作者：Jon Shafer

当跟别人第一次谈起我的新游戏《At the Gates》（以下简称ATG）时，别人通常会问我，“你的新作与《文明5》相比如何？”在本文中，我将详细地回答这个问题！

不过，在我们展开细节以前（本文比较长），我想先反思一下《文明5》的一些设计问题。

《文明5》是一款叫好又叫座的游戏，我为制作团队的成果感到特别自豪。但无法忽视的是，《文明5》的游戏玩法并没有达到所有人的期待。

我承认我的设计并不完美——我们总是在自我批判和自我反省中得到进步，这是我写文本的另一个原因。这并不容易，但我已经回答了许多一度令我措手不及的问题。

以下，我将分享我在《文明5》的开发中和开发后学习到的经验，顺便解释一下我如何在ATG中运用上述经验。

界面

在《文明5》中，我参与的所有方面，最令我自豪的莫过于我们团队制作的UI。

开发新的策略游戏总是很艰难的，影响游戏学习难度的一个关键因素就是，界面是否提供帮助。为了让玩家的注意力集中在最重要的东西上，我们做了许多工作。界面的各个元素的大小反映了它的相对重要性，例如，结束按钮就比地图调整按扭来得大；又比如，极少使用到的按钮如解散某个单位就收进次级菜单内。在ATG的设计中，我也非常注重这个原则。

我对UI比较失望的一点是，缺少针对硬核玩家的“能力功能”。基本上，我们不想做太多信息覆盖图、屏幕或模式，这是我原本会喜欢的安排。我的早期目标之一是，添加一个额外的“专家级”切换选项，屏幕上和鼠标悬浮时会显示大量详细的信息。在《文明4》和《文明5》中的用户成生模式中已经添加了这个功能，但把它整合进完整游戏中，显然是更可取的。

这个功能已经得到ATG界面系统结构的支持，所以完整地做出来并不费功夫。我希望看到玩家对最终版本的反应，也许在测试时会进一步改进。

外交

在《文明5》的外交系统的开发经验对我的游戏设计理念的影响最大；影响第二大的甚至不在相同的领域里。

我对AI领袖设定的最初目标是，它们要像人类一样活动。但人类是不确定的、情绪化的，有时候甚至是疯狂的。当你与真正的人类打交道时，这些特点就是让你觉得有趣的地方，但我学到的重要一课是，当你用电脑模拟人类时，绝对没有办法使之有趣。任何努力最终都变成随机的、徒劳的混乱。

我渐渐意识到，虽然外交是一个独特的挑战，但它与其他元素一样，最终只是一种游戏系统。不管游戏的乐趣是否来源于角色扮演或者只是游戏的核心机制，如果你对手的目标和行为不明确，那么你绝对不知道对方的进展如何或要做什么。

在《文明5》中，你可能已经与某位领袖结下终身盟友关系，但一旦进入游戏末期，为了赢，对方绝对会心安理得地背叛你。如果是这样，那么为什么还要建立外交关系？

AI领袖的行为绝对不应该完全可预料。然而，他们的行动之后确实需要清析的节奏和明确的原因。《文明5》中的电脑对手完全受制于游戏情境，导致了他们在行动上表现得非常随机，并且没有多少个性。

他们都很疯狂，但疯狂的方式一模一样。在游戏发布后的几个月里，我调整了AI领袖的行为，使之更容易预测，但完全改变是不可能的了。我从中得到的最重要的经验是，游戏中唯一重要的东西就是玩家头脑中的体验。只要最终结果不有趣，那么无论你的意图是什么或当时是什么情况，就都不重要了。

ATG中的外交是围绕玩家与其他领袖的“关系”数值来建立的。但与《文明5》相比，数字及其作用是非常明显的。例如，如果你与某领袖的关系程度是-5，那么他永远不会与你做贸易；而如果到达+10，打战时只要你吭一声，他绝对会鼎力相助。不是努力破解基于随机数字生成器的AI，你的目标是找到尽可能多的方式来提高那个关系数值。一旦你这么做了，你就会发现你的新盟友能给你提供各种各样的帮助。

尽管外交只是对付那几个“关系”数值，但系统中仍然存在一定的随机性，只是不如《文明5》中的那么明显。ATG中的领袖有非常明确的行程安排和行为特点：匈奴王Attila很可敬的，但出手恶毒。哥特人Athanaric是一个狂热的宗教信徒。皮克特人Drest不按理出牌，不值得你信任。

