Will you be able to give us a version for Civ6

I think it's more about what you can do with a mod, what limitations you can live with. Regarding Civ 5, the complete lack of a government system (you "research" government types with culture, but what government form is active, at least before Industrial?), the 1UPT (I don't know if this can be changed in a mod), nailing certain nations down as city states no matter what happens, the rather artificial approach to religions, nation-wide happiness, and the fact the mod support somehow seems to be weaker than in Civ 4 in spite of Steam (it's very easy to load several non-compatible mods and you don't even get a warning) makes it "not worth it".

That being said, I could actually live with hexagons, having 64bit should make some things much easier, the additional "culture-based" tech trees are nice (if it was only combined with a true Civic system or at least government type system a la Civ 1 - 3 and some interaction with the main tech tree other than just era), City States who can evolve into a full civ if there is a power vacuum could be great, and quantified ressources would be good if it wasn't a ridiculously low amount (I think the designer wanted to have some kind of RPG, considering how small the armies tend to be - OK that should be moddable).

For any kind of realism's sake, xUPT is not a good idea for a civ game because the map tiles are too large and the numbers in any unit is unknown, unless you have some kind of "Size Matters". But even then you could do more to prevent Stacks of Doom with

• Collateral Damage
• Logistics

The earlier Civ games are too limited in their own way. IIRC the first (slightly) moddable civ game was (you could do little more than changing names), was already much better in this regard (including Multimaps), but completely without Culture or Religion, has Culture but no Religion and a silly tech tree structure.

Then there are the other Civ-like games, but they offer little additional benefit. If you didn't care for graphics at all (and didn't mind reprogramming a lot of features), Freeciv would be an alternative.

In general Civ IV's Expansions and in Particular BtS was Sid and Co.'s Modding Gift to the Civ community.

Not that Civ IV was as buggy as some claim.

Just as the WarLords Expansion was a bone/gift thrown to the Civ III players prior to the BtS expansion.

And Civ IV was hands down better than CiV on release, no contest.

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

And Civ IV was hands down better than CiV on release, no contest.

JosEPh

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AMEN to that, ur preaching to the choir,

JosEPh_II said:

And Civ IV was hands down better than CiV on release, no contest.

JosEPh

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That may be true but it wasn't perfect either.

Compared to manny other games Civ5 was really good at release. Unfortunately the gaming industry changed alot since Civ4 was released. Because apparently today it is perfectly ok to release unfinished buggy games.

Civ5 got two good expansions and it is now a decent game. It has been constantly in the top 10 most played games on steam that is very good for a turn based strategy game. So it can't be that bad as the hardcore Civ4 players claim it to be.

On thing that scared manny modder's away was that they didn't release the dll source code at the release. I don't think that will happen for Civ6 either. They probably won't release the source code at the release because of cloning. There are manny people waiting to create their own Civ6 like clone game to sell in all the app stores and make a few bucks. It would be a big present to them if they could just use parts of the Civ6 code instead of writing their own.

alberts2 said:

That may be true but it wasn't perfect either.

Compared to manny other games Civ5 was really good at release. Unfortunately the gaming industry changed alot since Civ4 was released. Because apparently today it is perfectly ok to release unfinished buggy games.

Civ5 got two good expansions and it is now a decent game. It has been constantly in the top 10 most played games on steam that is very good for a turn based strategy game. So it can't be that bad as the hardcore Civ4 players claim it to be.

On thing that scared manny modder's away was that they didn't release the dll source code at the release. I don't think that will happen for Civ6 either. They probably won't release the source code at the release because of cloning. There are manny people waiting to create their own Civ6 like clone game to sell in all the app stores and make a few bucks. It would be a big present to them if they could just use parts of the Civ6 code instead of writing their own.

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The thing that makes it impossible for me to enjoy would be the 1UPT decision. For a history simulator on a map that cannot be large enough to be 50 yards per tile, 1UPT is absolutely ridiculous. Completely shatters any ability to suspend disbelief.

