Civ4

[lord of the mark]

im leaning to the view that this is it for the civ franchise - there may be a mod pack, a civ 3.5, but there will never be a civ4. And if there is i dont expect it to be very good.

The discussions of civ3, especially the unique units question, has i think revealed that civ is approaching a deadend. Yes people will always want new features, but ultimately that means choosing a direction, a unifying theme for the features. Lets be honest, most of the left out features are being left out deliberately for the sake of simplicity and gameplay, and to appeal to a mass market. Its us history nerds who want plagues, religions, migrations, and an endless list of adavances, techs and wonders. Firaxis simply isnt going to make such a game. There is no mass market for it, and i dont think sid is interested in pursuing it. A civ 4 would only be another attempt to milk the franchise.

I think the time has come to look elsewhere - to see what people can do with a deep, limited period, real time civish game like EU, a hybrid RTS/TBS like Shogun, and with city and society modeling in the Maxis vein, or Tropico. I also look forward to the alt civ projects and to efforts from small developers. On line marketing of small shop projects has revolutionized and reinvigorated wargaming. It is too early to speak of what impact it will have on other segments of the strategy market, but it will undoubtedly have an impact well before its time for Civ4.


LOTM

[dainbramaged13]

Eventually civgames will die out simply because of this increasing demand. While hard drive space for these type games will increase forever, programmer time and money will not. A game can simply NOT have everything you can possibly imagine, ONE because they have to program it all in, and TWO because not only do they have to program it in, they have to integrate it seamlessly with every other feature, so with each new feature, the programming time grows exponentially, and while a 10mb game would be no strain on our hard drives, taking ten years to develop a game would put a strain on the programmers time and money, and therefore yours. No, we will have to deal with (as LOTM has said) time/area-specific games that go in depth, because a game spanning 6000 years and the whole world can only have so much depth. And judging from Shogun: Total War, the future doesn't look so bad after all.

[King Richard]

This is far too early to even consider! But when civ3 finally arrives we shoul have a forum to discuss what we like/dislike about the game, so that pathes/upgrades can be made instantly.

Sometime people get burn out. Look at George Lucas, Star Wars was going to be nine movie. Now will be only 6. No. 5 is due late this year or early next year. They will have to start filming no. 6 late 2002 or early 2003 for 2004 release. I'm 50 days older than George, so if no. 6 make 2004, he will be 60 years of age.
Sid is in his 40? So if he works until 60 how many years left?
Two or three year to make a (good) game. He has a enough time to make four to five game. With a little vacation from time to time.

You guys understand the vacation, a day here, a day there, so he can spend all his time making games for us.

The above statement is a joke, however I think some of you guys would keep him working until he was 90 or so.

[King Richard]

I don't think I will be playing games 10 years from now. I assume that I'll be too busy with raising a family, working and taking care of other hobbies. For all we know, there might not even be PCs 10 years from now...

[RonHiler]

Jeez, guys. Why waste your breath on a fantasy project that may or may not at some point be started in the far distant future by a designer who isn't really even designing them anymore?

There are a whole mess of civ style games in the Alt-Civ section that could use the exact input you are wasting here. These are actual projects that are in progress, with concrete results. And I'm sure all of them would highly appreciate your input.

Plus, IMO, at least two or three of them are going to be better than Civ II (and, from all I understand about Civ III design decisions, probably better than that one as well) based on their results so far and design docs (including, of course, my game ).

If you really want to have an actual effect on a game, go take a look at them. All of them have a ton of interesting aspects that are worth examining. Really! They deserve better than to be ignored over a non-existant game

[DarkCloud]

Yes- but it is unlikely your games will ever be made...

It takes at least 2 years for a real game to be made by professionals working 40-hour weeks.

I appreciate it when people give suggestions in this thread- but every few months some of your "gaming"-making people will wander over here and attempt to convert civ3-ideas people, which is all fine and good- but whilst doing it you always bash civ3,2, and Sid Meier.

-Just stating my opinion of your 'practices'

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Yes- but it is unlikely your games will ever be made...

