Strategic View!! Screenshots!

[PinkHammurabi]

Probably. It's most likely part of a quest given to you by the city state of Mordor.

Which would obviously be a Maritime City-State.

 

[kozzer]

Those are rivers. Also note in the third screen the Flood Plain icons along that river.

Ah, yes. I think you're exactly right!

It'd be awesome to see some screenshots from these areas outside of the strategic view (i.e. normal view) - to compare and contrast! (anything for more screenshots)

 

[Johnny Be]

I think in this screen Japan is the playable Civ. So, if you mean the purple ship north of Satsuma, I think that's a Roman ship and therefor would have no effect on Fog of War. If you mean the ship about two tiles east of Satsuma, it is busting fog, it's just in a coastal tile but next to an ocean tile. It can clearly see two tiles in all directions.

Yes, I mean the white and red ship SEE of Satsuma.

You're right, there are 4 shades of blue (Coastal Seen & w/ Fog; Ocean seen & w/fog). I was mistaking Ocean seen with coastal w/ fog.

Although the coastal hexes distribution isn't very logical...

 

[Tomice]

Ah, yes. I think you're exactly right!

It'd be awesome to see some screenshots from these areas outside of the strategic view (i.e. normal view) - to compare and contrast! (anything for more screenshots)

I already offered a beer for that - what else should we do?

To be serious again, will the statement about the strategic mode being fully playable ,and the reference to "playing on a plane", mean that the game will really need less battery life in this mode?
I thought they still need to calculate and render the 3d world in the background for being able to switch quickly?

 

[kozzer]

I already offered a beer for that - what else should we do?

To be serious again, will the statement about the strategic mode being fully playable ,and the reference to "playing on a plane", mean that the game will really need less battery life in this mode?
I thought they still need to calculate and render the 3d world in the background for being able to switch quickly?

Make that 2 beers!

In general, video cards doing heavy processing use quite a bit of power, so I'd imagine that there'd be a significant battery-charge-extension if playing exclusively in the strategic view.

Edit: About rendering the 3D world in the background while in the strategic view, I dunno. Certainly, from a programming perspective, there's no reason to have to do that, but obviously I'm completely unfamiliar with how the CiV graphics engine works.

 

[Dbob]

Provided this is a randomly generated map it looks like they largely did away with the random desert tiles that seemed to appear everywhere in the core random map generators in Civ 4 and its expansions.

 

[Leonel]

Huh! That's actually pretty neat

 

[PinkHammurabi]

Greg, first of all thanks for the info and the screens. Loving everything so far.

I'd like to ask for verification/explanation for something. Moreso than anything else these that these screenshots bring up, I'd like to know why we've seen three different Civs with white area-of-control (Greece, Japan, England). And on top of that, despite England and Japan having inverted border and unit icon schemes, they are displayed similarly on the minimap.

I understand that (most likely) these aren't just games you're in the middle of playing, so much as they're used for certain purposes and we're not likely to be viewing the finished product.

The only reason I'd see for having Japan and Greece share their empire color is that, possibly, the Civ being played uses white by default and given it's a developer version of the game, they are both chosen as playable? I imagine this is highly unlikely, but I can't think of another reason that two Civs (and possibly a third) share that color outside of different stages of a work in progress. I also don't see that you guys would overlook something like that.

 

[2K Greg]

would it be possible to get a screenies with the nasty hex grid turned off?

The hex grid is turned off in these screenshots

I already offered a beer for that - what else should we do?

To be serious again, will the statement about the strategic mode being fully playable ,and the reference to "playing on a plane", mean that the game will really need less battery life in this mode?
I thought they still need to calculate and render the 3d world in the background for being able to switch quickly?

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.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

...and the purple liquid is Dye

so far I have found the following resources:

fish
clam

horse
iron

wheat

stone
marble

sugar
dye
gold
gems
game

cattle
sheep (well, 2 kinds? white and brown?)

banana

is that blueish long metal... silver?

You'll have to point these out to me. The water resource that is clearly not Fish, are you so certain it's Clam? Since it's only on the further zoomed-out screen it's hard to discern anything. So outside of speculating that it's a resource we've seen before (Clam, Crab, Whale) I don't know how you came to that conclusion.

I see one resource that, while I suspect it to be Marble it could technically be that or Stone. I don't see any other icon that could be either one though.

Where do you see Gems, and these brown Sheep?

Also of (little) note is that Wheat is once again found in Flood Plains. I like this a good deal actually.

 

[Koolhan]

All I have to say is "cool". Reminds me of Settlers of Catan. Very neat added feature.

 

[aMoralAtheist]

The first screen I saw and the thing I thought of was BattleTech! Now only if we could build battlemechs for future tech or will be easy to mod in.

So is this the view to play in for people who don't have the specs to play Civ V? We will not have the same mess Civ IV was when it slowed our system even though we were told we could play with said specs?

If you can't handle civ4 I wouldnt expect it to handle 5 either....

 

[Schuesseled]

Greg, first of all thanks for the info and the screens. Loving everything so far.

I'd like to ask for verification/explanation for something. Moreso than anything else these that these screenshots bring up, I'd like to know why we've seen three different Civs with white area-of-control (Greece, Japan, England). And on top of that, despite England and Japan having inverted border and unit icon schemes, they are displayed similarly on the minimap.

