Steam Global Gameplay Stats

Is anyone else following them?

I know many of the achievements are bugged, but I am still fascinated by them.

According to Steam, the percentage of players who have beaten the game at each skill level:

Chieftain 23.1%
Settler 14.2%
Warlord 12.5%
Prince 10.7%
King 3.3%
Emperor 1.5%
Immortal 0.7%
Deity 0.6%

I was rather surprised by two things. First, the huge number of people who beat the game at Chieftain. Second, how few had beaten the game at King or better.

According to Steam the percentage of players who have beaten the game on the following map sizes:

Small 20.7%
Standard 15.8%
Duel 11.6%
Tiny 7.4%
Large 5.3%
Huge 5.3%

Again, I'm kinda surprised that although most folks seem to have dialed the difficulty back, they are playing/winning on average sized maps.

And here are the percentages of people who have beaten the game with each of the 'original' Civs:

USA 9.1%
Rome7.4%
Egypt 6.6%
Japan 6.6%
Germany 6.4%
France 6.3%
Greece 6.1%
Russia 5.7%
England 4.9%
India 4.4%
China 3.9%
Aztec 3.6%
Arabia 3.6%
Persia 3.3%
Songhai 2.9%
Iroquois 2.9%
Siam 2.8%
Ottoman 1.8%

Not surprised to see the Americans on top, but I'm kinda surprised to see Russia and Rome as high as they are, and England and Greece as low.

It seems to me that perhaps Firaxis' marketing folks have been doing a good job in getting in a lot of new players. I don't know what that's going to mean in the long term, but I hope it indicates that they'll support this release.

I'm also a little psyched that I'm one of the <2% players who won with the Ottomans, who're kinda underrated IMHO.

I wonder how much of the map size preference has to do with computer performance?

Link for those interested: http://steamcommunity.com/stats/CivV/achievements/

I bet that the win % a higher difficulty levels is artificially low because a lot of people start to mod the game at some point while raising the level. And modding (I believe?) turns off achievements, rendering these stats rather inaccurate. What I would like to see is what % of players are playing modded games now, given how sorely the game needs it.

The Ottoman's special ability is horrific - I just won as Suleiman on Emperor/Small Continents, and never once captured a barbarian boat. Lots of water, and I had boats early enough, second city was a port. I met maybe three, sunk 1, the other 2 I think I killed or chased off via city bombardment. Both unique units were also useless as I wasn't at war that often and I happened to be at peace while they were useful. Ottomans aren't underrated, they're not very good. Note that I run with the Obsolete Promotions mod, so Jannisaries lose their special ability if upgraded.

I'm really surprised that more people aren't playing on at least Prince. I found Warlord/Prince in this game much easier than in IV, and didn't find things too challenging without turning up the difficulty. Also surprised at all the really small map sizes (I can't stand playing on a map that isn't at least large, huge I can understand since late game turns can take like a minute each).

cf_nz said:

I wonder how much of the map size preference has to do with computer performance?

Link for those interested: http://steamcommunity.com/stats/CivV/achievements/

Click to expand...

Probably quite a bit. I haven't tried large or huge because I'm not sure if my machine can handle it. I doubt I'm the only one.

Perkus said:

I bet that the win % a higher difficulty levels is artificially low because a lot of people start to mod the game at some point while raising the level. And modding (I believe?) turns off achievements, rendering these stats rather inaccurate. What I would like to see is what % of players are playing modded games now, given how sorely the game needs it.

Click to expand...

Well, so far according to Steam at the site cited by cf_nz, only 10.5% have even played a mod yet.

Perkus said:

Ottomans aren't underrated, they're not very good. Note that I run with the Obsolete Promotions mod, so Jannisaries lose their special ability if upgraded.

Click to expand...

That would explain your take on them. Jannisaries are nice as a UU, but having that skill while you upgrade them along makes them pretty fun.

One other thing I forgot to mention previously. I'm not holding my breath for a lot of AI fixes, esp. for higher levels, anytime soon. If >95% of the playerbase has yet to beat it above Prince level, I can't imagine it would be a priority for 2K.

BobDole said:

I'm really surprised that more people aren't playing on at least Prince. I found Warlord/Prince in this game much easier than in IV, and didn't find things too challenging without turning up the difficulty. Also surprised at all the really small map sizes (I can't stand playing on a map that isn't at least large, huge I can understand since late game turns can take like a minute each).

Click to expand...

Most people probably start at a lower difficulty. It's possible many of them don't like the game enough to play again!

I am playing on small because last time I tried standard the game was crashing later on whenever I reloaded from within (known bug). That, plus I play very slowly so that even a small map keeps me busy for nearly a week.

flp_ndrox said:

Well, so far according to Steam at the site cited by cf_nz, only 10.5% have even played a mod yet.