I can't speak for the other projects, but that's utter horsepucky for mine. Our game is about 85% complete, we've had multiple public Alpha releases, and we're on track to hit Beta by the end of the year. You're kidding yourself if you think our project will never be made. It already is made, mostly. I personally believe the other projects will also be finished (most of them) at some point, some earlier than others. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Only time will tell.

I certainly think they have a far better chance of being made than Civ4, at this point.

It takes at least 2 years for a real game to be made by professionals working 40-hour weeks.

Who are you telling? I know perfectly well how long it takes and what it takes to make a game. Just speaking for our project, I am a professional programmer, and I do spend far more than 40 hours a week working on the game project, just like any programmer at any game development studio, and our game is a real game. I think the others are done by hobbyists, but that hardly disqualifies them as viable projects. One of the Alt-Civ projects, Open-Civ, is a working game, done totally by amateurs. It's a Civ clone with extra added features (so yes, it is better than Civ).

I appreciate it when people give suggestions in this thread- but every few months some of your "gaming"-making people will wander over here and attempt to convert civ3-ideas people, which is all fine and good- but whilst doing it you always bash civ3,2, and Sid Meier.

I've never bashed Civ 2. I enjoyed Civ 2 immensely. I do not, however, feel it is the end-all-be-all of gaming experiences. Improvements can be made, IMO. If you want to call that bashing, then I disagree. The only problem I have ever had with Civ 2 was it was a bit too derivative of Civ 1, not enough had changed. But still, I played it for long periods of time. As for Civ 3, I won't bash it until it hits the shelves. My only comment about Civ 3 at this point is that, given the design decisions I've heard about (mostly here at Apolyton), I don't think it's going to be the awesome game everyone thinks it is. I could be wrong. I hope I am wrong. But I disagree with so many of the design decisions made for that game that I don't intend to buy it the day it comes out. I will give it time and see what the reaction here is. I give it a good 50/50 chance that I'm not going to buy it at all. I don't consider this bashing, really. It's just my opinion. They're not putting in the features that I want to see, and thus I'm no longer particularly thrilled with the game. Others may want to see other features that they are putting in, and it may be the greatest game in the world for them, just not for me.

Now Sid is another story. I will bash Sid if you like. I don't consider him the gaming god everyone seems to think he is. He wrote Civ I (which he stole from a board game) and Pirates. Both exceptionally good games. And he hasn't done a damn thing worth mentioning since. If I'm bashing your idol, then I'm sorry. I don't hero worship unless the person has earned it, and IMO, Sid has not. Just my opinion.

It seems you've never bothered to actually look at what's going on in Alt-Civ. That's fine, that's your choice. No one's holding a gun to your head. But please don't make unsupported conclusions based on what you think might be happening. You made at least two statements in your 4 sentence post that were flat out wrong, because you don't have any idea of the things that are going on over in "our" section.

Ron

[dainbramaged13]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by RonHiler
Jeez, guys. Why waste your breath on a fantasy project that may or may not at some point be started in the far distant future by a designer who isn't really even designing them anymore?
[QUOTE]
cuz we have no lif

no seriously, darkclouds right.

Now Sid is another story. I will bash Sid if you like. I don't consider him the gaming god everyone seems to think he is. He wrote Civ I (which he stole from a board game) and Pirates. Both exceptionally good games. And he hasn't done a damn thing worth mentioning since. If I'm bashing your idol, then I'm sorry. I don't hero worship unless the person has earned it, and IMO, Sid has not. Just my opinion.

You better install a security system in your house after uttering these words at ACS.

[MrFun]

I would try to explain why this thread is not meaningful to me, but then, that would be a waste of calories burned from the typing.

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
cuz we have no lif

Hehe.

no seriously, darkclouds right.

Sorry, I missed the reference. What's he right about?

Quote:

Now Sid is another story.

You better install a security system in your house after uttering these words at ACS.

hehe, maybe you're right But it's just my opinion. I make no attempt to enforce it on others.

Anyway, sorry for going off Darkcloud. Nothing will irritate me faster than when someone dismisses my project, which has taken three years of very grueling work, as "amateurish crap that will never be finished", especially when they haven't even looked at it first.

My only point was that all of y'alls energy might better be served talking about existing projects rather than a non-existant one. I've made that point, so now I'll shut up and go back to my corner. You can feel free to ignore me and talk about Civ 4 if you like.

