Civilization 4

[Ben E Lou]

I just spent a few minutes at www.civ4.com, and also at the IGN Preview. I'm excited about what I've seen so far, particularly the government/religion options, and the less-restrictive tech tree. Here's a portion on an interview with the lead developer. I've underlined some things that jumped out at me:

May 17, 2005 - Long a favorite of turn-based strategy fans, Sid Meier's Civilization franchise has gone through quite a few incarnations since it was first released almost 15 years ago. Each new version of the game and each new expansion built upon the core premise of leading your civilization throughout history, from the founding of its first cities to its eventual colonization of other planets. Though we've known about an upcoming sequel for some time now, the folks at Firaxis have been pretty tight with the information. Now, mostly because they're tired of me calling them every day and are probably worried about making me cry again, Firaxis's senior producer Barry Caudill finally consented to answer our questions about the game. IGNPC: Sweet Civilization. You realize I have to quit my job once this game comes out, right?

Barry Caudill: Yes we do, that's why it's good we work here at Firaxis...or we'd all be on the dole J Oh...was that rhetorical?

IGNPC: Anyway, let's start with the big picture. Will the basic arc or premise of the game change much from previous versions? Are you extending further into the future, for instance?

Barry Caudill: At its most basic level, this is the same scope of Civilization people have come to know and love. That means we still cover the usual time period of 4000 BC to 2050 AD, but it's how we make the journey that will set this game apart.

IGNPC: Tell us about the new 3D engine. What's the overall visual presentation like? Will there be a bit more life and animation on the map? Can we expect a variety of perspectives here?

Barry Caudill: As with Sid Meier's Pirates!, we are using the Gamebryo engine and that allows us to really open up the visuals in Civilization 4. One of our main goals was to really bring the world to life. So you will see rivers flowing, resources like horses, cattle, or elephants animating, and different animations when those resources are being "worked", etc. In addition, unit movement and combat will be much more interesting and exciting than ever before. We are also shooting for a WYSIWYG approach where you will know what city a wonder is in because you can see it in the world, along with many other aspects previously relegated to menus and screens.


IGNPC: What else can you tell us about the basic interface? What types of information will the player be able to take in on the main game screen?

Barry Caudill: In addition to what was listed previously, we are also including tons of tool tips and pop-up help. We feel like you should be able to play the whole game from the main map view and you should only have to get into some of the screens if you are a true power user.

IGNPC: Tell us about some of the new civs. I imagine we'll have the usual suspects from the European and Mediterranean sets but are there other, less obvious choices in store? Will we be seeing a return of the civ traits?

Barry Caudill: We will definitely have the usual major powers like France, Germany, England, America, China, Japan, etc. We will also be including many Civs that are either new or usually saved for expansions like the Incas or the Aztecs or the totally new Mali. In all there will be 18 Civs in the shipped version of Civilization 4.

IGNPC: Culture was a pretty new concept when it was introduced in Civilization 3. Has that mechanic found its way into the sequel? Have there been any changes to it?

Barry Caudill: Yes, culture is alive and well in Civilization 4 but it has been tweaked a bit. One of the ways is somewhat mechanical in nature. In Civilization 3, you were always guaranteed a minimum level of cultural expansion when you planted a new city. That is not the case in Civilization 4. You will have to develop your culture or risk being enveloped by a larger neighbor. This leads to the interesting possibility of creating a Luxembourg or Switzerland completely engulfed by another Civ's borders. We also tweaked Civilization 3's luxury slider and turned it into a culture slider. Raising the culture level makes people happier and helps produce more culture for your entire Civ.

IGNPC: One aspect of the cultural game in Civilization 3 that really aggravated players was the lack of respect the AI showed for your borders. Are you planning to address this issue at all?

Barry Caudill: In Civilization 4, the AI will have to respect your borders or declare war but you will be able to negotiate Open Borders to allow travel.

IGNPC: The resources concept from Civilization 3 was also great addition to the series. Are you expanding this system at all? Are you using it in the same way?

Barry Caudill: The system has been greatly expanded with the addition of many more resources, all of which are tradable. Some of the new resources, like marble, help to increase wonder production, some are food resources (these help with the overall health of your cities), and some, such as iron or copper, allow you to build certain types of units.

IGNPC: I always seemed a bit miffed that you weren't able to trade food, even to your own cities. I mean it's not like the largest cities in the world are those that produce the most food, right? Are there considerations for trading and sharing food?

Barry Caudill: You will have the ability to trade food resources but these affect the overall health of your cities, not the growth potential.

IGNPC: While we're on the subject of the previous game, were there any features from the last game that you felt the need to scale down or eliminate altogether?

Barry Caudill: We no longer have static eras so it's more like versions of Civilization prior to Civilization 3 in that respect. We eliminated armies but created more customization and countering with the units. We also changed the way bombardment units work in the game so they are now like a hybrid of previous games.


IGNPC: How do governments work this time around?

Barry Caudill: There are no set governments anymore. In Civilization 4, you can choose from various civics and combine them to make the type of government you want. For example, you may have a Theocratic Police State that also has Universal Suffrage or you may have a Pacifist Slave State with Hereditary Rule. The Civics are divided into five major areas - Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion - and each of those has 5 possible choices depending on what you have researched. In addition, AI leaders will have certain favorite Civics and they may ask you to either switch to theirs or stop using the one that offends them. IGNPC: What about the new religion system? That sounds really promising. How does it work in the game?

Barry Caudill: The first Civilization to discover a technology attached to the founding of a religion will establish a holy city for that religion and it will begin to spread, although slowly. To speed up the process, you can create missionaries and send them out to try to convert other cities. Also, just like the Civics, AI leaders may try to get you to convert to their religion.

IGNPC: With as much depth and accuracy as there is in the Civilization franchise, there are some other general historical themes -- things like slavery, civil wars, epidemics, ideological conflicts, etc. -- that either weren't present or were heavily abstracted. Naturally, you have to remain extremely sensitive on some of these issues but are you planning to incorporate mechanics to highlight previously neglected historical phenomena?

Barry Caudill: Well we aren't trying to alienate anyone out there but we are paying more attention to some of the more serious issues where it makes sense. As I mentioned, slavery is a Civics option but so is emancipation. Epidemics aren't directly modeled but the idea of tying a city's health to available food and resources helps to simulate this. Ideological conflicts are a definite possibility as a result of the AI leader personalities and their ties to certain religions or civics.


IGNPC: What can you tell us about great leaders?

Barry Caudill: We have expanded on this concept a great deal. Now, there are different types of great people like Great Prophets, Artists, and Scientists. When you get one, you will be able to use them for things like automatically researching a technology or helping to build a wonder.

IGNPC: How does the overall combat system work? Will it still just be a one-on-one, winner take all affair? We hear that the individual units will have more specific uses. Can you explain?

Barry Caudill: Units will have strengths and weaknesses against other types of units. For instance, pikemen will have a decided advantage over mounted units and axemen will be especially good against melee units. We have also removed the idea of separate attack and defense values and replaced them with a single Power rating.

