Vote: Hopes and guesses for next Civ-game (Dec 2013 poll)

I would like to know what you're hoping for and what you'd guess the next Civ-game world be. Choose amongst Civ6, a third expansion pack for Civ5 or a spin-off game (like Alpha Centauri or Colonization).

Personally, I would hope for a Spin-off game. Not Colonization as we just had it in Civ4, but I would definitely like to see a new Alpha Centauri game. Other Spin-off games could also be interesting.

I'd like another expansion pack, or at least some DLC Civs. *cough*Hungary*cough*

If not, an Alpha Centauri sequel would be nice. It would be nice to get a fresh version to play with, as I lost my CD of the expansion for the original.

I am hoping for one more expansion before a new game. This is probably the first civ game that I have thought 3 would be better.

I'd love to see a third that does more with diplomacy, spying and exploration.

But I reckon we will get a spinoff game before we get Civ 6. I am hoping another console spin off so I can play on my console!

I want new a expansion pack, but I misclicked in the poll.

They'll most likely make a spin off, or a new game

seanflokstra7 said:

I want new a expansion pack, but I misclicked in the poll.

They'll most likely make a spin off, or a new game

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What DID you click and what WANTED you to click in the pool?

SMAC or an official FFH would be ideal.

SMAC was and continues to be awesome.

Same with FFH, and given market reception of WoW and similar titles, there's definitely money to be made in fantasy settings.

My main negative about FFH (mostly about its children, Fall Further etc.) is that they never got a stable codebase. You have to come up with a plan of functionality, design for game balance, implement it, bugfix, and be done. When you constantly tweak the core functionality and constantly add more and more elements, you never get stable and never get balanced gameplay. As a result, I had a significant bad taste over what should have been an excellent mod. By making it an official spin-off, I have no doubt Firaxis would hit these criteria (at the cost of being less feature-filled, but that's the trade off).

I'm hoping for a social policy balance patch, but I have no idea if we're ever going to get it. Otherwise, I think BNW is pretty good as a final game, and I'm looking forward to Civ VI.

Honestly, I'd fall over happy if Civ 6 was exactly Civ 5 in every respect except had two leaders for some civilizations. Also, the Goths.

Hoping for Civ VI, and I'm guessing it will be next. Except I accidentally voted for the wrong option ...

I'm hoping for another expansion pack with fixes and additions. Like with Civ 4, we've now reached a great point where the game is mostly fixed, but still has flaws - a new game would be starting all over again, going from scratch. I don't particularly need a new Civilization game, I just want a perfect one.

I'd like to see development begin on Civ 6 at this point, as it would probably be another year beyond the start of development until the game would be even close to ready for release.

Yet, I feel like they may do a spin-off rather than go straight to 6. My main reason for this belief is that the Civ 4 Colonization re-make was rather mediocre (fun, but only when played seldomly), and Civ 6 is going to take a fair amount of time to put together. In the mean time, they may shift gears.

What they would do as a spin-off, I couldn't begin to suggest, but I just feel that a spin-off on the same engine would be a great way for them (from a business standpoint at least) to bridge the gap between 5 and 6. It's likely to be a large enough gap given that BNW came out relatively late in Civ V's lifetime, meaning Civ 6 probably isn't even beyond brainstorming yet.

But who knows.

I have mixed feelings about Civ6. A new Civ sounds awesome and truly is for a real Civ-fanatic.

However I've never been too keen on a new game once it was released. When Civ4 was released I didn't like that soldiers now only had one strength. It took some time to get used to. When Civ5 was released I had to make a big list of pros and cons about what I liked and what I disliked. Luckily I ended up playing Civ5, and I've not stopped since. However, it was not until G&K I really felt for the game and thought it was so much better than Civ4..

If a Civ6 is released, I'm afraid we'll have to start all over again with a game that much some great gameplay, but gets better via updates. I won't be surprised if I again will have to make a pros and cons of what game I like the better. But in the long run, maybe after several years, I will have forgot all about Civ5 like I have with Civ4 today.

AgressiveWimp said:

Hoping for Civ VI, and I'm guessing it will be next. Except I accidentally voted for the wrong option ...

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What DID you click on and what WANTED you to click on?

Sendt fra min GT-I9305 med Tapatalk

I voted hope and guess Civ VI. The game + two expansions business model seems strong. I would suspect that only a third of people who buy the game buy the first expansion, and that only 2/3 of those who buy the first expansion buy the second. You're whittling down to your hardcore fans. You need a full-fledged new game every once in a while to create new buzz about the franchise, and again, get the big initial customer base.

Besides, the even numbered games are probably a little quicker to get to market. Civ VI will be able to use most of the same mechanics (hexes, 1upt) that CivV innovated. Naturally we all hope that they'll program the AI to fight better in those mechanics, but in any case, they're not designing them from scratch.

