PolyCast Episode 22: "Going Above and Beyond"

[DanQ]

A Firaxian is in sight! Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Co-Designer Jon "Trip" Shafer joins regular PolyCast co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, Wouter "Locutus" Snijders, Makahlua and Imran "Imran Siddiqui" Siddiqui to discuss this CivIV expansion pack in a special twenty-second episode of the show. Entitled "Going Above and Beyond", total runtime is 59m:57s (28.7MB). Much of the content stems from questions submitted by members of Apolyton Civilization Site's (ACS) forum community.

PolyCast is the official bi-weekly, one-hour podcast of ACS in an effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice and is the game series' only known specific podcast.

[DanQ]

Summary of Topics

INTRODUCTION [03m26s]
What sources were looked at for features to include in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, rotating CDs depending upon which PBEM and PitBoss games one has going and how Jon got into Civ and onto Apolyton.

CIVILIZATIONS (07m58s)
Choosing leaders for new or existing civilizations in CivIV -- and in the series generally -- and trait balance, public reaction to BtS introduced civs, Jon's favourite new leader trait combination and why.

INTRODUCTION (REVISTED) (12m28s)
How Jon came to work for Firaxis Games.

CORPORATIONS (14m45s)
Why exactly seven corporations (as with religions) in BtS and how they were chosen, their real intended benefit, do they favour warmongers given their early game tactics, why Great Prophets were omitted from and has the State Property civic become unbalanced because of this sytem.

WARFARE (22m09s)
BtS nerfing the 'complete kill' of siege units, the setting aside of the trade route buoys and the routes' initial intention, boosting the usefulness of navies, the influence of Call to Power on the new naval blockade feature, expanding ship orders options and the Artificial Intelligence's (AI) approach to its air forces.

ESPIONAGE (29m13s)
Blocking landbridges with spies, AI's preference for destroying tile improvements and remedying the 'Poisoning Water Supply in Marathon Mode' issue.

GREAT PEOPLE (30m40s)
Saving Great People (GP) for later game use to found corporations, and individual approaches to GPs pre-to-post-BtS.

MODDING (32m38s)
How Firaxis came to decide to include fan-MODs and which ones in BtS, and how topics for those developed in-house were made.

APISTOLIC PALACE (37m22s)
Did the Apistolic Palace come before or after similar changes to the United Nations in-game, and whether Alpha Centauri's model was considered.

BUILDINGS (39m17s)
Where the idea for including Forest Preserves as a city improvement in BtS came from.

MISCELLANEOUS, PT. 1 (40m54s)
Where has our Palace Screen gone and what other items were dropped during BtS' development, what is Pericles doing at the beginning of his animation and whether Jon's Civ experience helps him in his job.

INTRODUCTION (REVISTED) (45m06s)
Jon's advice on how to break into the gaming industry.

MISCELLANEOUS, PT. 2 (47m36s)
The endurance of the CivIV engine into the future, what Jon's doing when not working on Firaxis projects, the status of the banana unit and is Jon a PolyCast listener.

[MrWhereItsAt]

All those American accents! o.0 Listening to this right now as my first PolyCast - neato.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Some of that was rather fun - glad to hear my questions asked as well, and that Maki got one of them.

The bleep over the make of Trip's computer? That's not at ALL hard to figure out. And gEt yOUrsElf A quIEt lAptOp, Trip! Sounds like you're vacuuming the desk at the same time.

And you've never played Civ1?! HERESY! Make sure, when you do, you watch out for those Spearmen...

Finally, I agree with Tripster there, a few minutes on some of the older civs and related games would be a really neat addition to PolyCast - perhaps outlining what those games did well, and not-so well, even linking those ideas to how they've been addressed in cIV or BtS. Maybe strategies that worked or OVERworked...?

EDIT: And how does the phone-in thing work (for Europe)? Is there an answer phone it goes to where you ask your question as clearly as you can for it to be played on-air (as it were), or does it get transcribed for the recording, or do you talk to a real person?

[DrSpike]

I also listened to this one - was pretty amusing.

Shame you only asked my 'easy' questions and not the more challenging ones.

