Open letter to Firaxis from the scenario community

[techumseh]

Dear Firaxis,

Like Civers around the world, the scenario design community has waited with baited breath for the release of Civilization III. We have eagerly anticipated the new editing tools and the new and innovative concepts promised. We appreciated it very much when Firaxis relented and provided for more than 8 civilizations, a key victory for scenario designers. Most of all, we were delighted that Sid Meier and Firaxis were contracted to do the design, because we knew the excellence of your work and your sensitivity to our requirements.

So it was with bitter disappointment that we learned that the new game had no events capability at all. Disappointment turned to anger when we learned that it was impossible to place units or cities on the map. Clearly, as it now stands, NO scenarios will be possible with Civ3.

We believe that our community, including the many pioneers who paved the way for us, have contributed greatly to the success and longevity of Civ2. We believe that we can contribute in the same way to Civ3 as well. There are many outstanding aspects to the new game. It shows great craftmanship, but it leaves us standing out in the cold.

We appreciate Firaxis' committment to further improve editing tools in a patch. We would like to outline here what we consider the essential tools for creating good scenarios. If you provide these, we guarantee a steady supply of creative and fun scenarios for the whole civ community!

1. An effective scripting language. Events are essential to a good scenario. No AI, regardless of how good it is, can replicate historical events properly. Events at the quality level of Fantastic Worlds are the minimum, with an increased heap size to at least 100kb in order to deal with up to 16 tribes. We encourage you to go farther and incorporate some of the features found in Test of Time, especially multiple triggers and events that can be turned on and off.

2. We must be able to place units and cities on the map. This is basic. So are flat maps.

3. The various tools available in Civ2's cheat mode and scenario parameters are required, or new equivalents. If we can't add improvements to cities, and copy them in other cities, change money, or modify treaties and reputations, we can't make decent historical scenarios.

4. Map visibility is critical. We have to be able to reveal or hide the map at will, and do so from the point of view of any tribe. Revealing the map fully means being able to look into any city of any tribe, and make changes. And it means being able to run complete turns and observe the movements and actions of ALL units, regardless of their tribe.

5. A flexible scorings/objectives system, that allows designers to set a number of different victory conditions for a scenario is necessary.

6. Multiplayer is desireable and was certainly expected. However, PBEM (Play By Electronic Mail) scenarios are rapidly increasing in popularity. These are essentially hot-seat games in which the player takes his/her turn and emails the save game to the next player. Even if true online multi-player can't be provided immediately, PBEM capability should be.

Members of our community are chomping at the bit to produce great scenarios with Civ3. Whether historical, fictional, fantasy or sci-fi, lots of scenarios have been percollating in our brains, just waiting for the release of the game. Please give us the tools to do the job! We look forward to your positive response to our suggestions. Thank you.

The Scenario Community,

Javier Arriaga
jasev@aluesi.us.es
First Carlist War, Drole de guerre and others.

Andreas Naes Aaserud (a.k.a Hetairoi22)
E-mail: andreas@dk2net.dk

Jesus Balsinde (a.k.a. Jay Bee)
site: spanish@apolyton.net
scenarios: Of Celts and Iberians, Eldorado and many others

Jacob Baskin
jbaskin@uts.oise.utoronto.ca
Scenarios: Greek Colonization, Out of the Darkness

Morten Blaabjerg (a.k.a. hardjoy)
email : crewscut@mail.tdcadsl.dk
scenarios : Hammer of the North, The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition

Bernd Brosing
Bernd@civii.de
scenarios: Imperium Romanum, SubWar and one other

Michael Daumen
Scenarios:The Great Game, and several other scenarios

Peter Delaney (a.k.a. Blackclove)
delaney@ufl.edu
scenarios: Dungeon!, Toussaint (Haiti) and several others

Nick Dowling (aka Case)
email: nick_dowling@hotmail.com
Scenarios: 'Raging Dragon' 'The Cruel Sea' and one other scenario

John Ellis
netdesign@zoom.co.uk
Scenarios: Colonies 1, 2, 3.x, Seize the Crown! and 3 other scenarios

Carl Fritz
cfritz@angelfire.com
Scenarios: Pitt's War at Sea, Battle of Algiers, and several others

Joe R. Golowka
JoeG@ieee.org

Juan González Villa (Fiera)
jgv@edinoesis.com

Stefan W. Härtel
Stefan.Haertel@t-online.de
scenarios: Quest for Asia, Shaibani and several others

Cam Hills
Email: c.hills@bigpond.com
Scenarios : Gangster, Stoker and two others

William Keenan
site:The Cradle of Civilization
scenario: Necrociv, the Rise of the Necromancer

Kestrel18
E-mail: kestrel18@bigpond.com
Scenarios: Escape from Sol, Mars and several others

Henrik Lohmander
Email: Henrik.Lohmander@Telia.com
Scenario: Carolus Gustavus

Robert A. Prucknicki (a.k.a. Field Marshal Klesh)
AVANT393@aol.com

Peter (ravagon) Rumball
peterr@prth.pgs.com

Miguel Sanahuja (aka Shaka Naldur)
miguelsana@mixmail.com

David Schowalter(aka H Tower)
david_schowalter@hotmail.com

techumseh
brison@home.com
scenarios: Russian Civil War, Prince of Darkness and several others

Harlan Thompson
scenarios: Lord of the Rings, Mongols and many others

Marko Urm
markourm@yahoo.com
scenario: The Struggle for Europe

Jorrit Vermeiren (aka Mercator)
jorrit_v@hotmail.com
Orbis Terrae (scenario) MapEdit (utility)

Shannon Walker
thewalkers3@earthlink.net

Ben Weaver (aka the Immortal Wombat)
weaver1@tinyworld.co.uk

[[LordLMP]]

So technicly, Editor like the one SMAC/X mix with the one in Test of Time plus some other things.

