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Civ3 Christmas Chat, December 21, 2001

Here is the transcript of our Christmas 2001 Chat with Jeff Morris and Dan Magaha. Many thanks to both for their time and especially Dan for breaking his vacation to be with us.

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*** ACS_MarkG changes topic to 'Apolyton.net Channel - Civ3 Chat with Jeff Morris and Dan Magaha'
[ACS_MarkG] Welcome to our Christmas Chat with Jeff Morris and Dan Magaha as the special guest star :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] He's special all right
[ACS_MarkG] since we're not the entire amount of people who bought civ3, we'll try the chat unmoderated
[ACS_MarkG] if we behave... civilized, i wont have to go into moderation
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] k
[ACS_MarkG] this means less than 5 questions per second please ;)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] back
[ACS_MarkG] thank you for the cooperation, have a nice chat!
[ACS_MarkG] let me get the first question :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Shoot
[Libertarian] Could you tell us, please, the status of group movement and proximate unit activation sequencing?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] ...
[DGahaFIRAXIS] hehehe
[ACS_MarkG] Dan at least is on vacartion, whose left in the office these days
[ACS_MarkG] so much for the first question... :)
[zrunner] heh :)
[draz2] :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] What was it Mark
[ACS_MarkG] Whose left in the office these days??
[Libertarian] Sorry, Mark. I thought you meant "can you give me the first question?".
[draz2] LOL
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Soren just left to catch his flight...
[ACS_MarkG] Any work done at all or our you too busy with christmas preparations?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Mike Bates, mike beer, pat, a few others
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Nope, it'll be a working holiday for me
[draz2] how many copies are cold of civ3 as of yet? just curious I know its selling well...
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Very well...to be honest, better than I even hoped...
[draz2] sold :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] It's an amazing infastructure infogrames has
[xerent] Big question: How come that the animations for the Legionaire unit doesnt have a "square" shield (Scutum), the one in-game it has rounded edges :)
[APW] I want to thank you guys for tolerating the flames on the forums, continuing to read and respond, and putting out a great game. =D
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I'll smack the unit team for ya.
[dmantione] How about a Linux port if it sells well?
[ACS_MarkG] amen APW
[xerent] =)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] That kind of stuff is up to the publisher...
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] the forums
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] You just need to know how to get the most out of them
[dmantione] Too bad they aren around here...
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Once I figured out the ignore feature and the general is a zoo, things have been very pleseant
[APW] hehe
[ACS_MarkG] Did you check out Empire Earth? It was supposed to be an RTS civ, with a huge time span, etc....
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] My 2 favorite forums are strat and creation...that's where most of the 'meat' is these days
[DGahaFIRAXIS] I saw it at E3
[APW] I give EE a thumbs-down.
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I almost picked it up
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] but it seems a little rough
[APW] Its like the bastard child of AoE and Civ. =D
[draz2] its boring I think :)
[Libertarian] Could you tell us, please, the status of group movement and proximate unit activation sequencing?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] I'm not a big fan of RTS so I passed it
[David_M] are you planning on adding any more new functions to the editor?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] PC Gamer slammed it too..saying that as different as each era is, it all comes down to churning out villagers
[DGahaFIRAXIS] passed on it rather
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Editor
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Lots of work is being done on the editor.. Features galore!
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] What, when and that kind of stuff is still being worked out..
[David_M] will we ever be able to add new espionage missions?
[David_M] that would be supercool
[adaMada] are you allowed to say if those features will include the ability to make 'real' scenerios?
[dmantione] Civ should be turnbased. Any attempt to make it realtime is nonsense, if you ask me...
[adaMada] or even something close?
[ACS_MarkG] Jeff, so you dont have an estimation at when we will be able to make scenarios?
[korn469] do any of you at firaxis play any of the user created mods?
[APW] I think it would be great if one of you would address Lib so I don't have to read his flames anymore. =D
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Mike Breitkreutz is working hard on the editor
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I'll play it safe and say no comment.
