Personal Spocklopedia favorite: Railroads. I can't tell if he's really trying to inflect or really trying not to inflect.
This game has owned my soul for the past month or so. I actually enjoy it more than CivII, which is damned near the highest praise any game will ever get from me. I'm actually playing it right now on the other computer.
In a sense, it's like a better version of Civ3 or Call to Power: it's clear that the goals were to take the base of CivII and make it more fun, but it succeeds in ways that neither of those did. It's more fun, as deep or deeper, but never tedious.
Take Resources as an example. Elephants, copper, corn, whales, oil - they're all there, all distributed on the map with some geographical sense (Fur only occurs in arctic areas, rice nearer the equator, bananas in jungles, etc), but there's actual meaning to them past the bonus you'd get if you put a city next to it. When you develop the Resource and connect it to the trade network, every city gets the utility of it, even if it isn't actually in the "work" area of a city (it must be in your borders, though). Each new food item (Corn, rice, sheep, pigs, cows, etc) increases health in your cities. Each new luxury (gems, gold, fur, ivory) increases happiness. Industrial resources (copper, iron, stone, uranium) determine what you can build, or give bonuses to building certain Wonders. The game's set up so that you'll have access to a limited variety of resources, so trading them is actually useful now. Later on in the game you can even trade Hit Singles for resources (if you've built Rock 'n' Roll).
A new addition is Great People - each turn, every city adds points to a Great Person "pool," and when that pool fills up a Great Person is born. It can be a Prophet, Engineer, Scientist, Merchant, or Entertainer. You can choose to have them join a city as a citizen, which will give a permanent bonus to some combination of production, science, commerce, or culture. Alternately, they can be "used up" to give one-time bonuses. They can research a new technology (which tech depends on their type), or complete a Great Work in a city (also depends on type). Two Great People of any type can trigger a Golden Age. Which type of person you get depends on what type of points go into that city's pool, which in turn depends on what Wonders are there and what type of Specialists you have. If you don't pay attention they're a nice bonus, but if you really work the system (build all wonders that create Merchants in one city, etc) you get a big advantage.
Borders depend on the Culture output of your cities not just their proximity, and the really cool part is that if your culture is more influential on another nation's border city than their own culture, it can "flip" to your side. Have a Great Artist create a great work in a border town and watch your influence spread!
There are a thousand subtle differences (Settlers can't join cities to boost population! Decomissioning a unit in a city doesn't give new production!) but the game still feels right. You just have to abandon the old strategies a bit and work from first principles.
okayIshouldstoptypingnowbecauseIcouldbe playingkkbye
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Topic: Civ IV (Read 6224 times)