The neurological basis of why Civ V is boring (and Civ IV was not)

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We need choices that matter in this game and have long lasting impact. Choices that are difficult to reverse.

For example, (this is just one example, there are lots of examples like this) if I wasn't allowed to buy land tiles or if the price was significantly more expensive, then that might put more pressure on me to push culture.

By committing to more culture that should in some way present me with an either/or choice with other aspects of the game. For example, perhaps a focus on lots of culture should make it more difficult for me to have a huge military. I'll avoid a discussion on the mechanics of that...

How many times have you played Civ 4 and went for a cultural victory only to have have all your neighbors start trying to beat up on you? In Civ 4 going for a cultural victory on a challenging skill level usually resulted in a smaller military since you are spending all your time building culture buildings. It is then difficult to refocus on military and defend yourself if you get attacked from multiple AI's. That is a good way to lose a game. I've lost some games doing that or at the very least had to change what victory condition I was going for.

In Civ 5 - you can have everything!!! Big Military, Lots of Culture, Lots of cities, Lots of Social Policies, etc... All I need is money, if I can build a strong economy, then I can have everything.

Where is the challenge in that? The formula for how to win this game is incredibly simple.

It is the lack of challenge that makes this game boring.


Perhaps this will help?

I find the OP intersting, and I think even if its not technically correct with chemical names, its got the right idea.
 
Dude, when I first played Civ5 it was like snorting cocaine ... the dopamine rush from being able to kill enemy units via bombardment with archers had me hooked. :D
 
Someone posted about confirmation bias, but that people "tend" to seek information that supports their position doesn't mean there are "two sides to every fact". Facts are singular. No matter how many want Hooker's conclusion to have been wrong, for instance, there just isn't any credible way to invent a new reality in which homosexuality is a mental illness. There isn't a "liberal" and "conservative" melting point for gold, one that is supported by Fox News and one that's supported by MSNBC.

First I must say I can see you speak as a proper scientist/skeptic (skeptic in the good way), and I agree with almost everything you write (in that post). I was the one who posted about confirmation bias so I find it a bit hard to follow how you went from the idea that someone would seek info to support their view to suggest it implies there are therefore two sides to every fact. Rather I thought it would more suggest the opposite. That is, that confirmation bias would often indicate two sides to an issue when there is only one.

Confirmation bias is pretty much why incorrect conspiracy theories exist (e.g. the moon landing hoax).

Anyway, I suspect that actually we are in agreement. My suggestion in this thread is that confirmation bias is playing a significant part in the support for the OP theory. Since this is a topic of discussion on a videogame fansite rather than a scientific study it isn't a big problem of course. Really I'm just putting it out there in a hope to remind people that this isn't how science is usually done and that actually this form of bias is extremely common, especially in political discourse unfortunately.
 
First I must say I can see you speak as a proper scientist/skeptic (skeptic in the good way), and I agree with almost everything you write (in that post). I was the one who posted about confirmation bias so I find it a bit hard to follow how you went from the idea that someone would seek info to support their view to suggest it implies there are therefore two sides to every fact. Rather I thought it would more suggest the opposite. That is, that confirmation bias would often indicate two sides to an issue when there is only one.

Confirmation bias is pretty much why incorrect conspiracy theories exist (e.g. the moon landing hoax).

Anyway, I suspect that actually we are in agreement. My suggestion in this thread is that confirmation bias is playing a significant part in the support for the OP theory. Since this is a topic of discussion on a videogame fansite rather than a scientific study it isn't a big problem of course. Really I'm just putting it out there in a hope to remind people that this isn't how science is usually done and that actually this form of bias is extremely common, especially in political discourse unfortunately.
There is a theory in Communications about the willingness of people to listen (and learn from) information that is presented as it relates to their existing attitudes. I believe it boils down to a Latitude of Acceptance and a Latitude of Rejection. The theory says that how much a person is willing to engage information being communicated depends upon how well that information matches their existing views. This is related to confirmation bias. It helps to explain why, when presented with the same evidence, two people (of equal intelligence?) can come to differing conclusions about its merit. Another study found that when people of opposing views are in a contentious situation in which they can form "teams", both sides are more likely to become more radical. There is an unfortunate tendency to put truth aside in favor of ego. This is also related to groupthink.

