The Civilization Franchise- dead?

Sacre bleu!

TheMeInTeam said:

. No forgiving core aspects of games that don't work X_X.

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I guess you got it backwards I'm more willing to acept a bloated app that, in spite of working badly, has the potential to be fixed than a fine app that has hidden and hardcoded performance blocks by no particular reason ( for heavens sake, when the last official Civ III patch was out, machines with more than 512 Mb of RAM were already somewhat common , to say the least ... and no ammount of stupidity can really explain the hardcoded limit to the number of cities on map , especially on big maps that the game has the potential to run, but that you can't fully use because of that ) .It is a better of two evils situation, but still ...

Similar problems are cropping up all over the place in modern AAA titles. Either there are no more competent programmers out there at all, or the expected complexity of modern games has scaled well past what the traditional design models are capable of handling. Personally, I believe it's the latter; but you're free to believe otherwise.

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Games of their day generally try to take fullest advantage of whatever computing/graphical capabilities are available. That 1993 game ran just as well in 1993...while others didn't. That pattern is replicated today, and civ is (routinely) on the wrong end of it.

I am seeing newer games (or maybe 1-2 months older )where a unit is given an order and then it responds to it instantly. Every time, without exception, with more units involved at any given moment than either civ IV or V. Not only that, but you can select dozens and the game doesn't even drop a frame...let alone force you to wait 5+ seconds! Even in the much-maligned FPS genre, the only thing that blocks actions from happening in good titles is lag, not because the game can't handle the rate of inputs. There is a reason for that; not everybody SUCKS at programming a reasonable set of controls in a modern game. The funny thing is that merely selecting units in civ IV can cause the UI to fall behind player actions. I've (again) demonstrated evidence of this, selecting 10+ more units than the UI displays and then having the game select them while I stand there with the mouse doing nothing waiting for it to catch up.

You want to tell me that selecting a few units is SO resource intensive that there is NO WAY a 3 ghz processor machine (cores don't matter, because failaxis didn't allow civ iv to use 2 cores despite that they were around at the time) can keep up with a human's ability to hold shift and click a few times? I call bs, and I call it with the weight of MUCH evidence to the contrary on my side.

If you are OK with shoddy products, then whatever...that's how the market goes. Consumers accepting that crap (and often not even acknowledging it) is a contributing factor to why games like civ IV and V play slower than me, and I hate it but reality is reality. However, excuses for what is, without dispute, obvious failure are less acceptable to me. There is no rational way to argue that civ IV HAD to play that way. It's a joke.

I guess you got it backwards I'm more willing to acept a bloated app that, in spite of working badly, has the potential to be fixed than a fine app that has hidden and hardcoded performance blocks by no particular reason ( for heavens sake, when the last official Civ III patch was out, machines with more than 512 Mb of RAM were already somewhat common , to say the least ... and no ammount of stupidity can really explain the hardcoded limit to the number of cities on map , especially on big maps that the game has the potential to run, but that you can't fully use because of that ) .It is a better of two evils situation, but still ...

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Ok I get what you were saying now. Fair enough. withdrawn!

...

Unless you wanted it.

Seriously TBS requires the most processing power. Oh wait... wtf!

Kaosprophet said:

98 was already bridging between 16bit and 32bit

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Yeah. They supported 32-bit applications on a 16-bit kernel. Good stuff. Preemptive multitasking and a secure kernel are "difficult" in this environment.

, and it's not like third party dos-emulators are unheard of. In fact, that's usually what we're resorting to when we do load up those legacy games.

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As I said, that's modern technology. It didn't exist at the time.

It *could* have been included. They chose not to.

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Wrong.

Which could have been said of the shift from 16-bit to 32bit, but they went ahead and dropped support for that eventually anyway.

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Modern 64-bit computers don't support 16-bit code at all. It's time to move on. AMD made an explicit decision to drop it when they designed the architecture. A good decision in my view but, in any case, you can't blame Microsoft for it.

And that was less than 16 years ago.

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2012 - 1998 < 16. Agreed. But 32-bit Windows > 16. They have not dropped support for previous 32-bit Windows versions.

