IGN first look at E3

[arkammler]

happy reading


http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html


Mali is a civ

Hotseat is in

 

[dc82]

looks like the english, germans, spanish, persians, russians, japanese, egyptians are all in the game.

 

[.Shane.]

I really like the "global view", very cool.

 

[dc82]

i hope the map generator will be better - this one seems to be full of small islands. i hope continents will be shaped a lot better than in the previous civ games.

 

[Kosez]

What?! They eliminated armies?
I don't like the way this si going.
Though graphics are definitely better, only cities look a bit empty?

 

[dc82]

when they said they got rid of armies, i think they meant they got rid of the way it was done in civ3, where units would "load" under a leader unit - it seems like u can still stack units together and somehow combine their different advantage points together, so it shud still be ok...

 

[microbe]

Eventually see a good high-resolution screenshot.

 

[microbe]

This is big:

We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related. You will, however, create spy units and move them around as you did in previous versions of Civilization. In diplomacy, you will be able to broker peace between two warring Civs or ask a Civ to go to war with another even if you are not currently at war with that Civ.

It's more power to the human players: let AI fight and you watch!

And different levels of customization:

Civilization 4 will be the most moddable version of Civilization ever. Players can edit basic stats and attributes in XML files. On a higher level, much of the game will be exposed to Python so modders will be able to edit events and have more control over how the game works. On an even higher level, we are planning to provide an AI SDK to allow experienced programmers to dig very deep into customization.

 

[Arathorn]

On an even higher level, we are planning to provide an AI SDK to allow experienced programmers to dig very deep into customization.

I can't tell you how happy this makes me. An AI SDK? Man, so much for my job and family....

Arathorn

 

[oldStatesman]

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/620/620513/img_2785567.html

Land of the Giants!

From this pix compared to the earlier ones we have seen - notice the multi unit only has three men compared to the five we have previosly seen - could be a way to see the units hit point strength? 2 figures for conscript, 3 for regular, 4 for vets, 5 for elite? No more hit point bar....

...hope that guy on the left watches his step or that village will be eating hamburger for dinner not steak...

 

[dc82]

it's nice to see the map a bit smoother and colorful than previous screenshots, still a bit too boxy compared to civ3, but a def. improvement.

looks like oil can be in the ocean too. i wonder if u'll see all the resources from the beginning of the game, or if they'll only show after certain techs r gained.

 

[oldStatesman]

What?! They eliminated armies?
I don't like the way this si going.
Though graphics are definitely better, only cities look a bit empty?

I like that. To me armies skewed the gameplay as the AI could not use them properly nor knew how to attack them. They were too much of an exploit. Once you got a lot of armies it made for a less interesting game - plus you could trend to use elites less becasue armies are so powerful thus lessening your chances of getting leaders.

 

[hauchdeslebens]

Well, I cannot say that I am convinced by what I see...and what is worse, is that they probably won't alter the graphics. So I will play SMAC and Civ2 until Civ5 will convince me.

 

[kryszcztov]

Is it me or is the map a globe ???

Apart from that, a good read. Some bits are confusing to me, or at least make me think I don't like them, but I'm too lazy to sum them up here. The game is taking a nice direction, but of course we will only know if it is excellent after a few months of gaming.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

No point in not buying it because of lacking graphics, even in Civ3 you can make custom graphics. I dont doubt you can do the same in civ4 .

EDIT: From the look of that river it wont be sailable, seems like its part of the "land" tileset so to speak. Thats too bad if thats the case, what do you think?

EDIT2: "unit movement and combat will be much more interesting and exciting than ever before."

Sounds pointless, Im not interessted in exciting unit movement. I hope they dont go too far in trying to please the RTS crowd.

 

[warpstorm]

I dont doubt you can do the same in civ4 .

I'm sure you can.

 

[stormbind]

looks like the english, germans, spanish, persians, russians, japanese, egyptians are all in the game.

Oh geez! They still not learned the difference in English & British

Have you noticed how big the models are. It looks clumbsy, I hope there will be an option to scale them down to about Civ3 (or smaller) sizes.

 

[mitsho]

It looks nice, but there are a few downpoints too in this preview:
- missionars and spys are single units which travel across the map, bah...
- food trade is not possible

I'm sure, the graphic (which is not that bad) will be improved just a lil' bit more and then it will be fine. But, in one pic of the gallery, I see the town indicated, but no town (St. Petersburg or so), in another pic (Novgorod) it's clear that they've taken out the normal graphics so that we can better see the city improvements (wall), nice, but it says nothing about the graphics. I'm concerned about the global view. This could become quite messy with the time (the pic is from the beginning!).

I myself am quite happy to see Mali in at last, and do we already know their uu: the camel archer? Btw. do we already know something about civ traits/specialities?
I am also happy that now everybody can build War Elephants, it deserved. Conclusion: the elephant becomes a strategic (and luxury?) resource.

mfG mitsho

 

[man o' war]

Although i'm obviously just as exited as everyone else about civ4, these screenshots make me worried that civ4 may just be trying to be something it isn't.

One of the best things about civ is the simple, uncomprimising interface - and i'm worried by the look of civ4 screenshots that Firaxis are trying to make it seem more "sophisticatedly user-friendly", through hidden controls and smarter graphics, when one of the best features of civ is it's simplicity and straight-forwardness, whilst a great and complex gae underneith.

 

[oldStatesman]

Also now it seems there will be only 18 civs before the expansion packs - not the 19 we first heard...

Excerpt from http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html
IGNPC: Tell us about some of the new civs. I imagine we'll have the usual suspects from the European and Mediterranean sets but are there other, less obvious choices in store? Will we be seeing a return of the civ traits?

Barry Caudill: We will definitely have the usual major powers like France, Germany, England, America, China, Japan, etc. We will also be including many Civs that are either new or usually saved for expansions like the Incas or the Aztecs or the totally new Mali. In all there will be 18 Civs in the shipped version of Civilization 4