Arioch's Analyst Thread

[CivRulez07]

Hey. Just thought I'd stop by to say that I love the site! Keep up the great work!

 

[Erufailon]

Nice work there, i really enjoyed reading it.
Just one small correction: You say in the terrain page that marshes are new to Civ V, but they have been out once before in one of the expansion packs for Civ III (can't remember which one). It's not very important, but i just wantet to be a nitpicker

 

[hk2717]

I like the new look of the site. It is much better than the official civ5 site and CFC. I am not kidding.

 

[davelisowski]

cool site.

thank you.
i'd like to see how much of that remains in the 'final' version.

 

[mantis2007]

I noticed a few things about combat in Civ V.

First, take a look at what happens when you have a unit selected and then hold down a right click on a tile nearby. Before lifting up your finger from the right mouse button, the interface shows you a lot of information. There's a blue line around your unit, which apparently shows the area into which your unit could safely move. Enemy units are highlighted in red. And in this screenshot, which shows the player holding a right click on an enemy Cannon, combat odds are displayed in an attractive information box. The blue outline is what's most interesting to me. What counts as a "safe" area? In this screenshot, the Cannon is not included inside the blue circle, meaning that moving there is not considered "safe." We'll revisit this question in a moment.

Spoiler :

Next, let's look at an exciting sequence: the capture of an enemy city! Here's the target city, a virtually undefended coastal city. There's no garrisoned unit inside the city. Only one defender remains -- a rifleman unit stationed just outside the city. The player's got this place surrounded. Let's get it done.

Spoiler :

The player bombards the city using a ranged attack from a frigate -- setting off a massive set of explosions.

Spoiler :

It's hard to convey how awesome this next scene is with just a screenshot. After bombardment, the beleaguered city has several areas on fire. The fires ignite, enlarge, and then erupt trails of wafting smoke out toward the sea. The city looks doomed. It's awesome.

Spoiler :

After dispatching with the last defending rifleman unit outside the city, the player is now ready to head in for the kill. The player selects his own rifleman, and prepares to bear down on the city. Note that in this screenshot, the city under siege is included in the blue circle showing where the unit can "safely" move. The combat odds display says "Safe Attack."

Spoiler :

The player's rifleman moves to attack the burning city. Desperately, the city launches some rocks toward the rifleman. You can see the futile attack on the rifleman in this screenshot.

Spoiler :

The rifleman easily repels the city's last ditch defense, and the player captures the city! Now, there's a choice to be made. Three options: Annex, Raze, or Install Puppet. Tooltips, seen in the following screenshots, describe the meaning of these three options.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

The player has won this battle. But the war rages on....

I'd like to say that the presentation seen even in this blurry video is very, very impressive. The animations, the style of the interface, the sound effects and music... all are fantastic. Debates over the new game mechanics will be ongoing for a while, and for good reason. But this video settles one debate for me. Civ V is going to prove to be a massive improvement over previous installments in the series in terms of quality of presentation.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

It's hard to convey how awesome this next scene is with just a screenshot. After bombardment, the beleaguered city has several areas on fire. The fires ignite, enlarge, and then erupt trails of wafting smoke out toward the sea. The city looks doomed. It's awesome.

Unless of course you actually happen to live there... Oh Gloucester! We would have had a bigger naval presence in real life. Our bustling harbours and docks. A rich trade in wool... *snif* All aflame now...

However I have to say having just seen the video !finally! I am really looking forward to September. I'll be having loads of fun with this version of Civ. The game looks really good to me.

 

[AriochIV]

The new site style is courtesy of Greg Rozmarynowycz.

I think you should add a "Modding" category as well to it. As I understand it, we don't know too much about the modding bit of Civilization V as yet though. We know that LUA will replace Python, however, and that maps from Civ4 will be easily imported into Civ5 (which is really grand news!).

As you mention, we don't yet know much about modding. I think the only thing we know that you didn't mention is about the in-game mod browser.

I made a couple corrections too but you didnt see my post I guess

I saw your post and made some changes, just not the ones you specified.

The problem with this is that it sounds very prone to gaming. Take the example in the video. You're trying to be buddies with Geneva, and England declares war on them. Geneva might ask you to join the war, and maybe you agree. But if you're smart, you'll sit back and let Elizabeth take over Geneva, and the liberate it. I doubt the City State AI will adequately value and appreciate you defending them from initial capture.

