Problems with the Civ5 business & development model

Moderator Action: There seems to be a bit of recent demand for a thread on this topic, unaccompanied by a willingness or ability to identify the line between rant and discussion. Thus I am creating this thread on the topic in order to end the cycle of unsuccessful attempts. Please do not create duplicate threads on this topic.

It is thought by some that there are a number of problems with the business model surrounding Civ5; problems which should not be replicated in future Civ iterations. Such problems fall into the categories of DLC, Multiplayer, Optimisation & AI.

• DLC - some say that the DLC model is a way of milking a little bit of money at a time without producing much of actual substance, and that the focus on DLC, particularly in the early stages of Civ5 development, came at the detriment of proper support for the game, contributing to the other problems. Do you agree with this assessment? Do you think a similar mix of DLC and expansions for future iterations would be good or bad?
• Multiplayer - some say that the multiplayer experience in the game is sub-par, and has not been adequately supported in the development of the game, particularly in relation to mods. Do you agree with this assessment? Do you think it's acceptable for multiplayer to be dealt with, developed or supported as it has been?
• Optimisation - some say that many loading times and turn times are much too slow for a game of this pedigree, and development and support has focused far too little on rectifying this problem, preferring instead to implement new features and produce DLC. Do you agree with this assessment? Do you think it's acceptable for optimisation to be dealt with, developed or supported as it has been?
• AI - some say that the AI in Civ5 is particularly weak and hasn't been focused on in development and support nearly enough, again with new features and DLC taking attention away from this vital aspect of the game. Do you agree with this assessment? Do you think it's acceptable for the AI to be dealt with, developed or supported as it has been?

Please discuss these questions civilly and productively.

The main thing I'd say is about the DLC. I enjoyed getting a new pack coming out, especially when it usually introduced one new civ into the mix with a scenario. I found it fun to try out the new civ and the fact they were staggered a couple of months apart meant there was something new around the corner as well.

Personally, I'd welcome more DLC, especially if they updated a couple more of the earlier scenarios, such as the wonders of the world scenario, with Assyria being added to the playable civs in the scenario and at Hatti and/or Sumer getting a full civ.

The only thing on the downside of DLCs for me is from a modding point of view; when I create a mod, I want to use the assets from the DLCs - especially leaderheads and units, but this renders the mod unplayable by those without it. To combat this, it would be fantastic if Firaxis found a way for a mod to recognise what was on an individual system and play to it's capacity - e.g. an ancient mod would play with or without the Babylonian civilization depending on whether or not the user had that DLC.

DLC - I have no issues with DLC as long as it is moderately priced (an example of bad DLC, take a look at Sims 3 DLC/Store). Yes, it may be another "milking" scheme but an easy solution is this, if you don't like it.. simply don't buy it.

Multiplayer - I think that Multiplayer is bad in Civ 5, and I'm not exactly sure as to how that came to be, but I geniunely think that this is only an exeception in this iteration and that they will work harder on Civ 6 to have MP work fairly good.

Optimisation - I agree, Civ 5 is a demanding game which causes these ridicolous graphics issue (grey tiles), slow loading times.. etc. But like Sims 4 is planning to make their game more low-end friendly without going overboard with graphics, I think Civ 6 is more likely to go that road as well, and to be honest, we don't need fancy graphics, Civ games are revolved around primarily the gameplay.

AI - I play on Warlord still so I don't really see the flawed AI, but I don't mind, the game is still fun (and I play for fun rather to win.. or something along those lines). There's been many complaints about AI for sure...

Generally I feel that Civ 5 wasn't designed as best as it should or could have been, but since Ed and Dennis took charge they truly improved the game from what it was, you got to admit that. And hopefully they will have enough time to make Civ 6 even better.

You also got to understand that civ 5 was a "revolution" game because it completely overhauled several key mechanics of the game (One unit per tile, hexagonal tiles, new battle system etc.) which caused several elements of the game to be "left out".

