see that being in open Grassland is a -33% modifier! Wow.

The Trebuchet achieves a "Major Victory" and appears to do serious damage to the Pikeman... at least 50% killed, maybe more. But not totally wiped out, otherwise we'd see the "Total Victory."

Also, I don't see any combat odds... so I don't know if the battle is assured, or how the chances of victory work.

Secondly, there's a very interesting combat between two frigates @ 1:24. So, both Frigates are a base 30 strength and a 15 ranged attack. Instead of attacking, The player's Frigate (Roman, now) fires a ranged attack, taking roughly half the opposing Frigate's strength. He appears to have a few other Frigates to mop up. But the Ranged Attack now allows the opposing forces to not merely win, but to win without losses... which is a major change from Civ IV, where you had all or nothing attacks.

Also, on the Frigates, they have a ton of movement. The base is 5, but one appears to have gotten promotions up to 7 Movement. This would imply that you could come out of nowhere and launch an early ranged attack with a force of Frigates and do serious damage. The Pearl Harbor scenario would appear to be a very real possibility... and a player with a small navy could see it wiped out in a heartbeat, leaving the other side the impunity to "possibly" bombard coastal units and then skip back out to see.

*Note: we have no example of how sea vs. land ranged attack will work.

**Note: We also don't know if Navies will have Blitz attack, but I'm assuming they do not. Without armed transports, a convoy or land units could be entirely wiped out by one fast moving Frigate slipping in and destroying each and every one.

***Coastal bombardment will certainly be a factor, but still uncertain as to the mechanics. From JS:

"Ranged attacks in general play a major role in Civ V. All warships are now ranged units with the ability to hit land targets, dramatically increasing their importance relative to previous games in the series."