24-06-2005 10:39									#1
	New IGN preview Got spare money?

I'm sure Solver will find another reason to close this thread

http://pc.ign.com/articles/628/628695p1.html

quote: June 23, 2005 - It's been a month since we last saw Civilization at E3 so, not being able to stand it any longer, we finally took a trip out to see Firaxis to get a look at the latest build. Senior producer Barry Caudill walked us through a lengthy demo of the game, showing off the new features and the streamlined interface. Lead designer Soren Johnson was also on hand to discuss the overall development of the game. Firaxis president Jeff Briggs and franchise creator Sid Meier also took time out of their day to sit and chat with us about their contributions to the game and their expectations for its release. While the basic premise of the game is largely unchanged, the designers wanted to question some basic assumptions about how the game works and break free of some of the series' bad habits. As a result, the new game seems much more streamlined and full of personality. Combat animations are specific to the units involved in the fighting, the diplomatic screen shows lively and expressive opponents, and short movies once again announce the completion of specific wonders. Gamers who have been turned off by the drier presentation of previous versions are likely to find Civilization IV to be much more engaging this time around. Gamers who've had to struggle with the complications of the interface are also in for a treat. The actual game map now reveals which terrain tiles are being worked and shows off a number of civic improvements. Little pop-up windows and small suggestions about how to improve the area around each city will definitely help new players get started quickly. Those players who do choose to dive down into the detail of city view will find that information is much clearer there as well. Each city improvement will list the specific bonus it imparts to a city's coffers, contentment and culture. No more guessing or thumbing through the civilopedia to find out just how much those temples are helping you. When you start a new game you'll have the option to select from a variety of civilizations, each with their own historical rulers -- Gandhi for the Indians, Elizabeth for the English, etc. About eight of the eighteen civilizations in the game have a pair of rulers to choose from. Each ruler has their own personality and preferences and you'll be able to tell a lot about a ruler just by watching their reactions on the diplomacy screen. When dealing with the flirtatious Hatshepsut or the jowly dandy Louis XIV, you'll be able to see their attitudes and personality in their animations. If you're making an offer in their favor, they'll act pleased and happy. Some rulers are a bit more inscrutable. The only difference you can tell between the angry and happy states of the Chinese ruler Qin Shi Huang is the elevation of his eyebrows. Rulers like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar are much more expressive and there's no misreading their angry scowls. Julius Caesar even gives a gladiatorial thumbs-up or thumbs-down to indicate his thoughts on your current proposal. Each ruler has two defining characteristics, each of which grants them a unique bonus and lessens the cost of two city improvements by half. The Philosophical characteristic grants a ruler a 100% in his or her people's birthrate and half-cost libraries and universities. Being Spiritual allows a ruler to avoid the period of anarchy that comes with a change in government and also get cheaper temples and monasteries. Creative rulers gain a bonus to their culture and half-price theaters and broadcast towers. Rulers with the Organized characteristic reduce their civic upkeep costs by half and can buy labs and courthouses more cheaply. Expansive rulers will be able to heal units inside cities much faster and also get a break on granaries and grocers. New units produced by rulers with the Aggressive characteristic get the Combat 1 promotion for free. Aggressive rulers also get half-price barracks and jails. As I said, some civilizations only have one ruler, so you'll be stuck with their characteristics. If you want to play as the Arabs, for instance, you'll have to rule as Saladin and work your strategy around his Philosophical and Spiritual characteristics. You'll have more opportunities with the Mongols. While both Genghis and Kublai Kahn each possess the Aggressive characteristic, Genghis is Expansive while Kublai is Creative. The French rulers Louis XIV and Napoleon are even more differentiated. Warmongers will gravitate towards Napoleon's Aggressive and Expansive traits, while those who prefer to pursue commercial or cultural goals will find Louis XIV's Creative and Organized traits will serve them better. Throughout the game you'll have the opportunity to gain a number of great leaders in a variety of areas -- artistry, commerce, war, etc. These are units that can have a tremendous impact on your civilization in a variety of ways. Great artists, for instance, can settle in a city and generate a small amount of culture each turn. They can also discover a "great work," instantly adding 1000 culture to the city they're in. Great artists can also trigger a Golden Age for your civilization thereby boosting production, happiness and so on for a period of years. (Unlike the previous versions, Civilization IV will allow for multiple Golden Ages in the course of a single game.) Rulers can also use great artists to discover a new, cultural technology. The other types of leaders have similar benefits. Great merchants can settle in a city to produce gold each turn, conduct a one-time trade mission for a 1000 gold, or discover a new commercial technology. In previous versions of Civilization, you had to pretty much research everything on the tech tree as you moved from one era to the next. The new version of the game has no set eras and requires only that you reach one of the pre-requisites for a given technology rather than obtaining all of them. Who needs Pottery anyway? This makes it much easier to research along specific lines, focusing exclusively on either military, commercial or cultural technologies.