在与外交有关的所有东西中，领袖任务可能是ATG中最有“魅力”的地方了。在许多其他策略游戏中，建立同盟关系通常需要为对方提供大量金钱或技术。

在ATG中，结盟的主要方式是，当对方领袖遇到某种困难时，你要帮他完成克服困境的任务。比如，在Attila遇到战争时，前往战场支援或当他的人民遇到冬季饥荒时给予食物，这样就会给你增加很多“关系分”。虽然给他许多钱自然是不坏的，但建立真正的友谊当然不是这么容易的！

我们对ATG树立的目标是，产生史上最佳外交系统。这当然不是一件简单的事，但凭借我的学识，我认为将角色个性与牢靠的机制紧密结合，我们有望达到这个目标。

AI

在《文明5》的基础版本中，AI还不够强大，这一点我们承认。

制作这个系统给我上了另一堂关于设计与开发的课。我写了能够应对电脑对手的高度策略性的目标、经济和外交的AI代码。

与大多数工程师一样，我非常喜欢漂亮又灵活的结构。《文明5》的AI系统构建得非常好，甚至能够将所有事件记录成日志文件。不幸的是，我对构建的享受导致我更喜爱设计而不是它的实际影响。我为自己的代码感到骄傲。

但它确实不是非常好。

许多人不了解AI编程的地方是，最困难的挑战之一就是让你的AI玩家按你的意图行动！大型策略游戏中的AI代码往往太复杂，以至于无法实现你期望的功能，或更惨，什么功能也没有实现。

我的AI的另一个难题是随机性，这是我曾经详谈过的东西。电脑对手的行为具有多种可能性，这是因为有强大的随机数生成器。这意味着它们的策略时常浮动，并且在那些决定之间没有任何关联性。理论上说这是很不错的，但有时候你也需要一个强大的AI做出特定的行为。

因为以上所有问题，我把注意力完全放在最终目标上：结果。这意味着AI系统更简单，进而导致对手更强大。作为开发者，你很清楚AI玩家在做什么以及为什么，识别错误行为并修复就变得简单得多了。变动的部分越少，你就越容易知道当前局势。

除了我的AI设计新方法，我们的建构师Jonathan是一个编程天才，他想出若干使代码更高效的办法。这使得我们节省大量处理性能，同时保持更短的结束回合。我绝对不是世界上最有才的程序员，但我和Jonathan加在一起，我敢打包票：ATG中的AI绝对能给玩家带来非常逼真的挑战。

资源

我对《文明5》做的一个重大改变是，经济阵线从“布尔型”资源（即你要么有资源，要么没有资源）变成“量化型”资源（游戏邦注：即你可能没有某一种资源，可能只有2处某种资源，或也可能有18处）。我仍然觉得量化资源是一个可靠的设计决定，但出于各种原因，执行结果没有达到我的期望。

《文明5》具有“popcap”资源模式的特征，也就是，8处铁矿基本上意味着你可以生产8个物品，比如8个剑士或投石车之类的东西。相反地，ATG采用了更加传统的“仓储型”资源模式，即不断积累资源，然后一次性使用掉大半。这比“popcap”模式更需要微观管理，这就是为什么我在《文明5》中没有采用这种模式。尽管在ATG中，关注焦点在于战略水平（全国性的资源管理）而不是战术水平（城市和人口管理），所以“仓储型”资源模式对游戏更适合。

在《文明5》中，玩家容易获得少量的每一种资源，几乎没什么理由搞交易。在现实世界中，国家之间因为供应与需求而贸易商品。在《文明5》中，几乎不存在需求，因为你其实是自给自足。这与ATG是完全不同的，玩家很容易遇到资源短缺的困境，通过贸易得到急需的资源关乎文明的存亡。

我将这个健康的系统从《文明5》中移除，也对其他方面产生了影响。这极大地降低了非战略型资源（如小麦）的价值，回头再看，显然我没能用其他东西弥补那个空隙。ATG的资源类型比《文明5》的少得多，但每一种资源都是非常重要的。在一款策略游戏中，地图绝对是至关重要的，地图上的任何东西都需要地图定位。如果你发现一个贴图上出现小问题，却没有重视，那就是你的问题了。

《文明5》的资源系统还存在另一个问题，即有2个或5个剑士之间的差异并不算什么，因为还可能出现0个剑士的情况。如果我能够返回去修改我的设计，我本可以让资源系统的量化更加有限，让单位和建筑的解锁更加独特和困难。

大多数敌人是由“低级”单位如长枪兵组成的，战场上偶尔才出现威胁比较大的剑士或投石车。虽然平衡需要费一些功夫——玩家获得资源的困难程度必须大致相当，但我很肯定这种方法是管用的。

经济

在《文明5》中，我对传统的经济系统做了很多调整，比如，资源结果是混合打包的。

我设计“总体幸福指数”机制目的是，使小帝国有可能与大帝国抗争。但问题是，这个总体幸福指数撞上了整个游戏的自然发展节奏。我的意思是，策略游戏中的特征之一——“扩张”遇上麻烦了！在我追求其他目标的过程中，我迷失这一点了。

