It's looking good.

I have been following the development of CiV and the release of information about the aforementioned with great interest. Like so many others I have expressed concerns about oversimplification or similarity to Civilization Revolution. As a rabid fan and as a consumer its my duty to be skeptical and to keep a watchful eye on the development of my favorite game franchise of all time. The intent of such is to preserve the greatness of the game and of the experiences that go along with it and never to make light of its quality or the work put into its creation.

The more I see however the more optimistic I feel. It seems that V is likely to produce many of the same great experiences that IV has given me these past five years and that III provided before that. Even better is the feeling I now have that this game is really giving the world we will play in so much more depth and dare I say it without violating the sacred Civ mantra, realism.

Despite the choice of distribution or any of the other concerns we've all had these past few months it is now clear to me that a LOT of love and work went into Civilization V. I just wanted to take a second to share my happiness about this and my optimism with my fellow fans and with those people who worked to bring us the fifth iteration of the greatest game of all time. Thank you so much for keeping the depth, for keeping what needed to be kept and for changing enough that this fifth round will feel new again.

In short, I'm very excited. I can't wait to explore, build and conquer this new world you're creating for us. Here's to five more years!

I'm buying.

Amen brother.

Auncien said:

Even better is the feeling I now have that this game is really giving the world we will play in so much more depth and dare I say it without violating the sacred Civ mantra, realism.

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Realism is sacred in Civ? Really? Can I, and Sid himself for that matter, have some of what you're smoking?

i thnk the mantra he is referring to is gameplay > realism. ill also take a toke though.

While gameplay does trump realism I believe that Civ tries to be as realistic as possible. Not an easy task of course, but here's to hoping Civ V gives us the best of both.

I believe you have to treat the meaning of "realistic" in an abstract way. Sure it's not realistic to have an archer shoot an arrow hundreds of miles, but if you look at every action in its context it is done in a realistic way. Think outside the box.

Provost Martin said:

I believe you have to treat the meaning of "realistic" in an abstract way. Sure it's not realistic to have an archer shoot an arrow hundreds of miles, but if you look at every action in its context it is done in a realistic way. Think outside the box.

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While I absolutely agree, I am not sure that is what people generally mean on this forum when they use the word "realism."

By realism I think most ppl mean that Civ generally allows you to simulate the progress of mankind. It has to be abstact of course (archers shooting very very far) but the battle itself would be realistic in that the units involved would behave/act upon/be acted upon similiar to something you might read in a history text. This is why the players of Civ are concerned that they should want to build their cities next to rivers (since that is historically what happened most of the time) and why there is always differing opinions of what should constitute future tech. The players want to be able to simulate history, Sid tries to comply, and I think that the only thing that holds realism back in Civ is gameplay. It must be fun and it must be simplified to some degree. We don't want to have to micromanage the creation of a unit for example, we just want to choose what to build and be responsable for optaining the resouces.

AlpsStranger said:

Realism is sacred in Civ? Really? :

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Exactly...Civ has always been a game. It's never been (and never meant to be) a 'world simulator', even though some of us pretend it is.

AlpsStranger said:

While I absolutely agree, I am not sure that is what people generally mean on this forum when they use the word "realism."

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It's just that I've seen people use that and similar arguments when arguing against changes in Civ5 in the context of realism. That's why I presented it is an example.

BubbaYeti said:

Exactly...Civ has always been a game. It's never been (and never meant to be) a 'world simulator', even though some of us pretend it is.

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Yea, thats why we should have left just the game mechanics like they were in Civilization 1, with no borders and no influence from culture, defeating stacks by defeating one unit in the stack, etc.. They were perfectly fine, and all that realism mucked it up.

Look -- I'm just making a point. People shouldn't downplay the importance of realism in Civ. If its done intelligently, it does nothing but improve the game.

But on the note of the thread topic, even though I was criticizing 1upt in that other thread, it doesn't mean I won't enjoy the game and I don't think Firaxis hasn't done a lot of good things in the game. A lot of things I'm looking forward to, and even if I disagree with 1upt its still a step in the right direction.

culture, borders are both good things, and its great they hasve gotten rid of the stacks altogether, stacked units don't make for fun combat.

With all the discussion going on, on the whole I'm rather looking forward to Civilization 5. I may not get it before or on release date, but that's also because I won't have a lot of time to play it end of September anyway. So, count me in the group that is positively expecting and looking forward to the game. I think it'll be a great addition to the series.

Auncien said:

Despite the choice of distribution or any of the other concerns we've all had these past few months it is now clear to me that a LOT of love and work went into Civilization V. I just wanted to take a second to share my happiness about this and my optimism with my fellow fans and with those people who worked to bring us the fifth iteration of the greatest game of all time. Thank you so much for keeping the depth, for keeping what needed to be kept and for changing enough that this fifth round will feel new again.

In short, I'm very excited. I can't wait to explore, build and conquer this new world you're creating for us. Here's to five more years!

I'm buying.

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Stewarding the civ legacy in this community is as fun as being gay in the military so I'm not surprised at this failure to hold the line. I'm not sure where you are seeing "a lot of love" being put into the game - when you love something you set it free - you dont sell it to the highest bidder.

I'd at least wait to play the game before proclaiming it everything you wanted and more. Keep in mind the information you are getting is being selectively released by advertisers to prompt exactly the reaction you are giving them. You are basing your born again status on small visual cheery picked releases - wait till the real experiences about AI strengths and mod ability come out. Its easy to say we have such and such features...hell Civ 5 has already won awards and it isnt even out yet..but actually implementing said feature is another ball of yarn entirely. moo3 is a great example of where players got all sorts of features they asked for but the implementation left the game lacking.