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

katipunero said:

How is it a long stretch? have you actually played CIV 4?

The OP has a sound claim-evidence-inference-justification argument structure. I don't see how your purple and orange statement is even a correct analogy/comparison.

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I've played quite a bit of Civ 4, yep. I played more FFH than Civ4.

The OP has the science - "Regulated releases of dopamine control brain functions relating to pleasure, accomplishment, and attention span." Then it goes from that to "I get bored while playing Civ 5, but not as bored while playing Civ 4." Which is an observation.

Lost, assumed, or hand-waved are all the steps connecting the two. You're assuming that boredom/attention is a single-variable calculation based solely or at least primarily on dopamine, which isn't necessarily true. You're assuming that somehow, Civ4 is stimulating dopamine release in a way that Civ 5 isn't based on these things, which again, is a pretty big assumption (again, the evidence for this is basically "Well, it's not not true. So it might be correct. Seems like it might make sense.")

I could just as easily make some goofy Evo Psych post about how people who like Civ 5 are descendants of ancestors who embraced change, progress and the unknown, and how people who like Civ 4 are regressive evolutionary dead ends that died out in prehistory because of their failure to adapt.

It would have some facts, some opinions, and a lot of baseless and goofy conjecture in the middle that appealed to people who agree with me.

It would be a lot like this thread.

Licinia Eudoxia said:

I've played quite a bit of Civ 4, yep. I played more FFH than Civ4.

The OP has the science - "Regulated releases of dopamine control brain functions relating to pleasure, accomplishment, and attention span." Then it goes from that to "I get bored while playing Civ 5, but not as bored while playing Civ 4." Which is an observation.

Lost, assumed, or hand-waved are all the steps connecting the two. You're assuming that boredom/attention is a single-variable calculation based solely or at least primarily on dopamine, which isn't necessarily true. You're assuming that somehow, Civ4 is stimulating dopamine release in a way that Civ 5 isn't based on these things, which again, is a pretty big assumption (again, the evidence for this is basically "Well, it's not not true. So it might be correct. Seems like it might make sense.")

I could just as easily make some goofy Evo Psych post about how people who like Civ 5 are descendants of ancestors who embraced change, progress and the unknown, and how people who like Civ 4 are regressive evolutionary dead ends that died out in prehistory because of their failure to adapt.

It would have some facts, some opinions, and a lot of baseless and goofy conjecture in the middle that appealed to people who agree with me.

It would be a lot like this thread.

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I am a fond subscriber of threads that are more funny than rational. The OP does a good one and apparently there's nothing that prevents you from doing the same. personally i'd like to hear more about your "evo psych" theory.

Scientists, is there some connection between dopamine and addiction?

The premise of this thread is reasonable, but misapplied. One needs to find an interest in something to get "hooked" by it in the manner described by the opening post. Unfortunately Civ4 never interested me the way the 2 previous editions did. With no interest, no hook. Ironically, the way Civ4 fans attack Civ5 makes me think I may like this new addition - but the lack of a decent AI (a problem with all of the Civ games that has yet to be addressed by the developers), the steam monopoly monger requirement and the cheesy "let's put out half the game initially and get people to download the rest piece by piece for booko bucks (when all told)" greed killed any interest I had in this game.

Licinia Eudoxia said:

I'm well aware of what dopamine does. There's a long, long stretch from "what dopamine does" to "Civ 4 had a constant stream of small rewards that stimulated the release of dopamine."

... Maybe I'll make a thread that explains why Søren Kierkegaard's writings prove that Civilization 5 is the fundamentally correct choice in gaming for each single individual.

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I don't like civ 5 and when I play civ 4 I enjoy it even if I don't "win." Sometimes it is just the type of scenario I enjoy so perhaps an explanation of the existential elements of civ 5 (as you suggest) would convince me to finally finish a game. Or were you just pulling our legs... Its so hard to tell.

Perhaps a good, closely reasoned 5 page post (that is the length of the most concise thesis I would expect) would elucidate this for us all?

There is something in what the cats say I think. (Are those real cats?)

Perhaps I should have asked if that was a real empire?

Civ4 is superior for single player games and civ5 is superior for multiplayer games (1up change for the best whole war mechanics).

Maybe in a couple of years civ5 will be as fun than its predecessor for SP games.

Frankly, I do not think that dopamine is the only factor in how I feel about CivIV and CivV. In my case, for instance, I never ever finished a single BtS game, it was extremelly dull to me compared to Final Frontier, Planetfall, Fury Road, Dune Wars or Fall From Heaven (and its thousand modmods). For me, it was the modding community which made CivIV great. By downloading a mod I could have similar mechanics but explore new worlds, new tech trees, new units, new civilizations and new game mechanics.

I believe that CivV developers have realized that and have been focusing on making the game extremelly moddable so they make sure it happens again.

Well, those were my two cents

Cadaveres said:

I believe that CivV developers ... have been focusing on making the game extremelly moddable

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Yes, I have a strong belief that in a year or so civ5 will be great
because of the game patched to final state and then made real moddable (SDK and all...)

Cadaveres said:

I never ever finished a single BtS game, it was extremelly complex to me compared to Final Frontier,...

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The utterly boring game play (civics ) of the Final Frontier mod, made by J. Shafer, is exactly the same style of game play in civ5.
Both look great, but play awful.

homan1983 said:

You say some people like Civ4 better some like Civ5 better. I say 99.9% lime civ4 better .1% like civ5 better.

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Unless you've interviewed every single person on the planet, this statistic is hence declared null and void.

EmpireOfCats said:

. On the other hand, your girlfriend is probably a happier person.

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I can confirm this, my wife is a lot happier now...

And I already have 2 kids...

