Gamespot: chat with Firaxis about Civ5 - April 22

I cannot listen to it right now, but here it is, maybe something that is worth a cent...

Thanks, will definitely listen to this at home!

its at minutes 14 - 19 if anyone is interested. Nothing new though as far as I understood it.

Not really surprising since the interview was done at GDC.

At least its something that is almost news Has been pretty few "news" about civ 5 for a while.

They talk about user interface but no details. When I hear them say. "this will help new players and will help old civ players to get introduced to the new aspect of civ 5" I get a little bit worried that the interface is dumbed down... I wasnt worried before but now I am...

What caught my ear was the mention about diplomacy, that pluses and minuses will no longer be visible. You will have to take your ques from the body language and your knowledge of the personality you are dealing with. Of course somewhere I read that there are supposed to be a range of behaviors that vary from game to game to make the leaders less predictable... I'll call it moody Sounds more immersive to me, which is a good thing.

You will have to take your ques from the body language

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Seriously?

That's just terrible.

Hopefully someone will rapidly make a BUG mod to display the modifiers that are hidden by the dumb UI.

and your knowledge of the personality you are dealing with

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Yeah, because in real human history, leaders had played through history several dozen times before, so they could figure out the "personality" of the other powers they were dealing with.

This seems like such an awful design decision to me.

Ahriman said:

Seriously?

That's just terrible.

Hopefully someone will rapidly make a BUG mod to display the modifiers that are hidden by the dumb UI.

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I disagree. Reading into body language shouldn't be too hard, and if you can't then you can probably figure it out from the tone of voice.

Of course, in real history, all the leaders and rulers had a handy little chart showing them the positives and negatives other leaders had with them and others, so what do I know?

I do, however, agree that this bit

and your knowledge of the personality you are dealing with

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is a little unrealistic...however I think that the little bit of "random" added to each leader should help negate the unrealistic predictability that is more or less implied here.

Of course, in real history, all the leaders and rulers had a handy little chart showing them the positives and negatives other leaders had with them and others, so what do I know?

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In real history, leaders had a pretty good idea of whether a particular diplomatic proposal might be accepted or not, and whether or not another country was likely to declare war on them or not. Other than hordes appearing out of nowhere, history's wars have almost never been a surprise to the countries involved in them. There was normally a long list of diplomatic demands leading up to any military conflict actually happening. Even famous first strikes like Pearl Harbor were not really a surprise; the Americans knew that war with Japan was likely, they just didn't know when.

More importantly, for gameplay purposes it is important to be able to evaluate the affects of your diplomatic decisions. If I attack X, who is that going to piss off - and by how much? Is it really worth giving tribute or giving another faction a city; what will that do for me?
Otherwise making effective strategic diplomatic decisions is impossible.

Ahriman said:

In real history, leaders had a pretty good idea of whether a particular diplomatic proposal might be accepted or not, and whether or not another country was likely to declare war on them or not.

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...because of a handy little chart or by body language, tone of voice (if in person), or choice of words? My point is, in real history the only way you could gauge the other person's mood towards you was by the way they acted, wrote, spoke, or whatever, not by a set series of "modifiers". Yes, I understand that Civ is not a history simulator, but one of your points before made reference to the history of the world, so I think you're holding a bit of a double standard there.

Your second paragraph, though, makes a good point. I'm sure there will be a way to know that civs X and Y are good buddies, so attacking one brings down the wrath of the other...perhaps in not so obvious a system as +1, +2, -3, +4, +4, but just an idea of the "feeling" of ai leaders towards each other. I.e. Civ A is really good friends with Civ B, but just okay with Civ C. Attack Civ C, and Civ A probably won't care too much, but attack Civ B and A will get mad. This kind of system doesn't require something like the +'s and -'s in Civ IV...but now I'm starting to repeat myself....

My point is, in real history the only way you could gauge the other person's mood towards you was by the way they acted, wrote, spoke, or whatever, not by a set series of "modifiers".

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In real history you had diplomats and knew a great deal about what was happening in neighboring countries. You knew what the politics of the countries were, you knew what incentives they had, you saw their propaganda about who they were agitating against or what their demands were, you knew if they started raising an army for war, you had a reasonable idea of what the commoners and elites in another country thought of you, and you observed a detailed exchange of diplomacy and demands in the lead up to any conflict. Seeing diplomatic modifiers is a convenient way of summarizing all the the information that a real government would have had at their disposal.

You didn't have to read the body language of the King of France to know if France was likely to invade you or not, or to know if France was irritated by your war with Spain, or your trade ties with Russia.

but just an idea of the "feeling" of ai leaders towards each other

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How is this going to be displayed *without* seeing +'s and -'s?
Their leader raises his left eyebrow - that means he's friends with Egypt? Scratches his knee - means he really hates India?

From a gamer's viewpoint, the idea of determining diplomacy via something as vague and culturally varied as body language is unsettling. I hope there's more to it than that.

Well, in Civ3, all you knew was whether the leader was pissed off or not, and even without the "Annoyed" or "Pleased" in the diplomacy screen, you could easily tell, so I don't think it's as drastic as one would think.

Yeah, you could easily tell just by the expression. (listening to video this thread was started for in the first place now)

Well, in Civ3, all you knew was whether the leader was pissed off or not, and even without the "Annoyed" or "Pleased" in the diplomacy screen, you could easily tell

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And the Civ3 diplomacy system was incredibly unsophisticated, and we were all very glad when they improved it for Civ4 - and made it clear that open borders and trade ties and such had lasting diplomatic effects, so we didn't have to guess as to what mattered.

