New Gamespot Hands-On Preview

[Nikolai]

Well, world history is a tale of mess...

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Well, world history is a tale of mess...

That's putting it rather nicely.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by MarkG

[q=Apolyton Civ4 Info Section]Rather than having fixed government types such as democracy or communism, Civ4 lets you set inpidual policies on five different terrains: Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion. Each of these categories will have a total of five different Civic options (for a total of 25) which all have different effects on gameplay and which are unlocked by researching certain Advances. [/q]
http://civilization4.net/3/114/143/

A la SMAC eh?

Firaxis seems to have taken many of our complaints/suggestions/mods to heart when making civ4. Whats I find interesting is whether this game will be an improvement (and I hope so) or not? IIRC many of the patches for civ3 included gameplay changes, in response to suggestions from well meaning fans, that were detrimental to the game.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Solver
Settlers from a hut can break the game, though, I'd rather not have them in Civ4. A free Settler gives you a city without the effort of building a Settler, and gives you the city whenever you want it - that has the potential to mess the game up if you get it and no one else does.

Aww, give me a break. A tech early in the game can do the same (like allowing much better trades, for example), and so can "silly" things like maps that just happen to show you those luxuries you would have missed otherwise. The one large difference with a free Settler is how obvious the benefit is, even if you have little knowledge of the game.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by SpencerH
A la SMAC eh?

Yep

One of the things I love about CivIV already is that it is taking a lot of stuff from SMAC, where CivIII really didn't. Seeing as I liked SMAC over CivIII, I'm happy .

[Verenti]

Anyone notice the wonder under Fiberoptics? A guy standing infront of a big American flag?

It has a resemblance to Al Gore, I think. Maybe its the internet wonder?

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
One of the things I love about CivIV already is that it is taking a lot of stuff from SMAC, where CivIII really didn't. Seeing as I liked SMAC over CivIII, I'm happy .

QABFT

The return of social engineering?

Leonard Nimoy reading tech quotes?! Holy ****ing ****!

That addition alone should give Civ4 more flavor and fun and one-more-turniness than the bland experience of Civ3.

[MxM]

Originally posted by Verenti
Anyone notice the wonder under Fiberoptics? A guy standing infront of a big American flag?

It has a resemblance to Al Gore, I think. Maybe its the internet wonder?

I can't say that it is Al Gore - does not look like him for me.

From another side, though, the fiber optic tech icon does not look even remotely like fiber optic. Some gray thingy with blue lightnings out of it. What could it be?

[Imran Siddiqui]

That addition alone should give Civ4 more flavor and fun and one-more-turniness than the bland experience of Civ3.

Indeed. Some of the stuff that people dismissively reject as 'fluff' was integral to a lot of people's enjoyment of Civ/SMAC. CivIII just didn't have that and lacked a lot of what makes the series so addictive.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Guynemer


QABFT

The return of social engineering?

Leonard Nimoy reading tech quotes?! Holy ****ing ****!

That addition alone should give Civ4 more flavor and fun and one-more-turniness than the bland experience of Civ3.

Planetery Council-like UN confirmed as well, allowing you to vote on various measures, from suggestions to implement certain civics, to embargos and the like.

Not to mention we get the wonder movies back.

As for Mr. Nimoy, if, when you discover space flight, he reads "Space, the final frontier", I am going to have an orgasm. Well, maybe not, but that would be cool.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

That addition alone should give Civ4 more flavor and fun and one-more-turniness than the bland experience of Civ3.

Indeed. Some of the stuff that people dismissively reject as 'fluff' was integral to a lot of people's enjoyment of Civ/SMAC. CivIII just didn't have that and lacked a lot of what makes the series so addictive.

Precisely. We, as a community, may be dismissive of pure eye candies, like better graphics, per se, but being nerds as we are, we like to have our nerd glands tickled by certain stuff, that was present in SMAC, but lacking in CivIV.

It seems however Sid finally figured out what his player base wants (not that it is surprising, since he is a genius in gamemaking).

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Martinus
As for Mr. Nimoy, if, when you discover space flight, he reads "Space, the final frontier", I am going to have an orgasm. Well, maybe not, but that would be cool.

I'm hoping for him to say "Civ long and prosper"

[GeoModder]

Good one!

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by MattPilot
cool stuff... thanks for the link!



One thing i was wondering about regarding techs. It was said that you can research anything as long as it has a connection to a previous tech. Also, if one tech has 2 connections, you only need one of the previous ones, right?

It has also been said that there are no 'ages' per say - its one long tech tree.


So my question then is, how does that work with techs that have no preceding techs - like FLIGHT?

I'm sure there is something that prevents me from researching flight in the stoneage, but how does it work?

This may have been answered but you have to have -all- the prereq's to be able to research any given tech. Not just one of two or three, but all of them before you research.

Flight is -not- an unconnected tech. Look in the top right (I think it's right) corner of the picture for flight. It requires Physic's and COmbustion. THey didn't draw a nice line from one to another because it would look like spagehtti on the science tree and be hard to read.

Age's were new for Civ3 and no othr Civ type game, including SMAC, ever had "ages" before. I'm sure each of the more advanced tech's all have pre-req's but the players will have to pay attention to what's required when and where.

I hope that helps.

[GeoModder]

I'm more inclined to think that those right-added icons are absolute prerequisites, and only 1 of the lines/arrows leading to a tech (if any) are necessary on top of the prerequisites. Otherwise I wouldn't understand the hipe about OR choices for moving in the tech tree.