New Close-up Screens at Gaming Horizon

[Ninot]

I like your idea for states Yin, except for one problem.

In the late game, if the player screws up and gets himself invaded and loses everything except for one state (and is noble enough to finish the game rather than quit), would it be as simple as flicking a switch to get the micromanagement back? Would the entire state thing be optional or enforced by government/era?

[yin26]

Wow. Civ 2.7 really has your hair standing on end! Tell you what, if I drop that designation, will you continue (like you just did) to address me without the personal attacks. That would be great! Thank you in advance.

For what it's worth, I think some of what Civ 4 is doing is going in the right direction. I just wish they'd really make the move to something like I've described above. You know. A true Civ but a lot more innovative. Sorry if asking for this bothers people.

[yin26]

Ninot: Good question. I have to run now but will be back to post some ideas. I bet you have some, too. Love to hear them.

[Robert]

yin: why don't you reply in dept to my arguments?

two simply questions: do you really think that civ4 is close to civ1/2/3 after the list I just made?

and: do you think that doom3 is further from wolfenstein 3D then civ4 from civ1? is the sims2 more original from the sims then civ4 from civ3?

and again: if you aren't waiting for a civ sequel, why are you here?

Oh wait, another question: weren't you one of the people who were angry because Firaxis moved on with civ3 and removed the ancient civ2-wonder movies from civ3?

[H Tower]

talking about the screenshots again...

Did anyone else notice that the trains in Civ4 will have a hard time getting from place to place?

[Darkstar]

The problem is one of scale. How do you scale between a small village and that of a world spanning empire and operate equally good or bad at all levels?

Cities are only important to the Civ model because they are where you turn tile resources into other resources (money, research, production (= units, wonders )). They are supposed to be "economic regions", but the actual regions that a city represents don't grow (they do not scale up and down dynamically). So we are left worrying over tiles to maximize our game play, focused purely at how the local city can use it, regardless of what stage of the game we are at. But there are ways to fix that.

Off the top of my head I can think of a simple system to do so. Programmatically speaking, a bit of cellular automata and a bit of nodal processing and we'd be in business. Each tile is just a simple cell. We check to see if it is validly "connected" to a tile harvestor/processor. If so, we connect it, rinse and repeat. That forms a civilization's resource nodal network. (We can do this for other things then just owned tiles, including proper links between production, trade, etc.) By tracking the major branch points and hubs, the computer could then determine a functional center for a branch, and that would be our regions. Adding and removing nodes (due to cultural influence expanding, being lost, conquering new cities or territories, etc) could all be taken into account trivially, and regions would then automatically expand or split as the game progresses.

That would provide organic growth. Hummm... For instance, trade cities could pop up at cross-roads between major centers or trade terminals (ports) or resource processors (ie, sawmills, factories, steel mills). And those trade cites could then grow into regional centers themselves, if the player invests a lot of his national interest in the region (ie, building a research center, several factories, and an armory).

This means: You can advance from your starting village, to a set of independant city-states, and then to an actual nation compromised of many cities and villages (as well as other tile decorations/resources). You've gone from the "charismatic street sweeper" to the "greatest amoung equals" to "living-god-incarnate emperor". From the player's point of view, it looks like the scale has changed. But to the computer, it's still all the same throughtout. Scale without worry.

Of course, I doubt we will ever see that sort of thing in Civ in the next 6 to 10 years. But if each Civ keeps advancing the game, step by step, then we might reach this kind of gameplay, eventually. But first, we got to get over the city fixation.

[Shogun Gunner]

at the train track graphic.

You need to have the Railroad Tycoon train collison movie file!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by H Tower
talking about the screenshots again...

Did anyone else notice that the trains in Civ4 will have a hard time getting from place to place?

[Aro]

Originally posted by H Tower
talking about the screenshots again...

Did anyone else notice that the trains in Civ4 will have a hard time getting from place to place?

I did...

Originally posted by Aro


I would like to see a train crossing this railroad.

here

[Imran Siddiqui]

CyberShy, I am shocked that you'd spread around such lies and try such machinations.

I haven't seen any lies and machinations from Cybershy in this thread, frankly.

I fail to see how Civ4 is going to be any less a dramatic difference than Civ2 was from Civ1. In fact, I think Civ4 might represent the most dramatic difference yet between installations of the franchise. But yes, it will still be Civ, and therefore it's gonna have enough familiar concepts that make it "Civ." But keep calling it Civ 2.7 if you like...just another meaningless bit of whining that doesn't require you to actually explain anything.

Bravo! I've long asked Yin this, but it seems that I don't get a successful answer. Why was Civ2 such a great leap, but with all the added changes in Civ3 (or from Civ4 to Civ3) not so much of a leap? How come they are 0.5 or 0.25 steps while Civ2 was a full step? I have come across consistent people who hate the sequals of Civ and think Civ2 was no more than Civ 1.5 and all it really changed was graphics and a slightly different way of combat.

But to treat it as something of a leap? Please!

[yin26]

So as to not hijack this thread any further (sorry), I've replied on my other thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=136160

[sophist]

Originally posted by CyberShy
- different terrain improvements for different resources is totally new

That's a pretty superficial change.

Originally posted by CyberShy
- the trade system is totally different from civ1 / civ2 again. The idea behind the resources is a huge new concept.

Do we know much about the trade system?

Originally posted by CyberShy
- diplomacy is in civ3 and civ4 totally different then in civ1/2.

It's an evolution, not a revolution.

Originally posted by CyberShy
The ideas I mentioned above are not expandations of old concepts. They're totally new. Civ4 has moved more from it's precessors than many, if not most other games.
It goes much further then only fancy graphics.

I disagree with yin's conclusion, but you're overstating the case. Things aren't that different. They don't need to be substantially different to be better. You'll get a better game out with lots of little improvements and a few big ones than you will with more big ones.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by yin26
So as to not hijack this thread any further (sorry), I've replied on my other thread:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=136160

I guess you want to take the discussion there... but I don't see a valid reply .

[Datajack Franit]

I don't like it. I almost hate it. I haven't seen the real game yet but I can't even stand watching the screenshots