Aaron90495
King
It's official!! The next expansion is called Brave New World, set to release this summer!
A quick rundown:
-9 new civilizations, including Poland (led by Casmir III, with the Winged Hussar UU and a UA that gives a free social policy upon entering an era); another yellowish civ is pictured in a screenshot, which could be Assyria or the Hittites, among others.
-8 new wonders, including Broadway, Effizi Gallery, and the Parthenon.
-International trade routes - send physical units back and forth with other civs, but Science/Religion/etc. can "leak out" to other civs along the way.
-More complex diplomacy in the form of the World Congress, which initiates when one civ has met all other civs. Civs have a certain number of delegates and vote on two policies per session, like enforcing a trade embargo. The World Congress can help control runaways.
-A "more active" strategy for culture victories is less dependent on turtling, as culture is now external. A culture victory is now triggered upon having "majority culture" with all other civs in the game.
-Cities in the same civ can share food, production, and more with internal trade routes.
-Great Artists are now Great Writers, Great Artists, and Great Musicians, all of which can create Great Works, which increase tourism. Great Works can be "hosted" in culture buildings (like Opera Houses) or the Great Library.
-Archaeologists can investigate city ruins and ancient battle sites to find artifcats.
-Near the end of the game, you choose Ideologies, which affect diplomacy more than the choice of Freedom/Order/Autocracy did previously (see the bottom of the post).
From Polygon:
From IGN:
From PC Gamer:
From CVG:
Here's an excellent interview from Rock Paper Shotgun that I'll just link to as it's incredibly long: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/15/civilization-v-brave-new-world-preview/
http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/15/4101742/civilization-5-brave-new-world-expansion
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/civilization-v-brave-new-world-expansion-announced-6405372
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/15/c...orld-announced-expands-culture-and-diplomacy/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/396294/civilization-vs-next-expansion-is-brave-new-world/
DISCUSS!
A quick rundown:
-9 new civilizations, including Poland (led by Casmir III, with the Winged Hussar UU and a UA that gives a free social policy upon entering an era); another yellowish civ is pictured in a screenshot, which could be Assyria or the Hittites, among others.
-8 new wonders, including Broadway, Effizi Gallery, and the Parthenon.
-International trade routes - send physical units back and forth with other civs, but Science/Religion/etc. can "leak out" to other civs along the way.
-More complex diplomacy in the form of the World Congress, which initiates when one civ has met all other civs. Civs have a certain number of delegates and vote on two policies per session, like enforcing a trade embargo. The World Congress can help control runaways.
-A "more active" strategy for culture victories is less dependent on turtling, as culture is now external. A culture victory is now triggered upon having "majority culture" with all other civs in the game.
-Cities in the same civ can share food, production, and more with internal trade routes.
-Great Artists are now Great Writers, Great Artists, and Great Musicians, all of which can create Great Works, which increase tourism. Great Works can be "hosted" in culture buildings (like Opera Houses) or the Great Library.
-Archaeologists can investigate city ruins and ancient battle sites to find artifcats.
-Near the end of the game, you choose Ideologies, which affect diplomacy more than the choice of Freedom/Order/Autocracy did previously (see the bottom of the post).
From Polygon:
Civilization 5 developer Firaxis Games is working on the turn-based strategy title's second expansion, Brave New World, and plans to launch it this summer on Windows PC, publisher 2K Games announced today.
Aspyr Media will handle the expansion's Mac port, which is also set for release in the summer. Firaxis launched the first Civilization 5 expansion, Gods & Kings, last June.
Brave New World will bring nine new playable civilizations and eight new Wonders, such as the Parthenon in Athens and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, into the game. It also includes two new scenarios: "War Between the States," which lets you play as the Union or Confederacy in the American Civil War, and "Scramble for Africa," in which you compete with other world powers to explore the continent and discover its natural resources.
Gods & Kings added religion to Civilization 5, and that expansion's changes were concerned primarily with the early and middle parts of the game. For Brave New World, Firaxis is shifting focus to the second half of the game.
"We do a tremendous amount in response to community feedback, only because once the game is out — especially a game with as many layers and the complexity of Civilization — it becomes very apparent where the weaknesses are in a game," said Dennis Shirk, senior producer for the Civilization 5 series, in a recent phone interview with Polygon. According to Shirk, Firaxis realized the late-game content wasn't as compelling as the first two-thirds.
Firaxis realized the late-game content wasn't as compelling as the first two-thirds
"We wanted to kind of build on [Gods & Kings] and focus in on new game systems to make the modern age — the Industrial Age and on — as exciting as possible," explained Ed Beach, lead designer on Civilization 5's two expansions, in the same interview.
Those new and overhauled systems include trade routes, which are now international; diplomacy, which takes ideologies and a new World Congress into account; and the culture victory, which is a much more active strategy. And it's the interplay between all those systems that will define Brave New World, according to Firaxis.
