Interview with Firaxis' Dennis Shirk!

[seasnake]

Strange, all I got out of the podcast was

1) Things were intentionally simplified
2) A recognition that more complexity and better balance would be added through patches, DLC, and expansions.
3) Some "Did you know" moments, like the thing with Monty.

Written it many times, simple =/= dumbed down. You can have simple concept and make it highly appealing. Best example is GO, laying black and white stones on a grid. Mechanics are extremely simple, the game is highly cerebral.

I don't think the game has been dumbed down at all. I feel the AI is inadequate and unable to deal with everything, so the game feels dumber.

Face it, it takes a smarter AI to manage a battle line and diverse troop formations than to pile 50 troops onto one tile and point it at a city. AI in the former has to mange several decisions and move his troops quickly and effectively as a whole line, and make use of the terrain.

It takes a smarter AI to meaningful diplomacy decisions than merely adding up the mods, comparing it to it's scripted personality and computing "I like this person +18, I don't like him -5, I don't declare war if I'm over 10 like, therefore I will not fight this person, I'll just quietly build colosseums as he prepares a death army on my doorstep."

It takes a much smarter AI to say plan to achieve a space race victory, decide it wants rationalism, and then choose to avoid Piety right now than for an AI to think "I'm at war, I need more troops, two turns of anarchy to get a fascist government!"

If the AI WERE capable of making these kind of intelligent plans than I don't think anyone would complain the game has been dumbed down. But by focusing on more meaningful long-term decisions and strategies it really puts the onus on the AI to make these decisions properly.

 

[afa2000]

The whole time i listen to that guy,the question "why?" keeps coming to mind.Why you want the game to be streamlined and appeal to casual gamers?If its for the money,then the past Civilizations were not profitable?

Welcome to the postmodern world. More is always better, no matter the consequences, no matter the risk.

I do not think so, before digital download boom the numbers of sales were more accurate traceable ,so the Civ 3 and 4 sold maybe 2m and 3m.Then they come with Civ:Rev that sell 300k and they decide that this model is better?! I still think that Civ IV was the most commercial successful TBS game so far and this change is really strange to me.

I suppose they think Civ Rev 2 would sell even more than Civ IV if it were just called Civ V. In other words, all they had to do was try to fool the veterans, who would buy the game no matter what they have done, and at same time please newcomers.

So, that's why we shouldn't stop complaining, regardless of their small bribes .

 

[Thormodr]

Welcome to the postmodern world. More is always better, no matter the consequences, no matter the risk.



I suppose they think Civ Rev 2 would sell even more than Civ IV if it was just called Civ V. In other words, all they had to do was try to fool the veterans, who would buy the game no matter what they have done, and at same time please newcomers.

So, that's why we shouldn't stop complaining, regardless of their small bribes .

Indeed. If we grow silent then they will take that as acceptance in my opinion.

Civ VI will then be more of the same.

People simply shouldn't settle for an inferior product.

 

[da_Vinci]

Why didnt they just say we are coming out with "civ rev 2" in sept 2010 and the full expansions and the game as many civers know it will be out in Aug 2011. I would have waited instead of buying this piece of garbage where you have gold coming out of your ears, childish ai, 100 turn golden ages and basically no thought provoking decisions.

I was perfectly content playing civ iv and I thought I was going to get civ 5!

Own question answered.

What really pisses me off is the dishonesty of this. If they said they were going to dumb it down very few would have bought it.

Instead they chose to hide it, particularly the delayed demo.

An interesting view on the demo delay ... did beta test issue list outrun fix time before release, making release day demo necessary to prevent pre-order cancellations?

Either that, or demo was as bad as game, and unreleasable before release date.

Finally, it's not Thormondr, it's Thormodr.

Hmm ... Thormodr => Thormondr => next from your critics will be Thormonster

... for me that fact that Shirk distances himself from Shafer at all, at this point, was the most surprising.

Headline: Shirk shirks Shafer!

(Now say that three times really fast ... )

I think Firaxis really lacks organization. Something is seriously wrong with that company. It's certainly not his fault that 2K Games forced them to release the game early either.

2K has said to me that they have "rigorous QA" and "very large and long beta testing". Seems to me that what is large and long is the confirmed bug list here, so they need to re-evaluate those processes (something is seriously wrong).

Thormodr, a completely unrelated question, do you ever sleep? You seem to be posting 24h a day. I have come to wonder whether you are acutally a human being.

Thormodr is a conjoined twin and they rotate sleeping and posting.

