IGN first look at E3

[mitsho]

And what I try to read into this is something done against the snowball-effect (like the new culture-model seems to do): You can defend a small nation with experienced units (need to fight some wars though) against a bigger advanced enemy, that just cranked out all that new cavalries, while you still are stuck with lesser defenders..
*hope*

mitsho

 

[covenant]

GRAPHICS ARE IMPORTANT. But not how people think. The graphics need to be fluid and easy on the eyes cause you play the game for so long. Civ 3 graphics actually gave me a headache after playing for several months. And I like that the world seems more alive, helps me to feel apart of my empire.

Is anyone nervous about the AI trying to choose what upgrade to take?

Well after reading these articles I have to say, things look decent. After reading all the fantastic ideas put up in the civ 4 suggestions thread, ideas that were very revolutionary for Civ, I let my expectations get to high and I hvae had to accept that most of those ideas would never get in, no matter that they would make an incredible civ game.

That no terrorist thing so infuriating and so ignorant. We get a game a week about killing and violence, but we cant recreate a common historical act and tactic performed by soldiers the world over, not by some "terrorist". Somewhere in the chain of command there is a really ignorant and cowardly person working at Fraxis.

 

[mudblood]

IGN now has a preview up:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/616/616871p1.html

"We did confirm that each civ will get a unique unit."

"I know a few folks dislike the large size of the units. Personally I'd rather be able to see them clearly than have to hunt around for them among the cities and trees."

"The difference between fighting against Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth will be considerable."

"The National Epic, for instance, magnifies culture by a factor of two."

"One of the more legitimate complaints about previous games is that the speed tended to drag too much in later ages. It definitely helps that you don't have to watch the AI turns anymore." OK, but how do you know what the AI is up to? And you could always turn off that option anyway. I don't know that this addresses that issue.

 

[man o' war]

You know, i'm getting more and more used to the appearence of the units just by looking at more screenshots. Sure, they're different from previous civs, but thats because they're in 3D - it may take some gettting used to, but they're definately growing on me

 

[Quentin]

From that IGN preview, it sounds like there will be significant differences in the way culture works in Civ4. I like it .

 

[mudblood]

"The National Epic, for instance, magnifies culture by a factor of two."

At first I had a little trouble getting my mind around this. For example:

The English Cultural Ledger
1 Beowulf = 1 Shakespeare, 1 Newton, 1 Locke, 1 Hobbes, 1 Durham Cathedral, 1 Queen Elizabeth, 1 Hitchcock, 1 Beatles, 1 Darwin, 1 Churchill, 1 Jane Austen, etc. etc.

Then I thought of a solution. Why not assign cultural points for military victories? Not all cultural points in Civ IV are city-based now. Each time a city is captured, grant cultural points equal to its population. Each time a lesser military unit defeats a stronger one from another civ, add the difference in their strength points. And then let the National Epic double these points. Military victories are a part of culture. That would make more sense, and would involve one new figure.

But, strangely enough, this to me is actually reassuring. There have been a number of things we've been told about that have made me go "huh?" over the last couple of days, among all the things I've been really happy about. But I really do believe there is a great group of people over at Firaxis who really are trying as hard as they can to provide a great and balanced game -- one that will please other audiences as well as myself -- but still with the game's best interests at heart. There have been things they've clearly been listening to the fan community about, such as including Mali. But that there's something this out of whack in the game makes me believe that they've been working out how the game functions work together, how graphics interface with gameplay, etc, and that some of these numbers are just place holders until they can focus on them more closely. There's still a lot of tweaking with gameplay left to come, and figures like this one need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Because there's no way doubling an entire civ's culture with one early small wonder is going to make it into the final game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Having looked at the E3 video, I am disappointed to see that barbarians work the same as ever , and it looks as though not only do your units still fight one-on-one, but it doesn't even appear as though we can STACK them. Hope I am wrong on BOTH of those last points!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[mudblood]

Having looked at the E3 video, I am disappointed to see that barbarians work the same as ever , and it looks as though not only do your units still fight one-on-one, but it doesn't even appear as though we can STACK them. Hope I am wrong on BOTH of those last points!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie, "The absence of evidence for something does not prove the absence of something." We're probably only seeing the parts of the game Firaxis wants us to see. Which may mean that higher-end combat just isn't ready for prime time. Or that they want to put out information as slowly as possible to ratchet up the excitement.

 

[CellKu]

Having looked at the E3 video, I am disappointed to see that barbarians work the same as ever , and it looks as though not only do your units still fight one-on-one, but it doesn't even appear as though we can STACK them. Hope I am wrong on BOTH of those last points!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Why do you think we will have to stack the units? I think they said that instead of having hit points they will now use multi-units. So one unit in such a multi-unit represents something like a "hit point", thus fewer people mean a weaker (multi-)unit.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hey CellKu. We have since discovered that those multi units actually represent the units 'strength' in hitpoints-not actual multiple units. This means that stacks and stack movement will still be an issue in the game. They stressed in the early days how important Combined Arms would be in combat-and I can only see that being an issue if stacks fight as ONE against their opponents. Still, maybe they are witholding this tidbit of info for later release !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[CellKu]

Hey CellKu. We have since discovered that those multi units actually represent the units 'strength' in hitpoints-not actual multiple units. This means that stacks and stack movement will still be an issue in the game. They stressed in the early days how important Combined Arms would be in combat-and I can only see that being an issue if stacks fight as ONE against their opponents. Still, maybe they are witholding this tidbit of info for later release !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

That's true. With all the information flowing in, I got a bit confused...