Initial Reactions

[PhilBowles]

I'm honestly confused by this. Gold was used for research, upgrades, and tech trading while extra happiness was "used" on the whip.

That may be where it's helpful to read the whole in context. Specifically the 'gold was almost infinitely available depending on how big a hit you were prepared to take to your science' and the point about cottage spam.

Gold was never a limiting resource beyond the hit it caused to other areas (mainly science) you adjusted with the slider. The key point is that maintenance is a purely punitive mechanic that punishes something you have to do in order to play the game - you would take a hit to your science to expand, and you couldn't decide not to expand and still play effectively, whether you're using the slider immediately to compensate for the maintenance cost of growth or using it down the line to earn gold to offset money previously not collected due to maintenance. Health was the same, and one of the worst-implemented mechanics in a Civ game (not only was it a purely punitive mechanic, it did a very bad job of punishing you since the way you kept healthy was by doing things - building granaries, keeping forests, removing jungles - you were going to do anyway because that's good play, reducing it to pure micromanagement with no purpose and of no strategic interest) for all that the idea of a health system is appealing enough that many players want it back (and a Civ V mod handled it quite well).

While global happiness in Civ V is largely punitive, you can choose to play without excess expansion in order to limit its impact - this is the core difference. Civ IV punitive mechanics weren't about trade-offs in any strategic sense (for all that they often entailed short-terms resource-for-resource trade-offs), they were just about punishing you for playing the game the way it was meant to be played and creating pointless repetitive busywork (yep, latest city's at 6 pop. Time to get whipping some slaves). Not expanding wasn't a viable option, not growing wasn't a viable option, you just had set thresholds at which these became problematic.

 

[Tee Kay]

The art is absolutely godawful, makes it look like Farmville or something.

Otherwise I'm keen.

 

[Venger]

Initial reaction - here it comes.

First is the screenshots. What in the Zynga hell? Is this MobileStrike or those other ridiculous mobile phone games? Civ graphically peaked with CiV, though Civ4 with blue marble was nice, but this, THIS set of screenshots is a tablet game abomination. What friggin year is it in the Civ6 dev room? As gaming moves back to PCs from consoles, we should see LESS of this cartoony crap. Graphics are the immersive interface to the game, and these look TERRIBLE, I mean TERRIBLE, as in not as good as say BFME graphics from 12 years ago. Inexcusable backslide.

Combat - it looks like we might be moving into a 1APT era - 1 army per tile. An improvement, perhaps a great one, to finding a balance between aggravating SoD and facile 1UPT.

Cities - mixed bag maybe? Proof is in the pudding and the playtesting, expanded city radiuses and hexes were a boon in CiV, not sure about the districting thing, seems sort of Caesar3-ish and not in a good way. Also don't like having to burn a tile for an improvement. Have you people BEEN to Stonehenge? It takes a tile? Stonehenge is smaller than my house! And it has to be built near stone. Clearly it DOESN'T since the stones of Stonehenge are NOT LOCAL which is what sort of makes it a wonder in the first place. Jeez, WONDERFAIL...

Diplomacy AI - this is what it is going to come down to. Is the disaster of CiV AI resolved? Does Catherine denounce me again for no reason? The undecipherable nature of CiV AI can only be improved on... yes?

Will I buy it? Never bet against it, I've purchased every version of Civ made (first Civ was Amiga Civ1, so that's how far back it goes) and I have behind me the Civ:ToT box, so I definitely buy into the Civ thing. But I want to see more. CiV was by far my least played CiV, I find myself going back to Civ4 for fun games (because the diplomacy makes some semblance of sense).

 

[dexters]

Combat - it looks like we might be moving into a 1APT era - 1 army per tile. An improvement, perhaps a great one, to finding a balance between aggravating SoD and facile 1UPT.

Still 1 unit per tile; the 'armies' you speak of also don't have stacking stats. ie: combining 2 units only grants 40% more power. Instead of 100% more. It's more of a scaling up of units in the late game by allowing units to gain specialist promotions (embedding specialist support units) and increasing their power by combing multiple units into 1 stronger one. But it's still going to be moving 1 unit and formations , positioning and all that still counts.

