PolyCast Focus: "Civilization V" with Jon Shafer and Pete Murray

[DanQ]

Tantalizing temptation to treat. "Focus: 'Civilization V'" features Daniel "DanQ" Quick, with Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl and Peter "Maniac" Steenbeke from ModCast, interviewing Jon Shafer and Pete Murray from Firaxis Games on Civilization V. Shafer is the game's Lead Designer and Murray is the company's Marketing Associate.

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 02m23s | Introduction
Informing who is Jon Shafer and Pete Murray of Firaxis Games: what does a typical workday for each of them entail.
- 05m09s | Definitions
Definition of a game designer, favourite part of the task and working relationship between departments developing Civilization V.
- 09m56s | History
Looking back at previous Civ titles to inform design decisions, and then all about the hex-based grid system: decision to use, progression through and getting oriented.
- 16m21s | Policies
CiVV's Social Policies mechanic: particulars within variety, choice benefits and consequences, and overall balance.
- 25m49s | Religion
The reimagination of representing religion in the Civilization franchise, and good -- as well as bad -- relations with other civs in-game.
- 31m12s | Modding
First, future and inception of the CivV in-game Modding browser, quality review within and installation of Mods. Then, influence of CivIV's BUG Mod, and transition from that game's Python to Lua programming language in CiVV. Finally, evolution of Civ's modding capabilities and its furthering, CivV's World Builder, ability to add data to specific objects and personal preferences for content.
- 43m52s | Legacy
Challenges and comforts in designing a successor title in an established gaming franchise as compared to one that is new and untested.
- 45m17s | Comparison
Comparing CivV to CivIV on terrain and maps, and barbarians.
- 53m06s | Advisors
Setting CivV's advisors apart from those found in Civilization: II and Civilization: Revolution.
- 55m39s | Realization
Three words: Giant Death Robots.

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Disembodied voices, getting certain medal figurines, adding a certain resource to CivV, exotic protein, and a couple of unmentionables.

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; this is the seventh in its "Focus" series highlighting a particular Civ or Civ-related title. Sibling shows ModCast and RevCast focus on Civ modding and Civilization: Revolution respectively.

Enjoy.

 

[Lyoncet]

Well jeez, that looks like just about every topic people had been asking about in the past two weeks. Nice job!

 

[12agnar0k]

Listening to it now, 1 hr long interview near enough, nice!

Edit:/

Finsihed listening to it, added some comments on new stuff into Ariochs Thread and some unimportant GDR stuff into the GDR thread, mostly about how perfection didn't even get credit for inventing the GDR :O.

But anyway, great interview, go, listen to it, now, what are you reading this for, stop, go, go listen to it.

 

[Lillefix]

Antireligious policies give science, and religious policies give happiness.

 

[DanQ]

Well jeez, that looks like just about every topic people had been asking about in the past two weeks. Nice job!

Happy to deliver. Thank you for the support as well.

Antireligious policies give science, and religious policies give happiness.

Yes.

Listening to it now, 1 hr long interview near enough, nice! [..]

... great interview, go, listen to it, now, what are you reading this for, stop, go, go listen to it.

; thank you for the kind words.

To the three of you more generally: is this the first time you have listened to and/or even heard of PolyCast?

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

Great stuff.

It's about time we got some interviews with actual substance.

EDIT: Don't really like the answer about for-profit mods. I would hate for there to be some kind app store sort of mod marketplace.

 

[Tylerryan79]

Yes the profit mods comment worries me also. They basicly side stepped it, saying that's 2ks area, and not saying "nope don't worry!". My guess is 2k is foaming at the mouth, watching blizzards model and praying it works. Then they will try it with Civ! I just hope the modders here don't get tempted by the money!

 

[12agnar0k]

To the three of you more generally: is this the first time you have listened to and/or even heard of PolyCast?

I've heard of podcast/polycast since I came to the forumns, not before though, but unless their is some civ5 discussion, (or another topic that interests me) I won't listen to them, but maybe I will listen to one unrelated to Civ5 polycast and see if it is interesting when Civ5 isn't discussed.

 

[12agnar0k]

Yes the profit mods comment worries me also. They basicly side stepped it, saying that's 2ks area, and not saying "nope don't worry!". My guess is 2k is foaming at the mouth, watching blizzards model and praying it works. Then they will try it with Civ! I just hope the modders here don't get tempted by the money!

Basically it means they have no decision in what 2k wants to do to make money, so he can't say "No this is definitely something we are not going to do", or "Yes this is definitely something we are going to do". He did side step it, but this doesn't mean 2k is foaming at the mouth and ready to pounce with pay for everything strategies, perhaps Jon Shafer just doesn't know, and instead of saying "No idea" which makes him sound quite unproffesional given that he is lead designer, he just said, "Well thats 2k's field of expertise," basically, field the question to them.

 

[DanQ]

Great stuff.

It's about time we got some interviews with actual substance.

Thank you kindly.

I've heard of podcast/polycast since I came to the forumns, not before though, but unless their is some civ5 discussion, (or another topic that interests me) I won't listen to them, but maybe I will listen to one unrelated to Civ5 polycast and see if it is interesting when Civ5 isn't discussed.

Fair enough.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

Great stuff. Loads of info and philosophy behind the gameplay.

Antidote to the Chicken Little nonsense.

Ahhhh....

 

[Ahriman]

I'm guessing its too much to hope for a transcript?

 

[12agnar0k]

An hour long interview? It would take someone lots of patients to write it,

Why don't you just spend an hour listening to it, I have quite a bad internet connection (under 500k :/) and it streamed for me.

 

[craig123]

It would take someone lots of patients to write it,

A doctor, maybe?

 

[Suho1004]

I listened to it and enjoyed it. I had heard of PolyCast before, and I've even flipped through a couple of episodes (meaning that I skipped to the parts that interested me--kudos, by the way, for having a sort of "table of contents" like that), but this is the first time I've sat down and listened to a whole podcast.

It was worth it, even if everyone did seem a little overly excited about the GDRs.

 

[Schuesseled]

rofl :LOL:

 

[Slinko]

I love polycast. Keep up the great work, dan.

 

[Tomice]

You may laugh at my stupidity, but how can I get this as MP3 to listen while driving? I don't have time for the whole thing otherwise...

 

[Rexflex]

You may laugh at my stupidity, but how can I get this as MP3 to listen while driving? I don't have time for the whole thing otherwise...

It is already an mp3, so instead of left-clicking the link to play straight away, you right-click on the link and select save-linked-content-as (or the equivalent link saving function in your browser).

I do that all the time as the quicktime browser plugin isn't as easy to control.

 

[rastak]

You may laugh at my stupidity, but how can I get this as MP3 to listen while driving? I don't have time for the whole thing otherwise...

HAHAHAHAHA


On a serious note, download it and put it on an ipod. If you don't have one find some software to convert it to a wav and burn as a audio cd.

If you don't have an ipod or a cd player then play it on a laptop after downloading it (sit it on the seat next to you)...if you don't have that then why are you even asking?