Inside Gamer - new Interview with Jon Shafer, some new info!

[kivanc]

The "zee" in the article is a phonetic spelling of "the" with a thick german accent. It has nothing to do the sea.

yes. germans pronounce "the" similar to zee, so it is not sea, just a translation mistake.

anyway, shortly, we have heard of a number 2500 but we don't know what that number means exactly.

it could mean
* the length of a map, so maybe the max map will be 2500*1500 map. i don't think this is possible.
* 2500 max hexes for a largest map. too small. if that is true, i won't buy the game.
* 2500 hexes for a std map. well, this is still a small world. even civ4 std maps were larger.

Hexagons: the number of hexagons on the map depends on map size but there could be around 2500.

"there could be around 2500" might mean a standart world size of 2500


well, there are -in fact- 2 more possibilities:
* jon doesn't want to give a hint on map size (less possibility)
* jon doesn't care about max world size and just told the first number coming to his mind so 2500 number might be fabricated randomly. (more possible) maybe jon is 1 of those guys who likes to "win" the game with 4-5 cities.

the other hints like ships bombarding from 5-6 hexes just annoyed me more. this jon really seems to confuse civ with board games. ok gameplay>realism but 5-6 hexes bombardment may only be true for nukes, not frigates.
why am i annoyed? because he just tells about this 5-6 hexes bombardment issue as if it is a super feature. this is rather a high school gamer style.

 

[Trias]

From the article author:

@ Trias

Zijn uitspraak was niet bedoeld als maximum, hij noemde dat getal, maar wees gerust: de maps worden niet minuscuul vergeleken met Civ IV. Je moet ongeveer denken aan dezelfde grootte begreep ik.

Translation:
His statement was not meant as a maximum. Hij named that number, but rest assured: the maps are not going to be tiny in comparison with Civ IV. I understood that would be about the same size.

Hope that clears things up.

 

[Danielos]

There must be some mistake. They can´t possibly mean you can load land units on any type of ship. That would be just bizarre!

On the other hand, the new ability of land units to auto-transport must be strictly regulated to techs. You wouldn´t want to see ancient units transport settlers between Europe and America. And exploring sail units (like caravels) ust still be useful...

 

[Trias]

There must be some mistake. They can´t possibly mean you can load land units on any type of ship. That would be just bizarre!

Don't know. It is less bizare that the auto-transport option. Note that this probaly would mean that each naval unit can carry 1 unit. So, it would be like the auto-transport option with the additional restriction that auto transports must always be accompanied by another naval unit.

 

[Newcomer24]

There must be some mistake. They can´t possibly mean you can load land units on any type of ship. That would be just bizarre!

Yes a little bizzarre, but still better than units mutating into transports and auto-transporting themselves.

Don't know. It is less bizare that the auto-transport option. Note that this probaly would mean that each naval unit can carry 1 unit. So, it would be like the auto-transport option with the additional restriction that auto transports must always be accompanied by another naval unit.

What he said.

 

[Chalks]

Don't know. It is less bizare that the auto-transport option. Note that this probaly would mean that each naval unit can carry 1 unit. So, it would be like the auto-transport option with the additional restriction that auto transports must always be accompanied by another naval unit.

It is possible that they are going to allow both.

Auto transport, or if you have the ships available you can load them onto a military vessel in order become a defended transport.

If they really are doing away with transport only vessels all together in favour of auto transports, the difference between allowing military ships to carry units is effectively simply allowing a transport to stack with them.

The only additional restriction is that you can only load and unload on land (so you can't have a transport ship and a battleship meet up in the ocean and become one unit) which makes sense.

This way you can transport your units across the sea with an escort without needing an extra tile for each escort since they'll carry units themselves.

I like the suggestion, certainly.

 

[Herrhals]

I think you guys are thinking about this too much!

ciV devs are not gonna make a tiny map the biggest map. I never played cIv cIIv or cIIIv, but I will venture a guess, they had some pretty big maps, just like cIV. Hopefully they'll be bigger...but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Danielos]

Don't know. It is less bizare that the auto-transport option. Note that this probaly would mean that each naval unit can carry 1 unit. So, it would be like the auto-transport option with the additional restriction that auto transports must always be accompanied by another naval unit.

Civ-hilarity reach new heights. Here comes the mighty US carrier Nimitz! What a glorious vessel. But wait, what are those dark turds cluttered all over the ship?? Ah, dont worry, it is just a battalion of Abrahams tanks that went for a ride!

 

[Chalks]

Civ-hilarity reach new heights. Here comes the mighty US carrier Nimitz! What a glorious vessel. But wait, what are those dark turds cluttered all over the ship?? Ah, dont worry, it is just a battalion of Abrahams tanks that went for a ride!

I assume that if carriers are able to have multiple air units on board, it would be a waste of the ship to use it to transport land units - not to mention that without aircraft to defend it it probably won't be able to defend the units very well anyway.

A battleship with a land unit in it is basically a battle ship escorting a transport, or a battleship with the land unit on board if feasible. Obviously units of marines for example can hitch a ride on a navy battleship to their destination. We are probably only talking about one unit at a time, so it's not like it will be overloaded.

I take your point with tanks probably being more logistically difficult to justify, but it's not the end of the world. The battleship has an unimportant transport vessel next to it (not pictured) carrying the tanks. It doesn't make the imagination explode.

 

[Newcomer24]

I never played cIv cIIv or cIIIv, but I will venture a guess, they had some pretty big maps, just like cIV. Hopefully they'll be bigger...but we'll have to wait and see.

Actually... Civ4 maps are considerably smaller than previous Civs.
Maps had to be rescaled down because 2003-2004 systems werent' able to handle the older huge maps with the added Civ4 complexity and 3d graphics.