问题就是，这种设定强烈迫使玩家保持帝国的小规模，而扩张的惩罚是很严酷的。事实上，玩家不可以建立庞大的、不断膨胀的帝国，这始终是《文明》系列的一个特点，也是许多玩家玩这款游戏的要点。我仍然觉得，小帝国的生存是可能的，但不能牺牲喜欢扩张的玩家。扩张的惩罚应该难以克服，但并非不可克服，否则就太打击玩家了。

根据总体幸福指数的经验，ATG在扩张方面更自由得多。游戏中存在抑制玩家无度扩张的因素，但都不如保持发展指数、腐败或帝国的不幸福来得严厉。

一方面，ATG的世界比《文明5》的更危险。每个人都在如饥似渴地寻找廉价又易得的资源。平衡经济和国防绝对是关键的。另外，居民产生的经济价值并不特别明显，因为大多数资源可能通过改进技术才能获得。

另一方面，你控制的各个殖民地都会消耗食品储备。食物是极其重要的，浪费简直就是愚蠢。你当然可以在ATG中建立大帝国，但你必须保证你能够养育并保护它。

我去掉研究/贸易/文明平行发展道路的结果既有积极的一面，也有消极的一面。我始终认为在策略游戏中出现平行发展是一个无聊又繁杂的工作。因此，去掉它们我是毫不犹豫的。但我之后才意识到滑块有一个隐藏的价值——使玩家能够随时改变帝国的发展方向。

我曾经详细地探讨关于策略游戏中的“适者生存”的重要性。不幸的是，一旦平行发展的选择消失，玩家基本上就困死在他们之前的经济选择中。例如，你不能为了升级军队而牺牲研究。奖励长期计划当然值得一试，但你仍然必须提供允许玩家在必要时改变发展道路的工具。

政治（政府）

我喜欢《文明5》中的政治系统和《文明4》中的文明系统，这两个系统其实采用了相同概念：塑造你的帝国个性的能力。对于政治，我希望玩家觉得自己是随着历史发展而沉积帝国性格。毕竟，日本和德国在二战后变化很大，但它们仍然是日本人和德国人，保持着重视荣誉和勤奋的传统。

相反地，文明系统允许玩家完全再造你自己的帝国。当然，这么做虽然要付出代价，但玩家非常可能把自己的帝国从一个热爱和平的文明变成狂战“轴心国”。这有些古怪，但具有很大的玩法意义。

两种系统各具优点和缺点，但我现在觉得文明系统的设计更加吸引人，因为玩家能够突然改变装帝国的属性。

在ATG中，科技树和政府系统基本上被我们归结为单一的罗马政治制度的系统。你每占领一个罗马城市或完成罗马外交任务，你就可以选择一种新制度。至于文明系统，你可以之后再决定你的选择，尽管这么做会导致帝国的稳定暂时降低（税收减少、士气低落等）。

除了我认为适应性只是在理论上说是好的，还有一个原因使我在ATG中更倾向文明系统。游戏是困难的。气候通常会困扰你。资源会消耗完。你的邻居对你的发展虎视眈眈。罗马在大部分时期都远远比你强大。

玩家必须有办法克服这些挑战，其中之一就是随时转变罗马政治制度。这样玩家就能过渡到完全不同的战略，改变敌对关系和从来没有变化的当前局面。

使玩家得以轻易地改变罗马政治制度，不仅有为了丰富玩法这个原因，还有历史原因。在古代，蛮族的身份定位在短时间内发生巨大变化。所以，你现在看不到活的哥特人了！好吧，你懂得。

战斗

到目前为止，我对《文明5》做的最重要的调整就是战斗方式。在之前的《文明》游戏中，总是用一大堆军事单位打击另一大堆，而现在《文明5》采用的是“一单位一贴图”的方式。这就迫使玩家根据地形分布军队，而不是将所有东西堆在一张贴图里。

这个模式很大程度上是受了老式战争游戏《Panzer General》的启发。总地来说，《文明5》那种战争机制确实比同系列的其他游戏的更好。但出于本文的主题，我也得谈谈它的缺点。

“一单位一贴图”带来的最大难题之一是，编写强大的战斗AI。我不太擅长开发这种AI亚类系统，团队中负责这一块的人非常出色地完成了任务。毫无疑问，编写一种能够在战术受限的空间中有效调遣大量单位的AI，是极其困难的。

