Strategic Loopholes, Arrogance, and The Good Stuff

[MrgameTheory]

Hello friends: D

I believe that the secret towards getting the most out of a game such as Civ is to create a well informed/trained multi player community. While Civ Rev lacks in the depth department when compared to Civ 4, I believe that the "Hopefully" dramatic increase in the size of the multi-player community will create a more competitive environment. All hopes aside, I believe it’s important to declare the truth of what Civ Rev is. Civ Rev is not the creation of a more strategic and thought demanding game, but the creation of a weaker transition game to make money, see if Civ can become a console hit, and test if it’s a solid investment to appeal to an online community. I am hoping that Civ Rev becomes a successful multiplayer game so its creators over at Firaxis allocate more resources towards making Civ 5 a better Multi-player game for the PC.

While I wait for the success of Civ Rev and ultimately the release of a more improved multi-player Civ 5, I have decided to donate my time to helping the Civ Rev community grow into an Elite/Competitive online game, just as I did for Civ 4. Why Civ? Well I believe it is one of few games/franchises out with the potential to one day be as close to a perfect strategy simulator as possible.

The following is the function of this thread:

1) List of all of the characters with all of their unique traits and units
2) Picture of the Tec Tree with beaker requirements on the fastest speed
3) Pictures of the different types of maps with different sizes.
4) List of the Victory conditions.
5) List of buildings, wonders, and units and descriptions of each.
6) Extra important information about the game.

The sooner the community can organize and post this information, the sooner some old Civ 4 friends and I can start writing the free strategy guides for CR. With enough of the above information we can help the online community cut through months/years of time that would have been wasted trying to figure out the game and determine the best strategies based on different settings. Our free strategic guides and loopholes will teach players how to be pro players in the quickest and most efficient time possible. The faster we get the information and create our guides, the faster we will have an elite community that will be able to expand on those strategies and create brilliant new ones. The goal is to create a large competitive online community where the competitive/pro gamers feel they are not wasting their time. The last thing we want is for the smart people who give the Civ franchise a chance to be discouraged by the concept and/or lack of a competitive community and leave. We have to convince the better gamers who give Civ Rev a chance that the Civ franchise is worth their time.

To all you new Civ players out there who do not know me, I am responsible for leading and/or training roughly 90% of the best Civ 4 multi Players in the world. For a long time I was considered the best Civ 4 multi-player with such unprecedented victories as 11vme, 4v4vme, and countless 2vme and 3vmes (Obviously all real players and not AI ;)). My clans have won every type of Civilization World Championship. My clan and I are responsible for discovering most of the strategic loopholes in Civ 4 and releasing them to the public in order for Firaxis to modify them and create a more balanced game. I am also responsible for sponsoring the most competitive online Cash tournaments for Civ 4. I recently retired from Civ 4 in order to focus on work, but look forward to playing CR with the new multi-player community.

With your help we can transform Civ Rev into an entertaining/competitive game. I look forward to working with some of you and reading/ working with the information you gather and post. :cool:

[Bulldog_PS3]

I was going to quote this post and had a really great response to the pretentious and condescending remarks made about Civilization: Revolution. But I thought I would let an excerpt from one of his "guides" speak for itself.

You people realize that threads like this would never be made if everyone read my detailed strategy guide. Because I am a nice person I will repost the important details from it:

"When playing any game of civ 4 its important to maintain an efficient and strategic approach to booting newbs from your game. One of the best indicators of a newb is their name. If they have a name that doesn't sound creative at all like Axemen1212 or LEETKILLER, there is a 93% probability they are a newb and pose a threat to you having the most fun. Another indication a player is a newb, is their ability to pick a leader as soon as a they enter a game. This is the classic test of newberdom and should always prove to be a clear indication. Another proven method of proving newbdom is looking at any abbreviation before their name, it has actually been scientifically proven that players whos name start with [KC] or [MOJO] are 89x more likly inclined to either lag your game, crash your game, or put their team at a strategic disadvantage. Its also important to remember that better players with less lag always have precedence over a laggy player, so if your game is full, but great players are on, be prepared to boot with avengence...

Whenever encountering any of the above I like to boot using the silent but deadly classic double click strategy with the right hand. What ill do is put my mouse over the newbs boot x, in the staging room, and click in 2 consecutive motions. Even though only 1 is necessary, two is important in order to guarantee success.

In recent times the famous Spam and kick has gained wide attention. Its important when attempting to pull off the spam and kick to have a generic degrading comment prepared. I usually like to say "NEWB, your the weakest link goodbye." Usually after they lose connection to the game they realize they were the newb in reference and begin to message back in anger. Its important to stay clam and relaxed in such situations. A kind always seems to work, but in recent times the famous "Im sorry dude, that spot was actually reserved and we will for sure play next time, seems to prove very successful at removing the newb and the hatred in his heart.

Whenever faced with certain newbs I like to use my specialty, the patented, two handed, reverse, double barrel, slander and kick. When attempting to pull of this complex maneuver I like to usually be high on some kind of narcotic, Its important to pull this move off with a narcotic because side affects of morality can sometimes bite you in the butt when your clear eyed. To successfully pull off this maneuver its important to have a full game and have the newb in question sit in that game for atleast 20 minutes thinking they are going to play. Usually when the last slot fills I like to put on some Sigur Ros to get in that sensual mood. Once engaged in bliss I will type in all CAPS WTF IS THIS LAGGY ASS NEWB DOING IN HERE. Usually caught off guard the proposed newb will stand in speechless ahh. Its important to be consistent when attempting to embark on this technique of booting, due to the high probability of being frowned upon by your peers. I usually suggest booting by clicking the mouse with both your right hand and than your left hand. Its important to use both in order to make sure the newb is actually booted and atleast 1 arm is functioning normally. Its important to get that boot in before they actually have a chance to respond to the allegations of being a newb and/or lagger. By successfully pulling off this maneuver you have a 37% chance of convincing atleast 26% of the players in the staging room to not allow the newb into their future games."

This was taken from a post made by "MGT" on the Civ4 players pro boards. I don't know about anyone else but it seems like that's some sort of guide on how to be an elitist A-hole. I agree with booting for lag, but really ? Also, I am hoping that there aren't any "loopholes" in this game, because cheaters make me sick. Glitches and exploits ruin online competitive games. Oh and hey congrats on winning a few events, but after doing some research I don't think the actual numbers add up to your boastful post on here. I am hoping you have a PS3 though, I would love to play you sometime !! Cheers.

[Man-Bear-Pig]

I love this thread.

[MrgameTheory]

I’m not all serious ;), I do like to have a good time and that strategy guide for booting newbs was created to put a smile on peoples faces. If you look at that as a serious article I wouldn’t rate your social intelligence too high :D. If you look on the strategy sections of the main ladder there are a few strategy threads I created, but for the most part I only give strategy tips to those who ask.

As for Civ Revolution, Based on the little bit of information that has been released already, they are going to have a terrible time balancing this game. Does anyone know if there will be a random era and a random leader option in CR? Its pretty important because if there is a random leader option I can tell you hands down that you will pretty much only be able to play that on a random era setting. Based on what I have seen each leader is great early era or great latter era, but unlike normal civ games, these maps are tiny so I am fairly confident that the leaders who have major early era advantages are going to prove to unbalance the game. Personally I believe that if games are random era and random leader you are going to have games that are mostly determined by luck. I can't wait to see the rest of the leaders. I have a few questions for anyone who might know the answers to the following, plus a few comments.

0) Do the era bonuses for each leader stay with them all game?

1) Abe Lincoln’s great person, can he choose what that great person is?

2) Is there any information on great people that has been released, like what they do etc?

3) With which tec will the hurry production with money civic be released? 50% less hurry production costs is a ****ing joke and mark my words this will be removed soon. You think having a worthless 2% interest era trait will balance out -50%, than your obviously a fool. The only way you will balance out abe Lincoln will be if the Hurry production civic has something negative associated with it and if there is something negative associated with it you will see only Abe Lincoln will choose this civic 99% of the time, unless you plan on giving other leaders this bonus as well. If the hurry production civic can we researched early you are going to have some major problems and lets not talk about later era games with his production bonuses, special units and hurry production. The best part of all this is, even with how unbalanced Abe Lincoln is, he wont survive a epic game.

4) are there going to be lots of civics in this game or just a few, and how will it work when adopting them? Can you pick a combination or only one?

5) For Gandhi he begins with access to all resources, what does that mean? Your telling me that he starts the game with every resource? If this is true that is by far the funniest ****ing thing I have ever read civ related and the designers of this game are mentally retarded. Please someone explain to me what this means for Gandhi.

6) Are settlers going to cost more the latter the era?

7) What do courthouses do, if they are anything like Civ 4, lol.

8) What does ceremonial Burial do?

9) Which wonder does Cleopatra begin with? Is there a list that it is taken from at random or can you pick?

10) Genghis Khan get half price horsemen and those half priced horse men are his special unit, I
see this as being a major problem, but before I will admit it is for sure, I would like to know the current production cost of horses and the difference between a horseman and a keshik.

11) Will there be slavery in this game?

12) In later era games will players start with more units and settlers?


*** Based on what I see the game is going to be very very unbalanced. If this trend continues and all leaders have super bonuses for 1-2 eras you are going to see the following. For epic games that start in ancient, you will see all players only choosing the leaders with strong early era bonuses and not those leaders with weak ones. Sure Abe Lincoln is great later on, but if a game consists of 3 ancient leaders and Abe Lincoln, Abe Lincoln will be dead before he sees a later era. All players will either team up on him or kill him. Even if they don't, the early era bonuses for some are so major that they will have twice the territory/ major strategic advantages. The same goes for all non ancient leaders. This will occur because the maps are too tiny and some of the ancient bonuses are so great. Ancient leaders will have huge advantages that will outweigh all epic games. If the option to choose a specific era is available you will have slightly more balance, but only if traits are carried over from previous eras, but if they are, I laugh at giving Gandhi all resources for the entire game. If traits are not carried over you will only see players pick the leaders that are strong in the era that is picked. If you think you will tec yourself forward to your era when your opponent focuses solely on military production (With their special Bonuses) you are in for a big surprise, especially when I see every game having opponents within 5-15 squares of each other.

All of this information is based solely on the fact that this game will be anything like previous games of civ. Based on the previews of the game I have seen, all of this will be relevant. Don't call me a pessimist, call me a realist. :cool:

[Skippy]

I think you're making too many assumptions there.

Firstly, you are basing your entire argument on the possibility that specific aspects of Civ on the PC might be being used in Civ Rev, (irrespective of the fact that such use would totally screw up the gameplay). And secondly, (and this one is the biggie!) that Firaxis/2K would be dumb enough to release the game in such a badly flawed condition!

Not really very likely, is it! :rolleyes:

[Man-Bear-Pig]

Wanna preface this reply by saying that if you haven't already done so, please check out DanQ's "Rev It Up" In-House Preview (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=171835) on the Apolyton forums. It is by far the most detailed preview of Civ Rev available, and includes many details about the actual gameplay. However, the preview was generated from a early build of the game, circa November 7th, so some gameplay elements may have been tweeked/improved/nerfed.

0) Do the era bonuses for each leader stay with them all game?

From DanQ's In-House Preview Part 3 (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=172404): "All era-specific abilities are cumulative through the entire game: they do not expire when you move from one segment of time to another."

1) Abe Lincoln’s great person, can he choose what that great person is?

Dunno.

2) Is there any information on great people that has been released, like what they do etc?

You should really read the section in DanQ's In-House Preview Part 3 (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=172404), but I'll list the short-term bonuses here.

Great Builder - Immediately completes construction of whatever is being built.
Great Tycoon - Immediate gold infusion.
Great Scientist - Immediately completes research of new technology.
Great Leader - Become a Great General (+50% experience).
Great Humanitarian - Innitiate culture flip of rival city.

Great Peoplehave long-term abilities when they settle in cites (a la Civ IV). Uncertain what those specific bonuses are yet. NEW to Civ Rev: A settled Great Person can unsettle, and then re-settle in a different city OR use their short-term ability. Also, Spy units can steal a settled Great Person. See Podcast Episode 2 (http://www.civilizationrevolution.com/).

3) With which tec will the hurry production with money civic be released? 50% less hurry production costs is a ****ing joke and mark my words this will be removed soon. You think having a worthless 2% interest era trait will balance out -50%, than your obviously a fool. The only way you will balance out abe Lincoln will be if the Hurry production civic has something negative associated with it and if there is something negative associated with it you will see only Abe Lincoln will choose this civic 99% of the time, unless you plan on giving other leaders this bonus as well. If the hurry production civic can we researched early you are going to have some major problems and lets not talk about later era games with his production bonuses, special units and hurry production. The best part of all this is, even with how unbalanced Abe Lincoln is, he wont survive a epic game.

I don't think this question has been addressed yet, but I'm going to assume that you can rush production using gold at any time in the game... right from the first turn! Basing my assumption on this quote from DanQ's In-House Preview Part 7 (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=173911):

"A few turns later Sid returns to our capital’s screen to complete the construction of this Galley more quickly: he rushes it for coin (30 to be exact). It’s true that there are no CivIV Civics to adopt so waiting to switch to Universal Suffrage isn’t possible let alone required. We didn’t even have to wait to be able to switch to the Republican or Democratic government type as in Civ titles before that."

4) are there going to be lots of civics in this game or just a few, and how will it work when adopting them? Can you pick a combination or only one?

There are no Civ IV styled civics (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=268187&highlight=bonus#post268187). Government will be like those in Civ I - III. 5 governments (6 including Despotism).

5) For Gandhi he begins with access to all resources, what does that mean? Your telling me that he starts the game with every resource? If this is true that is by far the funniest ****ing thing I have ever read civ related and the designers of this game are mentally retarded. Please someone explain to me what this means for Gandhi.

There's a quote from DanQ's Appendix A of In-House Preview Part 3 (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=172404) that adds to your concern that Gandhi's starting bonus might be overpowered:

"Indian cities are able to use any resource, even if they have not researched the tech normally required to utilize it. This means the Indians can out-produce (and out-science, out-gold and out-culture) just about any other Civilization at the start of the game."

However, the description of the starting bonus on the official website (http://www.civilizationrevolution.com/) is "Begin with access to all resources". It could mean that Gandhi can see all the resources on the map at the start of the game, but not begin to reap all the benefits of the resources until the appropriate tech is researched. This would be advantageous in the latter portion of the game where Gandhi's cities would be strategically placed to get the best bonuses. Guess it depends on how the designers feel Gandhi is balanced or overpowered.

6) Are settlers going to cost more the latter the era?

Dunno.

7) What do courthouses do, if they are anything like Civ 4, lol.

From DanQ's In-House Preview Part 8 (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=174596): "Where you construct a Courthouse in a city of yours, its extends the radius of workable tiles farther out from your city site."

Sounds like courthouses work completely different than any previous Civ game. In Civ IV, a new city can only work the surrounding 8 tiles until it's cultural boarders grow. In Civ Rev, there may only be 8 workable tiles until the courthouse is built.

8) What does ceremonial Burial do?

Dunno.

9) Which wonder does Cleopatra begin with? Is there a list that it is taken from at random or can you pick?

Dunno.

10) Genghis Khan get half price horsemen and those half priced horse men are his special unit, I
see this as being a major problem, but before I will admit it is for sure, I would like to know the current production cost of horses and the difference between a horseman and a keshik.

Unique units are unique in graphics and names. They do not have an advantage over their replacement unit (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=268161&highlight=unit#post268161).

11) Will there be slavery in this game?

Unlikely. See question 4.

12) In later era games will players start with more units and settlers?

Dunno. We cannot select the size of the map (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=266732#post266732). We cannot chose our rival leaders. (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=266297#post266297) And Jason2K says there are no custom game settings. (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=267281#post267281) So I don't think we'll have the option to start a new game in an advanced era, although that hasn't been answered yet.

[dojoboy]

I love this thread.

I love this thread, too. :)

[Arion]

I was going to quote this post and had a really great response to the pretentious and condescending remarks made about Civilization: Revolution. But I thought I would let an excerpt from one of his "guides" speak for itself.



This was taken from a post made by "MGT" on the Civ4 players pro boards. I don't know about anyone else but it seems like that's some sort of guide on how to be an elitist A-hole. I agree with booting for lag, but really ? Also, I am hoping that there aren't any "loopholes" in this game, because cheaters make me sick. Glitches and exploits ruin online competitive games. Oh and hey congrats on winning a few events, but after doing some research I don't think the actual numbers add up to your boastful post on here. I am hoping you have a PS3 though, I would love to play you sometime !! Cheers.

Bulldog even though we are different platforms, I totally agree with you.
I hope he has a PS3 as well :D

[Jason2K]

Okay, let's do this thing.

*deep breath*

0) Do the era bonuses for each leader stay with them all game?

Yes.
1) Abe Lincoln’s great person, can he choose what that great person is?

Nope. It's random.

2) Is there any information on great people that has been released, like what they do etc?

I don't believe we've released that yet. Keep an eye on the website.

3) With which tec will the hurry production with money civic be released?

Doesn't work that way. You can always buy out production if you have the cash.

4) are there going to be lots of civics in this game or just a few, and how will it work when adopting them? Can you pick a combination or only one?

There are no civics, just government types, and you can choose one at a time.

5) For Gandhi he begins with access to all resources, what does that mean? Your telling me that he starts the game with every resource? If this is true that is by far the funniest ****ing thing I have ever read civ related and the designers of this game are mentally retarded. Please someone explain to me what this means for Gandhi.

It means he has access to all resources. Otherwise you have to research technologies to be able to access them.

Resources give +1 production/science/etc depending on which one it is. That's all they do.

6) Are settlers going to cost more the latter the era?

Settlers always cost the same. If you have the Republic as your government choice, it's only 1 population unit though.

7) What do courthouses do, if they are anything like Civ 4, lol.

They give you access to more resource tiles per city. And if you have a certain wonder, they generate culture.

8) What does ceremonial Burial do?

It lets you build temples (which generate culture).

9) Which wonder does Cleopatra begin with? Is there a list that it is taken from at random or can you pick?

It's random.

10) Genghis Khan get half price horsemen and those half priced horse men are his special unit, I
see this as being a major problem, but before I will admit it is for sure, I would like to know the current production cost of horses and the difference between a horseman and a keshik.

That's no longer Genghis' ancient bonus. His new one is that Barbarian villages convert to Mongolian cities after being defeated (which is awesome).

11) Will there be slavery in this game?

Nope. Although the workers are automated, so I guess you could say they lack free will and are technically slaves. :)

12) In later era games will players start with more units and settlers?

The closest thing we have to a late-game start are the scenarios, which are unique cases. You can't start a normal game in a later era.

Based on what I see the game is going to be very very unbalanced.

It does seem that way, doesn't it? The whole point of the game is that everything is ridiculously overpowered. Civ IV is a game of extreme subtleties. CivRev is not. This is a much faster paced experience. The balance comes from the fact that everything is overpowered. Trust me, it works.

[Man-Bear-Pig]

Jason this is awesome! Thanks for all the info. :)

[Sigmakan]

It does seem that way, doesn't it? The whole point of the game is that everything is ridiculously overpowered. Civ IV is a game of extreme subtleties. CivRev is not. This is a much faster paced experience. The balance comes from the fact that everything is overpowered. Trust me, it works.

I'll take your word for it. Many things do seem very overpowered, but I guess if everything is overpowered its basically like nothing is overpowered. Haha

Thanks for the info!

[MrgameTheory]

Jason I greatly appreciate your response. I have a few more questions for anyone who knows the answers to them.

1) How common are tribal villages in these games, I say this because if Ghengis Khan turns them into cities, this can obviously be a rediculous advantage. Also, are there any other trait changes to Ghengis Khan?

2) Will their be roads and railroads in Civ Rev? If so how are you going to make an automated worker make them for you, what kind of AI do you have in the workers. Obviously automated workers are terrible in almost everyway, but hopefully you guys have developed some kind of way of dealing with these workers? What if its a 2v2 and you need to road to your ally very quickly, how will this be achieved.

3) So you no longer need resources to build things? So anyone can build nukes and tanks etc without the use of oil? If this is true I obviously see trade being cut down dramatically in this game? If you could list the resources and examples of some of them that would be greatly appreciated.

4) What is the trade menu like, will you be able to trade cities etc?

5) can someone post a picture of what a standard map size? Can you first have a close up picture and than a larger one of the entire map.

6) Will units be visable in boats to other players like it was inv anilla Civ 4 or will they be hidden from all but the owneer of them?

7) You said the republic government gives settlers for 1 population point? Does this work in every city and is there a population minimum for a city in order to do this?

8) Are there spies in the game and if there are in what era will they be released?

9) This may be a dumb question, but are they setting Civ Rev up to have an expansion pack in a year or will this be the only version of the game before Civ 5?

10) When do they plan on releasing the Demo?

11) Will you have the option to destroy a city once you take it or do you have to keep it?

12) When you are building a settler or a worker does your population raise while you are doing it and does the creation of each cost any population points?

Thank you for your time, I greatly appreciate it.

[Jason2K]

*deep breath*

1) How common are tribal villages in these games, I say this because if Ghengis Khan turns them into cities, this can obviously be a rediculous advantage. Also, are there any other trait changes to Ghengis Khan?

It only works for Barbarian villages, not goodie huts, so it depends on where you're placed on the map and how quick you are to send out your warriors to take those out. It's an awesome bonus, but you have to be really quick to take full advantage of it.

I believe that's the only change for Genghis.

2) Will their be roads and railroads in Civ Rev? If so how are you going to make an automated worker make them for you, what kind of AI do you have in the workers. Obviously automated workers are terrible in almost everyway, but hopefully you guys have developed some kind of way of dealing with these workers? What if its a 2v2 and you need to road to your ally very quickly, how will this be achieved.

Roads can be built at any time between two of your own cities. It costs gold. That's all there is to it. Workers aren't involved in the process. You just hit build road from the city screen and choose what city you want to connect to. Assuming you have the cash, poof it's done.

3) So you no longer need resources to build things? So anyone can build nukes and tanks etc without the use of oil? If this is true I obviously see trade being cut down dramatically in this game? If you could list the resources and examples of some of them that would be greatly appreciated.

There is only one nuke in the game, and it's given by building the manhattan project wonder. Anyone can build tanks provided they have the right technologies researched. Not sure if/when we'll be posting a list of resources.

4) What is the trade menu like, will you be able to trade cities etc?

Diplomacy doesn't work that way anymore. You can extort people "Give me Ceremonial Burial for ten turns of peace!" but you can't really trade like you can in Civ IV.

5) can someone post a picture of what a standard map size? Can you first have a close up picture and than a larger one of the entire map.

Not sure if/when we'll be posting that.

6) Will units be visable in boats to other players like it was inv anilla Civ 4 or will they be hidden from all but the owneer of them?

Boats always appear as just boats on the map. In CivRev you can load up boats with as many units as you want. You can put a dozen units on a single boat if you want to, but that's suicide if that boat gets attacked in transit.

7) You said the republic government gives settlers for 1 population point? Does this work in every city and is there a population minimum for a city in order to do this?

Yep, every city. You need I believe a size 3 city to be able to build settlers.

8) Are there spies in the game and if there are in what era will they be released?

Spies exist, and become available when you research writing (I think).

9) This may be a dumb question, but are they setting Civ Rev up to have an expansion pack in a year or will this be the only version of the game before Civ 5?

Not a question I can answer at this time.

10) When do they plan on releasing the Demo?

Soon. Definitely before the European release.

11) Will you have the option to destroy a city once you take it or do you have to keep it?

The only way to destroy a city is to nuke it (unless it's a capital, in which case it just shrinks to a size 1 city with no buildings/units).

12) When you are building a settler or a worker does your population raise while you are doing it and does the creation of each cost any population points?

Population only raises through standard growth. Creating a settler takes off two points (maybe three...I can't remember off the top of my head) unless you have the republic, when it only costs one.

[MrgameTheory]

Thank you very much Jason, you are really helping me and the rest of the community out a great deal. I have a few more questions for those who know the answers to them.

1) Will spies be able to perform missions and can you possibly list some of them.

2) Roughly how much are things going to cost in relation to hammers, a warrior that lets say costs 10 hammers to produce will cost how much gold, and is there a significant discount if you wait a turn to purchase it. How much do roads cost roughly? lets say another city is 2 squares away and another is 10.

3) How many movments does the first boat with the ability to carry units have? Are you saying that if you keep a boat the entire game you will be able to fit 100 tanks in it?

4) Can you keep boats inside cities or are they stuck outside cities on the water.

5) If you can keep boats inside cities is it possible to plant a city inbetween the ocean and a lake and hide boats inside your lake like you could in Civ 4? I see this as interesting because if you allow a player to keep unlimited units inside a boat they can hide their entire army inside of 1 boat that is saftly located inside of the lake, including all great people, espcially the ones that contribute to victories, than on the turn of victory use them all etc.

6) Will there be units that cause collateral damage and what is the forumla for collateral damage? Will collateral damage units be able to do damage to other collateral damage units?

7) Will Abe Lincoln be the only leader with the 50% less cost to hurry production, and if he is, within how many days do you believe that will last before take 2 changes its mind and lowers it to 25%, 33%, or removes it altogether?

8) Do players recieve their era bonus the second they research a tec of that era or is there a minimum amount of tecs in that era requirment?

9) "Observation/Opinion" Based on what I am seeing Civ Rev is turning into a game where players will pick leaders with strong traits in the first 3 eras and than they will adopt strategies to race to those eras and grab a strategic military tec along with it, than go all gold, building nothing but military units due to the small size of each map? Based on what you guys have tested with this game do you feel its going to turn out this way and 95% of games are going to end in military victory before any player reaches a late era?

10) Will there be an always peace option?

11) How will the trade / diplomacy menu be if it is not like it used to be?

[pmw1718]

Are the same features of CIV IV Beyond the Sword going to be in this like the spy slider and the events?

[Jason2K]

Thank you very much Jason, you are really helping me and the rest of the community out a great deal. I have a few more questions for those who know the answers to them.

