Apolyton hands-on preview - Aug 21

[r_rolo1]

Obviously if you import a map then it'll only incorporate those Civ4 elements that can be represented. The rest you have to do manually, but it's a lot better than having to start from scratch. I'm assuming that if you've got a copper resource, it'll be transformed into an iron resource, and stone into marble, but I highly doubt there'll be an automatic option for random insertion of city states.

I have serious doubts about that. But anyway, my biggest fear is that they only ported the WB to a separate app and did little, if nothing, to make it more functional ( the rivers, oh the rivers ... ) and/or that they have done little, if nothing , regarding all the WB save loads quirks in civ IV.

OTOH I find his words about "scenarios" quite ambiguous regarding of what exactly he is talking about . It is a long standing civ tradition to calll scenario to stuff that would be described more accurately as a mod ( say, BtS Mesoamerica ) and I'm not sure if he is refering to mods like RFC and stuff like Civ IV Earth 18 civs together or not.

 

[Tylerryan79]

I'm really excited about the map editor, I've been messing around with a hex grid trying to come up with some fun maps. I just hope that we can make a map and then have it spawn resources differently(with the ingame options mentioned in the preview) so I won't have a huge advantage knowing everything(seeing as i made it). Plus I was always double guessing myself about if it was balanced or not..... Too much pressure!!!

 

[Guardian_PL]

7:55 - World Builder is a stand-along program that you can access outside of the game.

Not cheating, fixing utterly stupid things like a computer capitalting to a civ that joined the war at someone elses request or purely symbolicaly as ally support, who never attacked once the civ once, and then the civ which had a single city left with maybe 1 unit, forcing me to declare peace against my wishes and cant even redeclare war. I at that garbage and just set it back to at war. I wouldn't call that cheating in the slightest, thats absurd by any account, and it happened all the time.

Excuses, excuses...
To help you out with this I really do hope that AI in Civ5 is going to be so much better that these "utterly stupid things" will be less noticeable.

Thanks Mercade for the interview link, I'm so hyped up about Civ5 right now that I could swear that while I was watching I could see a halo slowly forming around Jon Shafer's body It's probably because of the background and his head movements but who knows?

 

[12agnar0k]

@Sarda, that is modifying assets during a game, and it is cheating, I mean you can't do that kind of thing on a civ-fanatics game, but what you do with your own single player games is your business.

 

[Sarda]

@Sarda, that is modifying assets during a game, and it is cheating, I mean you can't do that kind of thing on a civ-fanatics game, but what you do with your own single player games is your business.

You say cheating, I say fixing, I don't do civ-fanatics games just sp so its a moot point to me. Modifying Assests has been nothing but helpful to fix stuff and its now super complicated and full of more steps then it should be.

 

[r_rolo1]

It is arguable that some of the things you consider in need of being fixed are really in need of it For example, why would a weak civ not ask for help ?

 

[Tomice]

I agree that it was handy to have access to ingame mod-tools, for various reasons.

Since it was possible to block modified assets, I see no reason why some people should play moral police here. There is no real cheating in SP. Why don't you guys allow everyone to play the game according to his wishes?

Many people here use mods anyway, so I don't get your point. Being able to change things you don't like is a core element of the franchise.

 

[migkillertwo]

No wonder movies?

That is really disappointing TBH.

 

[DarkMaster]

The preview was nice, good tidbits of info and insight, but holy the interview was fun. Not many juicy bits overall but fun questions to ask Jon!

 

[JonoLith]

The AI, Murray told us, thinks a lot more like a human player. It wants to win the game and it will backstab you.

Excellent.

 

[caglejsc]

No wonder movies?

That is really disappointing TBH.

I've heard the artwork in place is really beautiful though, I won't miss it. Great artwork is better than a low budget animation that naturally wouldn't have as much detail.

 

[Tarkhan]

I can understand leaving out wonder movies. We all watch em the first time, then skip the next 500 times.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I can understand leaving out wonder movies. We all watch em the first time, then skip the next 500 times.

This!

 

[BluebeardRex]

The correct purpose of World Builder (Beater!) is for that moment when you know you cannot win, even though it is only 1570, largely owing to having had one idiot (Shaka, Monty too, but mostly Shaka) spawn near to you and proceed to declare an unwinnable but time and resource sapping war repeatedly. It is no longer about winning, but about piling nuke upon nuke, allied by Modern Armours in your safest cities and proceeding to obliterate the objectionable sort from the face of the Earth before quitting to start a new game.

That is what World Builder is for!

 

[Guardian_PL]

No, World Builder is for Building the World and creating maps, not mutilating an existing gameplay.
But to each their own, or whatever the correct phrase is

 

[Louis XXIV]

Here's the link to the 11 minute video interview.

Wooh! Demogame shout out.

Actually, with the mention of multiplayer and multiplayer demogames that I know Shafer was a part of, I'm curious if it was his inspiration for the diplomacy of the game. The civs behave more like people would. They react to in game situations in the context of what is best for them overall and respond to friendships and rivalries in that way.

 

[ChristofferC]

I don't want the AI civilizations to act like players. I want them to act like civilizations. Otherwise the game becomes too gamey.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Honestly, in my experience with the Civ3 Intersite Demogames, it's virtually indistinguishable. I felt real world diplomacy was better mirrored interacting with real people than with computers. There was actual interaction and feedback. We could interact with teams to prevent encroachment of territory and to counterbalance against bigger threats.

Some of the pacts in the game seem to mirror this (Secrecy pact for example when the team I was on had an agreement with the CFC team against a third team).

This was far better than, if I spam them with missionaries or adopt their civic, they'll be willing to trade a tech they won't trade right now. It doesn't work that way in the real world (trust involves time and actual effort) and made it feel too gamey.

 

[AriochIV]

The article has a bunch of image captions that don't have images.

 

[sdlufkin]

The article has a bunch of image captions that don't have images.

Still? Good gravy, I had thought that would be fixed by now, it's been half a day already.