New PC.IGN preview

[RobC]

Originally posted by SerapisIV


Regular is veterancy level? (Regular/Veteran/Elite/Gr.Leader
3/3 is health
1.3.1/1 (Attack.Defense.MovePoints/MovePointsRemaining)

Sound close?

I agree, although for consistency, it's probably MovePointsRemaining/MovePoints instead of the other way around (assuming the 3/3 is HitPointsRemaining/MaxHit Points)

[Wexu]

Originally posted by SerapisIV


Besides, can there forums put up almost 150 posts discussing the preview in the hour or so since the preview was posted? (Cheers to MarkG and Dan)

Well, if you look people like Alex 14's comments, that's no wonder. Most of this guy's posts have only one or two words. This looks more a chat than a discussion board.

It's not the quantity, it's the quality that matters.

[Grumbold]

Very interesting review. The screenshots give lots to think about, especially because the reviewer says he's played a lot of Civ in the past but is still well behind on the tech progression. He's playing badly but is still winning? Is he playing on chieftain or is the AI equally stupid?

The screenshots are at last showing that all sides are at least improving their tiles now - so many early ones looked sparse. The diamond pattern mine/irrigation does look like the AI doesn't evaulate potential so much as follow a rigid pattern. Being able to irrigate diagonally does seem to be an adequate compensation for only getting water from rivers and lakes. We haven't seen many shots where it has not been possible to get water to a city.

I was a little surprised the frigate was only a 2(2).2.2 unit. That means 2,000 years or more of naval combat have to be packed into variations of 1 and 2 attack and defence strength.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by El hidalgo
OK, I don't get this:



He means "supply of fresh water," right? OK, just making sure. Now the comment about electricity: if you can irrigate anywhere, does that mean even on tiles without any access to any kind of water, whether sea or fresh water? If so, I don't get it. How can you irrigate without water? How can I just start irrigating in the middle of the Sahara without drawing off water from a nearby source? (Maybe I'm on an oasis, but that's a special case). On the other hand, if the comment means that after you discover electrity then you can irrigate with sea water, then that makes sense to me. But which is it?

Still, I like this concept very much

I guess the assumption is that you can pump water from far away, or perhaps from an aquafer (like a well).

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by SerapisIV
City Screen

Check this screen out. The irrigation tiles give no more food then un-irrigated plains? They're both by river tiles, is this why?

I believe examining this screen closely shows that all the plains squares which produce 2 food are irrigated. There is also a plains square directly southwest of the city which is un-irrigated and only produces 1 food. A plains (or maybe a desert - it's hard to see) square northwest of the city is producing 4 food. I'm not sure why this is, but I'm guessing there is a bonus resource there(wheat, oasis), and it's just hard to see it in this screenshot. Also, go 2 squares southeast of the city and there is a square producing 4 food, and the food is a different color than the food on the other squares. I have no idea what the significance of the color is. Anyone know or care to guess?

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by Faboba
I've got about 5 minutes till I have to go to school so this is in case no one mentioned it ( as I've no time to read all 4 pages )

In one of the city screens you can see maintainance for city improvements is actually being taken from the trade / commerce generated by that city.

This has the pretty cool effect that now your cities need to support their own improvements rather than you supporting them over your civ as a whole.

Faboba, I believe you are mistaken. On the city screen, the red coins under the Commerce section show the amount lost to corruption, not the amount paid for maintenance. I actually got into this discussion a few weeks ago in a different thread. If you look at the Domestic Advisor Screen, you can see that maintenance (as well as unit support) is calculated against the civ as a whole, not individual cities. The mysterious "Hammer" column in the domestic advisor screen shows how much maintenance each city is costing. However that is just for informational purposes, it does not affect the calculation of gold to treasury, science, entertainment, and corruption within each city. The overall maintenance and unit cost is taken out of the civ treasury.

[albiedamned]

Originally posted by Andy
On the City Build Requests screen, the last item on the list is "Wealth". Given that it only takes one turn to build and by the name, this must be the Civ 3 version of Capitalization. I believe that this is new info and was debated on another thread.

Excellent point. I agree that Wealth is probably Civ3's version of Capitalization. I wonder if it is still tied to The Corporation, or if it becomes available earlier (or later) in the game.

In Civ2, if you ever ran out of stuff to build, you could always stockpile caravans (trade was an early tech), and then cash them in when you started to build your next wonder. You won't have this option in Civ3 since there are no caravans. Hopefully it's designed now such that you won't get to a stage where there is nothing to build, but I doubt it. A dedicated builder like me will always fill up his cities with all the improvements and run out of stuff to build! So hopefully Wealth is available reasonably early.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by UKScud
The deal with rivers is, I think, going to determine a lot of early developed strategies.