"A culture victory was challenging before; it wasn't nearly as engaging or interesting. It was basically a very turtling strategy," said Shirk. He added that by the middle of the game, players of the culture route were simply clicking the "next turn" button a lot because there wasn't much to do at that point.
In the new setup for culture victories in Brave New World, great artists are split into artists, writers and musicians. You'll be using them to create great works — Beach gave the example of Shakespeare writing Macbeth — and then you'll have to build a place for that work to be exhibited, like a theater or museum. That location will attract people from other civilizations to generate what Firaxis is calling tourism.
"Tourism is a measure of how much your culture has been able to go out and spread to the rest of the world," explained Beach. "It acts as your sort of offensive culture, and you're trying to overcome the defensive culture that that other civilization has put into play. Once you've been able to do that with all the other civilizations in the game, then you get to the culture victory now."
The new international trade routes also play into culture victories. Your culture not only attracts other civilizations for tourism; it also spreads across the globe along trade routes.
"If you're trying to overtake another civilization, you might want to trade more with them, because your culture footprint is going to become greater as a result of trading with them," said Beach.
Firaxis is also expanding the diplomacy system with Brave New World. In Civilization 5, you got to a diplomatic victory by building the United Nations and being chosen as the World Leader. The studio, inspired by precursor organizations and summits like the Congress of Vienna and League of Nations, is implementing a new body called the World Congress.
The World Congress is formed when one nation has met every other nation, and its member states vote on resolutions concerning issues of global importance. You can influence those discussions and tailor resolutions to your advantage, like for imposing sanctions on a belligerent nation that's a thorn in your side or implementing trade policies favorable to your civilization's goods and resources. Shirk explained that Firaxis wanted to provide a sense of 20th-century diplomacy, like "that stress level that you had internationally" during the Cold War.
impose sanctions on a belligerent nation that's a thorn in your side or implement trade policies favorable to your civilization's goods and resources
"Now it's all about the interactions between civilizations, and vote trading, and espionage to kind of find out how other civilizations are voting and really just causing shenanigans with the World Congress as you're going towards World Leader," said Shirk.
"Our real goal was to make that second half just as exciting as the first half of the game."
From IGN:
From GameSpot:This Summer Aspyr Media plans to release the second expansion for Sid Meier's Civilization V, titled Brave New World. The expansion makes many expected additions such as nine new civilizations, including the Polish, as well as revamps key systems. For more on the expansion, IGN spoke with senior producer Dennis Shirk and lead designer Ed Beach about what to expect.
"Gods and Kings did a great job of expanding the game through the early and middle part of the game...we really wanted to focus on the back half of the game," said Beach. Thus Brave New World takes a cue from what happened in our own 20th century history, namely the spread of ideologies and the way they polarized nations. The Autocracy, Freedom and Order social policy trees are now the three main ideologies, and once a country reaches the modern era or achieves a certain level of industrialization, it picks one of three. You then build your ideology over time through ideological tenets, which amount to a series of new policies that bolster your society in specific ways.
Ideologies are super important to a civilization's culture, and Brave New World wants to address the Cultural Victory option as well. Instead of what Beach calls the "passive" option of building a few cities and kind of holing up while you attempt to make them amazing, the goal is for Brave New World is to reintroduce the idea of cultural warfare. You won't convert a city to your civilization a la Civilization IV, but you can win by exerting majority cultural influence over all the other civilizations.
You don't simply do this building and wonders that generate culture, but by actively working to spread your culture one Great Work at a time. When you produce a Great Artist, or the expansions new Great Musicians or Great Writers, you can have them create a specific piece for you. You can then place this piece within buildings like museums or opera houses, generating points to bolster your civilization's culture, as well as new tourism points that pressure the civilizations around you. Generate more lifetime tourism than they're generating culture, and you'll win the cultural shadow war. Do this to all the civilizations? You win the game.
Another way you can obtain Great Works for display is through the new archaeology system. After you research archaeology you'll be able to visit antiquity sites of "historic" battles fought earlier in the game, searching for artifacts you can display in museums. Imagine going back to the canyon where your bold Mayan Atlatlists held off the invading Greek spear men over 1,000 years ago -- you can display something of their sacrifice, becoming the envy of your neighbors.
Polish units strike out.
Culture is only one aspect of the Civilization V experience, and Brave New World also plans on bolstering other systems like diplomacy. The United Nations still plays a huge role in a Diplomatic Victory, but prior to its creation you'll have the option to interact with other civilizations via the World Congress. This body is created one a civilization meets every other nation in the world and creates a printing press. After it's established, every civilization gets a number of delegates that they can use to vote on policies (allied city-states also supply you with delegates). The two policies that are voted on each sessions are picked by the host nation that first created the World Congress, as well as the current leader who has the most delegates. The World Congress can ban certain luxury items, put a trade embargo on other countries and do "all kinds of things that change the rules of the game with each session of congress," said Beach. After each session there's a period before the voting takes place, allowing savvy leaders to go around and push other civilizations to trade for votes or straight-up buy them.
