Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

  • Yes

    Votes: 853 50.7%
  • No

    Votes: 677 40.2%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 152 9.0%

  • Total voters
    1,682
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Does that achievement get earned when you launch a game with a mod or when you finish a game with a mod?

Games can only be continued with the exact same set of mods active, as far as I can see. Not that I've tried it much, there aren't any insteresting mods for me besides the clock, and I can get a clock from steam.

Anyway, my point is that I think it's you jumping the gun saying someone looks elitist by calling the game dumbed down. As civfanatics it's likely that people here have put more time into the game than the average owner of the game - a group that is not at all represented on civfanatics.

Yes they have, I know. My point is that the game's target audience is not a group of probably less than 100 civfanatics users who know how to play Civ IV perfectly. Dumbing something down has a connotion of making it drastically simpler, I don't think the term is warranted until we see everybody winning their higher level games. For example, anyone can win CivRev on emperor, its second highest difficulty setting. This is clearly not the case in Civ V.

Suppose for example that a civfanatic here is finding he/she can win the game about 80% of the time on Deity. It would be reasonable for that person to make complaints about dumbing down even if the vast majority of players haven't even finished a game on any difficulty yet.

Maybe, but I'm not seeing complaints from people who keep winning on deity. (In fact they seem to be unable to even spell "deity" in several cases).
 
Maybe, but I'm not seeing complaints from people who keep winning on deity. (In fact they seem to be unable to even spell "deity" in several cases).
That is a :old: pun revolving around a typo firaxis made in the first civ IV versions ( they called deity "diety" ) ;)
 
Games can only be continued with the exact same set of mods active, as far as I can see. Not that I've tried it much, there aren't any insteresting mods for me besides the clock, and I can get a clock from steam.



Yes they have, I know. My point is that the game's target audience is not a group of probably less than 100 civfanatics users who know how to play Civ IV perfectly. Dumbing something down has a connotion of making it drastically simpler, I don't think the term is warranted until we see everybody winning their higher level games. For example, anyone can win CivRev on emperor, its second highest difficulty setting. This is clearly not the case in Civ V.



Maybe, but I'm not seeing complaints from people who keep winning on deity. (In fact they seem to be unable to even spell "deity" in several cases).

It is just far, far easier to win by one method (war) than by any other, and this is true at all levels.

It's also a fact that the game itself is much less challenging than prior versions. A conquest win on Emperor for me is extremely easy; I could consistently win at that level in Civ 4, but it took work and I could fail. And I didn't start out at that level in the first few days.

By contrast, going for the space and culture wins is both extremely boring (as the relevant game aspects are "streamlined", thus with few choices) and slow; I find myself getting rid of the local AI competition around 1500 BC, then struggling to a dull culture win around 2000 AD.

And that is only one of many such balance and control issues. The brilliance of the Civ series has always been the way that there were many valid approaches and methods for enjoying it. Once you understand the mechanics here there is only one path, and it doesn't even work that well.
 
I am a newbie to Civ games and like Civ4. I think Civ5 is dumbed down. I like how Civ5 moved away from square tile to hex but I think the detail of the 'characters' i.e. settlers, army and workers are poor compared to Civ4. Civ4 was harder but more enjoyable. I played Civ5 and I was getting bored with it. I dont feel as involved as with Civ4.
 
As long as you have a big population, it's possible to disregard happines totally. Science comes from population, even if your people hate you, they continue producing.
I don't know if s dumbed down, but this new econnomic model is very boring for me.
I played Civ 4 very casually, but the fun turned into math (the long term planning for buildings and food) in civ 5.
 
I voted no, but it is undeniably dumbed down in some ways, it is also undeniably more complex in many ways. Net result is it is more complex strategically, even if the city building aspect is a bit simpler (even that is a bit of both).

edit: The AI needs to improve to play the game properly, it seems a bit dumb in some ways. I dont consider this as "dumbed down" per the poll, assuming the poll refers to the gameplay only.
 
Games can only be continued with the exact same set of mods active, as far as I can see. Not that I've tried it much, there aren't any insteresting mods for me besides the clock, and I can get a clock from steam.
Sounds like you were answering a different question to what I meant to ask. Do you get the achivement just by starting a game with a mod active? Or does it require you to complete a game with the mod active? (Obviously the mod would need to be active for the entire game)
Yes they have, I know. My point is that the game's target audience is not a group of probably less than 100 civfanatics users who know how to play Civ IV perfectly. Dumbing something down has a connotion of making it drastically simpler, I don't think the term is warranted until we see everybody winning their higher level games. For example, anyone can win CivRev on emperor, its second highest difficulty setting. This is clearly not the case in Civ V.

Maybe, but I'm not seeing complaints from people who keep winning on deity. (In fact they seem to be unable to even spell "deity" in several cases).

