Those of you who know me and the GalCiv team (who are now all on Elemental) know we’re huuuuge Civilization IV fans. If you don’t have Civilization IV, I’m not saying you’re a bad person for not having it. But I’m not saying you’re not a bad person either. Though, wait until it shows up on Impulse next month before buying it if you haven’t already.
Anyway, at GDC, Soren Johnson (designer of Civ IV), myself, and Paul “Mormegil” Boyer) had a long lunch together and talked about the challenges we’ve been having in Elemental random map generation.
One of the big challenges we’ve been having has to do with rivers and roads – how do you make them look good in a randomly generated map? Soren was nice enough to walk us through some of the algorithms they used in Civ IV since they ran into the exact same problem. It’s a real pain in the butt.
We also talked about the challenges of doing big maps. This is where Civ and Elemental are fairly different largely because of the differences in the engine being used.
In Elemental, the strategic zoom feature lets us have much bigger maps since it’s very easy for people to manage much larger areas because the Elemental map turns into a cloth map where players can instruct units and cities and the like from afar.
Another advantage Elemental’s engine has is technology. That is, the hardware is just a lot faster which means we can easily create a lot more “stuff” that players can automate without it slowing performance.
One result of that is world size. In Civilization 4, the largest default map size “Huge” is 104x64 tiles. There are custom maps bigger (138x96 for instance). But in Elemental, the map size is 224x160. To give you an idea of that:
And that’s on the 32-bit version of the game. Assuming Intel gets us a 64-bit Havoc, the 64-bit version of Elemental could be even bigger.
Of course, we also have map sizes that are ridiculously small too (one called “wee” even).
Having a big map, of course, is pointless if you don’t have the UI and automation in to keep micromanagement from being a pain and of course, like I mentioned, you have to have hardware fast enough to be able to navigate quickly and seamlessly through such a map (A Civilization V would no doubt have maps on the same scale as Elemental for instance).
Haha, exactly. I know two other RTS games that use strategic zoom: Supreme Commander, and Homeworld2 before that (I haven't played other HW games). The world is so conveniently primitive without strategic zoom. I'm particularly baffled by Starcraft fans' attitude. For SC2, they argue to have worse interface, like no multiple building select, no ability to set certain spells/abilities like repair and heal on autocast (heals/repeairs everything near the unit). They argue that poor interface allows better players to shine because they can click faster. It's sad, really, if you ask me. I'm fine with some people liking starcraft, but please, don't call it a strategy game because it has more to do with arcade. I know no other RTS where people volountarily choose to play on 'fastest' game speed setting.
I wish Westwood hasn't died, C&C hasn't degenerated... I enjoyed that kind of RTS more. Relic makes decent RTS games, too, but their latest (Dawn of War 2) smells of Warcraft3 to me. Like a "Me too!" imitation in some ways. Less units, higher importance of heroes and individual units. I'm starting to believe RTS is an evolutionary dead-end, at least until something major happens in hardware or algorithms deparment.
Same here. I never could get into RTS, even Sins.
By "Starcraft fans" in this case you mean the really hardcore types. There's a ton of Starcraft fans who aren't posting on forums whining about it right now and who really don't care for that attitude at all.
I can, but that might be circumventing the point a bit. I mean honestly, you can have a good interface on a large strategy map without the need for zoom of any kind. heads-up display messages and clever window management might be able to get around any need to zoom or really even handle the map screen. Unless you count that as part of strategic zoom
I don't like someone else (read a game designer) forcing me to view the map a certain way. That's one of the reasons why I love strategic zoom.
well, sure. I was just making a point towards the micromanagement of it more than anything else. I believe there are other UI soluctions to micromanagement problems.
Not necessarily. Civ has never been able to resolve the 40 city MM nightmare through UI. That issue stems from a city-based architecture and has nothing to do with UI at all. To resolve THAT MM nightmare you'd have to convert to a Empire-based architecture and eliminate the City-based, thus redo the entire engine not the UI. CTP2 make great inroads down this line of thinking, but it's a shame that this was set back again with Civ4's City-based management.
