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[Falch]

Gamespot has an exclusive Civilization 4 preview up.

After your first city is built, one of the first things you'll need to construct is a worker unit, which can construct improvements on the land outside your city. In previous Civs these improvements were limited to a handful (road, farm, and mine), but now there are a plethora of different resources and improvement options at your disposal. For example, you can now build windmills atop hills, watermills on rivers, wineries in vineyards, and much more. It can seem a dizzying array of choices, but thanks to automation, all you have to do is let the artificial intelligence take control of your worker, and it will go about building the best available option on each square, as well as link your cities together by roads.

One of the new concepts in Civ IV is that other civilizations need permission to cross your borders in peacetime, which means that under certain conditions you can fence off your rivals to large portions of the continent, letting you settle it at your leisure. On the flip side, the same thing can be done to you, in which case you may need to negotiate open borders so you can slip your settlers through a rival's territory to get to new land.

The combat system has undergone a lot of work from previous Civs. The new strength rating goes a long way toward determining the course of a battle. It may sound like a simple idea--the "stronger" a unit, the better its odds--but it's one that has eluded earlier Civs for some reason, as you can hear countless stories about a Stone Age spearmen unit defeating a modern-day tank. In Civ IV, strength goes a long way toward nullifying a lot of those situations, and we saw elite, modern-day Navy SEALs defend a city against waves of less advanced units.

You're also making decisions about your government, as well as your religion. Gone are the classic government "archetypes" found in previous Civs, such as democracy, communism, and feudalism. Now there's a civic system that lets you tailor various aspects of society (government, legal, labor, economy, and religion) in a number of ways.

There comes a new addiction. Damn Firaxis!

Game will be out at the end of next month.

 

[gofreak]

Mine mine mine!

 

[Suikoguy]

The deep gets deeper? Impossible!

 

[Unison]

... not loving that portrait... That style worked well enough in Pirates!, but it could get annoying in Civ.

Then again, who cares about graphics in Civ....

 

[Victrix]

The animated characters actually look surprisingly good in motion. I think there's a video on there as well that shows various parts of the gameplay.

I still think the terrain graphics, and to a lesser extent, unit graphics look amazingly bad (worse than Civ3 in some cases). The terrain especially just looks so bland.

But as you said, the graphics for Civ4 don't really matter. I'm taking a wait and see on this one. Civ3 was fun, but it had some really lame gameplay issues. The way they're talking about this, they really went after some old Civ standby dumb features, and they're trying to push it in a few new directions. Hopefully the new directions are good, and the old issues are no longer present.

 

[Tiktaalik]

are all those little villages actual towns or are they just part of the big town in the first screen shot? They're really really close so it seems sort of weird.

Finally it seems like they're getting the borders and diplomacy right. That was the most annoying thing about CIV2 was having the other civilizations always tromping around in your territory and you couldn't do anything about it except go to war with them.

 

[SpoonyBard]

The screen looks a bit busy, with all those little houses and stuff, but it could be just because it's zoomed that close...

 

[Vark]

The animated characters actually look surprisingly good in motion. I think there's a video on there as well that shows various parts of the gameplay.

I still think the terrain graphics, and to a lesser extent, unit graphics look amazingly bad (worse than Civ3 in some cases). The terrain especially just looks so bland.

But as you said, the graphics for Civ4 don't really matter. I'm taking a wait and see on this one. Civ3 was fun, but it had some really lame gameplay issues. The way they're talking about this, they really went after some old Civ standby dumb features, and they're trying to push it in a few new directions. Hopefully the new directions are good, and the old issues are no longer present.

This is back in the hands of Firaxis. CIV III was a totally different developer. (edit, wait it might just have been they had to lease it back... there's some weird tomfollery about it though).

 

[Suikoguy]

This is back in the hands of Firaxis. CIV III was a totally different developer.

Shows how much I know about the series, hehe

Anyway thats good news!

 

[Vark]

okay yea...

Civ I and II were Meier, then 'Call to Power' was another studio entirely, then Hasbro bought Microprose and got the name back, then they developed Civ III AT Firaxis but NOT by Sid Meier (it was Jeff Briggs).

Then now Firaxis bought the liscense back from whomever had it (atari infrogrames at this point I think) and Sid is back as the lead designer.

In other news Alpha Centauri was actually Brian Reynolds but was still done at Firaxis.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Settler automation, how quaint. That never works right and eats turn advantage like a mofo. I do like the idea of lots of options for terrain improvement to enforce players to adapt to the land for maximum advantage, rather than the land adapting to the player's knowledge and rote exploitation of the game's systems.

