Will there ever be a market for Civ IV remake?

[Infantry#14]

I would like a remake with an expansion built in. Remake is different than a remaster. Remake is having the original game and adding some additional game features. Better graphics and enhanced optimization while important, are secondary.

I can see the civ4 remake combines some elements of the civ5/6 games. The civ6 religion pantheons/beliefs are worthy to be an expansion. They could also add Natural Wonders, City-States and new Civs and leaders to existing Civs. They can incorporate the art assets from Civ4 Colonization (some mods already included them). Add 2 new leader traits to accommodate the new unique Civs and leaders.

 

[Seraiel]

I' m sure CIV IV II will be produced. Just compare CIV III to CIV VI, I have the impression that there are four different CIVs and that Fireaxes is already in the process of remaking them.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Hmmmm.

Actually you all already have access to one. Not a totally new remake but still. Something that is very well made and tested.


And it's a mod, that still isn't dead - just visit this site and thread: http://www.realism-invictus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2053&p=11176#p11176

 

[TheBirdMan]

Forgot to mention.

This account (TheBirdMan) was made long before I joined the RI. Actually it's back from the time I played CallToPower, PlayByE-Mail on Apolyton.

Now I'm using McMax as Max is my real name.

 

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks,

the recent announcement of the Rome: Total War Remaster has given me a small glimmer of hope that Civilization IV could, one day, get the same treatment. I do believe a market exists for the older civ games - Firaxis would be pretty blind to not realise many of their customers haven't been happy since Civilization V with the direction of the series. It's not even as if Firaxis would have to dedicate tools or manpower to the project - RTW Remaster is being worked on by Feral Interactive, so a hypothetical Civ IV remaster could easily be contracted out to another developer. As for what I'd want to see:

- proper support for 2021-era computers - 64bit support using multiple cores. This would allow for stable performance on large maps with many civilisations.
- rebalancing. Civ IV is a fine game but some balancing issues exist (Serfdom! Cuir spam! and so on). I think these could be ironed out in a remaster.
- improved visuals of course. Certainly not enough to change the art style or tone of the game, but a fresh lick of paint would be nice with 4K support.
- Civ V style mod support, so we can load more than one at once and perhaps integrated with steam workshop.
- as Feral are doing with RTW, post-release support to iron out bugs, glitches and support the community in mod development and so on.

It's a small hope, but a man can dream. If Firaxis ever DID do a remaster, though, I fear they would go for Civ V. This increasingly seems to be regarded as the classic 'high point' of the series.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[crashmon]

I don't see a remake of old civ's tbh unless there is money to be made from it... How many people would buy a civ 4 remake, that would be the question? Also if they are planning a civ 7, would they want to lose some of the potential player base who would buy civ 7 who instead go to civ 4 remake?

I would love to see it, but I don't think the community is active enough for it to be financially viable for them...

I also never played civ 5 really, I have dabbled in 6 and I do like some aspects of 6, but not enough to take me away from 4 as the main civ game I play

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I wouldn't that's for sure. Really the only thing from that list which I care about at all is 64 bit support with the larger memory footprint that would bring. Everything else is utterly needless as it's either covered with mods or would make existing mods unplayable.

 

[Ita Bear]

I wouldn't that's for sure. Really the only thing from that list which I care about at all is 64 bit support with the larger memory footprint that would bring. Everything else is utterly needless as it's either covered with mods or would make existing mods unplayable.

Hello PPQ Purple

were you referring to my list? If so, you are correct that mods can fix balancing, but that is about all. As you say, 64-bit support can only be provided by the developers. Modders can attempt to modernise visuals and have done to a certain degree, but they are limited to what the engine allows. See the RTW remaster for what visual improvements a developer team can offer. I have never seen anything that allows for Civ V, multiple mod support so I would hope a remaster can add this in. Firaxis abandoned Civ IV many years ago so official patches and bug fixes could breath new life into the game, including improvements and fixes to things like AI which modders can only do so much with.

I'm not sure what you mean by "make existing mods unplayable." The current version of the game will always exist and mods will always be available for it. If someone doesn't want to get the remaster, that's fine - the old ways are often best.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

The visuals are fine as they are. And even if they weren't changing anything about the graphics to "modernize" them would mean changing the code behind the graphics engine which would likely screw up all the existing custom units. And that would be a giant setback to the modding community.

As for multiple mod support that would mean changing how the mod system works. And that would break ALL existing mods. So again that's unacceptable.

CIV4 is first and foremost a game that has lived on this long because of its mods. Even those that supposedly play vanilla prefer things like BUG. And your idea would remove all existing mods from the equation. So it just wouldn't work.

 

[Ita Bear]

I really don't understand your point. Nothing will break because the old game will always exist and mods will always be there for that game. Folk who like to play the old game with mods can always do so. Nothing will "break" and there won't be any "set backs." Civ IV with its mods will still exist; there would just also be a remastered version that can have new mods designed for it.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I really don't understand your point. Nothing will break because the old game will always exist and mods will always be there for that game. Folk who like to play the old game with mods can always do so. Nothing will "break" and there won't be any "set backs." Civ IV with its mods will still exist; there would just also be a remastered version that can have new mods designed for it.

My point is simple
1. The vast majority of CIV4 players play for the mods. Even if only BUG.
2. Your proposals would produce a game incompatible with existing mods.

Ergo: Most current CIV4 players wouldn't buy your proposed product thus making it unprofitable to produce.

 

[Pepo]

My point is simple
1. The vast majority of CIV4 players play for the mods. Even if only BUG.
2. Your proposals would produce a game incompatible with existing mods.

