Russian "Strana Igr" Magazine interview with Dennis Shirk

[NeverMind]

"Strana Igr" (=Gameland), a Russian computer gaming magazine, has an interview with Civ5 producer Dennis Shirk in the latest issue. And there is some new info.

- Maximum City Radius - 3 hexes in any direction
- No more familiar concept of trade and distribution sliders. "Gold" and "science" is now divided and collected in different ways.
- Road maintaince cost. Every turn you have to pay for all of your roads.

You can read the interview here, but note, it's in Russian.

 

[Never]

Very interesting information. This road maintenance cost aspect will definitely make for interesting road planning and tactical use of rivers and coast, as opposed to road spamming. At the same time surely roads would bring in more capital than it would cost in maintaining them.

 

[Ahriman]

- No more familiar concept of trade and distribution sliders. "Gold" and "science" is now divided and collected in different ways.
- Road maintaince cost. Every turn you have to pay for all of your roads.

Very interesting! These had not been previously confirmed.
Do we know anything about how these costs will work? Just a gold per turn cost (like civic maintenance)? Some people had reported reduced tile yield from roads. Do we know if roads will still incraese movement costs ro not?

I wonder what mechanism we will have to smooth shocks in gold income - or will we need to maintain a strategic reserve in case of emergency. What happens if we hit zero gold?

Now, who is going to type up a nice English translation for us monolinguists?

 

[AySteve]

At the same time surely roads would bring in more capital than it would cost in maintaining them.

Well, I think they have said that they wanted to reduce the 'road spam' that occurs in a typical game of civ4 so this would probably only be true up to a point. I imagine that maybe one route between a city and your capital would bring economic benefits, whereas any additional routes would provide no further benefit but cost you more maintenance

 

[Never]

Right, so I take it we won't have to connect resources to the empire with roads now? Resources will automatically be connected when one builds a mine, or pasture or whatever?

 

[Mannu]

I like road maintenance, it's a good realistic mechanism for reducing road spam, though like unit maintenance costs, it can be a hidden cost since it's buried in an advisor screen. Hopefully it and unit maintenance costs will be a little more visible. Though I'm guessing as long as you connect your cities that's all you really need to do.

Good riddance to commerce = science, culture, and gold. Hopefully the new system will be as balanced though. That was the one nice thing about the commerce sliders.

As for the 3 tile radius, I was hoping that the city screen would go away and that cities could work a certain number of contiguous tiles. Then after a certain tech and with a certain economic policy the tiles within a nations borders could all be worked and resources would be either sent to the nearest city or redistributed nationally. Ideally I want city placement to be based on trade possibilities (coastal, mouth of a river, river crossing upstream, and mountain passes).
I guess I'm going to have to learn Lua.

 

[Ahriman]

so I take it we won't have to connect resources to the empire with roads now? Resources will automatically be connected when one builds a mine, or pasture or whatever?

I wouldn't assume that. They've said elsewhere that trade is the main reason for building roads; you use roads to connect cities, and might still need to connect resources.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well If they cost maintenance, then they might be free to build.

And that would be a good thing that could happen if you don't have gold... your roads disappear. (standard solution to running out of gold..lose things that cost gold)

The "Gold" "Science" separation is Very good

And it basically sounds like sliders are totally abolished (long term planning v pulling a slider up or down)

"This encourages players to long-term planning of empires, and bad practice to pull up and down sliders distribution of money each turn optimizing costs,"

Also (Google Translate)
-Air units (and missile units) are Not limited to 1 upt
"Air units, for example, exist in a separate layer, layers with its fleet with the land army and civilian units. In contrast to terrestrial and marine units, missiles and aircraft can be grouped in a single hexa, enabling use of such major fighting units like aircraft carriers and submarine missile cruiser"

Diplomacy.
"For example, Gandhi will try to act in its peace-loving style. But he will not fail to exploit the situation and start a war, if the player himself would ask for it. In Civilization V, we hope to motivate AI more logical and understandable."
"Relationship with the potential enemy - is the most important criterion, but even if passions inflamed to the utmost, AI will not attack unless it has ascertained that the enemy is easy prey. These include countries with poorly protected area (according to the reports of AI-Intelligence), players with a weak army (for example, because of the technological gap). Last but not least is a comfortable, no natural geographical barriers towards uke city."


Roads Will give movement bonses and 'trade routes'

"They are, as before, accelerate the movement of units on the territory, plus when you connect the two cities you will receive substantial financial bonus. But there is a downside - every move you pay for all of its road, and if you have an unused line, you just throw your money away. We think this will encourage players to make a meaningful way to build infrastructure."

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Finally, infrastructure is going to cost you! I assume that if you aren't able to pay then roads and the like will fall into disrepair, possibly halving or completely negating their effectiveness. Hopefully if this does happen simply restoring your spending there will fix things up, instead of say having to send a worker around to rebuild all the roads...I can see this mechanic creating an interesting dynamic.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

I imagine that maybe one route between a city and your capital would bring economic benefits, whereas any additional routes would provide no further benefit but cost you more maintenance

I'd have to see this in practice. What I don't like about this is that we're getting back to billing people for stuff they build, something we got away from for good reason in Civ IV.

