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."

Comments

Stack o' Doom

[Psychotic_Wrath]

They thought they fixed this with the collateral damage caused by seige weapons. They talk about it on the civ forum. The airstrikes do a pretty good job of weakening the Stack O' Doom

Re:Stack o' Doom

[Rockoon]

..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.

Re:Stack o' Doom

[blahplusplus]

"..the only problem is, the civ4 stacks of doom arrive thousands of years before aircraft are invented."

This is what catapults are for, and they come long before aircraft, did you even play Civ? Seriously?

Re:Stack o' Doom

[Rockoon]

It is you that seems to not be playing any competitive Civ4.

Catapults damage at most 4 to 6 units. A stack of doom is 20 to 30 melee units, also with 5 to 10 catapults. You can slam my stack with collateral catapults, but then I slam your city defenders with collateral catapults. Unless your city has a big stack in it, its going down to my stack.

You've got exactly 1 turn to hit my stack with catapults, because I blocked the path to my stack as it approached your city.

In human vs human play, the only defense to big stacks is bigger stacks.

Re:Stack o' Doom

[Rockoon]

The flaw is that there are no tactical variations that work. The biggest stack wins.

Defensive bonuses are a wash when its stack vs stack. All my attacking units have been given +20%, +45%, or +75% city raider promoted, a bonus meant to counter cultural defenses, walls, and fortification bonuses.

If you sit there in the city waiting for that stack vs stack and your stack is mostly city garrison promoted, I can just wipe your civ clean of land improvements and come back in about 1000 years when you are hopelessly behind. The upshot here is that most of your units need to be tailored for attacking, not defending, so that you can force the confrontation if you have to.

Its stack vs stack, and both civ3 and civ4 were designed to be multiplayer. Civ3 had the army units, and that proved worse than it is in Civ4. Civ5 is forcing the issue by not allowing stacks and I think thats a good thing. Tactics. Tactics. Tactics.

Obligatory atheist flamebait

[aaron alderman]

I'm glad they got rid of religion. Hopefully we can get rid of it in this world too.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[pagaboy]

If you believe it enough, I'm sure it'll happen.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[sackvillian]

My bet is the first mod adds it back in.

Voltaire would think so; since God does not exist, it will be necessary to invent him

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[darkstar949]

Religion actually added a pretty interesting dynamic to the game play in Civilization IV, so I'm actually in the group of people that is disappointed to see it go. It gave another route to victory beyond the military or technological routes.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[delinear]

They prefer to think of it as intelligently designing the mod.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[chronosan]

You can count me in that category too - as much as one might dislike religion, there's no denying the impact it has had on civilization.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[thesandtiger]

I thought the religious and corporate aspects of Civ IV were somewhat interesting, but other than just rushing to found a religion so that I could culture bomb my nearby opponents I didn't really care much for it as a gameplay mechanic.

What I did love about it was when Suleiman threatened to war if my Islamic civilization did not convert to Judaism, or when Ghandi insisted that I renounce Hinduism, or Stalin suggesting that I should convert to Buddhism if I didn't want him to slaughter everyone in my empire.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[thesandtiger]

In Civ 1 and 2 I would beeline to Republic, then Gunpowder and then whatever tech gave me Armor - every game was pretty much the same strategy, the only difference was how I was able to go about implementing that strategy (do I found 50 cities as close as possible to each other, or do I just build 10 super cities? Do I trade for basic techs while going to Republic, or do I go it alone?) In either case, while there were other strategies that *could* work, this route through the tech tree was pretty much optimal - even on high difficulty level games I would often have an extremely substantial tech lead on my opponents, and the difference between tech levels was VERY pronounced.

What I like about Civ IV is that I can actually use different strategies, and different focuses depending on my starting situation. Rushing towards a high-tech producing civ isn't always the best move, early wars with nearby foes aren't necessarily bad, and it is entirely possible to fight really effectively despite being behind in the tech race as long as you aren't *too* far behind.

I like that Civ IV lets you do other strategies without feeling like you're intentionally hobbling yourself or playing sub-optimally if you try different techniques.

Re:Obligatory atheist flamebait

[DavidTC]

I hated having to rush for a religion. I find it exceptionally absurd I can end up without one. What primitive people didn't have a religion?

What I wish that you could do is essentially build your own religion.

Not the tiny details, but if you took over another nation you could, for example, incorporate their gods into your pantheon and gain some extra culture. Or do the inverse, demonize someone else's god in yours, reducing war weariness as you fight those 'evil worshipers'.

