Post by SirPartyMan on Oct 4, 2005 20:48:02 GMT -5
Turn Based Strategy: Civilization 4
September 26, 2005 -
First the most important thing: Civilization 4 stays Civilization! Not withstanding 3D-graphics, in spite of more ease of use for beginners and in spite of drastic changes in the way the game works, a consequently well done Sid-Meier-Sequel awaits the fans. Also an explicit warning too for the demanding, long term lovers of the series, who thought that too far stretched changes already pointed to a downfall of the myth.
Who already has got some Civ-3-experience will find getting into this version not too hard. After setting the usual game parameters like world size, people and difficulty level, the start units, like settlers and warriors, are immediately put on the new 3D-world map. The new zoom function by means of the mouse wheel is soon indispensable, functions without apparent transitions and is surprisingly fast: in just two seconds the camera shoots from treetops up into high orbit. The graphics, in beta-status still slowly scrolling, are a matter of taste.
No Meier product was ever looked upon as mere eye candy - the games don't need it -, and a lot of textures, animations and menu graphics are not even implemented yet. In spite of this the beta version makes that the game wants to push forward to the midfield: in areas where before no pixel was alive, now with the Gamebryo-graphics engine, bonus cows, pigs and sheep playfully are alive, tree tops sway in the wind and the foam of rivers glitters.
The Civ-freak is more interested in a direct view under the hood, and that view confuses at first sight, but it's charming later: everything in gameplay is somehow new. New but also familiar at the same time. The tech tree for example - brutally taken down, chopped up in pieces, newly build and as streched version so nicely rebuild, that you wonder after the third game why it wasn't like that all the time. Separate eras, like Ancient, Middle Ages and so forth, are gone, what finally ensures the science specialization! Whoever wants to go for a peaceful Builders game, is not forced anymore also to research all military technologies, and vice versa.
The extensive tech tree turned out to be very good balanced over the time period that stayed the same in the repeated test game, only the first two and a half millennia rush by quicker than in part 3; a apparently necessary tribute to many added starting-technologies, like Meditation or Animal Husbandry. The development is all-in-all slower than in Civ 3, and quickens then into the endgame. It's not possible to build big super empires by just expanding like in the previous version. Less but therefore better developed and specialized cities fulfill the same goal.
A lot expanded were techniques for farming - there are wind mills, stone bridges, animal pastures, who partly provide direct happiness bonuses for the respective cities. A chapter of its own - and the clearest improvement in gameplay - are the religions and civics. That integration shows as a blessing. Because everything goes step by step, the appropriate civilization and religion settings are set almost automatically according to the world map and the behaviour of the opponents.
Following this article a very interesting interview follows with the QA-manager Timothy McCracken of Firaxis. Tim has played Civ 4 so many times like nobody else.
PC Games:
Civ 3 gave the AI-opponents in high difficulty settings unfair advantages against the player, instead of playing smarter. Will this stay the same for Civ 4 or do you dare to please us with a serious, really improved AI?
Timothy McCracken:
A lot of test players complained about that too. Something we did to solve this, was to remove something from the AI, knowing where certain things appear. For example, the AI appears in the middle of a desert and puts a city in it; then, a hundred turn laster, you find a fully developed city. That of course can't be. Our chief designer Soren Johnson let the AI play against themselves on a daily basis. In the end he looked at the statistics and checked what the AI did. When it worked, he kept it in. Otherwise it was improved on.
Well, I'm not saying, that the AI doesn't have advantages at higher levels. At the highest level the AI has a definite advantage in production etcetera, but, when you play the AI with this advantage, the AI will play more challenging. The AI will make intelligent decisions and this group of about 300 people, who received a new Build version every week, can convince themselves, that they play against a really smarter AI as opposed to a cheating one.
So I would say, yes, you're playing against a more difficult opponent instead of against a cheating opponent.
PC Games:
Tedious micromanagement and passing entire decades by just pressing 'End Turn' several times (while nothing exciting happens). We mean the endgame of Civ 3, which compared to the early and mid phase wasn't interesting anymore for experienced players; was this weakness noted, Tim, and if so, will this be improved upon in Civ 4?
Timothy McCracken:
This aspect will definitively be improved! One thing that we made possible, was relieving a big part of micromanagement. It's still there however, because some players like to go into every small detail.
We added some things, like unit grouping, unit specializing and so on. In other words: what came into the game before, can be improved upon, to create a rich army with different unit types. Going for one direction all the time, will not always lead to victory. And at the end of the game you will experience a rise in the motivation curve by new strategies and the like, instead of stagnation, or how you want to call it, instead of letting go by turn by turn.