I understand that (most likely) these aren't just games you're in the middle of playing, so much as they're used for certain purposes and we're not likely to be viewing the finished product.

The only reason I'd see for having Japan and Greece share their empire color is that, possibly, the Civ being played uses white by default and given it's a developer version of the game, they are both chosen as playable? I imagine this is highly unlikely, but I can't think of another reason that two Civs (and possibly a third) share that color outside of different stages of a work in progress. I also don't see that you guys would overlook something like that.

maybe it works like football teams, with a home and away colour, so basically if your playing a civ it will be one colour, and if its a rival civ it'll be the other. e.g england is red when your controlling and white when the AI is controlling..

 

[PinkHammurabi]

maybe it works like football teams, with a home and away colour, so basically if your playing a civ it will be one colour, and if its a rival civ it'll be the other. e.g england is red when your controlling and white when the AI is controlling..

I'm pretty sure that's precisely what I said. Except inverted.

 

[hk2717]

Greg, first of all thanks for the info and the screens. Loving everything so far.

I'd like to ask for verification/explanation for something. Moreso than anything else these that these screenshots bring up, I'd like to know why we've seen three different Civs with white area-of-control (Greece, Japan, England). And on top of that, despite England and Japan having inverted border and unit icon schemes, they are displayed similarly on the minimap.

I understand that (most likely) these aren't just games you're in the middle of playing, so much as they're used for certain purposes and we're not likely to be viewing the finished product.

The only reason I'd see for having Japan and Greece share their empire color is that, possibly, the Civ being played uses white by default and given it's a developer version of the game, they are both chosen as playable? I imagine this is highly unlikely, but I can't think of another reason that two Civs (and possibly a third) share that color outside of different stages of a work in progress. I also don't see that you guys would overlook something like that.

Every empire is defined by two colors. Color A is used as the color of the inner side of the country's borders, the backgound color of the city bars and unit icons, and the color of the country's land on the minimap. Color B is used as the color of the outer side of the country's borders, the color of the cities' names on city bars as well as the inner part and borders of unit icons, and the color of the country's cities on the minimap.

Japan's colors are white and red. Greece's are white and light blue. Didn't see England on any of the screens.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

Every empire is defined by two colors. Color A is used as the color of the inner side of the country's borders, the backgound color of the city bars and unit icons, and the color of the country's land on the minimap. Color B is used as the color of the outer side of the country's borders, the color of the cities' names on city bars as well as the inner part and borders of unit icons, and the color of the country's cities on the minimap.

Japan's colors are white and red. Greece's are white and light blue. Didn't see England on any of the screens.

I understand all that. Greece and Japan both use White as "Color A" in your description. So, if they're smack-dab against each other, there would be no distinction between them on the minimap save for the "Color B" dots representing cities. Giving them the same color sounds like a questionable decision, no?

And England is located on a bunch of earlier screens, often involved with Rome. Plus, England throws a wrench in your A/B example because White/Red is used conversely to that of Japan *except* on the minimap.

 

[hk2717]

I understand all that. Greece and Japan both use White as "Color A" in your description. So, if they're smack-dab against each other, there would be no distinction between them on the minimap save for the "Color B" dots representing cities. Giving them the same color sounds like a questionable decision, no?

And England is located on a bunch of earlier screens, often involved with Rome. Plus, England throws a wrench in your A/B example because White/Red is used conversely to that of Japan *except* on the minimap.

Hmm, I see your point. Maybe they should implement (or have implemented maybe?) a black line along the borders on the minimap when the colors of the adjacent contries are the same or very similar? I think this issue is rather easy to fix.

 

[Tomice]

Hmm, I see your point. Maybe they should implement (or have implemented maybe?) a black line along the borders on the minimap when the colors of the adjacent contries are the same or very similar? I think this issue is rather easy to fix.

I guess this might still change in the dev process, and the screens showing england are an older build. Shouldn't be an issue, at least not before more civs than 18 are in the game.

 

[j51]

Notice how many black regions there are in the world in the final screenshot, there must be at least as much if not more city states as there are civilizations, considering only about half of the map is properly explored. This is welcome news!

They also seem to be heading towards adding 'important' cities in general (Oslo, Vienna, Rio de Janeiro etc.) besides just historically important city states(Venice, Florence,Singapore etc.) to the city state list. This would make the game a bit more internationally appealing I'd say, as almost every major or recognizable city outside of the already added civs would probably be added as a city state in game.

The non-city states thing really rubs me the wrong way. I hope it's easy to change the names so I can use only historical city states (and make Vienna a German city for f's-sake!)

Also, does the inclusion of Oslo mean no Vikings add-on later?

 

[Calouste]

Actually in the 1595AD screen, immediately to the left of the minimap I just noticed another of these icons in a tile adjacent to a Roman City.
If it is an encampment then those must be some mighty durable camps the barbarians build and (somewhat ironically) the Romans must not understand the threat barbarian hordes can present.

Those are actually different icons. The one you are talking about is red with a white shape and at the moment the thought is that that is an improvement that is being build. The one I think is a barbarian camp (although it could also be ancient ruins thinking of it) is mutli-colored with a lot of black/brown, some red and some white, and can be seen in the 2nd hex from the left, 3rd hex from the bottom in the 1595AD screenshot.