Official announcement: Hot off the presses. Next Civ game in development!!!!!!!

[Kwami]

I'm not really sure what "it slows down the game" even means. Like, it takes more minutes to complete a game? Who cares, as long as you enjoy the game you're playing.

These tactical battles take forever compared to what we get in Civ 6. That's fine in single player games, but it's really boring to wait around while some other player is engaged in tactical battles somewhere. Also, you get weird map interactions where you can't attack a player's units because that player is already fighting something else, so you have to wait around. It's just awkward.

But, if they're only allowing auto-resolve in multiplayer, then none of this matters. Instead, the complaint might be that auto-resolve removes some control from the player and doesn't allow a player to test their combat skills against another player's skills, which is kind of lame.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I would really like to keep Civ concepts intact and not borrow from other games. There are games with separate tactical maps, cool, let them stay like this. There are hybrids between strategy games and sims by Paradox, they are fun to play on their own. But Civilization was always about playing on a single map and 2 latest versions made steps right in this direction.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would really like to keep Civ concepts intact and not borrow from other games. There are games with separate tactical maps, cool, let them stay like this. There are hybrids between strategy games and sims by Paradox, they are fun to play on their own. But Civilization was always about playing on a single map and 2 latest versions made steps right in this direction.

All games borrow from other games. The very ideas of Combat and Movement Factors and a game map come from board games dating back to at least the 1950s (and quasi-miniatures going back to the German Kriegspiel of the 19th century, but that was less of a 'game' than a Training Tool)

And Civ has had separate maps/displays: Civ 2 had a separate display of a Throne Room you could build up and a City View - although you couldn't really do anything with the city view as I remember, and it was so badly done they mercifully dropped it in later versions of the franchise.

None of which should change the fact that I agree with you in regard to any Battle Map: the scale of the game is Grand Strategy, and individual battle moves are simply completely out of time and distance scale with the rest of the game.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Civ series became too hardcore in the first one you built a single unit and went like "waaaaar !!!", you lost or you won, this, XXXX BC battle.

Now you build entire armies before attacking, that's not the philosophy of the game.

Players / victory conditions perverted it.

 

[Patine]

The very ideas of Combat and Movement Factors and a game map come from board games dating back to at least the 1950s

Ah, yes. Tactics. With the generic (and equal, in starting units and territory) Player Red and Player Blue (that MAY have been a covert and symbolic reference to the Korean War), and the first game to put NATO unit designation symbols (for infantry, army, etc. and unit size) on game units, as well as the long-standing ideal in two faction gaming of red vs. blue as predominat opposing colours.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ah, yes. Tactics. With the generic (and equal, in starting units and territory) Player Red and Player Blue (that MAY have been a covert and symbolic reference to the Korean War), and the first game to put NATO unit designation symbols (for infantry, army, etc. and unit size) on game units, as well as the long-standing ideal in two faction gaming of red vs. blue as predominat opposing colours.

Red and Blue for opposing forces goes back much further than any commercial game. They were used on military tactical maps in WWII by everybody. The intriguing thing about their use then is that US, British and German maps had the 'friendly' forces in blue and the enemy in red. Soviet maps had the Friendly Forces in red and the enemy in blue, and the maps they published in their first multi-volume semi-official history of the war in 1960 also had everybody in 'reversed colors' compared to the NATO folks.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Tactics had a square grid and a three colour map correct?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Tactics had a square grid and a three colour map correct?

Tactics II was the first that I played, and it did, indeed have a square grid (along with Gettysburg, my other earliest game played) and relatively bland colored counters and map.
Somebody might correct me on this, but I believe that Afrika Korps and Stalingrad were the first two Avalon-Hill board games to use the hexagonal grid system originally developed by the RAND Corporation.

 

[GalleySlave]

Tactics II was the first that I played, and it did, indeed have a square grid (along with Gettysburg, my other earliest game played) and relatively bland colored counters and map.
Somebody might correct me on this, but I believe that Afrika Korps and Stalingrad were the first two Avalon-Hill board games to use the hexagonal grid system originally developed by the RAND Corporation.

Wikipedia implies that the 2nd Edition of Avalon Hill's Gettysburg was the first to use a hex map (1961).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Wikipedia implies that the 2nd Edition of Avalon Hill's Gettysburg was the first to use a hex map (1961).