IGNPC: Are we going to see more units types this time around? What are some of the more notable additions?

Barry Caudill: During early prototyping, it was determined that more is not always better. In order to streamline the process as much as possible and to highlight the new promotion system, we decided to actually reduce the number of units some. Still, there are some units that haven't been part of previous versions like Grenadiers and Horse Archers and War Elephants that are not specific to only one Civ.

IGNPC: Players of Alpha Centauri enjoyed the ability to tailor units for specific tasks. Are the units in Civilization 4 going to be adjustable in any way?

Barry Caudill: I think the promotions will add this type of customization in a much more fluid manner since the units are upgraded "on the fly" (i.e. with each new promotion) and you don't have to have researched a certain tech to gain access to them all. Some of the promotions include: jungle or forest bonuses, city defense, city raider, flanking, or just simple power bonuses. You will be able to make units that are specialized without changing all of a certain type and you can change "paths" as your situation dictates.

IGNPC: How does the tech tree of the new game compare to that in previous versions? Are you sticking with specific trees for distinct eras? What are some of the new technologies or new technological considerations available?

Barry Caudill: There are two major changes from Civilization 3. First, there are no longer set eras and the player is free to choose any path whether it be all-military, all-science, balanced, etc. Second, you don't need all of the techs that lead to the one you want, you only need to connect to it. In previous versions you may have had to research two or three things to get access to the one they connect to.

IGNPC: Tell us a little about the trade and economy systems? Any surprises there?

Barry Caudill: In Civilization 4, you get automatic trade routes after you establish a trade agreement with a particular leader. Also, rivers work like roads so two cities on the same river are connected even if no roads have been built.

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.


IGNPC: Let's talk about the endgame. Are the victory conditions pretty much the same or have you created new goals for the players?

Barry Caudill: They are very similar to what you might expect. Of course, we have the usual Domination, Conquest, Diplomatic, and Space Race victories. We have also tweaked the Cultural victory to make it more exciting and interesting. Finally, we have added a new one: Alliance victory in which you can share the win with a partner. IGNPC: There's no denying that the pace of Civilization slows down once you start to hit century or so, yet the early ancient age just seems to fly by. Are you doing anything to smooth out the overall pace of the game or give players the chance to chew off a more manageable bite?

Barry Caudill: Balancing is always high on our priority list and we are definitely working to even out the pace of the game. One new thing is that you can choose different game speeds depending on your preference and available time. You can choose Quick, Normal, or Epic. Normal would be like a standard game of Civilization in previous versions. Quick and Epic are scaled in every aspect to provide the full experience of Civilization in either a quicker or much longer format.

IGNPC: Though Civilization 3 was great, it lost some of the presentation that we loved in Civilization 2. While it might be naive to ask for a return to talking advisors and wonder videos, are you doing anything to add to the overall personality of the game?

Barry Caudill: We have definitely ramped up the production values in this version. The new 3D world and all that it brings will certainly up the ante over any previous version of the game, we're hiring voice talent for various parts, and I am happy to announce the return of wonder movies...we'll have over 45 spectacular movies in the game.

IGNPC: Are you planning to include multiplayer options out of the box? What types of things can we expect from the multiplayer game? We hear there's a cooperative mode? How does that work?

Barry Caudill: You bet! This game was designed to be multiplayer from the ground up and we have been playing MP games for a year and a half already. Players will be able to compete in traditional turn-based or simultaneous move games either on a network or via the Internet. We will be using Gamespy for Internet matchmaking. Other options include Hot Seat, Play by Email, and a persistent turn server we call Pitboss.

Coop will work in a similar fashion to what you would expect from an RTS like Age of Kings or Warcraft 3. Players on the same team will share line of site, the benefits of wonders, research (they can even research the same thing to try to get it faster), unit trading, and share territory. All of these additions deliver a plethora of new strategic and tactical options to the players.


IGNPC: The core game's great but Civilization's also done well thanks to massive community support. What types of tools and editors can players expect out of the box?

Barry Caudill: Civilization 4 will be the most moddable version of Civilization ever. Players can edit basic stats and attributes in XML files. On a higher level, much of the game will be exposed to Python so modders will be able to edit events and have more control over how the game works. On an even higher level, we are planning to provide an AI SDK to allow experienced programmers to dig very deep into customization.

IGNPC: How many people are working on this project? When did you start working and what stage is the game at now?

Barry Caudill: Internally, we have 38 on the team working directly on various aspects but we also have some work contracted out and several interns coming on board for the summer. We started working on the game about 2 years ago and expect to have it in stores for the holidays.

IGNPC: So what's left to be done at this point? Don't you think you'd be able to get the job done more quickly if you weren't busy answering my endless questions?

Barry Caudill: From a design standpoint, all major systems are in and Soren Johnson (our lead designer/programmer) is spending the majority of his time working on the AI. We have a lot that's looking great already but we still have some art and programming to go before we will be ready for full test this summer. Anything could be considered a distraction at this stage of the game, but we like you so there's no problem there.

IGNPC: Finally, where's my Colonization 2? I mean, what have you guys been doing for the last ten years?

Barry Caudill: You're right, we have been slacking off. I mean, Firaxis has only shipped 10 titles in the last 9 years. Actually, we get lots of requests to make another Colonization. We don't have any plans to do it right now, but it's certainly something to consider for the future. Stay tuned...

[jbmagic]

i loved civilization 3 conquest.

i cant wait for civ 4 looks great so far. Big time improvements from civ3.


for more info check out.

http://www.civfanatics.com/

[Vince]

Awesome. This sounds like the sequel to Civ 2 that everyone wanted Civ 3 to be.

[MrBug708]

IGNPC: Finally, where's my Colonization 2? I mean, what have you guys been doing for the last ten years?

Barry Caudill: You're right, we have been slacking off. I mean, Firaxis has only shipped 10 titles in the last 9 years. Actually, we get lots of requests to make another Colonization. We don't have any plans to do it right now, but it's certainly something to consider for the future. Stay tuned...

-------------------------------

[Celeval]

I still pull Colonization out every so often.

[Greyroofoo]

i really hope they're dreaming up alpha centauri 2 right now

[mrsimperless]

Is it multiplayer out of the box this time?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mrsimperless

Is it multiplayer out of the box this time?

Originally Posted by The interview posted just a few inches above this

IGNPC: Are you planning to include multiplayer options out of the box? What types of things can we expect from the multiplayer game? We hear there's a cooperative mode? How does that work?

Barry Caudill: You bet! This game was designed to be multiplayer from the ground up and we have been playing MP games for a year and a half already. Players will be able to compete in traditional turn-based or simultaneous move games either on a network or via the Internet. We will be using Gamespy for Internet matchmaking. Other options include Hot Seat, Play by Email, and a persistent turn server we call Pitboss.

Coop will work in a similar fashion to what you would expect from an RTS like Age of Kings or Warcraft 3. Players on the same team will share line of site, the benefits of wonders, research (they can even research the same thing to try to get it faster), unit trading, and share territory. All of these additions deliver a plethora of new strategic and tactical options to the players.

.

