Free vanilla civ V

[gps]

And giving away only worked on the 3rd attempt in different threads . So I think the marketing guys got it right.

???
I'd say if it takes several attempts to give away a game for free - the marketing guys got it completely and alarmingly wrong! Their job would have been to make people so desperately wanting the game they are (still) willing to pay a lot of money for it. Yet even the best marketing guy in the world needs some substance to built upon...
Or did I miss some subtle irony here..?

 

[pba]

???
I'd say if it takes several attempts to give away a game for free - the marketing guys got it completely and alarmingly wrong! Their job would have been to make people so desperately wanting the game they are (still) willing to pay a lot of money for it. Yet even the best marketing guy in the world needs some substance to built upon...
Or did I miss some subtle irony here..?

Yes, sure, but i think that after having released the g&K DLC their bet (as i think) is that no one would buy the vanilla game alone anymore. So instead of trying to sell vanilla and the g&K DLCs side by side they gave the base game for free, which does not cost much anymore anyways. I think the move is better than any rebate on g&k as they basically have a full game (vanilla civ) as a demo & incentive.

But yes, i'm aware that i'm speculating heavily here

 

[Steamwerks]

I agree. It instantly goes from "he's fantastic!" to "here's horrible!". It's one thing to say, "I prefer Civ4, I have more fun playing it." But quite a few people go too far with the personal aspect of it. That's probably why a lot of well-known people don't read anything about themselves in the media.

(also, I already have Vanilla Civ5)

I agree as well. He really does come across as quite a nice guy in interviews, and his Warlords scenarios were very, very good. Even though V isn't my cup of tea, and I've certainly delivered my fair share of criticism, you have to feel bad when you see posters launching into really harsh ad hominem such as "he went to a third-rate college, he's a terrible designer (untrue), he ruined Civ (it's not like Shafer masterminded the plot to go casual!), etc." That's going way overboard.

 

[Funky]

I agree as well. He really does come across as quite a nice guy in interviews, and his Warlords scenarios were very, very good. Even though V isn't my cup of tea, and I've certainly delivered my fair share of criticism, you have to feel bad when you see posters launching into really harsh ad hominem such as "he went to a third-rate college, he's a terrible designer (untrue), he ruined Civ (it's not like Shafer masterminded the plot to go casual!), etc." That's going way overboard.

I'm afraid I can't share this leniency towards Shafer and the Civ 5 team. While personal attacks are obviously not appropriate, saying that Civ 5 ruined the Civ series is in many ways merely stating facts. Some people may actually like the game, for reasons that are beyond me, but being a tactical wargame now it did indeed ruin what Civ has been always been about, namely an empire building game. Add in the horrendous implementation of core features, the casual and console-like feel, and countless minor annoyances which derive from bad design and lack of polish, and it is pretty clear that this game has destroyed the soul of the series we so dearly loved.

 

[gps]

Yes, sure, but i think that after having released the g&K DLC their bet (as i think) is that no one would buy the vanilla game alone anymore.

And that is the problem. Usually add-on packs are there to keep up interest in the base product and to extend its life cycle. If you can (or have to?) give away your base product for more or less free to get some RoI from the add-on things start to get a little bit suspicious.
And it was quite obvious they started to give away Vanilla for less than 5 bucks for whatever reason or excuse imaginable about six weeks before G&K was released. So there was a major focus to get new budget customers into the mix rather than to rely on the established full price customer base. Seems like the developers confidence in its core fan base was not the best. Which is never a good sign…

 

[pba]

And that is the problem. Usually add-on packs are there to keep up interest in the base product and to extend its life cycle. If you can (or have to?) give away your base product for more or less free to get some RoI from the add-on things start to get a little bit suspicious.
And it was quite obvious they started to give away Vanilla for less than 5 bucks for whatever reason or excuse imaginable about six weeks before G&K was released. So there was a major focus to get new budget customers into the mix rather than to rely on the established full price customer base. Seems like the developers confidence in its core fan base was not the best. Which is never a good sign…

Yes, i agree that 50$ were overpriced in the beginning, but i bought it for 14 almost a year before g&k. So I share the view that the game was released too soon. Still i think they made up for the mistake with g&k. It would be nice to have a price schema where you get the game either for 15 or for 50 from the beginning. If you choose the more expensive initial price you get all the DLCs that come out later for free.

If i may speculate again i think that because money is harder to get (from banks, venture cap e.t.c.) they could not finance longer development before selling an unfinished product. But hey. I really feel that after the latest patch the game is a serious challenge (cannot win on immortal anymore which used to be a sure thing for me).

Also i played since civ III and really feel that i got something for my 14+35 for the game + g&k.

