Congratulations to CFC for getting us FREE DLC! (the mongols)

[Wuzetian]

So uh... anybody else think the Mongols will be massively overpowered? Horseman are already overpowered, and the mongols get +1 movement, and a UU horseman with probably some other useful bonus. If they can ignore terrain movement costs like in Civ 4, they'll be the fastest things in the entire game. And for the AI, their bonus against city-states will be extremely good too.

That depends on how the UU horseman would fit in. The combination of UA and UU would probably make just another Companion Cavalry of Greece.
However, if Keshik would get the ignore terrain movement costs bonus, which I think is not possible, and they still don't patch the overpowered horsemen, I would agree that they truly are the Mongol Terror.

 

[Ikariam]

Keshik replaces Knight, not Horseman.

 

[Monsterzuma]

They should just call this civilization "invincible horseman cheat mode" already. Oh wait, Alexander's civ is called that already.

 

[Generals3]

Am i the only who thinks the Mongol's unique trait will make it a very hated civ by the AI? I mean , sure having a bonus against CS's is nice but the AI doesn't seem to like you taking over CS's . Add to that certain CS's go into perma-war with you if you conquer too many of them and you have a unique trait with a very bad "other side of the coin" . I much prefer the Greek Unique trait making exploiting the CS's much easier.

 

[Gustave5436]

Regarding Babylon:
$4,99 for a civ? No way for me to pay a sum like that just for a civ...

I know, it sounds kinda weird. On one hand I really appreciate a free civ, on the other hand I claim $4,99 for "just a civ" to be too expensive... I think it's just a priciple, paired with the fact that we already have enough civs to play.

I agree, based on simple mathematical reasoning. At a purchase price of $50 and with 18 civs, the game itself costs 50/18 = $2.78 per civ. This is the absolute maximum price that can possibly make sense; in reality a much lower price would be warranted since that $50 also pays for the rest of the game's content, of which the civilizations are only a small part.

The specifics of how much a civ might be worth are, for our purposes, unknowable without intimate details about Firaxis's budget. Therefore, $2 would probably be a 'reasonable' compromise (in the sense that I doubt it could be pushed any lower) between the inherently evil nature of DLC and the true monetary value of the content.

 

[Mikkow]

Time to work on DLC? The artwork plus about 10 minutes entering the race bonuses. I guess if it sells we can expect many more civilizations to roll out the door.

Agreed about sales definitely will cause extra civs to be created. It would make economic sense to them to do that. Question is where the spot goes where they can make the most profit. Too expensive and there may be very few who buy. Too cheap and even though many sales the revenue can be not so good. But there's an ideal middle point somewhere. And it is probably lower than now. But who knows.

The description of how long it takes to make a single new Civ & leader is really lacking. Consider the following.

1. Decide which civilization.
2. Decide which leader.
3. Decide traits that suit the civilization.
4. Decide traits that suit the leader.
5. Composer(s) to do the peace & war scores & any unique music for scenario.
6. Research & write dialogue for leader.
7. Do casting for voice actor for leader (must speak a similar enough language fluently and so on).
8. Schedule recording session in studio with voice actor and sound engineer(s) and actually do it.
9. Research the leader and civilization and have writer(s) do the Civilopedia entries.
10. Art director to decide general direction for the leader scene and the two unique units/buildings.
11. 3D artists build the meshes for leader scene and the unique units/buildings.
12. Texture artists do the textures for the leader scene and two unique units. Shaders especially may need extra work.
13. Illustrator(s) do the 2D interface artwork for Civilopedia and unique unit/buildings.
14. Animators animate the leader, horse (in this case), unique units and buildings. Just think of the speech, facial expressions, gestures, unit idle animations, fighting animations, movement.
15. Sound engineer creates the sound for the leader scene and unique units and makes it play at the correct instances (syncronized properly).
16. Programmers add code/scripting for all of these new things (a lot of stuff!).
17. AI programmer/Game designer(s) create the AI personality suitable for the leader.
18. Map maker(s) make the world for the scenario.
19. Game designer(s) set up & tweak the scenario.
20. Testing, balance concerns. Q/A. Smooth integration delivery through Steam must be set up.

Even listing these things is exhausting so I'm not going to thinking of what else is missing from it. You can imagine that these things cost real money - paying all those professionals to do all that work. Game creation is a very complicated expensive task these days.

 

[jjkrause84]

When you hurt a girl's feelings you buy her flowers. That doesn't make the problem go away but it paves the way for a reconciliation.

Firaxis just bought us flowers...maybe we can sit down and talk about it now?

 

[Baleur]

I thought there were 18 genghis' already in the game, frankly i just want the AI and the diplomacy fixed.

I know right.

 

[knug]

The free DLC is like the first free bit of heroin your dealer gives. It's a way to introduce non-steam users to their system, and get everyone into pressing the button. I am not really against that, I just hope that they aren't leaving out critical game content as a DLC. I've been pro ciV since the start, and do not mind companies making money, but given that game prices haven't gone down like other things in the tech world, I hope they aren't giving us the okie-doke, as they say here in the south.

 

[Baleur]

Agreed about sales definitely will cause extra civs to be created. It would make economic sense to them to do that. Question is where the spot goes where they can make the most profit. Too expensive and there may be very few who buy. Too cheap and even though many sales the revenue can be not so good. But there's an ideal middle point somewhere. And it is probably lower than now. But who knows.

