Official Civilization 4 "haters" thread

Since there are so many threads complaining about civ 4 spamming this forum, I think it would be best to make an official one to clear the clutter, could a moderator make 1 or stick this?

Useless thread (and I'm posting in it... *scratches head*). Nobody's here to hate the game, and if they are, they need some new hobbies. They, and sometimes I, come here to discuss the game and share ideas of how the game can be even better. There are always those who express extreme displeasure, but that's life, and maybe they don't know any other way to express their desire for something better to their standards.

@henrycccc

In case you haven't noticed: Those who complain the most actually are those who love the CIV series the most. The average Joe who happens to buy CIV4 as the first edition of the series doesn't have enough emotional ties with it to really get angry enough to invest the energy of posting here.

The more a fan of the series you are, the more likely it is that you are disappointed by one or more aspects of CIV4. This has nothing to do with "hate" but (if you absolutely want to stick with the emotional reference) with disappointed love.

Personally, I think Firaxis wasted a huge amount of opportunities, concentrationg on fully redundant (what some people call) "eye candy". In a CIV game, I call this "disappointing" because CIV has always been about ingenious gameplay and a superb interface (AND a nice game atmosphere!), all of which I find lacking in this edition.

henrycccc said:

Since there are so many threads complaining about civ 4 spamming this forum, I think it would be best to make an official one to clear the clutter, could a moderator make 1 or stick this?

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Why celebrate or support complainers? We have heard them for weeks now.

Birdjaguar said:

Why celebrate or support complainers?

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IMO a rational complainer about game play can only help the game (or the next rendition of it).
complainers about the instability of the game should tell Firaxis that they still need to weed out more bugs.
Just because criticisms for a while doesn't mean they're ill-founded or useless.

I'm Demon DeLuxes biggest fan...he always makes good points.

I don't want to play this game until someone makes a really, really god mod that changes the game completely. It's just not fun right now. I haven't even played at all in three weeks.

JakeCourtney said:

I don't want to play this game until someone makes a really, really god mod that changes the game completely. It's just not fun right now. I haven't even played at all in three weeks.

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That's the spririt!

DemonDeLuxe said:

@henrycccc

In case you haven't noticed: Those who complain the most actually are those who love the CIV series the most. The average Joe who happens to buy CIV4 as the first edition of the series doesn't have enough emotional ties with it to really get angry enough to invest the energy of posting here.

The more a fan of the series you are, the more likely it is that you are disappointed by one or more aspects of CIV4. This has nothing to do with "hate" but (if you absolutely want to stick with the emotional reference) with disappointed love.

Personally, I think Firaxis wasted a huge amount of opportunities, concentrationg on fully redundant (what some people call) "eye candy". In a CIV game, I call this "disappointing" because CIV has always been about ingenious gameplay and a superb interface (AND a nice game atmosphere!), all of which I find lacking in this edition.

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Amen, you said what I was trying to say, only more elequently... as I'm drunk as a sunk, I'll leave just......... i dunno yuou do the thinking and the to-the-point schtuff

DemonDeLuxe said:

@henrycccc

In case you haven't noticed: Those who complain the most actually are those who love the CIV series the most. The average Joe who happens to buy CIV4 as the first edition of the series doesn't have enough emotional ties with it to really get angry enough to invest the energy of posting here.

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There are a few who've made their points for disliking the game very clear, and were respected for those points; but as more and more new people come onto these web-boards only to make the same points, it loses it's face value, and nobody really wants to hear it any more.

Many seem to be looking for hundreds of, "Yes Men" to sign their petition.

Thats what I don't understand. They really shouldn't expect complete support in their crusade against a game from that game's FAN-SITE.

Then, there are some who are so disaffected that they regurgitate one bad point with the intention of over-emphasizing it so that it is blown up into a huge spin about why this game is bad, and why nobody should ever enjoy it. This of course springs up a bandwagon mentality, where people who have never even played the game before, are coming on to the web-board to resonate a point that wasn't even very widespread or impotant to begin with. They do it because it directly competes with their favorite game; be it Civilization 3, Age of Empires 3, or some other obscure game that belongs in the RTS or TBS catagories.

Then you get some people who are like JakeCourtney, and do it for the Theatrical value. They just want attention. You have to remember this is the same guy who said he got Civilization 4 three days before it was released, and then came out two weeks later to tell us that he doesn't even own the game, despite his constant complaining about the game...

