GamesCom Impression

[Ituralde]

Sorry for the doublepost but I just remembered something I thought I'd stick it under the Miscellaneous tab.

MISCELLANEOUS
Swamp gives a -33% defensive modifier. So units are more vulnerable whe they are attacked in swamps!

 

[Lillefix]

Sorry for the doublepost but I just remembered something I thought I'd stick it under the Miscellaneous tab.

MISCELLANEOUS
Swamp gives a -33% defensive modifier. So units are more vulnerable whe they are attacked in swamps!

Are there even swamps or marshes in civ4? I can remember them in civ1, 2 and 3, but not in 4.

 

[Masnie]

Two and a half hours? Bah, I was chased away after about ~40 minutes. One thing I really didn't like was the arrangement of the interface. The "next action" button is in the bottom right, and it always lights up when there is something new to build or research. The menus for selecting those appear on the far left, so I was constantly running my mouse across the whole screen (and they had some terrible mice on those machines there which made your hand hurt after 20 minutes, ugh).

I'm not sure if you were able to switch the language - the guy at the booth said it should be possible, but the option was greyed out in the menus for me. Needless to say the German translation stays true to the previous versions: it is horrible.

 

[Ituralde]

Are there even swamps or marshes in civ4? I can remember them in civ1, 2 and 3, but not in 4.

Civ IV didn't have any. And Civ II didn't have them if I remember correctly. V will have them though.

Two and a half hours? Bah, I was chased away after about ~40 minutes. One thing I really didn't like was the arrangement of the interface. The "next action" button is in the bottom right, and it always lights up when there is something new to build or research. The menus for selecting those appear on the far left, so I was constantly running my mouse across the whole screen (and they had some terrible mice on those machines there which made your hand hurt after 20 minutes, ugh).

I'm not sure if you were able to switch the language - the guy at the booth said it should be possible, but the option was greyed out in the menus for me. Needless to say the German translation stays true to the previous versions: it is horrible.

I was able to play rouhgly 1 1/2 hours from nine to half past ten, since I had an exhibitor pass for that day. The rest was later that day, so it wasn't all in one go.
And I have to agree with the mice. And the screen was a bit big, as you were standing so close to it you had to turn your had to see all details. But I can't complain, I got to play the game after all!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Will we be able to add up all of the science output? Will we know how much a building (for example) will to that total?

Lyoncet, I will miss the slider as I typically micromanaged that on many turns. That is, adjusting my cash flow while maximizing research. For example, mid to late game I can lower the percentage by 30% and still get the same completion; going down 40% would add a turn; and going down only 20% would "waste" money. Without such adjustments, how could I manage this in Civ5? That may be tedious to some, but to others, it is the essence of playing strategy games.

You realize that was pointless as "excess" beakers were transferred to the next technology you researched. Nothing was wasted.

I imagine the same principle will be at work in Civ 5.

 

[CultureManiac]

Its kinda interesting that there is a combat naval unit (Triremes w/ Sailing) before you can field transport naval units (embarked w/ Optics)...though in some ways it seems to make sense since it is more difficult to get a full land unit on a boat, in addition to the boat crew, than just the crew and some ordinance.

It would also be quite a exploit if you could embark units before there was a naval unit to attack them.



Awesome job on the review, BTW. Great to hear positive things from a true civ fan.

 

[Thormodr]

Civ IV didn't have any. And Civ II didn't have them if I remember correctly. V will have them though.



I was able to play rouhgly 1 1/2 hours from nine to half past ten, since I had an exhibitor pass for that day. The rest was later that day, so it wasn't all in one go.
And I have to agree with the mice. And the screen was a bit big, as you were standing so close to it you had to turn your had to see all details. But I can't complain, I got to play the game after all!

Civ II certainly did have swamps. You could get Spices and Peat as special resources. Darn it! I miss Peat.

Here's the link for the Civ II poster:

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2/downloads/poster/

Hee hee. I notice Swamp gives you a +50% defender bonus in Civ II.

 

[Ituralde]

Civ II certainly did have swamps. You could get Spices and Peat as special resources. Darn it! I miss Peat.

My memory sucks!

 

[Polobo]

Moving units is very intuitive as well. There's also the possibility to have units switch places, even over a distance. I once moved my warrior two tiles right on top of my Chariot Archer (which I didn't see as my Great General was on that tile as well) and the Chariot promptly moved two tiles to the position my Warrior was in. So handling your units works fine even with the 1 UPT.

Was there some kind of "undo" button so that you could put the warrior and chariot back into their original places when this auto-switch happens.

Related; did the chariot still have full (or partial) movement after the switch?
Related (to both); how would moving a chariot 3 tiles onto a 2-move warrior work with the switch?

