Will we ever see a 3rd expansion?

[dexters]

I want to say that I come in and out Civ wise. I get busy, so the game gets dropped. But for the past two years, I've always warmed up to the game every 3 months or so, just in time for my semester breaks, and I can say that I'm looking forward to Conquests.

But... I can't help but feel unfulfilled.

Let me explain. Conquests, for all its strengths, seems to me to be more about being an elaborate mod than an expansion pack. What I've been looking forward to ever since the 2001 Civ III was an expansion on the core engine (PTW's net play doesn't really count since it barely worked and it doesn't add to the 1p game). New units are nice. New civs are even nicer. Technologies are good, but they are not gameplay additions. If gameplay is the soup base, units, techs and civs are like the stuff (mushrooms, spices) you put into a soup.

I think I speak for many, if not most, if I say I wanted to see real gameplay additions.

-New diplomacy options (i'm sorry, but locked alliances isn't really a diplomacy option. it's a game setting).

-New methods or organizing your civ. How about a "real" internet, which can be built like roads. Have workers run around laying fibre optics line to connect your cities, and this would in turn open a new method to wage war. Enemy hackers? new spying?

And what really ripped my heart out was when I check the price. Amazon.ca is selling the game for $50. Mind you, Infogrames (Atari) released Civ III for $40 cdn. Why are we paying so much for an XP?

This leads to my comment. I'd like to see a 3rd expansion. I don't need new civs, or new techs. Just new features. Real features I can sink my teeth into. Atari can make this a budget title and release it next year, but I think whoever is doing the market research there has either missed the whole "we want new features" demographic or has simply ignored people like me.

[Jaguar]

I doubt we'll see a 3rd expansion. CivII only spawned two, and very few games have enough momentum to spawn three. By late 2004 the civ3 engine and graphics will be three years old, and that is likely the earliest they could create a third expansion pack. I think it is more likely that Civilization IV development will begin within a year of the Conquests release.

I think a lot more could be added to the game. Hell, I'd pay for two more expansion packs, even if they only added a few graphics and modding abilites. However, I think starting anew will be a good thing. There's a lot of hard-coded stuff in Civ that should be moddable, and the only way for that to happen is for there to be a sequel.

[dexters]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
I doubt we'll see a 3rd expansion. CivII only spawned two, and very few games have enough momentum to spawn three. By late 2004 the civ3 engine and graphics will be three years old, and that is likely the earliest they could create a third expansion pack. I think it is more likely that Civilization IV development will begin within a year of the Conquests release.

I think a lot more could be added to the game. Hell, I'd pay for two more expansion packs, even if they only added a few graphics and modding abilites. However, I think starting anew will be a good thing. There's a lot of hard-coded stuff in Civ that should be moddable, and the only way for that to happen is for there to be a sequel.

I think deep down, I know it's not happening, but I can't help but really feel disappointed how unlike other xps out there, Firaxis seems to be more interested adding fluff elements than going back into the game to add real features.

I just got Sim City Rush Hour XP, it was real cheap and it actually expanded on the game by adding new things to build and new transportation features, which is to sim city as new diplomacy and political/economic features is to Civ.

[self biased]

personally, i wouldn't mind seeing a SMAC II or a Civ 4 sometime late 2005 - mid 2006.

[Solver]

Actually, I don't want a third Civ 3 expansion. I think that with Conquests it will be a solid game, but now I'd rather see Firaxis work on SMAC2.

However, you may want to check CtP2 out. With the Apolyton pack, it provides many things that are superior to Civ 3 and other civ games. And, with the source code for the game in our hands, we will soon make other improvements.

[Alex]

I think that what you want (new gameplay features) will be in Civ4. After all, they have to leave something out of the expansions so they can release a new game, don't they?

But I'd really like to see SMAC2...

[WarpStorm]

I doubt there will ever be a SMAC2. Why do I say this? The principals who worked on it have left Firaxis. This was really Brian Reynolds' and Tim Train's baby.

[Swissy]

The Civ3 game engine is pretty much maxed out. The next Civ incarnation should be Civ4 with a more robust multiplayer game engine that could handle upto 12 players. Myself and other Conquests beta-testers made it quite clear the future of gaming is online, and the first developer to design a civ-type game based on multiplayer first will own the market.

SMAC2 is highly improbable as of right now. EA owns the SMAC game line and has shown they like making games that can generate multiple expansions and have solid fan bases that doesn't scream for the publishers head when something in a game isn't to their liking. Civ-type game players have repeatedly shown themselves to be the kind of fans who want to burn down the developers offices when the game isn't quite right out of the box.

[Saint Marcus]

I doubt we'll see a 3rd expansion. CivII only spawned two

three. CiC, FW and MPG (which was civ2+FW features+multiplaying)

I pray to God we'll see a third XP...with eventscripting!

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

They have already said that event scripting for Civ3 is beyond their capabilities.

Won't happen.

[self biased]

but we could always hope and pray and badger for civ 4 on the scripting.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
They have already said that event scripting for Civ3 is beyond their capabilities.

Won't happen.

No, not beyond their capabilities, beyond what they were willing to pay for C3C. There's a big difference.

I contend that a competent programmer (I'm assuming that all Firaxian programmers fall into this category) could put this in (even jammed in after the fact like it would be). The problem is that it may take too much effort to do this to be cost effective. It generally costs me around $3K a week per programmer for good programmer support (total costs, not wages). If this takes a lot of time there would have to be a lot of additional sales (sales from people who wouldn't buy it without this feature - this is not most people reading this thread) to make up for this cost. Also remeber that Firaxis only gets a small portion of the $30 price tag for an expansion.

In addition to direct costs there are the lost opportunity costs. What could that programmer have been working on if he (or she) was not implementing this?

Now, if they want a discount rate on this, I'm willing to talk

[Sheik]

SMAC2 first, then Civ 4 would be the ideal.

As for a third Civ3 xp, that would be a bad idea. Although it is nice to keep getting new things there are just so many changes that the community has asked for that could only be implemented in a new game.

[Jaguar]

I think a 3rd XP would be rather like putting a radio in a horse-drawn carriage.

[WarpStorm]

Well, I'd like to see a third expansion. Why? Because it'd take Firaxis about 2 years to make Civ4. I'd like to have something new to play in the series while I'm waiting.