Changing History, One Age at a Time - Civilization VII Interview

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone, I'm Alex here with Gamereactor and I'm here with Dennis and Carl and I've just been checking out Civ 7.
By the time you're watching this, I'm pretty sure you'll have seen some of Civ 7."

"Very, very exciting stuff.
And I've got tons of questions to ask, but probably not much time to ask them.
So, I'm going to start with one.
Something that you said at the start of your presentation was that you guys always see yourselves as your biggest competitor."

"And I thought, how does that sort of translate to the challenges with each iteration of Civ because we're now on seven games and decades in the making of the franchise?
It's always a humongous task.
We always have to try to best ourselves."

"When we came out with Civilization IV, Soren Johnson, it was a huge lift.
Amazing game, fans rolled over.
Civilization V came out and then it took forever for those fans to pull forward.
And some fans still play Civilization IV."

"When Civilization VI came out, it took almost a year.
Still, to this day, we've got a ton of people playing Civilization VI and a ton of people playing Civilization V and Civilization IV.
So, it's always a great challenge, but it also keeps us on our toes because we are always trying to one-up ourselves."

"How do we go bigger? How do we go better?
How do we pull new people in the franchise?
The Civ-curious, people like that.
So, Ed always approaches this and the rest of the design team as a very humbling experience."

"How do you make something better than the thing that you just created, which was your best work?
So, it's always a huge challenge.
Thank you very much."

"And just coming at this from, as you say, there's some big, big changes this time.
Noticeably, the ages.
So, we're sort of breaking the game down into chapters now, more so than sort of, especially as someone who plays at multiplayer, you've got to schedule in those seven-hour sessions, otherwise you're going to be left on a cliffhanger."

"But now, age is going to change the game up, as well as breaking down the bonds between leaders and Civs.
I just wondered if you guys could talk a bit more about how that's going to revolutionize Civ in a way that maybe we've not seen before, ever."

"Yeah, so the age system will hopefully add a little bit more of a natural breaking point, and that is for single player, that's for multiplayer, it's for content creators, so that when you are sitting down to play a whole game of Civ, you can still do the traditional, I want to play for eight hours, or you can say, I want to do this just two-hour age, take a break, come back to it later, and continue from where you left off."

"You mentioned multiplayer, that's one of the new additions, by the way.
You can play in age, set it on quick speed, get done with your game in around two hours.
You can choose to play the whole thing, but in terms of multiplayer, it's a nice little breaking point."

"But the thing I love most about it is just the fact that throughout our entire history, there are certain things that we haven't successfully modeled in the game.
When you're talking about the fall of Rome, the world-changing cataclysmic events like World War I, World War II, all those kind of things that impacted what happened to peoples, changed countries' borders, had other cultures erupting and emerging, other countries being created from whole cloth, and this is the first time that we're actually going to have Civ players experience that."

"What would that be like, this multicultural jumble that we've become in the modern age?
How do people get there?
There's people in Spain and Britain and everything else that have Roman heritage back generations and generations."

"That culture follows us all around, and this is the first time we're actually going to play that and experience it.
It's going to be really cool.
Thank you very much."

"I mean, I check my toes, I think, is the British way to do it, because we're a mishmash of everything, really.
But I really like that point about culture and how it's developed over time, and something that you guys have done in this one as well is adding independent factions more so than barbarians or city-states."

"Is that a way of re-analyzing a look at history and not defining by one group or another, and instead choosing to portray these individual, not city-states, I keep trying to avoid that, but individual factions as something else entirely that we are understanding in a new light as history continues to evolve and understanding that as well?
So that was an interesting point and an internal debate that's been going on for a long time."

"The concept of barbarians in Civ IV could be wild animals.
Civ V was barbarians itself, same with Civ VI.
And barbarians, when you break it down, it's like, who is barbarians?
Why do they still have a camp after 300 years only existing to be cleared?
And it didn't make much sense."

"And we've always liked the city-state concept, so we went a different direction.
There are no barbarians in the game.
They're independent powers."

"Those villages you see throughout the map, you'll find them.
Sometimes they're hostile.
Sometimes they're not.
You can spend your political capital, your influence, if you want to try to befriend them."

"If you don't, somebody else might.
If they don't, they'll most likely be a nuisance out on the map until you do something about them or address them.
We've already had some players that had their capital literally wiped out at the beginning because they ignored the independent power that was irritated that this civilization existed within their borders."

"But if you engage, this hostile entity grows into a city-state with your support, and then they become your ally and your friend, your protector.
You can hire them to do nefarious things."

"They'll send you gifts.
They're great allies to have on the map, but it was a natural evolution of what it meant to have a barbarian camp."

"What does that mean when that thing exists?
It should grow like you do and become something.
I just wanted to touch as a final question on the art style.
I really, really like the art style that you've gone for this time."

"It's a mix of the modern look of Civ VI.
I think in the presentation it was talked about this combination of dark and light in the way that you look at the world, in the way that you look at the characters that you portray or the historical figures that you portray."

"I was just wondering how do you look at that as well with all the platforms that this is coming to?
Are there challenges with how you make the game for looking as detailed and as gorgeous as it does along all those platforms?
This is another you question."

"It's a huge challenge because we're releasing on all platforms.
We're making a game that on the highest end PCs and PS5 we want to have all the bells and whistles on.
We want to show all the chunky details on the map."

"We want the mountains that are casting shadows over the cities because they're so grand.
The direction that they chose visually, this combination of a lot of visual styles from the past combined with Jason Johnson's unique view of readable realism."

"He got a lot of inspiration from dioramas, model railroads.
In our own fun zone, our environment team puts together the most impressive tabletop gaming tables, not even the miniatures, the tables themselves that I've ever seen."

"And you get inspiration from that to make something that looks as amazing as what you've seen in the game.
But that balance that you're talking about between light and dark, the mood that we set in the game based on what we put in the fog of war."

"In antiquity, it's a very dark, it's imposing.
You got to go out and explore it and clear it and figure out what's out there.
That was a huge effort by the art team, and they've made the most detailed civilization we've ever made."

"Every culture, every unit within every Uber unit within that culture.
Even in your typical line of Roman Legion, you're going to see multiple armor sets, them doing various different fidgets and different animations when they're attacking."

"There's life to be seen everywhere, and it represents every culture you're playing through every age.
It was a huge lift, and it just pays off.
You can spend time just looking at the details."

"If you're watching people while they're fighting, there's all kinds of hidden little bits.
Even when they're asleep, honestly.
When you put a unit to sleep now, they actually set up a camp."

"They have tents.
There's people sitting outside at a campfire.
It just looks phenomenal no matter what state they're in.
Thank you so much, guys."

"I can't wait to play more.
Thank you for your time.
Carl, a pleasure.
Great to talk to you.
Great to talk to you."

"Yeah.
We'll end on that.
Editor, keep that in.
Thank you.
Bye."

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