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Civilization IV details

A

acklame

Member
http://www.civfanatics.com/

can't wait to play this :D
any other civ fans here?

The June issue of the German magazine ComputerBildSpiele also has a pretty big preview of Civilization IV. There are lots of overlap with the PC Zone and CGW previews, but here are some of the more interesting new info:

* There will be a total of 85 technologies, and some of the confirmed new technologies include Agriculture, Meditation, Fishing, Hunting, Mining, Calendar, Compass, Civil Service, Metal Casting, and Machinery.
* Religious prophets give you information about foreign countries and their cities. The first civilization to discover a certain technology founds a world religion, for instance, the first player to discover Polytheism founds Hinduism.
* Religions can gradually spread across the world from their founding cities.
* Civ4 has 102 buildings and 30 World Wonders.
* There are 83 units in CIV, and a total of 41 experience bonuses for units.
* Wonder movies are back!!!
* Some civilizations have two leaders while some have only one. This explains why there are 28 leaders and only 19 civilizations. For example, for the Germans its Otto von Bismarck, while the Americans have the choice between Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Washington.
* Unit control is improved. With a single mouse click, you can easily join many units together in an army and have them march over the battlefield together.
* There are 25 civics organized into 5 categories. Player can adjust them anytime. For example, you can choose between Free Market and State Property, between Freedom of Religion and Theocracy. If you introduce Emancipation, it could even lead to unhappiness and riots in other nations without equal rights.
* Players can form alliances with each other in multiplayer games. Allied nations will put their accomplishments together, join forces in combat and share all information.
* People with programming skills will be able to completely change the game and to adapt it to their wishes.

Thanks to Micaelis Rex for posting about it on the forum.
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The June issue of PC Zone Magazine, as expected, has a lot more Civ IV news to bring us.

Here are the main points:

* The Game length will be reduced from 550 turns, to 400
* The victory conditions will be: Spaceship, Conquest, Domination, Culture (with 3 cities with near perfect culture) and Diplomatic
* There will be three game speeds: quick, medium and epic
* You will be able to start in a particular era
* The tech tree will be more flexible, as we know. And it will not be split into eras
* The terrain will be a lot more detailed: pastures, wineries, watermills and windmills all represented in detail on the terrain, with visible smoke from factories
* 7 real world religions; including Christianity and Buddhism
* There will be 31 new resources
* There will be 28 world leaders. Not clear if you will be able to choose which leader to play with.
* There will be no city limit
* Great People: 5 categories - artist, tycoon, prophet, engineer, scientist. They will probably be triggered by City performance. There will also be 3 to 4 benefits per each one including culture boost, academies, multiple golden ages, and free techs
* Some of the leaders will be: Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Einstein, Michelangelo
* Combat: Your units will gain experience from the victory of battles. Each level increase allows choice of extra abilities such as using enemy roads, bonus attack in cities, moving faster in forests. You will end up with high-level units with specific abilities
* Governments: There are no set government styles. You can choose things such as free markets, environment, slavery, conscription, emancipation, etc
* Health is another important factor, as is happiness and your economy


There is also the June 2005 issue Computer Gaming World Magazine, with a few other details! (The info just keeps on flowing!)

Some of the info has been repeated however:

* Much of Soren Johnson's time (Civ IV lead designer) will be spent on improving the AI. One goal is to have rulers with distinct personalities. Gandhi will be generous to weaker nations, while the Khan will shy away from any diplomacy at all
* The City Governor AI will also be improved
* All resources in the game will offer distinct terrain improvements
* Combat will be more simplified. There will not be separate attack and defense strengths. Units will now have one single base strength. Infantry will have defensive bonuses in difficult terrain, while cavalry will have an advantage attacking ranged units such as archers. Artillery/Siege units will be stronger and will allow for damaging all of the units in a stack. These changes were done to encourage use of combined arms
* The switch to 3D allows the interface to be streamlined: for example, all of the information about a city, its buildings, and workforce is now all accessible from the main screen
* There will be "Great people such as artists or scientists, that will provide bonuses to cities or bring about Golden Ages
* There will be "civics" choices, such as social engineering. The player can change settings for such things as allowing slavery or freeing slaves, or the amount of religious tolerance


Thanks to Apolyton for the info. And thanks to arkammler for sharing some of it on CFC.
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* Barbarians will have animal attackers.
* Maps can be zoomed, spun, showing the traditional tiles we all love.
* Religions will indeed be generic.
* The civs all have a cultural/nation flag.
* The terrain features and tile improvements also look amazing! Mines, mills and proto-factories!
* Temples and city enhancement features seem to be on the maps.
* Irrigation/crops and and bonus tiles are represented fully. Rivers are very detailed!
* A merchant is spotted!
Click to expand...

related forum info thread:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=118174&page=1&pp=20
 
There are 25 civics organized into 5 categories. Player can adjust them anytime. For example, you can choose between Free Market and State Property, between Freedom of Religion and Theocracy. If you introduce Emancipation, it could even lead to unhappiness and riots in other nations without equal rights.
Click to expand...

So just to make sure I'm getting this right...government has been replaced by 5 civics categories, which eventually have five options each when all the civics are discovered?
 
