Civillisation IV

Sand

I've been badly affected by reports emanating from E3 about Civillisation IV, which is apparently due out for November. I was actually dreaming about playing the game last night, so I'm quite worried about whats going to happen to me when its released.

I'm very pleased with the clumsy government types being thrown out and replaced with the social engineering from Alpha Centauri. That alone is worth the price of admission, as the way the Non player nations seem to invariably go to communism in Civ3 is a little...predictable. The new qualities that leaders and units can gain means you might end up with specialised units, adding a little bit more depth to wars, which previously were simply throwing a lot of units at the enemy - who tended to collapse quite easily. Theyre talking about making the PC nations less cheat intensive, but I'll be happy so long as they avoid the silly way the nations all gang up on you as you rise to prominence - that makes no sense. The engine looks different, but in a good way. Im kinda used to it already from Pirates.

Overall, Im very pleased. All I need now is Alpha Centauri 2 on the way.

BlitzKrieg

any mention on how the diplomacy will work? will it allow alot more freedom in striking deals (backstabbings etc?)





offtopic:
also apart from SPARTAN TOTAL WARRIOR were there any mention from the total war crew on their next project?

Boston

O dead god no. Looks like I know what I'll be spending that four week christmas break on.

BlitzKrieg

(Oh yeah, diplomacy has also been completely overhauled).

great...but no details

Sand

any mention on how the diplomacy will work? will it allow alot more freedom in striking deals (backstabbings etc?)

Nah, its sparse on details. One of the gameply videos shows diplomacy in action, but the resolution was too small to see the details - basically the talking heads are there, and the list of options seems pretty long. I just hope the diplomacy works better - in that its not just point blank refusal to do deals, or absolutely insane terms. And it would be nice if allies would work a bit closer on the battlefield - i.e. you can ask the PC to attack enemy city X with Unit A,B and C in ten turns, or for 3 turns or whatever. Oh, and its been a while but AC had a nice feature whereby you could garrison allied cities with your units, so you could really assist your allies and use their cities to base your airforce/navy out of - as happened throughout history. I dont think this was implemented in Civ3. In fact, AC did so many things right, Civ3 was a slight dissapointment in that it seemed to ignore them and work straight from the Civ2 base.

also apart from SPARTAN TOTAL WARRIOR were there any mention from the total war crew on their next project?

Very little, beyond fluff. Its going to be called Barbarian Invasion, keeping with the theme of other expansions - and its basically going to be set after the time of Constatine, but before the total collapse of the empire in the west. So we can look forward to Attilla the Hun and chums. There will be night battles, a new technology tree and troop types.

Personally I hope it increases the speed of the generals and ships .... armies are probably about right given their baggage trains and all, but individual characters speed should be doubled or even more in my mind, and ships need a real boost. It takes 18 months to cross from Greece to Eygpt in the game, which is nonsense. Caesar marched into Italy, defeated enemies in Spain, and then chased his enemies all the way to Eygpt all inside 2 years. With the RTW speeds thats frankly impossible. Which is annoying for me anyway. Rant over.

BlitzKrieg

cheers sand...I was hoping for alliances that were fixed around policies between more then one country, for example ones similar to the ones before WW1. I always felt that in the civilisation games etc, unless you were really powerful, your alliance with so and so means squat when you get invaded.

ON TOTAL WAR:
I still dont understand why they havnt taken a chance with doing proper sea battles...esp with the new rome total war engine...And on Sega buying creative assembly. I am a big Sega fan for consoles (uptil dreamcast at least) and as a fanboy i am sure they will let creative assembly still persist in its own direction in a lot of ways (They did so with alot of companies they owned including the panzer dragoon developers etc) But i have become heavily cynical of their actions since the failing of the dreamcast.

I wonder if they'll chance converting Rome Total war to console (they could try a grid map system for ordering units on a joypad.

Manach

Looking foward to it myself. Read about Civ4 in PC Zone, and I'm curious to see how the Hero element will work, as it is in Civ3 fairly random.

Gyck

All I need now is Alpha Centauri 2 on the way.

I'm with you on that one!

theCzar

can't wait for civ4, sounds like the games getting it's biggest overhaul yet. i'd love some sort of united nations liek in Alpha centauri...