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We are also shooting for a WYSIWYG approach where you will know what city a wonder is in because you can see it in the world, along with many other aspects previously relegated to menus and screens.

IGNPC: Culture was a pretty new concept when it was introduced in Civilization 3. Has that mechanic found its way into the sequel? Have there been any changes to it?

Barry Caudill: Yes, culture is alive and well in Civilization 4 but it has been tweaked a bit. One of the ways is somewhat mechanical in nature. In Civilization 3, you were always guaranteed a minimum level of cultural expansion when you planted a new city. That is not the case in Civilization 4. You will have to develop your culture or risk being enveloped by a larger neighbor. This leads to the interesting possibility of creating a Luxembourg or Switzerland completely engulfed by another Civ's borders. We also tweaked Civilization 3's luxury slider and turned it into a culture slider. Raising the culture level makes people happier and helps produce more culture for your entire Civ.

IGNPC: Are you planning to include multiplayer options out of the box? What types of things can we expect from the multiplayer game? We hear there's a cooperative mode? How does that work?

Barry Caudill: You bet! This game was designed to be multiplayer from the ground up and we have been playing MP games for a year and a half already. Players will be able to compete in traditional turn-based or simultaneous move games either on a network or via the Internet. We will be using Gamespy for Internet matchmaking. Other options include Hot Seat, Play by Email, and a persistent turn server we call Pitboss.

Coop will work in a similar fashion to what you would expect from an RTS like Age of Kings or Warcraft 3. Players on the same team will share line of site, the benefits of wonders, research (they can even research the same thing to try to get it faster), unit trading, and share territory. All of these additions deliver a plethora of new strategic and tactical options to the players.

The rest of the interview through the link. Some pictures are also available. There's an interesting world view. It's zoomed out far enough so that the player can get an idea of what's going on in the world.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html

 

[puck1337]

Cannot wait for this game.

 

[Phoenix]

My frothing demand so forth and so on....

 

[SpoonyBard]

Nice. But I have a feeling my trusty 1 GHz Celeron won't run this game at acceptable speed

 

[Bigfonzie]

oh god i love civ2, didnt like civ3, but i played 2 so much i feel i have a duty to buy all the civs i can in my lifetime.

 

[snaildog]

IGNPC: Maybe I'm sick but I really miss being able to poison a rival city's water supply. Are you going to be including new options for espionage and its more "honorable" cousin diplomacy?

Barry Caudill: We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related. You will, however, create spy units and move them around as you did in previous versions of Civilization. In diplomacy, you will be able to broker peace between two warring Civs or ask a Civ to go to war with another even if you are not currently at war with that Civ.

That's pathetic.

IGNPC: Though Civilization 3 was great, it lost some of the presentation that we loved in Civilization 2. While it might be naive to ask for a return to talking advisors and wonder videos, are you doing anything to add to the overall personality of the game?

Barry Caudill: We have definitely ramped up the production values in this version. The new 3D world and all that it brings will certainly up the ante over any previous version of the game, we're hiring voice talent for various parts, and I am happy to announce the return of wonder movies...we'll have over 45 spectacular movies in the game.

YEAH! I loved the wonder movies in Civ 2, and was mortified that an updated version years later didn't have them. I hope they go all out on the production value, because they really were one of the most memorable parts of the game and made building a wonder even better than the stats boosts.