Diplomacy AI - this is what it is going to come down to. Is the disaster of CiV AI resolved? Does Catherine denounce me again for no reason? The undecipherable nature of CiV AI can only be improved on... yes?

This was fixed in the last 'free' patch of Vanilla Civ; and the 2 expansions moved the AI into far more interesting territories than simply expanding like a madman.

 

[Akka]

That may be where it's helpful to read the whole in context. Specifically the 'gold was almost infinitely available depending on how big a hit you were prepared to take to your science' and the point about cottage spam.

That sentence is completely absurd.
"it's infinite as long as you're ready to take a hit" is not only factually wrong (because gold certainly wasn't infinite at all in any way, shape or form, you could only get as much as your trade potential), but also pretty contradictory (as it claim in one way that gold wasn't a factor, but in the other side of the mouth admit that it actually was because the entire rest of your empire would take a hit to get it).

Also, the sliders were much more logical, elegant and immersive than the simplistic and dumb separated resources from Civ5. They simulated a budget and allowed for flexibility and player agency. In fact, one of the main reason Civ4 is so much better than Civ5, is that Civ4 takes real-world concepts and make them interesting gameplay features, while Civ5 put gamey and out of the blue concepts to make un-immersive mechanics (which end up boring anyway). 1upt and city states are striking examples.

 

[dexters]

That sentence is completely absurd.
"it's infinite as long as you're ready to take a hit" is not only factually wrong (because gold certainly wasn't infinite at all in any way, shape or form, you could only get as much as your trade potential), but also pretty contradictory (as it claim in one way that gold wasn't a factor, but in the other side of the mouth admit that it actually was because the entire rest of your empire would take a hit to get it).

Also, the sliders were much more logical, elegant and immersive than the simplistic and dumb separated resources from Civ5. They simulated a budget and allowed for flexibility and player agency. In fact, one of the main reason Civ4 is so much better than Civ5, is that Civ4 takes real-world concepts and make them interesting gameplay features, while Civ5 put gamey and out of the blue concepts to make un-immersive mechanics (which end up boring anyway). 1upt and city states are striking examples.

Sliders were in Civ 2 and 3 and they were largely just exploitable things humans toggle with early in the game. I don't think there's much strategy there at all. I can see why this is very upsetting to some people.

I'm not opposed to sliders returning, but it shouldn't be something people can toggle turn to turn. It should be sticky if you really want to reflect real-world concepts. Can't do science to 0% 1 turn and 100% next turn.

I think people keep talking past each other on this issue as well as the 'sliders=complex strategy" argument I've seen for years. Civ5's complexity is it's city-states, the layered nature of diplomacy, and elsewhere, there is no UI interface to keep track of that, which leads assume the loss of slider means the complexity isn't made up elsewhere.

 

[MKamp]

I am not excited AT ALL about what I see and read. The new 'features' seem gimicky and just minor changes to what we have in Civ 5. And, what almost everybody agrees upon, the graphics are horrible!

But, this all doesn't surprise me in the slightest. The graphics DO say a lot about how this game will feel and play: much more casual. It will also most likely be optimized to play well on tablets and phones and I wouldn't be surprised if it will have a touch-based interface.

Please note Firafix is owned by Take2 which is a NASDAQ company. All they care about is making money. And the way to do that nowadays is to aim for the widest market and that is casual games and also a younger audience. It is these kind of graphics and also simpler mechanics that appeal to most gamers out there. Not most Civ gamers but just most gamers. That is the audience AAA-companies are aiming for.

So in short: I don't expect this to be a deep, intricate strategy game and the signs I get certainly don't suggest this. You'd have to go to Indie and crowd funded games if you want anything deep and special. Sad thing there is that they make good games, but don't have the budget to make something that also LOOKS amazing. Good looks AND deep intricate gameplay is just something we will see less and less of in the coming years. It's just not commercially viable to do both!

 

[PhilBowles]

That sentence is completely absurd.
"it's infinite as long as you're ready to take a hit" is not only factually wrong (because gold certainly wasn't infinite at all in any way, shape or form, you could only get as much as your trade potential), but also pretty contradictory (as it claim in one way that gold wasn't a factor, but in the other side of the mouth admit that it actually was because the entire rest of your empire would take a hit to get it).

