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Post by Canucksoldier on May 13, 2007 12:34:58 GMT -5
Looks like July is the month for strategy and simulation aficionados. 2K announced today that Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword releases the week of July 23, and internationally by the end of July. As we discussed before, this expansion is a welcome relief for players who typically don't take the route of combat in winning the game. Civ IV: Warlords was a great expansion to the series and hopefully Beyond the Sword will give non-war inclined players more viable options to victory. One of the features we're looking forward to is the "advanced starts" option. It will allow players to "buy components of a custom-tailored empire and begin play in the later part of the game, allowing them to experience many of the new features of the expansion pack in a shorter amount of time." That'll be great for those of us who give up somewhere around the 18th century because Shaka's at the door, Stalin is building up for an attack and Elizabeth just won't trade anymore. Joystiq Article
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Post by toratoratora on May 14, 2007 7:23:51 GMT -5
Hmm Nice Cover Looks A bit like Star Wars Empire Strikes Back cant wait to get my hands on one of them AT ATs
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Post by Canucksoldier on May 14, 2007 18:16:09 GMT -5
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grilla
Worker
CCCAC Representative
Have a banana!
Posts: 165
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Post by grilla on May 17, 2007 22:07:20 GMT -5
heres a clip from apolyton:
Beyond the Sword Fact Sheet Got spare money?
Some interesting information has started appearing recently regarding Beyond the Sword, the next Civ4 expansion. I'll try to summarize some of that.
General Info
Beyond the Sword is the second expansion for Civilization IV, and will be released on July 23rd in North America and by the end of July in Europe. The expansion focuses on builder options and the second half of the game (post-Gunpowder), although there are also military additions, such as new units.
Content includes 12 scenarios, 10 new civs and 16 new leaders. Random events, corporations and revamped espionage are among the epic game features.
The box art can be seen here, with a high resolution version here. Also, there's a super-high resolution version (1610x2251, 1.2 MB).
Civilizations and Leaders
4 of 10 new civilizations have been revealed:
Babylon - led by Hammurabi (ca. 1810 BC - ca. 1750 BC), first king of the Babylonian Empire, creator of Hammurabi's Code of Laws in ca. 1760 BC., which is usually considered the first example of written, basic, unchangeable law.
Portugal - led by Joao II (1455 - 1495), fourteenth king of Portugal, who concentrated power in his own hands and prioritized exploration of the Atlantic. In-game, Joao II is Imperialistic/Expansionist, and the Portugese Unique Unit is the carrack.
Netherlands - no further info available.
Native Americans - led by Sitting Bull (1831 - 1890), a Lakota chief, leader of the Sioux tribes during the Battle of Little Bighorn, later exiled to Canada. In-game, one of Sitting Bull's traits is Protective, and the Native American Unique Building is the Totem Pole.
2 new leaders for existing civilizations have been revealed:
America - Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), 16th President of the United States, leading the country during the defeat of the Confederacy and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, freeing all slaves, and encouraging the Thirteenth Amendment that outlawed slavery.
Celtia - Boudica (? - 61 AD), Queen of the Iceni people, who rebelled against the Romans, causing a serious crisis in Roman-ruled Britain. In the Battle of Watling Street, Boudica's forces were slaughtered and she died, without managing to drive the Romans out of Britain. In-game, Boudica is Aggressive/Charistmatic.
New Units
Beyond the Sword includes an uncertain amount of new units. Here are the ones we currently know about.
Unique Units:
Carrack (Portugal) - no extra information available, although it's obviously a naval unit.
Regular Units:
Privateer - Presumably a hidden-nationality ship that can also attack at peace-time.
Paratrooper - Works similar to other Civ games - can drop into enemy territory and do nasty things there.
Cuirassier - A mounted unit that takes the place of Cavalry in the tech tree. So, Cuirassier requires Military Tradition. Cavalry now requires Rifling. The Cuirassier is, presumably, somewhere between the Knight and the Cavalry in its strength.