Or switch to monotheism, which would keep reduce neighboring cultural exchange, both ways.

Or if a religion was in more than one place, you could attempt to 'hijack' it and make your county the HQ. Or you could fork it.

Likewise, you could have various 'holy people' that showed up, like great prophets, but you'd tell them a bunch of different options, and they'd be remembered, and you could direct which of these 'saints' your society focused on. Like, on of them was a great warrior, one of them feed the hungry, one of them was a great mother, whatever.

And it would be interesting to allow various rules, like how you treat sex, for example. Harsh controls on it could result in a lower birthrate but more financial gain. (As children grow up in supported families and hence aren't a drain on society.) Likewise, perhaps certain foods cause sickness for people unfamiliar with them, so you can outlaw them.

And, of course, changing any of this would cause unhappiness for a bit, as people don't like change.

The problem is that Civ IV used real religions, which people don't like mucking with. (And even then only five of them...where were the Greek Gods, or the Eygption ones?) So all you could do is alter how they interacted with society, and not what they were.

Which was rather dumb...I mean, you can make societies and leaders operate totally out of how they actually were. But whatever...if people are going to complain, just name them random things.

Re:One unit per tile is dumb

[Rockoon]

The pieces can represent anything (battalions or regiments, for instance), so it makes perfect sense.

I think you have fallen into the "OMG IT DRAWS A SINGLE WARRIOR, IT MUST BE A SINGLE MAN!" trap.

Re:New AI

[hotdiggity]

I love diplomacy but it sucks when you know the AI is going to cheat. I hope Civ V will finally have an AI that doesn't cheat.

You want nations that don't cheat on diplomacy?

If we're going to abandon reality, why don't we just add wizard units and inter-dimensional portals too?

Hmmm...

[denzacar]

The pieces can represent anything (battalions or regiments, for instance), so it makes perfect sense.

But then it would also make perfect sense to be able to combine two or more decimated companies into a battalion, while maintaining the experience and combat abilities.
Also... combine companies into a battalion, battalions into regiments, regiments into armies.
You know... as it is not a single tank (or a man) out there on that hex.

Also, turn your infantry or marines into air cavalry by combining them with helicopters. Make a decimated artillery unit into a "artillery support" bonus for your infantry or armor.
Balance it out with experience bonuses and additional turns necessary for combining (training turns).

Re:Hmmm...

[Rockoon]

But then it would also make perfect sense to be able to combine two or more decimated companies into a battalion, while maintaining the experience and combat abilities. Also... combine companies into a battalion, battalions into regiments, regiments into armies.

This may very well be the case. I could see leaving the current healing mechanic behind, instead requiring units to recruit from cities (or combining existing units) in order to regain full effectiveness. City recruitment costs could be used as a balancing mechanic as well, by requiring production proportional to the "damage" being "healed." Currently we can have a hundred units all healing for free simultaneously, which is equivalent to an amount of production far greater than the entire civ commanding those units.

Re:I'm already excited

[Shihar]

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.

Both Good and Bad

[sonicmerlin]

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.

Re:Both Good and Bad

[T.E.D.]

You are absolutely right about the sillyness of removing Religon from a game about recreating history.

OTOH, Sid Meyer is rather famous for removing gameplay features that detract from the fun of the game. Quite often over the loud objections of simulation purists. It could just be that this was one of those cases. Religon's biggest long-term effect in the CIV4 was just to give AI Civ's one more thing to get pissed off at you about. There was no winning with it either, as no matter which you picked, you'd tick somebody off. This made persuing one of the peaceful victory options (like a cultural win) damn near impossible. At least for me.

Re:Both Good and Bad

[Mongoose Disciple]

Religon's biggest long-term effect in the CIV4 was just to give AI Civ's one more thing to get pissed off at you about. There was no winning with it either, as no matter which you picked, you'd tick somebody off. This made persuing one of the peaceful victory options (like a cultural win) damn near impossible.

I will respectfully disagree with you:

- Yes, your choice of religion will most likely piss somebody off. (It's not completely unheard of for everyone in a Civ IV game to end up with the same religion, but mostly rare.) But that's just a reflection of the nature of diplomacy in Civ IV in general: nearly everything you do pisses somebody off. Sign a defensive pact with Russia or trade and you make them happy, but their enemy Germany gets surly about it. Diplomacy in Civ IV is less about trying to make everyone happy and more about choosing who to befriend.