Please correct this... I cant afford more children

Mj

homan1983 said:

You say some people like Civ4 better some like Civ5 better. I say 99.9% lime civ4 better .1% like civ5 better.

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 was so incredibly excited about the launch of civ5 that I used VPN to get US access to it just to get it a few days early. I stopped playing by the time it came out in the UK

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LOL. 99% .. I know where you pulled that number from.

I would suggest anyone who gives up on a civ game in a few days has simply given up on it because its not civ4 rather than it being bad on its own merits.

homan1983 said:

You say some people like Civ4 better some like Civ5 better. I say 99.9% lime civ4 better .1% like civ5 better.

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And 90% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Licinia Eudoxia said:

I've played quite a bit of Civ 4, yep. I played more FFH than Civ4.

The OP has the science - "Regulated releases of dopamine control brain functions relating to pleasure, accomplishment, and attention span." Then it goes from that to "I get bored while playing Civ 5, but not as bored while playing Civ 4." Which is an observation.

Lost, assumed, or hand-waved are all the steps connecting the two. You're assuming that boredom/attention is a single-variable calculation based solely or at least primarily on dopamine, which isn't necessarily true. You're assuming that somehow, Civ4 is stimulating dopamine release in a way that Civ 5 isn't based on these things, which again, is a pretty big assumption (again, the evidence for this is basically "Well, it's not not true. So it might be correct. Seems like it might make sense.")

I could just as easily make some goofy Evo Psych post about how people who like Civ 5 are descendants of ancestors who embraced change, progress and the unknown, and how people who like Civ 4 are regressive evolutionary dead ends that died out in prehistory because of their failure to adapt.

It would have some facts, some opinions, and a lot of baseless and goofy conjecture in the middle that appealed to people who agree with me.

It would be a lot like this thread.

Click to expand...

I distinguish between the insight in the post (which is interesting) and the scientific explanation (tough to establish rigorously, and we're not specialists in the field.)

It is true that a lot more happens in a given turn in Civ 4 than does in Civ 5. There is more to do, and each of your decisions has more significant consequences (e.g. when you improve pigs it makes a difference for your city). Cities grow faster, units pop up more often, there are more buildings with a bigger impact, and so on. Civ 4 cities also have distinct personalities, shaped by the terrain and special improvements.

Everything is more muted in Civ 5, and it's a game of amplifying small differences.

Yea I think youre onto something there. It is missing some of the micro-management of civ 4 that was fun. It takes steps in the right direction with resources, buildings and roads being more strategic. But the diplomacy/spying/religion networking has been neutered. Also spend a lot less time on cities which is good and bad, they were mini-games in themselves with balancing health and happiness (along with the food/production/commerce). Something feels missing there.

While I don't think we can really establish scientific explanations on an internet forum (and I don't think the OP literally intended to do so; that'd be silly), I enjoyed the OP because dopamine or not, it does lend some insight into my own experiences.

But this part especially was something I too felt was missing from Civ5:

Civ IV produced a constant stream of rewards. Small stuff, yes, but you were constantly making some decision or seeing the result of an earlier decision. There was always something somewhere that functioned as a reward.

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I've mentioned that elsewhere, and that's a big part of the reason I got bored with Civ5 and put it back on the shelf. Too many yawn-inducing stretches of "Next Turn, Next Turn, Next Turn" and just not enough substance to keep me interested. (I'm sorry if my lack of enjoyment is offensive to anyone, but I'm sure you have more important things to think about.)

ohioastronomy said:

The general trend on these forums has been that even folks who like Civ 5 initially seem to get tired of it pretty quickly - or at least far more quickly than they did for Civ 4. I think that fits with the reward strategy theory outlined by the OP, which makes a lot of sense to me. I've been doing fall from heaven 2 (and enjoying it much more than civ 5; I never did BTS or scenarios in it before now.) Cities grow a lot faster, there are more buildings, more units, and more decisions to make. The game feels a lot more engaging to me even though the graphics are older and there are some of the same annoying mechanics to deal with in both games.

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The first line in this post biases your entire argument hopelessly. Consider, say, activity in August, before Civ 5 came out. Which iteration of Civ were the vast majority of people on these forums playing? Civ 4, of course. Supposedly, most if not all of the people who were on these forums actively and playing Civ 4, liked Civ 4. Given the changes in Civ 5, it is a very different game, so among that subset of people, of course most on these forums don't like it. That's like saying the vast majority of Democrats polled voted for Obama. You're selecting for your answer before even asking the question!

PieceOfMind said:

Scientists, is there some connection between dopamine and addiction?

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You betcha. Or at least we think so. The more I read and learn about brain chemistry, the more I'm sure we really have no clue what's going on, but at least are starting to ask the right questions.

Tangent warning:
Case in point, the biggest class of antidepressants on the market today, SSRI's, of which Prozac is perhaps the best known, are supposed to work by increasing the amount of serotonin available in the brain. There are currently a class of drugs in development, and with tentative approval in Europe, that work on the same patient population by reducing serotonin. So to all you logic people out there, how can serotonin levels be a primary cause of depression if both higher and lower levels both alleviate symptoms of depression? Short answer (too late): we have no clue.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow your argument at all. Are you really saying that the people criticizing Civ 5 are simply doing so because it is different from prior versions? If that's the case, you really have to read up, since that is not the reason that folks are giving at all. Really. The only people who seem to think that folks want Civ 4.5 are people who reflexively defend Civ 5 against any criticism. My point, which has a lot of supporting evidence on the forums, is that even fans of Civ 5 seem to saturate on the game much sooner than people did in previous versions of the game.

AeonOfTime said:

And 90% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

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The other 12% are inaccurate.

Why are civ5 fans so defensive? Op makes an amusing interesting post, he even says in the first sentence he is speculating. Grow up.. or at least learn to debate properly.