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PREVIOUS ARTICLES

179# THE JOYS AND FRUSTRATING ELEMENTS OF THE CIV SERIES A full analysis of the bad and the good of all civ games! 178# A SPLITTING HEADACHE? All great empires eventually died, why should yours be any different? 177# WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AT THE BOTTOM OF MY SHOE? Will wants more reality in war, peace and his people 176# DO OTHER PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT THIS TRICK? Search and you shall find 175# SMACX ECO-DAMAGE FORMULA REVISED! The Column makes a.... technical turn and lands on Alpha Centauri COLUMN ARCHIVE

I'm seeing it happen in first person shooters. A game is released which looks like a mod of an already released game: No One Lives Forever on the Quake III engine. I wonder if the levels of that game could have been designed as a Quake II mod. The mods are also going cross gaming: Team Fortress started life as a Quake mod before becoming popular as a Half Life mod. And there's also the mods becoming great games themselves: a games magazine editor wrote that he had spent more time, and had more fun, playing Firearms (for Half Life) than any game actually being sold. He went so far as to suggest that game companies just put out the engine and let amateur mod makers put out the stuff we actually play.

This talk about mods brings us (since we're at Apolyton) to Civilization and the scenario editor. The civ2 editing tools enable a great deal of customization. Many experienced players have formed their own mods to best enjoy their own style of play. Civ2 mods and scenarios have been made for everything from Star Trek to Dungeons And Dragons. But there are limitations, and the scenarios suffer a great deal from those limitations. In civ2 scenario making, we have a great deal of control over units, some control over gameplay, and almost no control over improvements and wonders.

One of the main failings of the civ2 editor, to my seeing, is the failure to be able to make a mod which duplicates the gameplay of the original civ. A half dozen things, like unhappiness for military units out of cities, fortifying units right next to cities during peacetime, and the effects of railroad on food production are unchangeable. I know the designers had good reasons for changing the gameplay in these ways, but many people STILL consider civ1 to have superior gameplay to civ2. Civ1 placed #11 in a game magazine reader's survey where civ2 placed #5. What if the designers had given options so that players could toggle on or off all the gameplay improvements, as they did with simlified combat? What if gamers could pick and choose which they preferred? What if?

Well now, Civilization III is coming, and hopefully the promised editing suite will be powerful enough to do what the civ2 editor is unable to do: replicate the gameplay of its predecessor. Sure, the new resources model looks good, but what if I want to do it the old way, with bonuses for working the tile? What if I like the resources, but want to trade them using caravans? What if I think borders besides city limits are absurd? What If I want to bring back fundamentalism? What if? What if?

An interesting advantage to an editor which accurately duplicate the predecessor's gameplay is that we can start to wonder why we keep the old version around. For those who prefer civ to civ2, it's because of the gameplay. But if the old game is essentially included in the new game, then it becomes easy to play, say, civ2 in civ3 and slowly ease into it.

Because the fact is, most of us are going to take time to get into it. Civ2 is so familiar to many of us that it's almost as if we're married to it (except for me, my wife thinks civ is my mistress). Simple unfamiliarity will cause some of us to say, at least once, "I liked it better the old way". It wuld seem extreme arrogance on the part of the developers to declare an "all or nothing" attitude about the new features in civ3.

I said it in an earlier column, and I'm saying it again. Civilization III should include a scenario editor capable of duplicating the gameplay of its predecesssors, and to prove that power, have modes for playing in civ, civ2, and AC already included (install optional). I don't think they are seriously worried about losing sales on those games, and such a proven editor out of the box would make our scenario editors drool. Between Hasbro and Firaxis, the rights to officially make these mods shouldn't be hard to come by. They could then leave it to us to make accurate Call To Power and Call To Power 2 mods, thereby making those games obsolete. They probably couldn't package CTP mods with the game without a visit from a lawyer unit. But there's nothing wrong with making it possible for us to do it, is there?

While we're at it, it would also be very cool if there was some way to adjust the AI, to customize the way the computer plays. For various scenarios, it would be useful to set unwavering loyalty from one civ to another, or varying levels of placation and cooperation. In civ2, we have been able to set situations where everyone hates you, but little subtlety. Hardly more than "rational, civilized".

One of the problems with strategy games is that the humans learn to play better than the AI. While this is obvious, it becomes especially true with new features in revisions of older games. For civ2, the designers put in a lot of strategies of successful civ1 players, but these were insufficient in the more complex world of civ2. Similarly, there have been complaints that the AC computer opponents don't know how to use their crawlers, or their drop pods. And so on. In games of this depth, players will ALWAYS find uses that were not intended by the designers, and therefore not programmed into the AI.

But what if? What if players were able to adjust the AI for scenarios and other occaisions. What if, when we found new and fascinating ways of playing, we could teach these to the AI? What if we could set priorities for the AI civ, so it could beat you to building the Hanging Gardens? What if you could progarm the AI to follow Paul's OCC plan and win by it? What if?

Now. Imagine that we have a really good scenario editor. What can we do? Let's explore some possibilities. Let's say that all units (except settlers) can only move using the goto function to established cities, and their travel cannot be disrupted. Suppose that we resurrect the AC unit workshop, but allow only 6 unit types to be available for production at any time. Suppose further you could load a unit with special abilities as well as attack and defense. What would we have? Well, it wouldn't be much like civ, but it would be a good start on a Master Of Orion mod.

Let's try again. Suppose that all improvements have no upkeep, but can only be rushbought, not built. Suppose further that armies cannot leave the city without a leader. And set it so that the existing cities are all there is - no building or destroying cities. That would be on its way to becoming a Heroes Of Might And Magic mod.

I don't know how feasible this all is. For all I know, making civ3 capable of imitating civ2 is beyond the abilities of the team over at Firaxis. For all I know, they think the game will be almost only mutiplayer and will ignore the AI or any adjustability thereof (please no…). We may get a scenario editor capable of little more than a capable civ2 scenario designer can do.

But, Oh how good it would be, if. If...

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A lover of all civ games, playing as much as I can while eagerly awaiting civ3. God, I love this game!

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