Civ4: Omega Expansion

[padillah]

Originally posted by Will9


The Aztecs and Incans did much less than Americans in the same amount of time yet I don't see you insulting them. The Portugese played I large role in driving the moors out out of Spain, played a large role in the early colonization of the world, and played a major role in defeating Napoleon. The Dutch may seem like they have always been under of whatever major power was strongest in Europe, but they managed to defeat the combined armies of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire and then went on become a major player in the colonial stage and became very rich from their territory. I also belive there was one Dutch king who was also king of England. The Mayans were probably more advanced than most the players of the classical age you are talking about.

I don't think DirtyMartini is saying the civilizations themselves are not "up to snuff" rather, "We have enough civ's in the game can we please concentrate on something else"?

Your viewpoint (at least the one supposedly to be expressed above), taken to it's logical etreme, would necessitate the inclusion of no less than the entirety of the world! Does this mean we must include every different type of unit (there are over 2,000 types of planes alone).

How about terrain? We can have Grassland and Clay and Packed Earth and...

Or Religions? Or Civics...?

Eventually you must stop, and we are simply saying that adding civilizations is reaching a point of diminishing returns. Solver even stated in his review: The "Warlords" expansion does not add the value he thought it could have.

Tom P.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Prussia
except for the tiny problem of it being sooooooo slow.

Sounds good - I must check it out.

Hmmm - still no Super Praetorians on the list

[Son of David]

Originally posted by padillah


I don't think DirtyMartini is saying the civilizations themselves are not "up to snuff" rather, "We have enough civ's in the game can we please concentrate on something else"?

Your viewpoint (at least the one supposedly to be expressed above), taken to it's logical etreme, would necessitate the inclusion of no less than the entirety of the world! Does this mean we must include every different type of unit (there are over 2,000 types of planes alone).

How about terrain? We can have Grassland and Clay and Packed Earth and...

Or Religions? Or Civics...?

Eventually you must stop, and we are simply saying that adding civilizations is reaching a point of diminishing returns. Solver even stated in his review: The "Warlords" expansion does not add the value he thought it could have.

Tom P.

Suppose they do decide to make a number of fundamental changes in the program's code. This will keep the programmers and testers occupied for a long time.

What should the artists and musicians do all this time while the programmers are busy adding new stuff? Sit and twiddle their thumbs?

No, in my opinion they should add many new civilizations and lots of new original pieces of music.

We live in prosperous times, which may not last forever; so let's make the most of our ability to have 'more of everything'. Perhaps this surfeit of civ goodness will help see us through the coming dark times?

Oh, and a large number of non-hardcore gamers WILL buy an expansion pack because it has 'cool civs' in it. Sorry, but that's just fact. I'm one of them and proud of it. If I wanted nothing but numbers and no eye candy, I'd solve some problems from my algebra book instead of playing civ.

[DrSpike]

Nah, I listen to music for my music needs. I play Civ to play Civ.

[eigenaut]

Hi folks,

I've been lurking here awhile and thought I'd chime in. The expansion ideas are really cool, and this is a great forum for talking about Civ

My modest proposal: I'd like to see a Dreadnought naval unit. It would be a step between an Ironclad and a Battleship, maybe a UU for Britain or the US. Unlike an Ironclad, it would be ocean-going, slower than Destroyers and Battleships, but outgunning Galleons, Frigates, and Ironclads. You'd need Steel, Rifling, Steam, and a lot of hammers to make 'em.

This would make naval combat before the modern era more interesting, and maybe even trigger arms races such as occurred between the European powers prior to WWI.

eigenaut

[padillah]

Originally posted by Son of David
Suppose they do decide to make a number of fundamental changes in the program's code. This will keep the programmers and testers occupied for a long time.

What should the artists and musicians do all this time while the programmers are busy adding new stuff? Sit and twiddle their thumbs?

No, in my opinion they should add many new civilizations and lots of new original pieces of music.

So you don't want new civ's for your own enjoyment, you want them as "busy work" for people with, supposedly, nothing better to do?

No. I don't think we need extra civs and I surely don't think we need extra civs from sombody with nothing better to do. The people that work on Civ are professionals, they are not doing this intheir spare time. I would hope that these are artists that actually do art for a living and, as such, should have plenty to do without getting bored.

And if they are not good enough to get enough work to keep them busy I don't think they will make a worthwile contribution to Civ.

We live in prosperous times, which may not last forever; so let's make the most of our ability to have 'more of everything'. Perhaps this surfeit of civ goodness will help see us through the coming dark times?

You may live in prosperous times but I have a wife and two kids. My "prosperous times" left a while ago.

Oh, and a large number of non-hardcore gamers WILL buy an expansion pack because it has 'cool civs' in it. Sorry, but that's just fact. I'm one of them and proud of it. If I wanted nothing but numbers and no eye candy, I'd solve some problems from my algebra book instead of playing civ.

"Cool civ"? The Dutch? Byzantines? Mayans? "Cool Civs"...? You need a date.