So just to make sure I'm getting this right...government has been replaced by 5 civics categories, which eventually have five options each when all the civics are discovered?
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I guess there is no more set govt types, but rather, you have complete control in customization in how you want your govt to be. And it seems like your action will have profound effects too. The ability to spread religion sounds cool as well.
 
This is great news it sounds like it's going to be more like 2 than 3 which is great at least in my opinion.
 
Ok, that's what it sounds like to me too. Being able to mix and match aspects of government sounds cool, as long as there aren't any combinations that horribly unbalance the game.

This sounds much better than Civ III, which never grabbed me like the first two games did.
 
- Glad they finally brought over some aspects of the social engineering table from Alpha Centauri.
- The game really needed less turns. I liked that aspect of Alpha Centauri a lot, about time.
- A more continuous and less linear tech tree is the way to go. More tech isn't necessary-or better-though.
- Better personalized AI leaders is good. I'd like to see a combination of reactions based on their personalities combined with how your social structure meshes with your nations.

Civ is progressing. Maybe in another five years they'll have caught up to Alpha Centauri. :p
 
I want it where countries will actually want to trade with you...and you benefit more from it.

Civilization 2 had a better trade system than 3. 3's trade system was horrid. Even CtP had a better trade system.
 
I wasn't a huge fan of 3... loved 2 with a passion.. 3 just played funny to me..
 
I REALLY liked the culture aspect of Civilization 3.

I'm usually more of a defensive player, so it worked to my advantage.

...but besides borders and culture, everything else was kinda blah. (in terms of improvement that is)
 
Yes! big fan of Civ here. I will have a chance to see it at the E3 (what I don´t know if Sid Meier it´s going to present it, it would be so amazing to meet him, that man has busted thousand of hours of my life)
 
I really hope Civ 4 doesnt rush you like Civ 3 did.

I loved Civ (and Civ 2) where i could be America (because you get a huge landmass pretty much to yourself), just make 5 or 6 citites that id look after really well then sail over to europe and destroy/scare into submission all the natives with my superior tech (kinda like what really happened only backwards). And id finish the game with something pathetic like 10 cities. All in my own sweet time
 
I'm peeing in my pants.

The civilization series is the greatest series of games ever made. Despite coming out as less fun, Civ 3 made some advances that were absolutely necessary to the evolution of the game itself (culture, borders, trade, diplomacy, stopping the retarded phalanx-beats-battleship problem in previous games) that hopefully they can integrate into a more "fun" and fast-paced gameplay experience.
 
Seems to be integrating some SMAC goodness. I'm excited, but cautious in my optimism after Civ III.


Biggest question though, did they finally fix the end game crawl where you're forced to see the A.I shuffle tons of units back and forth on their turns? (problem becomes extremely bad when you get sattelites).
 
First screens..!!

civilization-20050509090059832.jpg
civilization-20050509090101489.jpg


..from the N-Gage version! :D

But seriously, cant wait for Civ 4. So many hours "wasted" with Civ2...
 
I must confess i've never played a civ game in my life.

I used to play sid meier's Alpha Centauri a lot though, i really liked it.....do civilization games play in the same sorta way?
 
The CGW story made me excited for this, for sure. I've loved the Civ games in the past. It seems like the switch to 3d won't change the gameplay much, and I'm looking forward to units that build XP and the integration of religion.
 
Unison said:
The CGW story made me excited for this, for sure. I've loved the Civ games in the past. It seems like the switch to 3d won't change the gameplay much, and I'm looking forward to units that build XP and the integration of religion.
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Are there screens in the article? How does it look?
 
Zensetsu said:
I used to play sid meier's Alpha Centauri a lot though, i really liked it.....do civilization games play in the same sorta way?
Click to expand...


Yeah... they're ultra similar.


They need to make a DS port of Civ, though it seems like Age of Empires DS might be that more or less.
 
gofreak said:
Are there screens in the article? How does it look?
Click to expand...

Yeah, there are screens... it looks passable... attractive, but kinda cartoony... like a slightly less cartoony version of the Pirates! update.

It certainly doesn't look nearly as good as AOE3, but that is probably for the best. I play Civ games long enough that I end up turning off frills.

I guess the main reason to switch to 3d was so the City View wouldnt be necessary... Now you can just see your granary / barracks, etc... on the main map.
 
Tabris said:
I REALLY liked the culture aspect of Civilization 3.

I'm usually more of a defensive player, so it worked to my advantage.

...but besides borders and culture, everything else was kinda blah. (in terms of improvement that is)
Click to expand...

I liked that too... and I too am a defensive player... but the computer expands way too much.. Gandi is a warmonger too..but that's kind of funny
 
Blackace said:
I liked that too... and I too am a defensive player... but the computer expands way too much..
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I think the pros outweighed the cons on the culture issue. It's pretty awesome, as I too tend to be a defensive player.

The CGW article also had some multiplayer details. They say that part of the code's already stable & it will allow people to set up a server on their systems if they like, where other players can just "log-in" and download turns.

This should make long games possible without being a wait-fest. The lead designer conceded that Civ III games lasted about 100 turns too long.

