550 turns down to 400...why?

[Darwin420]

I'm confident the decision to reduce the # of game turns was made to INCREASE the fun factor, and to take advantage of the new system. cIV is being made from the ground-up, which means the mechanics of the game will no longer be the same. I trust Firaxis that this decision was made weighing ALL the factors of fun gameplay. And, heck, if you don't like, just edit it in XML. At least there's an easy mod option, unlike most games out there.

Personally, I never play for score, and I don't think I've had more than a handful of games that have hit the turn limit. Either way, I'm not too concerned about the number of turns. Plus, as has been stated, we'll have three options for game-length, with the additional option of starting in a particular 'era' ... sounds good to me.

 

[Philips beard]

I don't trust them on this one, they are to willing to sell the game better to brainless teenagers, then intelligent consumers, like myself!

But I'm glad they give players a more epical alternative, so afterall I'm very satisfied!

 

[dh_epic]

Saying that you're smarter because you want a longer game is pretty arrogant.

I'm reminded of the hardcore people who played "The Sims" MMORPG online for hours every day, forming partnerships, getting promotions, gaining money, buying property. On the other hand, the casual gamers would play on the weekends, and find that on a weekly basis they had been fired, evicted, and alienated.

A shorter game isn't about appealing to "dumb teenagers". It's about appealing to people who have real lives, with jobs and families and kids.

Regardless, to me the problem with Civ 3 wasn't that it was too long. My problem with Civ 3 is that it FELT too long.

When you can conquer the world in 700 AD, the game is too long.
When winning is a foregone conclusion halfway through the game, the game is too long.
When the last two ages of the game drag on and on, the game is too long.

In other words, don't get all upset that there are fewer turns in Civ 4 than Civ 3. That says almost NOTHING about how long and interesting the actual game is. I'd rather have 400 turns of interesting gameplay than 250 turns of interesting gameplay followed by 300 turns of tedium.

 

[Philips beard]

I'm not to sorry about this! They have made it eatable for every taste, I guess, with the ability to choose the length of it by yourself! That's good! Personally I will play the epic style, and use the save button when I want to live my life in other ways then playing CIV!

 

[Slax]

dh_epic - I agree with everything you said.

Don't forget how map size can affect game time-length. I play mostly tiny and small maps because of real life time restraints.

 

[Rhye]

obviously, because they copied Rhye's of Civilization, which has 400 turns

 

[Philips beard]

obviously, because they copied Rhye's of Civilization, which has 400 turns

Rhye's of Civilization is fantastic! Play it alot! Great job! But I would love to se a 600 turns version of it!

 

[V. Soma]

Regardless, to me the problem with Civ 3 wasn't that it was too long. My problem with Civ 3 is that it FELT too long.

When you can conquer the world in 700 AD, the game is too long.
When winning is a foregone conclusion halfway through the game, the game is too long.
When the last two ages of the game drag on and on, the game is too long.

Exactly...

 

[fuad]

i hope at least they leave this open in the editor so if anybody wants to increase the turns or decrease them can by doing it through the editor or even in set up screen in the game itself like in C3C where u can choose the amount of turns u want , that way everyone will be happy

 

[Commander Bello]

I think, we have to distinguish between the number of turns and both, the real time of playing and the "feeled" time.
First of all, what has not become clear to me yet, is whether the three options of game length are bound to the number of turns.
Second, from our experience with Civ3 we know, that the number of turns means almost nothing when you want to estimate the total time of playing. A turn in the industrial ages easily consumes five times more minutes than a turn in the ancient or medieval ages.
My concern is that the reduction of turns will accelerate the consecutiveness of events - to exagerate a little bit, I wouldn't like to find infantry at one turn, and stealth bombers at the next turn.

Anyway, the main problem of Civ3 - the tediousness in the last ages - cannot be adressed by the reduction of turns, that's for sure.
It will have an impact on other things, though.
Think of the announced 85 techs - even if 20% of them are not needed for further advance, you will have to put in around 60 of them into 400 turns, thus giving you an average of less then 7 turns for a tech to be invented. Furthermore (again, speaking in terms of Civ3) the time to build small and great wonders will have to be drastically reduced, only to make them fit into that given game length.
Having an editor allowing you to easily change the number of turns doesn't help very much as you then will have to mod all the production and research costs as well, which means the tedious part of game balancing.