[Trifna] On what are you basing yourself to know which fan question you will answer (and when you will) and which you wont? I'm refering here to some issue that are known from Firaxis as beeing somewhat a problem but which Firaxis didn't answered on what they would do about it (actual exemple: stacked units)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Trifna, we try to respond to questions which we know the answers to and which we can answer because the feature is confirmed
[David_M] btw why did you guys drop fundamentalism? fundie was a cool form of government.
[draz2] any news on an expansion for civ3? new tribes? etc?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Exactly...I don't speculate if I can help it
[Trifna] Thx
[DGahaFIRAXIS] There are a lot of questions we simply don't know the outcome of, and we don't want to fuel the fire, so to speak
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] That was a Jeff B call on funde
[David_M] :( it is sadly missed, so is planting nukes :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] That was a last minute change
[David_M] why last minute?
[dmantione] 11 september?
[APW] Were any changes made deliberatle in light of Spet. 11?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Yep
[David_M] oh.
[DGahaFIRAXIS] korn, to answer your question I have installed a few mods to see what people are doing
[dmantione] too bad...
[APW] hehe typos....
[Trifna] 11 sept... arrrggggg
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Hey korn...I dug your tweak mod
[korn469] Jeff i have been slack with the bug list updates because of finals but was it a help?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] A great help
[David_M] will we ever be able to add those things back in jeff? please say it is so!
[korn469] i posted a new beta version today
[DGahaFIRAXIS] I also spent a lot of time looking at what scenarios people were doing with Civ II
[Libertarian] What does it mean when you say you don't know the outcome? Are you referring to group movement and sensible unit activation sequencing?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I'd say 90% of the nonQA bugs we fixed were from those lists
[korn469] i'll have 1.06 out this sunday
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Kickass
[korn469] cool
[xerent] Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS: I tried to write a Civilization clone in QuickBasic once. I failed utterly. ;)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Lib: yes
[Trifna] Did the 11 september events changed many things in Civ III?
[korn469] since finals are over i'll also get you an updated bug list
[APW] What Trifna said....
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Not really. We're were close to signing off at that point
[Libertarian] Thank you, Dan. I'm still confused, however.
[Guest2] JSS
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Lib: believe me when I say we want to provide clarity but not until we are sure we can deliver it
[APW] LiB: you just want to be confused.....
[Guest2] JON
[David_M] jeff why did you guys remove the diplomacy option from civ2 to trade military units
[David_M] i miss that.
[dmantione] Or the cease fire?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Again...that was a Jeff B and Soren call..I loved that feature in SMAC...I used it to cripple 'friends' by offloading loads of obscolete units on them...that might be the reason...to easy to exploit the AI
[draz2] how come the nvidia problem slipped your attention? a lot of ppl are using detenator drivers ofcourse its all fixed now :)
[Libertarian] Okay, Dan. Just to clarify, please. Are you saying that you understand that the problem is a late-game drag, but you aren't sure at this point whether it can be fixed?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] It was probably the biggest compat problem we had
[draz2] yep it was :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] It basically came down to the way opengl was implemented and a 'bug' in their drivers
[ACS_MarkG] lib, he is saying he is not of when it will be corrected :)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Lib: yes
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] They were great to work with on the problem so we kind of both fixed it simultaneously
[Libertarian] Dan. At last! I understand now. Thank you.
[wolfgar] will there be a "LAN" addon for civ3?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Stay tuned!
[Libertarian] May I make an announcement in the forum?
[xerent] id take that as a yes
[xerent] :]
[ACS_MarkG] Jeff, are you discussing things with Infogrames on it?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] There's lots of talk about future projects...it's an exciting time!
[Trifna] In some hypothetical multiplayer, would there be a possibility of adding some features that were taken out because they were cheazy or uninteresting against the AI?
