BtS Released

[Beam]

I've actually playing been it for the past hour and it looks and feels very promising. It is an evaluation copy as none of the early releasers here in Breda have it yet but as soon as I find it for a decent price it'll be mine.

[Robboo]

Yeah I dont see a rush here either so i should be able to pick it up next week after my job interview. Lets hope thats a lucky day for me.

[IglooDude]

quote:Originally posted by Beam

I've actually playing been it for the past hour and it looks and feels very promising. It is an evaluation copy as none of the early releasers here in Breda have it yet but as soon as I find it for a decent price it'll be mine.

By the way, does the evaluation copy come with a manual in PDF format?

[mauer]

I'm one of the free shipping Amazon guys, so who knows when I'll get it.

[Beam]

Why would you need a manual?

[IglooDude]

quote:Originally posted by Beam

Why would you need a manual?

I wouldn't, but I'm curious if the (PDF) manual is a user creation or is a file on the disk (and thus propagating it via CFC would be a piracy thing that the mods would have to deal with).

[Beam]

I ckecked the disk and no pdf there or any reference to it in the readme.

[Beam]

So I installed BtS first in XP and started a game and already noticed it is a different game. But as it was just for testing the install didn't pay to much attention.

Then I went back to my familiar Linux to make it work there because that's my main OS. No succes until now but I feel comfy I can get it to work.

Then I wanted to launch Warlords in Linux which worked until the BtS install. Not now. Vanilla still ran but the way the two are installed in Linux is different. Vanilla has a full install in Linux, Warlords is being run from the XP install.

Back to M$ XP and after booting I saw three new "Launch Civ4 etc" icons. After checking the associated exe's I learned they both have a datestamp of 16-05-2007. Now the BtS install mentions somewhere in the procedure that a newer version of Civ 4 has been found so I could have known but the BtS basically fucked my No-CD patches without asking a question keeping a previous version. OK I guess it is a matter of copy/paste the No-CD patches back in but if 2k does not understand their customers want to protect the discs they have they basically suck big time.

Back to the game and some differences I noticed in a 2nd game I started:
- Galleys could enter ocean squares if they were in city borders. Now they can't.
- If a city goes to 0 happiness surplus the citytile arrangement is changed to no growth.
- Charlemagne is one of my neighbours. Without doing anything I can see he is researching Priesthood and has it in one turn.
- Indeed many changes to the techtree and techs needed to build something are changed. I read on that other site MetCas is needed for Triremes but the mouseover only mentions Sailing as a prereq. The Pedia gives the correct listing.
- The graphical engine feels much, much better but I baven't played Civ in XP for a long time so I might be wrong.

I consider this a major rework and as such the advertised price of 20 euro's at NL site bol.com is good bang for the buck imo. Given the number of changes I also expect a patch in the near future. Not so much to address the graphical issues of the past but more for balancing in-game rules etc.

[killercane]

How do the corporations work? Can you have the mining one and the creative constructions one both, and say you are on a huge map and have 30 resources, does each city get 45 hammers extra production? That seems like it could get a bit ridiculous if that is all multiplied by buildings.

[BCLG100]

if it does guess we're all waiting for the patch!