1)Well, for starters, why was the warchiefs a seemingly rushed game. Some of the material lacked effort, such as the making of revolutions, balancing, and no way to play both TAD+TWC civs on TWC
A)I’m going to say it wasn’t rushed at all. We took lots of care over it. First off, with reference to revolutions & balancing, it was pretty well-balanced I feel. The balance was not perfect – please name any RTS game where this has been the case up on release. Second, how the hell could we ensure that TWC would be able to play TAD, when we didn’t even KNOW there was going to be a TAD while we were doing TWC.
2)In the early 1990s when you were working on Doom, did you ever expect to have an encyclopedia article in your name less than 20 years later?
A)My son pointed out the Wikipedia article to me maybe 5 years ago and I don’t know how old it was by that time. Anyway Wikipedia doesn’t really count as an encyclopedia – I mean, there are separate entries for every Pokemon …. if I make it into EnCarta THEN I’ll be excited.
3)Do you know what civiliations did not make the cut for the AoE3 series?
A)Well there were a lot of civs considered. As far as the original game, the main civs that got left out were the Swedes and Italians, both of whom got far enough along to get unique units, civ bonuses, and the start of a tech tree. In The Warchiefs, I wanted to have the Incas initially, but they got scrapped.
4)What is your intent/purpose/goal of initiating this post?
A)I enjoyed participating in the give-and-take of the old Ask Sandy posts, and now that I’m no longer restricted by the corporate militia and can say what I want I thought it might be fun to re-open. I like the Age fans, and talking to them. And why not abuse my status as game designer to get my thread stickied?
5)why were the Koreans and Incans never included?
A)I can’t speak to the Koreans – as far as I know, BigHuge never considered any civs seriously besides Chinese, Japanese, and Indian. However the Incas were included purely for constraints on time and art. We felt that with our team we could pull off three civs, but four would be pushing it. I wanted to have the Incas, but the other leads vetoed it. And if we were going to leave out one of the four civs, I felt that the Incas were the least interesting of the four.
6)did ES ever have any discussions about making xpacks covering Africa and even Europe?
A_ Africa yes – I actually wrote up a proposal for an African expansion. (I wrote up such an expansion idea twice – once for Age II, and once for Age III). We never seriously considered Europe, because what would it add? All the major countries were already included, plus we would have to give up stuff like trading posts, natives, and so forth. Plus the Europeans at the time didn’t really fit the Age concept – it’s ridiculous to have Napoleon’s beginning nation be a town center, an explorer, and a few villagers. But this game start does make sense in the New World.
7)why is the earth a sphere?
A)Because gravity works in every direction.
8)After ES closed down, did you get offered a job at Robot or Bonfire? If so, is there any reason why you didn't take it?
A)I didn’t really want to work for either Robot or Bonfire. I had some opportunities elsewhere in the country, but in the end, SMU’s Guildhall made me the most attractive offer.
9)Which of the age of empire games was your favourite to design and which was your favourite play
A)I enjoyed designing the Rise of Rome a lot, but the Warchiefs was the most fun for me to play.
10)Why did you start an ask Sandy thread at AoKH more than a month before you started this one?
A)They asked me.
11)Why are there lots of cheat units with no cheatcodes?
A)They’re not necessarily “cheat” units – they’re just “fossil” units, left in from the olden times of building the game. And some actually have cheat codes that were never released.
12)I mean if you can put in a country like Portugal, (for the size of the country) and Korea, they same size, and just as important to their part!
A)No offense to Korea, but Portugal was more important on the world stage, because they went out and engaged in foreign wars and colonization. The Portuguese empire crossed the globe and they had significant holdings on every continent except North America & Australia. The Koreans, bless them, stayed in their home territory and developed an awesome civilization. But for purposes of an RTS game, we like nations that went out and messed with other nations.
13)If the Aztecs are in, and they survived really only until 1525, then the Incans need to be, who survived until past 1550
A)Hey I would have loved to include the Incas. But we had to cut one of the four, and I felt that the Aztecs were more interesting (particularly with their military orders) than the Incas. Plus we know more about the Aztec art of war. Really, there were independent Mayan nations who survived into the early 1700s, so I guess they get some credit too. It’s possible to argue that the Mapuche (from South America) were never really conquered.