Civ World, Sid Meier’s attempt to bring the complexities of his long-lived strategy game Civilization to the quick play nature of Facebook, is due to hit the online service this winter, CNN reports.
Meier says that while the game will have all of the traditional pieces of his series – science, economy, military, culture – the fact that it’s playable on Facebook fundamentally changes the game.
That’s because players won’t necessarily all be playing the multiplayer title all at the same time.
“…if you are not there at the same time as other players, there needs to be ways of leaving messages, ways of communicating,” he tells CNN. “Things have to happen at a pace where everybody can be included. So that fundamentally changes the pacing and the mechanisms of the game.”
And the game is built around the concept of multiplayer gaming, Meier says. While you can do things yourself, you likely won’t beat other civilisations if you don’t work together running yours with your teammates.
Civ World will have up to 200 people competing in teams to make their civilisation the best.
“You have your own city to manage and you can do all kinds of stuff (on your own),” Meier said. “However, the most successful players will be those that can also work together with other players.”
The teamwork required for the game is a good fit for Facebook, Meier adds, because of the built in connections people already have with their real world friends.
“What was really intriguing to us was being able to emphasise cooperative game play, which was something that really hadn’t been a major part of ‘Civilization’ up to now,” he said. “A lot of our design in ‘Civ World’ was taking advantage and using these opportunities for players to work together – teamwork, communication, planning. Those are all the things that become really important to ‘Civ World.’”
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