To me, the interviews kinda give that vibe, even though it seems it’s going to be more standalone than Civ4:Col, because it at least does not have Civ5 in the title.
In my opinion, Civ5 is a strategy game for people that don’t like strategy games, so the fact that this new game is so closely based on it isn’t exactly thrilling to me, but whether or not they will be able to work around (or with) the engines limitations to make a fun game remains to be seen.
rezaf
Civ 5 engine is a turn-off, the game chugged so much and had so many issues that this is a wait and see title.
Brian, Brian! Why are you doing those god awful F2P ‘exploitation’ games when we have all needed a proper new SMAX game for decades now? Risky, not really, not now. IF funding from the current normal publishing stable is a problem, then you must have heard of Kickstarter or crowd funding in general? Surely F2P does not take up that much concentration to miss this brave new awesome world for people just like you?
Please for the love of all things decent stop trying to game old people out of their pensions and just make a real, proper sequel to SMAC. If done as half well as it could be, you’d be laughing all the way to the bank.
Kindest regards,
Zak Gordon
I never said I knew for sure - I said it seemed to be a mod based on the rapid development time and past history (Colonization/Civ IV). I also said I hoped I was wrong.
I don’t like the Civ5 engine, I find it very slow. I have a fast PC (2600K CPU, few years old but within 10-20% of the newest CPUs performance wise) but I spend way too much time waiting for turns to process in Civ5. I play fairly quick so literally 1/3 the time in game is waiting. That’s extremely frustrating for me. That’s the main reason I don’t play Civ5 much. I also find it unforgivable because there’s so little going on in Civ5 (there’s not that many player nations, units or cities on the map) and the AI still isn’t what I’d consider good. I’m quite curious to see how this turns out but I’m not optimistic at all.
Yes, the engine is excruciatingly slow. It’s evidently doing absurdly inefficient and pointless AI computation – all units dance back and forth every turn even when they have nothing better to do – and somehow the unit animations make things even worse, not sure why. Just judging from the length of time the citystate movement phase takes, there is something horribly wrong with the code, because when not at war a citystate should have no need to move any of its units except the occasional worker, in the unlikely event they haven’t all been seized by barbarians. No doubt there is some kind of horribly implemented lookahead because of the hex-unit-blocking thing, too.
Actually I can speculate why the AI units all dance – because at some point someone realized that the planning and pathing was so bad that units were frequently unable to fulfill their goals because of traffic congestion. So randomly bouncing units without goals around every turn might be a shot in the dark at unblocking individual unit plans when an empty space randomly opens up on the map. Very sad if true, but what this means is if you are about to declare war on an AI player and they have a bunch of units on their border inconveniently blocking your movement for your first attack turn, then just wait a turn, and they will all helpfully move out of the way.
I know that as someone who enjoys Civ 5 I’m in the distinct minority here, but I think the engine is great. It’s quite attractive and I don’t find it particularly slow. (My rig is fine, not particularly beefy, but I don’t remember the details offhand.) I think it’s mostly a difference of taste/perception–I don’t mind waiting a bit for AI turns (never seemed too bad), and the only animation that bothers me is for the air units.
I like Civ 5, but I’m all-too aware of the game’s shortcomings. I see that the AI plays the tactical game very badly. That said, it was good enough to keep me entertained. I play Civ very casually. I don’t get all min/max like I used to when I was younger.
I hope that this game has better AI, but I’m not holding my breath for it.
Dear Zak Gordon, Brian Reynolds has said on several occasions that SMAC was a very personal expression for him about everything he believed when it came to philosophy, the nature of humanity, social contracts, evolution, the soul, etc. He said what he wanted to say and didn’t feel he had another SMAC’s worth of further thoughts on these subjects. He’s not interested in simply updating the engine/tweaking the mechanics.
If they got rid of the 1 unit per hex rule that would be a huge positive. That is the single cause of so many problems in the game, and based on scale for Civ… it feels wrong. Late game military conquest becomes a ridiculous slow slog because of it.
Rob Zacny describes how Beyond Earth differs from Alpha Centauri in its basic philosophy… but I think I like the new approach better.
Incredible, now THAT’S a trailer for a game I’d buy.
Turning off AI turn animations makes a big difference.
This is true; but even with animations turned off, toward the end of the game AI turns really begin to crawl at just the time the game should be wrapping up and heading for a finish, not creeping slowly along.
Brian answered!