DemonDeLuxe said:

The more a fan of the series you are, the more likely it is that you are disappointed by one or more aspects of CIV4. This has nothing to do with "hate" but (if you absolutely want to stick with the emotional reference) with disappointed love.

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Why not just say - The more you are of a fan of the 'original' game, the more you are likely to enjoy Civilization 4. Most people who dislike Civilization 4, got their beginnings with Civilization 2, Civilization 3, and CFC.

The blatant contradiction that I made in the prior paragraph is to prove a point. You don't have to be a, "True Fan" to enjoy a game. Being a "True Fan" doesn't make you any more likely, or less likely to enjoy a game, nor does it make you better than somebody who is not a "True Fan."

What these "Dedicated Fans" from all eras of Civilization fandom fail to realize, is that every Civilization has had horrible bugs that made the game feel less than up to snuff to the standard of the time... In fact, there hasn't been a standard of the time. All games have bugs. All games. Every single one I've ever played has had a bug in it. This includes console games.

As for the bugs that I spoke about for Civilization?...

Civilization 1 {DOS} had horrible crashes. WinCiv was literally unplayable. CivNet was over-run with bugs, especially with taking another players city... Urgh... The most annoying thing about Civ 1 was when other Civilizations would plop a city right down next to your city, and you couldn't get rid of it!

Civilization 2 prior to the Gold Edition had so many graphical issues. Not to mention the Railroad over Water issue. Conquering worlds was very painful in this game, especially as partisans started popping out nearing the end. You'd need huge stacks of 20 just to hold a city, with each turn taking longer than the last...

Civilization 3 had so many loopholes to cheat a win from the AI that it was virtually impossible to find a challenge in the game. A ******ed monkey could win on Deity. CFC had balance issues thanks to the Agriculture trait. It was fun for a while, but after you reach 600 AD and realize you're going to win no matter what the enemy AI does, the game loses it's flare, especially as you're forced to spend 2 hours finishing up a game you've already won. This version also had the annoying need for stacks of 20 just to hold a city, with each turn taking longer than the last...

These are all fine points that fans know about. This is why there are so many out there willing to forgive Civ 4's faults. Because we know that these faults will be forgotten when Civ 5 is out; when a whole new slew of whiners comes out of the woodworks to compare and complain.

DemonDeLuxe said:

Personally, I think Firaxis wasted a huge amount of opportunities, concentrationg on fully redundant (what some people call) "eye candy". In a CIV game, I call this "disappointing" because CIV has always been about ingenious gameplay and a superb interface (AND a nice game atmosphere!), all of which I find lacking in this edition.

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I think Firaxis did a great job. I call the game wonderful. My only gripe is that it is too graphics intensive; but even I am willing to overlook that, considering that it's more playable than Civ 3 original was.

Edited: Because many of my points sound as if they're directed at Demon, when they're mainly subjective views about the same people Demon is talking about. They are not directed at him.

criticism can always seen as a chance to improve things. As long as it is contructive and not in a manner like 'Civ4 sucks'. Likewise fanboy praise such as 'my game works perfect and there is no single bug' add nothing to improve the game or enlighten anyone. Those comments are all useless in their way.

However, there must be a venue for open debate and criticism. According to Sirian there will be at least one add on, so we need to make sure as many good points are raised as possible.

The more you are of a fan of the 'original' game, the more you are likely to enjoy Civilization 4. Most people who dislike Civilization 4, got their beginnings with Civilization 2, Civilization 3, and CFC.

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Don't generalize things, you could be so so wrong
And by the way, I started with Civ1, but I liked all of the editions so far.

Civilization 3 had so many loopholes to cheat a win from the AI that it was virtually impossible to find a challenge in the game. A ******ed monkey could win on Deity.

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Ok, maybe you are simply the greatest player around, but I haven't seen that monkey, this kind of comment falls under the 'hip statement with 0 value added' for me.

i hate official civ 4 haters threads.

There are really two types of complaints to be posted about a game. There are the objective complaints, such as technical issues, and there are the subjective complaints, which are the liking/not liking the game issues. The former can be debated because there are facts and standards present to help the community determine what is the truth. The latter cannot be debated for any subjective argument boils down to a battle of opinions. A subjective battle simply does not end because there is no final truth to be arrived at. Instead, it continues endlessly for both sides are trying to be right, and with no truth to fall back on upon neither side can ever be proven to be wrong.

