GP: Can you tell us a bit about your role at Firaxis?

Dennis: Sure! My name is Dennis Shirk and I’m the producer for Sid Meier’s Civilization V. The producer’s job is to manage the game development process from the prototype phase through launch, keeping the game on track, creating and implementing a task schedule, making sure the team has what they need to do their best work, facilitating the needs of the publisher, and constantly playing the game to make sure we’re finding the fun.

GP: Were any features or units left out that you would have like to have seen in the final game?

Dennis: There’s always more you wish you could add to a game when you’re planning out the design and schedule. You have a specific team size, a schedule, and a budget you need to stick to, so it’s a challenge to keep the scope of a new game manageable. Having said that however, we feel that we were able to put all of the best ideas into Civ V and deliver the game we set out to make.

GP: Can we expect expansion packs, or additional content post-release?

Dennis: One thing Civilization fans have come to expect is more content. Nothing has been announced regarding expansions or specific DLC, so stay tuned. We do know that there is new fan created content being posted to our in-game community hub constantly, so that’s a great place to look for more stuff.

GP: End game seems to be slow at the moment, the delay between turns seemingly due to animation of each and every game unit, visible or not. Earlier Civilization games had the option of turning off animations of enemy units. Is this something that may happen with a future patch?

Dennis: Whenever we release a game into the wild, we spend a good amount of our time gathering user feedback and adjusting and balancing the game for the better. Our fans are extremely important to us, and suggestions like these only make the game better.

GP: What was the most difficult challenge you faced when developing Civilization V?

Dennis: The biggest challenge was being the follow up to Civilization IV and attempting to make a game that lives up to the legacy of that great title. Civilization IV, especially after its expansions, was considered by our fans to be the most complete version of Civilization ever. Where do you go from there? Jon Shafer (our lead designer) had an incredibly daunting task, but from what we’ve seen so far from the press and the fans, he succeeded.

GP: At what point did you decide to drop the ability to stack multiple units on one hex? Was this something you found difficult to implement?

Dennis: This was actually decided very early on, and was one of the core design changes when work began. Implementation of stacks on hexes would have been relatively simple, but Jon identified the military aspect of Civilization as something he wanted to target for some big changes. This was actually the one area of Civilization (as a franchise) that had changed the least over the years and Jon had some great ideas for a new approach in Civ V.

GP: How did you handle the historical aspects of the game – did you hire people specifically to research historical events to ensure accuracy?

Dennis: We actually have writers on staff who handle a large amount of the history in Civ, along with Jon Shafer, who aside from being the Designer, is also a history major. One interesting aspect of the game is that each leader speaks in their native language. To make this happen, we worked with an outside firm that helped us find actors who could speak some of the obsolete languages native to certain leaders. This was one of my favourite parts of development.