I think Civilization has something of an archaic inerface. its the one I was actually thinking about when I said it. though having reread it I was imagining "zoom" may be a bit different than say, frogboy's, in that I was thinking specifically about the kind of access to information, rather than perhaps the way the game is played. Like I find city management in Civilization and age of wonders to be poor. I was thinking with better UI the management of them would be easier, rather than non-existant. (which seemed inplied now that I read it again)
This is actually the single biggest factor in my liking specific-era games of Civ4 and mods (such as Age of Discovery, or Road to War) where MM is limited, and you know how much MM you're going into just by the timeframe. In fact, I still prefer a game of Col2 over Civ4 just because of the MM issue. In the new Col you're only need 5-10 colonies to win, whereas in Civ4 you need 3, 4, 5, more times cities.
Great to see that so much gaming / strategy goodness comes from Civilization!
I love Civilization and if properly priced I might even rebuy it just to be done with all the cdrom hassle. (Although that's not something to encourage publisher to go and try for )
I really like the idea of being able to play a Civlization like fanatasy strategy game and pick some choice battles to take personal command!
I can't even play games without it anymore! Strategic zoom is the best thing to happen to strategy games yet.
Don't you hate it when you try to strategic zoom in a game that doesn't have it? This started happening to me a couple weeks afters I started playing SOASE.
Speaking of 2D games and 'getting away with it', I have an excellent example of a great-looking, modern 2D strategy game. Harvest: Massive Encounter. Just watch the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE7xhB0EjoI
One of best-looking 2D games ever. The graphics are rendered. You could fool many people that it's actually 3D. (Especially that game menu and title screen is actually in true 3D)
How many people will be allowed to participate in multiplayer on any given map? It would seem to me the number of players it should support should be far greater than Civ4.
The preview blurb on Impulse said 1-8 players the last time I could get it to display, which wasn't too long ago. Can't repro at the moment, the Impulse servers are balking.
I wonder if that is just 8 human players? Or 8 players max? Wouldnt 8 be too small for a 64 bit map?
especially since Civ 4 can support many more and it isn't enough for a Civ 4 map. I think Civ 4 is most interesting on a small or medium map with max players. (you get more interesting dynamics with the AI civs)
Well, i think that problem doesn't really exist. You're trying to play a game that is balanced for 10-15 cities with 40 cities. Just pick a smaller map and you'll be fine.
Besides, Civ 4 is still much faster than other games like MOO3 or GalCiv, i can finish a meaningful game in several hours if i don't try to micro everything, and i get a fair share of a meaningful strategic/tactical decisions in a process.
P.S. I had 500+ super-formers in some of my SMAC games, that's even bigger micro nightmare. But i don't blame the entire game for a micro nightmare because it was my choice to play that way. However, it was nice to shape continents with them
Col2 is awful micromanagement-wise. You need to babysit EVERYTHING to run it at the near-top efficiency. Civ4 is far more forgiving so you can play a fast game without much micro and with enough strategic choices. Col2 swamps you with micro.
Not surprisingly. IIRC 256*256 = 64 Kb is the maximum practical array size for a 16-bit applications (short pointer was 16-bit)
ROFL
Try to prove it here http://league.civplayers.com/
They argue that poor interface allows better players to shine because they can click faster.
***
I'm fine with some people liking starcraft, but please, don't call it a strategy game because it has more to do with arcade. I know no other RTS where people volountarily choose to play on 'fastest' game speed setting.
ROFLMAO
It is a strategy game because it has the best multiplayer balance of all strategic games.
Better players are better because they can think faster. You don't just click, you give orders. Almost everyone can randomly click 2-3 times per second on a screen. However, bad players can't think fast enough so to make 2-3 _meaningful_ clicks per second.
And you're somewhat right when you compare it with arcades, even if you don't know why. If you're playing in, say, a fighting game on a competitive level, you need to think a lot and think fast as well. It's just that noobs are not at this level of play and so they think it's not strategic. Yet, isn't it a major requirment for a strategy is to have a lot of meaningful choices? Many so called "strategies" are actually far less "strategic" than a real competitive games (even fighting games, let alone RTS) because in TBS you're wasting time on a no-brainer micro-management instead of making a meaningful choices that decide the outcome of an entire game (like you do in competitive MP games).
