2K Greg's recent posts on the 2K forums

[dexters]

Wonder videos age, the CG in IV looks like its 10 years old because it looked 5 years old when it was new. Paintings are neat, and its on just long enough you see something new everytime.

Here's my question, do any Firaxians outside of dshirk read these forums? Are our comments/feedback being ignored in favour of 2K's own forums?

 

[duxup]

Civ4 was UNPLAYABLE and had an absolutely horrible launch. I picked up Civ5, started a game, found some depth, and had fun killing coms. There are some serious bugs and balance issues but there's nothing stopping me from enjoying it.

I don't think people remember Civ4. All I think people are remembering is the final Civ4+BTS product, which still had some horrible mechanics that I would've wanted ironed out. Stop with the nostalgia and actually compare the two.

I remember Civ IV, I didn't have a single technical issue and it was plenty playable. I haven't had any tech issues with V either (although plenty have). With IV the AI actually built more than a handful of units, knew how to use those units, was a challenge at higher difficulty levels, etc. Civ V, the AI seems to be hardly even playing even with the advantages of a higher difficulty.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm actually surprised that I'm hearing so much on these forums about instability in Civ V, since I've yet to experience any sort of bug or crash in the 40 or so hours I've played so far.

I had two crashes. First was minor (the game almost loaded and crashed). The second was more serious (it would crash consistently when Atomic Theory was due). I think both cases had to do with processing volume (my CPU is a bit below specs). The second case, I resolved the problem by changing my tech to something else, having it go to the next turn, and then click back on Atomic Theory and finish the tech (I guess less things were happening that next turn).

I feel Civ4 had far more problems back then than the ones I encountered here.

 

[Achilleslastand]

I cant believe they didnt have a release day major patch ready to go. It either show that the game was properly tested or they just dont care.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I remember Civ IV, I didn't have a single technical issue and it was plenty playable.

Rough translation of my blog post from Oct, 31, 2005:

Civilization IV has very good game designers, but they programmers need to have their hands cut and not sewed back until they learn how to write engines like in "Rome: Total War". With less real information than in "Civilization III" (due to map sizes) the game loads so much graphical (and probably other) junk, what "Standard" map requires a gigabyte of memory.

And here's from Dec, 9, 2005:

The situation. Firaxis made a Civ 4 game. It was written for a long time, then released. And after 1,5 months 3rd-party patch appears, which increases performance and saves about 100-200 megabytes of memory. Note - the developer is not in staff and didn't see the sources.

I wonder if Firaxis feel the shame?

 

[ThunderLizard2]

A quote from the official site:
Combat is more exciting and engaging than ever before. Wars between empires feel massive with armies spreading across the landscape. The addition of ranged bombardment allows players to fire weapons from behind the front lines, challenging players to develop clever new strategies to guarantee victory on the battlefield.

It should read:
Combat is incredibly boring and stupid as the AI will move units randomly and you can destroy them in a few turns and grab all their cities.

I think Greg and his cohorts owe the Civ community an apology and a refund. I know Civ 4 had its problem, but these seemed to be from poor testing and were bugs or poor coding. In Civ5, the AI system is just broken. Did they have a summer intern build it? (That's unfair even to summer interns.)

The game is brain dead and I don’t see how this can be fixed with a software patch. And in terms of being rushed, how many years did they have to build this game – at least 5? There’s no excuse.

 

[duxup]

Rough translation of my blog post from Oct, 31, 2005:



And here's from Dec, 9, 2005:

I don't doubt your account that you had problems.

I still don't think that Civ IV was released in worse shape than Civ V.

 

[stealth_nsk]

In Civ5, the AI system is just broken. Did they have a summer intern build it? (That's unfair even to summer interns.)

Most of the AI was written by Jon Schafer. It was presented as an advantage, but I think they just didn't have enough staff.

The game is brain dead and I don’t see how this can be fixed with a software patch. And in terms of being rushed, how many years did they have to build this game – at least 5? There’s no excuse.

3 I think. Quite small time for the game of this scale.

 

[SomethingWitty]

Civ4 was UNPLAYABLE and had an absolutely horrible launch. I picked up Civ5, started a game, found some depth, and had fun killing coms. There are some serious bugs and balance issues but there's nothing stopping me from enjoying it. The biggest fault about Civ5 is there's so many player decisions (in war, in policies, in buildings) that the AI needs to be at a much higher level to compete.

I don't think people remember Civ4. All I think people are remembering is the final Civ4+BTS product, which still had some horrible mechanics that I would've wanted ironed out. Even with all the improvements, ICS was much easier in Civ4, the AI was much worse at war, and several parts of the game could be simply ignored. Stop with the nostalgia and actually compare the two.

I think when some people read 'unplayable' they don't realize you mean literally. It was unplayable. On systems above specs it was unplayable. All the terrain would show up completely black. Foreign leaders would disappear except for their eyeballs and teeth, still talking to you and looking around like some kind of horror movie. Many American releases were shipped with French instruction manuals. The Civilopedia was only half filled. You didn't get contextual pop ups in the UI explaining, for example, what unit was which, you only had to guess based on the little artwork. These forums weren't filled with people complaining about the AI, they were complaining that they couldn't even play the game.

