its up, im not kiding!! CIV3.COM GOES LIVE

splangy · August 9, 2001, 19:01

go look at www.civ3.com ---- merrychristmas!!!!

MarkG · August 9, 2001, 19:21

well, he was faster guys....

connorkimbro · August 9, 2001, 19:23

[screenshot overload]
*brain sizzles*

whoohooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

hehehehehe!! i can't help but giggle like a little boy when looking at some of this stuff!!!!! hahahahah!!! *ecstatic laughter. . *

saracen31 · August 9, 2001, 19:23

You the man, Splangy. Nice foreign advisor screen, I like that.

MarkG · August 9, 2001, 19:36

a short summary

Quote:

Ok so it has a totally new look. Beyond that, what new information does civ3.com bring?

- Pillaging exists and is considered an act of war

- The city view changes according to the cultural group of the civ and the time era

- A world map will be included, and a "rules.txt" editor is confirmed once again

- Units are supported by your entire civilization(CtP1/2 way), not by your cities(Civ1/2 way)

- The 16th civ are the Aztecs

- The special abilities of each civ are devided in 6 categories: Militaristic, Commercial , Expansionistic, Scientific, Religious, and Industrious

- Each civ has one special unit, but they may come at different times: Zulus have the Impi(early one), the Americans have the F-15(late)

- Golden ages: During a "golden age", all worked tiles in your empire contribute one additional trade and shield per turn. Golden ages only occur once, last twenty game turns, and are triggered when any one of your civ-specific units wins its first combat against another civ

- Special abilities, special units and the golden age feature are optional

Beyond all this insignificant stuff, there are screenshots, videos, screensavers, etc, as well as the "Civ of the Week" feature where one of the civilizations is presented. The babylonians is the first.

Inverse Icarus · August 9, 2001, 19:41

hey, i just downloaded the screensaver thing to check it out... and a musketeer or something lost to a warrior in a city.

CRAAAAP.

Kassiopeia · August 9, 2001, 19:41

I don't know if this is a knwon fact, but now there is a terraforming dedicated unit "Worker". Building it depletes 1 pop. But building a settler to found a city requiers 2 pop, hindering the ICS strategy.

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · August 9, 2001, 19:44

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
hey, i just downloaded the screensaver thing to check it out... and a musketeer or something lost to a warrior in a city.

CRAAAAP.

That's actually somewhat of a joke. We were going to do the classic CivII "tank losing to phalanx" paradox but didn't wanna give away all the cool modern military units.

Dan

TechWins · August 9, 2001, 19:48

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Damn you Splangy I wanted to be the first one to find out civ3.com is open. I actually checked the page at 3:45pm (my time) which is about 15 minutes before you did and it wasn't open.

The worker and settler thing isn't any new info. Kass.

That's not a funny joke Dan. Thanks for finally getting up and the site looks very good.

saracen31 · August 9, 2001, 19:48

Yeah, that warrior unit kicked some butt in the screensaver - beat an archer & a samurai unit...hehe

splangy · August 9, 2001, 19:50

in mine it kicked the ass of 3 knights 2 samuri and a musketeer!!!

Mahdimael · August 9, 2001, 19:52

Cool site. I think I'm going to like this "Civilization 3" game, whatever it is

So where's the update?

just kidding!

Inverse Icarus · August 9, 2001, 19:55

well i ripped that site apart like a (INSERT FUNNY METAPHOR HERE).

nothing left to do but wait for an update.

the civ of the week doesn't even seem hackable

.

manual updates. pah.

if thats the order (in the civ of the week area) we've got like 15 weeks ahead of us.

that takes us into november.

Footie Mad · August 9, 2001, 20:02

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX

nothing left to do but wait for an update.

.

Give them a finger and soon they want the whole hand....

TechWins · August 9, 2001, 20:03

Quote:

if thats the order (in the civ of the week area) we've got like 15 weeks ahead of us.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe this means that the game will be out sometime around 16 weeks. That's my guess at this point. I wonder if this actually does have any corallation with the release date.???

ASHBERY76 · August 9, 2001, 20:07

I think cleopatra will be turning in her gave,she was greek not black.

MarkG · August 9, 2001, 20:10

From the new screenshots we found several interesting stuff

New game stup screen
- You can select your opponents, or have them random
- There are six ways to win: by Domination(occupy a big percentage of land), Diplomatically(get elected like in SMAC), Culturally(have everyone sing Britney Spears songs i suppose), going to Space(Alpha Centauri) and Militarily(kill everyone)
- The difficulty levels are like the Civ2 ones

A cultural win
- (I assume that you got them by your culture) An enemy city revolts and wants to join you. When this happens you get asked if you want to let them join you or not.

City Screen
- The city screen(which appears as an overlay on the main map) uses the civ2 way of showing things, e.g. with icons rather than numbers

Diplomatic relations screen
- You now have a cool screen showing you the relationship and agreements between all civs!

Choosing a discovery
- Making a choice of what you want to research and planning ahead is done easily from a tech-tree screen

Civ1 Palace!
- The Palace is back! (need to say more?)

ASHBERY76, you're unfortunately right....
and why have the the tower of babel when there is the parthenon??

Footie Mad · August 9, 2001, 20:18

Overall I like the style of the game, it makes me think of Civ 1, but something that bothers me is if its possible to play it windowed, perhaps an option ta have it in full-screen or windowed mode like Championship Manager?

Shadowstrike · August 9, 2001, 20:19

Woooooohoooooooo! The Palace is back! Err... I mean Civ3.com is up....

