Civilization 5

[Terraoblivion]

Apparently i have managed to miss the active development of this game, something that makes me sad. Also it seems like they are trying to shake things up even more than they did with Civ4. At least if IGN's preview (http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1075587p1.html) is to be trusted even in the slightest.

Among the changes they mention is a change from squares to hexes and a limitation of one unit per hex. It also appears that culture will be revamped yet again, just like cities supposedly have defenses of their own now. Numerous other changes are mentioned, too many for me to feel like going into them here when i have given a link. Still what i have mentioned should give an idea of how things are being shaken up.

[AgentPaper]

That looks awesome! I especially like how you can't stack units infinitely anymore. Now, if only they would separate unit and infrastructure build queues so you could actually make an army and fight wars without screwing yourself over in the long term...:smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

Now, if they only leave Religion in the game... By far the best addition of Civ 4. Oh, and I hope to gawd they pull combat off this time. Civ 4 was probably the blandest Civ combat-wise; hell, I'm inclined to say Civ 2 was the most successful Civ in that regard simply 'cause Zones of Control made defensive combat (and forts overseeing passages and such) doable, and artillery wasn't very good on the defensive. Well, until modern era anyways where Howitzers, Stealths & Helicopters blew the bank. Civ 4 was all attacker's (or rather, pillager's) market. And Forts were practically useless on all but tightest maps, especially since you couldn't protect resources with them (efficiently), and opponent couldn't use your roads anyways so you didn't really need it for that. Here's also hoping they find a balance between "you can use opponent's roads" and "you can't use opponent's roads"; like "you move at half speed on opponent's territory due to resistance from the smallfolk and difficulty of supply" or something of the sort.

Oh, and I hope to gawd they don't do anything that re-enables ICS. That was such a welcome change in Civ 4; infinite expansion has drawbacks and is mostly unprofitable! But yeah, some manner of balance between economic and war-game would be really nice (like viable defense with smaller army; a game like Civ should definitely lean towards economic as if it's too easy to end early, most of the game content will never see play in human vs. human; military gets enough work in border skirmishes and against barbarians as it stands). And with Civ 4 BtS introducing us a balanced, but usable version of Slavery and overall, a rather functional Civic-system; here's hoping we don't go backwards from there.


Looking forward to this, probably too much causing me to go "WTF" once it's published. Ah well, c'est la vie.

[Parra]

I wonder why they took the Religion part out of Civ, I quite enjoyed spreading the faith across the globe and using it to force others civs to my way of thinking.

I was a little hesitant when I heard it was 1 unit per hex, but after reading that ranged units were actually ranged Im quite warming to the idea.

Really looking forward to the release

[AgentPaper]

Well, I wanted to see unit production split from infrastructure production so that even the guy focusing on infrastructure would have a sizable army, and the guy focusing on military power would still be able to build infrastructure. This could also allow something like using slavery to turn unit production into infrastructure production, and a draft to turn infrastructure production into unit production.

I mainly want to see more combat going on in the early game, though to keep games from ending early I could easily see making it favor defense over offense. This reflects real-world dynamics pretty well too, with castles and walls giving a huge advantage to the defender, whereas later on you will have to rely more on troops and preemptive strikes.

It's just annoying that most of the game of civ4 I've played have ended up with expansion and almost pure infrastructure buildup until you've advanced as much as you can, and then spamming the best unit in the game until everyone else is a smoking crater.

Edit: And yes, very much awesome that units are restricted to 1 per hex, and I also like how cities can defend themselves without a garrison, though you will probably still want a garrison much of the time. I could also see this making forts and such more fun, if they can defend themselves rather well even without a unit inside of it. It basically makes it a stationary defense unit.

[Vitruviansquid]

I await with bated breath.

The one thing I love most about the Civilization games is how they make sequels that are enough like the previous game to "feel right," but always seem innovate so that each version is markedly different from and improved upon the last.

