V the Revolution

Parts of the blogosphere are abuzz with the news of the release of Civilisation V this year. I'm cautiously optimistic for a couple of reasons: that Firaxis are willing to trust the lead designer role to a relative novice to professional game development (but long time modder) Jon Shafer; and that what has been revealed of the design so far appears to be heavily influenced by Civilisation Revolution.

I periodically update my Civilisation Revolution house rules, so you may want to check back and have a look at the original article. The design is almost complete: I've solved the dilemma I had with allowing partial capture of cities by adding in an additional civic category (Philosophy) whose starting civic Superstitious prevents you from having your cities captured, and went from there. The inspiration for this is Norman Spinrad's Mexica, a novelisation of the conquest of the Aztecs which is well worth reading even if you're not a fan of historical novels. Cortez doesn't so much capture cities as bypass them to hold Moctezuma hostage.

In passing, I addressed a fundamental problem I had with Civilisation Revolution and the Democracy civic: a) it doesn't feel like how Democracy operates in real life - the myth of that democracies never go to war being part of the dark heart of America and b) once I choose Democracy in Civ Rev, I never consider another government civic. Democracy in these house rules becomes a slightly more historically accurate turtling strategy.

All that is left* is a balancing mechanism to make playing with less cities an effective strategy. I suspect this will end up being a culture boost of some kind, or perhaps making when your civilisation advances to the next age dependent on the inverse of the number of cities you have.

The other Civilisation news of the moment is summed up neatly in Soren Johnson's Fear and Loathing in Farmville where both sides of the argument have valid points. If you prefer the discussion in an audible form, the latest Three Moves Ahead podcast covers the same ground (Congratulations to them for reaching their first anniversary). Of the podcasts I listen to, Three Moves Ahead features the highest ratio of intelligent discussion to noise, mostly because its a relatively specialist area and features panelists with extensive knowledge of the strategy genre.

* With the minor exception of the fact I have no easy means of implementing these house rules. Civilisation in general has been strongly encouraging of modding with the notable exception of Civ Revolution. It theoretically should be simple enough to code from scratch - and there's at least one roguelike developer who's released a roguelike Civilisation game - or FreeCiv may be an easier path. The problem will be getting permission to release a game which is mostly designed by someone else.