By Alec Meer on February 18th, 2010 at 5:53 pm.
[Boom]. RPS inbox explodes. And so it should – Civ news is always enormous news. Hooray, hooray! Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth by Civ fans in concern that last year’s super-streamlined Civilization Revolution on console meant the end of Civ tradition, the freshly-revealed Civilization V (CiV?) looks about as PC as PC gets. By which I mean, “hexes.”
That said, 2K/Firaxis is claiming a rethunked interface makes this more intuitive and accessible than its oddly timeless predecessor, Civ 4. Also headlining the feature roster are the graphics, which the marketing blurb reckons does the believable world thing. Certainly looks super-pretty in the screens so far, and reminds me of the collector’s edition of Settlers of Catan, a limited edition boardgame I shall crave until my impoverished dying day. BUY IT FOR ME, DADDY, PLEASE!
Ahem. Civ V. Looking good. The other change you’ll notice is that armies are no longer super-sized blokes standing around and pretending to represent several dozen/hundred/thousand units, but instead yer actual armies. Hopefully this means the argy-bargy will be a little more edge of the seat thrilling, as you watch the unit counts visibly drop, unsure until the bitter end who’s got the upper hand. Ranged bombardment sounds like a giggle too, a welcome change from simply throwing everything at everything else’s face.
Not entirely sure how the hexes are going to factor into things just yet (directional bonuses, perhaps?), but they should make understanding how many turns movement takes a little more instantly obvious.
What else? Full-screen, entirely animated diplomacy rather than pop-up boxes, a ton of modding support, and the promise that LAN and hotseat play are not being abandoned. All sounds pretty good, eh? There’s a vaguely grand strategy (as in, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron types) to the screenshots, but the description on the official site sounds pretty traditionally Civy. Hopefully that means it’s pushing interestingly outwards whilst remaining the strategy soulfood we’ve relied on all these long years.
More soon, gods willing. Oh, and click the pics for bigger versions.
I am going to repeat my gag from the forum: Since Civ 4 had squares I wasn’t expecting hexes til Civ 6.
I’m hoping we’ll finally have realistically bumpy landscapes in a Civ game, like we had in Alpha Centauri, though it looks like it’s still just flat/hill/mountain. I always disliked how flat Civ looks.
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“Since Civ 4 had squares I wasn’t expecting hexes til Civ 6.”
Trying to visualise the maps from Civ 1 and 2 is giving me a headache.
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Yeah. Try pentagons.
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Yes! Agree completely. Phew, I always thought I was the only one who was sad that the Tibetan Plateau couldn’t be accurately represented in Civs 1 through 4 (Well OK maybe not 1 or 2. And I didn’t own 3. So just 4 then.)
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Squares, hexes… What’s next? Polygons?
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Squares and Hexes are both polygons…
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“Squares and Hexes are both polygons…”
hexes are more… *rounded* /spits
hehehehe….
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Well, anything is better than Civ 3′s triangles.
….aaaand I think we’ve exhausted the number of regular tessellating polygons!
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Except that Civ3 didn’t have triangles…
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I always think of jokes too late: Civ 2 was just so linear.
Commence groans.
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Now, now, jsutcliffe, I always made a point of playing a lot of the original Civilization
XD
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@rocketman
Bravo!
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The comabt looks like the exact kind of hex-based, no-stacking, takes-hours, move-and-attack-every-unit-individually, is-no-fucking-fun, hex-based combat which eventually drove me away from hex-based wargames.
I’ll probably get a copy, if it’s not buried under surprise DRM, but I’m not hopeful. Even-numbered Civ games FTW, I guess.
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May I remind you that you can currently buy Civ4 and all its expansions completely DRM free? Firaxis are clueful when it comes to DRM.
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Of all developers, Firaxis is somewhere at the top of the list for being smart about DRM. I’m not too worried.
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I have nothing to say.
Except: Yay!
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My first reaction was pretty much this: http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/
And I’d just managed to escape the grasp of Civ 4! (Okay, I’m lying. I so redownloaded Fall from Heaven last week.)
Okay, let’s be quick: HEXES! I never would have DARED to dream. This is absolutely positively incredibly awesome. Seriously? My mind did a happy explodey thing when I read that. Ranged bombardement was one of the must have features in many Civ 4 mods. Civ 4 itself kinda received it in a few of the BtS mods, but as far as I remember that was only adjacent tile bombardement. Couple of the big mods (Better Combat I think was the first) had proper ranged bombardement. But yes, it needs to be part of the game proper.
That they restate their faith in the modding community is heartening, but not surprising. Civ 4 has about the most insane modding scene I’ve seen in any game. The value added to the game by its countless modders is ridiculous.
