Official 18 Civ Version?

[alms66]

That's one of my concerns at the moment. Civ4 seems focused on making things quicker and shorter, which is good for multi-playing, but what about the other side? Epic speed would lengthen the game overall, but would it also increase the number of civs? Will there be an "official" version of the game that supports the full 18 civs? That was a problem in civ3, IMO. The engine supported up to 31 civs, but the game shipped with no scenarios that included all 31. Please include a balanced (key word there - Rhye's mod was available with 31 civs, but that's a very different gaming experience compared to the standard version) 18 civ version of the standard game this time around guys! Other than that, I have to say that all aspects of Civ4 are looking really sweet.

[GAZ082]

I believe that 16 is the number.

[vovan]

Originally posted by GAZ082
I believe that 16 is the number.

No, 18 is the current word:

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133653#civs

[Vince278]

Wonder if that is hard coded (like the 31 civ limit) or moddable?

[vovan]

I wonder if there are UI limitations on the number of civs, like the foreign advisor screen in the last game (for which there is a workaround, of course, but it's ugly).

[Elda king]

The problem with play with all civs is that the game slowly loads and plays, not only it take longer to finish.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Elda king
The problem with play with all civs is that the game slowly loads and plays, not only it take longer to finish.

But putting a hard coded limit on it is stupid IMHO. If someone wants to play with as many civs this person has added to the game at the same time it's his own problem that it takes a long time between turns

Also take this scenario:
In 5 years the top of the line computer will only take a few seconds between turns in a game in modern times on a huge map with 30 civs still alive, but because of some hardcoded limitations this wont be possible
I know that if I have such computer I wouldn't be that happy about this hardcoded limit because I would like to fully use the system playing with as many opponents as possible

[binTravkin]

18 should not be hard coded limit IMO.

Because, from the coding aspect, the civ/faction limit always resembles a number which is n*8.

SMAC has 7 + 1(Planet) = 8
SMAX has 14 + 1(Planet) it could have one more fac, but the faction "set" consists of 7 factions, thus 7*2 +1

Civ 3 has 31 (IIRC) which is 31 + 1(Barbarians) = 32

So in general limit if it's ever hard-coded should look more like 23, 31 or something like that.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Elda king
The problem with play with all civs is that the game slowly loads and plays, not only it take longer to finish.

Only some people have that problem.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by alms66
Only some people have that problem.

If the game supports enough civs simultaneously, everyone will notice it for high enough numbers. The number of resources the game requires increases exponentially with the number of civs.

That said, it would of course be ideal if there wouldn't be a hardcoded limit (or at least a very high one), so that people can let the power of their PCs determine with how many civs they can play...

[vovan]

Originally posted by Locutus
That said, it would of course be ideal if there wouldn't be a hardcoded limit (or at least a very high one), so that people can let the power of their PCs determine with how many civs they can play...

Then, of course, there is the other perspective... Some people with bad computers will go "Waaahhhh, the game allows me to play with 256 civs on the map, but it plays too slowwww! Developers suck, and need to optimize!!1!"

[Locutus]

Originally posted by vovan


Then, of course, there is the other perspective... Some people with bad computers will go "Waaahhhh, the game allows me to play with 256 civs on the map, but it plays too slowwww! Developers suck, and need to optimize!!1!"

Yup, that's exactly the reason why it probably won't happen Though the middle road would be what CtP did: only officially support a certain 'safe' number of civs, but allow fans to edit this in the XML files (and of course include a disclaimer that they don't support it in the manual/readme/whatever).

[Niptium]

Ok in the «Just the fact ma'am» thread it's specified we know 17 of the 18 civilizations currently in the game. Is it safe to assume that the 18th is the Greek one ? I mean it,s been there in all the Civs...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Niptium
Ok in the «Just the fact ma'am» thread it's specified we know 17 of the 18 civilizations currently in the game. Is it safe to assume that the 18th is the Greek one ? I mean it,s been there in all the Civs...

Actually, we know 18 of the 18 by now (Babylonians too), but we also know almost for sure that there were 19 civs earlier and that one probably got axed. Which one? Noone knows. Maybe the one we don't know about yet (which would seem likely to be the Greeks), maybe one we all take for granted (e.g. Arabs or Aztec). See here.

[alms66]

Originally posted by Locutus
If the game supports enough civs simultaneously, everyone will notice it for high enough numbers. The number of resources the game requires increases exponentially with the number of civs.

I assumed he referred to the 31 civ limit in civ3 since it's unlikely he's played civ4 yet. Since Civ4 will feature 18 civs though, I'm just hoping for a plalyable and balanced 18 civ version out of the box - I'm fairly certain it will be there since civ3 came with 16 civs and huge maps supported that - they just never updated to the maximum number of civs for PTW and Conquests. If expansions for civ4 later increase the maximum number of civs, I expect to see an official version of the game that supports that number of civs.

With that said though, going the route of ctp2, letting players override the "safe" number of civs would be ideal.