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    Jerome Atherholt: Focus on Firaxis: A Look Inside the Company 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on October 22, 1998 18:01

    Name: Jerome Atherholt
    Title: Artist/Animator

    LDespot: What did you do for SMG?

    Jerome Atherholt: Generals' portraits (both sides), Options Screen, Side selection screen (not the paintings in the frame which are the work of Don Troiani) "F10" map of Gettysburg, Scenario Briefing screens, Union and Confederate Desktop artwork. Also lent my voice for some of the Generals in the scenario briefing. ...
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    Sid Meier: Focus on Firaxis: A Look Inside the Company 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on October 21, 1998 18:13
    Article Preview

    Name: Sid Meier (Sid is on the right in the picture to the bottom)
    Title: Designer for Sid Meier's Gettysburg!

    LDespot: I know a book inspired you to create SMG, but what caused you to start work on it when you did?

    Sid Meier: We were looking for a cool new game to introduce with our new company. We tossed around a few ideas, played with a few game designs but kept coming back to this idea to do a Civil War game. Since we’ve always been interested in the Civil War it was natural, but also, we had gotten numerous requests to do one over the years. We had tried different approaches to the topic, but never found one that kept our interest for very long. Last year, the technology was finally available to present the battlefield as I had envisioned it and it just seemed like the thing to do. ...
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    Brian Reynolds: Focus on Firaxis: A Look Inside the Company 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on October 21, 1998 18:06
    Article Preview

    Name: Brian Reynolds (Brian is in the middle of the picture to the bottom)
    Title: Designer for Alpha Centauri

    LDespot: What is it like living in the shadow of "The Great Sid Meier"?

    Brian Reynolds: It's a pretty good place to live. Sid taught me most of what I know about computer game design, and although we've moved from a master/apprentice relationship to an equal partnership it's clearly Sid's vision and genius that drives our success. ...
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    Jeff Briggs: Focus on Firaxis: A Look Inside the Company 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on October 21, 1998 17:49
    Article Preview

    Name: Jeff Briggs (Jeff is on the left in the picture to the bottom)
    Title: BMOC (Big Man on Campus)

    LDespot: What led to the decision to break off and start Firaxis?

    Jeff Briggs: Sid, Brian and I had been friends and colleagues at MicroProse for a long time and we were getting to the end of projects we had been working on. I thought that, given the dire situation MPS was in at the time, what with layoffs and consistent quarterly losses and so on, I could create an environment with a lot more freedom and independence. I had always thought about how cool it'd be to be a part of a very focused, dedicated game development group, much like MicroProse had been in the very early days. So I decided that, once Civ II was out there, I'd make the jump and see if I could get something going. As it turned out both Brian and Sid were interested in joining, so soon after I left, they followed. ...
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    Questions about Firaxis' present, past and future 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on October 21, 1998 17:38

    Generic Questions Addressed to Anyone Willing to Answer

    LDespot: Are there any plans to do another historical game? Some of the suggestions on the message boards are a game based on Waterloo, etc.

    Sid Meier: We really enjoyed making and playing Gettysburg! and in many ways we think it is a next step in the evolution of war games, so we would like to continue down this path. There are all sorts of possibilities with the Gettysburg! system, it can handle anything from ancients all the way to wars of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, we've had a lot of requests for a Napoleonic war. But, right now we are very focused on Alpha Centauri. We haven't made any decisions about what we will do with the Gettysburg! system. We're listening closely to feedback on what people like and do not like about Gettysburg! and what gamers would like us to do next. As soon as we get a little lull from Alpha Centauri, we'll start putting some ideas together for our next project. ...
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    Alpha Centauri: Preliminary report on the Chironian biosphere 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on July 19, 1998 19:40
    Article Preview


    Introduction - the astrophysical background

    Alpha Centauri A ("Alpha Prime") is a G2V main sequence star, similar in spectral class to the Sun, but about a billion years older. Chiron (or "Planet" as most of the colonists refer to it) is a 1.8 Earth mass planet orbiting at 1.08 AU from Alpha Prime, receiving 23% more sunlight than Earth does at the present. ...
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    Firaxis with Alpha Centauri at E3 

    by
    Martin Gühmann
    Published on June 29, 1998 18:15
    Article Preview

    LDespot: I had a chance to sit down with Sid and Brian at E3 and ask some questions concerning their latest game. Here are the questions and the answers I recieved:

    LDespot: Tell us more about unit configuration.

    Brian: Units in the game are fully customizable in any of five different categories: chassis, weapon, shielding, reactor, and special abilities. There are literally thousands of possible units as a result. Chassis determines the type of unit (land, sea, or air), and the number of movement points it has. Weapon is the offensive armament, or may be replaced by a non-combat package such as terraformer equipment, supply pod, colony pod, etc. Shielding is the defensive capability of the unit. The reactor determines the hit points, and more advanced reactors decrease the overall cost of the unit. Special abilities confer special bonuses on the unit, either at a cost or at a penalty to some other aspect of the unit. Cost increases exponentially with new features, so a unit with the best armor AND best weapon will cost much more than two units, one with the best armor and one with the best weapon. This keeps unit design interesting--there is never one clear choice to build, since you have to weigh cost issues as well as capabilities--do I want to build a lot of cheap, less powerful units or a few monster units. ...
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