I have just canceled all my appointments, meals, and trips to the bathroom for the next twelve years.
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this is such a nice piece of news for us PC gamers in this time of DRMageddons and stupid console exclusivity deals… this has really cheered me up… i cannot wait for a new civ game, civ 4 still remains one of my all time favourite games, i dont really have any opinion on the Hex thing, i dont see how it changes the gameplay in any way…. or am i wrong lol
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Oh
My
God
!
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/insert janice’s stupid face
but it seems the shouldn’t be used ^^
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I wasn’t expecting news of this to hit before Sid’s Facebook efforts were revealed!
Looks purdy!! Hexes should make it sufficiently different to Civ 4 (which is still an amazing game). So glad about the continued modding support too, I’m working through some Civ4 mods right now!
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Do you hear that? Sounds like a choir of angels singing. Yep, I’m pretty sure it does.
Oh Civ, it has successfully stolen weeks of my life. Let’s hope that they go with a sensible drm, too..
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Looks like the armies are still supersized, compare to the trees and a settlement in one of the pics. Maybe it’ll zoom into a battle view at the correct scale….
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The hexes are going to take some getting used to, but OH MY GLOB! Those graphics are mind-blowing! Look how the river and the forest meshes!
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Hexes? In Civilization?! We need to form a boycott group ASAP! The people demand squares!
(Just kidding. Or am I?)
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This is why we are PC.
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Hear, hear
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Well, I guess I know what I will be doing for the holidays this year. . .
And hexes, cool! Does this mean actual spherical worlds?
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I hadn’t considered that – good call! That WOULD be awesome.
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Hmm, ranged Bombardment. Didn’t work too great in SMAC, be prepared to give it another try.
Honestly, one of my problems with the bombard type-units in Civ IV was that the combat system made field battles so horribly wasteful, that your best bet was just to sit in a city and take it, rather than doing anything about said units.
As for hexes – - I never really saw why they were preferable to squares. Still, away we go.
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I guess it depends on the balance. Bombardment in SMAC was weak, but I’ve seen elite artillery actually destroy a unit before, so it depends. Normally I didn’t bother with artillery, though – my favourite tactics involved using air units for cover* + destruction, and using land units to capture or break particularly tough bases.
*Park an interceptor behind enemy lines on an enemy road/magtube, as well as sitting on top of your unit stack to prevent it being destroyed.
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Isn’t Civ IV basically octogons? At least in terms of movements, you can move in eight directions from any point? Maybe the graphical tiles where squares, but in terms of gameplay, they were octogons. Even if you disagree with that, I still don’t see what the big difference this is, other than you apparently can see the grid now.
The ranged bombardment and the improved graphics sound great, but hexes — meh. In and of themselves nothing to get either excited or worried about.
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The thing I disliked about eight-direction movement in previous Civ games was that moving diagonally you magically cover 1.4 times the distance. It might not make much difference in terms of gameplay, but it feels wrong.
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Pseudo-octagons make Euclid cry.
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Re: diagonals in a square grid: that 1.4 makes all the difference in the world when scouting. Rather than revealing three squares for each move (hill visibility ignored for simplicitly), you can reveal five.
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@LionsPhil
I often play Civ with my wife. I’ll to the driving and handle military things, and she does the hard thinking about the economy. It freaks her out when I start moving our scouting units in crazy zigzags.
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Civ with non-Euclidean movement. Sounds like a Mod waiting to happen. Civ: 3.14: The Leng Edition.
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Dorimant, seriously, that’s every previous Civ. Gets worse when you think about the wrapping…
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So you’re suggesting that my dream of your my own personalised Civ-globe might never happen? I’m going to go cry.
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I’ve been waiting for this for ages. Easily the best news I’ve heard for ages!
Wonder if we’ll be able to nuke from orbit?
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civ4 was awesome
thing is people who hated it could end up loving civ5 and people who liked it could end up hating civ5 because each civ game is radically different in terms of how they actually play, but it always turns out good at least for me
i hope civ5 doesn’t use gamespy for multiplayer. that is a pile of junk
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I dunno, I remember playing Civ III and it being quite horribly but now playing Civ IV I really feel like it’s just Civ II with a new interface and a couple new features. Oh the AI is loads better though. What’s put me off a bit is that Civ II’s interface was actually better IMHO. I find it much harder to see what’s going on and if you play it at high resolution the text is positively tiny which is annoying. I also miss the little movie sequences when you built a wonder. :(
That being said, Civ IV still manages to keep me going for hours on end, so I assume Civ V will be equally awesome. :-)
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Er…Civ IV does have wonder videos, unless you turned them off.
