Questions for Firaxis about Civ Rev?

[DanQ]

All answers referred to are by Jason "Jason2K" Bergman, an Associate Producer at 2K Games, as posted on the game's official forums.

Modding
(http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=18)

The game will not have a level editor. Console level editors require a lot of work, and there's no time in the schedule for that.

(http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/sho...4&postcount=17)

Regarding scenarios, we have not decided on that yet. There will be downloadable content later, but we haven't decided on that either.

Multiplayer
(http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/sho...2&postcount=21)

Yep, we should support hot seat.

DS Version
(http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=18)

The DS version of the game can be played either completely with the stylus or entirely with the face buttons depending on your preference... We're not going to do any crazy stylus stuff just for the sake of supporting the hardware's unique features (the same goes for the Wii version).

We use the two screens logically. The upper screen shows additional information, and that's where combat animations are displayed.

I'm not sure when we'll be releasing screens from the DS version. It's fully playable from start to finish (and by the way, it's awesome) but it's behind the other versions in terms of art assets because everything needs to be redone for DS. So things like the interface are totally placeholder right now.

[waab]

Thanks Dan...

any word about release date yet?

[UnOrthOdOx]

Can I get a bit more info on how research works?


In the fact sheet we see that Beakers are now produced from tiles, not coming from your gold.

And we're told each tile only produces 1 thing.

Yet, in the preview 7, we are also told you can shift your trade generation from science to gold.

So, how does this all work?

Each individual tile producing gold can be changed to produce beakers instead? That sounds a bit of a backwards step and adding in micromanagement they're attempting to remove.

Or is it city wide, gold vs beaker. Empire wide?

Just like some more details on the science end of things if possible. (and quite possible I've missed them somewhere if someone wants to link me to the right place, too)

[DanQ]

Originally posted by waab
Thanks Dan...

Welcome.

any word about release date yet?

Pardon the delayed response , but no -- no greater word on it yet.

[RobertP]

One of China's powers is that their people can not be less then unhappy. What exactly does this mean?

[bantams]

Originally posted by waab
Thanks Dan...

any word about release date yet?

June the 2nd or 3rd So They say on the official Website

[Lord_Zealon]

I don't know if this was answered but....

Will be possible to play Wii vs 360 for example? Or only, all players on 360, all players on Wii and so on?

Will be possible to play "PBEM" with something like PitBoss on 360 servers, Wii servers, 2K servers, and so on.

Thanks for your answers.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Lord_Zealon
I don't know if this was answered but....

Will be possible to play Wii vs 360 for example? Or only, all players on 360, all players on Wii and so on?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that is most likely not possible. Wii has been cancelled, at least for now, but even if not, there would be serious technical difficulties getting it and an Xbox in the same game. And they'ld have to somehow support the servers themselves, not use Xbox Live.

What definately could happen, though, is the Game of the Week or such might be able to have the scores counted across systems, at least on the official website, if not in game.

[waab]

Anybody that knows if I need to have Xbox Live gold to play game of the week?

[firaxis_den]

I'm going to try and flesh out some of these questions since so much has been fine-tuned since Dan was down to visit.

For workable tiles...

The number of tiles worked corresponds directly to the size of your city. Initially, you can only work the 6 tiles surrounding your city, so city placement is important. Of those 6 tiles, you have full control over which tiles you want to work.

This stays the same until you build a courthouse. Building a courthouse allows you to work a much large amount of tiles surrounding your city. Other improvements allow you to work multiple items out of a single tile. For instance, building a harbor will allow you to pull food out of the water in addition to trade.

Science and Gold...

In the screenshots most of you have seen, you see beakers in the water and on some other squares as well. These are "trade" resources that can be either science (beakers) or gold (gold bars), and it's city wide. When you're in the city screen, you simply press a button to toggle this. Your choice, depending on your objectives.

Multiplayer...

The "big 3" do not allow their multiplayer environments to talk to each other unfortunately, so no cross-platform play.

We will be supporting 4 player free for all, 2v2 or head to head on all 3 platforms. Hot join is supported (if a player drops out, the AI can take over, and if an AI is playing, another player can take it's spot). On the DS, it will require 2 carts to play, primarily because the game is so big, that download play wasn't an option.