[Athaniar]

The one we saw playing out had the Songhai starting out very close to the city-state of Rio de Janeiro. Askia, leader of the Songhai, is very conquest-oriented, so it's no surprise that he tends towards military action. His civilization immediately went into warrior-rush mode and he soon had six warriors heading off to capture Rio.
They only include 18 civilizations in the base game and they choose something as obscure as the Songhai empire to be one of of them?


each of the 18 leaders in the game
And only one leader per civ, of course... *sigh*


Katherine, Gandhi, Elizabeth, Napoleon, Bismarck, Washington, Suleiman, Caesar, Rameses, Montezuma
Ah, there we have the classics. 11/18 so far.

Also, I read elsewhere that the game's menus and icons are going to be art deco.

[Dragor]

Also, I read elsewhere that the game's menus and icons are going to be art deco.

From the look of the logo and some of those screenies on IGN, it seems to be going that way- it looks great.

I'm a bit peeved about the removal of religion, too. While it wasn't the most flawless addition ever, it added an extra tier of complexity to diplomacy. By making you pick sides early, it introduces a tension and a realistic loathing of other nations, rather than simply having the aggressive nations trying to conquer everything and everyone else sitting tight and trading techs. Maybe they'll replace it with something else (by improving the 'city flipping' revolt mechanic, maybe? Not sure).

EDIT

Apparently not, I'm silly and didn't read the 'no city flipping' bit of the preview. :smallsigh:

[Weiser_Cain]

Only skimmed the first page but it still seems it's about war instead of building and shaping a civilization. Meh.

[shadow_archmagi]

They have things like the Atom Bomb, so I think I'll stay where I Ahm

CIVILIZATION

I'll stay right here!


...


Sorry, couldn't resist. Will probably get civ 5 and complain about the changes.

[Winthur]

Now, if they only leave Religion in the game... By far the best addition of Civ 4. Oh, and I hope to gawd they pull combat off this time. Civ 4 was probably the blandest Civ combat-wise; hell, I'm inclined to say Civ 2 was the most successful Civ in that regard simply 'cause Zones of Control made defensive combat (and forts overseeing passages and such) doable, and artillery wasn't very good on the defensive.

I think you forgot about the fact that Civ2 combat system had one frustrating flaw that was a complete wallbanger. When your stack of units was defending in an open area (not on a square with a Fort or City), was attacked, and your top defending unit lost the battle, the whole stack was gone. VERY frustrating if the AI's Rifleman gets lucky and wipes out your stack of 7 Tanks. :smallsigh:

Hm. No religion? No city flipping? What a shame. Some really crafty games came out of the two things.


They only include 18 civilizations in the base game and they choose something as obscure as the Songhai empire to be one of of them?

When this game comes out, go to CivFanatics Center and just wait for the flamewar that will occur once certain people will throw an uproar that Firaxis forgot Poland. It's like a running gag ever since Civ4 and it's expansion packs came out. :smalltongue:

[AgentPaper]

Only skimmed the first page but it still seems it's about war instead of building and shaping a civilization. Meh.

Well, to be fair, waging war is a pretty big part of how a civilization develops. I'd say a game like Total War is more about warfare, while Civilization still seems like it's more focused on, well, shaping a civilization. War comes into it and is a big part of how your civilization develops, but that doesn't mean the game is focused on war.

[Eldariel]

I think you forgot about the fact that Civ2 combat system had one frustrating flaw that was a complete wallbanger. When your stack of units was defending in an open area (not on a square with a Fort or City), was attacked, and your top defending unit lost the battle, the whole stack was gone. VERY frustrating if the AI's Rifleman gets lucky and wipes out your stack of 7 Tanks. :smallsigh:

Yeah, unit stacking in general (outside cities/forts at any rate) was a bad idea back then. Too bad AI never learned it; made clearing out his army painfully easy with just few bombers.

[Athaniar]

Ah, there we have the classics. 11/18 so far.


Update: Wikipedia also lists the Asian Big Three: Japanese (Nobunaga), Mongols (Genghis Khan), and Chinese (Wu Zetian, apparently). However, there are no citations (but they probably will be in the game anyway). That leaves four civilizations.