Although, since Civ I, we seem to have lost the city-establishing cinematic for good. And the “archaeologists find the remains of your civilization” one. Palace upgrades presumably got canned for not actually having any gameplay effect.
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The combat looks like they went in the wrong direction to the one I was hoping. It was always incredibly frustrating having to tell all 30 units to attack one after the other and frequently ended up as some kind of insane war of attrition (I have awful memories of the Desert War scenario where everyone became stuck somewhere in Libya, constantly feeding units into battle and getting nowhere). I was hoping they might try something different- like have Armies which are like mobile cities, but rather than building improvements you add units, upgrades, generals and so on.
Still I’m sure this will destroy my social life for many, many hours. And it looks gorgeous.
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You know about the Stack Attack option right?
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Yup, but its still not much fun with ten or so stacks, Bomber attacks and so on.
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Hexes! In Civ! I thought the day would never come. I agree about the lamentable lack of Alpha Centauri’s properly 3D terrain, though.
A little worried that the tiny units will make types harder to determine at a glance. The advantage of giant phalanx man is that it’s easy to see that he’s phalanx man, not swordsman.
Also kind of worrying that this seems to go against Sid’s own advice about why there’s no detail to Civ’s battles, but we shall see.
(Settlers of Catan is really not that good, you know. Any game where one or more players are oft repeatedly incapable of making any valid moves other than “skip turn” for several consecutive rounds is fundamentally broken.)
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I confess, I’m somewhat relieved to see a real Civ 5 announcement amidst the console versions, social networking versions, mobile versions etc. Not that Civ 4 and its mods don’t stand up well anyway. Here’s hoping they can continue to improve on a great formula with this one.
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@vinraith
For what it’s worth, the simplified console versions are really good, and perfect for when you want to start and finish a game of Civ in an evening. The DS version, though naturally the clunkiest and least attractive, is excellent if only for the fact that it’s Civ in your pocket.
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@jsutcliffe
I tried the DS version and couldn’t stand it. The inability to properly see a large swath of the map pretty much destroys any grand strategy game IMO. I haven’t tried the stationary console versions, partly because i lack a next gen console and partly because I can’t fathom the appeal of playing Civ in the living room on the couch.
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@vinraith
Oh, you’re really missing out if you’ve not tried Civ from a couch. If you have a setup that lets you hook your PC up to a TV in front of a couch I heartily recommend it — Civ pretty much demands that you play it for hours, and a couch has to be more comfortable than a desk chair.
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@jsutcliffe
I have an exceedingly comfortable desk chair, and since Civ is a slow, multi-hour affair I prefer having the TV in the room free to actually be a TV. I also can’t really co-opt the living room TV for the lengths of time I’d want to, and then there’s the controller issue. It’s all a matter of taste, obviously, but I never play strategy games on stationary consoles. It has a world of disadvantages, and not a single tangible advantage, for me.
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I will second the awesomeness of playing computer games from your couch on a TV. Just spent a few hours last night playing Medieval 2 on my 42″ HDTV through my 5.1 surround sound system with a wireless keyboard + mouse.
Fucking epic :)
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I’m worried that playing Civ from my couch might destroy what remains of my social life. All I would need then is an IV drip and I’d be said for the next month or two. Kids, just say no.
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Hell yes! It’s been too long since the last civ.
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Clearly, Civ V should be shortened to Civvy.
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I’m really glad I’m not the only one wishing that there was a new Alpha Centauri too.
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@LewieP
Far from it, although I suspect some of us are afraid of giving that hope voice for fear that they’ll screw it up.
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It’s still permissable to play the old one, you know.
If you leave off the damn expansion which adds a CD check, it’s perfect notebook fodder, too.
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@LionsPhil
Sure, but it’d still be kind of heartbreaking.
Anyway yes, the old one is still excellent, and antique disc checks are pretty easy to subvert for laptop play anyway.
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Oh, I’m not defending broken sequels; Deus Ex and Fallout are both prime RAGE territory for that. I just don’t get why so many people seem to think that we need remakes or sequels of classic games as if they aged and wore out or something.
I mean, yes, it’d be neat to see what Sid (and Brian!) would do to advance AC’s concepts, but that’s apparently not where their interests lie right now.
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@LionsPhil
Ah, I misunderstood you. Yes, nothing wrong with old games, ESPECIALLY old strategy games and RPG’s, which are fundamentally less dependent on graphics as a gameplay component. I confess, old FPS’s are hard to deal with as what few FPS skills I have are no longer adapted to low res, low poly graphics.
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I’m with you LewieP, Alpha Centauri 2 needs to happen.
