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Ask The Civ IV Dev Team
On Monday, we asked you for questions for industry legend Sid Meier. Today, we're asking for question to put to the folks behind the technology of Civilization IV. Besides the actual coding and development that went into the game itself, the team has made Civilization IV infinitely moddable through technologies such as XML, Python, and a fully developed SDK. Led by lead designer Soren Johnson, the team will answer your questions about the creation of the fourth chapter in one of the most influential game series out there. So, fire away with your questions. One per comment, please, and keep them topical. We'll pass the ten best questions to Johnson and the team, and the answers will be posted as soon as we have them in our hands.
In Civ III there were unmanageable time delays in between each turn at the mid-late stages of the game. If you played on a large or huge world, it could take five minutes or more for the AI to complete its turn. And you couldnt just go and eat a sandwitch, because there would be prompts along the way for diplomacy and such that you had to be ready to click on. Is this new version of Civilization going to run faster, even on non top of the line computers?
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Additionally, cross-platform game development needn't add too much additional labour if you start off designing it as such, and generally the quality of the code is better (because you have to sit down and think about how to do things intelligently, not to mention bug fixing).
Now, if you think that Linux support is intractable because of support costs, then fine. Give me the game without support. Just give me some version of the game. Of course I won't pay the same amount as with support, and if someone else does more, I'll be more loyal to them. But it'll eliminate the need for support costs.
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Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
The thing that annoyed me most in CivIII was that it was almost impossible to get a solid technological lead.
You could have a commerce/science race, with all the science buildings built in all your cities, with at least as many cities as the next two largest races combined, and a population that was more than the top FOUR other races combined, with 60% of your GDP going into science, and all the science wonders in one coastal city producing nothing but science, with more science specialists than citizens, and you'd STILL have trouble keeping ahead of other races.
Now, that's just not realistic.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I like the idea of an AI reacting to the subtleties of the map.
But what I would like to see is an AI that reacts to how its opponent is playing.
For example, I would like an AI that evaluates how aggressive a player is. If a player is constantly attacking the AI, it should react by foregoing some research to build up a defensive army. If a player is defensive, on the other hand, the AI should patiently build up an overwhelming attack force, complete with research upgrades and such.
If a player shows a preference for attacking with one particular type of unit, the AI should "realize" it and start building counterunits. It would even be nice if the AI would do things like sacrifice some scouts to find out what its opponents are up to and compensate for it. Does the scout see some lots of planes in a city? Build some anti-aircraft missile batteries in surrounding areas. I've beaten lots of various players at various strategy games using these kinds of tactics. If an AI used them too, it would add a whole new dimension to player-vs.-computer strategy games.
Plus, it would be nice for developers to observe some really good players playing, make some notes, and ask the players why they do things that the developers don't understand. Are there any general rules that can be programmed that a human uses in making decisions like when he or she starts building military units, how those units are deployed, how much and what kind of research he or she conducts and when, and so on.
I think a cool AI feature of a game would be for the AI to "learn" how a player plays over the course of the player's games. If I beat the computer one way, it will know where it went wrong and play the next game differently, under the assumption that the player will still use some of the same tactics. Perhaps a game would even include some sort of profile manager so that if my brother plays the game, the computer will play against him differently. I've used that tactic several times in AoE2—record the games so I can go back later and study why my opponent did to spank me so badly. Next game I play against that opponent, he or she will be pwned by someone who has prepared for his or her tricks and strategies.
I think it would also be cool for the AI to try a few odd tactics now and then to see how a player reacts. Start building a wonder. What did the player do? Immediately start one of his or her own? Use that knowledge to make him or her waste resources that could otherwise be alloted to the military. Declare war on a player out of the blue and see what happens. Does the player start making concessions to re-establish peace? If so, that player can be bluffed. Send a lone military unit to camp close to another city. Does the player attack him immediately, though he's no threat? If so, do the same thing, but have a larger army waiting on the other side of the city to go in while it's not as heavily defended.
I guess what I'm saying is that if we could get to the point where computers are "thinking" like humans, I can finally shed the last vestiges of my need for friends to play with, and that can't be a bad thing, right? :-)
Some of us see AC as the best in the whole (greater) Civilization series. Awesome game.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
We've all heard the horror stories coming out of companies like EA, with programmers working sweatshop hours and driven to burnout. How are the working conditions at Firaxis? Do you guys get time to stop and smell the roses? Or at least time to play other games?
The cake is a pie