Also have the graphics open as CIv2...would like to change and add units you know same with the terrain.

Also would like to be able to add more custom Civilizations to the list of originals.

EDIT: Another thing, should be able to add new techs to the tech tree, maybe also able to add new improvements/wonders/etc...

If there is going to be a expansion, a expanded orbital satellite war from SMAC would be cool too, along with a Future Age base on some SMAC/X techs and so on. Be able to add new resources would be neet too. Either Firaxis does this, or atleast make able for others to do so. Hey, want future units like Power Armoured Infantry, Hovertanks, Battle Suits/Mobile Suits/Gundams/Gears/KBots and etc.

-LMP

[Dire Wolf]

As much as I would like to see all of what you posted above, I highly doubt that this will be added in a patch. Being a professional programmer (and having writing custom scripting languages before), a scripting language is not something you just add as an after thought to a finished product. Various hooks and interfaces need to be exposed in the actual engine in order to provide the scripts with functionality. Not to mention writing the parser, lexer, and depending on the complexity, memory manager, interpreter, maybe even a byte-code compiler etc. This is a lot of work and takes time and planning to implement.

If Civ3 has an internal scripting engine that hasn't been exposed then it might be possible to add some external interfaces to it. If it isn't there, well, I highly doubt Firaxis will spend the man-power and extra money to implement this in a patch.

On a more positive note, I could see an expansion pack having an updated Civ 3 engine. From some of Firaxis' statements, it is quite clear they intend to release an expansion pack (which you will have to buy) that could include multiplayer.

I agree that it would have been nice to see scripting capabilities along the lines of Civ2 (and the expansion packs) or CTP2. Unfortunately, unless the tech is already in the Civ3 engine, I don't see it happening. The development time and work could seriously impact their bottom-line. After all a patch is something to fix bugs. Rarely is a patch ever to add major new features.

Just don't expect so much from a simple patch.

[randomturn]

Tecumsah, you are so right on. I would have thought nearly everything you mention would have been standard. It needs to be added as soon as possible or Civ3 will have limited replayability and a much shorter shelf life than Civ2. It was the mods and scenarios that kept the fan base alive.

[Dire Wolf]

I'd guess that #2, 3, and 4 are possible. I highly doubt that you'll see #1 and #5 in a patch. You never know though, Firaxis may surprise us...

[Schnitzelnator]

Originally posted by Dire Wolf

On a more positive note, I could see an expansion pack having an updated Civ 3 engine. From some of Firaxis' statements, it is quite clear they intend to release an expansion pack (which you will have to buy) that could include multiplayer.

That would be robbery, plain and simple.

[Hoek]

I would like to sign this too.

I also think that we should be able to use some of the new features with discretion. For instance, we should be able to draw boundaries without having to place and eliminate cities where it is inconvenient. Similarly, we should be able to disable certain culture features (such as border expansion) and tweak certain economic features (set trade rates).

[Deathray]

People, haven't you noticed all of those grayed out options in the editor? I would assume that those are going to be patched in later...

[cerebros]

Not quite sure where randomturn gets this idea of no scenarios leading to lack of replayability. I bought Civ2 the day it came out and played it regularly until late last year when i bought my new PC and decided not to reinstall because i was spending too much time on Civ2. I only played a scenario once and was so underwhelmed by the whole experience i never bothered to give it another try, and i reckon there are plenty like me who find the standard game has plenty of replayability.

What i wanted from Civ3 was proper trade and diplomacy - no more having the AI players dictate the terms of any trade to me, but to be able to dictate, barter or be dictated to.

Unfortuantely, as the game hasn't been released here yet i can't say if the new additions satisfy me personally, but from what i've read so far they still haven't perfected the diplomacy...

[Typo]

Originally posted by cerebros
Not quite sure where randomturn gets this idea of no scenarios leading to lack of replayability. I only played a scenario once and was so underwhelmed by the whole experience i never bothered to give it another try

You missed out there!!!!

[Darkknight]

I'm shocked that we cant even put objects on the map. I'd like to see all you've mentioned and would like to support you. Well done in sending the letter!

[Roman]

I would like to sign this too.

[MagyarCrusader]

You can add me to the list, but for the record, **** Firaxis.


edit by markg: great way to help this cause!

[habitualuser]

The main problem is, this is an unfinished game....

The shoddy, very obviously cheating AI (rampant ICS, insta-building units, and almost totally ignoring culture, weaker computer units constanly beating my Vet/Elite FORTIFIED units, being able to build cities, units and still pumping out mad science, etc, etc)

The fact that in over a dozen games I've had Luxuries TWICE, but my neighbor always has a ton of extras (but wants half my civ in trade), rarely having more then 1 horse or iron ore square (one or the other) again while my neighbor always has 2-3 of each

That taking cities via culture is almost useless as the old owner of the city then declares war and all the foreign citizens then become unhappy (why the hell did they want to join me in the 1st place???)

The civ's you play against ARE NOT RANDOMIZED, a dozen games as Babylon, and EVERY TIME the Persian's are my neighbor... played a few other civs, but I supect that they'd always have the same neighbor...

I could go on, but it's obvious that Firaxis has joined the current trend of PC Game makers.... Release a semi-working game to meet the release date, then worry about fixing/patching later.



ps. Quickly -- what was the last game you bought that DID NOT require a patch?

[BeBMan]

Good to see this thread here , an answer from a firaxian would be great...