Big Huge Games to Release a Civ Title!

[Slingshot]

Now that I have your attention, imagine what it would be like if BHG did release a Civ title...

According to Tim Train, BHG is not yet ready for ideas. He told me that he would post a request for suggestions when the time was right.

Certainly we don't want to put pressure on them, but I figure that an independant Apolyton thread couldn't hurt. Besides, they don't have to listen if they don't want to.

Here's what we know about BHG:
1. They have LOTS of Civ programming experience
2. They have committed themselves to making top-quality products
3. They are looking at a new generation of gaming style. This probably means heavy RTS, but it could also mean a combination of RTS and TBS.

With that in mind, I would like to see a forum based upon what Apolytoners' suggestions for a BHG version of a Civilization style game. We also know that:

1. It could take 3 or 4 years to develop
2. BHG would have to call it something other than "Civilization _________"
3. It cannot be a souped-up version of CivII or CTP.

Let's blow their minds!

[Atahualpa]

I suggest Team Civilization. Thats an RTS title, where 6 or more players play together in a team. Each player has different jobs. One is military commander (one for ground, one for air, one for sea). One city manager (deciding what to build, what to do with the cities). One president (does diplomacy) and one that hmmm handles economy/science/technology, maybe.
Everything in RTS, everything in 3D and everything fun and amusing.
However the game has to get a lot faster then. Not that you stick around with some stupid phalanx for half an hour.

Ata

[Iain Lindley]

This doesn't seem to be in the correct forum...?

[MarkG]

the place for such threads is the Other Games forum, where this is moved

[Slingshot]

Aaaaugh!
Foiled again by the moderator.
As if such suggestions were spawned by evil itself.
Doomed to remain in the snare of Other Games,
where none dare travel save to stare in shock and horror
at those those damnable ideas - defied passage to legitimate civnation,
yet by right a head above its newly found brothers.

Oh cursed fate! The newly tilled garden of fresh BHG ideas is now aged.
A fossil buried deep within the earth.
A flower plucked far before its day in the sun,
doomed from the light of Apolyton eyes and minds
Consoled by the visitations of members bored from their tree
Their creativity spent.
Their spirits crushed, they wander Other Games Hades,
wondering what else they might find.

heh heh, you guys should see when I lose in real life!

[This message has been edited by Slingshot (edited April 11, 2000).]

[The Mad Monk]

"snap snap snap snap snap"

[Slingshot]

Ata,

Good suggestion.

I think that one of the most dearly loved aspects of Civ is the map.

What about blending the map-aspect with Sim City, CaesarIII or Pharaoh-style game play.

Imagine the city as an entity. Double-clicking any city brings up a smaller box with build, trade, growth, happiness, tax and luxury options.

The point is to make cities less central to the game.

The real emphasis would be on the dearly-loved map. First of all, let's make it bigger and richer in graphics.

The game would, for the most part, run with a continuous time clock.

The player focuses upon building infrastructure for:
- transportation (roads, etc.)
- resource exploitation (mines, power plants, including fossil-based, nuclear and green)
- energy transmission (eg. power lines from a dam to the city; fresh water supply and water treatment to appropriate facilities located around the city
- military bases/fortifications
- trade centers, be they warehouses, production-boosting facilities or market centres

- you would click a spot for units to move, just like in Warcraft. But when (stacked) units fight, it is more like traditional Civ (or CTP).

Borders would be maintained with lookout posts. They could be cheap to build and easy to remove as a players empire grows.

Imagine getting away from a group of management-intensive city icons that hold the bulk of play, and towards larger maps that had these elements visible all of the time.

With the real-time aspect, we get the ability to use patrolling scouts and (possibly) surprise tactics in a new way. With traditional Civ combat, we keep some elements of the "chess game" that people love so dearly.

Comments?

[John D Ward]

Slingshot: - What you have described sounds to my understanding of it like a Settlers derivative, real-time strategy with resources moving around the map. Is this what you have in mind, or have I missed your point.

------------------

[Slingshot]

My point is that we have the ability to influence a gifted team of programmers who deeply love the civ genre, and are looking for something new to create.

That something new won't be the traditional turn-based strategy (TBS) that we (and the Big Huge Games gang) dearly love.

So let's do what we can to help them make a non-TBS version of Civ. Know that non-TBS doesn't have to mean real-time strategy. It might mean having aspects of a game like Settlers, but then again it might not.

This truly could be the Golden Age for lovers of Civ. We have a growing force of talented programmers who are either actively working on a new Civ title:
- CivIII, CTP2
or are developing a Civ-like game:
- Dinos

[Slingshot]

By the way, I found SettlersIII frustrating, because there were so many links in each chain. It became kind of distracting, seeing as all I really wanted to do was pummel the enemy.

[tniem]

I like the idea of a team cooperation interms of a game. This could be a war game where there is a head general that directs where to place his subordinates and armies and then they direct those troops under their command. The general would not have direct control but only could make basic general commands to be followed and possibly make an attack or invasion command.

I am not sure that this division would work in a civ game but if it can be then that would be great because I would love to play with my friends. Division would have to change a bit though because I am not sure that I want to be doing all the micromanagement of cities without some type of reward like killing the other country or something.

[Slingshot]

Still, its a nice thought tniem.

But along those lines:

I've wondered about a great big real-time civ map, where there are lots of civs, and each civ has real-player leaders who have too much to worry about to micromanage their empires.

Because of the great demands, the real-player leaders have a choice:

1. They can give the job of 'province' or 'minor empire' manager to a computer that does an adequate job, or
2. They can give the job of ... to another real-player who wants to join the game.

If they do well, the real-player can perform better than the computer. The trade off is that the real-player is less predictable when it comes to things like revolt.