True, point taken, but even if its a bit of a hindrance at least one generation of Civ fans got through it, apparently.

Decius said:

From a gamer's viewpoint, the idea of determining diplomacy via something as vague and culturally varied as body language is unsettling. I hope there's more to it than that.

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I like it. I know that many people plan their civ games carefully and don't like randomness, but for me one thing I always wished was more randomness and uncertainty, and this adds (a little) to that. Else the games become repetitive.

I like the idea of being able to see the leaders in their environment, but to be honest I've always been a bit uncomfortable with how overwrought their body language is (in Civ4, at least). Leaders don't snarl at each other, and they don't throw their hands up in the air and exclaim in frustration--even when nations are at war, they are often more restrained than in Civ4. Most of our interpersonal reactions are much more subtle, and when this occurs on the level of nations, people are extra careful. If you're lucky, you may get a slight change in the facial muscles around the eyes, just for an instant, before the person recovers.

I realize that such subtlety is difficult to get across in animated characters in a computer game, especially in a game like Civ where graphics have never been the first priority, but every time I go into diplomacy in Civ4 and a foreign leader does something way overwrought (like when Catherine slaps you, for example)... well, yeah, I realize that Civ is a game and not a history simulator, but it seems off to me.

As far as the missing modifiers go, my first impression was that it was a good idea, but after hearing what Ahriman had to say about having access to information provided by diplomats, etc., I am inclined to agree with him. In fact...

It's probably too late in the game to introduce something like this to Civ5, but I think it would be neat to have some representation of this diplomatic intelligence. If you have relations with a nation, you should be able to contact the diplomatic office there and ask your ambassador or other intelligence officers what is going on in that country and how it affects you. It wouldn't have to be anything elaborate--you could just have a button on the foreign adviser screen somewhere that would allow you to get an intelligence brief on a particular country, and that would give you all the information at your disposal before you went in to actually talk to the leader. This would essentially replace those modifiers on the leader screen and provide more detail (things like the population of the nation, the size of their military--anything information that you might have access to--although with the changes in the espionage system I'm not sure how this will work). You would obviously also want to have this option available if the leader requests an audience with you--the option to view the intelligence briefing first before you to talk to the leader. Not only would this be more realistic, but it would make for a better game, too. At least I think it would.

Ahriman said:

How is this going to be displayed *without* seeing +'s and -'s?
Their leader raises his left eyebrow - that means he's friends with Egypt? Scratches his knee - means he really hates India?

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Woah woah woah. Nothing has been said about what the game will tell you of the other leaders relationships amongst each other. The only thing we know now is that the AI you are dealing with will not give you +/- ratings for this one relationship.

Personally, I think this is very good. It sounds like their goal is to really make the game a lot harder without resorting to bonuses/outright cheating. After all, it's not like you as the player are supplying the AI with a list of your opinions about them (in a 100% honest way), fair is fair.

The human player should never be given any information that the AI players do not have access to.

The thing is, before modern times, most diplomacy was done through diplomats and messengers. How often did leaders meet face to face? Large distances that were not easy to traverse made this difficult.

To me the face to face diplomacy is a gimmick. I'm not unhappy it's in. It does add some superficial value to the game. But has little effect on gameplay.

Personally, I think this is very good. It sounds like their goal is to really make the game a lot harder without resorting to bonuses/outright cheating. After all, it's not like you as the player are supplying the AI with a list of your opinions about them (in a 100% honest way), fair is fair.

The human player should never be given any information that the AI players do not have access to.

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Diplomacy can never be used directly by an AI against a human player, because a human player has to be left free to make whatever decisions they like about war and peace; they can backstab their ally if they want to.
[It can be used indirectly; the AI can target the other AI's that are your trade partners and force them to stop trading with you for example.]

So, your available design choices are either:
a) Accept that diplomacy is something that the human player can use strategically while the AI can't OR
b) Remove diplomacy as a strategic tool from the game available to any player.

It sounds like you prefer b). I prefer a).

I think doing Machiavellian diplomacy is a fun part of the game.
[Hmm, I'll bribe faction A to war against faction B, so that way they won't unite and turn on me. Or I'll be nice to C, who is on the other side of D, so that we can attack D from both sides.
Yes, an AI won't be able to do this well, because an AI has to behave somewhat predictlably for a diplomacy system to work; the diplomacy engine becomes meaningless if A will attack B despite the fact that they're really good friends, or if A will refuse to attack C even though C is weak and a hated enemy of A.

But I'd rather that the human player only can do this kind of scheming than making it so no-one can.

It does add some superficial value to the game. But has little effect on gameplay.

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It *does* have an affect on gameplay if that's all there is.

Its even worse for someone new to the Civ series. Veterans know that things like open borders, or trade agreements, can increase diplomatic relations.

But how is a new player supposed to realize this if they can never see anything like "+1 We value or long-held trade reliations"? Maybe from facial expressions and a Word label ("Pleased") the new player can figure out whether the other power likes them or not, but they certainly can't figure out what they can do to improve relations, or
We want the human player to make decisions like "well, my neighbors the Greeks are weak and vulnerable to invasion, but if I attack them then that will really irritate their friends the Russians, so is it worth it?"
But if you can't tell that invading the Greeks will irritate the Russians, then you don't get this kind of decisionmaking.