So what? Are you trying to suggest that the only way for us to know if the game is dumbed down is if lots of people who couldn't beat Deity before, now can beat it? There is a problem with the logic there.

Suppose the average difficulty that most people were comfortable with (I'm not speaking of civfanatics but all players of civ4) in civ4 was Noble. This is probably not too far from the truth. If most of those people need to move a level up in order to enjoy the same challenge in civ5, even considering they are still very new to the game, then they don't need to be winning Deity to realise the game seems a bit easier.

The comparison made to civrev is missing the point as well. Civrev was so easy it's not even funny. I'd be seriously worried if an argument for how civ5 is not dumbed down relied on demonstrating it is a more difficult game to play than civrev.
 
After 3 years I used to play civ4 on monarch (sometimes emp) and often ended up getting destroyed by the AI. My second game of civ5 on king was a comfortable win. However, I voted no, the game has not been dumbed down, despite it being easier. I think a lot of the problems people have with the game right now (and a lot of the comments made in this thread supporting the 'dumbed down hypothesis') are not from the lack of options but to do with balance between those options and the competence of the AI. That does not mean the game has been dumbed down, these are problems that need to be fixed.

For instance, at the moment it is very easy to produce a large number of units and storm the map, completly ignoring hapiness. You get no growth in your cities and a combat penalty, but if you have enough powerful units it is not enough to stop you. Does that mean your only (sensible) option is to go for a military win? Some people may say yes, but this is not due to dumbing down and a lack of depth. It is a balance issue that comes from the fact that the unhapiness penalty is currently not harsh enough to deter this sort of behavior.

One area where I do feel there has been dumbing down is diplomacy. It is hard to influence the AI, because I find there is usually very little I can give them, and likewise, I see little incentive to make friends with them (Im not talking about city states here). Overall in most areas though I would have to say no
 
1. Don't like the city states, or atleast how they are implemented too much into the game. They are just annoying and uninteresting.
This isn't talking about the complexity of the game, this is a personal gripe. If you're going to create an argument (even moreso, a poll), stick to the argument.

2. Bring back religion. They should have just improved on this feature instead of omitting it.
This one is also a personal gripe, and doesn't speak of the overall complexity of the game.


It honestly sounds like you just dislike the game, which is fine. But you don't know your reason for disliking it other than new mechanics and what you miss, and you're turning that into "dumbing down", because it's impossible for you to dislike Civ5, and not have it be a less complex game.
 
A bunch of unnecessary sliders and additions does not make a game more complex.

Is Civ5 streamlined? Hell yes.

Is it "dumbed down"? Not at all.

I'd say without all the sliders and many of the game's mechanics being hidden, it now requires more intelligence and critical thinking than ever before. Now you can't just go "Switch civic, slide slider, there!" now you have to manipulate several mechanics to push your Civ in a certain direction instead of instantly changing it.

Having a bunch of buttons and sliders that allows you to specify EXACTLY what you want is actually the opposite of more complex. Making you try to accomplish the same things with less options requires MORE intelligence.

Anyone can change a civic, slide some sliders and accomplish their goal.

It takes a lot more thought to work with this organic system.
 
I think that the "dumbed down" label is being sticked to every single thing people don't like in Civ V.
there are some questionable changes, but I wouldn't say that the absurdly poor post-game screen was "dumbed down", as the game isn't less complex because of that.

I also can't see how taking away the research slider (which is probably the most BASIC concept in Civ IV) and giving you the challenge to balance the citizen and specialists allocation is dumbing down either.
 
This isn't talking about the complexity of the game, this is a personal gripe. If you're going to create an argument (even moreso, a poll), stick to the argument.

In IV there were vassals, in V there were city states. Vassals were much more complex than the latter.

In Civ5 City states are basically little more than a bonus resource tile or trade agreement except it doesn't require a worker improvement, or construction or conquering of a city, or negotiation. All it takes is a predictable regular infusion of cash or a one time completion of a quest. Yawn.

Vassals on the otherhand were still real civilizations, playing to win who you could interact with and exchange resources with or seize or defend from other civilizations. If you went to war they would supply you with aid. If you needed diplomatic support they would vote for you.


It would have been so much better IMO just to fix vassals by granting them the food/culture bonuses thereby making them worth having escpecially now that the costs to anexing cities is so punnitive. Give them a chance to rebel if you don't keep them happy. Let them give you "quests" to accomplish for added bonuses.
 
I don't think we can find a simple answer to that.

YES, it's significantly easier to win SP games with military due to to the impressive lack of war tactics of the AI.

But MP wise, I don't think civ IV can hold the candle to civ V. BUT MP is way too flawed atm.
 
Irrespective of the point you're trying to make, the conclusion you're drawing here is not likely to be accurate.