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I’d settle for Alpha Centauri on Steam. Finding discs and such nonsense is a pain. I’d be happy to pay $10 to get it in a convenient, easy to install format.
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@Legendary Teeth
I’ve no interest in adding Steam to a game that doesn’t require it, but I’d snap it up in an instant if it showed up on GOG. For a game that old, the least I can ask is 1) guaranteed compatibility with modern OS’s and 2) no strings attached.
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Lets face it, if you have extensively played Civ4 after ten turns of watching battles you turn on quick battles and unit movements. While they may attract the masses graphics aren’t what keep bringing the fans back it is the insanely addictive strategy. I’ll be interested to see how the hex system works out and fully expect after launch to a multitude of patches to balance units. Here’s hoping they don’t alienate the established player base… again.
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I can see where you are coming from. But I have to disagree, I activate quick battles because the combat is boring.
If they manage to make fights interesting, this game is going to take up even more of my time than Civ 4 already does.
There goes my social life, again…
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Yeah, that was the issue for me too, combat was boring. Turned off all animation and just let the numbers go to it as quick as possible.
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FUCK YEAR HEXES
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Hexes yay. Prettiness yay. Ranged bombardment yay. Other than that, there’s not a lot to go on. There’s no real detail on how the diplomacy will be improved, or on the new combat system. So it sounds more like an expansion than a five year sequel. But if the combat and diplomacy are really good, then it could be the best thing ever.
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I never liked Hexes. The inability to go straight up or down confuses and infuriates me when you can go directly left or right.
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If you think that’s bad, try Freeciv set to hex grid mode with a square tileset. Ugh. Brainaches.
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Solution: tilt your head to the side a little bit. :)
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I’m resisting the urge to just mash random buttons on my keyboard with excitement…
There’s been much cause to despair for the future of PC gaming in the past year ( isn’t there always? )
Little rays of light like Call of Pripyat, Starcraft 2 and this announcement remind me why I once loved, and still love, this big, black box so much.
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There’s nothing I can say about Civ 5 which won’t sound stupid, so I’ll settle for “great stuff”. Although it will be hard to beat Civ 4, which was the single most dense time-sink I have ever experienced. I’m still playing it these days, I think 5 years after discovering it (although I spend most civ-time editing the source code now).
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Have the randomised combat rules changed since Civ2/3? They are what stop me from ever enjoying the game once the initial exploration phase is over.
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Cows in Civ5 confirmed.
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I came 3 ti- Hold on. Unf. 4 Times.
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Fuck yeah! Awesome!
Can’t wait for this…
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As long as my helicopters dont get taken out by spears, I’m cool with Civ V
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It’s your own fault for flying NOE with those cheap plexiglass cockpits. As a mountain hex, Afghanistan offers great defensive bonuses.
Me, I was nurturing a little hexgrid design idea, but never will it look this pretty, and part of it has died.
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In fawning over a shift to Hexes, you forget that in terms of maeuverability, it’s actually a step BACK! (squares have 8 neighbors while heagonals have 6, as the name implies)
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This is great and all but am I the only one who thinks Firaxis should release something that isn’t a sequel/remake?
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Wheres Sid Meier Alfa Centauri 2?
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Now that’s a good question.
Maybe they’re neglecting it because Alpha Centauri isn’t as established franchise (and milking cow) as Civ? Would be a shame if that’s the case though.
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Flameberge, Isn’t that saying something? =)
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Strange. I was just playing Civ IV today for the first time in probably a year. The same thing happened last time, too. Just before Civ IV came out I started playing Civ III again.
Obviously I’m super happy.
I just wish, that maybe Sid Meier would do something new sometimes. I don’t even remember what his last entirely new game was. All I can remember are sequels or remakes.
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Sim Golf maybe…
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yes, i think you are :)
edit : reply to zigs…
dear god that reply button is erratic….
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Probably Sim Golf, which was ace.
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We’re never gonna Civ 5, unless…
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@Sagan
I don’t think Sid Meier has actually designed a game in ages…he’s mostly been in a creative advisory role with designers like Brian Reynolds and Soren Johnson doing the nitty gritty stuff. Technically, Civilization wasn’t entirely his own design as well since he borrowed a lot of elements from the unrelated board game.
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2k games = DRM. It’s as simple as that.
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Oh, alright. Was just getting excited too. Shame. :(
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Guess we’d better call the pageant off, then.
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I bought a Civilization IV Complete boxed a year ago but cannot register it on Steam even though there is exactly the same pack on sell there, because of 2K’s policy shenanigans. :(
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I was LITERALLY going to start a thread about this last night, having read somewhere in PC Gamer a horrifying little mention that Civ was dead.
Cannot imagine how happy I am.