Ron

[TechWins]

I'm going to stay in denial and think that Civ will last forever.

[dainbramaged13]

Originally posted by TechWins
I'm going to stay in denial and think that Civ will last forever.

Goood thinking, tech

[Vrank Prins]

IMO there will allways be someone who after five or six years will pick up the game and try to improve it. Whether it's SID, Brian Reynolds or someone-else. The gameconcept still has lot's of possibilities to grow without losing its great playability and addictivness.

CIV will stay with us in our lives like f.e. Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk, Freecell . . . . .


Good idea Dark Cloud !!!

[Grumbold]

Civ style games will stay with us, in concept, for a long time yet. All the Alt-civ products being created demonstrate as much.

I'm going to stay positive and fully expect to see Civ IV in production by 2007 with dozens of awesome new features, including the option to take VR walks through your capital city. Remember: shut your eyes, click your heels together three times and repeat after me "There's no game like Civ4... there's no game like Civ4..."

[Vrank Prins]

click, click, click




"there's no game like CIV IV . . ., there's no game like CIV IV . . ."



IS THIS HEAVEN ???



THIS MUST BE HEAVEN !!!



THANKS GRUMMIE !

[Sava]

Sorry to be a party pooper, but will you guys stop being stupid?

Arguing about whether or not there is going to be a Civ 4 is stupid. It's like arguing if there's going to be another World War, but worse. Everything you know about Civ3 you know from this site, basically. But the problem is, none of you have any idea what's going on in Sid's head. So it's all conjecture.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's arguments over conjecture. There are NO facts to base your arguments on, just a mental picture of what you think Sid will do.

So please, direct all further factless arguments to your toilets so that this wonderful site doesn't get littered with them.

[datakodin]

Development of Civ IV will take a lot of time.

What about Civ 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, ...? Suppose one new feature would be incorporated in the game each month or each two months?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by RonHiler
Jeez, guys. Why waste your breath on a fantasy project that may or may not at some point be started in the far distant future by a designer who isn't really even designing them anymore?

There are a whole mess of civ style games in the Alt-Civ section that could use the exact input you are wasting here. These are actual projects that are in progress, with concrete results. And I'm sure all of them would highly appreciate your input.

Plus, IMO, at least two or three of them are going to be better than Civ II (and, from all I understand about Civ III design decisions, probably better than that one as well) based on their results so far and design docs (including, of course, my game ).

If you really want to have an actual effect on a game, go take a look at them. All of them have a ton of interesting aspects that are worth examining. Really! They deserve better than to be ignored over a non-existant game

I am hopeful for the alt civ projects. I also note that there is a middle ground between an all amateur effort and a full-fledged commercial project like Civ 3. That would be a small shop project (whether or not evolved from an amateur project) by one or two developers. Those of us who follow wargaming at all are certainly impressed by the success of Combat Mission and await the TBS worlds "combat mission"

I would however note that the alt civ community's main weakness (at least as i percieve it) is marketing. Now thats to be expected from amateur efforts, and is one reason some may prefer them to marketing driven commercial projects. But it means it is hard to draw people to those projects. As you may recall, Ron, i posted on the alt civ board requesting a comparison table for the alt civ games. People did an excellent job of coming up with and filling in such a table - but you know what - its not featured on the alt civs main page - you have to dig through the board to find it.

While it is natural to be frustrated by Sid-worship, and by talk of "civ4", it might be more useful to peruse the very vibrant discussions of Civ3 features now going on, and provide insight may indicating how alt civ game have handled or are handling them. That would give more exposure to the alt civ community, and would attract some curiosity, Im sure.


For now I must confess I have neglected the alt civ community. Such time as i have for games currently goes to Caesar 3, civ2 scenarios, and the Civ3 board. I have not taken the time to really investigate the alt civs, even to the point of determining which one really interests me.

Lord of the Mark

[Gramphos]

I wait for Civ III right now...
Don't make me wait for Civ IV before Civ III is out .

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I am hopeful for the alt civ projects. I also note that there is a middle ground between an all amateur effort and a full-fledged commercial project like Civ 3. That would be a small shop project...