MarkG · August 9, 2001, 20:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Wille
but something that bothers me is if its possible to play it windowed, perhaps an option ta have it in full-screen or windowed mode like Championship Manager?

i dont think so, with 1024x768 being a requirement....

Eli · August 9, 2001, 20:33

Great site!!!

It's 03:23 AM and I'm busy in downloading stuff.

But....

WHERE ARE THE HEBREWS!!!!!????!?!??!!??!?!

*sigh*. Well, I never really believed that they will include us.

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · August 9, 2001, 20:36

Quote:

Originally posted by Wille
Overall I like the style of the game, it makes me think of Civ 1, but something that bothers me is if its possible to play it windowed, perhaps an option ta have it in full-screen or windowed mode like Championship Manager?

The game is not a "windowed" game like Civ II was. Like most other recent games, it runs in its own full-screen window. However, I can tell you that with my own personal experiences with the game so far , it is very ALT-TAB friendly, and you *can* set other apps to "always be on top", so if you want to keep WinAmp, ICQ or AOLIM on top of your screen while playing, you can. I've tried all of these and they all work.

And yes, you can disable the music (and even the sound effects), so you can play your favorite music while you're playing, although there's some really cool music in the game, so I don't know why anyone would

Dan

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · August 9, 2001, 20:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Eli
Great site!!!

It's 03:23 AM and I'm busy in downloading stuff.

But....

WHERE ARE THE HEBREWS!!!!!????!?!??!!??!?!

*sigh*. Well, I never really believed that they will include us.

I know some folks are disappointed that their civ didn't make it into the game, but this is the perfect opportunity to encourage you to start thinking about how you would create your dream civ with the editors...

Dan

Shadowstrike · August 9, 2001, 20:40

Time to switch over to 1024 by 768 on my monitor....

'll adapt in time for Civ3.....

MarkG · August 9, 2001, 20:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
so if you want to keep WinAmp, ICQ or AOLIM on top of your screen while playing, you can. I've tried all of these and they all work.

well, the whole "can we have it in a window" thing is for icq, so i suppose the mp-ers will be happy

Quote:

And yes, you can disable the music (and even the sound effects), so you can play your favorite music while you're playing, although there's some really cool music in the game, so I don't know why anyone would

does this also mean that you will be able to play without the cd(after starting the game with it)?

yin26 · August 9, 2001, 20:44

Some impressions...

UNIQUE UNITS/CIVS:

Quote:

We are, of course, taking extra care to ensure that these bonuses and "special units" don't unbalance the game. Civ purists will be able to disable these new features and play with "Classic Civ" rules, but we think they add another level of challenge that most gamers will enjoy.

VERY smart move making that an option, Firaxis. And explicitly nodding toward the balancing issue was very important to say. Good work.

UNIT SUPPORT:

Quote:

Units are no longer supported by the city that produced them, they are now supported by your civilization as a whole. Depending on your government type, you can support a certain number of units "for free"; after that limit is exceeded, you must pay maintenance per turn for additional units.

Thank God! I think that will go a long way toward helping you feel you run a kingdom and not city states or something. Good work here as well.

GRAPHICS:

Love the palace! I really look forward to that bit of eye-candy. Some of the city-views are spectacular. I've warmed up a bit to the map graphics as well. Not a major improvement there, but I can see the difference and like the direction it is moving.

OVERALL SITE REVIEW:

While the amount of new information was actually rather limited, it did provide enough stuff to think about and, more important, to build a degree of well-founded anticipation. The site design is clean and colorful. Still a lot of recycled stuff from the Firaxis site, but no need to reinvent the wheel I suppose.

Good work, Dan. Will there be a focussed effort for the fans to interact with Firaxis at this point? There is the Ask section, but beyond that?

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · August 9, 2001, 20:46

Quote:

Originally posted by MarkG
well, the whole "can we have it in a window" thing is for icq, so i suppose the mp-ers will be happy

Quote:

And yes, you can disable the music (and even the sound effects), so you can play your favorite music while you're playing, although there's some really cool music in the game, so I don't know why anyone would

does this also mean that you will be able to play without the cd(after starting the game with it)?

That I have *no* idea on. Copy protection is usually a situation where the publisher has a standard and tells the developer what to use. And generally they don't ask us webmasters what kind of protection we'd recommend...

Dan

Zanzin · August 9, 2001, 20:49

I think the site looks great.

Most happpiness comes from the city view - different styles of architecture for different civs and terrain! Yippee!!

The diplomatic advisor screen is also very cool - you'll be able to see inter-civ relations at merely a glance. Very good.

On the subject of civ specific abilities and the like...I think it's good. If the French beat you in one game, the next game you play, it'll still be personal with them...eheheh.

The only thing I don't like is the limited way in which a golden age is triggered. Surely an explosion of culture would trigger a golden age as well? As opposed to just a unique winning in combat for the first time.

Ofcourse, still no modern age screenshots...guess they're saving the best for last!

MarkG · August 9, 2001, 20:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
That I have *no* idea on. Copy protection is usually a situation where the publisher has a standard and tells the developer what to use. And generally they don't ask us webmasters what kind of protection we'd recommend...

LOL, ok....

(waits yin to come up and say that Dan should even resort to protest outside infogrames's offices if they dont allow the game to be playable without the cd

)

btw, on the links page, the link for "Civilization Scenario Collection" needs an "http://"
http://www.civ3.com/fansites.cfm
also, the "Civilization Gaming Network Forums" is dead and....
never mind, just get rid of everything else and leave just apolyton there