Civ 5 Vs. Civ 4 BTS+ RoM:AnD - a final conclusion

[Akka]

And if that is YOUR interpretation of what Civ5 should be, then that is fine. It's hardly nonsense, however, considering that is not what Civ5 is (or Civ4 vanilla was), but your condescension is duly noted.

Pretty funny that I am "full of nonsense" but I'm simply stating what is the current state of the game. "Should be" is a completely subjective mindset. But you're entitled to your opinion, that's just no reason to be uncivil.

You're full of nonsense to pretend that Civ5 should not be compared to Civ4+extensions, but only to Civ4, as if the extensions never existed.

Seems I'm allowed to be condescending considering how you still miss the point after a detailed explanation.

Moderator Action: Please try to make your points without the added snide comments, thanks.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Jharii]

You're full of nonsense to pretend that Civ5 should not be compared to Civ4+extensions, but only to Civ4, as if the extensions never existed.

Seems I'm allowed to be condescending considering how you still miss the point after a detailed explanation.

Oh, I can compare it. That's not the issue, but you seem to confuse comparisons with expectations. I most certainly do not expect it to be the same, or an improvement on every level, as Civ4 + everything. Why?

It's a different game going in a different direction. It's not Civ4.5.

Please, continue your unwarranted condescension and your inability to have a civil discussion. It fuels me.

 

[Moss]

Moderator Action: To whom it may concern, please improve the civility of this discussion, please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[berni19]

My wish is civ3 - Conquest upgrade on the basis of Rhye mod. This was joy to play and i could just imagine what it could be with some ciV stuff implemented in it. I experience a lot of very good ideas in ciV ( one hex battle but units should pass each other in peace.., visible wonders, limited strategic resources, road payments and so on ...), but when you play the game, the result is not quite ecstatic due to corrupted game core mechanics and AI behaviour.
Graphics and music are important, but i would trade both of them for better AI. Maybe there is a option to change or disband something to make game more addictive and enjoyable.

 

[PawelS]

I hope there will be a mod like AND for Civ5 someday

Btw starting a new thread should open discussion, so calling it "a final conclusion" is not a good idea IMHO...

 

[JoxerNL]

instead of "a final conclusion" you really should say "My final conclusion".
Cause your thread title is very misleading as it's entirely on your oppinion based.

 

[dhaniell]

First off. I dislike CivV. I dislike it so much that it was the major reason why I signed up on these forums. (Or no, actually it was to look into the CivIV mod-scene more closer but I like a bit drama )

I agree with th OP but while I like RoM+AnD when I feel like playing a long epic game full of complexity and alternatives for a change, I do not think that is the road the developers of Civ should concentrate on. Not on the overwhelming 100+ features/units/techs/options and so on I mean. What they should look into in that mod is the way religion, happiness, cultural diversity and political system and its techs/units is implented. Its not perfect but it tries to further develop the ideas of BTS, and balance on a advantage/disadvantage system that simulates a more realistic approach to Civ.

One of the major features in CivV is its new accessibility (which in theory is a good thing) that is integrated in such a idiotproof-way that it ultimately degrades the fans of CivIV+BTS era. A BIG BUTTON WITH BIG LETTERS SO WE KNOW WHAT TO DO. Please, come on...

Dear devs, stop thinking in sales figures and catering to casuality and look at the workings of what your fans have made for you to take inspiration from. Some of the stuff is truly genius pieces of creative modding that in the hands of proffessional programmers could turn CivV to be something us more conservative players could enjoy too.

My 2 cents.

 

[hclass]

Putting in an "edit" clickable makes it more obvious to newcomers.

The idea to make a feature obvious to newcomers is very important!
But use an "edit" clickable to implement the idea is damn stupid!

And yes, that means that it makes the game more accessible at the cost of a minor convenience issue for people who were going to buy the game anyway.

Why don't they just pop a balloon message (sort of tips that player can choose to turn off once they get familiar with the game interface)?
Aren't accessibility and inconveniency mutually exclusive?