But people also have to remember, that no matter what, they are doing this as a "job".. this is a mod development studio, Firaxis along with 2k are mainstream places, their goal is to make game, but also to make a profitable product, which, probably resuled in several decisions such as two expansion packs. I like the expansion packs and I have no issue with paying for them.

DLC - Yes/No. Yes, it is a problem when they release the product in tiny increments for large sums. DLC like the scrambled continents should be no more than 99 cents to $1.99 at most. No, because I haven't bought it, and my gameplay hasn't diminished any.

Multiplayer - Who has the time to try a multiplayer version of a game like CIV? I certainly don't.

Optimization - Yes, but it's industry wide. With the fragmentization of the hardware, there will always be problems with the way the game runs and loads, but it doesn't mean that the developer can't work to improve this aspect of the game.

A.I. - YES. With these types of games that tend to focus on single player, a good A.I. is a must. Actually multiple good A.I. to handle different aspects of the decision making process. An A.I. needs to play differently at each level so that you have a different experience as well. I do not know of the policy about discussing other games/products here, but I'll go on a limb and say the Stardock's Gal Civ 2 Ultimate has/had a great A.I. No reason CIV couldn't also have one. The people at Stardock keep tweaking the A.I. many years after release.

No game is perfect, but some things are fundamentally a must, proper optimization and A.I. are 2 of them.

Let me add one more thing to the list - How about releasing finished games that do not need to be beta tested by the paying community for months or years after the initial release.

DLC - I enjoy the DLC whenever it is introduced and would gladly support the introduction of new "official" civs and maps. They keep the game fresh and interesting. Perhaps working with the talented MOD community we could see competitions that assist both. A more diverse Civ selection only helps the product and player in achieving their desired game style or goals. New Civs tend to lend a targeted balance to games as you can pick and choose those AI opponents you wish to play against given your game parameters. To me balance and AI remains a stumbling block for the game but IS fixable on many different planes not just the engine. Bring on quality DLC that introduces new components like units, buildings and unique traits and I will keep buying it. Maps too act as a balancer thus it would behoove the developers to create better maps, better starting points for Civs better placement of resources (including natural and man made wonders). An option to turn off features also acts as a balancer. All these could be part of DLC.
Multiplayer - I have many hours logged (close to 4,000) ...frankly only a few at multiplayer. There are those in the Civ community that relish the challenge it presents but if it goes away I wouldn't be upset in the least. Finding the right playing partners at the right time remains the biggest difficulty.
Optimisation - Load speeds never bothered me. Even the intro cinematic (which after a few watches I usually turn off) was never an issue. Running some huge maps however IS a stumbling block solved only by not running them (even on higher end systems). Obviously a fix would be great but my enjoyment of the game has never been hampered by running standard or large maps either. A "fix" that would result in keep those persons those with mid level processors out of the game, in my eyes, is not worth the "fix" at all. I'm an old school grognard that used to push hundreds of cardboard squares around some pretty boring playing boards...I'd rather see a cut down of the quality of the graphics if it will speed up the game and let more people play.
AI - THIS! This remains the main issue. When a player's only choice is to set the game at higher levels (effectively only giving the AI a better starting point) it only prolongs the plight. I have always thought the higher levels as a balancer to be an ill conceived and a lazy developers answer to the AI issue. Spend resources on true AI development and this game would be ground breaking, have more fans, better iteration staying power and better -MUCH better- sales. Fix the logic engine and add balancing Civs and Maps and there would not be a need to reintroduce the game as often.

- DLC: I don't care of them by their own. This is a business, they have to make money, it's OK. The problem could be if they cut down time for product cuality in order to milk the game. OK milk as much as you want, but please reach a solid cuality in your product first!!.

- Multiplayer: Yes, the MP experience is horrible. They should have worked it out more, specially mod support.

- Optimization and AI: Yes there's so much room of improvement on both!!

