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

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Myrddin
Don't want to throw too much cold water on some interesting comments, but my take on the PC Zone screenshots is that the banner with a skull on a black background is possibly a Firaxis in-house one for multiplayer; as it also appears over a unit which consists of 3 lions

Maybe I have missed a related post, so please forgive me in advance!
My opinion is that a skull equal to a "barbarian" kind of unit OR any other enemy-like units as.. wild animals!

Anyone remember first Age of empire Lions? Better to avoid to send scouts and settlers into the wild without enough military escort, it seems.

Well, may be scouts will have a special defensive bonus agains wild animals...

my 2 euroCent.

[Toby Rowe]

Hi all,

I was hoping that the religious model might be relaxed a bit more in Civ 4:

I view or read about religion daily, usually in terms of how many people died in a bomb.
First the IRA, now the fanatics who claim to be Muslim: but are really just curs (dogs).

A different approach to religion in times like these might be good.

On matters Muslim, as an agnostic Catholic, were it not for the Arab nations, most of what we Christians know know about Greecian and Egyptian culture, science, politics, navigation and philosophy would have been lost, were it not for those early unwelcome invasions of Europe, and us lot in the Northern states remained ignorant throughout, for 600 more years.

So giving science penalties to different types of religion (eg) is just null and void if you view all religions within the Civ time frame.

If Buddism is to be introduced, then surely any nation adopting it will eventually be owned by another, the Arabs will control the seas, and battle often with China, Northern Europe will still live in wooden huts and raid each other........Religion in Civ was fixed and didn't change.

A unique religion you create by your attitude and actions: That would be good.

Personally I'd rather bin it and programme in Government style consequences and give us all a break from religion when playing- as we all see how many died due to it on the news in the real world daily.

Darwin? I've never understood why he causes so much grief to religious people- If God put all creatures on the planet, then over thousends of years they will breed in survival instincts, including changing body shape and food preferences over time.

That BBC programme recently about the dwarf people discovered (remains) on a pacific island fits the bill perfectly- They evolved into tiddlers as the largest died off because food was scarce and in mini form only- even the elephants were "knee high to a grass hopper"

Toby

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Toby Rowe
Darwin? I've never understood why he causes so much grief to religious people- If God put all creatures on the planet, then over thousends of years they will breed in survival instincts, including changing body shape and food preferences over time.

Probably because Darwin says a lot more than that (i.e. common descent) and because it contradicts a literal reading of certain scripture. And we're talking millions of years, not just thousands, anyway.

[uniteatteri]

Originally posted by TechWins


It only caused that little thing called World War I, not important at all.

Triggered, not caused.

[Adagio]

You might want to update the first post with this info from this thread

Originally posted by Soren Johnson Firaxis
btw, just wanted to clarify something... the unit you see there is not a Civ2 caravan-type unit. It is a Great Person (specifically a Merchant). It does have some Trade Mission functionality, but you can't just build these units, so micro-management is not really a problem.

[Locutus]

ADG,

I'd seen it myself, but was just too busy to update sooner. But thanks for the heads-up anyway...


Opening post updated:

- Added some info on Great People: Great Merchant == Great Tycoon, can create trade missions. GPs are invisible, have 2 movement points, and Aretas III (ruler of Petra) is one of them.

- new Advance: Bronze Working.

- new Unit (or rather unit stats): Crossbowman (6 strength, 1 MP).

- new Resource: Cow.

- The Persian flag has now been seen in greater detail. A black scimitar on a light blue background.

- Theory of Civ2-like Caravan trading is proven false, by Soren himself (as quoted by ADG)

[TechWins]

Originally posted by uniteatteri


Triggered, not caused.

You make your first post for that?

[Maniac]

Actually he's making a very good point. The assassination of the Austrian crown prince didn't cause World War One at all...

[Toby Rowe]

Yes it did,

Except it was a War the British Government REALLY wanted, so did the Germans, just not as much, but both for entirely different reasons:

For Britain WW1 destroyed the fabric of the nation, whilst WW2 destroyed the wealth of it.

The last repayment of US exports when we stood alone in WW2 was in 1997: Britain repaid the US for evey bullet, fools that we are. whilst the Marshal plan rebuilt the rest of Europe.
To then compete with the British industry, saddled by ancient machine tools we no longer have. but "had to do" back then.

The US Government quite rightly persued it's own industrustial agenga in WW2, as Britain did in WWI against the Germans- the bullet in Serbia realy was a godsend to our government and Austria has nothing to do with it, it was a German- British War, the minute it began, all other nations became unimportant.

WW2 was about liberty, not goods, but the Yanks refused to join until both Hitler and Japan forced them.
Toby

[GeoModder]

Actually, you're saying that the assasination triggered it, not that it caused it.

It triggered a war that both those governments wanted.

[joncnunn]

Yes, both the govts wanted it, but they needed some excuse that would be plausible with their populations.

