Dreams of the Sulla Mod

[BjoernLars]

Sulla's name carries a lot of weight in the Civ community across the world. He has already played through a few games of Civ V and his opinions aren't that rosy. You can see for yourself on his website. A heated debate even started on the Civ Forums over his opinions rendered.

To me, it was a bit shocking, though understandable, when I read this on his most recent (and maybe last) walkthrough of a Civ V game.

Sulla:
I'll keep an eye on the community, and hope that things will get better in time. Honestly though, this is probably the final Single Player report I'll be writing on my website for Civ5, and at present there are no plans for a series of competitive Epics games for Civ5 at Realms Beyond.

I have really enjoyed reading Sulla's posts about his Civ games, and I have been reading since Civ IV. I do have to agree with virtually most of what he said in his walk throughs, but since I am a casual player the impacts of the downfalls of Civ V aren't too great to me.

There are a lot of modders here on Civ Fanatics, and even I, who has never opened an XML file before, was able to edit a handful of buildings in the game. One problem with the game was resource and tile yield. In Thalassicus' Balance - Combined Mod this was addressed. The current state of this Mod has really changed my gameplay and I'ved enjoyed it a lot! Also Valkrionn's Economy Mod has done a lot to improve the UI and buildings in the game.

I do not know what goes on in Sulla's life and don't know if this is even possible for him to do with his schedule. What I would have hopes to see is a "Sulla Mod", i.e. an editing of the game play in the vision of Sulla; to bring Civ V up to standard. I know he is a busy person, but I hope he would put some thought into this. I am sure a lot of people would be willing to help him if he lead this project. I for one would, even though my Modding skills are humble...

 

[Moss]

Moderator Action: Moved to C&C, where the modders are.

 

[Dale]

Sulla is highly prejudiced against Civ5 for some reason, focusing singularly on flaws within the game, and even trying to exploit the game to prove it's faulty. There is no focusing on the positive aspects of Civ5, nor will there be if I know Sulla. Any mod Sulla would want would be a Civ4 mod for Civ5.

 

[Afforess]

First off, I never heard of Sulla before recently. I didn't know about CFC when I bought Civ4, (Even though I did buy Civ4 at launch).

Anyway, if you read Sulla's review, it simply seems that he (is he a he?), wants economic depth to the game. That would be fairly easy to fix, emphasize population for science and gold, and require city planning and infrastructure to have a decent economy. A few new buildings, and reworking some of the original ones would fix it. In fact, the Economy Mod by Valkorian may be want he is looking for...

 

[Sullla]

Wow, that's awfully harsh Dale. I don't have any secret axes to grind with this game. Am I not allowed to express disappointment about Civ5, on my own hosted website? I've never posted a single link about Civ5 here at CivFanatics, that's been entirely done by others. I'm not spamming the boards here with troll threads or anything like that...

I would hope that you of all people, as someone who's so into modding, would recognize the value of this kind of criticism, instead of attacking the person posting it.

 

[Afforess]

I have had, a secret pet theory that Dale hopes to get on the Firaxis dev team some day, so he automatically judges anything Firaxis does as divinely inspired.

 

[Morlark]

I have to agree with what's been said already. Who is Sulla? I've never heard of him. That said, I've just had a skim read of some of his playthroughs, and he does make some good points, but he also makes some bad ones. Different people are going to want different things, that's all. You can't just ignore the great many good features that this game does possess, and then declare it to be irredeemably bad.

 

[Collic]

Could we leave the personal stuff out of this? I for one do feel there are serious flaws with the game and highlighting that is a positive thing. The more people willing to try their hand at fixing these flaws, the better a game we inevitably end up with (I'm also not a 'civ 5 is a travesty' person in case anyone was wondering).

The OP is basically asking, and hoping that Sulla may at some point consider working to make the game better, as well as pointing out some of the baby steps that have already been made. Insulting Sulla is basically sabotaging his thread and I'm sure not the kind of discussion he wants to promote.

 

[BjoernLars]

Yowzers, I didn't mean to open a can of worms here.

 

[kounoupi]

What Sulla did in his reports is highlight why Civ 5 is a pretty-looking but otherwise strategically underwhelming game. The way 5 was conceived from the base up makes a certain set of strategies overwhelmingly powerful, making it a no brainer to play the same way every single game, using the same planning tactics for every single city.

Unlike Civ4 where there were a multitude of equally promising strategies to success, Civ5 seems lacking in depth, with a flawed economic-production-research process that in the end pushes down the replayability value.

I've spent countless hours enjoying Civ 4, where each game was different, challenging and interesting. After a mere 30ish hours on 5, I think I got all the fun there was to it.

Unfortunately making Civ 5 interesting and deep would involve a complete rethink of all the game mechanics from the core up, something that no developer has yet dared to do in a patch. The only hope now lies in the community, once the SDK is released that someone would do such a bold step. There are some mods that go in the right direction, including the economy mod and the scaling mod, so we can only wait (a few months or years) and hope...

 

[aguds]

Sulla is highly prejudiced against Civ5 for some reason, focusing singularly on flaws within the game, and even trying to exploit the game to prove it's faulty. There is no focusing on the positive aspects of Civ5, nor will there be if I know Sulla. Any mod Sulla would want would be a Civ4 mod for Civ5.

Nice someone else also noticed this. The 'review' was that of a scorn fanboy.

 

[Dale]

I have had, a secret pet theory that Dale hopes to get on the Firaxis dev team some day, so he automatically judges anything Firaxis does as divinely inspired.

Well you would be seriously incorrect, since I have only been impressed by Civ4 and Civ5 of their games. In fact, if you were to look up my review of Railroads on Apolyton you would find it extremely unflattering to say the least.

