Civ III: Conquest interview
In the search for information on the next Civilization instalment, we have acquired an exclusive interview with Firaxis.
Rene Bergfort (Kleeze)
Saturday, July 5th, 2003 Just prior to this years E3, Firaxis announced the development of a new expansion for Civilization III, named Conquests. Since then information has been scarce, so we got hold of a member of the team who helped clarify a few things.
The man being the victim of our range of questions was Jesse Smith, Assistant Producer at Firaxis. Jesse Smith has been in the industry since 1997, and before joining Firaxis, he has amongst other places worked at Activision.
But enough about the man, lets get to the game.
Civilizations and multiplayer
When Conquests was announced, we were informed that eight new civilizations would find their way into the expansion. Only two were revealed, the Sumerians and the Mayans what about the remaining six?
- We have actually made some adjustments to the features for Civ III: Conquests. We decided to keep the new Civilizations at eight (total of 31 civilizations). Two other new civilizations that we have added for Civilization III: Conquests are the Incans and the Hittites. Both of these are integral members of the Conquests that include the Sumerians and the Mayans. The Hittites use a powerful chariot unit and the Incans have a really fast Scout, Jesse Smith explains.
When Jesse Smith talks about Conquests, hes referring to an advanced form of scenarios we will get back to those later. First we will focus on multiplayer. In the spring of 2002, Firaxis released Civ III: Play the World in the US. To be fair, it was a troubled expansion. Therefore it took over half a year before it finally reached Europe, now as a much more pleasant expansion, which enhanced the multiplayer experience in many ways.
Upon announcing Conquests, Firaxis talked about further enhancing multiplayer, and of course we just had to ask how they plan to achieve this:
- We are continuing to work on developing enhancements for multiplayer. The latest version of the PTW multiplayer has shown a wonderful resilience for strong connectivity and speed, so we have been able to focus more attention on the playability of multiplayer. Many people do not have the 10+ hours it can take to play a game of multiplayer Civ. On top of the various Civilization modes added with PTW, we are working on seeing if there are other interesting and exciting ways we can give players a quick civmatch style game (1 to 4 hours). The goal is to give players as many options as we can, so they can play multiplayer based on the time they have available to play at that moment, Jesse Smith explains.
So, focus is on providing us with a faster game. A choice that makes sense, as the length of a single game probably has kept potential users away. After having played multiplayer in PTW now that Firaxis have dealt with many of the issues of PTW, I must say that I am excited to see what they have to offer this time.
Conquests - what conquests?
Its time to finally figure out what the title of this expansion covers. Eight Conquests should be available in this instalment, but what exactly is a Conquest:
- We decided to add 1 more Conquest (total of 9). Our team has created new features, gameplay elements and graphics that make these scenarios unique and offer provocative gameplay in various eras and interesting time periods throughout history. Each scenario has a unique tech tree with wonders, improvements and units specific to the scenario.
The tech trees are designed around having the player make a deliberate decision about which research path they want to take and then challenging them to deal with the compelling situations that arise with each choice. All resources are carefully placed to necessitate quick diplomacy, trade, culture, and battle decisions. Every tile has been analysed to make sure that what we placed there would add to the gameplay experience and create a fun and compelling adventure.
New gameplay elements have been added that require players to alter tactics and playing styles, delivering exciting new ways to play Civ.
Conquests are advanced scenarios offering new units, technologies, and more interestingly: They give you the chance to play it your way through certain periods in history.
Volcanoes, diplomacy, and the future
As a new element in Civ III: Conquests you can experience disasters such as volcanoes erupting. We were curious how much damage such incidents can inflict on a civilization:
- Volcanoes will only destroy units and cities in their immediate vicinity. We are currently exploring certain bonuses to make the risk more enticing, but only in extremely rare instances will the damage caused by an eruption be irreparable, says Jesse Smith.
So the main rule is that we survive. But can you prevent such disasters, by i.e. clean up your mess and in other ways take care of the environment:
- With volcanoes it is more about early warning detection systems than about complete prevention.
So far we only have knowledge of volcanoes as one of the disasters, and our attempts to get any more information in this regard were futile.
Diplomacy has naturally always played a central role in Civilization. Its already certain that new elements will be implemented in Civ III: Conquests:
- In Civ III: Conquests it is vital to be a good diplomat to be able to successfully Conquest. Unfortunately, we are not yet ready to go into too many specifics on the improvements and additions for Diplomacy other than the announced Locked Alliances.
Locked Alliances are a great tool for setting teams in a scenario. This has allowed us to have Axis & Allies style combat and to create some interesting multiplayer setups. We think players will find this new option adds quite a bit to the games setup, Jesse Smith states.
Lets take a look at the future. This is the second expansion for Civilization III how many will we see? And should we expect a Civ IV:
- Good question. I guess well wait and see what Atari has planned for the series, Jesse Smith smiles, and acrobatically avoids commenting on the issue and then goes on to a vague statement on the possibility of spin-offs such as the Master of Orion-series and the Master of Magic game:
- Right now were focused on other projects, but anythings possible in the future.
Civilization III: Conquests is due this fall.
