Civ 5 Confirmed Features

[bite]

an update to Russia's unique features and added acoustics

 

[SammyKhalifa]

He should have a 1700s Virginian accent

Unfortunately, there aren't too many surviving recordings . . .

 

[Mustakrakish]

Whoa why did they changed all that stuff all of the sudden??? Siberian riches? Wasn't it mother Russia or something? Krepost? Fur trading post is gone now? Did they just decided to change unique building just like that? Krepost means castle/fort... I'm confused.

EDIT: BTW that concept art of Gandhi looks bad ass. He looks like he's some kind of bad ass blind shaolin monk with shades who's about to kick some serious ass!

 

[arkammler]

Hey bite, have you look at this web site lately.

http://www.weplayciv.com/

There is a lot of missing info there on the first 4 pages.

Like this:

French gaming site Factornews has published their demo impressions of Civilization V from the floor of E3. It covers much of the same ground as other articles but there are also some nice new bits of info as well.

The article starts to talk about the visuals and the improved UI: it praises the resource availability indicators at the top of the screen and the combat odds display before battles. After talking a bit about the transition to hexes, the new combat model, border expansion and specialists, it discusses Settlers and Workers:

On ne sait pas grand chose au niveau des unités qu'on peut produire �* part un gros changement : il n'y a pas besoin de bouffe pour faire des travailleurs et des colons. Les travailleurs se font comme n'importe quel unité et les colons ne peuvent être produits que si la ville dépasse différents seuils de population. Du coup, on suppose qu'on pourra spammer nettement moins de colons et qu'il sera plus dur de faire des villes �* gogo juste pour choper une ressource ou emmerder un adversaire.

Translation: We do not know much about how many units can be produced due to a big change: there is no [longer] a need for food for building Workers and Settlers. The Workers are like any other unit [now] and Settlers can only be produced if the city exceeds certain thresholds of population. So we assume that one can spam far fewer Settlers and that it will be harder to create a crapload of cities just to grab a resource or annoy an opponent.

The article goes on to talk about the changes to the Spaceship Victory and diplomacy, informing us that a research agreement costs 150 gold and gives each side a 15% boost in research. It also discusses city states before going into Social Policies, where it reveals 9 of the 10 branches in the game (by their English names): Tradition, Liberty, Honor, Piety, Patronage, Order, Autocracy, Freedom and Rationalism (the 10th one is Commerce, mentioned by Jon Shafer in an interview). It also mentions that Aristocracy and Oligarchy are examples of Policies within the Tradition branch, and claims the Piety branch consists of different religions (though based the Three Moves Ahead podcast this probably refers to just the (placeholder) icons, not the names of the policies or what they represent).

You can read the full article, in French, over at Factornews.

 

[EditorRex]

The great advantage that muskets had was that they took very little training to learn how to use. While ancient archers, as well as English longbowmen, took years and years to learn how to accurately shoot their weapons and (and even to develop the strength to pull the bows), peasant conscripts with no previous firearms experience could rapidly be taught to fire muskets to the (low) level of accuracy that could be achieved by the weapon.

I disagree somewhat with this statement. As with all early gunpowder weapons, a large part of the advantage was psychological. However, that psychological advantage was often highly decisive in a battlefield setting. The people who actually used or faced both types of weapons would probably be quite surprised by your accuracy statistics, even though I'm sure you are right. It wouldn't have even occurred to them that the terrible noisy weapon was less potent than the mundane silent one. This is why groups whose warriors had mastered archery would still thirst for the technology and equipment to fight with muskets. Think about the American frontier during the era of European colonization. Think about the rapid absorption of gunpowder warfare by the Turks and Timurids, who had previously been adept with bow warfare. Think about the rapid replacement of the longbow with gunpowder weapons by the English during the late phases of the 100 Years War and the War of the Roses.

 

[EditorRex]

Yeah, because Mao's reign of terror is always thought of as a happy time... only 70 million or so people died.

Excellent point.

