Why only 18 civs?

[ranLR]

I hardly think thats how Firaxis chose their civs.
They probably looked where their biggest customer base were and threw those in (ie America, England, Germany etc) with the exception of Canada (that country just doesnt have an interesting history, and they can play America), and then they threw in a bunch of other non-political ones for the he11 of it.

Firaxis are probably being real careful politically about who they add and what they write in the description and even how they draw the leaders. the world political situation is a bit touchy. therefore im suprised they have arabia in.

 

[Meleager]

I hardly think thats how Firaxis chose their civs.
They probably looked where their biggest customer base were and threw those in (ie America, England, Germany etc) with the exception of Canada (that country just doesnt have an interesting history, and they can play America), and then they threw in a bunch of other non-political ones for the he11 of it.

Firaxis are probably being real careful politically about who they add and what they write in the description and even how they draw the leaders. the world political situation is a bit touchy. therefore im suprised they have arabia in.

In that case there would be no eastern ones (other than japan) and none that dont exist today. And as for chucking out arabia -> yeah lets just pretend a civilization doesn't exit because there is a war over there. I'm sure that money plays some part but hopefully not that much

 

[Hannabir]

As long as they give us 18 good ones i'll be happy. Civ 3 included the Iriqouis over the Spanish for goodness sakes! The Spanish controlled one of history's largest empires and the Iriqouis were never even a civilization!

Spain is in Civ3, I believe (I've wiped them out often enough).
If you don't think that the Iroquois were a civilization, then you have some interesting study time still ahead of you.

 

[Chinese American]

yea why not put in 100 civs and have it come out in 2020.

 

[Hannabir]

Well, all they have to do is make room and we will create the civs ourselves.

 

[CrazyMrLeo]

yea why not put in 100 civs and have it come out in 2020.

Well, obviously 100 civs is a bit extreme, but they've already HAD a game with 31 civs in it. I don't see why it should be cut all the way down to 18.

 

[The Last Conformist]

CivII had 21 ones in the initial release ...

Shame to see the Babylonians go. Of course, I always advocated merging Sumeria, Babylonia, and Assyria as a Mesopotamian civ.

 

[Brain]

Well, obviously 100 civs is a bit extreme, but they've already HAD a game with 31 civs in it. I don't see why it should be cut all the way down to 18.

Because they can't re-use any of the stuff they already had. All the graphics and sound art has to be re-done 18 times over.

 

[imagod284]

Spain is in Civ3, I believe (I've wiped them out often enough).
If you don't think that the Iroquois were a civilization, then you have some interesting study time still ahead of you.

Spain was not in Civ 3, only in Conquests and PTW. And when i think about the 4 requirements of a civilization, permanent agriculture, stratified society, monumental architecture, and a written language, I don't think the Iroquois qualify.

 

[North King]

Spain was not in Civ 3, only in Conquests and PTW. And when i think about the 4 requirements of a civilization, permanent agriculture, stratified society, monumental architecture, and a written language, I don't think the Iroquois qualify.

Written language is NOT a requirement for a civilization. Unless you'd care to claim the Incas were a bunch of barbarian savages? Or the early Chinese?

 

[Gramphos]

Does it really require alot of memory to create a civ and put it in the game? (Sorry, I don't know the first damn thing about computers except that its where I play Civ)
Isn't a civ just a leader animation, a unit, and some variable characteristics?

Well, seeing the detail of the leaderanimations shown on E3 I would say that there are several manhours put on creation those animatons.
I believe those, and all promised movies, are the most timeconsuming graphics to create for Civ4. I have no idea on how many artists they have working on Civ4, or how long they have been working on it. Maybe they could hire a few more. However it's not that long to the release date any more, and I'm sure that Take 2, who payed alot for getting the publising rights would want a delayed release.

While it's true that Civ2 shiped with 21 civs, that was in a totally defferent gaming era. The costs in both time and money for making graphics for new games just keep going up. Also concider that graphics almost always is the last thing to be done for games, so that they shall not be old when the game comes out.

Hopefully the modingcapabilities will live up to what's promised. Then adding new civs should be easy for modders. Again graphics is probably the biggest problem since Civ4 being 3d means that you probably would need a 3d modelling tool, and alots of know how to be able to make graphics that math the rest of the game.

 

[Hannabir]

And when i think about the 4 requirements of a civilization, permanent agriculture, stratified society, monumental architecture, and a written language, I don't think the Iroquois qualify.

The Iroquois had all that: they already had permanent agriculture centuries before the Europeans met them (in fact they were ahead of Europe at the time), a stratified society (constitution, confederacy and local as well as national and federal democracy in 1451AD!), a written language (initially pictographs, like the Egyptians, and later the generic Amerind alphabet), and created monumental buildings (initially, high multi-layered pallisades, and later most skyscrapers in North-America were built by Mohawks), although I don't see why that last one should be a requirement. Need more?

 

[warpstorm]

Well, seeing the detail of the leaderanimations shown on E3 I would say that there are several manhours put on creation those animatons.

Probably a lot more than "several". These types of things are done, then re-done, then tweaked, then re-done yet again.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

I'm with the camp that says more civilizations. MORE MORE MORE! And not just more civs, but more leaders per civ (some civs would obviously have to have more leaders than others). Don't force value judgments on what is a civ versus what isn't, just include them all.

That said, I can see them only starting out with a set number (though 18 seems a bit low... 21 maybe?) allowing players to mod if they really want a certain civ and also releasing expansions to bring the number up to a decent level. After all, my favorite civ (the Ottomans) came with PTW.

As for only so many fitting on CD, why not have multiple CDs in the game? Same the civs to the hard drive of the computer. If a person's lack of system requirements won't allow them to save all the civs, let THEM choose which to include and which not to (it could be part of the installation, with the option of switching on the pre-game screen).

 

[Urederra]

I think that any time, money or computer limitations does not justify to include only 18 civs since there are some A civs with TWO leaders.

And, as far as the expansions are concerned, they can add more leaders to already included civilizations. I am pretty sure that they will include Hitler in an expansion.

 

[warpstorm]

Making a second leader for a civ is roughly the same amount of work as making a new civ. The question shouldn't be how many civs, but rather how many leaders (as they have the distiguishing charateristics (not civs) if I am reading right).

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Leaders: John Howard and Paul Keating or Authur Phillip (captian of the 1st fleet)
UU: ANZAC troopers or Light Horse or maybe the modern SAS (their suppose to be the best in the world)
Civ traits: Economic, Agricultural using the current civ3 usage

Head of State: Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain

 

[mastertyguy]

Making a second leader for a civ is roughly the same amount of work as making a new civ. The question shouldn't be how many civs, but rather how many leaders (as they have the distiguishing charateristics (not civs) if I am reading right).

So, why not more civ less leaders?

 

[warpstorm]

Maybe they really wanted two for each (it seems almost all will have two). France under Nappy will be a very different than France under Louis.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Ask yourself this: Would you rather have 18 well-done civs or a lot more lousy ones? Like it or not, that is the choice. Resources are not infinite, especially time and budget. If those dedicated to making the different civs are spread too thin, you no what gets sacrificed at the end.

Besides what others have pointed out already, there is the not inconsiderable issue of testing. Firaxis is playing with some of these civs. They will continue to do so. The more civs there are, the more likely a last second change will lead to some crazy interaction with animation or options to produce a bug. A great deal of the bugs that people complained about in Conquests where of this nature, evidently.

Sometimes I wonder if certain parts of the community will lose all perspective before Civ4 arrives. I also wonder how many of the pre-complaints are based on any real idea of how a software project is put together.