[dmantione] Civ doesn support low resolutions like 800x600, isn't?
[Guest70294] help
[ACS_MarkG] btw, is Infogrames pleased with the sales so far?
[adaMada] Jeff/Dan: What level do you play Civ 3 on :D?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] MP is a challange with turn based...anything that could improve the experience will be considered...hypothetically
[draz2] is the AI still being tweaked in the new patches?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] dmantione: the game was designed to be played at 1024 x 768 from day one
[Trifna] hehe, like this hypothesis thing :P
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Depends on the type of game I want...Sometimes Cheiftan is where it's at if you want to finish in one sitting (or you're checking things)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] ada: I am a really bad player, I usually play at Prince or below if I'm getting spanked
[dmantione] Right, only my laptop tft screen is only 800x600, now I can't play in the train...
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] SimGolf is 8x6!
[korn469] Jeff and Dan if multiplayer does get implemented who do you want to play first at firaxis?
[ACS_MarkG] So, Dan you too have used illegal alterations of the game? ;)
[adaMada] lol, thanks
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Probably Rex our lead tester
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Mark my lawyer has advised me not to answer that
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] He's meant to be scary good at TOT
[korn469] cool :)
[xerent] Why does the computer civs get free units on high skill levels?
[ACS_MarkG] lol ok Dan ;)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Rex would kill me
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Probably to help handicap them...
[draz2] only on regent right?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] But I'm sure you realized that...it's to provide a challange
[DGahaFIRAXIS] I like to play culture and resource hoarding he's always taunting me that he'd kill me in MP
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] The latest version we have kills despot pop rushing...
[xerent] Yeah but, the high skill levels isnt that supposed to be the computer to outsmart you, not to outnumber you :]
[adaMada] Do either of you consider curruption to still be too high after the patch? Did you think it was too high before?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Actually the AI is the same at all difficulty levels. What adjusts is the cheats bestowed to either the AI or Player
[DGahaFIRAXIS] I think Soren believed that Deity should be very close to impossible to beat
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Corruption
[DGahaFIRAXIS] which I tend to agree with
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Maybe...It's definately as designed so I'm not sure it'll change much more than it has
[Trifna] Does the AI cheat at cheftein? (sorry if it was already answered)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I'm not a huge map player so it's usually not to bad for me...
[DGahaFIRAXIS] it's handicapped at Chieftain
[Libertarian] Was corruption intended to supress empire building?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] No cheating on cheiftan...think of it as the human is cheating
[ACS_MarkG] Trifna, it's the opposite on chieftain :)
[DGahaFIRAXIS] if you open the editor (v1.16f) and go to difficulty levels you can see what the AI gets at each level
[Trifna] erm... lol
[MLarsen] What is your stand on the waiting times between turns that makes huge maps unplayable later in game? Get a faster computer? =)
[Trifna] I mean the middle lvl... don,t remember its name
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] City count was meant to be reduced through corruption from civ 2 levels...I belivev
[draz2] is the AI still being tweaked in the new patches? if so in what way?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] There is a level with no handicaps either way...Monarch if memory serves
[korn469] any chance of adjusting the damage levels for nuclear weapons in the next editor update
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Jeff I think it's Prince
[Trifna] okay
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] It's constantly being tweaked...Soren can't leave it alone
[adaMada] lol
[draz2] lol
[Libertarian] Someone on the forum said that Civ is no longer an empire building game. Do you agree? If so, what kind of game is it, would you say?
[draz2] :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] He reads the strat forums as well and when he sees and explot...BLAM it's changed
[ACS_MarkG] and what would it be Lib?
[draz2] cool
[DGahaFIRAXIS] MLarsen: this is a problem with large maps and 16 civs, which is why we default to and recommend 8 civs
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I think it's clearly an empire building game..not sure what they're talking about
[Libertarian] That's what I'm asking, Mark.