That would be us!

I would however note that the alt civ community's main weakness (at least as i percieve it) is marketing. Now thats to be expected from amateur efforts, and is one reason some may prefer them to marketing driven commercial projects.

Sure. It's a fine line to walk though. You want to get your game name out there, and tell everyone what a great product you have. But at the same time, you are intruding on other's conversations. The people who posted to the Civ3 idea boards don't, in general, want to hear about MD or Clash or GG&S. They want to talk about Civ3. You have to be very careful, because if you over-do it, or do it wrongly, you generate resentment rather than interest (as Darkcloud demonstrated).

I always feel a little bad even bringing up our name on a forum that isn't specifically devoted to us. It's only when someone specifically says something like "Gee, I wish Civ3 had spherical worlds" that I jump in and say "We have that!", heh. But that sort of thing is pretty rare. So we remain obscure. S'okay, when we are a huge hit, those who were there from the beginning will have something to hold over those who ignored us

As you may recall, Ron, i posted on the alt civ board requesting a comparison table for the alt civ games.

Indeed I do. It was a great suggestion. I think everyone at the Alt-Civ section was and is greatful for the idea.

People did an excellent job of coming up with and filling in such a table - but you know what - its not featured on the alt civs main page - you have to dig through the board to find it.

Yeah, and it's really too bad, because that is a great table. "Only Human", who was our Alt-Civ section coordinator at the time (still is??), came up with a great format and collected all the data and screenshots and really put together a quality product. But then he lost interest or something happened, and he never posted in on the front page, despite our (everyone at Alt-Civ) frequent requests for him to do so. We messaged him several times, but (as far as I know) never got any response back. I still don't know what exactly is going on with that, if he just lost interest or if there was some other problem. Anyway, there's nothing we can do, those of us in the Alt-Civ design groups don't have any special access to put it up, any more than you do. So it sits buried in a forum, totally useless.

While it is natural to be frustrated by Sid-worship, and by talk of "civ4", it might be more useful to peruse the very vibrant discussions of Civ3 features now going on, and provide insight may indicating how alt civ game have handled or are handling them. That would give more exposure to the alt civ community, and would attract some curiosity, Im sure.

Yes, but again, that probably crosses that thin line between genuine information sharing and annoyancy. As far as that goes, I try to stay on the side of courteousness. It is my firm belief that when your product is great, word will spread, without having to be a nuisance on forums that don't belong to you.

Speaking of which, this has gotten off topic, which is a clear sign that I shouldn't have said anything in the first place Let's let it return to a Civ4 discussion. But in all sincerity, thanks for the interest you've shown to our little Alt-Civ section LOTM.

Ron

[DarkCloud]

Well, I am not angry at you in particular- it's just that when the Alt.Civers come over here to 'discuss' they make one point and then say, but, "our thing is going to be better than civ III",

(Which may be true, but it gets annoying when you have seen claims like that since august 2000 and no finished projects (with the exception of FreeCiv)

Oh- but I am interested in your projects; in fact I contributed to the economic and trade models on one of the Alt.Civ games.

-
Also- I understand that games produced by non-professionals take long to develop, in fact I happen to be part of an adventure game team at:

http://www.pythianproject.org/

I like to help make games; but that project is sort of disorganized and even with 30 dedicated people working on it, has been around 2 years in development with little progress (but the DEMO is coming out in 2 WEEKS!)
-

I wish you every bit of luck on your games, but I also understand that it is hard to actually code a good game; even the pros produce some horrible games sometimes

-

Also- this thread was originally started to discuss whether we should rename the Civ 3 Suggestions Forum to Civ 4 Suggestions Forum rather than creating a new Civ4 ideas forum and deleting the Civ3 forum.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by RonHiler

Sure. It's a fine line to walk though. You want to get your game name out there, and tell everyone what a great product you have. But at the same time, you are intruding on other's conversations. The people who posted to the Civ3 idea boards don't, in general, want to hear about MD or Clash or GG&S. They want to talk about Civ3. You have to be very careful, because if you over-do it, or do it wrongly, you generate resentment rather than interest (as Darkcloud demonstrated).

