Johnson: The biggest problem we encountered was underestimating the amount of memory that the program required for a late-game environment on huge maps. We had tested these situations -- there was a late-game, huge map benchmark scenario that we used to measure performance throughout the project -- but modern systems can be quite unforgiving when you use a great deal of either system or graphics memory. For many Civilization players, the only map size they ever want to use is the biggest one, no matter how it performs. Thus, the issue became a high-priority for us after release, and much work has been done to lower our memory footprint significantly, especially with regard to video memory. The latest patch included many of these improvements, but there are even more to come.GameSpy: Since its release, what's been the biggest bone of contention among the fans?
Johnson: The most common complaints concerned the Civilopedia, which relied too heavily on icons and lacked hyper-linking for certain categories. We have worked hard to improve the Civilopedia in the latest patch, and it appears to be a more useful resource now. Ironically, we had felt that the Civilization IV Civilopedia was a significant improvement over past versions as it is now dynamically generated, which makes altering game data much easier. The Civilization III Civilopedia was the leading cause of headaches for modders, and we were determined not to let that happen again. Unfortunately, we may have lost sight of the primary purpose of the Civilopedia -- as a teaching tool.
GameSpy: Are there any game balance issues that came up after release that you're looking to address?
Johnson: If there was a general gameplay issue, it was that the late-game went by too quickly. Civilization IV allows for some very powerful research strategies like free techs from Great People; settling Great Scientists; well-placed National Wonders; cottages with Free Speech; aggressive tech trading; which could allow players to sprint quickly through the latter half of the tech tree. That's why we rebalanced the cost of techs starting from the Renaissance onward, which helps extend the end-game significantly. Also, even though "epic speed" is the longest version of Civilization ever made, we created a "marathon" speed that's double the length of epic for those who can never seem to get enough turns in their games.GameSpy: What's been the highest praise and the harshest criticism you've gotten from the fan base?
Johnson: The best compliment came from some of our oldest fans who have a long history with our franchise. They feel that there is never one best choice, and that is always the highest praise for a strategy game. The harshest gameplay criticism we have received is in reference to religion -- namely, that we played it too safe by not significantly differentiating one world religion from another. We hope people understand that we were not looking to make a controversial game, just a fun one.GameSpy: Are there any fan projects or serious mods out there already that you enjoy? Is there anything specific in development you're really looking forward to?
Johnson: Actually, one of my favorite mods made it into our most recent patch. A user from CivFanatics named ulfn altered our score graph to be a line-graph instead of the Civ III style fill-graph. We liked it so much that we asked him if we could share it with everyone. We are very impressed with the output of the mod community so far, but we know that it's just the tip of the iceberg. Once the SDK is released, things will start getting really interesting.