Never worried me about funny results in combat, but the way the AI was given such ridiculous amounts of help in the harder games made me weep as I watched my Macemen gunned down by SAM infantry
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On the topic of Sid Meier’s Sim Golf, does anyone know of any downloady shops that have it?
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OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD !!!!
*squeal*
^_^
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Excited at most of the news! Except for the part where they hint at a continuation from the “lessons” they learned from Civ Revolutions. Which was a surprisingly addictive console Civ, but by no means something I’d want to see on the PC Civ V. But let’s have faith in Firaxis in the meantime :)
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Yes please.
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And in the game!
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love the pun
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This is simultaneously the best and worst news I’ve heard this year. Oh god the man hours, the precious man hours, that I’ll lose to this if it’s even better than Civ4. Time is money, hence this is likely going to be the most expensive game I ever buy.
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Leonard Nimoy better be back voicing the researched tech blurbs as well. Unless they get Patrick Stewart instead. Or William Shatner.
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Pretty. Though I thought it was Catan at first, and was disappointed that it was Civ.
I’m one of those “Alpha Centauri was the best Civ game ever” types. I will squee when they announce Alpha C II. Until then… eh.
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Same. SMAC was always more interesting, I think. The concept of ideology rather than nationality is more compelling as a sticking point, I think, and the fact that ideology affected the way a faction worked on a basic level – despite the fact that otherwise every faction was the same – was great. The combat was really clever, with the ability to use combined arms and terraforming to control battlespace or break a recalcitrant enemy.
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I loved SMAC too, and it has consistently surprised me that the Civ mod scene hasn’t tried to recreate it. I loved taking the “nature loony” Diedre, and recruiting armies of mindworms to swarm over my enemies.
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Alpha Centauri mod for Civ 4
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<3
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@ Dave:
I just yesterday reinstalled SMAC to hopefully play against my brother online. The other Civ games are fun enough, but I definitely consider SMAC to be the most novel and interesting. Still, I’ll most likely get Civ5 (etc.) eventually.
@Taillefer:
Many thanks for the link to that mod! (I haven’t played vanilla Civ4 since finding the “Fall from Heaven 2″ mod. Now I may have even less reason to do so.)
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Yeah I have been playing that mod too. The problem is it is missing the unit customization part.
But it is still a blast to play though.
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SMAC was the best, hands down.
they had ’3D’ terrain, a proper unit building system.. interesting terrain features (like the ability to build on water or land,t hat was so much fun!)
then when the next Civ came out, I was shocked and appalled, it seemed like a complete backstep.. sure the graphics were a little more beautiful, but the game mechanics and functionality was archaic compared to SMAC.. even Civ 4 didnt touch the bar that SMAC set.
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Wow…imagine what crazy stuff could manifest mod wise from the Fall from Heaven and other assorted teams? I’d not have guessed something like this until fall 2011 or some such!
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Too right, give us factions that are fundamentally different instead of just slightly
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Hm, Civ 5. Has the mind of Sid Meier gone completely stale? What was the last new thing he made? Not that he needs to proove himself, the man is a legend. But it has been all rehashes for the last decade.
His Civ war games were fab.
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You realise Civ 4 was widely hailed as a near-revolutionary improvment and refinement that brought the old formula right up-to-date, right?
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I’d hesitate before assigning much credit to Meier for most of the games released under his “brand” these days. Mosty of the games attributed to him are, at best, inspired/produced by him…he doesn’t have a lot of day to day involvement. Which is fine, but he’s not in the same mould as guys like Tim Schafer any more.
Which is fine, he’s an old man.
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No, but I loved Civ 4. As I will probably love Civ 5. But even more I loved SMAC! But it seems that Firaxis games are today merely polishin Sid Meier concepts, not even maturing it and definitely not coming up with new and fascinating stuff. Perhaps it is not the right company to wish that of, since it is the Sid Meier-brand. He did come up with ten lifetime’s worth of fascinating stuff already.
But perhaps Firaxis is sort of a legacy company. Same as a classical orchestra doomed to replay Rachmaninoff, Liszt and other old timer music forever and ever.
I go to Europa Universalis III for my historical game simulation kicks these days. It is way uglier but has a lot of nerve and freshness.
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I would have VASTLY preferred Alpha Centauri 2 or an X-COM sequel, but fantastic news anyway.
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The thing I’ve never been able to comprehend is why they introduced elevation and relief in Alpha Centauri–there was actual height in the terrain, with peaks and valleys galore–and every version of Civilization since has been as flat as the original board game that inspired it.
