New interesting interview - for videogames.si.com

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

So I'm worried because Agendas are said to come back.

Oh lawd, I hope not. Not without massive changes!

 

[Potworny]

"What we don’t do in this version of Civilization is fill up every empty place on the map with cities. We leave open spaces and room to breathe, because we want there to be gameplay opportunities in the wild."

"Gameplay opportunities in the wild" sound good, but from the map I saw in the trailer, I think I'd rather have a tile of extra distance or at least rural area between cities. And it may be frustrating to have empty spots of land in the late game, I dunno. Maps soaking in paint are very much to my taste

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Well, there are actually a few mechanics that would solve the exploration part in the late game ( and earlier ). What if you actually had to go out and search for resources instead of having them auto-popup like they always done?

Maybe the map could show you where resources are but not tell you what resource it is, you would need to send a special unit on top of the resource to reveal the specific resource? This would make exploration in the late game useful.

 

[UWHabs]

Maybe the map could show you where resources are but not tell you what resource it is, you would need to send a special unit on top of the resource to reveal the specific resource? This would make exploration in the late game useful.

I've always thought it weird how I could have a scout pass by a tile in 2000 BC, and suddenly thousands of years later my civ automatically knows there's oil deep underground there despite not having passed by since then. It would be nice if that scout's tower/outpost ability thing maybe in the modern era was basically about scouting for new resources.

 

[ombak]

Oh lawd, I hope not. Not without massive changes!

Applying Civ VI agenda design to VII: Dislikes civs that haven't reached the exploration age yet...

 

[Krikkit1]

I feel like there are advantages in leaving empty space on the map. It allows for exploration and expansion to remain relevant longer in the game. One of the problems with filling every space on the map is that there is no exploration and expansion left. It essentially kills 2 of the 4 Xs in a 4X game. I believe this is a big reason why the late game is often less interesting than the early game. The other problem with filling every part of the map is that more cities will add more micro and busy work. Also, you will have cities that are not very productive because they are in bad locations but you built the cities anyway just to fill the space. By limiting cities, you make the decision to expand more meaningful. with city caps and global happiness, placing another city will cost more. Hopefully, this means that players will have more interesting choices about whether to build a city and where. Players will want to grab the best city locations and not waste their city cap on bad city locations. And having more empty space is realistic as most of Earth is actually empty.

The good news is that the military victory condition in Antiquity is 12 settlements which would seem to suggest that getting to 12 settlements is doable with global happiness. The cap can likely be raised with techs, civics etc... This is encouraging that we can go "wide" with a dozen settlements or so. We won't be as restricted as civ5.

One clarification.. for that victory, conquered settlements count 2, so you could get it with 7 (and for most it will probably be 8 or 9)…and its All settlements not just cities…so say
2 of your own cities
2 of your own towns
4 conquered towns. would be a First Age domination victory

 

[SupremacyKing2]

One clarification.. for that victory, conquered settlements count 2, so you could get it with 7 (and for most it will probably be 8 or 9)…and its All settlements not just cities…so say
2 of your own cities
2 of your own towns
4 conquered towns. would be a First Age domination victory

Yes. I forgot that point. Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[bbbt]

There's a lot of misunderstanding here. AI in video games is totally different from this term outside of gaming industry (unless the games are board games like chess).

Oh I know, I was just making a little fun that we don't actually know what the AI resources on 6 were.

As you've noted, a ton of the work for a game like Civ is just literally making it play the game and use the game mechanics, never mind use them "well". It would make sense to have the developer(s) working on a specific game mechanic to also develop the 'hooks' for the AI to use that mechanic, but not necessarily be designated as an "AI developer".

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Don't forget, when discussing maps, map appearances and settling, that they have also repeatedly emphasized that conditions and mechanics in the three Ages may be radically different: different size maps as well as different Civs, for instance.

And there should be differences in how the map looks: City Sprawl was simply impossible in Antiquity. It is all too normal in the Modern Age. Populations exploded in the Industrial ("early Modern") Age along with the size of cities, and in the late 20th century cities became Megalopolises of several cities all comprising a single massive urban area stretching, in places, hundreds of kilometers. A Modern city covering several hundred square kilometers is not even exceptional any more.

So, since largely we've only seen Antiquity cities and towns so far, I strongly suspect we will see an entirely different 'look' to the map in Exploration and Modern Ages - and along with that, an entirely new set of problems to solve keeping our cities and Civs healthy, expansive, and wealthy.

And if they get that right, they will have progressed far beyond what both previous Civs and other games have managed so far. Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

after that, every city you settled basically penalized you more than you would get back

That's where the misunderstanding comes from!
I was very active in Civ5 days and clearly remember discussions happening between the best players (i wasn't one of them ) and the "common players". Almost all of the best players agreed that 4 cities was far below that point but the "internet noise" was saying that 4 was the way to go so everyone went for 4 cities and spread the word that 4 cities was the way to go, making the "internet noise" even louder compared to those who really knew what they were talking about. 4 cities was just the easy-lazy way to go and good-enough to win (in fact many players could win with only 1 city in Civ5)
I tried to go for a few more cities after reading those discussions and it did indeed improve my finish times, not enough to really be competitive in GotM (not that i ever really tried to) but i was indeed stronger with more than 4 cities.

Now, that's really moving into off-topic territory but it amazes me how the 4-cities meta was never really debunked even thought it have always been sub-optimal

 

[notNamed]

So, since largely we've only seen Antiquity cities and towns so far, I strongly suspect we will see an entirely different 'look' to the map in Exploration and Modern Ages - and along with that, an entirely new set of problems to solve keeping our cities and Civs healthy, expansive, and wealthy.

We have seen a good portion of Modern cities as well. Identifiably French, American and Japanese cities appeared several times and they're not really that different from their Ancient/Exploration predecessors.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

We have seen a good portion of Modern cities as well. Identifiably French, American and Japanese cities appeared several times and they're not really that different from their Ancient/Exploration predecessors.

Thanx. I confess I have about given up on keeping track of all the various streams, posts, images and reveals in the past week.

BUT if the cities look about the same on the map from Antiquity to Modern that is flat wrong unless they are doing some 'slight of hand' with the map scales - which is entirely possible since they've said that map sizes change between Eras - other changes are also possible.

There is no way without some kind of 'sliding scale' that an ancient/classical city of 2.5 - 5.0 acres (Uruk and Athens for those examples) should take up the same map space as modern Berlin or Los Angeles (over 300 square kilometers each)