Civ V Announced

[Krill]

Totally from Scratch? Wow guys, I thought you'd just throw out a cheaper remake of CIV. Kudos on the new project, it looks awesome as well

That culture looks funky though. Should be interesting to check out when the game is released. But Fall 2010? 5 years since the release of CIV...wow has it really been so long?

[Krill]

Visit one of the thriving civ fansites without leaving the game...

Poly is dead then, I take it?

And what about pitboss? That seems to have been a massive success in CIV, but I can't see a reference to it onthe new site...

[OzzyKP]

I've been discovered.

Jon

And in charge too!!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27292/Firaxis_Announces_FullScale_Civilization_V_For_PC.php

Facebook won't be the only place for more Civilization -- today 2K Games announced developer Firaxis Games is working on the next main entry in the long-running alternate-history strategy series, Sid Meier's Civilization V.

Due out this fall for PC, Civilization V will come roughly half a decade after the release of its predecessor, the highly-acclaimed fourth entry in the seminal series.

Last October, Firaxis founder and development director Sid Meier said the studio was going to "develop a unique new way to play Civilization," in the form of Civilization Network for Facebook, leading some series fans to question whether a new mainline PC entry was in the works.

Screenshots on the official site indicate a high level of unit and environment detail, as well as the surprising inclusion of hexagonal tiles, a first for the series. The logotype and graphic design treatment on the site suggests an Art Deco theme -- the predominant style of another successful 2K franchise, BioShock.

The newly-announced game is headed up by designer/programmer Jon Schafer, who joined Firaxis out of college as a long-time modder. He worked on Civ IV and was a lead designer on its well-received expansion pack, Beyond the Sword.

According to 2K, the game is built on a newly-developed engine which will again include multiplayer as well as offer considerable support for the modding community.

Civilization IV's lead designer, Soren Johnson, left Firaxis in 2007 to take a job with Will Wright's Maxis team, where he contributed to Spore and is now developing unannounced projects.

"Each new version of Civilization presents exciting challenges for our team," said Meier in a statement today. "Thankfully, ideas on how to bring new and fun experiences to Civ players never seem to stop flowing. From fully animated leaders and realistic landscapes, new combat tactics, expanded diplomacy and shared mods, we're excited for players to see the new vision our team at Firaxis has brought to the series."

Local boy done good.

[humanhighlight]

I think we all knew this was coming, but this is just outstanding news. Ditto what that other guy said about beta testing.

[self biased]

edit: I see Jon is browsing the thread, need beta testers?

ooh ooh!

[Koyaanisqatsi]

ooh ooh!

^^ that, only with less italics.

[Nikolai]

I've been discovered.

Jon

You're presence is so mighty that it can be felt through the internet.

[Nikolai]

Reading the Civ5-thread in Paradox Interactive's OT, a Danish guy has written down some info given in a Danish magazine:

- Switch from squares to hexagons changing the way the game plays. More room for maneuvers and more tactical options.
- Changes to combat. More depth in combat, no more stacking of units. This will lead to bigger focus on terrain.
- Inspired by Panzer General.
- Reintroduction of Bombardment, now archers and siege equipment can shoot over melee units.
- Better diplomatic AI.
- More diplomatic options between players.
- Less "cheating" AI.
- Religion is not a factor anymore.
- Ressources are not infinite. For example one source of horse only supplies enough horses for 1 unit, but when that horseman dies the horses will respawn as a unit. (this confused me alittle, i guess we will have to watch it in action)
- City States as a sort of small countries that never develop beyond their single city. They can provide bonusses if you befriend them, or you can take over their land.
- Civics are out, now there is something called "Social Policies".
- About the same amount of wonders, the tech tree will feel familiar. Great People still in.
- Some victory conditions changed. For example in Conquest you only have to capture all the other capitals. Eliminates boring mop up phase.
- Unique Civ leader bonusses, no more standard "Spiritual" or "Financial".
- DirectX 11 support.
- Built in webbrowser. Sid Meier is also working on a facebook application of Civilization.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=461436&page=2

[OzzyKP]

I like the change to Conquest victory.

Between that and the unique civ leader bonuses it looks like they are drawing some inspiration from CivRev.

[KaiserIsak]

This is of course great news for me as a long time fan of the series, however, I am a bit disappointed about what kind of changes they have chose to focus on in the official press release. Feel free to disagree with me, but these are my personal thoughts after reading the kotaku-news story about Civ 5.

The change of map is probably for the better, as it will change the series up a bit, which it needs to stay fresh.