So (my subjective) bottomline is that they made mistakes but also did a lot to undo them. I think the loyal base knows that if you can you should wait for a year or so after release until you buy. in the meantime you can read the reviews on civfanatics or do unspeakable illegal things to check it out before the inevitable big DLC release which makes the game actually appealing to the long time base

 

[Steamwerks]

I'm afraid I can't share this leniency towards Shafer and the Civ 5 team. While personal attacks are obviously not appropriate, saying that Civ 5 ruined the Civ series is in many ways merely stating facts. Some people may actually like the game, for reasons that are beyond me, but being a tactical wargame now it did indeed ruin what Civ has been always been about, namely an empire building game. Add in the horrendous implementation of core features, the casual and console-like feel, and countless minor annoyances which derive from bad design and lack of polish, and it is pretty clear that this game has destroyed the soul of the series we so dearly loved.

How does one sub-par sequel destroy the series itself? All the design team did was try something that didn't work.

Conceptually, 1upt tactical combat seemed like an idea worth pursuing (the overwhelming majority here was very excited about it), so I think it's unfair to (with the benefit of hindsight) castigate the team for even attempting it. Now, one might reasonably counter that they're at least guilty of forcing the concept even after it became clear that it was severely compromising core gameplay, but the sheer scope of 1upt's attendant flaws wouldn't have come to light until well along in the development cycle. It's doubtful there would have been time to rebuild from scratch at that point, and so I imagine they had no choice but to simply shore it up to the best of their abilities.

If any parties ought to be criticized, they are management, and to a lesser extent, production. They're the ones who are ultimately choosing to pander to casuals, negotiate unrealistic release dates with their publisher(s), and skimp on beta testing.

 

[damerell]

I'd say if it takes several attempts to give away a game for free - the marketing guys got it completely and alarmingly wrong!

It takes several attempts to give away a game for free to a set of people almost all of whom, if they have the slightest interest in that game, already have it. I don't think that's remarkable at all.

 

[pba]

It takes several attempts to give away a game for free to a set of people almost all of whom, if they have the slightest interest in that game, already have it. I don't think that's remarkable at all.

Well the first 2 attempts were on the civ5 threads. But in this thread i had only one candidate. This was funny indeed.

 

[Funky]

How does one sub-par sequel destroy the series itself? All the design team did was try something that didn't work.

Conceptually, 1upt tactical combat seemed like an idea worth pursuing (the overwhelming majority here was very excited about it), so I think it's unfair to (with the benefit of hindsight) castigate the team for even attempting it. Now, one might reasonably counter that they're at least guilty of forcing the concept even after it became clear that it was severely compromising core gameplay, but the sheer scope of 1upt's attendant flaws wouldn't have come to light until well along in the development cycle. It's doubtful there would have been time to rebuild from scratch at that point, and so I imagine they had no choice but to simply shore it up to the best of their abilities.

If any parties ought to be criticized, they are management, and to a lesser extent, production. They're the ones who are ultimately choosing to pander to casuals, negotiate unrealistic release dates with their publisher(s), and skimp on beta testing.

Well there were enough people who were very sceptical about the 1UPT idea when it was anounced, me being one of them, although I didn't realize quite how terrible the consequences would be for a civ game. I remember numerous threads expressing great worries in the concept, but they were usually diminished by our trust in Firaxis to deliver us a quality game. Sentences like "they'll get it right, they always did" or "they'll make sure it works well, just trust them" were heard often in these times. And yes, some players were excited about it, but most players aren't game designers. Any competent game designer of a civ game should have realized very early that the idea leads to a host of problems and changes the genre of the game itself and is not worth pursuing.

But it's not only this feature, the whole direction of the game was changed, from a complex, inspiring, semi-realistic civ game to a trivilized, superficial, and badly thought-out wargame aimed at children. You are right, the management ought to be criticized, but that doesn't mean the design team didn't do a terrible job on this game. And about ruining the series, from all I've heard civ's trend towards "accessibility" should continue in civ 6, though hopefully these rumors bear little meaning at this time.

 

[pba]

-snip-
Any competent game designer of a civ game should have realized very early that the idea leads to a host of problems and changes the genre of the game itself and is not worth pursuing.
--snip--

Could you elaborate a bit? I don't really see what new genre 1UPT or hex-tiles create. It's still turn based strategy and doing away with stacks of doom is what a lot of people (= not all of them) wished for. I get a bit the feeling that you define Civ IV as a genre in itself. Obviously having civ 4 in itself as definition of what a new game should look like, any modification will be for the worse.

Yes I like 1UPT, i dislike Religion (was better in civ4) and have a long list of personal likes & dislikes. But then again I cannot find anything which would change the genre.

