Take-Two to Publish Next Civilization Game

An anonymous reader writes "Take Two Interactive announced today that they have acquired the rights to the Civilization franchise. They also announced Civ 4, saying that "Civilization IV will also set a new standard for user-modification, allowing gamers to create their own add-ons using the standard Python and XML scripting languages." Okay, so XML's not a scripting language. But it's nice to see open source tech in a major PC game!" Civ IV will be released under the new 2K Publishing Label we reported on yesterday.

Just to note...

[DragonMagic]

Firaxis still owns Civilization, and Sid Meier's still the director on the game. Take Two is just taking over the role of Atari/Infogrames and it sounds like they wish to do more with the title than just make PC games.

Civ IV is scheduled to be out in late 2005. Hopefully, it will be.

Alpha Centauri

[floppy ears]

If you love Civ 2 but have never played Alpha Centauri, be sure to give it a shot. I still play it occasionally even today, but I don't play anything in the Civ series any longer. The modifiable military units are great.

Never did like Civ 3 myself. Too many boring bombing runs ...

Re:I hope that's not all

[Nevita]

Sid Meyer is known to be taking more of a lead role in the design and development of this version, as opposed to the previous Civ game. Given that, I would bet that gameplay will be greatly improved over Civ 3.

Re:Take-2 vs. EA?

[Bodhammer]

I don't think it is bad, it is just a natural part of the business cycle. Successful companies grow. Sooner or later they get big and slow and unable to respond to changes in the market and young upstarts fill the emerging niches. Microsoft did it to IBM, Linux is doing it to Microsoft, etc.

EA has already experienced some of it. The Jane's series was a great franchise and had some great programmers. EA screwed it up with bad business decisions.. Hungry russian programmers developed IL-2 and Lomac to fill the niche and Jane's is gone.

It will happen again to EA.

Not the First Time

[lavaforge]

This isn't the first time that Python has shown up in a major commercial game. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines uses python 2.2 (could be wrong on the minor revision number) to handle almost all of its in-game actions. It's interesting to read the scripts and see how the game works, even if it can spoil things a bit.

Re:Waiting for Civ 4

[Txiasaeia]

"Are there any civ-like games out there that put more emphasis on that part of the game?"

Alpha Centauri. You get to make your own military units, for crying out loud ;)

Re:Alpha Centauri

[pezpunk]

i agree with this also. even though the landscape is pretty ugly (everything is pretty much a shade of red), the game itself is fantastic. it's a perfected version of civ2.

totally customizable units, functional and relatively deep diplomacy, fantastic story and brilliant characters (in a civ game?!?!), multiple paths to victory (victory by diplomacy, victory by economic domination, victory by Transcendent technology, or of course the good old victory by genocide) and an unceasing number options and worlds to play around with.

my favorite feature, though, is the wonderfully clever quotes or movies you get every time you discover a new tech or wonder of the world. they really give one a sense of not only accomplishment, but wonder at this new, exciting technology your society has just produced.

Re:Freeciv

[drinkypoo]

I sure hope so, because the current release makes me want to blow my brains out. I thought the original Civ and Civ 2 had a craptacular interface, but then I played freeciv.

Re:Just to note...

[m50d]

Also note that the source for call to power 2 was released just over a year ago, and now runs on linux [apolyton.net].

Re:Just to note...

[digital bath]

sure it is. [apache.org]

Re:From an Avid Fan....

[Sunspire]

Note that Civ Call to Power (and the sequel) aren't part of the Civilization franchise, it's not made under the same license and I think there were even some lawsuits at the time if I remember correctly. It was made by a completely different company and published by Activision.

I personally like Alpha Centauri the most, it's got all of the best parts of Civilization II plus borders and the ability to create your own units. If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it. It's a Firaxis game (Sid's company). There's even a Linux version available.

Re:"Open source"? WTF?

[SuiteSisterMary]

I believe he's referring to the use of Python.

Re:Alpha Centauri

[Atmchicago]

The trick is to edit one line in one of the configuration files. I don't have the game with me, but I believe it is the following:
ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1

I believe that goes into your alphacentauri.ini file.

I have a MSN Community at: http://groups.msn.com/sidmeiersaliencrossfire [msn.com]. About all I do with it anymore is allow people to join occasionally since I don't have the time for anything else.

Re:I hope that's not all

[rbullo]

I beleive it's shift-U with the unit type to upgrade selected and in a city with a Barracks. All other units of the same type that can be upgraded will be. Note that if you don't have enough money to upgrade them all, it won't work. You can upgrade units en masse through the Military Advisor's screen.

Re:I hope that's not all

[Tassach]

Simple things like upgrading every unit of a particular type in all cities can take dozens of clicks.

Select an upgradable unit in a city with a barracks. Hit Shift-U.

RTFM next time.

Re:AI

[DrXym]

Yeah but XML is simply a format for structuring data and quite a heavy one at that. Previous versions of Civ & countless other games allowed you change various settings through a plain .ini style text file.

Switching to XML might make the data more structured but at the expense of loading speed, readability, editability and sensitivity to parsing errors.

