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I bought Conquests today and have read the manual and installed the game. I'm now just about to play a first game to try out some of the new features, but spent some time roaming through the editor and the civilopedia first. Came across a few interesting tidbits about which I haven't seen any comments.
Disclaimer: as stated above, the following are based upon editor and civilopedia tours, not actual gameplay nor experience as a beta tester.
1. Pottery is everywhere. I am late to the (fairly widely adopted) view that pottery, and granaries, are immensely powerful. Over the past 4 - 6 months I have routinely started games with max research on pottery so I can build a granary in my capitol city. Six of the seven new civs have pottery as a starting tech. This is mostly due to the introduction of the new agricultural trait (several new civs have it) but also means that everyone whom has grown accustomed to researching pottery early won't be doing so with most of the new civs - freeing up early research for other opportunities.
2. The "Facism" government is powerful in supressing resistance in newly-conquered cities, but is weak at assimilating foreign citizens. The end result, given Facism's "xenophobic" flag, would seem to help reduce resistance more quickly and to encourage (slightly more than 'normal') starvation thereafter. [Since the xenophobic flag eliminates cultural expansion before majority control of a city by native citizens, a popular defense against culture flipping is to reduce the population and expand cultural borders.]
3. Shakespeare's Theater now operates as a hospital in addition to the 8 content citizens (widely publicized) but also cannot be built in a city of less than 7 population. Probably limited impact, but I've used the occassional extra leader to rush Shake's with nothing better available, sometimes in a small town (less than 7 pop) with great potential once the war ends and the palace relocation has a chance to take effect. This impact is further limited by the change to the power of military GLs.
4. Collateral damage. "Collateral damage" is now an editor-accessible unit capability flag, but no unit in the standard game is so enabled. The "collateral damage" civilopedia entry is: "An attack by a unit with the "Collateral Damage" capability can potentially damage improvements in the attacked square during the attack, representing damage to improvements, local structures, or residents due to combat (but not necessarily due to bombardment). " Presumably the "collatral damage" ability is enabled in one of the Conquest scenarios.
5. Tourist Attraction. The commerce advantage enabled by older wonders is not a simple one- or two-step function -- there is a scale from +2 commerce to +14 commerce that steps up at +2 intervals which means 7 different levels of "tourist commerce," beginning with +2 after 1000 years and maxing out at +14 commerce at 2501 years.
6. Volcanoes. They may or may not offer warning of eruption (smoldering effects for 2 turns prior). In other words, they can erupt without warning.
7. Chopping forests. The worker investment to clear forest has changed dramatically (cut in half). It now takes a worker longer to build a mine on grasslands than to chop a forest tile.
Okay - enough from the manual, civilopedia, and editor, now to start a game with all the new civs and test out both the Ag trait and the enslavement ability of the Mayan Jav thrower . . .
Catt
Disclaimer: as stated above, the following are based upon editor and civilopedia tours, not actual gameplay nor experience as a beta tester.
1. Pottery is everywhere. I am late to the (fairly widely adopted) view that pottery, and granaries, are immensely powerful. Over the past 4 - 6 months I have routinely started games with max research on pottery so I can build a granary in my capitol city. Six of the seven new civs have pottery as a starting tech. This is mostly due to the introduction of the new agricultural trait (several new civs have it) but also means that everyone whom has grown accustomed to researching pottery early won't be doing so with most of the new civs - freeing up early research for other opportunities.
2. The "Facism" government is powerful in supressing resistance in newly-conquered cities, but is weak at assimilating foreign citizens. The end result, given Facism's "xenophobic" flag, would seem to help reduce resistance more quickly and to encourage (slightly more than 'normal') starvation thereafter. [Since the xenophobic flag eliminates cultural expansion before majority control of a city by native citizens, a popular defense against culture flipping is to reduce the population and expand cultural borders.]
3. Shakespeare's Theater now operates as a hospital in addition to the 8 content citizens (widely publicized) but also cannot be built in a city of less than 7 population. Probably limited impact, but I've used the occassional extra leader to rush Shake's with nothing better available, sometimes in a small town (less than 7 pop) with great potential once the war ends and the palace relocation has a chance to take effect. This impact is further limited by the change to the power of military GLs.
4. Collateral damage. "Collateral damage" is now an editor-accessible unit capability flag, but no unit in the standard game is so enabled. The "collateral damage" civilopedia entry is: "An attack by a unit with the "Collateral Damage" capability can potentially damage improvements in the attacked square during the attack, representing damage to improvements, local structures, or residents due to combat (but not necessarily due to bombardment). " Presumably the "collatral damage" ability is enabled in one of the Conquest scenarios.
5. Tourist Attraction. The commerce advantage enabled by older wonders is not a simple one- or two-step function -- there is a scale from +2 commerce to +14 commerce that steps up at +2 intervals which means 7 different levels of "tourist commerce," beginning with +2 after 1000 years and maxing out at +14 commerce at 2501 years.
6. Volcanoes. They may or may not offer warning of eruption (smoldering effects for 2 turns prior). In other words, they can erupt without warning.
7. Chopping forests. The worker investment to clear forest has changed dramatically (cut in half). It now takes a worker longer to build a mine on grasslands than to chop a forest tile.
Okay - enough from the manual, civilopedia, and editor, now to start a game with all the new civs and test out both the Ag trait and the enslavement ability of the Mayan Jav thrower . . .
Catt
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