Alpha Centauri also had the best diplomacy options of any ‘Sid Meier’ game. From the interactive nature of negotiations to the Planetary Elections, it was one of the first games I played that actually made diplomacy a viable strategy. Civilization III and IV had obligatory diplomacy options that were actually just very pretty spreadsheets.
Did Brian Reynolds really take all of his ideas with him when he left to found Big Huge Games?
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I wouldn’t like to see arbitrarily different civilisations. A civilisation is largely defined by its access to resources, neighbours and geography. Not because it has a +1 field yield from the year 4000AD for no other reason than… THEY JUST DO.
What I would prefer to see is factions who are largely blank slates from the beginning, and whose access to technology and other aspects are limited by the factors I mentioned above. Furthermore, there needs to be more political turmoil. Last time I checked Britain only appeared in 1707 as we know it – not in 4000AD, gradually becoming what we know today. It would be awesome if it facilitated for the rise and fall of various political entities over the millenia.
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they didn’t just get bonuses for no reason in alpha centari they were clearly defined and unique. while i love civ 4 you got the one unit that set you clearly apart from other civs.and traits that were shared among about a quarter of other civs. ac is one of the few 4x games to contain a story and conceptual surprises.
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Rhye’s and Fall of Civilization, one of the mods in Beyond the Sword, does exactly that – follow a loose version of history with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Mongols, and all the other factions in the game. It’s a beautiful piece of work.
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It amuses me somewhat that the Starcraft 2 comments have many with indiference or even hostility, but Civ 5 has nearly twice as many comments with pretty much nothing but praise.
The internet is truly a fickle mistress.
But yes, Civ V! Yay!
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Well, just ask yourself..how can you hate Civ?
That’s right, you can’t. It’s the niche of the niche while being usually well done without hurting anybody. Unless feasting on your life and devouring your sense of time counts as hurting. Then it is hurting a lot of people very badly.
Sc is a multiplayer rts and fairly competitive. Civ is comparatively innocent.
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Not stating otherwise. I’m well aware of the differences between them since I’m a fan of both series, namely the difference in the players each attract.
But like I said, it just something interesting to note, especially since many of the more valid complaints that can be applied to SC2 (Korean ubermensch notwithstanding) could be thrown at the civ series. Which just shows how different the audiences for both games is.
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When Civ V is broken into three ‘games’ that you have to buy each of to play single player through, then you’ll see as much ire.
Oh and the removal of LAN play. That made people quite angry.
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SC2 is a game and 2 expansions. You know, like they did with Civ III and IV.
I’ll grant you the LAN. Although I should note that we don’t really know the extent of that.
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maybe because civ5 isn’t just a $50 graphical update?
firaxis has the balls to take measures to change their games even if it means alienating a subset of players. blizzard can’t even make a tiny change even if it is a better user interface (like letting you select 20 units at a time instead of 12) without a bunch of koreans rioting. the same logic extends through the rest of their design decisions. end product = starcraft 1 with new graphics (which is fine for a game where you have to individually micro all 200 of your units aka APM spamfest)
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From what we know, SC2 is about as different from from SC than Civ IV is from Civ III (not commenting on 5 since we still don’t know enough).
This is really what I meant with my original post. The only reason people aren’t rallying against a Civ V is because they don’t have preconceptions against it. Were this a blizzard game and all of a sudden the game would be simultaneously too different and too similar to the previous ones.
Is it really that hard to accept that two perfectly good games can live happily side by side?
What am I talking about. This is the internet, of course they can’t.
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You raise a good point. Why does Starcraft II make people angry whereas with CIv V we can express nothing but love?
Ideas:
1) The fanbase. Starcraft ans often dismiss other RTSs, not to say they are a bad bunch, they are just a huge bunch and with there being competition you always get tribalism. This applies even more so to those who aren’t Starcraft fans but still love the RTS genre (moi). There is no such alternative with Civ, its a timeless pillar in PC Gaming history. Another theory is that turn-based strategy fans are more mellow than there APM counting realtime counterparts. Probably speculative bollocks but fun a idea anyway.
2) Civilisation is inherantly lovely. I’d personally go for this one. Civilization makes me think of the gentle, playful archaic soundtrack to 2, everything about the game is joyous and understated. For a game that seeks to simulate the entire of human civilsation there is something uncannily modest about it. Can you get angry about Civilization? You can get angry at yourself for playing it too much, perhaps..
Actually thats all I got. Civ is a niche game, and its a lovely niche. Civ fans don’t go off and preach the wonders of their game, A. because it barely needs to be said and B. because it’d be like telling all your friends to get into smoking. Yeah you enjoy the hell out of it but really, can you recommend an addiction to your loved ones?
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“You raise a good point. Why does Starcraft II make people angry whereas with CIv V we can express nothing but love?”
