New Civ5 Preview on IGN (3/8/2010)

[RichPowers]

I disable espionage in Civ IV because it's an unnecessary appendage to the game.

Religion, though, is fun, if only as a wild card. I enjoy seeing how religious blocs unfold, and of course it provides an additional victory condition. (I wonder if the mod tools will allow players to add religion back into the game...)

As for one unit per tile: AWESOME! As others have noted, chokepoints can eliminate the advantages of numerical superiority (e.g. Thermopylae) and should make city placement that much more important.

 

[Hypernova]

Yes - it's perfectly acceptable to have to buy expansion packs to add new game content, but it is totally unacceptable to me to have to buy them to get old things back. I love CIV, but will definitely be holding off on buying when the product first comes out based on the series history of initial bugs and taking steps back in transitioning from fully expanded version to new initial versions.

This is a ridiculous stance to take, this would make all sequels mega expansions, to ask that "old things" be kept. The very idea that you must "get old things back" is wrong. It's a sequel, the old form of religion and espionage probably wouldn't fit into the new Civ V mechanics at all.

 

[The_J]

I think i really like all the facts which are mentioned in this article .

Effectively they are trying to make the game like Total War for Civilization. Staging battles with a variety of units. But in huge hexes of land it coems off as incredibly lame and unrealistic, especially archers firing over lakes? Sigh?

*gah* can't hear that anymore.
A modder will make a world map for you with a trillion of hexes, where one hex will represent around 1 m², so that it will fit here in the scale...and then the first person will come and cry "my tank is so tiny and can only shoot enemies which are 5 meters away ".

Is it confirmed if religion and espionage are out of the game in CIV 5?

Yes, read the article .

 

[danjuno]

No religon and 1 unit per hex are a big not what I wanted to hear, but I'm not sorry to see espionoge go.

I felt a disturbance in the force... one that I havent felt since the last... troll.

Just asking, but, are you calling his criticisms trolling because he does it with a snooty attitude?

 

[Bartholomaï]

I want a new Civilization, not just an upgraded Civ4, so I don't mind the changes as long as they aren't core features like being turn-based, building cities and expand them, going through the entire history of mankind. Religion and espionage are just features that can be replaced by others in my opinion.

I like the city states, I am curious how they will work exactly

 

[Dida]

An archer unit was able to fire at enemy units on the far side of the lake and stay protected from melee attack by two allied units on either side.

Even a single-tile lake in civ world must be at least a few hundred miles wide. It is utterly laughable that an archer unit can shoot arrows across such wide area. This is ridiculous.

Being a Panzer General fan, the thing that really worries me about adopting 1-unit-per-tile system is, it is obviously going to take a ton of effort on the player's part to move all those units during a war. In fact, in PG, all of my time were spent moving various units around. If the player is at war, his turn is going to take forever to complete.

 

[hrman]

This is a ridiculous stance to take, this would make all sequels mega expansions, to ask that "old things" be kept. The very idea that you must "get old things back" is wrong. It's a sequel, the old form of religion and espionage probably wouldn't fit into the new Civ V mechanics at all.

You're totally misunderstanding my point, and actually saying the same thing as I am in a different way. While I personally think religions and espionage should have been left in the game, the distinction I was making had to do with the reason for leaving them out. If they are being left out because they do not fit in the gameplay of CIV 5 and/or as a general design decision I'm disappointed, but I'll trust the Firaxis team's judgement until I see the final product and can form my own opinion. My point was that if they are being dropped out and planned for later re-inclusion because they don't have "time" to get them right, and then they are going to add them back in as part of a "expansion", it's just not right.

Of course you can't keep everything - any successful new version of a game keeps the best aspects of the game, tweaks those aspects that need improvement, and discards things that no longer fit into gameplay or were bad ideas to begin with. I personally would have put espionage and religions in the "tweaking" category instead of the "discard" category.

 

[Aegis]

Even a single-tile lake in civ world must be at least a few hundred miles wide. It is utterly laughable that an archer unit can shoot arrows across such wide area. This is ridiculous.

Being a Panzer General fan, the thing that really worries me about adopting 1-unit-per-tile system is, it is obviously going to take a ton of effort on the player's part to move all those units during a war. In fact, in PG, all of my time were spent moving various units around. If the player is at war, his turn is going to take forever to complete.

Not if they allow you to select multiple units for command by click-dragging your mouse, or double-clicking one unit which then selects all identical nearby units.

 

[hrman]

Even a single-tile lake in civ world must be at least a few hundred miles wide. It is utterly laughable that an archer unit can shoot arrows across such wide area. This is ridiculous.

