FEATURE: Sid Meier talks Civ III

CVG: "Culture" is one of the main new additions to the gameplay. Can you briefly describe how it works and how it enhances the experience?

Meier: Culture is a very important component of Civ III. It is the general social cohesion of your civilisation, as well as the impact of your nation's philosophy and arts on the world. Culture is reflected in Civilization III by the great works created by your peoples, and when they were completed relative to other civilizations in the game.

Culture's effects are most visible in the expansion of borders, but it also affects how other civilisations interact with you in diplomatic sessions, and can be a major factor when dealing with conquered cities. One of our goals in developing the culture system was to provide a powerful alternative to war and conquest. Like diplomacy and trade, culture is intertwined so closely with the other major game systems that ignoring it will have dire consequences.

CVG: Can you explain how the trade aspect of the game has changed and evolved?

Meier: We're really excited about the expanded trade system. A big change is that trade has been abstracted to the diplomacy and trade advisors and will no longer require you to use caravan units. Trade goods are comprised of luxuries and resources. Luxuries are goods that improve the happiness of your cities. Resources are needed to make certain military units (iron, for example, is needed to make the Swordsman or Roman Legion units).

Many resources will not be visible on the world map until you have unlocked the secrets of a related technology. You will not see iron on the map, for example, until your scientists have discovered Iron Working. Likewise, uranium will not be visible until you have discovered Fission. The game will distribute resources throughout the map so that each civilisation will have access to several nearby resources. Additionally, simply by allocating population points to work the tiles inside your city radius, there is a chance each turn that your citizens will discover a new source of a known resource.

You can trade goods with another civilisation as long as you have a road, harbour, or airport that connects your civilization with theirs. Once you have a trade route, you simply negotiate with the other civilisation in the diplomacy screen.

CVG: What multiplayer features will be included?

Meier: We're working on some unique things with multiplayer, but we're not ready to start talking about it yet. It has always been challenging to make multiplayer really fun in turn-based games and we're looking at new ways of approaching that.

CVG: The graphics are looking a lot nicer this time; is this simply due to more advanced technology, or has this aspect been one of your main focuses?

Meier: We built an entirely new graphics engine for Civ III through which we've created the best visual experience ever. From the 3D animated units to the gorgeous organic terrain, Civ III delivers visual realism like never before.

CVG: Do you have any plans to bring the game onto next-gen console platforms? Xbox, for example.

Meier: Porting the game to other platforms is a decision our publisher, Infogrames, will make. We haven't heard if they plan to do that or not.

CVG: What happened to the Dinosaurs game you were working on? Do you have any plans to go back to the project after work on Civ III has been completed?

Meier: I tried lots of different approaches to the Dinosaur game, but wasn't really happy with any of them, so I decided to put it on the back burner for a while... then I was inspired to create SimGolf! I'd still like to make a game about Dinosaurs some day, so it's quite possible that it'll be revived eventually.

CVG: What are your opinions on the current state of videogames?

Meier: There are a lot of interesting and exciting things happening in the industry right now. The video game industry will continue to grow, but not at the demise of PC gaming. I think that the video, PC, console and online game markets will grow simultaneously... there's plenty of room for all of it. We make games for the PC and don't have plans to change that any time soon!

TISCALI UK/C&VG