You are more than welcome to spend your, apparently not too hard earned, money on whatever you see fit. I am mearly stating that there are plenty of civs with "Warlords" and there are other things I'd like to see Firaxis work on. I'm not saying it's nothing but numbers, I'm saying we don't need new civs as much as we need quite a few other things.

Tom P.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Son of David

We live in prosperous times, which may not last forever; so let's make the most of our ability to have 'more of everything'. Perhaps this surfeit of civ goodness will help see us through the coming dark times?

Oh, and a large number of non-hardcore gamers WILL buy an expansion pack because it has 'cool civs' in it. Sorry, but that's just fact. I'm one of them and proud of it. If I wanted nothing but numbers and no eye candy, I'd solve some problems from my algebra book instead of playing civ.

I agree with this.

Though in terms of new civs, I'd like to see the addition of somebody trustworthy. Almost all of the Warlords leaders are warmongers (surprise, surprise). I'd like to see a few more peaceful civs to balance it out (oh, and Babylon too ).

[Willem]

Originally posted by padillah
No. I don't think we need extra civs and I surely don't think we need extra civs from sombody with nothing better to do.

So what's so wrong with having more civs? I was getting so bored with almost always having Montezuma (pick any of the original civs/leaders here) in the game before Warlords came out. Variety is the spice of life and the more opponents you can come up against, the more unique each game is going to become, especially with all the triats we have available now.

[padillah]

Well, given that I'm too uncreative to come up with anything else to put in an Xpack (that wouldn't be a patch) I suppose I have nothing against new civs.

It's just that I don't think they alone are reason enough to purchase an xpack. If Firaxis want's to put them in an all-inclusive civ xpack then fine. I won't buy that one. I'll buy the one that adds playability to the game.

I'm still being entertained by losing to Montezuma. I don't need others to lose against too.

Tom P.

[DrSpike]

Montezuma isn't always in my games.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Willem
So what's so wrong with having more civs?

1. It uses up precious artist/developer resources that could be spent on mods, scenarios, and Super Praetorians.

2. It cheapens the game somewhat. When I think "Civilisation," I think Rome, Persia, Egypt, China, etc. Iroquois? Papua New Guinea? Not so much. I like pummeling Alexander the Great into oblivion. I wouldn't get the same satisfaction from slapping around Henry of Portugal.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by LordShiva
1. It uses up precious artist/developer resources that could be spent on mods, scenarios, and Super Praetorians.

Firaxis is already paying their art team a monthly salary though, might as well use them. They're not going to fire them just because some of you guys want more new concepts and less art (especially since we as forum users collectively are maybe 0.1% of all customers -- the simple truth is that many of those other 99.9% more casual customers do decide whether or not to buy Civ4 XPs based on what new civs, wonders and other fluff is in it).

More importantly, any non-trivial changes that are made to the core game need to be tested. And tested, and tested, and tested, and tested... The bigger the changes, the more testing is needed. If they skip that part of the process you get Civ3 releases again, where 9 months of patching is needed just to make the game remotely playable. And while Firaxis may have a dedicated group of fans serving as free testers, doing it right does take a LOT of time, which is as big a resource issue as money (especially since time is money ) Precious few people will be very happy if it takes Firaxis 3 years just to come up with an expansion pack...

2. It cheapens the game somewhat. When I think "Civilisation," I think Rome, Persia, Egypt, China, etc. Iroquois? Papua New Guinea? Not so much. I like pummeling Alexander the Great into oblivion. I wouldn't get the same satisfaction from slapping around Henry of Portugal.

This is a valid point, illustrated all too well by the unmodded CtP games. But I personally think there are probably about 30-40 civs in history that are worthy of a place in Civ, and since we're only at 24 with Warlords we should be alright for the next XP at least.

[DrSpike]

I bet you can't name 40.

[Brael]

Another idea, less natural resources and more which pop from working the land. Obviously this doesn't work for all resources since some use special land upgrades (pastures, wineries, plantations, camps), but in the case of say farm resources (rice, corn, wheat) and sea resources (whale, clam, fish, crab) it would be nice if there were less of those resources naturally occuring but you could have them pop through working the tile with that upgrade. For sea resources maybe having a harbor would allow worked tiles to occasionally add fish and whale and a lighthouse would allow worked coast tiles to pop crab/clam.

Essentially just applying the way a mine works to other things.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Locutus


Firaxis is already paying their art team a monthly salary though, might as well use them. They're not going to fire them just because some of you guys want more new concepts and less art

Umm, as a developer that has been laid off three times for lack of work... yes they will. They may not want to but that's a different argument.

(especially since we as forum users collectively are maybe 0.1% of all customers -- the simple truth is that many of those other 99.9% more casual customers do decide whether or not to buy Civ4 XPs based on what new civs, wonders and other fluff is in it).

Then what use are we to Firaxis? Why does alexman and even Soren frequent these boards if we are such a miniscule sampling of the general audience?

But I personally think there are probably about 30-40 civs in history that are worthy of a place in Civ...

OK, name them.

Tom P.