[MikeVic]

Yummy. Can't wait for this.

[Critch]

I'm not very keen on the idea of removing defense and attack ratings and replacing it with a single value, but the rest sounds good. Sort of more of the same but prettier and refined.

I just hope they're busy making sure nobody can patch the game to make all the soldiers naked.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

i really hope they're dreaming up alpha centauri 2 right now

Yeah. I would've liked that better than a Civ4.

[Cringer]

crap! those in game shots are nice. I am going to have to get a new computer.

[vex]

Wow, sounds awesome.

[vex]

Originally Posted by Critch

I'm not very keen on the idea of removing defense and attack ratings and replacing it with a single value, but the rest sounds good. Sort of more of the same but prettier and refined.

I just hope they're busy making sure nobody can patch the game to make all the soldiers naked.

Agreed, I didn't like that at all.

[jbmagic]

i hope the combat fights are in 3d or an option to see combat battles in 3d.

[Blade]

Can't wait...drooling already!

[Eaglesfan27]

I've read several previews (such as on Gamespot) and thought about posting them. This game has jumped up to the top of my most anticipated list. I can't wait to play some of you guys if the MP truly works well like it sounds it will.

[jbmagic]

one of the major deciding factor for me purchasing civ 4 is how smart the AI will be.

i want the Ai to make good decisions for trading, diplomacy, attacking, alliances, etc

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=123967

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I've read several previews (such as on Gamespot) and thought about posting them. This game has jumped up to the top of my most anticipated list. I can't wait to play some of you guys if the MP truly works well like it sounds it will.

Yeah. I've never played an MP game of civ, but I'd love to.

[jbmagic]

Originally Posted by KWhit

Yeah. I've never played an MP game of civ, but I'd love to.

mp was very boring for civ3 because it took so long for games to end and people quit if there behind.

[Coffee Warlord]

FOFC Civ4 Conquer the World game, here we come.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

mp was very boring for civ3 because it took so long for games to end and people quit if there behind.

I'd be surprised if they could streamline Civ4 enough to keep games from going on a really long time and players getting tired of playing. If I have 2 armies and am just scraping by on a small island while 2 other players are in a huge battle - each of them with 20 cities and a hundred units - why would I want to sit around and wait for them to play out every turn?

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by KWhit

I'd be surprised if they could streamline Civ4 enough to keep games from going on a really long time and players getting tired of playing. If I have 2 armies and am just scraping by on a small island while 2 other players are in a huge battle - each of them with 20 cities and a hundred units - why would I want to sit around and wait for them to play out every turn?

I'm hopeful that they will do this right, and make provisions for this sort of situation such as having AI take over.

MP was clearly tacked onto Civ 3, and the fact that they designed MP first for Civ 4 makes me hopeful.

[sachmo71]

Ahhh...rivers connecting cities. Holy cities. Now we're looking at civilization!

[dixieflatline]

I can't believe this wasn't asked but a huge frustration about civ3 IMO was that the AI didn't get smarter as you moved up in levels. The AI just got extra "bonuses" like extra units when starting up a city. All the gaffs and traps the AI would fall for on the lowest level it would fall for on the highest level. Very, very, painful and something I really hope they address.

[TazFTW]

Originally Posted by Celeval

I still pull Colonization out every so often.

It works on XP?

I could never get it to work. Maybe it's because I have the DOS version.

[Celeval]

Originally Posted by TazFTW

It works on XP?

I could never get it to work. Maybe it's because I have the DOS version.

I think I had to use DosBox to get it going.. eventually found a copy of the Windows version, I think on the underdogs, and that works.

[Hurst2112]

Civilization threads....

Bucc's post count is going to increase 10 fold.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by dixieflatline

I can't believe this wasn't asked but a huge frustration about civ3 IMO was that the AI didn't get smarter as you moved up in levels. The AI just got extra "bonuses" like extra units when starting up a city. All the gaffs and traps the AI would fall for on the lowest level it would fall for on the highest level. Very, very, painful and something I really hope they address.

I just hope they fix the problem with resources. I finally broke my CDs in half when I kept getting into a winning position to start discovering endgame technologies and never getting any of the corresponding - and necessary - resources.

Game after game, I would not get plutonium, rubber and oil. Every single time. And they were virtually impossible to trade for. And without the resources themselves, I couldn't build the modern weapons necessary to capture those resources. It was always a Catch-22. Play for 3 or 4 hours only to lose becuase the game continually cheated.

I probably played 20 games. I think I wound up with oil twice, rubber 3 times and never got plutonium. It was a giant friggin' waste of time. I'd love to kick the guy in the nuts - repeatedly - who made that decision.

That and the "revolutions" that would overthrow freshly conquered cities. I'd have my army deep in someone elses' territory and *poof*, the captured city would revert back to its former owner. It wasn't enough that the city would magically revert back to its former owner, but that it would take all of my military units stationed in the city too!!! Like Bagdad would revolt and the USA Army units there would start fighting for Iraq against the USA. Ya, that's going to happen...

Civ 3 was abomonation and ranks in the top 3 of my most disappointing/annoying/send me on a fucking psycho 3 state killing spree rampage-type games of all time.

[sachmo71]

tehe

[Ben E Lou]

Just ran across another pretty good info site: www.civfanatics.com/civ4





Newest Updates

This is the section for looking up all the current new updates on the go from Wednesday, July 20th. They are not organized in any way, so it is highly recommended that you read through past this section and take a more in-depth look at the rest.

• Civilization IV is even more about strategy than ever. It will be more about decision making and less about the established motions that have built up over the years.
  
• No longer will you be able to transfer production from one project to another. This exploit has remained for a long time, and it has been addressed.
  
• An example of the above bullet point is that when you lose a wonder to another Civilization by a few turns, you will also lose all the production made on it, therefore you will no longer be able to transfer it to another project however you will be refunded a certain amount of gold. This rule is for units and other buildings as well. For example, if you switch production from a Settler to an Archer, the production will not shift to the Archer, however it will be saved for the Settler when you come back to it, and you will pick up from where you left off.
  
• The bigger your city gets, the unhealthier it becomes. And that can take a toll on the population, as the city will eventually begin to starve. You can combat this by building certain types of buildings, such as aqueducts and hospitals.
  
• Securing the seven types of food resources can also lead your cities to become more healthy, as they represent nutritional variety.
  
• Twenty types of improvements are available to improve the landscape.
  
• The game is more balanced towards not having as many cities. You will, however, still have a broad area. The focus is to have fewer but more specialized cities.
  
• The city maintenance cost puts pressure on rapidly expanding Civilizations, when rapid expansion might not be the best choice at the time. The AI will recognize this too, and they will not keep throwing settlers towards your boundaries.
  
• Civ4 will also have some features from Civilization III that let you to easily pick out a unit from a stack, to make it much easier than to repeat the picking out of a unit many different times over.
  
• Stack attack works by stacking a bunch of units and giving them the attack command. If you are using combined arms in that stack (a balance of defensive and offensive units), the game will automatically look at who you are attacking and who their defenders are.
  