When it comes to economics, Brave New World wants to augment base Civilization V with the introduction of International Trade Routes. Now you'll be able to build caravan and cargo ship units, setting them up so they automatically travel back and forth between your city and that of a foreign civilization. As long as you're not at war, you both gain gold and other resources from the deal, which can work against you. Science, Religion and other resources that could be important to your path to victory will leak out to the civilizations you trade with. The units operating the trade routes can also be attacked, allowing you to disrupt other civilization's trade routes if you go to war with them.
The last things we discussed with the team behind Brave New World were the two new scenarios. One puts you in command during the American Civil War, the other tackles the colonial period where the various world powers were all striking out to colonize Africa. Could be interesting, but at this point the studio isn't giving away many details.
Excited for more Civilization V? Ready to take hold back your armies and instead wage a culture war? No specific release date was given, but we're told you'll be commanding Polish forces and trying to nab votes in the World Congress when Brave New World releases this summer.
Brave New World is being developed by series stewards Firaxis and will be out this summer for PC and Mac.
The expansion is geared around tweaking the game's culture and diplomacy mechanics, and also offers nine new Civilizations, eight new Wonders, and two new scenarios.
Brave New World introduces the World Congress and the concept of international trade routes. The World Congress will convene on issues like trade sanctions, hosting the World Games, and the use of nuclear weapons. 2K promises that players will be able to trade votes and engage in other shenanigans, and the World Congress will also tie into winning a Diplomatic Victory.
International trade routes can be used to generate wealth, but will also spread religion, cultural influence, and science. Trade routes are increased by developing technologies, building Wonders, and making use of each civilization's unique abilities. Longer trade routes carry more risk but will yield more lucrative supplies, and trade routes can also be used on players' own cities to distribute supplies internally.
Brave New World also adds the new Culture Victory. Civilizations work to spread their culture around the world, creating great works with Great Artists, Writers, and Musicians and then hosting them in Museums, Opera Houses, and the Great Library. Archaeologists can also be used recover valuable artifacts. The first civilization to gain a majority influence across all other civilizations will achieve the Culture victory.
The two new scenarios are titled "War Between the States" and "Scramble for Africa," with the former letting players pick a side in the American Civil War and fight for control of Richmond and Washington. Scramble for Africa has players working against other civilizations to explore and establish control in a dynamically generated Africa.
New wonders include the Parthenon, Broadway, and the Uffizi. One of the new civilizations is Poland, led by Casimir III.
From PC Gamer:
Firaxis have announced the second expansion pack for their life-destroying 4X strategy Civilization V. Brave New World not only increases the number of leaders, scenarios and wonders for budding empire builders to play with, but looks set to drastically overhaul two key areas of the game: Culture and Diplomacy. This is particularly great news for anyone who’s spent hours attempting to cajole Civ V’s fickle rulers.
A World Congress will let you create and vote on resolutions – imposing trade sanctions on rogue nations, capping resource usage, electing a host for the “World Games”, and setting rules for the use of nuclear weapons. Of course, ideology will only be a small part of a nation’s decision: vote trading and intrigue are both required for a successful resolution. Firaxis say this will also provide a new path to the Diplomatic Victory.
Speaking of victory conditions, there’s a new one: Culture Victory. It sounds like a more active prospect than the Cultural Victory path. Here you must spread your culture far and wide, using Great Writers, Artists and Musicians to create masterpieces that will prove your dominance in the arts. You’ll also have access to archaeologists to investigate ancient battle grounds and ruined cities for rare artifacts.
The other big change is the introduction of international trade routes, letting you spread your cities’ produce by land and sea. Not only can you send goods to other civilisations, but also to other cities within your own empire – sending aid to cities that are lacking the raw resources. And trade routes expand into other areas of the game, with science, religion and culture also taking a trip on your caravans.
In addition to all that, Brave New World will bring nine new leaders, eight world wonders, new Industrial Age ideologies, and scenarios covering the American Civil War and the colonial push into Africa.
In the hope of gleaning some state secrets, Evan sat down for a peace accord with Firaxis’ Lead Designer Ed Beach and Senior Producer Dennis Shirk.
PCG: What’s a new Civilization that contributes a new playing style? Can you describe this playing style?
Firaxis: Poland’s trait is called Solidarity, and they receive a free Social Policy when they advance into each new era. Poland gave us the opportunity design a Civ with extremely strong mounted units in the Medieval-Renaissance era. When you see the bonus for the Winged Hussar, it should give players a lot of flexibility in terms of changing the way a battle unfolds tactically. Since their Civ trait is extremely flexible, I think Poland is an effective Civ for a wide variety of victories.