为什么《Panzer General》中不存在这个问题？那是因为它的AI事实上不需要做任何事。玩家总是在防御，并且大部分时候只是在解决如何攻破敌人的要塞这一“谜题”。如果你的对手只是时不时地派一辆坦克来“问候”你一下，那种AI系统自然是够用了。

《Panzer General》为什么这么有趣？因为在你闪电突击对手的时候，它很快就在你衰退以前崩溃了。然而，在《文明》系列中，AI有能力发动全面入侵，有时候还是局部战争。不用说，我们谈的是完全不同规模的挑战。

说到规模，“一单位一贴图”又暴露了另一个重大问题，即地图不能适应这一模式。《Panzer General》的乐趣在于明智的军事演习和秘密包围无助的敌人。不幸地是，在《文明5》中，瓶颈阶段是很常见的，并且这稀释了由“一单位一贴图”增加的固有价值。最终，玩家只是没有空间玩到有趣的部分。

为了解决这个问题，我本可以做一些疯狂的事，如在现有的地图网格中增加次级贴图。不过，我确实认为这不会是好办法，毕竟“一单位一贴图”的要点是所有事物都发生在相同的游戏空间中，使玩家很容易知道当前的局势。一旦你混乱了贴图，你就失去贴图带来的清析度和丰富的机制。到那种程度，你还不如直接放弃贴图。

除了上述推论，“一单位一贴图”引发的拥挤也影响了游戏的其他部分。在《文明》系列的前几款游戏中，玩家可以同时控制十个、五十个甚至上千个单位。当然，更多单位意味着更多操作，但快捷键和UI的便利可以缓和这个问题。但在《文明5》中，每个单位都有自己的贴图，也就是说，地图很快就被占满了。

为了解决这个问题，我放缓了生产速度，这就导致我们必须提供更多内容来填补漫长的等待时间。因为节奏原因，在之前的游戏中，我本会让玩家每4个回合训练一个新单位。但这是不可能的，因为地图在古典时期的末期就已经被士兵占满了。一旦地图被填满，即使是战争也没有多大意思了。

所以，有没有什么办法能使“一单位一贴图”在《文明》系列中达到效果？关键还是地图。有没有足够的空间允许自由存放单位，并且在其他单位周围移动？如果是这样，那么是的，你可以做到。为此，我认为你必须增加最大地图尺寸至少四倍。你可能还要改变地图的生成逻辑，使瓶颈阶段更困难更少出现。当然，做这么大的游戏世界，自然会引发更大的新挑战。

事实上，这个方案之所以不可行是因为技术原因——我们的引擎已经冲击到现代计算机硬件的性能了。相信我，在屏幕上绘制这么多小单位相当费成本。好吧，除非你做的游戏是2D的，就像ATG！

那么ATG的战斗系统如何？它允许单位叠放。

主要原因也是我对这款游戏的高层次目标之一。正如我之前所说的，ATG是一款战略游戏，主要发生在战略水平上，而不是战术水平上。你在地图上放置单位的区域、你的供应网络的准备情况等，基本上比你是否能够将你的一个单位绕着另一个单位跑动来得重要。

这个决定的主要因素是，保证所有ATG的功能与它最重要的地图演化功能相结合。我的目标是以任何可能的方式实现这一功能。对于战斗，这是由供给系统完成的。缺少有效供给的单位会很快变得无用，这与《Unity of Command》类似。

放置在那里的单位会得到每张贴图的一定量的供给。最大部分是来自贴图的地形类型，当然，地形会随着季节发生变化。其他部分来自临近营地和殖民地的供给。

游戏的整个军事方面都围绕着供给展开——提前计划以确保你有足够的供给。在有大量供给的地域打响战争。确保你的供给点的安全，等等。

事实上，单位自身几乎只是次要考虑。ATG不是让你遵循某个战士的历史传说，让他在不同技术阶段经历技能升级和装备更新。相反地，它更像是国际象棋比赛，几乎任何移动都可能终结战斗，站在正确位置的小兵可能像女王一样强大。

毫无疑问，这是一个与《文明5》采用的非常不同的一种方法。然而，ATG显然不是《文明5》的翻版，而是作为独特而有创意的新成员在策略游戏的大家庭中找到自己的位置！

结尾

《文明5》团队是我见过的最强悍的团队之一，我深为自己是其中一员感到自豪。那个团队在游戏中投入大量热情和工作，从游戏的美术、声音和技术上都能看出来。

《文明5》的发布版本确实存在几个有待完善的地方，但那全是因为我的设计决定。在我离开后，我在Firaxis的朋友为改进玩法做了了不起的贡献，我迫不及待地想看看他们的新成果！

正如我在开头中所说的，我承认自己的错误。我仍然有许多要学习的东西。但每一个项目都是一个提高和表现自我的新机遇。我为ATG感到兴奋，不只是因为这个原因，还因为这款游戏丰富了策略游戏的类型，为其发展指出新方向。

我肯定，我还会犯更多错误，但吃一堑长一智，我现在能够从更深远的角度看待问题。希望玩家加入我的旅程，帮助ATG变得更好！（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Revisiting the Design of Civ 5

by Jon Shafer

Upon first telling people about my new game, At the Gates, I’m often asked, “How does it compare to Civ 5, the last title you designed?” Well, in this article I’ll be providing an in-depth response to that very question!

