Apolyton CIVILIZATION IV PREVIEW (by MarkG)

[MarkG]

no in-game setting, perhaps it can be done via xml...

[Solver]

But you can turn combat resolution off altogether .

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by sophist
Sir Ralph, I think your definition of "exploit" is probably much more restrictive than most people's. By your definition, in a game like Half-Life, it's not an exploit to see through walls by downloading a hacked video driver, since anybody can download that driver and thus gain that ability.

Not true, because the driver is not available for every graphics card. Second, a hacked driver may have legal infringements. And third and last this is called cheating and not exploiting.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Solver or Mark. Just in case I would like to ask the following questions in relation to 'shared tiles':

1) does it confer additional benefits to units who are closer than 'just friends' (allies, for instance)?

2) Is there ANY Zone of Control for any units in the game now, or has this been removed altogether?

3) Are forts still in the game? If so, what are there function in Civ4?

Once again, I hope I am not being a pain, but each question you answer just seems to raise hundreds more ! Now I understand why Firaxians avoid answering our questions prior to release .

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Solver]

Then you can maybe begin to imagine what a pain we betas can be for the developers .

[Harovan]

Originally posted by sophist
Sir Ralph, I think your definition of "exploit" is probably much more restrictive than most people's. By your definition, in a game like Half-Life, it's not an exploit to see through walls by downloading a hacked video driver, since anybody can download that driver and thus gain that ability.

What Atahualpa said. That is cheating. And a downloaded, hacked graphics driver is hardly an inherent game feature. It is in Civ terms at best comparable with an external tool (3rd party) to analyze PBEM savegames. With a word again - cheating. Bad example, sophist.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by sophist
I don't think razing cities should be an option. You should always be able to raze cities. Rather, they should alter the mechanics of the game in such a way that you would rarely want to raze the city.

It's important for some scenario setups, especially historical ones.

[sophist]

Originally posted by Atahualpa

Not true, because the driver is not available for every graphics card. Second, a hacked driver may have legal infringements. And third and last this is called cheating and not exploiting.

I guess I don't see great distinctions between cheating, exploits, design flaws, and implementation bugs. To me what matters is whether it subverts the intended design of the game to give an advantage. Usually, it's pretty clear what is intended, especially in a game like Civilization where there is some degree of faithfulness to reality.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


What Atahualpa said. That is cheating. And a downloaded, hacked graphics driver is hardly an inherent game feature. It is in Civ terms at best comparable with an external tool (3rd party) to analyze PBEM savegames. With a word again - cheating. Bad example, sophist.

It's the only one I was familiar with. Consider then a map for a similar game with a defect that allows a player to reach an area that was not intended to be accessed wherefrom he can snipe at others with impunity.

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

It's important for some scenario setups, especially historical ones.

Ok, fair enough.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, to get this back ON TOPIC, I do have another question, regarding the game, for the beta-testers. In diplomacy, we know that shared civics and religion play a part in how a civ feels towards you. What I wanted to know is-is the religious component effected by (a) how long you have shared the faith (b) the religion civic setting the other civ has (c) the actual civ you are dealing with or (d) some/all of the above?
Thanks for all your hard work, guys, it is REALLY appreciated !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
OK, to get this back ON TOPIC, I do have another question, regarding the game, for the beta-testers. In diplomacy, we know that shared civics and religion play a part in how a civ feels towards you. What I wanted to know is-is the religious component effected by (a) how long you have shared the faith (b) the religion civic setting the other civ has (c) the actual civ you are dealing with or (d) some/all of the above?
Thanks for all your hard work, guys, it is REALLY appreciated !

that's actually a question for Soren

/me prays to the Civ Overlord

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Well, while your here then, could you possibly let us know if forts and Zone of Control are in Civ4-and, if they are, how they work? Thanks !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by sophist
It's the only one I was familiar with. Consider then a map for a similar game with a defect that allows a player to reach an area that was not intended to be accessed wherefrom he can snipe at others with impunity.

