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Take-Two to Publish Next Civilization Game

Posted by Zonk on from the boy-they've-been-busy-this-week,-huh? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Take Two Interactive announced today that they have acquired the rights to the Civilization franchise. They also announced Civ 4, saying that "Civilization IV will also set a new standard for user-modification, allowing gamers to create their own add-ons using the standard Python and XML scripting languages." Okay, so XML's not a scripting language. But it's nice to see open source tech in a major PC game!" Civ IV will be released under the new 2K Publishing Label we reported on yesterday.

6 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Just to note... by DragonMagic · · Score: 5, Informative

    Firaxis still owns Civilization, and Sid Meier's still the director on the game. Take Two is just taking over the role of Atari/Infogrames and it sounds like they wish to do more with the title than just make PC games.

    Civ IV is scheduled to be out in late 2005. Hopefully, it will be.

    --

    Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
  2. Alpha Centauri by floppy+ears · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you love Civ 2 but have never played Alpha Centauri, be sure to give it a shot. I still play it occasionally even today, but I don't play anything in the Civ series any longer. The modifiable military units are great.

    Never did like Civ 3 myself. Too many boring bombing runs ...

    --

    "If I could live to be several hundred
    I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
    1. Re:Alpha Centauri by pezpunk · · Score: 4, Informative

      i agree with this also. even though the landscape is pretty ugly (everything is pretty much a shade of red), the game itself is fantastic. it's a perfected version of civ2.

      totally customizable units, functional and relatively deep diplomacy, fantastic story and brilliant characters (in a civ game?!?!), multiple paths to victory (victory by diplomacy, victory by economic domination, victory by Transcendent technology, or of course the good old victory by genocide) and an unceasing number options and worlds to play around with.

      my favorite feature, though, is the wonderfully clever quotes or movies you get every time you discover a new tech or wonder of the world. they really give one a sense of not only accomplishment, but wonder at this new, exciting technology your society has just produced.

      --
      i could live a little longer in this prison
  3. Re:I hope that's not all by Nevita · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sid Meyer is known to be taking more of a lead role in the design and development of this version, as opposed to the previous Civ game. Given that, I would bet that gameplay will be greatly improved over Civ 3.

    --
    Wise men learn more from fools than fools learn from the wise.
  4. Re:Freeciv by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I sure hope so, because the current release makes me want to blow my brains out. I thought the original Civ and Civ 2 had a craptacular interface, but then I played freeciv.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Re:AI by DrXym · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yeah but XML is simply a format for structuring data and quite a heavy one at that. Previous versions of Civ & countless other games allowed you change various settings through a plain .ini style text file.


    Switching to XML might make the data more structured but at the expense of loading speed, readability, editability and sensitivity to parsing errors.