Strategy Informer interview and preview

[AriochIV]

These cases in which the previewer says something that contradicts what Firaxis has said themselves have to be viewed, I think, with suspicion unless they are corroborated by another source. It's very easy for a previewer to have misheard or misunderstood something.

 

[Seek]

Surprised no one has commented on the only new information in the interview (all from the last paragraph):

• Finally a hint as to how GAs, GMs and GWs are created: "One of the key ways you’re going to be getting great artists, great musicians etc… is through Faith."
• Culture buildings sound like they may have more unique effects and won't be useless without a Great Work housed in them: "All the culture buildings have new abilities."
• Religion overhaul: "A whole new set of religious belief that’s going to add to all the different areas of the game, whether it’s Diplomatic, or domination…"

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Great People have been generated with faith since G&K. That's hardly new.

I think the culture buildings' new abilities they are referring to revolve around housing Great Works.

The new set of Religious Beliefs they are referring to are probably the new Reformation Beliefs that you get for completing the Piety tree. One allows you to buy science buildings with faith and another allows you to convert barb units into your own with missionaries.

 

[Seek]

Great People have been generated with faith since G&K. That's hardly new.

I think the culture buildings' new abilities they are referring to revolve around housing Great Works.

The new set of Religious Beliefs they are referring to are probably the new Reformation Beliefs that you get for completing the Piety tree. One allows you to buy science buildings with faith and another allows you to convert barb units into your own with missionaries.

Regarding the first two, that seems like a pessimistic view. I hope I am right (that there are more creative changes to current mechanics which haven't been released to the public yet) and you are wrong. No offense!

As for the third, yes, you are probably right - I forgot about the new set on the Piety finisher.

 

[Menzies]

Regarding the first two, that seems like a pessimistic view. I hope I am right (that there are more creative changes to current mechanics which haven't been released to the public yet) and you are wrong. No offense!

As for the third, yes, you are probably right - I forgot about the new set on the Piety finisher.

He's right though, the game already has a great people mechanic where you can get them from faith.

 

[Seek]

He's right though, the game already has a great people mechanic where you can get them from faith.

I'm well aware of that, thank you.

The issue remains though, that we have *no idea* how Great Artists, Musicians and Writers are generated (it seems highly unlikely that there are separate specialist slots for Artists, Musicians and Writers). There was a clue - faith - which is why I brought it up. Getting the new GA/M/Ws may work like the late-game G&K GP faith-purchasing, but it may not. One idea off the top of my head: Perhaps you can invest faith per turn into religious buildings to generate GA/M/Ws. There are many possibilities...

In any case, it's a tiny amount of information, so we'll just have to wait and see I suppose. I just hope it's a more interesting mechanic than straight purchasing.

 

[Arachnofiend]

It sounds to me that the GP for faith mechanic is going to be tweaked. As it stands you can only buy them in the Industrial Era after selecting Freedom. If faith is a "key" way to generate the GP's then it seems unlikely that that would still be limited to the Industrial Era; in addition, we know that the devs want it to be possible to play culturally with any ideology so I find it unlikely that they would require you to get Freedom to get the GPs.

 

[Human Crouton]

Right, $27.50 for six new civilizations, or $29.99 for nine new civs and and an expansion's worth of new gameplay systems... which is the better deal?

When you factor in the amount of time it takes to get an expansion pack, they are probably not as far off as you think. $5.00 every couple of months is a good deal to me to keep a game that I play dozens of hours a month from getting stagnant, where as an expansion pack has one year's waiting time.

I'm sure many of us would be willing to pay over MSRP for Brave New World right now. Find the average difference between the price we'd be willing to pay now, and the MSRP on launch day, and you'll have a non-scientific, (but still more fair) value of the DLC packs.

 

[seasnake]

I'm guessing it's referring to the late-game purchasing of GP with faith. In fact, assuming the Ideologies don't play a role in this, I would guess in the Industrial Era you'll be able to purchase a different great person for every Social Policy you unlocked, something like:

Exploration – Great Admiral
Aesthetics – Great Artist
Tradition – Great Engineer
Liberty – Great Writer
Honor – Great General
Patronage – Great Musician
Piety – Great Prophet
Rationalism – Great Scientist
Commerce – Great Merchant

Just because with the two new Great People it creates a definite imbalance to have Freedom unlock three of them, Autocracy the Admirals and Generals, and Order just the Engineer. So in light of a suspected rebalance, that's my guess.

EDIT: fixed the commerce one to read great merchant.

 

[moysturfurmer]

Exploration – Great Admiral
Aesthetics – Great Artist
Tradition – Great Engineer
Liberty – Great Writer
Honor – Great General
Patronage – Great Musician
Piety – Great Prophet
Rationalism – Great Scientist
Commerce – Great Admiral

I'm sure you meant for Commerce to unlock Great Merhchants but I like it otherwise. Writers for Liberty makes sense cuz wide empires might need extra help stemming off ideological pressure and the Political Treatise can do the job. Similarly, the Concert Tour ability can probably be done in City States for friend points or whatever, so the Musican-Patronage fits nicely too.

Good job

 

[seasnake]

I'm sure you meant for Commerce to unlock Great Merhchants but I like it otherwise. Writers for Liberty makes sense cuz wide empires might need extra help stemming off ideological pressure and the Political Treatise can do the job. Similarly, the Concert Tour ability can probably be done in City States for friend points or whatever, so the Musican-Patronage fits nicely too.

Good job

Oops! Yeah, I meant to say great merchant there, and patronage got me thinking about patron of the arts, of music and so forth.

 

[Shaod]

I just got a drive by download by one of the ad frames from the interview. I was browsing on Android with just two tabs open (that and this thread) and had a page redirect which started downloading aswt.apk. Don't assume it's an Android only attack though, it probably just tried that based on my user agent header.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It sounds to me that the GP for faith mechanic is going to be tweaked. As it stands you can only buy them in the Industrial Era after selecting Freedom. If faith is a "key" way to generate the GP's then it seems unlikely that that would still be limited to the Industrial Era; in addition, we know that the devs want it to be possible to play culturally with any ideology so I find it unlikely that they would require you to get Freedom to get the GPs.

That sounds like the best way to interpret the statement.

 

[headcase]

The main problem I had with the Civ5 DLC is that nearly every civ that was released as DLC was made to be sold.

Two of them have science UAs, something that no vanilla civ has. With Korea especially, I felt they were saying "having a little trouble getting that achievement? Why not buy this DLC?" which turned me away... until they all went on sale for 75% off.

At the original price, it was around $30 for 6 civs. Even a la carte, that's a pretty poor value compared to $40 for an expansion.