Civ really did take a major diversion after 4.

[Fish Man]

The thing is, there are all kinds of games out there that people like, from Sorry, to Snakes and Ladders, to...Civ 6. It's a free country and people can like and buy and play Civ 6 and Snakes and Ladders to their heart's content. I'm happy for them. But I hate those games. There is no thinking involved, no decision making. I like games like chess.

Most people are not like me, most people are not like Lemon Merchant. Most people prefer Snakes and Ladders, which is why most video games are the equivalent of that board game. People who like Sorry outnumber people who like Chess probably 10 to 1, or 25 to 1. So, obviously most video games are going to appeal to that kind of gamer.

What's sad is that Firaxis/2k/Microprose used to make games that appeal to me, and to other gamers like me. As there are so few of these companies and so few of these games, it really hurts when one of the leading companies abandoned me/us.

Perhaps we can take a little of the blame here. How many of you paid money to watch "Independence Day 2"? Did you enjoy it? What if "Ace Ventura Pet Detective 15" came out tomorrow, would you watch it? The Civ series is dying, it's time to find something better.

Yeah, that I can agree...It's sad that a larger number of people are increasingly seeing games as mindless eye candy. Nothing wrong with those people, just...dissapointed that this mindset will probably never result in another civ 4 from Firaxis.

Still, though, I've heard the indie scene is rising to the challenge by putting out titles that appeal to people who want harder games or ones that require more thought. And not only that, but also making these games intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking in their mechanics and stories. So there's some hope there, I guess.

Anyhow, I'm actually relatively new to civ 4, having started only this March, so I'm lucky that there's still a lot for me to play before I get tired of it.

 

[ztrapon]

I was referring tot he fact that there is nothing to do in new Civ games other than click Next Turn, Next Turn... ad nauseum until you win the game with no effort. With all the clicking with their index fingers, Civ6 player's index fingers must be in pretty good shape.

Here's what I do when I'm feeling a little edgy: I use my thumb on the numpad enter button to advance turns. That way I can have other hand on alt, shift, ctrl and the hotkeys. Not only is it a lot more gratifying hammering down the thumb on that exotic elongated Enter-button -- but also if I was hypothetically playing in an internet cafe (do they still exist?) -- people across the room would assume I was playing some cool game like Counter-Strike, instead of this dad game

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yeah, that I can agree...It's sad that a larger number of people are increasingly seeing games as mindless eye candy. Nothing wrong with those people, just...dissapointed that this mindset will probably never result in another civ 4 from Firaxis.

Still, though, I've heard the indie scene is rising to the challenge by putting out titles that appeal to people who want harder games or ones that require more thought. And not only that, but also making these games intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking in their mechanics and stories. So there's some hope there, I guess.

Anyhow, I'm actually relatively new to civ 4, having started only this March, so I'm lucky that there's still a lot for me to play before I get tired of it.

Well, you came from Civ V right? Seems like a lot of the skills carried over since you advanced pretty fast.

Just sayin'

 

[Lexicus]

The only time that I actually mention Civ6 players is when I suggested that they have all well developed index fingers from clicking "next turn" until they win out of sheer perseverance.

And you don't believe that this line, along with your description of Civ 5 and 6, is at all disparaging to people who like Civ 5 and 6?

 

[Soupy Delicious]

Actually, I'm totally fine with pointing out problems in the people who play games that are dumb. As opposed to taking a complacent, stupidly peaceful stance, and making up garbage to excuse them of their ways ("they need to relax at the end of their day with some mindless activity"... yadayadaya)... pointing out a problem in society that definitely makes people dumber (you try and tell me that the toddlers/kids/teens of today are having their minds tested [and therefor potentially strengthened] the same as those growing up playing the games of the 90s - early 2000s. Try and tell me that: I'll call you a fool) is usually not that bad a thing. Not sure it gets anything done, but playing the apologetic doesn't either.

This new basic human need that a brain apparently needs to function that's popped up in the 21st century for 'mindless activity' is such a stupid myth. It's just the usual of people justifying their favourite wasters of life. Come home from work > sit in front of the tv > sleep. "oh I need to wind-down".
'Plays nothing but League of Legends and other candy-games', "I need some mindless activity (or I'll slowly fade away!!! D: ). Before all this shite, if one was too 'full-of-mind' (or whatever the ass) to play such a game that taxes it, their mindless activity would be talking to family in the evening, or reading a book, or crafting or tinkering or artsing, or simply: sleep, and wake up actually rested the next stay instead of racking up so much sleep debt.

 

[Lexicus]

Actually, I'm totally fine with pointing out problems in the people who play games that are dumb. As opposed to taking a complacent, stupidly peaceful stance, and making up garbage to excuse them of their ways ("they need to relax at the end of their day with some mindless activity"... yadayadaya)... pointing out a problem in society that definitely makes people dumber (you try and tell me that the toddlers/kids/teens of today are having their minds tested [and therefor potentially strengthened] the same as those growing up playing the games of the 90s - early 2000s. Try and tell me that: I'll call you a fool) is usually not that bad a thing. Not sure it gets anything done, but playing the apologetic doesn't either.

This new basic human need that a brain apparently needs to function that's popped up in the 21st century for 'mindless activity' is such a stupid myth. It's just the usual of people justifying their favourite wasters of life. Come home from work > sit in front of the tv > sleep. "oh I need to wind-down".
'Plays nothing but League of Legends and other candy-games', "I need some mindless activity (or I'll slowly fade away!!! D: ). Before all this ****e, if one was too 'full-of-mind' (or whatever the ass) to play such a game that taxes it, their mindless activity would be talking to family in the evening, or reading a book, or crafting or tinkering or artsing, or simply: sleep, and wake up actually rested the next stay instead of racking up so much sleep debt.

League of Legends probably requires significantly more mental activity to play than Civ 4, honestly.

 

[lymond]

And you don't believe that this line, along with your description of Civ 5 and 6, is at all disparaging to people who like Civ 5 and 6?

I took Lemon's comment as a direct slight to the game itself, not the people that play it. That particular line of discussion is silly anyway..why are we having it. Oh..and don't mess with Wonder Woman

"Sorry"..wow..haven't thought of that game is sooo long. ha..I actually think I might watch "Ace Venture 15", if only Carrey was his old self.

 

[Lexicus]

I took Lemon's comment as a direct slight to the game itself, not the people that play it.

It seems to me clearly to be implying that they're a bunch of mindless drones who have no problem simply clicking "end turn" for hours on end, and that this is patently insulting.
I bet if we showed the comments in question to folks in the Civ 5 or 6 forums they would feel insulted.

I'm all aboard on the Civ 4 is the best train but we can express that opinion without insulting the people who don't agree with us, as @Undefeatable has already correctly pointed out.

 

[lymond]

It seems to me clearly to be implying that they're a bunch of mindless drones who have no problem simply clicking "end turn" for hours on end, and that this is patently insulting.
.

I suggest you read Lemon's original post here https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...diversion-after-4.620508/page-2#post-14829476
for context.

The implications got twisted around from later discussion. The clicking thing was clearly a stab at the game itself, and the mention of 6 players used as sarcasm after the initial comment, as a joke.

 

[Lexicus]

I read all the comments and am aware of all thr context, i assure you. I still think it's insulting. Ymmv i guess

 

[Lemon Merchant]

And you don't believe that this line, along with your description of Civ 5 and 6, is at all disparaging to people who like Civ 5 and 6?

Nope. Not at all. Not one tiny bit.

I took Lemon's comment as a direct slight to the game itself, not the people that play it.

And that's exactly what it is meant to mean, and what it does mean.

It seems to me clearly to be implying that they're a bunch of mindless drones who have no problem simply clicking "end turn" for hours on end, and that this is patently insulting.
I bet if we showed the comments in question to folks in the Civ 5 or 6 forums they would feel insulted.

I think you're reading a little too much into what was said and perhaps drawing an inference that isn't there.

 

[Fippy]

If they take personal insult from Civ6 criticism, they have some strange priorities i guess and it's not Lemon's fault that some forum dwellers are over sensitive.

 

[Archon_Wing]

People defending 6's AI....

Yea.....

But yea that is part of the problem. Ironically, I feel it's not the critics that are dangerous to a game's development, but rather the people that will rubber stamp everything to "defend" a game regardless of reason that severely hampers development.

Granted, the other extreme is certainly bad too where people refuse to learn a game and demand the game be changed, but I think it's more important to not just accept anything for granted for the most part

 

[salty mud]

Yeah, that I can agree...It's sad that a larger number of people are increasingly seeing games as mindless eye candy. Nothing wrong with those people, just...dissapointed that this mindset will probably never result in another civ 4 from Firaxis.

Still, though, I've heard the indie scene is rising to the challenge by putting out titles that appeal to people who want harder games or ones that require more thought. And not only that, but also making these games intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking in their mechanics and stories. So there's some hope there, I guess.

Anyhow, I'm actually relatively new to civ 4, having started only this March, so I'm lucky that there's still a lot for me to play before I get tired of it.

I've been playing Civ IV since 2006 and I'm still not tired of it, so don't worry too much about that.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

The most fun an memirable civ games Are always the ones i've lost or just barely squeezed through a victory. Also a huge X-com fan. I've read a lot of good stuff about Darkest Dungeon, it's supposed to be a good and really challenging xcom-clone. Havent played it myself though!