The description of how long it takes to make a single new Civ & leader is really lacking. Consider the following.

1. Decide which civilization.
2. Decide which leader.
3. Decide traits that suit the civilization.
4. Decide traits that suit the leader.
5. Composer(s) to do the peace & war scores & any unique music for scenario.
6. Research & write dialogue for leader.
7. Do casting for voice actor for leader (must speak a similar enough language fluently and so on).
8. Schedule recording session in studio with voice actor and sound engineer(s) and actually do it.
9. Research the leader and civilization and have writer(s) do the Civilopedia entries.
10. Art director to decide general direction for the leader scene and the two unique units/buildings.
11. 3D artists build the meshes for leader scene and the unique units/buildings.
12. Texture artists do the textures for the leader scene and two unique units. Shaders especially may need extra work.
13. Illustrator(s) do the 2D interface artwork for Civilopedia and unique unit/buildings.
14. Animators animate the leader, horse (in this case), unique units and buildings. Just think of the speech, facial expressions, gestures, unit idle animations, fighting animations, movement.
15. Sound engineer creates the sound for the leader scene and unique units and makes it play at the correct instances (syncronized properly).
16. Programmers add code/scripting for all of these new things (a lot of stuff!).
17. AI programmer/Game designer(s) create the AI personality suitable for the leader.
18. Map maker(s) make the world for the scenario.
19. Game designer(s) set up & tweak the scenario.
20. Testing, balance concerns. Q/A. Smooth integration delivery through Steam must be set up.

Even listing these things is exhausting so I'm not going to thinking of what else is missing from it. You can imagine that these things cost real money - paying all those professionals to do all that work. Game creation is a very complicated expensive task these days.

Exaggeration.
You are listing stuff made from seperate people, all working at the development house who already, guess what, work there! If each guy does his thing at the same time, it'd take a few days at most.

I'd say that 5€ (remember the $1 to 1€ conversion rate on the ridiculous internets) times 50k (conservative dlc sale estimate) = 250.000€ for a week's work is a pretty good deal. Not even a weeks work, since we cant count the xml dudes entire week if it took him 20min to write the file, and we cant count the entire offices week if it took 1 morning meeting to decide the civ.

They do other stuff at the same time as well, so..
250.000€ for a couple of hours work (a days work all combined perhaps, two max) is a pretty damn good deal.

 

[Mathalamus]

then obviously, they can skimp a little off the price. DLC civs must cost a dollar. you still get 50,000 in a single week so id say that's a good deal.

 

[DalekDavros]

I agree, based on simple mathematical reasoning. At a purchase price of $50 and with 18 civs, the game itself costs 50/18 = $2.78 per civ. This is the absolute maximum price that can possibly make sense; in reality a much lower price would be warranted since that $50 also pays for the rest of the game's content, of which the civilizations are only a small part.

You're failing to take into account the difference in market size. Take your $2.78 cost per player per civ figure, but suppose that only 10% of the people who buy Civ V will choose to buy the DLC. Then to keep the price per player per civ the same, they'll need to sell it at ten times the price, so $27.80 is the price that "makes sense."

 

[fantsu]

someone still playing civ5???


free civ, I might try it.
not paying one cent more, before this game works.

 

[Fistalis]

misctextures.fpk

free DLC roflmao...
Was part of the game just not finished/implemented.

 

[Sinis]

I dont post often but come on this site daily

Is this DLC playable in multiplayer?

If i can not play them in multiplayer I do not even care about it. I really want to be able to play the DLC civs in multiplayer. It feals like they take a big option out of the game if are not able to play them.

 

[spoooq]

You are listing stuff made from seperate people, all working at the development house who already, guess what, work there! If each guy does his thing at the same time, it'd take a few days at most.

????

The employer still has to pay by man-hours, not time elapsed!

You also have to double everyone salary (up to and including the tea-lady) in order to get the real cost of employing someone.

The point of getting this DLC instead of making it is going to be the quality of the animations and music. IMO free = nice, less than a quid is fine, and anything more is too much for me. I'll wait for the Final Deluxe Super Edition to hit £10 and buy that. Same problem I've got with TF2 crate keys.

 

[magzhi]

ohh... My mod become useless...

 

[SammyKhalifa]

HE is being uncivil?



Never mind him...

...

TH is that second UU? Khan himself? WHAT? 30% combat strength when fighting City-states? Bah... Even more overpowered horsemen?
A horse again? Don't we have enough of leaders on a horse already? What's up with all the horses!? ...Did he steal Alexander's horse!?

Well, haha, Temujin lived on a horse. He died falling off a horse. Legend has it he was born on a horse.

Showing him not on a horse would have been silly.

I kind of wish they would have modeled a steppe pony though.

 

[tom2050]

Yea, this is probably content that was supposed to originally be in the game, but with-held purposely because they knew they had to give something 'free' to help quell the bad-release reactions from consumers.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Can say I mind the free DLC, I will enjoy it.

about the Free DLC offered via the D2D bundle, I have a feeling this isn't it.
I wonder if that DLC is going to be an Inca/Spain + "new world colonization" type scenario.