Ask Sid Meier

Sid Meier is a household name in gaming. Titles he's designed, such as Railroad Tycoon, Pirates!, and Civilization, are pillars in the history of PC gaming. This year the fourth chapter in the Civilization series of games is being released, and we have a great opportunity. Today we're asking for questions about design and philosophy to pass on to Mr. Meier. On Wednesday, we'll be asking for questions to give to the Civilization IV development team. That day you'll have the chance to ask technical questions about the moddability and design concepts that went into the game. For today, here's your opportunity to put questions to one of the most respected game designers in the industry. Keep them topical, and one question per post please. We'll pass on the ten best questions, his responses will go up as soon as we get them back.

Comments

Availability of mods

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Games like Half-Life have shown that phenomenal sales can be maintained for a prolonged period of time if the game is designed from the beginning with mods in mind. To date, HL is still one of the most popular online games, having spawned a number of variations that are essentially entirely new games in their own right.

With this in mind, do you plan on offering a robust and flexible method for fans and enthusiasts to modify and extend the game? The trend in FPS games is to offer a toolkit or SDK that facilitates this. Could we expect something similar in Civ IV?