Q&A with Ed Beach at civforum.de

[nokmirt]

Well, it seems from Ed's response that these question were asked before the PAX presentation, before Ethiopia had been announced, so I suspect the questioner meant exactly what he said.

Oh my understanding was that this interview occurred yesterday. I wish they would find some new interviews, where are these guys, get in there and give us an updated interview for once. PAX is over, its old news now. GEEZ!

Even so the interviewer is right we need another African civ. I would like to see Sweden before the Zulu though.

 

[The_J]

Naaah, please not another civ discussion.
There's enough other info which is interesting.

e.g. that you can't really occupy holy cities to get the founder benefits. That should make the religious races at the beginning more interesting, because if you lose, then you'll never be able to get exactly that one unique bonus, because you even can't conquer it.
...in retrospect, that might also have been an idea for Civ4 .

 

[CYZ]

The new units are being added in the industrial era. So my guess is that the new era will be before the industrial, with some of the current industrial units, buildings and techs. That'd era will then be the turning point from religionbased diplomacy to policybased diplomacy.

Edit: By the way, I think this turning point will have large effects on diplomacy. Diplomaticly, we'll see several camps of civilizations, based on religion, turn into only a few camps, based on policiy choices. The thing you can expect is wars, between many civs. All the WWI units are being added and the WWII units are already there mostly. Not a coincidence IMO.

 

[Babri]

That would make conquering holy cities a bit unattractive though, I think the conqueror should get the founder benefit if he conquers a holy city & converts to it or maybe some other kind of bonus like getting faith as a bonus when holding a holy city.

 

[Beefie]

That would make conquering holy cities a bit unattractive though, I think the conqueror should get the founder benefit if he conquers a holy city & converts to it or maybe some other kind of bonus like getting faith as a bonus when holding a holy city.

Well you do restrict the opposing city of the founder belief, and it will more than likely be their capital so I suppose that's incentive enough

 

[marioflag]

That would make conquering holy cities a bit unattractive though, I think the conqueror should get the founder benefit if he conquers a holy city & converts to it or maybe some other kind of bonus like getting faith as a bonus when holding a holy city.

I also think that conquering holy cities should be a bit more attractive, perhaps there should be a penalty of 50% to the founder belief bonuses.

 

[HardRocker]

I would much rather see Sweden before I see the Zulu, especially since their bonus will most likely be peaceful, where in previous Civs the Zulu have been very warmongering. Plus, Sweden is just better than Zulu.

But back on topic, I am very interested in hearing more about his new interface. And I really think an Imperial Era would be great!

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I actually think losing the Holy City is enough, you lose the Founder belief if you founded the city. To be perfectly honest, unless you lack a founded religion (one you made) then there's not much that can be done anyways.

 

[snarzberry]

Interviewer asked excellent questions and got good answers. Nice find

 

[Camikaze]

Nice questions, and nice answers. Thank you, Worf.

Oh my understanding was that this interview occurred yesterday.

These questions were the 10 questions for civforum.de, just like we have 10 questions which we are yet to get answers for. Hopefully this means they'll be forthcoming soon.

 

[durian]

Great find, good questions and quite informative. So it seems like there won't be too many new diplomacy options... hmmm

 

[Babri]

Well you do restrict the opposing city of the founder belief, and it will more than likely be their capital so I suppose that's incentive enough

But not enough to go to war & get the holy city. The same case is with conquering CS, there is no incentive to conquer them, instead capturing them has very harsh penalties.

The early crusades were all about Jerusulam which was important for three great religions & there was a lot of fighting to hold that city. In G&K however I don't think someone would be stupid enough to plan a massive invasion 'just' to prevent their foes from founder belief.

 

[apocalypse105]

it depends on the meaning of 'post-gunpowder'.

If it's 'after the invention of Gunpowder', then that could be anything from after Renaissance to the future.

If it's 'after gunpowder is no longer commonly used', then it's definitely in the future.

post gunpowder = rifling

rifling will proparly be shifted to a new era not the renaissance

 

[nokmirt]

Nice questions, and nice answers. Thank you, Worf.


These questions were the 10 questions for civforum.de, just like we have 10 questions which we are yet to get answers for. Hopefully this means they'll be forthcoming soon.

Yes, I hope so. At least the podcasts should be out this week.

What I would like to see is some evidence of how the AI has improved. They should show us a demo of it performing fleet air operations, as well as using its fighters to intercept enemy fighters and bombers. I am also curious how much better on land the AI is, especially with taking cities (which it can do now), but more importantly holding them after capture. If they can program it to stop doing obviously stupid things with its units, even that would be a huge step in the right direction.

 

[klokwerk]

Sad thing is the AI did in fact do that quite well and a lot more in Civ 4... We went several steps back here.

I know 1 unit per tile makes it a lot more difficult, but still... Civ 5 AI is a lot weaker than Civ 4 ever was.

 

[nokmirt]

Sad thing is the AI did in fact do that quite well and a lot more in Civ 4... We went several steps back here.

I know 1 unit per tile makes it a lot more difficult, but still... Civ 5 AI is a lot weaker than Civ 4 ever was.

I know, for Civ 4 vanilla I have a WWI mod. The AI might not be the best, but does intercept my fighters. BTS AI for sure does much more than CiV does now. Ed Beach and his crew should work it out though. He knows hex tactical warfare very well.

 

[nokmirt]

post gunpowder = rifling

rifling will proparly be shifted to a new era not the renaissance

It will be a pre-industrial era for sure, Ed Beach is the designer so that's fairly obvious. Probably it will be the Reformation Age or Post Renaissance era. Perhaps he'll add an Imperial era, but I feel it will be his signature time period which is the Reformation. So rifling will go to the Post Renaissance era whatever he calls it. Then I would imagine the Industrial era is made longer so there is time to use WWI units, before WW2 units become available.

 

[klokwerk]

I know, for Civ 4 vanilla I have a WWI mod. The AI might not be the best, but does intercept my fighters. BTS AI for sure does much more than CiV does now. Ed Beach and his crew should work it out though. He knows hex tactical warfare very well.

I hope so, but if I'm not mistaken, Ed Beach was already the AI developer on vanilla Civ 5 (at least that's what I see when I read Civ 5 credits), so I don't see why we would make a huge leap forward here. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In my opinion, the best thing to do would be releasing the AI source code like they did with Civ 4.

There's only so much a handful of good developers can do anyway. Unlike the fan community, they're time and money constrained.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

According to the Pax, Ed was only there for the ending of development.

 

[nokmirt]

I hope so, but if I'm not mistaken, Ed Beach was already the AI developer on vanilla Civ 5 (at least that's what I see when I read Civ 5 credits), so I don't see why we would make a huge leap forward here. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In my opinion, the best thing to do would be releasing the AI source code like they did with Civ 4.

There's only so much a handful of good developers can do anyway. Unlike the fan community, they're time and money constrained.

Yes, he was the AI programmer on vanilla. During his interviews he seems pretty confident about the AI's capability in GnK. So does Dennis Shirk. However, talk is cheap, seeing is believing. I cannot wait to see this reworked AI in action. Hopefully it surprises all of us.

The dll does need to be released and we need Gods and Kings to update Gedemon's TSL Giant Earth Map. I have not used it for awhile now, because it crashes like every three turns, which gets old very fast. I hate saving every two turns.