Additionally, though, they say they have 3 game modes... a "Short" game designed for mutilplayer or quick fixes that can play out a whole civ's history in about 3 hrs, a normal 10-15 hour game, and a super long one for hardcore Civ-heads.
 
Oh yeah, religion doesn't sound like it operates quite like Culture... If you develop it, you will just have affinitiy with people who share the same religion (I dunno if there's a negative effect with those of other religions). It sounds more like a passive thing that sometimes comes into play as a modifier than anything.
 
I liked Civ 3, it wasn´t such a shock as Civ 2 that was incredible, but it was a great game afterall. Culture was great.

The images looks nice, nothing to call home about, but this is Civ, I don´t care about graphics as far as there are huge improvements in tree technology, options, customization of troops and lot of things more. I trust on Firaxis.
 
Anyone who complains about graphics in Civ is nuts. I bet there are more Civ fans whining that it's 3d than there are Civ fans whining it doesn't look high-tech enough.
 
It will be interesting to see what they do with the whole religion thing. Can your subject just up and attack another country without your permission because of their religious beliefs and drag you into war? If you take over too many cities of an opposing religion will you have riots ?

Either way my free time will be shot.
 
ronito said:
It will be interesting to see what they do with the whole religion thing. Can your subject just up and attack another country without your permission because of their religious beliefs and drag you into war? If you take over too many cities of an opposing religion will you have riots ?
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I kinda doubt it... They made it a point to explain that there are no value judgements associated with Religions in the article. Having Catholics kill Muslims just because they're Muslim could be read the wrong way, I think.

The whole XP points for Units (which leads to special abilities) thing sounds like a real hook for me, as does the idea of leader units.
 
Anyone who complains about graphics in Civ is nuts. I bet there are more Civ fans whining that it's 3d than there are Civ fans whining it doesn't look high-tech enough.
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I´m a huge fan of Civ, but I have no problems with technology in any game, as far as it doen´t affect its core. I mean, if this used Unreal Engine 3.0 and Havok 3.0, great, as far as it´s gameplay core is what I expect from a new Civ.
 
Tabris said:
I want it where countries will actually want to trade with you...and you benefit more from it.

Civilization 2 had a better trade system than 3. 3's trade system was horrid. Even CtP had a better trade system.
Click to expand...
I agree with this. It's also one of the reasons I enjoyed 2 more than 3.

That said, I cannot wait for Civ 4.
 
Tabris said:
I want it where countries will actually want to trade with you...and you benefit more from it.

Civilization 2 had a better trade system than 3. 3's trade system was horrid. Even CtP had a better trade system.
Click to expand...

in all fairness, the trade system in 3 was much more robust, but the ridiculously stingy AI just made it retarded. I mean, why wouldn't these leaders want to engage in 1-for-1 luxury resource trading? It was retarded. I'd hate to go back to the caravan system in civ 1/2 that just felt like a tacked-on component.
 
I look forward to playing as the Americans, with a Christian religion basis with the following social engineering choices:

Fundamentalist/Free Market/Slavery/Intolerant

I used to play sid meier's Alpha Centauri a lot though, i really liked it.....do civilization games play in the same sorta way?
Click to expand...

Alpha Centarui is basically the best Civ game made-it represented a "next step" in Civ games after Civ2-fully customizable units without overwhelming customization options, granular social engineering choices, consistent AI personalities, superior terraforming options, a nontrivial indigenous foe that everyone has to battle, smoother turn progression and mitigated endgame crawl, and superior AI than previous Civ games.

It was rejected by the "casual Civ" player because of the series' emphasis on historical context. Hooey, I say-singularity weapons and gravships >> boring catapults and knights. ;p
 
Nerevar said:
in all fairness, the trade system in 3 was much more robust, but the ridiculously stingy AI just made it retarded. I mean, why wouldn't these leaders want to engage in 1-for-1 luxury resource trading? It was retarded. I'd hate to go back to the caravan system in civ 1/2 that just felt like a tacked-on component.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was just due to the stingy AI.

I mean I wouldn't have oil, they would have 2 things of oil. They didn't have uranium, I would have 2 things of uranium. (for example, I would actually avoid giving other countries uranium if I could) I would try to trade one for the other, and they would be all like "fuck you, find your own oil, we don't want your stinking uranium"

It was frustrating. It was even worse if you didn't have coal or saltpeter (both very necessary resources in the game), and since the AI would never trade, you had to conquer their ass as quickly as possible (hoping they don't get the units saltpeter and coal allow you to get). Which made you weak if another Civ decided it was time to take on the Chinese (I tend to play Chinese the most in that game)

It was just weak.
 
AC is certainly as good as the other Civ games. I kind of prefer the standard civ tileset, but AC is neat, with a bit of story added in there.

It's amazing how well that game balances all of its additions like customization / creation of units / story elements without any of them being overwhelming.

I'd definitely recommend checking it out.
 
I'd love to see an update of Colonization. That game ruled. I loved slaughtering the Indian heathens. :lol

Master of Magic was also fairly awesome. We could use another one of those. :D
 
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