You're either being excessively pedantic or deliberately obtuse. I said gold is not a limiting factor - this is not the same at all as saying 'it's not a factor'. In the same way that oxygen is an important factor for animal survival, but it's not a limiting factor in most cases because it's always available in sufficient quantity at need. And obviously 'infinite' was not intended in a literal sense as no game resource is infinite - but in a practical sense. If you could have the slider at 100% gold and still not have a gold income you were doing something seriously wrong. I am assuming the person playing is actually playing the game correctly, rather than talking about the mechanic in isolation from all other game systems - and in a practical sense you were not going to run out of gold.

Moderator Action: Please refrain from name calling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Also, the sliders were much more logical, elegant and immersive than the simplistic and dumb separated resources from Civ5. They simulated a budget and allowed for flexibility and player agency. In fact, one of the main reason Civ4 is so much better than Civ5, is that Civ4 takes real-world concepts and make them interesting gameplay features, while Civ5 put gamey and out of the blue concepts to make un-immersive mechanics (which end up boring anyway). 1upt and city states are striking examples.

The issue isn't whether a system is better or worse than a system in Civ V, it's on a strictly objective basis whether or not it was good game design (Civ IV in general had worse overall game design than Civ V, but implemented those designs better - I'm looking at you, diplomacy). Purely punitive mechanics that exist for the sake of micromanagement are not good game design. Mechanically and conceptually, Civ IV's designs were largely outdated and not that good to begin with - yes, they could lead to interesting results and many people found them more immersive, but those are subjective qualities.

The issue isn't even with the slider per se - it's with the slider in the specific context of Civ IV's punishment mechanic. Being able to use the slider to adjust your level of temporary pain was a feature unique to Civ IV; you couldn't manage corruption that way with the slider in the older games. It is not a particularly happy marriage. Civ IV ultimately revolved around short-term trade-offs - and as much as people glory in that fact and in how thoroughly unsubtle those trade-offs were, that is not the same as meaningful trade-offs in strategic play.

Very few other strategy games aside from older Civ games have used slider-based economic management - and it's not an omission on their part, as the tech has been there at least since 1991. It's something you're more likely to see, again, in simplified strategy layers like Total War's (which has tax vs. happiness sliders) than in serious strategy games like other 4xes or Paradox games. None of that prevented Civ IV from being a very good strategy game in practice, but it was no masterpiece of game design.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The more "cartoon" art style seems to get a terrible stigma, as if it suddenly removes any kind of depth a game can have. They specifically said the base game will have many of the features included in Civ 5's expansions, in addition to some new features, so I'm not really worried about it. These are the same people who added much needed depth to Civ 5 itself.

I am not worried about depth. I trust Ed Beach implicitly to give us a deep strategy game. The issue I have with "cartoony" graphics is that it breaks immersion for me. It hurts the sense of role-playing a great historical empire and I become more aware that I am playing a game. It is an easy issue to fix. They just need to tone down the colors a bit and the graphics will be fine.

 

[Lexicus]

That may be where it's helpful to read the whole in context. Specifically the 'gold was almost infinitely available depending on how big a hit you were prepared to take to your science' and the point about cottage spam.

I read the whole post, you were simply wrong that gold had no use in IV. Gold is used for lots of things, from research, to tech trading with the AI, to unit upgrades, and to pay for expansion.

Gold was never a limiting resource beyond the hit it caused to other areas (mainly science) you adjusted with the slider.

This is just nonsensical because gold wasn't really a "resource," it was one of the things you could convert commerce into, and commerce certainly was a "limiting resource."

The key point is that maintenance is a purely punitive mechanic that punishes something you have to do in order to play the game - you would take a hit to your science to expand, and you couldn't decide not to expand and still play effectively, whether you're using the slider immediately to compensate for the maintenance cost of growth or using it down the line to earn gold to offset money previously not collected due to maintenance.

