Interview with Alex Mantzaris about BTS

[T-hawk]

I'll just buy it without carefully doing anything I s'pose.

Well, you bought it, right? So Firaxis had nothing to gain in your case with any more playtesting. You're in my category above of those who bought it based on the feature list. It's the drooling fanboys like you that let the game companies shovel out any schlock they want without playtesting it for the rest of us.

I still don't understand this. Why was it worth it to Firaxis to spend the $$$ playtesting Vanilla but not warlords.

I have two answers for this. First, the core game is far more important than an expansion. The expansion has a built-in captive audience. The core game has to wow the reviewers, build its reputation, draw in the casual players. Also, it sells for more money per unit.

Second, I'm not entirely sure that it was worth it. Firaxis did sink a lot of resources into the playtest process, and we don't know if they really did recoup that in sales. And perhaps they know that they didn't, and thus aren't repeating the same process for Warlords and BTS.

[ThERat]

I went to actually read that interview with Alex. Besides the fact that almost every feature is 'one of his favorites', his claims are enormous. If only half of what he promises is true, then BtS will be absolutely the best expansion they delivered.

However, based on my experience with Civ4 and warlords, I do prefer to let all the fanboys test those claims...

My favorite (to use his lingo) is the claim that they created scenarios that have better replay value than some full games. I mean I know there are a lot of substandard games out there, thus not that difficult to beat. Maybe he was actually referring to their own railroads game

[sunrise089]

Maybe he was actually referring to their own railroads game

Man, was that ever a game that looked good in reviews but just died due to a lack of patching. Unless something has changed since I picked it up, it just plain does not work. Seems to be a pattern at Firaxis - they offer good patches, but they sort of forget to release the last one.

[LKendter]

Heh, with Civ3 I got so irritated with corruption and waste and the micro involved to minimize it that took most of the fun out of it. As for the too much thinking thing, would you rather have a game where there is a "absolute best way to go" in so many areas, as opposed to where in Civ4 you actually have to think about what path would work best. Personally I find that more fun, it's a thinking game and that's what makes it fun for me.

Civ4 is the better game from the challenge point. I agree 100% with you there.

The difference is I get overloaded with choices in Civ4 to the point where I have to open up my spreadsheet of what can my upcoming GP light bulb. I never did that in any other Civ game.

While the challenge is better, I suffer a lot less from one-more-turnitis in Civ4.

[scooter]

Civ4 is the better game from the challenge point. I agree 100% with you there.

The difference is I get overloaded with choices in Civ4 to the point where I have to open up my spreadsheet of what can my upcoming GP light bulb. I never did that in any other Civ game.

While the challenge is better, I suffer a lot less from one-more-turnitis in Civ4.

Ok yeah I would agree with that, I can't tell you how irritated I get some times when I have a great person due in 8 turns and I'm spending 10 minutes figuring out what he's gonna lightbulb, it does kinda take the fun out of it...

[ThERat]

The sad thing is that CIV 4 made great steps in the right direction when it comes to MM but introduced others to offset those improvements.

Examples:

Positive:
City growth/health/happiness are managed so much better so that the tedium of MM the riot prevention and city growth MM have gone.

Research beaker overflow is absolutely the right thing as well as hammer overflow.

Improvements do not cost maintenance and can't be sold off, thus the chore to sell improvements etc is gone

Negative:
GP management is MM galore, trying to pop the right GP at the right time is a nightmare, no fun whatsoever. Thinking about which wonder to avoid and to build so that the right GP points are gained...what fun is that? (it's almost a must to build a library, employ 2 scientists to be able to pop philo with a GS)

Tech trading. With WFYABTA there is the constant pressure not to trade too much, is that supposed to be fun? Trading is already nerfed so much, this addition just adds tedium.

Combat system. A simple attack/defense value system is replaced by promotions. Sounds great in theory, but if e.g you attack a city with a lot of units, the constant checking on which promoted units gives highest odds burns you out in a matter of minutes. Less units were introduced to streamline combat but this was offset due to the multitude of promotions. Introducing yet more units in BtS won't help in this respect unless the whole combat system gets an overhaul.

WW is simply a nightmare and requires constant MM for more happiness, especially in later stages of the game. How BtS adddresses this issue, will be key for the fun element.

[KMad]

I still don't understand this. Why was it worth it to Firaxis to spend the $$$ playtesting Vanilla but not warlords. And if you use the community to test many of the features for free (as Sulla was apparently asked to do), I'd assume many of them would be more than happy to do so. So the only "cost" is a moved ship date. Unless the game was a holiday release (and Warlords wasn't) then it should cost very little.

something weird seems to have happened with the ship date of BtS itself already. i of course hope that the expansion is perfect and wonderful and fixes everything that's wrong and doesn't add new broken things. but the announcement came shortly after the take2 financial reports which said something very different.

the timeline is, on february 28th take2 released their financials, including a line saying that a new Civ game release is planned for "2008 fiscal year (which begins Nov. 1 2007)". then just four weeks later, they announced BtS, to be released in July 2007. that's a really huge schedule change to make in such a short time window. and if july is a huge holiday sales period i don't know about it. so i'm confused, but trying to remain optimistic and not assume "well great, there they go rushing another one out the door ASAP and unpolished".

i'm very old school. i'd rather wait longer for a release, so that they can test it as thoroughly as possible, than deal with multiples bugs, patches, and fixes. there will always be bugs that get through but i'd like companies to spend the time getting rid of the ones they can find, before the box gets to my house. heck, i'd even prefer lower quality graphics . my inner ear is broken and civ4 makes me dizzy if i play too long in a stretch, civ2 and 3 never did. but of course i'm very much in the minority and if they made the version i want, nobody else would buy it, and then there'd never be a civ5, so i just deal with it in my curmudgeonly old school way.

[Chacal]

City growth/health/happiness are managed so much better so that the tedium of MM the riot prevention and city growth MM have gone.

Is this right? I find I still have to do a tour of my cities every couple of turns in the early game to make sure I'm not about to pop a new citizen that's going to break the happy limit. This is one of my biggest moans about the game.

Combat system. A simple attack/defense value system is replaced by promotions. Sounds great in theory, but if e.g you attack a city with a lot of units, the constant checking on which promoted units gives highest odds burns you out in a matter of minutes.

I may have been making a huge mistake here. I was under the impression that if you selected a complete stack and directed it to attack then the game would automatically choose the unit that gave you the best attacking odds. I thought this happened in the same way the game selects the defending unit with the best odds. My problem with this is the ball-ache that is making sure you only have units selected from the stack that that are allowed to attack this turn (de-selecting the cats that have just bombarded and units that have just moved to the tile this turn etc.). Stack management makes me want to cry.

[sunrise089]

I may have been making a huge mistake here. I was under the impression that if you selected a complete stack and directed it to attack then the game would automatically choose the unit that gave you the best attacking odds. I thought this happened in the same way the game selects the defending unit with the best odds. My problem with this is the ball-ache that is making sure you only have units selected from the stack that that are allowed to attack this turn (de-selecting the cats that have just bombarded and units that have just moved to the tile this turn etc.). Stack management makes me want to cry.

I don't think this is how it works. IIRC it simply attacks from the top of the stack down. Now the higher strength units will be going first, but I don't think it selects say a cover promoted warrior to attack an archer if the first unit in the stack is a combat 3 warrior.

[Chacal]

Really? Oh.
I find myself somewhat...upset by that news.



GAAARRARARARRARRRRRGGGHH!!!!!

I'm trying not to think about all the HAs that have been senselessly thrown against spears etc. Not only that, but ThERat is right; selecting the right unit is a nightmare! I'm going for a lie-down.