Interview with Kobayashi

From SLeague

A new interview with Kobayashi, reknowned scenario veteran and CIV2 creative guru.

Kobayashi's most recent release: 'Lord Of The One Ring'

Famous for his classic CIV2 Sci-Fi scenarios as well as many other projects that all feature unique and innovative ideas, Kobayashi is also well-respected for his technical skills and great attention to detail.

(Curt): First of all, can you tell our readers the essential data about yourself?

(Kobayashi): I’m originally from Singapore and moved to Hong Kong in 1997 because of the Asian Financial Crisis. I studied electrical engineering at UPenn, and after working as an investment manager at different fund management companies for 15 odd years I recently moved on to become chief investment officer for a listed real estate investment trust.

(Curt): When did you start playing CIV2?

(Kobayashi): I think it was roughly in 1999. Another chap at the office gave me his copy of Fantastic Worlds and we ended up buying a copy of MGE to play over the office LAN (after work). That was before CivCrack and I remember we used to load up on one PC with the CD and then use the same CD to launch on a second PC.

(Curt): Any anecdotes about your early days with the game?

(Kobayashi): The concept of a turn-based game was new to me and but the dynamic way in which the game captured the history of mankind was astounding. I didn’t think too much about scenarios at first. Pretty much stuck to the plain vanilla game and to tell the truth I never was (and I’m still not) any good at it. Never won a game against the AI beyond King level.

(Curt): When did you first start on the path to scenario making?

(Kobayashi): The first scenario I tried to make was a World War 2 scenario, the precursor to ZWK. Its quite funny to think back to that attempt, too bad I lost it when I gave up my ZIP drive. It used the standard Europe map that came with the game and I added a tech tree and new units, using only the in-game scenario menu. I was hit repeatedly by the advances editor memory bug of course, and not understanding the problem, I ended up doing the whole tech tree in one go to bypass the problem. The Panzer II was a single-colour side elevation of a tank with two dots and Panzer IV was the exact same icon but with four dots. You get the picture. It wasn’t balanced or anything and the Russian AI bred like rabbits because of the Pyramids. Russian bombers were launching 100 sorties per turn by 1943. Flattened every city I had as Germany.

Sometime after that debacle I came across the Scenario League and its collection of scenarios. It was already pretty late in the day, after all the first generation masters like Nemo had moved on to other things. I think Blackclove’s Dungeons of Beckhorn was the first one I downloaded. I had tried MOMJR and Midgard before but seeing all those scenarios on the web sort of gave me the notion that somehow ‘normal people’ like me could make these Civ2 scenarios after all. However, things only started moving along when I discovered the reference articles explaining all the nuances and details of making Civ2 scenarios.

Kobayashi's epic WW2 scenario: 'Zweiter Weltkrieg'

(Curt): Do you have a favourite subject matter for scenarios, or an aspect that you favour?

(Kobayashi): When people hear Kobayashi, they think space scenarios. True, I made 4 of Star Trek/Wars/Gate scenarios, but I also released 2 WWII scenarios, a colonial period scenario, a modern day scenario and recently a fantasy scenario. The theme actually is not as important as how much depth it carries.

Why do I say this? Civ2’s appeal lies in its multi-dimensional structure, its ability to evolve over the course of play so the game stays fresh turn after turn. This also gives players the flexibility to employ different strategies. The key to accomplishing this is the tech tree and to have a good tree you need a rich background theme to provide new units, improvements frequently.

(Curt): What is your favourite version of CIV2...MGE or ToT, and why?

(Kobayashi): The majority of people were complaining how complicated it was to make TOT scenarios when TOT first came out and no one was playing the few TOT scenarios that did materialize. I might have taken to TOT at the beginning and I can see some nice stuff like impassable terrain, multi-conditional events etc. However, its taken me years to figure out the quirks for FW/MGE and get around its limitations. I really don’t have the inclination to spend time learning something new like TOT anymore.

(Curt): Have you ever been tempted to try scenario-making on CIV3 or CIV4?

(Kobayashi): They’re just TOT complexity x3 and x4. You need to assemble a whole team just to make parts of a scenario.

Nope, MGE is just the right level of difficulty for me.

(Curt): Are there any other games you play apart from CIV2?

(Kobayashi): My favourite games over the years are Warcraft II, Starcraft, Shogo, Homeworld, Doom3, Battle for Middle Earth I & II and most recently Company of Heroes. And maybe Dungeon Keeper, Roller Coaster Tycoon.

(Curt): You are active again in the SL forums - what made you get the creator bug again?