That's true, but as exploits go, it's not horribly unrealistic... it can be hard to convince someone of danger until they've already been bitten. But hopefully the other ways to gain a city-state's friendship will be equally rewarding (even if only in fun value).

Just one small correction: You say in the terrain page that marshes are new to Civ V, but they have been out once before in one of the expansion packs for Civ III (can't remember which one). It's not very important, but i just wantet to be a nitpicker

I think you have to go back to Civ II to find Swamp, and I'm not sure that counts.

Thanks for the plug on the news post, Thunderfall!

 

[Schuesseled]

i love the pathetic rock throwing desperation of the locals in taht vid

a couple of bullets will silence those fools.

 

[Tomice]

Can someone read those tooltipps? From annexing, razing and "puppeting"?

 

[The Tollan]

Arioch (or anyone who can answer this):

The screenshot for the Mechanized Infantry unit shows three vehicles along the lines of the tank unit. This seem to suggest that like in Civ 4 MI will have a vehicle only graphic. Have you seen any evidence to suggest whether infantry are ever displayed on this unit's graphic?

Opinion section:

It would seem like it would not be too hard for the developers to make the unit a little more complex and have a mixture of soldiers and combat vehicles displayed when the unit is stationary or in combat. If the unit is supposed to be primarily an infantry unit this would be preferable to only show vehicles like the other Civ games. Civilization 4 did not come with an infantry graphic later than the marine because of this issue.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Love the new look, awesome work, Arioch & Greg! It's nice to have all of this information/speculation/anticipation in one place.

 

[AriochIV]

The screenshot for the Mechanized Infantry unit shows three vehicles along the lines of the tank unit. This seem to suggest that like in Civ 4 MI will have a vehicle only graphic. Have you seen any evidence to suggest whether infantry are ever displayed on this unit's graphic?

That would be cool, but there's nothing to suggest that's what they have in mind, and I would be surprised if they did.

 

[kurtkage]

I'm wondering what the unit under Metallurgy is. The Cannon is under Chemistry, so it's something we haven't seen yet.

Just want to point out that metallurgy was the tech for cannons in a previous version of civ, could cannon require Chemistry & Metallurgy perhaps?

but yeah, it was an English frigate, and not a Ship of the Line

The presenter in the video calls it a ship of the line, I sure cannot see a difference in the graphics between them though.

Couple other things that I haven't seen mentioned.

When he is talking about hidden command buttons for units and mouses over Delete Unit (or disband not sure), in the tooltip you can see it say you get 10 gold. So yea, you get gold when you disband/delete a unit, 10 gold for a warrior, wonder if it varies by production cost or?

Another thing is in video1 in the Rome cityscreen when he goes to the right hand side of the cityscreen and starts with specialists he phrases it strangely, saying roughly

"Over on the right we have all our buildings, We've got our specialist buildings at the top where if we have excess citizens we can have it work in that particular building and add bonuses to it".

As he is saying that he is mousing over a building that says 20%(?) gold. There is more text but it is tough to read I think it says "citizen will become a merchant"? and then another line that appears to have a gold coin icon

Between having the building/merchant tooltip there is another 1line tooltip that pops up for a second that I cannot make out.

My confusion here is, when he says add bonuses to a building is he still referring to the same old mechanic of a specialist produces XYZ gold/science/culture and you consider that "added" to the buildings output? Or is that 20% bonus in the tooltip the bonus from a specialist and not the default benefit of the building?

As I watch it again it looks like the 2x% is the building benefit and the bottom line is the merchant specialist output but still cannot be sure.

 

[AriochIV]

Just want to point out that metallurgy was the tech for cannons in a previous version of civ, could cannon require Chemistry & Metallurgy perhaps?

While anything is possible at this point, Chemistry and Metallurgy are in the same tier, so it's hard to imagine that one would be a prerequisite for the other.

The presenter in the video calls it a ship of the line, I sure cannot see a difference in the graphics between them though.

The height of the hull from the waterline in the Ship of the Line is a bit taller than the Frigate, but if you look at the UI in the lower left corner, you can see that the name and stats are different.

