Apolyton Civ4 PREVIEW (By Solver) - Part 1 online

[Solver]

We've just posted the first part of our second Civ4 preview, written by yours truly - available right here.

Five new screens included .

[conmcb25]

Yaaaaaaaay!

*scampers off to start reading*

[Aro]

Starting reading just
5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Now!

[Sub263]

I'm reading it now, but i'm just wondering, what does ICS mean? All that I know is that it has something to do with spreading out to far.

[alva]

Basicaly it's putting towns all over the map.

The term is so common that I'm not sure anymore what it's stands for.

EDIT: see post below.

[Solver]

ICS - Infinite City Sprawl. Buiding Settlers a lot and fast and putting your cities everywhere, so you end up with a ton of cities.

[alva]

meh, quoted where I should have edited.

[Harovan]

A pretty radical change to how Settlers (and Workers, too) are built does a lot to put ICS in its grave. Now, your cities produce Settlers with both shields and food. That is, a city that has 5 food per turn and 3 shields will be producing a Settler at 8 shields per turn. At the same time, the city will not be growing as all excess food goes towards the Settler. Thus, you are either growing or building a Settler but not both at the same time.

Settlers cost 2 population points and 30 shields in Civ3 already. So you couldn't both grow and build a settler there either, except for very rare cases of high food cities. This feature does absolutely nothing to make settler building harder. At the countrary, it eases it. However it is a good thing nonetheless, because the AI was very ineffective in Civ3 to balance population growth and shield building and mostly had finished one, while the other was still in the making and hence, wasted resources. With the new system it won't waste them anymore.

[Fidel]

your preview is the best thing ever to come from a baltic state
just make sure to state that islam prerequisite is 'divine right' and not a 'pine right' of you risk having al-qaeda blow up your office...

[Solver]

It eases Settler building? Sorry, no way. Settlers cost more, your cities can't grow while producing them, so you stagnate your population if you build Settlers too often... on this one you're going to have to trust me as I've actually experienced it .

Civ3 cities would grow while building a Settler, regain one of the 2 lost pop points probably instantly - they would likely have the same pop 1-3 turns after producing a settler as they had when they started on it.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Solver
Civ3 cities would grow while building a Settler, regain one of the 2 lost pop points probably instantly - they would likely have the same pop 1-3 turns after producing a settler as they had when they started on it.

You may have played Civ4, but other than you I have played Civ3. I can assure you, in normal cities with 2 excess food (that's the standard) even with a granary a pop point is regained in 5 turns only. I'd also like to know on what you would base the assertion, that "one of the pop points is probably regained instantly".

[Solver]

I have played Civ3, just pretty long ago . From my memory, though, I can remember usually regaining a pop point very fast after building a Settler.

You do underestimate, though, my interest for Civ3 .

[Fidel]

what did you mean by this:
"Once the city defenses are taken down, however, your siege weapons can not bombard the units defending the city. You can choose to attack with your siege and inflict collateral damage on several of the city defenders, but you are likely to use your siege unit in the process."

you actually attack with arty just like you did in civ2?
you suggest that if you attack the walls (for instance) you cannot attack units with your arty?
sorry for pestering, that passage is confusing...

[Anakha]

"As a result, you will loose if you attempt to wage war with a large number of the same unit type..."

Just a minor pet peeve of mine: it's "lose", not "loose". Very common mistake.
Besides that (and the "pine right" mentioned earlier ), it's a great preview, thanks a lot! Clears up many questions! (although I'm sure that it will create still many more, poor you and Mark... )

[Aro]

Thanks, Solver.
Well, all I can say is... Poor Yin!