PCGamer GDC article

cuc

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On the other hand, this PC Gamer interview has new info:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/03/09/civilization-v-gods-kings-interview-with-lead-designer-ed-beach/

"We have one scenario that’s set in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, where we actually do pre-bake in beliefs, and that’s a great example for our community about how the religion system can be modded."

"What happens is, as you get toward the end of the Renaissance, we don’t just remove religion from the game–it’s still present and you’re still keeping those bonuses you built up. What happens is that the cost of missionaries starts to go up, so your ability to make sweeping religious movements and displacements diminishes."

The diplomatic modifiers of religions are most powerful during Middle Age and Renaissance, and lose power during Industrial and Modern.

"And in multiplayer, we’ve had one of our senior engineers on the project dedicated to hitting some of those items. The gameplay processing and graphics processing have been threaded out from each other, and that’s helping with the multiplayer stability."

"We’ve made sure some of the really active members of the community are part of our beta test group. So, we put out two builds to our beta test group every week of the project, just to keep plenty of eyes on things and so balance and multiplayer gets a lot of attention."

Confirmation of the Huns. "...the Celts and the Huns and the Byzantines—we’re introducing that set of three new civilizations and we decided that a fall of Rome scenario would be perfect."

About the Victoria scenario: "It’s vaguely historical, twisted, technology, masterminds, and corporate leaders…you know, so we even have brand new leaders introduced."


4 high quality screenshots (larger and better than Joystiq; there appears to be only 4):
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/03/leader_boudicca.jpg
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/03/leader_dido.jpg
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/03/Civ5GandKScreen1.jpg
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/03/Civ5GandKScreen2.jpg
 
much of this isn't that different than the other recent reviews.

though, that does explain their 'religion drops off after Renaissance' point mixing with 'constant belief bonuses' - it just gets more expensive to do.


One good comment (to quiet those Jon haters who think he prevented Religion):

"I don’t want to give people the misconception that, for instance, the community wanted religion so we turned on a dime and started figuring out how to put religion in. We’ve had the plans to put religion and espionage in for a long time, and it met a lot of our goals. Religion met the great goal of customizing the gameplay experience, and we’ve had plans to do that for quite a while."


on Espionage:

PCG: You mentioned spy’s intrigue system, which lets us peek at what the AI is planning. How will that work in multiplayer?

Beach: Yeah, intrigue doesn’t work in multiplayer. You picked up on that.

PCG: Is it completely turned off, or could we use it on AI opponents?

Beach: I think the current plan is just to have it turned off.


As per the community thing, the Frankenstein groups existance is no secret (it's been around since at least Civ 4).
 
I wonder, in thinking out loud, whether any of the new civs (like the Huns) are simply part of a scenario and not the main game. Don't we have something like that for the Vikings scenario, if I recall?

I am a little encouraged by MadDjinn's post about espionage. If what someone had said earlier about espionage impacting greatly upon the Diplomacy victory condition, does such a victory not exist in multiplayer then?
 
on Espionage:

PCG: You mentioned spy’s intrigue system, which lets us peek at what the AI is planning. How will that work in multiplayer?

Beach: Yeah, intrigue doesn’t work in multiplayer. You picked up on that.

PCG: Is it completely turned off, or could we use it on AI opponents?

Beach: I think the current plan is just to have it turned off.

This actually really disappoints me. I like to play a hybrid MP game with my girlfriend and the rest of the slots AI. Already, MP AI is broken in that the AI never interacts with other players breaking the whole diplomacy system. I had hoped this would be addressed with the MP fixes in the expansion, but that quote makes me feel like they have no intention of making MP AI comparable to SP AI. Why turn off an interaction between the player and the AI? :(
 
This actually really disappoints me. I like to play a hybrid MP game with my girlfriend and the rest of the slots AI. Already, MP AI is broken in that the AI never interacts with other players breaking the whole diplomacy system. I had hoped this would be addressed with the MP fixes in the expansion, but that quote makes me feel like they have no intention of making MP AI comparable to SP AI. Why turn off an interaction between the player and the AI? :(

Most competitive MP is played without AI, so 'intrigue' would be somewhat useless. Tech stealing (depending on implementation) could also be severely hampered if done wrong (or nerd rage involved). Rigging election and coups (for City States) is likely something that could be ok for MP.