 

[Thormodr]

My memory sucks!

Not at all. You remembered quite a bit about ciV.

I loved Civ II. My second favourite Civ after cIV.

 

[Ituralde]

Was there some kind of "undo" button so that you could put the warrior and chariot back into their original places when this auto-switch happens.

Related; did the chariot still have full (or partial) movement after the switch?
Related (to both); how would moving a chariot 3 tiles onto a 2-move warrior work with the switch?

There was no "undo" button. But then this is no different from misclicking in any of the previous versions.

The Chariot was actually out of movement after the switch, but this was because the Warrior started on a Hill. Chariot Archers have 4 movement, but they need more movement than other units to traverse rough terrain (forests, hills, etc.). So I assume had the Warrior started on flatland the Chariot would still have 2 movement left

I don't know how that would work and wasn't able to test it.

 

[Ahriman]

But did the warrior also have no movement left?

I'm assuming that the switch consumes the normal movement cost for both units. Otherwise, there are potential chaining exploits.

 

[Ituralde]

But did the warrior also have no movement left?

I'm assuming that the switch consumes the normal movement cost for both units. Otherwise, there are potential chaining exploits.

The Warrior also had no movement left, having just moved two tiles on top of a Hill.
And you can't switch places with units that have no movement left.
In the beginning, while still getting at grips with the 1 UPT I wanted to attack a barb encampment with one Warrior and one Brute. I moved the Warrior up and attacked. The Brute was behind the Warrior and couldn't attack that turn, as the Warrior was essentially standing in the way.

Oh and another thing I wanted to mention, although some people have probably seen it on the screenshots.

MISCELLANEOUS
Coast is not tied to the coastline of the continents as strictly as it is in Civ IV. It will often stretch two or more Hexes out into the ocean. Which was the reason I could discover the second continent with my Trireme and also scout around City States, as you loose Influence with them if you enter their territory and are not Allied (Or Friendly can't remember exactly).

 

[AriochIV]

That sounds as much like a glitch as a deliberate feature.

 

[Ituralde]

That sounds as much like a glitch as a deliberate feature.

I agree. I was surprised when it happened and wasn't really sure whether I liked that. As sometimes you would move up to a unit and only switch with them to the adjacent tile and not have them scrambling off to wherever yo came from. Unfortunately I didn't play around with this any more, so we can't rule out a glitch.

 

[Ahriman]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if mapscripts were one of the last things they tuned.

 

[The_J]

Edit: That might maybe have been intended.
In Civ4, the early ships can only directly move alonge the coast. It's a bit boring, one hex more at some different points to represent not so deep sea might be a bit more interesting.

I don't know exactly, but for me playing the game at a booth for some hours is way different to sitting down with it at home. You are overwhelmed by all the new stuff and want to take in as much as possible while at the booth, so I often did not take the time to look into some things deeper. I more or less picked my technologies at random, which I never do in my Civ IV games, because I was more interested in doing something with my existing techs than discovering new ones.

+1
Just too much for the few minutes.

Two and a half hours? Bah, I was chased away after about ~40 minutes.

Then you've been there at the wrong time.
If there are too many people, then a max. playing time is just reasonable.

One thing I really didn't like was the arrangement of the interface. The "next action" button is in the bottom right, and it always lights up when there is something new to build or research. The menus for selecting those appear on the far left, so I was constantly running my mouse across the whole screen (and they had some terrible mice on those machines there which made your hand hurt after 20 minutes, ugh).

Ah, the next one.
Designers, listen to that.

I'm not sure if you were able to switch the language - the guy at the booth said it should be possible, but the option was greyed out in the menus for me.

It is possible, but you can't do it when a game is running.

Needless to say the German translation stays true to the previous versions: it is horrible.

Haven't seen any bigger problems (but didn't look around very much).
Only the translation "Biest" (= Beast) for brute and (not sure, Danieldej said it) "Soziale Praktiken" (= social practices) for social policies are...wrong.

 

[Ahriman]

Edit: That might maybe have been intended.

Its possible. Trireme congestion effects with only 1-radius coast might be pretty severe.

And economic penalties for coastal cities similarly severe with 3-radius cities but only 1 radius of useful ocean tiles.
[Assuming yields of oceans are less than coasts.]

 

[Schuesseled]

Yes having larger coasts would definetly benefit a 1upt system, but of course its gonna be a problem on smaller maps as a larger coast can end up connecting continents, which probably weren't meant to be connected.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Its possible. Trireme congestion effects with only 1-radius coast might be pretty severe.

actually since non-warring units can pass through each other, probably not.