History of the Sid Meier’s Civilization series. Party 5: Civcity, Revolution and not only ..

Two thousand fifth year … It was a great year. Breakthrough Resident Evil 4 goes to GameCube, and later on PlayStation 2. NFS: Most Wanted approves the leadership of the series in the genre of arcade races. . Sid Meier’s Civilization IV recalls that strategies are still alive. .

I want to convey the idea that in the same year the sunset of strategies begin. Follow the thought. In the 1990s, the golden era of the genre begins. Civilization I, the first parts of C& C, Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Simcity, Caesar. There are many ports and original strategies on PlayStation 1. . The re -intelligence and introduction of new mechanics went. . Even Nintendo releases experimental pikmin.

Only in 2004-2005 there is a strange. . However, almost by clicking the strategy disappear from the industry. . Starcraft, Age of Empires, Cossacks, Simcity disappear for a decade. Rise of Nation does not receive continuation. .

The dark era of strategies began. . Profit from video games begins to grow actively. .

RPG become more action. Third -person shooters fill the market. . Flash games appear on social networks. In 2007, Apple represents the first iPhone, turning the mobile phones market. Almost all publishers will break on smartphones for profit.

And strategies were in a coma, and remained.

Civcity: Rome

Against the backdrop of a violent video game market, 2K And Firaxis . . Strategies remained their main activity. It was decided to expand in slightly other directions.

The first such direction was the spin-off Civilization In the genre of urban planning simulator in the surroundings of ancient Rome. .

The creation of the game went together with Firefly Studios, famous in the Stronghold series .

We are developing this game here in Firefly, and are the main developers. We have a long relationship with Firaxis. We always wanted to return to our roots in the genre of urban planning simulators, and when 2k first thought about releasing Civilization on this label, it was an exciting prospect – to contact Firaxis with a proposal to expand the coverage of Civilization and give the genre of urban planners a new impetus.

Saimon Bradbury, Director Firefly Studios

Development went without any problems. The setting was determined immediately, they decided to concentrate the main gameplay on a single game. They tried to make a strategy at the same time deep, but with a low threshold of entry.

It was also played that in the year the game of competitors was only Caesar IV, which disappointed many fans. But whether they disappointed them CivCity: Rome July 24, 2006?

The strategy tells about the formation of the Roman Empire. The player enters the company as a new quester who is sent to various corners of the empire in order to complete certain tasks. Mining of the necessary resources, the construction and improvement of cities, the creation of an effective outpost to fight enemies of Rome: Carthage, Barbarians and Egypt. For each successful mission, the user will go up the career ladder. As a result of the company, the manager will receive the title of consul for his merits to the empire.

Each new construction begins with the map provided and the area. If at the initial stages it is still possible not to plan the growth of the city ahead, then in late missions, thanks to the experience gained, it is worthwhile to crush your brains well.

“And what is the difficulty? Build a house, warehouses, entertainment institutions, objects of provision of goods and services, put production with trade, and connect the whole case with roads ”. I thought, sitting down for the first time in the game. How was I mistaken.

This whole system should not just be, it needs to work effectively. Resources should always be mined with a margin, t. To. They enter the buildings where the extracted are processed into goods, which are then bought by residents living in houses. In houses, of course, our dear residents live, from whom the main tax revenues are coming. To receive more profits from them, it is necessary to provide more goods and services, so residential buildings will improve and grow in every sense. The more appetites of your faithful citizens, the more difficult it is to satisfy them and the more new resources need to be mined, which means that you spend the precious territory of the area on the construction of new buildings that occupy a lot of buildings space.

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How the city ends

The whole point of growth of the city works on this chain, into which new variables are gradually introduced. People need places to worship the gods? We build churches of Diona, Mercury and Mitra. Residents want fresh water and wash in terms? We lay aqueduct, build a tank next to it, which will provide the map of the map with fresh water, it is also used by baths. And so on … played interestingly and exciting.

The graphics are simple, with a low drawing range, but the number of animation of residents is simply fascinating. You can observe the entire game routine of the day of one person. All the interaction of residents takes place as honestly as possible within the framework of the technologies of those years. The music was not impressed.

Several things interfere with enjoying the process. Firstly, the technical part. Either the problem with modern OS, or the game itself does not work well. Workers at some facilities may simply not work. The reboot saves the game. She does not save from sorties and low resolution. The project is old and was not reprinted to modern systems. Secondly, training is as simple as possible. During the game, you can cause a small window that explains the main elements of the game. The training mission does, in fact, the same. The page "Help" for each mission did not work for me at all, thanks for the clues at least displayed.

The game was met by average grades and bad sales. Criticized the technical condition and secondary gaming process, which did not bring anything new to the genre.

Civcity is too superficial to capture seriously and for a long time. All secrets and subtleties are comprehended within one and a half to two hours, and then you can play only from purely "economic" interest. There is something attractive-narcotic in the arrangement of your own city, something that makes you play more and more. But this is a common feature of all urban planks. Civcity is too simple and non -hazard to spend a lot of time on it.