	24-06-2005 10:47									#2
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Another big change for the game is the introduction of specific religions. As before, the first civilization to discover a technology that opens up a new religion will be assigned the holy city for that religion. The holy city is assigned by the AI to a random city within the civilization, most likely one near the center or capital of the empire. Owning the holy city gives you line of sight in all cities that share that religion, encouraging you to spread your faith around the world. The holy city is also where you build great wonders that can improve the happiness throughout your empire. Each city associated with a religion can build a variety of its own buildings to improve happiness and open up new options. Temples for instance can be used to turn idle citizens into priests while monasteries can be used to train missionaries who can go out and spread the religion to other cities. Each religion will have specific structures and "mini" wonders associated with it but you'll find their benefit still applies even if the city where they're housed switches to a new religion. Each civilization can declare a state religion as well. (You're free to switch to a new religion later on but you'll endure a period of anarchy just like you'd experience during a change in government.) Declaring a state religion will mean that all cities within your empire that share that religion will get a happiness bonus and produce slightly more gold for you. You can see the state religion of every civilization you've made contact with by checking the small leader board in the lower right corner of the game screen. The religion of the individual cities is shown by a small graphic next to the city name on the main map. Since cities that don't share their state's official religion lose this bonus, it's a worthwhile strategy to convert your enemy's cities to new, unofficial religions. Be careful, however, of spreading too many religions; the Freedom of Religion civic option grants bonuses to civilizations that are home to a wide variety of religions. During peacetime you can close off your borders, keeping out the missionaries that spread religion. Missionaries can only enter closed borders if the civilization they represent declares war on you. We also found out a bit more about the different promotions you can assign to your units. Since there are different upgrade paths for different types of units, you'll wind up having a pretty specialized fighting force as the game progresses. There are five levels of basic Combat upgrades, each adding a bit more power and, at the higher levels, some extra ability to heal. Additional levels of healing can be obtained by selecting up to two levels of Medic promotions. Other promotions give bonuses in certain types of terrain; the Guerilla promotion, for instance, adds bonuses when fighting in hills, while the Woodsman promotion grants bonuses in jungle or forest tiles. Three levels each of the City Raider or City Garrison upgrades give units a bonus for either attacking or defending cities. There are also specific bonuses for fighting against certain types of units as well; Cover gives a bonus against ranged units, Shock against melee and Formation against cavalry. There are also a range of artillery promotions. Three levels of Accuracy promotions give you a better chance of damaging enemies and three levels of Barrage give you better collateral damage. In a throwback to Civilization 2, artillery units now also attack directly, just like regular units but they have the added advantage of attacking all units in a stack simultaneously. Since artillery can attack all the units in a square at once, it makes them ideal for city assaults. It also discourages the massive stacks that seem to roam about the world in previous versions of the game. The game's presentation relies very heavily on music, so much so that Firaxis president Jeff Briggs is personally taking charge of the game's scoring. Since music was Jeff's first career (he did, among other things, the music for the original Pirates!) he's well equipped to handle the composition and music selection tasks required here. But that doesn't mean his job is easy; he anticipates that the game will have more music than any other game ever released. Not only will the game include many of Jeff's original compositions, it will also include licensed performances of pieces by the old greats (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and company) as well as contemporary greats like John Adams and soon-to-be greats like Christopher Tin. You can check out the piece they commissioned from Christopher Tin on the composer's site. It's a choral setting the Swahili translation of the Lord's Prayer and is used for the game's intro movie. The whole intro is a bit of a throwback to the first Civilization; it's still in rough form right now but it's got a really great epic, imperial sort of feel that really sets the stage for the game. Jeff is also composing the music for the 28 new wonder movies being included in the game and all of the diplomacy music. Where possible he's tried to use folk tunes that represent the character and attitude of each civilization and each ruler. The music for Franklin D. Roosevelt for instance is the Marine Hymn. Jeff's even gone so far as to arrange each piece to suit the various time periods of the game. If you meet with Roosevelt in the early part of the game, you'll hear ancient instruments playing the theme. By the end of the game, the tune will have swelled and taken on a more Sousa-like quality. The game is still on target to ship this Fall and is already being tested pretty heavily. Since all the big features are in place, the team will be spending the time between now and the release tweaking the math and balancing the game's AI. If all goes according to plan, the developers will have a beta build by August. We're hopeful that we'll be able to bring you even more updates between now and then.