How are International Trade Routes formed?
Firaxis: Trade Routes are established between two cities of different civilizations using trade route units like the Caravan or Cargo Ship. Although both parties gain gold from the route, the civilization that the trade route originates from gets a larger sum of gold than the destination civilization. Additionally, other systems hitch a ride on trade routes, like religious pressure, science (science can be gained from more advanced civilization this way), Tourism bonuses, and more.
Trade routes can also be created between two cities of the same civilization. Once the origin city has a Granary, it can send food to the destination city, and once it has a Workshop it can send production. This can be powerful if you have a new city that needs to be “pumped up”, or a city that’s constructing a Wonder that could use a production bump.
Will masterpieces created by Great People be named? e.g., Will you be able to create the Mona Lisa?
Firaxis: Yes they will! We’ll be talking more about those soon.
Does the World Congress vote by majority? When are measures voted upon?
Firaxis: A resolution doesn’t always have to receive majority support. Sometimes a resolution can pass with a single delegate supporting it, as long as there are no delegates voting “no”. The way the process works is the Congress is founded, typically in the Renaissance, by the first player that has discovered all other civilizations. The founding civilization becomes the Congress’s host and receives special benefits, like the ability to propose resolutions.
After the first resolutions are proposed, there’s a countdown until the Congress convenes, which will give you time to get allies on your side before the Congress votes on the proposed resolutions. The process then begins again, with the proposal of resolutions. There are quite a few resolutions that can be voted on. You can vote to outlaw the trade of certain luxury resources, sanction rogue nations economically, start a worldwide project like the World’s Fair, and much more. You can use it to slow down a Civ who is running away to victory, or really put a major rival at a disadvantage.
From CVG:
Due for release this summer on PC and Mac, the expansion is said to add "a massive amount of new gameplay" to Civ V, including the introduction of international trade and "a focus on culture and diplomacy."
Firaxis director Sid Meier said of Brave New World: "After adding a number of great new features to Civilization V with the Gods & Kings expansion, the team continued to search for ways to create even more exciting gameplay through new systems and features.
"We're happy to bring our fans another ambitious expansion that will provide hours and hours of new Civilization experiences."
Key features include:
-New Civilizations, Units and Buildings: The expansion features nine new civilizations, each with unique traits, units, buildings and all-new leaders, including Casimir III of Poland.
-New Culture Victory: Spread your culture across the globe, dominating all other cultures. Create masterpieces with Great Artists, Writers, and Musicians that are placed in key buildings across your empire, like Museums, Opera Houses and even the Great
-Library. Use Archaeologists to investigate sites of ancient battles and city ruins for priceless cultural artifacts. Become the first civilization with a majority influence in all other civilizations to achieve a Culture Victory, becoming the envy of the world.
-World Congress: The importance of diplomacy is intensified and city-state alliances are more important than ever. Change the diplomatic landscape through a new World
-Congress that votes on critical issues like implementing trade sanctions against rogue nations, limiting resource usage, designating host cities for the World Games and the use of nuclear weapons. Game-changing resolutions, vote trading, intrigue, and a new lead into the Diplomatic Victory ensures that the end of the game will be more dynamic than ever before.
-International Trade Routes: Build your cities into hubs of international trade by land and sea, creating great wealth and prosperity for your people, while also spreading religion, cultural influence, and science. The number of trade routes increases through the advancement of economics and technologies, the creation of wonders and the unique abilities of your civilization. Will you connect to a closer city for a lower payoff and a safer route, choose a longer route with more risk for the bigger payoff, or perhaps point your trade route inward, sending vitally important food and production to the far corners of your own empire?
-New Wonders: Eight new Wonders are introduced, including the Parthenon, Broadway, the Uffizi, and more.
-New Game Scenarios: Two new scenarios let gamers fight the "War Between the States" and embark on the epic Scramble for Africa. Fight the American Civil War from either the Union or Confederate side, as you focus on the critical action in the Eastern theatre of operations between the capital cities of Richmond and Washington. In "Scramble for Africa", the great colonial powers of the world are racing to explore the Dark Continent and extend their reach into its interior. Search for great natural wonders in the heart of Africa, as you explore a dynamically-generated continent each time you play.
Here's an excellent interview from Rock Paper Shotgun that I'll just link to as it's incredibly long: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/15/civilization-v-brave-new-world-preview/
http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/15/4101742/civilization-5-brave-new-world-expansion
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/civilization-v-brave-new-world-expansion-announced-6405372
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/15/c...orld-announced-expands-culture-and-diplomacy/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/396294/civilization-vs-next-expansion-is-brave-new-world/
DISCUSS!