Additional aspect of Little Red Book (using Civ 4 terminology):

If State Property selected, then projects can ONLY be finished by Whipping, which costs 1 more population than with Slavery, but results in no unhappiness (because the people aren't allowed to find out it's happening.)

Also Mao should never be able to chose Free Speech or Open Markets.

 

[EditorRex]

That matter troubles me too Rex... But here:



Lets imagine this battlefield in real life: A line of macemen, behind them longbowmen and opposing line of musketmen. Now can you imagine musketmen killing off longbowmen before macemen? No, they won't be able to do that. Now can you imagine longbowmen firing a cloud of arrows on musketmen from behind the macemen? YES!

Now when it comes to more advanced units like infantry against the same longbowmen and no deadmeat in between them, that's another story.
QUOTE]

SickFak, Yours was one of several good comments about the tactics of the scenario I set up with a line of Musketmen advancing to attack a defensive formation in which a line of Maceman were supported by a line of longbowmen, and macemen also held the flanks. Please don't take the exact formation I described to literally as far as distances or numbers. The point was to raise this issue:

Under the rules we've heard for Civ 5, the most advanced archery units will have a huge and longstanding advantage over all gunpowder units due to the new RANGE rules, until the advent of extra-range units, presumably armor and air units late in the game. Historically, we know that archery units quickly were considered obsolete and disappeared from the world's armies as soon as gunpowder units became available, so I believe this is one of the most unrealistic sets of rules I've seen and would like to see it rethought.

Let's consider the issues you raise in response. You point out that we would expect the longbowmen to have a change to attack the approaching musketmen with "a cloud of arrows" but not the other way around. I'm troubled by your observation and several related ones and others, because we don't actually have a clear understanding of what the Civ game designers have in mind by "musket." In the 1500s, late arquebusiers were refered to as muskets. In the 1800s, late muskets featured rifling, though we usually think of advances like breechloading and rapid fire when we talk about the modern "rifles" of the Rifelman units in Civ games. If we take a medium between these eras, a musket might be thought of as the basic weapons used during the American and French Revolutions and the Napoleonic era. Tactics varied widely. Some armies fought effectively in well-drilled formations so that a line shot and ducked to reload while the next line aimed and delivered its volley. But musket were also used for terrain-related ambush or defensive tactics and were accurate enough to allow sharpshooters to pick off officers and mounted troops.

Suppose we have that kind of musket in mind in Civ. Basically, the best of the non-rifled muskets. Take a look back at my scenario:

In a real battlefield, the musketmen are well separated from the macemen and the longbowmen, but are advancing. Let's assume neither side can really take cover and we simply have layers of military formations. The musketmen will rapidly close to a location at which they will retain complete range advantage over the macemen, and have no disadvantage against the longbowmen. They do not have to close and fight the macement to be able to open a withering fire against the gunless troops and once these are disposed of, the archers will also be open to attack. The musketmen will be so overpowering against the macemen, that these never even get into the fight. Although the musket will take some damage from the longbowmen while dealing with the macemen, their numerical edge will ensure that they survive and can then close and defeat the longbows easily with bayonets.

Now take the Civ5 battlefield as it has been described so far. The muskets have no range other than movement. The longbows do. The muskets will have to close and fight with the macement in order to even have a shot at the longbows. The entire time, the muskets will be taking damage from both the melee and ranged attacks. And the longbows will take no damage at all. (I assume this last point because anything else would be absurd. If you have range against nonrange and the fight is across that range, then the range troops take no damage until the distance with the nonranged troops is closed. But that would be a difference with older Civs.) The muskets would be at a surpreme disdvantage. As a result of such scenarios and the easy tactics of defeating muskets with combined melee/archer defensive positions, there would never be a reason for Musketmen to be developed for offensive, even though historically we know they were used in offensive situations.

On the other hand, consider same scenario with numerically superior numbers of muskets on defense and an attack coming from longbows screened by macemen. In a real battlefield, the ranged muskets would have much the same advantage as before. The longbow would enjoy superior range, but it simply be a matter of the muskets advancing and counter-attacking to nullify that edge. The macemen would remain a nonfactor. The longbow would only enjoy an edge if they could pin down the muskets with no chance to close the gap. Otherwise, the guns win easily.