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D'oh, I forgot that they had achievements for everything, even mod use! Oddly enough, 21.4% have earned "Experimenter", "play a game with a mod." Apparently half the people using mods get them some way other than downloading? Yes, it's possible, but it strikes me as unlikely. Maybe the Expansionist achievement is bugged...

flp_ndrox said:

That would explain your take on them. Jannisaries are nice as a UU, but having that skill while you upgrade them along makes them pretty fun.

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Yes, and I am aware that in some cases the overpowered nature of the UUs keeping their special promotions appears to be part of the civ balancing. I still don't like it.

flp_ndrox said:

One other thing I forgot to mention previously. I'm not holding my breath for a lot of AI fixes, esp. for higher levels, anytime soon. If >95% of the playerbase has yet to beat it above Prince level, I can't imagine it would be a priority for 2K.

Click to expand...

Sad, but probably true. Except the poor AI may be one of the very things keeping people from playing enough times to move up the difficulty ladder.

Making a mod yourself will get you the 'Experimenter' (play a mod) but not the 'Expansionist' (download a mod) achievement.

89% have built a second city.I think it means 10% of players are either playing OCC, conquering everything on their path or, more likely, just quit before founding a second city. The 91% of explore ruins achievement hints to many players not playing the game or sitching it early I believe.

LDiCesare said:

89% have built a second city.I think it means 10% of players are either playing OCC, conquering everything on their path or, more likely, just quit before founding a second city. The 91% of explore ruins achievement hints to many players not playing the game or sitching it early I believe.

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This sort of thing is more common than you think. Go check out the stats on Half Life 2 and see how many people quit before the 3rd level.

Some people like to buy games but not to play them!

I'm not surprised. Being here with CFC gives people a skewed view of who buys/plays civilization. The vast majority of players have probably never heard of CFC and aren't exactly civfanatics.

If anything this is a sign a vast amount of new players bought and are having fun with the game, despite what problems it might have.

Senethro said:

This sort of thing is more common than you think. Go check out the stats on Half Life 2 and see how many people quit before the 3rd level.

Some people like to buy games but not to play them!

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Half-Life 2 only had achievements added a few months ago (May or June iirc), but it was released in 2004.

flp_ndrox said:

<snip>I know many of the achievements are bugged, but I am still fascinated by them.
According to Steam, the percentage of players who have beaten the game at each skill level:

Chieftain 23.1%
Settler 14.2%
Warlord 12.5%
Prince 10.7%
King 3.3%
Emperor 1.5%
Immortal 0.7%
Deity 0.6%
<snip>

Click to expand...

The percentage for Deity must be higher than that. I say that as I am one of that 0.6%. I'm not blowing my trumpet - traditionally, I'm a crap Civ player who has only ever managed to beat any game of Civ on its hardest level only with Civ V. I'm saying this as I would assume because I have beaten Civ V at Deity, then many others must have as well.

Steam/Valve is surely wrong.

I have won on king, emperor, immortal and diety, I havent played on any lower. I have won on all map sizes over small.

I think the real numbers are higher, more has prob won on diety and many more has "won" but not finished the game on all difficulties.

PrinceScamp said:

Half-Life 2 only had achievements added a few months ago (May or June iirc), but it was released in 2004.

Click to expand...

HL2:Ep2 then

BobDole said:

I'm really surprised that more people aren't playing on at least Prince.

Click to expand...

One thing to consider as well is that quite a few players have a tendency to quit their games before actual victory. I myself have very little interest in spending extra hours just to get the victory screen for a boring game I know I'll win. Also I don't care about achievements at all.

So I'm playing on Immortal but I haven't actually finished a single game.

Revoran said:

I'm not surprised. Being here with CFC gives people a skewed view of who buys/plays civilization. The vast majority of players have probably never heard of CFC and aren't exactly civfanatics.

If anything this is a sign a vast amount of new players bought and are having fun with the game, despite what problems it might have.

Click to expand...

Exactly. These stats aren't wrong, they just bring CivFanatics back to earth: you are a minority. Most gamers don't spend time on forums sharpening their strategies. They just boot the game and do whatever feels right. They don't necessarily feel the need to progress in difficulty level. They don't necessarily need the game to have a zillion features either. Whether I like it or not

Seems to me that some values have been quite stable over the last weeks:
at the current moment, only 93% have evern found a ruin.
Only 90% have ever founded a second city.

That pretty much indicates that 10% of players leave the game almost immediately.

80% have upgraded a unit so far. Which adds another 10% of players who don't make use of the earliest game functionality.
77% have reached "allied" status with a city state. Something, which is hard to AVOID.

Taken all these values into account it seems to be fair to assume
10% of all players have almost immediately lost the interest into the game
Another 10% haven't made it very deep into the game.

Do these statistics also involve the players who play in "offline mode" or only the ones in s***m online mode ?

I'm agree with the point that many people will give up before victory. The end game is so blah with domination being the easiest path that many folks probably just dont want to "go though the motions" to get the lame as hell "U win! TEH CIV!" end game screen.

Rat