[an error occurred while processing this directive] PETER KARPAS ON THE KEY ELEMENTS OF CTP

When we were handed this gift of being able to make the next generation Civilization game, our first reaction was pure and utter joy, followed closely by this huge sense of responsibility. How do you make the next generation of one of the greatest games of all time -- if not the greatest game of all time (as some would argue)?

What we did was spend a tremendous amount of time discussing what it was that made Civilization so amazingly good. And in the end we came down to 2 basic things.

First, the essential fantasy of the game is just so compelling. The idea of taking your little nomadic settler unit in 4000BC, and from that creating a huge empire over 6000 years, is just incredibly fun. No other game does that (most would be lucky to cover a hundred years), and it sets the game apart in a great way.

Second, the game allows for tons of different strategies. The Civilization games are arguably the most replayable of all-time. I've discussed Civ with lots of people, and all of them are convinced that their method of playing is the best -- and none of them have the same method. :-)

So, we decided to max out those two basic things, and then add 3 other things: 1) great interface, 2) great graphics, and 3) great multiplayer.

We maxed out the essential fantasy of the game by going an additional 1000 years into the future -- Civilization: Call to Power ends in the year 3000AD. The cool thing about this is you get to create your own future. If in the future your cities are like Blade Runner -- overpopulated, polluted, and the people are unhappy -- your decisions made it that way. If on the other hand you have a Star Trek-like future -- egalitarian, the people are happy, everything is clean -- your decisions also made it that way. We scoured science fiction to create a bunch of possible futures, and they're in the game.

We maxed out the strategies in the game by introducing what we call "Unconventional Warfare", which is the idea that not all wars are fought on the battlefield. The vast majority of game have purely military units -- attack rating, defense rating, hit points, special "powers". But we know from the real world that there are many other ways to conduct war -- religious warfare, economic warfare, happiness warfare (Radio Free Europe), production warfare, biological warfare, etc. These ways of conducting war are now in the game, and many of them aren't actually diplomatic declarations of war. The point of the cleric and lawyer units and all the other unconventional warfare units isn't to be clever -- it's to provide the player with new strategies, better strategies, more flexibility in weakening opponents, and, overall, allow for greater creativity and fun in how you play.

As for interface, graphics, and multiplayer, there's another post later in this thread that discussed interface in great detail, and I'll try to respond to that over the next few days (much of what was asked for is already in the current build of Civ:CTP). Multiplayer was answered well by Jeff at Firaxis, and of course we're facing the same issues and doing similar things (as well as some testing out some other things). As for graphics, we believe they're important for 2 reasons: 1) they help with the fantasy of the game, and 2) we've tried to make it so that the art direction follows the design of the game, not the other way around. Meaning, we've made the look of our units suggests their use -- a defensive unit will LOOK more defensive, an more offensive unit will have a larger weapon, etc. This helps you play the game better, as just by look you get an idea of what the unit's strengths/weaknesses are without having to look it up in a chart.

I hope this answers some questions! My apologies for the long post...

Peter
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Peter "Enjolras" Karpas
Product Manager, Activision, Inc.
http://www.activision.com
Originally posted on alt.games.civ2,
found through DejaNews

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