Anti-Tank - An "inexpensive, early counter to Tanks"
New Buildings
BtS includes new buildings, but there is currently very little information available. Unique Buildings:
Totem Pole (Native Americans) - extra XP for archer units
New Technologies
No information is currently available, although the presence of new technologies in BtS has been revealed.
New Wonders
BtS features six new Wonders, including the Apostolic Palace (see below):
The Statue of Zeus - a statue of the god Zeus in a temple housing it, built ca. 432BC in Olympia, Greece. Doubles war weariness of civs that are at war with you.
Cristo Redentor - a statue of Jesus Christ wth open arms, built in 1931, stands over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. No in-game information available.
Shwedagon Paya - a Buddhist stupa, building time unknown, believed to be between the 6th century and the 10th century AD, although Buddhist monk records put it as being over 2500 years old. Located in Yangon, Myanmar. No in-game information available.
Mausoleum of Mausollos - a tomb built for Mausolos, a Persian governor, built in 353-350 BC. Located in Bodrum, Turkey. No in-game information available.
Moai Statues - monolithic carved statues of heads and truncated torsos. Presumably built in the 11th century AD. Located on Easter Island. No in-game information available.
Apostolic Palace - residence of the Pope in Vatican City since 1871. In BtS, it acts somewhat similarly to the United Nations (see below).
The Apostolic Palace
Apostolic Palace is a Wonder that allows elections once it's built, with civilizations that share the builder's religion participating. Most of what is currently known about the Palace is from this quote by Alex Mantzaris, the lead programmer & lead designer of BtS:
quote: This Wonder allows you to leverage your diplomatic standing to manipulate the world like never before. Build it and civilizations sharing your religion can vote on resolutions you put forth, like stopping and starting wars, enforcing trade embargos, or even assigning cities to their “rightful” owner!
In another interview, it was revealed that the Apostolic Palace also provides another way of winning the game, although how exactly that works is unknown.
Corporations
Corporations are an all-new feature in Beyond the Sword. Corporations are similar to religions in a way, can be founded & spread throughout the world. Each corporations provides certain benefits in exchange for resources.
Corporations are founded by consuming a Great Person. They can provide food, commerce, production or resources in exchanges for resources that the corporation consumes. The more resources available for consumption, the more benefits the corporation provides. Each corporation consumes its own specific set of resources.
Corporation headquarters provide income for each city in the world where the corporation exists. There are, however, also maintenance costs for corporations.
Civics also influence corporations. Mercantilism blocks foreign corporations and State Property blocks all of them.
The exact corporations or the number of corporations in the game is currently unknown.
Random Events
Beyond the Sword also adds random events to the game. There are different types of events. Some merely require your decision on how to deal with a situation, while others will assign you quests that can be completed for a reward. The amount of different events in the game is said to be high to provide maximum replayability.
Espionage
Espionage has been changed in Beyond the Sword. It is now available earlier than before, and players can actively "fund" espionage development. There is now an espionage slider, which can be used to allocate extra funds to espionage. Thus espionage points towards other civilizations are generated.
When you accumulate enough espionage points, you start getting information about the other civs. You can also use Spy units for a variety of active missions. Great Spies, a new type of Great Person, can also be born, and one of their abilities is to provide an espionage boost against a certain rival.
Scenarios
BtS will ship with 12 scenarios. These cover a wide spectrum, from World War II on a historical map to future and fantasy scenarios. Some scenarios are set in as early as Renaissance. More is known about one scenario:
Afterworld - designed by Tim McCracken (who also designed Omens in Warlords), it's a sci-fi scenario where a team of five "Gravebingers" is sent to a planet occupied by human robots who've turned into horrible beasts. The scenario is unlike regular Civ, as it doesn't heave any leaders, cities or technologies.
Another scenario has been described as "Civ in space".