Now take the muskets on defense in Civ 5. If they remain immobile and the macemen don't close the gap, all they can do is die from the longbows' ranged attacks. If the muskets counterattack, they will have a one-to-one edge against the macemen, but the longbows will be safe to to inflict substantial damage. And the longbowmen will have the option of falling back and firing again, so that the muskets will continue to take damage as they advance, but may never be able to close and inflict damage of their own. (And whatever they were defending will be left undefended.)

So again, I think the addition of RANGE without its application to gunpowder makes the game highly realistic on the significant historical transition to gunpowder.

 

[The_J]

The article from gamersglobal which V.Soma posted confirms the unique powers for Rome and the Iroquis.
Additionally, it says that the tech tree seems to have around 60 technologies, and that the social policies will have a mini tree with 3-5 stages.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Rex you took it too seriously, I thought it was clear that I agreed with you. Of course those range attack arrangements are weird. It was just a humorous example of the logic that I'm trying to see behind that silly system, which still puzzles me. As far as I think they should either make both archers and later gunpowder units have 1 tile (not 2) range bombardment or even better not do it at all! Isn't siege weapons enough?
And the point of that example still stands by the way, muskets must deal with macemen first and while they do that longbowmen will fire a cloud of arrows. And that was the sole "scientific" point of that, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Dearmad]

That matter troubles me too Rex... But here:



Lets imagine this battlefield in real life: A line of macemen, behind them longbowmen and opposing line of musketmen. Now can you imagine musketmen killing off longbowmen before macemen? No, they won't be able to do that. Now can you imagine longbowmen firing a cloud of arrows on musketmen from behind the macemen? YES!

Now when it comes to more advanced units like infantry against the same longbowmen and no deadmeat in between them, that's another story.
QUOTE]

SickFak, Yours was one of several good comments about the tactics of the scenario I set up with a line of Musketmen advancing to attack a defensive formation in which a line of Maceman were supported by a line of longbowmen, and macemen also held the flanks. Please don't take the exact formation I described to literally as far as distances or numbers. The point was to raise this issue:

Under the rules we've heard for Civ 5, the most advanced archery units will have a huge and longstanding advantage over all gunpowder units due to the new RANGE rules, until the advent of extra-range units, presumably armor and air units late in the game. Historically, we know that archery units quickly were considered obsolete and disappeared from the world's armies as soon as gunpowder units became available, so I believe this is one of the most unrealistic sets of rules I've seen and would like to see it rethought.

Let's consider the issues you raise in response. You point out that we would expect the longbowmen to have a change to attack the approaching musketmen with "a cloud of arrows" but not the other way around. I'm troubled by your observation and several related ones and others, because we don't actually have a clear understanding of what the Civ game designers have in mind by "musket." In the 1500s, late arquebusiers were refered to as muskets. In the 1800s, late muskets featured rifling, though we usually think of advances like breechloading and rapid fire when we talk about the modern "rifles" of the Rifelman units in Civ games. If we take a medium between these eras, a musket might be thought of as the basic weapons used during the American and French Revolutions and the Napoleonic era. Tactics varied widely. Some armies fought effectively in well-drilled formations so that a line shot and ducked to reload while the next line aimed and delivered its volley. But musket were also used for terrain-related ambush or defensive tactics and were accurate enough to allow sharpshooters to pick off officers and mounted troops.

Suppose we have that kind of musket in mind in Civ. Basically, the best of the non-rifled muskets. Take a look back at my scenario:

In a real battlefield, the musketmen are well separated from the macemen and the longbowmen, but are advancing. Let's assume neither side can really take cover and we simply have layers of military formations. The musketmen will rapidly close to a location at which they will retain complete range advantage over the macemen, and have no disadvantage against the longbowmen. They do not have to close and fight the macement to be able to open a withering fire against the gunless troops and once these are disposed of, the archers will also be open to attack. The musketmen will be so overpowering against the macemen, that these never even get into the fight. Although the musket will take some damage from the longbowmen while dealing with the macemen, their numerical edge will ensure that they survive and can then close and defeat the longbows easily with bayonets.