Very funny, you just said: It is a strategy game because it is a strategy game. Great proof. :b:
It does not require much, if any, strategic thinking, but a lot of tactical thinking AND good reflexes.
Go is turn-based, isn't it? Where is micromanagement there? Micromanagement in Wesnoth? I suppose there's no micromanagement involved in getting the right number of peons out at the right time?
I hope Elemental is able to earn Stardock good money by reaching a wide range of players, but I can't help scoffing someone who thinks the TBS genre ought to be limited to "quick" games. My sense of stragetic thinking is all about the long term, and sometimes that means putting down a game at a given moment so I can think about things for before I start inputting decisions again. And that doesn't even begin to touch on my taste for a game that requires a long chain of serious decision points (e.g. way more than several hours to play).
One thing that really impressed me was that you mentioned working with someone from outside your development group on a design problem. I find it really heartening that there are still people out there willing to share ideas in order to push their industry forward. As opposed to sequestering innovations away from competitors through heavy patent litigation. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for putting so much heart into your games. You have won a Kevin Kelly "True Fan".
You only need to babysit everything if you don't know what you're doing in Col2. Seriously, the game is such that if you know what's going on and use some thought you do not need to babysit stuff. Once a lumberjack is chopping wood, why bother checking it every turn? And once your trade links are connected, there's no point checking it every turn. In fact, MM is greatly reduced in Col2 once your colonies are setup and trade links working since you're only checking 1 colony per turn (where all the processing is happening). Your MM moves concepts throughout the game. But a game like Civ the MM does not move and is always on the same things the whole way through.
Because it has the best balance. If you don't understand why balance is important for strategy games then sucks to be you.
I think we talked about 4X strategy games like Civ 4, MoM etc. Go is a tabletop game, Wesnoth is a wargame.
Peons. Well, you see, Starcraft or Warcraft III MP match lasts 16-25 minutes most of the time. Average Civ 4 MP match on ladder settings (with city elimination on quick, not a generic Civ 4 game) lasts 2-3 hours. From my experience, you're making about the same number or more game-changing decisions in one Starcraft MP game compared to a Civ 4 MP game. Sure, you do more actions per minute in Starcraft, but you also do more strategic decisions per minute.
Also, Civ 4 has a streamlined gameplay. Game designers tried to eliminate a lot of micro by removing rounding, carry-overs, relatively good-quality AI automation etc. Most other 4X TBS games have significantly more micro than Civ4.
P.S. Go has no micro. One meaningful decision (where to place a marble) equals one action (place a marble). Unfortunately, in most TBS games one meaningful decision doesn't translate to just one action (thanks to micromanagement issues), and some reqired actions don't require any meaningful decisons at all (like, hire peons or follow the best predefined tech path or make a predefined buildings in a city etc.)
I won my first and only Col2 game on a maximum difficulty so i guess i knew what i was doing. Say, automated wagons are destroying your goods and on auto they're far less efficient than with a manual control. If you want specialized cities (say, if you want to use terrain features), you need to haul all these goods manually.
Let's see, Lumberjack. Say, i decide that it will be nice to have an extra Lumberjack in one of my cities.
So, i should:
1) Wait when one of my ships will come to a port and sell some goods for money
2) Train a lumberjack if i have enough money
3) Double-check that this ship is sailing to the place where i do need that Lumberjack and not the other part of the map
4) Make sure that a jumberjack will board that ship - there may be other cargo too so Lumberjack will not load without any warnings if i overload a ship with it. Also, it may not be the first in line and other specialist may board the ship instead of Lumberjack etc.
4) Sail a ship to some port
5) Give an order to a Lumberjack to a city where you wanted to employ it (it was, say, 10 turns / 20-30 minutes ago - try to remember it!)
6) Order a Lumberjack to work when it reaches the destination
I say it's A HELL OF A LOT OF MICRO for one decision to get an extra Lumberjack! In Civ 4, it will be enough to click one button / make one building and click a button.
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