Poland

[Teabeard]

Some more African CIVs should be included, such as Zimbabwe and Ethiopia and some of the West African CIVs. I think subsahara Africa has the most neglected Civs... They include the Zulus, but there are some more deserving ones than them.

Cherokee & Navajo would also be nice, as would austro-hungary.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I think you may have misheard or misrepresented the facts, if you in fact heard from Firaxis.

Again... I assure you I did not...

 

[dh_epic]

Not saying you did so deliberately, but sometimes we hear what we want to hear.

I maintain that you could crank out 16 Civ heads in a week of work with 2 or 3 people -- particularly when the programmers are busy with something else that prevents the artists from doing other important work.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Well, unless someone very important to Firaxis' projects made multiple time errors in a single statement, I'm quite sure the correct message was conveyed.

In any case, the situation is what it is. My point is that I think there are better things to spend time on.

 

[plastiqe]

I thought your point was they wouldn't be interesting or playable, now it is that they take too much time. If you have multiple instances where Firaxis has said how long leader heads take, please share.

Compare civs in Civ 3 with Starcraft and the differences between the 3 races. There are 3 different races which are BALANCED, require different PLAY STYLES and are very DIFFERENT all around. If Civ 3 civs were more like Starcraft races, then I would be all for new and different civs being included. As of now, the differences between civs is not great enough to warrant 40, 50, 60+ civs.

See, now you are talking about a RTS. Civilization isn't a RTS and it shouldn't be made into an RPS, it is an "epic strategy" game. In a game like Civ, the teams are supposed to be equal. Sure there can be some small differences like traits and UUs, but it should never get to the point where everyone is building different buildings, researching different technologies and building all different units.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I thought your point was they wouldn't be interesting or playable, now it is that they take too much time. If you have multiple instances where Firaxis has said how long leader heads take, please share.

Both of them are concerns of mine. Since the discussion drifted, I shared my conclusion for where it drifted to. I haven't changed my mind though on the former issue.

As far as where Firaxis has discussed leaderheads, it's been privately and I'm not at liberty to discuss the full content of the discussion. As I said, believe me or don't believe me, it's up to you. But I assure my sources are official and they were very explicit in what was said.

See, now you are talking about a RTS. Civilization isn't a RTS and it shouldn't be made into an RPS, it is an "epic strategy" game. In a game like Civ, the teams are supposed to be equal. Sure there can be some small differences like traits and UUs, but it should never get to the point where everyone is building different buildings, researching different technologies and building all different units.

What's wrong with that?

Civilizations are different. Maybe not as different as the Protoss, the Terrans and the Zerg, but there have been some pretty profound differences between civs over time. I see no problem in modelling that as long as everything is balanced. We can do better than 1 UU and a couple traits which really aren't that unique when you compare them.

Equal? No. Balanced? Yes. There is no rule that all civs should be equal. If that were true, why have UUs or traits at all? Why not have every start with the exact same terrain and the exact same resources so they're all "equal?" What, we want things different but not too different? What kind of logic is that. The game should be fun, civilizations unique and interesting and different. It's as simple as that. There is no written law which says anything. All that matters is what is fun.

 

[dh_epic]

Personally I think 40 different combinations stemming from different traits with different units from different eras would be quite strategic. Why wouldn't it be?

And a sense of thoroughness and completeness is worth its weight in gold. One extra week of artwork -- no matter how much we think there are more important things, which we agree on -- could result in HUUUUGE payoffs.

A game with 40 Civs just offers a lot more possibilities than a game with 16. It just grabs an audience like that -- people are all about "more". This is one of the few things that Firaxis can give more of without blowing up the actual gameplay to an unmanagable level of micromanagement.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Personally I think 40 different combinations stemming from different traits with different units from different eras would be quite strategic. Why wouldn't it be?

Because it's not up my alley for "uniqueness." Yes, my alley. And many other players. I realize quite well that new civs that are all the same but have different moving 3d heads is a good selling point, but that doesn't mean it's what I want for my own personal gameplaying.

The problem is that most of the time only a few civs end up getting played. Look at competitive DGs or PBEM games or MP games. You'll see the same 6-8 civs being played. Out of 32 total. Isn't that a problem?

