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

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Huh?

Claiming there's no evidence for the theory of evolution is as silly as claiming there's no evidence for the theory of gravity. But that has little bearing on the topic of this thread, which is why it was a good thing you used smilies to indicate you were only joking

[Solver]

- The output of resources can be increased by building tile imps on them. E.g. A windmill tile-imp allows you to gather more wheat. (Dodgy: In Civ3 you needed to build tile imps to harvest them at all)

Not dodgy, you can still perhaps gain extra output if you build something else. In Civ3, you don't need tile imps for bonus resources either, like wheat. So maybe a farm on Wheat will not give a standard +1, but +3. I guess that's what they mean.

- Each civilization will have a cultural and a national flag. (Dodgy: TWO flags? Screenshots only show one and two makes no sense whatsoever)

Probably a national flag and something like a cultural group which will be indicated somewhere by a flag. Say, Mesoamerican, Mediterreanean, etc. Culture groups like that were already done in Civ3.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Solver
Not dodgy, you can still perhaps gain extra output if you build something else. In Civ3, you don't need tile imps for bonus resources either, like wheat. So maybe a farm on Wheat will not give a standard +1, but +3. I guess that's what they mean.

In Civ3, you got 0 output from those resources if you didn't develop them. Presumably this is how it works in Civ4 as well, but that comment makes it sound very differently, so it's too confusing and misleading to put in this fact thread IMO.

Probably a national flag and something like a cultural group which will be indicated somewhere by a flag. Say, Mesoamerican, Mediterreanean, etc. Culture groups like that were already done in Civ3.

But why would a cultural group have a flag? And where do we see this flag? Based on the screenshots we've seen, all units carry flags, but they're all national flags. Again, 2 flags just doesn't make no sense. It's not entirely impossible and if some other source confirms this I'll add it.

But as I stated in the mission statement: magazines often post as much bullsh*t as factual info, so we have to be a bit critical about what to believe.


BTW, one thing I overlooked from the German preview and will add to the OP in a few moments:
- you will be able to create armies in CIV by stacking single units together. It is not clear whether these armies are just for moving around (as in Civ3) or also for coordinated combat (as in CtP)

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Locutus


Claiming there's no evidence for the theory of evolution is as silly as claiming there's no evidence for the theory of gravity. But that has little bearing on the topic of this thread, which is why it was a good thing you used smilies to indicate you were only joking

Well, I was joking, but I did have a serious hint in it too. But I didn't want to expand on it here. Besides, I'm hopeless in explaining myself properly in English.

[Solver]

In Civ3, you got 0 output from those resources if you didn't develop them. Presumably this is how it works in Civ4 as well, but that comment makes it sound very differently, so it's too confusing and misleading to put in this fact thread IMO.

If you worked a tile with a bonus resource in Civ3, you got the bonus production. I don't mean strategic resources like iron here, but bonus ones like wheat.

But why would a cultural group have a flag? And where do we see this flag? Based on the screenshots we've seen, all units carry flags, but they're all national flags. Again, 2 flags just doesn't make no sense. It's not entirely impossible and if some other source confirms this I'll add it.

I suppose it's visible in the culture advisor, possibly during diplomatic interactions or somesuch. A flag for a cultural group would be just an easy way of identifying which civ belongs to which group.

[Adagio]

The AI leaders will have distinct personalities (as reported); if your own actions in the game don't reflect the worldview of these leaders, they will get very angry at you.

What does it mean "if your own actions in the game don't reflect worldview"?
How I read this it says that basicly if you do nothing the other leaders will get angry at you

[Locutus]

If you worked a tile with a bonus resource in Civ3, you got the bonus production. I don't mean strategic resources like iron here, but bonus ones like wheat.

So it works exactly like other tile imps in other civ games then? Well, no need to make specific mention of it in that case

What does it mean "if your own actions in the game don't reflect worldview"?

Basically it means that if play like a warmonger and conquer your neighbours, and two of the other civs on the map are Gandhi and Genghis, then Genghis will like you and be willing to ally with you whereas Gandhi will hate you. OTOH if you play very peacefully and focus on building and research, Genghis will hate you and probably declare war before long, whereas Gandhi will love you and be more than happy to trade and exchange techs with you...

Or at least that's how I interpret it...



Anyway, someone who can't post here due to technical issues was kind enough to send me the screenshots from that German preview, as well as some additional information. The quality of the scans wasn't great, but I sure as hell won't look a gift horse in the mouth! Anyway, this guy is actually the original source, Michaelis Rex got his info from him as well but misunderstood a few things, which is why he contacted me.

