Summary of the IGN Preview

[Jeff Yu]

Ok, here's some info from the IGN preview.

Multiplayer options
-8 player support
-option to turn off barbarians or restrict them to huts
-option to double food, production, and trade
-option to respawn defeated AIs
-option to toggle culture flipping
-option to toggle culturally related starts
-option to toggle random seed

Interface Improvements
-arrows at right corner to scroll active units
-arrows at right corner to scroll cities in disorder
-stacked movement for units
-rally points for units
-automated bombardment

New City Improvements
-Civil Defense provides bombardment defense
-Stock Exchange provides tax boost and replaces Banks as Wall Street prerequisite
-Commercial Docks add trade to sea squares
-Internet counts as Research Lab on each city in continent, and provides Golden Age if civ hasn't already had it

Worker Commands
-New automation commands: trade network, colony building, automating for specific cities
-Turn a worker into an airfield in neutral land or your own land where you can land planes
-Build Outpost for increased line of site
-Build Radar Towers for increased defense

Civs
-Carthiginians: Commercial/Industrius, UU is Numidian Infantry, spearman with increased attack/defense and no special resources
-Koreans: Commercial/Scientific, UU is Hwacha, cannon with increased bombard and requires less special resources
-Mongols: Militaristic/Expansionist, UU is Keshik, cheaper Knight that requires less special resources
-Vikings: Militaristic/Expansionist, UU is Berserker, a more expensive Longbowman with increased attack, defense, AND amphibious attack
-Spanish: Religious/Commercial, UU is Conquistador, weak, cheap, requires almost no special resources, treat all terrain as roads, and doesn't replace anything
-Celts: Religious/Militaristic, UU is Gallic Swordsman, swordsman with faster movement
-Arabs: Expansionist/Religious, UU is Ansar Warrior, replaces Knights, and are faster and cheaper
-Ottomans: Industrial/Scientific, UU is Siphai, a better attacking Cavalry

Generic Units
-Medieval Swordsman, comes with Feudalism, requires Iron to build
-Guerilla, cheaper infantry that don't require special resources

New Victory Conditions
-Elimination: Civ loses if it loses ANY city
-Regicide: Civ loses when its king is killed
-Capture the Flag: Point-based victory, capturing and holding a zone adds points to score each turn
-Capture the Princess: Princess starts in capitol and can't move, attack, or defend, enemies must capture, and move back to own palace for points, once they do, new princess respawns in palace, if enemy has no palace left, respawns in new city, and player gets big bonus

Multiplayer modes
-Regular: Players set production while other players take turns
-Simultaneous: All players play at the same time, and resolves them all at once
-Turnless: The game runs on a clock. The game takes place at intervals, and upkeep, production, unit moves, citizen happiness, etc updates every interval, with teh intervals being longer as teh game progresses
-Turn-based: traditional turn-based mode, hotseat option, and play-by-email
-The play by email option has no file manager and no mail client access. You have to load, play your turn, exit, and send the file. When you get it, you have to find the folder, move it to Civ 3, and turn on the game again.

Improvements
-Diplomatic and Espionage options are on a single screen now, with list of missions, opponents, and their cities
-You can no longer force an opponent to make you an offer during diplomacy
-You can talk through the chat browser, or Microsoft Directvoice

 

[Jeff Yu]

Ok, my comments on all of this. Most interesting were the new UUs. They apparently aren't simple replacements with stats increaed by one point. Some are cheaper, some require less resources, and some have more than 1 point increases. I think this is great! We'll definitely see some more interesting units, and I never thought it fair that UUs should be restricted to 1 point increases. For a Jaguar Warrior, 1 point is a 100% stat increase, for a Hoplite it's 50%, 33% for a Immortal, and so on. The Conquistadors and Vikings sound especially cool, since they have special abilities that current UUs don't have.

The Medieval Infantry appears to make the Longbowman obsolete. It comes before, has higher stats, and requires only Iron. The Guerilla seems nice, though, and we won't be having to make Riflemen if we don't have rubber in the Modern Age.