The assasination wasn't quite enough even in Austria, they had to go thru the motions of sending an ultimanum that included terms they knew would be completely unacceptable to Serbia with an extremely short time line (24 hours) instead of just attacking.
From there, though it was really quick: Russians wanted in to protect their brothers the Serbians. Germans wanted in to protect their brothers the Austrians. UK & France govts just said we have an MPP with Russia, and so we are honor bound to declare war on any country that invades it.

The Austrian-Hungarian empire deal have enough role to play in the WWI, after Italy declared war on them, the Austrian-Hungarian empire actually invaded Italy.

And got not where, and in fact the Germans had to divert four divisions to that border when they would have been much more useful on the French front.

The UK also made their own major blunder; they had a landing on Greece that didn't get much off the beach at all.

These blunders though pale in comparision to both Japan's and Germany in WW II:

The US was planning on sending most of their help to fight the Germans and not the Japense, when the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. (The US was expecting the Japs to attack the Phillapens instead.)
Then the Germans made the blunder of declaring war on the US when the US had only declared war on Japan. Without that declaration, all that equipment that went against the Germans would have gone against Japan.
The 1940 US Congress prior to Pearl Harbor was an isolationist one until Pearl Harbor shattered it.

[Locutus]

OP updated (one of many in the next few days, I'm sure):

Religion:
- Judaism
- One city can have several religions

Civs
- Spain > capital is Madrid
- Russia > capital is Moscow, flag is orange with black double-headed eagle
- England > capital is London
- Germany > capital is Berlin

Units
- Settler
- Swordsman?
- Legion?
- Camel Archer (Arab UU?)

Terrain
- Iron resource?

UI
City shows both with graphics and text what it's building. Capital is indicated by a star.
Defensive bonuses of a city are shown on the main map (e.g. +25%)

Satellite view actually shows earth as being round
Satellite view has option to shows units as icons, much like it can do with resources

Misc
Giza Pyramid under construction as box art

Team Play - Whether playing multiplayer or single player, team play offers a new way of setting locked alliances that result in shared wonder effects, visibility, unit trading, and shared territory that delivers a plethora of new strategic and tactical options.

[Adagio]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/614/614551p1.html

We will also be including many Civs that are either new or usually saved for expansions like the Incas or the Aztecs or the totally new Mali. In all there will be 18 Civs in the shipped version of Civilization 4

18 Civs? What happened to the last Civ?

[Nikolai]

From the IGN preview:

Aside from "the usual major powers like France, Germany, England, America, China, Japan, etc.", there will be "many Civs that are either new or usually saved for expansions like the Incas or the Aztecs or the totally new Mali."

"[...]culture is alive and well in Civilization 4 but it has been tweaked a bit."
-No minumum culture when founding a city.
"You will have to develop your culture or risk being enveloped by a larger neighbor. This leads to the interesting possibility of creating a Luxembourg or Switzerland completely engulfed by another Civ's borders. We also tweaked Civilization 3's luxury slider and turned it into a culture slider. Raising the culture level makes people happier and helps produce more culture for your entire Civ."

"[...]the AI will have to respect your borders or declare war but you will be able to negotiate Open Borders to allow travel."

"Some of the new resources, like marble, help to increase wonder production, some are food resources (these help with the overall health of your cities), and some, such as iron or copper, allow you to build certain types of units."

Food trading possible!

On religion(and civics):
"Also, just like the Civics, AI leaders may try to get you to convert to their religion."

Less number of different units.
However,"[...]there are some units that haven't been part of previous versions like Grenadiers and Horse Archers and War Elephants that are not specific to only one Civ."

On trade:
"In Civilization 4, you get automatic trade routes after you establish a trade agreement with a particular leader. Also, rivers work like roads so two cities on the same river are connected even if no roads have been built."

On intelligence:
"We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related. You will, however, create spy units and move them around as you did in previous versions of Civilization. In diplomacy, you will be able to broker peace between two warring Civs or ask a Civ to go to war with another even if you are not currently at war with that Civ."

In addition to the old victories(and the tweaking of the cultural victory), a new one is added; the Alliance victory.

Firaxis is "hiring voice talent for various parts," and are "happy to announce the return of wonder movies..."45 of them.

On the progress of the game development:
"Internally, we have 38 on the team working directly on various aspects but we also have some work contracted out and several interns coming on board for the summer. We started working on the game about 2 years ago and expect to have it in stores for the holidays."

On how much which is left:
" From a design standpoint, all major systems are in and Soren Johnson (our lead designer/programmer) is spending the majority of his time working on the AI. We have a lot that's looking great already but we still have some art and programming to go before we will be ready for full test this summer."

[Locutus]

I got a LOT of new info from the interview (which I found immediately after my last post here), but it doesn't fit in the first post anymore. I'll start a new thread in a moment and will have it topped ASAP. This one will be dropped and probably closed.