- Along those lines, religion added something interesting to the game in making you weigh the costs and benefits of a religion choice. Most of my cities are Buddhist, but my Aztec neighbor is Hindu. Is it more important to me right now to maximize the happiness/production of my cities by choosing Buddhist, or to make Montezuma happier with me by being Hindu?

- The Apostolic Palace, especially in the votes that result from it, add an extra layer of complexity. Ideally you'd like to be the religion that covers your country the most, build the Palace, spread your religion to other civs, and use it to push them around. But there are opportunity costs in achieving all of that, and there's always the chance that someone else spreads the religion more than you have and uses the Palace to push you around instead. In a lot of ways it's a more complex early-game U.N., which I think would be right up your alley if you like diplomacy.

Re:Both Good and Bad

[thesandtiger]

I don't think it was a PC move - it just isn't that compelling a feature in the game and in the view of the designers removed more than it added. If they were remotely worried about being PC they wouldn't have had Stalin - a mass murderer surpassing even Adolph Hitler for body-count - as one of the leaders in the game since the first iteration, and certainly wouldn't have put religion into the game in the first place.

3D In Strategy Games

[pandrijeczko]

I don't think I've ever really understood what happened to strategy gaming on the PC around about the turn of the new Millennium.

I was (and still am) a huge fan and player of Heroes Of Might & Magic (I, II, and III), Master Of Orion (2), Total Annihilation and Civilization (I, II, Call To Power and Test Of Time) - likewise I've played and enjoyed PC FPS games from original Doom & Duke Nukem 3D through to STALKER, Half-Life 2 and Fallout 3 today.

Clearly, the FPS genre exists *BECAUSE* of good 3D graphics but who decided that they were needed for strategy games? Fortunately I totally avoided Master Of Orion III but at various points when they were cheap enough to justify rebuying some games I already had, I bought boxed compilations of all the HoMM and Civilization series, the C&C "10 Years" box set (that has everything up to C&C Generals) and Supreme Commander. In each and every case, the introduction of 3D in those games series has felt, to me, like a "dumbing down" of the games...

Firstly, let's look at HoMM and Civilization. These are both traditionally turn-based games where essentially you need to find and control resources at an "empire" level, as well as defeat enemy armies. They are not solely about combat, they are about using your armies to their best advantage - so what in hell does the game gain from a playability perspective by being able to zoom in to see each individual unit in the middle of a fight, i.e. Civilization III/IV and HoMM IV/V?

Secondly, Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander and C&C/Red Alert. There are RTS games but solely focused on small unit skirmishes and resource management, where development speed is core to winning each game... in which case, why in hell do I want (or even need) to mess around with zooming in and twiddling camera views? Just give me a single isometric view with sprite graphics...

These days, as half-Linux half-Windows user, I tend to play Freeciv quite a lot and IMHO it feels more of a logical progression from the original Civ I/II games.

I just wish that if games companies have finished with sprite-based RTS games, then they'd hand out the source code of the games on the Internet to let some good programmers loose on them. The great thing about the pre-3D games is they've low resource requirements and power consumption so great for laptops, netbooks & long flights.

Incidentally, there are a couple of exceptions to the rule - Stardock's Galactic Civilizations II and Sins Of A Solar Empire are fantastic strategy games with built-in 3D but presumably were designed from the ground up with 3D in mind... ...but otherwise 3D graphics have killed any idea of buying any new strategy games.

Re:3D In Strategy Games

[Ailure]

Just wondering, did you at some point try Civ IV?

I play Civ IV and Freeciv and... I actually find both good to their own points. I find Freeciv Stronger than Civ I/II/II balance wise, but Civ IV have way different strategies which makes it interesting, especially with how you specialize cities. After getting used into thinking of terms of "cottage spam" and "specialist-based economy", I can't help but to find Freeciv rather basic. The irony is that while they removed a lot of old annoying micromanagement in Civ IV, they introduced new kinds of it. (I belive FreeCiv removed some micromanagment elements, such as making the game handle production/commerce "overflows" of various kinds).

Personally I don't find the 3D view a nuisance. I actually find it useful in RTS games, where you can pan the camera around buildings that blocks the camera. Isometric 2D games are annoying when it comes to handling buildings that is in the way. If it's a 2D RTS, I prefer a birds view style ala Dune 2/Tiberian Dawn/Red Alert.

Re:3D In Strategy Games

[alen]

welcome to the real world. go read a history book, this is exactly how things happened. Look at Britain and France. Mortal enemies for centuries, but as soon as Prussia/Germany rose to power they are now the best of friends. and Britain had a falling out with Prussia in the mid 1800's after centuries of being allies against France.