TheMeInTeam said:

Games of their day generally try to take fullest advantage of whatever computing/graphical capabilities are available.

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Indeed. And sometimes they probably shouldn't. (See: SotS2.)

TheMeInTeam said:

That 1993 game ran just as well in 1993...while others didn't. That pattern is replicated today, and civ is (routinely) on the wrong end of it.

I am seeing newer games (or maybe 1-2 months older )where a unit is given an order and then it responds to it instantly. Every time, without exception, with more units involved at any given moment than either civ IV or V. Not only that, but you can select dozens and the game doesn't even drop a frame...let alone force you to wait 5+ seconds! Even in the much-maligned FPS genre, the only thing that blocks actions from happening in good titles is lag, not because the game can't handle the rate of inputs. There is a reason for that; not everybody SUCKS at programming a reasonable set of controls in a modern game.

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Names?
Because if they're games I've bothered with, I'll wager I can tell you entirely different things they "sucked at" while getting the controls working.
(I'll have to pass on the FPS titles though... the skills they rely on are so far up the learning curve for me that they become just an exercise in frustration long before I get far enough in to see what's good or bad about an individual title.)

TheMeInTeam said:

The funny thing is that merely selecting units in civ IV can cause the UI to fall behind player actions. I've (again) demonstrated evidence of this, selecting 10+ more units than the UI displays and then having the game select them while I stand there with the mouse doing nothing waiting for it to catch up.

You want to tell me that selecting a few units is SO resource intensive that there is NO WAY a 3 ghz processor machine (cores don't matter, because failaxis didn't allow civ iv to use 2 cores despite that they were around at the time) can keep up with a human's ability to hold shift and click a few times?

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No. What I want to tell you is that an issue which crops up inconsistently enough for me to have only ever seen it happen in other people's games (even if it's a fair number of other people) is somewhat difficult to diagnose, track down and correct when it's buried in a few gigs of code. Especially when you've got a whole bunch of other things on your plate going on as well. There comes a point when you've got to make a choice between ironing out the wrinkles in an awkward but functional feature and getting the rest of the game built.

Obviously there's something wrong in there; but I think you seriously underestimate the amount of effort involved in correcting it.

TheMeInTeam said:

If you are OK with shoddy products, then whatever...that's how the market goes. Consumers accepting that crap (and often not even acknowledging it) is a contributing factor to why games like civ IV and V play slower than me, and I hate it but reality is reality. However, excuses for what is, without dispute, obvious failure are less acceptable to me. There is no rational way to argue that civ IV HAD to play that way. It's a joke.

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I just recognize the extent of space which exists between "shoddy" and "perfect," and don't jump to conclusions about overall competency based on key obvious failures in an otherwise enjoyable game. Based on the rantings, that seems to be a rare thing these days: most people seem to polarize in one direction or the other.

And given the amount of playtime you've put in to Civ4, you're clearly "accepting that crap" to some degree yourself as well.

Kaosprophet said:

I just recognize the extent of space which exists between "shoddy" and "perfect," and don't jump to conclusions about overall competency based on key obvious failures in an otherwise enjoyable game. Based on the rantings, that seems to be a rare thing these days: most people seem to polarize in one direction or the other.

And given the amount of playtime you've put in to Civ4, you're clearly "accepting that crap" to some degree yourself as well.

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And if you recognize this space, then you should stop making these insinuations unless you seriously believe others don't. I don't get why people always have to bring up the fact that we are currently playing Civ IV. Of course most of us aren't gonna hate everything about it wholesale unless someone is bitter.

There is a Civilization IV that exists that contains a depth and variety of different strategies and replay value.

There is also a Civilization IV that suffers from shoddy performance issues and broken controls. I should not be able to run a game like Starcraft II and do fine in Single player without a hitch and run into issues in Civ IV when I turn down the settings. It is unacceptable for a game of its time. 4 years and 4x the system requirements apart? Yes, Blizzard is top-tier and comparisons aren't fair, but surely that's a standard?

