Episode 348: Civilization at 25

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 348:

Civilization at 25

In this very special Three Moves Ahead, Rob is joined by Civilization designers Jon Shafer and Soren Johnson to talk about Civilization. The venerable strategy series turns 25 this year, and Rob already took the one joke I had about how it can now rent a car. Oh well. Jon and Soren give their takes on the other entries in the series and give some insight into their design decisions for Civ IV and V.

Civilization 1, Civilization 2, Civilization 3, Civilization 4, Civilization 5, Civilization 6 j/k lol

• Listen on the Episode Page
• Listen on Soundcloud
• Listen in iTunes

[Gaizokubanou]

ahhh so much fun, now I just need Troy's writing on civ franchise~

[barometz]

Good stuff. Feel like this kind of puts a cap on all the various Civ discussions over the past years. Appreciate the acknowledgement of "casual players", sometimes feels like I'm alone in that category

[hexgrid]

I think we did have a 4x dark age from the late 90s until Kickstarter and the indie game movement brought them back.  I don't think the Civ franchise had anything to do with it; I think it was more the game devs who cut their teeth on 80s and early 90s games finally getting to a position to work on the games they wanted to, and going back to their formative gaming experiences for inspiration.  It's the same thing bringing back all the other game genres (flight sims, 6dof shooters, adventure games, strategy games in general) that died (or at least got very sick) on the altar of publishers chasing the mass market.

[fledermaus]

I'm surprised when you were discussing alternative civ formats that no one brought up colonization (Both civ 2 and civ 4 versions) Those mods actually solved the boring late game slog because you were building up to this one thing (independence) and the end game was "hey, ya know that thing you have been working towards all game? Well it's here and it's going to be glorious."

[ilitarist]

Same here, was surprised no one brought up Colonization. It's limited in scope, handles Tall vs Wide nicely, is about familiar theme, asynchronous, endgame. It doesn't even need other nations to be entertaining so AI is less of a problem. It is actually similar to merging of Imperialism and Civ even though the first game appeared before Imperialism itself.

 

Thumb Citizen, if you look at any 4X game forum you see the question "is this like Civ5?" There are guides "Civ5 player guide for this game", people compare everything to Civ5. It sold more than 10 millions IIRC and it's one of the most played games on PC. Kickstarter has nothing to do with 4X. It sponsored At the Gates which is not even out yet. But after Civ5 you so many franchises, new and old, having a new entries in many ways inspired by Civ5. I know hexes are old as dirt but don't tell me every 4X after 2010 has hexes just cause they remembered their roots. There's a clear and undeniable attempt to imitate Civ5 - not Civ4, not Civ in general, but visible superficial elements of Civ5 - in Warlock, Age of Wonders 3, Pandora, Endless Legend, Star Drive 2, Galactic Civilization 3.

[Sorbicol]

That was easily one of the best 3MAs we've had in ages. Thoroughly enjoyed the discussion, it's nice to hear that even Soren and Jon can't figure out a way to fix the last game slog (although I thought the differences made to the cultural victory in Brave New World went a long way towards addressing it - provided you were aiming for a cultural victory of course.

I would also mention that Endless Legend's approach to solving the Stack O'Doom v 1upt issue is by far the most elegant I've come across. Civ 6 could learn a hell of a lot from that I think.

[Gaizokubanou]

I thought EL's combat was actually pretty weak, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that AI didn't upgrade and balance between tiers was kinda odd.

 

Like, I prefer CiV's combat over EL's.

[Sorbicol]

I thought EL's combat was actually pretty weak, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that AI didn't upgrade and balance between tiers was kinda odd.

Like, I prefer CiV's combat over EL's.

Oh I don't think it was perfect - let's be honest unless you package a dedicated combat AI into a game like these, it's never going to handle 1upt as well as it can handle a stack - but the idea of limited army numbers that then spill out to the map with combat is initiated - it's handled very well I thought.

[sclpls]

That was easily one of the best 3MAs we've had in ages. Thoroughly enjoyed the discussion, it's nice to hear that even Soren and Jon can't figure out a way to fix the last game slog (although I thought the differences made to the cultural victory in Brave New World went a long way towards addressing it - provided you were aiming for a cultural victory of course.

I would also mention that Endless Legend's approach to solving the Stack O'Doom v 1upt issue is by far the most elegant I've come across. Civ 6 could learn a hell of a lot from that I think.