As far as I can see, 1UPT can be modded out: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=380955

Thunderbrd said:

The thing that makes it impossible for me to enjoy would be the 1UPT decision. For a history simulator on a map that cannot be large enough to be 50 yards per tile, 1UPT is absolutely ridiculous. Completely shatters any ability to suspend disbelief.

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Well who said it's a history simulator or any kind of simulation? It's just a turn based strategy computer game it's not even some kind of simulation game. Games don't have to be realistic especially if they don't even claim to be.

1UPT might not be perfect but the same goes to the unlimited stacks of doom in Civ4. Both are just different rule sets used in different games.

alberts2 said:

Well who said it's a history simulator or any kind of simulation? It's just a turn based strategy computer game it's not even some kind of simulation game. Games don't have to be realistic especially if they don't even claim to be.

1UPT might not be perfect but the same goes to the unlimited stacks of doom in Civ4. Both are just different rule sets used in different games.

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I realize different players play the game for different reasons. Mine is to get as good a simulator out of it as possible. And there really would be no limit, given the many miles by many miles each tile represents, to the number of units that should be able to fit on a tile. Armies and navies do tend to travel in large groups as there tends to be security in numbers (and weaknesses to banding together as well.) I've never understood why there's ever been a complaint about SODs.

As far as I can see, 1UPT can be modded out: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=380955

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Interesting... I just fear there would be too many fundamental game changes that it would be very difficult to setup after simply breaking the 1UPT barrier.

Well, they did say that you can now do a combined arms 'stack' in the same tile (support and other units) AS WELL as up to 3 of the same unit in Corp structure. So, it is not known exactly how many UPT you can now have, in whatever combinations, that can be now done.

Or how modible it is...

Some limits to prevent SOD's, is very good...

There's no weakness with SODs as a game element. You just counter it by making it not always the best way to arrange your armies by making it have vulnerabilities. Surround and Destroy, bombardment, flanking and collateral already effectively make large stacks potential sitting ducks. Why limit a player's ability to make the poor decision to put all your eggs in one basket? Or are we saying that the complaint about SODs is that a nation has no limit to how much power they can amass? We realize this can be true both on offense and defense if city defenses can be made strong enough right?

I simply don't see any downside to the CivIV combat system and only limitless ways to improve things with even deeper levels of strategic considerations, thus the combat mod developments. I certainly don't see an upside to limiting the amount of units per tile. This is to say that we need to limit the amount of power a nation can obtain? Unnecessary. Even limiting the count of units per tile limits the proliferation of unit diversity too much.

The 1UPT is so abhorrent that it makes the game 'not Civilization' in my opinion but another game that should have taken its own name and left Civilization, as a franchise, to continue to grow on the path it was originally on. Instead, CivV hijacked the whole direction of the game development into a completely different path and it will never be forgivable imo.

I think this is a false dilemma. Just because Civilization isn't "The Operational Art of War" doesn't mean it has to be checkers. There are many shades between these two extreme cases, and I really think a good strategy game should err on the TOAW side. Of course, a game like Civilization cannot compete with a pure strategical wargame like TOAW, but CiV is just silly in that regard.

On the mapscale we are speaking about, there is no reason to limit stacks. Punishing stacks is certainly possible, there are even more options: Logistics (a unit in a stack deteriorates unless a supply train is present - small stacks or single units could forage instead), reducing attack strength (it's more of a hassle to deploy the unit for attack), reducing movement (the roads are overcrowded), and from late Industrial there is the occasional nuke that wipes the stack out.

War is only a part of Civilization there are other ways to win or lose. I don't see any indication that Civilization is supposed to be focused on war mainly.

It's a game so the mapscale is just hypothetical. One could also say something like i hate that I can only put one improvement per tile or only one city...............