Both Civ 4's exist. Problem is that the bad part about Civ IV leaked into V, with a disastrous effect.

Expecting units to do exactly how they are commanded is a basic of gameplay. Why were the old mario games praised so much; because of the play control!

Just because "it's hard for them to do" does not justify matters as how they are. Just because others do it doesn't justify anything either. Whether it is your boss or your customer, or your professor, all they care about is results. Not excuses. So they succeeded somewhat, I guess...

And while Civ IV was overall a good game, and led to me supporting the overall product, the trends in shoddy controls/programming continued into Civilization V. And I will not support that in its current state! And that is not something that bodes well for the franchise. To me that is a problem.

In the end someone was responsible for these games not able to live up to gaming standards established in like the 90's in a 2000's title. It could be considered as incompetence, really, whether on the programmers' part or whoever allowed them to work on it in the first place. Anything else is just an excuse.

No. What I want to tell you is that an issue which crops up inconsistently enough for me to have only ever seen it happen in other people's games (even if it's a fair number of other people) is somewhat difficult to diagnose, track down and correct when it's buried in a few gigs of code.

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Under what kind of joke code is unit selection (without animations on, mind you) causing significant processing usage at all?

Especially when you've got a whole bunch of other things on your plate going on as well. There comes a point when you've got to make a choice between ironing out the wrinkles in an awkward but functional feature and getting the rest of the game built.

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No sell. If someone can't figure out how to select a unit without calling up the RNG or pretending that animations are happening when they aren't or something else equally stupid, then they probably aren't capable of doing much of the rest of the programming, either.

Unit selection is a CRITICAL part of CORE features by the way. How would you like to lose someone because the game was still trying to register the fact that you've selected units and as a result you get double-moved. Real fun with that in the game, right? That's why you don't "just move on", you set up a systemic process where disgraces in BASIC gameplay aren't flagrantly rampant.

Obviously there's something wrong in there; but I think you seriously underestimate the amount of effort involved in correcting it.

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Yes, they probably didn't follow conventions that would allow one to easily fix it. If they did that, they'd probably not have made controls bugged to hell in the first place after all. The choice to continue on with that and entire expansions without fixing it is inexcusable though.

Despite that, they did it in civ V too.

I just recognize the extent of space which exists between "shoddy" and "perfect," and don't jump to conclusions about overall competency based on key obvious failures in an otherwise enjoyable game. Based on the rantings, that seems to be a rare thing these days: most people seem to polarize in one direction or the other.

And given the amount of playtime you've put in to Civ4, you're clearly "accepting that crap" to some degree yourself as well.

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You're only half correct. This trend of "crap" from failaxis is to become consistently worse. At least in civ IV, the game doesn't change around your tiles worked AFTER you hit end turn to STARVE your city, and you don't click on a button then watch the unit do something completely different (in civ IV they just move the buttons around after waiting a second to troll you, which is also disgusting but not quite as bad as a direct UI lie).

Also, many actions take 4-5 extra commands more in civ V than IV and practically no actions take less. Awwkwaarrrrrrd, since they claim V's interface is better.

I've loved civ quite a bit, and so argue for it heavily. In late civ IV patches and continuing on to civ V, I'm watching it die while a bunch of people watch it happen and don't even notice/care. I'm watching basic controls degrade to the point where yes, 90's games show them up. I'm watching the company LIE to us about "recommended" specifications, where if you were to run a machine on them playing for example a huge map you'd spend more time waiting than playing. I've watched failaxis leave civ V MP unplayable for more than 3 people at a time (out of sync!) for OVER a year and counting since release, spending their time to introduce ANIMATIONS vomit to MP and work on an expansion + DLC while a CORE FEATURE (MP) still doesn't work.

Yes, I still play civ IV, though frustration over GAMEPLAY 101 has drained my will to play it over time. It isn't fun when the game decides you can't play for stretches of time. You know what game I don't play though? Civ V. Is it because of hexes? No. Is it because of the tech method/tree? No. Is it because of 1upt? Hell no, I'm on of the faster players on the forum so that has very limited impact on me. Is it because the AI diplo is ******ed? No, civ IV AI doesn't try either.