I think we all realize that any mechanic which is designed to limit expansion is going to "punish something you have to do in order to play the game", that is how it works. The reason it doesn't "work" in V is because it makes non-expansion the optimal strategy. Now, maybe this has changed since the last time I played but I would routinely play games and by 1000AD have a dozen or more tiles between myself and the next AI because they for some reason didn't like expanding in spite of their happiness bonuses, while I couldn't expand because doing so would put me over the happiness edge. To me that is simply not fun.
Personally I vastly prefer maintenance to the happiness system in Civ V. The system in Civ IV allows for multiple different considerations when considering whether and where to expand; as I think akka recently pointed out in Civ V the only consideration is whether a potential city site has luxuries. I played V for about five years and can count on one hand the number of times I founded a city away from a luxury source.
Also, maintenance is for the most part a continuously increasing penalty while happiness penalties suddenly kick in at certain times - much more jarring and less organic, imo.

Health was the same, and one of the worst-implemented mechanics in a Civ game (not only was it a purely punitive mechanic, it did a very bad job of punishing you since the way you kept healthy was by doing things - building granaries, keeping forests, removing jungles - you were going to do anyway because that's good play, reducing it to pure micromanagement with no purpose and of no strategic interest) for all that the idea of a health system is appealing enough that many players want it back (and a Civ V mod handled it quite well).

Like happiness in IV it did a bad job of punishing you because you could essentially ignore it entirely except in a few situations, eg poisoned water or when your capital couldn't grow anymore.
The way to control health and happiness in Civ IV is with the whip, itself a much more dynamic mechanic than anything in V.

While global happiness in Civ V is largely punitive, you can choose to play without excess expansion in order to limit its impact - this is the core difference.

This is a euphemism for "the optimal strategy was 4-city-tradition and nothing else could come close due to the way happiness worked."

Civ IV punitive mechanics weren't about trade-offs in any strategic sense (for all that they often entailed short-terms resource-for-resource trade-offs), they were just about punishing you for playing the game the way it was meant to be played and creating pointless repetitive busywork (yep, latest city's at 6 pop. Time to get whipping some slaves). Not expanding wasn't a viable option, not growing wasn't a viable option, you just had set thresholds at which these became problematic.

I guess one man's pointless repetitive busywork is another man's favorite part of the game.
The whip and the sliders- generally the convertibility of one resource into another, which increases as you discover more techs - is what I enjoy about Civ IV. It makes it seem like I'm running an empire while V feels like I'm just filling a bunch of bins, over and over, ad nauseum. The core problem is that science comes from population rather than commerce.
But *shrugs* it doesn't matter. It's all subjective, and it's fine that you enjoy V more than IV, but please stop pretending V has objectively "better" mechanics or design, because it doesn't.

 

[Gorbles]

You were doing so well until you told him to stop pretending that the mechanics were better. Everything you posted r.e. Civ IV was a subjective intepretation of how you liked to play with those mechanics.

I thought he made a good case for the superiority of CiV's design (tempered, as he noted, by execution) personally. Your handwaving of that by telling him not to "pretend" is a really subpar (and, linguistically heavy-handed) way of trying to shut down the debate. Unfortunate.

 

[Lexicus]

You were doing so well until you told him to stop pretending that the mechanics were better. Everything you posted r.e. Civ IV was a subjective intepretation of how you liked to play with those mechanics.

Exactly, and it's fine that he prefers V, but he is pretending that V is objectively better and you can't deny it.

it's on a strictly objective basis whether or not it was good game design

There is no objective basis for good game design, period, and of story. As you (gorbles) are frequently at pains to point out when people criticize BE, presumably your favorite iteration of the series.

So yes I would characterize that as pretending that one design is objectively good simply because you prefer it.

Anyway to tie this back into the nominal topic here, I am reserving judgment on VI. It seems like they've been paying attention to some of the forum talk, and hopefully the new wrinkles to 1-upt will make it more manageable - though it's whether the AI can handle it that will ultimately make or break it for me. But it does look like they're rolling with the changes made from IV to V, which is unfortunate but not unexpected.

 

[Gorbles]

Exactly, and it's fine that he prefers V, but he is pretending that V is objectively better and you can't deny it.

There is no objective basis for good game design, period, and of story. As you (gorbles) are frequently at pains to point out when people criticize BE, presumably your favorite iteration of the series.

So yes I would characterize that as pretending that one design is objectively good simply because you prefer it.