Np, happy to answer.

1) Will spies be able to perform missions and can you possibly list some of them.

There aren't missions per se. Spies are units that can be used defensively (to prevent spies being used against your cities) or used offensively on another player's city. Spies can be used to sabotage production, steal gold, steal a great person or disrupt defenses in a city for a turn. And maybe something else that I'm forgetting about right now.

2) Roughly how much are things going to cost in relation to hammers, a warrior that lets say costs 10 hammers to produce will cost how much gold, and is there a significant discount if you wait a turn to purchase it. How much do roads cost roughly? lets say another city is 2 squares away and another is 10.

I don't think we're giving out specific numbers right now (also I don't know off the top of my head).

3) How many movments does the first boat with the ability to carry units have? Are you saying that if you keep a boat the entire game you will be able to fit 100 tanks in it?

I believe two tiles per turn. And yes, you can put 100 tanks on a single ship. But that would be suicide, because ships don't have particularly strong defense ratings, and it would really suck if you lost 100 tanks because you were silly enough to put them all on a single boat. Also, if you somehow manage to have 100 tanks (or 33 tank armies, for that matter) you could pretty much win the game right there, so why are you piling them into a single ship anyway?

4) Can you keep boats inside cities or are they stuck outside cities on the water.

Boats are always on the water.

5) If you can keep boats inside cities is it possible to plant a city inbetween the ocean and a lake and hide boats inside your lake like you could in Civ 4? I see this as interesting because if you allow a player to keep unlimited units inside a boat they can hide their entire army inside of 1 boat that is saftly located inside of the lake, including all great people, espcially the ones that contribute to victories, than on the turn of victory use them all etc.

See above.

6) Will there be units that cause collateral damage and what is the forumla for collateral damage? Will collateral damage units be able to do damage to other collateral damage units?

No collateral damage.

7) Will Abe Lincoln be the only leader with the 50% less cost to hurry production, and if he is, within how many days do you believe that will last before take 2 changes its mind and lowers it to 25%, 33%, or removes it altogether?

Not sure what you mean by this. We haven't given out all the bonuses for all the leaders yet.

8) Do players recieve their era bonus the second they research a tec of that era or is there a minimum amount of tecs in that era requirment?

Eras are determined by the number of technologies you've researched. Once you've researched the required number (5 to advance out of ancient) you move to the next era.

9) "Observation/Opinion" Based on what I am seeing Civ Rev is turning into a game where players will pick leaders with strong traits in the first 3 eras and than they will adopt strategies to race to those eras and grab a strategic military tec along with it, than go all gold, building nothing but military units due to the small size of each map? Based on what you guys have tested with this game do you feel its going to turn out this way and 95% of games are going to end in military victory before any player reaches a late era?

Military victories are actually pretty hard, particularly on the higher difficulty levels. They require a lot of planning. Defensive units are really strong in CivRev, and if you plan things out right you can get crazy defensive bonuses.

10) Will there be an always peace option?

If you mean scenario, we're not talking about those yet. Like any Civ game, you can win without ever firing a shot, although you'll find here that the A.I. likes to take advantage of you if you're a pacifist. They'll try and extort you for all kinds of stuff if you're not careful.

11) How will the trade / diplomacy menu be if it is not like it used to be?

Diplomacy is much simpler now. You can trade techs, agree to a peace treaty or extort/be extorted. It's hard to explain, but it makes sense when you play it.

[MrgameTheory]

I really appreciate all the time you are putting into answering these questions, its really helping us get a good grasp of what kind of game this will be so on release day we can start this thing running instead of walking. I have a few more questions for you Jason if you have the time :D

1) Will there be a demographics menu that you will be able to see who has the highest power, gnp, etc?

2) With no collateral units how are you supposed to lower the defenses for a city when you attack?

3) Will there be a ping in the game like there was in Civ 4 so you can better use team work, will you be able to draw on the map?

4) Is there a specific building, tec, government, etc that gives compound interest on the gold a player has.

5) Is it possible for 5, 10, 100 etc units to stand on top of each other or is there a max? Is there a stack attack option if there is?

6) Will there be fast moving at the beggining of each turn in order to get the first move in, how will they be dealing with turn transition when 1 player is trying to move a unit away from another unit and another is moving to attack it?

7) Will there be Espionage, culture, tec sliders like there were in Civ 4?

8) Will there be projects in this game "Interenet, Manhattan Project etc, or will everything be under wonder and will you be able to hurry production of these projects with great people?

9) How will combat work in terms of retreating from battle? Will the units move to a different square or occupy the same square etc?

10) Will there be unconditional alliances in the game that last forever?

11) Will boats be able to blocade the oceans of other players?

12) Will there be an option to turn tec trading off?

13) Will you be able to trade maps with other players and are there any alliances which allow you to see what your new ally is currently seeing?

14) are there any important new changes to the game that I am missing that would greatly help us to be thinking about?

Thanks once again :D

[Jason2K]

Okay, last one for today. :)

1) Will there be a demographics menu that you will be able to see who has the highest power, gnp, etc?

On the diplomacy pullout you can see how close each player is to each victory condition, and there's also a "who's winning?" dialog as well. Also, when one player gets close to meeting a victory condition, your advisors will tell you.

2) With no collateral units how are you supposed to lower the defenses for a city when you attack?

Spies are the only way to lower defenses, but there are tons of ways to increase your attack rating (great generals, special abilities, naval support, etc).

3) Will there be a ping in the game like there was in Civ 4 so you can better use team work, will you be able to draw on the map?

Nothing like that. Not really necessary in a game this length/size.

4) Is there a specific building, tec, government, etc that gives compound interest on the gold a player has.

No, although one of the civs gets interest on gold reserves as an era bonus.

5) Is it possible for 5, 10, 100 etc units to stand on top of each other or is there a max? Is there a stack attack option if there is?

You can have a million units on top of each other, but there's no stack attacking. Just armies of three units each.

6) Will there be fast moving at the beggining of each turn in order to get the first move in, how will they be dealing with turn transition when 1 player is trying to move a unit away from another unit and another is moving to attack it?

I believe it's just first come, first serve.

7) Will there be Espionage, culture, tec sliders like there were in Civ 4?

No sliders. Not needed with the new spies. See previous post dealing with espionage.

8) Will there be projects in this game "Interenet, Manhattan Project etc, or will everything be under wonder and will you be able to hurry production of these projects with great people?

Everything's a wonder. You can rush production of anything (unit/wonder/building) using either great people or money, if you have enough. The only thing you can't rush are victory condition wonders (world bank/united nations).

9) How will combat work in terms of retreating from battle? Will the units move to a different square or occupy the same square etc?

Only the attacker can retreat. By pressing the (B) button, you immediately retreat to the tile you were on previously (and the unit you were attacking upgrades automatically).

10) Will there be unconditional alliances in the game that last forever?

In a team game, yes. Against A.I, never. The A.I. alliances are for set numbers of turns, and as the game progresses, they become for fewer and fewer turns at a time (so at first it's ten, then seven, then four, etc).

11) Will boats be able to blocade the oceans of other players?

If you're on a map that has a choke point by sea, I guess you could put battleships there or something. Not sure what more you mean than that.

12) Will there be an option to turn tec trading off?

No, but you can always say no when asked. :)

13) Will you be able to trade maps with other players and are there any alliances which allow you to see what your new ally is currently seeing?

Nope.

14) are there any important new changes to the game that I am missing that would greatly help us to be thinking about?

Probably. :)

[icejon]

Hey jason can you answer these questions for me? im really looking forward to 6june.

1) Can you combine more then 3units into army?

2) Is each civ with hmmm different mind like england is agressive and egypt are diplomatic?

Just 2:) sry if this bugg you

[Bulldog_PS3]

Hey jason can you answer these questions for me? im really looking forward to 6june.

1) Can you combine more then 3units into army?

2) Is each civ with hmmm different mind like england is agressive and egypt are diplomatic?

Just 2:) sry if this bugg you

As they have said several times, 3 units are the limit on armies.

[Jason2K]

1) Can you combine more then 3units into army?

Nope. Three units = 1 army. That's all there is to it.

2) Is each civ with hmmm different mind like england is agressive and egypt are diplomatic?

If you mean A.I. personalities, no, the game's A.I. doesn't work the same way as it does in Civ IV. In CivRev, it's like playing with random personalities on all the time. You never know who's going to do what to you.

[icejon]

oki thanks

[MrgameTheory]

I wanted to give you a few days rest Jason, I figure it cant be healthy to overmilk the cow :D

1) Is it possible to ever get a 1v1 versus an opponent or do you always have to have a game of 5 and the best you can get is 1v1v ai v ai v ai?

2) How can naval support help you take down a city?

3) Will there be different speeds on turn lenght and will there be different game speeds to make researching faster or slower?

4) How much of a battle can take place before its too late for an attacker to reatreat and how does unit health work, are there always 3 units and each unit has 1/3 life of the total?

5) Will AIs be dumb like Civ 4 and attack units when they dont have odds so All you need to do is keep a few units fortified in the forests outside your culture and the AI will waste its units attacking those fortified units and thus leveling up your units and killing all of theirs at the same time?

6) Is there a space requirment between cities, 1 square, 2 squares etc?

7) Will there be any kind of online rank system and if there isnt are there any plans to put one in?

8) If you click a unit will you be able to see how many turns it takes for it to move to another area of the map that is far away or do you have to count the squares manually?

9) Can you cut down forests to a production bonus? Are there any other ways becides money to get a quick production bonus?

10) Generally speaking how long will cities remain in anarchy after you take an opponents city? Is it based on size or time the opponent has had the city etc?

11) Will there be unhealthyness in Civ Rev and if there is not is there a reason to plant a city on fresh water?

12) Are there going to be scouting units like Air Ships or planes and will those units be able to move like normal units or do they have to stay in cities?

13) Is there a way to turn combat animations off, what happens if you are attacked by 2-3 different opponents at the same time at the start of a turn?

14) how are great people created?

15) Do you heal the same inside an enemies culture as you do in your own ccities or open territory? If you have a units with .1 health left is it possible to skip your nxt turn and bring your unit back up to 100% full health?

Thanks for your time :D

[Jason2K]

*deep breath*

I wanted to give you a few days rest Jason, I figure it cant be healthy to overmilk the cow :D

The cow thanks you. :)

1) Is it possible to ever get a 1v1 versus an opponent or do you always have to have a game of 5 and the best you can get is 1v1v ai v ai v ai?

It's always 1v1 v 3x AI. The game just isn't designed for only two civs at one time.

2) How can naval support help you take down a city?

Naval support is essential when playing AI on higher difficulty levels, or when playing a human player who defends his city well.

If they're offshore to the city you're attacking, having a low-level ship adds 1 to your attack rating. Adding a fleet of battleships adds 9 or more. Makes a HUGE difference in late-game sieges.

3) Will there be different speeds on turn lenght and will there be different game speeds to make researching faster or slower?

Yes, we have multiple turn-timers. You can select fast/medium/slow or none.

4) How much of a battle can take place before its too late for an attacker to reatreat and how does unit health work, are there always 3 units and each unit has 1/3 life of the total?

Depends on the unit. Standard units have three, horsemen/knights/vehicles have two, boats have one. Armies have 3x that number. I believe you can retreat up until you only have one left. I don't retreat a whole lot myself, since it makes attacking that same unit exponentially harder in the future. :)

5) Will AIs be dumb like Civ 4 and attack units when they dont have odds so All you need to do is keep a few units fortified in the forests outside your culture and the AI will waste its units attacking those fortified units and thus leveling up your units and killing all of theirs at the same time?

AI is dumb to a certain extent, because that makes the game fun. But it's not going to keep throwing units at you, particularly not on the higher difficulty levels. It'll do things like use siege units, naval support, etc. On Diety, you're gonna get your ass kicked unless you've got crazy defensive units.

6) Is there a space requirment between cities, 1 square, 2 squares etc?

Yes. I believe it's two tiles, but don't hold me to that.

7) Will there be any kind of online rank system and if there isnt are there any plans to put one in?

Yep. We have leaderboards for worldwide rankings (for the game of the week) and there's also a scoring system similar to chess ranking that determines who gets paired with who in raked games (your score goes up or down as you play online against different people).

8) If you click a unit will you be able to see how many turns it takes for it to move to another area of the map that is far away or do you have to count the squares manually?

The number of turns it takes to move is shown on the cursor as it moves around.

9) Can you cut down forests to a production bonus? Are there any other ways becides money to get a quick production bonus?

Nope to cutting down trees. You can only rush production via money and great people. You can spend a great builder immediately to finish building something, or settle him in a city to get a 50% bonus on new buildings.

10) Generally speaking how long will cities remain in anarchy after you take an opponents city? Is it based on size or time the opponent has had the city etc?

There isn't any anarchy when taking an opponent's city (production doesn't start for a full turn, although you can rush it with gold if you need a defensive unit immediately). Before they convert to your culture there's an increased chance of it being flipped if you're right next to an enemy's high-culture city. The easy way to prevent that is to build city walls, which prevent culture flipping (unless the opposing civ has the Hollywood wonder).

11) Will there be unhealthyness in Civ Rev and if there is not is there a reason to plant a city on fresh water?

No unhealthyness. That was one of those things that was dropped by Sid.

12) Are there going to be scouting units like Air Ships or planes and will those units be able to move like normal units or do they have to stay in cities?

You can use horsemen and small planes as scouts, but the only units that can move into enemy territory without declaring war are caravans and spy units.

13) Is there a way to turn combat animations off, what happens if you are attacked by 2-3 different opponents at the same time at the start of a turn?

On the DS version you can skip combat animations. On 360/PS3 it's always on. If you're attacked by 2-3 opponents they'll play out one at a time (it's pretty unlikely that's going to happen).

14) how are great people created?

You get great people by achieving milestones in the economic victory condition, being the first to research certain technologies, finding certain ancient wonders, and by reaching certain cultural milestones. You can also steal ones that have been settled in enemy cities with spies.

15) Do you heal the same inside an enemies culture as you do in your own ccities or open territory? If you have a units with .1 health left is it possible to skip your nxt turn and bring your unit back up to 100% full health?

The only way to heal a unit while in enemy territory is to have a unit with the Medic upgrade. Otherwise it has to move back to neutral territory (or your own, of course).

[MrgameTheory]

Now that we have the ball rolling and your warmed up I figure I would ask some of the good questions ;)

1) Will you be able to build roads outside of your culture or can you only build roads inside your culture and between cities? If you are able to build roads outside your culture will there be an exploit to see if your opponent is roading to you by simply taking any unit and seeing the movements to your opponents culture, due to the fact that the game will always show the quickest route to a far off location the pathway will actually outline the road they are building even though you dont see it :D

2) If you attach a great builder to a city and give the city plus 50% production will the cost to hurry the item be 50% less with money? With Abe Lincoln will it be 25% of the cost?

3) When you build a city do you only have access to use the 8 squares around it or do you have access to use 20 squares?

4) I read online that you can micro manage the tiles you would like to work in a city, is this true? Are there going to be specilists like in civ 4? What happens if an enemy is on a square in my culture, will I still be able to work that square and if not what happens if your opponent takes 24 units and occupies all of the squares surrounding a city with a population of 24? Will the population just not work or will they turn into some kind of specialists or something that gives 1 production like in Civ 4? If my opponent does do this will the city starve and if it starves is there a cap on the amount of population i lose a turn like in civ 4 which was capped at only 1 population a turn? If it is capped at 1 population a turn is it possible to get to a size 24 city for example and set all of the population to specialists of a certain kind in order to rush tec or money being created in that city and do to it being capped at 1 population a turn you recieve lots of quick tec at a small cost?

5) Will you be able to use great generals to give an experience bonus to units like In civ 4 "Plus 20 experience" and if so will that be divided among several units? Will you be able to attach a great general to a boat and give it several bonus movements?

6) Is there a specific wonder like the kremlin in Civ 4 that reduces the cost to hurry production with gold?

7) Will the online chess style rankign system show which players in the world have the top points?

8) Will there be culture rating on a city that gives defensive bonuses?

9) Will there be a penalty when attacking units accorss a river or from the ocean?

10) How will scouting with mounted units work?

11) Is there a limit to the amount of specilists that you can attach to a city and if not can you attached 5 builder great peopel to a city and it get all the 50% bonuses?

12) If you plant cities on resoures will they ever give any bonuses?

13) If you are working your cities and an opponent attacks you will it leave the area you are currently in and bring up the combat taking place?

14) Having combat animations on will greatly annoy online players even when you have armies of 3 and its important for reating, but as I read online, after the first player ends there turn a timer will come up showing how long until the end of a turn, if 2 players are working together will it be possible for 1 player to quickly end their turn and than have another player continually attack an opponent and prevent them from working their civilization because they remain in the combat screen until the timer wears down?

15) Will there be open border agreements and if you do have one and declare war on a player while you are in their culture will you be deported outside of their culture instantly?

Thanks for your time ;)

[Jason2K]

Now that we have the ball rolling and your warmed up I figure I would ask some of the good questions ;)

That was just the warmup?? Yikes.

1) Will you be able to build roads outside of your culture or can you only build roads inside your culture and between cities? If you are able to build roads outside your culture will there be an exploit to see if your opponent is roading to you by simply taking any unit and seeing the movements to your opponents culture, due to the fact that the game will always show the quickest route to a far off location the pathway will actually outline the road they are building even though you dont see it :D

No roads outside of your culture. Roads just go from city to city, and cannot go through another user's culture, even if you're at war with them. They don't disappear if you lose a city or anything, but you can't build new ones that go through enemy territory.

2) If you attach a great builder to a city and give the city plus 50% production will the cost to hurry the item be 50% less with money? With Abe Lincoln will it be 25% of the cost?

Yes and yes.

3) When you build a city do you only have access to use the 8 squares around it or do you have access to use 20 squares?

Just the immediate squares. If you want more, you have to build a courthouse, which gives you access to additional ones.

4) I read online that you can micro manage the tiles you would like to work in a city, is this true? Are there going to be specilists like in civ 4? What happens if an enemy is on a square in my culture, will I still be able to work that square and if not what happens if your opponent takes 24 units and occupies all of the squares surrounding a city with a population of 24? Will the population just not work or will they turn into some kind of specialists or something that gives 1 production like in Civ 4? If my opponent does do this will the city starve and if it starves is there a cap on the amount of population i lose a turn like in civ 4 which was capped at only 1 population a turn? If it is capped at 1 population a turn is it possible to get to a size 24 city for example and set all of the population to specialists of a certain kind in order to rush tec or money being created in that city and do to it being capped at 1 population a turn you recieve lots of quick tec at a small cost?

Whole bunch of questions here:

- Yes, you can assign workers to specific tiles if you like.

- No specialists.

- If an enemy occupies a tile, that tile is cut off from your workers. You can use this strategically to choke cities you're sieging (prevent them from creating new units every turn).

- If all tiles are occupied, that city stops producing/growing. It won't ever shrink, but it won't grow and can't create new stuff.

- The last bit there was all speculation based on incorrect assumptions. :)

5) Will you be able to use great generals to give an experience bonus to units like In civ 4 "Plus 20 experience" and if so will that be divided among several units? Will you be able to attach a great general to a boat and give it several bonus movements?

Great generals give attack bonuses. That's it. They are automatically attached to units when you earn them, but they give bonuses to any other units in the same tile. So if my Tank unit has a great general, but my riflemen doesn't, but is on the same tile, they also get that benefit.

6) Is there a specific wonder like the kremlin in Civ 4 that reduces the cost to hurry production with gold?

Nope.

7) Will the online chess style rankign system show which players in the world have the top points?

That's what the leaderboards are for.

8) Will there be culture rating on a city that gives defensive bonuses?

Nope. Culture doesn't work that way.

9) Will there be a penalty when attacking units accorss a river or from the ocean?

Yes. Standard terrain bonuses are in effect (hills/rivers/forest/etc).

10) How will scouting with mounted units work?

You walk around and look. That's all there is to it. They just have more movement points than other units. :)

11) Is there a limit to the amount of specilists that you can attach to a city and if not can you attached 5 builder great peopel to a city and it get all the 50% bonuses?

You can attach one great person type per city.

12) If you plant cities on resoures will they ever give any bonuses?

Just the ones associated with that resource.

13) If you are working your cities and an opponent attacks you will it leave the area you are currently in and bring up the combat taking place?

No, the other player will wait for you to finish what you're doing.

14) Having combat animations on will greatly annoy online players even when you have armies of 3 and its important for reating, but as I read online, after the first player ends there turn a timer will come up showing how long until the end of a turn, if 2 players are working together will it be possible for 1 player to quickly end their turn and than have another player continually attack an opponent and prevent them from working their civilization because they remain in the combat screen until the timer wears down?

You'll learn to live with it. I swear. You're reading too much into this.

15) Will there be open border agreements and if you do have one and declare war on a player while you are in their culture will you be deported outside of their culture instantly?

No open border agreements. Sid wants you to use boats to get around. The only way to pass within another player's borders is to declare war.

[MrgameTheory]

I wanted to accomplish 2 things up to this point, answer potential lists of questions that players from Civ 4 will be asking in order to make it an easier transition to a new game and create a fun and open question environment where the community can ask a few questions here and there in order to better understand the game.

Now that we have moved through most of the questions Civ 4 players would want answered I am going to start asking you some of the difficult to game breaking questions I have been waiting to get answered....

Prepare yourself ;)

1) Players can get cities and even the pyramids from a hut which is insane because they can adopt democracy or communism for an insane bonus.... I think that such a bonus will ruin a game dramatically, especially among very competitive players who have high rank and will not want to ruin a streak over such ridiculous Luck playing a factor.... is there a way you can turn off huts so players don’t accidentally discover something that
gives """every single city a 50% production bonus"" for a large chunk of the game?????

2) I understand what you are saying about only being able to build roads between cities. lets say for example that you build 2 settlers in your capital and you move your settlers far away from your capital and plant them right outside of your opponents cities. Is it possible to keep your units inside of your capital and instantly move them to which ever city you need in an instant due to the fact that there aren’t road movement penalties except when you enter a city?

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e175/mrgametheory/Mapofstuff.jpg

3) if you are not able to build settlers outside if yiur culture and do the above than your going to have a hard time getting your units to an enemies city and if they scout even remotely well they will know way in advance when they are being attacked and can simply build the counters to the units the enemy is bringing and I see this greatly nullifying military conquest in this game and turning the game itself very dull with the better players always going for 2-3 hour victories instead of 15min - 1 hour military victories. The joy in Civ 4 was the fact that among people who played it online, games didn’t take 10 hours but generally less than 1 - 1.5 hours, I see Civ Rev turning into an epic every time game and while you have lowered the overall game length down to 3 hours, you are going to ruin it for people who are experienced and want to play for .5-2 hours, but hopefully it is not this way.

4) I see luck playing a huge factor in Civ Rev like it always has, but I see it playing an even bigger role in Civ Rev. First off, I like to give you the opinion of experienced gamers who are coming here for competition and a good thought demanding time. They are going to be very turned off by the luck factor and I will explain to you how. Without the ability to turn off tec trading you are going to see a few things. First off who ever starts near the AI will have a huge advantage of tec trading with the AI. But assuming the AI is an Evil AI and doesn’t trade which I doubt, players who are unlucky enough to start on an island while the other players are going to start together on the mainland will have a terrible disadvantage. Sure you can make the argument that the player will not have to worry about a short term attack and thus will be able to expand more freely, but if you say that I think you doubt the fact that players on the mainland will be tec trading and by the time the island player makes it to the mainland he may have been left in the tec dust.... Now, don't go off and tell me that players will agree to not tec trade because they will do it with the AI without anyone being able to notice and especially with these games being ranked your going to see that there is nothing people can do to prevent a player from tec trading with another player except threatening to not allow them in future games and inevitably this cause will be lost and it will be like the wild west where players just have to accept tec trading being there. I just hope galleys will be able to cross ocean tiles so that the island player wont be at a complete disadvantage....

5) I read that you will not be able to look inside cities so whether a player has 100 tanks or 1 warrior you really don't know. The problem I see with this is when you actually go in for an attack on a player and he is able to instantly move his units between cities, sure it takes 1 turn to do that and they lose their movements, but you can draw all your units back from the front lines in an instant. Your opponent will be stuck in your culture without the ability to heal for the most part and you can fly between your cities defending them and healing with ease, this is going to give an unreasonable advantage to defending players. I don’t care if you have 50% bonuses and 100% bonuses there are just as many bonuses to counteract them and you will be able to upgrade like mad while your opponent is in your culture and on top of that heal the victorious units and combine them quickly. Than you just stick those units into an army and use that level 10 - 20 etc unit to defend that city and that unit will overrun the attacking military and make the cities very difficult to take.

6) Starting Abe Lincoln off with a great person is very ridiculous to me especially when you can get a +50% production or +50% tec great person that will give a huge advantage in the beginning, lets not talk about the ability to get a quick wonder or so. That is amazing in itself, but you mix that with his -50% cost to hurry production and you have the best leader revealed thus far.

7) Does culture go over water and are boats capable of sailing through culture?

8) Can you Pillage roads in the game and do you get gold for pillaging anything in the game?

9) Will there be cheats in Civ Rev like remove fog of war and will these cheats be capable of activating in Multi Player?

10) Your telling me that you are taking away all of the risks in building in Civ Rev??? Your telling me that if i take the risk of building the stone hedge wonder or any wonder for that fact and someone else builds it I can convert all of the production from the stone hedge to lets say a settler and non of the production will be lost? lets say I build a warrior, right before I build it I can just transfer the production to a wonder or a settler or something else? This is opening up a huge problem, but I understand why you did it to make new players less pist off, but you are going to be greatly affecting the games of better players. Will there be spill over production in this game and will that spill over production convert to gold or will it pass to production of another unit, building etc?

;)

:eek:

[MrgameTheory]

:confused:

Having Troubles, usually you respond in a few hours, its been a day :rolleyes:

Kidding Kidding, take your time

:D

[ATC 1982]

:confused:

Having Troubles, usually you respond in a few hours, its been a day :rolleyes:

Kidding Kidding, take your time

:D

Glad your asking the questions. Gives me more to ponder.

