First Civ 4 Screenshots!

[Max Sinister]

OK. So we'll have groups of little people instead of one person representing armies. I wonder whether the number of people would equal the "life points" of a unit.

Somehow, Civ is becoming more like Warcraft (judging only from its new look). Similar as with the German game "The Settlers 5". (Many old fans criticized that.)

The second screenshot looked as if there were little villages in the country outside the big cities. I wonder whether they represent worked tiles.

The old Civ3 screenshot with the units actually didn't look that bad, BTW.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Max Sinister
The old Civ3 screenshot with the units actually didn't look that bad, BTW.

As I said, it's not the quality of the shots compared with Civ 3's current state that I wanted to point out, simply the fact that they were so different from how things are now - things can change very rapidly when you have a large art team on staff...

[Donegeal]

Graphics, shmaphics. I don't play Civ for the graphics. I couldn't care less about the damn graphics. I'm more concerned about gameplay and layout.

Did anyone notice that the tiles are squares? And that the squares are NOT angled 45 degrees? Its a flat square just like Civ I.

Now for those that asked, it also does not look like hit point bars on the first screenie. Looks more like turns to completion and turns to growth.

Edited for typos.

[Jon Shafer]

There appear to be small green bars and a white dot above each unit in the first screenshot, though it's hard to tell...

[Brent]

I would actually prefer graphics more on the level of Civ1 or Civ2 because I don't see the point of the high system requirements, but I accept that other people want good graphics.

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by Trip
There appear to be small green bars and a white dot above each unit in the first screenshot, though it's hard to tell...

You're right. I hadn't noticed that. Personally, I really like the idea that the actual number of little guys standing that represented the number of hit point. You would certianly understand why elite units win that way....(but imagine what an Army would look like!)

[Jon Shafer]

Well, even though the shot is cut off, there appears to only be 3 graphical Warriors in the unit on the far right... you may be right there...

[Donegeal]

My question, what are all the dots and whisltes to the left of the city name?

[Jon Shafer]

People over in the CFC thread have pointed out the one directly to the left looks like a Buddha symbol... maybe that shows the city's religion?

The one to the right of that looks like a bunch of arrows. Not sure what that could mean though...

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by Trip
Well, even though the shot is cut off, there appears to only be 3 graphical Warriors in the unit on the far right... you may be right there...

There are also only three hopilites, and their "life bar" (?) is smaller and yellow.

[Adagio]

I don't mind the graphics so far... ok, it's not georgeus, but still ok I'd say... but I guess my oppinion on the graphics is based on what I expected it to be (I expected it to be much much worse than that)...

Originally posted by Max Sinister
Similar as with the German game "The Settlers 5". (Many old fans criticized that.)

Might be because so far the only thing it has in common with The Settlers is the name of the game

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Donegeal
There are also only three hopilites, and their "life bar" (?) is smaller and yellow.

There's 4 there actually... the fourth is at a funny angle and he's hard to see though. Had me fooled at first also... I was wondering what that weird circle was doing sitting in the middle of no where, but then I saw the Spear and the head.

[Donegeal]

Ah... I see it. They are fortified, defending each of the corners of the tile.

[Locutus]

I actually think the graphics look okay, especially the terrain. The cities and units leave room for improvement though.

Originally posted by Brent
I had thought that maybe they should have stuck with old code, I figured it worked well enough, but I guess there are things I want it to be able to do that it needed new code for?

With the old code it's impossible to do things like XML and Python, those have to be integrated from the start. Building it into an existing codebase later on is usually more work than starting from scratch.

About multiplayer, were they playing it in Civ3 early in development?

Since they didn't add it until the expansion packs, I'm guessing they didn't...

I guess i've kind of resigned myself to be content if there are only 8 civs.

A little more than that, I think.

All Civ games so far have had somewhere between 12 and 20 (from the top of my head) civs, I think it's safe to assume Civilization 4 won't be much different. But based on those screenshots all we know for sure is that the Germans are in

But if you were hoping they'd include 100 civs or more, yeah, odds are you're going to be disappointed. But you knew that, right?

Originally posted by Donegeal
Did anyone notice that the tiles are squares? And that the squares are NOT angled 45 degrees? Its a flat square just like Civ I.

Good point. I guess they can do that now that it's fully 3D, orientation doesn't make a difference then. Squares is more intuitive than diamonds.

Or maybe you can rotate the map and see them any way you like, like in Dungeon Keeper?

People over in the CFC thread have pointed out the one directly to the left looks like a Buddha symbol... maybe that shows the city's religion?

That makes sense.
The arrows vaguely remind me of a recycling symbol, but since the map only shows ancient units, that seems unlikely.

[Brent]

Didn't Civ1 have only 6 or 8 civs? I noticed the synopsis of new information didn't directly say anything about being able to add new civs when it talked about modding, but it did talk about creating worlds and historical situations. Maybe it would be more difficult to create new civs with the new graphics, but is it possible that there are any major editing functions that either Civ2 or 3 had that Civ4 won't? Or at least any major areas where the editability is seriously deficient?