How far along is CivIII ?

[SerapisIV]

Now I don't know much about the game development process, except for the occasional designer diary or last months of kinda story on Gamespot, but where does the point occur where a game is far-enough along conceptually that all that left is fine-tuning, playtesting, and bug-hunting? It seems that the screenshots from the various previews, that unless the art-department has been on speed, the most recent screenshots are pretty close to what we're gonna see in CivIII as they are pretty refined especially with regards to terrain (like or dislike opinions aside). If Firaxis is at this point, does that mean that all thats left is playtesting and bughunting? Would major game concept changes now seriously prolong development? Is Civ III far enough along that changing the gov't model, or the civ model (major vs. minor, etc) make this game a summer 2002 release?

I have never made a game, however WesW with the help of lot of others is making a major mod to CTP 2. He started last Nov. 2000 when the game was release. The mod may be Finnish in the next week or so depending on how long; some of the other people take to finishing their part.
With an almost Finnish game in hand it has taken 6 months to make a mod for it.
Now for Civ 3, the artwork is probably in progress as they (the team) make changes. The game engine may now be all but Finnish. I suspect most of the Units that are going to be in the game are there now, however some may be removed and some may be added to balance the game.
And I would suspect the game, is not at this time going change much unless someone on the team or maybe one of us send in a new idea that everyone on the team thinks is a great idea and will really help the game.
The big thing now is to play the game to see how it is working. As you know one full game at a given level of play, may take 40 hours or so. (There will be 7 level of difficulty in the game). They should be play testing the game at each level to make sure everything works.


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