However, before really getting into the details (this is a long essay folks!) I’d like to step back and wax philosophical for a moment.

Civ 5 was a great success both critically and financially, and I’m especially proud of what the team accomplished. But there’s no ignoring the fact that Civ 5′s gameplay didn’t live up to everyone’s expectations.

I have no problem admitting that my design wasn’t perfect – we improve through constructive criticism and self-reflection, and that is another reason why I’m writing this. It wasn’t always easy, but I’ve answered many of the questions that at one time perplexed me.

Below, I’ll be sharing the design lessons I learned during and after Civ 5′s development, along with explaining how I’m actually applying said lessons in ATG.

Alright then, it’s about time we got this show on the road!

Interface

Out of all aspects of Civ 5 that I was involved with, I’m particularly proud of what our team accomplished with the UI.

Picking up a new strategy game is always tough, and a key factor in shaping that learning curve is how much help the interface provides (or doesn’t). We did a great job of focusing the player’s attention on what really matters. The size of each interface element reflects its relative importance, e.g. the end turn button is bigger than the button which shows toggleable map options. Rarely-used actions like disbanding a unit were tucked away into sub-screens. I have very much carried this philosophy forward into ATG.

My one disappointment with the UI was the general lack of “power features” tailored for hardcore fans. Ultimately, we didn’t end up with as many information overlays, screens or modes as I would have liked. One of my early goals was to have an alternate “expert” switch that you could flip, adding a significant quantity of detailed information to the screens and mouseovers. User-created mods have added this feature to both Civ 4 and Civ 5, but integrating it into the full games is obviously preferable.

This functionality is already supported in the structure of the ATG interface system, and it won’t be much work to flesh it out in full. I’m looking forward to seeing the community’s reaction to the finished version, and improving it even further during the alpha and beta testing process!

Diplomacy

My experience with developing Civ 5′s diplomacy system has had the strongest influence on my present-day game design philosophy; the next most significant isn’t even in the same ballpark.

My original goal was for the AI leaders to act human. But humans are ambiguous, moody and sometimes just plain crazy. This can be interesting when you’re dealing with actual, real humans, but I learned the important lesson that when you’re simulating one with a computer there’s no way to make this fun. Any attempt to do so just turns into random, unproductive noise.

I came to realize that while diplomacy is a unique challenge, it’s ultimately still just a gameplay system just like any other. Regardless of whether your enjoyment is derived from roleplaying or simply a game’s core mechanics, if your opponents’ goals and behavior aren’t clear then you’ll have absolutely no idea what’s going on or what to do.

In Civ 5, you might have been lifelong allies with a leader, but once you enter the late-game he has no qualms backstabbing you in order to win. With this being the case, what’s the point of investing in relationships at all?

By no means should AI leaders be completely predictable. However, they do need a clear rhyme and reason behind their actions. The computer opponents in Civ 5 were completely enslaved to their gameplay situation, and as a result they appeared random and very little of their personalities shone through.

They were all crazy, and in the exact same way. In the months after the game was released I modified their behavior to be more predictable, but it was too late to completely change course. The biggest takeaway from this is that the only thing which matters in a game is the experience inside the player’s head. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are or what’s going on under the hood if the end result just isn’t fun.

Like other 4X games, diplomacy in ATG is built around your “relations” metric with other leaders. But compared with Civ 5, what goes into that number and what it does is very clear. For example, if you’re at -5 with a leader, he’ll never trade with you, while at +10 he’ll always agree to help out in a war if requested. Rather than trying to decipher what the RNG (random number generator)-based AI is “thinking,” your objective is instead to find as many ways as you can (afford) to boost that Relations number. Once you’ve done so, a variety of options for how your new friend can assist you become available.

Diplomacy is more than just fiddling with numbers though. There is still some randomness in the system, but not nearly as much as in Civ 5. Leaders in ATG have very distinctive agendas and behaviors: Attila the Hun is honorable, but vicious. Athanaric of the Goths is a religious fanatic. Drest of the Picts is kind of crazy, and you know you can’t trust him.

Out of everything related to diplomacy, leader requests are probably ATG’s ”sexiest” bullet point. In many other 4X games the road to friendship often involves little more than giving someone a big pile of money or technologies.

