Ask Dennis Shirk about Civ V: Gods & Kings (submissions closed!)

[Camikaze]

Following yesterday's announcement of the new Civ5 expansion, the three major fansites; CFC, Apolyton and WePlayCiv, have each been given the opportunity to ask 10 questions from the community to be answered by producer Dennis Shirk.

So this is your opportunity to ask about Gods & Kings. To submit your question:

• Click the button (or button if you are using the Black CFC theme) in the lower left hand corner, under my avatar.
• Write out your question.
• Click 'Send Report'.

CFC staff will choose the 10 best questions and send them off to Firaxis. Try and limit your questions to a couple of lines maximum, and make them interesting! We want to get some juicy answers! Questions that are abusive will obviously not be chosen, and there are some things that Dennis can't tell us about yet, so try and avoid the obvious 'What are the remaining four civs?' type questions.

Feel free to discuss what you'd like answered in this thread, or use it to brainstorm some ideas about your queries, but please note that only questions submitted by the method above will be considered. We'll take submissions until midway through the week, and hopefully we'll be able to get the answers to you sometime the week after!

NOTE: SUBMISSIONS NOW CLOSED

The selected questions:

1. What are your main criteria for picking new civilisations for Gods & Kings (and DLC)? While the announced civs seem to be bringing back old favourites and fan requests, civs like Polynesia hint you are aiming at a more eclectic and global selection.
2. We know there will be many new units, including the Machine Gun and melee ships, so how have upgrade paths for units been modified in the expansion?
3. Currently the optimal way of completing a science or diplomatic victory involves signing as many research agreements as possible and stockpiling a bunch of great scientists to complete the end of the tech tree. Are research agreements and great scientists being adjusted to reduce the strength of this tactic, and if so, how?
4. Can you go into more detail about the individual religions and founding them?
5. In the espionage system, what allows you to conduct operations? Is it based on Espionage Points (a la Beyond the Sword), or is it based on Gold spent (a la previous civs), or is it a new system entirely?
6. Will there be any overhaul in how the AI conducts diplomacy, especially about its hastiness to go to war? Currently, the AI will DoW you if their oatmeal was burnt in the morning. There is little to no way you can prevent this from happening; it is generally a question of when a war comes, not if. In what ways will this be improved?
7. There have been quite a few popular mods, such as InfoAddict, for vanilla Civ5. What was the influence of the modding community on the design of the new expansion?
8. Can you tell us anything more about the release of the DLL, and will there be major changes to the way the game handles mods? More specifically, how it loads art assets such as building graphics, landmark graphics, terrain graphics, etc.? Right now, modders are severely limited in modifying these assets due to bugs with ModBuddy and the game's functionality - bugs that must be corrected if the mod community is going to expand past what it currently is.
9. Will the new content and scenarios work with multiplayer?
10. To what extent are improvements from the expansion being included in the vanilla release? Presumably things like improved AI algorithms will make it to vanilla while religion will not, but other things like the new units aren't obvious. Could you briefly describe categories of things that are getting patched into vanilla?

[Villager720]

Im going to go ahead and ask the most obvious: Can you tell us all the Civs and Wonders included?

[Pouakai]

I asked about the Baroque interface, and whether it will be interchangeable between Art Deco via the options.

[crawf0rd]

I asked if the UUs and UBs of the new civs are included in the count of 27 new units and 13 new buildings/

[spicytimothy]

Is it too late to change the Confucianism logo?

[BobDole]

In one of the screenshots there was a machine gunner unit which had ranged attack strength. Does this mean we'll see ranged infantry beyond crossbowmen, and if so, will this have any affect on the ranged siege units (Trebuchet, Cannon, etc.)?

[Putmalk]

Will there be major changes to the way the game handles mods? More specifically, how it loads art assets such as building graphics, landmark graphics, terrain graphics, etc.? Right now, modders are severely limited in modifying these assets due to bugs with ModBuddy and the game's functionality - bugs that must be corrected if the mod community is going to expand past what it currently is.

[Revoran]

I asked these (albiet shortened slightly):

Can you describe the effect on gameplay of melee naval units? Does this mean the trireme is now a melee unit (historically, triremes fought via ramming each other and boarding actions, not with ranged attacks)?

Can you describe in what way the combat and diplomacy AI is being "improved"?

I'd also like to see these answered:

1. Will there be longer game speeds?

2. Will there be larger map sizes?

3. Will there be an increase in the amount of civs that can be put into one game (current limit is 22)?

[nokmirt]

I was wondering what made you come to the decision to add WWI era units and how it effects the tech tree? I of course am all for it. Just was curious about that. Thank you.

One more small matter will there be a conquest victory setting as in CiIV, where you win if you control a certain percentage of the map?

[omnishakira]

Are you going to improve the AI war intelligence ? One day, I'd like to see Diety meaning that im going to play vs a very very strong non-cheating/almost non-cheating computer (just like Chessmaster for chess)

Will you add more leaders per civ ? (example : Degaulle for the french)

[True_Candyman]

Does this spell the end of work on Civ V?

[Chibiabos]

Will DLC civilizations for "vanilla" Civ V be included in the expansion, or will it simply be upgraded to be compatible with Gods & Kings (such that you would still have to buy it separately, but would be updated to work with religion and other new code systems, etc.)?

[Durgat]

Vassalage, Yes or No
Corporations, Yes or No
Era limiting, Yes or No
Is multiplayer going to be reformed to allow mods, and will lobbies return. CIV 4 style drop-in?
Mod tools, Yes or No
Federation style alliances?
Border culture wars?

[Monthar]

The questions I submitted are:

1) Have the combat and ranged strengths been adjusted for all units?
2) Is the Destroyer changing to be a naval melee unit, thus making it more important to build battleships?
2a) If so, does this mean the trireme will upgrade to a caravel then destroyer and another early ranged naval unit that upgrades to the frigate then to a battleship, so we have both melee and ranged naval units in multiple eras?

[Piernik]

My questions:
1. Will AI be improoved? How?
2. Any new/enhanced mod tools?
3. What will be new diplomatic options?
4. Will whole game be better optimized?

[grandad1982]

Not a real question to put to them but... Is there a re-roll map button?

[vexing]

my question: are research agreements and scientists being adjusted to prevent massive slingshotting through the end of the tech tree?

Originally Posted by grandad1982

Not a real question to put to them but... Is there a re-roll map button?

seems like a valid question to me. did you submit it?

[grandad1982]

Originally Posted by vexing

my question: are research agreements and scientists being adjusted to prevent massive slingshotting through the end of the tech tree?



seems like a valid question to me. did you submit it?

I have submitted it (now). Got to say I'm much more interested in a possible answer to your question though. GSci need to not one shot all techs.

[unundindur]

1. Asked about Maximum era

2. Asked about Immortal-AI, since only Deity-AI is reasonably good now, and at Deity the Ai is near impossible to deal with in a large multiplayergame.

3. Asked about OSX version beeing launched along with the windows-version.

[player1 fanatic]

Most important question:

Will DLC civs and wonders be integrated in new expansion, in similar way how Civ4:Warlord civs became integrated in Civ4:Beyond the Sword.