Advanced Starts
In this mode, players "buy" components of a civilization, and so can start the game in a later era, with a partially-developed civilization. The mechanism is described as follows by Alex Mantzaris:
quote:
Advanced Starts are a pre-game setup phase players use to purchase cities, improvements, buildings, technologies, and units. It works in both single-player and multi-player. The player decides what to purchase and where to place it. When everyone is done, the game starts with players controlling relatively balanced, advanced empires with a working infrastructure. This mechanism is ideal for those who want to jump right in and experience a balanced game in the modern era, without having to start with nothing but a few settlers and units.
Other Features
The game's AI is improved considerably to present a better challenge.
A new option is to select any leader with any civilization. For example, Boudica of the Romans or Elizabeth of the Chinese.
The spaceship can be customized visually before launching.
A space victory now requires your spaceship to reach Alpha Centauri, as in Civ2. You can win by launching later than your enemy if you have a faster spaceship.
looks like Deviuos Devil gets his paratroopers!
Last update: 17.05.07.
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Post by toratoratora on May 18, 2007 9:33:29 GMT -5
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Post by MMV on May 18, 2007 11:10:00 GMT -5
NEW CIVS: Although Babylon, Portugal, Netherlands(dutch), and Native Americans(iroquois) may be new to Civ4, they are just revamped civs from Civ3 with minor changes to the NAME of their UU, but still basically the same thing (with added civ/leader traits, of course).
NEW UNITS: Portugal's unit "carrak," once again, is new to civ4, but just being transfered over from old Civ3
Same with "privateer" - not sure if it was in old C3, but it was definately in CivPTW
"paratrooper" - once again, just a transfer from old C3 to C4
"Cuirassier" - wOwzaaa, actually a NEW UNIT in the game!! Cuirassierd were "heavy cavalry" equipped with armour and basic firearms, first appearing in late 15th-century Europe. They were the successors of the medieval armored knights and the precursor to actual modern horse-mounted cavalry. The term is derived from cuirass, the breastplate armour they wore
"Anti-Tank" - just the renamed TOW unit from C3
WONDERS: The Statue of Zeus, Mausoleum of Mausollos are once again just being transfered over from the old C3 to the new C4
RANDOM EVENTS: Civ4 is now apparently welcoming SimCity into it's realm! Will we need firehouses, police, and emergency personnel units to handle the floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and forest fires from the misuse of our civ lands? (maybe godzilla would be nice though, imagine you're about to be taken-out by a stack of 20 eles/cats/spears and Godzilla accidently kills them saving your civ!)
ESPIONAGE: Truly looks like they are bringing the "espionage" practices from the old C3 to C4 (where you needed an embassy in the other civ's city and it costs money to do spy work)
Some of these old Civ3 and PTW things will be a welcome plus to C4 as they certainly are missing elements now that we wanted back.
So far? Don't see a lot of actually "new stuff" - just firaxis continued efforts to merge the old C3 with the new C4
Finally? I expect that "random events" and a few other things they've added will NOT be very MP friendly, causing lag, drops, etc just like using "high resolution graphics" setting and animations do now.
I'm actually NOT "diss'ing" the new BtS XPAK, I just think that it's about time for these wanted changes that are missed from C3 that should have been there in the original C4 without XPAKS.
I truly look forward to this mod!
(but if Sentries aren't FINALLY "fixed" in this one, I'll certainly be disenchanted)
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Post by ironclad on May 18, 2007 17:33:04 GMT -5
Natural Disasters, that is absolutely slowed. Devs don't even think through what they are adding to the game, this adds no gameplay at all.
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Post by zzZhenon on May 18, 2007 21:23:32 GMT -5
That's not a AT-AT!! It's a GIANT DEATH ROBOT!! aaarrrrgghhhhhh!!
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grilla
Worker
CCCAC Representative
Have a banana!
Posts: 165
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Post by grilla on May 18, 2007 21:28:07 GMT -5
ya, looks like they ripped off mech warriors!!!
