Civ4 Lovers/Civ5 Haters Level of Optimism for Civ6

Drakarska said:

But when I get vilified over in the Civ 6 forums for merely pointing out that past history has clearly demonstrated that pre-ordering wouldn't be a wise decision until more info is given, then as far as I'm concerned, you deserve what you pay for.

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Yes, getting vilified is what the Civ 6 forum is all about, if you don't tow the line. It amazes me that people would throw top dollar at a game that isn't even released yet, from a company whose last Civ product had significant issues on launch. Then, on top of that, get on an internet forum and browbeat people who disagree with the whole pre-ordering thing, in a vain attempt to justify their purchase. I fail to comprehend.

I have given up on posting over there, because:

a) I'm not one of the cool kids and never get answered anyway
b) I'm tired of being called a bully because I disagree with some points raised
c) I'm tired of history being rewritten vis a vis Civ 5
d) I've realized that there is no way to talk sense into any of those people
e) I am a filthy, horrible, demonic, Hell-spawned Anti-Christ because I don't believe in the sanctity, holiness, and divinity of Civ 6 and His Supreme Holiness, Ed Beach

Or, I'm just a cranky. middle-aged lady with some common sense. Take your pick.

lol i think this topic has become a bit too serious

Lemon, criticism about games in a forum full of fans never works.
I remember a recent failed mmorpg, Revival..
i liked the concept and followed their forums a bit, they were happily throwing real life money around for housing stuff.
Housing in a game that did not exist yet (and never will).

But peoples who said that's weird, can we trust them?
Not ignored, but talked down with arguments full of blind faith.

See also Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where people are 'tired of all this hate' when people explicitly stress that the gameplay and exploration is great, but that the story - the game - is cut in half.

Lemon Merchant said:

Yes, getting vilified is what the Civ 6 forum is all about, if you don't tow the line. It amazes me that people would throw top dollar at a game that isn't even released yet, from a company whose last Civ product had significant issues on launch. Then, on top of that, get on an internet forum and browbeat people who disagree with the whole pre-ordering thing, in a vain attempt to justify their purchase. I fail to comprehend.

I have given up on posting over there, because:

a) I'm not one of the cool kids and never get answered anyway
b) I'm tired of being called a bully because I disagree with some points raised
c) I'm tired of history being rewritten vis a vis Civ 5
d) I've realized that there is no way to talk sense into any of those people
e) I am a filthy, horrible, demonic, Hell-spawned Anti-Christ because I don't believe in the sanctity, holiness, and divinity of Civ 6 and His Supreme Holiness, Ed Beach

Or, I'm just a cranky. middle-aged lady with some common sense. Take your pick.

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Well, if only one thing, FXS succeeded in getting THAT type of "audience" on board the franchise...

TheMeInTeam said:

Tech count doesn't mean much, if anything, unless it's egregiously large or small. How often is the player making a situation-dependent choice on what to tech? 5 lost depth compared to 4 not because of tech count, but because you could get away with more cookie cutter behavior.

It's when the player is making a choice requiring thought + has a meaningful influence on their success or failure that it becomes interesting.

Once 5 went into "range spam = strongest play for 75% of timeline", it actually fell behind 4 in the tactical warfare department also. At least 4 had terrain promotions, collateral initiative, and a balance between multi-city targeted offense and collateral initiative advantage going to defender. There were more ways to win or screw up than "build tons of xbows and some stuff to cover for that, then punish players who don't or try to out tech them otherwise".

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Staler87 said:

I myself am optimistic about the game (although I haven't played it so I can't say for sure it will be good) and think the worker idea is a good one for a couple reasons:

2. You need to properly plan out how many workers you need to build.

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These two posts are talking about different mechanics, but they really bring home to me why I never fell in love with Civ5: it's the lack of interesting tradeoffs compared to Civ4. I felt that winning in Civ5 was almost always a matter of playing to your civ's strong suit in a fairly obvious way. It's not a bad game by any means and BNW does some things much better than BtS. But on the whole it's just not up to the same standard of excellence IMHO.

The main reason I'm still cautiously optimistic about Civ6 is that the designers seem to have realized the existence of this "cookie cutter play" problem. Whether they've succeeded in fixing it or not can't really be determined from videos, but I mostly like what I see so far.

I'm not pre-ordering by any means. In fact, one of the things that's going to determine when and if I plunk down my money for it is the post-release reaction to the game among the Civ4 fans here.

