Sid + CivWorld by Ben Crair (the Daily Beast)

[Tatran]

The first part of the article goes back in time and the second part looks into the future (CivWorld) of civilization and Sid.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/...ationworldforfacebookfacebookafterfarmville_1

 

[.Shane.]

Thanks for linking to this. It was a nice read.

 

[Moss]

Indeed. Very good read (so good, I put it on the main page, thanks Tatran).

What I found most interesting (and the parts before and after this quote):

The biggest break with past games is that Civilization World ditches the turn-based format. Instead, the game unfolds in real time. Within their cities, players will be able to construct buildings and carry out the familiar tasks of Civilization games—researching technologies, building armies, raising money—but these resources will accumulate over time rather than by turns. Like an electronic ant farm, players can actually watch little animated citizens march from their houses to their workplaces and then deliver the fruits of their labor to the city's palace.

By making the game happen in real time, Meier says you can proceed "at your own pace and on your own schedule, not based on when the turn changes, where everybody would have to be on the same schedule and playing at the same speed." As is the convention in other Facebook games, Civilization World's gears turn constantly so that a player who is unable to play for several hours will find that his city continued producing resources in his absence.

 

[Thander]

I like this idea. It reminds me of those old Archmage browser games. "Turns" accrued every 10 minutes or so up to a certain cap (a few day's worth). Whenever you had time to logon, you could use them all up at once to catch up with people that had used their turns immediately. The only problem was you could be attacked while away from the game during the day. Without your turns used up, you were at a disadvantage. Assuming CivWorld doesn't involve much war, this problem would be avoided.

 

[NinjaCow64]

I sincerely hope that they keep the RTS flavour to the Facebook versions. Don’t get me wrong, I love RTSs, but I play Civ for it’s unique (maybe not unique, but definitely not mainstream) turn by turn pace. There are so many good RTSs out there that I would probably play them more often than CIV VI: The RTS Version. I still play AoE II and Starcraft because they are so fantastic.

The good thing about Civ World is that it might give casual gamers a chance to progress to more difficult games. I think where some casuals get stuck is the intimidatingness of “hardcore” games. Whatever you say about the Civ series, all of their games are intimidating. When I was 8 years old, I once clicked on the city screen in Civ III and I was scared out of my pants. There were all these icons and I didn’t know what I was meant to do. Maybe if Civ World is Civvy enough to encourage new Civfanatics to exist, it is a good thing. But then again, it might fall into the gap of too easy for hardcores and too hard for noobs. Only time will tell.

 

[hoplitejoe]

well done to atticus finch for getting quoted.

"This is ridiculous. I want to play a real Civ game, not some dumbed-down Facebook version," whined a typical commenter on CivFanatics, an online forum for Civilization players.

This is ridiculous. I want to play a real Civ game, not some dumb downed facebook version. Firaxis has really stooped low.

 

[shl7070]

Thre are some problems with the real-time auto-play concept.
Detailed management or even micro-management are important in every civ-game so far. The "harvests" may collect but I can't use them efficiently if I'm not in constantly.

I dread to think what would happen if somebody declared war on my civ and I wasn't in and lost my capital because of it. They can know if I'm in by using facebook interface and strike me down while I'm at sleep. I can't commit myself to being constantly in to play it.

If they will utilise the farmville gifting systems then the largest team will win even if there are no decent strategists in the team. They could just amicably gift gold, tech or even advanced units to each other just like Farmville.

As I remember when large number of people cooperated in Farmville they could develop ultra-quick even without good strategy because of the gifting system.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Thre are some problems with the real-time auto-play concept.
Detailed management or even micro-management are important in every civ-game so far. The "harvests" may collect but I can't use them efficiently if I'm not in constantly.

I dread to think what would happen if somebody declared war on my civ and I wasn't in and lost my capital because of it. They can know if I'm in by using facebook interface and strike me down while I'm at sleep. I can't commit myself to being constantly in to play it.

If they will utilise the farmville gifting systems then the largest team will win even if there are no decent strategists in the team. They could just amicably gift gold, tech or even advanced units to each other just like Farmville.

As I remember when large number of people cooperated in Farmville they could develop ultra-quick even without good strategy because of the gifting system.

I think when you lose in a war you become forced into a team with your conquerer. Not get pushed out of the game.