Being a Panzer General fan, the thing that really worries me about adopting 1-unit-per-tile system is, it is obviously going to take a ton of effort on the player's part to move all those units during a war. In fact, in PG, all of my time were spent moving various units around. If the player is at war, his turn is going to take forever to complete.

Your concerns exactly match mine, although you could make an argument that, even in the current version of CIV, alot of your time is spent "just moving units around". I know where you are coming from, however - the need to tactically coordinate units and move them in groups will almost certainly increase the amount of micromanagement required. I loved PG too, and although I'm sure the system will be much more modern (based on PG, but with many more features), I'm concerned that it just won't translate well to a strategic level game. PG was, at it's heart, a tactical level game (even "campaigns" were just strings of tactical level battles)

From what I've read, it sounds like the amount of time needed to micromanage units will (in theory) be counterbalanced by the limitations on the number of units mandated by resource limits and the one unit per hex rule. It's definitely not a step in direction of realism and I'm concerned the game will feel "small", but we won't know the overall effect on gameplay until the game finally comes out. Until then, we cross our fingers and hope for the best.

 

[hrman]

Just asking, but, are you calling his criticisms trolling because he does it with a snooty attitude?

Ok...it's good to know I wasn't the only person wondering about this! I agreed with many of the points in the original post that was so casually dismissed as a "troll" post. They might have expressed a little strongly, but I didn't think the style was that far out of character for this group.

 

[hewhocaves]

The more previews I read, the less I like Civ V. Getting rid of Religion and Espionage are major setbacks for the game. Allowing anything before modern-day units to fire more than one square away is.. wow. Its asinine.

I understand the point they were trying to make about the "stacks of doom" being all over the place, but there are other ways they could have fixed this problem. They could have linked total unit numbers to civ population with a modifier for government type, for example. Or they could have made combat on a 'battle map' (which would only be a less lousy idea IMHO).

Civ V seems broken in its very premise. I've bought every Civ game and expansion since the original. Prior to that I've played many hex-based board games. I cut my teeth on Blitzkrieg. The lead designer's constant reference to Panzer General simply provides further evidence for how broken his premise is. Panzer General makes for a great WWII game. But ask any old-school hex based board game designer and he/she will tell you that the rules which work for tactical / strategic combat in one period of history do not work well for another period of history. These previews really sound like the designer had a hard on for this one game and is bound and determined to shoehorn Civ into it. I see a long and vibrant modding community existing for Civ IV for a long time.

Civ V = Star Trek V. This is the Shatner-directed Civ.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You know, I've always believed that those who don't like a feature are usually those who don't know how to use it-& that is definitely the impression I'm getting over some people's attitudes to religion & espionage. Espionage in Vanilla CivIV sucked big time, so I never used it, but BtS espionage worked *really* well-even when I didn't invest additional resources into it! Not only that, but I was routinely the victim of AI espionage attacks &-guess what?-I *loved* it!!! (OK, I *hated* it, but I LOVED the fact that the AI understood Espionage well enough to use it against me!)

As for religion, I appreciate what people have said about the bad stuff about religion in CivIV-& I even agree with them-but new features are often poorly implemented first time out. I remember what a *DOG* the culture system was in CivIII, but did they remove that? No, they refined & improved it, & that's what they should have done with religion-given its *HUGE* importance in real history!

Aussie.

 

[Aegis]

The more previews I read, the less I like Civ V. Getting rid of Religion and Espionage are major setbacks for the game. Allowing anything before modern-day units to fire more than one square away is.. wow. Its asinine.

It's a game mechanic. It doesn't take fifty years for a foot unit to travel across one 100-mile hex, either. At some point you have to sacrifice a bit of realism for game play.

The alternative is a 'battle map' like you suggested, but then the strategy involved in one-unit-per-hex goes out the window.

Religion was an interesting concept, but overall I did not like it. It seemed like a diplomacy gimmick to me.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Bartholomaï, but where's the indication that they *are* replacing religion & espionage with something else? I remember how *lame* "religion" was in CivI to CivIII. Get Ceremonial Burial & you can build temples, get Monotheism & you can build cathedrals-& that was the end of it. In CivIV, religion actually became a proper (I'd say integral) part of the game, & its removal is going to leave a gaping hole that a return to the CivIII approach most certainly will *not* fill!!!
I'm sorry, but this issue is shaping up to be a real deal-breaker for me. CivV minus religion (espionage isn't *as* big a deal) probably won't be getting me rushing out to purchase it !