Lemon Merchant said:

Yes, getting vilified is what the Civ 6 forum is all about, if you don't tow the line. It amazes me that people would throw top dollar at a game that isn't even released yet, from a company whose last Civ product had significant issues on launch. Then, on top of that, get on an internet forum and browbeat people who disagree with the whole pre-ordering thing, in a vain attempt to justify their purchase. I fail to comprehend.

I have given up on posting over there, because:

a) I'm not one of the cool kids and never get answered anyway
b) I'm tired of being called a bully because I disagree with some points raised
c) I'm tired of history being rewritten vis a vis Civ 5
d) I've realized that there is no way to talk sense into any of those people
e) I am a filthy, horrible, demonic, Hell-spawned Anti-Christ because I don't believe in the sanctity, holiness, and divinity of Civ 6 and His Supreme Holiness, Ed Beach

Or, I'm just a cranky. middle-aged lady with some common sense. Take your pick.

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I find the majority of posters in the Civ6 forum are okay, but there is a certain cohort that seems to take any expression of skepticism that the game will be amazing as a personal slight. There has always been this sort of...I dunno what to call it....current running through this place. I remember when I used to post in the BE forum back a year or so ago and there were a few guys who would act like we should be on bended knee thanking Firaxis for deigning to sell us games for $40 a pop, and would type very long-winded rationalizations for why any criticism of the game was invalid.

Ghpstage said:

Even the lead dev giving some important insight in the teams design philosophy?

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No. But Ed, like Sid in his Starships videos, don't talk/explain a lot during their 'let's play' while Marbozir and Writing Bull do.

I'm still optimistic, because of the design choices for civ 6.
- no more worker stacks or waiting x turns to improve something
- no more overpowered strategies
- absolute numbers (combat) instead of percentages
- flexible card system to design your government instead of a static policy system
- no more extreme wonder whoring
- re-introduction of multiple leaders for 1 civ and a lot of new faces
- a split research/civic tree (not new, because it was an idea for civ 1)
- useless/low output tiles can be filled with districts, because of the unstacking the cities mechanic
- a new science victory (see spoiler)
- diplomacy looks much richer, although I only have seen a small part of it

My biggest concerns are 1) the AI, 2) turn times and 3) the unknown/? factor (too much repetition, boring combat and/or gameplay, etc.)

Lexicus said:

I find the majority of posters in the Civ6 forum are okay, but there is a certain cohort that seems to take any expression of skepticism that the game will be amazing as a personal slight. There has always been this sort of...I dunno what to call it....current running through this place. I remember when I used to post in the BE forum back a year or so ago and there were a few guys who would act like we should be on bended knee thanking Firaxis for deigning to sell us games for $40 a pop, and would type very long-winded rationalizations for why any criticism of the game was invalid.

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I have a shot at the explanation:

it's a common occurrence among people that decided to spend money without much rationalization or consideration, and then proceed to rationalize the already executed spending. They feel unsure about their decision, but failed to analyze it BEFORE opening the wallet, only to feel "attacked" by any other person that does exactly that (and is vocal about it).

It happens all the time, in any market. Rush buy -> Regret -> "attack" anyone that reminds them of that.

Somewhat pessimistic, leaning towards very pessimistic. 1 UPT just makes it not Civ, and less fun, but the developers are siding with Civ 5's sales numbers rather than the opinions of longtime series players. I think siding with the numbers is a mistake because a lot of Civ 5 players probably do not know what they're missing. I'll try it out sometime after release, timing will be based on feedback. I'm sure it'll have fun aspects, have to try it out at some point to figure out the good and the bad.

Aristos said:

I have a shot at the explanation:

it's a common occurrence among people that decided to spend money without much rationalization or consideration, and then proceed to rationalize the already executed spending. They feel unsure about their decision, but failed to analyze it BEFORE opening the wallet, only to feel "attacked" by any other person that does exactly that (and is vocal about it).

It happens all the time, in any market. Rush buy -> Regret -> "attack" anyone that reminds them of that.

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Fair point. OTOH you can also explain some of the seemingly-unreasonable vitriol people exhibit against the games in this light. People who have spent money on a game only not to like it may feel like they've been cheated, and to be angry about that is perfectly understandable, even if making vitriolic forum posts is probably not the most constructive outlet for that anger (imo a better outlet would be participating, as publicly as possible, in the pledge not to pre-order video games anymore).

Drakarska said:

Hmnn. All of your above statements are reasonably valid.. For a city builder type of game. From what I've seen on the videos, read on the forums, and even from the devs themselves, a vast majority of the attention appears to be focused on the cities.