Gambling, October 2006

Civcity: Rome good and no more. Unfortunately, this is not enough to stand out from the crowd of similar games. Simcity was still alive at that time. Series Caesar, Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom were exemplary. Against their background, the Firefly and Firaxis project could not boast of the uniqueness and depth that would allow the game to knock out his place under the sun of fans.

Civcity It remains a good option for entering the genre … however Caesar IV, Maybe worse than the third part, but works well on modern systems and has many successful solutions from past games, which cannot be said about the spin-off of civilization, which confirms the sales, evaluations and absence of other games of the series Civcity, which were in the plans.

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution

The next step in expanding the greatness of the series was the exit on the consoles. The first two parts Civilization received ports on the console, which I already talked about. Sid believes that these are good versions, but only the third and fourth parts did not leave the PC that it was sad. In the new project, Meyer wanted to show the new audience all the advantages of a famous series, to unite players of different platforms in a single love. A noble goal, which, of course, not everyone appreciated.

That is why, when in mid -2007 I announced that I was going to make a game only for consoles called Civilization Revolution, the cry of horror from our fans was not a surprise for me.

Sid Meyer

The announcement was accompanied by the indignation of avid fans Civilization, not wanting to share their favorite game with console players. True, discontent gradually came to naught when more details of the game became known.

The developers, in turn, were inspired. To create a new version of the strategy without looking at the old audience has introduced a lot of creative freedom. First of all, we decided on the scale of the entire project, called "Civilization for one evening". Many functions and gameplay chips either cleaned or simplified.

Revolution also became the basis for the run -in and debugging the multiplayer side of the series.

Formally, each version of the game, starting with Civnet, had a multi -user mode, which was usually produced in the form of additions a few months after the release of a single version. But to be honest, in none of them this mode did not work properly.

Sid Meyer

On February 14, 2008, it was announced that, in addition to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, versions for DS and WII will be released. However, due to the lack of labor, the game did not visit the main platform of Big N, which the studio regrets.

June 13, 2008, the strategy enters the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Consider the version for PlayStation 3. It is no different from the version for Xbox 360. Played on the original gland.

According to the old tradition, the player meets the introductory video, which cannot boast of epocochness and majesty from the fourth part. The composition is calm. The visual row and many personnel are directly taken from the video of the four, which introduced me into a stupor.

The graphics and style of the game have gone even greater cartoon, which, on the one hand, will not like the fans, but if you relate to the game not as a full -fledged new part, but to an exclusive experiment, then all the negativity will disappear by itself. This applies to gameplay.

The choice is given 16 countries with their leaders. The most basic nations were selected: from Russia and the USA to India and China.

The gameplay is as simple and understandable as possible. Formula Civilization was simplified to a minimum, but the fascination of Gamley has not gone anywhere. The main frame on the spot. At the beginning, units of settlers and warriors are available. The first to base the city, the latter protect and explore the territory. We study new technologies, we meet other states, simultaneously establish diplomatic relations. Development of cities, battles, rare resources, trade, mood are also present.

But everything has become easier and converted to control on the gamepad. The place of the cursor was taken by both sticks. They move the camera in any direction. Kurki and bumpers are responsible for showing information about diplomacy, the current course and your cities. Conventional buttons are used to return commands to detachments.

Cities are still building buildings, miracles and units. It is not necessary to process the territory for them. The settlement does everything itself. Even the construction of the road was transferred to them. Due to such a system, a detachment of workers was removed.

The battles are dynamically. Models of fighters are constantly moving and striking each other. The outcome of the skirmishes was again made through the theory of probability. But now the success of the player is increased.

We corrected the actual probabilities and made it so that if the player has the probability of victory three to one or higher, he always wins. Perhaps it was dishonest in relation to a computer opponent, but complaints never reached us. As soon as the players got an advantage, the game began to like much more.

Sid Meyer

Five types of victory are represented:

Culture victory. Get 20 great people or build 20 miracles. At the end it is necessary to build the UN.

The new format focused on the console made it possible to introduce full -fledged achievements and weekly tests for players. Millions of users compared their successes through leaders tables. The online component had the battles “each for himself”, “one on one” and “two by two”.

For the reasons for the death of online on PS3, I could not try anything from this, and I have no new consoles.

The strategy received mainly positive reviews. They praised convenient management and competent simplification, but the slow game of online and the general mood of isolation from the main series reminded of the roughness of the experiment.

While the optimized and quick approach that ignores some nuances of previous games can cause bewilderment of some fans of the PC, Revolution has concentrated, and did not dilute the experience with Civilization, creating an expression of a concept that is ideal for its platform.

EDGE magazine, July 2008

The version for Nintendo DS was released on July 8, 2008. All the same Revolution, only for the portable console, with all the pros and cons of the original. The graphics became two -dimensional. You can manage both standard buttons and stylus. Multiplayer is available in a full online and the ability to connect via a local network to another DS. Playing it, there is more the feeling that this is not a full-fledged 4x strategy, but a decoration for a linear game with a plot, side quests and a pinch of Laura.