[Jon Shafer]

Ouch, the audio quality for my part isn't all that great... I suppose I need to go out and get a real microphone one of these days. That fan in the laptop is pretty hilarious though.

Jon

[Solver]

Why the heck record on a laptop, I don't get all these people who prefer them

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Solver
Why the heck record on a laptop, I don't get all these people who prefer them

If you listened to the episode you'd know that it was the only thing I had with a microphone.

Jon

[Solver]

Downloaded it, haven't listened yet. But looks like someone isn't paying you enough if you can't get a 5$ headset

[DanQ]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
All those American accents! o.0

Listening to this right now as my first PolyCast - neato.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Some of that was rather fun

If nothing else, we're here to entertain.

... and that Maki got one of them.

The bleep over the make of Trip's computer? That's not at ALL hard to figure out.

What I bleeped out was not the make of Trip's computer. I bleeped out the names of certain vacuum brands, but not entirely so that they could be reasonably distinguished still. Otherwise it would loose some or even much of its effect...

And gEt yOUrsElf A quIEt lAptOp, Trip! Sounds like you're vacuuming the desk at the same time.

Finally, I agree with Tripster there, a few minutes on some of the older civs and related games would be a really neat addition to PolyCast

See http://polycast.apolyton.net/about.php#format for a listing of episodes that contain the 'Time Machine' segment.

perhaps outlining what those games did well, and not-so well, even linking those ideas to how they've been addressed in cIV or BtS. Maybe strategies that worked or OVERworked...?

Hmmmm... that's a possibility.

EDIT: And how does the phone-in thing work (for Europe)? Is there an answer phone it goes to where you ask your question as clearly as you can for it to be played on-air (as it were), or does it get transcribed for the recording, or do you talk to a real person?

If one of us regular co-hosts were logged into the show's Skype account at the same time someone called in, we could answer it. However this is very unlikely (we have our own personal accounts on the service). The show's account is configured to go to voicemail almost instantly be it the North American or Europeans numbers as well as calling in 'direct'. The audio quality of calls left is roughly that of AM radio I'd say.

If we answer a call on the show, we will include the call itself in the episode (edited for clarity, quality and sometimes time) and will have listened to or read it transcribed/summarized before hand. We very much welcome phone calls in addition to or even instead of typed out questions/comments for the fact that we can include your call in an episode and you get to say what you would like to say and how you would like to say it more succinctly.

We have used such calls on the show three times before so far. Twice I personally called the person back for they clearly had the wrong number and I included those return calls as well as the original in an episode. Once we did have an honest-to-goodness-right-number message that we replied to and we'd welcome many more.

[DanQ]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I also listened to this one - was pretty amusing.

Shame you only asked my 'easy' questions and not the more challenging ones.

One of your other questions was cut during recording, though Alex did provide a written answer for it. I will be posting it and other such ones in the coming week to the question thread.

Originally posted by Jon Shafer
Ouch, the audio quality for my part isn't all that great...

I suppose I need to go out and get a real microphone one of these days.

Originally posted by Solver
Downloaded it, haven't listened yet.

The latter part doesn't surprise me given what you haven't said.

But looks like someone isn't paying you enough if you can't get a 5$ headset

[Solver]

Originally posted by DanQ
The latter part doesn't surprise me given what you haven't said.

Whaat? Must know!

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by DanQ




One of your other questions was cut during recording, though Alex did provide a written answer for it. I will be posting it and other such ones in the coming week to the question thread.

Ok, I'll let you off it it was the patch question, as that one was the most important.

[DrSpike]

Btw I just noticed the free 6 months plus subscription - that was pretty generous.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Btw I just noticed the free 6 months plus subscription - that was pretty generous.

Oh, AWESOME. No need to renew again until this time next year! Sweet.

Hmm, if I phone in next time, I'll make sure to put on a rully thuck kaywee accent, eh?

And Solver, you should really listen - they slag you off for a few minutes in the middle there. They really go nuts; Maki's rant is pretty awesome, and you can hear Imran get so worked up he starts kicking chairs and stuff over in the background. Dan's attempt at bringing back a semblance of order with those awfulesome puns just doesn't work. I can't remember the exact part - you'll have to listen to the whole thing and let us all know what you think.