The problem lies with the initial vanilla release. It was a disaster. I think they have fixed the game with G&K, until then I didn't have the "one more turn" syndrome. The core program was flawed and they did an extremely good job optimizing and re-doing the game, but to many people that's no excuse. Next time provide a initial release with some decent quality. Make public beta testing, and product quality measures. Hire decent professionals... heck! anything to publish a decent product!!

I said it many times here in the forums and I say it again: I don't like online distribution connected with DRM and account linked internet activation stuff. I want to have an installation disk that I can install whenever and wherever I want to - and not when some server on the other side of the world is available and thinks that I am actually allowed to use a game I already paid full price for. I especially want an installation disk if I explicitly walk into a shop and buy a game package and carry it home. I am all for online distribution for those who want it, but if I buy a game in a shop I don’t want to have the download and activation nonsense if I get home. Then I simply want to play my game!!! Yes, I am unreasonably insatiable, I admit it…

I have endured and accepted a lot of copy protection nonsense - but I won't accept online DRM for a full price AAA title. Yes I know, it's inevitable and companies will continue to do it as long as most customers don't care and accept it. But I won't. So what happens? I generally bought all Civ related stuff from Civ I to Civ IV full price and mostly day one. And for most Civ games I also own several versions (Vanilla, expansions, fully patched Complete version, etc.). So I usually paid a lot of money for Civ games. I didn't do so for Civ V. All I paid for Civ V is 5 EUR for Vanilla, 2,50 EUR for G&K and 8 or so Pounds for BNW. Which actually shows my dedication to Sid Meier and the franchise because I never ever bough anything STEAM ever before or after. So at least as far as I am concerned Firaxis is losing money, my money, the stuff they are usually so eager to get - but if they don't care I don't care. Simple as that.

Regarding AI: Good AI is important in a strategy game. If someone designs a strategy game and puts in lots of stuff the AI can’t handle, that’s bad game design. If you are a clever game designer don’t do that. And although AI in Civ games was never brilliant it usually was fairly reasonable. Civ V AI in the beginning was abysmal. So abysmal that game testers and magazines actually criticized it – which is a really really bad sign. This improved, but bad AI is still one of the major complaints regarding Civ V. Three years after initial release. Which brings us to…

Optimization: a game should be close to finished when it is released. I don’t mind a few minor bugs that get fixed quickly, I also don’t mind expansion that bring new features – but if I have to wait three years (after release!) and have to buy two more expansions for a game to get from “abysmal” to “somewhat playable” then some things are really severely wrong here! And if Firaxis think this is OK and even the majority of the fanbase think this is OK – this might be a working business model for those involved. For me it is not. Yes, it’s common today for other companies as well, but this does not make it OK for me. All it does is push me towards older games that are still widely available, disk based, reasonably polished and cheap as dirt – or books and other stuff. As said: if they don’t care I don’t care.

I like playing with a lot of available default civilizations for the personality and variety of them, but DLC is kind of problematic in the way they've done it because through throwing it in so many parts means that it causes all kinds of annoyances in multiplayer and save games.

And yes, multiplayer has been mostly glossed over for some reason - even though it's an incredibly popular part of the game? The netcode in many places is laggy and messy, crashing is every day business, and there is no real solution for having a "fair" game yet after all these years. Pitboss games still are not really possible unless you're using third-party software (which also has its problems), so yeah.

The AI still isn't fantastically clever, but it's not as big an issue as some of the others. As Civ V is a game you can completely shape to your own hand, you can make it harder or easier on yourself fairly easily anyway. It's no excuse, but at least it's not completely gamebreaking.

I've never had problems as I always had a good computer, so I can't really speak on that.

DLC - I'm completely okay with, and even encourage, DLC. I think it's a great way to add a bit of diversity into the game while not having a full fledged expansion (which can be time consuming and more expensive). I did like the DLC/Expansion mix, but I think it could have been implemented better. With G&K and BNW, there were a ton of changes and the Vanilla Civs (which also include the DLC) were left a bit dry compared to the new ones. In my opinion, the DLC Civs would have been better to release after the game was "complete" so that they could take advantage of all the new mechanics. Otherwise, as I said before, I like the mix of DLC and Expansions, but think it could have been improved a bit.

