Recent Civ5 Previews

[Voyhkah]

I love the city-states, it's something I wanted.

But WU??? I'm 99.9999999999999999999999999999999% positive that she only got in for her gender. Seriously, Firaxis, aren't Cathrine, Hatshepsut, Boudica, and a potential Theodora enough?

THIS POST IS NOT SUPPOSED TO OFFEND ANY FEMALES

 

[The Almighty dF]

I love the city-states, it's something I wanted.

But WU??? I'm 99.9999999999999999999999999999999% positive that she only got in for her gender. Seriously, Firaxis, aren't Cathrine, Hatshepsut, Boudica, and a potential Theodora enough?

THIS POST IS NOT SUPPOSED TO OFFEND ANY FEMALES

Honestly? You're right. She's not all that noteworthy compared to the three Chinese leaders of Civ4 (Taizong, Mao, Qin Shi Huang), and there are still many ahead of her in terms of leadership abilities and notability.
She's the token female.
Just be happy the token female wasn't Cixi, at least.

 

[remake20]

It sounds terrible!

 

[AlpsStranger]

And I'm keep wondering why people who also have a handful of information are so excited about the new game. I will not buy it before I read about it after the release, and I am for changes, but I'm not enthusiastic that these new changes will be implemented in that way for me to switch from civ 4.

I'll tell you precisely why I am excited about all of this. *Every* change is a blow to anal "realism" and a step toward a less micro intensive Civilization. Every last tidbit of information says "less work, more play." I understand and agree with the spirit driving these changes.

 

[King Flevance]

I don't know what to think yet as far as how these mechanics will work because it is so different from previous versions. I wasn't planning on buying Civ 5 at release anyways but I figured I would at least be tempted. I don't understand why everything in 4 was rebuilt from the ground up just to reinvent everything again. It seems we have another Final Fantasy company on our hands.

Now, I wonder if I will bother with Civ 5 before complete comes out. First it seems rather obvious 5 will not be geared or possibly even have multiplayer. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. But redesigning so much means leaving out stuff we already have in 4 to sell expansion pack in 5. I would bet Civ 5 vanilla and will be absent of many features and expansions will bring them back in ala Civ 4. I may be wrong but I can easily see myself just waiting for Civ 5 complete to come out and a few YEARS from now be like "Is that out already?". Hexes got me excited. Everything else hassaid "Ha, we're just messing with you Flev."

 

[darkedone02]

I'm now abit iffy on this... i hope promotions are still in the game, and i can cheat promote, if not I don't think i will like this game.

 

[General Balls]

The most important question is...

Will there be a Marathon mode?

:O

 

[The Almighty dF]

I don't know what to think yet as far as how these mechanics will work because it is so different from previous versions. I wasn't planning on buying Civ 5 at release anyways but I figured I would at least be tempted. I don't understand why everything in 4 was rebuilt from the ground up just to reinvent everything again. It seems we have another Final Fantasy company on our hands.

Now, I wonder if I will bother with Civ 5 before complete comes out. First it seems rather obvious 5 will not be geared or possibly even have multiplayer. Which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. But redesigning so much means leaving out stuff we already have in 4 to sell expansion pack in 5. I would bet Civ 5 vanilla and will be absent of many features and expansions will bring them back in ala Civ 4. I may be wrong but I can easily see myself just waiting for Civ 5 complete to come out and a few YEARS from now be like "Is that out already?". Hexes got me excited. Everything else hassaid "Ha, we're just messing with you Flev."

Honestly, I doubt this.
I have some faith in Firaxis. They're not, or at least not yet, EA.
I really hope Civ5 won't be like, say, Sims 3.

So far, we haven't been let down.
Civ2 was more complex than Civ, Civ3 was a bit more complex than Civ2, and Civ4 was more complex than Civ3. There is hope that for Civ5, we'll all have to drop a difficulty level or two.

I say this even after whining about leader selection because, in all honesty? Civ4 had questionable picks to me as well.
Hatshepsut (though we later got Ramses, so it's alright), FDR (I'm so used to Lincoln that FDR did kinda bug me. However, BtS made me feel good. I'm not saying FDR is a bad pick, I'd just grown so used to Lincoln.)
Not to mention that Japan, even with expansions, only had ONE LEADER. And that one leader is generally regarded as either weak or really hard to play as (Him and Arabia's only leader, Saladin.)

