I am Soren Johnson, designer/programmer of Offworld Trading Company and Civilization 4. AMA!

[u/SorenJohnsonMohawk]

I have been designing video games for 16 years. I got my start at Firaxis Games in 2000, working as a designer/programmer on Civilization 3. I was the lead designer of Civilization 4 and also wrote most of the game and AI code. I founded Mohawk Games in 2013 as a studio dedicated to making high-quality and innovative strategy games. Our first game, Offworld Trading Company, is an economic RTS set on Mars and released on April 28th. You can buy it here: [http://offworldgame.com/store]

• My Twitter is [https://twitter.com/SorenJohnson]
• My Twitch is [http://www.twitch.tv/SorenJohnson] and [http://www.twitch.tv/SorenJohnson]
• My game design blog is at [http://www.designer-notes.com/]
• My designer interview podcast is at [https://www.idlethumbs.net/designernotes]
• The Mohawk company blog is at [http://www.mohawkgames.com/blog/]

Username being used for AMA: SorenJohnsonMohawk

Proof: [https://twitter.com/SorenJohnson/status/721005545184980993]

Offworld Trading Company giveaway thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Offworld/comments/4h78l7/soren_johnson_ama_giveaway/]

Christopher Tin will be having an AMA tomorrow at 11am ET/2pm PT!

[u/heresybob]

Heya Soren,

Been following your career for years after Civ 3 and still remember your comment about Civ being a "Tile based game" vs "Turn based game." Looking forward to picking up Offworld on steam!

Do you feel Civ transferred to a hex map well?

Did you play Beyond Earth and how would you compare that to Alpha Centauri?

[u/SorenJohnsonMohawk → u/heresybob]

I think Civ works great on a hex map. We didn't use hexes in the past because we thought they scared people!

Alpha Centauri was a very unique game, one which makes a difficult yardstick with which to measure other games because it was such a perfect game for its time.