Vote: Hopes and guesses for next Civ-game (Dec 2013 poll)

What do you HOPE and what do you GUESS will be next (see description)


  • Total voters
    142
I'd rather they perfected 5, rather than start from scratch with 6. Chances are 6 wouldn't be better than BNW until after at least the first expansion.

The easiest way for them to make me happy would be to release some more quality scenarios as DLC. A SMAF spin-off would be more work, but also make me very happy. I think it's safe to say I'll by anything firaxis releases for Civ 5, or X-Com, as long as it continues their recent quality level.

BTW, if I'm interpreting the Steam DB history right, it seems they're working on a new patch in addition to "Bison."
 
What would be nice is if the strategic view from CiV could form the basis of a tablet version that's compatible with the full game in MP. That would bring the best of a full game with lovingly rendered landscapes, wonders, leaders and inhabitants, and a mobile app that's useful for people on the go or lacking the budget for a full computer. Plus, LAN parties!

My main wish is that military forces be based on food and population. As far as I'm concerned, a full-time warrior is another kind of specialist that human society enabled to exist by producing a food surplus. Not by chopping down a forest and harvesting incense.
 
Besides, the even numbered games are probably a little quicker to get to market. Civ VI will be able to use most of the same mechanics (hexes, 1upt) that CivV innovated. Naturally we all hope that they'll program the AI to fight better in those mechanics, but in any case, they're not designing them from scratch.
I don't see why exactly every other game should come sooner to the market. Of course of the use the same engine they can save a lot of time on that. But I doubt they will use exactly the same engine. If they can benefit from the last game it doesn't necessary has to be every other game.

While the console market is a great opportunity for Civ, I daresay the tablet market is bigger.
I would hope for that rather than consoles. Console gaming doesn't bring anything new as such, whereas tablet gaming gives the possibility of playing everywhere.

Unfortunately there's still a big difference between the best and the worst tablets around. The tablets aren't bought for gaming purses in this extentions. Many tablets sold today could be good enough for gaming, but not all. However, people have many tablets laying around that are a year or two old. These are simply not good enough. So either aim for a small market or make a simplified game that is NOT Civ6.

What would be nice is if the strategic view from CiV could form the basis of a tablet version that's compatible with the full game in MP. That would bring the best of a full game with lovingly rendered landscapes, wonders, leaders and inhabitants, and a mobile app that's useful for people on the go or lacking the budget for a full computer. Plus, LAN parties!
That would be awesome. Compatibility is what I would ask for the most. Playing a stand alone game would only be nice for travelling since you would get so much more for the PC game. If I could continue my game on a tablet as in strategic view similar game I will definitely acquire the game.
 
the easiest way for them to make me happy would be to release some more quality scenarios as dlc. A smaf spin-off would be more work, but also make me very happy. I think it's safe to say i'll by anything firaxis releases for civ 5, or x-com, as long as it continues their recent quality level.
smaf??
 
Wodan said:
While the console market is a great opportunity for Civ, I daresay the tablet market is bigger.
I would hope for that rather than consoles. Console gaming doesn't bring anything new as such, whereas tablet gaming gives the possibility of playing everywhere.

Unfortunately there's still a big difference between the best and the worst tablets around. Many tablets sold today could be good enough for gaming, but not all. However, people have many tablets laying around that are a year or two old. These are simply not good enough.
I'm not sure that's going to matter.

There are two ways to do an app which can go to the tablet market (and I assume to the PC market at the same time). One is a self-contained program, the other is server based (in other words, you can't play it if you're not online).

The problem is the delivery model... an app over 20Mb is HUGE. So it's not simply can the tablet run it, but sending it through the Android or Apple store. Sure, there could be a direct download, but we still have a lot of issues to contend with. And, Civ5's total size is around 3gb I believe. Clearly out of the question for the stores. Even using a radically different graphics engine (back to static graphics like Civ3?), it's likely going to be a challenge. Maybe there's something innovative that could be done such as integrated animated gif packets. Old tech used in a new way.

Server based is the alternative, where some part of the processing and data is run by a server. That's a totally different model and will require a lot of IT support, obviously. But the payoffs could be huge, with a true cross-platform, online game which also has the multiplayer we've always wanted.

Either way, it would have to be coded and compiled for each platform. Much like Civ5 has PC and Mac versions, we would have PC, Andoid, iOS, and Mac versions, and yes maybe even a console version.
 
