Preview by Tom's Games (in French, 6 August)

[Mercade]

Tom's Games has posted a preview (in French) about Civ5. They were positive about the way AI uses terrain for offensive and defensive tactics. They are refretting that religions are gone, and that political choices like slavery and despotism are no longer there.

Some details from the article:
Map types mentioned: Pangaea, continents or archipelago.
Difficulty: seven stages (Settler to Immortal). I guess this keeps changing on a daily basis.
Iroquois: move in enemy forest and jungle as if on road.
Citizenship under Freedom: workers work 25% faster, specialists require less food

It claims that discovering natural wonders gives a boost to morale of the citizens and troups. I assume this means adding happiness to your civ (and maybe healing bonus for the involved unit?).

Screenshots include a rich picture with details of a game and picturesque view of the social policies, meeting Monaco and the strategic view.

Technically, on their test machine (Core2Duo E8500 3.16 Ghz, 4 GB of Ram and ATI Radeon 4870, Windows XP), the game was going very well (read, above 30 frames per second) on maps of normal size. Although they did notice a little lag at the computer's end of turn. In summary, they call Civ5 violently addictive.

 

[Lyoncet]

Excellent find! While I don't speak French, I'm sure it won't be long before there's a translation up, and in the mean time, I'm glad to hear someone speak positively about the AI's wartime tactics. Seems like that's one no one's really brought up for good or ill.



Also, unless this is an old build, does this mean that the Iroquois SA has been buffed to a sort of compromise? If at first it was "forests are roads" and then it was "forests are normal tiles" and now it's "enemy forests are roads," that would soften the advantage a good bit without making it something of a novelty.

Digging the natural wonders thing as well. Seems like a spiffy addition and a nice incentive to do early exploration! Wonder if you can jockey for control or it's just a first-find-only-serve basis.

 

[Mercade]

Digging the natural wonders thing as well. Seems like a spiffy addition and a nice incentive to do early exploration! Wonder if you can jockey for control or it's just a first-find-only-serve basis.

Literally they say "Autre nouveauté qui avantage les explorateurs, la découvertes de merveilles naturelles (volcan, ruines) permet d’améliorer le moral de ses concitoyens. Très pratique durant les rushs pour booster un peu le moral des troupes."

That means something like: Another novelty that benefits the explorers, the discoveries of natural wonders (volcano, ruins) improves the morale of your citizens. Very useful during the rushes to boost troup morale a little.

My interpretation is that the first person to find the natural wonder gets the (happiness) bonus and that there's no king-of-the-wonder side game to jockey control as you put it.

Edit: When they talk about ruins, I think that's just the ancient ruins that we already know of. However, it's new that they would give happiness upon discovery, if that's what they mean.

 

[Lyoncet]

Thanks for clearing that up! Scout spam for happy citizens!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

They are refretting that religions are gone, and that political choices like slavery and despotism are no longer there.

I concur with them on these issues. I feel like they're going uber-PC with this iteration of Civilization.

Aussie.

 

[lissenber]

"Very useful during the rushes to boost troup morale a little."

Morale could also be a boost to unit movement speed. Maybe.

 

[Zhahz]

I concur with them on these issues. I feel like they're going uber-PC with this iteration of Civilization.

I thought Shafer described their goals pretty well. It's more about positive choices. I think it's an interesting twist.

I also think the AI can *never* be as good as a player at whipping (or chopping, or tech trading), so these kinds of things give the player an advantage. I'd rather see things the AIs aren't very good at removed so the AI can be stronger in other areas (less time "thinking" about stuff it sucks at, more time focused on stuff it can do better).

 

[AriochIV]

Those are the same screenshots from the Jeuxvideopc preview.

 

[Schuesseled]

Iroquois: move in enemy forest and jungle as if on road.

Well they got that 100% wrong.

In case anyone doesn't know, the iroqouis ability means iroqouis units treat forests (and jungles?) as grassland or plains or desert, not roads.

Forests (n jungles) remove 1 movement point for entering rather than 2. (Roads increase movement points, or maybe they reduce them further i don't know but the effect is different.)

 

[MrBanana]

Well they got that 100% wrong.

In case anyone doesn't know, the iroqouis ability means iroqouis units treat forests (and jungles?) as grassland or plains or desert, not roads.

Forests (n jungles) remove 1 movement point for entering rather than 2. (Roads increase movement points, or maybe they reduce them further i don't know but the effect is different.)

No, it makes a tile with forest only cost 1. So a forest hill requires only 1 movement. A bare hill is slower.

 

[need my speed]

Well, no. They simply walk over forest tiles like there is no forest, a hill will still make them slower... I think. But, on the other hand, when going through a hill or a forest, you lose 1 movement point, it's logical that you thus lose 2 movement points when you move through a hill with a forest, but you don't. So, maybe you're right after all, because otherwise, it would only have an effect on plains or grassland or tundra, which would make the abillity even more useless.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

I concur with them on these issues. I feel like they're going uber-PC with this iteration of Civilization.

Aussie.

Huh? It has NOTHING to do with being PC, even remotely. Religion specifically was a balancing issue, and the removal of the others didn't factor in being PC at all.

This French preview/translation notwithstanding, any forested tile counts as one movement point for an Iroquois unit, hills included.