Blast From the Past: CivFanatics Forums from November 2005

[danisans]

You can hate it but thats correct, its not fair. This is part of the whole freaking problem with a lot of the constant complainers here, they compare a game with all its glorious expansions to a vanilla game. Thats just like saying its fair to compare The Sims 2 and all its expansions to vanilla Sims 3. It is NOT fair. Think how long it took to develop BtS, that was the largest expansion pack ever released for the Civ series. How can you create a sequel and add all of the huge amounts of features that took several years to balance, create and fine tune, straight to a new engine in a timely matter?? It don't work like that and never has worked like that. This is Civ V, not Civ V and 2 expansions. Compare Civ V to Civ IV, then compare Civ V's first expansion to Civ IV + Warlords and so on.

This is really how it works:

Version III - 1 year to develop, release, 3 years of patches, DLCs and EPs
Version IV - 1 year to develop (but pretend you have been secretly working on it for five years), release, 3 years of patches, DLCs and EPs
Version V - 1 year to develop (but pretend you have been secretly working on it for ten years now), release, 3 years of patches, DLCs and EPs

 

[JLoZeppeli]

You may be overselling it though. There are similar decisions based on the Social Policies. Honor tree has a similar one. Also Happiness isn't sure a core mechanic in Civ4 also that I doubt most players would be making those kinds of tradeoffs. Health and maintenance cost would kick in first. And with both health and happiness, it was ::joker voke:: 'aggressive expansion' to grab as much early resources as possible. This is more something you would be agonizing over in Civ3, as a city that tips the other way means rioting and zero production. Civ4 penalities are relatively light.


But generally The early game decisions in Civ5 are not the same types or variety as Civ4 because Civ5 isn't Civ4. Your decisions there are how many cities to build, vs. how many SP to unlock early. As like any civ games, benefits are cumulative and the more SP you have, the stronger they are cumulatively, but it also means smaller empires.

You are forgetting one thing dude, socials have no drawbacks at all. It's a bonus, a good anyway option...
I can miss the best one for chance, but it surely doesn't damage me on the long run too much... Very different from the drawbacks in Civ IV, build temple or sticky with Monarchy and build troops? And if i want to build temple, it's worth 1 turn of revolution to change Monarchy??

You are fighting a lost battle.

I think that's better if the die hard fan praise the qualities, than force themselves to justify any feature not so good as in Civ IV...

PS Warspite2 on the Sims statement... I didn't buy sims 3 at all, becasue it's a graphic update of the vanilla 2 with a little features to justifying the new version. When i buy a sequel, at least hope to see an upgrade of the previous vanilla, maybe with some features from the expansion. Not the same game with better graphic and two changes.

 

[Alki]

My only beef with 5 is the AI being thick. The other changes I mostly like and once I get to know the gameplay aspects, like best ways to handle unhappiness and generate cash I'll be happy.

That is not a new phenomenon, BTS 3.19 wasnae that much better and all it had to do was roll it's army into a big stack and trundle forward and it didn't always get that right.

I reckon 5 is doing okay and think it will probably get better. If the AI would build lots more spears, defend on hills and forests, expand it's army generally etc.

 

[Rince]

Saying that the discussion on Civ4 and the expansion packs was purely about technical issues is simply wrong. About every feature of Civ4 was debated, hated by some and loved by others. Just like with Civ5 now.

I can clearly remember arguments about "dumbing down", "this is a console version" (because of this new-fangled 3D engine) and "Firaxis wants to appeal to the casual market" arguments back when Civ4 was launched, as well as glorification of Civ3 as the last "real" Civilization game.

That being said, I do think that constructive criticism of Civ5 is important and will eventually turn this game into the best Civ ever.

 

[jjkrause84]

EDIT: I don't compare Super Street Fighter IV to Super Street Fighter II, I compared it to Capcom last iteration of that game, Street Fighter IV.

Nah, be honest....you don't compare is to Super Street Fighter II because that was the greatest fighting game ever made!