 

[plastiqe]

What's wrong with that?

Civilizations are different. Maybe not as different as the Protoss, the Terrans and the Zerg, but there have been some pretty profound differences between civs over time. I see no problem in modelling that as long as everything is balanced. We can do better than 1 UU and a couple traits which really aren't that unique when you compare them.

Everything!!!

Civilizations in the game are different. Sure you look at the Romans and Greeks by themselves and the only differences are those 4 qualities from earlier. In the game however, the Romans and Greeks are never played the same twice. They will always build different buildings, research different techs and build different units.

More civs adds more flavor to the game.

 

[Jon Shafer]

You've just defeated your own cause with that statement.

Every civ is played differently each game. Why not make every civ the same then? The games are always different and the civs are played differently, aren't they? Might as well have different labels for each civ and not bother making them unique at all.

 

[dh_epic]

I think you're out of touch with how the average player plays Civ. Not that I'm any more representative, but at least I'm trying to think outside of my own desires here.

I see more civs as nothing but a good thing for the casual fan.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I'm not out of touch. I may disagree, but I know full well what they want and the fact that the game is aimed towards them. They speak for what they want with their numbers, I speak for what I want with my words.

 

[dh_epic]

Point taken. But if that's the case, then you're advocating that Civ goes in a direction that might actually decrease sales. Don't you think that's a little short sighted and narrow minded?

 

[Jon Shafer]

They could turn it into an RTS game and then it might sell more that way.

We all have our standards.

 

[dh_epic]

Nah, I think the whole "mass marketing means selling out and betraying the vision" thing is an arguments purists use to justify their narrow mindedness.

If Civ were to change fundamentally, it would lose more audience than it gains. There are already RTSes out there and for Civ to copy them would be like Sprite becoming Dark because people like Coke. Spite just needs to be the best Sprite, and Civ needs to be the best TBS.

Adding twice as many Civilizations is not like making Civ into an RTS. It's not even close. You're just arguing against more Civs because you think it would be a huge divergence from whatever else the art team could possibly be working on. I'm arguing that it's not much of a divergence, and can reach a wider audience without hurting the actual gameplay in any way. ... unlike many other complex or drastic changes that would take longer and could potentially change the game for the worse.

 

[plastiqe]

Every civ is played differently each game. Why not make every civ the same then? The games are always different and the civs are played differently, aren't they? Might as well have different labels for each civ and not bother making them unique at all.

Yes, they could go back to what we had in Civ I, but they have come up with the wonderful ideas of civ traits, leader heads and unique units, which give the civs some variation, yet still try to keep them balanced.

Turning civ into an RTS is wrong. The fourth game in a groundbreaking series should not be a totally different game than the rest. Maybe they could make Civilizations: the RTS as a different game but that is a different matter. I can't believe you even suggested it for Civ IV.

 

[dh_epic]

Plastiqe,

I'm pretty sure he was throwing that out there as an example that the masses aren't always right. I'd like to quickly debunk that -- the "masses" that would buy Civ as an RTS are much smaller than the masses who are attached to a turn based Civ... and the RTS fans already have a number of historically oriented RTSes.

This is one of those cases where the masses can't be wrong. The masses are asking for more nations -- I think that's a safe assumption -- and you would alienate no one in doing so. Even people who think it might be a waste of the artists' time (which is minimal) or that there would be redundancy between the Civs (which is not necessarily true) wouldn't even come CLOSE to saying "I'm never going to touch Civ 4 because of that".

It's one of those few "nothing wrong with that" type suggestions.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Well, Firaxis will do what Firaxis will do.

 

[sir_schwick]

What about this idea:

All the cosmetic parts of civs(leaders, unit appearnces and names, city names, graphics, sounds, heads, etc.) would be included for the few hundred civs people all want. You could choose the 'type' of civ, that would be all the UUs, Traits, Shunned/Accepted Governments, Relative Starts, etc. This way you coudl play as a military oriented China one game and a research oreinted China the next. It adds civs while keeping things unique, even with the same civ.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Few hundred civs?