Sid Meier's Civilization 4 details (it finally has religion)

[Julius Seeker]

There will be new technologies added into the game (obviously)

Wonder movies are back in the game

There are over 100 buildings available, 30 wonders, and 83 different units (which is about double of the last game),

There is a choice between different leaders for the same civilization (IE. France has a choice between Lous XIV or Napoleon Bonaparte)

Secondly, there will also be religion in the game. A religion is founded when a certain civilization discovers a certain technology. For example, if the Indian civilization discovers Polytheism, then they begin the Hindu religion. Religion spreads across the world from the city of its foundation over time. More details on the effects of religion as time goes on. There will be several effects.

The best change is that battle and military management has been heavily improved. Units can now be massed together in large armies and moved together with a single click.

Rather than just extra power for gaining battle experience, there are now over 40 different bonuses that units can learn through gaining experience in battle.

25 civics in 5 different categories that players can be adjusted: an example of a couple of these are: private property vs. public property, free religion vs. theocracy.

Alliance options where players share everything (technology, treaties, spy info, maps, etc....) This could make for some VERY interesting gameplay, it is something I have waited for for a long time.

Like Civilization III and II, the game can be changed around a lot to suit the needs and wants of the player.

That's all for now. Civilization 4 will be unveiled in playable form very shortly

[SineSwiper]

I want a sequel to Master of Magic.

[Don]

When will people learn that bigger isn't better?

[SineSwiper]

It doesn't matter. I still want a sequel to Masters of Magic. Tht game was awesome!

[Don]

That was a comment to Civ 4. I'd love a sequel to MOM too but I'm guessing the original team is long gone so if there's a sequel it'd be a totally unrelated team doing it and I suspect it'll end up like Star Control 3 or Master of Orion 3 which aren't exactly that good.

I think MOM has the right idea of strategy/RPG blend, the strategy comes before you amass your 9 unit of doom, and then it's just leveling them up and have them kill everything.

[Julius Seeker]

I think bigger in the Sid Meier's Civilization context is usually better. Especially with the new unit control options which is something that I begged for in the suggestions forum on the last game, and something which I wanted in the Conquests beta (they actually really liked the idea but said it couldn't be worked into the game by that point in development).

Theother main thing I am interested in are the types of Alliances that can be formed now.

MoM, I have never played that one. Master of Orion 2 and 3 were not my cup of tea. The thing about Master of Orion 2 is that I felt I was doing the exact same thing over and over again each time I played. Civilization 2 and 3 had a lot more diversity in forms ofplay and scenarios.

[Agent 57]

I think MOM has the right idea of strategy/RPG blend, the strategy comes before you amass your 9 unit of doom, and then it's just leveling them up and have them kill everything.

That sounds a lot like how Dragon Force worked. Mmmm, Dragon Force...

*sigh* Ah, Saturn, how I loved your games (which, technically, I could still play if I wanted to, and had any semblance of time to do so).

[Julius Seeker]

Right now a Sega Saturn is missing from my Penny Arcade:

Genesis, SNES, PSX, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox

Maybe I should look into getting one of those hooked up. Someone offered me 200 dollars for my Dreamcast so he could mod it up, I turned it down, and I think that guy is nuts.

[Don]

I don't find Civ 2 to have that many scenarios. It's easy to blitz someone's capital due to the way zone of control & railroad works once you get Howitizers, except winning is futile because you kill one guy and 3 other guys automatically declare war on you.

MOO2 gets too much of a steamroll game once the production capabilities gets big. Lose one major battle and it's pretty much game over. The technologies are also grossly imbalanced (like stasis field or the ion pulse cannon, mid level technology that completely breaks the game).

[Julius Seeker]

What I meant by scenarios was the thousands that are available to download with custom rules and such: The Silmarillion was always my favourite.

[SineSwiper]

Maybe I should look into getting one of those hooked up. Someone offered me 200 dollars for my Dreamcast so he could mod it up, I turned it down, and I think that guy is nuts.

Why? You can play anything on it already. I've got a bunch of burned games for it.

MOM is a pretty old game now, but I loved the fact that it combined the Civilization-style of play with strategy battles that used magic. I liked being able to master a branch of magic and use it during battles.

[Julius Seeker]

Hey, old doesn't bother me, I like playing old PC games like Sim Tower, the original Sim City, the original Civilization, and different sorts of things. Sure they are simpler in many aspects; but in their simplicity they can be a less stressful form of entertainment which can be more fun.

[Don]

I think the biggest problem with MOM was that having a hero with Prayer Master (or better yet super version) pretty much negates the offensive ability of every spell in the game minus Doom Bolt and maybe Call Lightning. Also most of the summoned monsters aren't really worth it especially the high level stuff since you can just do a summon champion instead and usually end up with someone more useful than a Sky Drake.

[SineSwiper]

It depends. The higher level Dark summons fucking owned! Damn, I want to find that game again and play it.

EDIT: Woot! The spellbook is an interesting read. Yeah, creatures like Shadow Demons could switch planes and non-corporeal, which were really rare ability in Heros. The Demon Lord was just awesome and fun to play. The Angels could hold their own, too.

Also, the higher level spells could be cast more or less when you get them. Getting heros built up took some good artifacts.

[Don]

I remember getting the multiplayer mod but it never quite worked. If I recall MOM used Expanded Memory which doesn't work well with earlier versions of Windows.

I find Death to be pretty weak. The Demon Lord is okay on the computer, but they're useless against anyone with a Prayer Master hero (which is why Distintegrate is also useless) and usually just means 2 free fame (1 for very rare and 1 for killing 4 enemies (lord + 3 demons)). Great Wyrm and Great Drake are the real power hitters but the mana needed for them is rather prohibitive. For their cost you could cast a more useful global enchantment instead.

[Julius Seeker]

IGNPC: Maybe I'm sick but I really miss being able to poison a rival city's water supply. Are you going to be including new options for espionage and its more "honorable" cousin diplomacy?

Barry Caudill: We will not be including any espionage options that are terrorism related. You will, however, create spy units and move them around as you did in previous versions of Civilization. In diplomacy, you will be able to broker peace between two warring Civs or ask a Civ to go to war with another even if you are not currently at war with that Civ.

This sort of thing really annoys me somehow. I also liked the ability in Civilization 2 to plant nuclear devices and such in the cities of other civilizations. This is almost as dumb as not including facsist governments in any of the civilization games prior to the WTC thing, but having Fundamentalism, and then afterwards removing fundamentalism and replacing it with fascism. Keep real world political bullshit out of MY videogames!!!!!

Seriously, if the World Trade Center thing didn't receive any media attention, I doubt anyone would give a shit and a half about it.

I just don't like the fact that Nuking and genocide are acceptable but guerrilla spy operations are not. Civilization games should have ALL of that stuff =)