What happened to the planning out of your empire? you know, one of the req's in the supposed 4x? From everything I'm seeing and reading, your going to be more focused on your, let's say 4 or 5 cities ( anyone else see a similarity to Civ V?), then you will be in expanding your empire.

Diplo is another biggy. Minimal attention has been spent discussing diplo interaction with the AI's. Why?
Trade routes and bene's... Again, minimal info.

I could continue, but what really is the point? I personally am not condemning anyone or anything. But when I get vilified over in the Civ 6 forums for merely pointing out that past history has clearly demonstrated that pre-ordering wouldn't be a wise decision until more info is given, then as far as I'm concerned, you deserve what you pay for.

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The devs have already stated that a small empire will be 6-8 cities. I get what you're saying with the empire thing but I think we have to remember that even back in the civ V games you built your empire by building up many small cities.

I dunno. I pre-ordered based on the general trend that even civs are better and based on the videos Firaxis has released. I like the direction the game is going in compared to civ V so i put my money behind that. If you didn't that's fine.

I don't feel I "rush-bought" anything. I am almost certain I will put 200+ hours into civ VI so don't feel at all uneasy about my decision. And I think a lot of players who pre-ordered feel the same way as I.

Your description is perhaps valid but I would lean towards people just not wanting to here you say bad things about a game they really like. People like to be a part of a team and if you say their team sucks well...

Staler87 said:

The devs have already stated that a small empire will be 6-8 cities. I get what you're saying with the empire thing but I think we have to remember that even back in the civ V games you built your empire by building up many small cities.

I dunno. I pre-ordered based on the general trend that even civs are better and based on the videos Firaxis has released. I like the direction the game is going in compared to civ V so i put my money behind that. If you didn't that's fine.

I don't feel I "rush-bought" anything. I am almost certain I will put 200+ hours into civ VI so don't feel at all uneasy about my decision. And I think a lot of players who pre-ordered feel the same way as I.

Your description is perhaps valid but I would lean towards people just not wanting to here you say bad things about a game they really like. People like to be a part of a team and if you say their team sucks well...

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I believe I already stated that, hence the part in the parenthesis. Your restating what I said doesn't invalidate my comment about one of the X's in a supposed 4x game.

If you like the direction the game is going, great. I also don't really have an issue with you pre-ordering the game, that's your right as a customer.

*Sigh* People seem to misconstrue valid observations pointing out that pre-order may not be the best choice versus taking it as a personal attacks when pointing out concerns. Allow me to be succinct from my perspective; All available information concerning Civ VI is being tightly controlled by the PR machine, explicitly designed to entice you ( and I'm using the generic form of you, not you specifically) into doing exactly what people are are doing, which is pre-order.
What I am trying to point out ( as well as others on these boards) is that the Civ series is leaning strongly towards a stream-lined money grabbing marketing ploy that uses the very members of this community as Beta testers and they don't really appear to have any issue with that.
Now, by all means, please exercise your right to make what ever purchases you wish. However, for those of us who have been continuously disappointed by the gaming industry, constantly see people continue to plop down their cash despite the fact that they have previously been burned before, we would rather be treated as people who actually have the communities best interests at heart instead of being treated like the scourge for merely pointing out our views.

Staler87 said:

I don't feel I "rush-bought" anything.

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Can you explain what your definition of a rush buy is? I mean, you would get exactly the same even within the pre-ordering realm if you pre-order just one day before release... how is pre-ordering now NOT a rush buy?

My definition of rush buy is purchasing anything without the necessary due diligence, which heavily depends on available information, reviews, price tags etc... from that point of view (and I have yet to find anyone that proves the previous definition is flawed), of course you are rush buying. Whatever you use to rationalize it, well, that's another story.

I've been thinking about what I saw at first 100T of Civ 6 and I am beginning to pick up on optimism. If the game will be moddable, all of the stuff currently not being balanced could be corrected. Through couple of patches and maybe an expansion as I seriously doubt that day one release will be balanced enough. I can see it being something I'd play.
Currently, it all depends about how they tweak the numbers to make all these options (and there is lot of options) viable at least for some period of time. I hope they will look for the feedback. Map indeed seems larger than in Civ5 and unit cramping will therefore be less of a problem. Interface offers more information and is more responsive, user friendly and there seems to be no lag. Fast moving and single unit graphics will hopefully be enabled as I don't care for animations. Graphics is actually quite good when it is zoomed out, you can easily recognize map features, terrain and yields. Something I struggled with in 5. Anyway, I will most certainly play it when they polish it enough but certainly not before that.