Achievements...

1000 achievement points, some easy, some insanely difficult.

Hope this helps! Free free to post follow-ups.

[RobC]

1) I've read that you can combine 3 units into an army, and that you get benefits like increased combat strength and sharing of bonuses...so are there any disadvantages to grouping your units into armies (other than not being able to move the 3 units in 3 different directions)? Is the amount of damage the army can take before dying ("hit points") equal to the sum of all 3 units', or is it just equal to 1 (or something in between?) That would certainly make it a trade-off you'd have to consider instead of just mindlessly shoving all groups of 3 units into an army.

2) Can armies be disbanded back into the original 3 units?

3) Does the 'best' defender on a tile against the attacking unit always defend, like in Civ 3/4? If so, are there any anti-StackOfDeath features like catapult collateral damage?

4) Other than limited landmass, is there anything to discourage ICS (quickly building lots of settlers and plopping lots of small cities everywhere)?

Thanks in advance for your answers! Looking forward to playing the game!

[firaxis_den]

There are no disadvantages to grouping individual units into armies that I know of, and as the game progresses, most units usually end up in armies because of the advantages. As the game moves on, single units are usually (at least in MY games) on defensive duty for individual tiles to protect production, and for scouting, etc. The amount of damage an army can take is greater than the individual. Think of it as 3 untis able to fight all at the same time.

Armies cannot be disbanded once formed, primarily because experience is shared among the entire army at the moment of its formation.

The best defender will always defend automatically. As for stack of death, there are no area effect weapons like in it's PC brethren, but there is a new element called "Over-run" that counters huge numbers of cheap defending units. Over-run works this way. Lets say you have a player that produces archers from here to eternity thinking that sheer numbers will keep a city from being destroyed. When an attack happens, if a unit is a significant percentage in defense value lower than the attacker, they will simply flee, and the attacker gets another free attack. What this means is that players have to consider smarter defenses rather than simply grinding out numbers.

On the flip side, an offensive stack of death can be countered by catching them in the open, before they are entrenched right outside one of your cities. Because each unit has both an offensive and defensive value, most of the powerful offensive units are pretty lousy on defense, so they need to travel with defensive armies for protection (archers traveling with catapults for example). The key is to make sure to catch a stack like this in the open, peel off it's defense, then attack the chewy center. You need to play this smartly, and not wait until they are right on top of your city, or entrenched in a defensive position. Once an archer army (or pikemen, riflemen, etc.) are in a fixed position on defense for a full turn, their defensive bonuses go way up, so make sure to get them on the move.

As for settler spamming, this is a bit more difficult in Civ Rev. To produce them, most of the Civ's have to spend 2 city population to crank one out, so it would take a significant amount of time to produce more than a couple early on without completely handicapping yourself. Second, barbarians are much more rampant, meaning you are also going to have to be producing defensive units to walk along with them. Third, because the map size is smaller, the chances of running into another Civ early on is very high, and the AI will not think twice about demanding a ransom from you when he finds a settler out in the open, undefended. Not paying them their "finders fee" often results in them taking your settler from you.

Hope this helps!

[RobC]

Thanks Den! Two more questions:
1) In MP, has any mechanism been implemented to reduce/eliminate the "double-move" issue (moving a unit at the 'end' of one turn, then again right at the 'beginning' of the next turn, so you effectively get two moves before your enemy gets one)? In CIV, there was a delay if you moved a unit in the last 10(?) seconds of the turn so you couldn't move it for the first 10(?) seconds of the next turn...

2) Since spies can have a huge impact by stealing great people, what are the different passive and active options for defending against enemy spies? Is there spy-vs-spy combat?

[firaxis_den]

We have no delays from one turn to another, and it is not something we see happening, primarily because the console controller is a different animal when in comes to timing moves vs a mouse and keyboard.

As for Spies and Great People, there is spy on spy combat, so it's a good idea to keep a spy in your cities if you want to protect your Great People, keep other spies from destroying your fortifications, production, etc. There are no guarantees that your spy will be successful with the defense, but it certainly is better than no spy at all.

[bantams]

wheres the god damn Demo?