Multiplayer - I don't play MP really ever, but I do kind of wish they had scenario support. Other than that, I can't comment.

Optimisation - I really don't have a problem unless I'm playing on large/huge maps or getting VERY late in the game. I'm sure there are things that can be done to "speed things up" but it's fine for me.

AI - I've never played another Civilization game, so I can't comment on how the AI compares to previous games. The one thing I don't really like is that the AI doesn't get "smarter" as you increase in difficulty, it just gets more bonuses. I actually have tweaked my Leader Flavors and have gotten better AI, but beyond that I'm not really sure what can be done.

Overall, I love Civ 5. It's come a long way since Vanilla and has turned into a fantastic game. I've logged way more hours than I'd like to admit to, but have enjoyed it thoroughly. I'd still like one more balance patch addressing some issues (early expansion - peaceful or warmongering; updating some older Civs to take advantage of new mechanics; and Archer line dominance), but am pretty happy with the way the game turned out.

DLC : I like the model actually. Sure, there are a few regrettable ones like the Scrambled map packs, but otherwise it's just fine.

Multiplayer : I have never, and will probably never, play Civ V in multiplayer. I honestly have trouble understanding why anyone does, so obviously I don't want more resources given to that effect... however, it baffles me that mods apparently don't work for multiplayer, as that would be the perfect solution since it is (I believe) a minority of very active players who enjoy multiplayer Civ, ie the kind of people who would go ahead and fix the problems themselves through mods.

Optimisation : It's fine. Turns get a bit long in the end game, but as long as you play standard size it's never egregious. I would be fine with the time between turns being a little longer if it was in order to improve the AI

AI: Well yeah. That's the biggest problem with CiV, and not an easy one to solve, but certainly one I hope they are aware of when designing CiVI.

DLC: I don't really have a problem with it. It's not very expensive, and not really essential to gameplay. I have it because I love the game, but even with the DLC prices factored in, Civ V has probably given me the best money spent to time played ratio of any game I've ever bought before. I don't have a problem with giving this company a few extra dollars for a little bit of extra content. If I didn't want it I wouldn't have bought it.

Multiplayer: It's hard to create a good game of civ multiplayer since it's such a long game. Still, if you give people the option to play multiplayer, make it good. I'm sure this could be improved quite a bit, although I recently played a bit of a multiplayer game on LAN with two friends and it was pretty fun. When you increase the number of people and make it online though, bad things are going to happen, and the game doesn't respond very well to these challenges. This would be a nice improvement I hope they make in the future, but not one that would change my enjoyment of the game significantly.

Optimization: I'd love to be able to play on huge maps without having to read books in between turns. I feel as though the game itself plays super well when you're part of a big world instead of a relatively small world, and faster turns would be very helpful. Still, I don't know how difficult the challenges would be in that regard. This is their first venture in to 1upt, and I'm hoping they improve on this for Civ VI.

AI: Same as the previous point. AIs are difficult to program, especially for a game this complicated. There are still a number of things they should have been able to improve on though, especially with regards to troop placements in wars. I hope they can improve the AI in civ VI.

DLC: I don't have an issue with the concept of DLC. I also don't have any huge problems with how they did DLC with Civ5. I bought most of them with notable exceptions the Scrambled ones. But that's OK, it's part of the model. If it was cheaper I might have said what the heck and got them. Or if it had core content/gameplay, I might have bought them at the current price point. I was employed by a CCG company for 10 years and it reminds me of the price point discussions we had on oddball specialty products. It's a real careful balance of the "must have" factor versus the cost, and taking into account development, production, and distribution costs. Perception is a huge issue. If you piss off the market that can spoil your whole product line.

