Beyond the Sword Fact Sheet

[Solver]

New information:

From an IGN interview with Alex Mantzaris.

• Portugese leader - Joao II (Imp/Exp). Portugese UU - Carrack.
• Sitting Bull is Protective/?. Native American unique building - Totem Pole, extra XP for archers.
• Corporations founded by consuming a great person. They provide food, production, commerce or resources in exchange for other resources. The more resources they consume, the more they provide. Mercantilism blocks foreign corps, State Property blocks all.
• There is now an espionage slider. Accumulating enough espionage points gives you information on other players. Spies may be sent on active missions.
• New Great Person type: Great Spy. Can give an espionage boost against a certain rival.
• Spaceship needs to reach Alpha Centauri to win, like Civ2. So you can win by building a faster spaceship that's launched later.
• New unit: Cuirassier. Takes place of old Cavalry in the tech tree, and the latter now requires Rifling.
• New unit: Anti-Tank. An early inexpensive counter to Tanks.
• Statue of Zeus: Doubles War Weariness of other civs at war with you.
• "Civ in space" scenario

[Solver]

Original post updated with information from the IGN interview.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Actually, it could be worse. In Civ III, the Irq civ had a UU that this civ historically never used and that the Sioux were much more famous for using. (But even then the stats and timeframe are all wrong, the Sioux combined horses with muskets after the wave of horse expansion brought over to the Americans by the Spandards intercepted the wave of musket expansion bought over by the French & English.)

That's the crux here: if you take the Iroquois as Civ, what's their UU going to be? If you're using the Sioux, what are their unique building or cities going to be? None of Native American tribes meet the criteria of a civilization as it exists in Civ: cities, buildings, units, leaders. But many *did* have at least one of these elements separately. As lame as it is, by making a generic Native American civ you *can* take different historically accurate elements of different tribes and combine them: a Sioux leader, a Iroquois UB, an Apache UU, etc -- something along those lines. You don't have to resort to making sh*t up like Firaxis has done so often in the past, which is really a preposterous thing to do for a history game, see the Zulu city list in Civ1-3, the Chinese or Iroquois UU in Civ3 (or the Indian UU or city list in Civ4 for that matter) or some of the pre-Civ4 wonders.

I'm not saying it's the way I would've gone (obviously I would leave bullsh*t civs like the Zulu and Native Americans out of the game entirely) but if you must insist on having some kind of Native American civ in the game I think this is a fair way to fix the inherent problems that that causes. Just a pity that they're name is a bit lame...

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Solver
New unit: Anti-Tank. An early inexpensive counter to Tanks.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Solver [*]Corporations founded by consuming a great person. They provide food, production, commerce or resources in exchange for other resources. The more resources they consume, the more they provide. Mercantilism blocks foreign corps, State Property blocks all.

That sounds like it might be a disincentive to run State Property - which is long overdue, IMO. State Prop makes things too easy.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Solver
New information:

From an IGN interview with Alex Mantzaris.

• Portugese leader - Joao II (Imp/Exp). Portugese UU - Carrack.
• Sitting Bull is Protective/?. Native American unique building - Totem Pole, extra XP for archers.
• Corporations founded by consuming a great person. They provide food, production, commerce or resources in exchange for other resources. The more resources they consume, the more they provide. Mercantilism blocks foreign corps, State Property blocks all.
• There is now an espionage slider. Accumulating enough espionage points gives you information on other players. Spies may be sent on active missions.
• New Great Person type: Great Spy. Can give an espionage boost against a certain rival.
• Spaceship needs to reach Alpha Centauri to win, like Civ2. So you can win by building a faster spaceship that's launched later.
• New unit: Cuirassier. Takes place of old Cavalry in the tech tree, and the latter now requires Rifling.
• New unit: Anti-Tank. An early inexpensive counter to Tanks.
• Statue of Zeus: Doubles War Weariness of other civs at war with you.
• "Civ in space" scenario

Sounds great. And "Civ in space", sounds like...SMAC2...?

