What's in Civ4. Just the facts, ma'am.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Max Sinister
Oh, and BTW: Shouldn't you actually have the words "scripting language" somewhere around your "Polish sausage" site to make Google file it under "scripting language"?

Yes, I know, I didn't write a book on the subject, but must I really always state the obvious just to have people keep from questioning my statements like this?

[MegaRush415]

d

[Addled Platypus]

from the latest issue of PC gammer pg 26 D.J. Release meter

not in Feb or March, like Locutus says "late 2005"
but before X mas I hope

[Roman]

Making pollution affect health instead of polluting tiles that you need to clean up sounds like a very good idea. Getting rid of maintenance, however, sounds rather ominous. Maintenance was a good concept and the implementation was good too. As for corruption/waste and rioting, I feel sort of neutral about it - I thought these features were better than not having them and the implementation was OK, but less then perfect, so it remains to be seen what they come up with. Removing maintenance, though, really mystifies me - it was fun, balancing and did not require micromanagement.

On another note, considering that the game is to be released by the end of 2005, there seems to be too little information available - don't you think?

[Adagio]

Yep, usually there's tons of screenshots avaliable for a game a year before release... I wouldn't be suprised if they push the release date to early 2006 instead

[Peter Triggs]

Getting rid of maintenance, however, sounds rather ominous. Maintenance was a good concept and the implementation was good too. As for corruption/waste and rioting, I feel sort of neutral about it - I thought these features were better than not having them and the implementation was OK, but less then perfect, so it remains to be seen what they come up with. Removing maintenance, though, really mystifies me - it was fun, balancing and did not require micromanagement.

I agree. The only thing I can think of is that they might have replaced maintenance with a population cap as in RTS games like RoN. This could replace the balancing effect of corruption, too. Instead of making it more difficult for the player to keep churning out units, you just stop him cold. If so, we'll just have to see how it plays out.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Adagio
Yep, usually there's tons of screenshots avaliable for a game a year before release... I wouldn't be suprised if they push the release date to early 2006 instead

This is a distinct possibility.

Oh well, it is better than if they released an incomplete or excessively buggy game.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Peter Triggs
I agree. The only thing I can think of is that they might have replaced maintenance with a population cap as in RTS games like RoN. This could replace the balancing effect of corruption, too. Instead of making it more difficult for the player to keep churning out units, you just stop him cold. If so, we'll just have to see how it plays out.

Ouch, I hope that does not happen! I cannot stand population caps, or other 'hard/direct limits'. I much prefer dynamic, indirect limits, such as maintenance. Hopefully they will either reconsider removing maintenance, or replace it with another dynamic balancing feature, rather than an outright cap. Maybe (hopefully) they will simply subsume maintenance under another concept - just like they are subsuming pollution under health (and thank God for that - cleaning up polluted tiles was rather annoying - much better to change the pollution system so that its effects are at a 'global level' and do not require micromanagement), but I still do not understand why they are even changing it at all, since it worked so well in previous Civilization games. There are many other aspects of the game that could be improved by changing them, but although the unexpected is always possible it is hard to see how they could make maintenance better. I hope they release more info on this matter soon.

[Elias]

Im hoping for the new polution model to affect health, that would be a vast improvment over civ3. The no more matinance thing has me a bit worried, although the civ3 model was far from perfect it was a step in the right dircetion. I think they can replace the corruption with somthing more efficent and realitic. What I want most though is a little adviser screen where you can change all what you civ stats like in CTP(but with more options). It would be awsome if they used that screen to change public heatlh, corruption and happnies all in a single screen. maby even manage it on a city level if you have to fix a single city.

[orange]

i got an eerie deja vu just now

First off, thank you Locutus for this excellent thread. really helped catch me up to speed on where things are at with Civ 4!

I remember a few years ago when Civ 3 screenshots first were released, with the attached "don't worry! This is not what the game will look like!", and we all sighed with relief...and then the game came out....and the game was the screenshots.

If Civ 4 looks anything like those screenshots, it will not be much fun to look at in my opinion.

[Nikolai]

You seriously can't have seen the first civ3 screenshots...

[Shogun Gunner]

The first civ3 screenshots were released early -- just like the civ4 screenshots.

[sirsnuggles]

I'm scared about 3d too.

I still have to say that Civ 1 had probably the best map view

I have to agree. Isn't that funny. That the simplest graphics were the best. I couldn't stand civ2 at first. Took me forever to appreciate it. In fact, I spent the last year of playing civ2 by entirely modding every conceivable graphic possible.

Civ3 graphics were okay, but still hard to see. Sometimes when I dream at night, civ1 graphics still pop up in my mind.

[JosefGiven]

Originally posted by Locutus
If you want to be brought up-to-date from last February, I recommend reading the entire OP.

The what? Sorry?

[Locutus]

Opening Post.