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Penny
[ATTACH=CONFIG]167064[/ATTACH]- captain of top civ4 mp civ clan [FLY]
- head of council organizing the biggest civ4 tournament, the CCC
- brain behind a civ4 mp mod used in competetive games
1. How will 1upt play out, how will simultaenous turns work out with 1upt in multiplayer civ (MP
About the mechanics, I'm very bullish, either you will move all your front at the same time (you click rapidly your 2 melee unit forward and your catapult behind), so it won't matter, or in some cases this could potentially transition into a very strategic play within a turn, like mini-turns within a turn.
"If you move your archer on the hill, then I can take the worker and you can't kill it with the spear in the city, because I'd move my 3 melee unit next to the city, so I know you can't take that hill, so what can I do then since this is my hill to grab, etc".
2. City States are AI controlled, usually all elements of AI like Barbarians are not used in competetive MP games.
Do you think there is a way to use City States in such games?
Does it make a difference if it becomes possible to predict their behaviour exactly (e.g. give gold knowing how their relationship towards you will change) and/or to predict their position on the map in regard to the players?
Penny: Firaxis has shaped much of the game around city-state, so we have a good chance to have a surprising feature here!Do you think there is a way to use City States in such games?
Does it make a difference if it becomes possible to predict their behaviour exactly (e.g. give gold knowing how their relationship towards you will change) and/or to predict their position on the map in regard to the players?
There is a chance we turn it off in MP, just like barbarians in Civ4, but it could turn out to become the norm to play with it in Civ5, because of the limitation of units.
If the condition are somehowe predictable (distance, defence composition) you could easily think of going for a city-state with 3-4 units, getting the gold and upgrades, and hiring a couple more units in order to invaded your neighbourgh.
A lot could depend on players creativity here, and the scope of possibilities the city-states actually offer, i.e I'm sure good players will rarely ever lose units to city-state and make the most of those.
3. Strategical resources are limited. Each source of iron for instance provides 2-6 iron to the empire, allowing for u to six units requiring
iron to be trained and maintained. In what way do you think this will affect MP?
iron to be trained and maintained. In what way do you think this will affect MP?
Penny: This a very awaited feature, the most notable improvement is that it gives you a reason to fight for each spot of ressources, while in the previous version of civs, you would only try to deny the opponent very first bronze or very first horse. Now you will bother building a sea army in order to pillage those offshore platforms DESPITE the opponent having his capital luckily settled on oil.
Also it will diminish the fear of losing high-tech units since you will max them out easily, this will turn out mostly beneficial in multiple team games (so every game exept 1v1, 2v2...); indeed, in multiple teams games, you should avoid "trading" units 1 for 1, which benefits all the others teams, now the incentive to build-up in the corner is less important, since you have a limited amount units buildable, once that is reached, you've got all the reasons to fight for that new patch of ressources.
This seems to me as the most promising feature for MP and should favor a very proactive gameplay !
4. Downloadable Content (DLC) and MP. How much of an issue could it be for MP if people have different civs / units / etc. available based on their willingness to purchase additional content via Steam?
Penny: I understand the reasoning behind the DLC from a commercial point of view, they are simply diversifying their offer to the different types of customers, they haven't capture much revenues of the hardcore fans that still play Civ4 today, have they?
That said, and since I'm not sure how it will be handled technically, I really hope all different players will be able to play together easily. But I wouldn't worry too much, the steam plateform seems able to support this, and way more, very well.
5. What does the fact that cities can shoot at units and take a couple of hits before being captured change for MP?
Penny: If balanced out relatively correctly, and it seems to be the case at the moment, I do not think it will change to much in normal condition, just the way to attack. On the contrary, it should change a lot for beginning game and rushes, this will solve the death to warrior issues we have at the moment, but it won't protect you from real early attacks.However, I'm a bit worried it will have a negative impact on the possibilities of choking early that are improved by other aspect of the game, choking with a warrior seems out of the question, I just hope it will be possible to do a little scouting early without being shoot down too easily. Early and good scouting is an important part of any competitive gaming.
6. No "unrestricted leader" option means less options, right? See anything positive about it?
Penny: Yes this will mean less options relatively quickly. Replayability will suffer rapidly and therefore I hope to see it implement ASAP (first add-on?). It might be useful at the beginning though, it might force us to try different things early on, perhaps if we had had unrestricted from the beginning of Civ4 would we have played all our games with India and never discovered how effective were Zulus...
The exciting thing about Civ5 in MP is that we have absolutely no idea how it will be played and it will be all up to creativity and discovery.
The scary thing about Civ MP is that we have absolutely no idea how it will be played, and no clue if it will suit our personal taste!
I doubt it's worse than one of your photos - at least I think so after you refused to replace that wide-angle shot with a closer view on our old internal forum...