[MrgameTheory]

:mad:

I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and figured by "chance" you just happen to take a several day vacation starting 14 minutes after your last post and on a Wednesday for that matter.....

It has become apparent to me through common sense and logic that you, Elizabeth, and who knows who else at taketwo/firaxis have seen these game breaking concerns I have addressed and figured there is no way to answer at least some of them without making the game itself look bad from a multi player perspective.

Listen, I already knew that the Multi-Player aspect of CivRev was going to be very poor. In Civ 4 40% of all online games would freeze or crash and ruin the entire game most of the time. After 3 years most of the crashing problems still remain and I don't blame you for not fixing them especially when 2% of Civ players played it Multi-player. If you made Multi Player better than more people would play on your game spy servers and you would have to waste more money and the only reason to invest more money in Multiplayer is to raise your probability of that 2% buying more Civ games and eventually when Civ 6-7 comes out, being able to charge those die hard fans a monthly subscription.

In Civ Rev you guys will at least make some money from Xbox live, but obviously not enough. I am 90% confident that the multi player you guys will support most and by a large ratio will be the weekly challenges that give a scenario and test who will gets the higher score. Civ could be such an amazing game if you invested in online competition against other players, but you guys are bent on creating a game that only supports for the most part, play versus AI.

I personally think its unfortunate that this is one of the few games out that has the capability of being an ideal strategy simulator and you guys are ruining it because you believe you can sell more copies of the game by ignoring the things that would balance it out. You guys could balance out this game and create a competitive environment, but instead you believe you could save a few bucks by not.

Just to name a few of my concerns, by allowing Super game breaking huts, tec trading on uneven playing ground, and super advantages to defending civs which force the game to be a 3-4 hour epic every time game among skilled players you are creating a game that will discourage online competition in the area that matters.

If there was a time to release game information that proves this wrong, now is the time to release it...... Otherwise I and the rest of the online community have to assume this is correct and we shouldn't really look at Civ Rev as a balanced game, but a game of luck that is only reasonable to play against AI.

:mad:

[Jason2K]

Now that we have moved through most of the questions Civ 4 players would want answered I am going to start asking you some of the difficult to game breaking questions I have been waiting to get answered....

Prepare yourself ;)

What an ominous way to begin a Q&A thread...

1) Players can get cities and even the pyramids from a hut which is insane because they can adopt democracy or communism for an insane bonus.... I think that such a bonus will ruin a game dramatically, especially among very competitive players who have high rank and will not want to ruin a streak over such ridiculous Luck playing a factor.... is there a way you can turn off huts so players don’t accidentally discover something that
gives """every single city a 50% production bonus"" for a large chunk of the game?????

All you can get from goody huts are gold, a tech, a caravan, a boat, or settlers. You can't get a wonder from there. You can get a wonder by finding a relic, but there's only one in the world, and they're not easy to find.

2) I understand what you are saying about only being able to build roads between cities. lets say for example that you build 2 settlers in your capital and you move your settlers far away from your capital and plant them right outside of your opponents cities. Is it possible to keep your units inside of your capital and instantly move them to which ever city you need in an instant due to the fact that there aren’t road movement penalties except when you enter a city?

Yes, that is theoretically possible. You could build city A, then move settlers right up to the cultural border of your enemy and build a city there, and then build a road between them and use that as a way to quickly move units across the map.

However that's discouraged simply by the fact that roads ain't cheap. If you want to quickly move units around, it's a lot easier to just build a boat and use it to ferry them around than to build a city really far away from your own and connect it with a road.

3) if you are not able to build settlers outside if yiur culture and do the above than your going to have a hard time getting your units to an enemies city and if they scout even remotely well they will know way in advance when they are being attacked and can simply build the counters to the units the enemy is bringing and I see this greatly nullifying military conquest in this game and turning the game itself very dull with the better players always going for 2-3 hour victories instead of 15min - 1 hour military victories.

You see wrong. The game you are describing doesn't accurately represent CivRev in any way, shape or form.

Next question. :)

4) First off who ever starts near the AI will have a huge advantage of tec trading with the AI. But assuming the AI is an Evil AI and doesn’t trade which I doubt, players who are unlucky enough to start on an island while the other players are going to start together on the mainland will have a terrible disadvantage. Sure you can make the argument that the player will not have to worry about a short term attack and thus will be able to expand more freely, but if you say that I think you doubt the fact that players on the mainland will be tec trading and by the time the island player makes it to the mainland he may have been left in the tec dust.... Now, don't go off and tell me that players will agree to not tec trade because they will do it with the AI without anyone being able to notice and especially with these games being ranked your going to see that there is nothing people can do to prevent a player from tec trading with another player except threatening to not allow them in future games and inevitably this cause will be lost and it will be like the wild west where players just have to accept tec trading being there. I just hope galleys will be able to cross ocean tiles so that the island player wont be at a complete disadvantage....

Again, you see wrong. Tech trading doesn't work like you think it does. It's not something you can exploit. Yes, it's a legitimate tactic, but it's balanced.

Basically if you make contact with another civ, you can say "I seek technology" when talking to them, and you can buy technologies off them. But you need the gold to do it, and chances are, you're not going to have a whole lot of it, since gold can be used for so many things. You can also sell your own techs for gold, but if you're so desparate that you need to buy technologies wholesale, there's a very good chance you don't have much cash in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that in order to buy technology from AI, the AI character you contact needs to actually have technology that you don't. It's not like they're going to be super tech researchers moving at ten times the pace you are, and the tech tree in CivRev is much smaller than Civ IV. People tend to move along at the same pace. You can use trading to pick up one or two techs you didn't get yourself, but you're not going to use trading to zip through the tree.

5) I read that you will not be able to look inside cities so whether a player has 100 tanks or 1 warrior you really don't know. The problem I see with this is when you actually go in for an attack on a player and he is able to instantly move his units between cities, sure it takes 1 turn to do that and they lose their movements, but you can draw all your units back from the front lines in an instant. Your opponent will be stuck in your culture without the ability to heal for the most part and you can fly between your cities defending them and healing with ease, this is going to give an unreasonable advantage to defending players.

Again, you see wrong. The scenario you describe just doesn't happen, because games aren't long enough to create that situation. If you have 100 units in a single city, then chances are all your other cities are utterly defenseless. Personally, I keep a couple of strong armies in each city if I'm at war, but if I'm not, I only leave one per city. That's usually enough for defense, but I do lose cities from time to time. But because I'm doing so many other things, I don't have the time/money to devote to shoring up defense to such an insane degree - nobody does. When you play single player it's not uncommon to find an AI doing that, but then they're also nowhere near actually winning either. As a human player, you have better things to do.

What can happen is let's say I send my stupid powerful tank army to attack my enemy city A. This tank has infiltration (bonus against city attack!). Plus let's throw in a great general and some other random bonuses. Anyway, they're stupid powerful. They attack a city and trounce the defending riflemen. Now on my enemy's turn, he moves more defensive units in from a neighboring city. He has three connected to this one, so all he needs to do is create one unit per city and move them all to the one I'm attacking each turn to create a new riflemen army every single turn. That can hold me off indefinitely.

Except he didn't count on me sending a second stupid powerful tank in. And this one has blitz, which lets it go a second time after each successful attack. Now instead of taking out one army per turn, I'm taking three (one for tank army #1, one for tank army #2 and a second one for tank army #2 because it has blitz). In a few turns, my opponent will probably be broke from rushing unit production, and no matter how many units he has, he can't sustain this kind of offensive push on my part. That city's mine, yo.

6) Starting Abe Lincoln off with a great person is very ridiculous to me especially when you can get a +50% production or +50% tec great person that will give a huge advantage in the beginning, lets not talk about the ability to get a quick wonder or so. That is amazing in itself, but you mix that with his -50% cost to hurry production and you have the best leader revealed thus far.

Like I said, they're all overpowered. It balances out.

7) Does culture go over water and are boats capable of sailing through culture?

Yes, culture goes into water. Nope, you can't sail through it.

8) Can you Pillage roads in the game and do you get gold for pillaging anything in the game?

No pillaging.

9) Will there be cheats in Civ Rev like remove fog of war and will these cheats be capable of activating in Multi Player?

Nope and nope. We call the second one an exploit, and no, there most certainly will not be any (and if there are, we'll patch them immediately).

10) Your telling me that you are taking away all of the risks in building in Civ Rev??? Your telling me that if i take the risk of building the stone hedge wonder or any wonder for that fact and someone else builds it I can convert all of the production from the stone hedge to lets say a settler and non of the production will be lost? lets say I build a warrior, right before I build it I can just transfer the production to a wonder or a settler or something else?


No spill over. You lose a wonder, you switch it to build something else. If you go from stonehenge to a warrior, you'll probably get Warrior x4 or something, but that's it. If you choose a different building, it's just that one building, no additional bonus.

[Jason2K]

:mad:

I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and figured by "chance" you just happen to take a several day vacation starting 14 minutes after your last post and on a Wednesday for that matter.....

Actually, I traveled to Firaxis for a few days. I do have a job, you know!

I answer this thread because I enjoy sharing information with the community. But it really has nothing to do with what I do for a living, so try and cut me some slack when a day or two (or three or four) goes by without a response.

It has become apparent to me through common sense and logic that you, Elizabeth, and who knows who else at taketwo/firaxis have seen these game breaking concerns I have addressed and figured there is no way to answer at least some of them without making the game itself look bad from a multi player perspective.

Ah, no.

All of your "game breaking concerns" are non-concerns, as far as I can tell.

If you somehow came up with a scenario we'd never thought of, then by all means we'd be scrambling to fix it. But so far you're working off incorrect assumptions about game speed and flow, so I'm happy to correct you.

Multiplayer is very important to us, but more importantly, multiplayer in civrev is identical to single player. So it's not a question of balancing multiplayer, it's a question of balancing the game. And if you have any respect for Firaxis at all, you know that what they're best at, is gameplay balancing.

If you have further questions I'm happy to answer them, but don't start assuming there's something sinister going on behind the scenes.

[MrgameTheory]

Ahh a reply, thank you, I figured I would get one with a little pressure.. Kidding Kidding it was obvious that you took a little vacation/work related break..... :D

I want you to know that I do greatly appreciate you helping our community and only made the above comment when the thread was about to disappear into the next page without a reply in sight, especially when we were at an important point in such a discussion.

1) I take by your comment that there is no way to turn off huts. Try as you did to lower the value of huts I must firmly disagree with your defense. The ability to gain a settler from a hut is unbalanced in itself and as the online community from previous Civ games will tell you, it has always in the past proved to be too strong, you may say this is a different game, but nothing revealed yet would agrue against it being a completely different game. The same goes for relics, thank you for telling us that there will only be 1 per a world, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that a relic can enable all government types and ultimately give 1 civilization 50% production or gold bonus in every city they own. The maps are small so I don't believe it can take too long to find one and even if you have that bonus for 10 turns, which it looks more like 50+ you have a very unbalanced aspect of the game...... Sorry.... I disagree with you, doesn’t mean I don't respect the help you are giving us, it just means that this is far to unbalanced and that is that, you can say what you like to justify this addition, but even thought I don't know 100% of the game, I know enough to realize that this will unbalance a competitive game among skilled players.

2) I figured the cost to build roads would be very expensive so I will agree that it seems unreasonable for the most part to play every game building up to your opponents culture with 1 city and buying the road, unless of course you have a hut that gives lots of gold.. But this strategy is very viable and was building up to a point I was going to bring up in this reply that all civs with early boosts will be able to expand and control the map quickly so by the time later era pro civs come in it will be too late for their traits to be used to balance out them versus early era trait leaders.

3) I knew this was incorrect but only put it in for the remote chance that cities would be created outside the norm of normal civ and similar to some Zerg 'Strarcraft" expansion way, obviously this is a far tangent, but I like to keep everything inside the box until it is ruled out. This still doesn’t take away from the fact that you cant road to your opponent and attack them and that will buy you several turns to scout and determine what they are sending to you and give you ample time to build the counter to their unit. I believe that you have said nothing up to this point that would encourage better players to risk going in for an attack without a ridiculous military advantage. So its possible to say that military Victories will occur, but they will not occur until several hours into the game thus making every game a minimum of 2 hours - 4 hours.

4) I like how you only addressed the AI part of the question and left out the fact that players can be stuck on an island and be unable to trade for a significant portion of the game. I will also assume that galleys will not be able to cross ocean tiles. Even if you can't trade tecs with another player there will for sure be set up so players will trade tecs for 1 gold or trade tecs for some amount gold and give it back, regardless players on the mainland will have a signcant advantage. Please don't tell me that there is a small tec map and that will make tec trading not occur because that is nonsense. As long as there are more than 1 path players will agree to take different tec paths and trade every new tec which gives at least a 50 - 100% tec advantage over the player who is stuck on the island............ Im sorry I disagree so badly, but unless you explain something that blocks this, this is going to happen and will greatly impact games in a negative and "Unbalanced" fashion....................................

5) All you explained is that its unlikely that a player will have 100 tanks and not win, that is more a response to an exaggerated example, lets say its 5 tanks or 2 or 10, it doesn’t really matter, the fact of the matter is that 2 players who are reasonably at the same level which all players will be minus the unlucky guy on the island and the unlucky guy not in the tec trade scheme will be unable to kill each other due to the over whelming advantage given to the defender. Saying you don't leave cities open and all that other stuff is just avoiding the question, sure you might think that some people are not paying attention and avoiding the question like this will prove adequate defense for the creators, but for anyone remotely paying attention they will see that your answer really didn’t answer anything............. Once again im not trying to be a dick, im just trying to help the community evolve faster and im doing that by cutting through the bull**** and give them hardcore facts. The facts are that you cant see inside cities and even if 1 player has an advantage over the other its will be ridiculous to take their empire let alone a city. I will say this with the following logic. 1 you cant road to your opponent so there will be several turns without the use of roads going up to their cities, than once you get inside of their culture and they damage you you will not be able to heal unless you waste a promotion on healing or have some major generals or something. This will allow a player to heal and make new armies and defend their cities. You used the example of tanks attacking riflemen, well how far along the tec map are tanks????? That seems that would be a very far off tec and skilled players wouldn’t allow advantages like that to occur unless 1 player happen to get a relic and have an unreasonable advantage from the get go " Support for the opinion that Luck plays a ridiculous role in this game." But there are variables in life, but you are using the cloud of variables to hide this fact, but people with reasonable knowledge of this game and a community 2 - 6 months from now will be able to look back at this and say, holy smokes he was correct and the ability to instantly move troops back from the front lines and fromt he entire empire in a few turns will make it very very difficult to kill a player even when you have a few tec advantage over them.

6) Your response to Lincoln is very funny to me, all you said is they balance out... rofl, come on man you think that your answers to the above questions has put you in a position where you can say that and it will be reasonable? Man, Abe Lincoln is the best leader revealed by a large margin, forget about Genghis’ cities from conquered huts which can be 1-2 or Spain’s gold bonuses, all that comes too late and by the time its a late era Abe Lincoln will run the map. Abe Lincoln has been turned into a God and I will compare him to Gandhi in Civ 4 before the first patch which was 6 months after the release. Gandhi had such an unreasonable advantage that they had to change the entire game just to balance him out and instead of having to do this all over again all you have to do is change Abe's traits, unless its too late for that and in that case be prepared for a community of Abe Linconers until it gets patched...............

7) No road pillaging, ROFLLLLLLLLLLLLL THAT IS SOOO FUNNY TO ME.......... You guys are really creating a game that favors the defender and ultimately long games.. I hope that you cant use a road while an enemy is occupying the land or we are talking unlimited support for cities.. No road pillaging, wow, that is a good one.............

8) So there is no longer risk in building wonders which takes away alot from the game in my opinion and is an indication that Civ is moving back a step, but what can I say its on the console and you cant have everything, but this is one of the things I was hoping they could fit inside the game... You are going to see players using wonders as banks and when they are attacked or need something they will withdraw from that bank for several quick units or whatever they need, personally I will exploit this strategic loophole and begin to build 1 wonder and research another tec that enables a stronger wonder than switch over that production to that new wonder and bam, I get the better wonder faster.............................

9) Will there be a unit movement delay at the start of a turn. If I move to attack an enemy at the end of a turn can i instantly move it again
for a double moved attack the following turn?????????????

10) Listen, i honestly think your a nice dude for helping our community out, my questions were not directed to you, but you seem to be the person who decided to answer these questions on TakeTwo's behalf. I personally have no beef or problems with you, but I think your a good person, but like the Sopranos say, this is business.......:D

[ATC 1982]

Thanks Jason and Keep those questions coming Theory so i learn.

[ATC 1982]

What kind of Engine is being run on this game?

Will there be something that tells you if your being conquered either by diplomacy or just being brutally beaten? So you don't have to go to a menu.

Will you set dates on this site for 2K Civ team VS Users? Like 2 V 2 or 1 on 3?

Will there be merchandise like face plates or other things that might come out besides a strategy guide?


Just a few questions I have.

[Thrallia]

oh good lord, mrGametheory, you've got to be kidding me.

Because he took a couple days off from answering questions he doesn't even have to answer, and gone back to working on programming the game itself, you have decided that you need to insult him, insult Firaxis, and insult all the other programmers who work are working on CivRev?

Who do you think you are, to be arrogant enough to think you know better than anyone else, despite the fact that you've yet to play the game at all, and didn't even know most of the basic information about it that has been out for months, until this last week?

No matter how good you think you are at Civ, you aren't good enough to have the right to declare it a disaster just because you don't get some answers in a forum that you wanted to get.

Just because you don't understand what they are doing, doesn't mean they are wrong or that you are perfectly correct. Obviously, from the way he is responding to you, you are in error in nearly all your assumptions...so why can't you be wrong about how the game will turn out?

[MrgameTheory]

I have been waiting for a pro Firaxis, angry response, from someone who has skimmed what has been said and came to a conclusion using "part" of the facts, I am glad that it has finally come so that I can make an example of it in order to help future angry people refrain from posting the same rants and wasting peoples time. Please pay attention all you angry people out there so you don't make the same mistakes or make similar exaggerated and/or illogical posts. :D

"""Because he took a couple days off from answering questions he doesn't even have to answer, and gone back to working on programming the game itself, you have decided that you need to insult him, insult Firaxis, and insult all the other programmers who work are working on CivRev?"""

Ultimately I am only insulting the people behind the balancing of the game and only if your definition of insulting is pointing out strategic problems and a lack of proper resources being allocated to fixing those problems... I think Jason is a great guy and he has taken it upon himself to answer these questions on his company’s behalf. That should greatly reduce the number of people on your list, but I can see how adding every possible person associated with the game can appeal to the emotions of readers in supporting an accusation that I am arrogant and unreasonable :D

""" Who do you think you are, to be arrogant enough to think you know better than anyone else """

All I am doing is giving the perspective of people who look at Civ Rev as a viable source for one of the highest forms of competition, in sticking to that perspective I am bound to point out anything that could potentially ruin that experience from happening. The above quote is simply a generic comment that doesn't actually fit in the context if you have been paying attention. I never said I knew better than anyone else but simply stated that the game is not balanced and the people who focus on balancing a specific portion of the game should change things in order to balance it... That should greatly reduce the number of people on your list of “anyone else”, but i can see how adding every possible person associated with humankind can appeal to the emotions of readers in supporting an accusation that I am arrogant and unreasonable :D

"""despite the fact that you've yet to play the game at all, and didn't even know most of the basic information about it that has been out for months, until this last week?"""

It doesn't matter when I found out the information, but what I have said in regards to the information. I am here to ask questions about potentially problematic issues relating to the game and the ones that go unanswered or answered to an insufficient degree will be replied with whatever it takes in order to get all the facts and make an accurate determination of what is going on. Based on the information I have received there are strategic problems in the game and "all of the information" or even playing the game itself is not needed in order to figure this out.

"""No matter how good you think you are at Civ, you aren't good enough to have the right to declare it a disaster just because you don't get some answers in a forum that you wanted to get."""

I have the right to declare anything I like, it doesn’t make it correct or accurate, its up to the reader to agree or disagree with my statements. I have not declared the game a disaster, but I can see how it would be appealing to use these generalistic/inaccurate words to get some kind of point across. I have simply said that the game itself is not completely balanced and instead of just saying words without facts I am actually giving examples of these unbalanced problems.... The unbalanced problems that remain at the end of the day are still unbalanced problems no matter how you look at it. I personally believe that Civ is a great game, especially versus an AI on a high difficulty level, a game can be good in 1 area and poor in another area. I am stating that Civ Rev is Good in game play with AI and poor in game play versus other players.

"""Just because you don't understand what they are doing, doesn't mean they are wrong or that you are perfectly correct. """

The point of the initial questions I asked was to help Civ 4 players make a transition to Civ Rev by asking the questions that would come to their minds. The point of the last set of questions was to determine if the strategic loopholes proposed are in fact problems with the game. I personally believe I do understand what I am doing based on the statements I have made, especially in the post I have made before this one I feel its safe to say that I have identified some key problems in the game, but ultimately it is for the reader to decide. I never said I am perfectly wrong or correct, but I can see how using such words can help appeal to the emotions of readers in supporting the incorrect assessment you are making. I am not trying to be God, I am trying to say problems with a game and help the game better evolve.

"""Obviously, from the way he is responding to you, you are in error in nearly all your assumptions...so why can't you be wrong about how the game will turn out?"""

Well, to the person who is reading all of this, do you feel I am in error in nearly all of my assumptions? Please pay close attention to the last 2 posts I made prior to this one and the last 2 posts made by Jason prior to this one.... If you feel that the author of this rant exaggerated pretty heavily, I think you are accurate in your assumption. I have made some pretty important strategic loophole discoveries that have slipped through the cracks, but I guess that is ultimately for the player to decide. I am only here to help the online community better evolve in terms of game play and I do this by identifying all the different facts about the game in the proper manner. I personally believe that the game will make some good money and will be a fun game, but based on previous experience and current information I am confident that the multi player community will be complaining over major balance issues relating to the game, in terms of player versus player games. Hopefully Firaxis will patch problems as they occur, but in the past they have gone several months to not patching them at all and I fear this happening again.

I will try to limit my responses to personal attacks in the future due to a desire to focus on asking and answering the important questions related to this game without people having to worry if the response was related to important information about the game or information related to a rant or character of a member of our community.

:D

[Man-Bear-Pig]

I still love this thread! :)

[ATC 1982]

I smell a polotician in someone' sfuture. All signs point to Game Theory.

[Krikkitone]

5) ....The facts are that you cant see inside cities ...
misunderstood the answer)


Note, that it was mentioned there are Spies... so it could be that Spies will be needed for a successful conquest (to determine the other players weak spots, by looking inside the cities)


8..While the "wonder bank" for production is interesting (a different strategy for Wonder Races, but still reasonable) , the bigger problem I see is the no carryover....this is Wasted production unless you micromanage (unless I misunderstood the answer).. but let me get some clarifying questions

1) So if your city has 25 production "in its box" and a Warrior takes 10 production, you get 2 Warriors if you produce Warriors that turn? (Warrior x2)

2) Do you also get 5 extra production "in the box" next turn?

[Bulldog_PS3]

I smell a polotician in someone' sfuture. All signs point to Game Theory.

It's spelled "P o l i t i c i a n". And yes, if you mean pretentious and snotty, trying to be an elitist then ya, I would say he's got the bases covered.

MGT - where is this Civ IV community you keep speaking of ? You and the 2 other members of your clan ? I mean, really I have read every bit of this thread, not just skimmed, you keep asking the same kind of ignorant crap, and talking about some huge Civ IV community that your king of. I have also read alot of your posts on some other Civ forums, and let's just say those people never warmed up to you either.

1) Why would anyone who has a PC capable of running Civ IV with the expansions, even care about a Civ game made for PS3, 360, DS ? Other than to pass time until Civ V.

2) Why would said Civ IV players, not have the ability to comprehend that Civ: Rev doesn't have anything to do with PC civs, and that it is it's own game.

3) You haven't discovered any exploits or loopholes in Civ: Rev why do you continue to claim that you have ?

4) Are loopholes and exploits needed in order for you(MGT) to win a game of Civ ? It's pretty obvious your obsessed with cheating.

5) So how exactly did you pwn the "angry reader" ? I saw no example made.

[Phalanx]

First, I must thank MGT for the questions that have given us further insight into CivRev.

At the same time I would prefer more civility in the questions & theories. Do you think Jason will continue to provide insight if you continue to attack him, his coworkers, or his company? You can certainly get the same information (likely more) if you don't put your information source on the defensive.

Politician? Not a chance.

[Jason2K]

I want you to know that I do greatly appreciate you helping our community and only made the above comment when the thread was about to disappear into the next page without a reply in sight, especially when we were at an important point in such a discussion.

Ooookay.

Unfortunately your tone has shifted enough where I'm not sure I'm going to be comfortable answering many more of these. I'll answer these, but as long as you continue to insist that you know more than I do about this game, we're not going to get anywhere.

1) I take by your comment that there is no way to turn off huts. Try as you did to lower the value of huts I must firmly disagree with your defense. The ability to gain a settler from a hut is unbalanced in itself and as the online community from previous Civ games will tell you, it has always in the past proved to be too strong, you may say this is a different game, but nothing revealed yet would agrue against it being a completely different game. The same goes for relics, thank you for telling us that there will only be 1 per a world, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that a relic can enable all government types and ultimately give 1 civilization 50% production or gold bonus in every city they own. The maps are small so I don't believe it can take too long to find one and even if you have that bonus for 10 turns, which it looks more like 50+ you have a very unbalanced aspect of the game......

See, this is the problem. As I've repeatedly said, THIS IS NOT CIV IV. Civ IV is a game of incremental bonuses. CivRev is not.

50% production is INSANE for Civ IV, but for CivRev, it's perfectly normal. EVERYONE gets that kind of bonus at some point in the game. As long as you continue to think like Civ IV, you're not going to get how this is balanced.

