Civilization 5!!!

[khanofmongols]

Ok I did a search and didn't see a thread on this so I thought I'd start one.

It is supposed to be out September 1st, this year.
New Features: Hexagonal Tiles, Only one unit per tile, and independent city states.

What do you think of the changes?

I personally think it would be awesome if someone made a geometrically circular map by changing 12 tiles into pentagons.

[Vox Imperatoris]

From what I've seen so far, I can't wait. I love the changes to combat: it always sucked in Civ, and I never had the patience for conquest victories before, so I'm looking forward to that. I can take hexes or leave them, frankly. I also think the fully voice-acted (in native languages!) diplomacy is going to be cool. The main issue, though, is whether they've gotten a better AI or not. That's going to make it or break it.

[aion7]

Civilization? I like him. (Pleased)

[Vox Imperatoris]

Civilization? I like him. (Pleased)

I see what you did there.

[Kizyr]

I'm planning to take a week off from work when this is released. It's gonna be great... KF

[infernovia]

I thought the shift was that you can only have one type of unit in a tile? Meaning you can mass units on a tile, if they are the same kind?

Some other large shift in the addition is the limited resources (you are only allowed to build x number of swordsmen from iron ore etc.) and the ability of ranged units to fire from more than 1 tile away. A lost battle doesn't mean the death of the unit. And also a unit cannot fight from a city tile, they merge with the city defense.

But anyway, super pumped for this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxMUjyxv9Q

Love the first quote.

[Coin]

I thought the shift was that you can only have one type of unit in a tile? Meaning you can mass units on a tile, if they are the same kind?

To quote the relevant thread on Civ Fanatics:
"Now only one [of] each type of unit (Millitary/Naval/Economic) [per] hex, this includes cities"

The only exeption to this:
"However, some unit types, like Air & Missile unit will be allowed stack on one tile allowing Aircraft Carriers and Missile Subs."

So, no, you will not be able to mass military units in the field in one square.

[zombie_monkey]

As someone who dreamed of new PC so he could play Civilization I at home, and not just once a week after class, which was the highlight of the week for me...

I like all the new features announced so far. I will finally be able to enjoy the military part
Hexagons, _finally_. I don't understand why they kept on using squares so long, for no reason. They cause some inconvenience and have no practical advantages I can think of.
I like the changes to the military game. Individual units will matter more and using terrain to your advantage will matter more.
-the fact that each instance of a resource will allow you to keep in your army only one unit of the type that requires it is _good_.
-units will be much more resilient, and a complete loss of a unit will be much rarer.
-archers shooting over a hex and modern battleships being able to bombard at a distance of five hexes seem pretty radical but make sense in the new paradigm.
-land units being able to transform into transport ships -- interesting idea, and I it can be implemented in a good way. I think this will improve naval combat and again make it more enjoyable for people like me who until now had as their biggest hangup about the series the tedium of the military game and the unit spamming.
Overall, I _like_ playing the military game, but the older games broke the interesting aspects of it to a larger or smaller degree.
No technology trading seemed radical and surprising, but having thought about it, I approve of it. But it seems part of the reason for its removal may be that units might start being upgraded automatically, rather than for a cost. We'll have to see more details on the unit/military/tech system to know it that's a bad or a good simplification. Pooling research with allies for a bonus will not require that you research the same tech at the same time.
Having social policies as a "social tree" similar to the tech tree, rather than the SMAC model -- I don't know about that one, we'll see if it's better or not. I have some reservations about this one, but it's complicated. But it could also be very good. Depends on the details a lot. But considering almost all other changes seem obviously good, I'm hopeful. If done well, it should be better than the SMAC model. EDIT: I read a bit more about it today, and it seems it will not be a tree as much as three separate paths on which you can advance separately, which makes me a bit worried. Still, let's see the details first.

In the end, this seems to be the game that will address my biggest problems with all prior Civ games. Can't wait.

* What I'm a bit worried is that they'll have high hardware requirements. That has always annoyed me a _lot_. I do. not. care. at. all. about graphics. I want to be able to play it on my laptop, please. They seem to be aiming at a minimum of a 256MB GPU. But I assume that's nvidia or ATI, not an integrated Intel. I simply won't buy it if it doesn't run well on my current laptop until I buy a new one, which could be quite some time. I don't have a problem with waiting longer for the AI to play a turn, but that's CPU/RAM dependent. The GUI should run fine on (at least) a three year old PC, and not jump around and be generally impossible. Or block for a minute when opening a stupid diplomacy screen. I don't want stupid gimicky animations, "native language" or "body language", I want the AI to be sensible with its diplomatic behavior. I think even dialog options are a bit gimmicky and overkill. I want a simple interface. Include those if you want but make it easy to get it out of my way and let me actually play.

[Jessica]

Civ's one of those games that I'll always get the next iteration of. Because it's always fun.

[Phen]

They could do anything and we'd still buy it. Of course, I know it'll be awesome. =D

[Xeio]

They could do anything and we'd still buy it. Of course, I know it'll be awesome. =D

Careful what you say, or next we'll get Civilization Societies.