Multiplayer: To me it's a no-brainer decision that the future of this game is in the cross-platform market, particularly tablets. There's also a huge market of people who do things such as play scrabble and other games against each other on their smartphones. If Civ6 can tap into those it'd be huge. Without diminishing gameplay experience (I wasn't impressed with the Facebook game at all). It'd have to be pretty seamless, however. MP as easy as SP, without a any issues.

Optimization: I don't really have a problem with turn times and such. And I think the power of computers is growing so far that frankly I see this whole issue as going away on its own. Two caveats:

• If we get a true cross-platform game (see above), then lower capacity platforms (such as smartphones) will have this issue. Perhaps much downgraded graphics and animations, while the gameplay stays the same.
• I do currently have concerns about running my video/graphics processor so hot. When I run Civ it clearly heats up big time. And, I've burned out a graphics card before, which I attribute to Civ5 running it so hot. I don't have any evidence of that, it's just my gut feeling, but clearly Civ5 is very hard on the graphics chip.

AI: Clearly improvements need to be made here. Sell it as a DLC, I don't care, but give it to us.

I don't think there's any problem with their Business Model which is essentially Main Game + a couple expansions + some small DLC content.

The real issue is the 1st release usability. CIV is in a position where they shouldn't have to rush to release, it's an established franchise that doesn't have many competitors for the type of game that it is. They're not going to lose out on sales if they wait longer to fix issues.

The other issues listed are not really related to their business model, it's just poor design/execution.

Let's be honest here, Pre-G&K Civ 5 was horrible. The AI was far worse, some game parts were fundamentally broken, the DLC made it so you had to pay for CIVS rather than simple extras (like mappacks)
After G&K, they turned a different leaf, and that works well. A lot of the problems with the original Civ5 have been fixed, to the best of the Dev Team's extent. The DLC released since then has mostly been mappacks and small little things, the kind of thing that DLC is perfect for - sprucing up the game, not near-mandatory stuff. Both expansion packs offered more than enough to justify the price tag as well.
Now I have a pretty high-end PC, but even on my crappy-ass-bought-to-play-Oblivion PC I had before, CiV could run decently. A few mods to help increase loading times don't hurt either.

I do hope that the release of Civ 6 will be a product that from the get-go can compete with Civ 5 complete. Civ 5 vanilla left out a LOT of stuff, and if a lot of those complaints were made pre-GK, sure, you'd have been right.
Right now though, I feel the devs are doing pretty well. AI could use some shaving, yes, but that's about it really.

Sorinth said:

CIV is in a position where they shouldn't have to rush to release, it's an established franchise that doesn't have many competitors for the type of game that it is. They're not going to lose out on sales if they wait longer to fix issues.

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You're not looking at it the way 2K or Firaxis looks at it. They're afraid that they will lose out on margins (profit) if they don't wait longer to fix issues.

See: putting more work into development of the initial release = higher development costs = less margins (profit).

Personally, I think that's kind of short sighted. It ignores quality, and that people DO read reviews, that more are willing to pay more for a good game, and that some will actively avoid poor games, even if otherwise they would be inclined to buy it.

For example, I'm one of the people who waited until much later to get Civ5. If they had done a better job at the initial release, absolutely I would be one of the early adopters buying the game on opening day. As it was, they didn't get my money until almost a year later, at a discounted price to boot.

The other issues listed are not really related to their business model, it's just poor design/execution.

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That doesn't make them less valid or not worth talking about. It just means you think Camikaze didn't do a great job of picking the title for the thread.

DLC – I like some of the DLC. I don’t play scenarios, but I like the extra civs and that’s about it. I don’t mind spending $5 for a download. Lose the extra maps.

Multiplayer – I think it takes away from the core game. Try to balance all civs for MP (Rome vs America?) when they should have different strengths in different eras based on historical traits. Get rid of MP.

Optimization – I have a powerful computer at the moment, this isn’t much of an issue. But if an issue arises, I expect that it gets fixed in a timely manner.