2) I figured the cost to build roads would be very expensive so I will agree that it seems unreasonable for the most part to play every game building up to your opponents culture with 1 city and buying the road, unless of course you have a hut that gives lots of gold.. But this strategy is very viable and was building up to a point I was going to bring up in this reply that all civs with early boosts will be able to expand and control the map quickly so by the time later era pro civs come in it will be too late for their traits to be used to balance out them versus early era trait leaders.

No, it's not. Again, not Civ IV. You won't get enough gold to spend like this. If you do, you're wasting it by trying this approach, when you could easily have put that money towards trying to win an economic victory.

3) I knew this was incorrect but only put it in for the remote chance that cities would be created outside the norm of normal civ and similar to some Zerg 'Strarcraft" expansion way, obviously this is a far tangent, but I like to keep everything inside the box until it is ruled out. This still doesn’t take away from the fact that you cant road to your opponent and attack them and that will buy you several turns to scout and determine what they are sending to you and give you ample time to build the counter to their unit. I believe that you have said nothing up to this point that would encourage better players to risk going in for an attack without a ridiculous military advantage. So its possible to say that military Victories will occur, but they will not occur until several hours into the game thus making every game a minimum of 2 hours - 4 hours.

I have no idea what you're getting at here. Military victories happen just as often as non-military victories. It's all in the player.

4) I like how you only addressed the AI part of the question and left out the fact that players can be stuck on an island and be unable to trade for a significant portion of the game. I will also assume that galleys will not be able to cross ocean tiles. Even if you can't trade tecs with another player there will for sure be set up so players will trade tecs for 1 gold or trade tecs for some amount gold and give it back, regardless players on the mainland will have a signcant advantage. Please don't tell me that there is a small tec map and that will make tec trading not occur because that is nonsense. As long as there are more than 1 path players will agree to take different tec paths and trade every new tec which gives at least a 50 - 100% tec advantage over the player who is stuck on the island............ Im sorry I disagree so badly, but unless you explain something that blocks this, this is going to happen and will greatly impact games in a negative and "Unbalanced" fashion....................................

Players will never be "stuck on an island". The world isn't big enough for that to happen. The scenario you describe never occurs. Even if you only have one city on a single land mass, you'll encounter someone else pretty quickly (all it takes is a boat). And you're still not getting the concept of gold. Buying techs is expensive. Gold is scarce. For the last time, there is no tech buying exploit.

5) All you explained is that its unlikely that a player will have 100 tanks and not win, that is more a response to an exaggerated example, lets say its 5 tanks or 2 or 10, it doesn’t really matter, the fact of the matter is that 2 players who are reasonably at the same level which all players will be minus the unlucky guy on the island and the unlucky guy not in the tec trade scheme will be unable to kill each other due to the over whelming advantage given to the defender. Saying you don't leave cities open and all that other stuff is just avoiding the question, sure you might think that some people are not paying attention and avoiding the question like this will prove adequate defense for the creators, but for anyone remotely paying attention they will see that your answer really didn’t answer anything.....

There's no question here, just a lot of assumptions based on incorrect information. All I can tell you is that you're wrong, and when the demo is released, you'll understand what I mean.

6) Your response to Lincoln is very funny to me, all you said is they balance out... rofl, come on man you think that your answers to the above questions has put you in a position where you can say that and it will be reasonable? Man, Abe Lincoln is the best leader revealed by a large margin, forget about Genghis’ cities from conquered huts which can be 1-2 or Spain’s gold bonuses, all that comes too late and by the time its a late era Abe Lincoln will run the map. Abe Lincoln has been turned into a God and I will compare him to Gandhi in Civ 4 before the first patch which was 6 months after the release. Gandhi had such an unreasonable advantage that they had to change the entire game just to balance him out and instead of having to do this all over again all you have to do is change Abe's traits, unless its too late for that and in that case be prepared for a community of Abe Linconers until it gets patched.......

Um, no. Lincoln starts with a great person, but everyone can earn a great person pretty quickly. 2% interest on gold is pretty worthless until late in the game when that actually makes a difference. As I keep saying, this is not a game of subtle bonuses. 50% production sounds nuts, but it's balanced when everyone has it.

7) No road pillaging, ROFLLLLLLLLLLLLL THAT IS SOOO FUNNY TO ME.......... You guys are really creating a game that favors the defender and ultimately long games.. I hope that you cant use a road while an enemy is occupying the land or we are talking unlimited support for cities.. No road pillaging, wow, that is a good one.............

*sigh*

No question.

8) So there is no longer risk in building wonders which takes away alot from the game in my opinion and is an indication that Civ is moving back a step, but what can I say its on the console and you cant have everything, but this is one of the things I was hoping they could fit inside the game... You are going to see players using wonders as banks and when they are attacked or need something they will withdraw from that bank for several quick units or whatever they need, personally I will exploit this strategic loophole and begin to build 1 wonder and research another tec that enables a stronger wonder than switch over that production to that new wonder and bam, I get the better wonder faster.........

CivRev games aren't that long! Instead if building a wonder you have no intention of finishing you could have instead spent that time building defensive units and leveling them up. You won't last long if that's your plan.

9) Will there be a unit movement delay at the start of a turn. If I move to attack an enemy at the end of a turn can i instantly move it again
for a double moved attack the following turn?

I don't know what you mean. If you have blitz, you immediately go a second time the same turn.

10) Listen, i honestly think your a nice dude for helping our community out, my questions were not directed to you, but you seem to be the person who decided to answer these questions on TakeTwo's behalf. I personally have no beef or problems with you, but I think your a good person, but like the Sopranos say, this is business.......:D

Your tone has gone from inquisitive to insulting, and it's very clear that the only thing that's going to convince you at this point is to let you play the demo, which will happen in the not too distant future.

I'll leave this thread open for now, but I think I'm going to have to close it if it continues like this.

[Jason2K]

What kind of Engine is being run on this game?

We're using Gamebryo, which powered CivIV/Pirates/Railroads as well as games like Oblivion.

Will there be something that tells you if your being conquered either by diplomacy or just being brutally beaten? So you don't have to go to a menu.

Your advisors will pop up and tell you if another player is getting close to a victory, and there's a regular "who's winning?" screen that shows you everyone's progress.

Will you set dates on this site for 2K Civ team VS Users? Like 2 V 2 or 1 on 3?

I think there's something like that planned.

Will there be merchandise like face plates or other things that might come out besides a strategy guide?

Stay tuned.

[Thrallia]

I have been waiting for a pro Firaxis, angry response, from someone who has skimmed what has been said and came to a conclusion using "part" of the facts, I am glad that it has finally come so that I can make an example of it in order to help future angry people refrain from posting the same rants and wasting peoples time. Please pay attention all you angry people out there so you don't make the same mistakes or make similar exaggerated and/or illogical posts. :D

Oh yes, I only skimmed the posts...that's why I know exactly what was said, how it was said, and who said it.[/sarcasm]

Ultimately I am only insulting the people behind the balancing of the game and only if your definition of insulting is pointing out strategic problems and a lack of proper resources being allocated to fixing those problems... I think Jason is a great guy and he has taken it upon himself to answer these questions on his company’s behalf. That should greatly reduce the number of people on your list, but I can see how adding every possible person associated with the game can appeal to the emotions of readers in supporting an accusation that I am arrogant and unreasonable :D

**I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and figured by "chance" you just happen to take a several day vacation starting 14 minutes after your last post and on a Wednesday for that matter.....

It has become apparent to me through common sense and logic that you, Elizabeth, and who knows who else at taketwo/firaxis have seen these game breaking concerns I have addressed and figured there is no way to answer at least some of them without making the game itself look bad from a multi player perspective.

Listen, I already knew that the Multi-Player aspect of CivRev was going to be very poor. In Civ 4 40% of all online games would freeze or crash and ruin the entire game most of the time. After 3 years most of the crashing problems still remain and I don't blame you for not fixing them especially when 2% of Civ players played it Multi-player. If you made Multi Player better than more people would play on your game spy servers and you would have to waste more money and the only reason to invest more money in Multiplayer is to raise your probability of that 2% buying more Civ games and eventually when Civ 6-7 comes out, being able to charge those die hard fans a monthly subscription.

In Civ Rev you guys will at least make some money from Xbox live, but obviously not enough. I am 90% confident that the multi player you guys will support most and by a large ratio will be the weekly challenges that give a scenario and test who will gets the higher score. Civ could be such an amazing game if you invested in online competition against other players, but you guys are bent on creating a game that only supports for the most part, play versus AI.

Just to name a few of my concerns, by allowing Super game breaking huts, tec trading on uneven playing ground, and super advantages to defending civs which force the game to be a 3-4 hour epic every time game among skilled players you are creating a game that will discourage online competition in the area that matters.


oh yes, I'm definitely the one that brought in every possible person associated swith CivRev. I think that post of yours, which is the one that prompted me to register and post, is the one that insulted everyone at Firaxis, basically saying they are all ruining Civ, and that they don't care that they are doing it.

All I am doing is giving the perspective of people who look at Civ Rev as a viable source for one of the highest forms of competition, in sticking to that perspective I am bound to point out anything that could potentially ruin that experience from happening. The above quote is simply a generic comment that doesn't actually fit in the context if you have been paying attention. I never said I knew better than anyone else but simply stated that the game is not balanced and the people who focus on balancing a specific portion of the game should change things in order to balance it... That should greatly reduce the number of people on your list of “anyone else”, but i can see how adding every possible person associated with humankind can appeal to the emotions of readers in supporting an accusation that I am arrogant and unreasonable :D

What people? Who could possibly want you to be their spokesperson? You say the game is not balanced and bring up reasons why you believe it to be so, yet when Jason tells you all your reasoning and assumptions were wrong, you simply tell him you basically don't believe him, and insult Firaxis again by saying they don't want to fix what you say is wrong...what if it truly isn't wrong? What if you are wrong?!?!

It doesn't matter when I found out the information, but what I have said in regards to the information. I am here to ask questions about potentially problematic issues relating to the game and the ones that go unanswered or answered to an insufficient degree will be replied with whatever it takes in order to get all the facts and make an accurate determination of what is going on. Based on the information I have received there are strategic problems in the game and "all of the information" or even playing the game itself is not needed in order to figure this out.

Actually, all that matters is how much of the information you have. Firaxis has all the information...Padma, DanQ, and any others who've played the game have a lot of information. You, however, have very little information, and are biased towards it with your holier than thou attitude, that whatever you say you believe about the information you've received, is obviously correct. Do you not realize that by acting like a jerk, insulting Jason when he doesn't answer on your schedule, or doesn't answer to the degree you desire is NOT going to make him want to continue answering your questions at all?

"Based on the information I have received there are strategic problems in the game and "all of the information" or even playing the game itself is not needed in order to figure this out."

Ha...that is the sign of someone who doesn't want to believe he might be wrong if I ever heard one...based on the info you have, you think there are problems...there MIGHT be information you don't have, that resolves said problem...but you don't want to believe that, because obviously your problem does exist, and you don't want to hear that they might not have told you the solution to it.

[Thrallia]

I have the right to declare anything I like, it doesn’t make it correct or accurate, its up to the reader to agree or disagree with my statements. I have not declared the game a disaster, but I can see how it would be appealing to use these generalistic/inaccurate words to get some kind of point across. I have simply said that the game itself is not completely balanced and instead of just saying words without facts I am actually giving examples of these unbalanced problems.... The unbalanced problems that remain at the end of the day are still unbalanced problems no matter how you look at it. I personally believe that Civ is a great game, especially versus an AI on a high difficulty level, a game can be good in 1 area and poor in another area. I am stating that Civ Rev is Good in game play with AI and poor in game play versus other players.

And how could you possibly know whether it is good or poor versus other players? Why do you insist you need to be loud, obnoxious and act like a donkey in order to get your voice heard? You do not have all the facts. You do not have an 'audience' that cares what you think or say...we are glad for the questions you began by asking, but now we just want you to stop insulting them and looking for loopholes, just ask the basic questions again, perhaps eventually you'll figure out that you don't know everything even if you think you do.

The point of the initial questions I asked was to help Civ 4 players make a transition to Civ Rev by asking the questions that would come to their minds. The point of the last set of questions was to determine if the strategic loopholes proposed are in fact problems with the game. I personally believe I do understand what I am doing based on the statements I have made, especially in the post I have made before this one I feel its safe to say that I have identified some key problems in the game, but ultimately it is for the reader to decide. I never said I am perfectly wrong or correct, but I can see how using such words can help appeal to the emotions of readers in supporting the incorrect assessment you are making. I am not trying to be God, I am trying to say problems with a game and help the game better evolve.

If the point of the last set of questions was to determine if those were loopholes, then why did you not accept Jason's answers to them? You seem intent on believing they are loopholes, and won't take anything other than 'Yes, you're right MGT, they are in fact loopholes we put in the game and for some reason didn't bother correcting, despite the fact that it would have taken less time to do so than to argue with you about them.'

Well, to the person who is reading all of this, do you feel I am in error in nearly all of my assumptions? Please pay close attention to the last 2 posts I made prior to this one and the last 2 posts made by Jason prior to this one.... If you feel that the author of this rant exaggerated pretty heavily, I think you are accurate in your assumption. I have made some pretty important strategic loophole discoveries that have slipped through the cracks, but I guess that is ultimately for the player to decide. I am only here to help the online community better evolve in terms of game play and I do this by identifying all the different facts about the game in the proper manner. I personally believe that the game will make some good money and will be a fun game, but based on previous experience and current information I am confident that the multi player community will be complaining over major balance issues relating to the game, in terms of player versus player games. Hopefully Firaxis will patch problems as they occur, but in the past they have gone several months to not patching them at all and I fear this happening again.


Assumptions lol. I do not exaggerate. I do not insult. I tell the truth as I see it. Sometimes I do not have all the information, and when I don't, I admit I was wrong if that information shows I was. That in itself, is more than you are willing to do, apparently, as you do not believe it matters how much information you have.

I think nearly everyone who has read this thread must agree that nearly all your assumptions have been wrong, and if you want me to go back and take stock of them for you, I can do so...I can't believe you would want people to compare your two posts prior to this response and Jason's two posts...yours were inflammatory, insulting, and unnecessary, while Jason's were helpful, informative, and yet again told you that your assumptions were wrong.

[Thrallia]

Jason:

I appreciate all the work you guys are doing, and I appreciate the amount of effort you are all going through to keep the Civ community informed :)

Is it going to be possible to play with more than 1 player online? Or will it always be 2 humans and 3 AI?

Is there a final number of wonders in CivRev yet?

And a hypothetical question...do you know if/when the Wii version will be taken off of hold?

[Phalanx]

Jason,

Not a strategy question, but anyways.

How long can you make a single player game last?

I have heard a lot of 2 1/2 - 3 hour game mentions. I kinda like slowing things down from time to time to build a (IMO) "perfect" little country. Is this possible? Can a purposely slow player drag the game out to say 5+ hours? Or are all games more or less created equal?

Thank you again for taking the time to answer some of our questions.

[Jason2K]

I appreciate all the work you guys are doing, and I appreciate the amount of effort you are all going through to keep the Civ community informed :)

It's nice to be appreciated. :)

Is it going to be possible to play with more than 1 player online? Or will it always be 2 humans and 3 AI?

Yep, we support 1v1, 2v2 and four player free for all. (All modes have 5 civs, so just add the number of necessary AI to each).

Is there a final number of wonders in CivRev yet?

Yes. Including the victory condition wonders (World Bank/United Nations) there are 21.

And a hypothetical question...do you know if/when the Wii version will be taken off of hold?

Sorry...no news on Wii.

[Jason2K]

How long can you make a single player game last?

I have heard a lot of 2 1/2 - 3 hour game mentions. I kinda like slowing things down from time to time to build a (IMO) "perfect" little country. Is this possible? Can a purposely slow player drag the game out to say 5+ hours? Or are all games more or less created equal?

It totally depends on the speed of the player. Games can easily last six hours. When I play alone, my games tend to be pretty fast, but that's because I already know what I'm gonna do (I do play all day, every day!).

[pmw1718]

I too appreciate all the time you, Elizabeth, and Dawn have put into our questions. This board is waaayy more responsive than some other boards *cough* ubisoft *cough*

Anyway, it looks like we are month away from the release of the European version. How much longer is it until we get the demo? And will yall be playing the demo with all of us?

[MrgameTheory]

I have made the best case possible for the above issues, if you are not convinced by what I have said than I will simply have to wait till the game/demo comes out or new information is released before I can afford a more enticing argument. Ultimately the function of this thread was to inform people about the game and help the community evolve strategically as fast as possible while at the same time entertaining a few readers.

Time will tell who is correct... But with the "Current" Information released I will hold firm to what I have said. To say the strategic minds behind the game know what is best and don't make game breaking mistakes is to forget how unbalanced Gandhi was when Civ 4 first came out and how many months it took for them to address the problems associated with him.

1) In terms of the double movement question. Is it possible to move in to attack an opponent at the last second of the turn and than attack them again the first second of the next turn giving a player a quick double attack advantage. In Civ 4 there was an 8 second penalty between turns on moving, will there be the same 8 second type penalty?

2) Cleopatra receives a free wonder at the begining of the game, is that wonder taken at random from the 19 potential wonders in the game or is that wonder taken from the ancient wonders group etc? Is it possible for Cleopatra to start the game with the wonder that enables are governments?

3) Will there be an upkeep cost for new cities or will it cost the same to have 10 as it does to have 1? How much will units cost for the most part and will they cost more gold outside of ones empire and even more gold inside the empire of an enemy civilization?

The last thing we want is to get a thread like this closed, so I apologize if any of my statements have offended anyone, I will keep it civil in the future and I ask others to do so as well.

:)

[Jason2K]

I have made the best case possible for the above issues, if you are not convinced by what I have said than I will simply have to wait till the game/demo comes out or new information is released before I can afford a more enticing argument. Ultimately the function of this thread was to inform people about the game and help the community evolve strategically as fast as possible while at the same time entertaining a few readers.

Time will tell who is correct... But with the "Current" Information released I will hold firm to what I have said. To say the strategic minds behind the game know what is best and don't make game breaking mistakes is to forget how unbalanced Gandhi was when Civ 4 first came out and how many months it took for them to address the problems associated with him.

But at the same time, you have to acknowledge that the concept of making any sort of judgement call about the gameplay before you've had any chance to actually play it is futile. Particularly since you clearly are still stuck on Civ IV and haven't been able to grasp how fundamentally different CivRev is from it.

1) In terms of the double movement question. Is it possible to move in to attack an opponent at the last second of the turn and than attack them again the first second of the next turn giving a player a quick double attack advantage. In Civ 4 there was an 8 second penalty between turns on moving, will there be the same 8 second type penalty?

I have no idea about this one.

2) Cleopatra receives a free wonder at the begining of the game, is that wonder taken at random from the 19 potential wonders in the game or is that wonder taken from the ancient wonders group etc? Is it possible for Cleopatra to start the game with the wonder that enables are governments?

It's one of the ancient wonders. I believe that means it could be the Great Pyramid, but don't hold me to that.

3) Will there be an upkeep cost for new cities or will it cost the same to have 10 as it does to have 1? How much will units cost for the most part and will they cost more gold outside of ones empire and even more gold inside the empire of an enemy civilization?

There is no upkeep in CivRev. Have one, have a million. They only cost to build. The closest thing we have is culture. If you have a large civ but aren't producing much culture, it will harm you (your cities are vulnerable to being flipped by a larger civ).

The last thing we want is to get a thread like this closed, so I apologize if any of my statements have offended anyone, I will keep it civil in the future and I ask others to do so as well.

Do try. Particularly to other members of the forum, as well as the development team. Feel free to insult me all you like. I can take it.

[2K Elizabeth]

hey guys,

my attention has been called to this thread by a couple forum members and i want to make a couple things perfectly clear.

1. jason is the producer of the game. he's not a community manager, and he's here because he's awesome and loves talking to you guys. but if you don't treat him with the UTMOST respect, you'll be facing serious consequences from me.

2. Civilization Revolution is not Civilization IV, or Civilization V, or Civilization for the PC. it is a new game, with new features, and to bring up every gameplay aspect of every game before is not very productive to discussion. asking questions about the game is one thing, but when you start into very, very detailed aspects of previous games (and especially if you do it with a negative attitude that even approaches insulting anyone who has worked on this magnificent game) you are breaking the forum rules, and you should go reread them and rethink before you post anymore.

3. everyone here tries to answer questions as thoroughly and as quickly as possible. but remember, jason and i travel (and jason travels a lot) and we have a lot of work that we juggle, and so if it takes time to answer a question, that doesn't mean anything other than the fact we're busy. also, weeknights and weekends shouldn't be times for us to be answering questions. i am always here during those times, but we, too, do sometimes sleep, eat, and occasionally leave the office.

i love how dedicated and amazing you guys are on these and other Civ fan forums, but negative attitudes, insulting the wonderful team making this game, or harrassing members, admins, or moderators will never, ever be tolerated.

if anyone has any issues with what's been said, please feel free to PM me. otherwise, i expect the tone of this thread will turn around this place will once again become informative.

[2K Elizabeth]

I too appreciate all the time you, Elizabeth, and Dawn have put into our questions. This board is waaayy more responsive than some other boards *cough* ubisoft *cough*

Anyway, it looks like we are month away from the release of the European version. How much longer is it until we get the demo? And will yall be playing the demo with all of us?

i don't have an exact date for the demo yet, but will let you know as soon as possible. also, yeah, we'll be around to play games on the demo (and the full version)!

[Boogiums]

I'd just to like to say all ya'll's patience has been more impressive than I could have mustered. Big Thank yous to Elizabeth, Jason, and the rest of the team for your professionalism and your tolerance for our demanding questions. I work weird hours, so I've learned to tolerate non-immediate gratification answers, we all don't have daypuke hours. Weather sure doesn't stop at 5pm on Friday. Best regaurds, Boogiums

[Joneleth]

Just wanted to stop in real quick and thank Jason for all the answers hes given in this thread, and for his and Elizabeth's efforts in taking care of the Civ community. You guys are awesome! I've never posted here before, but I do often read these forums, and I'm thrilled to see how much attention this forum gets from the developers.

Anyhow, I'm really looking forward to this game. I never really played the older Civilization games, but I love Civ 4, and I've been waiting for Civilization Revolutions for along time now (or, at least it feels like along time ;) ). I realize that the two games are completely different, and while I may question a few of the choices the developers have made, I'm reserving judgment until I actually get a chance to play the demo. I'm sure it'll rock, though, and I don't think there's anything that will stop me from buying this game. July can't come soon enough. :D

[Phalanx]

Back to a game question.

We've heard that maps are small and that you might have 5-6 cities of your own creation. So with that said, do settlers have any purpose once you reach a mid-game point?

Thanks.

[Jason2K]

We've heard that maps are small and that you might have 5-6 cities of your own creation. So with that said, do settlers have any purpose once you reach a mid-game point?

Yes, absolutely.

Settlers can be used to shift population from one city to another. So if you have a size 20 city and a size 1 city, you can create settlers and join them to the size 1 city to beef it up quickly. Late-game this becomes a good strategy if you need to quickly shore up defenses.

[MrgameTheory]

A few more questions for anyone who might know the answers...

1) Once you have 3 population how many hammers does it take to make a settler or is it instant, how does settler production work?

2) How does strenght and Defense work in the game, lets say for a 10 attack 5 defense unit versus a 10 attack 5 defense unit or 5 attack 2 defense unit.

3) will there be any counter units in this game or will everything deal in stranght and defense, for instance spears used to have 100% versus mounted units and axemen had bonus versuses other melee, will there be units with these types of bonuses in these games?

4) Will you be able to upgrade units with gold in this game? If you can upgrade a unit like a barbarian to a riflemen with 200 gold etc, is there a free upgrade for units with a general attached?

5) Will spies be able to tell the owner of the spy how many units are in a city it is checking out? Will spys be able to use enemies roads?

6) What will the XBOX live talk feature be like, will you be able to chat with anyone in the game? Is it possible to talk to 2 or even 3 players at a time?

7) How many movments do Setters have?

8) Will there be any national wonders in the game, what will determine capitals, are there palaces or something? Is there a way to change your capital? What are the bonuses of a capital?

Thanks for your time :)

[Skippy]

Settlers can be used to shift population from one city to another. So if you have a size 20 city and a size 1 city, you can create settlers and join them to the size 1 city to beef it up quickly. Late-game this becomes a good strategy if you need to quickly shore up defenses.

Yay.......Ghandi's half-price settlers at Industrial. I just knew there had to be a reason!

Cheers Jason.

[Schuesseled]

I've been putting off registering but i've had enough of reading some of your posts and am here to put you straight.

Although MGT you did actually ask a few questions i hadn't thought of and got some info that i didn't know from the great jason that i hadn't previously seen, you have constantly been asking questions which have extremly obvious answers. Even myself, a man with absolute no knowledge of this game except from waht i have heard on the forums could answer your questions.

And yes you have made incorrect assumptions on nearly all of your questions, this isn't Civ IV.

[Schuesseled]

Yay.......Ghandi's half-price settlers at Industrial. I just knew there had to be a reason!

Cheers Jason.

Sorry for the double post, yes thanks jason for solving that particular mystery. :)

[Jason2K]

1) Once you have 3 population how many hammers does it take to make a settler or is it instant, how does settler production work?

Settler production is the same as everything else, although you earn one for free for reaching the first economic milestone. Settlers cost 20 production (I think).

2) How does strenght and Defense work in the game, lets say for a 10 attack 5 defense unit versus a 10 attack 5 defense unit or 5 attack 2 defense unit.

When attacking, the attacker's attack rating is compared to the defender's defense rating. That's all there is to it. These numbers are increased with terrain bonuses/special abilities/great generals/etc, but that's it. There's also an element of chance involved when the numbers are high, but still relatively close together.

3) will there be any counter units in this game or will everything deal in stranght and defense, for instance spears used to have 100% versus mounted units and axemen had bonus versuses other melee, will there be units with these types of bonuses in these games?