"Tradition is a Lantern.
The foolish hold on to it,
The clever allow it to lead the way." (G. B. Shaw)

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That's how I see history and historical realism with respect to this mod. It is a sad fact that most of history was very much defined by warfare, and it is very questionable if it could have been otherwise, since it takes two to keep the peace.

Only today, where weapons are capable of destroying pretty much the entire biosphere whereas nations have become very dependent on each other (especially with respect to trade), we have a longer peacetime, at least in certain parts of the globe. And it likely took both conditions to reach that point.

The one time when a civilization-like game tried to focus on non-military means (Call to Power I & II) the results were almost insane, where a hostile lawyer could shut down your cities' production and you had no means to defend yourself - the designer obviously took his clues from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (arrest scene).

Regarding "It's a game", so is TOAW. This category is so broad that it doesn't tell you anything. It just means it is something you can do in leisure time and it has a goal (otherwise it would be a toy).

It will always amaze me how much we defend how we like to play with our toys. I'm as guilty as anyone else.

JosEPh

alberts2 said:

War is only a part of Civilization there are other ways to win or lose. I don't see any indication that Civilization is supposed to be focused on war mainly.

It's a game so the mapscale is just hypothetical. One could also say something like i hate that I can only put one improvement per tile or only one city...............

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War has been the main focus of political history thus is the main focus of Civ. Ultimately, it is a strategic wargame.

You make a good point about the improvements, cities and so on. However, what you said earlier is what rings true. 1UPT or stacks is just a different kind of game. By changing to a 1UPT mechanism, you are changing the game platform method itself to such a degree that it should no longer have inherrited Civ's name and thus destiny and thus the marketability of any game that tried to continue with Civ IV design principles.

More insidiously, this gave the intellectual property ownership of many civ design priniciples a wider net for the corporation to argue for in court so that a true Civ style game that uses Civ-familiar terminology (such as culture, civics, research, techs etc...) that advances in the direction of the original stack military methodology can be argued in court to be an infringement, even though the public will never be given that game now because some idiots thought it was a better way to go with 1UPT.

The depth of the tragedy of that change of direction was vast.

Thunderbrd said:

More insidiously, this gave the intellectual property ownership of many civ design priniciples a wider net for the corporation to argue for in court so that a true Civ style game that uses Civ-familiar terminology (such as culture, civics, research, techs etc...) that advances in the direction of the original stack military methodology can be argued in court to be an infringement, even though the public will never be given that game now because some idiots thought it was a better way to go with 1UPT.

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'Trip' was a devotee of a board game called "Panzer General" from the 70's. He joined Firaxis and used its concepts in the initial design of Civ5. He loved the 1 unit per tile system. So in a way Firaxis could allegedly be seen to have stolen the intellectual property rights of the designers of that game. Not sure, but it may have been a company called Avalon Hill.

Avalon hill is usually brilliant and it works for other games. Chess does quite well with 1UPT. But it just isn't Civ!

I didn't find 1upt too annoying in civ5. It does have some redeeming virtues in reducing micromanagement from simply not having that many units to keep track of, and it makes the task of moving units around more strategically meaningful, but it does lead to ridiculous traffic jams in the late game, and also cluttering up your map with units all over the place that in the civ4 scheme can be conviniently parked in a single city or a fort and ignored when you are not at war.

There is already a civ 4 c2c kinda like mod with civ 5 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=472)

but it is buggy and is nearly dead since most of the devs left but its still pretty impressive considering how limited civ 5 modding is compared to civ 4 bts

kevinbad2010 said:

There is already a civ 4 c2c kinda like mod with civ 5 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=472)

but it is buggy and is nearly dead since most of the devs left but its still pretty impressive considering how limited civ 5 modding is compared to civ 4 bts

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It would take a Mod such as this one you linked for me to even think of playing CiV.

And the developer is right, 2 active modders with that big of a Mod, their efforts Are Sooo time consuming.

JosEPh