• The amount of damage a unit does to another unit is now out of a scale of 100, even though that's more or less hidden from the user. The amount of damage a unit does is relative to its different strengths. So now when a spearman attacks a tank, he may hit three times, but that's only going to take off a quarter of the tank's hit points. Meanwhile, a tank hitting a spearman only has to hit him once or twice, and he's gone entirely.
  
• In Multiplayer, the server browser will include buddy list functionality to keep track of friends easier.
  
• Firaxis will cull all sorts of statistics from multiplayer matches, which will let it rank players, which is aimed to avoid some of the frustration when you find yourself in a multiplayer match with ruthless Civ pros.
  
• A number of pre-built scenarios will also be available with the game as it ships that also have different victory conditions. The World War II scenario, for example, will start you with all your cities and military units already built, and instead of conquering the whole world, you may have a more focused goal, such as taking or defending Paris.
  
• Cottages (new terrain improvement) with smoke coming out of their chimneys indicate which neighboring terrain squares are being worked.
  
• Other miscellaneous additions are Hospitals (along with aqueducts they can increase the health of cities). Two new units mentioned are also the Artillery and Cannon.
  
• The different speeds of the game (Quick, Norma, and Epic) will have their Technology costs, Unit production costs, and Building appropriately tuned for the appropriate speed of the game.
  
  

[Ben E Lou]

Civilization IV: Overview

Civilization IV is the latest installment in the award-winning Sid Meier's Civilization series. The game is currently being developed at Firaxis Games and is expected to be published by 2K Games in November 2005. Firaxis began working on the title about two years ago.

The most prominent change from previous civilization games is the graphics. The game world is now completely 3D. Rivers, resources, and terrain improvements (ex. windmills, mines) are all animated, making the map come alive like never before. You will also be able to smoothly zoom in from a rotating global view all the way down to the city level, as well as change the camera angle to a Civ2 style isometric view or a Civ1 style top-down view. All city improvements and wonders are now directly visible on the map, so if you build the Pyramid, it will appear within that city's radius. Fans who missed the Civ2 wonder movies will be happy to know that wonder movies are making a return in Civilization IV! There are about 45 movies total in Civ4.

Of course, graphics is not the only area that received an overhaul. Firaxis has built the game from the ground up and added lots of cool new features to make the game even more fun to play. Below we will briefly discuss some of the key features:

Health

Firaxis is replacing the unfun elements such as corruption, riots, and pollution in previous civ games with better systems. For instance, instead of pollution, Civilization IV will have a city health system. Some city improvements reduce the health of city, while some city improvements increase the health. Food resources such as wheat and fish also increase the health of your cities, and they are tradable just like the luxury and strategic resources in Civilization III. Building the city near a source of fresh water will also improve your city health.

Civics

The fixed governments are now replaced by a much more flexible Civics system, somewhat similar to the social engineering system in Alpha Centauri. The new system allows you to customize your government with various civics options that are classified into five categories: Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion. There are five options in each category. Players are free to choose any combination of civics. Some of the known civics are Free Market, Environmentalism, Slavery, Serfdom, Free Speech, Conscription, Emancipation, and Nationhood. Civics options are unlocked through research.

Religions

Religion is a brand new feature for a Civilization game. The game has seven real world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, and Hinduism. The religions are associated with certain technologies and the first civilization to discover a technology attached with a religion founds the religion. Once found, the religions can spread slowly throughout the world from the holy cities. Players can make religions spread faster by building missionaries and send them to convert cities. All the religions are generic in abilities.

Religions impact the game in a few ways. At the city level, they can influence your citizens' happiness by allowing you to build religion-specific buildings such as temples, monasteries, and cathedrals. In diplomacy, civilizations with the same religions can get along better and sometimes a computer player may ask you to switch to his or her religion. If you control the holy city of your state religion, you will gain line of sight in all cities with your religion. The religious civics will also affect your cities in different ways, depending on your choice.

Unit Promotions

Another major Civ4 feature is the RPG style unit promotions. In previous civ games, units have only a few levels: conscript, regular, veteran, and elite. Now in Civ4, there are more than 40 promotions you can give to your units as they gain experience, enabling you to customize your units to make them more unique and more powerful. Some of the promotions give your units a strength bonus, some give your units a bonus against a certain unit type, some make your units better on certain terrain types, while some give your units special abilities such as use enemy roads, faster healing, amphibious attack, and city raider.

Civilizations

Civ-specific units and animated leaderheads are still in Civ4. In addition, some civilizations now have two leaders, each has different traits and distinct personality. For example, if you play France, you can choose between Louis XIV or Napoleon. Playing as Louis XIV gives you free culture while playing as Napoleon gives you military bonus. Units now also carry unique civilization banner to make them easier to identify on the map. There are a total of 18 civilizations and 26 leaders in Civilization IV.

Great People

The Great Leader concept in Civ3 is replaced by a more elaborate Great People system. There will be five categories: Great Artist, Great Merchant, Great Prophet, Great Engineer, and Great Scientists. Each great people type will have three to four benefits such as culture boost, academy construction, free tech, wonder construction, and trade mission. You will also be able to use a group of Great People to start a golden age and multiple golden ages are now possible. The Great People are automatically generated by cities and the type generated depends on the structures in the city.

Customization

Civilization IV will be the most customizable version of Civ yet! There are four levels of customization. In the first and easiest level, players can use the built-in World Builder to create new custom maps to play in single player and multiplayer games. In the second level, players can edit the game's XML data files using notepad or a XML editor to change the game parameters -- nothing in the game is hard-coded. In the third level, players can edit the game's python scripts to change map generation, the interface, game events, etc. Finally, at the fourth level, players with programming experience can even change the AI and all the game rules using the Civ4 Game/AI SDK (Software Developers Kit). In other words, you can pretty much change everything you want and even build a game based loosely on Civilization.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer has not been a strong point for Civilization games and Firaxis hopes to change that with Civilization IV. In addition to the standard internet, Hot Seat, and LAN multiplayer modes, Civ IV will be playable by email (PBEM) or on a persistent turn-based server (named Pitboss) out of the box. There is also a new Team Play option which allows players to form alliances with each other in multiplayer games. Players on the same team will pool their accomplishments together, join forces in combat and share all information, even line of sight, benefits of wonders, research, unit trading, and sharing of territory. Firaxis has been playing Civ4 multiplayer for well over a year.

---

There are lots of other interesting additions and changes in Civilization IV: the tech tree is no longer divided into arbitrary eras and it's possible to reach a technology, such as Gunpowder, via a different path; barbarians can capture and operate cities and there are wandering wild animals on the map, making exploration more dangerous; a city's culture level now affects its defensive value; the ability to broker peace in diplomacy... etc. They are too much to mention here. For a comprehensive collection of all known Civilization IV information, you can visit the Pre-release Information page.

As you can see from this overview, there are lots of exciting new features to look forward to in Civilization IV. Be sure to check back often for our complete coverage of the game, before and after release!

[Ben E Lou]

Landscape Characteristics

To expand your empire, first you would need as much detail about the terrain as possible.

