More Civ, Less Fanatic

YEAH! Truce. Now we need to have something to post about the game.

I am disappointed that it took a giant step backward in terms of realism. The bugs don't concern me, the new features don't bother me. Civ V is just overall less realistic and results in less immersion. We got elephants near the poles, baby! My best and truest hope is the mods. Maybe I can learn to mod? Who knows?

But hey, that's just me and my opinion. I am OK with people enjoying the game. Maybe this round will stink for me and that is fine. I am disappointed that no reviews said that the game was less realistic and more gamey than its predecessor. Maybe they did and I ignored it.

EDIT: Oh, and Klokwerk is a fuzzy bear. EDIT: My bad everybody. I was going for humor.

Moderator Action: Please don't call other members a tool, or any other insulting name for that matter.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Aussie_Lurker said:

Civ4 rekindled a love for the franchise that I hadn't felt since Civ2 first came out-not to mention kindling a new-found love for Multi-player & modding. Civ5 seems too reminiscent of Civ3 for my tastes-great potential but extremely sloppy implementation. Now Civ3 had a reasonable excuse IMHO (their lead designer abandoned them, mid-development, to pursue the development of Rise of Nations), but Civ5 doesn't have that excuse.

Aussie.

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Civ3 was always a bit of a disjointed beast as I recall.

Anyhow, one thing that I agree with Aussie wholeheartedly is the quality of Civ4. While I think it can run to a bit of tedium as you finish a game, Civ4 remains one of the most nuanced, interesting, and forward thinking of all of the 4X games on the market. It will remain on my hard drive indefinitely, even if I mix Civ5 games in, and that says a lot.

I would politely ask you to consider the possibility, Aussie, that Civ5 has a reasonable excuse as well. My feeling is that they probably asked for a reasonable extension and were denied due to 2K's financial problems. I think it is very likely the reason that the health resources are so dubious(They seem to be for an unimplemented system) for one thing. There are also "ghosts" in some of the XML of Financial and Philosophical type leader traits. They could, ultimately, have been dealing with a very suboptimal circumstance as well.

Civ4 a month out and Civ5 a month out runs into a lot of opinion, but I wouldn't hesitate to say Civ4 was probably at least slightly better off. There are a few core design issues (Tile yields, ICS/Growth Rates, Deity level AI unit spam) that will have to be addressed. Civ4, whatever flaws it had, probably did have a more stable overall design even without its expansions.

ShuShu62 said:

This is the second thread I saw closed when the conversation was at an almost 'civil' level. I think it is somewhat ironic, and also influences my opinion on the matter, that a thread calling for self censorship, actually gets censored.

I hereby cast my vote for a thicker hide and a thinner brother.

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Licinia Eudoxia said:

I have noticed this too, as some of the most informative and most civil, and intellectual discussions I've seen on this forum yet have been in threads that were closed [REDACTED]. [REDACTED].

Out of respect for the moderators and the rules, I won't mention the specific examples. But I am trying to speak with moderators, because some of this has gotten to be quite silly, [REDACTED].

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Moderator Action: To be clear, discussing thread closures is also PDMA.

With my "member" hat on I'm very interested in toning down the rhetoric on the love or hate relationship fans have with Civ 5. I'd like to see a whole lot more civ discussion.

DaveShack said:

With my "member" hat on I'm very interested in toning down the rhetoric on the love or hate relationship fans have with Civ 5. I'd like to see a whole lot more civ discussion.

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Thanks for adding your thoughts and support on this, DaveShack.

So do we get to come up with a fancy cool sig line and swear our allegiance to the Civil Civ Fan Club? It's gonna have to be something pretty snappy to replace my Vonnegut quote.

SuperJay said:

So do we get to come up with a fancy cool sig line and swear our allegiance to the Civil Civ Fan Club? It's gonna have to be something pretty snappy to replace my Vonnegut quote.

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LOL. We can throw some out there to see if they stick. Kurt's hard to top in any war on quotes, though.

"Putting the 'civil' back into 'Civilization,' one happiness at a time."

