Huge New CIV Update, Largest to Date

[Micaelis Rex]

Good catch, Mongolia does look to be the 6th civilization.

 

[North King]

19x2 is 28. That's two per civ.

Nah. 19*2 is 38.

On another note, to the Wonder movies inclusion: YES!!!!!

On another note, it's too bad religions don't get some specific bonuses, that would have made it a bit more strategic, you know... In Europa Universalis 2 it worked well enough and was still pretty PC.

 

[oldStatesman]

Well, it is true that Hinduism is the only major polytheistic religion any more. Presumably it will be:

Polytheism: Hinduism
Monotheism: Judaism
Meditation: Buddhism
Dynasticism (maybe?): Confucianism
etc.

But that makes me wonder how Islam and Christianity (which would both also derive from Monotheism) would work. The seven are probably Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.



On an unrelated note, the mention of the Khan confirms the Mongols as well.

I have to agree that this is a most disturbing feature - Religions are too volatile in the real world - too many people are sensitive about the slightest percieved criticism of 'their' religion. This could open up a can of worms among the playing communuity at best and look at Solaman Rush was it? - The writer with a price on his head - at worst.

Is Agnostism/Atheism one of the choices...or Scientific Realism...and what about Catholicism...those Protestants are not true Christians...or is it the other way around? Is Paganism included? Druidism? Naturism? Dare they defile the great religion of the Prophet Mohammed by trivializing it? To me this is not a good commercial concept - it may alienate more new users than it gains - what happens for instance if the ultra conservative Religious Right here in the US determines it is a Bad Devil Influenced game and tells all their followers not to buy this Satan's pasttime? How will that boycott effect sales? Last election it was said over 20 Million Conservative Christians voted...that is a huge market to risk offending. JMHO.

 

[King Squanto]

hmm apparently Civ IV doesn't know much about Hinduism either, even though many people think its polytheistic, because it has multiple 'devas', which is translated as gods, it is really not. In modern Hinduism, it is understood that there is only one god, or Brahman, and the 'devas' are representations of this god, because in their view he is too large to express with one. So I think Hinduism coming from Polytheism is quite inaccurate, especially because 'polytheism' is more often taken to be more like the Egyptian's, Greek's, or Native American views.
Hmm... I don't think religions coming from technology isn't a very good idea in the first place... it seems like you could either have religion as technology or just religion itself, otherwise, it might confuse gameplay and history. Also, monotheism being based on Judaism is even inaccurate, Zoroastrianism predates Judaism and is also monotheistic.
This is my guess of the major 7 and their prophets, in historical order: Zoroastrianism/Zoraster, Hinduism/Krishna, Judaism/Abraham (is that correct? I don't know much about Judaism) Buddhism/Buddha, Roman/Greek Gods, (umm? any real figures?), Christianity/Jesus, Islam/Muhammad.
But what about the Americas? Well, they'll probably be Central American civs, and what are they supposed to be, Roman Catholics before the Spanish even got there? Their religion wasn't an altogether influential religion, though... maybe this means Mayans and so on are being saved for an ex-pack, along with more religions?
Overall though, very exciting news, sounds like they know what there doing! i'm espically glad about the temples that you can see from the sky, it will make your country look more lively and unique.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Check your math- 19+9 is 28. 19x 2= 38, not 28.

Woops, you're right

 

[Cuivienen]

Hopefully it was a typo and they meant two per civ (i.e. 38, not 28).

 

[searcheagle]

I still want a system where any civ can choose any leader, reguardless of whether there are 38 or 28.

 

[Evie]

Victory Conditions: Like Civ3, you will be able to win in CIV by building a spaceship, conquering the world, controlling a dominate amount of the world's land mass, having an awe inspiring culture, or becoming the leader of the United Nations.

ARGH

Let's hope the UN works differently than "suck up to all other nations to win" or "Declare war on the other guy with everyone as your allies to win".

Tech Tree: Unlike Civ3, the tech tree will not be split into eras. There will be a total of 85 technologies, but some of them can only be discovered in very specific ways. Confirmed technologies include:

• Agriculture

• 
  
  I love the amount of details in this tech list.
  
  Also, it would seem that HUNTING being a tech seems to prove that you can start further back in time this time.
  
  

  [*]Religions: There will be seven world religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. All religions have the same generic abilities. Religious prophets give you information about foreign countries and their cities. The first civilization to discover a certain technology founds a world religion, for instance, the first player to discover Polytheism founds Hinduism.

  
  Provided the various theism are not essential for progress in the game, that seems fine (ie, you can move on to modern stuff without discovering monotheism).
  
  As for Hinduism vs Polytheism, I agree there would have been better fitting religions for polytheism. But on the other hand, I expect that the idea they went with was, we want to focus on religions that exists today for the game, and we want polytheism to have a religion attached. In that perspective,
  
  

  [*]Resources: You can improve resources by building infrastructure around them. For example, a windmill allows you to gather more wheat. There are a total of 31 resources.

  
  Awesome. Ressource infrastructure is a great improvement to the game - a logical step up from the strategic ressources et al as introduced in C3.
  
  

  If your play doesn't reflect the worldview of your leader, he will get very angry at you.

