by [name redacted]

Originally published by Next Generation under a title I no longer remember.

This Thursday evening in San Francisco, Fixaxis followed an uneventful awards presentation with a smaller, boozier, more informal get-together of its own. Across the Metreon catwalk from the Walk of Game ceremony, Firaxis laid claim to the cozy SoMa Room: a carpeted, dimly-lit bar-centric private club-cum-meeting area.

Following a time of kabobs and schmoozing, the projector flipped on, the movies began to roll, and the assembly of journalists and industry insiders was introduced to a trio of new Firaxis products (one down from the advertised four): the modern-day remake of Sid Meier’s Railroads; the CivIV expansion Warlords; and the major new curiosity of the evening, CivCity ROME.

Fresh from his indoctrination ceremony, Sid Meier jogged to the stage to introduce his most recent opus. Meier related that the first topic he breached upon the Take-Two buyout of Firaxis was whether 2K games was up for a revision of Meier’s seminal Railroad Tycoon, the game that initiated the whole tycoon genre that today has enveloped the casual and budget realm. “Absolutely,” 2K games replied – so Meier immediately set to work. Meier intends the project to “capture what’s unique about model railroading.” As a footnote, Railroads will have an online component.

Railroads is similar to Meier’s recent Pirates! remake, in that Meier intends to bring out the best elements of the original game, then support them with a richer, more modern design sensibility and presentation. “One thing we learned with Pirates! is a lot of things that worked well [fifteen years ago] still work today,” Meier explained. Meier continued that, from what he could see, the big difference between videogames now and then is in the accessibility of modern software. “Games are easier to pick up. It’s easier to see what’s going on.” That level of polish, however, is demanding – and expensive. Meier mused on how the original game was built by a total of five or six people; today, “millions and millions must be spent on games” for much the same product as was available in 1990.

Civilization IV: Warlords will add six new scenarios and a new “warlord” unit to last year’s impossibly acclaimed PC game. Apparently these additions will be pretty huge within the context of the game.

CivCity Rome got curiously little attention this evening, for such a curious development. The game is a co-production between Stronghold series developer Firefly Studios and Firaxis. In a sense, CivCity is to Civilization as The Sims is to Sim City: a familiar series, run through a microscope. Although the focus is substantially smaller, the presentation is straight out of Civilization. CivCity will incorporate many of the now-familiar Civilization features, such as scientific research, the building of wonders, and the management of culture and public happiness; the difference here is that the player can micromanage these elements to a degree not possible before. The goal is much the same as in Civilization – building up a society from barbarians with bone clubs to a grand, semi-enlightened empire – except on a much more focused, more personal scale.

More details pending, as Firaxis deems prudent.