IGN first look at E3

[sepamu92]

ROUND EARTH!

Some other thing I like:
Super zoom, way out to satellite veiw.
Mali, at last.
Units have faces!
Able to disable/enable different parts of the city veiw.
Spy/missionary units.

But I don't like how they lowered the number of units. Not that important but still.

 

[greekguy]

Which one do you like?

i like the 75%, 50% looks just too small to me.

 

[Xen]

I kind alike the 50%, though suggest 60% may be best; which ever, I kinda liek how the troops are smaller then the trees around them, yet niether obscure the surrounding areas terrain

 

[Vael]

I don't know... if the units got any smaller it would be really hard to see them. It's already more difficult than in Civ 3 since everything is in 3D, I don't know if we want them to make it any worse.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, for the hell of it:

What I like so far:

1) Units are good against certain other units, encouraging combined arms.

2) Units improve in specific ways due to success, further differentiating units from different civs.

3) Civics.

4) Moddability.

5) Improved Diplomacy.

6) All resources are tradable!

What I don't like so far:

1) The return of unit-based espionage.

2) The overly large and ungainly units.

3) The way in which religion is implemented.

4) The overly PC nature of espionage.

5) The complete lack of genuine new victory conditions.

6) The almost certain return of worker-based terrain improvement.

7) The fact that unit micromanagement-and micromanagement in general-is certain to leave the Modern Age as boring as ever (and could even make the industrial age monotonous as well!)

What I still don't know enough about, but which could be good....

1) Trade routes (and trading in general).

2) Internal Commodity trading (i.e. can shields and food units be traded-as well as strategic and food resources?)

3) City Health and how well epidemics will be mimicked in the game.

4) Is civil war back-yes or no??

5) How does the AI personality thing REALLY work??

6) The cultural slider, and how culture now actually works in general (and is it in ANY way tied to religion??)

So, it seems that on balance the items I find disappointing (or know too little about) far outweigh the good news for this game. I just hope and pray that I start hearing LOTS of good stuff about this game in the coming months (and hear a few retractions regarding existing information-like spies and missionaries!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Vael]

Aussie: It seems odd to me to so closely follow a game which you seem to have little hope for.

 

[mudblood]

7) The fact that unit micromanagement-and micromanagement in general-is certain to leave the Modern Age as boring as ever (and could even make the industrial age monotonous as well!)

I don't disagree that this is one of the most boring, frustrating parts of the endgame. But for me the issue was not necessarily the number of units, but the way in which you could never group them together or get them to work together effectively. The patches helped, but certainly didn't resolve the issue. If unit management were improved, I think it might ameliorate a lot of what you're complaining about though.

If units progress in combat and experience, does that mean individual units will become more valuable? And that you may wish to build fewer of them? Or that you'll be managing many different units all with different traits?

I don't know if I mind missionaries and spies as units. It depends upon how they're implemented. They seem like a way of letting people who want to play peacefully use noncombative means to influence civilizations around them. CtP's lawyers and environmentalists were awful, but a little of this kind of unit, which I can use as much or as little as I want depending on how much I like the concept, I don't mind. A number-based system works best for me too, but I'm only part of Firaxis' intended audience.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

For a VERY simple reason, Vael. Because by the time they brought out Conquests for civ3, the game had well and truly exceeded my original expectations. For that reason I will ALWAYS have hope for the Civ genre. I am disappointed right here, right now-but things to come could always tip in favour of me buying it. I guess the big thing right now is that I probably won't be RUSHING out the door to buy it, but will wait to hear what people here and at Apolyton think of it first!! Just wait and see, I guess.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Vael]

Well, Civ 4 already sounds a lot better than Civ 3 Conquests to me.

 

[warpstorm]

I agree. The graphics aren't to my taste, but I think modders will have that changed 5 different ways within a month, so I'm not worried about that.

 

[Peepers]

I'm wondering if they will add to diplomacy the possibility to sign Nuclear proliferation treaties

Don't you mean nuclear NONproliferation treaties? :thumbdown

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

In some ways, Vael, I 100% agree with you. In other ways, however, they seem to have gone backwards-in much the same way as they did going from Civ2 to Civ3-via SMAC. i.e., they introduced all of these great new concepts, but then tossed out a whole bunch which were good-but perhaps needed a bit more work (i.e., throwing the baby out with the bathwater !) Espionage and trade are both perfect examples of this. Moving towards a more abstract system was a GREAT idea, they just needed to improve the way in which it worked to make both of them more viable strategies. Instead, it seems that trade is going to be pretty much automated (which I hope I just misread) and we get spy units from Civ2 back ! This is not the way to solve the problems which existed within the trade and espionage systems IMHO.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[microbe]

I agree. The graphics aren't to my taste, but I think modders will have that changed 5 different ways within a month, so I'm not worried about that.

This should not be an excuse for the game maker. I don't want to depend on the modders. If the official graphics suck, the modded ones won't be much better.

There are some good graphics mods for CIV3, but most of them are works based on the official game. Not even mentioning units.

 

[DBear]

I noticed on one of the world view maps that there were a couple lions. Are we making wild animals the barbarians now? :shakehead

 

[oldStatesman]

I noticed on one of the world view maps that there were a couple lions. Are we making wild animals the barbarians now? :shakehead

Yeah...seems that is that is their tweak for the barbs.

Personally I liked the Civ2 Barbarians - only played the game once, but I liked that barbs were present most of the game, and that they could actually take over cities and actually evolved as the time line in the game moved on... I liked those cute little fundamentalist guys...

IMHO Firaxis is missing the boat in not incorporating a barb model like that - combining it with 'minor' nations, independent city/states, and modern 'splinter' groups. (Yes, to those pc challenged, I mean terrorist states! )

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As far as spies and missionaries go, I think the three (well, four actually) major problems I have with them are that, as units, they require constant management and guidance. It also seems to fly right in the face of Soren's 'Simplify, Simplify, Simplify' mantra that he has stated in the past. Thirdly, there is the danger of these units being majorly overpowered, as spies and diplomats were in Civ2 (I always felt it foolish that a diplomat/spy could damage a tank!!) Last of all, why go in this direction when perfectly simple and reasonable 'abstract' systems exist to model the same thing?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Those legions look great, but the terrain and city information box-thingies look worse now than what I've been seeing in some of those latest magazine scans. Other than that, the game just sounds better and better.

Oh, and the return of spies as units is dope.

 

[sgrig]

Here I made a little experimenting with unit sizes, see pic below:
50% of original size is far left on the pic,
75% of original size is left-bottom from original group...

Which one do you like?

I prefer the 50% view.

 

[Quentin]

It gets better and better each time new information is released about Civ4. I didn't really think the graphics was bad until after I read all the comments and went to take a second look.

 

[Drift]

Most of my opinions have already been voiced by others - I also don't like the graphics and certain decisions that have been made with the game. It does look promising overall, but I can't convince myself that everything's going to be allright - too many worrying details.

I didn't notice anyone commenting on this one: We have also removed the idea of separate attack and defense values and replaced them with a single Power rating. Maybe the combat system has been developed in other ways so that this won't become a problem, but I really don't want to see a simpler combat system.