Greeks (Alexander?), Arabs (Saladin?), and Spanish (Isabella?) are likely. If the trailer is an indication (yeah right (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverTrustATrailer)), the fourth are Norse/Vikings (hopefully Canute). If not, Persians (hopefully Xerxes).

[Indon]

Even if they completely jack up the game, if they buff the modding system enough then some fan will just fix it and make a mod that I can download and I'll love the game.

So really, it'd be very hard for them to screw this one up.

[Athaniar]

Speaking of downloads, I still haven't figured out how to "install" downloaded (Civ IV) leaders from Civ Fanatics...

[Dragor]

I've never installed individual leaderheads, just modpacks. So you might want to find a modpack you like and hope that it's got the leaderheads you like in it.

I've still got the whole 'bad memory allocation' error for most of my modpacks, so I can't play apparently awesome mods like Rise of Mankind and Diversica. :smallfrown:

[RPGuru1331]

They only include 18 civilizations in the base game and they choose something as obscure as the Songhai empire to be one of of them?

....They always include obscure or otherwise fairly unimportant civilizations. Heck, Civ 2 shipped with the Sioux, who are only in cultural memory at all because of Westerns.

I hope they keep Espionage. That was, by far, my favorite innovation in 4. They messed it up a bit due to how centrally important armies were, and how little you could really mess up the enemy's infrastructure without an army specifically plopped down on a resource but they seem to be addressing that a bit.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Religion was fun because you could manipulate wars with it. If you have 2 different religions in your empire, send one type of missionary to the 1st country and the other missionary to the 2nd country. Once they have different state religions expect to see war. I could always count on Isabella to do this for me.

Also if you are worried about your neighbor going to war against you, convert to his religion. He won't attack unless he wants to risk the huge unhappiness penalty for going to war against the same religion.


One other thing. I hope they keep the spearman vs tank scenario fixed. That was quite frustrating in the early civs.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I LOVE the idea of having one unit per hex. It reminds me of how Diplomacy works, where all the tactics are in forcing movement through maneuvering your men.

I'm also annoyed that Religion is going.

[RPGuru1331]

I thought theyw ere only considering dropping Religion?

[Artanis]

They only include 18 civilizations in the base game and they choose something as obscure as the Songhai empire to be one of of them?

Well, there's two reasons for the Songhai:
1) They were actually quite relevant during their time. The Songhai Empire lasted for quite a while, and were a major superpower of their area.
2) It diversifies the geography of the civ list. Virtually every civ falls into either European/Western, Classical, or Asian. It's nice to have at least one that doesn't.



One other thing. I hope they keep the spearman vs tank scenario fixed. That was quite frustrating in the early civs.

Fixed how? Anybody can dig a ditch or throw a molotov cocktail, so I see no problem with a spearman doing so and getting lucky once every million tries or so.

[Eldariel]

Fixed how? Anybody can dig a ditch or throw a molotov cocktail, so I see no problem with a spearman doing so and getting lucky once every million tries or so.

How many spearmen have Molotov Cocktails?

[RPGuru1331]

Regardless of 'realism', it's still a low tech, small hammer unit defeating a high tech, high hammer one.

[Emlyn]

Maybe they just got on top of the tanks and then stabbed the crews when they came out.

[Vitruviansquid]

Warfare in Civilization is so abstracted, you don't really need to explain how a phalanx can kill a tank in a pitched battle.

[Eldariel]

Warfare in Civilization is so abstracted, you don't really need to explain how a phalanx can kill a tank in a pitched battle.

You, however, do need to point out that it's too ridiculous to be an option.

[factotum]

You, however, do need to point out that it's too ridiculous to be an option.

Maybe the bronze spear-heads of the phalanx break the tank's tracks when it runs over the top of them? Or a piece of one of their livers gets stuck in its engine air inlet... :smallbiggrin:

[Vitruviansquid]

I was aware that massed spearmen against tanks was never an option in the first place.