[MLarsen] thx
[Libertarian] Jeff, the corruption seems antithetical to that, don't you think?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] if you have a kick-a$$ cpu, 16 civs is fine, but if you're closer to the minimum (or even recommended) 16 civs is just going to be slow, a lot of that is because the AI in Civ III is so much more complex
[draz2] so how long will u be patching the game? has infograms given u a deadline or..?
[Libertarian] What about a wonder that practically eliminates corruption. Let the best player tet to it first.
[ACS_MarkG] lib, "empire" doesnt equal to 100 cities
[Libertarian] Mark, what does empire equal, then?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] No deadline...
[ACS_MarkG] lib, try reducing corruption from the editor
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] It's basically about resources...if we can assign people to it, we do...
[xerent] How many cups of coffee have been drunk since "Day one" ?
[ACS_MarkG] Jeff, QA is done by infogrames?
[draz2] yeah ok
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I had to drop coffee...Getting old
[DGahaFIRAXIS] A lot of it simply stems from looking at Civ II and how people were able to just run the table and populate every available square of the map with cities
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I ran the QA plan on Civ3
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Conquering the world is meant to be difficult, I think increased corruption was one way of making it more of a challenge
[David_M] just like the ai does now, dan!
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] We used their testers though
[Libertarian] Reducing corruption from the editor reduces it all around. I think the successful empire builder should be reward by being able to span the globe. When I say empire, I mean global empire. I think most people do.
[Syf] Is the ai going to be any better at defending it's cities in a future perhaps? i've noticed that he the ai can never handle a constant rush towards it's cities
[Syf] err.. future patch even
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Soren's always looking to make it better...start a thread in the strat forum about it
[U_I] one major problem is the fact that you can't food caravan into a city, now they are growing and starving it is quite irritating
[DGahaFIRAXIS] David: there are certainly some things the AI does which I don't like, and Soren is cognizant of most of them, but it's a fine line between making the AI crippled
[dmantione] Isn the republic a little too powerfull in civ3? It was already the best goverment in civ2, now the most irritating drawback, the senate is also gone.
[Trifna] Do you have an opinion or any comment to give towards the strange way of placing cities of the AI? Like Groenland, Arctic and such?
[draz2] is Soren the only AI programmer? or just now...?
[David_M] dan: i agree, i wasn't really complaining :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Republics easy to get too as well...A favorite of mine on Archipelago maps
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Soren is the main AI programmer...
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] His baby
[draz2] hehe
[DGahaFIRAXIS] The 1.16f patch, for example, Soren stopped the AI from dropping cities in places where it is likely to be culture absorbed
[draz2] yeah I noticed that
[Trifna] Guess he wants a strong IQ baby...
[adaMada] do either of you know if Soren plans to fix the AI's apparent inability to upgrade units (not that I mind attacking spearmen with tanks, but ;))
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Anyone see Sid last night on the Screen Savers?
[ACS_MarkG] Can you estimate how much the game went back due to the departure of Brian&Co?
[Libertarian] In my opinion, Soren has programmed a first-class AI.
[adaMada] agreed :b:
[ACS_MarkG] Screen Savers?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Mark: for the most part the game was restarted at that point
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] It had an impact...good and bad things came out of it
[DGahaFIRAXIS] at least as far as coding goes
[dmantione] Can the AI still build fortresses?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I think so
[DGahaFIRAXIS] That third guy on the Screen Savers cracks me up
[dmantione] Never saw it buld one..
[DGahaFIRAXIS] he's like a nerdy Tom Green
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Hmmm....I'll take a look
[draz2] is the trading tech bug being fixed? where comp trades in your turn?
[ACS_MarkG] me greek guy, me dont know what screen savers is. me wants help :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I don't think so. I think Soren likes it that way...though I'm not sure
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Mark: a show on TechTV
[Trifna] Question: Do you have an opinion or any comment (hard to do, etc) to give towards the strange way of placing cities of the AI? Like Groenland, Arctic and such?
