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

[tom2050]

What about a typo on the article author side?

That is like saying perhaps every interview saying they are using hexes is also a typo.

Or perhaps:
1 unit per tile is a typo
No religion is a typo
No unit stacking is a typo
Ranged units bombarding 2+ tiles is a typo

No need to pick and choose what is true and what's not. Jon said it, that is a source of a fact at this point in time.

If they made that typo, and no one caught it, then they are incompetent to do interviews. Saying it could be a typo because you don't believe it, doesn't change the fact that the big guy said it was so.

Small average maps are the case. I was jumped and bombarded for predicting so without a source. Now it is known that it will be the average size.

The largest maps could be 50000 tiles for all we know, so I wouldn't bet that larger maps are out of the picture. My prediction was Civ 4 average-sized maps, so we will have to wait and see.

 

[Ahriman]

I have no realism problem with land units boarding naval units rather than being separate transports (just imagine them having separate transports with them). But I did kinda like the separate transport idea as a way of having to protect your transports.

And it also leads to weird incentives.
With separate transports, for an invasion you send in your navy first to destroy/fight off the enemy navy, then bring in your land units to unload.

With land units transported on naval military units, you have just the opposite incentive; you want to bring your naval units in and *avoid* combat, so that they can unload unmolested.
Military naval units in an invasion should be attacking like military units, not like transport units.

I don't think unit positioning really does matter all that much with sea units -

I absolutely think it does. Light fast ships very often have a recon and screening role, particularly for while protecting transports from submarines, or carriers.

On land however, I am extremely scared about the range riflemen will have too.

I would prefer to have modern riflemen fight like melee units, and tolerate the weirdness of archers bombarding but rifles not. Thats how pretty much every wargame functions; non-artillery units fight by being in the same tile. And then artillery units have a bombardment attack.

I don't think the "entrenchment" option gets around the issue.

 

[cephalo]

Yeah, 50x50 seems very small. They went with very small maps for Civ4:Colonization as well, and everyone appreciated that FaireWeather made much larger maps, and by chance it didn't affect the gameplay that much. However, if Civ5 is designed to play on a small map, simply making a bigger map might have extremely negative consequences for the gameplay.

I do hope this is bad info.

 

[tom2050]

I absolutely think it does. Light fast ships very often have a recon and screening role, particularly for while protecting transports from submarines, or carriers.

I pray that they get Carriers correct this time, for the first time in franchise history. Carriers should obsolete the battleship. If Battleships still plow around and Carriers are still made practically useless, that will be bad.

I hope they use their imagination and do something about it. 1UPT should help make Carriers more powerful with a full arsenal of planes at their disposal. Of course, it depends on if a Carrier can only carry 1 plane (which I doubt, unless bombers are considered different from fighters, in which it allows 2).

 

[Chalks]

I absolutely think it does. Light fast ships very often have a recon and screening role, particularly for while protecting transports from submarines, or carriers.

Sorry, you're going to need to explain what you mean by screening here - my knowledge of naval warfare is limited. But surely the role of reconnaissance is going to be enhanced by an increased LoS and range rather than this causing problems?

I would prefer to have modern riflemen fight like melee units, and tolerate the weirdness of archers bombarding but rifles not..

We can only hope. It is pretty weird to have archers with a longer range than riflemen, but I think the alternative is significantly worse. It would perhaps open up the ability to have sniper units as a modern era light ranged unit.

 

[Grimlin]

I pray that they get Carriers correct this time, for the first time in franchise history. Carriers should obsolete the battleship. If Battleships still plow around and Carriers are still made practically useless, that will be bad.

I always use carriers for force projection and beachhead support. Actually carriers are not that hard to do, its a ship that carries planes... I ask myself however whether or not airplanes (or rockets) can finally kill something.
After all, those guided missile cruisers do not carry guided missiles to scratch the enemies hull and close in afterwards to kill him off with their anti-missile-gattling

 

[Newcomer24]

That is like saying perhaps every interview saying they are using hexes is also a typo.

Or perhaps:
1 unit per tile is a typo
No religion is a typo
No unit stacking is a typo
Ranged units bombarding 2+ tiles is a typo

No need to pick and choose what is true and what's not. Jon said it, that is a source of a fact at this point in time.

I do not agree... if you type 25000 you can miss a 0 and write 2500.
It's a different matter than those expamples you made, completely different.

I'm not saying it's surely a typo... I'm saying it could be.
For sure the biggest Civ5 map isn't going to be 2500 tiles as that would make the whole game pointless, so it's eaither a typo, a joke, or Jon wasn't reffering to the biggest sized map.

 

[Tatran]

What a waste of time to travel all the way down to Baltimore to hear/see this kind of crap.