• There will be much more terrain improvements, and there will be a terrain improvement for each resource. More tile/terrain improvements will be included: Pastures, Wineries, Watermills, Windmills, Lumber Mills, Mines, Fishing Nets, Offshore Platforms, and Factories all represented in detail on the terrain. 20 Improvements in all are going to be included. Improvements being worked on with citizens will animate, which makes it convenient to see where your citizens are working, for example, if a Cottage is being worked on by a citizen, you will see smoke coming out of its chimney, same with mines. You will also be able to see workers pushing a Mine cart out of a Mine. It even helps you if an enemy is using a specific tile! Certain Technologies will make some improvements more productive as well.
  
• Roads and Rail-Roads will only provide a movement bonus to your units. This has been done so the player does not have Roads and Rail-Roads on every tile later on.
  
  

  Improvement	Other Benefit	Provides...
  Camp		Deer and Ivory
  Cottage
  Farm	+1 food	Corn and Wheat
  Fishing Net	Build on Fish	Clams, Crabs, and Fish
  Lumber Mill
  Mine		Copper, Gold, and Iron
  Offshore Platform	Build on Oil	Oil
  Plantation		Bananas, and Dye
  Quarry	Build on Marble and Stones	Marble, and Stone
  Railroad	Faster Movement and a Trade Network
  Pastures		Cattle, Horses, Pigs, and Sheep
  Road	Faster Movement and a Trade Network
  Watermill
  Whaling Boat	Build on Whales	Whales
  Windmill	+1 food, +2 gold	Wheat
  Winery	Build on Wine	Wine
  Workshop

• Civ IV will also have a better balance of strategic resources, meaning they will be distributed more evenly around the map. All Civilizations will start with strategic resources close by. The Civilization III dilemma where one faction gets more resources than anther seems to be gone.
  
• Securing the seven types of food resources can also lead your cities to become more healthy, as they represent nutritional variety.
  
• In addition to other terrain improvements, there will be many new resources. When you are zoomed out to a satellite's view, resources will be clearly marked for easy identification if you choose to mark them.
  
  

  Resource	Benefit (Food, Hammers, Gold)	Terrain	Required Improvement
  Strategic Resources
  Aluminum		Plain Hills
  Coal		Grassland Hills
  Copper	Building of certain types of units; 0 gold	Grassland, and Plains	Mine
  Horses		Grassland, and Plains	Pasture
  Iron	Building of certain types of units	Desert, Grassland Hills, and Plain Hills	Mine
  Marble	Sistine Chapel at Half Cost; 0 food, 2 hammers, 2 gold	Tundra Hills, and Plains	Quarry
  Oil		Coast, Desert, and Ocean	Offshore Platform
  Stone	Great Library at Half Cost	Desert, and Plains	Quarry
  Uranium		Plains
  Luxury Resources
  Dye		Grassland, Plains, and Jungles	Plantation
  Furs		Ice, Tundra Hills, and Tundra
  Jade
  Gold	7 gold	Desert Hills, Grassland Hills, and Plain Hills	Mine
  Incense
  Ivory		Grassland, Jungles, and Plains	Camp
  Silk		Forests
  Silver		Desert Hills, and Plain Hills
  Spices
  Wine		Plains	Winery
  Whales		Coast, and Ocean	Whaling Boat
  Food Resources
  Banana		Jungles	Plantation
  Cattle		Grassland, and Plains	Pastures
  Clam		Coast	Fishing Net
  Corn	4 food, 0 hammers, 1 gold	Desert, and Grassland	Farm
  Crabs		Coast	Fishing Net
  Deer		Plains, and Tundra	Camp
  Fish		Coast, and Ocean	Fishing Net
  Pigs		Grassland, Grassland Hills, and Jungles	Pastures
  Rice		Grassland, and Jungles	Farm
  Sheep		Grassland	Pastures
  Wheat		Plains	Farm

• Resources will no longer be as restrictive... Firaxis will probably give players something to synthesize Oil, and Gunpowder units no longer require saltpeter.
  
• All resources, including food ones will be tradable. Food resources will help your city's health status.
  
• Trading is established automatically when you make deals. Rivers are like roads in Civ IV, so if two cities are on one river, they are connected and no road is needed.
  
• Due to the expanded aspect of trading involving Rivers (making them like roads in terms of connectivity), City placement in Civilization IV will be made much more strategic. If a river connects to a lake, then a worker will be able to build a road to the lake and expand the Civilization's Trade Network.
  
• Defensive bonuses will now only be generated on Forests, Hills, and Jungles.
  
• Here is another chart of the known terrain types:
  
  

  Terrain	Characteristics (Food, Gold, Hammers, Health, & Defense)	Improvements Allowed
  Coast	1 food, 2 gold
  Desert		Road
  -Desert Hills		Road
  Floodplain	3 food, 1 gold	Road and Farm
  Forest	1 hammer, +50% Defense	Road
  Grassland	2 food	Road
  -Grassland Hills	25% defense	Road, Windmill and Mine
  Ice		Road
  -Ice Hills		Road
  Iceberg
  Jungle		Road
  Lake	+2 health
  Mountains
  Oasis
  Ocean
  Tundra	1 food	Road
  -Tundra Hills	1 hammer, +25% defense	Road, Windmill, and Mine
  Plains	1 food, 1 hammer	Road and Farm
  -Plain Hills	2 hammers, +25% Defense	Road, Windmill, and Mine
  River/Fresh Water	+2 health

Top

[Ben E Lou]

The 18 Civilizations

There will be a lot of opportunities in the game to form allies, and that is necessary to fend off enemies.

• 18 playable civilizations will be featured in Civilization IV
  
• There will be about 26 world leaders. One will also be able to choose with which leader to play out a game (for example, for America, you can choose either Franklin D. Roosevelt or George Washington). You can choose from two leaders from each Civilization however not every Civilization has two leaders.
  
• Unique Units for each Civilization are still in the game. Some of the known ones are listed in the table below.
  
• You will be able to see more of the leader’s bodies, unlike in Civ III, where one could not see them make hand and finger movements. An example of this can be seen when watching the "Game-Play Footage 2" video at GameSpot. Leader animations will also reflect their mood and natural personality.
  
• Just by simply watching a ruler's reactions on the diplomacy screen will clue you in to what their actual personality is. For example, an offer in the favor of Louis XIV or Hatshepsut will show animations of the leaders that suggest their happiness with the deal. They will simply act pleased. However some rulers are a bit more inscrutable. The only difference in personality you will see in the Chinese ruler, Qin Shi Haug is the elevation of his eyebrows... the same as the Mongol leader Genghis Khan. Rulers like Alexander the Great of the Greeks and Julius Caesar of the Romans are much more expressive in their emotions. Julius will give you a gladiatorial thumbs-up or thumbs-down in reaction to your proposal.
  