(Kobayashi): I wasn’t really inactive for any extended period. There was a period when I was a staff member over at Civfan and we really nurtured a large community of scenario authors from scratch. Then Civfan stopped actively supporting Civ2 when Civ3 came out and over time everyone moved over to S-League.

(Curt): How much time do you spend working on CIV2 projects these days?

(Kobayashi): An hour or two a day when I have a project going and then a few months of inactivity between projects. I’ll be devoting an increasing part of my Civ2 time allocation to the wiki site. It was fun to organize the library into historical periods but there’s still lots of stuff that deserves to be hosted. I’ve already uploaded maybe 20 scenarios made by other people.

(Curt): From where do you draw inspiration for new scenario ideas?

(Kobayashi): Making a scenario for me is like directing a movie based on a novel. You need to capture the essence of the subject but not be a slave to the minute details. To do that you need to know the subject pretty well and I have always picked topics I was very familiar with.

Before I begin I usually have the whole concept built in my head. The only exception was The Rape of Nations. That was a contest and I didn’t really have any choice in the matter. I had to buy a few books on sailing and colonization and spent months studying them.

(Curt): Can you tell us about your scenario research methods?

(Kobayashi): I think overall I’m less book-oriented than most of the others. I typically have just one reference book per scenario. The easiest way to do research is watching TV. Watch every episode of a TV series, and owning the DVD collection is really helpful. Figure out the themes and how you want to implement them in the scenario, then use the internet to fill in the gaps.

(Curt): Are there any scenario designers out there that you admire?

(Kobayashi): Mr Temba is the guy for inspired me at the beginning. I enjoy seeing all aspects of the Civ2 game engine incorporated into a scenario and he did just that. From a scenario maker’s point of view, there is some value-added when I notice someone packing all they can into one game.

(Curt): Are there any scenarios you feel are all-time classics?

(Kobayashi): My list would be somewhat unique as I have a somewhat different perspective on Civ2. I don’t like games with no sound. I don’t like games with file swapping. I don’t like games which start with 50 cities.

Here’s my top ten list:

Underdark by Mr Temba
Sub War by Bebro
Imperium Romanum by Bebro
Odyssey by Kull
Norwegian Campaign by Eivind
Cruel Sea by Case
Martian Dawn by Benjamin Ball
Hammer of the North by Morten Blaabjerg
Historibus Europae by Henrik
Herbstnebel by Darth Veda

(I might add, If I had TOT I'm sure Curt Sibling would feature in this list, based on what I've seen on the forums)

Yes, yes there are exceptions to the ‘sounds and no file swapping’ rule. In the case of two of these scenarios I liked the original ‘deaf’ versions enough to help retrofit the sounds and even some other improvements for the later versions.

(Curt): Looking at the community today, do you feel CIV2 has a future?

(Kobayashi): It’s a good thing that there is still a tightly knit community and the occasional new names turning up. The main problem as I see it is they are not selling the game anymore. If there was a way of downloading Civ2 for free, then we would have a good shot. I’m also afraid that Windows Vista may not be compatible with Civ2. For XP, I already have to copy all the default sounds into each scenario folder just to get them to work.

(Curt): If you could enhance one element of CIV2, what would it be?

(Kobayashi): The guys did a good job when they built in all this flexibility into the game via the text files. That’s how Civ2 has survived all his time. They unfortunately hardwired some other parts like the bonuses of city improvements and definition of unit abilities. If the scenario parameters and effects editor items could be expanded, that would do wonders.

(Curt): Can you tell us about any CIV-related plans for 2007?

(Kobayashi): I’ve just released Lord of the One Ring which I’ve slaved over for months. I’m pretty happy with it but it needs a patch to tidy things up. That is in the pipeline. LOTOR is the culmination of all the techniques I’ve learned over the years and though there aren’t that many people left to appreciate it, I still want it to be as perfect as possible.

(Curt): Any words of wisdom or advice for new CIV2 creators just starting out?

(Kobayashi): One. Start with the tree. Always start with the tree. That’s the skeleton that everything hangs on. Two, its all boils down to the events. Don’t put them in as an afterthought, the events are the meat of the scenario. Three, play test and play test again. Some authors skip this step and its obvious. Last but not least, study your unit sound requirements and place the units in the appropriate slots right at the beginning, before you start placing units on the map. Many of the unit slots share sounds and if you don't account for the slot dependencies early, it will be almost impossible to retrofit the sounds because of this.

(Curt): Many thanks, Kobayashi!