What's in Civ4. Just the facts, ma'am.

[Nikolai]

...unfortunately. If it's a good game...

[Paddy]

indeed

especially after all of the half baked promises and payches for Civ III

[Jon Shafer]

In the same thing Soren said he wanted to keep the complexity of Civ 4 the same as was in Civ 3, only with some things that are less fun (going around hunting for pollution or having to spend time every turn making sure cities don't riot) being removed and that "complexity" replaced with things that are more fun.

And on that topic Soren has said in this forum:

There seems to have been a lot of consternation about the "get rid of unfun elements" quote. Perhaps I should clarify. We have identified the game pieces of Civ which have caused the most user annoyances (pollution, corruption, etc.). Instead of trying to band-aid these problems, we are mostly tossing them out and implementing better systems that will require less micro-management, provide better high-level control, and still create interesting gameplay challenges. Pollution, for example, is being replaced by a more comprehensive "Health" system which has a large variety of positive and negative influences. There is no need to go into detail yet - even though I am sure you can imagine some of the factors - the important point is that we aren't just chucking the whole thing.

The take-home here is that we understand that cleaning-up pollution is not fun. We can fix that!

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
But the problem is that Civ3 wasn't that deep of a game to begin with. He says he wants to keep is the same, but in the presentation he emphasizes the "Simplify!" message over and over and over again. Alone his messages seemingly mean nothing, yet when taken together and especialy given his association with Civ3 (and, indeed I missed the quote in there about keeping it the same level as Civ3, but that too is also quite concerning).

My concern is that it won't have any depth to the gameplay - it'll be just like every other game on the market. Civ3 dangerously approached this level (thus explaining its large rise in sales), and it seems by his comments that he thinks (perhaps rightly) that introducing more subtlies into the game will decrease sales.

If this is his guiding philosophy, then it will pop up in gameplay over and over again - simplifying diplomacy and the political system and economic system and cities and nations...Some might be good, but Civ3 went overboard and given his great emphasis on simplifying things....I'm just not as optimistic about Civ4.

Summary: He seems to be emphasising this heavily, and if this is his guiding ideal then Civ4 will be slightly or moderately more simplified than Civ3 (which itself was greatly simplified from...others in the series). Given Civ3, it seems likely Civ4 will follow the same path of oversimplification.

Really basic summary: See, "Deus Ex 2"

I think you may be misunderstanding things.

There is a difference between simplifying things and destroying gameplay. Soren has targeted many things that will be removed: pollution, rioting, maintenance. Now, some may disagree, but I don't think those are vital parts of the Civ scheme - remove them and you get rid of much of the busy work, but that gives time for other things.

I don't know how much you've played, but one can spend an immense amount of time playing and planning games. Taking micromanagement to the max and the game can become very engaging - if monotonous. I believe Soren recognizes this and his goal is to move some of the time spent on those sorts of things and put them towards other more interesting things. I think that's what Soren means by maintaining the current level of complexity.

On the other hand, there is definitely more to the story. What this means is that if you're a fan of having 50 different diplomacy options, the SMAC unit workshop and the option to determine the government for every single one of your cities - then you're definitely going to be disappointed. Civ 4 will not be a game of a lot of "things." For those who enjoy "things," then yes, they will likely not enjoy the game as much as others.

But for those who enjoy gameplay more than "things" I believe they will enjoy the game more. Because "things" are removed does not mean interesting gameplay or depth must be sacrificed as well.

There is a fair amount of information already available about Civ 4, much of which is listed in this CFC thread. However, nobody can really decide whether or not they'll like the game until more is released or even until they play it. I didn't think I'd like Civ 3 much until I played it. There is certainly room for improvement, and I'm still optimistic. As a modder I'm more anxious about the ability to change things with greater power than ever before. Even if the base game is disappointing the ability to change things will open many new doors for modders and Civ-fans alike.

[Addled Platypus]

" However, nobody can really decide whether or not they'll like the game until more is released "


Dont count on the article to tell you much either.
And the teaser screen shots are not much either. From I can make of the screen shots, NOT IMPRESSED

[Jon Shafer]

Well, it's likely PC Gamer was shipped those shots and a simple list of things that would be in... they have a shot from further away described as "zooming in." I definitely don't trust what they say about it already, but there was some info in that article that's apparently from Firaxis which does shed a bit of new light on the game - which is never a bad thing.

[Calvin Vu]

I'm among those Civ fans who felt disappointed with Civ 3 and spend more time playing Civ 2 than Civ 3 even now, when I want a spend a little fun time playing games (at emperor or deity level), mostly due to the "unfun" elements Soren was talking about. Design-wise, I think there are 3 levels of "challenges":
- Multi-solution challenges: A challenge which allows multiple paths to solve it. One example is the ability in Civ 2 to build up your empire almost entirely by clever tradings and using the gold for everything else; besides the solution of using the the shield production for units and improvements. Or the SMAC tech paths. Or the polution problem (clean it with workers or build an improvement ASAP). Or what to do next with a spare worker, or a spare camel.
- Single-solution challenge: A challenge which has only one reasonable way to solve it. There might be other ways but they are so much inferior that it makes no sense to follow those paths unless you just want to handicap yourself to break the monotony. An example is Civ 3 design where the easiest (and sometimes the only way to win) is to crush the neighbor civs early in the game to catch up with the starting advantages given to the AI civs.
- Debilitating challenge: A challenge designed not to have a real solution but more to handicap the human player so the AI can have an equal footing no matter how bad it does. Example of this kind is the corruption-plagued one-shield cities in Civ 3. No sane person would spend 200 turns to build the FP, and even then the effect of the FP got dumbed down also.