It's all attack/defense ratings. The rock/paper/scissor element from Civ IV is not in CivRev.

4) Will you be able to upgrade units with gold in this game? If you can upgrade a unit like a barbarian to a riflemen with 200 gold etc, is there a free upgrade for units with a general attached?

Nope. The only way for a warrior to go to a legion or higher is if you're Germany (German elite units automatically upgrade when new units become available) or if you build the Leonardo's Workshop wonder.

5) Will spies be able to tell the owner of the spy how many units are in a city it is checking out? Will spys be able to use enemies roads?

Nope. Spies cannot see into cities. They can just do other sneaky stuff. You can never see how many units are in a city, but if you have the scout upgrade, you can see the defense rating of the unit you're about to attack in the city. Roads are roads. Anyone can use them.

6) What will the XBOX live talk feature be like, will you be able to chat with anyone in the game? Is it possible to talk to 2 or even 3 players at a time?

We support everything Microsoft does. You can talk directly to one person or broadcast to everyone.

7) How many movments do Setters have?

I believe two.

8) Will there be any national wonders in the game, what will determine capitals, are there palaces or something? Is there a way to change your capital? What are the bonuses of a capital?

No national wonders. Palaces determine your capitol city, and bring a culture bonus that prevents it from being flipped through culture. Also, a capitol can't be nuked completely. It is destroyed and shrunk to size 1 with no buildings or units, but it has to be captured manually. All other cities are obliterated off the map when nuked.

[Krikkitone]

Question on overflow again

1) if you are making 25 production per turn and building some unit (say Warriors) that costs 10.. can you get 2 of them in a single turn?

2) if so what happens to the excess 5 production?

3) if not what happens to the excess 15 production?

[Jason2K]

Question on overflow again

1) if you are making 25 production per turn and building some unit (say Warriors) that costs 10.. can you get 2 of them in a single turn?

2) if so what happens to the excess 5 production?

3) if not what happens to the excess 15 production?

You can produce two warriors in the next turn. The extra 5 is ignored.

[Schuesseled]

that's a cool feature.

[Angus Mac Barca]

I have a question Mister Jason2K :o

Its a propos of air units : air units work ala Civ2 or work ala Civ4...

Because back in 1995-6 : i loved the planes with the system of Civ2 : you sayed "on the town" to airs units and airs units attacked cities like a ground did.... The difference is the air units (but helicopter with sounds "dondreleng") could'nt capture cities...

How will work also the nukes ? Ala Civ2 or ala Civ4....

Sorry for my poor english, i'm french speaking person ;)

I stay tuned

Damned ! CivRev recall me me the fun of Civ 2 on PC in middle 90s, my prefered sound was the sound of attack of Stealth Fighter of Civ2 :D

[MrgameTheory]

Thank you for your answers, I have a few more questions for anyone who might know the answers to them.

1) How will way points work in the game? If I assign a way point in a city and will any units from that city move instantly at the start of the turn to the way point or will it move after other units etc? Is there a button you can press to move all units that are assigned to a way point.

2) When units attack other units will the units with the highest strength be pitched against the units with the highest defense or will that be chosen at random?

3) Will it cost a movement point or anything to form an army or can 3 units form an army and than instantly attack the same turn? Can you form an army in enemy lands? Can you attack with 2 units and than with a 3rd unit form an army and than attack with the army all in the same turn. When 3 units form an army and some of the units are damaged with the units be healed by forming the army or will the strength of the army initially be the combined total strength of all the weakened units with all the healthy ones.

4) When you go into later eras do units become obsolete, like can I still build warriors in the future?

5) When a player ends their turn how much time will remain for the remaining players if you are playing on the fastest speed? If you end your turn to turn on the countdown clock, will you be able to work your land after you end it until the actual round is over?

6) So its possible to produce 10 warriors a turn in a city if you make 100 production, is it possible to buy more than 1 unit a turn in a city with gold?

7) How can you defend your great people from being kidnapped by spies? Is there any way to guarantee that my great people can not be kidnapped through a building or unit?

8) So enemy units can use the roads in my culture just like I can use the roads in my culture?

9) What is the damage radius of a nuke and is there any building you can build to defend against nukes? Is it possible to Nuke inside of your own culture?

Thanks for your time

[icejon]

1 question for Mrgamertheory

How many questions have you asked Jason im just asking.

[Angus Mac Barca]

I repeat my question of simpler manier : "How play air units when attacking cities ? Like ground units in Civ2, or like in Civ4 or with a third method i dont know ?"

I hope its more understandable :D

[Jason2K]

I have a question Mister Jason2K :o

Its a propos of air units : air units work ala Civ2 or work ala Civ4...

Because back in 1995-6 : i loved the planes with the system of Civ2 : you sayed "on the town" to airs units and airs units attacked cities like a ground did.... The difference is the air units (but helicopter with sounds "dondreleng") could'nt capture cities...

Air units are the same as normal units, they just have limited fuel and have to resupply.


How will work also the nukes ? Ala Civ2 or ala Civ4....

The person who creates the Manhattan Project wonder gets the one and only nuke in the game. Nukes can hit any unit or city in the game and completely obliterate anything except capitol cities, which get shrunk to size 1 with no buildings or units.

Sorry for my poor english, i'm french speaking person ;)

Hey, your English is better than my French. Je suis Napoléon!

[Jason2K]

1) How will way points work in the game? If I assign a way point in a city and will any units from that city move instantly at the start of the turn to the way point or will it move after other units etc? Is there a button you can press to move all units that are assigned to a way point.

CivRev doesn't have waypoints.

2) When units attack other units will the units with the highest strength be pitched against the units with the highest defense or will that be chosen at random?

Yep. You attack the unit with the highest defense rating on that tile.

3) Will it cost a movement point or anything to form an army or can 3 units form an army and than instantly attack the same turn? Can you form an army in enemy lands? Can you attack with 2 units and than with a 3rd unit form an army and than attack with the army all in the same turn. When 3 units form an army and some of the units are damaged with the units be healed by forming the army or will the strength of the army initially be the combined total strength of all the weakened units with all the healthy ones.

I believe it doesn't cost a movement to form an army, but I'm not 100% on that. I believe forming armies does heal your units if they're injured.

4) When you go into later eras do units become obsolete, like can I still build warriors in the future?

No, units get replaced by their newer equivalents: warriors become legions, horsemen become knights, archers become riflemen, etc.

5) When a player ends their turn how much time will remain for the remaining players if you are playing on the fastest speed? If you end your turn to turn on the countdown clock, will you be able to work your land after you end it until the actual round is over?

If everyone ends their turn, the clock gets reset and it's the next turn. Otherwise you can keep working until the clock runs down (just with the understanding that you're holding everyone else up who's finished their turn). Not sure of the exact speed of the clock. You can always choose to turn off the timer if you're a slowpoke.

6) So its possible to produce 10 warriors a turn in a city if you make 100 production, is it possible to buy more than 1 unit a turn in a city with gold?

Yes and yes. When you rush production, you rush it for however many units would be produced the next turn.

7) How can you defend your great people from being kidnapped by spies? Is there any way to guarantee that my great people can not be kidnapped through a building or unit?

Yes, by creating a spy and setting them to defense in your city.

8) So enemy units can use the roads in my culture just like I can use the roads in my culture?

Assuming you're at war, yes.

9) What is the damage radius of a nuke and is there any building you can build to defend against nukes? Is it possible to Nuke inside of your own culture?

If you think you stand a chance of being nuked, you can build an SDI Defense building in each city. But they're expensive, so you better be sure.

[MrgameTheory]

Thank you very much for your answers. Jason I have only 1 big question for you in this next set. Thank you so much for your time...

1) How much Gold does the great merchant great person give to you roughly? How much gold will it cost to buy 1 warrior?

You may not have this answer off of the top of your head thats why I am only asking you 1 question this time. If you would be able to some how test to see how much gold the great merchant gives roughly 'Ball park figure" and how much gold it costs to buy a warrior I will greatly appreciate it.

[Angus Mac Barca]

Air units are the same as normal units, they just have limited fuel and have to resupply.



The person who creates the Manhattan Project wonder gets the one and only nuke in the game. Nukes can hit any unit or city in the game and completely obliterate anything except capitol cities, which get shrunk to size 1 with no buildings or units.



Hey, your English is better than my French. Je suis Napoléon!

THANKS !

If i well understood Air Units work like in Civ 2, "yipee"/"youpi" :cool:
I'm so glad that the unit system is praticely the same as Civ2 system = more and more fun... It will recall my teen age :cool:

[Jason2K]

Thank you very much for your answers. Jason I have only 1 big question for you in this next set. Thank you so much for your time...

1) How much Gold does the great merchant great person give to you roughly? How much gold will it cost to buy 1 warrior?

You may not have this answer off of the top of your head thats why I am only asking you 1 question this time. If you would be able to some how test to see how much gold the great merchant gives roughly 'Ball park figure" and how much gold it costs to buy a warrior I will greatly appreciate it.

It's all relative. If you're early in the game, the great person will give you like 50 or maybe 100 gold. Later on it can be 250 or 400 or more, I think.

Similarly, the cost to rush a unit is relative. If you don't have the gold, you don't have the option. And then it depends on how much production you're doing per turn. So it could be 20, it could be 5, it could be 100.

[Thrallia]

when you use a settler to move population from one city to another, is there a limit to how big a city can be when you try to settle in it? And does a settler count for one population, or for as many as it cost you to make it?

[Jason2K]

when you use a settler to move population from one city to another, is there a limit to how big a city can be when you try to settle in it? And does a settler count for one population, or for as many as it cost you to make it?

It costs two to create and adds one when moved to a different city (or used to create a new one).

Use wisely.

[Skippy]

One thing that I did spot in some gameplay footage, was a group of macemen being cut down by some fortified archers, without actually managing to engage them in melee combat. This is something that I don't recall having seen in a game of Civ before.

Is this a new feature that represents the potential for overkill when a group of ranged units are so much more powerful than their melee opponents? Or, is it simply just a randomized graphical touch, put in purely to add a little variation to the battle animations?

[Jason2K]

One thing that I did spot in some gameplay footage, was a group of macemen being cut down by some fortified archers, without actually managing to engage them in melee combat. This is something that I don't recall having seen in a game of Civ before.

Is this a new feature that represents the potential for overkill when a group of ranged units are so much more powerful than their melee opponents? Or, is it simply just a randomized graphical touch, put in purely to add a little variation to the battle animations?

It's just randomized to make it more exciting. The calculations are all done beforehand, it's just a visualization of the outcome.

[Skippy]

I see.

Thanks for that Jason. :)

[Ikael]

Hi! I am new to these boards alghouth I am a veteran civ - fanatic, and I have many, many questions, for I am incredibly excited to see a console adaptation of my favourite saga (haters be dammed) so here we go:

1- Why aren´t you guys releasing more info about the specifics of the buildings / civs / wonders? I know that these are the kinds of things that might get changed, but wouldn´t sharing them with the community be a good way to spot out gameplay unbalances? I want to know so badly the effects of the different wonders and the specifics of the civs...

2- I will only be able to get the DS version, and I have heard that games last about... 15 minutes! O_o is there any extended mode of play a la marathon? I know that handleds are made for short playing sessions, but to be able to beat a civ game in 15 isn´t that a bit over the top? Too fast games ends up resulting into skipping lot of tactics and units of the intermediary ages. I like the sense of progression and building :(

3- What are the limitations of the DS version besides the obvious (online and graphics)? any problems with the IA or the tech tree? has any feature or building been cutted off? (I hope not!).

4- I heard that food is only needed to make a city grow, that famines does not exist... then that means that a city can be growing undefinetly? O_o

5- What do you have to do in order to find a relic? are they invisible until you "step" on their square with a unit? arent some of them a bit... hum, un - relicish? (confuncious academy comes to mind). However, I like the idea a lot ^^ bring on YiTi, Shangri La, Mu, Tartessos and the rest!

6- Have you guys thought that an expansion pack could be released thanks to the DS GBA port?

7- Do wonders get obsolete?

Thanks in advance for the answers!

[Desert Fox]

Hi Jason, thanks for answering all the posed questions so far. I just spent quite awhile reading this thread and it has educated me thoroughly.

Here's my questions,

1. Do civ specific units provide any actual benefit to movement or combat? Are Mongolian Keshick any stronger/faster than normal horsemen, or are they just horsemen with a different name & design?

2. What is your favorite wonder and what does it do?

3. How many different types of helicopter units are there? If there's just one can it carry passengers and fight? Last Civ was Civ III gold for me, and the helicopters could just carry units and not fight if I remember correctly.

4. Artillery units like catapults and mounted guns are nice. In Civ III if you caught one without another unit escourting it, you could instantly capture it and make it your own, likewise with workers. So my question is, if I attack a catapult that is isolted on its own, does a battle insue? Do I instantly capture/destroy it without a fight?

5. Is there any voluntary/involuntary effects that can change one type of terrain to another? In Civ II if I'm correct, (yes I know you don't like comparing Civ Rev to others) nuclear fallout could permanently change grassland & plains into deserts, likewise in past Civs you could plant trees and create a forrest. Will we see any changes of terrain midgame or is the map set in stone from the get go?

6. Do airplanes have to end their turn in an airbase or can they be roaming the map?

7. In past Civs there was a cruise missile type unit. It was a single use high firepower weapon that could be used like a catapult to get some good damage in. Are there any non-nuclear type cruise missiles in Civilization Revolution?

8. Is there any chance great public relations personalities such as yourself would keep their ears open to the gaming community for suggestions for what the players want to see for DLC in the future, after the release that is. In short, will my voice be heard for what I want to see in DLC? (I have some great ideas and you should begin setting a place for me at the Firaxis dinner table.)

9. What don't you like about Civilization Revolution?

10. Do you have an Xbox Live Gamertag?

[Schuesseled]

I have 2 questions.

1) Firstly i'd like to know out of curiosity is the great wall a wonder in Civ Rev, if yes and if your permitted can you share it's effect?

2) Seondly can you release any information about the demo, when its out? what civs can you play? do you play a full game with that civ or only part of the timeline?

Appreciate anything you can answer, cheers.

[2K Elizabeth]

I have 2 questions.

1) Firstly i'd like to know out of curiosity is the great wall a wonder in Civ Rev, if yes and if your permitted can you share it's effect?

2) Seondly can you release any information about the demo, when its out? what civs can you play? do you play a full game with that civ or only part of the timeline?

Appreciate anything you can answer, cheers.


the great wall is a wonder. and if you mean, can you share the effect with other civilizations you are playing against, no you can't.

and i'll have more info about the demo soon!

[MrgameTheory]

Thanks for the answers, I have a few more questions for anyone who knows the answers to them.

1) Montezuma begins the game with a wealth of gold, how much gold roughly?

2) Shaka overuns enemy units more easily, currently at how much more strenght is the overrun feature activated as a possibility and currently how much more strenght is needed for it to be 100%? Example being a 5 strenght unit versus a 1 a / 1 d unit and a 20 strenght unit versus a 1 a / 1 d unit and a 40 strenght unit versus a 1 a / 1 d unit. with shaka how much is needed to activate it and how much does it have to be for it to be 100%

3) Is it possible to create some kind of waypoint in cities so as soon as that city creates a unit it sends it to a specific point on the map? I saw a video that shows this being done, but Jason said that there wont be way points, i am just confirming if this is correct.

4) I read that the civilpedia is going to be in videos? Is there a way to view the civilpedia in a text format during the actual game so that you can quickly check something of interest very quickly?

5) Can you cancel trades at any time or do you have to wait 10 turns or something?

6) I read that a player can have up to 10 saves on xbox 360, if the x box networks lose connection and everyone is booted from a game is it possible to save and restart the game over or is the game officially finished, what happens to everyones rank when all players are booted?

7) When a player drops from a game will a window come up so players can choose to wait for him or does the game keep going without it stopping?

8) Will the AI start with the same units as the players on different difficulties or will the ai start with more settlers or more units on more difficult settings?

Thanks for your time :)

[Schuesseled]

the great wall is a wonder. and if you mean, can you share the effect with other civilizations you are playing against, no you can't.

and i'll have more info about the demo soon!

sorry, i'll rephrase that, can you tell me what it does? :P

[ATC 1982]

Great Wall, Hum reminds me of chinese food in florida, But really I can't wait to build one. How about a sphyinx? Do we get that or a pyramid?

[Jason2K]

Hi! I am new to these boards alghouth I am a veteran civ - fanatic, and I have many, many questions, for I am incredibly excited to see a console adaptation of my favourite saga (haters be dammed) so here we go:

Welcome! I'll try and answer your questions.

1- Why aren´t you guys releasing more info about the specifics of the buildings / civs / wonders? I know that these are the kinds of things that might get changed, but wouldn´t sharing them with the community be a good way to spot out gameplay unbalances? I want to know so badly the effects of the different wonders and the specifics of the civs...

I believe we plan to release all that good stuff. The game won't be out for a while, so there's lots of time.

2- I will only be able to get the DS version, and I have heard that games last about... 15 minutes! O_o is there any extended mode of play a la marathon? I know that handleds are made for short playing sessions, but to be able to beat a civ game in 15 isn´t that a bit over the top? Too fast games ends up resulting into skipping lot of tactics and units of the intermediary ages. I like the sense of progression and building :(

Games on DS last just as long as the other versions. It's the exact same game. The only difference is that on DS you can skip the combat animations, which does speed the game up significantly. It's kind of cool to be able to do that on the go.

But games will last the same 3 - 6 or more hours on DS.

3- What are the limitations of the DS version besides the obvious (online and graphics)? any problems with the IA or the tech tree? has any feature or building been cutted off? (I hope not!).

The only features not present in DS are the Hall of Glory (where you see what you've done in past games) and the Throne Room. Everything else is the same.

4- I heard that food is only needed to make a city grow, that famines does not exist... then that means that a city can be growing undefinetly? O_o

Correct.

5- What do you have to do in order to find a relic? are they invisible until you "step" on their square with a unit? arent some of them a bit... hum, un - relicish? (confuncious academy comes to mind). However, I like the idea a lot ^^ bring on YiTi, Shangri La, Mu, Tartessos and the rest!

Correct. You sail around until you find it, then move a unit on top of it.

6- Have you guys thought that an expansion pack could be released thanks to the DS GBA port?

This is not possible with the way the DS version was created. :(

7- Do wonders get obsolete?

Technically, yes. The special abilities they grant become obsolete when someone researches a specific technology. But they never lose their culture bonus, and they always contribute towards a cultural victory.

[Jason2K]

Hi Jason, thanks for answering all the posed questions so far. I just spent quite awhile reading this thread and it has educated me thoroughly.

Happy to help!

1. Do civ specific units provide any actual benefit to movement or combat? Are Mongolian Keshick any stronger/faster than normal horsemen, or are they just horsemen with a different name & design?

Technically no, but it's tied into other stuff. the Keshyks get +1 movement because that's part of the Mongolian bonus (+1 cavalry movement speed).

2. What is your favorite wonder and what does it do?

It varies. Right now it's a tossup between Hollywood and Leonardo's Workshop. Hollywood lets you convert cities even if they have walls built (super powerful, and awesome if you're a cultural dynamo) and Leo's Workshop automatically converts obsolete units to their modern equivalent (so if you're like me and have tons of legacy archer units, they automagically become Riflemen or Modern Infantry).

3. How many different types of helicopter units are there? If there's just one can it carry passengers and fight? Last Civ was Civ III gold for me, and the helicopters could just carry units and not fight if I remember correctly.

There are no airborne transport units. We have fighters, but not transports. You can transport units via sea, but not air.

4. Artillery units like catapults and mounted guns are nice. In Civ III if you caught one without another unit escourting it, you could instantly capture it and make it your own, likewise with workers. So my question is, if I attack a catapult that is isolted on its own, does a battle insue? Do I instantly capture/destroy it without a fight?

The only units that are capturable are spies, caravans and settlers. Anything else results in combat.

5. Is there any voluntary/involuntary effects that can change one type of terrain to another? In Civ II if I'm correct, (yes I know you don't like comparing Civ Rev to others) nuclear fallout could permanently change grassland & plains into deserts, likewise in past Civs you could plant trees and create a forrest. Will we see any changes of terrain midgame or is the map set in stone from the get go?

CivRev has no terrain changes.

6. Do airplanes have to end their turn in an airbase or can they be roaming the map?

Planes have limited amounts of fuel. They have to return to base every two turns or they fall to their doom.

7. In past Civs there was a cruise missile type unit. It was a single use high firepower weapon that could be used like a catapult to get some good damage in. Are there any non-nuclear type cruise missiles in Civilization Revolution?

Nope, just the ICBM, and there's just the one.

8. Is there any chance great public relations personalities such as yourself would keep their ears open to the gaming community for suggestions for what the players want to see for DLC in the future, after the release that is. In short, will my voice be heard for what I want to see in DLC? (I have some great ideas and you should begin setting a place for me at the Firaxis dinner table.)

We always listen to our fans, so keep the suggestions coming. I'd suggest waiting until after the game ships for those though. :)

9. What don't you like about Civilization Revolution?

That it's not out yet. :(

10. Do you have an Xbox Live Gamertag?

Of course! It's Jason2KG.

[Jason2K]

1) Montezuma begins the game with a wealth of gold, how much gold roughly?

On the game I just started on King difficulty, 25 gold.

2) Shaka overuns enemy units more easily, currently at how much more strenght is the overrun feature activated as a possibility and currently how much more strenght is needed for it to be 100%? Example being a 5 strenght unit versus a 1 a / 1 d unit and a 20 strenght unit versus a 1 a / 1 d unit and a 40 strenght unit versus a 1 a / 1 d unit. with shaka how much is needed to activate it and how much does it have to be for it to be 100%

I don't know this off the top of my head. :)

3) Is it possible to create some kind of waypoint in cities so as soon as that city creates a unit it sends it to a specific point on the map? I saw a video that shows this being done, but Jason said that there wont be way points, i am just confirming if this is correct.

This is not possible. Sid doesn't want the game to be automated. You want it to go somewhere, you gotta do it yourself.

4) I read that the civilpedia is going to be in videos? Is there a way to view the civilpedia in a text format during the actual game so that you can quickly check something of interest very quickly?

You misunderstand. The civilopedia has video, but it's still all text. It's very easy to zip through info.

5) Can you cancel trades at any time or do you have to wait 10 turns or something?

Turn-limited treaties cannot be broken. You have to wait for them to expire. But general "let's have peace" agreements exist to be trampled on (unless you have democracy, in which case congress won't let you declare war.

6) I read that a player can have up to 10 saves on xbox 360, if the x box networks lose connection and everyone is booted from a game is it possible to save and restart the game over or is the game officially finished, what happens to everyones rank when all players are booted?

Since you can't save in multiplayer, these are two separate things. In a multiplayer game if you drop out early, the AI takes over. As long as the host keeps playing you can join back in at any time. If everyone drops out, then the game is lost.

7) When a player drops from a game will a window come up so players can choose to wait for him or does the game keep going without it stopping?

The game keeps going without stopping.

8) Will the AI start with the same units as the players on different difficulties or will the ai start with more settlers or more units on more difficult settings?

The AI always plays fair. It's just smarter than you are. :)

[Desert Fox]

Hey Jason thanks for answering all my questions! I'd love to play Civilization Rev with one of the guys that made it possible so I sent you a friend's request. Some day soon I hope we get to beat the crap out of Gandhi together. :)

[Ikael]

Thanks a lot for the answers Jason! However, answers leads to more questions, mwahahaha.

It varies. Right now it's a tossup between Hollywood and Leonardo's Workshop. Hollywood lets you convert cities even if they have walls built (super powerful, and awesome if you're a cultural dynamo) and Leo's Workshop automatically converts obsolete units to their modern equivalent (so if you're like me and have tons of legacy archer units, they automagically become Riflemen or Modern Infantry).

1- Urrrm, do that means that you usually cannot assimilate cities culturally if they have walls built? If true, that is a HUGE disvantage for a a cultural center player like me unlike walls become obsolete early / have a ginormous cost of building.

Also: Yay @ Leo´s workshop coming back in full force! :D however, the German´s advantage doesn´t seem so good now. Which brings me to another question:

2- What are the Germany´s skills? They used to be one of my favourite civs and now there isn´t too much info about them.

3- I readed some descriptions of some civs skills which let me confused. What does mean +50% gold generated in cities (Zulu trait)? Is Gold generated elsehwere? And when they mean +50% gold for the Spanish, do they mean gold generation in general? If so, wow, at last my coutry won´t be a crapy civ this time *coughciv4cough*

4- I heard that food is only needed to make a city grow, that famines does not exist... then that means that a city can be growing undefinetly? O_o
Correct.
4- That is, without even being limited by aqueducts and the such? If so, woa, this is like an all balls to the wall version of the old civilization (awesome) :cool:

Finally, I would like to congratulate you guys for not limiting the features in the ds version. A portable civ has been one of my gaming dreams and I would have hated to see it butched just because is a portable game. And 6 hours per game seems to be the sweet spot for such a game.

Still, the lack of an expansion for the ds will haunt me.

[jescoupupup]

Thanks to Jason for all of the answers so far.
I am sort of confused about the combat system, specifically what the numbers mean. How does defense affect damage done. For example if a unit with 5 attack attacked a unit with 4 defense, would 1 damage be done. I know this is a simple question, but thanks for your answer.

[Schuesseled]

Thanks to Jason for all of the answers so far.
I am sort of confused about the combat system, specifically what the numbers mean. How does defense affect damage done. For example if a unit with 5 attack attacked a unit with 4 defense, would 1 damage be done. I know this is a simple question, but thanks for your answer.

well thats obvious, have you not played civ before?

The unit with the highest strength wins the combat and the other guy dies.

Your strength value depends on if your attacking or defending, say a unit with 4 att, and 5 def, his strength will be 4 when attacking and 5 ewhen defending, making the unit more useful in defensive rather than offensive battles.

