Popular-scienctific magazine peeked into the kitchen of Firaxis.

[Robert]

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The Dutch popular-scientific magazine had a peek into the kitchen of Firaxis and features a 4-page article on Civilization V in this month's paper edition. The article gives a basic view on the civilization-series in general and civ 5 in special. It starts to explain the objectives of the game: "In these strategy games you start as a leader of a civilization in prehistoric times with limited resources. It is up to you to lead your empire to fame and glory in the space age. To accomplish this you have to develop new technologies, found cities, start diplomatic relations, discover new continents, wage wars and trade." While the magazine concludes that not much has been changed in the basic civ-formula in all those 19 years, it continues to quote Jon Shafer (Civ 5 Lead Designer) about how for the renewal of the 5th installment "the community behind Civilization is of major importance". Jon tells that therefore the number of mod tools for Civ 5 will increase. Gerard van Nieuwenhuijzen, author of the article, talks not only with Jon Shafer but with many of the involved people. Ed Beach is responsible for AI development: "Every moment in the game the AI is busy to figure out it's position in the game and what's going to be the best move to come closer to victory". Ed states that this is a task difficult to accomplish because there are "six types of victory the player and the AI can freely pick from any moment". There are 30 different possible flavours every civ can have. From an offensive attitude to what types of units it prefers. And varying from how active it will explore the map to how important the infrastructure will be. Beach concludes by confirming that the AI will be smart enough to take advantage of a war between two neighbours by snatching away a not so well defended city on it's borders. Chris Hickman, member of the animation team, shows an example animation of Julius Ceasar. We see him "bored on his throne mumbling latin words while staring at his nails. Apparently he just declared war on us for the second time." Kijk is available in Dutch shops.

[Ming]

It's nice to see that they will be making some big changes for Civ V, while still trying to keep true to the past concepts of Civ.

The most exciting part though is the hope for a smarter AI.