  
  I LIKE That idea. It enforces some notions besides playign simply for the best gaming position ; now acting just for the advantage without a care if historically you could have gotten away with it should be a bit harder.
  
  

  There are a total of 41 experience bonuses.

  
  Impressive. Much Impressive.
  
  

  You will be able to create armies in CIV by stacking single units together. Graphically, you end up with what was referred to in Civ3 as multi-units.

  
  So THAT's why we get all those MUnits.
  
  

  [*]Health: The health of your civilization is now an important factor, on par with your treasury and the happiness of your people.

  
  Good! No more "Hospitals are only useful for allowing your civs to go past size 12.
  
  

  [*]Flags: Each civilization will have a cultural and a national flag.

  
  That should have happened long ago ; it's wonderful to have it at last. (Wheee, more Europa Univeralis-esque look!)
  
  

  [*]Wonders of the World: There will be a total of 30 wonders of the world in CIV. Some wonders have the ability to give you a golden age.

  
  30 wonders strikes me as a bit low ; it is in fact four down from Vanilla C3 (24 great, 10 small).
  
  

  [*]Units: There will be a total of 83 units in CIV.

  
  18 up from Vanilla Civ III, but 6 down from C3C (PTW added 10, C3C added 14 - not counting king units et al, but counting UUs).
  
  Of course, of the 89 units in C3C, 31 are UUs, whereas at most 19 are in C4 (hopefully), which means we're still up 6 generic units from C3C with Civ 4 - IF there are still UUs.

 

[Esckey]

I don't know about his stacked army thing. The current army way is a bit restircted, I rarly even get one. If they could just have it so that after you build barracks you can make an army and then load crap into it

 

[ainwood]

I don't know about his stacked army thing. The current army way is a bit restircted, I rarly even get one. If they could just have it so that after you build barracks you can make an army and then load crap into it

They seem to be talking combined arms, so it sounds like 'armies' are more 'groups of units' than the Civ3-esque army units.

 

[Snoopy]

I need to clarify something here, if anyone can help me.

So the reason we have 6 men per unit, is because when you attach a second type of unit, the unit graphics can change accordingly?

So for example, if you have a 6 man legion unit; and you attach a 6 man phalanx unit to the 6 man legion unit, then the unit (graphically) will show 3 legion men and 3 phalanx men.


And does this mean that you can add 6 different types of units to one group?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, a couple of things a starting to REALLY bother me now !

First up, it TRULY sounds like they have put NO EFFORT, whatsoever, into victory conditions-leaving it with the same old Domination, UN (read-CRAP diplomacy), Spaceship (read-UNREALISTIC AC mission) and Culture (1-3 cities with 'Perfect' culture-whatever the hell THAT means!) I had really hoped that they would REALLY shake up the whole end-game portion of Civ, because that still remains the point at which people tend to just walk away-especially they have also done nothing to end the Snowball Effect (and I am yet to hear that they have!)

Secondly, I always feared that Real World religions would reduce your number of choices, and I am afraid that the example provided simply confirms that fear. After all, if you discover Polytheism, why shouldn't you be able to pick 'Greco-Roman Pantheon', or 'Egyptian Pantheon' or 'Celtic Pantheon' or the like-why ONLY hinduism? Like DH_Epic said, Generic Religions (which you could name) with VERY basic traits (such as stability and influence) would have been the best way to go-IMHO.

All I can say about these two particular issues is that I hope and pray that I am wrong in my assumptions-and/or that they make some significant changes to these key areas between now and the game's release.

On the positive side of the coin, though, I 'tentatively' like the idea of having to take your civ's (and/or its leader's) opinion/feelings into account, in regards to your play style-as that will be a huge step towards making you feel like you are ruling a real nation. That said, though, I hope that the civs/leaders are flexible, and can adapt their traits according to in-game situations, and player choices-otherwise it will probably run into almost ALL the same problems I mentioned in regards to religions.
I also like what I am hearing about civics and combat though. So, I guess that the good and bad of the game are currently balanced for me ! I will wait until the game is reviewed-especially here and at Apolyton-before I decide whether to buy it or not!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[V. Soma]

Come on Aussie... buy it OR NOT?

I just try to imagine you not having the game while people here
in december have heaved talks about playing it...

 

[Kosez]

Health?
Is that just another word for corruption?
Hope it`s not. Hope it won`t make distant cities crappy. After all, they`ve said there is no limit to number of cities. On the other hand this probably means expansion is once again most powerful way to win.
I hate expansion!

 

[Dynamic]

New borders looks like rectangle. Of course, now we can see from every side but tiles placement looks closer to Civ 1.

 

[Che Guava]

ANyone have any idea what the farms concept is about? I'm not sure what it is, but I think I'll like it....

 

[Commander Bello]

ANyone have any idea what the farms concept is about? I'm not sure what it is, but I think I'll like it....

 

[Portuguese]

My perception at the moment is that 9 Civs will have 2 leaders. Say Germany and China for example. Each one with its own traits. Right?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The good thing, V. Soma, is that living in Australia means that you guys WILL get it before me-just because it probably won't arrive on our shelves for around a month after it arrives on yours ! That will give me PLENTY of time to work out if its any good or not !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Che Guava]

I'm afraid you've lost me......