 

[SRG]

While I agree on the wonder paintings and quotes, I seriously miss the end-game videos and recap.

Victory video, a replay function, give us something! I love CiV, and usually I do not think it fair to compare it to Civ IV, but at the end of a Civ IV game I really enjoyed being able to replay my game and really look deep into what I did. It felt like a really nice recap... closure, if you will. I don't get that same sense of closure from the end of a CiV game.

 

[Aristos]

Most of the AI was written by Jon Schafer.

THIS explains EVERYTHING. I am serious. You just need to read Soren's epilogue of civ4's design vision (at the end of civ4 manual), and compare it to Shafer's vision. I am serious, not whining or anything.

You can pretty much understand what happened after comparing both visions. The first is a vision of grandeur, of a boy dreaming of building the ultimate empire building game... the latter is the vision of a boy building a wargame with some cities in between that serve as tank obstacles (if you reach that era with AI's left, that is).

The difference is immense, and is reflected in the game design.

That, and the fact that Soren graduated from Stanford... the other guy, well, as far as I know, is one of the top 10 of UoL (University of Life).

'Nough said.

 

[dexters]

I don't see the 'it's a wargame with city building' critique. It's a Civ game, war has always been central to civ games. In fact, it took civ3/4to try and pull the series back from just being building a bunch of cities then spies and spamming the AI with it (remember how unbalanced Civ2 was?)

Jon is one of us, he was a fan before he became a Firaxian and I appreciate his vision. He seemed to really like Civ3 because Civ5 reminds a lot of that game, aesthetically.

The top level AI was also moved away from the straightjacket Soren put them into in Civ4 to be more like the sandlot dog eat dog AI of Civ3.
hECK, AI now takes lump sum upfront for per turn deals. Freaking finally. Civ4 can't even manage that because it was deemed an exploit.

Unless you've designed a game, you don't know what's involved. Stop slandering someone because he didn't make the Civ BTS 2.0 that some of you want. I liked Civ4, but am ready to move on.

 

[Aristos]

if you don't see the wargame in the core of civ5, then, my friend, you are even more blind than the fanboys... in any case, if you don't see it, you just need to listen to his "comments"... Panzer General this, Panzer General that... Battle of Wesnoth this, Battle of Wesnoth that... the design, and the target market, are obvoius. I know most people do not like to be compared to the "mass markets", but don't feel bad... if you like it, good for you!

But we who don't, won't stop saying it because you say so. The design is poor, compared to previous versions. A problem far bigger than software bugs that any design has. This is poor design, aimed at a part of the market they did not touch before (for obvious reasons). If you don't like the criticism, go play your gem. Byyeee.

 

[Wolle68]

Most of the AI was written by Jon Schafer. It was presented as an advantage, but I think they just didn't have enough staff.

Yes, it worried me a lot when I heard that the AI was in the hands of a 25-year old self-taught hacker. This is way too difficult a problem for that approach.

What really gets me is that they must have known a long time ago that they had an AI problem. It's so obvious; the AI is practically suicidal.

 

[dexters]

if you don't see the wargame in the core of civ5, then, my friend, you are even more blind than the fanboys... in any case, if you don't see it, you just need to listen to his "comments"... Panzer General this, Panzer General that... Battle of Wesnoth this, Battle of Wesnoth that... the design, and the target market, are obvoius. I know most people do not like to be compared to the "mass markets", but don't feel bad... if you like it, good for you!

But we who don't, won't stop saying it because you say so. The design is poor, compared to previous versions. A problem far bigger than software bugs that any design has. This is poor design, aimed at a part of the market they did not touch before (for obvious reasons). If you don't like the criticism, go play your gem. Byyeee.

SO a game that emphasizes fewer 'better' units with real use of combined arms is more of a wargame that previous games that encourages hundreds of units. OOOO-K.

If you mean a Civ game is a game which needs to have 'dumb down' stacked fighting where all it is is moving your SOD from city to city, you can continue playing in the last century.

I like this system and am willing to give it a try. They can always change it in Civ6. But Civ5 is set.

 

[zonk]

THIS explains EVERYTHING. I am serious. You just need to read Soren's epilogue of civ4's design vision (at the end of civ4 manual), and compare it to Shafer's vision. I am serious, not whining or anything.

You can pretty much understand what happened after comparing both visions. The first is a vision of grandeur, of a boy dreaming of building the ultimate empire building game... the latter is the vision of a boy building a wargame with some cities in between that serve as tank obstacles (if you reach that era with AI's left, that is).

So the worst of both worlds :-(

Civilization becomes nothing but a wargame, but not a very good one?

*shudder*

Whatever happened to what I thought was always the foundation response of Civilization to complaints about axe/quecha/whatever rushes -- namely "Civilization is not SUPPOSED to be a war game, it's an empire builder game that necessarily has to include elements of warfare"?

I mean, personally -- I'll stick with TW/AoE for tactical wargames and go to Paradox's line for grand strategy wargames.

