Screenshots: The Subtle Informant

[Gaius Octavius]

What about the existing range of aircraft? What happened to that?

 

[mjs0]

Another observation: I really am pleased to see the airships! Now we see in pic 2 of 64 that airships have Rebase, Recon and Bombing buttons... But I am puzzled by the pale yellow diagonal lines (no airpower buttons are active either) superimposed all over the map?

I was just looking at this and noticed that while there is an Air Strike (S) button there is no Air Bomb (B) button for the airship which would mean that airships cannot reduce city defences or remove tile improvements.

 

[ChrTh]

Pic #1 of 64, lower right from Knossos.

I just read the options closely ...



Assign the Ethiopian City of Hawulti to Steve

How does that become an option?!?

 

[Dutch Canuck]

I just read the options closely ...



Assign the Ethiopian City of Hawulti to Steve

How does that become an option?!?

A feature of the Apostolic Palace:
Depending on the influence of the palace's religion on their civilization, players get votes to cast on decrees like:
holy wars
trade embargos
peace enforcement (basically say, don't go to war with me)
assigning cities to their "rightful" owner

Notice how Ethiopia is Buddhist while Steve is Jewish... Maybe it means you can also demand a rival's city dominated by your religion be switched to your control even if that rival's state religion isn't the same as yours! Looks frighteningly risky from a diplomatic point of view!

 

[Pomp]

There was a bit in one of the preview articles about using the AP to return a city to its "rightful" owner. I thought that would mean the civ that founded it, but Hawulti is an Ethiopian city. Maybe it's based on culture? In other words, perhaps you can use the AP to accelerate the process of flipping a city via culture just by getting a cultural majority in that city and then voting to flip it to yourself?

 

[Algan]

I don't see it. Can you crop it and upload it here?

Oh, sorry. Link fixed

 

[NeverMind]

Some results of croping the latest bts screenshots.

- Espionage slider
- Turn number and 2 extra buttons (for Espionage and Corporations screens)

- Espionage missions

- Corporations

- 2 flags
- Moai Statues

 

[mjs0]

Sorry if I missed somewhere that this was discussed, but...

I just noticed that spy missions seem to be costing just espionage points (EPs), not gold as in earlier versions.

Also, I didn't see a location where Overall EPs are amassed either on the main screen or in the espionage screen, just per Civ numbers and then only in the espionage screen. So I am guessing based on the screenshots and the article that EPs are accrued and spent on only on a per Civ basis which would mean that you really have to plan ahead when investing them. There is no last minute influx of globally stored EPs or gold to pay for an emergency mission!

In screenshot #11 the cost to 'Support City Revolt' is 315 EPs, but nowhere on the screen does it tell me how many EPs I have available, just that I am accruing 196 per turn.

I assume that I am paying out of the accrued points towards that Civ as shown in screenshot #22, which means I guess that I will lose some of my passive benefits if I reduce that accrued total by using it for a more direct mission. (DOH! I just reread this piece in the article that talks about this particular point, Sorry!!!)

Ah, well, lots of guesswork, but what do others think?

 

[Solver]

Yeah, it's been said before that espionage points exist versus individual players. So you can literally know everything there is to know about one civ and not have a crumb of info on another.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Missionaries and Executives have the "Auto" option available. so let them find the city that needs the Religion/Corporation.
(also Corporation HQs get 4 gold per city not the Shrine's 1 gold per city) Looks like Holy City's + Wall Street aren't the way to go anymore compared to Corporations+Wall Street.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Looks like Holy City's + Wall Street aren't the way to go anymore compared to Corporations+Wall Street.

Well, that does make sense.

What about a holy city and Corp. HQ? They'd pull in loads of cash.

 

[Solver]

My record was pulling in around 30 gold from a shrine, and corporation income from 15 cities (60 gold), for a total of 90 gold raw... with the Wall Street as 200% in modifiers, the city provided me with 270 gold! You can get even more, of course.

 

[LlamaCat]

I think the article implies that certain spy missions do still cost money, but the cost is affected by how many spy points you've accumulated. Actually I noticed on that one screenshot that the system for determining the cost of espionage is extremely complicated - trade routes, religion, spy points, etc. all factor into it.

 

[flamingzaroc121]

I just read the options closely ...



Assign the Ethiopian City of Hawulti to Steve

How does that become an option?!?

in the article associated with the screenshots, it said if you have more culture in a city, the apolistic palace could give that city to you, pretty much an early culture flip.

in the Example given, that means that in the city of Hawulti, there is more Greek(steve was playing Greece) culture thatn Ethiopian, so there was that option in the apolistic palace

 

[Gaius Octavius]

That sounds kind of like World Congresses in Rhye's mod.

 

[mice]

By the way, does anyone know what the 'blue things' are beside the Colossus in this screenshot? The Moai Statues?

The Moai statues look like the hand of the statue of liberty coming out of the sand in the original 'Planet of the Apes'. Why are they green? The Moai statues are dark brown - black.

You can see how many turns until another civ finishes research(with espionage points spent I'm sure) With the restricted tech trade option, this will make for interesting decisions about tech path.

Apostolic palace is only 268 hammers. That's not bad. No resource speed up it seems.

 

[ChrTh]

The Moai statues look like the hand of the statue of liberty coming out of the sand in the original 'Planet of the Apes'. Why are they green? The Moai statues are dark brown - black.

They probably wanted to increase their visibility.

Huh, I just noticed: "Moai statues" is redundant. They should just be called Moai.

 

[mice]

The spy's chance of success is 100 % . This is good. We only have to weigh up the cost. I wonder how the chance reduces or increases. Possibly through spending.

No sign of specialists generating these espionage points, but in the chat it was clear that specialist/cottage econ dynamic will not change.

In the random event pic of the marriage proposal, we pay only 68 gold for +3 diplo to hannibal. That's huge for a diplo victory. Of course it's random but still, if there are enough of those and you are targeting a civ as a diplo voter from the early game, it could make for more assured diplo strategies.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Don't know if it was mentioned already: I see in some pics there is a red circle on the map relating to a random event.

Very useful if you have to make a choice about the event.

 

[mice]

There are more screenies in the Gamesradar article

http://www.gamesradar.com/us/pc/game/previews/article.jsp?sectionId=1001&articleId=20070622115615199069&releaseId=20070328151129957027

We see the unique units for Dutch, Portugese, Khmer,HRE ( looks good) Native American, Mayan, Ethiopian.

Ethiopian musket looks good. So do the new ships.