Mini Q&A About the Expansion Pack w/ Jeff Morris

[Thunderfall]

Infogrames announced the Civilization III: Play the World expansion pack several days ago, but very little is known about the expansion pack other than the info released in the announcement. So I decided to email Jeff Morris, Producer for Civ3, to find out more about it. Someone had to try even though chance of getting some big info was slim.

>> Read the Q&A here!

 

[erix]

He said nothing. We can change the name as;

"Mini Q&NA about the expansion pack."

NA=no answers.

 

[Thunderfall]

hehe... I can understand Jeff's reluctance to reveal too much info about the expansion at this time. But we do know a few things, however small they may be:

1) We can expect to see those new Civs on 'Civ of the Week' on civ3.com soon.
2) No official support for Game of the Day/Week. Some people were discussing possible effect GOTD/GOTW may have on the GOTM feature. They can relax a bit. [One of the text files in 1.21f patch mentioned Game of the Day/Week]
3) People familiar with Fallout Tactics can probably provide some insights on how that "Turnless" mode works...

Not much info... but better than nothing.

 

[ERIKK]

So..., 8 new civ's, means 8 civ of the weeks, means at least two months until the XP will be released.....

 

[Selous]

soooo ... anyone who has played fallout tactics ... u have the floor .. tell us all about how it worked

just a small question ... what is a 4 star fan site? .... i figgure that means it is kinda good ... but not that we would go there kinda place .... just my way of thinking is that if u pay someone a compliment .... it would be 5 star ... but 4 star? (at least he didnt call it a trailer park fan site )

and civ3 was released before all the civs of the week were finished ... so that means nothing .... if i were a betting man ... i would say december ... just before christmas .. ready or not

 

[Jimmyh]

I've not played Fallout Tactics but I went to the official site and read the features.

They mention some thing called Continuous Turn-Based play, I'm guessing that's it, but to how it actually works I've got now idea.

http://www.interplay.com/falloutbos/features.html

 

[Jimmyh]

Originally posted by ERIKK
So..., 8 new civ's, means 8 civ of the weeks, means at least two months until the XP will be released.....

Was'nt the game released when they were still running the civ of the week?

 

[ERIKK]

In Europe the game was released later!

 

[ProPain]

I was reading thru the Fallout Tactics FAQ and ran into this :

Q. Is the game turn-based or real-time?
A. I'm glad you asked. Fallout Tactics supports both modes of gameplay, and it is up to the player to decide which mode to use in either single or multi-player. The real-time mode is called Continious Turn-Based, and is a hybrid between turn-based and real-time. CTB lets players move around at any time, but actions like firing a gun cost their character Action Points. Action Points regenerate over time. No more waiting for 20 rats to each take their turn.

It doens't clarify the continious turn based question, but sheds a little light on it. Hopefully someone who's played Fallout Tactics visits this forum to explain this phenomena in full detail.

ProPain

 

[etj4Eagle]

Originally posted by ProPain
I was reading thru the Fallout Tactics FAQ and ran into this :



It doens't clarify the continious turn based question, but sheds a little light on it. Hopefully someone who's played Fallout Tactics visits this forum to explain this phenomena in full detail.

ProPain

That sounds alot like how I was expecting the turnless mode to work. On the basic level it will be like an RTS game with turns passing at a set time interval, say 5 minutes per turn. Likely the cities and units won't be all synced together and to the changing of the years. Instead when you take an action for a unit, every five minutes a turn is considered to have passed for that unit/city.

In the case of moving a unit, every five minutes it would get its movement points back and be able to move again. Or in the case of a city, every five minutes one turn of production and food collection will occur.

Hence it is real time in discreet movement steps.

Now a good design would also have that time per turn adjust as the game goes. Since in the early years, you don't need much time per turn, but in the later ones you need a lot more.

One thing this will do is make multi front wars much more difficult to do, since it may become hard to give all your units orders before the first ones begin getting their movement points back again.

 

[epikur]

if you want to see a chess game which is a hybrid between turn-based and real-time. Then watch a game at

kungfuchess.com

You can move any unit you want at any time, but as soon you moved it, it must rest for some time (stamina bar).

Maybe something like that?

 

[Sir Yelof]

Hmmmm. I hope it's NOT a case of everyone moving at the same time. That could lead to some awkward situations with racing to put down a city in the right spot. Imagine: you and opponent are both one square away from a prime city location, and each of you have a settler. The winner is the first person to click there after the new turn officially begins? Now you're also rewarding the person with the least laggy Internet connection too. Not too exciting. Also, how would you handle the reaction speed of a computer player? Does it always beat you to that spot? Does it always lose to a human? Who can say?

That said, there'd be a definite advantage to setting a turn time limit (probably one that increased as you moved on from 4000 BC). For one thing, it'd discourage folks from spending too much time futzing with their cities and analyzing combat options. And if one guy got ahead, it'd actually penalize them by making it more difficult for him to manage his oodles of units, giving the other players in the game a chance to gang up and take him down.