If you had preMachinery units and your enemy had tanks... or even just macemen, you pretty much roll over and die. It's just slightly annoying when he loses one of his units to yours.

[RS14]

Spearmen launch pincer attack in muddy, rainy weather under cover of darkness. Supply trucks are ambushed, set afire. Roadblocks built, Anti-tank trenches dug cutting off retreat. Troops infiltrate enemy camps, killing crew in their sleep. Active tanks are swarmed. Spears penetrate radiators, carburetors, fuel lines, etc, immobilizing tanks. Machine-guns are hacked off or bent. Vision ports are smashed, cupola vision ports are smashed. Engines set on fire. Access hatches hacked open. Radios are destroyed, inhibiting communication. Tank commanders, drivers are killed by javelins if exposed.

It's not likely, but it's plausible.

Besides, any idiot can build a Molotov AT grenade. I don't think that a "spearman" unit is meant to represent literal Greek style phalanxes or whatnot. It represents their rough technical level pretty well--they generally carry spears or similar, but can adapt their tactics throughout the centuries, and can adapt their weapons somewhat to new challenges. No DU spears or anything silly, but maybe thicker spears to immobilize armored vehicles, or shorter spears for urban combat.

[warty goblin]

Honestly I'm less fussed about the occasionally weird combat outcome than how boring battles in Civ have been in the past. I'd rather they make them tactically interesting, even if occasionally spearmen kill tanks, than fix that and keep the 'drag enormous stack of death around the map' combat of the past.

Of course with a one unit per hex limit, that complaint is fixed.

[faceroll]

You, however, do need to point out that it's too ridiculous to be an option.

Eh, it's happened IRL.

[Athaniar]

Update: 17 confirmed civilizations:

Americans (George Washington)
Arabians (Harun al-Rashid, oddly enough)
Aztecs (Montezuma II)
Chinese (Wu Zetian, oddly enough)
Egyptians (Ramesses II)
English (Elizabeth I)
French (Napoleon Bonaparte)
Germans (Otto von Bismarck)
Greeks (Alexander)
Inca (yet to be revealed, only know through mention of Quechua)
Indians (Mahatma Gandhi)
Japanese (Oda Nobunaga)
Mongols (Genghis Khan)
Ottomans (Suleiman I)
Romans (Julius Caesar)
Russians (Catherine II)
Songhai (Askia)

For the last one, I'd be surprised it it's any other than Spanish or Norse/Northmen/Northeners/Scandinavians/Vikings/Vikinavians/Thulians/Generic Barbarians. The trailer supports the Northlings, but personally, I think it'd be odd to have both the Aztecs and Inca without the people they fought.

[Terraoblivion]

Might still turn out to be someone else, though i guess it is not likely. Would be fun to see something truly uncommon and surprising.

[RPGuru1331]

Apparently Cities defend themselves even without units inside. Most fascinating, captain.

[factotum]

It'd be nice if they used someone other than Julius Caesar to represent the Romans...they did have one or two other leaders over their several centuries of history! Ditto Elizabeth I for England.

[Terraoblivion]

To be fair i am pretty sure they replaced Julius Caesar with Augustus Caesar in one of the Civ4 expansions. Also they did have both Victoria and Churchill as British leaders. I doubt any of those two have as good a chance of being it as Elizabeth I. But i think they should go for someone well-known but more colorful than any of these three. Why not pick Henry VIII? That should be a fun choice. Similarly why not pick one of the crazier Roman leaders like Nero or even Caligula, or one of the genuinely skilled emperors who just tends to get forgotten a bit like Marcus Aurelius or Vespasian?

I like the bold move with Wu Zetian and Harun Al-Rashid, though. That is genuinely breaking from the mold.

[Weiser_Cain]

Another thing I don't like about civ is that you play as existing countries,or rather stereotypes of those countries. I want my own place.

[Winthur]

or rather stereotypes of those countries. I want my own place.

