Eurogamer interview with the developers!
- Thread starter V. Soma
- Start date
You have ground units, and air units. You also have hexes and one-unit-per-tile. We've got three layers of units - civilian units can stack with military together. You can have a worker unit and a warrior unit on the same tile, but not two of either.
Well, I think that interview clarified another couple of points
- Units sharing tiles between civilian, ground military, and air military combinations are permitted, just not two of the same.
- Worker units still seem* to be in (it was suggested in another thread that workers may be replaced by city tile working automatically upgrading the tile to farm/pasture/etc.)
*although mentioning workers as an example is not conclusive evidence.
Well, I think that interview clarified another couple of points
- Units sharing tiles between civilian, ground military, and air military combinations are permitted, just not two of the same.
- Worker units still seem* to be in (it was suggested in another thread that workers may be replaced by city tile working automatically upgrading the tile to farm/pasture/etc.)
*although mentioning workers as an example is not conclusive evidence.
I cut out the - hopefully - interesting texts from the interview:
On historical realism:
"we didn't want to get too specific. Because if you do that, you're taking a specific experience and showing it to the player, instead of letting the player make their own experience."
On graphics, tiles, maps:
We've got geographic flavours, but they don't necessarily tie in to the Civ. We just wanted it to look, as you explored the globe, that these tiles might have an earthy European tone, and over here you'd see redding Asian tone with brown mountains, instead of the white-capped peaks.
On UI:
The biggest one I'd note is the focus on the interface. You spoke with Russell and Mark. Russell, in particular, worked on Civ Rev, and that gave him useful experience with pulling the UI back to the necessities. That's definitely something we want to carry into Civ V, and going onward.
Gameplay:
"In terms of gameplay, we've pulled back the focus on large bonuses and effects. We want to you finish building a wonder, which can take a long time, and when it's done, you really feel the effect. That's something that Civ Rev really embraced, and that's something we're definitely putting into Civ V."
"With Civ V, we've recognised the need to keep the complexity the same as Civ IV. Of course, you can't just keep adding things, it wouldn't be manageable for the players. ... Our goal is to keep the levels of complexity, but to ramp up the levels more easily for new players."
terrain:
"We've also got a brand new terrain system that's been built from the ground up for Civ V. It's not easy to make a system that can build a truly random map that always looks good, it's something that hexes have helped us with."
battle-system - war - range units(!):
Eurogamer: Sorry to ask a purely functional question, but there's something I'm not clear on - how do you decide what archers can see and what they can shoot?
Jon Shafer: They can shoot over things, if they're up a hill. The range is the same, but if they're in a jungle, all they can see is the jungle. But if they're on a hill and there's a forest between them and the enemy, they'll be able to shoot over it
Jon Shafer: Have you played Panzer General? It's kind of a similar situation. You have ground units, and air units. You also have hexes and one-unit-per-tile. We've got three layers of units - civilian units can stack with military together. You can have a worker unit and a warrior unit on the same tile, but not two of either.
Dennis Shirk: Units take longer to build now, they're more expensive, and they're a lot more important to you, because you need to keep them alive. You can't just spam tons and tons of units. You could before, but we wanted to make it more interesting. So you have to make more decisions, advance in technology faster, and work towards building stronger units.
"War is fun, and blowing stuff up is awesome, but Civilization is about building. War is still a part that equation, obviously, but other options make more sense now"
on different ways to win:
"We're trying to equalise as much as possible. It speaks to different people's playstyles. Some people only play it as a war game, some people only conquer. On the other extreme, you've got people who never fight at all. We need to cater to both these groups, and we need to balance those approaches."
on AI:
"We spend a lot of time on the leaders and their AIs. And they'll call you out - if you take the City States around you, they'll call you a bloodthirsty warmonger. We've spent a lot of time on the visuals, as you've seen, but we always want their actions and reactions to reflect an important aspect of the game."
"The main difference with Civ V in the AI side is now separated into different levels. That's something that's new. Previously it was a lot more situational. The previous designer also wrote the AI by himself - now, we're benefitting from a larger team."
"One thing you'll see in Civ V, leaders will occasionally target other players really early in the game, depending on their personality. You can target that with diplomacy - give a gift, and so on - but it's something that'll keep you on your toes. Some people won't like that, but if you're playing on Deity difficulty, you get what you get"
on testing of Civ5:
"We have a large test group made up from the community too, and they've been a part of the process, playing the game 24 hours a day."
on modding:
"The main thing is, in terms of the creation of maps we wanted to make that a lot easier. We have an individual that's been working on the world builder tool for a long time now, and one of the first things I said to him was to include an undo and a redo fucntion. I've made a lot of maps, and something as simple as that makes a huge difference. "
"What's really new is a complete level of polish and dedication into that map-making process."
"We're going to have a utility that packages up the mods you make, too. ... This utility puts it all into one file that you can distrubute, and unbundle with Civ at the other end."