There looks to be a lot more multiplayer modes, including a few never mentioned before, like Capture the Princess. Looks like it'll be a lot of fun.

The interface improvements are nice, and should streamline the game. The new worker actions seem interesting, but probably wouldn't change my playing style too much. I'm dissappointed there aren't more improvements and new wonders though, or any new single player victory conditions. But still, it looks like a cool expansion, and I can wait for it come out!

 

[Becka]

Originally posted by Jeff Yu
-Capture the Princess: Princess starts in capitol and can't move, attack, or defend, enemies must capture, and move back to own palace for points, once they do, new princess respawns in palace, if enemy has no palace left, respawns in new city, and player gets big bonus

Sounds interesting.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Hm. I thought for sure the Turkish UU would be the Janissary. But then, I also would have thought the Carthaginian UU would be the War Elephant (remember the Punic Wars), except that they had already given that to India. Ah, well.

 

[Jeff Yu]

Yes, a lot of the UU choices surprised me, too. I mean, everyone knows of the Carthaginian war elephants of Hannibal, but who the heck are the Numidians, Siphai, or Ansar Warriors?

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

Yeah, confused me too. I'll be doing a lot of civelopedia reading when this game comes out!

 

[Loaf Warden]

According to my sources, the Numidians were a pair of tribes in northern Africa, west of Carthage, who were excellent horsemen. It seems that in the Second Punic War, the western tribe of Numidians supported Hannibal, and the eastern tribe supported Rome. Roman victory gave control of all Numidia to Masinissa, the leader of the eastern tribe.

An odd choice of a unit to give to the Carthaginians. Especially since it is 'Numidian Infantry', when my sources specifically say "noted for their horsemanship". The War Elepant would have made a lot more sense. Surely they could have found a different UU to give to India, to allow the Carthaginians War Elephants. Sepoys, perhaps? At any rate, the choice of Numidian Infantry seems contrived. Maybe the Civilopedia will explain it well enough that it will no longer seem so. We'll have to wait and see.

I can't find any information on 'Siphai' or 'Ansar' right now. I guess that'll take a little bit deeper research.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by Jeff Yu
Yes, a lot of the UU choices surprised me, too. I mean, everyone knows of the Carthaginian war elephants of Hannibal, but who the heck are the Numidians, Siphai, or Ansar Warriors?

The Numidians were the tribal horsemen of NW Africa, as explained by Loaf Warden. They also served as mercenaries for the Carthaginians. FYI, the Carthaginian forces were mainly mercenary-based, except for their navy I think. Unlike Rome, Carthage didn't have a large hinterland to draw manpower from, which proved to be a terrible weakness.

The Siphai were a special military class within the Ottoman system. They were given land to hold in exchange for military service in time of war. The lands were not heritable although in later times, this rule broke down (as with most things in the Ottoman system). Sort of like knights. They served mainly as cavalrymen.

Not sure about the Ansar but since this is a knight unit.... I think they were representative of the fabled Arabian horsemen of antiquity, pre-Islamic and Islamic times. The Romans employed them as auxilliaries. One such tribal auxilliary accompanied Crassus on his ill-fated attempt to attk the Parthians but ended up betraying the Romans I think.

 

[Sim_One]

I think Koreans should be industrious instead of commercial? Arabs should be commercial instead of expansionist. I had never heard that the Turks were well known for their scientific achievements but I may be wrong. They sould be militaristic and religious IMO. Whats the stats of berserker: 5-2-1 AND amphibious attack? Isn't that a little too powerful?

 

[Grey Fox]

IF now only the "Guerilla" unit was upgradeable from longbowman (Viking)...

 

[Kilroy]

Of course, one of the small changes they didn't mention was the much improved foreign advisor screen where they introduced the concept of a table and the ability to look at the relations between more than 8 civilizations. Such a small change that it's hardly worth mentioning, really.

However, it's an essential change, and Firaxis would have to be mentally incompetent to even consider not implementing it, especially considering that they've introduced the ability to play against 30 other civs - something only a madman would attempt without an improved advisor screen.