Such things happen indeed, although I don't know an example from TBS games. But in various online RPG it is pretty common, that AI driven monsters pound you through walls, the floor, get stuck in the geometry and reach places they would normally not reach etc. It happens at times, that the human player also gets stuck or jumps somewhere unintended.

It occured for instance in Everquest a few years ago in one of the boss throne rooms. That boss monster was very hard to beat, but some players found a method to get on the top of a wall in that throne room and killed the monster slowly with arrows and spells, while it could not reach the players with its melee attacks. They got the reward basically without risk and hence, violated one of the game's main equations: risk ~ reward. Sony changed the reward they got (a nice earring) into the "Earring of Sad Exploitation" with -99 in all stats and resists, as soon as they got to know about it. Look up the link, the bickering is rather amusing.

It does not matter if that happens regularly or randomly, it's a bug, not a feature and you can call the player who commits it, to get an advantage, exploiter or a cheater at your leisure.

However, it does not support your argument. Remember how this discussion started? It was about the ability of units to enter tiles of units of other civs. This is not a bug, it is a basic rule of the game. It is a design decision and it works as intended. The ability to block a peninsula or to hold an isthmus was done by both the human player and the AI and it was a valid tactic in multiplayer games (and this is my main concern, as I mentioned, which some of you conveniently forget). By taking this feature out of the game, Firaxis makes MP games a bit poorer.

I will however grant you, that strategies like blocking the beach to prevent a landing and funneling settlers by blocking them with units is an exploit, if done against the AI, because the AI would not do this. Against a human player, however, it is legal means of tactics.

By the way, the infamous suicide galley in Civ3 to make contact with other continents even in the ancient age is an exploit too. But a mild one, as with that regard the AI plain and simple cheated . It knew all the map from beginning.

[Atahualpa]

[Q=sophist]I guess I don't see great distinctions between cheating, exploits, design flaws, and implementation bugs. To me what matters is whether it subverts the intended design of the game to give an advantage. Usually, it's pretty clear what is intended, especially in a game like Civilization where there is some degree of faithfulness to reality.[/Q]

Well cheating is when you add stuff to the game to give you an advantage. A hacked driver, an aimbot, trainers and save game alterations are considered cheating. Ofc, cheating is only bad in multiplayer.

Exploiting is when you make unintended use of ingame features to get an advantage. In contrast to cheating this is only within the game mechanics. Sometimes this is depicable and sometimes people don't care. E.g. the famous rocket-jump in FPS games is an exploit.

A design flaw is a bad element in a game, something that is almost impossible to change without a greater effort. For example in Civilization not being able to create maps that do not connect east-west could be considered as design flaw.

An implementation bug is something that is not working as intended. Exploits and bugs are thus closely linked and many times you hear "exploiting a bug". Other bugs are e.g. a unit promotion that is not giving the unit the bonus or an example of an exploitable bug: the +15% meele attack also works on ranged attacks. Or the fictional bug: if a swordsmen loses in combat on a hill against a fortified spearmen, it gets resurrected and is invulnerable from then on. Two players in a MP game could then exploit this by creating invincible armies of swordsmen.

[bt_oz]

markg and solver, i know that pagisim is now included as a religion, but can you have say most of your cities one religion and say outlaying cities another religion ?

And can you force some of your cities to adopt a certain religion?

For example china and hongkong, one country 2 systems
beijing communist/police state , vs hongkong, free ecomony, free religion.(for the moment)

cheers
bt_oz

[MarkG]

Originally posted by bt_oz
markg and solver, i know that pagisim is now included as a religion

pagiwhat?

but can you have say most of your cities one religion and say outlaying cities another religion ?

cities in your civ can have varying religions.

And can you force some of your cities to adopt a certain religion?

two notes on that
1) you can send missionaries to your own cities and spread the religion of your choice there (as long as you have at least one city with that religion in order to build the missionary)
2) religions spread on their own depending on existing spread on other cities. e.g. if you have found a religion in one city and you build the specific religious buldings you will make it easier for the religion to spread to surroung cities, in your civ and on other civs
3) you can force some cities not to have some religion unless you choose a specific civic choice (that allows only your official religion to spread within your civ)

bottom line, you can control how religion spreads in your cities but not totally