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hate to break it to you, Aegis, but religion has had a significant impact on diplomacy over the course of human history-so I don't understand why you have an issue with religion impacting on diplomacy! Would you rather the CivIII approach where your fellow civilizations merely attacked you for NO GOOD REASON?!?! For the record, though, I was able to form close relations with Civs that didn't share my religion. Sure I had to work harder, & sure I never *completely* trusted them, but with the right oil to grease the wheels, I could successfully overcome the disadvantage of differing religious beliefs!

Aussie.

 

[Snoopaloop]

Goodbye Espionage!!!

"Your water supply in ...... has been poisoned"
"A spy has been caught near ......"
"Your water supply in ....... has been poisoned"
"Your water supply in ...... has been poisoned"

I can see why religion as we knew it in 4 had to go. Sharing a religion or having an opposing religion was the sole dominating factor in diplomatic relationships with the AI. To me it became quite boring.

 

[hewhocaves]

It's a game mechanic. It doesn't take fifty years for a foot unit to travel across one 100-mile hex, either. At some point you have to sacrifice a bit of realism for game play.

Yes, I am aware of that. The trouble is that they are getting farther away from realism. Consider. An archer can move two squares and an archer can shoot two squares. Thus it can shoot as far as it can move in 20 years? (I always played marathon where the longest turn was 20 years).

And it doesn't follow that in previous versions archers could shoot one square and move one square as it was assumed that units adjacent to each other were close enough to be in contact. At that point scale becomes an issue in that the units could be anywhere within the area defined by a square.

Now we're saying that archers can shoot and walk a hundred plus miles in the same amount of time? These are some really powerful, yet slow moving arrows.

The inanity of it is astounding.

 

[Bartholomaï]

Bartholomaï, but where's the indication that they *are* replacing religion & espionage with something else? I remember how *lame* "religion" was in CivI to CivIII. Get Ceremonial Burial & you can build temples, get Monotheism & you can build cathedrals-& that was the end of it. In CivIV, religion actually became a proper (I'd say integral) part of the game, & its removal is going to leave a gaping hole that a return to the CivIII approach most certainly will *not* fill!!!
I'm sorry, but this issue is shaping up to be a real deal-breaker for me. CivV minus religion (espionage isn't *as* big a deal) probably won't be getting me rushing out to purchase it !

Aussie.

It looks like the diplomatic aspect of religion is taken over city states (can be cause to start war) and shared research (to keep peace). I guess the main reason they have taken religion out is to make it easier for the diplomatic situation to change, instead of making some religion blocs very early in the game that last until free religion is available.

I don't know how other aspects (cultural, financial and espionage) would be replaced.

 

[Sisko]

Hate to break it to you, Aegis, but religion has had a significant impact on diplomacy over the course of human history-so I don't understand why you have an issue with religion impacting on diplomacy! Would you rather the CivIII approach where your fellow civilizations merely attacked you for NO GOOD REASON?!?! For the record, though, I was able to form close relations with Civs that didn't share my religion. Sure I had to work harder, & sure I never *completely* trusted them, but with the right oil to grease the wheels, I could successfully overcome the disadvantage of differing religious beliefs!

Aussie.

If historic importance of religions are really implemented, that would mean the one thing they can't do(OK second next to Hitler) and that is that different religions have different bonuses, that would likely cause certain people to behave in stupid ways because they feel their religion has been unfairly represented in regards to one another. Firaxis wouldn't want to touch that with a fifty mile stick.

Also i think corporations became what religion should have been, therefore i wouldn't be surprised if corporations, of perhaps an earlier form, would still be in the game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sisko, it would have been extremely easy to give religions their own bonuses without causing offense-I *know* because I did it in my old civics mod. In my mods I allowed people to tailor their State Religions by choosing a specific Dogma & the attitude of the religion to other beliefs (separate Civics categories). It actually allowed State Religions to be truly unique, with their own bonuses & penalties, even to the point where a shared religion could be different between Civs-depending on whether one version of-say-Christianity had a Militant Fundamentalist attitude & the other had a Reformist Pacifist attitude. That way you get the differences in religions without unnecessarily pigeon-holing the existing real-world religions. All I failed to get around to was adjusting diplomacy penalties to make the penalties more based on Dogmatic differences than on religious differences. I'm hoping to revisit this Mod & make all of those changes.
Now, if someone like myself-with no real programming experience-can make religions interesting without causing offense, then surely the entire Firaxis team can achieve something even greater.
Chucking something out because it doesn't work perfectly, first time, is the worst kind of defeatism-& my opinion of Firaxis has dropped because of this attitude!

Aussie.