And, in case you haven't detected the sarcasm, I'm pretty sure they haven't even considered adding that. Rather, they listened to Zouave's endless whining and made culture flipping an option or something. Thanks, Zouave - "making the game better through endless *****ing," indeed.

 

[Yndy]

Thaks for posting the info.

I agree about beserkers seeming to powerful, I'm sorry no new industrialist nations appeared.

One thing. Is guerilla hidden nationality like the privateer?

 

[Sanaz]

Originally posted by Kilroy
Of course, one of the small changes they didn't mention was the much improved foreign advisor screen where they introduced the concept of a table and the ability to look at the relations between more than 8 civilizations. Such a small change that it's hardly worth mentioning, really.

I thought that was what this meant :

"Improvements
-Diplomatic and Espionage options are on a single screen now, with list of missions, opponents, and their cities"

I hope by one screen, they mean a table of some sort with active deals, and potential deals.

I like the sounds of radar towers, outposts, and the internet. The new UU's should be fun, but they seem more powerful than the existing UU's. Will this be unbalancing in the game?

 

[Sim_One]

If the guerilla has hidden nationality what would happen if it conquoered a city?

 

[Reboot]

A brief search across the Internet reveals that "Ansar" means "Helper". From the document below, I suppose it means those from Madina that have recieved the Prophet Mohammed (pardon the spelling) and his followers from Makkah (Mecca?). In this document, the close relationship between the Ansar(s) and those from Makkah went so far that members of both sides were paired off with each other.

I believe they may be considered "First Converts" of some sort? Ref:

http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/articles/companion/09_ali_bin_talib.htm

There was also mention that the Ansar(s) were the Chosen to fight the enemies of Islam; and they are also generally held in high regard. Ref:

http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/hadeeth/muslim/031_smt.html#023_b31

The references are religious...

Romanticising, the Ansar may be the Advance Guard of Islam in the early days of that religion. They are held in high regard by other Muslims/Moslems because of their sacred duty.

Perhaps Firaxis is trying to find a less sensitive name to a certain Islamic Holy Warrior starting with "M"? Hmm?

[edited for coherency and some comments]

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

What the heck??????

-You can no longer force an opponent to make you an offer during diplomacy

Does that mean i can't even ask them what they are willing to pay????? I have to guess my way around even more than now?????? Hey, they still didn't make the gold/Dolg per turn thingy a slider, no, indeed, they make it worse!


But a bunch of f-ed up...... (censored)...


I guess this pretty much kills Single player....... MP, here we come.....

 

[warpstorm]

Chill, Killer. They wouldn't have done that. At least, I hope that they wouldn't.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by warpstorm
Chill, Killer. They wouldn't have done that. At least, I hope that they wouldn't.

So do I, but they have done equally sucky things before... like taking out 'multi'-cheat.....

 

[dannyevilcat]

One thing. Is guerilla hidden nationality like the privateer?

There's a difference between Guerillas and terrorists. Was it a mystery who America was fighting in Vietnam? Or how about the Nazis... they knew they were fighting the Soviets, but who really controlled these "partisans"?

Guerillas don't hide their nationality.

 

[Lab Monkey]

The UU abilities are a little odd, it sets these Civs totally appart from the originals. Perhaps Firaxis should alter the original UUs to compensate. In comparison to the Berzerker or the Numidian, the F15 and Man-o-war look even worse. Let's hope it's better in the game than on paper.

The Arabs and Spanish should switch attributes. I'd always thought of the Arabs as commercial, and the Spanish as expansionist. One for the editor, there.

I'd also like to know the Longbowman upgrage path - does it now upgrade to the geurilla? My edit has both swordsmen and longbowmen upgrage to riflemen.

Onother thing - Other than the internet, the added features all seem to be pre- modern. Meaning that Firaxis have done little to counter the bias of the game being geared to early playing and winning. Looks like we'll still not be using the jet fighters and precision bombing (outside of an MP scenario).