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.

[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 . 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.

[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!

[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 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: "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, 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.

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:

"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. 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 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 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: "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.

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. We cannot chose our rival leaders. And Jason2K says there are no custom game settings. 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

[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

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

[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

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

[Jason2K]

*deep breath*

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

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

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

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?



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?

[MrgameTheory]

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

Kidding Kidding, take your time

[ATC 1982]

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

Kidding Kidding, take your time

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

[MrgameTheory]

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.

[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]

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.....

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.......

[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.

"""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

""" 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

"""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.

[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?