For a start, if there is no movement bonus for the river (any evidence that there is a bonus?) then one of the means of really exploring the map readily available in Civ2 is gone. Unless that is, the scout gets a big movement bonus and is available early on.

Actually according to the preview there is a movement penalty for crossing a river, so rivers seem to actually work like the should now (how many times in the past have ancient armies successfully attacked across a river??)

This change, as well as the changes to wheeled vehicles not crossing jungle amd mountains (CtP anyone? ) mean that infantry will be more useful now. I wonder if catapults, cannon & artillery are all considered wheeled??

Defensive bonuses will be good, but of course the AI could well be thinking the same thing.

Maybe the AI will have enough defensive savvy to stall any human aggression, although this would be a remote possibility at best.

I think that fresh water irrigation will make most people think twice about locating their capital city on a sea edge. Pros: Once you have a harbour your trade with other Civs is gonna be easier. Cons: City growth is going to be sluggish without irrigation, and since settler production ultimately depends upon whether you can afford those two pop. points, I think it will slow down your own civilization growth.

Unless of course the city was founded near a river flowing into the sea or near a fresh water lake, then you'll have the best of both world, a port to trade in and fresh water irrigation.

Electricity is definately a 'target' discovery in the same way that Invention or Monotheism was in Civ2. Without extensive irrigation, the population spurt that drives your cities to the modern day just doesn't happen. How important is it to discover electricity first? Would you trade it?

Any other thoughts?

Electricity (for now at least) would have to be one of the top advances to shoot for. Not much will be known until people play the game or find out more details of exactly how everything works, but this one does seem to be major. Other "required" techs will be those that give great wonders that offer huge advantages & bonuses in some way shape or form as usual.

[Father Beast]

OK, so the tiles can't get irigated without a freshwater source, but what about the citysquare?

in civ1/2 your city square was automatically irrigated no matter even if you founded it in the middle of a desert! important point for ptotential ICSers (and no, I don't believe it doesn't work until our guys have tried it).

[Pggar]

Have you seen the hidden screens fouded by Thunderfall from Civfanatics

Lyons

Evil French

Trade and Trade Routes

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Serapis, what are you talking about?

If you look closely, you can see every tile that produces 2 or more food, is irrigated.

No, two on the southern bank of the river, left of the city itself have no irrigation, yet produce the same amount of food as the irrigated tiles

[Grumbold]

Difficult to see with those big icons in the way. They might be irrigated. The one the worker is standing on is only producing one food so it isn't the proximity of the river that is doing it. What I find more odd is that the desert looking tiles are producing more food than the plains.

[Solver]

Only now got the time to read the preview. Absolutely outstandind. All I've read today, including bits from Korean preview, posted by Yin, make me want this game so much more.

Generally, I didn't think much about Civ 3 before August, but now it occupies much of my thought. Go Sid and Co!

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Difficult to see with those big icons in the way. They might be irrigated. The one the worker is standing on is only producing one food so it isn't the proximity of the river that is doing it. What I find more odd is that the desert looking tiles are producing more food than the plains.

I believe all squares adjacent to the river will have additional food just because they are near a river.

I don't know if this was officially stated by anyone at Firaxis, but all of the screen shots I have seen had more food comming from non-irrigated squares near rivers than those same terrain types away from the river.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Ozymandous
I believe all squares adjacent to the river will have additional food just because they are near a river.

I don't know if this was officially stated by anyone at Firaxis, but all of the screen shots I have seen had more food comming from non-irrigated squares near rivers than those same terrain types away from the river.

Unfortunately in that screenshot the square with the worker on it is definitely next to the river but its food production is only 1 unlike all the adjacent squares...

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by SerapisIV


Yeah, but no word or mention on whether its the same privateer concept as Colonization (able to attack enemy Civs without them knowing which Civ you were from, free pirating . Let's hope it's so.

Ding ding ding, we've got a winner!


Dan

[Grumbold]

Nice one Dan

[Rasbelin]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Panzer has same mouvement rate as cavalry

Even if many German tanks could drive
fast as what.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Ding ding ding, we've got a winner!
Dan

This is outstanding!

Not being familiar with Colonization, does a successful attack with a Privateer result in the attacking Civ gaining some gold? Or does the unit just get destroyed without ramifications for the attacking Civ?

Oh, and welcome back Dan. It's been a few days (5, to be exact).