Now take the Civ5 battlefield as it has been described so far. The muskets have no range other than movement. The longbows do. The muskets will have to close and fight with the macement in order to even have a shot at the longbows. The entire time, the muskets will be taking damage from both the melee and ranged attacks. And the longbows will take no damage at all. (I assume this last point because anything else would be absurd. If you have range against nonrange and the fight is across that range, then the range troops take no damage until the distance with the nonranged troops is closed. But that would be a difference with older Civs.) The muskets would be at a surpreme disdvantage. As a result of such scenarios and the easy tactics of defeating muskets with combined melee/archer defensive positions, there would never be a reason for Musketmen to be developed for offensive, even though historically we know they were used in offensive situations.

On the other hand, consider same scenario with numerically superior numbers of muskets on defense and an attack coming from longbows screened by macemen. In a real battlefield, the ranged muskets would have much the same advantage as before. The longbow would enjoy superior range, but it simply be a matter of the muskets advancing and counter-attacking to nullify that edge. The macemen would remain a nonfactor. The longbow would only enjoy an edge if they could pin down the muskets with no chance to close the gap. Otherwise, the guns win easily.

Now take the muskets on defense in Civ 5. If they remain immobile and the macemen don't close the gap, all they can do is die from the longbows' ranged attacks. If the muskets counterattack, they will have a one-to-one edge against the macemen, but the longbows will be safe to to inflict substantial damage. And the longbowmen will have the option of falling back and firing again, so that the muskets will continue to take damage as they advance, but may never be able to close and inflict damage of their own. (And whatever they were defending will be left undefended.)

So again, I think the addition of RANGE without its application to gunpowder makes the game highly realistic on the significant historical transition to gunpowder.

I think you're overlooking what may be the obvious. He has one maceman (weaker than musket) and one longbow (dead in melee for sure) and you would have two Musketmen units. It was the economy of scale that also greatly affected warfare with the musket- cheap and easy to produce (given the right society) and easily picked up by anyone.

Seems like Civ V will generally simulate this correctly. Your 2 musketmen will wipe out a longbow/mace(whatever) combo lickity split unless the terrain dictates some strange situation, in which case that would seem to be fine. Muskets are notoriously LOW RANGE weapons, rifles changed that. But loading them quickly enough for battle didn't come until later.

 

[EditorRex]

I think you're overlooking what may be the obvious. He has one maceman (weaker than musket) and one longbow (dead in melee for sure) and you would have two Musketmen units. It was the economy of scale that also greatly affected warfare with the musket- cheap and easy to produce (given the right society) and easily picked up by anyone.

Seems like Civ V will generally simulate this correctly. Your 2 musketmen will wipe out a longbow/mace(whatever) combo lickity split unless the terrain dictates some strange situation, in which case that would seem to be fine. Muskets are notoriously LOW RANGE weapons, rifles changed that. But loading them quickly enough for battle didn't come until later.

Very good points. I've been doing some historical research on this stuff and have come up with this observation:
-- Early era muskets were smoothbored. They were prized for rapid rate of fire and easy of training and equiping troops.
-- By the mid-1700s, early rifles were available, but had very low rates of fire despite the advantage of accuracy. In battlefield situations, the black powder generated by all such weapons made any sort of long-range accuracy a moot point. As such, these weapons' practical application was limited to sharpshooters.
-- By the 1800s, most muskets were in fact rifled-bore muskets. They had much greater accuracy and could be fired as rapidly as traditional muskets. The black powder smoke issue remained however. It was this sort of musket that dominated fighting in the Crimean War and the American Civil War.
-- In the late 1800s, the true Rifle, featuring breechloading and a cartridge design that minimized smoke, quickly made all other such weapons obsolete.
-- Longbows did have greater range and accuracy, but only the massed cloud of arrows tactic could be used with the full range at which point accuracy was no better than any other bow and midrange. Longbows also had power advantages over lighter bows at short range. Longbows have a history going way back and all over the world, but the Civ version is in reference to the English and Welsh Longbow. The English used the cloud of arrows tactic and spent a long time practicing for maximum RANGE, a skill based on practiced strength application. The Welsh developed the short range ambush tactic, especially to pierce medieval armor. This technique relied more on a cool head and accuracy at short to mid-range, so a steady and confident hand rather than strength and rapid fire.

