posted 08-19-99 10:39 AM ET        

Firaxis Talks Civ III

PC: The latest incarnation of Civilization will undoubtedly be the greatest yet, with massively enhanced graphics and the most immersive play in the series to date. Hit the headline for an exclusive chat with Firaxis president Jeff Briggs on visuals, gameplay and some exceedingly good reasons why strategy fans should already be literally incontinent with excitement.

"The idea is to take it [Civ III], make it look beautiful, bring it up to current standards graphically," said Briggs. "A big part of our effort is graphics for Civ III. We know we do great gameplay. We always get, 'Great game, great game, but the graphics are; adequate'. We're sort of tired of hearing that. We're hiring a bunch more artists to make our games looking better than they have ever looked. I think we are one of the few companies that can do both things � we can have both great gameplay and graphics at the same time."

Briggs also revealed that trade will become massively important in the latest version of the classic strategy series. "We�re looking at trade as a huge part of Civ III," he said. "That's just an example of four or five areas of the basic game we want to elaborate and expand on."

Fear not, brutal colonization fans. There'll still be plenty of room for murdering your neighbours. "An integral part of Civ is the combat, the war aspect of it," Briggs continued, "so that's got to stay. We hope to be able to take areas that were done in broad stokes before and amplify those to improve the gameplay, make it more interesting, richer, deeper."

The deal for Firaxis to develop Civilization III was announced at E3. Briggs himself put his name on the dotted line the day before the revelation at the show. "We didn't actually sign the letter of intent until the actual day of the announcement," he said. Work began almost immediately. "We've had a couple of programmers a couple of artists and a producer working on it since June 1. It's coming along," he said.

Strategy fans should be more than excited. The title is set to ship "sometime next year", and Briggs, Meier and the rest of the Civ III crew have big plans in place. "The goal is to make Civ III as large a step up from Civ II as Civ II was from Civ I," he said.

But will Civ III be a sequel? The positioning of Alpha Centauri by the company may hold the key. "We have Alpha Centauri, which for the longest time we were saying was a sequel to Civ, but now we�re happily admitting that, yes, indeed it was the sequel in the sense that it continued the storyline.

"Civ III will not be a sequel in that sense. Civ III will be an expansion of an existing game, an updated version, making it better than it was, but essentially the same story, the story of human civilization," he continued. "The thing we're not saying yet is whether or not it's going to come before Civilization, after Alpha Centauri or between the two. It's going to extend the story in the same was Alpha Centauri did."

Possibly the most exciting thing currently under development at Firaxis is Sid Meier's secret project. What do you mean, 'what secret project?' "We are undergoing a period of growth right now," said Briggs. "We're probably going to be doubling in size over the next eight to ten months. We've rented new office space, basically getting geared up so we can do Antietam, a whole series of great battle games, Civ III and Sid's secret project that he continues to work on right now � we're calling it the third leg in the Sweep of Time Trilogy. That's all I can say about that at the moment � we're trying to keep it sort of secret till we know when it's going to come out."

posted 08-20-99 07:39 AM ET            

Graphics? I fear Firaxis will do to Civ what they did with SMAC: adopt an execrably slow, proprietary 3D animated graphics format that prohibits any form of modification by avid players. Since mods were an essential ingredient in the lifeblood of Civ2, are they intent on prenatally crippling their own "baby"?

Why Firaxis want to keep secrets is beyond reason (as I can't see it heightening interest at all), unless their plans don't exist yet.

posted 08-20-99 01:01 PM ET         

Sermon ends

Or more likely still contain the Infinite range missile bug, have xenophobic AI and just have prettier graphics.

And will probably spawn a forum where people come and complain about things which never get fixed.

Hmm I sense that the cycle might be about to begin again.

Beta-1

posted 08-21-99 04:45 AM ET            

Oh really? Am I daft? What have we been complaining about...

posted 08-23-99 01:09 PM ET            

And it sounds like Corp talk for, we are only changing the code minimally. Of course, its the SMAC code, not the old Microprose Civ2 code... but then, SMAC seems to be a lot of the old Civ2 code so...

And Beta1, that cycle begun a while back.

posted 08-24-99 06:33 AM ET            

Firaxis unwillingness to take any risks whatsoever, or Activision's old Western sharpshooter experimental strat? I'm starting to go for Activision. If they take the critiscism of CTP seriously and put at least some kind of lid to their imagination, I won't be playing Civ 3 at all when it comes out, I will be playing CTP 2. Yes, I am utterly, utterly serious. I have played Civ 1, Civ 1 with better graphics(Civ 2), and Civ 2 in space(guess). At least Activision don't play it only safe, safe, safe. When you open their box, you will know it's a new game, for good or for worse.

Obviously we only have Sid's secret project to wait for from Firaxis. And maybe Antiem - yeah, another boring Firaxis sequel - but I haven't played Gettysburg yet.