After all: I would have liked it more if they would have announced a reduction down to 500 turns (still a reduction of 10%) AND would have announced major efforts in stream lining the game.

 

[ComradeDavo]

I wish the game was longer. Especially the ancient age.

YES! I agree. I want longer anceint age! Time flys by too quickly at current.

 

[V. Soma]

I think that a 400 turns long game can be nice even in C3C...
Think of Rhye's Civ...

I made a version of Rhye's Civ, Clashing of Empires, and in this I made
wonders of the ancient and middle age with much reduced cost,
exactly bacouse I wanted a flow of the game...
Rhye has done great job on balancing the tech costs and all other,
therefore on emperor level the game is wonderfully matching history
and boredom is not coming that early.

My version (CoE) has an ancient age by the AI of ca. 160-170 turns...
(of course, human player can fasten it up, maybe ca. 130 turns)

/if I remember well, Rhye's also has a ca. 170-180 turns of ancient age by emperor AI)

So, maybe the 400 turns may be good for Civ 4.
But we do not know it yet, we only can have guesses...

 

[Hyronymus]

YES! I agree. I want longer anceint age! Time flys by too quickly at current.

I wouldn't hold your breath for that to happen as they announced there won't be any era's anymore.

 

[covenant]

I wouldn't hold your breath for that to happen as they announced there won't be any era's anymore.

I would recommend not holding breath at all. The only thing that is going to happen is your going to knock your self out and wake up with a killer headache.

 

[alms66]

Rhye's of Civilization is fantastic! Play it alot! Great job! But I would love to se a 600 turns version of it!

My sentiments exactly, which is why I made a 600 turn version of it! It's not as balanced as I'd like it to be (not yet anyway), as I haven't spent a great deal of time trying to balance it. I think a slight adjustment to the tech rate would go a long way to balancing it out. The tech rate is 150 right now, 200 or so would be a good ballpark figure, IMO.

Anyway, here it is (note that I also increased Huge map size to 180x180 as the 150x150 standard was too cramped for my liking, and space between civs is now 10 instead of 6, but you can change that back easily if you like):

 

[player1 fanatic]

It's not all about tech rate really.

It's more about how many turn you need to win the game.
If number of turn of avregare is much lower then deadline, then deadline should be shorter.


Kida reminds me of Rome: Total War.
That game starts at 270BC, and finsihes at 14AC, two turns per your. More then 500 tursn total.
Of course, the real problem is that most games get finished in 100 to 200 turns, so 500 turn limit is meaningless.

 

[Justy]

I think that the main problem with the early ages flying by too fast is the way the AIs trade tech so freely. If you are not careful, especially at the higher levels, the AIs will gather a huge amount of tech in a relatively short amount of time. I think that tech should depend more upon the internal factors of trade rather than external trade. I wouldn't want to see it totally done away with, but that is a reason why the ages fly by so fast.

Either slow down the trade or add more tech into the tree. Then your ages will hang around longer.

 

[dh_epic]

Good point. I think that if tech trade were substantially slowed down -- by whatever mechanism -- the ancient era would be more drawn out. I also think it would lead to more creative strategy than the two main "tech buyer" and "tech seller" strategies in Civ 3.

 

[oldStatesman]

Good point. I think that if tech trade were substantially slowed down -- by whatever mechanism -- the ancient era would be more drawn out. I also think it would lead to more creative strategy than the two main "tech buyer" and "tech seller" strategies in Civ 3.

I agree. A larger more flexible tech tree would be good - not only to slow down the ages, but so you can skip around on it if you want to a certain degree - it would be so Jules Vernian to have spaceflight while still in the Industrial era culturally/militarily for example! Or to have primitive airships and parachutes in the middle ages - Da Vinci's inventions made real in his lifetime!

 

[Philips beard]

Good point. I think that if tech trade were substantially slowed down -- by whatever mechanism -- the ancient era would be more drawn out. I also think it would lead to more creative strategy than the two main "tech buyer" and "tech seller" strategies in Civ 3.

I think you should have more time for ancient wars, so its not just a tech-race, and a race building the most settlers!

I think it looks like farming, hunting, fishing etc will be own techs now, at least in the new epic version of the game. While researching those, you can build a few more cities, and when the real ancient age starts, you will have more time to other businesses to! Can be good!

I know they won't use ages anymore, but there will be ages anyway, because the development will still follow the same path! So it's silly to say the ages are out!