Jon comes back with a vengence
- Thread starter ArataWata11
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Jon Shafer said sometime down the road, he may make the Romans playable. At least it's a possibility.
I believe the Alpha testing will begin in July 2013 (approximately) and the Beta testing will begin in January 2014. The game should be released around mid 2014. At least according to the Kickstarter page.
Jon Shafer
Civilization 5 Designer
Just posted this in the news thread, and figured it would be good to add it here as well!
- Jon
- Jon
Hey everyone, thanks for your interest in ATG!
I know many of you didn't enjoy Civ 5, and I'm sorry that my design didn't live up to your expectations. I just posted a lengthy article explaining why, in spite of that, ATG might still appeal to you. I go into a fair amount of detail regarding the elements of Civ 5 that I wasn't really happy with and how I'm solving those issues in ATG.
Additionally, I'll be posting updates on the Kickstarter page every couple days where I delve into each of ATG's major features and what makes them special. In the meantime though, if you guys have any questions about the game or any particular aspect of it, I'd be more than happy to provide some answers!
I very much believe the strategy genre still has a great deal of untapped potential, and I'm hoping ATG can help show what's possible with a small, dedicated team. My sincere thanks to all of you who are helping to make that possible, and have contributed to our Kickstarter!
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Now that is an interesting read.
Civking5
Prince
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I read the article and found it very interesting; however, I didn't like the part about return of stacking in the Atg. Hopefully, it will have some sort of limited staking mechanism. I also believe 1upt is superior with great potentials still not cracked.
Disagree about 1UPT being superior.
Whatever the case, if you stack all your units together, your supply lines will become vulnerable. If they get severed, you are in danger of losing the whole force.
So, there is stacking but a strong incentive not to do so in At the Gates.
Seems fair to me.
Also, it sounds like chronic resource shortage in ATG is going to prevent stacks of doom.
The traditional formation when supply camps need to be secured is faster/lighter units on both flanks of the main attack force which has the heavy units. A few units in the rear near the camps (units needing to heal preferred) The distance used between these forces would depend upon both unit speed and presence/absence of ZOC effects.
The traditional formation when supply camps need to be secured is faster/lighter units on both flanks of the main attack force which has the heavy units. A few units in the rear near the camps (units needing to heal preferred) The distance used between these forces would depend upon both unit speed and presence/absence of ZOC effects.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Different mechanisms for different games. The logistic and supply mechanisms seem to make stacks of doom impracticable.
Very interesting read, that article! I find the 1upt scepticism particularly interesting. I'd say a lot of people think 1upt as it currently is works quite well (or better than any other Civ combat system) without making the map larger, so it's surprising to see the man whose brainchild it was express greater doubts. 
I was amazed by this, too.
Sometimes I wonder, if developers (Jon, the CiV team or developers in general) weight negative criticism higher than positive feed-back. After all, disappointed fans tend to be so much more vocal, than people who like the changes...
I always thought (and did articulate) that most of the design changes Jon Shaffer introduced to CiV headed into the right direction *). Some of them in (sometimes terrible) need to be polished and fleshed out. But necessary in general to keep the Civilization series from being static and arrested in the past.
One of the changes I full-heartedly applause is the 1 upt-mechanic. And (in a consequence) those awesome choke points created by the (in my opinion) best map-generating-algorithms in the whole series so far! I really think, the maps work fine as they are now with 1 upt and are definitely not a fail! (I usually play king/emperor level. Therefore I can not comment about unit spam in higher levels.)
*) With some exceptions. Cutting the health system is one of them, in my opinion.
Sometimes I wonder, if developers (Jon, the CiV team or developers in general) weight negative criticism higher than positive feed-back. After all, disappointed fans tend to be so much more vocal, than people who like the changes...
I always thought (and did articulate) that most of the design changes Jon Shaffer introduced to CiV headed into the right direction *). Some of them in (sometimes terrible) need to be polished and fleshed out. But necessary in general to keep the Civilization series from being static and arrested in the past.
One of the changes I full-heartedly applause is the 1 upt-mechanic. And (in a consequence) those awesome choke points created by the (in my opinion) best map-generating-algorithms in the whole series so far! I really think, the maps work fine as they are now with 1 upt and are definitely not a fail! (I usually play king/emperor level. Therefore I can not comment about unit spam in higher levels.)
*) With some exceptions. Cutting the health system is one of them, in my opinion.
The QC
Quietly Confident
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I think the developers are always wondering about this too... Who to listen to? How representative are they? Forums provide interesting discussions, but never a quantitative result.
From the looks of it, in this case, Jon is stating his own opinion, based on his analysis and not necessarily feedback he received (although that may have played a part).
That aside, about 1UPT, I was one of the people who were very enthusiastic about it at first, but in the end I do feel that it harms the game in some ways. For me the issue is not any of the ones mentioned by most people or Jon himself. For me the issue is that army management and combat in general become tedious midway through the game, once you have many troops. Moving all of them around and finding place for them and trading blows with the enemy becomes an endless and rather boring task. 1UPt makes combat in the early game more fun (because there are few units and each one matters), but it makes mid game and late game wars boring to the point that I sometimes quite games because of this.
shaglio
The Prince of Dorkness
I think the best thing going for Jon right now with ATG is that hes creating a stand-alone game rather than the 5th installment of a franchise with such a long and storied history. If he had made what we now know as Civ 5 as an independent game under a different title, I think it would have been received much more positively. It still wouldnt have been a perfect game and there would have been complaints, but there would be none of the Civ x was better because . . . type of arguments, since there would have been no other games in the series with which to compare it.
