Dennis Shirk Interview @ VG247

[Thunderfall]

VG247 published an interview with Civilization V producer Dennis Shirk yesterday. In the interview, Dennis confirmed Civ5 will be exclusive to the PC platform and will not be ported to consoles:

Could we maybe see a Civilization V: Revolution? Will Civ V ever come to consoles?

The thing is, Civ V is a big sloppy kiss/love letter to our fan community. We want it to be for the hardcore. We want to make it as accessible as possible, but Civ Rev kind of took care of that route. It’s for the people who want the kind of Civ-lite [experience]. Civ V is for hardcore PC. We’re PC game makers for the most part, and like I said, we’ve gone into the console market for some stuff, but we’re gonna make PC games first for a long time.

He also talked about a new interesting strategic view for the first time:

One thing we didn’t even talk about in the demo is the strategy view. If you turn it on, it makes everything into a flat 2D hex grid – just like you’re playing a boardgame. Or, if you’re on a plane or something and you don’t want to worry about the high-end graphics, just turn on the grid and it’s totally playable on this 2D map. Like you’re playing Risk or something.

Other things mentioned include piracy, DRM choice, and strategy genre in general.

 

[Rupe]

This is what I have been waiting to hear. This makes up for any of the things I have been worried about like the Steam thing. They have won me over as of now and might just get me to fork out more cash for one of the special editions.

When they said no porting to consoles and its for the hardcore audience they won.

 

[Grey Fox]

The Strategy View sounds awesome, would love to see a screenshot of it.

 

[BCAgamer]

I love the idea for a strategy mode in Civ. They did that sort of thing in Galactic Civilizations and I found myself using that more than the regular view. I doubt I'll be using it that much is CiV though

 

[Sonereal]

Strategy view sorta sounds like the all-map view in Supreme Commander and I loved it then to. The globe view is fine and all but there's no button to just show my empire's territory! I'll find myself going in between the Strategy and "Tactical" views often to better coordinate those mass continental amphibious landings.

 

[Mango Elephant]

Strategy View is so cool, this is like the best thing in CivV (for me, that is).

 

[KMRblue1027]

If the strategy view is 2d it may allow people who don't have good graphics cards to play, if they play purely in that view.

 

[Zhahz]

Would be cooler if you could zoom out to the strategy view, ala galciv. In that game you can zoom to just about any level and if you zoom out far enough the map changes to the "board game" look which is nice to see the whole map (particularly on massive galaxies/maps). The units, etc get iconized and you still retain full control/gameplay.

This sounds similar just without the ease of zoom.

 

[Liquidated]

Zero chance of there being anything remotely console flavored CiVwise is reassuring; that much less brain drain on the dev team.

Can see easily see people using the 2D mode as an excuse to make ever larger maps to play on

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[DalekDavros]

Everything else that came along with Steam, though, we actually really loved. All the features that came along with Steamworks – the achievements and everything else. So if you have to do something like that, we probably made the best decision.

I'm glad to hear CivV will (I'm assuming) have achievements. The ones in CivRev weren't great for the most part (as they were all pretty unimaginative things), but the CivRev record-keeping (what leaders have you beaten at what difficulty levels, what leaders have you won at with what victory conditions and what levels, etc.) was fun.

 

[sav]

The 2D option sounds fantastic! Graphics stopped me from getting Civ4 for two years, but I might be able to get into CivV right away rather than waiting for 2012...

 

[Commissar_Yari]

I'm not actually happy with most of what I've heard about Civ V, and I am a hardcore player since the first one. I think Civ V will be ok but not as good as Civ IV.

 

[f35acepilot]

...does this mean that they may be a small chance that it will be possible to play civ V on my netbook? Awesome!

 

[Grey Fox]

As long as it will start I guess

 

[Johnny Be]

it makes everything into a flat 2D hex grid – just like you’re playing a boardgame.

Hardcore graphics!! Sweet!

Give me some clean meaningful icons instead of fluffy animations and I'm a happy strategy player!

 

[katipunero]

once again, PC wins.

 

[kounoupi]

The strategy layer is a very welcome surprise! In GalCiv it was an excellent tool, it made having a full overview of a large empire easy while maintaining the ability to play normally (assign orders to units, build queues etc). I already see myself playing most of the late game warfare zoomed out...

 

[NubianMercenary]

True though,

Us Tactical Gamers are becoming a dieing breed... Outside of South Korea that is xD.

 

[blacksmit049]

Good news for low end PC's and of course to PC gamers worldwide.

 

[S@ner]

That strategic view thing is really good especially when i am at office i can play civ V with my poor laptop