"now game worlds sport raw materials that when sitting within a city's sphere of influence can be used for the good of the player's civilization...in firaxis' design the raw map resources tie directly into the gameplay [as opposed to CTP] rather than functioning strictly as a source of revenue raw goods can be used to build certain types of units or to make your citizens happier. you can also use them to amplify your power, and possibly even win the game...
[with the addition of culture into the game] "Libraries and other city improvements accumulate culture points for a civilization expanding their borders and influence. The older the library the more culture you accumulate. The more culture you accumulate the easier it is to happily assimilate conquered cities."

"Settler units have now been split into two the original settlers and terrain-improving Workers, who can be captured by other players."

[the addition of great leaders] "any time a unit wins a battle and gets promoted to veteran status there's a small chance a leader will be spawned. When this happens get the Leader back to a city without being captured and you can use him for three tasks he can build an army (essentially a stacked unit that fights all at once), form a Military Academy (which builds armies), or accelerate the construction of one building in your empire.
Depending on how the idea comes through in playtesting the design team is also toying with allowing Great Artists, Explorers, and Scientists to be born out of cities leading in each category."

it also mentions how the design team is using Brueghel's "Tower of Babel" as a design template. and there is way more. if you can find a copy DEFANITELY get it.

here is an excerpt of a table i didn't see on the first run through:
"
What's in:
multiplayer
Diplomatic and economic victories
Raw materials and trade
cultural expantion
borders and zone of control for swift units
great leader units
armies

What's out:
Supporting military units with shield units (its only gold now)
The city view [note: this is odd since one of the screenshots in the article is a "improved" city view]
Fundamentalism

What's Changing:
Health points for units
the space race end game
advisers provide more useful info
tech tree (which can be queued up)
civolopedia
diplomacy is more complex and converstaional"
[This message has been edited by shuttleswo (edited March 27, 2001).]

They are putting in lots of things that I have always wanted. It seems also like they are really listening to the trade/ressources discussion that we have been having.

"Material Goods

Each raw -good icon supplies an entire civilization with that particular good. Resources such as iron and uranium allow a civilization to produce certain goods. Luxuries such as ivory make the population happier. RULES One icon supplies all cities linked to each other by road or by harbor with that particular good. VALUE adds extra depth to the game's economic model in a tangible way. Allows players to create monopolies on certain goods within continents, in a sense becoming power brokers."

"Culture
Each civilization accumulates cultural points based on the types of city improvement built and how long they've been around. When one civilization takes over a foreign city a stronger culture rating will make the assimilation easier and avoid debilitating unhappieness. RULES If you build cultural improvements (a library, a wonder) early in the game these enhancements will generate cultural points the entire game. they may also expand your influence and your city boarders. Captured units retain their cultural identity. VALUE Creates extra tension and opportunity trade-offs around decision making. Gun-or-enhancement decisions become even more critical in the early game because of the cultural payoff. Also places more even emotional and functional value on older cities."

quote: Originally posted by raingoon on 03-27-2001 03:20 PM This is way cool. It seems like they've heard a lot of discussions we've been having, doesn't it? I suppose, being fans of the game themselves, they've been having the same discussions... Hey, shuttleswo -- anything about a more specific release date? How about a release year?

the last line of the article is as follows "with any luck, that sprint end this November or December" but that's the article's author talking not sid or jeff briggs (also quoted in the article) talking.

quote: Originally posted by shuttleswo on 03-27-2001 03:31 PM "Material Goods Each raw -good icon supplies an entire civilization with that particular good. Resources such as iron and uranium allow a civilization to produce certain goods. Luxuries such as ivory make the population happier. RULES One icon supplies all cities linked to each other by road or by harbor with that particular good. VALUE adds extra depth to the game's economic model in a tangible way. Allows players to create monopolies on certain goods within continents, in a sense becoming power brokers." "Culture Each civilization accumulates cultural points based on the types of city improvement built and how long they've been around. When one civilization takes over a foreign city a stronger culture rating will make the assimilation easier and avoid debilitating unhappieness. RULES If you build cultural improvements (a library, a wonder) early in the game these enhancements will generate cultural points the entire game. they may also expand your influence and your city boarders. Captured units retain their cultural identity. VALUE Creates extra tension and opportunity trade-offs around decision making. Gun-or-enhancement decisions become even more critical in the early game because of the cultural payoff. Also places more even emotional and functional value on older cities."

AMAZING!

The game sounds absolutely great. it looks like trade will finally work right in a civ game. Also, the idea of roads transmitting a ressource to other cities is wonderful.

quote: Captured units retain their cultural identity.