• Each Leader has two Traits. Each of these grants them a unique bonus and cuts the cost of two city improvements by half their original cost. Below is a table of these traits:
  
  

  Trait	Benefit
  Philosophical	100% of the Civilization's birthrate and half cost of Libraries and Universities.
  Spiritual	No anarchy when changing to a different government, and cheaper temples and monasteries.
  Creative	Gain a bonus to Civilizations' culture and half-priced theaters and broadcast towers.
  Organized	Civic Upkeep costs half the original cost and Labs and Courthouses are cheaper.
  Expansive	Healing units inside cities is much faster and Granaries and Grocers are cheaper.
  Aggressive	New units get the Combat I bonus for free. Barracks and Jail prices are cut by half as well.

• All the known Civilization properties have been listed below. Here are the statistics:
  
  

  Civilization	Cities	Leader 1 (Traits)	Leader 2 (Traits)	Unique Unit	Flag
  America	Washington	George Washington	Franklin D. Roosevelt
  Arabs	Mecca	Saladin (Philosophical and Spiritual)		Camel Archer
  Aztecs	Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Teotihuacan	Moctezuma
  China	Beijing, Canton, Shanghai, Tientsin, Tsingtao, Xinjian	Mao Zedong	Qin Shi Huang	Cho-Ku-Nu
  Egypt	Thebes, Memphis, Alexandria, Elephantine	Hatshepsut		War Chariot
  England	London, Hastings	Queen Victoria	Queen Elizabeth
  France	Paris, Orleans	Louis XIV (Creative and Organized)	Napoleon (Aggressive and Expansive)
  Germany	Berlin, Cologne, Munich
  Greece	Athens, Thermopylae	Alexander the Great		Hoplite
  Inca
  India	Delhi, Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras	Mahatma Gandhi (Organized and Creative)	Ashoka
  Japan	Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Edo	Tokugawa Shogunate
  Mali	Timbuktu, Djenne, Gao, Kumbi Saleh, Niani, Tadmekka, Walata
  Mongolia		Genghis Khan (Aggressive and Expansive)	Kublai Khan (Aggressive and Creative)	Keshik
  Persia	Persepolis, Susa, Pasargadae, Arbela	Cyrus
  Rome	Rome, Antium, Cumae, Neapolis, Pisae	Julius Caesar		Praetorian
  Russia	Moscow, Novgorod, St. Petersburg			Cossack
  Spain	Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo, Salamanca, Santiago, Murcia, Cordoba, Seville			Conquistador
  Barbarians

• Barbarians in Civilization IV are not able to develop a full culture like the main 18 competing Civilizations, however you will see them forming independent cities and small militias. They are like a "mini-Civ" that can cause trouble at any time.
  
  

[Ben E Lou]

Artificial Intelligence

Perhaps a significant component of good game-play is a good AI. The AI will be much improved in the new game...

• Much time is also being spent on the AI (Artificial Intelligence). One goal is to have rulers with distinct personalities. Gandhi will be generous to weaker nations, while the Khan will shy away from any diplomacy at all. If you do not play by your Civilization's leaders, they might get upset with you. For example, if you play aggressively with Gandhi, he might get angry. They key is playing by their styles. Traits also depend on leaders, rather than Civilizations. Each leader will have unique traits and bonuses Ideological conflicts are a definite possibility as a result of the AI leader personalities and their ties to certain religions or civics.
  
• The City Governor AI will also be more improved to assist you better. And that is an important part, because it naturally allows you to micro-manage less. And another main goal of Firaxis is to kill player micro-management.
  
• During the Middle and Late games, the game will be sped up thanks to faster AI moves.
  
• Barbarians will pose a new threat. They will have animal attackers such as lions, bears, jaguars, and wolves. These Animal attackers will probably be present only early on.
  
  

[Ben E Lou]

International Affairs

Above, the AI and Diplomacy virtually go hand in hand. Both are also improved... which means a much more powerful system.

• In Civilization III AI's did not have to respect your border. Look back at any game and most players will see frustration of how the AI kept wondering around in your own border. That all has changed in Civilization IV. The AI must respect your border, or declare war.
  
• A strength in Civ III was the diplomacy system... even though lots of people suggested things like having more influence on other Civilizations. That has been achieved, along with some other improvements.
  
• If you have a Mutual Protection Pact (MPP) with someone, and they get attacked, you will have the option to back down and not get involved in that war. This will of course damage your reputation, but remember that in Civ III you absolutely had to get into a war.
  
• There is a new screen that explains what other Civilizations have to offer and what they want to trade for.
  
• Just like in Civ II, you will be able to build spy units. Religious Prophets are similar to a spy unit, and they are described in the section "A New Aspect: Religion".
  
• Other Civilizations have different favored Government and Religious settings, and they will try to pressure players into changing to their favored religion or government to suit their desires in return for better relations with your Civilization. They can even ask you to stop using a Civics option you have set.
  
• In diplomacy, it is now possible to negotiate peace between two Civilizations which are at war with each other. On the other hand, it is also possible to make two other Civs go to war, even if you do not wish to get involved at all.
  
  

[Ben E Lou]

Controlling Your People... by Decree

All the power is in your hands. What you do with it can lead to your Empire's victory or your utter demise.

• Just as culture was new in Civilization III, Civilization IV will have its own new aspects that will have fans relieved. World Religion, Civics and Great People are things many people have suggested be put into the game, Soren has described these as "killer" features. These will be in Civ IV, and they will have an influence on your whole empire. The factors which have a domestic affect are described below...
  
• Factors which are not fun in the game such as corruption/waste, rioting, pollution, and maintenance will be started from scratch or removed (this means that they will be replaced by a much better concept that maintains game balance better). Pollution is most affected. It will be dumped, although not completely removed. A more extensive health system is something new, although no details about it have surfaced yet. Annoying micromanagement tasks will also be decreasing dramatically, and more high-level control will be provided.
  
• The concept of corruption has been replaced with maintenance costs. This time instead of Courthouses being able to reduce corruption (since it is gone) they will actually lower maintenance costs.
  
• You will have to develop your culture or risk being enveloped by a larger neighbor (so a nation can be completely engulfed by another's borders).
  
• The luxury slider is now a culture slider. The more culture you give, the happier your people will be, as well as producing more culture for your entire civilization.
  
• Culture basically modifies your borders in relation to the culture of your neighbors, so you can overwhelm your neighbors with a superior culture.
  
• Culture now also increases a city’s defensive value, and it helps smaller cities with more culture feel safer. Since it restarts when you capture a city, your top priority will be to maximize culture in that city.
  
• There is no more Cultural Dominance in flipping Cities. Instead, as your nation expands, foreign cities will begin to become more and more in awe with your Civilization as a whole. This will cause the people in those foreign cities to get unhappy, and therefore their Civilization will have to spend money to keep them happy. As this burden gets heavier, that Civilization might just offer to give you their Cities via diplomacy.
  
• Health will be just as important as maintaining your treasury and the happiness of your people. Health will be tied to available food and resources to simulate Epidemics. However, if you have Fresh Water near you, it will give you a health benefit.
  
• Variety in food can improve your citizens’ moods – making them happier. Entertainers are also available, spending tax dollars to buy their happiness and city improvements.
  
