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

rocky development cycle

[kwoff]

Civ3 had a pretty rocky development cycle. We lost all of our leads after about a year and we also had almost 100% turnover within the programming department.

And that turned out to be a great game, so I'm really looking forward to Civ 4. However, I'm not sure what to think about:

Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)

Although there might be less annoying things, but those annoying things are part of what makes the game.

Re:rocky development cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

Not worrying about pollution, corruption, or waste just means you get to play the game like George W. Bush would.

Re:rocky development cycle

[GeekGirlie]

I think the beauty of all the Civ games is the realism that the pollution, rioting, anarchy, etc. presents. Not only do those elements make the game more challenging but they do make them a little more realistic. Civ is a game that you can play over and over again and never really play the same way twice. But, will you really want to play it again if you can beat it in an hour because the things that make it challenging are stripped away?

What?

[gasaraki]

No pollution, rioting, maintenance or corruption/waste? If they're ditching classic elements like those they'd damn well better be ditching the crappy new "resource" system they came up with for Civ III. I don't want to hunt the world for a "silkworm square" before the game lets me build a musketeer, or whatever the hell it tried to make me do.

The other slide shows

[mrluisp]

Erik Simon's slideshow was really enlightening. It seems like the game industry is finally starting to realize that there are better methods to prevent pirated copies of games appearing in such time periods. The current copy-protections used are easily crackeable, and are usually more of an annoyance to legitimate customers than the pirating scene.

In his slideshow, Erik actually talks about the scene and how they function. It's nice to see that he is making an effort to understand how the enemy works, in order to develo pbetter methods to beat them.

Erik also makes an interesting observation. He says that there are only 12 people world-wide actual capable of cracking new protection codes in the "scene". That number seems a bit low, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was accurate.

Bioware's slideshow makes a strong emphasis on treating its employees with the proper amount of respect and courtesy. They use rewards to encourage good behavior, and keep all their employees informed of any major events involving the company. It's good to know that some companies out there still make an effort to treat their employees properly.

Major changes

[arhar]

I applaud them for having the guts to make some major changes to the franchise, as opposed to 'let's not fix what's not broken, make some new graphics, sounds, levels, and call it a sequel'.

However, I'm praying to God that they don't make it real time. Civ series is one of the few last examples of turn based strategy games done exceptionally well. I'd hate to see it become another RTS clone ...

Drop the legacy?

[Battlegeek]

"Drop unfun legacy (pollution, rioting, maintenance, corruption/waste)" I will admit that these aspects were not the most fun parts of the game, but they did add to the challenge of trying to balance foreign and domestic affairs. Thats leads me to two different tangents. Games are not interesting if they are not challenging. Sure it may be fun to zip through a simple game once, but you are not going to want to play it again. I have been playing and replaying Civ for 12 years. Secondly, maybe we need to send a copy of Civ to the Whitehouse as a learning tool.

Re:Drop the legacy?

[Rethcir]

I dunno about sending GW a copy.. if anything it looks like his foreign agenda is based around civ-like ideas. "Let's attack the Persians and wipe them off the face of the planet, it's not like the Chinese will really be able to hurt me since i'm on an entirely different continent and everything. And even if they do, who cares, I can just start a space race and jack up my scientific funding." Maybe this is just because Civ ends too soon. It would be cool if Civ4 had some kind of model for "assymetrical warfare."

On a side note, did anyone else notice that the Persians are the best race in the game? They are scientific/military if i recall, which is a formidable combination. God, once I beat the Megaman collection I'm gonna have to play out another good long campaign of Civ 3.

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.