(Or worse, Thormodr and eviltypeguy are conjoined twins! )

But there are soo many things that you can do to keep the complexity for those that want it, and "streamline" it for those that don't or need to practice and learn the system. Take a simple example of city resource management. Having emphais buttons to tell your citizens what to work on is great. At the same time, on the same screen, you have a hex map of the city and you can click on the hexes you want worked. The complexity is still there, but is still accessible. Firaxis should have applied this mode of thought to Civ V.

You are being sarcastic, I assume?

dV

 

[eviltypeguy]

Indeed. If we grow silent then they will take that as acceptance in my opinion.

There's that royal we again...

Civ VI will then be more of the same.

People simply shouldn't settle for an inferior product.

Thankfully, no one has to do that since an inferior one has not been delivered yet.

 

[Dun Malg]

Americans who are democratic would be hard pressed to suddenly switch to Communism

This bothers me quite a bit. Would Russians who are monarchists be hard pressed to switch to communism? Sure.... but historically they did, and it was a pretty quick change too. A bloody and ruinously painful change, but quick. This ought to have been implemented as an expensive change (perhaps in terms of turns of anarchy)--- forcing it to be gradual is unnecessarily limiting. If you have earned and selected 8 social policies, you ought to be able to "undo" them and select others in their place. The more policies you change and the more "opposed" a policy you change them to (e.g. dumping 2 piety SP's for 2 rationalism ones) the more expensive it should be (longer anarchy) but it should be allowable.

Like many other aspects of Civ V, it feels like the basic notion was sketched out, but the demands of RELEASE DATE left no time to play test and examine any variation on the original crude concept. Or maybe some hard-ass managing the production was insistent on a policy of "simplify for the console crowd". Who knows? Whichever it is, the result is disappointing.

 

[Stefanskantine]

This bothers me quite a bit. Would Russians who are monarchists be hard pressed to switch to communism? Sure.... but historically they did, and it was a pretty quick change too.

I think your example proves the case against you.

Tsarist Russia = Monarchy

Soviet Union = Attempted Communism, but ultimately resulted in a country run by a personality cult of strongmen and their lackeys kept in line by corruption and patronage (almost a feudal system). Basically a case of Communism "overlaying" already established principles of feudalism and monarchy ingrained in the culture.

Russian Federation = Nominally a democracy, but the strongmen and oligarchs persist in their neo-monarchic system.

Two "revolutions" later, and the monarchic traits persist

 

[JLoZeppeli]

I think your example proves the case against you.

Tsarist Russia = Monarchy

Soviet Union = Attempted Communism, but ultimately resulted in a country run by a personality cult of strongmen and their lackeys kept in line by corruption and patronage (almost a feudal system). Basically a case of Communism "overlaying" already established principles of feudalism and monarchy ingrained in the culture.

Russian Federation = Nominally a democracy, but the strongmen and oligarchs persist in their neo-monarchic system.

Two "revolutions" later, and the monarchic traits persist

????????????

Excuse me, can you prove it with pubblications, editorials or something with scientific value????

Tell me, i like books a lot, and as an ancient historian (well, archeologist) i'm waiting for your sources...

 

[Zechnophobe]

There's that royal we again...

"We" it refers to a group of people that includes ones self. If I was relating the story of my date last night with one Miss Sophia Jenkins, and said "We had a great time" would you get up in arms because last night you had not such a great time since you had to go to the dentist and get a molar forcibly removed?

 

[Zechnophobe]

Written it many times, simple =/= dumbed down. You can have simple concept and make it highly appealing. Best example is GO, laying black and white stones on a grid. Mechanics are extremely simple, the game is highly cerebral.

Simple = less choices to make. Are there few choices to make in GO or a lot? In fact, there are an extremely large number of them. For instance, Chess could be construed as a 'dumbed down' go. It is a much easier game since it is considerably easier to consider all future game states.

I don't think the game has been dumbed down at all. I feel the AI is inadequate and unable to deal with everything, so the game feels dumber.

There are less decisions, and the decisions have less magnitude.

Face it, it takes a smarter AI to manage a battle line and diverse troop formations than to pile 50 troops onto one tile and point it at a city. AI in the former has to mange several decisions and move his troops quickly and effectively as a whole line, and make use of the terrain.

This is true, I don't think we are denying this. In fact, comments on the simplicity of the game aren't really talking about the combat mechanics. Few here would say that combat is simpler than in 4. It's everything else we have problems with.

It takes a smarter AI to meaningful diplomacy decisions than merely adding up the mods, comparing it to it's scripted personality and computing "I like this person +18, I don't like him -5, I don't declare war if I'm over 10 like, therefore I will not fight this person, I'll just quietly build colosseums as he prepares a death army on my doorstep."

