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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

#51

Post by nostrademons »

tcoppi wrote: post #33
rictic wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a historical perspective there's been shockingly little conquest in the past 50 years. Almost all redrawing of borders have been a result of internal struggles, and only a tiny amount of soil has changed hands as a result of invading armies seizing territory. There've still been civil wars, coups, proxy wars, trade wars, foreign-funded revolutions, etc, but these are way smaller scale and result in far less bloo…

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 country splits up in civil war. If it does split up and enter civil war, then the geography becomes very important and you need to hold territories (and their inhabitants) containing military bases, industrial production, and natural resources.

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

#52

Post by xlm1717 »

mfoy_ wrote: post #18
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.

Alternatively, Civ 6 for the tablet could be amazing.

Civ 5 and Beyond Earth both have tablet modes. They work very well.

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

#53

Post by lmickh »

asimuvPR wrote: post #25
tomashertus wrote: post #8

And I'm still sitting here and waiting for Age of Empires 4 :/

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

MS shuttered the studio in 2009. You are going to be waiting a long time.

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

#54

Post by robertcorey »

scrumper wrote: post #43

> Stonehenge can only be built near stone. Found this a bit amusing given that the most likely quarry site for Stonehenge's material is a couple hundred miles away from Salisbury Plain, in Wales. (Not a nitpick at all, the restriction is a good idea, just thought it was quite funny given reality.)

Each tile in this game represents a large area of land.

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

#55

Post by wolfgke »

dragonwriter wrote: post #32
enraged_camel wrote: post #20

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. It just feels like a money grab after a while (especially with franchises like Call of Duty or Madden, which, from my perspective, don't improve appreciably in between iterations). I'd like to see them taking some r…

> 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".

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

#56

Post by Fomite »

jandrese wrote: post #24
enraged_camel wrote: post #20

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. It just feels like a money grab after a while (especially with franchises like Call of Duty or Madden, which, from my perspective, don't improve appreciably in between iterations). I'd like to see them taking some r…

They did make Beyond Earth, which is more different than Civ than you might expect. That said, I didn't find Beyond Earth to be much fun...

In contrast, I found it far more compelling than Civ. And yeah, they play surprisingly differently.

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

#57

Post by civilian »

I've bought every Civilization game except the very first one. They're good games, but the one I really love is Alpha Centauri. Maybe it's a nostalgia thing--- I got SMAC when I was in middle school. But the faction design was phenomenal, and it was great how you actually had to play the factions differently, and knowing the other factions meant you handled them differently. I started playing University of Planet and just out-teching everyone, but learning how to play the other factions was very interesting and provided a ton of replay.

To me, Paradox's Stellaris is more of a spiritual successor to SMAC than Beyond Earth is. You have empires that have radically different traits, values, and governments. You actually have to play to your strengths and think about your policies. (Disclaimer: I am extremely sleep deprived from playing Stellaris the last two nights.)

The Civs and Beyond Earth all play the same. The faction differences are superficial. It's bleh.

//edit forgive me HN, I commented before I read. The article does address my concern:

> "We found that there was a bit of a sameness to leaders as opponents," he says. "They didn’t really act as different personalities in terms of diplomacy. In Civ 6, every single leader in the game has a historical agenda. We look at something they did very well in history and we dial that up in the game world to make them a bit fanatical about it in Civilization 6.

But I have very little faith that they've solved it. Having a leader that is more fanatical about something isn't the same thing as having to make hard deicisions about Values & Government trade-offs!

For reference: The Alpha Centauri Social Engineering panel: http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/201... And wiki for details: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri/Soci...

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

#60

Post by distances »

mthoms wrote: post #13

I wonder if there are any plans to improve game engine performance on OSX. It never seems like a high priority. I understand Windows is 80%[1] of the market but still. [1] Number pulled out of my butt - I've no idea the exact figure.

It's not only OSX/Linux, the Windows version is a bit embarrassing with its performance and graphics glitches too. I really hope they're using a different game engine for this one. Civ5 late games with massive maps are very tedious to play even with a beefy gaming desktop.
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