C-Evo

[Lady Jazzica]

If you want to try another good freeware version of Civilization, there's C-Evo [c-evo.org]. It's a bit different in gameplay from other Civilization games, but I prefer it to Freeciv.

Re:From an Avid Fan....

[f-f-f-f-fuuubar]

Civ II was played endlessly at home, on the plane, on vacation...the ultimate time-passer (and waster). I have lost track of all the city name themes we would come up with...Trek, Lewis Carroll, Bab5, Sixties TV, you name it....

But when Civ II came out, it promised to improve all those things which Civ II lacked. We bought it the day it was available, played it for weeks, and gave up in annoyance, frustration and disappointment.

What was wrong?

• The game was slow. Dog slow. 'Nuff said. I could have lived with this if it hadn't been for...
• A HORRIBLE interface. Bad graphics, cheesy icons, ugly cartoonish characters, confusing buttons, slow performance...I could go on for days. This drove me nuts. Clearly not designed by someone with any real interface experience.
• Competing civilizations were right in your terrain and seemed to get in your face way too quickly and were too competitive, even at the second-to-lowest skill level. After a couple of dozen attempts (in each of several games) to get rid of competitors early, late and otherwise, it just seemed to be nearly impossible. Of course, there was always the alternative of playing an easy game, but what's the point of that?
• The diplomacy options were improved, but the diplomacy interface was rotten.
• The Mac version...other posters have commented on that. An embarrassment.

What Take Two Should Do

Stop and breathe. Don't just clone Civ III and clean it up.

1. Look at Alpha Centauri. Although in essence a richer version of Civ II, its interface was amazingly clean, its descriptions of technology and societies were deep, detailed and compelling, its graphics very good for the time, and its overarching story actually thought out.
2. Read Boorstin's The Discoverers. If a history book is a page-turner, this is it. Highlights the role inventions and knowledge played in the conflict of cities, nations and societies, and contrasts the different societies in an often startlingly fresh way. One of the Civ branches (Test of Time?) had the clock as a major invention, which it was; that's just one example.
3. Hire a usability expert. This current craze for themed interfaces makes usability go down in favor of cute buttons which either all look alike or don't make any sense. Everything doesn't have to look like a Windows app (or a Mac app), but please put your interface in front of Grandma at least once before adopting it.
4. Hire a graphic designer, not some kid out of college. Again, see Alpha Centauri. Cool, clean, comprehensible (mostly, though the unit modification rules were a little unclear at first).
5. Offer finer gradation between levels of gameplay. Going from insultingly easy to seriously hard in one step is a bit much.
6. Don't insult your customers' intelligence. It should be somewhat educational. I learned more about the fictional Alpha Centauri society than I did about our own from Civ.
7. Code so a Mac version is easier and can be brought out more quickly. Don't depend on MS-specific technologies. (Hey, could even make a Linux version easier!)

Overall, I hope the designers have fun in bringing a new version to life.

(side note: I'm glad it's no longer with Infogrames...let's just say it's not a well-run company.)

Re:The best part of Alpha Centauri

[Jerf]

My favorite, at least in a way, for the Punishment Sphere (no drones in the city you build it in, production drops 50% (think rebels if you haven't play SMAC)):

It is not uncommon to see patients undergo permanent psychological trauma in the presence of the Sphere, before the nerve stapler has even been strapped into position. Its effect on the general consciousness of the culture is profound: husbands have seen wives go inside, and mothers their children. Dr. Xynan left the surface of the sphere semitranslucent for a reason. You can hear them in there; you can see them. It is a thing of terrible beauty.

Baron Klim: "The Music of the Spheres"

I kid you not: I have build precisely one of those things. I almost can't stand the thought of building them after the quote.

For full effect, you need to hear it [jerf.org]. Here's another good one [jerf.org]:

'Abort, Retry, Fail?' was the phrase some wormdog scrawled next to the door of the Edit Universe project room. And when the new dataspinners started working, fabricating their worlds on the huge organic comp systems, we'd remind them: if you see this message, {always} choose 'Retry.'

Bad'l Ron, Wakener: Morgan Polysoft

If the game came out today, the voice acting would still be considered superb.

List of SMAC quotes [generationterrorists.com].

Re:Civ 3 issues

[Pulzar]

I've had a win on Deity level that started off with two cities in a corner peninsula when the opponents had a dozen cities each. I've built up a force, took a couple of cities by surprise, acquired some tech to make peace, moved my palace to one of the cities, and I was off an running.

The fact that you can create new "core" cities through moving palaces and creating the Forbidden Palace on the opposite side of the world really help out with this problem.

Becoming a communist will let you create a third center, as well.

Scripting languages

[DerWulf]

XML can be a scripting language. The webMethods integration server has been using one for years. You just need to define a xml schema, write a compiler/interpreter and there is a brand new XML scripting language. This is probably what they meant.

Regardless, I think this is pretty cool. Having 'content creation' applications within a game certainly would bring more people into the mod scene. People like me that don't really want to install the latest and createst C++ IDE, download the games mod SDK and spend years figuring out how the engine is supposed to work.