Oh *really*? And what exactly do you think they do instead? The very basics of AI programming are:

1) Dictating possible actions to be taken
2) Weighing the likelihood of those actions
3) Determining scenarios that change the weightings.

Whether or not we see a "+10" modifier from a ruler or not, I can just about guarantee the system is still working the same.

It takes a much smarter AI to say plan to achieve a space race victory, decide it wants rationalism, and then choose to avoid Piety right now than for an AI to think "I'm at war, I need more troops, two turns of anarchy to get a fascist government!"

So you are saying it takes more work on the part of the AI in civ 5 to get a space race victory, than it does for the AI in civ 4 to get a conquest victory? That's such a bizarre comparison. It really isn't that hard to get an AI to go after space race, and they don't even need to be doing it from the get go. I mean, unless the AI should be playing for space race from the classic era, and not choose as opportunity allows...

If the AI WERE capable of making these kind of intelligent plans than I don't think anyone would complain the game has been dumbed down. But by focusing on more meaningful long-term decisions and strategies it really puts the onus on the AI to make these decisions properly.

Once again, problems with AI have nothing to do with dumbed down game play. I'm not sure why you keep saying this. If the AI plays better, it won't suddenly make the choice of what buildings to build any more interesting.

 

[da_Vinci]

Here is my take on the message of the interview:

Civ V is entry level PC Civ for Civ Rev fans, and newcomers

Shirk talks about making Civ 5 more accessable. Then refers in that context to simplifying the UI. But I am not sure that the accessability issue for Civ IV was the UI. It might have been the level of skill needed to play it well.

And since early frustration must be avoided for newcomers, what may have happened is to make smaller differences between certain choices (genericizing some things). Wonders are less wonderful and more generic ... so getting, or not getting a particular one is not game breaking. Tile improvements make smaller marginal improvements to tile yields. City specialization is less "special". (Someone said that all cities in Civ IV were the same, clearly never learned city specialization). Micromanagment reduced to nanomanagement. Maybe this is so newcomers are not so penalized for mistakes in these areas? Being optimal isn't much better than being suboptimal? Which gives us sentiments like "winning accidentally" or "winning regardless of what I decide."

These smaller differences make the gameplay seem less flexible. Now it is steering a barge, not tacking a sleek America's Cup racer. Rudder only steers +/- 10 degrees, instead of +/- 90 degrees. Which is more exciting to sail? If it were barges, then America's Cup would race barges.

Then, Shirk says also by design, we get a few choices making huge differences. The city count impact on policy costs being the archetype. So you can't change from a massive settling expansion to a culture victory very easily. The constraint of these decisions removes flexibility. Now the initial inertia vector can't be altered very easily. We are told this is what Jon wanted.

Ironic that the huge impact of some decisions, and the minimal impact of others can both conspire to limit options and flexibility.

The other clear message is that Civ 5 may be the "successor (comes after)" to Civ IV, but it is not the "progressor (builds upon)" to Civ IV. This too, is by design Shirk says.

We have watched CivSid grow up through grade school (I), middle school (II), high school (III, puberty is always a bit rough), and College (IV, BTS is the bachelors degree). So many were expecting Civ V to be "CivSid goes to grad school."

But what we get, instead, is "CivSid's little brother, CivJon, goes to grade school". We are back to square one with the "foundation" of something different ... a sibling of CivSid. Looks like we have to nurture CivJon through the same evolutionary process and hope he grows up into something as good as CivSid, BA. And we probably never get CivSid MS or CivSid PhD. The disapointment is understandable.

A different analogy, if the above doesn't resonate, is we have been upgrading our purchase of sedans from Chevy, to Buick, to Cadillac, and finally to Lexus. Now, we are ready for our Bentley. But the automotive gods deliver us a Chevy Blazer.

"You didn't want a better sedan, did you?"
"You wanted something different, right?"
"Don't worry, in four more tradeups, you can have a Range Rover."

Now if you think CivJon is cute, if you think a Blazer is cool, then you are ok with this.
If you wanted to hire CivSid MS, or wanted to drive a Bentley, then you are upset.

In either case, CivJon needs his hiccups, seizures and dyslexia treated, and the Blazer needs spark plugs and lug nuts.

That's my take.

dV

 

[Sox]

Soren Johnsen personally wrote the entire AI for civ 3 and 4 <snip> I wouldn't want to see him back on the design team for civ 6 with those "credentials".

