Podcast Episode 5: All About the Engine

[Souron]

How limited it was in civ 4, and no longer is in civ 5.

I mean, civ 4 demonstrates that it is quite possible to build a very good civ game on an existing engine. Now they made a good case for performance, but apparently that was not the only benefit. I wish for a concrete example of what writing their own engine did for them.

 

[AriochIV]

The main benefit mentioned in the podcast is performance and scalability: having exactly the tools you need for your game and nothing you don't need. And what you do have is performance-tuned specifically for your needs.

They also mentioned having very fine control over terrain graphics and procedurals, because the engine was designed specifically for them.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here, Souron. Do you have all your money invested in Gamebryo or something?

 

[Souron]

I'm not trying to get at anything. I just find it interesting, and want specific examples.

The race car analogy was nice and all, but the fact is, civ 4 did use a pre-built engine. It's not that I don't believe the benefits: I just want a clear picture.

I'm a developer, so the question of when to use an existing framework, and when to make your own is of some interest to me. Now I'm not likely to get involved in game development, but I'm still curious.

 

[kozzer]

'm a developer, so the question of when to use an existing framework, and when to make your own is of some interest to me. Now I'm not likely to get involved in game development, but I'm still curious.

Me too. I've used frameworks both developed in-house from scratch and purchasing existing ones. And the way they describe it in the podcast exactly conforms to my experience: when you buy one you get 10 things for every one you use, and when you build your own it takes more effort to develop, but it gives you exactly what you need in the most efficient way for your situation (hopefully!) and nothing else. I'm also curious as to what programming language they used. I'm guessing C++, but who knows? Has anyone seen anything regarding that?

Also - for the 3D plugin speculation, is there a reason they can't just use the industry-standard textures and models? Just because they've created their own engine doesn't necessarily mean they created their own formats. If blender and other similarly available software worked well for modders, why would they change? Speaking of modding, I was surprised/happy to see that they said you can mod the "leader engine" also! If they were pre-rendered movies, it'd be tough, but if in fact it is rendered in real time, then perhaps it'll be a scaled-up version of creating your own standard unit models & textures.

 

[AriochIV]

The core of any "real" game engine (excluding cheapy web things) is almost always C/C++ because of performance requirements, but they often use scripting as much as they can. I believe the scripting language they're using for Civ V is Lua.