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Some selections
We've seen the game before and know a lot of what's being added. Leaders like Shaka Zulu, Churchill, Rameses II, Augustus Caesar, Brenus, Wang Kon, Ragnar, Mehmed II, Stalin, and Hannibal all make an appearance. Some of which will take advantage of the three new traits: Charismatic (+2 Happiness in each city, 25% reduction in unit promotion cost, double production from broadcast towers), Protective (artillery and archers receive drill I and II automatically, walls and castles construct twice as quickly), and Imperialistic (100% increase in Great General emergence, 25% production boost when creating settlers). All of these traits will come with their bonuses just as the new civs come with special units and buildings like America's mall building and the Zulu Impi warriors.
The addition of Great Generals that are generated by the combined experience of your units adds a significant bonus to aggressively militaristic players or those that build experience enhancing buildings. These special units act like other great people and can either be added to a city to create a new military academy that grants experience bonuses to units built in that city or can be turned into a Warlord. Warlords attach to units in battle causing an increase in experience acquisition and can give units stacked with them a one time experience boost.
For example, players can acquire vassals without ever attacking a rival civilization. Those that need protection might be willing to enter a vassalage agreement as well. Vassals will retain political freedom (the vassal agreement is revisited for renewal every few turns) but will count towards their sovereign's territory for domination victories.
And some discussion on scens:
The first of the scenarios shown today was Chinese Unifications. This particular scenario centers in China as several families vie for control over the ancient empire. Whoever manages to unite all of the factions (more likely by force than by diplomatic victory) will win the scenario.
Unlike the goal of eventual unification in the previous scenario, the Vikings have absolutely no wish for uniting anything. In fact, their scenario will simply challenge players to gather hefty amounts of money over a set period of time. While players could try and make all of the money peacefully, they'd pretty much be doomed to failure. Instead, the Vikings will have to use the typical pillage ability and the new "Ransom City" option. This option can generate great cash flow if used wisely. However, taking and selling the same city more than once won't work. Also available is the new Treasure Hunter technology. This tech will pop up notices on the mini-map in the general location of a treasure. It won't be pinpoint, but will point players in the right direction. Unfortunately, the treasure might be right through enemy territory and a long ways away. Once found, the treasure must then be transported back to a city in order to add it to the treasury. Any way the Vikings do it, a lot of money has to be made quickly before the time runs out.
Finally, we were also shown the new Barbarian mode of play. This finally gives Civ fans the chance to control the rampaging hordes that plague the early Civilization games. Rules are very different for this scenario. The game begins by telling the computer how many turns it should play the game before players enter the stage to start their rampage. Once the computer has auto-played however many turns it's been told to, the player then chooses which units to bring into play. The player will be given a certain amount of money when beginning the scenario with which to buy these units and any upgrades (including all important city-sieging upgrades). Once units have been selected, the game begins and units can be directed to start moving through enemy territory (which is pretty much all territory) destroying everything in sight. In this scenario, Barbarians can not capture and hold cities, instead choosing to pillage constantly to make money for more units. Once into the fray, players will have to attack until everything is destroyed before any other civilization can meet any of the victory conditions used in a normal game of Civilization IV.
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