WildWeazel

Hey Soren! Congrats on the Offworld launch!

My questions are all pretty retro since I know of you from the Firaxis days.

What was it like going from a programmer on Civ3 to lead designer for Civ4? Was that your first technical leadership role and if so how did you learn the ropes?

With you on OTC and Jon Shafer on At The Gates, are there any other Firaxians making games on their own?

Can you tell us anything about the Civ3 AI that Civfanatics haven't already deciphered? I known it's a long shot.

I recall you working on some kind of web based strategy game prototype back in the Civ days, whatever happened with that and did it influence any of your later games?

You should definitely check out Civcraft sometime. You know, for research.

Also check out Unity (the engine Old World is built in) which is free for hobbyists and a decent place to start with programming with C#. Their premium training content is free through June 20 so there has never been a better time to learn it. You can do a lot on your own with free or affordable assets before getting into professional game dev territory.

Yeah, I heard the podcast. Great talk! Follow up question on that: you mentioned that you made the AI data driven so that it had no concept of eg. building temples for happiness, it just balanced costs vs effects. That was great for mod support but maybe didn't result in the most strategic decisions (not that any 4X I know does great in that regard). Is that a model you still follow in your AI design, and have you picked up any other design techniques for making it mod-friendly?

Hi Soren,

I will always ask about Civ3, so: have you followed any of the several attempts by fans to create a Civ3 clone or inspired game? If so what are your thoughts?

On Old World: it obviously looks a lot like Civ and inherited some of the formula, but you've built in a lot of new systems that borrow more from grand strategy. Do you see OW as a direct response or competitor to Civ, or are you taking the genre off in a new direction? Whose fans are you most trying to appeal to?

And finally, has there been any discussion on availability post Epic exclusive? Support for Linux?