As for getting onto their dev team, sorry, but I'm getting twice as much now in my current job than I would be working for Firaxis.

 

[Dale]

Wow, that's awfully harsh Dale. I don't have any secret axes to grind with this game. Am I not allowed to express disappointment about Civ5, on my own hosted website? I've never posted a single link about Civ5 here at CivFanatics, that's been entirely done by others. I'm not spamming the boards here with troll threads or anything like that...

I would hope that you of all people, as someone who's so into modding, would recognize the value of this kind of criticism, instead of attacking the person posting it.

I'm sorry, but how is it harsh? It's exactly how your review came across. It focused on a couple of exploits to prove the game is totally broken in your opinion. It was like saying, "there's a bug, let's exploit it and rate the entire game on the merits of that bug".

Is anything I wrote untrue? Your review reads of someone who was expecting Civ4, and rating Civ5 as Civ4 instead of a game of its own standing. That shows prejudice against Civ5 as you are rating it as Civ4 (which ultimately it would fail and disappoint, because Civ5 is NOT Civ4). You failed to write about most of the game which to a lot of people are the "fun" and exciting components of the game. And you made it quite clear that the only thing that would've made you happy is Civ4 with prettier graphics.

How is that not what I said?

EDIT: Oh, and your "reviews" are full of contradictions and incorrect information. Cities stop growing when they hit size 10? Try India and setup a grassland city surrounded by farms and see how far it grows.

 

[TheChanger]

Cities stop growing when they hit size 10?

try size 32 capital as Egypt by the industrial era.

 

[azbestor]

Dale:
I got most info of Civ5 from Sullla's games and didn't get impression of cites stopping to growth at size 10, rather ,than stopping to grow in any sane time (and I'm marathon type of player,rather builder).
So, either you haven't read them, or just picking sentences out of context.

For general criticism: go ahead,play Sullla's games,post them, prove he just exploited bugs and it can be done better, more playable way.
But don't be surprised,when one vet jumps in and after few games finds out best strat and breaks such system, complaining,that it was too easy and boring.

 

[civ_king]

Civ IV was worse when it came out so I'm content with Civ V, but I expect it to be a great game by the second expansion pack (none of this Warlords BS)

 

[Dale]

Dale:
I got most info of Civ5 from Sullla's games and didn't get impression of cites stopping to growth at size 10, rather ,than stopping to grow in any sane time (and I'm marathon type of player,rather builder).
So, either you haven't read them, or just picking sentences out of context.

How is this out of context?

Once your cities hit size 10 in this game, they pretty much stop growing altogether. I'm not sure how I feel about that... Seems like a waste that cities can now work up to 37 tiles, and they'll never get much past half of that.

That quote is directly from http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/americanempire.html

For general criticism: go ahead,play Sullla's games,post them, prove he just exploited bugs and it can be done better, more playable way.
But don't be surprised,when one vet jumps in and after few games finds out best strat and breaks such system, complaining,that it was too easy and boring.

The goal of playing Civ is NOT to find the easiest exploit and demand the game broken. The goal of playing Civ is to experiment with different paths and strategies to some end point. The fun of Civ is finding different paths to "create an Empire to stand the test of time". It is not fun to find the easiest exploit and demand the game broken.

I don't need to play Sulla's games to prove he just exploited bugs and it can be done better, more playable way. I have over 220 hours in Civ5 already, many many games, and each one I played a different way. Each game had its own fun. Why? Because I played the game in the spirit it was designed for, not to find the easiest exploit and demand the game broken. If I wanted to do that I could've very easily found that on day 1, posted all over every Civ forum on the net that the game is broken because of X, and moved on. Except I'd prefer to have fun for my money.

Hell, if I wanted to I could post step by step instructions on how to create a 70-city ICS Empire by turn 150..... with positive happiness! But I won't, cuz it'll destroy the game for others.

EDIT: Just want to point out that Sulla did not post on other forums, but on his own website. However, since you were talking "in general" I spoke "in general" as well, as that is what most detractors of the game have done.

 

[CaptainBinky]

I can't speak for other modders, but personally I'm more interested in tweaking the game in ways that I'd find interesting rather than trying to please some guy I don't know If other people dig mods I do, that's a bonus, but not the objective.

 

[Chibiabos]

Sulla is highly prejudiced against Civ5 for some reason, focusing singularly on flaws within the game, and even trying to exploit the game to prove it's faulty. There is no focusing on the positive aspects of Civ5, nor will there be if I know Sulla. Any mod Sulla would want would be a Civ4 mod for Civ5.

Its been extremely disappointing, Dale, to see you overlook the major flaws in Civ V that are even worse than the flaws in Colonization.

What are the positive aspects of Civ V?

Knowing what you have, being able to actually build units and buildings and have them complete before they're obsolete, not having to click a lot of empty do-nothign "End Turns" because nothing really happens in a turn, the empty victories over AIs that are far less challenging in Civ V than Civ IV -- these changes in Civ V over Civ IV you don't see as serious issues?

This fanboyishness is really shocking and disappointing to see in you, Dale, as well as the reviewers giving it scores even close to Civ IV's. I was hoping you'd accept the faults as faults and fix Civ V in a mod as you did Civ IV:Col, but sad to say i don't think that's going to happen because you don't see any real problems with Civ V and outright state you can't figure out why the rest of us are so disappointed in this iteration.

 

[lemmy101]

Pfft. Sulla? I think a better idea would be to make a mod that would please Dale instead, as he's my new hero.

It'll be called the 'Super Dale' mod and Dale would be 200 ft tall and just go around stomping around on injustice and excessive negativity wherever he goes.