One can at any time go into a so-called Golden Age, giving three Great People. You can create a culture shock, by bringing a Great Artist into a city and let him create a Great Work there. There are a lot of different, new additional strategies. [Note translator: I guess what's said here is that at any time you have a chance to get a Great Person, that can be of any one of three types; but it literally states that you can at anytime go into a Golden Age giving you three Great People]; exact German text is: 'Man kann jederzeit ein so genanntes Goldenes Zeitalter einläuten, das drei bedeutende Persönlichkeiten hervorbringt. Man kann sozusagen einen Kulturschock verursachen, indem man einen großen Künstler in eine Stadt bringt und ihn dort ein bedeutendes Werk machen lässt. Es gibt jetzt viele verschiedene neue, zusätzliche Strategien.'
You have for example the tech tree: the road in which the research is going, is no longer linear, but dynamic. For example gunpowder: previously there was a set way to get there; now you have several possibilities to invent gunpowder. Yes, I think that was an obvious weakness of the predecessor. But with religion, the new way to use culture, with the Great People and the unit specialization we created a better game for sure.
PC Games:
That interesting. I think the fans will like that.
Timothy McCracken:
Yes, I think so too. I'll tell you something: we, the betatest-community, we jotted stuff down, we went to the fan basis, we went to fan sites, we even invited the public, to help us with testing. We gave them the newest Builds weekly and they played them and told us what they thought of it.
One of the best arguments for these people is, that they are not employed by us. They are totally unbiased. They can tell us, what they hate and what they love. And in 2 years we found the right middle way. And I'd say that most people who know the game now, are of the opinion that in all areas that had weaknesses before, are better now.
PC Games:
With respect to the change in release date: was detected that the product was ready earlier than planned, or was the decision made outside the development team? In case of the latter: when are you planning to release the first patch? Or is it already worked upon?
Timothy McCracken:
Really, we're doing everything to create a game to be released without a patch! However, we have a lot of features after the release, that we can only offer afterwards. One of them is the core-SDK of the game. That's mostly just for modders of course, who can then go into the program to rewrite the whole code. But also the World-Editor, that will be released later, will change the game.
To answer the change in release date: I would say, it was a joint decision of Firaxis and Take 2. They determinded that we could release the game early, without worrying about apparent bugs. I'm the chief of QA and it's my job to make sure that the release is proper.
After the betatest community has done superficial and detailed tests in say the last year and a half, I think that we created a solid game.
What we need to do now, is concentrate on some fine tuning instead bringing in new stuff or delete features.
This just means that we will finish the game much more early.
PC Games:
Many thanks for the candid words! We're already looking forward to the complete game.
September 26, 2005 -
First the most important thing: Civilization 4 stays Civilization! Not withstanding 3D-graphics, in spite of more ease of use for beginners and in spite of drastic changes in the way the game works, a consequently well done Sid-Meier-Sequel awaits the fans. Also an explicit warning too for the demanding, long term lovers of the series, who thought that too far stretched changes already pointed to a downfall of the myth.
Who already has got some Civ-3-experience will find getting into this version not too hard. After setting the usual game parameters like world size, people and difficulty level, the start units, like settlers and warriors, are immediately put on the new 3D-world map. The new zoom function by means of the mouse wheel is soon indispensable, functions without apparent transitions and is surprisingly fast: in just two seconds the camera shoots from treetops up into high orbit. The graphics, in beta-status still slowly scrolling, are a matter of taste.
No Meier product was ever looked upon as mere eye candy - the games don't need it -, and a lot of textures, animations and menu graphics are not even implemented yet. In spite of this the beta version makes that the game wants to push forward to the midfield: in areas where before no pixel was alive, now with the Gamebryo-graphics engine, bonus cows, pigs and sheep playfully are alive, tree tops sway in the wind and the foam of rivers glitters.
The Civ-freak is more interested in a direct view under the hood, and that view confuses at first sight, but it's charming later: everything in gameplay is somehow new. New but also familiar at the same time. The tech tree for example - brutally taken down, chopped up in pieces, newly build and as streched version so nicely rebuild, that you wonder after the third game why it wasn't like that all the time. Separate eras, like Ancient, Middle Ages and so forth, are gone, what finally ensures the science specialization! Whoever wants to go for a peaceful Builders game, is not forced anymore also to research all military technologies, and vice versa.
The extensive tech tree turned out to be very good balanced over the time period that stayed the same in the repeated test game, only the first two and a half millennia rush by quicker than in part 3; a apparently necessary tribute to many added starting-technologies, like Meditation or Animal Husbandry. The development is all-in-all slower than in Civ 3, and quickens then into the endgame. It's not possible to build big super empires by just expanding like in the previous version. Less but therefore better developed and specialized cities fulfill the same goal.
A lot expanded were techniques for farming - there are wind mills, stone bridges, animal pastures, who partly provide direct happiness bonuses for the respective cities. A chapter of its own - and the clearest improvement in gameplay - are the religions and civics. That integration shows as a blessing. Because everything goes step by step, the appropriate civilization and religion settings are set almost automatically according to the world map and the behaviour of the opponents.
