Civilization fans

Originally posted at: http://www.civfanatics.com/

[size=13][color=#000000]Firaxis's Soren Johnson
gave a presentation in this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) and
the topic was "The Civilization Series: How to Maintain a Successful
Franchise". The presentation is available for download in PowerPoint
format here. From slide #59:

Civilization IV: Best Civ Yet!<br style="color: white;"><br style="color: white;">- Modern interface/help conventions<br style="color: white;">- Continuous, immersive 3D world (what-you-see-is-what-you-get)

• Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)
• New killer features (religion, civics)<br style="color: white;">- RPG elements (unit upgrades/experience)<br style="color: white;">- Coding from scratch (multiplayer, mod-friendly)<br style="color: white;">- Can still take over the world![/color][/size]<br style="color: white;">

Dunno if anyone else bar Orph/Lep plays this game in any great depth,
but I personally think it would be a shame to see all these game
concepts gone - altered/toned down, maybe, but definately not removed
altogether..

I haven't seen the presentation myself, don't have powerpoint - might
have to ahem "dig out" a copy from somewhere to get my hands on the
juicy gossip :biggrin:

And hopefully they can finally address the problems of spearmen beating even the most ardent attack units

rubs hands in anticipation of new Civ

I hope they make the combat more "exciting/interesting" though. I like everything steamlined - Rise of Nations being an excellent example of this. :smile:

yak has been a staunch supporter of civ II

if they replace what they take out with equally beneficial tasks, i see no issues.. there is more to civ than pollution and waste..etc.

i only hope it is real time MP this time..

i would love to play a game with my fellow pitters, but turn based vomits

rubs hands in anticipation of new Civ

Well theyve already shelved making the combat system more complex
apparently (to do with certain units working particuarly effectively
against each other - eg i think they said Pikemen vs Horsemen/Knights)

I'd like to see the stack movement commands improved, armies
incorporated from the start and enlarged and just general refinement to
the combat system.. it is a little clunky at the moment, and large
campaigns are so drawn out its not even funny :/

quote:

In an interview with GameDaily, Firaxis Games President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Briggs seemingly confirmed that one of the three titles being worked on at the gaming developer is Civilization IV. [..]

This is the first known word of any kind from any representative of Firaxis or Civ series publisher and franchise owner Atari confirming a CivIV is in the works. The latest title in the Civilization series, Conquests -- the second expansion pack for Civilization III -- was commercially released last month.

don't waste your time with the powerpoint present.. not only did i have to dload the viewer, but the presentation sucked ass.. besides, they coulda did it with word and saved us a bit of trouble :sad:

Any Civ is by its nature a very awesome game in my book. The trouble is that they are all basically the exact same only with a few tweaks. I got addicted to civ1 back in the day, then right when that addiction stopped, civ2 came out and I got addicted all over again but stopped playing after a while so when Civ3 came out I was ready for another round of civness. But really when I think about it Civ3 isnt that much better or different than Civ2 which isnt that much better or different than Civ1.

Not sure if I'd like to see corruption, rioting or pollution go away completely, but the corruption in particular did get a tad gratuitous in civ3. Courthouses and police stations barely made their effectiveness known; you had to be really watching to notice any improvement. I really liked the resource-based gameplay and hope that continues.

Slightly related, any word on a SMAC II?

boo. I want a more complex game that covers more ideas and allows for more combat options, not an even more dumbed down version of Civ2. A few things I'd love to see:

-Better economic system where trade routes matter. Many ancient civilizations grew rich because of location and control of trade routes, and I'd like to have the ability to tax caravans passing through my country, for example.

-Smarter AI that doesn't pull bulls**t on you constantly and is tough yet realistic. The combat AI in Civ3 was worthless, the combat AI in AC couldn't handle the available options, and the combat AI in Civ2 was simple but it made better decisions than Civ3's. I want more diplomatic options that actually do something, and I want proper behavior between civs. It always pissed me off in AC when one faction could nuke me and if I nuked in retaliation I'd lose all my allies and they'd join that faction, all because they don't support the use of nukes...retarded.

-Immigration, racial strife. Civ3 sorta had this, but it didn't go far enough. I want to see populations from other civs joining me if I'm doing better. I want to be able to pull a Germany and claim part of Czechoslovakia just because my people lived there. I want to see race relations reflected in the game with all its positives and negatives. I'm certain this'll never happen... :biggrin:

-Minor civilizations. I would love it that after a certain amount of time empty land that hasn't been claimed by anyone would eventually be taken over by minor groups, with their own towns, improvements, and people. This would remove the stupid expansionary behavior of Civ3 and replace it with a more historically accurate version, where you could try to work with the minor groups, buy them out, destroy them, trade with them, backstab them, whatever. Ok, so I want to secretly recreate Colonization within the larger game of Civ4...is that so wrong?

Basically I want to recreate history and have many more options to achieve my tactical and strategic goals. I want the game to move beyond the simplicity of earlier games and open up a whole new world of possibilities, or something. That's why Colonization is one of my favorite games. It's got more complicated land, population, and diplomatic aspects to it.

