New IGN info (May 23, 2007)

[flamingzaroc121]

well byzantium really was founded by the megarians( a city state in greece) so techinally they started out greek


(just a tidbit to add to the little debate)

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Prefer changing historical names? Visit this thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=210053

Just about every complaint/rant in General Discussions is trying to be addressed by people in Creation & Customization, if only you'd take the time to visit...

 

[Titus001]

Say that in Greece and they'll tear your throat out. The Byzantines were a unique cross of Rome and Hellenistic Greek culture. They spoke Greek and essentially were Greek, but to be fair, the Greeks in the game represent Ancient Greece. The Greeks before the Romans and the Greeks after the Romans are almost completely different; even the language changed (a modern Greek hearing The Iliad in the original would have approximately the same reaction as an English speaker trying to read Beowulf, or if not that, then The Canterbury Tales: How could my ancestors speak this gibberish?); the religion too.

Tear throats out? Ok i agree that the roman empire and byzantium were a unique cross. But i do not think of the byzantines as a "greek empire" even though if you count race it was mostly made up by greek speaking people. But for many 100's of years latin was spoken. For me Byzantium was the continuation of the roman civilization.

This documentary gives a good view on my opinion. Just skip most of the video and fast forward to 35 mins into this documentary about byzantium. Or if like history you could give it a watch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4160855843115464701&q=byzantium

 

[benjamin28]

Byzantium is interesting... Not greek, not roman, unique in its culture and history. But we're gonna miss two of these ones because of its fault:
Brazil
Israel
Hatti
Sumer
Austria
Assyria
Ethiopia
Venezuela
Transvaal Republic
South Africa
And a few more

I hope Firaxis change the names of some UUs: Wisa instead of Quechua, Legionary instead of Praetorian, Hoplite instead of Phalanx, Sudra instead of Fast Worker and Chu-ko-nu instead of Cho-ko-nu.

 

[chaz1356]

Eh i just hope we can nuke our own territory. Ive never been on the losing side of a battle but the one time i was my entire army was destroyed, my navy was useless in helping me and 3 seperate nations kept advancing into my territory. I had a few nukes but i couldnt use them in my own territory.

Also the battles will be much much much much more interesting. You will have to watch the tanks on the battlefield, air wars all over, and you will finally have to have decent naval tactics in order to control the shipping lanes.

Lasty, I am creaming my jeans thinking about all the diplomatic tactics of breaking up civilizations through civil wars, and creating wars between enemy nations.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I have no problem with Byzantium and Rome being in the game.
They were more different than England, France and Germany...

 

[scy12]

The Byzantines were a unique cross of Rome and Hellenistic Greek culture.

Indeed. It would make no sense to enter it as a different civilization. It would be Like Alexander's Greece , Pericles Greece , Agisilaos Greece ,Menandros Greece and Modern Greece where entered as different civilizations. Now they will enter medieval Greece.

 

[lamppost4]

Yayyy... visible trade routes. Finally we can have decent naval battles.And Byzantines, whats wrong with the Byzantines, I like them. The Byzantines contributed much to history, such as converting the Russians to Christianity and carrying on classical knowledge.

 

[GrandSultan]

As far as Suleyman goes, keep in mind that that portrait is by a French painter, so he might be slightly fairer than he really was.

It also appears that they put him in his Mosque; the background is most definatley a mosque, and looks grand enough, and it makes enough sense, that it would be his.

 

[civzombie]

Somebody said that it would be cool if far away colonies might break away and form a new civ. I say that distance from the capital might be realistic, but that does not necessarily translate to good gameplay.

Far away island cities are generaly barely worth the trouble as it is. Given the choice of taking over a neighbor to get new close cities and settling distance islands we all know which is the better strategic choice... A system that only reinforces that easy choice does not seem good for gameplay.

What I think would be better for gameplay, is if the chance of rebelling and forming a new civ was based on lack of city infrastructure. So if you don't bother building granaries, barracks, aquaducts, etc. you have more chance of a rebellion. Thus, peaceful builder types that "help" their citizens with infrastructure would have a much less chance of rebellion vs. war mongers who constantly use cities to build more troops.

 

[mjs0]

Far away island cities are generaly barely worth the trouble as it is. Given the choice of taking over a neighbor to get new close cities and settling distance islands we all know which is the better strategic choice... A system that only reinforces that easy choice does not seem good for gameplay.

Actually it could improve the game if (big IF) these revolutions affect AI Civs and cause some of those annoying 'city in the ice/tundra on my continent because its the last available land' cities to rebel so I can raze the darn things without diplo penalties.

 

[mice]

Actually it could improve the game if (big IF) these revolutions affect AI Civs ...

In the case where you have the other continent in a technology love fest racing away to a space victory, it would be good to use espionage to encourage a civil war split in some of these civs to cause unrest and slow them down. That would be more interesting than blowing up their chain irrgation.

 

[kniteowl]

That's ALOT of new features in this game... I just hope we don't micro-mangae too much... I hope they make some things easier by stream lining or automating things like Missionaries/Salesman(Corporations) Automatically founding the Reg/Corp option and etc for other things.

 

[cbmclean]

Did anyone here use to play Civilization: Call to Power? That game had what I considered to be a very fun trading system with on-map trade routes which could be broken by enemy units. I have always wished the Civ games would implement such a system. So I like the sound of those on-map trade routes in BTS.

 

[Martinus]

Have the Byzantines been confirmed anywhere as a civilization or are the people talking about Byzantium derailing the thread? I can't find a mention of Byzantium anywhere in the article.

 

[Vietcong]

the eliphant unit dosent look realy well done to me, it my be for a senario so let not jump to conclusions

 

[LAnkou]

the problem with the trade route system in ctp was the constant pillaging...

 

[mitsho]

Have the Byzantines been confirmed anywhere as a civilization or are the people talking about Byzantium derailing the thread? I can't find a mention of Byzantium anywhere in the article.

There is this screenshot with unique-unit lookinglish elephants, archers, horsemen and warriors (here. People in here think that the elephant unit means a Khmer civ, the archers belong to Babylon, the warriors might be something middle eastern as well (Israel, Sumer?) and that the horsemen are cataphracts, thus the Byzantine Unique Unit. Of course, these might just be scenario units...

mick

 

[chopstyx]

I think that establishing colonies may work in a similar way to vassals in warlords. i.e. After settling a city on a new piece of land you can either declare it yours, or part of a new colony civ. That way your maintenance is reduced for this city, but as the 'master' of the new colony civ you can demand any resources, etc that they city is close to. It would also be a maintenace-cheap way of establishing borders so that your enemies canot settle on the land and even though they aren't your borders they are those of a friendly (vassal) civ and you would be able to put your troops on its land. The civ would remain a colony/vassal to you until certain conditions are met, such as the 50% rules that are in place at the moment.

Although in order for this to happen colonies have to be more worthwhile having than vassals currently are. Perhaps have a rule that the colonies cannot refuse any of the parent civs requests for the first X turns. It is damn annoying when your vassal is researching ahead of you and won't give you techs that you require.

 

[Danielos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Civ4beyondthesword.jpg

Judging from box cover, the walkers seem to be an integral part of the expansion. Hopefully, they make it into the standard game.