[kaminwx]

I like most of the graphics, but with irrigation and mines on nearly every square, some of those screens look cluttered and not so pretty. Why would computer civs build mines all over grassland, anyway?

[Rasbelin]

Dan the Great of Firaxis, would you like to tell us
something more on the things listed in the PC.IGN article?

BTW, could you tell us, is there's lots
of animated graphic elements inside the
game (of course the units are fully animated,
and we have seen some of them in action
in that good Firaxis' Civ III screensaver,
but we haven't seen so much else)?
More precisely I'm talking of animations
in the in-game screens.

[donarumo]

With locations being so important now - what with rivers and mountains and resources, I may actually move my settler before starting my first city!

[Rasbelin]

BTW, because nobody else has yet given
comments on the Civilopedia, here's some...

1. Clear and easy-to-use design
- the information is devided into 3 separate areas
- the letter buttons
2. The descrition button's location
- IMO it would be better under the
effect description field, but the current
location is good enough

Overall - good work.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Stuie


Not being familiar with Colonization, does a successful attack with a Privateer result in the attacking Civ gaining some gold? Or does the unit just get destroyed without ramifications for the attacking Civ?

Oh, and welcome back Dan. It's been a few days (5, to be exact).

In Colonization when a Privateer sank another ship (heh, not a definite thing even when veteran!) the Privateer would get to choose which, if any, or the goods the ship were carrying to "pillage". This happened because in Colonization you bought actual units of goods to use, refine and then resell, etc. If there were units on the ship then the enemy ship and all hands were lost.

Was a relatively simple game, yet had a lot of good ideas. I wish Sid would go back, redesign the game a bit and re-release it. With improved trade with "Europe" and some other trade I think the game would be a bigger hit today than it was when it was released.

Although with the PC "climate" being what it is today the game would probably be banned, even though it was realisitc because it had "converts, convicts, indentured servants", etc.

Was always fun to attack a enemy ship and get the guns or rum they were transporting.. heh, even better to get tools, at least until you could make your own.

[art_vandelai]

Originally posted by dennis580
Leaders can complete Wonders in a single turn. I think that's alittle too much. If they could complte 50% of the woonder that would be okay, but to atuomatically be able to complte 100% of a wonder in a single turn is a little redicoulous.

I expect you'd lose that Great Leader then if you decide to rush a wonder. Decisions, decisions!!!

[Ozymandous]

By the way, glad to see Firaxis did take another good idea from the CtP series (along with armies, and trade goods/resources) and limit movement for certain unit types over certain terrain. No more moving chariots over mountians and tanks through raw (i.e. no road) jungle!

Hmm, I wonder if Firaxis was smart enough to divide the units, city building improvements and wonders on seperate "build" tabs for ease of access? Was nice in the CtP series to be able to select the "Wonders" tab to see what you could and couldn't build without having to scroll through the jumbled mess of units, city buildings and wonders ala SMAC, Civ 2 & Civ.

[art_vandelai]

Originally posted by Pggar
Have you seen the hidden screens fouded by Thunderfall from Civfanatics

Lyons

Evil French

Trade and Trade Routes

Yes!!! Blocking trade routes with naval forces is part of the game!!! I wonder if you put a battleship in the harbor if the trade route automatically moves around you (i.e. you have to ring the city with ships) or if just sitting directly offshore will block the trade from getting in.

[Boris Godunov]

What struck me as one of the greatest new little features is that we can now change science research in midstream to something else. I will LOVE this feature. In Civ II I would always wish I could change what I was researching when I would hear what other Civs were discovering. This will be a big help in developing a tech strategy that keeps your civ competitive with others.

Whoopee!

Cheers.

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
Ding ding ding, we've got a winner!


Dan

YeeHah !! Do I get a stuffed animal now?

Hey Dan, any word on Soren's future soup ingredient's name? Oh yeah, if you find the time, feel free to post the story or at least the portions that you can actually remember about how the sombrero got it's name. If you really feel ambitious, use that whit of yours that was so evident in the early COTW entries and do it in Dr. Suess format (Maybe I'm asking too much... nah)

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
What struck me as one of the greatest new little features is that we can now change science research in midstream to something else. I will LOVE this feature. In Civ II I would always wish I could change what I was researching when I would hear what other Civs were discovering. This will be a big help in developing a tech strategy that keeps your civ competitive with others.

Whoopee!

Cheers.

Well, you could do this from the beginning in the two CtP games...

Looks like another good CtP idea was "magically" thought of and implemented at Firaxis.. heh... Not to say that CtP was great, but I am glad some of the good ideas in those games were brought into Civ.