Anyway to tie this back into the nominal topic here, I am reserving judgment on VI. It seems like they've been paying attention to some of the forum talk, and hopefully the new wrinkles to 1-upt will make it more manageable - though it's whether the AI can handle it that will ultimately make or break it for me. But it does look like they're rolling with the changes made from IV to V, which is unfortunate but not unexpected.

I haven't actually bothered debating BE in some time, but that's a whole other kettle of fish made by a mostly-different team that you'd only split into a tangent if you wanted to use it as an example. Let's not try that kind of misdirection.

You are "pretending" that Civ IV is "objectively" better, unless your statement is that neither game is superior to the other in any term approaching objective (more on games design being subjective below) in which case all games are equal to each other. Why? Because given that the sheer amount of differences between IV and V in some cases are so divergent, to be unable to compare them on some actual vaguely-objective hierarchy means that no two games can be compared on such a scale, at all, ever. I mean the main reason why Civ IV to CiV is so divisive is because it introduced some of the largest mechanical changes the franchise has ever seen.

There are many objective bases for various aspects of design, from the basic mechanical functions all the way through to the look and feel of the UI and UX. Hexes are undeniably better than squares (better map composition, more angles of attack and defense, better economic management, more available synergies . . . basically for a developer story there check out Pandora: First Contact, the SMAC replica that started off with squares but went to hexes during development because squares didn't hold up), as an example.

Your like of these factors can obviously vary, but I really think you're projecting the same conflation of personal satisfaction and critical analysis (which isn't necessarily objective but in this flawed human world it's all we've got) that you're inferring of PhilBowles.

In terms of being "on-topic" I think it's very relevant, Civ IV design vs. CiV design given the initial information around Civ VI (CiVI?) so far is a pretty good topic to go around on, at least until we know more concrete details about the new title.

 

[Lexicus]

You complimented me on how my arguments were based on my own subjective opinions of the mechanics. You're presented with a clear example of PhilBowles claiming that objective measurement of how good game design is, is possible. And then you accuse me of "projecting" something which you already note I wasn't doing. I don't see any contradiction between expressing my own opinions and accusing someone of thinking their opinions are objective. I guess maybe you just don't like where that leads, since you apparently also want to pretend your preferences (for hexes over squares, for example) have some objective basis.

I don't think any of the game mechanics are objectively better than any of the other game mechanics. All we can say for sure is what the mechanics are, how they work, and how much we enjoy them.

I'll end by noting that while each hex borders 6 hexes, each square borders 8 squares

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Like happiness in IV it did a bad job of punishing you because you could essentially ignore it entirely except in a few situations, eg poisoned water or when your capital couldn't grow anymore.

Health is underestimated as a punitive aspect because it's not so obviously damaging, but unhealth basically amounted to less production/science/commerce. If you didn't whip it down you'd be paying a tax of -1 food per unhealth, and considering both whip or working -food tiles into hammers could translate that you were losing out pretty significantly, not to mention the barrier to growing onto additional good tiles in bur cap or something. Local happiness/health had more decision depth than global happiness by a margin as a result; you cared about them differently in different cities and would plan around your limitations enough that access to more health or happy could alter your settlement plans and short term expansion choices.

Civ IV in general had worse overall game design than Civ V

That's a pretty tough assertion to make, if you want to look at the number of choices that matter on a per turn basis and situational evaluation of strategy progression. V is a lot more constrained, obvious, and consistent in "optimal approach to this game" which should be counting as a strike against it from a "design" perspective. Tradition 3-4 cities has no Civ IV equivalent.

As for implementation, IV's UI was miles better and that's pretty painful. A newer game shouldn't be doubling up the #inputs required to accomplish something identical like queuing buildings or units.

 

[Gorbles]

You complimented me on how my arguments were based on my own subjective opinions of the mechanics. You're presented with a clear example of PhilBowles claiming that objective measurement of how good game design is, is possible. And then you accuse me of "projecting" something which you already note I wasn't doing. I don't see any contradiction between expressing my own opinions and accusing someone of thinking their opinions are objective. I guess maybe you just don't like where that leads, since you apparently also want to pretend your preferences (for hexes over squares, for example) have some objective basis.

I don't think any of the game mechanics are objectively better than any of the other game mechanics. All we can say for sure is what the mechanics are, how they work, and how much we enjoy them.