Ergo: Most current CIV4 players wouldn't buy your proposed product thus making it unprofitable to produce.

Any remake, specially switching from a 32 bits system to a 64 bit system, would make all mods incompatible with the new version. Regardless, one would expect that a rework would bring changes to the base game, for better or worse.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Any remake, specially switching from a 32 bits system to a 64 bit system, would make all mods incompatible with the new version. Regardless, one would expect that a rework would bring changes to the base game, for better or worse.

Not necessarily, just very likely. It all depends on just how much the DLL changes to accommodate the transition. They could theoretically change the bare minimum and keep most of the code the same in which case porting isn't too big of an issue, even if it is work. Of course, doing that would offer far less of a performance boost. But it is at least a possibility. Where as something like changing the graphics engine would just kill stuff outright.

But yes, in principal we are in agreement. The prospect of any remake, even a GOG style adaptation to new hardware, supporting mods without a lot of conversion work is bleak.

 

[Ita Bear]

My point is simple
1. The vast majority of CIV4 players play for the mods. Even if only BUG.
2. Your proposals would produce a game incompatible with existing mods.

Ergo: Most current CIV4 players wouldn't buy your proposed product thus making it unprofitable to produce.

I think that's a very short-sighted view with little basis and evidence to back it up. I'm not sure how you can claim the "vast majority" play for mods only. The same could be said, though, for Rome: Total War, which has a huge modding community, and is getting a remaster. Mods are going to be ported over and there's no reason they can't for a hypothetical Civ IV remaster as well.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I think that's a very short-sighted view with little basis and evidence to back it up. I'm not sure how you can claim the "vast majority" play for mods only. The same could be said, though, for Rome: Total War, which has a huge modding community, and is getting a remaster. Mods are going to be ported over and there's no reason they can't for a hypothetical Civ IV remaster as well.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

I envy your youthful optimism. Once you get to know this place a bit better and understand just how intertwined CIV4 modding is to the DLL source and how much legacy graphics are being used in some of the better mods you'll see what I mean. Like my own project right now is just doing art for one mod and that's going to be hundreds of units. I ain't porting that to a new engine any times soon.

 

[TheBirdMan]

If - and only IF - we would get "something" close to the Civ IV I know - modable as now but written with the 64-bit system - I would surely buy it.


Of course I expect, that when the remake would be written with the 64-bit system instead of with the present 32-bit, we would get rid of the most annoying 4-4½Mb savefile limit, that prevents me from playing on big maps (192*120 fx) and with 12 civs from start (with revolutions on (RI mod 3.5) upto 20-25civs during the game) in full lenght (3045 turns).

Its really annoying to play until the late years of 1800 or the early 1900 and then recon, that the game become too unstable to continue. Or that you somewhere in years between 1000-1300 have to turn revolutions off to prevent the savefile to become too big later on.

 

[lymond]

I'm never been a facilitator of petitions, but seems CFC could setup a petition to Firaxis to get an updated Civ IV. I'm fine with mainly just an engine upgrade for 64-bit, as Birdman mentioned. Maybe fine-tune some things. Add in Blue Marble stuff. Might set things up for an official expansion later too, but not sure what that would be exactly....more civs?, some new scenarios?, achievements?.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I'm never been a facilitator of petitions, but seems CFC could setup a petition to Firaxis to get an updated Civ IV. I'm fine with mainly just an engine upgrade for 64-bit, as Birdman mentioned. Maybe fine-tune some things. Add in Blue Marble stuff. Might set things up for an official expansion later too, but not sure what that would be exactly....more civs?, some new scenarios?, achievements?.

Making our desires known, through a petition, would be helpful. It would be *a* data point in their return-on-investment analysis. Firaxis has good data (through Steam) about the number of active players of Civ V and Civ VI. But they can't have equal data on Civ IV, because many people are still finding ways to play their old CD installations without Steam. How many developers, for how long, to deliver what set of features, and how much would they charge? $15, $20, something else in USD?

 

[lymond]

Making our desires known, through a petition, would be helpful. It would be *a* data point in their return-on-investment analysis. Firaxis has good data (through Steam) about the number of active players of Civ V and Civ VI. But they can't have equal data on Civ IV, because many people are still finding ways to play their old CD installations without Steam. How many developers, for how long, to deliver what set of features, and how much would they charge? $15, $20, something else in USD?

Yeah, I don't expect it would need to be a large team necessarily, if the focus is just on upgrading and enhancing what is already there. I think they could just put together a new BTS without bothering with Vanilla or Warlords. Granted the Vanilla assets must be updated. But like the Steam version, where BTS is "standalone" completely (vanilla assets are included in the installation..in fact, vanilla and warlords are standalone too), I'd imagine it would not be hard to put together a new upgraded BTS. The new version could be called "Civ IV Ultimate" or "Civ IV Definitive", or something similar. $19.99 would be a reasonable retail, with it likely going on sale for half that on Steam and other DL sites.

I think a petition of some sort would be good, using one of the major petition sites. I don't know much about it myself other than voting in one years ago. However, I think some current civ players around may have some inside connections with Firaxis folks...like a Sullla. So a petition plus some communication between parties might work nicely.

Petition could also be framed to include bullets on reasonable ideas for upgrade/enhancing the game. Not crazy stuff, but just logical stuff that would make the game work better today.

(Another thought, is there may very well be some super-modders here that Firaxis could bring on to help)

 

[krikav]

Would for sure sign, and would for sure buy too.