These biases may seem to suggest, on the surface, that the venerable "truth is just opinion and everyone's opinion is therefore of equal merit" canard -- that truth isn't singular. For instance, if groups of people tend to become radicalized in their thinking when they feel they're in competition, isn't it implied that the truth is secondary? If people are prone to only looking for evidence that supports their existing attitudes and reject information that challenges them -- even becoming more radically ideological, on a superficial level it would seem that truth is secondary and the multiplicity of opinion is what counts.

So, I was making this point to help those who would take the wrong message from the point about confirmation bias. It's not that truth isn't important or can't be discovered. It's that people have an unfortunate tendency to avoid it. I hope this is clear; I am many hours past my bedtime and tend to become unclear when I'm tired.

P.S. As for "conspiracy theories", one of the reasons they have so much traction is because conspiracy happens constantly. For instance, over 70% of the American public in some polling wanted a public option and yet neither party would allow one. The Obama White House made a secret deal with industry at the start of the process, guaranteeing that single-payer would not be considered and that the public option would not be part of the final bill. The Republicans presented a united false front, one that conveniently dropped right before Christmas Eve. The thing that upsets the industry is that the mandate (fines) were reduced. This is likely a large reason why the health industry has switched from giving its largest donation to the Dems (Obama got 18 million) to giving more to Republicans. The industry likely believes it can count on the Republicans, who continue to pretend to oppose "health reform", to deliver. The goal is to have "health care reform" mean the mandate and nothing more. What was passed was just about that, but the fines weren't large enough to placate the industry, apparently.

The point I'm making is that, despite the will of the public (wanting a real public option, not the watered-down-to-nothing version the House passed and then the Dems whipped against) -- both parties have put on a kabuki show. The Obama White House lied repeatedly, and so did everyone else involved. The public didn't get their option. That's conspiracy, and it happens constantly. Some conspiracies are nastier than others, of course. But, it's quite clear when looking at wealth trends that the rich and their retainers (politicians/media) have been conspiring for decades. Neofeudalism is already happening. It can already be seen with words like "globalization", "outsourcing", and "austerity". The latter is all the rage right now. It's not austerity for the ruling class, of course. They know it for what it actually is: incremental serfdom.

The government poisoned many Americans during Prohibition by substituting wood alcohol for ethanol. It gave people syphilis and covertly studied the deterioration for decades. Kids were fed radioactive oatmeal and sprayed with DDT. People were experimented on with many forms of toxins. People were covertly injected with polonium in hospitals. Eugenics was popular; kids were warehoused in places like Fernald and ethnic populations were involuntarily sterilized (like those kids). Chomsky and others have documented in great detail many of the conspiracies America has been involved in in terms of foreign involvement (putting dictators in place, et cetera). America isn't special; conspiracy happens because power/money corrupts. Conspiracy is a way of life for the people in power, the same people who get retroactive immunity for their crimes (in a country with the highest percentage of imprisoned people per capita) -- which itself is a form of conspiracy.

We get austerity and imprisonment. They get bail-outs, stimulus, retroactive immunity, media and think tank jobs, cushy government appointments, and corporate roles. Some even get black sites and hit lists.

Did I also mention I tend to talk too much when I'm fatigued? Feel free to edit this post down if it's too large.
 
Thus Civ V is much better, not having to do all that stuff.
That's a point of view. I personally prefer CtP's public works to Civ's workers, but no matter how it is done, I think it's interesting to change the landscape and improve it, and I don't think Civ V provides any "one-more-turn" feeling in that area.