Why don't I play it then? Because it doesn't work. Because failaxis lies about recommended specifications. Because when playing civ V, it takes the COMPUTER more time to process its turns than I do, processing movements and animations in the fog regardless of settings. I literally spend more time waiting than playing. Because when I tell the damn game to do a "ranged" attack and the UI clearly shows it as such, the unit instead simply moves closer to the target. Because the governor switches tiles after end turn to the point where you can't use it. Because MP, an important feature for people looking for a weekly mp game, has never worked for even an instant, and still doesn't. Ultimately, because civ V does not work, and yet the company disgraces itself by continuing to sell it as a finished product. I don't know what to say about people who are OK with that, because it isn't nice.

Names?
Because if they're games I've bothered with, I'll wager I can tell you entirely different things they "sucked at" while getting the controls working.

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I made that point to prove that the reason failaxis blows at programming isn't because it's too hard or that it is undoable. I've already mentioned a few titles. I don't really care why you don't like other games that work but for one reason or another aren't fun. Being able to play a game is a critical element, and borked controls really puts a hamper on that. If you fail there, you failed the game.

The only reason I still play civ is for the TBS fix. The gaming industry has taken a dump on the genre, and much like with EA and sports games, failaxis can get away with disgracing itself with titles like civ V because the competition isn't there anymore. However, they're a major contributor to the reason TBS is a declined genre in the first place.

If bullfrog, SSG, and the 3d0/nwc marriage that produced HOMM III were still around for example, civ V would be having its pants pulled down.

If you don't believe me, compare how civ II was to the games warlords II/III and HOMM II/III. The difference is staggering; the latter titles are some of the finest TBS ever made and the 3rd installation of each series are probably still top 10 tbs all-time (HOMM III might be the best). These games *did* manage to take advantage of graphics typically available at the time...but they also had working controls, shortcuts that always worked, units that always did as ordered without exception, and balanced options.

So now we have some modern titles which do things that should be more processor-intensive than civ V, and yet don't have any of the general optimization problems:

- ANY Call of Duty game (balance and net code bad as they are, the game plays well)
- Starcraft 2 (better than any civ title ever in both balance and gameplay, and though it's a slightly different genre due to being real-time, can easily handle more units in real time than civ can going turn-by-turn...proving my point rather soundly that COMPETENT developers can still make good controls)
- Madden. Yeah, glitchy, but so is civ. So both games are glitchy, but only 1 has controls that don't work, and it isn't madden. That's right, our beloved civ designers have fallen behind EA. Keep that in mind.
- Mass Effect: You know what happens when you press to shoot? You shoot. You don't dolphin dive and do the worm in the middle of the battlefield and die. Too bad firaxis has your units do the equivalent of that in civ V, and has workers auto-suicide in both games.

Basically, every non-tbs genre ducks this issue...but without competition failaxis isn't even trying. An expansion before the game engine works...and before they stop the governor from starving cities AFTER end turn should tell us everything we need to know.

I don't see the civ franchise being good in the hands that currently hold it. I say this despite the new expansion coming out. They've made their message very clear. They don't care, even a little bit, about how good the game is at the design level. They'd much rather trick people into getting it, which will only work so long.

Come back, SSG .

TheMeInTeam said:

Spoiler :

Under what kind of joke code is unit selection (without animations on, mind you) causing significant processing usage at all?



No sell. If someone can't figure out how to select a unit without calling up the RNG or pretending that animations are happening when they aren't or something else equally stupid, then they probably aren't capable of doing much of the rest of the programming, either.

Unit selection is a CRITICAL part of CORE features by the way. How would you like to lose someone because the game was still trying to register the fact that you've selected units and as a result you get double-moved. Real fun with that in the game, right? That's why you don't "just move on", you set up a systemic process where disgraces in BASIC gameplay aren't flagrantly rampant.



Yes, they probably didn't follow conventions that would allow one to easily fix it. If they did that, they'd probably not have made controls bugged to hell in the first place after all. The choice to continue on with that and entire expansions without fixing it is inexcusable though.

