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An Early Look At Civilization V
c0mpliant writes "IGN and Gamespot have each released a preview of the recently announced and eagerly awaited Civilization V. Apart from the obvious new hexagon shape of tiles and improved graphics, the articles go on to outline some of the major changes in the game, such as updated AI, new 'flavors' to world leaders, and a potentially game-changing, one-unit-per-tile system. No more will the stack of doom come to your city's doorsteps. Some features which will not be returning are religion and espionage. The removal of these two have sparked a frenzy of discussion on fan-related forums."
Eh, I think from that short little preview I am indifferent. I could see how it could be good, but frankly, nothing in that preview really hit on the 'heart' of Civilization.
Who ever played civilization craving more tactical combat? Who cares if the diplomacy screen has the guys walking around instead of just portrait?
The stuff that makes Civilization games either great or suck is in how it deals with culture, expansion, technology, city management, improvements, government types, etc. Frankly, I don't think Civ4 was much of a jump forwards in terms of Civ games. They added some neat futures, but they also managed to dumb down a lot of interesting things from earlier Civs. The civics from Civ4 were especially vapid and uninteresting.
For my money, I personally think that the best "Civ" game ever made was, by leaps and bounds, Alpha Centauri. That game had interesting world events, awesome civics, and each nation had a real sense of personality. I personally hope that they go down that road for Civ5 and give the game more personality, rather than strip it down further like they did with Civ4. Granted, it is really still far too early to make any judgments on the game, I am just not terribly hopeful.
I'm excited about the removal of "stacks of doom" for the increase in strategy with battles, but I'm rather disappointed in their PC move of removing religion. Religion has been a huge driving force, if not the greatest motivator, of the last several thousands of years. To remove it and just leave "culture" is a rather silly cop-out to the overly sensitive fools out there.
..the only problem is, the civ4 stacks of doom arrive thousands of years before aircraft are invented.
It isnt until airships that the stacks of doom start their decline in importance, because prior to that it only takes a few forward units to shield the stack.
The hardest early counter mechanic to stacks of doom would be unit upkeep cost (stacks are expensive), but thanks to the specialist mechanics, early warmongers simply chop out libraries, temples, and markets and run a specialist economy for research and money. Money isnt a problem when you can set your research slider at 0% and still keep up on techs.
"His name was James Damore."
What I would like to see is probably the game being more clear with what each difficulty actually means. Probably would be over the head of most people, but at least marking how much advantage you get vs computer. Other than knowing that me and the AI is on equal footing at noble difficulty... it's not really as clear it could be in Civ IV. :)
Hexes, one unit per tile, ranged attacks, tactical combat, no need to garrison a city... Wow, civ5 will be an overpriced giant 3D Battle of Wesnoth clone.
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
religious people in the far flung future, seriously?
Yeah, it's not like they ever put religion in sci-fi, young padawan.
Don't tell me atheists are offended by the very idea that religion may not die out in the next few hundred years? If so, I'm glad sci-fi can still challenge you with unorthodox ideas :)