Entirely possible: that was the one early Avalon-Hill title that I never played, so I have no memories of it at all.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Of note:
Take Two, who owns 2K and Firaxis, is holding their big end-of-fiscal-year investor conference call on May 17th. Companies often discuss their plans for the next fiscal year in these meetings. And we can listen in too.

Quarterly Earnings | Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Webcasts, earnings presentations and investor presentations for Take-Two Interactive (TTWO)

www.take2games.com

 

[Krajzen]

Interesting, although I don't expect them to announce civ7 on the business meeting

Although they could announce it just before this day...

IMO if this conference passes and we have nothing to grasp then it is a bad sign, if we don't get anything by the end of May it's much worse, and by the half of June without announcement I think I will lose hope for this year's release.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Of note:
Take Two, who owns 2K and Firaxis, is holding their big end-of-fiscal-year investor conference call on May 17th. Companies often discuss their plans for the next fiscal year in these meetings. And we can listen in too.

Quarterly Earnings | Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Webcasts, earnings presentations and investor presentations for Take-Two Interactive (TTWO)

www.take2games.com

In these investor calls, the usual pattern is to give "guidance", that is, an outlook for their revenue for the rest of the fiscal year. If they confirm their guidance of projections for revenue and profitability, then that suggests to me that their planned releases of games are on track. Their revenue will come from all their software products, not just the ones we're fanatic about; if those other games have much bigger $$$ behind them, we may not be able to infer much about their plans for the $$ coming from our favorite games.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Interesting, although I don't expect them to announce civ7 on the business meeting

Although they could announce it just before this day...

IMO if this conference passes and we have nothing to grasp then it is a bad sign, if we don't get anything by the end of May it's much worse, and by the half of June without announcement I think I will lose hope for this year's release.

They won't really announce it, but since it's already been said that a Civ game is in the works, they may give a release quarter or at least confirm that Firaxis is releasing a game in this fiscal year.

 

[Haig]

Tomorrow is 11th of May, that date was when Civ VI was announced in 2016.

Greenhouse.io has Firaxis jobs for offer, some even mention title Civilization, but are pretty vague.
Example:
https://boards.greenhouse.io/firaxis/jobs/5584125003

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Summer Game Fest touting "40+ partners" including PlayStation and Xbox

We're less than a month away from the start of this year's Summer Game Fest "season" and host Geoff Keighley is startin…

www.eurogamer.net

Take Two/2K/Firaxis are not listed as a participant at Summer Game Fest, the heir apparent to E3

 

[Haig]

Of note:
Take Two, who owns 2K and Firaxis, is holding their big end-of-fiscal-year investor conference call on May 17th. Companies often discuss their plans for the next fiscal year in these meetings. And we can listen in too.

Quarterly Earnings | Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.

Webcasts, earnings presentations and investor presentations for Take-Two Interactive (TTWO)

www.take2games.com

Eagle Pursuit, are you planning to listen to this?

I can't figure out the starting time.

 

[pokiehl]

It’s today at 4:30 PM EDT. I wouldn’t expect anything though. I can’t think of a single time ever that a publisher’s earnings call has ever revealed interesting game info. Earnings calls aren’t promotional press releases.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It’s today at 4:30 PM EDT. I wouldn’t expect anything though. I can’t think of a single time ever that a publisher’s earnings call has ever revealed interesting game info. Earnings calls aren’t promotional press releases.

Not interesting per se, but it's sometimes revelatory by process of deduction.

At last year's meeting they spelled out all of 2K's titles for the upcoming fiscal year, and we discovered that Civ 7 wasn't among them. That included "unannounced titles".

I don't think Civ 7 is technically announced, since they keep referring to it as "the next chapter in Civilization", but we might just hear something along the lines of: "Firaxis has an an unannounced title releasing in Q4 2023", and that's our ticket. Or we won't. Then we know not to worry about it until next year.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Apparently, PC Gamer magazine is hosting a PC Gaming Show on June 11th where they will showcase 55 upcoming titles, including many debut announcements. They haven't said who is is going to be showing things yet, but it might be worth keeping an eye on.

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