I would maintain that the Rifle of Civ is intended to be the breech-loading device that does not produce smoke. It is accurate, high ranged, powerful, rapid-fire, terrifying for all these reasons and due to noise, light-weight and easily used with a bayonet for melee, and does not produce excessive smoke.

Based on this and on the absence of the historically important arquebusier-era from Civ, we have a lot of leeway on what the Musket represents. At the very least, it is moderately rapid fire, cheap to produce, has moderate range at moderate accuracy and excellent for use as a melee weapon when the bayonet is used. The main improvements over time affected accuracy and rate of fire, with some addition to range. It would make sense for promotions available to musket to take care of these issues. It might even make sense for a city that has a forge, for instance, to produce superior muskets to a city that does not. Or Muskets might get a +1 to range and +10% to strength whenever some appropriate Tech is discovered. In fact, that appropriate Tech perhaps should be Rifling. The production of Rifleman should perhaps be based on Rifling plus some later tech, such as Industrialism.

Going back to Muskets however, the Musket in Civ should perhaps not represent the advance in strength it does, but should instead represent a reduction in hammers. Something to consider.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

We know Workers will be in the game, so why haven't they been included among Civilian Units?

 

[gruther4]

Regarding the Archers vs Muskets/Rifles range...

I'm not an expert in weapons or history, but if you asked me to justify giving archers a range of 2 versus guns a range of 1, I would say it is because arrows arc.

You can shoot arrows over your own infantry and hit an enemy, but you can't shoot bullets through your own guys to hit an enemy. Of course, that only really applies on flat terrain, I suppose, but it is enough of a justification for me. I don't think that having gunpowder units able to cause damage at a range would be good for gameplay.

PS - I think that this is what someone meant a while back when they said that the archers could hit the musketeers, but the musketeers would have to shoot through the macemen before attacking the archers.

 

[Roland Johansen]

Hey bite, have you look at this web site lately.

http://www.weplayciv.com/

There is a lot of missing info there on the first 4 pages.

Like this:

The article goes on to talk about the changes to the Spaceship Victory and diplomacy, informing us that a research agreement costs 150 gold and gives each side a 15% boost in research.

I hope the research agreement has a different effect as described here as this is terribly unbalanced. 150 gold upfront might be a lot at the start of the game for a 15% boost in research for say 10 turns. You would really only make such a deal with someone who you trust to honour the deal. However, 150 gold will be peanuts compared to the gain in science for even a single turn at the end of the game. A 15% boost in science per turn might be 300 or more science per turn in the late game and thus even a single turn of such a deal would be worth it in the late game and you'd make such deals with anyone who is willing to honour the deal for a single turn.

I expect that the cost of the deal will scale with the science output of your civilisation. A fixed value of 150 gold would be very unbalanced.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Regarding the Archers vs Muskets/Rifles range...

I'm not an expert in weapons or history, but if you asked me to justify giving archers a range of 2 versus guns a range of 1, I would say it is because arrows arc.

You can shoot arrows over your own infantry and hit an enemy, but you can't shoot bullets through your own guys to hit an enemy. Of course, that only really applies on flat terrain, I suppose, but it is enough of a justification for me. I don't think that having gunpowder units able to cause damage at a range would be good for gameplay.

PS - I think that this is what someone meant a while back when they said that the archers could hit the musketeers, but the musketeers would have to shoot through the macemen before attacking the archers.

Yep that's pretty much what I meant.