[Libertarian] Dan, with your permission, I'll report what you said about the late-game issues. That might put much of the complaining in that regard to rest. I know that at least I understand now. (But why didn't you just say so in the first place?) :)
[ACS_MarkG] thanks dan :D
[ACS_MarkG] lib, good luck trying to explain things to some people ;)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Lol
[xerent] Will there be any terrain-mods? i mean you download a file and then you have a world that looks like mars or something.
[DGahaFIRAXIS] LIb, be my guest. I thought I was pretty clear that we knew you guys wanted it but couldn't say for sure if a fix would be put in or not
[ACS_MarkG] xerent there are already fan-made mods for it
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I've been thinking about that kind of stuff lately...Some of the mods along those lines have been pretty cool
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Apologies if I was unclear
[Libertarian] It's simple, Mark. I believe I can explain the issue now.
[Libertarian] Dan, what was unclear was whether Firaxis agreed that it was a problem.
[ACS_MarkG] jeff, presenting a selection of the best of the fan-created stuff on civ3.com would be cool
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Stay Tuned!
[korn469] does working on civ type games still excite you two?
[xerent] I'd like that
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Mark: would be cool, but there could be a lot of legal issues (copyright, if someone does a Star Wars mod, for example)
[draz2] when the wonders screen comes up why did u leave out the text that says what it does?
[korn469] or have they burnt you out after all of these years?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Very much so...I am a HUGE turn based game fan...In my mind it has the potential to be a breakout genre
[DGahaFIRAXIS] korn: working on games in general excites me, I used to do corporate consulting, so every day at Firaxis is a joy
[xerent] DGahaFIRAXIS: Ster Wars. Starring Lüke Skywalker and Durth Wader. :]
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I think non gamers can adjust to TBS very quickly
[DGahaFIRAXIS] right Xerent.. now that seems OK :)
[xerent] :)
[ACS_MarkG] Dan, i guess so, but for example i dont thing there is a problem with modification of civ3's own graphics
[korn469] well i'm glad about that, i hope to see an expansion pack and civ4 or SMAC2 one day
[Libertarian] Is there an exhaustive listing of all quantitative game attributes?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] ?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] Mark: in general I think that stuff is fine (at least it seems fine to me, but I'm no lawyer :)
[xerent] Its all your fault my marks dropped this year !!
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] !
[draz2] when the wonders screen comes up why did u leave out the text that says what it does?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] we've ruined your life again?
[Libertarian] You know, something to tell us how to calculate what corruption will be in a given city a given distance from the capital, etc. In precise terms.
[xerent] DGahaFIRAXIS: i dont know. both ways
[Trifna] Question: Is there some specific thing on which fans could help? A little like the List?
[DGahaFIRAXIS] draz: I don't think it was a conscious decision
[dmantione] why didn u bring up the 3d units in civ3 like in alpha....?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] I believe they were replaced with a link to the civilopedia chapter...not a bad idea
[ACS_MarkG] trifna i think the bug list in the help forum was welcomed
[DGahaFIRAXIS] dmantione if you mean the unit workshop the technology that powered that was a nightmare from what I understand
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] The units in SMAC were not recieved very well...That technology, Caviar, also became somewhat abandoned
[DGahaFIRAXIS] there you gp
[DGahaFIRAXIS] go
[ACS_MarkG] Jeff how was Civ3 compared to SMAC in terms of numbers of bugs upon release?
[Libertarian] Is anything going to be done about there being so many empty techs?
[draz2] were u guys familiar with civ1 and civ2?
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] More bugs in SMAC, a few nasty ones in Civ3...the way these guys develop games sometimes makes QA a reall challange...;)!
[DGahaFIRAXIS] draz: I played them both on the Amiga
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] More Civ1 for me
[draz2] me 2 :)
[Jeff_Morris_FIRAXIS] Hey Gramphos
[Gramphos] Hi

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