Despite that, they did it in civ V too.



You're only half correct. This trend of "crap" from failaxis is to become consistently worse. At least in civ IV, the game doesn't change around your tiles worked AFTER you hit end turn to STARVE your city, and you don't click on a button then watch the unit do something completely different (in civ IV they just move the buttons around after waiting a second to troll you, which is also disgusting but not quite as bad as a direct UI lie).

Also, many actions take 4-5 extra commands more in civ V than IV and practically no actions take less. Awwkwaarrrrrrd, since they claim V's interface is better.

I've loved civ quite a bit, and so argue for it heavily. In late civ IV patches and continuing on to civ V, I'm watching it die while a bunch of people watch it happen and don't even notice/care. I'm watching basic controls degrade to the point where yes, 90's games show them up. I'm watching the company LIE to us about "recommended" specifications, where if you were to run a machine on them playing for example a huge map you'd spend more time waiting than playing. I've watched failaxis leave civ V MP unplayable for more than 3 people at a time (out of sync!) for OVER a year and counting since release, spending their time to introduce ANIMATIONS vomit to MP and work on an expansion + DLC while a CORE FEATURE (MP) still doesn't work.

Yes, I still play civ IV, though frustration over GAMEPLAY 101 has drained my will to play it over time. It isn't fun when the game decides you can't play for stretches of time. You know what game I don't play though? Civ V. Is it because of hexes? No. Is it because of the tech method/tree? No. Is it because of 1upt? Hell no, I'm on of the faster players on the forum so that has very limited impact on me. Is it because the AI diplo is ******ed? No, civ IV AI doesn't try either.

Why don't I play it then? Because it doesn't work. Because failaxis lies about recommended specifications. Because when playing civ V, it takes the COMPUTER more time to process its turns than I do, processing movements and animations in the fog regardless of settings. I literally spend more time waiting than playing. Because when I tell the damn game to do a "ranged" attack and the UI clearly shows it as such, the unit instead simply moves closer to the target. Because the governor switches tiles after end turn to the point where you can't use it. Because MP, an important feature for people looking for a weekly mp game, has never worked for even an instant, and still doesn't. Ultimately, because civ V does not work, and yet the company disgraces itself by continuing to sell it as a finished product. I don't know what to say about people who are OK with that, because it isn't nice.



I made that point to prove that the reason failaxis blows at programming isn't because it's too hard or that it is undoable. I've already mentioned a few titles. I don't really care why you don't like other games that work but for one reason or another aren't fun. Being able to play a game is a critical element, and borked controls really puts a hamper on that. If you fail there, you failed the game.

The only reason I still play civ is for the TBS fix. The gaming industry has taken a dump on the genre, and much like with EA and sports games, failaxis can get away with disgracing itself with titles like civ V because the competition isn't there anymore. However, they're a major contributor to the reason TBS is a declined genre in the first place.

If bullfrog, SSG, and the 3d0/nwc marriage that produced HOMM III were still around for example, civ V would be having its pants pulled down.

If you don't believe me, compare how civ II was to the games warlords II/III and HOMM II/III. The difference is staggering; the latter titles are some of the finest TBS ever made and the 3rd installation of each series are probably still top 10 tbs all-time (HOMM III might be the best). These games *did* manage to take advantage of graphics typically available at the time...but they also had working controls, shortcuts that always worked, units that always did as ordered without exception, and balanced options.

So now we have some modern titles which do things that should be more processor-intensive than civ V, and yet don't have any of the general optimization problems:

- ANY Call of Duty game (balance and net code bad as they are, the game plays well)
- Starcraft 2 (better than any civ title ever in both balance and gameplay, and though it's a slightly different genre due to being real-time, can easily handle more units in real time than civ can going turn-by-turn...proving my point rather soundly that COMPETENT developers can still make good controls)
- Madden. Yeah, glitchy, but so is civ. So both games are glitchy, but only 1 has controls that don't work, and it isn't madden. That's right, our beloved civ designers have fallen behind EA. Keep that in mind.
- Mass Effect: You know what happens when you press to shoot? You shoot. You don't dolphin dive and do the worm in the middle of the battlefield and die. Too bad firaxis has your units do the equivalent of that in civ V, and has workers auto-suicide in both games.

