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Apolyton CIVILIZATION IV PREVIEW (by MarkG)

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  • Apolyton CIVILIZATION IV PREVIEW (by MarkG)


    Setting up a custom options game

    Introduction

    It was mid-July when I got my hands on the Civilization IV CD, as a member of the beta testing team. My initial plan was to play the game fully for a month and then write this preview to be published by late August. Well over a month after my self-made deadline I've got to admit that I find playing Civ4 more fun than writing about it. But JUST FOR YOU I dropped Civ4 to write this!

    The Right Beginning

    Opening the game starts your path into the new 3D world which has been shown already in tons of screenshots in recent months.

    It is when you actually enter the game you started that things begin to not only look but feel different. You'll quickly find out that there is no context right-click menu as right click is used to move units. Not to worry ' there's an option to change that. In fact you'll find that there are plenty of gameplay & interface options...

    The Emperor's Interface

    The interface carries a blue transparent styling, escaping from the traditional stone, rock or marble designs that we have seen a thousands times in strategy games.

    Looking around you'll notice that at the top of the screen you have the (typical) gold information on the left, the current technology being developed in the center and some quick-access-to-screens buttons on the right. The technology info has a nice feature: clicking it allows you to change what you develop instantly. This won't make you loose the progress you have made in discovering your previous technology though. The points you have gathered for that technology will be there waiting for you when you choose to develop it later. You might actually find you won't be using the buttons on the right much as there are keyboard shortcuts for all of them (at least I did).


    Drawing lines and naming locations on the globe view

    Soon enough you also find out that you won't be using the city screen much either (Solver disagrees, but hey, what are friends for?). It's still there, presenting all the info about the city, but single-clicking on the city name gives you the build order interface so you don't need to go in and out of the city screen. Useful keyboard shortcuts (there are about 100 of them in total!) in the build order interface are SHIFT-click for inserting at the top, CTRL-click for inserting at the bottom and ALT-click for endless building of a single item (cavalry factory! ). Also, simply moving your mouse over a city will display information on how fast it's growing/building, how much resources are collected, culture/great people status, etc.

    But what will happen when your hordes of cavalry are created? Developer, Firaxis Games, saves you precious time in your life by adding rally points. Each city can have its own or you can mass select cities (CTRL-click on a city selects all your cities, ALT-click only the ones on the same continent) and assign their rally points at once.

    In the end, the ultimate new interface additions are sign posts (e.g. you get to place name locations ) and lines (yes, you can draw your strategic plans on the map!) on the globe view's strategy mode.

    Le Grande Religion of Workers


    Detailed city information pop-ups on mouse over a city. Notice also "quick city build orders" interface

    Warning: You shouldn't take the following part of this feature as a thorough look at Civ4's gameplay. Read Solver's lengthy feature in a few days for that

    Anyway, if you're still reading here goes: Great People are great. They add a whole new level of options and thus possible strategies and new paths to victory. It is also one of the ways ICS becomes less successful as you need big cities to spawn these guys.

    Religion is fun as well. You need to discover certain techs first, in order to found each religion and then you get (happiness and culture increasing) buildings and the missionary unit to expand it. If a civilization adapts your religion as the state (official) one, their leader will like you. If he has a different religion he will hate you. Yes, you can have an atheist civilization ' just don't select any religion as the state one. More things to consider' Two things seem to be missing: being able to name your own religion ("Apolytonism!" ) and having more info on the percentages of each religion in cities with more than one faith.

    A great new feature in Civ4 is that you can automate workers (ok, so it's not so new ). The difference is that automation works much better now. This is quite crucial as resources don't just have to be connected to your road network. They also have to be gathered by building specific terrain improvements on them.