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Post by Canucksoldier on May 18, 2007 23:23:12 GMT -5
Natural Disasters, that is absolutely slowed. Devs don't even think through what they are adding to the game, this adds no gameplay at all. Maybe not to MP, but we are not the primary market remember. CS
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Post by Canucksoldier on May 18, 2007 23:27:17 GMT -5
So far? Don't see a lot of actually "new stuff" - just firaxis continued efforts to merge the old C3 with the new C4 While there are some ideas from C3C that are being adapted finally there is still alot of new material as well, not all MP centric of course, but I think that espionage and the Advanced starts feature will be welcome to our realm, and perhaps corporations as well. CS
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redphoenix
Warrior
CCCAC Representative
Posts: 253
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Post by redphoenix on May 21, 2007 4:02:48 GMT -5
Well I think adding back old removed Civ3 units make the game more versatile. That being a very good thing. It was simplified too much in some aspects, especially in later game.
Catapults/Cannon need serious fixing, I hear catapult atleast is going to have some fix for it? dunno what. But hopefully it will be good. Later game bombardment is a bit strong too I think. But I guess people havent really paid attention to it as much as earlier eras, since not so many care to play it since it sucks in most aspects.
Anyhow fixing cata is the most important thing, cannon be nice to be fixed too though. Maybe lowering effect of collateral in general... Atleast removing ability of catapult to be a melee unit.
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Post by tommynt on May 24, 2007 3:58:42 GMT -5
lmao this is a joke - at least Firaxis wont make lot of money out of it I bet.
Who needs new leaders? There are like 30 allready - so now 40 - lol
They dont even fix the worst mp bugs?! Wtf did we write the "10 worst things about mp" down?
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Post by tamijo on May 24, 2007 4:53:34 GMT -5
If y want to keep winning a MEDI/REN teamer on the same settings that you played 10.000 times before. or Play a CTON ANC with the same settings that y played 10.000 times before. I guessThis wont change anything much.
But if you are not only interested in winning the game, maby more interested in trying new stuff, there seems to be a lot more change in this box than in the last one.
1/ Y can make a costom made prebuild 2/ They got the new BUILD A FIRM thing. 3/ OCC with disasters on ?; maby not very fair, but who cares if its fun and its something that everyone must adabt too. 4/ Seems like they add a lot more new units and buildings than they did into warlords.
Im not saying its gonna be great, cos we only know very little, but im still very hopeful !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- My worst fear is not the X-pack, more that the ladder players is so fixed on their winning ratio, that a lot off new stuff will be played very little, and the ladderplayers will try to fit the game into their gamestyle, rather than fit the gamestyle into the new game !
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Post by Canucksoldier on May 24, 2007 8:07:23 GMT -5
lmao this is a joke - at least Firaxis wont make lot of money out of it I bet. Who needs new leaders? There are like 30 allready - so now 40 - lol They dont even fix the worst mp bugs?! Wtf did we write the "10 worst things about mp" down? How did you come to the conclusion that they haven't fixed any bugs? They are not going to put that on the box art afterall, that is reserved for big ticket features that will sell the XP. CS
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Post by geforced on May 25, 2007 2:05:52 GMT -5
not sure why you need a prebuild for late eras, you get 30 cities in 10 turns anyway, could be interesting though
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flog
Settler
Posts: 15
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Post by flog on May 25, 2007 3:05:36 GMT -5
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Post by tamijo on May 25, 2007 5:36:23 GMT -5
It seems like we won't be able to see any statistics such as power graphs in our favourite MP games unless we invest like a fortune in espionage... But is that bad ? Mayby will bring more excitement back into the came, that y are more unsure how well you (your team) is infact dooing. checking the powergraf every turn, isent that much fun, i can live without that, as long as others have to do the same. especialy if this means that you can build a spy kinda thing to walk around checkking the situation instead.
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Post by Canucksoldier on May 28, 2007 1:33:53 GMT -5
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