Dennis Shirk Interview (VG247, 09/07/10)

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Interview – Civilization V’s Dennis Shirk (VG247)

Some new info about mysterious Strategic View

Dennis Shirk: One thing we didn’t even talk about in the demo is the strategy view. If you turn it on, it makes everything into a flat 2D hex grid – just like you’re playing a boardgame. Or, if you’re on a plane or something and you don’t want to worry about the high-end graphics, just turn on the grid and it’s totally playable on this 2D map. Like you’re playing Risk or something.
Click to expand...

Cool. I would like to see that in action.
 
What I am wondering about:
If a "living 3d-world" gives you immediate access to the game, let's you identify where you are and whatnotever, how can this in a meaningful way be replaced by a 2d-landscape?

Won't you have to change back to 3d every now and then just to identify the very items at a given spot? And would this not make the argument with laptop and airplane being moot?
 
Sounds like this could enable the game to run on very old machines. I hope.
 
Commander Bello said:
What I am wondering about:
If a "living 3d-world" gives you immediate access to the game, let's you identify where you are and whatnotever, how can this in a meaningful way be replaced by a 2d-landscape?

Won't you have to change back to 3d every now and then just to identify the very items at a given spot? And would this not make the argument with laptop and airplane being moot?
Click to expand...

I have no idea how they would pull this off. I mean, how can you possibly manage without 3D? It is a quandary of epic proportions, I agree. I mean, how horrifying if we went back to this:

civilization_550x413.jpg


What is this I don't even
 
"like playing Risk or something"????

Is he 20 years old or something? I mean, he must have heard about Civ1 or perhaps the thousands of hex-based wargames that have been around for decades?
 
Buccaneer said:
"like playing Risk or something"????

Is he 20 years old or something? I mean, he must have heard about Civ1 or perhaps the thousands of hex-based wargames that have been around for decades?
Click to expand...
You can't place the expectation that players and the general public remember Civ 1, or know about other hex based games beyond the most famous one.

Aeon221 said:
I have no idea how they would pull this off. I mean, how can you possibly manage without 3D? It is a quandary of epic proportions, I agree. I mean, how horrifying if we went back to this:

civilization_550x413.jpg


What is this I don't even
Click to expand...

That brings back memories.:love:
 
...or else he's trying to phrase it in ways an audience that has never played Civ I and Hex-based wargames would understand.
 
Buccaneer said:
"like playing Risk or something"????

Is he 20 years old or something? I mean, he must have heard about Civ1 or perhaps the thousands of hex-based wargames that have been around for decades?
Click to expand...

But most users here more probably know Risk than having played Civ1 ;).
 
Yeah, but what about a globe view? In civ4 when you zoomed out far enough the map looked more like a globe. Sounds a tiny bit to me like this announcement is dodging the globe-view thing that many people probably want. That, or there's going to be both a strategy view and a globe view. For the record, the strategy view in civ4 was part of the globe view and it too turned most of the tiles into much more pixelated 2D versions of the tiles (so what Shirk has described sounded at first to me like nothing new). Only they were wrapped to a sphere rather than a "flat gameboard". That said, the strategy view in civ4 was not anywhere near as useful as it could have been.
 
Unless we have a true globe, I for one don't give a flying duck about whether the map 'looks' like a globe when you zoom out. It always looked kind of ******** in IV with those hydrocephalic icecaps.

The OP's news is welcome.
 
it seems to be that a strategic view, is just gonna get rid of all the animations, all the fancy graphics, the units would probably be represented by icons, just makes its easier to tell exactly what those troops are, and what the terrain is there standing on, and how many tuiles seperate those two units, stuff like that.
 
I like this news, perhaps I don't have to rush my purchase of the new PC,
I can play the game on my old P4 CPU rig, and wait for the new gen of Intel/AMD...
 
^ Exactly.

I usually played Civ4 on the tactical view anyway but hated how on multiplayer games I had to keep zooming out to exactly the right distance every turn to go back to the tactical view. One can imagine that the world will still look rather realistic but we won't have to bother will all those annoying graphics like units attacking.

I just really hope this means that the game will run really well on older machines (i.e. huge maps).
 
I already guessed the strategic view would be like this, you could do it on civ 4 too aye, zoom out to an immense distance till you just got the jist of everything by icons. Its not a new feature and its not one we will use all the time. But its thier if you like to "zoom out" and Stratagise a bit.
 
As I write this, I'm away from home with my 6-year old laptop (which can still play Civ 4, by the way). I've only downloaded two games off my steam account on to this computer (Civ 4 and Deus Ex, which I got for $2!) because none of the rest will work on it. Now, I read the interview and all of the sudden I think about playing Civ 5 in strategic mode (like I used to play Gal Civ 2 on this same computer), and it makes me smile. And then my imagination starts to take off and I think about Steam cloud support for saved games (is that confirmed?) and wonder if I could start a game on my desk top and continue it on this computer...now that would be nice...heck, I could maybe even install it on my work computer and get a couple of turns in during "lunch".
 
Wouldn't you be able to start a game on your home pc, copy your save to a thumb drive, and then play on your laptop or work pc? If there is no steam cloud, problem solved. That's how I did it with IV. This also works great when you have no net connection. Also you can email yourself the save, and have it anywhere. I call it Emailcloud. Copyright pending.
 
I wouldn't get too excited about the strategy view allowing you to play on significantly older computers. I doubt it will work that way, but it would be nice to see some more details about it either way.
 
PieceOfMind said:
I wouldn't get too excited about the strategy view allowing you to play on significantly older computers. I doubt it will work that way, but it would be nice to see some more details about it either way.
Click to expand...

Unless the game lets you start in a permanent 2d strategy view. Otherwise, it's unlikely to have less computer requirements.
 
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