Huh? When I play Americans, my citizen aren't overweight and ignorant (which would appear to be the most popular stereotype). I don't understand.

[Athaniar]

To be fair i am pretty sure they replaced Julius Caesar with Augustus Caesar in one of the Civ4 expansions.
Not replaced, they are both in the game (Julius is Imperialistic and Organized, while Augustus is Industrious and Imperialistic).

[Derthric]

For me the thing I look forward too the most is the addition of City States. Reminds me of the Imperialism games with the great powers and minor nations mixed about. I think they can and will throw a nice big monkey wrench in a lot of plans, makes me giddy.

Also the limiting of units based on supply of a particular resource is another advance I am looking forward to.

However I am wondering how Air units and transport units will be handled since stacking is out the window, which is a pretty good thing.

[Indon]

Huh? When I play Americans, my citizen aren't overweight and ignorant (which would appear to be the most popular stereotype). I don't understand.

Take civ 4. Every civ had static traits given to them. If you were American, you were Industrious and Something or other. You couldn't be a Spiritual and Creative American people*, let alone a custom people.

*-There was a Civ 4 option to play any leader with any civ, so you could be Hapshepsut leading the Americans or whatever, but still.

[Winthur]

Take civ 4. Every civ had static traits given to them. If you were American, you were Industrious and Something or other. You couldn't be a Spiritual and Creative American people*, let alone a custom people.

Not quite. Those were the individual traits of the leaders that led those civilizations according to the creators of the game, not traits given to Civilization's people per se. An Aggressive leader in real life was possibly a warmonger (Genghis Khan, Shaka, Montezuma), a Financial leader might have been very smart about their economics and managed to create a powerful empire out of sheer trade power (Mansa Musa). Bismarck is Industrious, I guess, because he modernized Germany and Expansive because he brought it to such a prosperity and unity. Etc.

[Athaniar]

Take civ 4. Every civ had static traits given to them. If you were American, you were Industrious and Something or other. You couldn't be a Spiritual and Creative American people*, let alone a custom people.

*-There was a Civ 4 option to play any leader with any civ, so you could be Hapshepsut leading the Americans or whatever, but still.

Like Winthur said, it's the leaders, not the civilizations themselves. Only Roosevelt is Industrious (and Organized), while Washington is Charismatic and Expansive, and Lincoln is Charismatic and Philosophical.

Also, still no confirmation on the 18th civ, and people are starting to doubt the Inca. Popular choices are Spanish, Norse, and Persians (and Thai, if that Italian magazine is to be believed).

[Wardog]

Like Winthur said, it's the leaders, not the civilizations themselves. Only Roosevelt is Industrious (and Organized), while Washington is Charismatic and Expansive, and Lincoln is Charismatic and Philosophical.

Also, still no confirmation on the 18th civ, and people are starting to doubt the Inca. Popular choices are Spanish, Norse, and Persians (and Thai, if that Italian magazine is to be believed).



Although you're still left with the problem of being stuck with the same leader and traits for up to 6000 years, when the real civilizations would have undergone major changes in policy, outlook and specialization over the course of their history. (Particularly egregious with the civilizations that had a choice of two or more leaders who lived within a relatively short time of each other, like Ghengis and his grandson Kublai).


As for the spearman-beats-tank issue: I agree that as long as its rare it shouldn't be impossible. When you consider the length of time a turn represents, and the area a square represents, Civ combat is essentially a case of "In 1854, the Zulus moved a unit into a county occupied by a force of Aztecs. By the end of the year, the Zulu force had been lost".

As such, its not necessarily unreasonable to get such a result even if the Zulu unit was vastly more advanced than that of the Aztecs (such as tanks vs spearmen).

[Zovc]

Thanks for the article in the first post! I'm reading it now (well, I'm about to go get dinner, eat, then go back to reading it), and I definitely agree with the philosophy behind the combat changes, but I'm still not sure about whether or not it is a good change.

I'm inferring from the article that ranged units can attack farther than one hex away.