 

[EditorRex]

Thinking about the entire range question a different way, what size area do we believe a hex represents? I would argue that the width of a hex is greater than the range of any weapon prior to the rifle. I concede the "shooting over" point, which should also apply to artillery. The remaining range question is whether that shooting over ability with the non-gunpowder weapons should confer a range advantage greater than the width of a hex. I'm doubtful that it should with most bows, though longbows might just be arguable. I'd be OK with catapults and trebuchets have range, as should all artillery from cannon on.

(Actually, you can shoot muskets and rifles on exactly the same type of curved path without resorting to "Wanted" physics. It's called gravity and we only tend to think about it when someone is wounded from an idiot going outside and shooting a gun straight up in the air. But I'm not aware of any army ever trying this with tactical intent. I suppose someone could develop a hail of bullets technique similar to the cloud of arrows, especially with a short range weapon like a musket, but the effect doesn't seem to be the same with the tiny projectile.)

One more thing about the shooting over. One type of unit who does have this capability but probably not the range is Grenadiers. If we still had stacked armies, perhaps Grenadiers should have had a special ability to pick out their opponent of choice. This logic would also apply to Anti-Tank and SAM units, which are probably longer range than primitive arrows AND can shoot over opponents.

My bottom line: If arrows have range thanks to distance and ability to shoot over, there are a large number of modern troops besides artillery that also should qualify for the same battlefield edge.

 

[Dunkah]

I suppose someone could develop a hail of bullets technique similar to the cloud of arrows, especially with a short range weapon like a musket, but the effect doesn't seem to be the same with the tiny projectile.)

Actually the British did this with Heavy Machine Guns in WWII. Basically a bombardment with several HMG's pasting an area know to be occupied by enemy infantry with the guns pointed at high angles.

I think that they have it right as far as the battlefield scaling down as the modern weapons scale up.

 

[EditorRex]

Good example from WW2. I've also thought of an example with muskets where the ability to accidentally shoot over the enemy actually doomed the units. Specific case was Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution. Large numbers of Loyalist Militia were camped atop a hill in what should have been excellent defensive position. They were surrounding by a smaller number of Pro-Independence troops ringing the hill. The defenders were overwhelmed because they failed to take terrain into account and consistently shot OVER the attackers charging up the hill. Had there been a significant rearguard, they might have taken considerable damage. As it was, the attackers stopped and fired extremely accurate volleys at the defenders silhoutted atop the hill and routed them, forcing the entire Loyalist army to surrender to the smaller army.

Not an especially important tactical point for Civ, but it does illustrate the same concept: Gunpowder weapons are just as able to shoot OVER an opponent as archers. The difference is accuracy, but if we're granting the not-especially-precise "cloud of arrows" concept to archers, then the "hail of bullets" should be no less valid.

 

[Sirp]

Memory allocation has been completely discarded in Civ 5.

I think from the Tom's Hardware article, what was meant was that during the drawing algorithm, no memory allocation takes place. This would help the multi-threaded drawing model they describe work well, since memory allocation tends to cause contention between threads.

Avoiding memory allocation during drawing is generally good practice in any high performance game, since it should be possible for the drawing algorithm to read from data structures that have already been allocated.

Of course, other parts of the game -- such as game logic, loading in models, etc etc will all still allocate memory.

-Sirp.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I would argue that the width of a hex is greater than the range of any weapon prior to the rifle.

I would argue that the width of a hex is greater than the range of any weapon including the rifle.

My bottom line: If arrows have range thanks to distance and ability to shoot over, there are a large number of modern troops besides artillery that also should qualify for the same battlefield edge.

Dude seriously? You're still going on about that?
No one here thinks that archers are more qualified for a range attacks than modern units. That's why a lot of people prefer when archers and such don't have range attack (siege units are enough).
why they do have ranged attack in civ5 is to make for an interesting gameplay. Civ is a game, a game in which you can only go so far with realism while still preserving the fun. And it is after all about the fun foremost. You may not think so, but Sid does...