Same with Russia. Allies in the wars against Napoleon but come the mid 1800's Britain goes to war against Russia because they expand in the Crimea

Civ4 with mod FFH2 is plenty enough

[AceJohnny]

I've recently discovered the Fall From Heaven 2 mod for Civ4. It's the most sophisticated and complete mod for Civ4 out there. It's a fantasy mod set in a deep and well fleshed out universe
It brings much more new concepts and content than both commercial extensions, Warlords and Beyond the Sword (although it requires these to work).

I expect it to keep me busy enough well past Civ V enters the discount bins. Having the mod ported to Civ V, however, will make me switch in an instant. Hint hint, Firaxis.

Re:New AI

[moonbender]

Are you joking? I you aren't, he's talking about AIs getting better gaming conditions (things are less expensive, etc) on the difficulty levels above Noble. The player gets similar bonuses on levels below Noble. Backstabbing in diplomacy is available at all difficulty levels.

Re:New AI

[Ailure]

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. :)

Wesnoth clone

[fph il quozientatore]

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.

Re:I'm already excited

[Anonymous Coward]

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 :)

Swell...

[DoofusOfDeath]

Just yesterday my wife said to me, "I can't believe you're still not bored of Civ3 after all these years." She knew I was at risk of staying up until 2 a.m. again playing it.

This will not be good for me.

Re:New AI

[Brownstar]

You're right for most people, they probably don't care, which is why the Game presents it in basic terms.

But, if you're on of the ones that truly cares, all of that information is in plain text format (marked up in XML) in the /Assets/XML/GameInfo directory. (You can even change it if you want).

The file that addresses the changes in difficulty specifically is: CIV4HandicapInfo.xml

But also realize that some of these factors are also modified based on world size, and turn speed as well. (Possibly some other things that I've forgotten as well).

I know Civ3 and Alpha Centauri had similar files, and If I remember correctly, I beleive even Civ2 stored all of this information in text files that could be modified.

Which is one of the reasons that the various Civ's have always been so modable.

Damn you, Slashdot

[deniable]

I just put in the Civ4 disk and lost three hours.

Re:Wesnoth -- Ranged attacks?

[phiwum]

Wesnoth does not have ranged attacks in any reasonable sense of the term. Units must be adjacent to attack. Civ V adds the capability of ranged attacks between unengaged units.

That's not to say they do it well. Since when do archers fire over ponds and farmers' fields in order to hit city units? How far can these archers shoot? Somehow, that image bothers me.

In any case, I'm certainly not intending to disparage Wesnoth with my comments. Wesnoth is, as far as I've seen, the hands-down best totally original open-source strategy game out there. I'm also not trying to compliment Civ V, since I haven't played the commercial version of Civilization since Civ II.

Re:I'm already excited

[magarity]

religious people in the far flung future, seriously?
Yeah, it's not like they ever put religion in sci-fi, young padawan
 
GP did say *future*. Star Wars was a long time ago.

Re:I'm already excited

[An ominous Cow art]

Yeah, and it doesn't take a Kwisatz Haderach to foresee that religion will be around for a long time...

Re:Atheists are just as bad as theists

[ultranova]

I agree, there is some rabid, extremist atheists. Though their theist counterparts FAR out number them, and have far more influence on the world. I find the religious fundamentalists a far larger threat than any degree of atheist.

I challenge your notion that "rabid atheists" are not religious fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is a state of being absolutely convinced that you're right, and everyone who doesn't agree is either evil or stupid. It doesn't have anything to do with what you're absolutely convinced about, just that you are. And the notion that "there is no god" is, of course, a notion about a religious matter.

Atheists, for the most part, are immune to this tyrannical craziness. What are they going to do, stand on street corners screaming "THINK FOR YOURSELF!", or trying to force all children to learn science. The horror.

No, they're going to demand that a religion/ideology "be destroyed". That, of course, demands torturing the adherents until they deconvert and killing those who refuse. Unless, of course, a reliable brainwashing technique to bring their beliefs closer to what you'll accept can be created.

The correct way to treat such people is to give them freedom and demand they give it to you too. This (Finland, and presumably United States as well) is a free country, where everyone is free to worship whatever deity he wishes, or none at all. I'll defend to death your right to choose freely. I'll also defend my right to not choose whatever you want. I'll also defend the rights of people I despise, because to not do so would be to do unto others what I wouldn't want to be done to myself

.

For the record, I'm a christian.