	24-06-2005 12:26									#3
	Remove this text

Sounds good except for all of the un-necessary music.

	24-06-2005 12:40									#4
	Remove this text

So the holy city is randomly chosen within your empire. That's OK. It's better than being «the capital by default» But still... I'd rather chose myself where this particular status would land...

	24-06-2005 12:59									#5
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

Definitely. It would make it easier to defend.

	24-06-2005 14:23									#6
	Got spare money?

So, Arabs have Saladin, Mongols have 2 leaders, and... Alexander? The Greecs are definitely in then!

	24-06-2005 15:11									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

quote: Originally posted by Vince278 Sounds good except for all of the un-necessary music.

Yep, sounds like he has wasted too much time with the music

But everything else sounds nice. I like it that the holy city is randomly chosen

	24-06-2005 15:33									#8
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Yep, sounds like he has wasted too much time with the music

I agree in the sense that Civ music has always been one feature I turned off nearly instantly, it has always had this 'midi' sound quality to it... In Civ1 I liked the sounds, but then we didn't have much better yet.

However, I get the impression that this will not be the case with Civ4. It seems they are really into raising the series' overall quality, and if it includes the music I'm all ear

I mean, let's say the music is of the same facture than music in some titles renowned for their music like Morrowind or the late Myst series: it could really add a lot to the game. But again, this is only speculation. I just hope we will be too busy playing the game to post about music (good or bad) when the game comes out!

	24-06-2005 15:48									#9
	Got spare money?

I'm never going to hear the music anyway since the first time I start the game (any game) I'll turn off the music
I don't like to listen to 'music' without lyrics, nomatter how it fits into the game it'll just annoy me

	24-06-2005 15:49									#10
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Adagio Yep, sounds like he has wasted too much time with the music

Perhaps everything else is already done?

	24-06-2005 15:56									#11
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Even IF everything else is done it can always be done better

And more than 5 minutes spent on adding music to the game is wasted time for me...

	24-06-2005 16:06									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Adagio Even IF everything else is done it can always be done better And more than 5 minutes spent on adding music to the game is wasted time for me...

I know, I turn in-game music off on a regular basis. But some people think otherwise. Besides, the game is close to being finished, so give the man a break.

	24-06-2005 16:26									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

But I want the game now, can't he just add the music in a patch later on

	24-06-2005 16:29									#14
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by GeoModder So, Arabs have Saladin, Mongols have 2 leaders, and... Alexander? The Greecs are definitely in then!

Wohoo!!

	24-06-2005 16:36									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: But I want the game now, can't he just add the music in a patch later on

My guess is you would complain about the patch being useless and all

	24-06-2005 16:38									#16
	Suffering from ads?

quote: There are also a range of artillery promotions. Three levels of Accuracy promotions give you a better chance of damaging enemies and three levels of Barrage give you better collateral damage. In a throwback to Civilization 2, artillery units now also attack directly, just like regular units but they have the added advantage of attacking all units in a stack simultaneously. Since artillery can attack all the units in a square at once, it makes them ideal for city assaults. It also discourages the massive stacks that seem to roam about the world in previous versions of the game.

Yes!!

	24-06-2005 16:40									#17
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Of course he should also fix some bugs/add some features in that patch

Of course I would complain about having to download a 100 mb large patch to fix the bug where you get 1 gold too few for each deal being made

	24-06-2005 16:43									#18
	Increase Your PM Length

The thing about massive stacks is not their defensive, but the offensive ability. I mean, who cares how many Tanks I have to stack up, as long as I can capture the city on the first turn of the war, and move on, leaving the whole stack safe behind my lines...

	24-06-2005 16:47									#19
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Of course he should also fix some bugs/add some features in that patch

"Maybe" there will be no need for a patch this time

	24-06-2005 17:05									#20
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Of course not, there will be a polite message from Firaxis stating that the game was be made highly moddable for a reason.
DO YOUR OWN!