Pardon my saying so, but I don't think accessibility features of Civ 5 can really be properly appreciated or criticized by people who've played hundreds of hours of Civ 4 and particularly not by people who think that putting in 300 units in the game is a great idea.

i.e. you think Firaxis has intentionally made Civ5 a game which won't be appreciated by all long-time Civ4 fans and hence these fans are not qualify to criticize Civ5, right?
But why not they just stop at Civ4 BtS and create a totally new game call Sid Meier's Babarian - Bye Bye Old fans?

 

[Zogar]

A BIG BUTTON WITH BIG LETTERS SO WE KNOW WHAT TO DO. Please, come on...

I find the big button is actually an improvement. But you have a point, they could have designed something a bit more complex. How a civ can be a civ if it's not complex ?

 

[bryanw1995]

I am constantly amazed at the arguement put on this board that says that Civ 4 Vanilla should be compared to Civ 5 as a fair comparison and that a fully patched and expanded Civ 4 is not a fair comparison to Civ 5.

Bunkum!

Civ is a series and each game in the series has taken the previous, added to it, changed a few things (no more than 20% arrording to Sid) developed it and made it more playable. Civ 5 is not a new game, it is the next in the series and has to be see compared to Civ 4 BTS.

In their arrogance ( and juvenility) the designers of Civ 5 thought they could scrap most of the game, start again and do better than those that came before them for the last 20 years. All they needed to do, for example, was to modernise the graphics, go to hexes, fiddle with religion and espionage, develop the tech tree a bit more and perhaps make a few changes to combat and that would have been it.

Instead they made a huge mess of their dumbed down concept. As they say in the classics, you can't polish a turd. No ammount of modding and patching will help this game. Well done guys, you screwed up the un-screwupable.

you can do all of that with a modded civ iv. if they had done that then the boards would be inundated with "ciV is just a slightly modded civ iv!" posts. in fact, that would have left no reason at all to even release ciV. It sounds like you are the perfect candidate for AND. at least with this we can say that they definitely changed the game.

I never played mods other than the vanilla bts/warlords releases. I played god-emperor's finaler frontier last night, and I must say that it improves civ iv a great deal imho. of course, I kept trying to use ZOC in combat and 1upt to prevent enemy settlers from taking over my favored star system, but I eventually remembered everything Think I might try out AND and just leave the Xupt disabled.

 

[bryanw1995]

Just for you, I will explain it in more detail:
Selecting items in windows-based programs typically is done via severel ways, which have become "common" ways.
a) one click
b) double click

Firaxis in all their wisdom have chosen to make use of an un-common way of doing so. For whatever reason.
Like it is with the "edit" functionality. A tiny word serving as button, while since years the customer is used to click just into the naming field.

Things like this mean re-inventing the wheel, and unfortunately, it turns out not to be a wheel, but an octagon.

This tells quite some story about the design philosophy. Obviously they thought to be more clever than generations of developers before. Turns out, they just aren't.

technically it's a hexagon

 

[bryanw1995]

lol, funny

the combat in 5 is far better

its so stupid to play in the dumb civ4 way of stacking thousands of units like a idiot

funny you mention that. My favorite civ4 game by far is final frontier. I've gotten to the point that all difficulty levels are just too easy on it so I stopped playing about 6 months ago. I saw yesterday that there have been tons of improvements/improved mods introduced, with god-emperor's finalER frontier apparently a good place to start. I installed the mod, and played a very competitive game on prince (!!!) which I only played to test out all the new improvements, units, etc. everybody gets to fusion canon within 25 turns or so of each other, as I said a very competitive, fun game. Then I get dow'd and the stack of doom appears. it was a pretty large sod, 10 omega battleships, 8 battlecruisers, 9 omega planetary defense ships, etc etc etc. I had to struggle a bit but was able to wipe out the sod. that was it, a couple of turns of sod and his entire load was shot. no strategy, no tactics, just dump a bunch of powerful units into a stack and march on the offensive. I still love civ 4 but after having played civ 5 for nearly 300 hours I must say that many of the more subtle improvements are now apparent.