[Sigmakan]

well thats obvious, have you not played civ before?

The unit with the highest strength wins the combat and the other guy dies.

Your strength value depends on if your attacking or defending, say a unit with 4 att, and 5 def, his strength will be 4 when attacking and 5 ewhen defending, making the unit more useful in defensive rather than offensive battles.

Not quite, if it is like other Civ games then there is always the luck factor. Just because you have higher STR does not mean you are going to win. You are more LIKELY to win, but its by far no guarantee.

[dennis580]

Also: Yay @ Leo´s workshop coming back in full force! :D however, the German´s advantage doesn´t seem so good now. Which brings me to another question:

2- What are the Germany´s skills? They used to be one of my favourite civs and now there isn´t too much info about them.

Its sounds to me that is a extremely powerful trait for Germans. Since elite units are so powerful in Civ Rev, and Since the Germans are the ONLY one that can upgrade units until somebody is able to build Leonardos Workshop that sounds like a absolutely huge advantage to me.

The German bonuses haven't been revealed yet, but it is a good bet they will also have a powerful late military bonus to go along with this power early one too.

So either way if your playing as Germany if your able to build Leonardos workshop you take away any of the other Civs abilty to upgrade there units. Which would give you a absolutely massive advantage, and even if some other Civ is able to build it first you was still able to use your advantage much earlier.

[Jason2K]

Thanks a lot for the answers Jason! However, answers leads to more questions, mwahahaha.

Not a problem. :)

1- Urrrm, do that means that you usually cannot assimilate cities culturally if they have walls built? If true, that is a HUGE disvantage for a a cultural center player like me unlike walls become obsolete early / have a ginormous cost of building.

Correct. Building walls prevents city assimilation by culture. Walls are pretty expensive though.

Also: Yay @ Leo´s workshop coming back in full force! :D however, the German´s advantage doesn´t seem so good now. Which brings me to another question:

2- What are the Germany´s skills? They used to be one of my favourite civs and now there isn´t too much info about them.

I don't want to steal Elizabeth's thunder by posting all of Germany's bonuses here. They'll be posted soon enough.

3- I readed some descriptions of some civs skills which let me confused. What does mean +50% gold generated in cities (Zulu trait)? Is Gold generated elsehwere? And when they mean +50% gold for the Spanish, do they mean gold generation in general? If so, wow, at last my coutry won´t be a crapy civ this time *coughciv4cough*

You get gold in cities, via caravans, and by taking barbarian cities and goody huts. Also by finding natural wonders. And trade. And something else I'm forgetting about.

4- That is, without even being limited by aqueducts and the such? If so, woa, this is like an all balls to the wall version of the old civilization (awesome) :cool:

That is true. :)

Finally, I would like to congratulate you guys for not limiting the features in the ds version. A portable civ has been one of my gaming dreams and I would have hated to see it butched just because is a portable game. And 6 hours per game seems to be the sweet spot for such a game.

Still, the lack of an expansion for the ds will haunt me.

The DS version is totally awesome. You won't be disappointed.

[Jason2K]

Its sounds to me that is a extremely powerful trait for Germans. Since elite units are so powerful in Civ Rev, and Since the Germans are the ONLY one that can upgrade units until somebody is able to build Leonardos Workshop that sounds like a absolutely huge advantage to me.

The German bonuses haven't been revealed yet, but it is a good bet they will also have a powerful late military bonus to go along with this power early one too.

So either way if your playing as Germany if your able to build Leonardos workshop you take away any of the other Civs abilty to upgrade there units. Which would give you a absolutely massive advantage, and even if some other Civ is able to build it first you was still able to use your advantage much earlier.

As I've pointed out before, everyone's overpowered! It all balances out.

It's not easy to get all of your units to Elite. That's a lot of combat you have to go through (or get lucky and put a great person in your city who promotes units automatically...that, when combined with a barracks will give you new elite units every time).

[Desert Fox]

Hey Jason is there a helicopter unit in Civ Revolution? I have a helicopter fetish.

http://www.hszluug.nl/roflcopter.gif

http://www.figures.com/databases/news/cooljt/3/50.jpg

http://home.cfl.rr.com/reev/apache1111.jpg

[Schuesseled]

Not quite, if it is like other Civ games then there is always the luck factor. Just because you have higher STR does not mean you are going to win. You are more LIKELY to win, but its by far no guarantee.


i didn't want to confuse the hell out of the guy, yes theres always a luck factor, but from what i've read it doesn't seem as signifcant as before, i don't know, i'll have to wait and see.

[Angus Mac Barca]

What are the purpose of ressources in CivRev if units not need these ressources ?

[Jason2K]

Hey Jason is there a helicopter unit in Civ Revolution? I have a helicopter fetish.

No 'copters. Your fetish will have to be satisfied elsewhere (track down Gunship!).

[bigden]

What are the purpose of ressources in CivRev if units not need these ressources ?

Resources provide a significant bonus to production/gold/trade/food from the tile if it's being worked. Definitely worthwhile when your considering where to plop that next city down.

[MrgameTheory]

I have 2 questions for anyone who might know the answers to them..

1) What does religion do in Civ Rev

2) Based on the programming what is the probability of success when attempting to steal a great person from a city and if there is more than 1 great person in a city can you choose which one you would like to steal or is it random?

[Jason2K]

I1) What does religion do in Civ Rev

In CivRev, Religion is just another technology. It allows for construction of Cathedrals.

2) Based on the programming what is the probability of success when attempting to steal a great person from a city and if there is more than 1 great person in a city can you choose which one you would like to steal or is it random?

If the city in question has no defending spy, it's 100% and randomly chosen from the ones settled in the city. If there's a spy, it's 0%.

[civnut850]

Hey, thanks a lot for answering the questions I think that it's really helping out and I can't wait to get this game. I'm a big fan of the series and relatively new to the site. I can really only think of a few questions, I also don't want to really make you slave over answering these questions.

1) I saw on a screenshot that when you agree to peace upon meeting someone it said an embassy was built in their capital. Do these actually do anything, or is it just sort of a way of saying that you are at peace with this certain nation?

2) Generally speaking, how many cities would you end up with if you weren't really trying to go for a conquest victory? About how many cities would someone end up with had they tried to take over the world?

3) Are there Defensive Pacts? Can you trade money or techs with a friendly civ to declare war on a mutually enemy civ with you?

4) Will the civs who you keep the peace with dislike or like you more based on your relations with other civs or just your relationship with the original civ itself (For instance, -1 "You declared war on my friend").

5) If I didn't particularly care to wait until the day Civ releases in the US because I am mostly an offline player, could I order a European version for the XBox 360 and it would still work normally? I have been wondering about this for quite a long time and haven't really received a clear enough answer one way or the other.

6) And finally, I have seen older posts stating that scenarios may or may not be implemented into the game. By now (relatively close to European release) I would have to think some progress has been made on this issue. Are there scenarios like there were with Civ IV, with specific areas of Earth, specific wars and conflicts over time, etc.?

Again, thank you for your time. This is really one of the few games I am extremely stoked about, I love the work and the videos you have released a lot. I also must say that this is one of the few games where I feel like the creators really enjoy playing and don't just throw something together to make a few dollars. I can really tell that the staff likes the game (or does an incredible job at making us think that :D ) and I feel much more confident in investing my $60.00.

[Thrallia]

the only one of your answers I can tell you is that the 360 is region locked, so its a no-go on importing the game from Europe.

[mrbanjo]

Not completely true, it actually depends on the game. Some games are not region locked, so you could be lucky :)

[IceCube]

well i keep reading this and pass couple pages then stop.
i dont want to know i want to explore the game as new game is just stupid to tells us all things and then you play it .
Mr Game Theory is a good player but nothing else on ladder there is many better players then he is . he only think if he use micromenaging that nobody else know how or to calculate or to use odds.
civ revolution is not and it shouldnt be same as civ 4 !
its new game with new strategy.
i hate slavery and this type of players who starve population to get extra unit and win the game and if he lose by some odds all units to defenders then he quit .
lets just wait for the game to get out then will see how is balanced/unbalanced.

[icejon]

you just go the best way to win even though you to starve you population.its just a awasome game.

Icejon

[MrgameTheory]

Hate to burst the bubble but since all the leaders have been revealed I decided to flat out declare whose good and who is crap and even though I haven’t played the game, come release week, all the Europe players will be coming back to this thread and than this very post and be saying " Holy Cow, he was pretty damn accurate about his prediction."

There will only be 6 leaders worth picking, 4 others were close, but didn't quite make it, the rest were crap.

1st) America
2nd) Rome
3rd) Greece
4th) France
5th) Germans
6th) Egypt

Honorable mention

7th Aztec
8th China
9th Zulu
10th England

Garbage

11th Japan
12th Arabia
13th Spain

Super Dooper Garbage

14th Mongols
15th India
16th Russia

====

The Mongols, India, and Russia are so damn garbage I decided to merge them all together into a single Civ and pit them against America and Rome. Lets see how they match up :D

====

RusGolDia - Start Game with local area map = little bit of scouting for other players, access to all resources = tiny bonus in most cities, +50% trade from captured cities = ROFL, how often you going to capture a city especially in the beginning and even if you do how much gold are we talking about here really, lets even say it pays off way down the line, this is a start the game off bonus that really isn't a start the game off bonus...

Ancient - Barbarian Villages join us = the only solid thing going for the 3 leaders combined, but that’s assuming you or your enemies haven’t already discovered them all by the time this bonus actually kicks in, but lets say you get 2 bonus cities in your best case scenario, you almost have as many cities as Rome at this point, You don't suffer from anarchy = so the 0-4 turns in the entire game you would of been unable to produce things or tec you now get back, ehhhh, pretty good, but your huge lack of land and devastating tec disadvantage has more than outweighed you receiving 4 - 15 extra turns, plus 1 food from plains = An ok bonus but how many plains are you honestly going to be working in the entire game, and wouldn’t it be better to have 2-3 times the amount of cities or an insane production / tec bonus than a slight food bonus from only one 1 type of terrain?

Medieval - +1 Calvary speed = by the time you actually get to this tec your going to have your enemies already at the industrial age, Free Fundamentalism = a nice little attack bonus, unfortunately your opponents had such amazing starting bonus they are now in the industrial era and your 1+ attack added to your weak units just doesn’t cut it, New Defensive units receive loyalty = Your going to need it, your enemies are already in industrial and you better cross your fingers that they don't realize you picked a civilization with no early good bonus meaning your in the past while they are playing in the future

Industrial - +2 production from mountains = So we are talking like +20 production bonus at the tops, especially since your opponents had such an overwhelming early start they took most of the land and the production bonus x 3 < the land you lost, 50% cheaper settlers = Is there even room left on the map? And unfortunately this isn't Civ 4, so its not like you can destroy a conquered City and replace it with a better organized 1-3 cities, 1/2 cost of riflemen = your going to need as many riflemen as you can get your hands on, especially since you have such a dramatically smaller empire than the other players and they have such an overwhelming tec advantage on you.

Modern - Knowledge of Communism = its always nice to finally achieve a government which your enemies researched naturally 50 turns before you even reached modern, 1/2 court houses = Shouldn't you already have courthouses? ohhhh that’s right, your so behind everyone else you haven’t had the chance to put in court houses because you have to build units non stop in order to achieve 4th place instead of 5th place, 1/2 cost of spies = at least you will be able to have fun spying on other people who at least have a shot at winning, but assuming you can actually make it this far maybe you will encounter an idiot or two who hasn't already placed a spy in all the cities they have a great person taking a load off in.

====
Versus
====

Rome - Start game with the ability to create a new city with 1 population instead of 3. Sure there is a little production needed, but your ability to expand like mad mixed with the creators of the game not allowing your opponents to see how undefended your cities really are = pretty damn deadly combination.

Ancient - 1/2 price roads = you aren’t going to have any money to build them, but who cares, the creators of the game made it so even if you have 100 cities they cost nothing to maintain, so enjoy your 4-7 cities you have made up to this point and set 1 or 2 to make some cash so you can enjoy your new real estate in style, don't forget, make sure you only build very few units and keep them in the center of your empire, that way, when one of your enemies gets bold and decides to attack one of your cities you can instantly pay for the road to that city and than instantly move all your units from that center city to the one in harms way leaving no chance of any of your cities being taken over..... Nice one Firaxis!!!!!!!

Medieval - 1/2 price wonders - ROFL, we can go into the obvious rush for a cultural victory, but lets talk about all the cool wonders your going to be getting with less effort, yes yes yes, I know, you have all these cities and don't know what to do with them, don't worry about it, just set a few to make some tec buildings, few to make some units, and the best 1 or 2 to make the wonders, that way you can grab all those cute great people and all those nice wonder bonuses. Just make sure you pack your cities in nice and tight, there is no need to build 1 city working 8-16 tiles when you can make 2-3 working 8, the trick is in 2 cities doing different things at the same time, meaning, one researching while the other is building units etc, but than again, make sure you prioritize stealing all the land in the beginning and going back later to pack in those cities.

Industrial - More great people - ROFL, about this time if I was RusGolDia I would be thinking your playing favorites, its not enough that you started Rome off with a ridiculous start shooting ahead of everyone, than set them up to grab all the wonders, but you made it so they produce great people even faster enabling them to get all those great bonuses in all those cities, the true question is, Do I attach them to the cities for an easy culture victory, or do I just buy all the tecs and destroy my enemies with a conquest or tec victory... The Choices!!!!!

Modern - New Cities have +1 Population = Kind of too late to add the worthless trait, the game is already over..... SORRY!!!!

====
Versus
====

America - Start with engineer you add to capital for 50% production bonus and than you fly to the pyramids tec and hurry rush it assuming Egypt didn’t get super lucky and get it, but assuming that very unlikely event didn't take place you are given every government for the rest of the game and you can chill on republic and than democracy or communism, but for this scenario there is no Egypt so there is a 1/5 chance of guaranteed victory, If Great Sci Enjoy the Huge tec advantage from the start, If great merchant, enjoy a huge sum of money 2-5 times more than the Aztecs start with every game, If Military enjoy the huge military advantage = Boy isn’t that early pyramids great, but shucks, if you don't get that guaranteed victory you can at least excite yourself at a chance at a game where it is only greatly in your favor from the get go..

Ancient - 2% interest on gold in the bank - Definitely a worthless trait to the experienced gamer, but I can see some extra pocket change coming in handy every now and than, especially if that 2% is rounded up!!!!

Medieval - -50% cost to hurry production = lol.... At this point I would say to cut off the already relaxing tec advantage you have and just focus on production and gold, you can either buy all the tec buildings, buy a ridiculous army of medieval men and combine them for a stronger than captain planet unit / units, or simply get a few wonders here and there. The choice is up too you, but choose wisely, the great RusGolDia empire is half way through ancient and should be approaching medieval in the next 30 turns or so......

Industrial - +1 Food from plains = Sure you got way more land than all but Rome and it does help somewhat, but for the the most part this is just some iceing on the cake, nothing really worth wild beyond a nice population bonus for all your cities.

Modern - Factories receive 3x production = ohhh if your advantage over your enemies wasn't enough, they had to go and make is easier for you to secure your victory, just remember, -50% the cost to hurry them factories, so get them quick ;)

====

Any minute now some paid Take-two employee will either explain that this is wrong using no facts whatsoever and basing it all on the fact that I haven’t played the game yet, ****.. you may even have a fellow site poster with absolutely no knowledge of the game or analytical insight say how wrong or dumb I am because they love to Stand up, even when they don't realize what they are standing up for, and that is fine, Ultimately this bit of information was not written for them, but for you, my loyal, intelligent reader Feel free to post the order of which one of the 3 above Civs you would pick in a Free For All between the three and 2 AI, on second thought you better wait till you actually play the game, I don't want you to have to go through the Inquisition like the one I’m about to go through :D

So enjoy getting the game Europe and make sure you post any findings you discover....

:cool:

[Unreal_Jonte]

Hate to burst the bubble but since all the leaders have been revealed I decided to flat out declare whose good and who is crap and even though I haven’t played the game, come release week, all the Europe players will be coming back to this thread and than this very post and be saying " Holy Cow, he was pretty damn accurate about his prediction."

There will only be 6 leaders worth picking, 4 others were close, but didn't quite make it, the rest were crap.

1st) America
2nd) Rome
3rd) Greece
4th) France
5th) Germans
6th) Egypt

Honorable mention

7th Aztec
8th China
9th Zulu
10th England

Garbage

11th Japan
12th Arabia
13th Spain

Super Dooper Garbage

14th Mongols
15th India
16th Russia

====

The Mongols, India, and Russia are so damn garbage I decided to merge them all together into a single Civ and pit them against America and Rome. Lets see how they match up :D



Thats your opinion and I think your list is wrong ;)

[Magwill]

You are saying the others will be in the industrial age, are you referring to what techs they have researched? Because from what I've read, everyone moves over to the new ages at the same time. Besides doesn't tanks etc count as cavalry? So your +1 attack bonus helps you there too. I'll read this again after I've tried the game because then I won't be guessing about the game mechanics anymore.

[Bantams]

Nice Thread

is there a One City Challenge Option sorry if MGT already asked this but I tend to Usually Not read Is Long Posts:p

[Schuesseled]

Hate to burst the bubble .................................................. .................................



.................wait till you actually play the game, I don't want you to have to go through the Inquisition like the one I’m about to go through :D

So enjoy getting the game Europe and make sure you post any findings you discover....

:cool:

like usual your making a ton of mistakes in your assumptions, sigh.

The mistakes i've seen:

Rome

Romans get new settler at one pop, instead of two, (not three.)

mongolia

50% trade from captured citites, How many cities do you usually capture, at least half of your citites, having 50% gold production in these cities is quite useful (trade/gold is the samething, i think you were only thinking of caravans)

barbarian villages converted to cities, evben if they don't get the above bonus that's very useful. And this bonus is in the ancient era, so saying that people will have already discovered all the villages before you get into the ancient era is stupid, as the ancient era is the beginning of the game.

+1 cavlary speed, this is talking about all mounted units, not just industrial mounted units (thats even if there is any, there may not be any traditional cav units)

Russia

1/2 price riflemen and free loyalty upgrade, i'd say that was enough to put them up 8 places in your list.

Riflemen are likely to be quite a bit stronger than thier medeival predesecors, with 1/2 price and loyalty upgrade, then the russians are going to have rather strong defences to purge.

----

There are probably a lot more wrong with your assumptions, but i just can't be arsed to find them all.

----

I think the english bonuses are quite nice, truly represents thier naval superiority. The english will be a challenging race to defeat when seperated by sea.

[Thrallia]

once again MGT shows his idiocy in his assumptions...how about we all wait to play the demo(or the game, in Europe) and come back to this thread and we all tell him how far off his rocker he is.

Do you think that would reduce his ridiculous arrogance? or is he too far gone to ever admit to being wrong, or act the least bit humble?

[Jason2K]

once again MGT shows his idiocy in his assumptions...how about we all wait to play the demo(or the game, in Europe) and come back to this thread and we all tell him how far off his rocker he is.

Do you think that would reduce his ridiculous arrogance? or is he too far gone to ever admit to being wrong, or act the least bit humble?

I'm not even going to attempt to reply to his post. There's just no reason to. It's all assumptions based on assumptions based on assumptions, and is filled with flat-out wrong beliefs.

[Thrallia]

agreed...I generally look forward to showing people like him wrong, so that perhaps they will change their ways...but from the way he has posted, I doubt that being shown to be flat-out wrong in every way would have any effect on him whatsoever.

So instead, I hope he has both the 360 and the PS3 versions at some point so everyone on here can stomp him badly as the Mongols, Indians, Russians at some point :D

[MrgameTheory]

sorry I meant 2 not 3, and that makes a difference, but not with the strategy people will be using, your going to see people using the following strategic loophole and this will give them a huge advantage:


In the start of the game Rome can get out their 2 warriors if they like for villages or they can go straight into building a wonder or a building, than when they reach 2 population they can transfer all of that stored production into the settler making for an insta built settler and they can go off and do that into every city. Even more logically, you make a quick settler and than go to 3-5 population in both cities so your making lots of production in your cities and than just flat out get 2-3 settlers in each city and in the first 50 turns you magically have twice the amount of cities as anyone else...... If you happen to discover gold from a village which most will be giving than you can simply buy settlers as soon as you reach 2 population. With every population it probably takes more food to reach the next population and that ever increasing jump is what gives any leader that starts with republic a huge advantage and with no negative impact for over expansion you are going to see this as the dominate strategy used for this player and one that will unbalance this game......

You don't just instantly get the ancient traits once you discover an ancient tec, there is a minimum amount of tecs in an era required before you get that bonus...... The maps are small so people will get out their early warriors and get those huts very quickly leaving only 1-2 left to maybe convert to a city....

to say at least half your cities will be captured is a gross exaggeration and even if it is, thats a bonus that you won't be seeing until its way too late....

half price rifle units are great, but with no major early advantage besides an extra 1-2 cities in your absolute best case scenario, your going to find RusGolDia at a major disadvantage. Sure they can merge those riflemen together for a strong unit, but you have to factor in that your enemies will have way more cities and tec than you and will be making stronger units and have enough cities than more than off set the -50% cost of riflemen

Im sorry, but RusGolDia is still slightly worse in my opinion than either America or Rome

And if you respond to all of those facts I wrote with a simple " Your Wrong because I said so" or "your wrong because you havn't played the game" without atleast trying to say why im wrong using facts than that opinion in that post isnt worth jack to me, no offense.... All i have done is made assumptions of the game based off information that has been givin to me from the people who made the game. I am not saying I am absolutly wrong or right, I am simply making observations based on information released... It is for the people who get the game to determine how right or wrong I am...

[Thrallia]

oy vey...

MGT, you do not seem to realize that tiles do not give food, hammers AND commerce in this game...they give only one resource per tile UNLESS they have some kind of civilization bonus/bonus resource on them.

that alone makes every single food/hammer civilization bonus much more worthwhile than you give credit for.

[Krikkitone]

You are saying the others will be in the industrial age, are you referring to what techs they have researched? Because from what I've read, everyone moves over to the new ages at the same time.

Actually where did you read that. That seems very different than any other method civ used so far (except maybe in Civ 1)

Would it be based on Time ie 1850 AD = modern
Would it be based on the Tech Leader... some one researched industrialism, the world is in the industrial Era
Would it be based on the Tech Lagger... the Americans Finally researched industrialism, the world has moved to the Industrial Era (even though the Mongols have their Nuke Already)
Would it be based on the Tech Average (3 of the five civs havve industrialism, we are now in the Industrial Era)

Perhaps based on progress towards Victory conditions/ amount of the world populated?

[Magwill]

Actually where did you read that. That seems very different than any other method civ used so far (except maybe in Civ 1)

Would it be based on Time ie 1850 AD = modern
Would it be based on the Tech Leader... some one researched industrialism, the world is in the industrial Era
Would it be based on the Tech Lagger... the Americans Finally researched industrialism, the world has moved to the Industrial Era (even though the Mongols have their Nuke Already)
Would it be based on the Tech Average (3 of the five civs havve industrialism, we are now in the Industrial Era)

Perhaps based on progress towards Victory conditions/ amount of the world populated?

I am sorry but I can't remember :) I just remember that I read something like that. I can be wrong. But im not sure so therefore the question mark. Maybe some developer could answer? Otherwise the game is on the horizon so we'll notice :)

I'm going to keep low now until the game comes out. My mind is so messed up with various information that I do not know whats correct and whats not.

[2K Elizabeth]

1st) America
2nd) Rome
3rd) Greece
4th) France
5th) Germans
6th) Egypt

Honorable mention

7th Aztec
8th China
9th Zulu
10th England

Garbage

11th Japan
12th Arabia
13th Spain

Super Dooper Garbage

14th Mongols
15th India
16th Russia


mr. game theory --

i have to say, as someone who has played the game extensively for months, and watched the balancing process intimately, that i believe these predictions are flat out wrong.

and since japan, who is in the garbage category, is my favorite civilization, i challenge you to a multiplayer match. since you're so confident, you can pick any of your overpowered civs -- be america! you can even make me be a super duper garbage civilization.

i'm sure i could win.

let me know if you are up to it, we'll schedule a date!

[Joneleth]

mr. game theory --

i have to say, as someone who has played the game extensively for months, and watched the balancing process intimately, that i believe these predictions are flat out wrong.

and since japan, who is in the garbage category, is my favorite civilization, i challenge you to a multiplayer match. since you're so confident, you can pick any of your overpowered civs -- be america! you can even make me be a super duper garbage civilization.

i'm sure i could win.

let me know if you are up to it, we'll schedule a date!

Too bad Civilization Revolution doesn't allow the option to save replays, I'd like to see that match.

[Thrallia]

so would I :) maybe Elizabeth could record it with a video cam so we can all watch it :)

[MrgameTheory]

This is all toooo funny...

As long as you guys can get the demo out in the next 5 years without pushing everything back 10 more times ill be sure to play you.

Heck, ill say with confidence that even with your months of practicing ill be able to take you out with only 1 week of preparation needed :D

We will do any Civilization combinations you wish...

Maybe you remember the head of Multi Player for Civilization 4 – Friedrich Pistalion or that could of been before your time.... He was in charge of Multi-player for Firaxsis and was undefeated against the "Entire Multi-Player community". He made the very same challenge you are making to me now in order to defend the honor of the game and the development team… Not only were most of my pre release assumptions about Civ 4 accurate, but I flat out shoved them down his throat and made him admit to the entire online community that I was right about most of my assumptions in regards to the game being unbalanced on all to many fronts.... But than again, he got fired from Firaxsis shortly after the incident, so I understand how you guys type your words carefully.

But don't worry, I wont accept your challenge as the official challenge by the makers of the game, Ill look at this more as an exhibition match, Ill give you guys time to determine who your best player / players are and Ill accept that as the official challenge...

Maybe if I havn't gone through this whole process before with Civ 4 I would be much more humble and accepting of the things being said against me....