I hope it's Civ VI. Frankly Civ V with the two expansions is starting to feel a little fussy to me. The more little details (theming bonuses, resolutions) you add, the more richly the game simulates world history, but the less sharply-focused and decisive your core decisions start to feel. I'm ready for the streamlining that comes with a new release.

That said, I don't plan to buy Civ VI until a year after its release. Civ V was the first game I've ever bought at release, and I didn't like how radically it changed in the first year (e.g. total redesign of social policy trees). You couldn't settle in to developing strategies when each new patch changed scores of things about the game. (I liked the patches; they fixed bad things, but it made it hard to develop strategies).

Gori the Grey said:

I voted hope and guess Civ VI. The game + two expansions business model seems strong. I would suspect that only a third of people who buy the game buy the first expansion, and that only 2/3 of those who buy the first expansion buy the second. You're whittling down to your hardcore fans. You need a full-fledged new game every once in a while to create new buzz about the franchise, and again, get the big initial customer base.

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It's possible this is the typical model, however in the DLC era there's more demand for 'intervening' content to keep the game fresh before the release of the next sequel. What's more, Civ IV had three 'expansions' including Colonization (which in modern parlance would qualify as a "standalone expansion" like Total War's Fall of the Samurai, a spinoff built from the same game engine but not compatible with the main game).

It is also possible that BNW changed the maths involved. This expansion was very well-received and the fact that Civ V is still among the five most-played games on Steam three years after release suggests that it's not losing players - sure Steam stats don't track how many of those players are buying the expansions, but Steam undoubtedly collects that data and can give the developers a good idea of whether a third expansion is a good idea.

As for the "Bison" project, are they likely to be secretive or giving code names for something like a civ DLC alone?

Besides, the even numbered games are probably a little quicker to get to market. Civ VI will be able to use most of the same mechanics (hexes, 1upt) that CivV innovated. Naturally we all hope that they'll program the AI to fight better in those mechanics, but in any case, they're not designing them from scratch.

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There's no fixed rule that Civ games have to have radical changes for odd-numbered incarnations. A lot of Civ V's vanilla mechanics were unpopular (indeed it wasn't until BNW hit that the "Civ V Rants Thread" finally vanished from the first page of this forum); the expansions (particularly BNW) were more comprehensive in their changes than those for previous Civ games but still worked within the confines of a system designed by a different team.

It's very possible that, if the BNW team is put in charge of developing Civ VI (which I imagine most people would agree would be the optimal decision), that they'd want to go back and 'reimagine' core mechanics they weren't able to change in this version of the game, either because they're hard-coded into the engine or because they couldn't find a way to fit them into the themes they'd set themselves for the expansions. For example, take the combat system: what we have at the moment is a "workaround" for an AI that struggles with 1UPT, in making a game that promotes more peaceful play where the AI is able to present more of a challenge. A new Civ game will want to go back to basics and determine whether new AI coding can better-implement 1UPT (and it's not that bad now), whether maps for a given number of civs need to be made larger to limit 'traffic jams', or whether some form of stacking can be added, with attendant changes needed to production rates, unit type balancing and targeting (if you were to stack 1 melee on top of 1 ranged, it's not satisfactory to have the current "only the unit on top can be targeted" system).

I think there's scope for a third (and probably only a third) expansion in what's 'left out' of Civ V so far, but I suspect that, following Civ IV precedent, there'll be a spin-off game to fill the gap before Civ VI - so I voted for "hope expansion/expect spinoff".

I reckon we'll get CivRev 2, designed to farm DLC sales on consoles.

lindsay40k said:

I reckon we'll get CivRev 2, designed to farm DLC sales on consoles.

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While the console market is a great opportunity for Civ, I daresay the tablet market is bigger.

Wodan said:

While the console market is a great opportunity for Civ, I daresay the tablet market is bigger.

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Agreed. I've just played so much 2DS, the lines have blurred for me

lindsay40k said:

I reckon we'll get CivRev 2, designed to farm DLC sales on consoles.

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CivRev failed commercially. Firaxis' more recent foray into consoles, XCOM, certainly didn't fail on them, but by their own admission was considerably less successful on consoles than on PCs. They seem to have got the message that there isn't a hidden strategy gaming demographic on consoles ready to lap up these games if only they realised what they were missing - I doubt they'll do anything more with consoles that is more resource-intensive than taking an existing PC or dual-medium game and adapting it for consoles and tablets (as they did with XCOM), they won't design for-console games any more.

SemperFi2382 said:

If not, an Alpha Centauri sequel would be nice. It would be nice to get a fresh version to play with, as I lost my CD of the expansion for the original.

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Gog.com is currently selling Alpha Centauri w/ the Alien Crossfire expansion, DRM free for a whole $3.00, compatible with Win 7 & 8 & OS X.