Strategic View!! Screenshots!

[Never]

Has there been any info on whether strategic view will make the game run well on older machines?

 

[timtofly]

From page 6:

The hex grid is turned off in these screenshots



I really regret forgetting to put that in the article! Yes, the game is completely playable in this view (I personally spend most of my time in this view) and one of the coolest parts about it is that yes, the video card does a lot less work while in this view.

 

[mjs0]

I wonder if, when in strategic mode, there is also a low-graphics leader view, perhaps just a static image, that keeps the gfx requirements low when in diplomacy?

 

[Tomice]

I wonder if, when in strategic mode, there is also a low-graphics leader view, perhaps just a static image, that keeps the gfx requirements low when in diplomacy?

Good question! I thought the same but forgot to ask...

 

[AriochIV]

umm, my first guess was this (city defence unit), but as someone explained,
it will be a military unit on water, thus being civilian for that moment

It can't be a military unit on water. For one thing it's not the normal size or in the correct position for a civilian unit icon; also, the shape of the icon changes when a military unit goes on the water, to a five-sided polygon (see embarked cavalry icon in image below). For another, you can see the bottom of a round military icon in the same exact position on Nagoya at the top of the screen, and Nagoya is land-locked; there's no water for a transport.



Garrisoning was announced as a feature in several of the interviews; the units "joins with" the city to increase its hit points.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

I haven't seen anything about it specifically so I'm hoping you know the answer to this, Arioch.

When a unit is garrisoned in a city and it increases the hit-points, does the unit just flat out disappear? And I think I heard something about unit-specific bonuses when garrisoning units; is there any info regarding that?

Sorry for a somewhat off-topic post but it seems like a good place to get the quick answer and it kind of relates to the current question, albeit tangentially.

 

[AriochIV]

When a unit is garrisoned in a city and it increases the hit-points, does the unit just flat out disappear? And I think I heard something about unit-specific bonuses when garrisoning units; is there any info regarding that?

The unit doesn't disappear; if you look at the shots of Tours with the garrisoned archer unit, you can see the archers hiding between the buildings. This implies that they also fight in addition to just adding to hit points, but there's no clear information on this yet. If I had to guess, I would speculate that the unit fights normally (albeit defensively) while garrisoned, and retains any special advantages.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

The unit doesn't disappear; if you look at the shots of Tours with the garrisoned archer unit, you can see the archers hiding between the buildings. This implies that they also fight in addition to just adding to hit points, but there's no clear information on this yet. If I had to guess, I would speculate that the unit fights normally (albeit defensively) while garrisoned, and retains any special advantages.

Hmm. Given that they said that they're taking combat OUT of the cities and into the field (nearly verbatim), wouldn't this seem to contradict that? I guess there's simply a limit to how many units can exist in a city but I had interpreted it as being quite simply the HP and Unit-spec bonuses, and any "city defending" would have to be done outside and I was really looking forward to it functioning that way.

 

[AriochIV]

I'm assuming you can only have one unit in the city, so you definitely want to fight your battle out in the field if you can.

Here's the clearest shot I can find of the archers garrisoning Tours:

 

[PinkHammurabi]

I'm assuming you can only have one unit in the city, so you definitely want to fight your battle out in the field if you can.

Here's the clearest shot I can find of the archers garrisoning Tours:

Okay, I guess I misinterpreted the initial description of how that works.

Thanks for your timely responses.

 

[timtofly]

Having different builds is confusing.

 

[timtofly]

Another thing is units "on the move" have a round icon. Units in defense have a shield icon. Units on the water have a polygon icon. UU and UB have a triangle icon. When a unit is in defense mode in a city, shouldn't it be a shield icon.

 

[AriochIV]

Is it just me, or did any one else notice that only one city (the capital) shows a building que? Is that going globally? It would also connect to the question, where is a unit placed when built? Can you shoose where they show up? If it is globally, will you get more than one unit (per resources) when "it" is built, and the choice where to put them?

Tokyo and Osaka probably aren't showing a build queue because they're puppet states. But that is a good question about where a unit shows up when built. I would guess that it shows up on the city tile if the city isn't occupied, and gets displaced somewhere if the city is already occupied.

