Civilization V's Jon Shafer and Dennis Shirk

The main difference with Civ V in the AI side is now separated into different levels. That's something that's new. Previously it was a lot more situational. The previous designer also wrote the AI by himself - now, we're benefitting from a larger team.

In the sense that it was looking at what was going on at the time, but it didn't project forward. So if it was an aggressive warmonger stranded on an island, it wouldn't be able to re-evaluate, and think that warmongering isn't such a great idea when you're by yourself.

We're definitely pushing in that direction, but there are always going to be some players who are so good, we just couldn't write an AI that'd beat them.

One thing you'll see in Civ V, leaders will occasionally target other players really early in the game, depending on their personality. You can target that with diplomacy - give a gift, and so on - but it's something that'll keep you on your toes. Some people won't like that, but if you're playing on Deity difficulty, you get what you get.

We haven't sorted out the higher end, yet.

He wants to call it Jon.

None that I've come across yet. That's not to say it doesn't exist.

And his username is... [laughs]

We have a large test group made up from the community too, and they've been a part of the process, playing the game 24 hours a day.

And this game hasn't really been announced yet, so come back to me in a couple of months.

We recommend you take a look at the forums when this is announced.

Oh, I'm ready. I know what's coming. I've dished it out in the past, now it's my turn to get it dished.

The main thing is, in terms of the creation of maps we wanted to make that a lot easier. We have an individual that's been working on the world builder tool for a long time now, and one of the first things I said to him was to include an undo and a redo fucntion. I've made a lot of maps, and something as simple as that makes a huge difference.

What's really new is a complete level of polish and dedication into that map-making process.

My 15-year-old son could make a map now. That's not to say we've simplified the process, everything is still as moddable as it was before, just that the toolset is so much more streamlined and simple now.

We're going to have a utility that packages up the mods you make, too. In Civ IV, there were hundreds of files, tons of directories, and you toss in a readme, and hope people read it, and don't install the mod into their system directory. This utility puts it all into one file that you can distrubute, and unbundle with Civ at the other end.

We're still working through the system that'll be used for moderation. For the user, it'll be invisible - they'll submit, and it'll show up in the directory.

They'll be able to upload directly from within the utility.

Oh yes! People will be able to download from mod sites, of course!

We're definitely not looking to replace the community, here. We're just here to provide a showcase for people who expand the game.

[Blank look.]

We're still finalising the plans about what we'll be releasing. But the art stuff is a little tricky, because of the complexity of what goes on there.

People will be able to retexture the leaders, because that kind of thing is a lot easier, but when it comes to creating new animations, that's a little trickier.