Will there ever be a Civ5?

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by rah
It's really a very basic question that can be answered quite easily.
DID THEY MAKE MONEY ON CIV IV?
IF YES, then there will be a CIV V QED

Given the number of folk here on Apolyton who worked directly with Firaxis on Civ IV and expansion development, doesn't someone know a sharable answer to this question already? Strong hunch the answer was yes, or COL would not have gotten project approval.

[VonSharma]

When the money dries up from the expansions and every player who would possibly buy the game buys it, then Civ5 will be made. Seems like they can milk this product for some time... also creating the demand for civ5 will be important, as I remember people (including myself) were on the verge of exploding waiting for Civ4 to come out.

I'm not as concerned with the tech tree as with working out a better resource allocation system (being able to support a desert city at the expense of other cities) with limited resources (one iron resource cannot keep your entire civilization producing). Also trade and commerce can be improved as well as diplomacy and having stronger, more realistic alliances.

Also the point made in the Bailer review, if civs could gain equal strength by revving up their cities and not only through expansionist tyranny (like how Germany could take on pretty much all of Europe and Russia in both world wars) even though that will probably be the hardest thing to do, I'm sure.

But ultimately, I would have been happy even just playing Civ3 with a better AI. Just work on the AI and make it awesome. Make it so that everytime I play on emperor I don't know if I'll win or lose. I will gladly fork over $50 or even a $100 for a better AI.

[Heraclitus]

Have you plyed civ4 BtS patched to 3.17 VonSharma? The AI better than any previous civ game and there are modders who have made AI even better than that.


On topic: I would prefer to see a final Civ4 expansion that would clean up and integrate the additions in BtS, improving espionage, culture, adding new techs and incorporating the many improvements to the game the community has made and also implimenting some of the improved graphics & features of Col.

I think releasing such a expansion pack in a year or so would be best. And a civ 5 in early 2011.

There are many ways to make a civ5 that would be much better than civ4. A civ 5 should seek to do the same that civ4 did, streamline but not simplify.

[VonSharma]

Actually heraclitus, I have just started residency in July and haven't tried it out since I know if I brought my civ I probably would get kicked out of my program... but now you got me itching to try it.

[Blaupanzer]

VonSharma, what does brought my civ get kicked out mean? Are you referring to your residency? Is that a medical thing? The public must know these things!

[smbakeresq]

I would release a CIV 5 since your sales figures would be at least %85 of the CIV 4 figures. The market is simply rabid.

After all, who would pay today, pre-release, for CIV 5? I would resist, but I would pony up eventually

[VonSharma]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer
VonSharma, what does brought my civ get kicked out mean? Are you referring to your residency? Is that a medical thing? The public must know these things!

Yeah, unfortunately I work close to 80 hours a week some weeks in my medicine residency program, and even for the weeks I work only 60 hours a week, I don't want to take the chance that I'll pop in civ to my computer and have 8 hour civ sessions instead of spending whatever little time I have buying groceries or interacting with other humans. That and my program makes me do they stupid little exams and medicine things every once in a while which I surely wouldn't do if I could play civ instead...

[Bkeela]

I actually hope Civ 5 is a long way off. I'm still very much enjoying Civ 4.

I'd rather Firaxis work on a Master of Orion style game.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Blaupanzer


Given the number of folk here on Apolyton who worked directly with Firaxis on Civ IV and expansion development, doesn't someone know a sharable answer to this question already? Strong hunch the answer was yes, or COL would not have gotten project approval.

There probably is (and no I am not one of them).

However they would all have signed non-disclosure agreements, and probably don't want to end up in court.

There were people here who worked on Civ4:Col - and said nothing about it's development, because they are not allowed to.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Bkeela
I'd rather Firaxis work on a Master of Orion style game.

That "could" be awesome.

[Blaupanzer]

Generally non-disclosure agreements do not extend to general questions, e.g., is it released, did the release result in a profit (details would be covered), and other items generally covered in press releases.

[kalverra]

There will probably be one because Civ IV has been quite successful. It'll probably sport flashier graphics, because that's about the only thing that can really be improved, considering the moddability and gameplay of the current game. So wait till Civ IV graphics look too ugly to buy to the average dude and someone might fancy doing a Civ V.

I'd have to beg to differ on that. Though it might be a little complecated, i can think of alot of things one could add. Such as possibly different planets to travel to, many more technologies, maybe even alien species. I understand this could be quite difficult and maybe to complicated to do, i still think it would do well. Maybe put it in an expansion pack? CivV: Space.

[Unimatrix11]

Since neither the timeline (4000BC to roughly 2050AD) nor the scope (one planet) has changed during the evolution of the civ series ever, i doubt that V will be any different in that aspect. What could (and, IMHO, should) be added are things like supply lines for example. The AI and diplomacy can always be better, as well. (Some) people complain about how the AP and the UN work - things like that. New flashy graphics, i dont expect to be a main feature of Civ5 - the graphics never was the selling point of civ. In contrast, i dare to predict, that if you´d compare the load on the GPU of civ IV and civ V, they´d be roughly the same, while the load on the CPU will be x-fold. New concepts require the AI to understand and be able to work with them...

[Supr49er]

I think Civ V will be released for Christmas 2011.

[Krill]

CIV was a massive rebuild, from the ground up, which is one of the reasons it took a while to be put together. CiV isn't likely to be a full rebuild though, it is more likely to be built from the CIV code, which means that it would be easier to develop (C3 otoh, was based off C2 which was based off another game IIRC? So that code was really hard to follow, and had a new design team which didn't know what was where). Warlords and BtS was developed by Alex and Jon (who both worked on the vanilla release) so they wouldn't have to take 6 momnths to get to grips where everything was.

For this reason alone, I think we should be seeing CiV released before Xmas '10 (now that the publishers know who profit worthy it is, they ought to be pushing for more releases, although the cost is in development; Firaxis haven't greatly expanded, so that is still a limit on their resources). Last year was CIV:REV, '07 was BtS, so I'd expect something to come out this year that hasn't had news released about it yet, but I doubt it would be CiV (unless CiV wasn't going to be a massive update and they don't want to hype it too much).