[Imran Siddiqui]

[q=Grandpa Troll]I say this because I dont think it is a slight to say "Native Americans" no more than it is a slight to say someone is an American when some Americans take pride in say their Southern Heritage or Yankee's from the North.

Some black people call them themselves American

Some call themselves African American

Some call themselves second class citizens, unfortunately.

Just sharing is all.[/q]

Difference being, Gramps, that they don't consider themselves as different nations. Like said, it'd be combining Scandinavians or Southeast Asians. The native tribes did consider themselves different and even fought wars against each other. The Iroquois-Huron war is well known (mostly because of the European allies each had).

[q=Locutus]As lame as it is, by making a generic Native American civ you *can* take different historically accurate elements of different tribes and combine them: a Sioux leader, a Iroquois UB, an Apache UU, etc -- something along those lines. [/q]

Uh... ignorance is no excuse. Quick research can tell you that, say, a nation like the Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee as they called themselves) have all the above. Their UB can be a longhouse. Their UU be a Mohawk warrior (the Mohawk being, of course, one of the Five Nations). And they have two potential leaders: Deganawidah, the Great Peacemaker; and Ayonwentah (known to us as Hiawatha).

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Zoid


Sounds great. And "Civ in space", sounds like...SMAC2...?

If you look at the screen shot it actually looks like a "GalCiv" clone.

D

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Uh... ignorance is no excuse.

Take my word for it, ignorance is one thing you can't excuse me of in this regard.

The longhouse is a regular house, that's like making the American UB an apartment building, the British one a cottage or the Indian one a bungalow. That's just an architectural description of Iroquois living quarters. Buildings in civilization represent specific services available in a city, like a market, castle or library. Not residential housing.

Which brings up another good point: the Iroquois didn't have cities...

Their UU be a Mohawk warrior (the Mohawk being, of course, one of the Five Nations).

Indeed, they are a people, not some kind of military unit or weapon the way Legions, Berserkers or Cho-Ku-Nu are. A Mohawk Warrior is like having a Roman Swordsman or a Chinese Archer. It's not an actual unique unit, just a named one.

And as a specific unique historic entity AFAIK the term Mohawk Warriors mostly if not exclusively refers to a modern protest group that was formed in the 1960s, not some ancient warrior class.

And they have two potential leaders: Deganawidah, the Great Peacemaker; and Ayonwentah (known to us as Hiawatha).

That's the one thing they undeniably did have, but that's not nearly enough to flesh out a whole civ with.

[dregor]

I'm assuming the Totem Pole replaces the Monument. Extra xp for archers. Wonder if longbowmen are included in that. I'd guess that gunpowder era missile troops won't be tho. Not a terribly exciting UB it sounds like.

[Kuciwalker]

New Great Person type: Great Spy. Can give an espionage boost against a certain rival.

LAME.

Sorry, Solver, but it's true.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Locutus
...civilization as it exists in Civ: cities, buildings, units, leaders.

Yes, good point. This is often overlooked by people wanting a favorite civ in the game. I remember looking over at CFC one day to see that somebody had modded in some little Amazon rainforest tribe. I can't even remember its name.

A civilization needs to be "civilized," IMHO "a relatively high level of cultural and technological development" or "a situation of urban comfort." The word civilization is even derived from the Latin words civitas, civis, and civilis, which all pertain to the condition of living in a large town or city.

[Alexander I]

BTW Solver, IGN has posted this screenshot of an angry, angry leaderhead: http://media.pc.ign.com/media/896/89...g_4551143.html
without saying who it is. It's of course not any of the officially announced leaders. I believe I already know who it is (you can figure it out by looking at where he is and what he's wearing).

[LordShiva]

Why are his teeth so straight? Do the Mayans have the Orthodontist's Office as their UB?

[dregor]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Why are his teeth so straight? Do the Mayans have the Orthodontist's Office as their UB?

You won't be seeing it so large in the game where that kind of detail would be of minimal importance.