"We're definitely not looking to replace the community, here. We're just here to provide a showcase for people who expand the game."
On historical realism:
"we didn't want to get too specific. Because if you do that, you're taking a specific experience and showing it to the player, instead of letting the player make their own experience."
On graphics, tiles, maps:
We've got geographic flavours, but they don't necessarily tie in to the Civ. We just wanted it to look, as you explored the globe, that these tiles might have an earthy European tone, and over here you'd see redding Asian tone with brown mountains, instead of the white-capped peaks.
On UI:
The biggest one I'd note is the focus on the interface. You spoke with Russell and Mark. Russell, in particular, worked on Civ Rev, and that gave him useful experience with pulling the UI back to the necessities. That's definitely something we want to carry into Civ V, and going onward.
Gameplay:
"In terms of gameplay, we've pulled back the focus on large bonuses and effects. We want to you finish building a wonder, which can take a long time, and when it's done, you really feel the effect. That's something that Civ Rev really embraced, and that's something we're definitely putting into Civ V."
"With Civ V, we've recognised the need to keep the complexity the same as Civ IV. Of course, you can't just keep adding things, it wouldn't be manageable for the players. ... Our goal is to keep the levels of complexity, but to ramp up the levels more easily for new players."
terrain:
"We've also got a brand new terrain system that's been built from the ground up for Civ V. It's not easy to make a system that can build a truly random map that always looks good, it's something that hexes have helped us with."
battle-system - war - range units(!):
Eurogamer: Sorry to ask a purely functional question, but there's something I'm not clear on - how do you decide what archers can see and what they can shoot?
Jon Shafer: They can shoot over things, if they're up a hill. The range is the same, but if they're in a jungle, all they can see is the jungle. But if they're on a hill and there's a forest between them and the enemy, they'll be able to shoot over it
Jon Shafer: Have you played Panzer General? It's kind of a similar situation. You have ground units, and air units. You also have hexes and one-unit-per-tile. We've got three layers of units - civilian units can stack with military together. You can have a worker unit and a warrior unit on the same tile, but not two of either.
Dennis Shirk: Units take longer to build now, they're more expensive, and they're a lot more important to you, because you need to keep them alive. You can't just spam tons and tons of units. You could before, but we wanted to make it more interesting. So you have to make more decisions, advance in technology faster, and work towards building stronger units.
"War is fun, and blowing stuff up is awesome, but Civilization is about building. War is still a part that equation, obviously, but other options make more sense now"
on different ways to win:
"We're trying to equalise as much as possible. It speaks to different people's playstyles. Some people only play it as a war game, some people only conquer. On the other extreme, you've got people who never fight at all. We need to cater to both these groups, and we need to balance those approaches."
on AI:
"We spend a lot of time on the leaders and their AIs. And they'll call you out - if you take the City States around you, they'll call you a bloodthirsty warmonger. We've spent a lot of time on the visuals, as you've seen, but we always want their actions and reactions to reflect an important aspect of the game."
"The main difference with Civ V in the AI side is now separated into different levels. That's something that's new. Previously it was a lot more situational. The previous designer also wrote the AI by himself - now, we're benefitting from a larger team."
"One thing you'll see in Civ V, leaders will occasionally target other players really early in the game, depending on their personality. You can target that with diplomacy - give a gift, and so on - but it's something that'll keep you on your toes. Some people won't like that, but if you're playing on Deity difficulty, you get what you get"
on testing of Civ5:
"We have a large test group made up from the community too, and they've been a part of the process, playing the game 24 hours a day."
on modding:
"The main thing is, in terms of the creation of maps we wanted to make that a lot easier. We have an individual that's been working on the world builder tool for a long time now, and one of the first things I said to him was to include an undo and a redo fucntion. I've made a lot of maps, and something as simple as that makes a huge difference. "
"What's really new is a complete level of polish and dedication into that map-making process."
"We're going to have a utility that packages up the mods you make, too. ... This utility puts it all into one file that you can distrubute, and unbundle with Civ at the other end."
"We're definitely not looking to replace the community, here. We're just here to provide a showcase for people who expand the game."
Jamesds
Great Scientist
Good reading. Also worth reading (although most of the info is what we already know) is the EuroGamer Civ V preview also posted today
Here's a quote regarding the UI:
The unit layering from the interview is something I had anticipated, glad to see that clarified.
Here's a quote regarding the UI:
That makes so much sense - more screen space for the map.
The unit layering from the interview is something I had anticipated, glad to see that clarified.
Cilpot
Pretentious Schmuck
Newcomer24
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2006
- Messages
- 139
Workers are still in! But since you can't have more than one in a single tile you won't probably be able to speed up the construction of a tile improvement... which is something I'll miss.
![Andrew Johnson [FXS]](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/s/326/326908.jpg?1589646534){kind=avatar}