• In total, there are 25 Civics options. There will be five categories and five options per each category. The five categories are: Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion. Some of the known Civics options are: Free Market, Environment, Slavery, Free Speech, Conscription, Emancipation, Religious Tolerance and the Nationhood (it magnifies culture accumulation). Below is a table of how you will see your Government system in the game:
  
  

  Government	Legal	Labor	Economy	Religion
  Despotism	Barbarism	Tribalism	Decentralization	Primitivism
  Hereditary Rule - Required Tech: Monarchy.	Vassalage - New units will receive 2 experience points.	Serfdom - Give Gold for Rushing of Buildings; +50% Worker Build Rate; Required Tech: Feudalism	Free Market	Pacifism
  Representation	Nationhood	Caste System	State Property	Freedom of Religion - Gives a bonus to Civilizations with a variety of religions.
  Universal Suffrage	Freedom of Speech	Emancipation - Gives Civs Without Emancipation Less Happiness	Environmentalism	Organized Religion - Can build Missionaries without a Monastery.
  Police State - Required Tech: Fascism	Bureaucracy	Slavery - Can Rush Buildings for Population	Communism	Theocracy - Required Tech: Theology

• There are no longer set governments. You may have a Theocratic Police State with Universal Suffrage or a Pacifist Slave State with Hereditary Rule.
  
• For your economy you can choose Free Market or State Property. And for your religion, you can choose Freedom of Religion or Theocracy. What you choose might affect other Civilizations as well. If you have already introduced Emancipation, it sometimes may lead to unhappiness and revolts within other nations without Emancipation, but to you, it does not give a direct benefit (so it provides a negative aspect to other Civs, if they don't have it). Also, if your civilization is the first to outlaw slavery, that will create discontent in societies that have slavery.
  
• Slavery will allow you to sacrifice population to speed up an improvement. In Serfdom, you will have to pay to speed up improvements, but Mines will be much easier to build.
  
  

[Ben E Lou]

A New Aspect: Religion

All religions in the game are equal. However they also have an impact on diplomacy. "It's like culture without borders," as Jesse Smith Puts it.

• Each civilization can declare a state religion as well. You can also switch this but you will go through a period of anarchy, just like when switching the state of your government. Declaring a State Religion means that all cities in the Civilization with the same religion get extra happiness and produce more gold.
  
• Religion will spread through your lands and offer myriad tools to control your people more effectively and keep them happier. When you convert to a Religion (that reflects your state religion), it offers +1 happiness, but one turn Anarchy as well. The first Civilization to discover a technology attached to the founding of a religion will establish a Holy City. When a Religion is established in a city, it will gradually spread from there.
  
• When a City has a religion which differs from the State Religion of the Civilization, the citizens in that city may become unhappy and eager to adapt the state religion.
  
• Since cities which are not in the Civilization's state religion do not share the happiness and commerce bonus, it is a good strategy for you to spread an unofficial religion. However, spreading too many religions to one Civilization is not always a wise tactic, The Freedom of Religion Civics option grants bonuses to civilizations which have many different religions.
  
• You can see which State Religion of another Civilization you have made contact with by checking the small leader board in the lower-Right corner of the game screen.
  
• Like what has already been mentioned before in prior updates, the first Civilization to discover a technology that enables a religion will be assigned a Holy City. Owning a Holy City gives you a line of sight (Note: Feature to be determined by Firaxis Games.) for all cities in the world that share that religion, and therefore encouraging you to spread to spread your faith even more around the world. In the Holy City you can also build Great Wonders that have the ability to improve the happiness of people throughout your empire. Holy Cities are assigned to the AI by random, but most likely near the center of the empire, or the capitol of the empire.
  
• Conquered people who have a different religion than your state religion will naturally be pretty unhappy. In later eras you can research technology to mitigate these effects, but religion now has to factor into your overall strategy.
  
  • There will be seven real-world religions which will be associated with certain technologies. Players may also be able to switch their state of religion. There is also a special unit just for Religions, the Missionary. Below is a helpful chart of the religions in the game, and their real-life significance:
    
    

    Religion		First to Discover	Buildings & Wonders
    Buddhism		Meditation	Buddhist Shrine
    Christianity		Theology	Christian Shrine
    Confucianism			Confucian Shrine
    Hinduism		Polytheism	Hindu Shrine
    Islam			Islamic Shrine
    Judaism			Jewish Shrine
    Taoism			Taoist Shrine

  • The Missionary may be sent out to try to convert other cities to your religion. Just like Civics, AIs will try to convert you to their religion the same way.
    
  • If you are successful in a city, you will also receive a line of sight bonus and if you capture or control the main holy city of each religion, you get line of sights in each city in the world that has that religion. (Note: Feature to be determined by Firaxis Games.)
    
  • To keep your civilization's religion strong, you must constantly be building religious buildings and pushing your own Missionaries to convert foreign cities. If you do not want foreign Missionaries to enter your lands, simply do not sign open borders. The only other time Missionaries can enter your borders are when a Civilization declares war on you.
    
  • While Closed Borders mean that other missionaries cannot enter your lands and spread their religion, it also means that you will not be able to trade with other Civilizations.
    
  • If you are successful at converting them to your religion, you might get along with that Civ better.
    
  • Religions will not have bonuses (most likely the developers like to keep everything perfectly balanced because it is a touchy subject), but they will impact diplomacy. If you ally yourself with a Civilization with the same religion as yours, it will “Enable you to curry favor with other like-minded peoples.” However, they come with a memory, if you suddenly switch to their religion, they will not be as inclined to cooperate with you. You will need to be in their religion for a significant amount of time (From PC Zone).
    

[Ben E Lou]

The Influence of Great People

Great People also add a great deal of variety to the game. Some offer extremely great benefits as we'll cover below...

• At some point you’ll be able to see Great Prophets to act as immortal icons to the devout. There will be five categories of : Artist, Tycoon/Great Merchantman, Prophet, Engineer, and Scientists. All of them have a movement of two, and are invisible to other units. These will probably be triggered by City performance, therefore, they cannot be built. Each will also have three to four benefits, including culture boost, academies, multiple Golden Ages, and free techs, as well as wonder construction and city output.
  
• Great People will be easier to get in Civ IV, and they will also be the only way a player can spark a Golden Age.
  
• A Golden Age means that you get a boost in production and happiness. Again, you can also have multiple Golden Ages, unlike in Civilization III, where you were allowed only one.
  
• You can get great leaders by specialized cities. You can customize each city to fit a specific purpose such as science or culture. Great engineers will allow you to rush production on a wonder, or other building and naturally, they may only be used once, so it shouldn't come as a surprise. Great merchant may let you establish an extremely lucrative trade deal, or a great scientist will significantly boost your research.
  