Well, Civ’s actually quite good, innit?
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“blizzard can’t even make a tiny change even if it is a better user interface (like letting you select 20 units at a time instead of 12) without a bunch of koreans rioting”
Whoa there, them’s fightin’ words. As a fellow Korean (albeit absolutely TERRIBLE at StarCraft), I can see how you would come to that conclusion, but geez, that just seems a tad offensive, no?
Not to mention that Koreans are, in a sense, a vocal minority. Just sayin’, they’re a small group. A loud small group.
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They’re a large group in the context of “People Who Take Starcraft Really Seriously and Will Be Pissed Off if You Dick With It.”
And that group has a lot of weight when it comes to the developers of the sequel of the biggest professional multiplayer game of all time. They’re like your hardest of hardcore audiences…like NMA but ten times as rabid and invested.
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My flatmate has Settler’s of Catan.
It is very fun.
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I want pirates 2!
I never really spent alot of time with Civ 4, I do remember spending a whole holiday in cornwall playing civ 3 though. Germans OWN.
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Pirates two would be awesome. Actually, I’d settle for it to use something other than the non existant numpad on my laptop…
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“Civ will always be alpha centuri’s bitch.” -Nwabudike Morgan
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Hahaha!
There was a poll on the Firaxis website a few years ago, asking fans what game they would most like to see re-released/updated. Alpha Centauri won, and I think Colonization came in second. Yeah…still waiting for my update Sid! ;-)
- Chairman Rinox of the Angry Entitled Internet Men
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what excellent news.
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I came.
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Looks like the CIv I have wanted to play for ages if I am honest. I stress though *LOOKS* I really enjoyed Civ 4… but Hexes man… I like the Hexes.
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Interested? Of course. It’s been some time since the last proper Civ came out, and if they can improve it as much as they did IV over III, it’ll be a hell of a game. That said, everything mentioned so far except the hexes seems like expected notes (Yay, they’re not pulling stupid stunts! yet!) or merely visual fluff. Full screen diplomacy, for example. I guess it might look good, but what does it add to the game? If anything I’d prefer Civ ditch the visual fluff, as it doesn’t improve the actual gameplay and it shrinks the number of systems that can handle it. (I know people who play very little other than Civilization on their computers. Having to upgrade video cards for a TBS is a bit uncalled for.)
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Like Stalin’s Ghost said I wish they would make a nation-development thingy kinda like starting with the Britons you manage to form England when X conditions are met and the United Kingdom when Y are met, etc… would make it more fun than starting with the USA in 4000BC…
That said, one my favourite games was/is SimEarth, I wish Firaxis/2k/Sid Meier would remake that classic with new graphics, new gameplay, etc… please? PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
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@Barry
I get the sense you guys haven’t played Rhye’s and Fall for Civ 4.
You should also look into the Europa Universalis games.
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Vin I did play that mod (that later became bundled with CivIV proper) and I’ve been playing Paradox games (EU, CK, Vicky and HOI) since 2000 so… what does that have to do with wanting CivV to feature the content itself and not waiting on modders to create it? I always though of Civ as a “Civilization creator” where you write the history of your people while Europa Universalis and the like are games where you play a predefined (geographically, historically and culturally) country.
So yeah, I just want/hope that Civ V let’s us further develop our own civilization and perhaps allows us to have more fun in certain periods (Stone Age, Middle Ages, etc) instead of rushing us to the present and future.
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@Finn
I agree completely, actually, I’ve always wanted that kind of thing officially in a Civ game. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the “next best things” as it were.
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This is the sound of a million civ fans crying out in orgasmic rapture.
Also, I’ll continue the theme of FUCK YEAH HEXES.
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I could actually wank off to this news.
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That makes the two of us.
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Hooray for more Civ! And hexes!
Now excuse me while I drool over that lovely Settlers of Catan boxed set. So pretty…
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it has a built in web browser.
awesome
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Gilding the lily. Civ4 + expansions pretty much closed the door on, well, Civ-style 4x. Firaxis at this point reminds me of a musical group who knows they’ve made the best album they’re ever going to make, and tries to keep the fanbase spending by remaking the album again, and again, and again. (Case in point: Civ 5, Pirates!, Railrood Tycoon, etc.)
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Fairport Convention springs to mind. Real life dinosaurs roaring back from the folksy 60s and 70s. Still going at it, old geezers. Sid Meier is the Fairport Convention of pc gaming?
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Yay! But I really hope Sid Meier’s learn from Stardock’s Sins of a Solar Empire, instead renovate the old formula. The old formula is still great, but think about a massive super-sized real time 4X game 10 times bigger and far more detail than Rise of Nations. :P
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YAY! Looks like this is a great year for PC strategy games after all!