As per the MP AI, they haven't said one way or another how they're going to deal with the communities requests on that. With animations coming in (sadly), who knows? Maybe they'll get to it.

Though, the last part quoted seems to indicate that they haven't turned it off yet, but are just thinking about it.


I wonder, in thinking out loud, whether any of the new civs (like the Huns) are simply part of a scenario and not the main game. Don't we have something like that for the Vikings scenario, if I recall?

I am a little encouraged by MadDjinn's post about espionage. If what someone had said earlier about espionage impacting greatly upon the Diplomacy victory condition, does such a victory not exist in multiplayer then?

A number of scenarios have 'extra' leaders. So who knows, but that Attila's court in what seems to be a non-scenario game leads one to think that they're in the xpac as a normal civ.

Diplo VC currently exists in MP, though it's pretty useless to try for (domination or space is the usual). Without espionage, I'm sure the diplo game will be the 'same' as per vanilla.
 
I wonder, in thinking out loud, whether any of the new civs (like the Huns) are simply part of a scenario and not the main game. Don't we have something like that for the Vikings scenario, if I recall?

I am a little encouraged by MadDjinn's post about espionage. If what someone had said earlier about espionage impacting greatly upon the Diplomacy victory condition, does such a victory not exist in multiplayer then?

No if you look at the context. Not gonna be a case of taking the Mongols Leader animation and labeling him Attila the Hun. He wanted to "feature" the Huns... sounded more elaborate.
 
I wonder, in thinking out loud, whether any of the new civs (like the Huns) are simply part of a scenario and not the main game. Don't we have something like that for the Vikings scenario, if I recall?

I am a little encouraged by MadDjinn's post about espionage. If what someone had said earlier about espionage impacting greatly upon the Diplomacy victory condition, does such a victory not exist in multiplayer then?

The Vikings scenario didn't include them "fully" they were nothing more than a static voiceless leaderheads (primarily because everyone was at war with each other)

I do presume that Huns are a normal civilization, because if going by the screenshots, a city named "Atilla's Court" in a normal Sp game suggests Hun's presence.
 
The diplomatic modifiers of religions are most powerful during Middle Age and Renaissance, and lose power during Industrial and Modern.

This appears to strongly imply that religious diplomatic modifiers will not be permanent. I wonder if this will apply to other diplomatic modifiers?
 
Thanks for the clarifications, I had forgotten about the staticness of the extra scenario leaders.
 
This appears to strongly imply that religious diplomatic modifiers will not be permanent. I wonder if this will apply to other diplomatic modifiers?

I wonder if Free Religion will actually automatically disable the modifier, before the Reinsassance is over. So once you selcet Free Religion (from PIety tree) the modifiers are disabled or something :|
 
I can't believe no-one quoted this part of the article.
PCG: Do the religions–Christianity, Buddhism, and the others–come with existing beliefs? Can they be modded?

Beach: We have one scenario that’s set in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, where we actually do pre-bake in beliefs, and that’s a great example for our community about how the religion system can be modded. What they can do is add more beliefs in. We have a good set—there are between 50 and 60 beliefs that will ship with the expansions, but there’s no reason the mod community can’t expand on that.

But yeah, the historical religions are just sort of like containers that the beliefs get slotted into–there’s no reason that guruship doesn’t have to be part of Sikhism or Christianity.
Specifically the part I put in bold. That's a lot of customization possibilities for your religion.

Edit: I just realized that he mentioned one of the beliefs that wasn't in the screenshots, Guruship.
 
I wonder if Free Religion will actually automatically disable the modifier, before the Reinsassance is over. So once you selcet Free Religion (from PIety tree) the modifiers are disabled or something :|

Free Religion doesn't necessarily imply no religious preference, though, so my guess would be that it wouldn't disable them as in Civ4.
 
I can't believe no-one quoted this part of the article.

Specifically the part I put in bold. That's a lot of customization possibilities for your religion.

Edit: I just realized that he mentioned one of the beliefs that wasn't in the screenshots, Guruship.

It makes sense, given X number of civs on a huge map, requiring Y Pantheons, Y Follower beliefs (1/2 the civs, but 2 each), Y/2 each of Founder and Enhancer beliefs. Give or take a 'few' extra to ensure you're not forced to see the same ones every game.

and well, not surprised that they added mod support for a new system right away. Likely Espionage will get the same treatment.
 