Basically, every non-tbs genre ducks this issue...but without competition failaxis isn't even trying. An expansion before the game engine works...and before they stop the governor from starving cities AFTER end turn should tell us everything we need to know.

I don't see the civ franchise being good in the hands that currently hold it. I say this despite the new expansion coming out. They've made their message very clear. They don't care, even a little bit, about how good the game is at the design level. They'd much rather trick people into getting it, which will only work so long.

Come back, SSG .

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I love your rants, this one was gold. And I'm serious, you really make your points clear and one can't argue with facts.

I think I'll start giving people links to your posts like this one whenever a filthy casual says he thinks Civ5 is any good.

Civ 4 did well in spite of its many flaws, Civ V has many flaws and well, that's it. >.> And I'm not even talking from a gameplay point of view. Just basic controls!

I got curious reading about Civ4 "flaws". I've been playing this game since 2005, singleplayer and multyplayer, perhaps i am a decent player now. But i really cannot see major flaws in the game, perhaps just the stupid AI? After that, there's really little to say, perhaps sometimes workers wont follow the designated path when building roads, or the scouts will not care about enemy units more powerful than them and go die to them if automatized... But after these, i really don't understand how people can say Civ4 has some important flaws... This game is hugely hard to manage, offers a huge replay value like already said, it's a legend, it's an insult to the Civilization series to compare it with V. We know it has been few years that software houses care just about GRAPHICS and do less gameplay, this is such a shame, even for me, being a young gamer. I remember those sweet days passed playing Simcity3000 or C-Evo (never played Civ3...), games that need you to think, and SC4 and Civ4 still needed you to think, but what now? It is just about the graphics, then let's everyone play some BF3 or MW3 then...

Archon_Wing said:

Civ 4 did well in spite of its many flaws, Civ V has many flaws and well, that's it. >.> And I'm not even talking from a gameplay point of view. Just basic controls!

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Yeah, that's just it. I agree with TMIT's points, but the game itself is enjoyable enough for me to want to play it regardless. The controls are rubbish and the programming seems sloppy at best (I don't know jack about programming but, as pointed out, when SC2 can run higher numbers of more detailed units at faster speeds, to me that indicates a bit of a mess on the coding end of things), but the content there is compelling enough that I can enjoy it anyway.


So in that sense, Civ IV is the beginning of the end. Sloppiness and laziness coming from the devs on the technical front, but enough great content in it to make it my favourite Civ game (and I've been hooked on the series like crack since Civ I). Civ V blew it on the content while worsening the programming and so I'm left wondering, what's the point? When Civ VI comes out, am I even going to care?


Then again, Oblivion was glitchy as all hell and was so bare in content compared to it's ancestors that it felt naked, but Skyrim was a huge step up from it. Apples and oranges, I know, but it is possible for a dev team to turn a bad habit around.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, Skyrim was super glitchy too, so maybe that's not the best example.

Also: TMIT, you ever try the Age of Wonders series? One of my absolute favourite TBS series, alongside Civ and HOMM, and it's more or less the spiritual successor to Master of Magic.

I got curious reading about Civ4 "flaws".

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The flaws were clearly highlighted earlier in this thread. If you don't understand how units doing things different than commanded, between-turn times longer than the player takes, and basic hotkey/unit selection are flaws, I don't know how to help you.

You say that gameplay comes before graphics, but the fact that civ IV put graphics ahead of gameplay is one of its greatest flaws of all. Just because civ V is even worse about it doesn't make the choices made for civ IV acceptable. Human beings should not be capable of selecting units so quickly using shift-click that the game lags behind 10+ units.

It is just about the graphics, then let's everyone play some BF3 or MW3 then...

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Those games have strategy too, not that your average player would even pause to consider that fact. While there is a twitch reflex element to the game, the vast majority of good players' success is that they are intelligent and aware of the entire screen. You could have machine-perfect reflex times and if the strategy isn't there, you'd still go badly negative.