Fine. I don't want to change building production.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I want to have the possibility to build a new, interesting, building when I have discovered the tech. In Civ V, this is not the case because there are few buildings, few interesting ones, and they take so long to build that only your big-production cities will be able to afford them - you can buy them, but that's expensive and probably unefficient.

Were we really doing a lot of promotions in Civ !V? I find that I'm doing enough promotions when at war.
There were more kinds of promotions. City defense/offense/all-around attack for instance was one of 3 choices vs. 2 choices rough/open, plus instant heal, which is mostly unbalanced. Insta-heal does, however, provide with the opportunity to use it many times during warfare, but the reduced number of units simply means less promotions. Again, I'm just answering whether there's more or less decisions to be done in one turn, not whether that point is more fun.

Too true. But what we do now, is survey the land, see how our soon to be dead neighbors are doing. Check Economic View, Check Demographics to see how we stack up. Move a worker that's just finished building something, new production for a city that's finished production. I find that Civ V has plenty to offer. I am mostly at war though, so I'm always moving my Units and preparing for the next war.
Yes, if you play warmonger, you can keep yourself busy. Problem is, if you don't, you have very little to do, particularly when comparing this to Civ IV (or even II for that matter). It's even be possible to have fun with warfare in Civ V if the ai puts up an interesting fight, which in my experience, it hardly ever does.

BTW: I do feel that Civ V has a little less 'One more turn' attitude to it, but does have a lot of 'One more game' attitude to it. I want to win the game in diverse and interesting ways for Achievements, and want to play more games to get more Achievements. For Civ IV, I just played Huge/Marathon/Continents with different leaders, but with Civ V, I want to try everything. My first two games have been Standard/Standard/Continents with Washington, and Large/Epic/Pangea with El-Rashid.

Cheers.
I feel different. I feel there's no replay value, and I could invent the achievements myself. I always played with all the civs and tried to win with each of them. I played OCC since Civ II. I played with house rules. But I don't feel like playing Civ V. I could enjoy the game as a wargame, even though I prefer Civ IV, but bugs, poor ai and lack of in-game world-builder make me shelf V until some patches hopefully correct the issues.
 
First I must say I can see you speak as a proper scientist/skeptic (skeptic in the good way), and I agree with almost everything you write (in that post). I was the one who posted about confirmation bias so I find it a bit hard to follow how you went from the idea that someone would seek info to support their view to suggest it implies there are therefore two sides to every fact. Rather I thought it would more suggest the opposite. That is, that confirmation bias would often indicate two sides to an issue when there is only one.

Confirmation bias is pretty much why incorrect conspiracy theories exist (e.g. the moon landing hoax).

Anyway, I suspect that actually we are in agreement. My suggestion in this thread is that confirmation bias is playing a significant part in the support for the OP theory. Since this is a topic of discussion on a videogame fansite rather than a scientific study it isn't a big problem of course. Really I'm just putting it out there in a hope to remind people that this isn't how science is usually done and that actually this form of bias is extremely common, especially in political discourse unfortunately.

The science is just a hook for a clever insight into our subjective game experiences, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Civ 5 actively drives you away from doing things (don't make buildings, let the computer run your cities, don't build roads, don't build cities) and removes choices (when going for a culture/science win I run up the top side of the tech tree as far as I can, and then have to research a dozen or more techs that I don't need to get to the one or two that I require to win.) Civ 4 had a series of smaller rewards and more choices at each point; I'd add that there are also many more ways of approaching that game. So I don't need to worry about dopamine to get something interesting out of this thread.
 
In game design circles this is known of as reward scheduling. Generally, you want to have several different schedules going at the same time so that there's always "something" about to pop. These are seen in all games especially RPGs. Civ historically has had good reward schedules leading to the (in)famous "just one more turn" effect. I agree that Civ V currently is not a tight.

Reward schdules do not in an of themselves make a game however. See progress quest.
 
I agre with the OP, but the biggest problem I see is that there is really only one viable way to win: Global Domination.