Still, this looks to be good as usual. If it ain't broke, don't fix it as they say.

[Jessica]

They could do anything and we'd still buy it. Of course, I know it'll be awesome. =D

Careful what you say, or next we'll get Civilization Societies.

Still, this looks to be good as usual. If it ain't broke, don't fix it as they say.

That's not Maxis's fault, that's EA's fault for making everything they touch garbage.

[Meteorswarm]

Didn't Civ III have battleships that could bombard at range? I.e., 2 tiles away or so?

[nowfocus]

As much as I liked Civ 1 and Civ 2, and as much as I play Civ 3 & 4, I still can't rediscover the charm. I really wish the series moved more in the Alpha Centauri route. I'm glad they have a new dev on it, and the combat changes seem to make some sense, as well as the advisors. City-States also look like a much needed addition, and tech trading was out of control. Lets just hope cities can import food.

[WarDaft]

I really wish the series moved more in the Alpha Centauri route.

Agreed, I find AC greatly preferable to any of the Civilization games, it has so much more detail, polish, and creativity in it. I mean, you can raise mountains to create a rain shadow and starve out a large enemy city, and yet we fall back to completely flat terrain in Civ 3 and 4.

[BlackSails]

I really wish the series moved more in the Alpha Centauri route.

Agreed, I find AC greatly preferable to any of the Civilization games, it has so much more detail, polish, and creativity in it. I mean, you can raise mountains to create a rain shadow and starve out a large enemy city, and yet we fall back to completely flat terrain in Civ 3 and 4.

Also the diplomacy seemed much better (although it had its own stupidities).

And nukes actually did terrible things, like blowing a hole in the world, rather than reducing small villages to slightly smaller villages.

[Vox Imperatoris]

I really wish the series moved more in the Alpha Centauri route.

Agreed, I find AC greatly preferable to any of the Civilization games, it has so much more detail, polish, and creativity in it. I mean, you can raise mountains to create a rain shadow and starve out a large enemy city, and yet we fall back to completely flat terrain in Civ 3 and 4.

I wish they'd just make another Alpha Centauri (I don't think they can, legally, though they could do a spiritual sequel). You can't put the kind of amazingly detailed story SMAC had in a historical game like Civilization. (And they better put a Nwabudike Morgan type in it! )

[Jessica]

It would be cool if they did another AC, or a spiritual successor at least.

But, I still enjoy Civ for what it is.

[EmptySet]

I also prefer Alpha Centauri. Civ is still good, though, and I'm glad they're redoing the combat because it was pretty poor before.

[Amnesiasoft]

Why is my bank account $61.24 lighter all of the sudden?

[Keldaran]

nukes should be like the planet busters in alpha centauri, i mean that in the spiritual sense and not the literal sense of course, they should turn a couple squares in the area of the blast into desert and completely decimate the population and most structures. of course that would be completely overpowered and would half to have massive restrictions. like, fallout that lasts for a very long time and prevents resource collection in the area. nuclear bunkers should allow for citizens to live on in the form of a settler that moves very quickly in that first term and can only add to other cities to mimic survivors.

[Meteorswarm]

...but that's not how nukes work in real life. At least, the only samples we have are of the Japanese bombings, and people still live in/near those cities today, and it's clearly not desert, nor is it totally unusable.

Even Chernobyl is teeming with wildlife.

[nowfocus]

...but that's not how nukes work in real life. At least, the only samples we have are of the Japanese bombings, and people still live in/near those cities today, and it's clearly not desert, nor is it totally unusable.

Even Chernobyl is teeming with wildlife.

Those were the among the first two nuclear weapons produced. Surely the weapons of the 70-80s would be far more destructive.

[Vox Imperatoris]

...but that's not how nukes work in real life. At least, the only samples we have are of the Japanese bombings, and people still live in/near those cities today, and it's clearly not desert, nor is it totally unusable.

Even Chernobyl is teeming with wildlife.

Those were the among the first two nuclear weapons produced. Surely the weapons of the 70-80s would be far more destructive.

They wouldn't blow a gigantic hole in the planet, though (except for tiny atolls), nor would they cause global warming. The SMAC system is much better gamplay than Civ, though. And since they're "planet busters" instead of nukes, they can really be anything.

[Texas_Ben]

Those were the among the first two nuclear weapons produced. Surely the weapons of the 70-80s would be far more destructive.

Still not enough to go the whole "smoking crater" route, I imagine. I may be mistaken, but I believe that modern nuclear doctrine has nukes hitting hardened and high-value structures set to ground-detonate instead of detonating at altitude. And they were always aiming for primarily military targets and infrastructure. So while a nuclear attack isn't going to outright wipe a city off the map and turn it into a smoking crater, it is going to mess it up quite a lot. The game abstracts this by cutting the size down.

[nowfocus]

Still not enough to go the whole "smoking crater" route, I imagine. I may be mistaken, but I believe that modern nuclear doctrine has nukes hitting hardened and high-value structures set to ground-detonate instead of detonating at altitude. And they were always aiming for primarily military targets and infrastructure. So while a nuclear attack isn't going to outright wipe a city off the map and turn it into a smoking crater, it is going to mess it up quite a lot. The game abstracts this by cutting the size down.

