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Civilization V Announced For This Fall
sopssa writes "2K Games announced today that they will be releasing Civilization V in the fall. For the first time in the series, the square tiles will be changed to hexes, which 2K Games says provides 'deeper strategy' and 'more realistic gameplay.' Civilization V will also include a new graphics engine, new combat system including ranged bombardment, multiplayer and good support for the modding community. 'Each new version of Civilization presents exciting challenges for our team. Thankfully, ideas on how to bring new and fun experiences to Civ players never seem to stop flowing. From fully animated leaders and realistic landscapes, new combat tactics, expanded diplomacy and shared mods, we're excited for players to see the new vision our team at Firaxis has brought to the series,' Sid Meier said. In addition to Civilization V, the Facebook-based Civilization Network will also be released during 2010."
Some of our best LANs were had with Civilization 4...hell, I played through Mirror's Edge start to finish in between turns during an extended Civ 4 LAN weekend.
Crazy insanely excited about this. The screenshots look awesome.
Living With a Nerd
Well, I was planning on having a life this fall. So much for planning.
Please, please, follow the example of Blizzard and release a Mac version at the same time, or even on the same media. I don't want to wait a year or more for the Mac version to come out!
It was 1995 and I was in the computer lab playing Civ II. I was just starting to get the hang of it when my wife-to-be popped in to see if I wanted to go down to the Commons for lunch. I wasn't hungry, so I passed. I played myself into a corner, and decided to start a new game. Just as it was getting rolling, my girlfriend popped in again and asked if I wanted to go to dinner.
I looked in amazement at the game in front of me and realized that it had eaten 6 hours of my life without my realizing it.
I had never before enjoyed a computer game as much, and have likewise never since.
The Civ games are awesome & all, but I *really* want to see a sequel / remake of Alpha Centauri / Alien Crossfire!
There is a war going on for your mind.
Next fall is going to have some really late nights and brutal AMs at the office. Just one more turn....
like giving away free laptops with webcams?
This is by the far the worst thing my wife could find in my browsing history...
Civilization 5's success will ultimately depend on how moddable it is. If it is less moddable than Civilization 4, there is no way it will have any staying power.
Before you mod me down; I know, I mod for Civilization 4.t
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
I know it will result in a much more natural city-radius, but adapting to the new tile shape will be hard at first. After almost two decades of playing Civ games (both the main line and the various spin-offs) i've got that "5x5 with the corners cut off" plus shape imprinted in my mind at some basic level. For the first couple hours of Civ 5 i'll probably be counting out the tiles just to double-check which resources will be within range of which potential city spots, and where the next city would have to be not to overlap.
And is it just me, or did the fact that the old city-radius shape didn't tile perfectly actually add another layer of strategy to the game? Did you want to place your cities close together to maximize usage the tiles within your territory but forcing cities to compete with each other over resources, or space your cities out so that each city got as many resources as possible even though that would mean some areas in between wouldn't be exploited at all?
With the hex-based tiles it should be possible to perfectly tile your cities so that all tiles are being exploited but none are being overlapped, unless they decide to do something really strange with the radius shape. (Possible conflicts with unbuildable terrain aside of course.)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
CIV4 had play by email, which is better than a dedicated server (in this one way anyway) since no machine had to stay up all the time.
Civ4 has this feature. It's called PitBoss. It's a dedicated server, basically. And, it has turn timers, drop in/out gameplay, as well as a SMTP to email people when it's their turn.
I have loved many of the old versions of Civ, spending far too many hours playing them. Heck, learning how to hack the original Civ was a siginifant contributing factoring to me choosing IT over business.
All that being said, the last version turned into the green eco-facist game from hell. Any game that extended too long became one giant environmental nag session. Didn't matter how 'green' you were, someone else was polluting and everything quickly turned to waste with reasonable way to get restore things.
I'm not opposed to the pollution bit to some level, it's always been a part of the game, but it should never /become/ the game. The bottom line was that the fun got stripped away, because someone took their green preaching too far! The game wasn't fun to play, and I simply stopped playing.
I've got to say, my favorite of the Civ combat systems is still in Call To Power ("The Civ Game that Never Was"). Actually, that was my favorite of the games in a lot of ways... I've never really understood why no one else liked it. Multi-unit combat, ranged units affecting what happened between the non-ranged units, and good use of flying units.
Game X didn't have DRM, so it's fairly safe to assume the same for Game X+1 even though they're being developed by different companies, and X+1 is being developed by a company owned by EA, whose DRM is notorious in the gaming world.
The Pythagoreans would have killed to have sqrt(2)=1...
Hex maps allow the world to really be a sphere, as opposed to a flat map.
Hmm, no. Look at a football (soccer) ball : There are pentagons to make it spherical.
The advantage of hexes is that all adjacent tiles represent the same travel distance, while with squares, diagonals represent greater distances.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
I just want a combat system where a bunch of archers on horses will not win against a tank on flat ground.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
Man, I hope there's a Linux version. Sadly, I'm not gonna hold my breath. Too many Linux (and now Mac: welcome to the club!) users are willing to trade freedom for a little temporary entertainment. *sigh*
Between StarCraft 2, Diablo III, and Civilization V not running on Linux, I'm saving a bundle of cash and a ton of time.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Aaah. Civilization 1 and 2 were the best! :D
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I believe Civ IV solved this, didn't it?
In any case, depending on the tank, it is still theoretically possible...
Beetle B.
Dear game and movie studio's of the northern hemisphere (and whoever else it may concern),
Please stop using seasons as indicators as to when things occur if they're not actually related to the season they happen in.
Yours Sincerely,
The Southern Hemisphere
P.S. Either that, or release Civ. 5 by May 2010
even though they're being developed by different companies
Actually, Firaxis developed Civ 4 and is developing Civ 5.