Following this article a very interesting interview follows with the QA-manager Timothy McCracken of Firaxis. Tim has played Civ 4 so many times like nobody else.
PC Games:
Civ 3 gave the AI-opponents in high difficulty settings unfair advantages against the player, instead of playing smarter. Will this stay the same for Civ 4 or do you dare to please us with a serious, really improved AI?
Timothy McCracken:
A lot of test players complained about that too. Something we did to solve this, was to remove something from the AI, knowing where certain things appear. For example, the AI appears in the middle of a desert and puts a city in it; then, a hundred turn laster, you find a fully developed city. That of course can't be. Our chief designer Soren Johnson let the AI play against themselves on a daily basis. In the end he looked at the statistics and checked what the AI did. When it worked, he kept it in. Otherwise it was improved on.
Well, I'm not saying, that the AI doesn't have advantages at higher levels. At the highest level the AI has a definite advantage in production etcetera, but, when you play the AI with this advantage, the AI will play more challenging. The AI will make intelligent decisions and this group of about 300 people, who received a new Build version every week, can convince themselves, that they play against a really smarter AI as opposed to a cheating one.
So I would say, yes, you're playing against a more difficult opponent instead of against a cheating opponent.
PC Games:
Tedious micromanagement and passing entire decades by just pressing 'End Turn' several times (while nothing exciting happens). We mean the endgame of Civ 3, which compared to the early and mid phase wasn't interesting anymore for experienced players; was this weakness noted, Tim, and if so, will this be improved upon in Civ 4?
Timothy McCracken:
This aspect will definitively be improved! One thing that we made possible, was relieving a big part of micromanagement. It's still there however, because some players like to go into every small detail.
We added some things, like unit grouping, unit specializing and so on. In other words: what came into the game before, can be improved upon, to create a rich army with different unit types. Going for one direction all the time, will not always lead to victory. And at the end of the game you will experience a rise in the motivation curve by new strategies and the like, instead of stagnation, or how you want to call it, instead of letting go by turn by turn.
One can at any time go into a so-called Golden Age, giving three Great People. You can create a culture shock, by bringing a Great Artist into a city and let him create a Great Work there. There are a lot of different, new additional strategies. [Note translator: I guess what's said here is that at any time you have a chance to get a Great Person, that can be of any one of three types; but it literally states that you can at anytime go into a Golden Age giving you three Great People]; exact German text is: 'Man kann jederzeit ein so genanntes Goldenes Zeitalter einläuten, das drei bedeutende Persönlichkeiten hervorbringt. Man kann sozusagen einen Kulturschock verursachen, indem man einen großen Künstler in eine Stadt bringt und ihn dort ein bedeutendes Werk machen lässt. Es gibt jetzt viele verschiedene neue, zusätzliche Strategien.'
You have for example the tech tree: the road in which the research is going, is no longer linear, but dynamic. For example gunpowder: previously there was a set way to get there; now you have several possibilities to invent gunpowder. Yes, I think that was an obvious weakness of the predecessor. But with religion, the new way to use culture, with the Great People and the unit specialization we created a better game for sure.
PC Games:
That interesting. I think the fans will like that.
Timothy McCracken:
Yes, I think so too. I'll tell you something: we, the betatest-community, we jotted stuff down, we went to the fan basis, we went to fan sites, we even invited the public, to help us with testing. We gave them the newest Builds weekly and they played them and told us what they thought of it.
One of the best arguments for these people is, that they are not employed by us. They are totally unbiased. They can tell us, what they hate and what they love. And in 2 years we found the right middle way. And I'd say that most people who know the game now, are of the opinion that in all areas that had weaknesses before, are better now.
PC Games:
With respect to the change in release date: was detected that the product was ready earlier than planned, or was the decision made outside the development team? In case of the latter: when are you planning to release the first patch? Or is it already worked upon?
Timothy McCracken:
Really, we're doing everything to create a game to be released without a patch! However, we have a lot of features after the release, that we can only offer afterwards. One of them is the core-SDK of the game. That's mostly just for modders of course, who can then go into the program to rewrite the whole code. But also the World-Editor, that will be released later, will change the game.
To answer the change in release date: I would say, it was a joint decision of Firaxis and Take 2. They determinded that we could release the game early, without worrying about apparent bugs. I'm the chief of QA and it's my job to make sure that the release is proper.
After the betatest community has done superficial and detailed tests in say the last year and a half, I think that we created a solid game.
What we need to do now, is concentrate on some fine tuning instead bringing in new stuff or delete features.
This just means that we will finish the game much more early.
PC Games:
Many thanks for the candid words! We're already looking forward to the complete game.