The 3D-world idea sounds quite good, all the past games have been a bit plain and boring with regards to ~10 bog standard terrain types on a giant rectangle. Though I must say they do keep to the civilisation building roots instead of introducting silly 'RPG' elements and losing corruption/maintenance altogether. I think better future tech is needed (how about being able to get rid of pollution altogether, but maybe at some other cost?) as well as the timescale sorting (it's impossible to wage large ancient-world wars on timescales smaller than ~1000 years!). Can't wait though :smile:

Most of the top down stradegy games I've seen have had some cartoony 3d graphics... Not that they look bad, but they certianly look cartoony, (i,e. Warcraft, Age of Mythology). I think they should just stick to the good ol' starcraft 2d grahpics.

Yippiy Ki Yay!

Despite your particular nuke problem (which I rarely used anyway, I was out for land conquest, I don't need a barren crater), I found the AC faction AI to be much more fun to play against than civ3's. I love the fact that factions would hate/love me depending on my social engineering choices. It made the societies actually have some color. You had to play an entirely different game if your were Morgan than if you were Miriam, or if you were Dierdre, or if you were Yang. And the whole business of running for planetary governor - far far superior than the lameo UN secretary general business. You could actually successfully butter up the other factions in the game with visible results, something that rarely works when I'm playing Civ3.

And on a completely different part of it, blind research by designating areas to look into was brilliant and far more realistic than "choose your tech."

Cash Car Star said:
Despite your particular nuke problem (which I rarely used anyway, I was out for land conquest, I don't need a barren crater)

Hey, I wasn't out to nuke the world, but if some upstart thinks that they can get away with nuking one of my big cities they'd be wrong. If I remember correctly I completely removed the continent of that particular faction with multiple quantum planet busters. Satisfying retribution :cool:

I'd say that AC was the best of the lot if it weren't for the fact that it is so easily broken on even the hardest levels. The combat was tough but fun, the enemies had brains, the different situations caused by the settings was cool... however I could always win by having a dominant economy with solar collectors everywhere and by designing and building attack cars with the best guns and armor. 10-20 of those can wipe out a faction with a larger, equally advanced army since they'll throw away many of their troops because they aren't armored. Throw air power into the mix and its time for a victory dance.

Sorry to drag this up from the crypt, but there are some Civ 4 screenshots doing the rounds, in case you haven't noticed:

http://www.shacknews.com/screens.x/civilization4/Civilization+4/

Personally, I think it looks rubbish so far, but let's hope that they'll work on that.

Personally, I do not think you can improve the 2D windows much more than they already have so I am not to disappointed. However, if it plays as poorly as Civ III I will be royally burned. I want a bit more of the old Civ II back.

Also, I do not want them to remove to many of the nuisance parts. You always knew you screwed the dog when a big ol nasty pollution area showed up :biggrin:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Cash Car Star</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>Not sure if I'd like to see corruption, rioting or pollution go away completely, but the corruption in particular did get a tad gratuitous in civ3.</DIV></DIV>

Yeah, the corruption, rioting and pollution do have their place and it would be a shame to see them go. They're integral to the game. I thought the rioting and pollution balance was generally ok in Civ3 though like you say the corruption was OTT. Even with Democracy/Communism when your Civ reached a certain number of cities it was counter-productive to build any more. I ended up modding the game so that a number of other city improvements brought down corruption too, which made it bearable on larger maps.

Also I'd like to see zone-of-control sorted out properly - I liked the way it worked in Civ2 (if in a square adjacent to one of your units an enemy unit could only attack or move away, not slip past) much more than Civ3 (stationing umpteen units in a continuous line to prevent enemy units slipping through gaps).

I think we can all agree, the best Civ was Civ2. Civ 3 was wierd.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

The first screenshot looks terrible but the rest are moderately promising although they seem to say I won't be able to play a very good game on my 1024x768 monitor. Civ has never truly been about the graphics anyway.

The screens look okay, but definately nothing mindblowing. I like that
"WYSIWYG" interface idea though, where they get rid of a lot of the
menus. And I agree with others about the pollution and such being
important. I still play Civ2 time to time, but I have no idea where my
Civ3 CD is.

I think I remember playing some sort of imitation Civ, before Civ3 came
out... It was terrible. Don't recall the name though. "Rise to Power"
or something like that?

Rise of Nations?

No, there were a few Civ games that appeared around that period due to
different people having the rights to it. Civ:Call to Power, Alpha
Centurai, etc...

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Yeah, Call to Power! God, that was TERRIBLE! :smile:

Alpha Centauri was pretty good. All those Mindworms pissed me off
though! And then I remember you could Nerve-Staple your citizens or
something to stop riots, but then it would be declared an international
atrocity and the other leaders would veto you and stuff... Good times.
But I have to say, when you take Civilization off of Earth and onto
another planet, it kind of loses the charm of, say, conquering the
Greeks by starving their cities to death and poisoning their water
supplies :wink: