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

[Toady]

What does backfiring mean? (in this context... I know what it usually means)

Implementing core mechanics like Global happiness with the aim to curb over expansion (ICS) and in the end achieving just the opposite effect.

To be fair, these are mechanics of the game being pushed to the extreme. Something that probably more than 80 or 90% of the players of the game would never even hear about or have the desire to try. That's a figure pulled out of nowhere, but it is important to remember that the most competitive forum-going players are not experiencing the game in the way a more typical player does.

It doesn't matter if it's Extreme, or 80% or 60% or 50%. For example: gold massing is more benefitial than trying to setup decent hammer production wether you optimise it to the max or not, remember our argument on the patch change for the conversion of hammers to gold? I told you i never used that exploit to get money out of units, yet the fact that gold was overpowered was clearly apparent to me even though i didn't play the tactic to the max. 10 smaller cities are much better than 4 10+ pop ones, it doesnt have to be 15 cities.... or 22 cities... Diplomacy is always going to be "off" wether you take advantage of trading to the max doesn't change it... it just makes it more obvious.

A car that doesnt handle well is going to appear somewhat flimsy driven by a casual driver and it's going to be a ludicrous sight if a professional attempts to push it to the max. That doesn't change the fact that is has issues with it's core design that affect everyone.

Can't stand on its own? A fairly vague description. It seems to work ok as a game. It's not necessarily as sophisticated in its depth of strategies as civ4+expansions is, but that wouldn't mean it's fair to go as far as saying it doesn't stand on its own. You might as well say civrev doesn't stand on its own either, but many will disagree with that.

Well my personal opinion is that if this game wasn't called Civilization 5 it wouldn't be able to stand on it own.

 

[cr0ws]

"Why do people Cling to Civ 4"?

Apart from all the obvious pros over civ5,we STILL don't need STEAM to play it!

Don't touch my Civ4!!!!

 

[Jharii]

Don't touch my Civ4!!!!

No one is. Don't touch our Civ5.

 

[cr0ws]

No one is. Don't touch our Civ5.

Sure, kick a civ when he's down, I agree to your terms, for now!

 

[SuperJay]

You don't need to pretend that you never played the previous games. You just play the new game like it's exactly that - a new game. Again, not everyone thinks that for something to be enjoyable it has to be better in every way than something they've experienced before.

My point was that simply doing so doesn't automatically make the game enjoyable to everyone. In a roundabout way, you seem to be just writing another variation of the "You just wanted Civ 4.5" stuff.

I did play Civ5 like a new game, and I just wanted it to be engaging, fun, and replayable. It wasn't really any of those things, for me. And while I understand your point about it not having to be a linear evolution of Civ 4 and be superior in every way... it says Civilization V on the cover.

I know it's a "new direction" and a "reboot" and we have to "think about it differently" and "see it as a new game," but it's called Civ5! If it'd been "Civilization: Tactics" or some other title indicating that it was related to the series but NOT a direct continuation of the series, I'd be fine. It'd be a Civ-related game that I didn't get too into; nothing new there. As it stands, it's a "reboot" and a "new direction" that's sold as a continuation. No wonder some people are fed up.

As I said elsewhere... it's disappointing that after almost 20 years, I no longer know what I'm getting when I buy a game called "Civilization."

 

[sketch162000]

My point was that simply doing so doesn't automatically make the game enjoyable to everyone. In a roundabout way, you seem to be just writing another variation of the "You just wanted Civ 4.5" stuff.

I did play Civ5 like a new game, and I just wanted it to be engaging, fun, and replayable. It wasn't really any of those things, for me. And while I understand your point about it not having to be a linear evolution of Civ 4 and be superior in every way... it says Civilization V on the cover.

I know it's a "new direction" and a "reboot" and we have to "think about it differently" and "see it as a new game," but it's called Civ5! If it'd been "Civilization: Tactics" or some other title indicating that it was related to the series but NOT a direct continuation of the series, I'd be fine. It'd be a Civ-related game that I didn't get too into; nothing new there. As it stands, it's a "reboot" and a "new direction" that's sold as a continuation. No wonder some people are fed up.

As I said elsewhere... it's disappointing that after almost 20 years, I no longer know what I'm getting when I buy a game called "Civilization."

LOL this is basically what I wanted to say, but I had a brain fart. Bravo!

To be frank, pretty much the only reason I bought Civ V because I enjoyed Civ IV. I thought, reasonably, that I would enjoy the next iteration for the same reasons that I enjoyed the previous version. I expected a similar and better experience. I got neither, so the game disappoints me. Civ V is a departure from what I came to love as Civilization, and it's a departure that's worse than what was already there, IMO.

 

[bryanw1995]

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 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 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.

ciV will get more complexity over time as well, with expansions/mods/etc. It might not get to 300 units, but there will be lots more over the next couple of years for those of us in the "more is better" group.

edit: I bookmarked some interesting ciV mods a week or 2 ago and noticed that afforess is already hard at work on ciV mods. I'm sure many of the other cIV modders are also working on improvements as we speak. Give it some time, the reason that they brought in somebody from the mod community in the first place is that these guys are much better at game design/improvements/etc than most of the hackers at firaxis/2k.

 

[bryanw1995]

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


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

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


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

We are seeing this all the times on message boards. those who expected civ 4.5 are disappointed, those who actually listened when firaxis told us that it would be more like civ rev look at it as a huge improvement. Where does it really fall? probably somwhere in between. I do know that people at Anandtech/hardocp/etc etc are now reading/hearing a lot about ciV during video card releases now, whereas most of those guys couldn't have cared less about any other civ editions.

 

[bryanw1995]

My expectation still remains that when Civ5 is fully patched and expanded, it will be better than Civ4 fully patched and expanded. So no matter what anyone's opinion is on the current state, whether or not my full expectations are met remains to be seen. In other words, I have no conclusion at this point. I'm just enjoying the hell out of Civ5.

And as PoM pointed out, your logic is a bit flawed.

ha, I was having fun until I decided last night to play for a patsy cultural victory on immortal. did I bum rush my souther neighbor, napoleon? of course not! I'm playing for culture, baby! I made nice with him, played fair, gave him stuff, then BAM he dow'd me. unfortunately I wasn't able to mohawk warrior/archer bum rush him since his musketeers looked a little formidable. next time I go cultural I'll take out my immediate rivals first...

 

[Jharii]

ha, I was having fun until I decided last night to play for a patsy cultural victory on immortal. did I bum rush my souther neighbor, napoleon? of course not! I'm playing for culture, baby! I made nice with him, played fair, gave him stuff, then BAM he dow'd me. unfortunately I wasn't able to mohawk warrior/archer bum rush him since his musketeers looked a little formidable. next time I go cultural I'll take out my immediate rivals first...

LOL. Culture > King difficulty is tough.

Did you like playing the Iroquois? I freaking love their special ability. Playing them is a very unique experience.

 

[Dale]

Summary of thread into a newspaper headline:

CIV5 != CIV4. People pissed!

 

[Psyringe]

Dale, have you actually read the thread before offering your summary?

 

[Akka]

Please tell me you understand the logical difference between the two propositions:

"They made a new game. It was not necessarily going to be better than the previous."

"They made a new game that was worse on purpose."

It seriously is not difficult. And a programmer, of all people, should have no trouble. Note that the qualifier "not necessarily" has an important role here.

If it's not aiming to be better, then what's the poing of making a sequel ? (except milking a franchise, which may be okay on a business point of view, but is certainly not going to be convincing about the quality of the game...).
If it's only going to be different, then why make it a sequel, and not a spin-off (CivRev ?) or a really different game ?

Sorry, saying "I'll do a sequel, but it's not going to be better" is just ridiculous.

Considering that Civ 4 BTS+RAND had five years to improve and Civ V has had 1/40th of that time I think it's acceptable for Civ V to be worse currently

The majority of the thread is precisely about debunking this illogical reasoning. If Civ5 comes after Civ4+BTS, how is it acceptable for it to be inferior ?
Did the developpers suddendly forgot what was inside BtS and have to reinvent the wheel ?

 

[bryanw1995]

LOL. Culture > King difficulty is tough.

Did you like playing the Iroquois? I freaking love their special ability. Playing them is a very unique experience.

I played my first immortal game on "random civ" and got irroquois. only had 7 forests within 12 hexes any direction of starting city so I was pretty bummed. however, still enjoyed the game a lot and won in early modern era (bombers/mech inf to invade america on other continent, no stealth bombers/gdr/mod armor). That game was tons of fun b/c I just played "to win" then figured out my victory condition later. I normally do that, but this game i decided to try choosing my victory condition before even seeing what civ I was and where I started; ie, when you start next to monty/rome/nap you'd better bum-rush him quickly regardless of your original plan. Next time I'll definitely at least look at my starting conditions. I'm going to try salvaging this game but prospects look dim.

edit: maybe this is why I was only a monarch player on cIV, I very rarely rushed my closest neighbors.

 

[Akka]

My expectations were for a different game and for a good game. My judgement is not based on whether it is better or worse than Civ4. It is if Civ5 stands on its own. Just like i have judged every game that I have ever owned. I would never scrutinize my son based upon whether he was better or worse than me.

Well, this reasoning is faulty - and false.
Games don't exist in a vacuum, especially sequels, which are, by DEFINITION, dependent on their previous iterations.
You judge a game compared toward what already exists - it's why we don't see anymore games in VGA mode, or game with "bips" as their only sounds, because the standards have risen.
If you make a sequel, it's EXPECTED to be compared to the previous iteration. That's the POINT of a sequel. Sequel, okay ? SEQUEL. That's pretty much the definition, something defined by its predecessors. Again, if you don't want to draw comparisons, don't make a duh-sequel. Make an entirely new game.

If you don't expect a SEQUEL to be compared to the PREVIOUS ITERATION, then the problem lie in your faulty expectation, not in other very NORMAL expectations.

I have a hard time believing that I have to explain why a GODDAM SEQUEL justly bring expectation compared to the previous iteration...

 

[Jharii]

... paraphrased ...

Blah blah blah.

Yell, yell, yell.

I'm right and you're wrong!

Funny how you are the only one so far that fails to understand that one individual's expectations can differ than another individual's expectations. And yet this can still have nothing to do with a company's intentions and expectations.

My apologies if you do not understand concepts other than your own interpretations. It has been explained to you many times now. There is no use going back and forth.

 

[Jharii]

I played my first immortal game on "random civ" and got irroquois. only had 7 forests within 12 hexes any direction of starting city so I was pretty bummed. however, still enjoyed the game a lot and won in early modern era (bombers/mech inf to invade america on other continent, no stealth bombers/gdr/mod armor). That game was tons of fun b/c I just played "to win" then figured out my victory condition later. I normally do that, but this game i decided to try choosing my victory condition before even seeing what civ I was and where I started; ie, when you start next to monty/rome/nap you'd better bum-rush him quickly regardless of your original plan. Next time I'll definitely at least look at my starting conditions. I'm going to try salvaging this game but prospects look dim.

edit: maybe this is why I was only a monarch player on cIV, I very rarely rushed my closest neighbors.

Yeah, they are tough to roll out for culture if you're not in a pretty significant forest since they can be used for defense, too. They work much better when you are aiming for a decently sized civilization. I'm not a fan of ICS, but they work well for that mindset... lots of small cities close together within the boundaries of the forest(s).

 

[Akka]

Funny how you are the only one so far that fails to understand that one individual's expectations can differ than another individual's expectations. And yet this can still have nothing to do with a company's intentions and expectations.

My apologies if you do not understand concepts other than your own interpretations. It has been explained to you many times now. There is no use going back and forth

It's not because someone "explained it to me" that he means he's right. I could just as well return the argument : I "explained it to him" and he still didn't get it ! (in fact, not only I could return the argument, but I just do, because yep I've pointed it several times).

There is things that are dependant on the people (some people like Civ5, and it's their right, some don't like it and it's also their right).
But there is things that are simply LOGICAL and NOT up to the opinion (a sequel is a sequel, it exists BECAUSE there was something before - or it would not be a sequel). A definition is not up to opinion. And if someone has expectation contradicting the logic of a definition, well... he may still have his expectations, but they are WRONG.

Now you may want to argue that a sequel doesn't logically raise expectation compared to the previous iteration, but it's just broken logic, not opinion. Anybody can say something. It doesn't make it right nor true. I can say "in my mind, Diablo is a FPS !", it will still be a ridiculous affirmation.

 

[Jharii]

It's not because someone "explained it to me" that he means he's right. I could just as well return the argument : I "explained it to him" and he still didn't get it ! (in fact, not only I could return the argument, but I just do, because yep I've pointed it several times).

Sorry. You think there are absolute rights and wrongs on this particular aspect of the discussion. There are not. And I really don't care if you understand it or not. You can't even acknowledge opinions outside of your own. It's pointless discussing this with you any further.

Sorry you do not enjoy Civ5 if you don't. Glad you enjoy Civ5 it if you do.

Enjoy your day.

 

[Akka]

Sorry. You think there are absolute rights and wrongs on this particular aspect of the discussion.

I don't "think" there is. There IS.
That's the definition and logical consequences of a sequel. The very concept of a sequel is about following something up.
I'm afraid that if such basic definitions don't do the trick of making some FACTS self-obvious, nothing will.