 

[bryanw1995]

Hmm? It's not his mod, it's mine (And Zappara's). I only noticed this thread after it got to the 3rd page...

sorry about that. I'm just tired of all the ciV hate going around the forums atm.

Mod looks very interesting, I think I'll d/l it and try it out.

 

[Roxlimn]

The idea to make a feature obvious to newcomers is very important!
But use an "edit" clickable to implement the idea is damn stupid!

Usability ergonomics and display can be counter-intuitive. Begging your pardon, but I don't think you have any room to categorize the UI here as "stupid" unless you have some sort of data that suggests that putting in this kind of UI is less effective than otherwise.

Why don't they just pop a balloon message (sort of tips that player can choose to turn off once they get familiar with the game interface)?
Aren't accessibility and inconveniency mutually exclusive?

Why not, indeed? I don't know. That said balloon popups are already in the game as turn-alerts. It's possible than a new player might dismiss such a popup as one of these other messages and not get the proper information. Adding in a feature to make it more convenient for more serious players might be good, but we ARE talking about renaming units for cutesy purposes here. It's not a core function.

i.e. you think Firaxis has intentionally made Civ5 a game which won't be appreciated by all long-time Civ4 fans and hence these fans are not qualify to criticize Civ5, right?
But why not they just stop at Civ4 BtS and create a totally new game call Sid Meier's Babarian - Bye Bye Old fans?

I think that Firaxis is trying to improve the interface in terms of accessibility. This was true for Civ IV as well. Civ IV's interface was touted as "like an RTS" in terms of quality of interface and feedback. It's strange that Civ V is being characterized (negatively!) as being even more like an RTS. That would suggest that Firaxis is succeeding in its intent.

Intentionally having less complexity in the basic game for reasons of accessibility is entirely reasonable. Long term Civ4 fans who like having 300+ units in the game won't really be satisfied unless that kind of complexity for the sake of complexity is met, and those fans are small in number. It makes no sense to make Civ V for them when they seem to be doing quite well on their own.

Too, Civ IV itself was a "reset," removing concepts like Armies from C3C.

 

[Dale]

Dear devs, stop thinking in sales figures

If they did that, then there would be no more Civ. They make games to make money.

 

[afa2000]

RAND is a great mod. It would be almost near perfection if loading times and turn times at modern era were faster. Civ V seems a kid game when compared to Civ IV+BTS+RAND.

 

[Akka]

Oh, I can compare it. That's not the issue, but you seem to confuse comparisons with expectations. I most certainly do not expect it to be the same, or an improvement on every level, as Civ4 + everything. Why?

It's a different game going in a different direction. It's not Civ4.5.

You realize there is absolutely no logical link between your first paragraph and the second ?

A new game in a serie should improve on the previous one. That's pretty much a given - what's the point of making a new iteration if not to make a game of the same type that is better ?
You're, again, not making any sense.

 

[PieceOfMind]

A new game in a serie should improve on the previous one.

Your opinion. And one shared by many, of course.

That's pretty much a given

If by 'given', you mean it's an expectation, then yes, it's an expectation.

- what's the point of making a new iteration if not to make a game of the same type that is better ?

To make a game of the same type that is not necessarily better. Some may like it more, some may like it less.

You're, again, not making any sense.

He just doesn't have the same expectations as you.

 

[Peregrine]

It's rational to expect IMPROVEMENT. If that's NOT what one expects, what, then?

"Yes, I'd like to purchase the new x product in the series and I expect it to be worse than the last version. Thankyew."

I suppose such requests (not to mention startling lack of rationality) DO occasionally occur. In fantasyland.

 

[Jharii]

You realize there is absolutely no logical link between your first paragraph and the second ?

A new game in a serie should improve on the previous one. That's pretty much a given - what's the point of making a new iteration if not to make a game of the same type that is better ?
You're, again, not making any sense.

PoM covered the very basic logic of my point for you. Enjoy your day.