Civ as an RTS?

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

I have been musing over what I would like in a Civ game. I came up with many ideas but I soon realized that for my ideas to be practical, Civ would have to be in real time(i.e. have simultaneous moves) rather than turn based.

For a number of reasons I want the epic game and scenarios to be able to have much larger maps and many more civs. Now the amount of RAM and hard drive size in modern computers are huge(and still increasing exponentially with time) and so I do not believe those to be limiting factors. The problem is processor speed. The processing power of PCs and gaming consoles are increasing nowadays not so much by raw speed but by the number of processors. This is great but because of the sequential nature of turn based games, they can't take full advantage of this. However with simultaneous moves, each processor core could be in charge of a subset of AIs in parallel which will greatly reduce the amount of time needed for a "turn."

I expect this idea to be unpopular here but I don't think it is impossible that the civilization series will go in this direction; Not for the reasons I want but because I am cynical and expect that an RTS would sell better. So what does everyone think about this? Also, is there any example of a tile-based real-time nation building game other than some of the Civilization multiplayer options?

 

[EdCase]

Why not simply play Empire Earth or rise of nations ?

Both are "real time" variants on the civ theme.

Civilization is a TBS and should remain so.

I also (imho) believe your way off-base believing Civ turned RTS would sell better. I suspect it would fail in a spectacular fashion.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Why not simply play Empire Earth or rise of nations ?

Both are "real time" variants on the civ theme.

Neither I are tile-based. Nor do they have the other things I want.

 

[Omega124]

I agree with Edcase mostly on the "Rise of Nations".

In fact, I bought that game due to the fact I knew pre-hand that RoN was enstenally the RTS version of Civ. It's much more dynamic than most RTS.

But with what your looking for, a game made by Paradox Interactive is what your looking for. They're very complicated, but They're title based. Sort of.

 

[EdCase]

Neither I are tile-based. Nor do they have the other things I want.

Then please tell us the other things you want, maybe we can help. I'm skeptical however. No matter how hard developers try, RTS' es(?) end up as ...

"mass units...rush"... Dawn of War almost broke the mold (the original) but then backslid in the expansions.

Tile based, well that would not ,in fact, make it simultaneous turn not "real time" ?

I only say this because this unit of "measure" usually indicates an (common phrase arriving...) Action Point Cap, signifying a definite turn/tick/impulse..whatever you wish to call it.

 

[Mathalamus]

i perfer civilization to be turn based.

 

[eduhum]

Europa Universalis: Rome's map is divided by regions, but when a unit want to pass a region to another, it is not "passs turn" but 1 august 474 b.C. (a month later maybe).In normal speed, a day is two seconds.

 

[IrishDragon]

you should play europa universalis iii, i think theres some way of linking the rome version and the hearts of iron version so you can play right through

 

[Dumanios]

no RTS Civ. Pelase.

 

[phoinix]

RTS Civ is not Civ, so no

 

[Camikaze]

Yeah, Civ is a TBS game. That's just what it is. Changing it would be like...destroying the game. I don't mean that it would necessarily make the game bad, so much as that it would make the game not Civ.

My understanding is that Civ Network is meant to be kinda RTS. Is this the case (or am I completely making it up)?

 

[vhhawk]

Wasn't Age of Empires an RTS? I hated that game with a passion. I like my turns.

 

[PaaVi]

RTS Civ would be just a mess. If I want to play some RTS I'd play Age of Empires.

 

[TheDS]

I love EU2 as much as the next guy, but it only works because you can PAUSE, AND because it's got spaces on the map AND because it's got other limitations that keep it from becoming a bum-rush. Most of Paradox's other games don't work out as well, IMO, and even in EU2 it's possible to research everything and die of inflation.

While I agree that Civ should remain TBS, and you acknowledge that it's going to be an unpopular idea, maybe you should ask the question of what would it take to make Civ into an RTS, or what would it be like, or something similar. You'll garner a lot less hostility and outright negativity because you're not suggesting Firaxis does it, only asking how it could be made to work as a theoretical exercise.

 

[Soundwαvє ▼]

RTS tends to be more likely to huge wars. There is RTS games specialized in war so diplomacy it's just a way to prepare you to war like Rome Total War, Age of Empires and Empire Earth (a bit). Even Rise of Nations is likely to huge wars, the diplo ways is always ignored what kinda sucks. I like RTS more than TBS but I like Civilization more than any RTS so I think is good to be a TBS.

My two cents

 

[CivMyWay]

There are many good things to be said for a well-done RTS. But by definition, they must become less strategic. The limiting factor is not the processor speed, but the ability of the player (a human) to be able to think through what they want to do, and then execute it...

RTS != Civ.

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

I prefer TBS to RTS. I with what CivMyWay just psoted in that no matter how well designed a RTS might be, in the end success is really determined more by a players point/click speed than by any other factor.

Kaytie

 

[ipris]

< not a fan of the idea. I mean a RTS mod of CIV could be terrific, but i enjoy the smooth, slow bourbon that is a turn based CIV game. I'd hate to lose that.

 

[killmeplease]

i think they'll do it in civ net. this genre name is ORTS, stands for "Online RTS".
I hate it, its boring and stupid as hell.
Having civilization revolution released on console, and facebook civ coming soon, i think series are destroyed or close to this.