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Civ 5 Will Let You Import and Convert Civ 4 Maps
bbretterson writes "From an interview Bitmob conducted with Civilization 5 Lead Designer Jon Shafer: 'You can import Civ 4 maps into the world builder and convert them into Civ 5 maps, including all the units and cities and stuff on it — the conversion process will just do that for you automatically. We're hoping that the first week Civ 5 is out, people will use that function and port all of the Civ 4 stuff over to Civ 5, so everything will be out there already.'"
Civ 4 map plots are squares. Civ 5 are hexagons. I don't see an easy conversion process that won't produce real not-just-semantic map differences (e.g. how to convert diagonal waterways where in a 4x4, one diagonal is water and the other diagonal is land, and ships can travel through the water diagonal?)
My only wish about civ is, that I can turn down graphics more, than in part 4.
It should really get a more heatfriendly graphics mode.
A hex grid can be thought of as a square grid with every second line shifted by 0.5 * squareWidth on the X axis, so the conversion can be rather straightforward. But yes, it will produce semantic map differences as some squares that were previously diagonally adjacent to each other no longer will be after conversion.
How can this make a headline/slashvertisement on Slashdot? That sounds like they're doing the right thing and giving the gamers a better gaming experience by not just ditching all of the hard work from previous games. I'm sure there must be some flaw or lie somewhere - it's just not the corporate thing to do!
Reliable rumours say that civ5 will use a super close view where most of the screen is filled with face of the selected unit. This enables the player to fully see the facial expressions and and have richer gaming experience. Of course You can take a bigger view, but then you will see only clouds.
And the "Large World" consists of 20 hexagons.
To give all the equal opportunity to fight in wars, all unit are of same power. The Phalangs will successfully defend against Warships. This is good, because it would be sad if rich people would win all the wars.
Its not exactly the same, but I remember enjoying SimCopter a lot because I could take SimCity 2000 maps and load them up in SimCopter and fly around them in 3D. The nostalgia feeling of loading my best cities and being able to play in them was fantastic. I could see people not wanting to lose their custom maps in Civ4, and this is an excellent solution.
I loved loading up a SC2000 map with the army base and stealing the army chopper. This was the closest thing you could get to 3D GTA at the time.
The only "DRM" is that it's a Steam-only game, and you can always play steam games in offline mode.
I've never been into the Civ games, but I'd buy Alpha Centauri II. I wish Firaxis would develop it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
What are you talking about?
Your description of how steam works doesnt jive with how steam works.
"His name was James Damore."
YO DAWG, we heard you like things that stand the test of time, so we made a game that could stand the test of time, whilst you built a civilization to stand the test of time.
As a discussion about Civilization increases in length, the probability that someone will suggest a sequel to Alpha Centauri approaches 1.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Guess you didn't play Civ 4 then. That's too bad.
You're right though... there is no "intimidation" victory mode. Sounds like a hybrid between conquest and diplomacy, which is the way most games go.
I like the illusion that the AI is actually doing something. I wouldn't surprise me if there is a built-in delay, just to let the player feel like a bit like stuff is happening between turns.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
i did play civ 4. it seemed identical to civ 3 but with slightly better graphics. in fact the only reason i bought it was on the hope that the AI was better. i was disappointed.
You really missed out on Civ 4 then. It wasn't at all "Civ 3 with slightly better graphics." I mean, first off, the graphics were alot more than "slightly" better. Second, it introduced a slew of game mechanics, games inside of the game, customizations. To say that it built upon Civ 3 would be an understatement.
On the other hand, Civ 3 really was Civ 2 with slightly better graphics. The same cannot be said for Civ 4. Not at all. I played both Civ 2 and Civ 3 extensively, and I can't describe how much I had to reprogram my way of thinking about the game to be successful on any of the higher difficulty levels. Diplomacy is crucial as is prior planning. Civ2&3 just meant pumping out the best units you could achieve and sending them into battle. Very linear. If you played that game in Civ4, you didn't play very long.
In fact, I can remember reading that exact sentiment in several strategy guides. "If you play this game like Civ2/Civ3, you will lose."
I'm not sure what you would have wanted from the AI. Yeah, difficulty level often meant a reduction in bonuses for the player while giving other advantages to the AI, but that's pretty similar to just about every game ever. However, I thought the AI was pretty impressive. AI leaders frequently gathered up massive armies and "sprung" attacks on you, and even cooperated with one another. Taking out strategic resources was commonplace, as was using tactics to weaken your stack.
Furthermore, combat wasn't the only place that AI was influencing the game. You'd frequently see other leaders brokering technologies and attempting cultural victory (all based on the leaders personality, of course.)
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that with a comment like that, you really didn't play the game.