Sure you can get the UN vote, if you haven't won by the time you get that far.

Or, you can hold out until you get the science to build a space ship. By then though you either didn't build the UN or have turned off CS.

Finally, you can go for culture, but this seems to take longer than any of the above and does not seem worth the trouble unless you are just 'going for the achievement'.

In other Civs I actually felt wins other than domination were worthwhile. In CiV I get bored if I'm not fighting all the time...
 
Here's a link that I think is appropriate for the discussion in this thread:

CRACKED.com: 5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted.

discuss.

A frightening read for sure. However, reflecting over that sort of stuff I think is necessary for any person who spends a fair bit of time playing video games. The frequent references to WoW are totally appropriate too.

Interestingly, there are many things in there that could make the civ franchise more addictive and I'm curious now whether that is what will happen with civ on facebook. I know if civ were to take on many of these concepts I would be quick to abandon it. Actually, the introduction of steam achievements to the game I view as a small step in that 'addictive' direction.

While civ4bts is widely considered (particularly by civfanatics :)) to be a very addictive game, I think it's mostly for the right reasons.
 
^ Most of what was written in that article were merely paraphrases of an entire study or field on game behavioral design. The first link in that article takes you to an article written by someone who has a doctorate in "behavioral and brain science". i think OP's ideas and some of the responses here are driven along these lines of thought. the only difference is the author made references to experiments done on chimpanzees and not monkeys. ;)
 
I hope the mod doesn't get mad at me for not adding to the conversation but I want to thank all as I found this a fascinating thread to read.:thanx:
 
So true..
Look at this, Sid Meier keynote in a thread i'm about to write now, where i describe how the devs obviously failed to comprehend anything the FATHER OF THE SERIES himself explained.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9935523

I do believe that the design team think about many possibility and eager to make civ5 different.

However the new designed mechanism was born with lots of congenital defects.

I do not blame the design team. I even think the new design will be best of the series when I read pre-released information.


CIV5 just fail us, simply.
 
I could only play 2 games of civ5. It was terrible. There are many reasons why... I made a long textpad list whilst playing the 2nd game of changes that would be required... it was/is around 4 pages.

I lol'd so hard I almost peed on myself
 
Hello all,
I'm writing just to share my experience: after the first week I returned back to Civ IV, the Rhye Mod.
I assume that, when Rhye creates his great mod for Civ V, I will play it.
Untill that moment, I'll continue playing CiV IV.
 
I agre with the OP, but the biggest problem I see is that there is really only one viable way to win: Global Domination.

Sure you can get the UN vote, if you haven't won by the time you get that far.

Or, you can hold out until you get the science to build a space ship. By then though you either didn't build the UN or have turned off CS.

Finally, you can go for culture, but this seems to take longer than any of the above and does not seem worth the trouble unless you are just 'going for the achievement'.

In other Civs I actually felt wins other than domination were worthwhile. In CiV I get bored if I'm not fighting all the time...
It seems like culture would take FOREVER. I've gone for domination, which is the opposite of my preference in playing style. I just got tired of the annoying AI civs.

(Also, back to my long post above. It should be mentioned that the top tax rate under Eisenhower was 91%. Guess what it is now... Guess what both parties are doing to make sure it stays very low. Austerity for us. Less and less taxation for them.)
 
It's not just that there's a missing stream of rewards, there's actually a fairly steady flow of negativity in Civ V. Diplomacy & Happiness, or should I say unhappiness? The AI insults you with generic nonsensical messages periodically for no apparent reason.

Too much negative reinforcement in the wrong places. It's an empire building game yet the player is punished for doing just that. Build a city - punished, capture a city - punished.

I just gave up on a game not because I was losing but because it just became too unfun to continue with.
 
Why do you feel the need to resurrect a two and a half year old thread just to post why you don't like the game? If you don't like it, don't play it. Go open another thread to vent your frustration on a more detailed post, not necropost on a thread that has been dead for nearly three years.
 
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