For example, it doesn't take into account:
-People who quit a game that is clearly already won but too tedious to finish (I'd count those as wins).
-People playing in offline mode.
-People playing an unaltered-gameplay mod. e.g. one that adds the clock to the interface.
-Possibly others... but as a quick example, I've only been able to play the demo so far (so no achievements) and have already found myself in a dominant position before turn 100 on Immortal. According to solver the AI gets stronger in later eras so it's still possible that Immortal will provide more than a significant challenge as the game goes on.

For the record, I haven't voted - I usually don't vote in polls like this.

I don't think I finished more than 2 or 3 games of Civ4... and anyone talking about "beating" the game really misses the point.

This isn't Super Mario, when you rescue the princess then put the game on the shelf.

The Civilization series was always more about the journey than "winning" - I've already "beaten" the game twice (once in Warlord, once in Prince)... but who cares?

Big, red warning lights are flashing all around me because despite having the game for less than a week, I've already finished two games... playing on "marathon", mind you.

That just feels wrong.

Look - I understand "long term planning". I understand 'centralizing' everything to the empire level.

But I agree - the way they've been implemented is such that they HAVE led to over-simplification.

The locked in notion of Social Policies over government makes what should be a variable over the entire course of a game locked in far too early.

The boiling up of "everything" -- except sliders -- to national level has turned cities, which have ALWAYS been king in Civilization -- little more than resource depots. They have no personality. They have no specialization. They don't feel special, in any way, shape or form. The removal of so many concepts -- religion and espionage -- adds to this. Thebes? London? Chicago? Who cares... this is "Gem Depot 1", this is "Cotton Depot 2", this "Wine Depot 3", etc. There's no concern about individual city happiness or health, and no real specialization to them.

The Civilization series -- going back to I -- was always about a hundred tiny decisions in each turn adding up.... Now - it's about single big decisions dispersing to replace those tiny decisions.

THAT'S oversimplification - it's not harder or smarter or more fun (to this Civ veteran, at least) - my giant chessboard of Civilization has been replaced with a Tic-Tac-Toe grid at a macro level.

Gameplay has now become rigid - if you're going liberty, then you better expand and expand quickly. If you're going militaristic, then go to war and go to war often. Sure - players tailored gameplay in IV to often mimic those styles, but you didn't HAVE TO. If you wanted a 'wandering' game, where you could play different styles in different epochs, you could. Civ I through IV WASN'T rigid. It was jagged - as it should be. Sometimes circumstances and history demand that you colonize and expand. Sometimes circumstances demand war. Sometimes tending to the homefront. Gameplay in Civ5 is linear.

Maybe if they get the AI fixed and truly take advantage of hex/1UpT - at least the military aspect can be salvaged... but absent truly herculean efforts by the modders, I'm just not seeing where city management, tile management, government management, and diplomacy can be rescued from their addled state.
 
A bunch of unnecessary sliders and additions does not make a game more complex.

Is Civ5 streamlined? Hell yes.

Is it "dumbed down"? Not at all.

I'd say without all the sliders and many of the game's mechanics being hidden, it now requires more intelligence and critical thinking than ever before. Now you can't just go "Switch civic, slide slider, there!" now you have to manipulate several mechanics to push your Civ in a certain direction instead of instantly changing it.

Having a bunch of buttons and sliders that allows you to specify EXACTLY what you want is actually the opposite of more complex. Making you try to accomplish the same things with less options requires MORE intelligence.

Anyone can change a civic, slide some sliders and accomplish their goal.

It takes a lot more thought to work with this organic system.

I disagree --

You don't have to manipulate several mechanics - in fact, you just manipulate a single mechanic and it's less a "decision" (even civic and slider moves were still decisions) than fait accompli...

In a way, it seems like the aim of Civ5 from a development perspective was to construct a "grand unification theory" of Civilization - ditch the micro decisions and instead, go with far fewer macro decisions.

That, in my opinion, is this game's great fault.

I don't think I'm the only one who would say that the Civilization series was always about micro decisions. When you make it about macro decisions, I don't know what you've built -- but it ain't Civilization. Call it Civolution or Revolization and maybe I'd have bought it and not been unhappy with it. Call it Civilization V - and I think it's a blasphemy against the nameplate. This game was never supposed to be an RPG, where, when played properly - all aspects are on-ramps to a macro style... Civilization was always a stew of many small decisions and successful gameplay depended on just the right mix of tiny decisions.
 
Gameplay has now become rigid - if you're going liberty, then you better expand and expand quickly. If you're going militaristic, then go to war and go to war often. Sure - players tailored gameplay in IV to often mimic those styles, but you didn't HAVE TO. If you wanted a 'wandering' game, where you could play different styles in different epochs, you could. Civ I through IV WASN'T rigid. It was jagged - as it should be. Sometimes circumstances and history demand that you colonize and expand. Sometimes circumstances demand war. Sometimes tending to the homefront. Gameplay in Civ5 is linear.

