Civilization 4 Preview
Posted by inpheaux on July 26th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
GameSpot was recently permitted to give a preview copy of Civilization 4 a spin. Civ IV, Firaxis' second shot at making a sequel worthy of the Civilization name, is - as always - much like it's predecessors. Start a civilization, grow, learn new technologies, and then crush opposing civilizations with the might of your armies, overbearing culture, or any number of the other ways to get the powerup and win the game.
Despite the overall similarities, Civ IV seems to be all about changes. Here's a quick rundown.
- Completely overhauled graphics. Long gone are the days of isometric 2d or quasi-3d graphics, Civ IV is set to be fully 3d. Even the map is a globe now. Apparently, while this is a major departure that many of us feel is unnecessary, it doesn't turn out too horrible or different.
- Religion. Yes, Religion. 7 of them, to be exact. Sadly missing from the list are Discordianism, Kibology, and the Church of the SubGenius. Religion apparently works as a bizarro secondary-civ, So getting another civ to convert gives you bonuses.
- Multiplayer. Real multiplayer. No more resorting to Play-By-Email, as fun as PBE was.
- Loads of stuff has been simplified. No more pollution squares, instead you get a "city health" system. No more CPU settler spamming. No more ridiculously scarce resources like in Civ III. It's all supposedly been fixed up.
- And most importantly, No more Spearmen killing Tanks. Firaxis SWEARS they finally fixed this with their most recent overhaul to how combat works. They promise it will make sense now.
Personally, I'll believe the non-superhero spearmen when I see them. Other than the graphical overhaul, which I'm still apprehensive about, it all looks good. I just hope it doesn't conflict with any of the other 3 billion huge things coming out in November.
Source: GameSpot
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