My hope is that we'll get another expansion pack for Civ5. There's still some civs I'd like to see in the game like Vietnam, the Goths, Normans and some others.
But I suspect that we'll be getting Civ6 next, which I'm also looking forward to. :)
 
Those three civs (and more) could just come as a DLC.

The problem is the delivery model... an app over 20Mb is HUGE. So it's not simply can the tablet run it, but sending it through the Android or Apple store. Sure, there could be a direct download, but we still have a lot of issues to contend with. And, Civ5's total size is around 3gb I believe. Clearly out of the question for the stores. Even using a radically different graphics engine (back to static graphics like Civ3?), it's likely going to be a challenge. Maybe there's something innovative that could be done such as integrated animated gif packets. Old tech used in a new way.

Server based is the alternative, where some part of the processing and data is run by a server. That's a totally different model and will require a lot of IT support, obviously. But the payoffs could be huge, with a true cross-platform, online game which also has the multiplayer we've always wanted.
Most games that are more than just Facebook "click here, click there" games come as a rather small app in Google Play. Then when you open it you need to download 200-500MB. The Sims is a good example of the this, and I guess Need For Speed is downloaded the same way.

However, I don't consider that a problem. I still consider processing power to be the problem. Wait a couple of years or three years. Then I think we could see it coming.

I like the idea of a cross platform multiplayer game. Maybe we will get that in Civ6. The timing is about right if it is released in the middle of 2015, which I could imagine it would.
 
The idea of you having to buy each Civ you want to play is not a bad one. Not only will it lower the entry price point for the game as a whole, but it'll distribute the download needs. (Say you download 500Mb for the initial app for $10, and then each civ is an added 10Mb for $3.)

Cross-platform, especially with true, out of the box multiplayer (while at the same time not ignoring the single player that is the core audience), would be the way to go, IMO.

I agree processing power is a concern, but I already think that a lot of the animation will need to be streamlined, which is the current processing hog (for Civ5). And, by the time this game hits the market, smartphones will easily be able to handle it (they already are pretty close) in CPU and memory.
 
As long as they don't make the following mistakes:

1) Dumb down every single strategic option or choice in the game because they want to include a feature they can't implement (yes 1UPT I'm looking at you).
2) Look at the problems in previous games that were fixed already, and go "yeah we really like these ideas, let's bring them back" (ROP rape and GPT for one off deals were ridiculous).
3) Make the game beatable on deity within a week of release (look for RBSG3 for proof of this. Yes the players in that game were good, but they shouldn't have been good enough to beat a game on its highest settings when it was still barely in the shops).
4) Don't allow the next game to be used by another company to beta test their product (yes, that's what they did).
5) Don't think that shiny equals good game. I prefer meaty gameplay over shiny graphics every day (and I'd bet good money most strategy gamers would do the same). Now if you can have both then more power to you.
and finally 6) Don't give the next game to a person whose only experience in the genre was to make a few mods for a predecessor (the espionage system for Civ 4 BtS was essentially a mod grafted into the base game), especially when his mods had all the hallmarks of "long on ideas, short on ability to finish the game or make sure those ideas work". Ideally 2K/Firaxis would be begging Soren to take back lead designer for Civ 6, but anyone with a good track record and coding skills would be preferrable to the train wreck leadership Civ 5 had.

Oh, and 6a) Make sure that the in-house testers are skilled MPers and not yes men, and impress on them that their job is to both find bugs in the game, and test the mechanics to destruction. The testing process for Civ 5 was beyond pathetic, as evidenced by the game being released (and for 18 subsequent months) in a state little better than alpha testing mode.
 
Voted for the second last option. I hope to see another expansion pack and I am certain that civ 5 is the last of that particular series, at least for a while.

Seeing a SMAC2 would also be awesome. To me, SMAC > civ 2 and civ 4 (don't have civ 1 or 3 but I'd still assume that SMAC is better than those games) and roughly < civ 5. Can anyone imagine SMAC with civ 5 combat mechanics? Unit stacking was actually balanced in SMAC, because if you won a fight against a unit in a grouped team, you did collateral damage to all units (about 40%). In civ 4, that only applies to siege units. In SMAC, you can also still get a domination victory and still get the reputation of being noble. Ah, good memories, and I still have the expansion disc (SMAX). :D
 
I would really love to see an expansion which gave a second leader to every civ which would confer a different UA to that civ when playing that leader. Maybe some small gameplay changes/a new gameplay mechanic added in there as well.