 

Personally, I think the best approach to solving the stack of doom problem is Jon Shafer's approach in At the Gates. :-)

[Valorian Endymion]

Amazing episode!

 

Call to Power II was a curious game, I bought it by mistake - at the shop they had both Civ III and Call to Power II, but  for some reason  thought my monitor at the period wouldn´t have enough resolution to run Civ III...

 

The game had a very weird tone, I mean you had think like Lawyers as a unit (that could be killed) and, I kid you not, Slavers.... and techno evangelists...along with the most cutscenes featuring a egyptian themed civ with some stargate elements and a futuristic period (with a pretty boring design) with underwater cities.

 

While the game did features borders, the issue of enemies would settle in the mid of your territories. You might try a diplomatic way to solve the situation, but was impossible, once happen you only had the option to wage to war. Talking about wars, the game used doomstacks, but once they meet up the game would open a pop-up that would show the battle, in a static way - the first six units would be in a front row and the others behind. Some units would act better in certain positions (such as flanks or ranged attacks) but arrange them was not easy, because you need to in the doomstack itself. Second thing, was that once you got in the First World War epoch, the game would came to a halt, your units would all had very high defense but low attack so battles became impractical and taking a city a nightmare. In one game I find myself bringing forward units from the game Victorian period, simple because they had slight higher attack rate.

 

I really agree with was said in the end about the need to more character casts in this kind of games. Because, you see, back to Call to Power - while they advertise that the game would have lots of civ and you could create your own - truth was that none of this was really true, sure there was a lot of civs to choose, but they had absolute zero difference between, no traits, no dialogues, no unique units - NOTHING, your custom civ was just the empire name and the leader name. Think how in Civ you would play with a different faction or how different stories would emerge, because of the other civs... none of this happened in Call to Power. This mean that every game felt the same and you had little reason to play again.

[ilitarist]

Call to Power 2 is probably a reason why we don't have historical 4X anymore. Paradox will sooner or later try to pull something like this, I hope, and they'll have their own vision of history. Because Civilization  has a very defined assumptions about history: it's about cities, defined nations, imperialism, scientific progress. Games like Rise of Nations have their own ideas - progress doesn't mean just science there at least - but remain mostly Civ-RTS.

 

Even Soren's own Offworld Trade Company can be seen as a nice spin on 4X. Imagine it in a historical setting. Your nation is defined by resources, agressive actions are continuation of economy, research is a nice but ultimately not a necessary thing, you can absorb contenders without it. But I fear no one would take a game without armies clashing seriously.

[Granny Dragon]

I always wondered whether the 4 X's in Civ needed a P for the endgame: preservation, given current themes about tye environment and the constant threat of total destruction through nuclear war. This would mean doubling down on the threat of nuclear war, e.g. by making nukes more powerful by allowing them to attack multiple cities, and on climate change/pollution.

[Gatazhk]

I guess I'm the nerd with hundreds of hours in four and five that really enjoys the late game? Not every late game mind you, but my fondest Civ memories are doing things like unlocking the rock and roll as my jet fighters are dropping napalm on one of my hapless enemies.  Or starting a nuclear war to win space race.    Or the great modern era soundtrack in Civ IV   Surprised to hear that Jon and Soren don't  share my enthusiasm. 

 

Great episode 3MA!

[s8g]

What a great episode! As I'm a huge fan of Civ (over 600 hours into Civ5), I really enjoyed the discussion between the two designers and Rob. I found the information sourrounding Civ3 especially interesting. But at the time, I somehow played Call to Power and not Civ...

 

What I really missed was a ciritical perspective on the last two games. Beyond Earth has been left out, although it's clearly a Civ-game, though not a very good one. And Civ5? It's funny, when the two designers picture the community as very conservative and feature-oriented, but nobody mentions that Civ5 before the first expansion wasn't a very good game. It was not only missing features (which can be debated of course), but its AI was not capable to play 1UpT. And then there were the horrible DLCs which showed that 2K/Firaxis regarded the game for some time as a platform to sell new civs and scenarios.

 

Although Civ5 is a great game and design by now and Jon's innovation plays a great role in that, I think it became a truly great game only after two expansions and the correction of some of the mistakes made.

[Gaizokubanou]

Oh I don't think it was perfect - let's be honest unless you package a dedicated combat AI into a game like these, it's never going to handle 1upt as well as it can handle a stack - but the idea of limited army numbers that then spill out to the map with combat is initiated - it's handled very well I thought.