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http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/06/protector.jpg
What have I told you about that game Alec? Nobody needs a $500 dollar toy. Now scamper on over there and suck the life essence out of that corpse.
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I’ve never been a huge fan of Sid Meier’s stuff in general. I know, I know, how can I be a PC gamer without Civ? It’s not a bad game/series/franchise, that would be a silly thing to say. It’s just…not all that satisfying. To me, Civ 4 felt like a Total War game without the real time battles. I guess I prefer games that are slightly less abstract. I do understand the appeal of the series, though, and it’s good news that the PC is getting another strategy game in a time when so few are being released. Hope all of you other guys have fun with this one.
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YES!
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It will be worse than SMAC anyway.
Seriously though, as long as they let go of the ridiculous light tone of IV where Julius Ceasar offered me peace on the grounds it will be “way cool!”, I’m game.
Are these archers firing from two hexes away though? Hope they will make the maps properly big this time then, having archers fire over Panama Canal and hitting enemy units on the other side would be awesome in a way, but not really the kind of way I want to see in a strategy game.
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I was already thinking that the scale here is even more messed up than before. The units and terrain look great, but seeing them spread out like that where a unit takes as much space as a city, your army in formation must be covering miles. If those manganels can fire over that kind of distance, they must have the range of modern artillery.
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Hexes. I do love me some hexes.. maybe I should try a civ game again. Last one I played was the original, which was a blast.
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Disappointed at the lack of octagons :(
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Civ with hexes :)
Those squares always annoyed me.
But Alpha Centauri 2 would be much better news.
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Think about it – AC2 in the Civ V engine. With hexes. And pretties.
Can there BE any more awesome?
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I’d rather have AC2 in an engine that looks as nice as Civ5, but can handle ground level/sea raising and lowering.
Also, I’m not sure if I’d like AC2 to be a remake of AC, or a full and quite different sequel.
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Oh yeah, and freakin’ planet buster missiles! I love the smell of sunken cities in the morning.
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I’m gonna come right out and say that I hope those screenshots mean its no longer possible to just stack all your units on top of each other.
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You negative nancies will be the first ones against the wall when my Civ conquers the world.
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Yeah, a limit on stacks would be nice, and a little more realistic.
The Napoleonic French were good scroungers, but even they’d struggle to find food when 7 billion of them occupy one geographical area
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I’ve never though of a single unit as an army though. Who would be mad enough to make an army composed entirely of spear men, or archers? I’d much rather consider them to be regiments, which you’d combine to form your army.
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Thats kind of my point stacks mean theres no real formation or tactic beside who has the most and Hu’s on a hill. Limiting stacks would put alot more emphasis on placing, range and formation. With stacks they just take turns biffing each other and you end up with 15 spearmen killing a tank in a melee.
Now having archers fire across the Panama canal may not make sense but I think it would be an improvement over the scrum that most fights in Civ turn into.
Certainly Romance of the Three Kingdoms uses a similar system which works very nicely,
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http://www.civilization5.com/img/screenshots/screenshot_02.jpg
Am I the only one who sees the city in the bottom right and wants to scream “Noooo! Why did you put it there?!?” ?
But apart from, yay, more Civ! I really hope they keep with the three-tiered system of modding that they had in Civ4.
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Well, I’m just crazy excited about this. That is all.
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Will it have Christopher Tin composing another theme like Baba Yetu ?
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So the little logo animation on the official site is pretty great, huh.
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The countdown begins:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/50100/
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In the combat, you have to accept the scale is far too large for ‘tactics’, this is a strategy game.
Economics, logisitcs and grand strategy will be all that is capable in such a scale, and indeed what most Generals dealt with anyway, but the Germans and Russians managed VAST encirclements in WW2 and decimated all who stood before them, so surrounding an enemy, or even attacking from more than one front should carry significant bonuses
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Yeh to be fair that’s true. I played SMAC countless times and pretty much each time it somehow wove an interesting story. Civ 3 and 4 fun but overall, they didn’t really do much justice to the progression of the series in comparison to SMAC for many reasons.
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It looks like Christopher Tin won’t be composing the theme! What a terrible move! I mean, the guy DID win awards for that theme song. The game itself may be improved, but the music will probably be a forgettable drone of muzak.
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I’m loving the hex transition, now diagonals will much more accurately reflect 1.4 (and not 1.0). I think stax will see MUCH less use now that Arty, and thus bombardment, is much more viable. We’ll probably see an interesting refactoring of the upkeep formula because of this change as well. Defense will now be a more viable strategy, as bypassing cells will be more difficult for attackers.
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