Based on what I've heard of Fallout Tactics, with the points assigned to certain actions, everyone would get a chance to take all the action points he's allowed before everyone moved to the next turn. So it's never a question of you losing movement points. (Though it might be a question of you holding up the game.) But you can do things like change/rush production and prod.queues, alter taxes, change technology research, etc., anytime you want to. So folks can spend time optimizing if they can't stand the governors. Still, I would imagine that there'd be some sort of initiative in play, so that you don't have to race to a spot.

Personally, Civ takes too damn long to play for it to be a real-time game. Makes more sense if everyone took their turn and then submitted it to a central location (or even better, one individual's computer -- no need for us to pay extra so Firaxis can afford to host this stuff.) My ideal? Ever play those free Hasbro board games like Scrabble and Upwords? Everyone has a client, and then you take your turn and the result is emailed via SMTP to the other players. They grab the turn file from email and process it on their client, take their turn, then email it off to the next guy. Goes very fast, but also at the player's pace, so if someone has to go on vacation for a week, the game is accomodating. You could be playing three or four multi-player civ games at once over several weeks!

--Yelof

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by Selous
just a small question ... what is a 4 star fan site? .... i figgure that means it is kinda good ... but not that we would go there kinda place .... just my way of thinking is that if u pay someone a compliment .... it would be 5 star ... but 4 star? (at least he didnt call it a trailer park fan site )

Just curious, where are you getting the 4 star fan site about?

 

[Thunderfall]

I emailed webmaster of a Fallout fansite and he provided me with lots of info on this Continous MP mode in Fallout. It's very nice of him.

Sure, I can help you out with that. Here's the description from the FOT manual:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Continous Turn-Based Mode (CTB)
This is the default game mode. In this mode, all players and characters can act at the same time. Walking and Running does not cost Action Points, but all other actions do. Action Points regenerate over time. Characters with more APs will regenerate them faster then characters with less Action Points.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And from our old FAQ:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.2 - What is the Continuous Turn-Based Action System?
Continuous Turn-Based Action System Features:
· Ability to plan and register actions while the other player is acting keeps all players engaged.
· Actions can be prepared in the Action Cue, but not executed until it is the character's turn.
· When that character's turn comes up, they use the Action Cue to press "go" and execute the prepared actions, press "step" button to step through executing actions, or reconfigure the actions for that turn.
· Ability to monitor the action when it isn't your turn.
‘The CTBA lets players move around at any time, but actions like firing a gun cost their character Action Points. Action Points regenerate over time. No more waiting for 20 rats to each take their turn. “ – Chris Taylor.

‘Walking is free in CTB (I'd like to see it cost you AP regeneration, however, but this is a somewhat controversial decision). Running costs you AP in CTB.’ – Chris Taylor

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If that doesn't help, I'll write up a new description for you (haven't had to do that for a while) - or you could even try out the FOT demo: http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?file=55176 (the multiplayer demo included an updated single player scenario, so that's the one to get).

Hope that helps,

Kreegle
Duck and Cover
http://www.duckandcover.net

Now we get the general idea of this 'Turnless" MP mode.

 

[kring]

The biggest question that WASN'T asked was: how much for that little doggy in the window; i.e.: C3PTW?

I still suspect at least $39.99 US.

I agree with the Mini Q&NA.

 

[Thunderfall]

Originally posted by kring
The biggest question that WASN'T asked was: how much for that little doggy in the window; i.e.: C3PTW?

I still suspect at least $39.99 US.

Jeff Morris probably would reply 'infogrames will set the price.".

Expansion packs don't cost that much. I expect it to be less than $30...

 

[damunzy]

Yeah, 29.99$

 

[History_Buff]

This whole hybrid thing was something I tried to bring up in OT, but nobody would listen or give me any feed back.

While the expansion pack will be released first, I suggest we look to this as a preview of the Better quality work being done here:

http://www.bighugegames.com/

or here

http://www.bighugegames.com/riseofnations/index.html

or the fan site here:

http://www.strategyplanet.com/riseofnations/

(its me under the same name in case anyone notices)

But yeah, I dont think there was any new info at all, except in the question, because I didn't pay that much attention to the original post.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

Originally posted by History_Buff
This whole hybrid thing was something I tried to bring up in OT, but nobody would listen or give me any feed back.

While the expansion pack will be released first, I suggest we look to this as a preview of the Better quality work being done here:

Not to rain on your parade, because I do think Brian Reynolds does great work but....

Until there is actual software in release, there is no foundation for claiming that RoN will be BETTER quality work. Lots of companies make nice looking screenshots and write lofty descriptions. Lets see what, if anything, makes the production version.

Plus, looking at the types of jobs that are being advertised at the top of their home page, makes me wonder if this product will not become vaporware.

Bill

 

[History_Buff]

True, but they don't expect to be done till early 2003, so I'm expecting it around Christmas 2004. Should give them lots of time.