Maybe if they get the AI fixed and truly take advantage of hex/1UpT - at least the military aspect can be salvaged... but absent truly herculean efforts by the modders, I'm just not seeing where city management, tile management, government management, and diplomacy can be rescued from their addled state.

I agree 100% with this post.
 
Too early to tell. Civ4 had a great balance between food, hammers, commerce, happiness, health, diplomacy and military strength (though food -> hammers through slavery was a little broken). Lots of levers to pull, several 'sweet spots' balancing all those levers, allowing several different types of strategies, which made it very interesting.

Civ5 seems to have gold and happiness as the overriding levers, with the minor levers being culture, military strength and diplomacy. Definitely a different dynamic, and too early to tell whether there's just one 'sweet spot' between them (which would make it a very shallow game once 'solved'), or, like civ4, there are several alternate ones that suit different strategies.

I think that's the issue in a nutshell. Civ4 had a lot of broad sweet spots in the balance and you could fairly easily balance between them or focus on one and specialize. The center was a happy place to be.

The sweet spots in Civ5 are anything but sweet. They're more like knife-edged peaks where you fall to your doom if you don't trod the exact center of the line. If you don't play in an exact manner, you get punished (through unhappiness, a capricious and arbitrary dimplomacy system, lack of gold, etc). That means that either you exploit broken game mechanics (ignore happiness and go perma-war because you'll get more pop for tech faster then the combat penalty kicks in, stack city-state bonuses to the exclusion of all else, cover your land in only trading posts) or you stick to the straight and narrow and follow a very specific and singular path based on what social policies you chose and can no longer change.
 
Look - I understand "long term planning". I understand 'centralizing' everything to the empire level.

But I agree - the way they've been implemented is such that they HAVE led to over-simplification.

The locked in notion of Social Policies over government makes what should be a variable over the entire course of a game locked in far too early.

The boiling up of "everything" -- except sliders -- to national level has turned cities, which have ALWAYS been king in Civilization -- little more than resource depots. They have no personality. They have no specialization. They don't feel special, in any way, shape or form. The removal of so many concepts -- religion and espionage -- adds to this. Thebes? London? Chicago? Who cares... this is "Gem Depot 1", this is "Cotton Depot 2", this "Wine Depot 3", etc. There's no concern about individual city happiness or health, and no real specialization to them.

The Civilization series -- going back to I -- was always about a hundred tiny decisions in each turn adding up.... Now - it's about single big decisions dispersing to replace those tiny decisions.

THAT'S oversimplification - it's not harder or smarter or more fun (to this Civ veteran, at least) - my giant chessboard of Civilization has been replaced with a Tic-Tac-Toe grid at a macro level.

Gameplay has now become rigid - if you're going liberty, then you better expand and expand quickly. If you're going militaristic, then go to war and go to war often. Sure - players tailored gameplay in IV to often mimic those styles, but you didn't HAVE TO. If you wanted a 'wandering' game, where you could play different styles in different epochs, you could. Civ I through IV WASN'T rigid. It was jagged - as it should be. Sometimes circumstances and history demand that you colonize and expand. Sometimes circumstances demand war. Sometimes tending to the homefront. Gameplay in Civ5 is linear.

Maybe if they get the AI fixed and truly take advantage of hex/1UpT - at least the military aspect can be salvaged... but absent truly herculean efforts by the modders, I'm just not seeing where city management, tile management, government management, and diplomacy can be rescued from their addled state.

Well written. This is the problem with CiV. The whole game actually feels like work and the downside is that it takes forever. Moving units is now just annoying. The fact that the AI can't stop them anyway just makes it even more annoying. If I had to place them wisely to win maybe it wouldn't be as bad. Maybe.

It seems like work because the game is so linear it is just making sure you put the right peg into the right hole. You don't have choices. You can't put science on hold while you work to build your economy to get ready for an invasion. There is no adjusting or balancing Happiness/Science/Economy except on a grand scale. Before we could make a decesion every turn to optimize what we needed to win. Now you get to make one and hope you never have to change it because you can't sell buildings and you can't adjust science/happiness/economy any more.

It really makes the game more of a war game. Only problem is the AI is absolutely incompetent at war that even that isn't fun.
 
Originally Posted by KingYosef said:
UPDATE ON POLL: As you can see, more than 1 in every 4 players think that Civ 5 has been dumb down. Numbers don't lie, this release is below Civ par. I do realize that some players may like the dumber AI and that may be the reason for their liking of Civ 5.

I Lol'd really hard at you interpretation of numbers :goodjob:

Hey - numbers don't lie! :lol:
 
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