Also, what does this do to roads outside your empire? On some maps, I send a worker protected by a military unit to build a "long-distance road" to another civ I know I'll be sending a lot of units towards -- missionaries, soldiers, etc. Who pays for these roads now? Can we even build them?

Sigh. Can't we fast-forward to September?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'd have to see this in practice. What I don't like about this is that we're getting back to billing people for stuff they build, something we got away from for good reason in Civ IV.

Also, what does this do to roads outside your empire? On some maps, I send a worker protected by a military unit to build a "long-distance road" to another civ I know I'll be sending a lot of units towards -- missionaries, soldiers, etc. Who pays for these roads now? Can we even build them?

Sigh. Can't we fast-forward to September?

It could be that you "Own" roads, and so only you (and those you have open borders with) get the benefit of it.

You only got rid of billing people for Buildings in Civ IV
You added billing them for Cities and Military units

 

[Nicolas10]

Great Article Post... And A big Thank You to Google Translator .

On Roads, I think they realized they really needed to stop the strategy of having automated workers essentially road every single square on the board.

Secondly, since all basic land units are going to have a base movement of two now, if you roaded every single space on your continent, you could make any basic melee unit into a Cavalry unit... Especially with a little advance scouting and leaving some Hex pathways free, a rigorous road network in the netherlands between a Mountain range would give you a massive attacking advantage. You'd be flying in and out.

Now, if you've got a ton of money, and/or facing a serious attack from anoher civ, you may still want to build up the Road network, but I think the lesson is that a defensive structure like that will cost money.

I'm sure that hooking up a Pasture/Mine, City, etc. Will still a) be necessary and b) make economic sense. Likewise, it "probably" will make sense to road to another civ, albeit that could be a dicier economic quandary.

And I also love separate Gold and Science... Combined with No Tech Trading, this will make make truly one-sided gameplay much harder.

I like all these ideas.

 

[timtofly]

ROADS:

They are, as before, accelerate the movement of units on the territory, plus when you connect the two cities you will receive substantial financial bonus.

("Gold" and "science" is now divided and "mined" in different ways.) see below

(A road between two cities = "mined" gold - upkeep)?

No trade mentioned. Just the fact the two cities are connected.

Dennis Shirk: The game uses three to four (why not just say four, it cannot be both can it) basic resource. "Food" and "production" remained exactly as they are accustomed to veterans series. But the familiar concept of trade are no more. "Gold" and "science" is now divided and "mined" in different ways.

 

[Ahriman]

So no more commerce, gold and science come from terrain and improvements?

So, some tile improvements give science, some give gold, some give a mix?

Interesting. Very weird. I can't really imagine what kind of terrain improvements give you "science". Cottages, I guess... but then what gives you gold?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

So no more commerce, gold and science come from terrain and improvements?

So, some tile improvements give science, some give gold, some give a mix?

Interesting. Very weird. I can't really imagine what kind of terrain improvements give you "science". Cottages, I guess... but then what gives you gold?

"mined" may just mean obtained.

Roads give you some benefit, so probably in gold (through the trade routes)

"Cottages" might give you Both science And gold, but in Fixed percentages

Trade goods might give you gold (+1 gold per good a city has access to ala corporations)...

The Trade good tiles themselves may give gold (perhaps assuming they are connected to the city working the tile?)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The more I'm reading about this game, the more I think I'm gonna love it . I'm glad that air units & missiles aren't bound by the 1upt rule, because they've never really suffered from the Stack of Doom problem. It also means yet more strength to navies in the late game, because subs & aircraft carriers are going to be as important as ever!
Road maintenance-thank the stars; I've been begging for this for *YEARS*!
Sliders-very intriguing, but still too vague to know if this is good or bad. I'm hoping that your social settings will to some degree impact how much science, gold & production you receive. Guess we'll need to wait on more info there.

Aussie.

 

[Never]

All interesting points. I can't get my head around how a lot of these new concepts will work, but I'm confident it will make for a refreshing game.

One thing I thought was that science may not be produced by terrain at all. Buildings (and specialists, if they're in the game?) like libraries could now produce a certain amount of science beakers per turn. Terrain would only be needed for production, food and gold.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

One thing I thought was that science may not be produced by terrain at all. Buildings (and specialists, if they're in the game?) like libraries could now produce a certain amount of science beakers per turn. Terrain would only be needed for production, food and gold.

If true, then that would be really great. Indeed, I'm hoping for a further boost to the Specialist Economy in Civ5!

Aussie.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think a couple of people thought that with the introduction of road maintenance it made sense to cause your roads to fall into 'disrepair' if you run out of gold. I highly doubt this would be the case as it would most likely fall under what a game designer would call "unfun features".

Generally game designers prefer a rubber band effect over a poor get poorer effect. If you're already losing gold, why make it even more difficult for the player by wreaking havoc on his/her roads?

Anyway, without a doubt, this road maintenance idea is what they actually meant by roads causing a penalty. I can't see them going with a double whammy of roads reducing a tile output and costing maintenance.

And honestly, roads that don't increase unit movement would seem so weird - a complete departure from every previous civ game. I can't imagine them going down that route. (pun accidental )

 

[ori]

This link is for a google translation of the link in the OP.