I see three reasons for healthy skepticism. First, the screenshots indicate that we are about to get the same graphics package. Somebody discovered how to use a neon paintbrush and night effects. Window-dressing, not progress. Second, it is difficult to discern how the Affinity system is meaningfully distinct from Civics, Policies, and Ideologies. Third, the small number of official factions lends to the sense that the design team has chosen to try to conserve creative energies. That’s either setting the bar absurdly low or trying to avoid “over-delivery,” two possibilities that are mildly insulting.
All that said, here are some of the things that I’d like to see in the final release:
In the way of terrain, I think it would be fascinating were the design team to introduce a “shallowsea” tile set similar to the Purelake environment found in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive book series. The Purelake is a vast body of warm, very shallow water. In a 4X, this would be prime real estate for semi-submersible farms and wave-skimming hovercraft.
Would it be possible to create dynamic deserts, the edges of which can be hemmed by conscious cultivation of shelter belt forest… or encouraged to expand as the result of deforestation?
Could the game model weather, including rainfall patterns? This may still be too tall an order, granted. (Was it in Three Moves Ahead, episode 134, in which Brian Reynolds confessed that the model used for Alpha Centauri had not met the design objectives and was retained largely as a curiosity?)
In terms of mechanics, I think it would be especially interesting if the game design included a small number of resource types that could be “harvested” by specialized “gatherer” units. According to such a mechanic, rather than create a tile improvement within their borders (or a colony without), players would build and dispatch gatherers to harvest from specific resource nodes, then transport a “haul” back to some specific destination (e.g., city, outpost, refinery). Of course, the gatherer unit would be customizable such that players could add self-defense capability, improved armor, and increased cargo capacity, among other modifications. It would be especially interesting if players could make a conscious choice about whether to husband, deplete, or even despoil such nodes during specific epochs. As with the Spice found on Arrakis, harvesting from resource nodes should attract indigenous fauna.
“Forming” is probably a requirement in games like this. That includes terraformation through the application of superior firepower. (Apparently, this last option is already slated for inclusion.)
The possibility of communication with Earth raises some interesting possibilities. What about a private military contractor that delivers mercenaries and equipment via drop pods or drop ship? (Westwood Studios first pioneered this concept with the Brotherhood of Nod in Tiberium Dawn, then used it again in Dune 2000.) Perhaps players that build appropriate infrastructure might have a percentage chance of shooting down incoming deliveries to their opponents.
As for Victory Conditions, what about self-reliance? To ensure that the new world is not infected by the decadence and short-sightedness of the old, a partisan of this ethos would need to destroy the warp gates of other factions and eliminate their means of communication with Earth. To this end, the designers might consider providing each civilization with a mobile communications system (MCS), a single unit like the royalty in an old regicide game. This unit should provide substantial benefits as an early scout (high visibility), and each player should be driven to make choices about whether to risk this resource or “play it safe.” During the late game, players would need to husband resources to protect their MCS’s from “assassination” by factions seeking to achieve the Self-Reliance VC. Naturally, those looking to win such a victory would need to develop their intelligence capabilities to be able to detect the location of enemy MCS’s.
I think the buzz before a game’s release is more enjoyable than the game itself. …hmm. Kickstarter idea :).
Or, they are really trying to make the factions substantially different so they offer a very varied experiences. I’m disappointed by Civ V as much as the next guy, but we don’t have to try and make every explanation negative.
Wait, is there a faction list somewhere, or are you guys just referring to the ‘affinities’ as factions?
I was imagining that there might be the normal Civ-count number of factions (8-12 I guess?), and I was viewing the three affinities (Harmony, Purity, Supremacy) as something like a civics/religion layer on top. I agree that 5 or 10 affinities might be more interesting than 3, but if those three affinities lend themselves towards different branches of the (apparently less linear) tech tree and different improvements and military units, then that could already be a ton of diversity beyond what we see in a normal Civ game.
That said, I didn’t realize how much people specifically disliked the Civ5 engine. I thought the dislike was just about the gameplay and other macro strategy changes (which could–presumably–be totally different in a new game with the same engine). If the turns chug and the AI still can’t handle the 1UPT, then that’s a shame. I’ve heard mixed info on that, but I was under the impression that the Civ5 AI had mostly been ‘fixed’ after various updates.
I think the major limiting factor with respect to Civ 5 was the difficulty of producing new and unique graphics for mods. That robbed the game of a lot of the same charm that Civ 4 still retained long after release.