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Civilization V's Jon Shafer and Dennis Shirk

Firaxis' Great People.

Jon Blyth avatar
Interview by Jon Blyth Contributor
Updated on
EurogamerAh, that makes more sense. Because you said that you're going, again, for a higher level of approachability, and I was worried that having lots of different tiles for the same thing might look a little chaotic. Is that the kind of thing you have to bear in mind, when adding these loving details?
Jon Shafer

Oh, definitely. We focus quite a bit on making sure that it's recognisable. I spend a lot of time with the artists, who like to go really far in a particular direction. That's great, because that's what their job is, but sometimes you have to rein them in and say "no no no, that grass looks a bit too much like plains - if you put that guy's grass next to that guy's plains, it won't work."

Dennis Shirk

And they're generally separated by an expanse of water, so it's not like they're all mixed up. Gameplay trumps everything.

EurogamerWith that eye to approachability, Civ Rev came out in 2008, as you probably know. Have you bought anything back from Civ Rev, and into Civ V?
Jon Shafer

Definitely. There are a couple of things. The biggest one I'd note is the focus on the interface. You spoke with Russell and Mark. Russell, in particular, worked on Civ Rev, and that gave him useful experience with pulling the UI back to the necessities. That's definitely something we want to carry into Civ V, and going onward. We don't want to cut anything, but we do want the presentation to give the player only as much as they need.

Producer Dennis Shirk shares a joke about hexagons.
EurogamerLike when you said highlighting the Settler's Build City command, and hiding the "delete unit" button in a sub-menu.
Jon Shafer

Absolutely. In terms of gameplay, we've pulled back the focus on large bonuses and effects. We want to you finish building a wonder, which can take a long time, and when it's done, you really feel the effect. That's something that Civ Rev really embraced, and that's something we're definitely putting into Civ V.

EurogamerMoving onto the Facebook version - you're clearly a company that knows the value of goodwill, but how is that going to work, financially? Is it an exercise in goodwill? Or the first free hit of crack?
Dennis Shirk

Put that on the box.

Lovely marketing lady

What we've learned in recent years is that it's a great game experience, and we want to deliver that in as many different areas that makes sense. That's what took it to consoles and the iPhone. Social networking seemed like a great fit for us.

So we want people to be able to play for free, but what we're hoping to build into it are micro-transactions. This hasn't been fleshed out yet, but we're considering letting people pay to have units built more quickly.

Sid will make sure it's all balanced, so it's not people spending all the money who'll win all the time.

Jon Shafer

It's obviously no fun if someone can just drop two hundred bucks and win the game, we definitely want to avoid that.

EurogamerJust let them buy purple fences, and nice frilly headdresses.
Lovely marketing lady

If there are ways to monetise it, as a corporate goal, that's something we like to do. Maybe it is a gateway drug! [Some alarmed shushing follows.]

EurogamerThe idea that Civ was getting dumbed down for consoles was terrifying to your most loyal and entitled customers - are you nervous that anything you bring back might fuel those fires?
Jon Shafer

You never know exactly how these things are going to go. But in my time in the community myself, I was a critic. I understand how it can be.

EurogamerIs that was drove you into modding?
Jon Shafer

Pretty much. I was all like, "I can do that", now I'm like [screams in a manly whisper]. And people are like, "what are you doing", and I'm like, "same thing you'd be doing!" Drawing on that experience lets you see a lot of things that might not be obvious if you hadn't.

EurogamerWhen you add a new feature to Civ, are you aware that it's a pretty dense game anyway, and something has to be taken out?
Jon Shafer

With Civ V, we've recognised the need to keep the complexity the same as Civ IV. Of course, you can't just keep adding things, it wouldn't be manageable for the players. We want to keep the hardcore players, but we also have to keep expanding the number of players who're going to enjoy Civilization.

EurogamerCiv's always been the game that ratchets the player from placid simplicity to brain-sloping chaos, is that one of your weapons to rope in the newcomers?
Jon Shafer

Yes. Our goal is to keep the levels of complexity, but to ramp up the levels more easily for new players. We want to grab you in the first game you play.