New Expansion Speculation Thread

[Disgustipated]

Some leaders achieve something great and some...er, just have great personalities.

Must resist the urge to use the T word here. I won't. And of course his personality isn't great, but it is "distinctive". Who knows, maybe he will be a civ leader in Civ 20.

 

[Ma2ge]

pdreview has been also updated. Might that be a press d-something review branch? To give press people a first sight including NDA?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I agree that the AI could certainly be improved, but it's a bit disingenuous to claim that there has been little to no improvements since R&F. The changes have been incremental, but there has been definite improvement imo.

I heard others express similar opinions post the initial R&F patches. I couldn't detect any improvement myself, which is what prompted me to create some benchmarks with my AI Deity tests. Since I started running them in May, there haven't been any patches, other than the multi-platform one, which didn't touch the AI. So while I believe the incremental AI improvement stopped with Vanilla, and did not extend into the post-R&F patches, I can only state with confidence that there's been no improvement over the past six months.

See, the MARKETING people are for marketing to the masses. A tiny, blurry leak of a ship or a blond queen that can be reverse google image searched is COMPLETELY useless for those people... but for this forum?

For this forum, they could have done a lot better. And would have done a lot better, if they were really trying to communicate with us or market to us. I'm not willing to believe this is the best puzzle they could have tossed us, if they had any inclination to do so.

 

[WillowBrook]

marketing branch updated about 8 mins ago.

pdreview branch also updated, before the marketing branch and after the earlier-reported updates of compat and 2kqa_a today.

Edit: ninja'd by @Ma2ge

 

[Laurana Kanan]

So while I believe the incremental AI improvement stopped with Vanilla, and did not extend into the post-R&F patches, I can only state with confidence that there's been no improvement over the past six months.

Obviously, there hasn't been any improvement since the Spring Update on May 10. It's mostly subjective, of course, but I would say that initially the AI got a little worse with R&F, but gradually worked it's way back to parity with Vanilla and in some ways has surpassed it.

 

[CPWimmer]

Has anyone been tracking Sean Bean's travel schedule recently? Any unexpected stops in Maryland?

 

[shaglio]

I will say that the "blurred photos of leaders" was the most excitement I've had before a Civ launch ever, and a wonderful example of a time when Civfanatics was united in something (as opposed to later arguments on these forums about, say, Civ V or VI being the better game). Even though the blurred leaders leak didn't fit the "give info in driblets" approach of 2K marketing I was still excited to see how the leaders would look in-game once we knew the leaders' identities.

I didn't even mind that we found out all the leaders ahead of the First Look videos due to the wonderful historical info we found as a result of that (I had no idea who Catherine de Medici was before that leak, and reading up on her after the leak was a delight for me).

I remember that blurred leaderhead picture leaked just before my wife, daughter, and I were set to leave on vacation. We were driving from Massachusetts down to South Carolina and I spent a day and a half in the car anxiously fretting about what I was missing out on. When we did finally get to my sister's house, I spent most of the week refreshing that thread rather than spending time with my relatives.

 

[Stringer1313]

Has anyone been tracking Sean Bean's travel schedule recently? Any unexpected stops in Maryland?

Can we do a crowd fund raiser to get him to replace all the stupid "I think I'm being clever" quotes for all the techs as well while he's at it?

 

[Leathaface]

I remember that blurred leaderhead picture leaked just before my wife, daughter, and I were set to leave on vacation. We were driving from Massachusetts down to South Carolina and I spent a day and a half in the car anxiously fretting about what I was missing out on. When we did finally get to my sister's house, I spent most of the week refreshing that thread rather than spending time with my relatives.

A true Civ Fanatic

 

[Disgustipated]

you mean that's not normal behavior?

 

[Zaarin]

Can we do a crowd fund raiser to get him to replace all the stupid "I think I'm being clever" quotes for all the techs as well while he's at it?

I would so back that. I mean, Sean Bean does his best, but Patrick Stewart or Sir Christopher Lee couldn't save such charming quotes as, "Oh my, what fun we've lost!" (I'm still trying to figure out if Bean is trying to read some sort of innuendo into the Kilwa Kisiwani quote or if his intonation is just...strange. )

 

[agonistes]

Gate Pa was the classic battle where the losers really won but the pa itself was not the reason (flax fencing a little perhaps) more the trenches, flagpole, etc, the maori ability to adapt war.
Considering how well the Maori's fought, especially guerilla tactics, that's to me where their strength lies as well as their culture.


agreed 100%, Te Moko is a mark of mana of iwi and manhood, the carving of it tapu. Who would not get it done? Necklace all wrong. I would jolly well hope its Polynesia/other island rather than Maori.

You are ever full of surprises.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yeah, what's the benefit of doing something like this through a not-to-be-named website instead of posting a tiny screengrab on their twitter or whatever? The people looking at this stuff now probably aren't the people they need to win over/get excited.

It's the internet. Stuff like this doesn't take long to get viral (I mean, look at how long it took for Reddit and CivFanatics to find out) and since FourChan is of questionable morality/has only anon users/is viewed by tons of people every day, it's the best platform to introduce the scoop.

 

[AvianBritish]

I don't think it was mentioned but ltest was updated about 40mins ago

 

[Guandao]

I'm also thinking its Hongi Hika too mainly due to that first picture on his wikipedia also having the necklace and cape. If it is him I do hope they make him slightly thinner like in his pictures. I'll be looking at other Maori leaders just in case 1 of them is a closer match.

Even if that xebec ship isn't a civ or leader UU, it would be an exciting possibility to have pirate leaders like Sayyida Al-Hurrah in the game.

Have Sayyida al-Hurra lead the barbarian pirates?

Has anyone been tracking Sean Bean's travel schedule recently? Any unexpected stops in Maryland?

I'm looking forward to Bean's mispronunciations of leader names!!! We have such gems like "Kin Shi Huang", "Hojo Tokimoon", and "Teiyaowarahman". Those Mayan names are gonna give him a headache....

Another thing I'm looking forward to is Geoff Knorr posting First Listen videos for the new Civ themes on Youtube.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Researching more up on the xebec, from what I see is they were primarily used for trading and commerce around the Mediterranean Sea, more than pirating, and might not necessarily be used as a combat unit.
There is a possibility that it could be a trader graphic update over the water once you hit the Renaissance period.
Of course the "black sails" are the only thing that make it seem like they will be pirates.

 

[Neirai]

I remember that blurred leaderhead picture leaked just before my wife, daughter, and I were set to leave on vacation. We were driving from Massachusetts down to South Carolina and I spent a day and a half in the car anxiously fretting about what I was missing out on. When we did finally get to my sister's house, I spent most of the week refreshing that thread rather than spending time with my relatives.

That's sort of sad, because that's the sort of puzzle that you can involve non-gamers in. At least, I did.
Edit: This comes across a lot more condescending than I intend. I mean it to sound like mutually supporting regret.

 

[Leathaface]

This thread is only 5 days old and it has 416 messages. That's crazy.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Have Sayyida al-Hurra lead the barbarian pirates?

Sea Huns?

 

[jddods]

Sea Huns?

Not since Civ V