In the meantime I also wouldn't mind a new DLC civ or two.
 
4) Don't allow the next game to be used by another company to beta test their product (yes, that's what they did).
5) Don't think that shiny equals good game. I prefer meaty gameplay over shiny graphics every day (and I'd bet good money most strategy gamers would do the same). Now if you can have both then more power to you.
Though I like the idea of real players doing the beta tests, I imagine they could loose costumers on bad beta releases. Seems most game developers now release their beta games to players that've already paid for the game. This way they are sure to receive their payment :)
Not really sure about your explanation in number 5. I can partly agree with you from my point of view, but I think people are not really interested to play unless that game looks shiny. However, if strategy gamers were forced to spend a couple of hours on a shiny game and on a good balanced game, I imagine they would pick the latter. But since they just read and hear some reviews I doubt they will actually choose the balanced game over the shiny one.

I would really love to see an expansion which gave a second leader to every civ which would confer a different UA to that civ when playing that leader. Maybe some small gameplay changes/a new gameplay mechanic added in there as well.

In the meantime I also wouldn't mind a new DLC civ or two.
That's what I've been hoping for all time long :) However, in another thread people seem to disagree with my points on doing another leader for some (or all) existing civilizations. Think they will need another game mechanics asweel, so the expansion won't seem to much like a handfuld of expensive DLCs. However, I doubt they will add more game mechanics in Civ5, and that's why I'm pretty certain we will never seen an expansion for that game. Especially not since they launched BE.

Which left me in doubt was the last patch fall. Where were the Landsknecht? (This smells like HRE...)
They were moved into the SP-tree :)
 
I hope we get another expansion first. Civ 5 is such a great game and it works on my macbook, not so sure Civ 6 would so then I would need to buy a new computer.

But an expansion with more diplomacy would be great. Would also like to be able to dig canals, tunnels through mountains and replant forest. Interfere more with the nature, perhaps build dams along rivers. And also ability to specialize cities. So that food and hammer transports from a city is dependent on how much that city produce on its own. And having separate counters for GP´s. But that is not a biggie.
 
I hope for Civ 6 on the horizon with a fully functional and working completely useable, not buggy multiplayer. MULTIPLAYER THAT WORKS!! I want to see a rating system where leavers get a bad rating. I want to see games that don't crash, freeze and reload for no reason.

Being able to give people negative marks for leaving games would be an excellent feature. Perhaps a system that tells you the average number of minutes a player plays before leaving etc...

A voting system that allows you to kick or allow some one to leave. Hosts having the power to kick people who attack them is absurd.
 
Moderator Action: (Dec 2013 poll) added to end of the thread title.
 
I feel pretty confident at this point that they are going to let BE play out with 2 expansions before they release Civ VI. 2017 sounds about right.
 
I hope we get another expansion first. Civ 5 is such a great game and it works on my macbook, not so sure Civ 6 would so then I would need to buy a new computer.

But an expansion with more diplomacy would be great. Would also like to be able to dig canals, tunnels through mountains and replant forest. Interfere more with the nature, perhaps build dams along rivers. And also ability to specialize cities. So that food and hammer transports from a city is dependent on how much that city produce on its own. And having separate counters for GP´s. But that is not a biggie.
I wouldn't say the lack of processing power is an argue why not to go for Civ6. But I'm probably in the same boat as you on this one. However, I see that as an argument for buying myself a new computer :)

Great suggestions. Would like to see the same aswell, but I doubt those that interact with nature aren't enough for an expansion in themselves. Maybe the diplomacy combined with something else could call for a new expansion.

Regaring nature I sure can agree that rivers don't play an important role as in the real world. You should be able to do trade routes by barges or trade vessels via the rivers. Also being able to build harbors near rivers.

I feel pretty confident at this point that they are going to let BE play out with 2 expansions before they release Civ VI. 2017 sounds about right.
Could easily be true. Not quite sure we will see a second expansion for BE. There's plenty to add to that game since it is sci-fi, but not sure the sale figures are good enough for a second expansion. However, since the game engine is build and everything I guess it won't take that much work considering the money they can make from an expansion.
 
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