Considering that Civ5 is going to fully use multi-core cpus this won't be a problem anymore.

Shafer has been a Civ player and modder for quite some time and he surely knows that when Civ4 came out many fans were a little pissed to find out that maps got resized down considerably.
This said... I would be surpraised (and disappointed) if Civ5 maps aren't going to be at least a little bigger than what they are in Civ4.

 

[Ahriman]

I'm a bit worried about a 5 tile bombardment range.

With such a long bombardment range, you lose all the positioning issues from 1Upt, and just to blasting away at each other with focus fire, with no particular tactical depth.
What's the point of unit positioning if you can still target any enemy unit you like?

It also makes me worry that land units like tanks and riflemen will be shooting at each other with ranged attacks, rather than actually meeting in combat (attacking units in adjacent tiles).

Which again reduces the importance of tactical placement.

 

[Danielos]

I think there should be a new tactical option "entrenchment" that would increase a unit defence and make it much less vulnerable to bombardment. The trade-off would be that it would be unable to attack while entrenched.

 

[Chalks]

I would hope that only modern ships would have such large bombardment ranges. They would need to have a significant range in order to be able to adequately protect a convoy of transports.

I don't think unit positioning really does matter all that much with sea units - it's not like you physically block the path of another boat, you do so by bombarding them and the only positioning is in relation to range of your guns. An enemy ship can attempt to sail through a blockade - the problem is that they will get bombarded to pieces as they go.

On land however, I am extremely scared about the range riflemen will have too. The issue is that the modern era has no melee troops so they are going to have to do some strange things with range to prevent the whole thing from devolving into a bombardment mess in the late game.

I think there should be a new tactical option "entrenchment" that would increase a unit defence and make it much less vulnerable to bombardment. The trade-off would be that it would be unable to attack while entrenched.

This is a nice solution for the modern era. A form of fortification that essentially prevents the bombardment skill from being used but allows adjacent tile attacks. Although still, I'm unsure if there is any value in giving all modern units the ability to bombard. I don't like it the idea.

 

[kivanc]

I'm a bit worried about a 5 tile bombardment range.

With such a long bombardment range, you lose all the positioning issues from 1Upt, and just to blasting away at each other with focus fire, with no particular tactical depth.
What's the point of unit positioning if you can still target any enemy unit you like?

It also makes me worry that land units like tanks and riflemen will be shooting at each other with ranged attacks, rather than actually meeting in combat (attacking units in adjacent tiles).

Which again reduces the importance of tactical placement.

yes that was the thing that annoyed me much as i said in post 41.
if only modern units may bombard such ranges, it may be ok. but if not; it means SM doesn't control any of this.

please sid, don't let the fantastic game turn into a board game.

 

[tom2050]

He stated though:

the number of hexagons on the map depends on map size but there could be around 2500.

This says the number of hexagons on the map. The map is the whole map, not horizontal or vertical hex counts, it's the whole thing.

Could be around: means they don't even know for sure yet, or they know and are not telling.

2500: I doubt he made a mistake of saying 'twenty five hundred' for 'twenty five thousand'. Or it could be some inside joke, but I doubt it.

So, as of now; average map sizes will be around 50x50 tiles. :suicide: (50x50 is not accurate because hexes don't work like that, just an example) Big ships can shoot 1/8the the distance of the map.

Still, the largest map could be much larger, and this could be the smallest.

 

[obscurereferenc]

ANY ship can carry units? WTH? A battleship carrying tanks? A destroyer harboring an army? Is he insane?

This was a CivRev feature. It worked pretty well actually. There's less micromanagement as you don't have to build a transport & an escort unit separately and then join them together, and it makes ships more useful, as even if you aren't fighting many naval battles ships can still be used for moving troops around.

You just need to imagine, for example, a destroyer unit representing a small fleet of ships which include transport units rather than a single destroyer.

 

[Danielos]

Well, anything must be better than the incredibly silly suicidal melee-artillery of Civ 4. Civ 3 may have had a bit overpowered bombardment, but at least the units were used in a realistic fashion.

 

[Danielos]

This was a CivRev feature. It worked pretty well actually. There's less micromanagement as you don't have to build a transport & an escort unit separately and then join them together, and it makes ships more useful, as even if you aren't fighting many naval battles ships can still be used for moving troops around.

You just need to imagine, for example, a destroyer unit representing a small fleet of ships which include transport units rather than a single destroyer.

Yes, the more I think about it the more sense it makes. But I still hope the exploring sail units arent made obsolete by units that miraculously auto-transport everywhere. I think it was fascinating that some civs was living isolated on their own continents long into the game. A too easy and fast sea exploration would ruin that...

 

[kivanc]

On land however, I am extremely scared about the range riflemen will have too. The issue is that the modern era has no melee troops so they are going to have to do some strange things with range to prevent the whole thing from devolving into a bombardment mess in the late game.

ranged rifleman? i hope not that much.
each new game may have a new lead designer, ok, but each series game has some traditional mentalities. so some core elements of the game should not be changed.

if ranged rifleman comes, battles would suck.

 

[Newcomer24]

2500: I doubt he made a mistake of saying 'twenty five hundred' for 'twenty five thousand'. Or it could be some inside joke, but I doubt it.

What about a typo on the article author side?

Yes, the more I think about it the more sense it makes. But I still hope the exploring sail units arent made obsolete by units that miraculously auto-transport everywhere. I think it was fascinating that some civs was living isolated on their own continents long into the game. A too easy and fast sea exploration would ruin that...

I'm sure that will just work as it used to. You won't be able to adventure deep in the ocean before the modern era.