I mean my definition of Rush-buy is that you carefully consider a buy before doing it. I looked at what people who had played it said, the features that are being released, and I obviously knew the price tag. To be honest this is the first video game I have pre-ordered and it was completely because I had total confidence that I will get my monies worth. I wanted to get HOIIV but will probably wait for a deep discount on the complete version because I don't have the same level of confidence.

I've yet to see a logical rationale for pre-ordering. "I think I'll get my money's worth" is not a logical rationale by any stretch of the imagination. It's a gamble.

Regards

salty mud said:

I've yet to see a logical rationale for pre-ordering. "I think I'll get my money's worth" is not a logical rationale by any stretch of the imagination. It's a gamble.

Regards

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Exactly. But as with gambling, it is their right to do with their money whatever they want. I have no problems with that.

What I have a problem with is that, when doing so, they reward industry behaviors that destroy the expectations for some (many?) of us, and to be honest, deteriorate the industry as a whole. NOW we have a problem.

On the other hand, I feel that I have to push them to pre-order, because that increases the chances that we, the others, will get the final product, balanced, patched and at the after-market-skimming price, sooner... dilemmas, dilemmas...

So... YES! Pre-order please! Don't wait!

EDIT: IF/WHEN you happen to take a high level course in Marketing, you will surely go deep into market-skimming strategies. What is really funny is to hear one of the experts in Marketing talk about the target of the market-skimming; they, literally, laugh their heads off when referring to said audience, and I will not repeat the terms they tend to use because it may get me infracted. Take a course and you may hear them.

shakabrade said:

I've been thinking about what I saw at first 100T of Civ 6 and I am beginning to pick up on optimism. If the game will be moddable, all of the stuff currently not being balanced could be corrected. Through couple of patches and maybe an expansion as I seriously doubt that day one release will be balanced enough. I can see it being something I'd play.
Currently, it all depends about how they tweak the numbers to make all these options (and there is lot of options) viable at least for some period of time. I hope they will look for the feedback. Map indeed seems larger than in Civ5 and unit cramping will therefore be less of a problem. Interface offers more information and is more responsive, user friendly and there seems to be no lag. Fast moving and single unit graphics will hopefully be enabled as I don't care for animations. Graphics is actually quite good when it is zoomed out, you can easily recognize map features, terrain and yields. Something I struggled with in 5. Anyway, I will most certainly play it when they polish it enough but certainly not before that.

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Here's what myself and others have been trying to point out. In all honesty, why should the modding community have to fix anything from a AAA title?

Aristos said:

Exactly. But as with gambling, it is their right to do with their money whatever they want. I have no problems with that.

What I have a problem with is that, when doing so, they reward industry behaviors that destroy the expectations for some (many?) of us, and to be honest, deteriorate the industry as a whole. NOW we have a problem.

On the other hand, I feel that I have to push them to pre-order, because that increases the chances that we, the others, will get the final product, balanced, patched and at the after-market-skimming price, sooner... dilemmas, dilemmas...

So... YES! Pre-order please! Don't wait!

EDIT: IF/WHEN you happen to take a high level course in Marketing, you will surely go deep into market-skimming strategies. What is really funny is to hear one of the experts in Marketing talk about the target of the market-skimming; they, literally, laugh their heads off when referring to said audience, and I will not repeat the terms they tend to use because it may get me infracted. Take a course and you may hear them.

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I have, and it is definitely something that is... Unpleasant.

salty mud said:

I've yet to see a logical rationale for pre-ordering. "I think I'll get my money's worth" is not a logical rationale by any stretch of the imagination. It's a gamble.

Regards

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I said: "I have total confidence that I will get my monies worth". Ultimately, the funny thing about this, is if you don't think one should pre-order then don't pre-order (I assume you didn't). I think that if you are confident you will enjoy the game, like me, you should pre-order (I did). At the end of the day both of us are going to stick with our decisions because we feel they are the right decision. That's it.

Staler87 said:

I said: "I have total confidence that I will get my monies worth". Ultimately, the funny thing about this, is if you don't think one should pre-order then don't pre-order (I assume you didn't). I think that if you are confident you will enjoy the game, like me, you should pre-order (I did). At the end of the day both of us are going to stick with our decisions because we feel they are the right decision. That's it.

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You're acting in an illogical manner. You're handing over money to receive a product that gives you at best a hunch that it will be good. Those who hold off are waiting for reviews and actual real experiences from the game. This is a much more logically sound position. It's not about being right or wrong. It's about not being dumb.