 

[Quoth the Raven]

I feel like Civ V would have been the best Civ game if they had allowed unit stacking and gone with the Civ IV gold = science system.

 

[noto2]

It's not even that I mind tactical combat, I don't. I'm a fan of Xcom, after all. It's just that I feel it is unnecessary in Civ. What is Civ about? It's about empire building, it's a grand strategy game. Even at the best of times, tactical combat can feel like a chore late game, especially when you need to give individual orders to your 30+ units during an intercontinental invasion, you can't use waypoints, and you can't really use build ques.

I just don't see tactical combat being necessary to a good Civ game. At best, it won't really add all that much to the game, and at worst, it will cause the strategy game to suffer. After all these years, and extensive modding, Civ 5's tactical combat can be modded into something that isn't completely terrible, but it's still quite easy to defeat. Civ 6 bad. I never played Civ 5 until BNW came out, so I can't compare release Civ5 to release Civ6, all I know is that Civ6 deity is a snoozefest.

I just wish someone had been in the development room and said "wait... why are we doing this again? We already own the Xcom franchise. If we want to make a tactical combat game, we can do that, but is that really what Civ is about?"

And if you really decide to do it anyway, make damned sure you do it well.

But there's actually even more wrong with this. Why 1 UPT? Even if developers decided to make combat more tactical and more... "interesting" ... why did they decide to go this particular route? There are other things they could have done, though to be honest Civ 5 is the first grand strategy game I ever played that attempted to combine 4x with 1UPT tactical battles. I played a lot of Civ 3 and some Civ 4 online. I bet Civ 5 is a hoot to play online, but alas, Civ games just aren't realistic MP games. I'm an adult. I have a difficult enough time sitting down for a 40 min game of Dota. I certainly can't tell everyone to leave me alone for a 4 hour game of Civ. Not gonna happen.

 

[antimony]

And still today we have people like WastinTime completely overhauling all aspects of the economy to massively improve on what previously has been thought possible in IV.

I wonder if there is any chance this will be the case in VI? Does that game provide enough strategic depth so that nobody will have figured out how to play it close to optimally by the time VII is released? Somehow I doubt it. Maybe it could be possible if expansions massively improve the game, though seeing the direction this series has taken, I somehow doubt it.

To my knowledge, no one has "solved" any Civ games in the mathematical sense of the term, and if one were primarily interested in that, they would find enough options in Civ VI to spend quite a bit of time finding an optimal solution (and yes, even in Civ VI, finding truly optimal plays takes some work). But we don't play the game just to solve optimization problems. Otherwise, we wouldn't need a good AI, or an AI at all.

I really doubt the issue is that the underlying mechanics of the game are too easy to master; it's more that there's less motivation to do so when sub-optimal play can still beat the AI, and the weak UI wastes too much game time on mundane tasks.

 

[ztrapon]

To my knowledge, no one has "solved" any Civ games in the mathematical sense of the term, and if one were primarily interested in that, they would find enough options in Civ VI to spend quite a bit of time finding an optimal solution (and yes, even in Civ VI, finding truly optimal plays takes some work). But we don't play the game just to solve optimization problems. Otherwise, we wouldn't need a good AI, or an AI at all.

I really doubt the issue is that the underlying mechanics of the game are too easy to master; it's more that there's less motivation to do so when sub-optimal play can still beat the AI, and the weak UI wastes too much game time on mundane tasks.

You can't "solve" Civ because most information is unknown. The AI can only make the most rational decision at any given point, but that doesn't mean it's the optimal move overall. Computers are amazing at games like chess, where all information is available, because then it's just a matter of processing lots of data quickly (something computers do better than humans).

In Civ however that behavior is a disadvantage, since it makes you predictable and slow to adapt. Which is why AI sucks at warfare and is vulnerable to rushing, but very good at managing its own economy.

Civ 6 is probably the worst Civilization game yet. But I think those who flame the AI too much aren't really being fair. Civ 4 AI was terrible too in the beginning, and even with 3.19 patch it's pretty lousy without mods. Furthermore, a lot of Civ 4 strategy (especially at Deity level), revolves around abusing AI predictability -- like knowing what techs they research, at what thresholds they attack/don't attack, and underlying data found in the XML's. That's not good AI either.

In fact, I don't think we'll ever have good AI hard coded into a complex game like Civ. Personally I put my hopes into that neural network/machine learning thing.

 

[civvver]

I feel like Civ V would have been the best Civ game if they had allowed unit stacking and gone with the Civ IV gold = science system.

Yeah but doing that is basically civ 4.1.

I feel like a lot of the issue is just steam. You're appealing to masses of people now, pushing steam sales, dlc etc. It drastically changes how you approach the game design.