If Civ aims to become just another wargame (but with a bit more 'non-war' stuff), count me out.... Other games already do that and do it better.

 

[Aristos]

so the worst of both worlds :-(

civilization becomes nothing but a wargame, but not a very good one?

*shudder*

whatever happened to what i thought was always the foundation response of civilization to complaints about axe/quecha/whatever rushes -- namely "civilization is not supposed to be a war game, it's an empire builder game that necessarily has to include elements of warfare"?

I mean, personally -- i'll stick with tw/aoe for tactical wargames and go to paradox's line for grand strategy wargames.

If civ aims to become just another wargame (but with a bit more 'non-war' stuff), count me out.... Other games already do that and do it better.

exactly.

 

[dexters]

But it isn't a war game! The two of you keep saying it's a wargame then go on ranting about non-relevant stuff without ever backup up your claim. It's just a really long troll at this point.

And FYI

Small empires actually dominate in happiness/GAs and cultural policy branches. It's the first Civ game to actively discourage imperial sprawl with no drawbacks (well Soren tried uber corruption in Civ3, but you people hated it)

 

[Abegweit]

Civ4 was UNPLAYABLE and had an absolutely horrible launch. I picked up Civ5, started a game, found some depth, and had fun killing coms. There are some serious bugs and balance issues but there's nothing stopping me from enjoying it. The biggest fault about Civ5 is there's so many player decisions (in war, in policies, in buildings) that the AI needs to be at a much higher level to compete.

I don't think people remember Civ4. All I think people are remembering is the final Civ4+BTS product, which still had some horrible mechanics that I would've wanted ironed out. Even with all the improvements, ICS was much easier in Civ4, the AI was much worse at war, and several parts of the game could be simply ignored.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Aside from the ATI card issue (which apparently was a biggy although I had an ATI card and it worked fine for me), Civ4 was an excellent game at launch. Aside from some improvements in the AI, some nerfs and some gimmicks there really isn't much difference between Vanilla and BtS. Unlike Civ5 it had depth and was challenging.

You could roll-play it. I note that Civ4's number one roll-player has already given up on this game in the middle of his first attempt. I am dead certain that the RBC crowd will never touch the game. Not enough depth for their approach to it.

Specifics. Let's see...
* it had resource tiles that actually had value
* it had a tree tech which was varied and interesting
* it had an AI which couldn't just be steam-rollered.
* it had diplomacy
* it had different ways of playing the game, SE vs CE for example
* it had cultural wars

What does Civ5 offer?
* Food you buy instead of growing.
* Ugly trading posts that never evolve.
* Huge exploits, far greater than anything in civ4
* Happiness system that the AI always has endless amounts of

Stop with the nostalgia and actually compare the two.

Perhaps you should take your own advice.

 

[zonk]

I don't see the 'it's a wargame with city building' critique. It's a Civ game, war has always been central to civ games. In fact, it took civ3/4to try and pull the series back from just being building a bunch of cities then spies and spamming the AI with it (remember how unbalanced Civ2 was?)

Jon is one of us, he was a fan before he became a Firaxian and I appreciate his vision. He seemed to really like Civ3 because Civ5 reminds a lot of that game, aesthetically.

The top level AI was also moved away from the straightjacket Soren put them into in Civ4 to be more like the sandlot dog eat dog AI of Civ3.
hECK, AI now takes lump sum upfront for per turn deals. Freaking finally. Civ4 can't even manage that because it was deemed an exploit.

Unless you've designed a game, you don't know what's involved. Stop slandering someone because he didn't make the Civ BTS 2.0 that some of you want. I liked Civ4, but am ready to move on.

I have to disagree -- strongly - with this.

Warfare was a necessary part, but it was NEVER "central" nor did it have to be.

A lot of us never really cared about issues with quecha/axe whatever rushes because we weren't particularly war-focused.

It was entirely possible to play a Civ game without any wars - or very few - in fact, the majority of my Civ IV games went that route. Quite often, the only wars I got involved in were repelling attacks (and making the attacker pay for their bloodlust).

Civ V is terribly easy for a lot of us builders because the 'balancing' of our peaceful ways in IV was that you had to put a lot of TLC into either kissing up to the AI (or using religion or diplomacy or pacts) to keep it from attacking, or -- you have to devote some resources to being adequately able to defend yourself.

V is easy because the military AI is an absolute pushover... but I certainly think that the 'peaceful' gameplay is terribly boring, terribly rote, and terribly un-fun, with a ton of boring next turns. Fix the military AI issue -- and you still haven't made the game very interesting for a lot of us builders.

As I said above -- I really quibble with the idea of Civilization becoming just another 'wargame'. Civilization was never supposed to be that.

If it is now, well.... I guess the lineage ends with me. There are better wargames on the market than Civilization has any hope of becoming. I could probably tick off half a dozen titles that have already mastered hex/1UpT (heck, panzer general!). I don't need another one.

Military strategy and tactics was always a complementary aspect to Civilization.

Call it Civilization: Total War -- but give the mainline title to someone that appreciates the fact that you were supposed to be able to enjoy the title without ever firing a single arrow.