	24-06-2005 17:34									#21
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

I'd love to hear that there is a serious effort about music. I always use the original's game music, and until now it does always get old after some time. If they include a very broad repertoire, that will renew the music one listens as one plays, and it's really old good IMO

	24-06-2005 20:48									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I think music is important because it can add a lot to the atmosphere of the game. But I hope that civ4 will use good music. If we just get midi tribal rythms, I'll be pissed. We need some nice orchestral music.

	24-06-2005 20:57									#23
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Couldn't care less about music and wonder movies ...

I hope the promotions would require too much fiddling with individual units. Imagine attacking with 100 units and a fifth of them receiving promotions, each of which causes a popup promting you to chose whether they should get higher strength or quicker healing.

The tech system sounds like it invites to extreme beelining. Is that a good thing?

	24-06-2005 21:34									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Good orchestral music would be great! Wonder movies would be good the first time, then would be a waste of time afterwards. The Rise of Nations soundtrack (especially with its T&P expansion) really added to the game -- actually, it's the BEST part of the game. I hope civ can do comparable quality of music.

	24-06-2005 21:49									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by Jaybe Good orchestral music would be great! Wonder movies would be good the first time, then would be a waste of time afterwards. The Rise of Nations soundtrack (especially with its T&P expansion) really added to the game -- actually, it's the BEST part of the game. I hope civ can do comparable quality of music.

From the preview

quote: Not only will the game include many of Jeff's original compositions, it will also include licensed performances of pieces by the old greats (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and company) as well as contemporary greats like John Adams and soon-to-be greats like Christopher Tin.

Good enough for ya?

Here's the link for Christopher Tin's Civ 4 music. It sounds a bit "Disney" in the first part, then gets better in the middle. Ah, well... its just a game.

http://www.christophertin.com/samples.html

	24-06-2005 22:49									#26
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist The tech system sounds like it invites to extreme beelining. Is that a good thing?

I think it can be a good thing. Players will have to make more decisions about what techs to research. Do I research "horizontally" to get a little bit of everything or do I beeline to get better military techs at the expense of economic techs? Do I pursue military techs, economic techs or maybe religious techs? In previous versions of civ, this was not really an issue because you had to research everything, the only issue was in waht order. It looks like in civ4, players will really have to choose what kind of civ they want. By what they research, players will be able to specialize their civ, and be an economic superpower or a military superpower or a religious superpower.

It will also encourage tech trade. For example, if I beeline down a military path, I'll get some military techs that maybe my neighbor does not have. However, my neighbor beelined down an economic path and therefore has some economic techs that I don't have. I can trade my military techs for his economic techs.

Extreme beelining will sill have disadvantages. If I completely ignore economic techs to get military techs, I will have a better military but my economy will suffer.

But I am sure that Firaxis will balance the prerequisites in such a way that players cannot completely ignore certain techs. So beelining will only go so far.

	25-06-2005 00:10									#27
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by nostromo From the preview quote: Not only will the game include many of Jeff's original compositions, it will also include licensed performances of pieces by the old greats (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and company) as well as contemporary greats like John Adams and soon-to-be greats like Christopher Tin. Good enough for ya?

Good references are very nice, but it will be good enough for me IF it is "music to my ears!"

I am confident that the game will be a great experience. Hopefully I will be playing its music along with it. With luck, I'll CONTINUE to play its music anytime I play the game, months and years later.

	25-06-2005 00:18									#28
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The music will probably be alright out of the box . However, the good thing is that you can also always listen to your own music.

	25-06-2005 00:50									#29
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Well, it is good to know that the game is so much in a finished state that they can spend some time with music creation.

quote: Each religion will have specific structures and "mini" wonders associated with it but you'll find their benefit still applies even if the city where they're housed switches to a new religion.

Won't this nullify the possible disadvantages of changing to a particular religion? I mean, if you still get benefits from structures you built while you had one religion even after you change to another one, won't this encourage players to "religion hopping" in order to be able to build every possible religion structure and get the benefits of them all? Combined with the "Freedom of Religion" civic option, this could be too powerful a feature...

	25-06-2005 01:00									#30
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

The preview said, if a city switches, and not if you switch your state religion. Besides, I'd imagine the happiness penalty from switching a state religion later in the game would be severe.