Nothing is in the SVN yet. Great new for MP from such a simple custom assets find. I'll try to add the extra MP code to the SVN in the next 48 hours. Man if Jdog makes progress on the strategic AI, civ4 is going to be pretty cool for a long time yet. Civ5 will be much better for large scale epic games because of it's single unit model and multiprocessor support, but civ4 will have espionage and religion as well as revolutions. I suspect that because of the late game unit count on big maps, civ4 players will have to adjust their concept of how they play civ4, focusing on smaller high quality games on maps even smaller than standard. Huge maps and epic games will have to happen on civ5. The high unit count is what really hammers the turn times on civ4, but that problem is not nearly as great on smaller maps and single processor speeds are gradually improving. A quality strategically thinking AI and civ4 will be beautiful. Cephalo has proven to me that you can make absolutely gorgeous small maps for civ4 even for old world/new world games. In any case, smaller map games are perfect for MP play. There are big MP issues about a lack of management of multiplayer cheating, but that will be ok because quality players will know who each other are and exclude cheaters.
I personally do not agree with the criticism magazines and players make about civ4. Often people push civ4 out of it's intended parameters, and of course they will find all sorts of balance problems which they then falsely extrapolate to the game more generally. The beauty of a balanced civ4 game will always be found inside a narrow bell curve. It is such a complicated cause and effect game.
Cheers
woooooeeew
(I have no recollection of ever using it either...).