Another thing is units "on the move" have a round icon. Units in defense have a shield icon. Units on the water have a polygon icon. UU and UB have a triangle icon. When a unit is in defense mode in a city, shouldn't it be a shield icon.

Heh, I just posted a new thread about the unit state icons. I think you're mistaken about the triangle icon; those are civilian units (worker and great general, for example). The only UU I've seen is the musketeer, and it has a circle icon.

Musketeers:


As for the garrison icon being round, that's not clear. It's a different icon border though, round but with a thick gold border.

 

[timtofly]

Tokyo and Osaka probably aren't showing a build queue because they're puppet states. But that is a good question about where a unit shows up when built. I would guess that it shows up on the city tile if the city isn't occupied, and gets displaced somewhere if the city is already occupied.

Heh, I just posted a new thread about the unit state icons. I think you're mistaken about the triangle icon; those are civilian units (worker and great general, for example). The only UU I've seen is the musketeer, and it has a circle icon.

Musketeers:


As for the garrison icon being round, that's not clear. It's definitely a different icon though, round and gold.

I see we posted at about the same time. So a great person is a civilian. I am learning. I think though the reason that the archers are in the city is they were just built. That also answers the question where are the units put when built. The que is empty and no number beside it. In the demo video, I did see a screen with two cities showing a build que. Looking at the strategic view, it just showed Kyoto. Now it is the latest build, but there must be different views. In the normal view the screen changes from the units having icons and not having icons. During a battle it must refresh the icon view.

 

[AriochIV]

The icons fade out and disappear during combat animations.

The city bar seems to have changed a lot between builds: in the new images of the strategic view, the population number and civ icon/production queue icon appear to have switched positions. The population number is now on the left, as it was in Civ IV. Don't know if this has changed also in the regular view, but that would make sense.

A unit that's just sitting in a city (not garrisoning it) appears to have its icon appear in the upper right, rather than the upper left. Here a longswords unit has just captured the city (Ignore yellow arrow pointing to Puppet icon).

 

[12agnar0k]

Icon in upper right instead of upper left shows that it will probably be possible to both move a unit into the city (instead of walking around) if it is garrisoned, and indeed if building a unit starts with it in the city then you can do this while garrisoned, but while the unit is in "visiting" mode, I guess no unit can be built, or perhaps it is built and put in an joining tile.

As for the "what happens to a military unit built by a puppet state". Well we can safely assume they don't get to have thier own armies, they are just a automated city and not a seperate civ, however the question remains do they build units, if they do they would be gifted to you obviously, but what you dont really want is a puppet building endless troops or settlers when you dont need or want them and their maintanence, so if they even allow the puppet state to build units I hope they include advanced automation commands, say like those in Alpha Centruari, where by if you dont want a automated city to build military units you can simply not check the "build units" box. However puppets being of thier own mind, not a mere automation this may not be possible, no point having puppets with automated production as a cost if we can then limit the cost by picking and choosing what to automate. Though bringing in the advanced automation control is useful for normal automation atleast, perhaps the puppet if not simply banned from producing units, can do so sensibly, i.e if its something an advisor would suggest or an AI would do, then it does it.

 

[AlpsStranger]

@2KGreg: Any chance we could get a laptop mode? I.E. it would *never* load or use the full graphics on any level? I'd love a mode like that for portability.

 

[SGRaaize]

Not impressed
Then again, this feature ain't aimed at me

 

[Tomice]

@Arioch:

Good thoughts, but you are clearly in an advantage! Where are those screns from?

I'm not sure how much I like units inside cities, as this is an indicator that the game is balanced around having defenders in core cities. We might be forced to put them inside, especially with faster unit movement...

 

[Schuesseled]

cities can defend themselves, building stuff like walls castles, and maybe barracks improve defence power of the city, maybe hit points, and provide abilities such as a ranged attack.

So you don't need to garrison a unit in a city, but it might make it survive an extra attack or two, but in order to survive a proper siege your gonna have to meet the units in the field before you lose your city.