Ah this made me laugh! I just read some post-release interview with Jon saying something along the line of
"the AI (in Civ 4) was programmed by one person, now we have an entire team"

Seems to me that Sören has the power of ten hardy men

I´ll see if i can find that link again

 

[Thormodr]

Here is my take on the message of the interview:

Civ V is entry level PC Civ for Civ Rev fans, and newcomers

Shirk talks about making Civ 5 more accessable. Then refers in that context to simplifying the UI. But I am not sure that the accessability issue for Civ IV was the UI. It might have been the level of skill needed to play it well.

And since early frustration must be avoided for newcomers, what may have happened is to make smaller differences between certain choices (genericizing some things). Wonders are less wonderful and more generic ... so getting, or not getting a particular one is not game breaking. Tile improvements make smaller marginal improvements to tile yields. City specialization is less "special". (Someone said that all cities in Civ IV were the same, clearly never learned city specialization). Micromanagment reduced to nanomanagement. Maybe this is so newcomers are not so penalized for mistakes in these areas? Being optimal isn't much better than being suboptimal? Which gives us sentiments like "winning accidentally" or "winning regardless of what I decide."

These smaller differences make the gameplay seem less flexible. Now it is steering a barge, not tacking a sleek America's Cup racer. Rudder only steers +/- 10 degrees, instead of +/- 90 degrees. Which is more exciting to sail? If it were barges, then America's Cup would race barges.

Then, Shirk says also by design, we get a few choices making huge differences. The city count impact on policy costs being the archetype. So you can't change from a massive settling expansion to a culture victory very easily. The constraint of these decisions removes flexibility. Now the initial inertia vector can't be altered very easily. We are told this is what Jon wanted.

Ironic that the huge impact of some decisions, and the minimal impact of others can both conspire to limit options and flexibility.

The other clear message is that Civ 5 may be the "successor (comes after)" to Civ IV, but it is not the "progressor (builds upon)" to Civ IV. This too, is by design Shirk says.

We have watched CivSid grow up through grade school (I), middle school (II), high school (III, puberty is always a bit rough), and College (IV, BTS is the bachelors degree). So many were expecting Civ V to be "CivSid goes to grad school."

But what we get, instead, is "CivSid's little brother, CivJon, goes to grade school". We are back to square one with the "foundation" of something different ... a sibling of CivSid. Looks like we have to nurture CivJon through the same evolutionary process and hope he grows up into something as good as CivSid, BA. And we probably never get CivSid MS or CivSid PhD. The disapointment is understandable.

A different analogy, if the above doesn't resonate, is we have been upgrading our purchase of sedans from Chevy, to Buick, to Cadillac, and finally to Lexus. Now, we are ready for our Bentley. But the automotive gods deliver us a Chevy Blazer.

"You didn't want a better sedan, did you?"
"You wanted something different, right?"
"Don't worry, in four more tradeups, you can have a Range Rover."

Now if you think CivJon is cute, if you think a Blazer is cool, then you are ok with this.
If you wanted to hire CivSid MS, or wanted to drive a Bentley, then you are upset.

In either case, CivJon needs his hiccups, seizures and dyslexia treated, and the Blazer needs spark plugs and lug nuts.

That' my take.

dV

Good analysis I think and some pretty apt analogies.

CivJon is pretty funny too.

 

[Stefanskantine]

????????????

Excuse me, can you prove it with pubblications, editorials or something with scientific value????

Tell me, i like books a lot, and as an ancient historian (well, archeologist) i'm waiting for your sources...

Publications refering to Putin as a "new tsar"
http://mondediplo.com/2007/02/02russia

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1690753_1690757_1690766,00.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0861321420080209

On Tsarist elements in USSR
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/zarframe.htm

On Stalin as a Tsar
http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Court-Simon-Sebag-Montefiore/dp/1400076781
http://books.google.com/books?id=_0OxZoAJhNUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=stalin+czar&source=bl&ots=En6Pmpxxn9&sig=zcfHoFF1mz33AbzAujLtF7JsKXU&hl=en&ei=VIi_TMuYMZCGvAPS2_WqCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&sqi=2&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

On current monarchist sentiment in Russia
http://www.sptimes.ru/story/15851

I only had about 5 minutes and the internet. I'm sure I could find several more scholarly and academic publications if I wanted to take the time and was using the appropriate databases.

 

[Dun Malg]

2K has said to me that they have "rigorous QA" and "very large and long beta testing".

It's been shown time and time again that when someone says something of theirs is "very large and long", they're probably exaggerating to impress you.

 

[Dun Malg]

I think your example proves the case against you.