I always feel a little bad even bringing up our name on a forum that isn't specifically devoted to us. It's only when someone specifically says something like "Gee, I wish Civ3 had spherical worlds" that I jump in and say "We have that!", heh. But that sort of thing is pretty rare. So we remain obscure. S'okay, when we are a huge hit, those who were there from the beginning will have something to hold over those who ignored us

I guess i was thinking more along the lines of the conversations we have here where someone says public works would be good for civ3, because it worked in CTP. but not future techs, because they made CTP silly, or Cic-specific units worked in SMAC, and someone responds yeah but only because its a sci-fi game. This is not a CTP or SMAC board, but clearly implementations of ideas in CTP or SMAC are relevant. I see no reason why ideas from freeciv or other games would not also be relevant

LOTM

[RAF]

Yeah, right....


====== ~~~~

[eNo]

Whooo..those were some long posts. I'll read them later because I need some sleep but just a thought: has anybody actually played the Civ board game? I only heard about it when CtP was in developement and all that talk about the copyright issues. How similar is the board game to Meier's game? Did Meier really steal that much?

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by eNo
Whooo..those were some long posts. I'll read them later because I need some sleep but just a thought: has anybody actually played the Civ board game? I only heard about it when CtP was in developement and all that talk about the copyright issues. How similar is the board game to Meier's game? Did Meier really steal that much?

I suggest you dig a search into the forum (not sure about the Forum area, but it surfaced here and there, and surely I missed some) for better info. I'm giving you some info I remember, just as "appetizer"

Yes, Civilization and Railroad Tycoon where board games before Sid move them in Computer games world

I never played them, but some of my old friends did. AFAIK, the board and computer versions share some fundamentals points, while diverge in others. In board Civ trading/diplomacy played a more relevant role than fighting battle. The map of the world was more focused on Europe, North Africa and Middle East (the nest of Civization as we use to know).

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
Also- this thread was originally started to discuss whether we should rename the Civ 3 Suggestions Forum to Civ 4 Suggestions Forum rather than creating a new Civ4 ideas forum and deleting the Civ3 forum.

IMHO the answer should be NO!
I loved Civ and Civ2, I liked to some extent SMAC, I had great hopes for Civ3 and may be I'll be very happy with it when released and patched twice

I'm not interesting into another effort to put new life in a... well, bad looking corpse. Don't take me wrong, it's only I'm almost sure there is a big wall is been hitting into the effort to improve a ten year game concept without making a major leap.

We discussed before about need of evolution vs. revolution into Civ 3 design, sorry if I repeat myself.
I'm not ready to argue too much about a game largely unknow and under development, but (disclaimer) I'm ready to guess, until anyone agree it's only my guess, and I'll eat my message if time will prove me wrong

Firaxis is payed for a sequel, not to take a risk and make a new revolution: you can think as you like, but the bare facts are clear from cold or warm effect on reviewer after game preview at E3.

Lot of us will love more and more of the same meal, but most of new players will look to others concept.
I haven't played them so far, but my friends are very happy about Shogun Total War and Black and White. I don't care to compare them with Civ 3, but surely they introduced more welcomed innovation.

TBS is not dead, but surely don't look in good shape. I feel the need for new concept that can resurrect the genre, and I don't think that Firaxis can do something in this way, with the lead chain of Civ moloch franchise to obey.

Alternate Civ can start something as good as the original shareware Doom did, but they must prove it on the gamefield, because lot of games look quite good on paper or on early alpha, where you can wonder any glitch, unbalancing and design flaw will be resolved before to go gold.

My best wishes to anyone working on Alt Civ, of course.
Meantime we'll have a Civ 3 and may be a Civ 3 X-pack to fill the gap.

No Civ 4 please, the fourth in a row will make me nervous

[Grumbold]

Civilisation the boardgame is very different from Civilization the computer game. There was a true port of the boardgame done a few years ago as "Advanced Civilization"and you may be able to find it if you dig round the abandonware sites. One interesting thing about the boardgame was that it was impossible to conquer the board or even permanently kill a single opponent. Warfare, while necessary, was generally conducted at the expense of civilisation/tech progress which required stable cities and extensive trading. There are threads about it in the "Other Games" sections of Apolyton if you are interested.