The other three points that the OP mentioned where in SMAC in some degree years ago.

 

[Bigfonzie]

The terrain looks suprisingly bad, but if they can undo the wrongs of civ3 then this will be my new sugar daddy.

 

[8bit]

Oooooh, sounds interesting. I think voiceovers by Leonard Nimoy is the clincher for me though.

 

[Slo]

Can't wait for this one.

 

[MrPing1000]

Bring back the live action advisors!

 

[Rayven]

FYI, 2K owns the Civ IP.

 

[BorkBork]

okay yea...

Civ I and II were Meier, then 'Call to Power' was another studio entirely, then Hasbro bought Microprose and got the name back, then they developed Civ III AT Firaxis but NOT by Sid Meier (it was Jeff Briggs).

Then now Firaxis bought the liscense back from whomever had it (atari infrogrames at this point I think) and Sid is back as the lead designer.

In other news Alpha Centauri was actually Brian Reynolds but was still done at Firaxis.

Yeah I had Call to Power, was having a good time, until my fusion tanks were being defeated by phalanx soldiers. :lol Oh so unbalanced.

Bring back the live action advisors!

YES! I love those guys walking off during anarchy! :lol

 

[SpoonyBard]

okay yea...

Civ I and II were Meier, then 'Call to Power' was another studio entirely, then Hasbro bought Microprose and got the name back, then they developed Civ III AT Firaxis but NOT by Sid Meier (it was Jeff Briggs).

Then now Firaxis bought the liscense back from whomever had it (atari infrogrames at this point I think) and Sid is back as the lead designer.

In other news Alpha Centauri was actually Brian Reynolds but was still done at Firaxis.

I don't know if Meier had much to do with Civ 2, the design seems to be mostly done by Brian Reynolds.

 

[Nerevar]

This is back in the hands of Firaxis. CIV III was a totally different developer. (edit, wait it might just have been they had to lease it back... there's some weird tomfollery about it though).

... that's not true. Sid wasn't involved with it, but it was definitely Firaxis.

You might be thinking of Civilization: Call to Power of Civ: Test of Time. The issue was a lawsuit amongst various publishers regarding the rights to the names "Civilization", "Civ", and "Sid Meier's Civlization".

Edit: Just noticed you pointed this out. Despite Sid being involved in this one, it sounds like how Miyamoto is involved with modern day Nintendo products, not like he's getting his hands dirty like the old ones. I'm a little concerned, but I'll still buy it.

 

[DEO3]

I like the idea of building structures on the landscape, similar to how you'd do it in a RTS game. The graphics haven't really impressed me, at all, but then again it is Civilization so who cares? They've all looked like ass. :lol

 

[siege]

Sid Meier has little to nothing to do with the series anymore. They just stick his name on the box like they do with the Tom Clancy games.

I believe Soren Johnson is the lead designer behind Civ IV.

 

[Rayven]

I believe Soren Johnson is the lead designer behind Civ IV.

this is correct.

Sid Meier has little to nothing to do with the series anymore. They just stick his name on the box like they do with the Tom Clancy games.

this is not entirely correct.

 

[Optimistic]

Oh god it's so ugly!! Civ 3 looked really nice. Graphically this looks like a 3d Civ 2. ffs.

 

[joezombie]

They're talking up the games' modability a ton, so hopefully we'll get some mods to pretty it up in short order. The one thing I really hate is the borders, look awful.

 

[Tony HoTT]

I'm gonna pre-order this. I've stayed up all night playing Civ II and III and I this looks pretty good. It's not straying too far off from the formula or anything.

 

[swoon]

i really hope the screens give more information than they do now. right now they look pretty bad, which is fine i guess. but they don't give any information about the city. i'm also worried abou the increased micromanagement which the gamespot guy was more than happy to throw off onto the AI, but i mean civ 2 and 3 both had perfect blends of management i hope it doesn't get put all out of wack.


i'm really excited about real borders and civic questions. less exicted about the new "culture" wonders.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Will get this game. I loves me some Civ. PEACE.

 

[DEO3]

The units look a bit odd with the new 3D engine, being 30 stories tall and all...

 

[Rayven]

i'm also worried about the increased micromanagement

There are more systems at work (religion, civics), but there is actually less micromanagement. Almost everything can be done from the main view. No need to use secondary screen menus.

 

[Shogun]

I didn't like MOO3 as much because they made it so much more complex. This seems like the changes are more interesting though.