:D

[Joneleth]

Maybe you remember the head of Multi Player for Civilization 4 – Friedrich Pistalion or that could of been before your time.... He was in charge of Multi-player for Firaxsis and was undefeated against the "Entire Multi-Player community". He made the very same challenge you are making to me now in order to defend the honor of the game and the development team… Not only were most of my pre release assumptions about Civ 4 accurate, but I flat out shoved them down his throat and made him admit to the entire online community that I was right about most of my assumptions in regards to the game being unbalanced on all to many fronts.... But than again, he got fired from Firaxsis shortly after the incident, so I understand how you guys type your words carefully.



Any proof to these claims? It'd be nice if you backed this up at least a shred of proof.

The small description I found of the man (including his real name) mentions he was only a consultant for Civilization 4.

[2K Elizabeth]

But don't worry, I wont accept your challenge as the official challenge by the makers of the game, Ill look at this more as an exhibition match, Ill give you guys time to determine who your best player / players are and Ill accept that as the official challenge...

Maybe if I havn't gone through this whole process before with Civ 4 I would be much more humble and accepting of the things being said against me....

I'll look in to this multiplayer challenge of which you speak and get back to you. I'm not sure if you went by this username back then, or used your real name. Feel free to PM me any details.

As for the rest, since you're in the US we have time till July to work out details.

[Magwill]

The results of this match would be totally worthless when it comes to finding out whether a civ is garbage or not. Every experienced multiplayer gamer will know that it will take a long time until everything has settled down and 99% of the strategies found. The game will totally change (known as the meta-game) as people come up with new ways of using the game.

Nevertheless, I will look forward to the results :)

[bigden]

Just to set the record straight, I don't believe this event you described ever happened, although I could be wrong.

And on a side note, there's no need to get hostile in your posts. You have yet to even play the game, which is what makes your posts so hard to swallow. You keep comparing it to Civ IV, but this is NOT Civ IV.

[Quezcotl]

And on a side note, there's no need to get hostile in your posts. You have yet to even play the game, which is what makes your posts so hard to swallow. You keep comparing it to Civ IV, but this is NOT Civ IV.

1.no wonder,you keep delaying the demo and refuse/hide to give out any gameplay footage so how could he.

2.no this is not a civ4 just look at the screenies there is water everywhere,the mainland is very thin and tiny and the world map is extremly small and you can only face 3 opponents because that fitted the DS version the best
Its a downgrade of the pc version but so much that it worries me if any civ fan is gonna like it or not-

3.btw Elizabeth challenged someone,funny check my GT and how I finished every game on hard with ease,and pwned the multiplayer,I was even top 10 in war3 in EU with festis who was nr1 im sure I would own her with ease,however I would need a week or two to practice first since I need to exploit diffrent tactics to see what works and not,as I did in wc3 with festis when we took the ladder.
WIth that said if the game is a so downgraded that its not even civ anymore then I wont play it at all.
I mean if you can only use few tactics any noob can be good,thats why wc/sc made winners out of micro and macro management and req tons of units in motion at the same time.
So yeah I suspect Elizabeth is a freaking noob,who learnt or watched some tactics the developers has managed to do over months that works,and think she is pro now.
hah.

[Sigmakan]

1.no wonder,you keep delaying the demo and refuse/hide to give out any gameplay footage so how could he.

2.no this is not a civ4 just look at the screenies there is water everywhere,the mainland is very thin and tiny.
More like ocean war indeed.

3.btw Elizabeth challenged someone,funny check my GT and how I finished every game on hard with ease,and pwned the multiplayer,I was even top 10 in war3 in EU with festis who was nr1 im sure I would own her with ease,however I would need a week or two to practice first since I need to exploit diffrent tactics to see what works and not,as I did in wc3 with festis when we took the ladder.
WIth that said if the game is a so downgraded that its not even civ anymore then I wont play it at all.
I mean if you can only use few tactics any noob can be good,thats why wc/sc made winners out of micro and macro management and req tons of units in motion at the same time.
So yeah I suspect Elizabeth is a freaking noob,who learnt or watched some tactics the developers has managed to do over months that works,and think she is pro now.
hah.

What is your deal man? Why do you feel it necessary to boast how fricken 1337 you are? Show some respect for Elizabeth, she has been extremely helpful and forthcoming with information. I'm sure she would LOVE to tell us all the details about the game and give us as much footage as possible, but I'm sure Firaxis has a policy on the release of information.

There is absolutely NO need to attack her, has she doen anything that deserves this? Get real.

[Quezcotl]

How has I attacked her?

I think she is a noob,just as any other developer.

Your not a bad person or a loser because your a noob,your just bad at games,but who says everyone is playing for winning? well ppl who play ranked sure are.
But most arnt,im just saying that I would accept her challenge a week or two after the game is out.

[FadingBeano]

Quezcotl, this is not the game for you.

[Quezcotl]

Quezcotl, this is not the game for you.

It probably isnt,thus I already pre-ordered NG2.

However a Civ game would have been perfect for the consoles,vs friends,

I mean if they really cared about the gamers,they should have included tons of map choices as in the pc versions,but did they?
Nope.

Did they let anyone put on longer time etc? nope.
They just restricted it too much.

And it will probably be a 7/10 game,however I have no money problem so im gonna buy it anyway just to check it out,I support Sid Meier .

[2K Elizabeth]

hey guys,

questioning my skills as a gamer is fine.

disrespecting members of the 2K or Firaxis team is not.

name calling, insults, and other hostility i find in this thread are also not okay. i am editing posts right now to take out the problematic party, but for future reference, these are bannable offenses.

please adhere to the rules of this forum, or this thread is getting shut down and i will be handing out punishments.

thanks.

-e.

[Sigmakan]

Calling someone a noob is a derogatory phrase.

You've easily phrased that you wanted to challenge her in a much more tactful manner. Think about what you are posting before you post it.

No, she is not my mom, but all of the Firaxis employees have been extremely helpful, nice, open, and respectful. Something that you fail to show. I'm defending them because they shouldn't have to listen to this crap.

[Quezcotl]

lol,if I offended Elizabeth by calling her a "noob" then im deeply sorry,she does a great job for the community, fine?.
Jesus christ some people are just sensitive.
if someone called me a noob I wouldnt even care,its just a geeky word which even I try to restrain from using.

ps! im not french... or spanish.

[2K Elizabeth]

lol,if I offended Elizabeth by calling her a "noob" then im deeply sorry,she does a great job for the community, fine?.
Jesus christ some people are just sensitive.
if someone called me a noob I wouldnt even care,its just a geeky word which even I try to restrain from using.

ps! im not french... or spanish.

hey,

i'm completely okay with any challenges you may have for me, and i'm also okay with stepping up and playing anyone on these forums. and whether you call me a noob or not, i'm okay with taking you on in multiplayer.

please let's keep this thread on topic now.

thanks.

[bigden]

For anyone interested, look me up on live after you pick up the game. I'll take ya to school, and I'll do it with one of your stated "garbage" civs, the Japanese. :D

My handle is tgnmonster. Ooooooh yea.

[FadingBeano]

please let's keep this thread on topic now.

thanks.

Hurray for Elizabeth! And that brings up a valid point. What is the topic of this thread? ;)

I don't see loopholes, I'm not seeing good stuff, I am seeing a lot of Arrogance though!

[2K Elizabeth]

Hurray for Elizabeth! And that brings up a valid point. What is the topic of this thread? ;)

now *that* is a good question!

:p

[civnut850]

Hate to burst the bubble but since all the leaders have been revealed I decided to flat out declare whose good and who is crap and even though I haven’t played the game, come release week, all the Europe players will be coming back to this thread and than this very post and be saying " Holy Cow, he was pretty damn accurate about his prediction."

There will only be 6 leaders worth picking, 4 others were close, but didn't quite make it, the rest were crap.

1st) America
2nd) Rome
3rd) Greece
4th) France
5th) Germans
6th) Egypt

Honorable mention

7th Aztec
8th China
9th Zulu
10th England

Garbage

11th Japan
12th Arabia
13th Spain

Super Dooper Garbage

14th Mongols
15th India
16th Russia

====


I'm confused....are you planning on actually buying this game, not buying it because clearly there are distinct advantages for America, or buying the game and only playing America? Lol, Japan isn't a garbage civ, especially for a coastal empire...and Mongolia is awesome.

[Schuesseled]

sorry I meant 2 not 3, and that makes a difference, but not with the strategy people will be using, your going to see people using the following strategic loophole and this will give them a huge advantage:


In the start of the game Rome can get out their 2 warriors if they like for villages or they can go straight into building a wonder or a building, than when they reach 2 population they can transfer all of that stored production into the settler making for an insta built settler and they can go off and do that into every city. Even more logically, you make a quick settler and than go to 3-5 population in both cities so your making lots of production in your cities and than just flat out get 2-3 settlers in each city and in the first 50 turns you magically have twice the amount of cities as anyone else...... If you happen to discover gold from a village which most will be giving than you can simply buy settlers as soon as you reach 2 population. With every population it probably takes more food to reach the next population and that ever increasing jump is what gives any leader that starts with republic a huge advantage and with no negative impact for over expansion you are going to see this as the dominate strategy used for this player and one that will unbalance this game......

You don't just instantly get the ancient traits once you discover an ancient tec, there is a minimum amount of tecs in an era required before you get that bonus...... The maps are small so people will get out their early warriors and get those huts very quickly leaving only 1-2 left to maybe convert to a city....


half price rifle units are great, but with no major early advantage besides an extra 1-2 cities in your absolute best case scenario, your going to find RusGolDia at a major disadvantage. Sure they can merge those riflemen together for a strong unit, but you have to factor in that your enemies will have way more cities and tec than you and will be making stronger units and have enough cities than more than off set the -50% cost of riflemen

Im sorry, but RusGolDia is still slightly worse in my opinion than either America or Rome



Theres a civ out there, not sure which one, that has a similar bonus to rome, where each new city gets 1 population extra, that's without republic gov. so this civ would have the biggest bonus in settling i believe, with a possibility of 1 pop costing settler's that found a 2 pop city.

This bonus was an anient era bonus, and someone who (one of devs) gave IGN the information said that even your first city would get the +1 pop, and if your not in the ancient era, when the game starts then i don't see how thats possible. I guess we're jsut gonna have to wait and see if you start in the ancient era, or if you start in some prehistoric era.

An early advantage isn't going to make or break the game, it's easy to catch up civ's who are ahead of you with the right tactics, so the fact that other civs have better starting bonuses than the russians isn't going to mean that the russians lose every game.

It may be slightly worse, but i think that your exaggerating too much by classing it as a superdoopergarbage civ.

1.no wonder,you keep delaying the demo and refuse/hide to give out any gameplay footage so how could he.

2.no this is not a civ4 just look at the screenies there is water everywhere,the mainland is very thin and tiny and the world map is extremly small and you can only face 3 opponents because that fitted the DS version the best
Its a downgrade of the pc version but so much that it worries me if any civ fan is gonna like it or not-

3.btw Elizabeth challenged someone,funny check my GT and how I finished every game on hard with ease,and pwned the multiplayer,I was even top 10 in war3 in EU with festis who was nr1 im sure I would own her with ease,however I would need a week or two to practice first since I need to exploit diffrent tactics to see what works and not,as I did in wc3 with festis when we took the ladder.
WIth that said if the game is a so downgraded that its not even civ anymore then I wont play it at all.
I mean if you can only use few tactics any noob can be good,thats why wc/sc made winners out of micro and macro management and req tons of units in motion at the same time.
So yeah I suspect Elizabeth is a freaking noob,who learnt or watched some tactics the developers has managed to do over months that works,and think she is pro now.
hah.

If there was contest to see who most deserves to be banned, i think you'd win hands down.

lol,if I offended Elizabeth by calling her a "noob" then im deeply sorry,she does a great job for the community, fine?.
Jesus christ some people are just sensitive.
if someone called me a noob I wouldnt even care,its just a geeky word which even I try to restrain from using.

ps! im not french... or spanish.

For someone who hardly ever uses the word 'noob', you seem to rely heavily upon it.

[FadingBeano]

some people are just sensitive.

Its not people being sensitive thats the problem.

You are not polite in your posts.

[Schuesseled]

Its not people being sensitive thats the problem.

You are not polite in your posts.

Very Impolite

[2K Elizabeth]

1.no wonder,you keep delaying the demo and refuse/hide to give out any gameplay footage so how could he.

2.no this is not a civ4 just look at the screenies there is water everywhere,the mainland is very thin and tiny and the world map is extremly small and you can only face 3 opponents because that fitted the DS version the best
Its a downgrade of the pc version but so much that it worries me if any civ fan is gonna like it or not-

3.btw Elizabeth challenged someone,funny check my GT and how I finished every game on hard with ease,and pwned the multiplayer,I was even top 10 in war3 in EU with festis who was nr1 im sure I would own her with ease,however I would need a week or two to practice first since I need to exploit diffrent tactics to see what works and not,as I did in wc3 with festis when we took the ladder.
WIth that said if the game is a so downgraded that its not even civ anymore then I wont play it at all.
I mean if you can only use few tactics any noob can be good,thats why wc/sc made winners out of micro and macro management and req tons of units in motion at the same time.
So yeah I suspect Elizabeth is a freaking noob,who learnt or watched some tactics the developers has managed to do over months that works,and think she is pro now.
hah.

since i have a bit of time now, i wanted to respond to you!

1. well with the demo out thursday, we can all get a hand at the game!

2. there's plenty of land and water in the game, and you always play with 5 players. i.e. you and 4 other civilizations are on the map. i don't know why you think 3.

3. i can't prove or disprove my skills at the game till i play some of you at it, and i'm going to have fun doing that because i love multiplayer. i'm glad you're good at warcraft and starcraft, those are great games, but not civ. (of course!) and you have seen me play a bit already -- i helped out with a bunch of the gameplay footage released.

and i didn't learn from the devs, although man i wish i had. whenever i visited there is was all business, no time to go head-to-head with the dev guys or sid. i'm by no means the best in the company, second to jason in our office for sure, but the firaxis guys are the true gurus of the game.

[Quezcotl]

Its not people being sensitive thats the problem.

You are not polite in your posts.

I don't have too.

[Magwill]

I read the first 5 pages............

MGT is a great player and bulldog is a nwb. All nwbs respond to great players by calling them elitist.

I have also concluded that just because someone works at firaxis does not make them an expert at the game. Jason is more than likely a nwb like bulldog.

Ok, that was interesting. What I see here though is people who have the desire to be the best, while they most likely aren't so. You see, a person who is the best player will not go around calling people noobs. Why should he? He could be playing the game with people and learn more and get more experience. He will either ignore it or tell of his experience with arguments on why things are in a certain way, as a friendly gesture. Usually the best guy is a very friendly guy because that is how you learn from friends and foes, since being nice makes way for discussion.

[Magwill]

Nwbs always defend nwbs and talk about happy places where all the nwbs can go and laugh at their nwbness.

When I was playing Guild Wars I was playing in one of the Top 10 guilds. I know what I am talking about from my own experiences. I don't go around calling people noobs and think they are trash. And most of the people I have met and still talk with that were with me in that range are the same.

Now I hope that this will make you bypass your automatic defense that just because I made a vaild point I have to be a noob. Please consider the actual arguments I discuss with, which are valid independantly of whether I am a noob or not.

[Altashheth]

:) Thank you for the info James and Elizabeth, I cant wait for the demo (tomorrow). The game sounds awesome and as a big fan of Civ 1 and 2 Rev sounds like my type of Civ.

As for the noob discussion, in my experience people only go around calling names when they have an inferiority complex. If you are good at something you dont need to go around calling names because your talent speaks for itself, if you are poor at something then you cheat to boost your ratings, play exclusively with your own 'friends' then boast as loudly and obnoxiously as you can in the vain hope that you can convince your ownsubconscience that you are better than you really are.

Yes I'm a Noob at Civ:Rev - it isnt out yet:p

[Magwill]

:) Thank you for the info James and Elizabeth, I cant wait for the demo (tomorrow). The game sounds awesome and as a big fan of Civ 1 and 2 Rev sounds like my type of Civ.

As for the noob discussion, in my experience people only go around calling names when they have an inferiority complex. If you are good at something you dont need to go around calling names because your talent speaks for itself, if you are poor at something then you cheat to boost your ratings, play exclusively with your own 'friends' then boast as loudly and obnoxiously as you can in the vain hope that you can convince your ownsubconscience that you are better than you really are.

Yes I'm a Noob at Civ:Rev - it isnt out yet:p

That is kinda what I wanted to say with my posts.

[MrgameTheory]

I’m sorry but this is all too funny, and by funny I mean a joke.

After analyzing the game I have come up with some interesting findings ROFL.......

Unfortunately Abe Lincoln is no longer the best leader, Rome is without a question in my mind the greatest leader in this game.

If there will even remotely be this many tribes and barbarians in the normal game the combination of this much gold being given out with the ability to flat out buy settlers instantly has created a situation for me where I can make 10 cities in less than 10 turns will leave 0 chance for opponents to win, but lets say there isn't this much gold given, it still doesn't matter and ill tell you why....

I laugh at the fact that the creators of the game said it will be about 6 cities per a player. Now take-two did make the extra food from water guys powerful in a way, but unfortunately Romes ability to exponentially expand has created a situation where this has been nullified.... Rome will be able to take over more than twice - three times the land as other players. While its true that the water players with the extra food for square and will reach working more squares faster, alot faster, which is a really nice advantage utilizing those extra water squares, you fail to realize that this advantage isn't given until a few tecs are researched, and the best part is that by the time it is, Rome has already started the ridiculous expansion and set lots of cities to making lots of tec. the extra land will make up for the extra sea squares and what you fail to realize that you started a huge strategic loophole that I didn't even realize before... After doing some math, after allowing yourself the ability to sell warriors for gold at the current value system, you have made Rome exponentially stronger than you can even imagine. Now Romes extra cities creating warriors can be used to instantly buy major things in a single city and that can range from more settlers to wonders. The cheap settlers make way for unlimited expanding of the map, and building roads. Obviously you have created lots of choke points as well, so while it will be difficult to keep units in a center city and instantly move them far away, you have made it very difficult for someone to actually take over another civ giving Rome a huge advantage when they take over all of the land. By utilizing the build and sell technique for Rome you will practically be able to generate unlimited cash once you have expanded too all the available land. All you have to do is focus on growing food in the outer cities and focus on tec in the inner ones and you have a Ridiculous combination. Governments that provide 50% production are equal to providing 50% more gold. You will flat out be able to buy every single wonder with rome and with -50% production on wonders they will be able to actually buy every single wonder in the game because of their huge early tec advantage and unlimited gold. Now you will have rome flat out buying pyramids for its normal price, but than having the ability to have democracy or communism or any government for that matter for a good amount of the game. they switch out of republic and now they already have 10 - 20 cities giving them a huge gold or production bonus which will greatly destroy any water food bonus.... The trick is that most of the wonders give nice bonuses to lots of cities so you have a leader that will generate ridiculous culture on top of all of the great people they will be getting. The trick is obviously planting the cities on the right tiles.

Im sorry but Rome is soooooo far better than the other players its officially scary...


Now I understand that in the normal game cities wont start with 2 population, but if it does its going to be really over.

While its true that the water food bonus for japan is great and has taken him out of the garbage catagory, especially midterm. I don't think you people truely realize how amazing it will be to have twice the cities out faster, while its true that long term the extra food from water leaders will have larger populations in those cities a little faster and get those hammers when there is no courthouse.

Until you obviously get courthouses you can only work 4-8 water tiles on average. Keep in mind that having a city out an extra 5-15 turns on a square has created a mathematical balance to that extra food. While the extra food player will reach 6 water tiles being worked before Rome, Rome will actually have worked 4-5 water tiles when that happens, but, the bonus from before that when ROME was working 1-4 water tiles when the pro water leader even had the cities has create such an overwhelming advantage that by the time the cities are maxed out on population and both leaders are working all available squares, Rome will actually have created more tec in that city, the difference of course that not only does he have the more tec, but now he also has 2-3 times the cities with that. Now don’t get me wrong, the extra hammer you start getting per population in the city is amazing and once the courthouses come in the water player will be in a nice situation, but that is very far away and by the time that actually happens you will actually have a rome player who is (((((((((((((2-3X))))))))))))))) further down the tec tree getting those court houses a ridiculous amount of time before them. Sure japan starts with cerimonial burial, but thats only 2 tecs away and by the time thats researched a player will have 4-8 cities out allowing them to get to that tec fast, than in all cities they produce warriors and sell those warriors for gold and use all that extra gold to buy the phyramids, but honestly who cares its not the world anyways and if someone else does get it before Rome they just have to rush to Monarchy to make it worthless....... So while you guys were thinking you were clever by giving them all those extra hammers in the city, you didn't factor that versus a whole new city that Rome will be getting...........

I wish I was Emerald so I can say BAM!

As for the other leaders, they are all pretty much screwed.

:cool:

I will admit, Japan is now the second best player in this game and the newbs are going to love his expoential ability to grow his cities and collect those hammers in the long run which sounds juicy as I say it, but I believe that the way rome is said up, in an experts hands, they will be able to dominate japan.

This is obviously very advanced for some people so I expect a lot of people to comment saying dumb things, but hopefully the right people take the moment and actually read what is being said. Unless something else is dramatically revealed which I doubt, Rome will be the most logical choice to win and make all other leader obsolete. I really hope something does come up to disprove this because I figured all this out in about 1 hour and that says something if the entire Civ Rev Development team couldn’t figure this out in a few years lol. I mean how the hell are they going to make Japan and Rome this strong, its pretty much rediculous. Abe Lincoln lost out because 50% production in 1 city is like nothing now, the gold is great and the sci is ok, but nothign compared to the extra food or the fast settlers. I mean who else can even compare to these 2 leaders, I mean honestly, how the hell did Take-Two not realized how unbalanced they were......................

:cool:

[icejon]

its true bery good but the rome doesnt got very good bonus far into the game maybe its all about surviving until the last age then strike:o

[savoir10]

So what you are saying MGT: Is that you were WRONG when you called America the No.1 civ and you were also WRONG when you called Japan a garbage Civ. Ok we accept your apology for giving us false information.

[icejon]

they are all avarage but rome seems to be the best

[2K Elizabeth]

Unfortunately Abe Lincoln is no longer the best leader, Rome is without a question in my mind the greatest leader in this game.


I think that most people will feel this way about almost all the leaders as they play each one. just wait.


If there will even remotely be this many tribes and barbarians in the normal game the combination of this much gold being given out with the ability to flat out buy settlers instantly has created a situation for me where I can make 10 cities in less than 10 turns will leave 0 chance for opponents to win, but lets say there isn't this much gold given, it still doesn't matter and ill tell you why....


that's not how villages, gold, and barbarians work. i can't imagine anyone building 10 cities and that being a good strategy, if it's even possible without a detriment to the rest of your civ.


I laugh at the fact that the creators of the game said it will be about 6 cities per a player.


i think some of you will play differently than we do here, but i think you will find that there is much more you have to do than simply build cities. every turn really, really counts and it matters what you do, so i wouldn't waste time pumping out settlers when i can do more valuable things.


Im sorry but Rome is soooooo far better than the other players its officially scary...


just wait till you get your hands on the other civs!




While its true that the water food bonus for japan is great and has taken him out of the garbage catagory, especially midterm. I don't think you people truely realize how amazing it will be to have twice the cities out faster, while its true that long term the extra food from water leaders will have larger populations in those cities a little faster and get those hammers when there is no courthouse.


yes, japan is awesome! i'm glad you see that. i'm not sure i agree with what you think that extra food will bring you, but i agree it's a great civ!


I will admit, Japan is now the second best player in this game and the newbs are going to love his expoential ability to grow his cities and collect those hammers in the long run which sounds juicy as I say it, but I believe that the way rome is said up, in an experts hands, they will be able to dominate japan.


i think you have the wrong view of japan, because there's nothing exponential about his growth. again, every turn counts way more than i think you understand. however, i'd love to discuss more civs with you that seemed poor! the mongols and indians are POWERHOUSES! i bet i could tell you why they are also awesome and place them back up in the top 5. :p of course i don't know what would happen with america. it's such a balancing act, because they all have such great perks! i'm sure you'll have this problem picking your favorite civs when you actually play through them all come Full Game Day (as well everyone. ;))

[Joneleth]

MrgameTheory, I'm glad to see that you obviously have a lot of passion for this game and, while your thoughts are interesting, I don't necessarily agree with them. Personally I have confidence that each civ will offer something different to players who enjoy playing the game in different ways.

Also, just wanted to mention that by admitting that Japan (one civ listed by yourself as "garbage" in your earlier list) will be one of the better civilizations shows that no matter how much you or anyone thinks they know about how the game plays, until we get our hands on each individual civilization, no amount of armchair theorizing will be more then just that -- a theory.

[FadingBeano]

Dear MrgameTheory

I cannot imagine what you would be like when you loose a match of CivRev.

[crptococcus]

When MGT loses it's because of divine intervention, but seriously I think this game is for ages 7-12.

[MrgameTheory]

I also see a strategic loopholes arising with the carvan, they cost 30 hammers to make and they give 50 - 60 gold to the person who sent them and 20-30 gold to the person who recieved them from what I have seen, if 2 players form an alliance they can continually send these to each other for a very nice bonus.....

Rome also starts with a 3 food bonus from cattle, if you have cattle in your capital or around it you have such an insane bonus over everyone its scary...

The ability to build warriors in cities and than sell them for the gold and than transfer that to other cities in order to steal all of the land in the game really quick is working extremly well, I reached 23 cities by AD 50

[FadingBeano]

When MGT loses it's because of divine intervention, but seriously I think this game is for ages 7-12.

When I win it's because of divine intervention :)

[FadingBeano]

The ability to build warriors in cities and than sell them for the gold and than transfer that to other cities in order to steal all of the land in the game really quick is working extremly well, I reached 23 cities by AD 50

23 undefended cities. :p

[Jason2K]

23 undefended cities. :p

Undefended and likely in useless parts of the map, making them worthless outside of the demo (where having cities gives you points, which matters because we assume nobody is going to win a victory condition).