Sure, thats why I specified that these weapons would be wouldn't be 'modern', but from a somewhat earlier time period.

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba#Analysis. The bomb would destroy an area over 20 times larger than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the article puts it, its 1,400 times more powerful then the combined nuclear weapons dropped in World War II. Not only would it completely depopulate a city larger than Paris, but it could cause third degree burns on people 100 km away.

Dropping one of those would essentially turn a city into a smoker crater.

[Meteorswarm]

Given that the Tsar Bomba was ignited in the atmosphere (which is what you do for city-wiping), I don't think it would leave much of a crater. While I don't disupte that it would destroy the city, I maintain that only a small area would be rendered uninhabitable, and certainly not desertified. Bombing has nothing to do with rainfall.

[Jessica]

Civ 3 would desertify a city. It wasn't really great when they did that. I'm happier with civ 4s nukes then civ 3s.

Since civ is the past/very near future, you have to deal with restrictions like "what could be done". Future stuff has less restrictions, which is nice, but it loses the playing someone from 4000 to now feeling that civ has, and the whole growing of an empire.

Oh well. Maybe they'll include an official mod with civ 5 which is like AC.

[bigglesworth]

For what it's worth, there's currently a Civ IV Alpha Centauri mod (as well as a Dune one).

I'm excited about this, though slightly unsure about the "one unit per tile" thing. Since a city is a tile, won't that make it so that a few units fighting would take up an enormous area?

[zombie_monkey]

Apparently they are doing away with sliders for money/research/(social spending), money and research will be generated separately.

[Kizyr]

I go back and fourth between Civ4 and Alpha Centauri. I actually really like them both, for different reasons, but I find myself playing Civ4 a lot more--less micromanaging, and more interesting/fulfilling for me. But admittedly, AC still has some really awesome features.

On the subject of nukes... Civ3 nukes were really... overuseful? My late-game strategy actually made extensive use of nuclear weapons--in order to conquer the remainder of a continent, I'd basically nuke every city possible of my opponent, swarm in with my units, then clean up the mess afterwards. Nukes were basically overpowered and the consequences were too minor.

Civ4 nukes, though, struck the balance right I think. The biggest consequence is political, not environmental, if you use only a handful. If you use a lot, though, then global warming sets in and all your cities get affected as well. Given the way Planet Busters work in Alpha Centauri, though, I don't think they really have much of a place in an ancient-to-modern setting like Civilization.

...my general late-game strategy in Alpha Centauri was pretty atrocious, too, though mostly because I always played Sheng-ji Yang and didn't think twice about getting in-character. KF

[EmptySet]

I found that by the late game, you generally didn't need to commit atrocities because all your technology was more than sufficient to manage your civ without it. Indeed, in many cases it was actually more effective to avoid atrocities, even if the UN Charter had been repealed. Though I suppose units with nerve gas pods can be helpful.

[Vaniver]

Yes.

I go back and fourth between Civ4 and Alpha Centauri. I actually really like them both, for different reasons, but I find myself playing Civ4 a lot more--less micromanaging, and more interesting/fulfilling for me. But admittedly, AC still has some really awesome features.

Same. Each has things it's better at- but it's almost criminal that a lot of the great features of SMAC aren't there, or only in a worse form, in later Civ games.

[Xeio]

Eeeeeeeeeeeeew, steamworks.

[Jupiter]

I neeeeed itttttt
I can't wait for this game :):)

[The Scyphozoa]

Everything except the hex tiles could have easily been modded into Civ4.

[bigglesworth]

Really? I think the engine would struggle with the nice new models.

[Vox Imperatoris]

Everything except the hex tiles could have easily been modded into Civ4.

If by "easily," you mean "theoretically and only by rewriting the game from the ground up," then yes. If you want to put it that way, all games that even use the same engine are just "mods."

[guale]

Everything except the hex tiles could have easily been modded into Civ4.

If by "easily," you mean "theoretically and only by rewriting the game from the ground up," then yes. If you want to put it that way, all games that even use the same engine are just "mods."

Actually a good number of the most talked about changes have been modded in to Civ 4 in one form or another. The capability to limit tiles to one unit per tile was shown in the Afterworld Scenario. Archer units attacking from a range has been included in just about everything. That said there are also plenty of changes other than just the hex tiles that couldn't be modded.

[CombustibleLemons]

Everything except the hex tiles could have easily been modded into Civ4.

If by "easily," you mean "theoretically and only by rewriting the game from the ground up," then yes. If you want to put it that way, all games that even use the same engine are just "mods."

Actually a good number of the most talked about changes have been modded in to Civ 4 in one form or another. The capability to limit tiles to one unit per tile was shown in the Afterworld Scenario. Archer units attacking from a range has been included in just about everything. That said there are also plenty of changes other than just the hex tiles that couldn't be modded.

The modding community is probably any developers first idea bucket. People who think of ideas make them and test them for free is pretty good for the company.