GamePro Civ5 Article

[Thunderfall]

Last Friday GamePro published a lengthy and interesting article about Civilization 5. In addition to going over some of the new Civ5 features and changes, such as Panzer General style combat and city states, the article contains lots of background info on Jon Shafer, the lead designer for Civ5. You will read about Jon's inspiration for the combat system changes, Sid Meier's design philosophy, reasons for leader selection, and much more. Below is an excerpt about the two movement change for regular units:

"We have a warrior up front; it's the first military unit in the game, so it's quite weak. Fortunately, we have a spearman. There are no more stacks in the game, so we can't stack, but what we can do is take our spearman and bring him up front to make our front lines stronger," Shafer says as he maneuvers his infantry across the front lines. But because basic military units now move two tiles in combat instead of one, the spearman who just entered the fray can attack, removing one of Washington's threatening warriors from the map. "If units could only move one unit per turn, then it's much harder to move guys around," Shafer says. "More like checkers than chess," Shirk interjects.

"That change was made for a couple of reasons," Shafer says. "The big reason is because you have one unit per tile, you want more opportunity to maneuver, more flexibility in your units...to flank, to pursue routed forces of the enemy. We wanted you to be able to do a little bit more."

 

[Liquidated]

What a wonderful writeup. Definitely worth the full read though not for hard CiV info... more like a peak into the soul of Firaxis Studios.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Naokaukodem]

They should concentrate on Civ5 and Network gameplay rather than throwing each others flowers in public.

 

[LegioCorvus]

What a fascinating article. It really does give you an interesting look into how Firaxis works.

I also had little interest in CivNetwork before, but now I might legitimately give it a try.

 

[taylor_cu]

They should concentrate on Civ5 and Network gameplay rather than throwing each others flowers in public.

i agree

 

[nzk13]

Below is an exerpt about the two movement change for regular units

Just wanted to point out, it should be spelt excerpt, not exerpt.

 

[GoodGame]

Sounds like it could get to be a little miniatures fun if the attack and defense values of a unit were influenced by the presence of friends and foes on adjacent tiles. I'm not to sure about having something like that on a strategic scale map though.

 

[Le Sage]

Nice interesting article, but it didn't give anything real new about the game. But it was nice to see that life at Firaxis is so sunshine flowery, and so full of love and respect, just like in the Garden of Eden, in fact.

 

[snapple232]

This isn't a new article. It was published in the Gamepro magazine shortly after Civ 5 was announced.

 

[King Flevance]

Not alot in there about the game mechanics themselves even despite the talk of witnessing a demo. Most of the information is vague and could be received in many different ways. Sounds like alot of pre-release mumbo jumbo to feed the masses that actually states nothing.

 

[Thunderfall]

Just wanted to point out, it should be spelt excerpt, not exerpt.

Thanks. Fixed.

 

[taylor_cu]

Not alot in there about the game mechanics themselves even despite the talk of witnessing a demo. Most of the information is vague and could be received in many different ways. Sounds like alot of pre-release mumbo jumbo to feed the masses that actually states nothing.

 

[jahg84]

Not a lot of detailed information, true. But it does give you the intent and what the designers are aiming for. And one gets to walk away with a warm fuzzy feeling about the love at firaxis.

 

[bwcbwc]

As someone who was really paranoid about the "no stacking" and removal of religion as a factor, it's good to know that the overall game design sounds like it will be playable after all. No real new info about the mechanics, but I've gotten over the "it's different, it must be bad" phase enough to see how it could all fit together.

 

[Dida]

Only 1 unit per tile, and only 2 moves for a basic unit. This sounds horrible.

 

[King Flevance]

When trying to sell a product, spin everything towards a positive light if it must be addressed at all. When purchasing a product try to find the artificial light or the faults so that you can weigh them. So far this all seems too vague to be able to tell anything from it. And that also is one of the best weapons in a salesman's arsenal. I see marketing all over this article. I see a two page long "Buy our game" article.

 

[maqabee]

The Shafer article was interesting and not surprisingly flavored with some good ole PR. No problem with that here, it is a business afterall. Certainly looking forward to playing away on CIV5 with new design ideas etc. I am very glad they kept this a turn based game; as there are not many left out there these days. The relaxation and thought via turn based gaming (for us older folks) is a pleasure vs. the stress of real time immediacy.