This is a sentence the leaps out at me. Those of us who remember back to the halcion days of the religion thread 2.0 have been waiting to hear more about how "culture" -- if not religion per se -- will be modeled in the game. Does this means every nation will have its own cultural identity? Apparently so, and that's amazing! But how does it affect the game?

That I would dearly love, i.e. different and peaceful ways of winning!

Check them out RIGHT NOW people. WOW WOW WOW WOW

The graphics are sooooo much better than civ2 and the city screen looks super good. You can see the complexity in the model but the interface is so smooth.

I AM SOOO EXCITED ABOUT THIS GAME!

I have a question: in the city screen, I don't see heads in the city radius. Has Firaxis dumped the "workers on tiles to produce ressources" system and replaced with something better? I hope so, I so hope so!

Except the map....that's not "bright" at all!!

Tks. for the screenshots.

About the city screen: did they get rid of workers on tiles? Can you adjust the production and food directly? They look like sliders, but I am not sure. I want to know!

The scans he posted are pretty accurate in terms of color. Maybe a tad darker than the mag. My first thought on seeing the terrain was "vibrant", especially the city-view.

But, has anyone else realized that the units depicted in the first screenshot, as well as in the last one, have nothing to do with the ones already posted by Firaxis at the official site?

Good things :

- City View!! Yeah!! Looks absolutely awesome...although I wonder, things like the aquaduct...will this disappear in modern ages? (Like when a sewer system is built) The fact that the city view screen is in the game makes me almost fall immeadiately in love with Civ3 (as if I wasn't already)

- Lighthouse Wonder (looks like it from city view)

- There will be advisors

Bad:

- There's going to be no Public works system...sigh

The unknown:

- Still nothing concrete on stacked combat (although it looks hopeful)
- How far along are these graphics?

Anybody from Firaxis want to comment?

With that said, having leader units appear (and possibly artitists, scientists, etc.) sounds pretty interesting. Culture sounds cool and more emphasis on economy/trade and such just tickles my ears.

My expectations for this game is much higher than CTP2. I suppose this is unfair but ...

quote: Originally posted by Zanzin on 03-27-2001 09:56 PM Kull, or shuttleswo, are the images (that shuttleswo posted) that "grainy" in the magazine? Or was it just the scanning?

it's probably a little bit of both, i saved the files as gif's to reduce the size of the files a bit, this causes them to loose some color, which consquently could make them look more grainy/darker or distorted. like i said, i really hope the CGW or Firaxis will post some better ones soon b/c any scan of a print magizine isn't going to be as good as a screen capture, no matter how big the file or detailed the scan. although the "city manager" view is really small and dark in the mag. the city view takes up nearly two pages and is clearly the 'money shot' of the article - the rest are small accent shots in the margin.

quote: Originally posted by yin26 on 03-27-2001 07:50 PM BTW, shuttleswo, are you studying at Ursinus College in PA?

Well, now that the cats out of the bag, as such, Firaxis might loosen up and post some nice screenshots.

I can understand that if the other pics were little ones then the quality is going to suffer. In "the early main map screen", would people agree that the city looks like a "castle" style?

If you've got it now, all the better for you. For those of you frothing at the mouth for screenshots, this will probably just whet your appetite, but nonetheless it should be worth the cover price.

Re: the quality of the screenshots: you're talking about images that were about 1.5" big in the magazine, then scanned in and blown up, so naturally they aren't going to look that great. =) I'm not sure if we're going to wait until the CGW issue hits the streets officially before we release screenshots or not, I'll let you know either way.

It's also worth stating just for the record that there is still a lot that needs to be put into the game, and things are changing all the time, so the standard disclaimer ("this product is in development and may look differently when it's finished") is very much in force.

Anyway, hopefully this has put to rest some of your fears about the game. As I've said for some time now, I think this game is going to be the best Civ game ever.

Some Questions:

Is the city background on the page with the title "Extra Dimensions of CIVILIZATION" the new city view?

Will the 3-D map (a la SMAC) return?

quote: My concern is that nobody has said anything negative yet.

Actually, I did. But I'll make it clearer:

I am NOT impressed with these screens at all. They look worse than Civ2 if you ask me. Of course, I am banking on two things:

1. A blown-up scanned image distorting things.
2. These are still shots of a alpha or early beta at best.

I can only imagine that the graphics will be much improved over what we see here or the let-down will be severe. And anybody who's played these sorts of games knows that those pretty units you see in their full glory on a website don't look nearly as impressive when shrunk down and pasted on the actual playing field.

So I'll reiterate amidst all these over-excited posts that I see nothing here to be so excited about. I do believe, however, this is just an ulgy first showing.