When he is talking about hidden command buttons for units and mouses over Delete Unit (or disband not sure), in the tooltip you can see it say you get 10 gold. So yea, you get gold when you disband/delete a unit, 10 gold for a warrior, wonder if it varies by production cost or?

I would assume that the gold refunded varies by production cost. That's a guess, but it would be silly if you get the same cash for scrapping a Warrior as for scrapping a Battleship.

My confusion here is, when he says add bonuses to a building is he still referring to the same old mechanic of a specialist produces XYZ gold/science/culture and you consider that "added" to the buildings output? Or is that 20% bonus in the tooltip the bonus from a specialist and not the default benefit of the building?

As far as I can tell, there are no Civ IV-style "standard" specialists, and each Civ V specialist's function is directly tied to the building it's assigned to. The way it appears to work is that some buildings have slots that can be filled with population points, and these population points become "specialists" that perform whatever function is specified by that building. For example, if you have a Market, it might have one or two slots; each population point you assign to one of those slots becomes a "merchant" and provides (probably) some extra % gold benefit. If you look at the city screen shot the Bank's specialist is yellow (suggesting a gold bonus) and the Temple's specialist is pink (suggesting a culture bonus). I'd wager a research building's specialists are blue.

As to the specific bonuses, it's too illegible for me to see.

 

[Celevin]

As far as I can tell, there are no Civ IV-style "standard" specialists, and each Civ V specialist's function is directly tied to the building it's assigned to. The way it appears to work is that some buildings have slots that can be filled with population points, and these population points become "specialists" that perform whatever function is specified by that building. For example, if you have a Market, it might have one or two slots; each population point you assign to one of those slots becomes a "merchant" and provides (probably) some extra % gold benefit. If you look at the city screen shot the Bank's specialist is yellow (suggesting a gold bonus) and the Temple's specialist is pink (suggesting a culture bonus). I'd wager a research building's specialists are blue.

That leads to a bit more flexibility for designers. They could make the Market specialists give 3 finance, and a Bank specialist give 5 finance, for example. They aren't limited like in Civ4.

 

[AriochIV]

That leads to a bit more flexibility for designers. They could make the Market specialists give 3 finance, and a Bank specialist give 5 finance, for example. They aren't limited like in Civ4.

I think it's a great mechanic. The Civ IV specialist system was confusing as hell.

 

[kurtkage]

While anything is possible at this point, Chemistry and Metallurgy are in the same tier, so it's hard to imagine that one would be a prerequisite for the other.

I was saying that perhaps the cannon unit itself had 2 prereq techs (chem&metal) it would explain what in the world the unit for metallurgy is if cannon shows on chemistry tech too, but another explanation would be the unit in chemistry is something else shrug.

Much like say infantry require rifling + assembly line for example, it would show on both techs.

 

[Celevin]

One thing I haven't investigated is how we increase science now that it's not directly tied in with gold.

We have trading posts that give gold. Are there any tile improvements that increase our science? Is it based on city size? Is it only based on science specialists and buildings?

 

[AriochIV]

I was saying that perhaps the cannon unit itself had 2 prereq techs (chem&metal) it would explain what in the world the unit for metallurgy is if cannon shows on chemistry tech too, but another explanation would be the unit in chemistry is something else shrug. Much like say infantry require rifling + assembly line for example, it would show on both techs.

I know what you meant, but like I said, though anything is possible, it doesn't look that way. There aren't any "also requires this tech" icons or similar indicators anywhere in the tree that we can see, and the unit icon under Metallurgy looks very different from the Cannon icon under Chemistry.

One thing I haven't investigated is how we increase science now that it's not directly tied in with gold. We have trading posts that give gold. Are there any tile improvements that increase our science? Is it based on city size? Is it only based on science specialists and buildings?

Not much information on this. The only unidentified tile improvement in the current tech tree (through the first tier of Industrial era) is the one under Biology.

 

[bjbrains]

One thing I haven't investigated is how we increase science now that it's not directly tied in with gold.

We have trading posts that give gold. Are there any tile improvements that increase our science? Is it based on city size? Is it only based on science specialists and buildings?

For base growth, it seems to be one citizen=one beaker. It also looks like there are buildings and specialists to increase it. There could be science-increasing improvements, but if they exist, they look to be later improvements.