In ATG building up relations is primarily done by completing requests for leaders when specific crises afflict them. Coming to Attila’s aid in a war or giving him food when his people are starving in the middle of winter will earn you major, major points. Sure, giving him a fat stack of cash certainly won’t hurt, but building true friendships isn’t quite that easy!

Our goal with ATG is to produce the best diplomacy system. Ever. It certainly won’t be easy, but with what I’ve learned, a strong combination of character personalities and solid mechanics I believe that this is a goal very much within our reach.

AI

The AI in the base version of Civ 5 was… not as strong as it could be, shall we say.

Working on this system was another experience that taught me a great deal about design and development. I wrote the AI code that handled the computer opponents’ high-level strategic goals, economy and diplomacy.

Like most engineers, I really enjoy architecting elegant and flexible structures. Civ 5′s AI was a beautiful mesh of interwoven systems, and even included the ability to record virtually everything to a massive log file. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of building caused me to fall in love with the design rather than its actual impact. I was very proud of my code. But it really wasn’t very good.

What many people don’t know about AI programming is that one of the greatest challenges is getting your artificial players to actually do what you think you’re making them do! The AI code in a big strategy game is typically so complex that you end up with a variety of pieces that either don’t function as expected, or worse, don’t do anything.

Another problem with my AI was the randomness, which is something I’ve already talked about at length. The computer opponents were weighted towards a variety of possibilities, with a healthy serving of RNG (random number generator) on the side. This meant they floated from one “strategy” to another without any real cohesion behind those decisions. This approach is nice in theory, but if you want a strong AI there are times when you need to force it to behave in very specific manner.

What all of this adds up to is that with ATG I’m staying completely focused on the end goal: results. This means a much simpler AI system, which in turn will result in a much stronger opponent.

When you as the developer know exactly what an AI player is doing and why, it becomes much easier to recognize bad behavior and fix it. And the fewer moving parts you have the easier it is to tell what’s going on.

Along with my new approach with AI design, Jonathan, our architect, is a programming wizard and has several ideas for how we can make this code super efficient. This will allow us to use far more processing power than we could otherwise, while keeping end turn lengths short to boot. I’m by no means the most skilled programmer in the world, but with the two of us together I have confidence the AI in ATG will offer players a very real challenge.

Resources

One of the big changes I made to Civ 5 on the economic front was the shift from resources being “boolean” (where you either have them or you don’t) to “quantified,” where you can have zero of a single resource type, or two of it, or maybe eighteen. I still feel that making them quantified was a solid design decision, but for a variety of reasons the execution wasn’t everything I wanted it to be.

Civ 5 featured a ”popcap” resource model where eight Iron basically provides eight “slots” that you can use to build (you guessed it) eight Swordsmen, or Catapults or whatever. ATG will instead feature a more traditional “stockpile” resource model where quantities build up over time and are then spent all at once in chunks. This requires more micromanagement than the popcap model, which was one of the reasons why I steered clear of it in Civ 5. In ATG, though, the focus is on the strategic level (empire-wide resource management) instead of the tactical level (city and population management), making this a much better fit.

In Civ 5, players ended up with easy access to a bit of every resource and there was almost no reason to trade. In the real world, swapping goods is worthwhile because of the effects of supply and demand. In Civ 5 there was almost no demand since you could be virtually self-sufficient. This will be completely different in ATG, where the threat of critical shortages will always be right around the corner, and bringing in much-needed resources via trade might very well be necessary for survival.

My removal of the health system in Civ 5 also had repercussions elsewhere. This greatly reduced the value of non-strategic resources (like wheat), and in retrospect it’s clear that I didn’t manage to fill that void with something else. ATG has far fewer resource types than Civ 5, but the ones which do exist are all very important. The map is absolutely vital in a 4X game, and that needs to be the case for everything on it as well. If you see something on a tile and think it’s not a big deal, that is a flaw that needs to be fixed.

Another issue with the Civ 5 resources system was that the difference between having 2 and 5 Swordsmen isn’t really a big deal when compared with the possibility of not havingany Swordsmen. If I were able to go back and change the design I probably would have resources show up in more limited quantities and make the units and buildings they unlock much more unique and powerful.

Most armies would be composed of ”lower tier” of units like spearmen, with the occasional swordsman or catapult spicing up the battlefield by serving as targets or threats to avoid. It would require some work to balance and players would all need roughly equal access to resources of some kind, but I very much believe this type of approach could work.

Economics

I made a number of tweaks to the traditional Civ economic system with v5, and as with the resources the results were a mixed bag.

