Ask Sid Meier Your Questions

[DanQ]

Next month, Apolyton Civilization Site (ACS) will produce and publish a landmark fiftieth episode of PolyCast, a podcast on Civilization strategy. To help commerate this and also extend the celebration of ACS' tenth birthday, game developer Firaxis Games' Director of Creative Development Sid Meier will be its honoured guest. Moreover, he will be in the spotlight answering questions not only from ACS staff but -- hopefully -- also from other members of the Civ community. To make this so, he needs to hear from Civ community members!

To ask Sid one or more questions, you can either post them in this thread or leave a voicemail: (301) 637-7659 (North America), +44 121 288 7659 (Europe) or VoIP for free via Skype. Where identities are verifiable and service available, those whose questions are selected for use in this very special conversation with Sid as released will receive a four-month subscription to "PLUS!", ACS` optional subscription service. Questions must be submitted on/by 11:59PM EDT on July 29th for consideration and will be screened for appropriateness and suitability. Suggested topic categories include the Civilization series, strategy gaming, Sid's games more generally and the Civ community.

Meier was previously interviewed on ACS in 2001 for his then up-and-coming SimGolf, which became the first interview with him on a Civ fansite. ACS is the only known community to produce its own Civilization podcasts.

[Darsnan]

Question: generally speaking within the gaming industry, do you agree with Soren Johnson's comment that TBS games are the red-headed stepchild of the gaming industry (to quote: "It`s really weird how the turn-based genre is this red-headed stepchild, because there are a lot of turn-based tactical games... most people would call them RPGs, and not classical strategy games. But to go to a publisher and say, "I want to make a good old-fashioned turn-based, grid-based strategy game," you`re more or less dead in the water"), and if so, then why does the gaming industry in general feel this way?

I had another question, about re-doing one of Firaxis' previous titles, but I can't quite remember what it was now. Oh well, maybe it will come to me later.....

D

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Darsnan
I had another question, about re-doing one of Firaxis' previous titles, but I can't quite remember what it was now. Oh well, maybe it will come to me later.....

No worries. Plenty of time to submit questions yet...

[Maniac]

"I'd like to ask you a question which has left Civ fans wondering for MANY years... Are you aware that Writing was invented *before* The Alphabet??"

Or perhaps, "why does, in Civ1 and CivRev, Writing requires The Alphabet, while Writing existed before The Alphabet?"

[Will9]

IIRC, Alphabet came before Writing in Civ III too.

[Pinchak]

Why is it FPS games that must process alot more information per second seem to have less connectivity issues than TBS (at least civ ptw and even civ4).

I would think it to be the other way around.

[SpencerH]

I was gonna ask this in a CIV4 thread but this looks like as good a place as any.

The thing that irks me about CiV4 "BtS" is that even this less warmonger-toned variety has turned into CiV4 "build massive armies if you dont want to be crushed by a AI stack of 100 units during the middle ages".

CIV was never a wargame, but it became one when playing against other humans and now the AI is so good that it does what humans do to win, they warmonger.

Its not that I dislike wargames, it's just that CiV is not a good one. Despite the great improvements in the (absolutely necessary) war component of CiV4 compared with earlier versions, the combat facet of CiV remains too simplistic.

I've always hoped for a merging of the brilliant Gettysburg-type combat system with CiV's TBS, especially now that we have PC's that could easily handle the demands.

Is there any hope it'll happen?

[Felch]

I guess the simplest question is, "What's next after the Colonization remake?"

[LordShiva]

WhoTF is Sid Meier?

[LotC]

Do you (understandably) regret putting yourself up against Leonard Nimoy in the tech advance voiceovers?

[Lancer]

Is he married? Would he like to meet a nice Filipina?

[ZEE]

"Can you please design Civ 5 yourself and leave Firaxis out of all important decisions?"

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Will9
IIRC, Alphabet came before Writing in Civ III too.

And Civ2, but Sid didn't design those.

Same question could be asked about Horsemen and Chariots btw. In fact, because of Civ1, as a kid I used to believe that historically horsemen came in use before chariots.

[classical_hero]

What motivates you to continue to make more games? Besides the obvious one, to make a living. Basically this is about his passions that a behind the Civilisation series.

Also why can't a British English version be made, so that we don't have to put up a 'Z' in Civilization?

Another question is why is Civ3 Conquests still broken? This is one issue that I havve with the Civ franchise that a good game is not properly fixed before the next version was released.

[Asmodean]

Question: How do you (or Firaxis) view the future of PC gaming? A lot of people, sites and gaming editors are lining up in the queue, calling PC gaming already dead or at the very least, dying. Do Firaxis subscribe to that point of view, or do you see a bright future still for PC gaming? Is it in your opinion possible to make TBS games as good as Civ4, or better for consoles?

Asmodean