Things may seem bad now, but I have hope that, like with Civ4, things will be better.

 

[Lillefix]

I'm beginning to love this, one unit per tile rule. The armies will be spread over the entire screen. Think about the new possibilities in strategy.

 

[Mathalamus]

or the massive amounts of troops to kill jsut to advance 3 tiles or so

with this one unit per tile i can have my best units guard all the hexes directly adjacent to my capital. the front lines will be easier to represent ( the SoD is like an huge rading party). think about how many units youll need to create an unbroken line of units inside enemy territory.

that being said, influence driven war sounds like a good idea.

 

[King Flevance]

I am for hard capping the amount of units allowed on a stack. I have voiced this plenty of times on the topic of civ 4. Only 1 unit per tile seems a bit excessive though. I imagine moving units to be more like one of those party games where you have to shift the tiles around to make the picture.

I see this problem being very apparent in relation to 1 unit per tile and the moment a unit is made, it is forced out of the tile. There is very little flex room. However, you could discourage this by making units more expensive, but then that makes me wonder how production will be handled. As you don't want to make units so expensive that a hammer advantage (like 30%) is making one player outnumber another in military to a noticable degree.

Hard caps are a good idea, but I think 1 unit per tile is a bit excesive as I said before. Limiting it to 3-5 would be better IMO. Still allows for combined arms but not SoDs.

 

[choxorn]

You raise a good point there. I always find it annoying in Civ 3 to have to move my units around the AI's units scattered around everywhere, now they're blocked by our own unit as well?

 

[Lillefix]

However, you could discourage this by making units more expensive, but then that makes me wonder how production will be handled.

Remember they talked earlier about one unit per resource. At least when it came to horses.

 

[King Flevance]

Yeah, I was referencing hammers there. But as someone else pointed out limited resources combined with this may mean that bigger = better even moreso in Civ 5. A gameplay element they were trying to get rid of in 4 with the new maintenance system. Civ 5 really has me scratching my head.

 

[Lillefix]

Yeah, I was referencing hammers there. But as someone else pointed out limited resources combined with this may mean that bigger = better even moreso in Civ 5. A gameplay element they were trying to get rid of in 4 with the new maintenance system. Civ 5 really has me scratching my head.

Don't forget we can buy and sell tiles now. That might have an interesting impact. Perhaps we can have exclaves.

 

[trevort]

Yeah, I was referencing hammers there. But as someone else pointed out limited resources combined with this may mean that bigger = better even moreso in Civ 5. A gameplay element they were trying to get rid of in 4 with the new maintenance system. Civ 5 really has me scratching my head.

All I can say is I don't know what to think anymore. We need more info Firaxis. Spill it. Let it out. Release the hounds. Let the cat out of the bag already. Am I being to impatient?

 

[HypnosTene]

I am for hard capping the amount of units allowed on a stack. I have voiced this plenty of times on the topic of civ 4. Only 1 unit per tile seems a bit excessive though. I imagine moving units to be more like one of those party games where you have to shift the tiles around to make the picture.

You raise an excellent point. I really wonder how they'll handle this. I hope it doesn't turn into a lot of micromanagement (double clicking lots of tanks and rightclicking on a location worked pretty well).

I've always viewed warfare in civ only as a measure of how well your economy works. A builder at heart, I'd much rather see improvements made in that field instead of war, which, on top of becoming more important with each edition of civ, seems to be heading into a direction of 'more work'.

Don't get me wrong, I love the General series (and other wargames), but I am not sure these two genres fit.

 

[Spoonwood]

Don't forget we can buy and sell tiles now.

I haven't really kept up on comments here, but does this remind any else of M.U.L.E.?

 

[Geddy]

Does anyone remember the presentation Sid did for a symposium where he described the incremental change in the game strategy to keep it fresh but accessible? Well this appears to be them folowing the same.

As for those of you concerned about the one unit per hex idea I put to you that perhaps the system allows for strengthening of each unit. For example You might make a swordman but you may also be able to add other units to it to strengthen that one unit to a strength of, say, 4 swordsmen or more. This would work.

And so what if they pick token women leaders? Whats your problem? Don't you like girls?

 

[choxorn]

The problem with it is picking women leaders solely because they're women, and not because they're great leaders.