New Conquests Preview at Gamespot

durfal

The Dutch Daredevil
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At Gamespot the following new preview was entered.
The Dutch, Sumerians and Hittites anew confirmed.
A new Conquest : Age of Sail.
Here the preview:

At a recent Atari press event, we had the chance to take a look at a recent version of Conquests, the upcoming expansion pack for Civilization III. Conquests will include a huge number of new features, both major and minor. You'll be able to play games on maps of completely random size with far more-specific victory conditions (including victory by successfully building a certain number of wonders of the world first) and more levels of difficulty (the new hardest difficulty level will simply be called "Sid").

Conquests will include seven new civilizations including the Sumerians, the Hittites, and the Dutch, as well as all the new civilizations and features included in the previous expansion pack (Conquests will come complete with all the content featured in the Play the World expansion). The new expansion will also add new civilization traits, including agricultural, which gives bonuses to a Civilization's food production, and seafaring, which gives bonuses to sea travel, in addition to the standard traits of industrious, scientific, and so on.

Conquests will feature a huge list of new technologies to research and new units to use, though many of these will be unique to the single-player campaign, which will consist of six different, lengthy missions based on a real-world historical period, such as the Age of Sail, in which you'll play either as an explorer from an Old World country intent on conquering the New World, or as an indigenous nation who must repel the European invaders. The conquests feature a huge variety of new technological advances and bonuses that are unique to each one, such as sacrificial altars that benefit the Native Americans in the Age of Sail.

However, the expansion will also feature numerous tweaks and updates to better balance the core game, such as the corragh, a primitive boat that any civilization with the alphabet technology and a coastal city can build to immediately begin exploring the high seas. The expansion will also introduce the feudalism government type, which will help benefit nations with smaller holdings. Apparently, most Civ III players generally stuck with either the republic and the democracy government types, which is why this and other government types, such as fascism, will be introduced in Conquests.

Conquests will even attempt to shear up Civilization III's multiplayer play with shorter battles and more-balanced gameplay features, such as improved diplomacy--your civilization must have researched the printing press to communicate with other civilizations, and must have researched navigation to trade world maps--options that were often cheaply given up for free technologies. The expansion pack is scheduled for release later this year.

And the link at Gamespot is here: Preview at Gamespot

They added 14 new images.
6 from in game (1 mesopotamia, 1 mesoamerica, 1 pacific WW2, 1 Feudal Japan and 2 from Roman Empire Scenario?)
4 new units (a horseless knight/crusader, A Viking Longboat, an inquisator/christian religious person, and a new greek/roman swordsman)
4 buildings (a windmill, a stone-mason, an japanese? palace, and an east-india? trade company?)

They added also two movies with ingame footage, but you have to pay for that. Grrrr.
 
"corragh, a primitive boat that any civilization with the alphabet technology and a coastal city can build to immediately begin exploring the high seas"

So Seafaring Civs start with Alphabet then
 
Originally posted by durfal
... improved diplomacy--your civilization must have researched the printing press to communicate with other civilizations, and must have researched navigation to trade world maps...
Those are really great changes! Whole world explored before Christ? No more! :goodjob:
But I wonder how many conquests there actually will be. They mentioned nine, eight, seven... now only six... :(
 
Originally posted by Gen

Those are really great changes! Whole world explored before Christ? No more! :goodjob:
But I wonder how many conquests there actually will be. They mentioned nine, eight, seven... now only six... :(

But is that just for MP, or for the whole game?
 
Originally posted by Gen
Well, I don't know but hope that's for SP too.

I'm thinking it might be that on the Accelerated Production setting, but not the normal one
 
Conquests will feature a huge list of new technologies to research and new units to use, though many of these will be unique to the single-player campaign, which will consist of six different, lengthy missions based on a real-world historical period...

We're down to only 6 scenarios now, from 9? Am I getting this right? That kind of sucks.
 
"The new expansion will also add new civilization traits, including agricultural, which gives bonuses to a Civilization's food production, and seafaring, which gives bonuses to sea travel."

The agricultural trait sounds cool. But the seafaring is seriously lacking. I was hoping for cheaper ships, harbors. Extra movement, what for??? Unless, the naval warfare is revamped, this is one SUCKY trait. :( DAMN, I really wanted to play as the English.

Oh, and can the betas confirm the 6 scenarios, coming down from 9. I won't believe it, until the betas confirm.
 
We know already 7:

1. Mesopotamia
2. Mesoamerica
3. "Age of sail": colonization
4. Japan medieval
5. Byzantium/Crusades
6. Rome/Karthago
7. WW2: Pacific
 
Originally posted by durfal
your civilization must have researched the printing press to communicate with other civilizations, and must have researched navigation to trade world maps

Ok, these are big changes. The second one is clear to me. Map trading is moved from map making to navigation. This restricts your knowledge of the world and I like it.
But the first one sounds kind of strange. It sounds as if there is no communication between civs before printing press. That can't be right. Probably the writers of the preview misunderstood (they never played CivIII ?) and what is meant is the trading of communications. Thus the trading of communications is moved from writing to printing press. A very big change. It will drastically change strategies at the higher difficulties because smartly trading technologies between your different opponents is one of the most used advantages for the human player at the higher difficulty levels. If you can't trade communications with your neighbours to get to know your neighbour's neighbours, it will become more difficult to trade technologies with them. You'll have to meet them yourself by for instance building a boat and make contact with them directly. This will take time and effort and thus the excessive technology trading is postponed somewhat. This change will make deity games a little harder. I like it. :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by thestonesfan
We're down to only 6 scenarios now, from 9? Am I getting this right? That kind of sucks.

Hi guys,
Yes, that would suck, if it were true. It's not. We're still locked and loaded for nine Conquests. Not sure how he got 6 from the demo... it may be that we only had time to show him 6 of the 9 in our allotted demo time. Enjoy the extra coverage from the editor's day -- I think we'll see some more before the month is out.

Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari
 
Thanks Jeff, Let us know if there are other sites except Gamespot and Gamespy who we're at your "editor's day". Then we could keep an eye open for them;).
 
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