AI – It would be nice if the AI could think and act more like a human opponent, but I’m not sure how long it will take before a computer will do that, so I accept the AI for what it is.

Civ belongs on a PC, not some other platform.

budweiser said:

Multiplayer – I think it takes away from the core game. Try to balance all civs for MP (Rome vs America?) when they should have different strengths in different eras based on historical traits. Get rid of MP.

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Curious. Why do you feel it has to be balanced / fair?

Many games are inherently unbalanced, and that's part of the charm and part of the challenge. When you win despite having a civ that's perceived as weak, that becomes an epic game.

If we really want it to be balanced, then simply let each player pick their own civ, even allowing duplicates (e.g., 2 players both pick Rome).

Wodan said:

Curious. Why do you feel it has to be balanced / fair?

Many games are inherently unbalanced, and that's part of the charm and part of the challenge. When you win despite having a civ that's perceived as weak, that becomes an epic game.

If we really want it to be balanced, then simply let each player pick their own civ, even allowing duplicates (e.g., 2 players both pick Rome).

Click to expand...

Perhaps I wasnt clear. I believe too many dev cycles have been spent trying to balance MP.

DLC - I didn't experience much problems with this since gnk gold included all the DLCs in one golden edition. I saved the effort and time by having the all in one gnk.
multiplayer - I have no issues with multiplayer except for the challengers that often complain about shift clicking. When I ask them what shift clicking is , they usually say something like you should know, you're the one doing it. I guess multiplayer is a bit funnier when you want to take a break from the you in single player. Imho, multiplayer has improved with new booting options and even observation mode, but players often abuse these things. I had a player make a dow on me once and failed to take my city so the host booted me. I have also had a very good start with Kamehameha once and I was doing so well that the game disconnected early. Some games in multiplayer seem fixed.

Optimization - Civilization 5 used to work better with BNW and GNK and didn't take up so many computer resources. However, ever since the BNW patch (before Deluxe), Civilization 5 took so many computer resources that I had to take civilization 5 off of full screen.

Ai - the Immortal and Deity difficulties aren't as easy as they used to be in civilization 1.

civ 5 has generated crazy amounts of revenue. I don't know exactly how expensive it has been to develop, but I am almost certain that there is nothing fundamentally "wrong" with the model.

the issue is the audience for the game is very broad. it makes perfect business sense for the developer to at least market the game to all the different groups, even if it's a terrible product for many of them. this works amazingly well because the competing products (eg. games from Stardock, Paradox, etc.) are also terrible and nowhere near as popular

if you want to judge civilization as a good strategy game, it's quite obvious that there either needs to be good AI or good multiplayer. the fact that civ 5 has neither, is what makes it a terrible game for skilled strategy gamers. (and I use the word fact, because the reality is that gamers want to play games over the span of a few hours at most, whereas civ 5 must be played asynchronously over the course of several weeks/months/years)

but as a business product, civ 5 is fine because the vast majority of its audience is not made up of skilled strategy gamers, and the ones who are will throw their money at the game anyways because they'll at least check it out (it is civilization after all), even if they don't stick with it for long.
ironically, many people who are good at strategy games and know how bad civ 5 is end up playing it for a while anyways, just because alternatives simply do not exist. maybe playing against AI's with insane bonuses isn't ideal, but what other options do we have?

the turn-based strategy genre is in a dreadful state. there is more "ranting" about civ 5 because it's one of the few examples of a company that at least has the resources to at least make a good strategy game, but they have obviously been successful without needing to doing that.

I'm sure we would all prefer if the game had good multiplayer and good AI and good performance but if the owners can make money without doing any of those things, it just isn't going to happen.
if you actually want anything to change, you can only vote with your wallet and boycott the product. but because of civilization's status in the genre, nothing you or a 100,000 people do is really going to matter.
the sad thing is that giving these developers money for doing a bad job is the best way to increase the chance that they allocate some resources towards fixing whatever grievances you have. it'll result in some minor improvement in a patch or expansion instead of more people being assigned to work on some other game