 

[Funky]

You define the genre of Civ as a turn-based strategy game, which is legitimate, and you are right, technically Civ 5 is still a TBS. However, with this broad definition, chess, as a TBS, belongs to the same genre as Civ, which seems somewhat strange. I therefore believe it is more accurate and to the point to describe the genre according to content instead of the rules of a game, and would describe Civ 1-4 as belonging to the Empire-building genre. Civ 5 has clearly left this path with its focus on war and prevelance of tactics, which allow you to win without much strategy at all. It is a lot closer to games like Battle Isle and Panzer General than previous Civs. Even analogies to RTS games have been made countless times, as the game feels more like a race to victory, opposed to managing the subtleties of an empire.

In my opinion, Civ 4's handling of military was pretty good in allowing stacks. This concept fits the empire building genre well and with its many facets like collateral damage, rock-paper-scissors structure of units, and flank attacks, it was enjoyable to fight wars - up to a point. It became problematic in the late game when stack sizes could become absurdly large and tedious to handle. This was the problem that should have been addressed, instead of removing the concept of stacking units altogether. And in regard to the many detrimental side effects that 1UPT has caused (apart from the genre-shift, things like long building times and low tile output, which make the game less interesting and rewarding), I'd take unit stacking over 1UPT any day.

 

[pba]

Well, i disagree with the idea that Stacks of Doom is part of what makes civ an empire building game. On the contrary i'd say that 1UPT puts the nessesary army size in relation to your overall size.Creating Chokepoints was essential in every civ, but now you actually can estimate your needs more based on terrain as opposed to the enemies unit production capacity. And this in turn means that you can opt for tall even with warmongers around you.

Flank attacks&effects are still in the game.

Collateral damage is a good point, but on the other hand with 1UPT collateral damage for city stationed units would only affect the one unit. But I also would like to have some correlation between city health and unit health.

While i think that you have valid points i don't feel the break with previous civs. When you play civV, don't you struggle to get your wonder, to keep your empire happy, to have specialists? This is all empire building if i get it right. I do feel challenged by different factors throughout the game, and balance between more or less happyness-risky strategies (like occupy that spot and than really hope that i get Notre Dames)

So while many of the balance aspects are up to everyones taste, I don't think you can say that empire building is sidelined. It's in and it's not a given that you can win the empire building part of the game by a single recipee. If it weren't like this there surely would exist a 'complete civV walkthrough'. But there is none.

 

[Funky]

Well, i disagree with the idea that Stacks of Doom is part of what makes civ an empire building game.

I didn't say that a game needs stacking of units to be an empire building game. Merely that the stacking concept fits the empire building genre well. Because with potentially infinite units war is all about the economy of your empire. Managing your empire better by exploring and applying good strategies will allow you to create a larger army and will win you wars. Success in war is thus highly dependent on your handling of the empire building part of the game. This just feels true to the genre to me, in fact I wouldn't mind if we had no tactical aspects at all and battles would be auto-resolved as in games like Crusader Kings 2. But the more we emphasize tactics, the less important it becomes to find optimal strategies in building your empire building, as wars are less dependent on how many units you can produce but rather how you make use of your units. If the AI in Civ 5 was any good, the tactics could at least be fun, but even then it wouldn't be my thing, as it takes away strategic relevance from the game.

While i think that you have valid points i don't feel the break with previous civs. When you play civV, don't you struggle to get your wonder, to keep your empire happy, to have specialists? This is all empire building if i get it right. I do feel challenged by different factors throughout the game, and balance between more or less happyness-risky strategies (like occupy that spot and than really hope that i get Notre Dames)
.

While the empire building aspects you mention are still in the game, they just don't matter as much anymore. Now I admit that I haven't played Civ5 very thoroughly, only a few games on a free-to-play weekend from steam. My very first game I played on emperor and, not knowing the game, did horrendous strategic mistakes, as I found out later (e.g. building farms everywhere, building military buildings and granaries in most cities, tossing vast amounts of gold at multiple military and cultural city states etc). With drastic mistakes of this caliber I would not have lasted long in previous civs. In Civ 5 I could keep up with the top civs for some reason. Then the leading civ declared war on me and despite being larger than me was annihalited, because war is so ridiculously easy. After that I had more than double the points as the runner-up and the game was essentially over. My point is: Who cares what I did with my specialists? Who cares if I got that wonder or not? Who cares if my city was size 8 or 10? Which social poicies I chose? In which order I reseached which techs etc, if I can win the game regardless of my choices? That's why I think the empire building aspects of the game are indeed sidelined, and very heavily so. Decisions just don't matter so much anymore. In Civ 4 on the other hand it could take me 15 minutes or more deciding where to place a city, where and when to build which wonder, or how to specialize a given city, because these decisions actually mattered!