My intention with the global happiness mechanic was to make it possible for smaller empires to compete with much larger ones. The problem was that a global metric butts heads with the natural cadence of the entire genre. I mean, the second X in 4X stands for “expansion” for crying out loud! I lost sight of this as I pursued other objectives.

The problem was that happiness strongly encouraged you to stay small and the penalties for not obliging with this demand were quite harsh. It was virtually impossible to build the large, sprawling empires which had always been a feature in the series and served as the entire point playing for many people. I still believe that there are ways to make smaller empires viable, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of those who enjoy expanding. Penalties should be challenges to overcome, not an insurmountable wall to be frustrated by.

Carrying forward lessons from my experience with global happiness, ATG is much more freeform when it comes to expansion. There are factors in the game which discourage mindless spamming of settlements, but none of them are as heavy-handed as exponential maintenance, corruption or empire-wide unhappiness.

For one, the world of ATG is much more dangerous than that of Civ 5. Everyone is hungry and searching for cheap and easy snacks. Balancing economics and defense is absolutely crucial, and intentionally a tricky tightrope to walk. Additionally, the economic value provided by settlements is not particularly significant, as most resources can only be produced by improvements.

Further, each individual settlement you control eats into your food supply above and beyond what the population consumes. Food is extremely important, and wasting it extremely foolish. You can certainly build a massive empire in ATG if you so choose, but always make sure you can feed and protect it!

My removal of the research/commerce/culture sliders also came with positives and negatives. I’ve always found fiddling with sliders in strategy games to be boring busywork, and in that sense I don’t miss them. But the sliders also had a hidden value that I didn’t realize until later – they gave players the ability to shift directions at any time.

I’ve written at length about the importance of adaptation in strategy games. Unfortunately, once the sliders were gone players were basically permanently locked into their past economic choices.

There was no way to sacrifice research in order to upgrade your army, for example. Rewarding long-term planning is certainly a worthy endeavor, but you still need to provide tools to allow players to change course when necessary.

Policies (Government)

I like both the Policies system featured in Civ 5 and the Civics system from Civ 4, which are simply two different takes on the same concept: the ability to shape the “character” of your empire.

With Policies, I wanted it to feel like you were slowly accumulating this identity over time. After all, Japan and Germany changed significantly after World War 2, but they’re still Japanese and German, and maintain that legacy of honor, hard work, etc.

By contrast, Civics allowed you to completely reforge your empire on a dime. Sure, there were costs associated with doing so, but it was very much possible to transform from a pious peace-loving people into the warmonger scourge from hell. This is kind of odd, but it has a huge gameplay benefit.

Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses, but I now find the design of Civics more appealing, because of that capacity to make sudden and dramatic shifts.

In ATG we’ve basically rolled the tech tree and government systems into a single Romanization Perks system. A new Perk can be chosen for each Roman city you capture and Roman diplomatic request you complete. As with Civics, you can later re-allocate your choices, although doing so temporarily lowers the stability of your empire (which reduces taxation, troop morale, etc.).

Along with my belief that adaptation is good just on principle, there’s another reason why I took more of a Civics-esque approach with ATG. The game is hard. The seasons are usually working against you. Resources are running out. Your neighbors are constantly eyeing up your improvements. The Romans are significantly stronger than you much of the time.

Players need tools to overcome these challenges, and one of those will be the ability to switch Romanization Perks at any time. This allows you slide into a completely different strategy to deal with whatever hostile and ever-changing circumstances you’re currently facing.

Not only is there a good gameplay reason to make it possible to easily change Romanization perks, but there’s also a historical one. During late antiquity the identity of the barbarian tribes evolved dramatically over short periods of time. After all, you don’t see Goths walking around these days! … Okay, come on guys, you know what I meant!

Combat

By far the most significant change I made with Civ 5 was to way in which wars were fought. Instead of large stacks of units crashing into one another as had always been the case in the previous Civ games, there was now 1UPT (one unit per tile). This forced players to spread out their armies across the landscape, instead of piling everything into a single tile.

This was a model very much inspired by the old wargame Panzer General. On the whole, I would say that the combat mechanics are indeed better in Civ 5 than in any other entry in the series. But as is the theme of this article, there’s a downside to consider as well.

One of the biggest challenges unearthed by 1UPT was writing a competent combat AI. I wasn’t the one who developed this particular AI subsystem, and the member of the team who was tasked with this did a great job of making lemonade out of the design lemons I’d given him. Needless to say, programming an AI which can effectively maneuver dozens of units around in extremely tactically-confined spaces is incredibly difficult.

The reason why this wasn’t an issue in Panzer General was that their AI didn’t actually need to do anything. It was always on the defensive, and a large part of that game was simply solving the “puzzle” of how to best crack open enemy strongholds. It was plenty sufficient if your opponents simply ordered a single tank to stir up some trouble every so often.