Deeper diplomatic options, as was quoted, is of course always welcome as well, but then they need to make a decent AI and test it (I still can't believe how the diplomatic AI of CIV4 went trough testers, it's just the single most annoying thing of the game when other nations ask you for something and then gets mad at you FOR THE REST OF THE GAME when you refuse, especially if you play with quite a few players which tend to make this happen a few times every turn). And full screen on diplomacy mode? F*ck that, who really plays civ for the animations of the leaders? Why do they even mention that? Improved graphics? Hell, the graphics in Civ4 is pretty nice and all, but its slow as hell no matter which computer you use, and do civ players really care that much for graphics that we want a much slower game? I certainly don't. If the graphics run smooth on current hardware, then fine (civ4, a five years old game, still runs terribly on modern current computers at late game if you play with a lot of civs), if not, do it easy and concentrate on the gameplay. Remember loading a game in civ2? It did not even take a second, why did they have to change that?

A deeper battle system could be fine of course, but if we want to play a war game, we play Total War or other RTS's. What seperates civ from other games is how you build a civilization, and i certainly feel that should stay the focus. If so, the battle system needs to stay pretty simple. However, this could be both positive and negative.

But what is most depressing is how they are not saying anything about the economics-, demographics- and politics-system in the game. Handling your internal policy is by far the most important strategic gameplay of the civilization-series, but it has stayed virtually unchanged since civ1. What about quantified resources (like in colonization), people with issues and characteristics (like in Victoria), transport and industrial management (done differently in various games like Transport Tycoon, Imperialism, Victoria and to a lesser extent Colonization). Will units still be "produced" or will they actually take up a part of your labour force that could be used to produce cigars (like in colonization)? Naturally, i do not expect them to reveal the answers to very specific questions like these, but the fact that they choose to mention changes in the diplomacy-model, the graphics and the warfare, and neither of the aspects I have mentioned, is in my opinion very worrying for the kind of path this game is taking.

However, it will probably still be a great game, and I will probably play it to death (as with the earlier entries), but the first bunch of facts does certainly make me feel quite pessimistic.

[Nikolai]

Hell, the graphics in Civ4 is pretty nice and all, but its slow as hell no matter which computer you use, and do civ players really care that much for graphics that we want a much slower game?

I have to arrest you there, my computer runs Civ4 without problems even in modern time.

[Felch]

I'm happier without an overly complex economic model. There are games that already provide that sort of depth, just as there are plenty of games that allow more depth with the combat, like the Total War series. Most of these games deal with specific time periods. Since Civ spans all of history, it has to take a more generalized stance on things.

[KaiserIsak]

Of course, I wrote my previous post before reading your post Nikolai, which do in fact address a few of the issues I raised. I will take the time to comment them as well.

Religion is not a factor anymore.

This is terrible, as religion was a very fun addition to Civ4. Is this out so they may reintroduce it in later expansions? I would not bet against it.

Ressources are not infinite. For example one source of horse only supplies enough horses for 1 unit, but when that horseman dies the horses will respawn as a unit. (this confused me alittle, i guess we will have to watch it in action)

Hooray! Great, great news. Finally quantified resources, now hopefully they will expand upon this to also matter in production (as in Colonization) - that would be awesome.

City States as a sort of small countries that never develop beyond their single city. They can provide bonusses if you befriend them, or you can take over their land.

Nice idea, hopefully this will also in part be a way to solve how the world always feels so empty early on.

Civics are out, now there is something called "Social Policies".

Hopefully this will make the policy system a bit deeper than the very thin system present in Civ4. Probably good news

All in all, quite a bit of nice information here.

[KaiserIsak]

Hell, the graphics in Civ4 is pretty nice and all, but its slow as hell no matter which computer you use, and do civ players really care that much for graphics that we want a much slower game?

I have to arrest you there, my computer runs Civ4 without problems even in modern time.

With how many civs? And still, it is a five year old game. It SHOULD run fine on any computer

I'm happier without an overly complex economic model. There are games that already provide that sort of depth, just as there are plenty of games that allow more depth with the combat, like the Total War series. Most of these games deal with specific time periods. Since Civ spans all of history, it has to take a more generalized stance on things.

There are different tastes of course, and i respect yours, and also agree to an extent that the fact that civ has a more generalized stance makes a complex economy system harder to handle. And as the examples should show, there are definitely games that do this fine, but they still lack a lot of what makes civ so fun, so my wish for a more complex (and maybe optional) economy model is based on that.

[Nikolai]

The max in standard and large(or is it called huge? I never remember. The larger than standard at least) maps. It's as fast in later game as in the early game, so there is no reason why it shouldn't be fast in custom made larger maps(they can be quite large, can't they?).