So, just on Soren's promise to toss out the "unfun" elements I will buy Civ 4 the first day it comes out.
Other comments:
- on the "civics". I hope this is an improved concept for corruption. The level of corruption of a country depends on how civic-minded its citizens are. That will depends on fear factor, court system, governments and will change gradually with time. Using this concept, we can have interesting usages for governments. For example, communism can reduce corruption and provide a big boost to productivity right after you switch to it due to the sense of patriotism and the dream of socialism as well as the fear factor. But then the corruption will gradually increases with time due to the drop in morale and incentives. On the other hand, switching to democracy might not give you a big efficiency gain at first but the efficiency will improve with time after the people realize the mutual benefit and become more civic-minded.
- The corruption should depends more on the number of cities than the distance from the capitol. In trying to prevent ICS with the heavy-handed corruption, Civ 3 probably made it worse by forcing people to pack the cities near the capitol for maximum efficiency. It destroys the sense of being able to create a beautiful empire with nicely laid-out cities. If someone wants to have a second city 20 tiles away from the capitol due to whim or to necessity (because of the starting position), he should not be penalized too much for it, if iy all since he already penalize himself by walking those 20 turns before settling down.
- Please keep the riot as it is a part of the admin but just allow a flashing button at the end of the turn if there are going to be a riot if nothing is done. That flashing button should allow the user to cycle through all the impending rioting cities. Checking the F1 screen at the end of every turn is tedious and very unfun.
- Similarly, have a flashing button when there is a tech trade opportunity with the AI civs.
- Allow a useful "when all else fail, build this" unit (rather like the camel in Civ 2), or at the minimum, rebalancing the game such that the "Wealth" choice is more useful.
- Please keep the workers. I have more fun due to the choices of what to do with the workers and the camels than any single-purpose military units.
- Bring back the teraforming, please. That will reduce the effect of the random starting location and give my workers of more choices to do.

[JonahFalcon]

XML files will allow universal modding, even the AI.

[Max Sinister]

? Wouldn't you have to use Python for that? I can imagine you can use XML to change parameters, but for more complicated things...

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by CyberShy


Civ 4 will be released in 2004
Mark my words.

You've got 2 days

[Paddy]

as if they can live up to their own commitments

[dacole]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Trip

I think you may be misunderstanding things.

There is a difference between simplifying things and destroying gameplay. Soren has targeted many things that will be removed: pollution, rioting, maintenance. Now, some may disagree, but I don't think those are vital parts of the Civ scheme - remove them and you get rid of much of the busy work, but that gives time for other things.

I don't know how much you've played, but one can spend an immense amount of time playing and planning games. Taking micromanagement to the max and the game can become very engaging - if monotonous. I believe Soren recognizes this and his goal is to move some of the time spent on those sorts of things and put them towards other more interesting things. I think that's what Soren means by maintaining the current level of complexity.

On the other hand, there is definitely more to the story. What this means is that if you're a fan of having 50 different diplomacy options, the SMAC unit workshop and the option to determine the government for every single one of your cities - then you're definitely going to be disappointed. Civ 4 will not be a game of a lot of "things." For those who enjoy "things," then yes, they will likely not enjoy the game as much as others.

But for those who enjoy gameplay more than "things" I believe they will enjoy the game more. Because "things" are removed does not mean interesting gameplay or depth must be sacrificed as well.

Wow I have to disagree, read my response to the pcgamer article didn't know this had been gone over so much already but the "things" as you call them are what make up the gameplay the immense amount of time spent planning was what made it a strategy game! Maintence was realistic and so should have been kept I can see that pollution was annoying so I won't miss that one to much. The things you diretly mentioned from SMAC were what made SMAC so great and are why it is a much better game than civ III or civ II. My hope was that in Civ IV more of these were going to be incorproated, it seems that hope was forlorn and so I may not be buying the game.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Max Sinister
? Wouldn't you have to use Python for that? I can imagine you can use XML to change parameters, but for more complicated things...

Yes, they said Python could modify the AI, and XML was used to store data, so not AI mod.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by dacole Wow I have to disagree, read my response to the pcgamer article didn't know this had been gone over so much already but the "things" as you call them are what make up the gameplay the immense amount of time spent planning was what made it a strategy game! Maintence was realistic and so should have been kept I can see that pollution was annoying so I won't miss that one to much. The things you diretly mentioned from SMAC were what made SMAC so great and are why it is a much better game than civ III or civ II. My hope was that in Civ IV more of these were going to be incorproated, it seems that hope was forlorn and so I may not be buying the game.

How about you actually learn more about the game before casting it off as a failure?

[Locutus]

Another little tidbit of info, which I got by reading all the bios on the new Firaxis website (non, I didn't have anything better to do ) These are some of the members of the Civilization 4 design team:

Sid Meier - (Unknown)

Jesse Smith - Producer
Dan Magaha - Producer(?)

Soren Johnson - Lead Designer, Project Lead
Paul Murphy - Designer
Jacob Solomon - Designer

Mustafa Thamer - Lead Programmer
Patrick Dawson - Programmer (interface and MP, "key team member")
Eric Macdonald - Programmer
Dan McGarry - Programmer
Bart Muzzin - Programmer

Steve Ogden - Lead Artist
Dorian Newcomb - Artist
Megan Quinn - Artist

Michael Curran - Sound Designer

Andy Szybalski - Programmer Intern (for 4 months)
Tom Symonds - Artist Intern