 

[jjkrause84]

10 years for Civ4 is not an unreasable figure. Civ4 itself is a unique creature. Each Civ before and after has had a new lead designer. Civ4 was the first game to build on the previous installment.

Maybe that's why it was and is so well-loved?

 

[Psyringe]

Saying that the discussion on Civ4 and the expansion packs was purely about technical issues is simply wrong. About every feature of Civ4 was debated, hated by some and loved by others. Just like with Civ5 now.

I was quite active here at that time and I don't think your assessment is correct. I agree when you say "every aspect was debated" - that's always the case. However, take a look at what aspects the discussions focused on and how the polls of that time ran. I think sgrig made a good comparison.

The vast majority of complaints about Civ4 where:
1. the game doesn't run (technical problems)
2. stupid unnecessary 3d engine doesn't let me run the game on my machine
3. inefficient engine doesn't let me play huge maps

Even the "Civ3 > Civ4" crowd mainly cited these reasons, not any perceived "superiority" of Civ3 mechanisms. I don't recall anyone calling for a reintroduction of Civ3's corruption system. On the contrary, even the Civ3 crowd said that corruption as implemented in Civ3 wasn't enjoyable, usually their position was that corruption could be modded out of Civ3. T.A. Jones advocated a patch which did that in every discussion.

To a lesser degree, there were also gameplay discussions. These focused on 2 main aspects:
4. The game punishes warfare too much
5. Implementation of artillery as kamikaze units makes no sense

Of all these criticisms, only (5) survived for a long time. The technical issues were remedied with patches and/or resolved themselves as users upgraded from old hardware. Issue (4) was resolved by patches which lowered city maintenance, and the Warlords expansion added more options for warmongers.

I can clearly remember arguments about "dumbing down", "this is a console version" (because of this new-fangled 3D engine) and "Firaxis wants to appeal to the casual market" arguments back when Civ4 was launched, as well as glorification of Civ3 as the last "real" Civilization game.

Yes, but most of these arguments and threads focused on the presentation of the game, not the gameplay.

Of course there were claims that Civ4's gameplay had also been "dumbed down" - a good example is that from time to time, someone came and complained that the reduction of the distinct offense/defense strengths for each unit to a single strength value in Civ4 was a sign of "dumbing down". But, well, that assessment obviously didn't have much merit since the whole promotion system was added to allow units to be fine-tuned, so these discussions died out pretty quickly.

Another example that shows the difference are the AI discussions. At Civ4's release, most discussions regarding the AI revolved around someone claiming that the AI cheated (who was then usually proven wrong). For Civ5, the majority of AI complaints is that the AI can't handle the game's combat at all.

Really - I've seen game launches since the industry exists, and as far as forum discussions go, Civ4 was - as far as its game design was concerned - one of the most widely accepted evolutions of a franchise that I've ever seen. Civ5 is seeing a pretty divided fanbase, comparable to the release of Oblivion (another game that diverged from core gameplay elements of its predecessor, was harshly criticized by many, but also had a substantial number of players who liked it). The fan reaction to Civ5 is not as bad as the fan reaction to MoO3 or HoMM4 was though.

I really don't see where the claims that Civ4 had a similar forum reaction than Civ5 are coming from. It looks like an attempt to rewrite history, but it might just be selective memory as well. In any case, the whole premise doesn't make sense - Civ4 was a clear attempt of an evolution from Civ3, while Civ5 is a clear attempt to produce a very different game that's still Civ. It was absolutely predictable that Civ5 would have a worse reception among the fans than Civ4 had (this was then exacerbated by the fact that the game doesn't work very well right now, but patches may be able to remedy this).

 

[hardcore_gamer]

I was quite active here at that time and I don't think your assessment is correct. I agree when you say "every aspect was debated" - that's always the case. However, take a look at what aspects the discussions focused on and how the polls of that time ran. I think sgrig made a good comparison.