I'll end by noting that while each hex borders 6 hexes, each square borders 8 squares

I can see where you're coming from, but I feel people can make arguments for the actual superiority of X over Y in a number of cases. All we can do is make the arguments, but to void them on the basis of "everything is subjective therefore you're wrong" is a) missing the point and b) declaring an objective absolute . . . based on the subjective.

This is getting almost tautological, haha.

And your note is a pedantic note of relative, i.e. arguable, worth (as linguistics dictates "borders" have to actually align with, well, borders), as well as being actualy wrong. Point to point crossing is both ununtuitive UI (and / or UX depending on implementation) and by that definition hexes then touch a cornerstone of a bunch of other hexes in addition to the ones they properly join borders with. So it'd be 8 vs. 12

 

[Lexicus]

Health is underestimated as a punitive aspect because it's not so obviously damaging, but unhealth basically amounted to less production/science/commerce. If you didn't whip it down you'd be paying a tax of -1 food per unhealth, and considering both whip or working -food tiles into hammers could translate that you were losing out pretty significantly, not to mention the barrier to growing onto additional good tiles in bur cap or something. Local happiness/health had more decision depth than global happiness by a margin as a result; you cared about them differently in different cities and would plan around your limitations enough that access to more health or happy could alter your settlement plans and short term expansion choices.

Well, I just mean that what with the whip it had very little practical effect. Cities other than the capital mostly stay small so the practical effects of unhealth were not that great. In cities outside the buro-capital or when my water supply is poisoned, I grow into unhealth for the sole purpose of whipping those citizens away, which also takes away the unhealth.

But anyway, I obviously agree that localized effects of health/happiness are preferable to the global happiness, so that's not at issue.

And your note is a pedantic note of relative

Good Lord, the irony of you using the word 'pedantic' given your objection to my point is downright staggering.

You can move into six other hexes from a given hex. You can move into 8 other squares from a given square (mountains, sea ice, and coast obviously notwithstanding in either case). Therefore, squares actually give you more angles for attack and defense, not hexes.

That is, obviously, what I meant by 'borders' but you know, pedantry and everything...

 

[manu-fan]

I don't know about individual city health. I've got so used to global health in Civ 5 and Civ BE, I don't know whether I can ever get used to city health again.

 

[MosheLevi]

Other than "combat" which is a step forward, I am very concern that Civ 6 will be dumb down just like Civ 5 was.
Civ 5 is more simplistic than Civ 4, and from seeing the ugly cartoony screen shots for Civ 6 I can only assume that Firaxis plans to release Civ 6 also on tablets and mobiles.

That only means less complexity and fewer features for Civ 6.
I was ready to pre-purchase Civ 6 when I saw the announcement, but then when I saw the cartoony screen shots I said 'no thank you, I will just stick with Civ 4 and Civ5'.

 

[Gorbles]

Good Lord, the irony of you using the word 'pedantic' given your objection to my point is downright staggering.

You can move into six other hexes from a given hex. You can move into 8 other squares from a given square (mountains, sea ice, and coast obviously notwithstanding in either case). Therefore, squares actually give you more angles for attack and defense, not hexes.

That is, obviously, what I meant by 'borders' but you know, pedantry and everything...

Yes, saying something is pedantic before discussing it means that both participants are being pedantic. I don't think I denied that

You can move into the eight touching squares in the games that squares implemented. I played SMAC last night, I'm well aware. However the actual movement paradigm was changed when the game moved to hexes. If the movement paradigm was kept the same (which it wasn't, just to reiterate) then you would have more actual options.

However the actual implementation of hexes meant that there was invariably more of a buffer between units and thus more room for maneouvring. But then you come up against MUPT vs. 1UPT as a factor and so on, and so forth. Bringing it back to hexes before you indulged in pedantry (while being surprised that I had to be pedantic in response) that was simply one of the aspects I commented on, and I raised the point (twice I think, but I could be wrong there) that this also ties into a more intuitive UI and UX. Diagonal moves are less intuitive than border-to-border flat joins. It would get even more confusing with hex corners, too. So yes, hexes still come out on top, objectively. You remove the unintuitive movement commands, you expand the actual area for localised tactics (but overall army strategy still exists) and so on, and so forth.