Jharii said:

LOL. We can throw some out there to see if they stick. Kurt's hard to top in any war on quotes, though.

"Putting the 'civil' back into 'Civilization,' one happiness at a time."

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But happiness makes people angry

vandyr said:

But happiness makes people angry

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LOL. If my happiness makes other people angry, then they have bigger problems than Civilization.

"We'z in ur Civ, globalizin' ur happiness!"

Too antagonistic?

AlpsStranger said:

"We'z in ur Civ, globalizin' ur happiness!"

Too antagonistic?

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Yeah, I see what you did there.

AlpsStranger said:

"We'z in ur Civ, globalizin' ur happiness!"

Too antagonistic?

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Haha, yeah, let's not go the "snarky juvenile insults at players whose opinions make us mad" route. Though it does seem kind of popular lately

Guys, the anti-Steam crew just got a cool sig too. We need to move on this. I want to look cool on the interwebs too!!

Easy, boys... do not claim a throne that is not yours only. I completely agree on your push towards a more "peaceful" debate and discussion, even if I completely disagree with some (most?) of you on the quality of Civ5. Thus, "I completely disagree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it".

Now, part of that more civilized discussion, a big part shall I say, is not mocking about other's opinions, even if they are not stated in the best of ways and with the most perfect english. Saying things like "a bunch of haters" and such does not show the civilization some of you claim to have. Let's all start by correcting our own behaviors before claiming monopolies of good manners. Me included.

I think, and I stated this before, that we all can agree in one big thing, to start with: Civ5 has achieved what no other previous iteration has, the polarization of this community. That, by itself, is something that I cannot take as a great achievement. My common sense tells me that something is wrong if that is the biggest effect seen around here. Can it be solved? I don't know. The departure from the series' core "signature" is big enough to make some believe (me included) that this is not Civilization anymore.

But that does not mean we "hate" that some of you are happy with it, enjoy it, and keep your "faith" that it will become better. Saying that is pure nonsense, and contradicts the claimed monopoly on good and civilized behaviours. Believe me, I really want to like it, but as of now, I just can't. If you enjoy it, good for you.

Well, that's it. There is no monopoly of civilized manners here. Someone said, in this very thread, that in the end we are all Civ here. In fact, the fact that Shafer's design divided us so much is perhaps what infuriates me the most...

Keep it up. Regards,

rjg

ricardojahns said:

I think, and I stated this before, that we all can agree in one big thing, to start with: Civ5 has achieved what no other previous iteration has, the polarization of this community. That, by itself, is something that I cannot take as a great achievement. My common sense tells me that something is wrong if that is the biggest effect seen around here. Can it be solved? I don't know. The departure from the series' core "signature" is big enough to make some believe (me included) that this is not Civilization anymore.

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I don't know about this. Its more the community than the game. Take, for instance, every MMO released since World of Warcraft became the spoonfeeding frenzy that it is. You can't visit an mmo forum anymore without hordes of threads pitching a whinefest because it isn't WoW 2.0, or "in wow you can do this, in wow you can do that" or "wow has this" or "wow does this better" which is terribly, terribly similar to what we're experiencing here.

I mean, god forbid anything be different. Why can't Civ 5 have different mechanics than Civ 4? Its NOT Civ 4 2.0, and that's the whole point. I agree the community is polarized, but I really don't think Civ 5 is to blame as much as the players themselves are.

vandyr said:

I don't know about this. Its more the community than the game. Take, for instance, every MMO released since World of Warcraft became the spoonfeeding frenzy that it is. You can't visit an mmo forum anymore without hordes of threads pitching a whinefest because it isn't WoW 2.0, or "in wow you can do this, in wow you can do that" or "wow has this" or "wow does this better" which is terribly, terribly similar to what we're experiencing here.

I mean, god forbid anything be different. Why can't Civ 5 have different mechanics than Civ 4? Its NOT Civ 4 2.0, and that's the whole point. I agree the community is polarized, but I really don't think Civ 5 is to blame as much as the players themselves are.