The vast majority of complaints about Civ4 where:
1. the game doesn't run (technical problems)
2. stupid unnecessary 3d engine doesn't let me run the game on my machine
3. inefficient engine doesn't let me play huge maps

Even the "Civ3 > Civ4" crowd mainly cited these reasons, not any perceived "superiority" of Civ3 mechanisms. I don't recall anyone calling for a reintroduction of Civ3's corruption system. On the contrary, even the Civ3 crowd said that corruption as implemented in Civ3 wasn't enjoyable, usually their position was that corruption could be modded out of Civ3. T.A. Jones advocated a patch which did that in every discussion.

To a lesser degree, there were also gameplay discussions. These focused on 2 main aspects:
4. The game punishes warfare too much
5. Implementation of artillery as kamikaze units makes no sense

Of all these criticisms, only (5) survived for a long time. The technical issues were remedied with patches and/or resolved themselves as users upgraded from old hardware. Issue (4) was resolved by patches which lowered city maintenance, and the Warlords expansion added more options for warmongers.


Yes, but most of these arguments and threads focused on the presentation of the game, not the gameplay.

Of course there were claims that Civ4's gameplay had also been "dumbed down" - a good example is that from time to time, someone came and complained that the reduction of the distinct offense/defense strengths for each unit to a single strength value in Civ4 was a sign of "dumbing down". But, well, that assessment obviously didn't have much merit since the whole promotion system was added to allow units to be fine-tuned, so these discussions died out pretty quickly.

Another example that shows the difference are the AI discussions. At Civ4's release, most discussions regarding the AI revolved around someone claiming that the AI cheated (who was then usually proven wrong). For Civ5, the majority of AI complaints is that the AI can't handle the game's combat at all.

Really - I've seen game launches since the industry exists, and as far as forum discussions go, Civ4 was - as far as its game design was concerned - one of the most widely accepted evolutions of a franchise that I've ever seen. Civ5 is seeing a pretty divided fanbase, comparable to the release of Oblivion (another game that diverged from core gameplay elements of its predecessor, was harshly criticized by many, but also had a substantial number of players who liked it). The fan reaction to Civ5 is not as bad as the fan reaction to MoO3 or HoMM4 was though.

I really don't see where the claims that Civ4 had a similar forum reaction than Civ5 are coming from. It looks like an attempt to rewrite history, but it might just be selective memory as well. In any case, the whole premise doesn't make sense - Civ4 was a clear attempt of an evolution from Civ3, while Civ5 is a clear attempt to produce a very different game that's still Civ. It was absolutely predictable that Civ5 would have a worse reception among the fans than Civ4 had (this was then exacerbated by the fact that the game doesn't work very well right now, but patches may be able to remedy this).

Indeed.

The biggest problem I have with Civ 5 besides the poor AI is the utterly horrible decision to make the AI "play to win". Whoever came up with that decision obviously doesn't know what makes the Civ games fun.

 

[zonk]

Still waiting for someone to explain to me what I'm missing that breaks up the NEXT TURN monotony for the non-warmonger.

If you want to just say "Fine. There's not. It's Civilization gone wargame." - so be it.

 

[Leif Roar]

The forum reception to Civ IV at launch was mainly "The game is fun, but it doesn't work!" while for Civ V it has mainly been "The game works, but it isn't fun!"

 

[Lonkut]

So what the OP is saying is that Firaxis likes to release unfinished games, charge high price and then release paid expansion packs that make the game playable. If BtS was great shouldn't firaxis expand on that?

 

[Osetjka]

So I went ahead and took a "blast from the past" as suggested, and you know what I saw? People were generally in agreement that barring hardware issues (ATI related stability and performance issues) cIV was a worthy addition to the franchise. And why shouldn't it be? It was classic that was four games in the making, a culmination of more than a decade of iterations and improvements. Now imagine what would happen if you throw away all those design and start anew.. oh wait..

I guess in a sense this thread is indeed a blast: blast away ciV by removing all doubt.