At least his experience with Civ 5 gave him a chance to learn what did and didnt work for his future game designs. No mistake is truly a bad mistake as long as you learn from it.
At least his experience with Civ 5 gave him a chance to learn what did and didnt work for his future game designs. No mistake is truly a bad mistake as long as you learn from it.
TM Moot
King
Interesting reading (Jon's article), alot of it we have learnt the hard way I guess 
Whilst civ5 is playable now (post G&K), I just hope that civ6 goes back to being an Empire building strategy game
Take the best bits from civ5 (faith/religion, social policies, quantifiable resources, Unique Abilities, City States) bring back stuff from older versions (health, city happiness, vassals, corporations), mix in some new features (trade, more trade, rebellions, revolts, world wars, natural disasters) and game on...
Whilst civ5 is playable now (post G&K), I just hope that civ6 goes back to being an Empire building strategy game
Take the best bits from civ5 (faith/religion, social policies, quantifiable resources, Unique Abilities, City States) bring back stuff from older versions (health, city happiness, vassals, corporations), mix in some new features (trade, more trade, rebellions, revolts, world wars, natural disasters) and game on...
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Very interesting read, that article! I find the 1upt scepticism particularly interesting. I'd say a lot of people think 1upt as it currently is works quite well (or better than any other Civ combat system) without making the map larger, so it's surprising to see the man whose brainchild it was express greater doubts.
Well, he did say it works for the most part. However, there were clear flaws in the system in that it slowed unit production terribly. They've actually moved to mitigate this to a degree and have sped up unit production from the beginning, but it's still clear that, once an army is broken, conquest is much easier. I think the AI suffers even more than humans in this regard.
That being said, and I think the article tends to support this, combat in Civ5 is more fun than it's ever been. Combat in Civ4 and before was genuinely tedious. There are flaws that need to be worked out (not just unit production, but also AI), but there's a sense of maneuvering and terrain being real factors in the game in an intuitive sense, not just modifiers to a random number generator.
DaviddesJ
Deity
I'm skeptical. Tolerate it? Sure. Think it's actually a good idea? No.
Greizer85
Emperor
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Fix the terrible, horrible, humongously bad AI (easier said than done; maybe in Civ VI) and 1upt >>>> stack combat. Also allow stacking of allied units and infinite stacks of civilians while you're at it. I wonder if there's a mod for this; what could possibly be the downside in allowing stacks of civilians? That you could capture too many workers at once? The headaches that 1upt causes without civilian stacking are a much bigger flaw imo.
For starters, you could make the AI build more ranged units and *protect* those units by keeping them out of the front lines. Basically play like a human currently does. And not to make a billion Trebuchets and take them on an undulating Long March of doom... Also, under NO circumstances should the AI embark units if not planning a protected naval assault. How hard can these things be to code, really?
For starters, you could make the AI build more ranged units and *protect* those units by keeping them out of the front lines. Basically play like a human currently does. And not to make a billion Trebuchets and take them on an undulating Long March of doom... Also, under NO circumstances should the AI embark units if not planning a protected naval assault. How hard can these things be to code, really?
Fabiano79
Prince
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http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/14/j...-civ-v-explains-how-at-the-gates-will-differ/
Jon Shafer criticizes every decision he made on Civ 5, explains how At the Gates will differ
On the rants thread plp already discussed this, 1upt is a good idea, but the maps are just too small for this concept. We need more hex or bigger maps.
Jon Shafer criticizes every decision he made on Civ 5, explains how At the Gates will differ
On the rants thread plp already discussed this, 1upt is a good idea, but the maps are just too small for this concept. We need more hex or bigger maps.
I've read it and I enjoyed the read quite a lot!
Nevertheless, I still like relative map size and especially the choke points in their current(!) form - even if Jon critises his previous decission - and hopefully I am allowed to do so...
I don't say, lager maps with more space to maneuver and more distance between cities wouldn't work aswell. But then units should have more movement points to compensate increased map size.
The problem is that workable citiy tiles (correlated: space filling in non-optimal maps) and space between cities is highly related to each other. Currently, everything is balanced nicely. I seriously doubt, that this will be still true for enforced larger distance between cities. A 4 tile distance might still work. But 5 or even 6 tiles between cities migth be too far.
Nevertheless, I still like relative map size and especially the choke points in their current(!) form - even if Jon critises his previous decission - and hopefully I am allowed to do so...
I don't say, lager maps with more space to maneuver and more distance between cities wouldn't work aswell. But then units should have more movement points to compensate increased map size.
The problem is that workable citiy tiles (correlated: space filling in non-optimal maps) and space between cities is highly related to each other. Currently, everything is balanced nicely. I seriously doubt, that this will be still true for enforced larger distance between cities. A 4 tile distance might still work. But 5 or even 6 tiles between cities migth be too far.
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