I have to say, I have some sympathy with the original poster. Perhaps we have a similar background. I've done 35 years of successful commercial software development, creating a wide array of products from flight simulators for airlines, to games, to mobile phone software, from small user populations to millions.
From the point of view of professional pride, yes I'd be disappointed if I produced something that was fragile on all but the newest high-end machines. I'd be disappointed at the level of bugs I see in Civ5. I'd even be disappointed in my QA colleagues for not sweeping up after me efficiently!
But I also understand the pressures that people at Firaxis are under. I've worked at all sizes of company, and Firaxis would rate well toward the small end of that spectrum. On a long development cycle, there comes a time when you need to get payback. If the project is not well managed (and I have no clue whether or not it was in this case - though I'm sure you know the scenario well), you'll be cramming towards the advertised delivery date, and you'll get... well... exactly what you've seen in Civ5.
I guess we have one thing to comfort us. It seems obvious, to me at least, that the software has been implemented using tools that make it easy to modify (and customize) rather than quick to run. Perhaps it even uses some kind of dynamic interpreter or parses the XML on-the-fly every time! Apart from really bad design - and I'm assuming that that's not the case - I can see no other reason on earth to explain why it should run so unnecessarily slowly for the kind of application that it is. If so, then some problems at least should be quick to fix, though of course the danger in applying such quick fixes under pressure is skimping on regression testing and introducing other bugs.
I guess we'll see. I'm giving the game a fair trial. I eventually found a configuration that trades graphics quality sufficiently for usability on my laptop. And later I tinkered with the .ini files to improve it still further. Now I can at last get on with playing the game and seeing what it's like.
Meanwhile, if Firaxis want an experienced developer or project manager who could ensure the reception of Civ
VI was rather more universally positive (and make a lot more money for them
en route), they can send me a private message...