Dat een aspect als multiplayer daarbij niet echt aan bod kwam, dat neemt Shafer voor lief en komt ongetwijfeld op een later tijdstip aan bod. Ondergetekende streept tijdens het relaas van Shafer subtiel een onderwerp weg waarover hij iets wilde vragen.

Shafer didn't want to talk about multiplayer, maybe it was the subject the interviewer had to scratch from his paper with questions.

From all the previews so far I had the impression the interviewers were holding back info, but the developers simply didn't want to give/show more info.

Goed om te weten dat je jezelf ook geen zorgen hoeft te maken over een wissewasje als nauwkeurigheid bij ranged units: hoe ver ze ook schieten, het zal altijd raak zijn. Niks geen geluksfactor!

So, range units will 100% hit their targets. No more randomness.

All those magazines/interviewers are nothing more than ''schoothondljes'' of Firaxis.

 

[jfuesting]

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.

I would imagine the idea is with such a long bombardment range, you need a navy of your own to counter properly.

 

[tom2050]

I do not agree... if you type 25000 you can miss a 0 and write 2500.
It's a different matter than those expamples you made, completely different.

I'm not saying it's surely a typo... I'm saying it could be.
For sure the biggest Civ5 map isn't going to be 2500 tiles as that would make the whole game pointless, so it's eaither a typo, a joke, or Jon wasn't reffering to the biggest sized map.

Agreeing is irrelevant.

Same thing; I'm not saying that 1UPT is a typo, it could be. I'm not saying that No Religion is a typo, it could be. I would become paranoid and delusional thinking like that.

Chances are it is not. Is the interview company that incompetent for a game of this magnitude, probably not. No one noticed the typo? doubtful... they are incapable of correcting the type? doubtful... they don't feel like correcting a possible typo? doubtful.

If someone thinks it's a typo, it's probably because they want big maps; I'm with you on this one, this is BAD NEWS; nothing to cheer up my day, but big-guy Jon said it, so unless they correct it, it is a valid and true source.

He said it as the average map size (or around that size, or w/e the words were), not the largest.


NOW
What if it was a typo? And they added a zero onto that by accident. And the average map size is actually 250 hexagons? It could be this way as well. They could have got all the numbers wrong, Jon could have said 4323 for all we know

 

[Chalks]

Agreeing is irrelevant.

Same thing; I'm not saying that 1UPT is a typo, it could be. I'm not saying that No Religion is a typo, it could be. I would become paranoid and delusional thinking like that.

Chances are it is not. Is the interview company that incompetent for a game of this magnitude, probably not. No one noticed the typo? doubtful... they are incapable of correcting the type? doubtful... they don't feel like correcting a possible typo? doubtful.

If someone thinks it's a typo, it's probably because they want big maps; I'm with you on this one, this is BAD NEWS; nothing to cheer up my day, but big-guy Jon said it, so unless they correct it, it is a valid and true source.

He said it as the average map size (or around that size, or w/e the words were), not the largest.

Occams razor.

We are faced with two possibilities:

1) Civilization 5 will feature a maximum map size that is half the size of the standard Civ 4 map.
2) Someone missed out a 0 when typing up the interview.

You must select the second option as the explanation.

You are trolling this thread.

 

[tom2050]

Occams razor.

We are faced with two possibilities:

1) Civilization 5 will feature a maximum map size that is half the size of the standard Civ 4 map.
2) Someone missed out a 0 when typing up the interview.

You must select the second option as the explanation.

You are trolling this thread.

Well, report me and see if I get an infraction for explaining the fact that making things up doesn't mean that the imaginary things are true.

If you think Jon is not telling the truth, that is one thing. If you make-believe up fairy tales to come up with a number that you feel is correct, you are Alice in Wonderland.

Report my post, or don't call me a troll.

Here are the real-world possibilites:
1) 'What Jon said is true, unless something else shows it be wrong option'.

You are trolling me, so leave.

 

[axi]

Why does long range for naval units surprise you? Modern frigates carry cruise missiles that can bombard targets over 500km away. During the Gulf war, the US fleet bombarded Baghdad with such missiles. As for older eras, naval guns almost always outranged all but the heaviest land based artillery. Missile artillery and SAM units should have comparable ranges as well.

 

[Chalks]

Well, report me and see if I get an infraction for explaining the fact that making things up doesn't mean that the imaginary things are true.

If you think Jon is not telling the truth, that is one thing. If you make-believe up fairy tales to come up with a number that you feel is correct, you are Alice in Wonderland.

Report my post, or don't call me a troll. You must select option 'What Jon Said, unless something else shows it be wrong option'.

You are trolling me, so leave.

