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Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

polygon.com

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Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#61

Post by peteretep »

tcoppi wrote: post #15
vinceguidry wrote: post #10

I would love to see a game that accurately reflects modern geopolitics. It would generate a world and run a history up to a certain point, at which you'd take control as head of state of a particular nation and conduct national affairs. Ideally, the game would be able to make conducting the affairs of a large global hegemon like the United States as interesting as playing a small kingdom beset on all sides. Sort of l…

> The real interesting part of the game in my view is that conquest is no longer an option Isn't it though? Russia seemed to do OK with the conquest of Crimea. Anyway the suggestion of Europa Universalis is probably the closest you will get right now. If Paradox made a post-cold war sim I'd play the hell out of it, but I think it would be hard to do right and be interesting precisely because without real conquest and…

    > Russia seemed to do OK with the conquest of Crimea
While I'm no Putin apologist, Russian "conquest" of Crimea is a bit like hypothetical Éire conquest of Northern Ireland. You're certainly going to upset a lot of people, but it's also hardly black and white.

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#62

Post by toyg »

nostrademons wrote: post #51
tcoppi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also a lot harder to model these sorts of dynamics and make for a compelling game, IMO. An interesting idea of an "economic rts" type game is Offworld Trading Company(incidentally the brainchild of the Civ4 creator). I think they strike the right balance for their type of game, but I'm not sure it could be done for a more deliberate, Paradox-style strategy game.

It would be very interesting to have a political simulator where the internal population of the country is divided into factions, ethnic groups, and subcultures that differ on one of several dozen identity dimensions, and your goal is to lead the country and hold it together. If you screw up and deviate too farm from the centerline, either an opponent leader takes over and you have to rebuild your powerbase, or the c…

I think Democracy 3 [1] covers the first half of your description.

[1] http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy3/

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

wolfgke wrote: post #55
dragonwriter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the Civilization series, but I'll be honest: it really bothers me that certain companies have one or two franchises and they keep churning out new iterations of them every year or every other year. The main Civ series has had a new base-game release every 4-6 years, not every year or every other year. Civ I: 1990 Civ II: 1996 (6 years) Civ III: 2001 (5 years) Civ IV: 2005 (4 years) Civ V: 2010 (5 years) Civ…

Not to forget: Civilization: Call to Power (1999) Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (continuing where Civilization II ended) (1999) Call to Power II (2000) Civilization: Beyond Earth (2014): Spiritual sequel to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. There are of course other PC games that are related to the Civilization series but those are IMHO further away from the "main Civilization series".

SMAC and the Call to Power series were made by different companies than the main Civ series, even though, through the process of the various sales and mergers since, all the rights related to them are, I think, in the same place now.

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#64

Post by tomashertus »

bdavisx wrote: post #28
asimuvPR wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and me, friend. Whatever happened to the MS division that published those games?

I wonder if those games didn't make money, or just didn't make enough money. I'm thinking AoEs and Flight Sim.

RTS genre in general is on decline. Last good RTS was Starcraft 2. It is all caused by the shift to MOBA games...

Also there is huge challenge to create playable RTS game with current popular monetization strategies - in game purchases

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#65

Post by distances »

wolfgke wrote: post #55
dragonwriter wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the Civilization series, but I'll be honest: it really bothers me that certain companies have one or two franchises and they keep churning out new iterations of them every year or every other year. The main Civ series has had a new base-game release every 4-6 years, not every year or every other year. Civ I: 1990 Civ II: 1996 (6 years) Civ III: 2001 (5 years) Civ IV: 2005 (4 years) Civ V: 2010 (5 years) Civ…

Not to forget: Civilization: Call to Power (1999) Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (continuing where Civilization II ended) (1999) Call to Power II (2000) Civilization: Beyond Earth (2014): Spiritual sequel to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. There are of course other PC games that are related to the Civilization series but those are IMHO further away from the "main Civilization series".

Apart from Alpha Centauri, most Civ fans (me included) prefer to pretend these games do not exist.

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#66

Post by toyg »

jandrese wrote: post #27
cletus wrote: post #3

When Civ 1 came out I played it religiously. To the point I could wake up at noon, start playing then look outside and find it was dark. I didn't really play Civ 2 or 3. I just found them to be classic examples of sequels: adding tedium more than anything else. Civ 4 I also played a lot, possibly as much as Civ 1. Civ 4 was, for me, a rare sequel that didn't just add feature bloat. It added a lot of depth while strea…

Civ 5 was arguably incomplete at launch. The optimal strategies ended up being pretty shallow and the AI was pretty brain dead. The expansions helped a lot (although Religion tends to feel like a sideshow), but BNW made it a little to easy to secure a culture victory IMHO.

> although Religion tends to feel like a sideshow

Does it? One of my favourite tactics in Civ5 is rushing to pile up religious wonders, convert the crap out of other countries, and proceed to actually get decent trade deals with their leaders. Combined with Patronage and a few network-oriented beliefs, religious domination will let me lock-in complete support from all City-States (as long as goddamn Alexander isn't in the picture) and dramatically ease my path to victory.

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#67

Post by bd »

mvd366 wrote: post #6

I'm a bit surprised at the graphics they have shown so far. I originally saw a screenshot and assumed it was a mobile game rather than a full-fledged AAA title for the PC.

Let's hope some mods will make the look more palatable.

Here is a fan made mockup of how Civilization VI could look with a different art direction:

http://i.imgur.com/ZawuP8E.jpg

Here is the original look for comparison:

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/289070/ss_a79c8...

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#68

Post by toyg »

I loved Civ I, trekked through the sequels, and fell in love again with Civ V (the orgy of stats in IV was starting to kill the franchise, IMHO). I think they are on the right track - the point of Civ is to find a balance between statecraft drudgery and military action, and V moved the needle back towards that ideal centre IMHO.

This new direction sounds slightly too RTS-y, but as long as they don't try to pull a Simcity 5 ("social" games, just say no, kids!), I'm happy to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#69

Post by tcoppi »

xlm1717 wrote: post #48
tcoppi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real interesting part of the game in my view is that conquest is no longer an option Isn't it though? Russia seemed to do OK with the conquest of Crimea. Anyway the suggestion of Europa Universalis is probably the closest you will get right now. If Paradox made a post-cold war sim I'd play the hell out of it, but I think it would be hard to do right and be interesting precisely because without real conquest and…

Well, technically speaking Stellaris is post-cold war, by about 150 years. :P

True, and I'm currently enjoying the hell out of Stellaris, so I guess that counts :D

Re: Civilization 6 is coming in October, with big changes

#70

Post by civilian »

cletus wrote: post #3

When Civ 1 came out I played it religiously. To the point I could wake up at noon, start playing then look outside and find it was dark. I didn't really play Civ 2 or 3. I just found them to be classic examples of sequels: adding tedium more than anything else. Civ 4 I also played a lot, possibly as much as Civ 1. Civ 4 was, for me, a rare sequel that didn't just add feature bloat. It added a lot of depth while strea…

Pssst, go treat yourself to Stellaris!
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