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So, Civ fans would have started the in-fighting no matter what Civ 5 turned out to be? Did that happen before?

vandyr said:

.

I mean, god forbid anything be different.

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and there it is, the "hidden" accusation of "fear of change" that we are hearing almost as a sole argument since the beginning of the "quality wars"... I am not offended by that because I don't care if you think I'm afraid of change or not, but it is an insult nevertheless.

There is no fear of change here. Change is good, if it is for the better. I think that is not the case here. The changes have made the game shallow compared to the previous iterations. Even one of Firaxis devs recognized that fact in an interview days ago...

So please, keep it up to your claim of "civilized" and stop repeating that insulting, nonsensical comment of "fear of change", please.

Venereus said:

So, Civ fans would have started the in-fighting no matter what Civ 5 turned out to be? Did that happen before?

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not at this scale, no... I'm here long enough to have seen it. There were disagreements on some technical aspects, and some gameplay decisions, but this surpasses everything that happened before.

ricardojahns said:

not at this scale, no... I'm here long enough to have seen it. There were disagreements on some technical aspects, and some gameplay decisions, but this surpasses everything that happened before.

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Yeah, but I cannot remember many games that didn't have polar opposites after it was released, particularly in the last decade.

Jharii said:

Yeah, but I cannot remember many games that didn't have polar opposites after it was released, particularly in the last decade.

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well, civ was one of them, to some extent... which made this community and forum a pleasure to be in...

ricardojahns said:

well, civ was one of them, to some extent... which made this community and forum a pleasure to be in...

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LOL, to be fair, Civ3 was easier to be better than.

But yeah. NWN1 was the same way. NWN2... a poopstorm.

Venereus said:

So, Civ fans would have started the in-fighting no matter what Civ 5 turned out to be? Did that happen before?

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ricardojahns said:

and there it is, the "hidden" accusation of "fear of change" that we are hearing almost as a sole argument since the beginning of the "quality wars"... I am not offended by that because I don't care if you think I'm afraid of change or not, but it is an insult nevertheless.

There is no fear of change here. Change is good, if it is for the better. I think that is not the case here. The changes have made the game shallow compared to the previous iterations. Even one of Firaxis devs recognized that fact in an interview days ago...

So please, keep it up to your claim of "civilized" and stop repeating that insulting, nonsensical comment of "fear of change", please.

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ricardojahns said:

not at this scale, no... I'm here long enough to have seen it. There were disagreements on some technical aspects, and some gameplay decisions, but this surpasses everything that happened before.

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Yes, actually, there was quite a bit of discontent on this very forum when Civ 4 came out.

But its not the point of fear of change, and I'm not accusing anyone of being afraid of change. That has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Its about approaching them as completely different games. If Aion doesn't have what WoW does, and you prefer WoW, go back to WoW. Endlessly complaining that Aion is not WoW does nothing for anyone. Everquest 2 was not Everquest part 2, it was a completely different game set in the world of Everquest. Diablo 2 was a new game in the Diablo series that released barebones compared to Diablo 1 in its current state at that time, etc.

I like Civ IV, and I like Civ V. To me they are completely different games, and I don't view V as a sequel, because its not, its a new game in the franchise. Personally, I like V much more than I did IV at release, however, if asked to compare V to IV BTS, there is no comparison, but its also not realistic to compare the two. No installment to any franchise will release with as much material or as many goodies as a previous iteration that's had years to develop...this will never ever happen. Its just not financially feasible.

The key thing to remember here, is that this is the fifth stand alone game of the franchise, not that it is a sequel in any way, shape or form. It is an entirely different game with different mechanics that, like all games of any franchise, will take time to build up to the content of its predecessor. If there had never been a single mod or expansion for Civ IV, and we got Civ V, everyone would praise it as the best thing since sliced bread.

On a side note, I played Empire Earth III for all of two hours before I tossed that crap in the garbage. In retrospect, maybe I should've visited the forum and voice my displeasure over and over because it wasn't EE II. Again, different games, I just didn't like it.