Your transparent baiting is tiresome. You are intentionally selecting the least likely scenario and advocating it as if it is the most likely. It is childish, and like a drama queen you are now daring me to waste moderator time on your little game.

The "I know you are but what am I" come back on the last line is just icing on the cake that is my point. Stop wasting our time.

 

[zehcoutinho]

I think he mentioned about a game being 2500 hexes across or something like that.

Doesn't 2500 hexes across mesn that the map is 2500 hexes wide? I don't really know, but widescreens are what? 16:9? If so, i think the total number of hexes would be [2500*~1406] = 3.515.000 [three million fivehundred and fifteen thousand] hexes.

Does it make any sense? I'm not really good with math.

 

[Trias]

He said it as the average map size (or around that size, or w/e the words were), not the largest.

That is not what he said. As I posted above, the author of the article has confirmed that this was just a random number spewed out by Jon. Average map sizes will be comparable to civ IV.

THAT is the info we have.

 

[tom2050]

Your transparent baiting is tiresome. You are intentionally selecting the least likely scenario and advocating it as if it is the most likely. It is childish, and like a drama queen you are now daring me to waste moderator time on your little game.

Quit stalking me Chalks. Apparently you have nothing to add here, except for your continuous non-sense of a half-hearted attempt at harassment.

Have you reported my post? You said it was trolling. I doubt you have done so, because I have done no trolling.

You are selecting the least likely scenario.

2) Someone missed out a 0 when typing up the interview.

If they fix it, or another interview trumps that one, as I said.. that is great. I hope so.

Until then, average map size, as Jon said, is 2500 hexes. I think we can believe the top guy of Civ 5. But from what Trias said, your scenario was just as wrong as me believing the guys word. He threw out a random number.

The "I know you are but what am I" come back on the last line is just icing on the cake that is my point. Stop wasting our time.

No one here has said anything of that sort except for you here in this quote. You are like a strange stalker... I wish you would do so in real life.

That is not what he said. As I posted above, the author of the article has confirmed that this was just a random number spewed out by Jon. Average map sizes will be comparable to civ IV.

THAT is the info we have.

Sure hope so; unless the author of the article was just joking around too.

 

[Ahriman]

Sorry, you're going to need to explain what you mean by screening here - my knowledge of naval warfare is limited. But surely the role of reconnaissance is going to be enhanced by an increased LoS and range rather than this causing problems?

Screening; basically acting as a barrier between the enemy and the target. Particularly important in anti-submarine warfare, and anti-air unit warfare.

Basically, you want to detect and intercept a threat with your units designed to counter it (eg destroyers counter subs, aegis cruisers counter cruise missiles) before the threat closes in to attack a weak/vulnerable/valuable target (a transport convoy, or a carrier).

This typically means IRL that the vulnerable targets are in the center of a battle group or convoy group, and the screening units are deployed on the edges so as to be able to detect and intercept.

In terms of recon, in an age of sail fast light frigates might be used to search around and locate an enemy fleet, so that you can then bring in your heavy ships of the line to engage them.

Line of Sight doesn't really replicate this very well, particularly vs invisible units like subs. Its boring if my destroyer can just "see" subs multiple tiles away, I'd prefer to have to actually intelligently use it to try to find the sub.

I would imagine the idea is with such a long bombardment range, you need a navy of your own to counter properly.

But how do you counter bombardment? You can't shoot down shells (at least, not with ww2 era technology). Yes, you can have your own navy bombard them.... but then you're just blasting away at each other and able to focus fire, and positioning is irrelevant, so you may as well have had stacks rather than 1Upt.

Same thing; I'm not saying that 1UPT is a typo, it could be. I'm not saying that No Religion is a typo, it could be.

You don't see a difference between a design concept benig explained and a single number?

I would become paranoid and delusional thinking like that.

*Would* become?

More importantly, guys look at post 42.

 

[Charles Martel]

Tom2050, the two cases are not comparable.

The one-unit-per-hex has been confirmed by several independent sources, so it's extremely unlikely that it's the result of a "typo" or some misleadingly reported news.

By contrast, the "2500" figure has come up only within this particular interview so far, and it's perfectly reasonable to believe that it might be the result of a typo. The putative typo itself can be easily explained as the omission of a zero. Of course, such an explanation may turn out wrong, but it should not be ruled out at this stage.

 

[Trias]

By contrast, the "2500" figure has come up only within this particular interview so far, and it's perfectly reasonable to believe that it might be the result of a typo. The putative typo itself can be easily explained as the omission of a zero. Of course, such an explanation may turn out wrong, but it should not be ruled out at this stage.

It is not a typo. See post 42.

It is just a random number named by Jon in response to an ad hoc question ridiculing Germans.