Personally, the logical way to go about this is to have debates only on the objective issues. Is the game technically sound or not? Has the A.I. behaviour improved? what are the ways of improving suspension of disbelief (i.e. minimizing the spearmen killing tanks issue)?

Subjective issues, on the other hand, are stuff that should be left alone. If someone declares they don't like the game, then let them not like the game. There is no law that states all of us must like Civilization IV. Likewise, there is no law that states that we must not like Civilization IV. If they like the game, so be it. Only make clarifications if the poster says something that is objectively untrue. Don't post wanting to be right. Post to find out the truth.

Unfortunately, many posters cannot seperate subjective and objective issues, and respond only with opinions in their quest to be right. Not much we can do about it really, but if there is to be a thread on the pitfalls of Civilization IV, let it be of objective matters rather than subjective ones. Debating the objective has value, for in finding out the truth one can learn and thus avoid mistakes in the future. Debating the subjective, on the other hand, is pretty much little more than a pissing match.

Oh, and I will echo Demon Deluxe's comment with a quick comment of my own. For a true Civilization fan, there is no such thing as loyalty to Firaxis. Instead, there is only loyalty to Civilization!

MeteorPunch said:

I'm Demon DeLuxes biggest fan...he always makes good points.

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oops

Hehe, I had to dig up the original post that started the copycat threads.

Zinegata you make a good point. However objective technical issues are taboo on here.
Demon DeLuxe has made another great reply also.

There are a lot of people that come on here and just want to gripe. I was among them for a month, still kind of am. I don't want to derail here though. I still don't see what is so hard about ignoring a thread. When I first got my game working after a month of owning it and wanting to play, I didn't come on here for at least a week. When I did come back, the last thing I wanted to do was get into the downward spiral of ventalation threads. I was trying to learn more about the game.

I then see a topic concerning gameplay and someones veiw on it. There has been alot of 'cIV overall' veiw threads recently. I was drawn to them to see someone elses veiw of everything overall. Good and bad. I didn't agree with some of it and did with others. Alot of times I didn't want to post because I wanted to try to get some more game time in before bed. And as some of you may have seen, there were ALWAYS people doing the 'boohoo' trolling in every one of these threads.
Someone mentions they dont like a new implementation and are frustrated by it and rather than just either leaving it alone for others that see it the same way, people feed their addiction to call the OP a whiner. Many of these threads could have spun off into a logical discussion concerning the original topic from different veiwpoints but decelerate to petty namecalling too fast.

The problem is people dont know how to ignore a thread. They love calling someone else a whiner, its like a power trip/ego boost or something. Just remember if you dont like the hater threads, quit 'bumping' them to call them a whiner.

There is alot out there on the forum right now on hater threads like this one. But I dont see many threads being made to try to compete. I bet the main page has maybe 8 posts max of 'positive' threads that are gameplay related. exclude expansion posibilities, and the one about pets and how old you are ones. They are positive but irrelevant. The fact is I think alot of people were disappointed in one way or another with cIV.
Now you cant please everyone I know. But as I was told time and time again when my copy didn't work, I should have expected that. Well, from the sounds of it the members have no reason to complain at whiners because they should have expected them based off the previous Civ releases. It works both ways.

Dairuka, you mention that people keep coming on here and saying the same thing over and over with the same issues. Alot of the double posts I noticed are new members anyways and probably found their way here through searching for the solution to their problem, and ended up on a messageboard. They are going to vent especially if they dont see anything related to their own issues.
They probably dont go past page 2-3 and I wouldnt expect them to go digging through archives anyways. Its a messageboard, not a library.

An official Civ 4 haters thread. Lol, what a silly idea. A suggestions for improvements thread - yes, that has premise. But just a Civ 4 haters thread. Come on, that serves little to no purpose whatsoever other than collecting all the unconstructive Firaxis lynch mob type complainers into one thread.

Actually, maybe that's a good idea and then we can nuke the lot in a oner.

King Flevance said:

Zinegata you make a good point. However objective technical issues are taboo on here.

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Eh? From what I've seen there are more threads on the technical issues here than gameplay ones. In general, it boils down to someone stating the fact that they cannot run the game, followed by the assault of apologists who seem blind to the fact that Civilization IV is a technical flop. Much of the debate then revolves around proving/disproving that not only Civilization is a technical flop, but it was an avoidable technical flop had Firaxis/Take 2 only invested more time and money in testing the software.

Just because some apologists jump on a subject doesn't mean it's taboo.