More the better... my only problem is, how are you supposed to spread a religion with mountain bonuses to plains civs that are close to you. Is the AI going to be incompetent and take that religion??? Assuming he is neither fearful of you, nor is he a leader of a mountain based people, but simply because he is an incompetent AI that will jump hold of any religion coming his way??? Even if he is a few turns from founding one himself?
 
More the better... my only problem is, how are you supposed to spread a religion with mountain bonuses to plains civs that are close to you. Is the AI going to be incompetent and take that religion??? Neither because he is fearful of you, nor is he a leader of a mountain based people, but simply because he is an incompetent AI that will jump hold of any religion coming his way??? Even if he is a few turns from founding one himself?

more details about the system will be needed. right now, it seems that not everyone can have a religion (that they found), and that there's at least 2 'spread' type mechanics for it (the thing about 10 hex range and missionaries). So I'm sure if you can found your own religion, you can 'spread' it back into your own cities and then into theirs.
 
I certainly there are more than a "few" extras. Much like I prefer to have 40 natural wonders but only see 5-6 per game, I would like to see a similar ratio for beliefs - to the extent that we could see a completely different set of religions and beliefs from game to game. This was one of the biggest negatives of religion in Civ4 - the same set of generic religions coming at about the same time and in the same order with their identical buildings.
 
I wonder if the 10 hex spread takes open borders into account when another civ's city is the next one in range.

I also wonder if the missionaries are manually controlled or forcibly automated. There was mention that the missionaries can convert 2 cities. So if it's manual, you could effectively convert 2 other civs using 1 missionary then letting the natural 10 hex spread carry it to their other cities.
 
I wonder if the 10 hex spread takes open borders into account when another civ's city is the next one in range.

I also wonder if the missionaries are manually controlled or forcibly automated. There was mention that the missionaries can convert 2 cities. So if it's manual, you could effectively convert 2 other civs using 1 missionary then letting the natural 10 hex spread carry it to their other cities.

Well, we have merchants that have to travel but diplomats (via embassies) and spies that do not. Civ4 missionaries acted like merchants but will Civ5 ones act like diplomats? Then, as you mentioned, what will trigger the domino effect. Given the compactness of mature civilization city sites, a lot can take place within 10 hexes.
 
There are 20 different Pantheon beliefs to choose from, such as the God of War or the Goddess of the Hunt.
Pantheon abilities are usually terrain-based. ...
Your pantheon choice rolls into your religion, and you'll also get to choose between two more bonus abilities. The first is the Founder belief, which gives you rewards for spreading the religion to other cities, and the second is the Follower belief, which will confer bonuses to any city (and any civilisation) that follows your religion.
Religion has been designed so that not every civilisation in the game will be able to access it. In a 10 civilisation game, only about 5 will be able to start a religion.

If you subtract the 20 Pantheon beliefs from that 50-60 from this article, that leaves 30-40.

According the the Found a religion screenshot you can have 5 beliefs for your religion,6 if you're the Byzantines.

The first is clearly the Pantheon belief that gets rolled into your religion.

With 5 religions in a game containing 10 civs. That means there are 20 (21 if the Byzantines are in the game) slots for those remaining 30-40 beliefs. Therefore in a a game with 10 civs 15 of the 20 Pantheon beliefs and 9-20 of the other beliefs won't be seen.

Edit:
Here are the faiths we know of so far.

Panteon
  1. God of War- bonus faith for killing enemies within four tiles of your city
  2. Goddess of the Hunt- extra food for forest camps (video interview @2:00)
  3. Ancestor Worship- +1 Culture for every Shrine in your empire
  4. Religious Idols +1 culture and +1 faith for each Gold and Silver (Screenshot)

Founder/Follower
  1. Ceremonial Burial +1 Happiness for each city following religion (Screenshot)
  2. Church Property +2 gold for each city following religion (Screenshot)
  3. Defender of the faith +20% Combat near friendly cities that follow this religion (Screenshot)
  4. Flourishing of the Arts +10% culture if not at war (Screenshot)
  5. Initiation rites +100 gold when each city first converts to this religion (Screenshot)
  6. Just War +20% Combat near enemy cities that follow this religion (Screenshot)
 
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