City placement is super important. If you're not near grassland of any kind, the city will never grow. If it's nowhere near trade tiles, you get no research. If you're nowhere near trees, you get no production.

Etc, etc, etc.

[FadingBeano]

Undefended and likely in useless parts of the map, making them worthless outside of the demo (where having cities gives you points, which matters because we assume nobody is going to win a victory condition).

City placement is super important. If you're not near grassland of any kind, the city will never grow. If it's nowhere near trade tiles, you get no research. If you're nowhere near trees, you get no production.

Etc, etc, etc.

So what you're saying is that MGT's 'loophole' isn't really a 'loophole' because a 'loophole' in this situation should be a positive thing. Where as having 23 cities is clearly a bad thing. (outside of the demo)

It doesn't look like it will be a very popular strategy.

[2K Elizabeth]

So what you're saying is that MGT's 'loophole' isn't really a 'loophole' because a 'loophole' in this situation should be a positive thing. Where as having 23 cities is clearly a bad thing. (outside of the demo)

It doesn't look like it will be a very popular strategy.

i would not call it a loophole, although perhaps he can get it to work for him.

in general, if you are pumping out that many settlers, you are not able to build anything else. he may have a single defensive unit, but probably not many more. and he's not building improvements, either. each city is only that: a baseline city.

you don't need massive numbers of cities to do well. in fact, quality is way more important than quantity. once you play against a human, or more difficult AI, you will be trounced immediately and loose all those cities, and thusly all your effort in creating those settlers.

you don't get that much gold, especially not in the early stages of the game, to be able to afford doing this without seriously impacting how you grow your cities in other ways.

[Magwill]

I think it will be rather hard to use that kind of a method against other human beings.

[Thrallia]

When MGT loses it's because of divine intervention, but seriously I think this game is for ages 7-12.

when MGT loses its because he's too arrogant to think anyone but him knows anything.

And I think that 7-12 year olds could play this game and spark a whole new generation of civ-fanatics, but that it appeals to just about anyone.

My wife thinks the demo is awesome, and she's never understood why I loved Civ in the past.

[FadingBeano]

When MGT loses it's because of divine intervention, but seriously I think this game is for ages 7-12.

when MGT loses its because he's too arrogant to think anyone but him knows anything.

And I think that 7-12 year olds could play this game and spark a whole new generation of civ-fanatics, but that it appeals to just about anyone.

My wife thinks the demo is awesome, and she's never understood why I loved Civ in the past.

Then that must mean your wife is 12. oh wait, then my wife must be 12 too. But I am probably more in the area of age 10.

Thats amazing how we are all around the age of 12! What a coincidence!

Guess I better stop drinking beer, could stunt my growth

[MrgameTheory]

Each city only needs 1 food square that provides 2 food and all met that requirement..............

As for abe lincoln, he is now the leader that will be able to transfer production to any city without a penalty when done correctly which is amazing.

As for anyone else, I release 75% of the things i learn directly to the world and I release 25% of the very best things to clan mates and people that help. If you want to join me and some old civ friends we are looking for 2-4 smart new additions to our group. We obviously spend our time breaking down the information of the game. What we are currently looking for is for someone to write the tec tree in a document. Explaining which tecs give what, what those things do, how much each tec costs on these difficulty settings, and which tecs lead to what.

We are also looking for someone to chart all of the bonuses that players recieve when they reach the different mile stones and the cost and strenght of each military unit in the game on the demos highest difficulty.

Each job can take a few hours depending on the one you would like, we are looking for 2 copies of each to verify them as accurate, we will also be doing it ourselves and the 3 versions are there for accuracy. Please PM me if you are interested in doing this, its going to be first come first serve.

This is obviously for peopel who take the strategy game seriously enough and want to have a major advantage in terms of knowledge of every tad bit of the game. We also will provide all the other useful information to help the player learn the games.

[FadingBeano]

Sounds like good times....

I wouldn't want to just sit back and relax and enjoy the game either.

MGT, why don't you just make your own game?

[2K Elizabeth]

mr game theory!

the guys at firaxis would love to play you. either post here or PM me about what platform you are on and your gamertag/PSN ID. they are east coast but probably have pretty good flexbility to play whenever you have 60 minutes or so.

please let me know!

-e.

[MrsgameTheory]

The OP is clearly a wizard of strategy. Just think, if he spent that much time eating right and exercising, I might exist!:eek:

[MrsgameTheory]

mr game theory!

the guys at firaxis would love to play you. either post here or PM me about what platform you are on and your gamertag/PSN ID. they are east coast but probably have pretty good flexbility to play whenever you have 60 minutes or so.

please let me know!

-e.

Don't feed trolls. A momentary flicker of recognition is all he needed, let him get back to the fry station.

[MrgameTheory]

I’m not going to play against people who have been practicing for months just yet, I need at least a few days to at least go through the entire game and even more importantly master all of the controller configurations in order to maximize efficiency with it so I don't make any type of mistakes. I know based on my knowledge of the game it seems like I have been playing for months and would be a good challenge for them, but i still need a little time, besides I publish a magazine in Beverly Hills and we are about to go to press so I don't exactly have all the time in the world right now, but when I do get up to a reasonable level I will be willing to play. If you guys would be willing to release the tec, milestone, unit information to me which i asked the lobby for, which has already been revealed but isn't organized yet, I would say with confidence it would dramatically cut down the preparation time needed to be able to play against you guys.

The best part about everything is that you creators still don’t know what I am talking about when it comes to Rome. You still build the same amount of cities you normally would with any leader in terms of the best locations for those placements, but on top of that you build extra cities very quickly and early while all the land is open. Becuase you want to take over as much land as possible you will be able to easily steal 50 - 100% more of the land than a normal leader without risk and 100 - 200% with moderate to high risk. Because of the way cities and land are set even if you lose a city for whatever reason, you can easily get units to another city by buying them. Than you place the cities on desert tiles when possible and than you only need to allocate 3 squares for those cities. Than all you need is 1 grassland that gives 2 food and 2 forests which give 4 hammers and magically you can create a new population/settler every 7-8 turns for the rest of the game. Now you have created a population factory, you take that factory and attach the populations you get from them into bigger cities whether they are on the coast or not now you don't need to build buildings in those population factories, and if you can get 10 strong cities in amazing spots with 5 - 15 city factories, your going to have exponential population explosions’ in the cities that matter throughout the game. That my friends is what it’s all about...................

And to the people who keep talking about my ego, its less about my ego and more about the fact that the Civ Franchise is probably the best Strategy concept out and it’s a shame to see such an amazing concept being dumbed down, I look to Civ for a good thought demanding time where I can test my skills and expand strategies. I type the things I do in this manner in order to help the evolutionary process of the franchise. But on a side note, I do present things a certain way on the message board to not only be informative, but to have some fun and create some excitement/entertainment on this message board. It’s very boring to have to just sit through paragraph after paragraph with no personality and I do my part to make my posts both informative and entertaining. I will admit, I probably do need some kind of barrage of bullets being shot at me constantly in order to keep coming back. This would just be another dull message board without some friction.

:D

[FadingBeano]

The OP is clearly a wizard of strategy. Just think, if he spent that much time eating right and exercising, I might exist!:eek:

ROFL.... tears in my eyes. I hope you are for real.

P.S MrGT, I wouldn't want to lose either man and hurt that awesome ego!

[2K Elizabeth]

I need at least a few days to at least go through the entire game and even more importantly master all of the controller configurations in order to maximize efficiency with it so I don't make any type of mistakes

i'm sure they'll wait. let's make a date for july 10. i'll be sure to remind you on launch day.

;)

[savoir10]

I’m not going to play against people who have been practicing for months just yet, I need at least a few days to at least go through the entire game and even more importantly master all of the controller configurations in order to maximize efficiency with it so I don't make any type of mistakes.

So after all the big talk, you are going to wimp out at the first challenge.
Guys like you are the very reason I stopped playing MP. Mind numbing micro managers who want to take 5-10 minutes each turn. Big noting, trash talking know-alls that always seem to have an important meeting crop up just after your tanks roll over their borders.

Civilization is a GAME. It's something you play to have fun. It's a bit of escapism from the pressures of real life. Something I'm starting to doubt you have.

I'm sorry but I'm not learning anything on this thread and I'm no longer going to waste my time reading it. Goodbye.

[CanuckSoldier]

Ah here is were you have been hanging out MrGT, well when you get tired of CivRev you are still welcome back to Civ4land :p

I do have one thing in common with MrGT, in that I hope that CivRev proves to T2/Firaxis that Civ is a viable MP game and that it is worth investing the money up front to give the next PC version of Civ decent MP support just not throwing us at Gamespy and hoping for the best.

And you don't have to worry I won't be buying CivRev, as I don't own a console and I am certainly not spending the money just for a reduced game of Civ with a controller I already don't like :p But I'm sure it will be a success for those people that do like this sort of game, but in the long run I hope that these people will come to enjoy Civ4 or the next PC Civ game and see what a full game of Civ is like with all it's complexities in tact.

CanuckSoldier
Global Admin/Owner/Operator
Civilization Players Leagues
www.civplayers.com

[MrgameTheory]

cs ;)

anyways, maybe if the developers of the game didn't waste all their memory of worthless videos in the Civilpedia they could of made this a better game.

I see the following happening for sure. You guys have made the cost of these buildings extremly expensive and you are going to see that they are not going to be built as much as you believe especially with how scarce production is..... its just more logical to build more military units and go to war. In Civ 4 inevitably the only buildings that were build were barracks, all the buildings for all MP settings from 100 turn games to epic inevitably took out most of the buildings as illogical. The same has happened with Civ rev but by way more. I am going to say with confidence that Abe Lincoln is back up on my list to a very close 3rd for the simple reason that buying everything seems to be what really matters. Who cares about building a road, its almost illogical, all you will do is build a unit in a back row city and than instantly sell it, than what you do is you buy that unit in a city on the front line and you just have 1 or 2 front line cities buying these units and BAM!!!!!!! Than you mix that witht he fact that you can build units in all cities and than sell them all and build all the major buildings in the 1-4 cities that actually matter.

Another thing especially going for abe lincoln I am noticing is that you guys made advanced military units just as expansive for the most part as old military units. By having these military units so cheap you have made it so abe lincoln has Germanys starting trait in a sense. As soon as likets say riflemen come and they cost 20 hammers, you can sell all your old units and the cost of hurry producing those rifle units will cost around the same you sold weaker units for making for an almost instant upgrade for free.... Sure you don't get the promotions, but the upgrade in military strenght more than outweights them and mor importantly it gives you the ability to transfer units anywhere you like so you can conquer 1 civilization and sell the units and than build those units on the other side of the map and take over another one very very quickly with a super tiny loss in gold.... keep in mind that if you have a great leader you can use it after you get lets say Riflemen and than sell and buy all your units, magically you will turn all those new riflemen into upgraded units and your great to go!!!!

ohh and even better, I love the tradesmen thing you guys created, nothing says, most leaders are worthless like that tradesmen program you guys have. The only leaders that have a chance for the most part are Japan and Rome. Obviously Rome is going to be the super king of this game now because instead of making all my city factories making population for all cities I am simply going to super drain all those city factoreis and build up 1 at a time cities to 31 population, but japan is still pretty chill because of that bonus food per water square especialyl with a lighthouse later on he will also be able to join the ranks. In the end the production and tec bonus from these high populations is insane and I can't believe you gave these leaders these trades with this system.......... Your going to have japan and Rome demolishing these other leaders in terms of tec and production and its pretty sad. Giving that leader navigation is worthless because lighthouses cost 100 hammers ROFL... thats like giving a kid a candy bar but putting a steel raper on it.... I will admit though, Japan is starting to look more juicy because of the fact that they will fly to democracy as soon as possible in order to get the science boost.. Its going to be a close one in terms of tec between japan and Rome, but Rome will be able to take advantage of war and take over a leader or so which can help combat this.

Hands down though, the whole tradesmen concept is hilarious, Thanks for that one!!!!

:D

[crptococcus]

GT wtf do you mean by selling units? After I read the post about selling I looked for this option, but couldn't find it. All I could think of was starting a warrior and before it finishes change to a settler, but you speak of selling on the front line. I was never good at figuring **** out in civ, I was just good at copying others :) Btw, nwbs that's what seperates nwbs from good players. Nwbs don't listen to good players they just hate them from being good. I can say with great confidence that GT can get you ahead in this game quickly if your willing to learn.

Also GT, what is point of clan in this game if it's all 1v1's for the most part? Who is in your clan? Ullla? ROFL

Anyway, tell me how to sell these units, so I don't have to waste the time figuring it out and being nwb for so long :p WTF is with these smiley face selections they are "nwb" :eek:

[MrgameTheory]

Press the right thumb button in while your selecting the unit and your military advisor will come up and ask you if you would like to sell the unit for a given amount of money. It generally is 1 gold for every 1 hammer it took to make it. To rush production of something it costs 2 gold for every 1 hammer. For Abe Lincoln its looking to be about 1 Gold for every 1 hammer which makes the selling of units perfect for buying new units, unfortunatly advanced units roughly cost the same as older units did so with Abe its like free upgrades almost equal to Germany :D

When the game is released there will be options for 2v2 and with the imbalances of the game I figure its in these games and 1v1v1v1 games where it will be the most fun. I want to form a clan of about 10 - 20 solid players and be able to train with them like in Civ 4. That way we can test out theories and strategies and such without worry of it being leaked to the general public. Plus we will be able to train together and it makes expansions on strategies much easier. After strategies get tested in the group we can test them among the main population etc.

If there happens to be any type of tournament set up it will be good as well, but for the most part I am setting this up so incase someone in the clan needs a good parner for a game there will always be someone available to play and it won't be a gamble like finding a random newb etc.

Currently I have 3 other people becides myself working on some stuff and training etc, the goal is to have 10 - 20 people that won't waste the groups time trying to figure out advanced strategies. There are far too many kids and people who will just leave games, even ranked games and I figure its better to get the most bang for the buck finding quality people. I guess its less a clan and more a solid base of outstanding players, unless ofcourse the tournaments occur and there will be 2v2 etc championships, than it will be worth it to have some kind of tiny clan. I have also begun deconstructing the Tec tree and organizing it properly in order to discover any tec loopholes. By the looks of the way things are given for free and quick rushes to advanced tecs with some tecs, I don't think it will be that difficult to find some game breaking strategies.

:D

[crptococcus]

Ty

I've only played two games and haven't payed much attention to the growth. Would it make any sense to say build a library and stop it before it is done to have the hammers flow into the settler? Wasn't sure if cities grew when making settler.

I guess I could test it easliy myself, but was wondering if you could think of any benefit to this, for instance if you were agg and you were able to stop production of a barracks in civ4 and have those hammers converted.

Does it seem necesarry to make temples? The last game I spammed settlers and the people were complaining about culture or did I skip a tech that gives culture?

[MrgameTheory]

After I am finished with the tec tree I will be able to determine what is worth what and what is just flat out worthless, to say what is good and what is bad right now would end up being proved inaccurate later. I will tell you the following though, for now it does seem that libraries are solid, but not in every city, what matters in this game is getting a city to 31-45 population and utilizeing those super production and tec bonuses. The trick is to build the value buildings inside of those 1-3 cities you will be getting to 31- 45 population, and the only Government which will make doing that reasonable will be republic, but at the same time there is going to be a point where you might want to make the shift from republic to democracy in order to get the 50% tec in those 1 - 3 cities, unless you plan on utilizing war to get more land to build more population factories.

Remember a population factory (Don't look for this phrase in the Civilpedia I made it up) is a city for any leader currently in the republic government that is built near a 2-3 food square and 2 2 production forests. You than grow the city to 2 population and than build and/or buy the population. The entire process takes 7 - 10 turns. By taking those cheap settlers you can add them to your perfect city that you plan to do everything in. The trick is to raise the population of that city as fast as possible in order to get all the great bonuses the creators of this game gave to high population cities. In the beggining its more about securing as much land as possible so you will be able to build more population factories. The great humanitarian and the wonders which greatly incease ones population will prove to by extremly powerful in this game and be way more powerful on a value scale than the Great Library in a classical start OCC game.

[eireksten]

I need at least a few days to at least go through the entire game and even more importantly master all of the controller configurations in order to maximize efficiency with it so I don't make any type of mistakes. I know based on my knowledge of the game it seems like I have been playing for months and would be a good challenge for them, but i still need a little time

ROFL :D

It is of course very important to streamline everything, not to mention using the "one and only" strategy that works. Spending a lot of time trying not to have fun, has to be tried sometime :)

edit: btw, you're aware that the percentage of people that actually care, is close to zero?

[Gamecat]

Press the right thumb button in while your selecting the unit and your military advisor will come up and ask you if you would like to sell the unit for a given amount of money. It generally is 1 gold for every 1 hammer it took to make it. To rush production of something it costs 2 gold for every 1 hammer. For Abe Lincoln its looking to be about 1 Gold for every 1 hammer which makes the selling of units perfect for buying new units, unfortunatly advanced units roughly cost the same as older units did so with Abe its like free upgrades almost equal to Germany :D

When the game is released there will be options for 2v2 and with the imbalances of the game I figure its in these games and 1v1v1v1 games where it will be the most fun. I want to form a clan of about 10 - 20 solid players and be able to train with them like in Civ 4. That way we can test out theories and strategies and such without worry of it being leaked to the general public. Plus we will be able to train together and it makes expansions on strategies much easier. After strategies get tested in the group we can test them among the main population etc.

If there happens to be any type of tournament set up it will be good as well, but for the most part I am setting this up so incase someone in the clan needs a good parner for a game there will always be someone available to play and it won't be a gamble like finding a random newb etc.

Currently I have 3 other people becides myself working on some stuff and training etc, the goal is to have 10 - 20 people that won't waste the groups time trying to figure out advanced strategies. There are far too many kids and people who will just leave games, even ranked games and I figure its better to get the most bang for the buck finding quality people. I guess its less a clan and more a solid base of outstanding players, unless ofcourse the tournaments occur and there will be 2v2 etc championships, than it will be worth it to have some kind of tiny clan. I have also begun deconstructing the Tec tree and organizing it properly in order to discover any tec loopholes. By the looks of the way things are given for free and quick rushes to advanced tecs with some tecs, I don't think it will be that difficult to find some game breaking strategies.

:D

I bet your fun at christmas time:

"Ha, in your face Grandma, see when you distribute properties like i have you get a 73.28% advantage, so you can have Boardwalk"

or "son: thanks for buying me Clue jr daddy, it's cool!! ermm maybe it was professor plum? mrgt (thinking)" what a total noob, the 64 page strategic breakdown i compiled last night shows that its got to be col mustard who's eaten the cake, at this point its almost 98.65%!!"

[crptococcus]

You can say what you want about mgt, but his arrogance is what makes him mgt. Like I said before nwbs never want to learn how to be good, so they come here and berate him instead of learn from him. What he says now may be inaccurate in the future, but at this point is more than likely the best strategy anyone can come up with. This strategy will later lead to the ultimate strategy that he will build upon with more experience. The problem is that when you decide you don't want to be a nwb anymore you willl be to far behind what he has discovered and not be able to catch up (if this game really has any depth at all). Therefore, you will quit mp and the game entriely because your sick of being a nwb. You will spend the rest of your life complaining about elites in these forums.

[eireksten]

... at this point is more than likely the best strategy anyone can come up with...

That, my friend, I don't believe... You're aware that you are stating that he "probably" is at least as good at this game as anyone else? I'm guessing that there are plenty of strategies people have come up with that can more than compete with these ones. Only they don't go on broadcasting them on the forums.

It seems to me that most of the strategies mentioned here are just basic things that it would be hard to overlook when playing as the civilizations in question. I'd be more than surprised if no one has come up with something at least as clever.

If not being a "nwb" means that I would have to follow the developed "best strategies" at any time, I'd rather be a "nwb". I don't want to, and don't have the time to be playing video games all day. For me, it will be all about a bit of entertainment from time to time.

Therefore, you will quit mp and the game entriely because your sick of being a nwb. You will spend the rest of your life complaining about elites in these forums.

LOL! You really think that people even care the slightest bit about "elites"? If the matching works, "nwbs" will get to play other "nwbs" and they will be able to have a fun game doing so. And if they quit, that's probably good for them. Let's face it, spending all your time playing mp on a console video game isn't much to go on bragging about, is it?

OK, there will always be people that try to be the best at online games, spending countless hours doing so. I don't see what they gain from it, but that's their choice. These people will probably appreciate that strategies are collected for them to read up on. That does NOT, however, mean that everyone will end up in that situation, as you seem to assume. Most people have other things to do, and would be happy even if CivRev never was released. If they buy the game, that will be mostly because they seek some entertainment should there be some spare time.

My point is that the greater majority of gamers will be just as happy not knowing about these strategies. If the MP matching works they will almost never run into one of these elitists. If not, they'll always have single player. For these players, it won't matter if there is one superior strategy. They will have the same amount of fun anyhow. I'm one of these players, and I will enjoy the game For me, this is the point in a good game.

Feel free to discuss all the strategies you want, but don't expect everyone to admire you just for being good at this).

[Magwill]

Can we just please stop insulting each other and get back to topic? For you who hate MrGameTheory, don't read this thread... For you who love him, come get his advice.

Personally I'm just interested in picking up some tips and my opinion about the person giving them doesnt matter when it comes to that. So please keep this thread about the facts.

PS. Im not taking any side as I've said, I'm just ignoring the arrogance as you call it since it doesnt matter.

[eireksten]

I'm not planning on discussing this anymore, but notice that "arrogance" actually is part of the topic :)

The only thing I tried to say was that game breaking strategies don't make this a bad game.

[Altashheth]

I dont think we have shared values here.

For me, this game will be a fun couple of hours every now and again. I want to play because I really enjoyed Civ 1 and 2 (2 is one of my favourite all time games) I fell out of love with the civ games since then because they didnt fit my life style, I just didnt have the time to dedicate to hundreds of turns of civ4. I'm sure all that micromanagement was a big turn on for some but for me it interfered with my real life - Civ:rev does exactly what it says; revolutionises the Civ genre. I can now enjoy civ again, in the space of an hour or two, for me perfect.

Now those of you that have hours to dedicate to breaking games, who dont want to play for fun go ahead and enjoy what you do do. All I ask is that you try to do it in the least condesending way that you can. You are obviously intelligent people, I dont understand why you cant use basic manners/politeness.

The game is called Cilivisation can we not be Civil whilst dicussing it?

As for MGT strats, they have some merit - I get what you are saying about america with the 1 hammer to 1 gold resale and can see some interesting ways of utilising that advantage. I dont see it has game breaking because other civ also have equally powerful advantages, just with less obvious initial uses. Take india for example, in my second game last night I could have benefited alot from being able to use all the special squares that were near to my first couple of cities - and the time taken to get to the tecs that would open up these resources squares would have ment that i missed out on some valuable input. I can see india having several cities in the best city list even if they dont have the most cities.

I hope everyone has fun with what they do without labeliing/forcing it on others.

[2K Elizabeth]

hey guys,

i want to remind you all to please keep on topic -- which is about strategies, loopholes, and possible game exploits -- and stop calling each other names. even in the more general sense, as i've said before, calling people noobs (in any spelling you may choose) is not productive to conversation.

please use this area as i have stated: for strategies, loopholes, and possible game exploits. and please remember that as of right now, a lot of this is speculation, and if this thread does survive through to the full game, will turn more into concrete advice, rather than supposition.

however, if i keep seeing negativity towards each other, or towards the team in any way, i will shut the thread down. it's totally cool to talk about this stuff, however, insulting people whilst doing so is not allowed.

thanks.

-elizabeth

[MrgameTheory]

Revised list of the best leaders based on the settings of the demo. If the actual game varies in terms of tec paths, costs, or other settings are different it might change.

Rome
Japan
America
Chinese

Greek
Germans
Egyptians
Indians
Zulu
Aztecs
Arabians - Slightly better in 2v2v1

Mongols
Spanish
English
French
Russians

[Thrallia]

I would think, based on the number of barbarian villages there were in the demo, that the Mongols would be higher on your list.

I still think you are a quack, and a very arrogant, inconsiderate, impolite person. So I shall ignore your posts about 'strats' because I think that you are creating them with too many assumptions and biases built into your thoughts(not to mention, I don't agree with most of what you've said about strategy)

[crptococcus]

LOL, you don't have to take is word for it, it's only a suggestion. I can tell you mgt makes post like this over at mp civ4 league and many people also tell him he is an idiot. ****, I have told him he is an idiot, but most of the time he is actually correct and the people who hate him are the people that don't understand the game. I don't care what you think, but I'm telling you that the good players on civ4 mp play similar to him and the bad players just resent him. My opinion on good and bad players is not bias what so ever. It is from playing 1,000's of competitive games of civ mp. We play on teams of 5v5 most of the time and you can see what everyone on your team is doing. It's very easy to seperate nwbs from elites and mgt is probablly a top 10 player and maybe the best at understanding the game. I can also tell you that everytime you tell him he is an idiot you only fuel his fire. On top of being a great player he loves attention and you are giving him everything he wants here.

[Thrallia]

so he's like an unruly child? he doesn't care what kind of attention he gets, he just wants some. I never thought someone with as little maturity as that could succeed in the world. Its a sad state of affairs indeed if he can.

I dont' care if he's a good player or not, I only care about how he treats people and acts towards others. Perhaps he's never heard the expression of attracting more flies with honey than vinegar? Or perhaps he just never had the type of upbringing that makes one mature enough to treat people politely and with respect.

I understand the game plenty, and help others whenever I can...but I do it in a much different manner than him, and therefore am much more widely respected than he likely is.

[2K Elizabeth]

hey guys,

unfortunately, we can't keep from name calling and cursing. this is why this thread is being closed down. at a later date, we should definitely open a new loophole, exploit, and cool strategy thread. but we're going to wait for the full game to come out for that. and we're going to make sure it stays on topic, and not fueled by emotions.

thanks.

-e.