    War and Diplomacy


    The AI is in a tight spot and asks for peace

    On the issue of unit promotions through combat victories, I have a statement to make: I'm a (shameless) casual player, I never micromanaged each and every city's working tiles in Civilization II and I almost always had (have) my workers automated in Civ3(4). Similarly, I'd like not to have to deal with unit promotions. But wait, that's been dealt with ' there is an 'auto promotions' option. Beyond that, unit promotions allow you to evolve your units, partially customize them and' be more careful with them, for two reasons. First, it's hard to get many promotions on a unit and second, all units are upgradeable. You can have a unit built in 2000BC and through upgrades, keep the unit with promotions until 2000AD!

    After SMAC (which had the advantage of having a 'UN' from turn 1) Civ3 seemed like a step back for diplomacy. Civ4 improves things with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) being more active, suggesting treaties, declaring war when it sees you're weak, asking for tech trading, asking for help against enemies, etc. etc. Not only that, but at last you have more information on how the other civs feel. Various things (good trade relations, close borders, different or same religion or civic choices etc.) affect each AI's stance towards you negatively or positively, and at all times you have exact feedback on that. One thing missing in the diplomacy department is SMAC's surrender option, but just wait: Apolyton Mod Bounties are coming soon to a browser near you .

    Another influence from SMAC is the Civics model, which replaces governments. In specific cases you will really find yourself trying to speed science advances towards a certain civic-enabling tech. Tons of combinations are of course available, but some popular ones will certainly come up sooner or later after the release.

    The WOW Effect


    Most recent version of the Replay screen

    We have wonder movies. We have a cool intro movie that escapes the classic 'history of the world in 40 seconds' concept. We have a throne room. We have voice-overs when a new technology is discovered. We have pigs and cows moving around on the map. We have hundreds of MBs of music of varying genres to listen to, including classical. We have end-of-game replay with a full log of events that you can also watch after the game is over. Oh yes, we also have the whole world in full 3D and we can see our (conquered) world spinning...

    I guess the only thing missing is Elvis arguing with the hot diplomacy advisor. Expansion pack, Sid?

    I want to MOD the world!

    A lot has been said about the modding abilities of Civilization IV. There are:

    1. An in-game map editor
    2. All game settings information on notepad-editable XML files
    3. Graphics using non-closed formats like .DDS and .TGA
    4. Python scripting everywhere from events to map creation algorithms
    5. C++ SDK coming early 2006

    More important than perhaps all of this though, is that many of the Civ community's best creators are part of the beta testing team Firaxis put together, and have had the game in their hands for a long time now. This alone creates a major head start for the Civ4 modding community. In fact, additions to the in-the-box tools and resources will be available on Release Day.

    Some great examples of Civ4's modding powers will be seen in the included scenarios. At least 4 historical scenarios (with familiar as well as new themes) will be in the box, with Firaxis probably releasing more post-release. And yes, a world map IS included. No, dinosaur units won't be included.

    Excuses

    I haven't mentioned so far:

    1. Multiplayer: I'm not a MP person, so I can't really say much. I played a single game with Solver six weeks ago through direct IP connection (not the in-game GameSpy Arcade-powered system) and it went smoothly.

    2. Performance: This aspect is still based on a beta experience, so I can't comment. You are going to need a DirectX 9 compatible graphics card to play at good speeds (although older cards will run the game as well), but beyond that Firaxis has several options available for people without the latest ATI or nVidia. I hope to have an almost-gold version of the game before release to post an update on this.

    3. Balance: As I've said, I'm a simple Civer. I haven't beaten deity since Civilization II. So, I'm not the best person to judge whether air units are overpowered or other stuff like that. We'll have pre- and post-release features on that by other people though.

    Conclusion

    You really need an ending paragraph? I want to get back to Civ4. Asoka hates my guts and is about to declare war on me. OK, fine. Firaxis has done it again. Civilization IV is a refreshing upgrade (not update) for the Civ genre. The new features will require several months for old and new players to master. The open architecture ensures a long life for the game, even if Sid decides to do a remake of F15 Strike Eagle and Civilization V is a failure because Soren wanted to include a non-optional shoot'em up mini-game during combat (what do you mean 'this sounds like a cool idea'??)

    So, without further delay (of my game),
    Long Live and Prosper Civ!

    Tags: reviews, civilization 4
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