 

[Bleser]

Wow, good thoughts and discussion, and lots of valid points!

In my OP I was mainly trying to point out the "late game turn waiting" and technical glitches that existed in both IV and V's release. Gameplay mechanics, no doubt, are in question in V and were not so in IV.

I have a lot of fun in V (war is REALLY fun) but it needs a lot of improvement. Maybe we'll be charged $20 or $30 for a later expansion that adds back a lot of what vanilla V took out (religion, corporations, etc).

 

[zonk]

Wow, good thoughts and discussion, and lots of valid points!

In my OP I was mainly trying to point out the "late game turn waiting" and technical glitches that existed in both IV and V's release. Gameplay mechanics, no doubt, are in question in V and were not so in IV.

I have a lot of fun in V (war is REALLY fun) but it needs a lot of improvement. Maybe we'll be charged $20 or $30 for a later expansion that adds back a lot of what vanilla V took out (religion, corporations, etc).

Bolded without direct comment.

I'm at a place in my life where dropping $130 (yes, I've got my pewter figurines and a DVD I'll never watch...) on a game isn't going to cause me to skip any meals, but -- it's hard not to be a bit peeved when my best hope would seem to be tossing another $30 on the pile in the hopes that there's a non-wargame to found on this core.

For the first time since I bought I -- there's a very real chance that I won't even bother with an expansion, unless Firaxis makes it really clear they've heard the complaints of the non-warmongers and made it explicit that the expansion's very vision was to address those needs.... that's, unfortunately, going to require a lot of reading between the lines.

 

[dexters]

Zonk, serious question. do you read 'stories and tales' forums of any Civ game at all?

The overwhelming majority of the story involves gigantic power struggles and wars.

And obviously Civ4: Warlords and Beyond the Sword was really meant to be expansions for a core game that was non War centric.

 

[zonk]

Zonk, serious question. do you read 'stories and tales' forums of any Civ game at all?

The overwhelming majority of the story involves gigantic power struggles and wars.

And obviously Civ4: Warlords and Beyond the Sword was really meant to be expansions for a core game that was non War centric.

Do I read Civ AARs?

Not at all --

I actually DO read lots of AARs for various Paradox titles (both EU and HOI), both because I find the storytelling quite good, but also because they often make for excellent tutorials... but Civilization, for me, was always more of a sandbox game and AARs are of limited value in such a wide, far-reaching sandbox. To learn about specific mechanics - I'd occasionally hit the strategy forum.

I'm not sure what you're saying re: Warlords/BTS --- I though vanilla IV was all things to all people, while Warlords was (obviously) a nod towards warfare (in fact, I recall myself arguing IN FAVOR of there needing to be a "Great General" to go along with other GPs in the early stages of vanilla IV); BTS was a builder expansion.

As I've said - I'm not in any way arguing for the abstraction or excising of war entirely... Just because I play as a builder doesn't mean I never go to war - but war in previous iterations was more of a limiting factor.

I put it this way in another thread -- "war" in IV was the challenge for me, that which made Civ more than just Sim City (which I actually don't care for at all); but my core gameplay -- my "fun" -- was building and managing my city and infrastructure while using other means besides arms (diplomacy, religion) to meet the 'challenge'. V is the worst of both worlds -- they took away the challenge (because war is easy, but that's all there is to do) AND the fun.

War is often inevitable... but there were other things to do.

I was hunting around and cannot find it -- but I distinctly remember a quote from an old Sid interview where be bluntly stated "Civilization is not supposed to be a wargame"... I'd just like to know -- assuming I'm not making it up -- if that statement is no longer operative... because it sure seems like we're not arguing about whether it is or not -- I have yet to find anyone who would disagree that Civ V is first and foremost a wargame -- we're only arguing about whether it should be.... and it's pretty obvious where I stand on that debate.

 

[SuperJay]

The forum reception to Civ IV at launch was mainly "The game is fun, but it doesn't work!" while for Civ V it has mainly been "The game works, but it isn't fun!"

