Rob Zacny

Episode 348: Civilization at 25

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Loved this episode. I'm not even a Civ fan (having only played a little bit of vanilla V) but I love listening to Jon and Soren talk, especially when it comes to their histories in the industry.

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This episode was jam-packed enough, but I was curious if Civilization Revolution was excluded intentionally or just slipped through the cracks? It's certainly not the best Civ, but it's a really interesting little experiment that I enjoyed my time with.

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My guess is that Jon and Soren didn't work on it, so they didn't comment on it.

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Great episode.  I've played Civ from the beginning, and probably owned every expansion along the way.  I had forgotten how jacked up the early Civs were.  In Civ 2 and 3, I remember agonizing over overflow-avoidance.  I remember ICS (Infinite City Spam), which was still a viable strategy in Civ 3, even with corruption (though I can't fathom why you would WANT to play that way).  Like Rob, I found myself reminiscing about gigantic apocalyptic endgame wars in Civ 2, and wondering whether I would even have the patience for that now.  Probably not.  

 

Anyways, classic episode!

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Civilization designers Jon Shafer

AKA the man who ruined the franchise...though to be fair to him, it was the first sign of real troubles inside modern Firaxis.

 

It sold more than 10 millions IIRC and it's one of the most played games on PC.

Yes, and a few years ago the "most played game on PC" titles were consistently taken by hunting sims. See the progression ?

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AKA the man who ruined the franchise...though to be fair to him, it was the first sign of real troubles inside modern Firaxis.

 

Yes, and a few years ago the "most played game on PC" titles were consistently taken by hunting sims. See the progression ?

 

Thank god you showed up to tell us which games it's acceptable to like. I used to enjoy Civ V, but this post has changed everything! Now that Civ V is out, which game would you choose for me to play? And given that I clearly have no idea what I've been doing with my gaming time, I'd appreciate it if you could tell me exactly the right way to play whichever great game you choose for me.

 

Edit: I guess I should actually add something to the thread. So .. uh .. great episode. My favorites are always when you guys get smart people on and let them talk about design. Always fascinating. 

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I don't think Civ 5 ruined the franchise, but I did partially enjoy this episode because Civ 5 is controversial and has a fatter tail of opinions about it than of Civ 4. You know that Soren and Jon must have some strong opinions about each other's work. That context made the discussion so much more interesting to me.

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Apologies for the thread necro but I'm behind in my listening. This podcast spurred me to sign up in the forum so - well done!

As I write this, Civ 6 has been announced. Details are sparse but I noticed Jon Shafer commented in a thread about Civ 6 over at Civ Fanatics, so the podcast speakers have at least heard the news.

I will echo the comment here that Colonization should have been mentioned. It did have a brilliant end game mechanic with the war for independence.

My purpose for writing today is to urge 3MA to do another podcast on Civ before inevitably doing one on Civ 6. Why? The podcast speakers frequently mention Civ in the context of other games but the discussion tends to dance around clearly deep opinions on the subject. Troy once distinguished between "empire builders" and other types of 4x that offer alternative paths to victory. Rob is nostalgic for the unit festivals of war in Civ 2 while acknowledging appreciation for the multiple paths to victory of Civ 5.

I'd love to hear a deeper discussion about the fundamental nature of Civ. Not simply from a standpoint of good or bad game design, but whether the foundational assumptions of the series should be challenged and reconsidered. Does the series still have value, or should there be a new approach for a game called "Civilization" given the two and a half decades of real world historical and anthropological research since the game was created?

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If you want the epic end battles of CIV 2, I play Civilization Beyond Earth.  The end game mechanic shows who is winning and how many turns until they complete their victory condition.  I played about 150 hours and in three games, civilization just blow each other up on the higher difficulties.  The AI is programmed to fight each other if they are getting close to a win.

I thought Rob let them off the hook by not asking them what's up with the AI when it comes to water.  It was not fixed in CIV 5.  You can float a strike force around to the enemy capital and just wipe out the strongest players with a small force.  You can 1812 and totally wipe an enemy CIV. 

Also, the AI doesn't seem to play better.  It just gets more bonuses.  You end up with your own bag of game breaking tricks like the Mayan city spam religion (max city population of 7) to break the game back on deity 'god and King'.  It not like you out played your opponent.  (A more common trick is the horse rush in vanilla CIV 5.)  What was the thinking about AI programming?

I like endless legend because they seem to play their civilization trait.  The water AI still seems way off.  The zombie bug faction will always attack if they have the advantage.  The roving trade faction will not mess with you if your trading well with them.  In CIV, I have seen India spam out cities on deity b/c the bonuses are so high they can ignore their trait penalty.     

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