Tsarist Russia = Monarchy

Soviet Union = Attempted Communism, but ultimately resulted in a country run by a personality cult of strongmen and their lackeys kept in line by corruption and patronage (almost a feudal system).

Yes, perhaps that was a poor example. Substitute instead the French Revolution, perhaps. Still, the abstracted advantage of Communism's command economy (+5 hammers) is based upon the real life example of the Soviet Union. Even if they were still a Bizarro-world mirror image of a monarchy underneath in real life, they sure as heck were cranking out a metric poop-ton of tanks during WW2! Maybe there needs to be a "favored government trait" (where have I seen that before...) and it should always be cheaper to switch to that form of government, or maybe more expensive to maintain a different form of government, or... well... any system more complex than just the "pink tech tree", as some are calling it.

 

[Dun Malg]

Micromanagment reduced to nanomanagement. Maybe this is so newcomers are not so penalized for mistakes in these areas?

I think that's a pretty insightful observation. Micromanagement has always been an issue with 4X games. Reducing the effect of micromanagement such that there's no longer any reason to micromanage is certainly a valid game design strategy, but as has been noted elsewhere, that sounds to me like "let's change all the rooks and pawns and stuff to flat disks and just have them all move diagonally". Not exactly an optimal solution.

 

[Sox]

Maybe they release this to appeal to the casual gamer, to get them hooked into the game, then through expansions and the next games, they up the complexity.

Yes this is a very nice thought! The problem is, you can almost never have the cake and eat it to. Will these "casual gamers" want more complexity ? Are the hardcore, or should i say the fanbase, happy with the current version?

I think the answer to both are no.

I would have seen a "real" ciV (imho) and a Rev2 but as have been said time and time again, it´s all about the dollar. Why make two games som similar when you can just merge them?

Seems to me that Firaxis is making a play for that sweet sweet goldrich "casual gamer", "midstream", whatever market. And why wouldn´t they? The bigwigs get a funny, tingly feeling in their pants when they see the "Sims" sales.

Problem is, so does everyone else... Everyone want to be the most "accessible, streamlined, easy-to-pick-up-hard-to-put-down" developer they don´t realise that just like in politics when everyone is moving to the middle space is left vaccant at the wings.

Why they didn´t just say "Hey, we got a nice cashcow here, let´s not pretend that it is something it is not".

That said, moves like this is probably what opened up a market for companies like Paradox and they are happy to take the customers.

Europa Universalis isn´t Civ though so I hope they can salvage something this wreck and after five years, countless patches and mods and perhaps two expansions maybe we will have something that will live up to the name.

 

[Benzidrine]

Publications refering to Putin as a "new tsar"
http://mondediplo.com/2007/02/02russia

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1690753_1690757_1690766,00.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0861321420080209

On Tsarist elements in USSR
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/zarframe.htm

On Stalin as a Tsar
http://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Court-Simon-Sebag-Montefiore/dp/1400076781
http://books.google.com/books?id=_0OxZoAJhNUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=stalin+czar&source=bl&ots=En6Pmpxxn9&sig=zcfHoFF1mz33AbzAujLtF7JsKXU&hl=en&ei=VIi_TMuYMZCGvAPS2_WqCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&sqi=2&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

On current monarchist sentiment in Russia
http://www.sptimes.ru/story/15851

I only had about 5 minutes and the internet. I'm sure I could find several more scholarly and academic publications if I wanted to take the time and was using the appropriate databases.

To me this is a fairly massive simplification of russian history. While both stalin and the tsars were autocratic heads of state, and cruel ones, that is where the similarities start to end. The tsars used an estates based system which favored wealthy landowners and the power of the tsar was considered to come primarily from peasents
and religion, stalin's power came from factories/urban populations and wealthy land owners ceased to exist. Tsar: head of a state religion considered divine Stalin: State atheism. Tsar: Self suffient army corps with prestigous cavalry, Stalin: human wave army drawing supply. Tsar: relatively continous social policy through sanguine progression of tsars. Stalin: Was Kruschev much like stalin really? doesn't seem continous to me. I could go on and on and on as there are so many reasons why stalin was nothing like the tsardom other then the autocracy and cruelty of course.

 

[eviltypeguy]

"We" it refers to a group of people that includes ones self. If I was relating the story of my date last night with one Miss Sophia Jenkins, and said "We had a great time" would you get up in arms because last night you had not such a great time since you had to go to the dentist and get a molar forcibly removed?

No, because it is clear in that context who "we" refers to.

When you use "we" on a forum without any obvious context, it implies that the statement is being made on behalf of all forum members.