Anyway, before this turns into any more of a rant, be happy you don't find the game as lacking as many of us do. For me the soul of civ was constituted by having to continuously make difficult decisions about empire management, which is not the case in Civ5 anymore. And, as its always nice to have a scape-goat, I fully blame the design team for hollowing out my favorite game series.

 

[pba]

You know what: Try Immortal. Seriously. I had the same feeling on Emperor -that you can build everything and win. Just try an immortal post latest patch. It is a race against a competent strategic AI who has goals and spends money towards it (pre patch he just accumulated his gold potential).

 

[Funky]

You know what: Try Immortal. Seriously. I had the same feeling on Emperor -that you can build everything and win. Just try an immortal post latest patch. It is a race against a competent strategic AI who has goals and spends money towards it (pre patch he just accumulated his gold potential).

Well since I 1) don't own the game, and 2) it bored me to tears when I played it, this option is not available to me.

I'm sure you're right that it gets more challenging on higher levels (though I thought emperor would be difficult enough for my first game), and that on immortal or deity I might not get away with the same mistakes I made in the game I described in my previous post. Still, the importance of empire building decisions is simply too limited for my taste. By reading in the forums I have meanwhile come across more appropriate strategies for high difficulties, like ICSing and trade post spam. But applying these things just doesn't feel like it would be strategically satisfying for me. And consider me narrow-minded, but I doubt I'll ever attempt to verify this feeling.

 

[Camikaze]

So there was a major focus to get new budget customers into the mix rather than to rely on the established full price customer base. Seems like the developers confidence in its core fan base was not the best. Which is never a good sign…

Just worth noting that you're attributing the actions of the publisher (2K) to the confidence of the developer (Firaxis), when they are two distinct entities. 2K not having confidence in its core fan base is different to Firaxis not having confidence in its core fan base. Not that I'm entirely sure how wanting to expand your customer base when your core base has all already bought the game is displaying a lack of confidence.

 

[gps]

Just worth noting that you're attributing the actions of the publisher (2K) to the confidence of the developer (Firaxis), when they are two distinct entities.

That's nitpicking. For me as customer both are an entity that produces, offers and wants to sell video games. I don't care about their internal structure or their problems and quarrels. Why should I?

Not that I'm entirely sure how wanting to expand your customer base when your core base has all already bought the game is displaying a lack of confidence.

Well, considering the massive negative feedback on the game, you assume quite a lot here. I consider myself core fanbase. I own more or less every Civilization release (Dos, II plus expansions, III Vanilla, PtW, Complete, IV Vanilla, Warlords, BtS, IV Complete German, IV Complete US, III + IV Complete, The Legacy Box). I did not buy V until it was 5,99 EUR, played one and a half games and found all the negative feedback by authorities like Sullla valid and fully justified. They won’t sell G&K to me. Not. Ever. And I guess there are other nerds like me in the core fanbase. So they better make sure they give away V for free to expand their fanbase and get some RoI on the G&K development costs. And now I guess I’ll stop the off-topic. I’d say the thread has fulfilled its purpose long ago…

 

[Camikaze]

I'm not really sure that there's many people who can be considered part of a core base if they haven't bought the product almost two years after release (i.e. when G&K was released). Of course there can be individuals who don't fit the mould, but not enough to break the rule, and it would be unreasonable to think that 2K would market to statistical anomalies. And you're right that they didn't with the expansion, because the core base was going to buy it anyway. That's why, in the lead up to G&K, CFC didn't receive much attention, and was obviously last on 2K's list of priorities, as compared with generic gaming sites that would reach a wider audience.

Which is why I mention the distinction between 2K and Firaxis. It's kinda nitpicking, but there's an important difference between assigning blame to 2K and to Firaxis, particular in an argument about which customers the game was being aimed at. If you just take the 2K G&K marketing failure with regards to CFC as an example, then it's quite misrepresentative to say that it's reflective of Firaxis' approach to the expansion; how they developed the game.

 

[gps]

I'm not really sure that there's many people who can be considered part of a core base if they haven't bought the product almost two years after release (i.e. when G&K was released). Of course there can be individuals who don't fit the mould, but not enough to break the rule, and it would be unreasonable to think that 2K would market to statistical anomalies.

You really astonish me. I bough almost everything they ever released. I am no statistical anomaly, I am (or was) one of their most loyal customers - for almost twenty years. Until they decided going Steam was a great idea and until they started to sell dumbed down, unfinished, substandard versions of games I once loved. It did not take me two years to buy V because I am no loyal fan, but because the product stank from the beginning. And it was quite obvious it did. And if you have a look at reviews and discussions there are many long term fans who feel like me. So this is not about not marketing to some irrelevant statisitcal anomalies, we are talking about a company putting off a huge part of their loyal customer base. And in the end they need our money to survive, not the other way round. I can sure live without V...