Well said.

I find it ironic and hilarious that the Civ5 devotees are now complaining about complaining even more than the skeptics were complaining in the first place! (Wrap your head around THAT.)

The odd thing here is that the devotees are complaining about other people in a forum. (That's all this thread is - another complaint about complaining.) The skeptics are complaining about the design of a game that's the latest in a series of which we're all fans.

Again, if you don't like the complaints, just don't read them. If you love the game as it is, just enjoy Civ5 and have fun with it! Nobody here is hurting you or your ability to have fun with the game. Take some control over your own experience and stop crying about other people's opinions so much.

 

[Psyringe]

I'm not sure what you're saying re: Warlords/BTS --- I though vanilla IV was all things to all people, while Warlords was (obviously) a nod towards warfare (in fact, I recall myself arguing IN FAVOR of there needing to be a "Great General" to go along with other GPs in the early stages of vanilla IV); BTS was a builder expansion.

While I find myself agreeing with most of what you say in your post (we seem to have very similar ways of playing and enjoying a Civ game), I think the assessment "vanilla IV was all things to all people" isn't correct. Imho, Civ4 vanilla was pretty much geared toward a builder playstyle with occasional military skirmishes. Personally I wasn't bothered by that, but I remember that one of the few consistent gameplay criticisms about Civ4 vanilla was that it didn't lend itself to warfare easily:
- The game was supposed to play quicker than its predecessors, so there were less opportunities for war; you probably remember the "my units are outdated when they reach the front" posts. (This was remedied when a patch introduced marathon speed)
- Defensive positions in Civ4 are stronger than the were in previous games (cultural defense, city garrison promotions)
- For the first time in the Civ franchise, overexpansion could actually break your economy in the core of your empire.
- no great general / army unit
- no medieval siege unit (Civ4 vanilla had no trebuchet, you had to use catapults until you could build cannons)

When Warlords came out, I remember some people saying "Finally we can play Civ4 they way we want to, but we're still miffed that they sold us half a game with vanilla."

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the first Civ5 expansion had a heavy focus on builder mechanics. (Though, judging from the base it will build upon, I'm doubtful whether this would save the game. It's possible, but it would be pretty hard, and my trust in Firaxis# current team has taken a dent to be honest.)

 

[ecki2k]

We saw the same thing when Windows XP came out. People voicing their dislike, that they will stick with the old Windows version until they release a service pack or a revamped version. Then, next thing you know, everybody's running XP. When Vista comes out, the same people who were complaining about XP are now devoted XP defenders jumping on the "Vista is crap" bandwagon. But while XP recovered from the initial complaints, Vista never did. Nobody is saying Windows 7 is crap, I am going back to Vista. The XP / Vista analogy applies to Civ IV / Civ V. I think that three years from now, a large percentage of experienced players will yet have converted to Civ V, reverting instead to Civ IV until Civ VI is released.

Yes! That´s it. Precisely.

 

[Roxlimn]

JLoZeppeli:

It's not true that Social Policies have no cost. In fact, they may be the most expensive way to gain government-style bonuses in Civ to date.

The early bonuses are easy to get - a bit of a way to tweak your Civ to the style of play that you like the best. The bonuses are generally bent that way.

Later bonuses cost gold, cities, and hammers. If you want anything like the amount of Social Policies a smaller Civ is going to get, you need to set up the infrastructure basically everywhere, and that only allows you to match policy speeds with a smaller Civ that's not too concerned with Policies.

In Civ IV, you got your government benefits through research, and the penalties were only marginally effective at preventing you from benefiting from them. Generally, you mixed and matched to maximize the strengths and got little to none of the drawbacks. Certainly, there wasn't any inherent drawback to Caste System - the only drawback was that you couldn't also run Slavery at the same time, which is an opportunity cost.

Getting Communism in Civ V requires both opportunity costs and absolute costs.