• Great People can be turned into "Super Citizens" where they can give a city an ongoing bonus, or they can be used to give your Civilization a large one-time bonus. Below is a detailed list of the Great People, how they can be used, and the historic figures they might represent:
  
  

  Great Person	Benefits	Historic Figures
  Great Artist (Emphasis on Culture)	Has the potential to trigger a Golden Age (or GA). Requires two Great People for a GA. Can produce a little culture each turn if settled in the city. Producing a "Great Work" grants the city 1000 culture points automatically They can discover a Cultural-Related Technology	Michelangelo Shakespeare
  Great Engineer (Emphasis on Production)	Has the potential to trigger a Golden Age. Requires two Great People for a GA. May rush the production of a project, like a Great Wonder. Can discover an Engineering-Related Technology
  Great Merchant (Emphasis on Wealth)	Has the potential to trigger a Golden Age. Requires two Great People for a GA. Can produce gold each turn for the city he is settled in. Can establish a one-time trade mission for 1000 gold. Can discover a Commercially-Related Technology	Aretas Pytheas
  Great Prophet (Emphasis on Religion)	Has the potential to trigger a Golden Age. Requires two Great People for a GA. You may get a free advance. May build one Shrine/per religion. Can discover a Religious-Related Technology	Mahavira
  Great Scientist (Emphasis on Science)	Has the potential to trigger a Golden Age. Requires two Great People for a GA. May create an Academy in a city. May give you a large Science Boost. Can discover a Scientific-Related Technology.	Einstein Newton Plato Xi Ling-Shi

[Ben E Lou]

City Essentials

Cities are like the many hearts of your Civilization. If you take care of them, they are bound to take care of you.

• Managing Cities well enough can also spawn a Golden Age where a City enters a Renaissance-Style bonus period.
  
• To get more culture, in addition to the slider already described, Entertainment Specialists also help with culture generation. Building still matter, but they will just serve as cultural multipliers than producers.
  
• In Civ IV you are not guaranteed the nine-square territory when you first build a city. You may find a city that owns only its base tile, and is completely engulfed in another Civilization's borders.
  
• Civilization IV will not have any City Limits. You can build as many as you wish, however keep in mind that if you do so, it will also increase the amount of Maintenance for buildings (this was already in Civ III).
  
• Cities on the outer-most fringe of your empire will still build relatively quickly (as there is no corruption anymore). However their maintenance cost will be higher to compensate for that.
  
• The game is more balanced towards not having as many cities. You will, however, still have a broad area. The focus is to have fewer but more specialized cities.
  
• The city maintenance cost puts pressure on rapidly expanding Civilizations, when rapid expansion might not be the best choice at the time. The AI will recognize this too, and they will not keep throwing settlers towards your boundaries.
  
• Along with the wonders displayed on the terrain in the city's square, civic improvements are shown off as well.
  
• Right-Clicking on a city will bring up contextual menus, which will show the player options such as build orders, and governor settings. Having said that, the city governor provides much more control over automation.
  
• Information in the city itself is much clearer as well, for the players who do wish to get a more detailed picture. Each improvement in the city has the specific benefits it offers to the city itself. Contentment and culture are also present in more detail. This means that the player will no longer have to keep looking through the Civilopedia for what certain buildings or aspects add to the gameplay.
  
• In order to simplify your building choice in cities, you will be able to Shift-Click on a city in order to select what you want it to build, this even without entering the main city interface. It will all be on the main interface. You will also be able to set Build Queue orders so you can select which things you want to build in a particular order (so if you select the Archer then Temple and then the Pyramids in this order, production will automatically switch each time a unit/building is done).
  
• Selecting multiple cities makes management even easier. Jesse Smith states in this Developer Interview at GameSpot that the goal is to make everything as easy for the player as possible. This allows the player to set the same building orders to a few cities at once. These features (the Build Queue and the city selection method) along with the flexibility of options from the City Governor make managing cities extremely easy.
  
• Setting common Rally Points to cities (or multiple cities via the Shift-Click method) is also possible. This allows units that have just been built to go to that selected spot automatically without the player's input.
  
• When entering the city menu itself, you will see that older-style text-based menus have all been replaced with graphical icons instead. Production, science Research, Culture, and Commerce information is displayed on the left side of the screen. Citizen information is displayed on the right side. On the right side of the screen, citizens (either regular citizens or specialists) will be assigned tasks which will include more options than were previously available. The bottom of the City Screen will show the player icons representing all of the available units and buildings for the production queue.
  
• No longer will you be able to transfer production from one project to another. This exploit has remained for a long time, and it has been addressed.
  
• An example of the above bullet point is that when you lose a wonder to another Civilization by a few turns, you will also lose all the production made on it, therefore you will no longer be able to transfer it to another project however you will be refunded a certain amount of gold. This rule is for units and other buildings as well. For example, if you switch production from a Settler to an Archer, the production will not shift to the Archer, however it will be saved for the Settler when you come back to it, and you will pick up from where you left off.
  
• Cities will no longer riot, but unhappy workers will not work. Until you address the problem, it will remain so.
  
• Instead of shields, you’ll see hammers. The more you have, the faster you build things.
  
• City names can also be changed by the player, as in Civ III.
  
• The bigger your city gets, the unhealthier it becomes. And that can take a toll on the population, as the city will eventually begin to starve. You can combat this by building certain types of buildings, such as aqueducts and hospitals. However improvements such as Factories tend to decrease the city's health status.
  
  

[Ben E Lou]

Bottom line, IF they pull all this off:


Klnx pls, k, thx.

[Anthony]

what is battle like in Civ games? this is why the Total War series are my favorite of all time, since it has a great battle engine and great territory/city building aspects, the best of both worlds.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

what is battle like in Civ games? this is why the Total War series are my favorite of all time, since it has a great battle engine and great territory/city building aspects, the best of both worlds.

To each his own, I guess. I found the territory/city building aspects of Rome: Total War to be very, very lacking, and I basically simmed nearly every battle in R:TW. I wanted something more like Civ games, where battle is simulated, but city building is very, very detailed.

[Flasch186]

i will LOVE this game.....see....glad youre back SD!! CIV4 news, god I love you. WOAH, sorry.

[Hurst2112]

After reading all that info, I must say that I just got an internet errection. Awesome.

[MikeVic]

So, does FOFC do giant multiplayer CIV games?

[JeeberD]

Me, Franklin, Tasan, and...someone else tried to do a PBEM a while back, but it died a painful death fairly early on...

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

To each his own, I guess. I found the territory/city building aspects of Rome: Total War to be very, very lacking, and I basically simmed nearly every battle in R:TW. I wanted something more like Civ games, where battle is simulated, but city building is very, very detailed.

Well, it has by far the best territory/ciy building aspects of any strategy game with that level of tactical battle management. That tactical battle management is, however, the heart of the game, so if you don't like that, that series is not for you.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Bottom line, IF they pull all this off:


Klnx pls, k, thx.

yup. I've bitched about this before, but Civ 3's "all against one" mentality drove me nuts- and it seems as if the civilizations are going to act as individual entities, not as groups. The "trade a tech " to everyone if you trade to one rule had to be enforced - and was mindnumbing. I want the AI to recognize each civilization as having seperate, distinct goals and not blindly working together.

[Celeval]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Me, Franklin, Tasan, and...someone else tried to do a PBEM a while back, but it died a painful death fairly early on...

That was me. I'd be very interested in doing another one at some point.