 

Ah yes, the conceptual level was interesting for sure.

 

I really wish Soren could talk more about cottages cause it's like the greatest thing ever.  It's got great visual feedback, sense of growth that's so critical to 4X genre, explicit long-short term considerations, just amazing thing all around.

 

BTW, am I the only one who actually enjoyed CiV at launch?

[Michael]

BTW, am I the only one who actually enjoyed CiV at launch?

No, I quite liked it and found most of the complaints to be somewhat overblown.

[Sorbicol]

BTW, am I the only one who actually enjoyed CiV at launch?

No, I loved it. I was never a fan of the stack of doom and the idea that Civs were tailored to specific victory conditions made so much sense to me. I'm quite prepared to admit that Civ IV was a much better game at the time (probably fairly equal since the release of Brave New World) but I found it so much more intuitive to play and keep track of what it was I was trying to do in the game.

The other thing that really needs to mentioned is the UI. Still the most elegant, easy to use and informative interface I've ever come across. For that Shafer and his team deserve no end of credit.

[Michael]

The other thing that really needs to mentioned is the UI. Still the most elegant, easy to use and informative interface I've ever come across. For that Shafer and his team deserve no end of credit.

To the point where other games like Warlock lifted it pretty blatantly. That always bugged me, though nobody else seemed to care.

[Gaizokubanou]

Ok so I'm certainly not alone in this.

 

Also about the UI, yeah it's pretty amazing.  Like move unit reminder replacing end turn is just great example (was it like that in cIV as well? can't recall it's been so long).

 

Also the game flow of first 5 or 6 moves in civ games are perhaps one of the greatest non-tutorial teaching moments ever?

 

Game gives you settler and a warrior and at first all you can do is move them or settle a city.  So you move warrior and settle a city.  Then you are introduced to city production mechanics.  When you go to lick end turn, it auto guides you into research.

 

It might not seem like much but breaking the core civ loop and feeding them to player in that order is just super powerful way of teaching the game.  It would've been nowhere near as good if you started with a city or research reminder popped earlier.

 

 

To the point where other games like Warlock lifted it pretty blatantly. That always bugged me, though nobody else seemed to care.

 

That's interesting that for me, Warlock landed on the side of 'inspired' than 'cloned/ripped off'.  Was it the difference in production scale (ciV looked more expensive)?  Or that I just wanted more ciV like games so I was just glad for another one?

[ilitarist]

Like move unit reminder replacing end turn is just great example (was it like that in cIV as well? can't recall it's been so long).

 

 Civ4 allowed you to end turn almost at any moment. The exception was next tech/city production popup, but I think you could turn those off.

 

Gameplay-wise Warlock was very different from Civ5. It was actually successor of Fantasy Wars (and standalone expansion Elven Legacy) series made by the same company, InoCo, back in 2007. Which itself was a spiritual successor of Fantasy General, which was Panzer General with elves. Look at screenshots, this game already had hexes, promotions and all that stuff later adopted by Civ. It was aimed at Russian audience so it was rather hardcore and similar to Heroes of Might and Magic. It had a lengthy difficult mission-based campaign. Warlock is more casual and lighthearted game, but it's basically Fantasy Wars with cities and spells (in Fantasy Wars heroes could cast global spells but they were unit on a battlefield so they could be killed unlike your character and Warlock). And cities work nothing like Civ. So really the only thing they snitched from Civ was UI and camera position.

[hexgrid]

To the point where other games like Warlock lifted it pretty blatantly. That always bugged me, though nobody else seemed to care.

 

I've got to say, though, when it comes to mechanics and UI, I prefer a game to borrow liberally from what works well elsewhere.  The last thing we want is the game equivalent of "Well, Ford uses a steering wheel for their cars, so clearly we need some other way to control the direction our new car goes... foot pedals, perhaps, or something like a boat rudder?"

[cornchip]

I really enjoyed this episode. I can't think of two games besides Civ 4/5 that would cause such interesting discussion about what was changed or not changed as the series progressed. The contrasts between the 'perfect' and 'most successful' Civ gave me a lot to think about.

 

And yes, there is something really useful about a history-CS major!

[Akalabeth]

Please don't eat while recording the podcast. Man alive . . .

[Aleryn]

Whoa!  Incredible episode.  I listened to it twice back-to-back and still plan on going back to it occasionally.  Much thanks to all involved!