Civilization IV Discussed As GDC Slides Released

Thanks to Evil Avatar for pointing to a CivFanatics news post discussing new information about Civilization IV from this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, recently released online as a PowerPoint slideshow. Apparently, the in-development Firaxis PC strategy sequel, not yet officially revealed, features "Continuous, immersive 3D world (what-you-see-is-what-you-get)... Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)... New killer features (religion, civics)... RPG elements (unit upgrades/experience)... Coding from scratch (multiplayer, mod-friendly)", with the important note from lead designer Soren Johnson: "Can still take over the world!" There are also a host of other GDC slides/lecture notes now available on the official site, including "Winning the Race Against Pirates And Crackers: Next Generation Copy Protection" by Erik Simon (PDF), and "Managing the Hydra: Successfully Running Multiple Projects in a Videogame Studio" by Dr. Greg Zeschuk of BioWare (DOC, PPT including some fascinating graphs.)

Comments

Some of it is already done

[smurf975]

A lot of what the first slideshow says is already available in Rise of Nations from Microsoft Games. However I fon't know if its their plan to make CivIV real time or turnbased.

Re:Some of it is already done

[hymie3]

Big huge games was founded by Brian Reynolds who did work on the Civ sequal and Alpha Centauri.

That's a bit disingenuous. Brian Reynolds was lead designer on civ2 and on alpha centauri. No offense to you the poster, but saying that he "did work" on those smash-hit titles, is like saying Enrico Fermi "did work" on the atomic bomb.

Personally, I thought Rise of Nations was a bit boring. It was more Gettyburgh and less Civ. I want to play Civ. Pollution and riots and, well, civ-style micromanagement is part of playing civ. Still, as long as they don't make civ4 a RTS, I'll be bying it.

You are describing SMAC.

[aetherspoon]

Police Units - check.
Multiple pollution/ecodamage reducing structures, check.
Methods of not having drone riots beyond increasing luxuries/psych, another police unit, or building entertainment, check.
Wider tech tree - check.
Corruption reduction - check.
Waste - doesn't exist.

Sounds good to me, what about you?
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri fits all of those requirements... sure, it is older than Civ 3, but in my opinion it is vastly superior.

Re:Drop the legacy?

[AuMatar]

As said, persians are scientific/industrious. They also have a great early game unit (immortals) if you have iron. But they aren't the best race. Industrious is awesome (half price teraforms), but scientific is weak- 1 free civ per era (not including era 1) and slightly cheaper libraries/universities/etc. Industrious/commercial is the way to go- commercial gives you extra money early on (so you get your first few techs faster) and cheaper markets/banks/etc. Hands down better.

Re:Incidentally...

[JonMartin]

Key wonders:
Pyramids (grannery in every city)
Adam Smith's thingy (reduce costs of improvment maintenance)
DaVinci (free unit upgrades)

There are more, but those three are key to rapidly develop your society.

Two of my favourites: The Great Library and Women's Suffrage. Early on the library gives you an enormous science advantage. It effectively keeps you on par with the other nations without doing any research of your own. Women's Suffrage let's you conduct large scale military campaigns as a democracy later in the game.