When Civ VI comes out, am I even going to care?

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It depends on who is making it and whether they feel any incentive to try.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, Skyrim was super glitchy too, so maybe that's not the best example.

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Were they the same dev teams? Even if its the same company, you have to pay attention. I don't know with the elder scrolls series, but in call of duty every year who develops the game rotates between treyarch and infinity ward. Infinity ward did mw1, mw2, and mw3 while 3arc did World at War and Black Ops...but even that doesn't tell the whole story. After mw2, much of IW staff split. 3arc introduced some of the more terrible net code used in recent memory with lag compensation. IW took it a step further, removing content tracking that 3arc did and making lag comp at least as bad if not worse.

Unfortunately, even comparing to these terrible net-code games civ franchise is falling behind. At least in CoD you can still play with 12 people, not 3 and no more than 3 or you go OOS...host migration works at least sometimes, etc.

TMIT, you ever try the Age of Wonders series? One of my absolute favourite TBS series, alongside Civ and HOMM, and it's more or less the spiritual successor to Master of Magic.

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No, but I'm digging out some older TBS lately. I will be LPing some very soon along with some civ IV stuff. If I find time I'll check it out.

TheMeInTeam said:

When playing civ V, it takes the COMPUTER more time to process its turns than I do, processing movements and animations in the fog regardless of settings. I literally spend more time waiting than playing.

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In one of my games I was playing on a huge earth map, and barely into the medieval era, and the turns were taking about five minutes each. (On a decent computer.)
Eventually it got to the point where it crashed and no matter how many times I reloaded, it crashed again within a few turns. To make it all the more horrifying, it was in 2d mode.

Mouthwash said:

In one of my games I was playing on a huge earth map, and barely into the midevil (or however you spell it) age, and the turns were taking about five minutes each. (On a decent computer.)
Eventually it got to the point where it crashed and no matter how many times I reloaded, it crashed again within a few turns. To make it all the more horrifying, it was in 2d mode.

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Medieval Era or the Middle Ages.

@TMIT I do not use hotkeys and anyway i could not notice my units doing something different from what ordered (just workers sometimes making different road path...) and Civ IV gameplay is quite good, enough hard to learn, the graphics is nice (for 2005 surely it was) but it never happened to me my computer had problems when selecting even vast amounts of units. I've just played some game where had to command over 40 units and did fine. For what regards FPS games, more than strategy i'd talk about SMG raping (P90 reference?). It surely takes some brain to not get killed and have a nice k/d ratio, but Civ takes so waaay more brain, damn. I think you're over-exaggerating problems that not really are problems, it really takes guts to say Civ IV is a flawed game. Such complex programs like videogames cannot be perfection, little issues are always present in any title i've played, but great games can go past these little meaningless problems.
By the way i thought you liked the game, i've seen you making a lot of LP videos on Civ4 on YT, so why all the hate now?

TheMeInTeam said:

Were they the same dev teams? Even if its the same company, you have to pay attention. I don't know with the elder scrolls series, but in call of duty every year who develops the game rotates between treyarch and infinity ward. Infinity ward did mw1, mw2, and mw3 while 3arc did World at War and Black Ops...but even that doesn't tell the whole story. After mw2, much of IW staff split. 3arc introduced some of the more terrible net code used in recent memory with lag compensation. IW took it a step further, removing content tracking that 3arc did and making lag comp at least as bad if not worse.

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Same dev team, but they made a game in between (Fallout 3) using the same engine so I think that gave them the chance to woodshed their chops a little bit. Skyrim is still a long shot from being my favourite RPG, but it does set a precedent for a AAA dev team learning from their mistakes and trying to actually fix what's broken.

So there's hope for Civ VI after all, although the team's obvious reluctance to fix Civ V would mean that there would have to be a few changes in leadership made.

And definitely check out Age of Wonders. The empire-building side of it isn't terribly in-depth, but the breadth and diversity of the different races coupled with a fantastic magic system and one of the best combat systems I've seen in a 4X make it definitely worth playing.