What made Panzer General fun was you blitzkrieg-ing through Europe while your enemies quickly and dramatically fell before your might. However, in a Civ game, the AI has to be capable of launching full-scale invasions, sometimes on different landmasses. Needless to say, we’re talking about a challenge on completely different scale.

Speaking of scale, another significant issue with 1UPT was that the maps wasn’t really suited for it. The joy of Panzer General was pulling off clever maneuvers and secretly encircling your helpless enemies. Unfortunately, in Civ 5 nasty bottlenecks aren’t uncommon and this tempers much of the natural value added by 1UPT. Ultimately, there just wasn’t enough room to do the fun part.

To address this, I could have done something crazy like added sub-tiles to the existing grid. I really don’t think this would have been a good idea though, as the whole point in having a tiles is that everything happens on the same playing field, which makes it very easy to tell what’s going on. Once you start muddying the waters of what goes where, you lose that clarity and mechanical chunkiness tiles offer. And at that point, you might as well just get rid of them entirely.

Speculation aside, the reality was that the congestion caused by 1UPT also impacted other parts of the game. In every prior Civ title it was no problem to have ten, fifty or even a thousand units under your control. Sure, larger numbers meant more to manage, but hotkeys and UI conveniences could alleviate much of the problem. But in Civ 5, every unit needed its own tile, and that meant the map filled up pretty quickly.

To address this, I slowed the rate of production, which in turn led to more waiting around for buckets to fill up. For pacing reasons, in the early game I might have wanted players to be training new units every 4 turns. But this was impossible, because the map would have then become covered in Warriors by the end of the classical era. And once the map fills up too much, even warfare stops being fun.

So is there a way to make 1UPT really work in a Civ game? Perhaps. The key is the map. Is there enough of room to stash units freely and slide them around each other?  If so, then yes, you can do it. For this to be possible, I’d think you would have to increase the maximum map size by at least four times. You’d probably also want to alter the map generation logic to make bottlenecks larger and less common. Of course, making the world that much bigger would introduce a whole new set of challenges!

In fact, there were technical reasons this wasn’t really feasible – our engine was already pushing up against the capabilities of modern computer hardware. Drawing that many small doo-dads on a screen is really expensive, trust me. Well, unless you make your game 2D, like ATG!

Speaking of which, what about combat in ATG? Well, for one thing the game will allow for stacks of units!

The main reason for this is one of my high-level goals for the game. As I touched upon earlier, ATG is designed to be a strategy title which takes place primarily at the strategic level, rather than the tactical. The region of the map where you’ve stationed your armies, how well you’ve prepared your supply network, etc. is ultimately more important than if you were able to wheel one of your infantry around the flank of another enemy infantry unit.

A major factor in this decision was ensuring all of ATG’s features integrate with its most important one: map evolution. My objective is really to play this up in every way possible. With combat, this is done through the supply system. Units which lack sufficient supply rapidly become useless, similar to Unity of Command.

Every tile has a certain amount of supply available for units stationed there. The largest fraction of this comes from the tile’s terrain type which, of course, changes radically with the seasons.

The remaining fraction comes from the effect of nearby supply camps and settlements.

And supply is what the entire military side of the game is geared around – Planning ahead to make sure you have enough of it. Fighting in areas which have a lot of it. Ensuring that your supply nodes are safe, and so on.

In fact, the units themselves are almost a secondary concern. ATG is not a game where you follow the epic tale of a single warrior as he levels up and upgrades through the various technological eras. Instead, it’s more like a late-game chess match, when nearly any move can settle the battle, and a pawn in the right situation can be just as powerful as a queen.

No doubt, this is a very different approach from the one taken in Civ 5. However, by now it should be obvious that ATG is in no way Civ 5, but instead stands on its own as a unique and innovative new member of the 4X family!

Onward

The Civ 5 team was one of the best I’ve ever had the honor of being a part of. That group put a ton of love and great work into the game, and it really shows in the art, audio and tech.

Civ 5′s gameplay had several rough edges at release, but those were all due to decisions I made with the design. My friends over at Firaxis have done an excellent job improving the gameplay following my departure, and I can’t wait to see what they do next!

As I promised in the intro, I’m not shy about my flaws. The fact is there’s still much I have to learn. But every project is a new opportunity to improve and show everyone what you’ve learned. I’m very excited about ATG not only for this reason, but also because it’s a great chance to spice up the 4X genre and help point it in a interesting new direction.

I’m sure I’ll make more mistakes along the way, but I’m wiser than I used to be and can now the see problems from much further away. I ask that you join me on my journey, help contribute to At the Gates, and discover together the amazing places we’ll end up!(source:gamasutra)