Of course, I can't post the screenshots here (but I'll see about emailing it to a few other people here, give me some time), but I got some more info from them and together with the textual info they actually cleared up some things. The gist:

- One of the Wonders in the game is the Parthenon (requires Polytheism)
- One of the screenshots reveals part of the tech tree, I'll upload a copyright-free version of that in the opening post in a few moments
- Some new techs: Monotheism, Meditation (gives Buddhism), Priesthood; Polytheism leads to Priesthood, Monotheism, Literature and enables the Parthenon
- The 28 leaders are fixed to a Civ, so some will have one and others two leaders. E.g. if you play with the Germans, you can only play with Bismarck as leader, with the Americans you have a choice between Washington and Roosevelt.
- The article mentions 25 forms of government; presumably that means 25 civics...
- There are a total of 41 different types of military promotions possible
- Some of the Resources in the game:
*Rice
*Fish
*Bananas
*Pigs
*Horses
*Papyrus? (or something that looks like it)
*Cactus? (or something that looks like it)
*Gold
*Elephant
*Dye
*Sheep
- The Egyptian flag is yellow with a blue Eye of Horus; very appropriate if I may say so as a historian with an keen interest in ancient Egypt; the Chinese flag is purple with some unclear yellowish blob in the middle
- There seems to be a special 'satellite view' available that looks very much like Civ1: you see everything from high above.
- There exists an option to label resources to make them easier to spot (in the satellite view screenshot this option is enabled, if I understand the text correctly this mode can be toggled on and off at any point though). No more scrutinisingly scrolling over the entire map to find that one source of Iron source you need...
- Converting to a religion gives +1 Happiness in every city that has that religion (but at the cost of 1 turn of Anarchy). So the player can choose a 'state religion', resulting in certain benefits for cities with that religion, but not all cities in the empire may actually have the state religion -- there can be 'minority religions' as well, which don't get a happiness bonus (e.g. I reckon that conquered cities would typically have minority religions).
- Once a religion is founded in a certain city, it will gradually spread all over the world.
- You can zoom in and out with the mouse (presumably the mouse wheel, though this is not mentioned explicitly); you can zoom seemlessly right from the 'satellite view' to zooming in on individual buildings in a city
- There is no limit to the size of armies
- The entire map is animated, including rivers
- Certain technologies increase the output of tile imps
- The comment that some techs "can only be discovered in very specific ways" should be read as that there are different paths to discover the same tech. E.g. You can reach Chemistry by researching various 'industrial' advances, or you can reach it by researching 'scientific' advance. So apparently the tech tree has OR-gates as well as the traditional AND-gates (note that the aforementioned screenshot with the tech tree does not visibly show a difference, or maybe there are no OR gates in this part of the tree)
- The magazine claims a release date of September 2005, though as I have said numerous times before, don't believe release dates that don't come directly from Firaxis or 2K Games

I will update the first post with these details momentarily.

[Nikolai]

- Once a religion is founded in a certain city, it will gradually spread all over the world.

This sounds like one of the ideas of the old List.

- There is no limit to the size of armies

- The comment that some techs "can only be discovered in very specific ways" should be read as that there are different paths to discover the same tech. E.g. You can reach Chemistry by researching various 'industrial' advances, or you can reach it by researching 'scientific' advance. So apparently the tech tree has OR-gates as well as the traditional AND-gates (note that the aforementioned screenshot with the tech tree does not visibly show a difference, or maybe there are no OR gates in this part of the tree)

Sounds interesting. It might very well prove to work good.

- There seems to be a special 'satellite view' available that looks very much like Civ1: you see everything from high above.

That sounds...weird.

- There are a total of 41 different types of military promotions possible

What does that mean, really?

- One of the screenshots reveals part of the tech tree, I'll upload a copyright-free version of that in the opening post in a few moments

- Some of the Resources in the game:
*Rice
*Fish
*Bananas
*Pigs
*Horses
*Papyrus? (or something that looks like it)
*Cactus? (or something that looks like it)
*Gold
*Elephant
*Dye
*Sheep

Bananas!

- Converting to a religion gives +1 Happiness in every city that has that religion (but at the cost of 1 turn of Anarchy). So the player can choose a 'state religion', resulting in certain benefits for cities with that religion, but not all cities in the empire may actually have the state religion -- there can be 'minority religions' as well, which don't get a happiness bonus (e.g. I reckon that conquered cities would typically have minority religions).

And, depending on level of persequsion, a happiness penalty I guess?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Nikolai

As I noted earlier, armies may (and probably do) only serve for movement, not for 'combined attack' as in CtP or (in a very limited sense) Civ3. Things like that tend to get lost in translation...

That sounds...weird.

It looks quite neat really, very Civ1ish... (But since you posted your email several times already for screenshots, I'll make sure I'll mail them to you later, then you can see it for yourself)

What does that mean, really?

You know, things like being able to move on enemy roads, bonuses against specific types of units, bonuses attacking cities, etc.

Bananas!

And, depending on level of persequsion, a happiness penalty I guess?

It doesn't mention that, but I hope so!

[Nikolai]

Thanks for the reply, and the coming mail.

[Micaelis Rex]

Hello all.

Thanks to Locutus for helping me to spread the word about all this new exciting information to the civ community. All eight new screenshots have been uploaded to my website, you can get them there through the link you are already using.

Micaelis Rex

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Micaelis Rex
All eight new screenshots have been uploaded to my website, you can get them there through the link you are already using.

Excellent, I was hoping you would upload those

[Barinthus]

Nicccceee! But I don't understand the fuss over square coastlines?

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Micaelis Rex
Hello all.

Thanks to Locutus for helping me to spread the word about all this new exciting information to the civ community. All eight new screenshots have been uploaded to my website, you can get them there through the link you are already using.

Micaelis Rex

I don't have a link so please post it

[Adagio]

satellite view

I've been waiting for this since I discovered it wasn't in Civ2