Civ V a step backward?

[plasmacannon]

The original comment in quotes, was someones elses interest in changing.
Can it be done, sure, anything is possible, but, to make a game overly complex takes time to design.
So, to take short cuts is ok if it doesn't effect the overall gameplay.
Atleast to me.
I played the Koreans in Civ4, and their regular units were asian. I played the Native Americans in Civ4 and the spearmen looked cool, and different than the Koreans.
So, they are different enough for me.
To your point, if China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, and Khmer are all in the same game, well, yes, their non-unique units would look similar.
I'm ok with that.
Even in the US, for census purposes, a person from the middle east is considered "White".
Perhaps, you are just speaking about, just local clothing?
Then, it would depend on how many nations they will bring into the final game, after expansions. We had 52 in Civ4, from what I hear, that number will be reduced, but, to do 52 different types of clothing, for each spearman, archer, horse archer, etc (probably, 20 units), would be increadibly time comsuming and therefore costly.

Some have suggested that since many nations are multi-cultural, they should be all be diverse by a certain percentage. That sounds complex for little gain. I mentioned this elsewhere.

 

[Crispin]

I loved the religion stuff in civ4, they could definitely change it up a bit, but it was a great addition. I don't know why they would remove it, simplifying ? Hate that word and the impact it has on games nowadays. Hopefully I'm just looking to much into it.

 

[troytheface]

civ3 was great. had a blast
civ4 was better - had more of a blast

i suspect a positive pattern
i suspect civ5 will be better than 4

but nothing was better than that clattering bell ringing with a dog unique unit -the Conqusitidor in civ3 -

hope they have more fun with things like they did with that (and this board too)

maturity is all fine and well- but it is also boring- there is no logic or maturity in having fun in so far as i have found.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't know why they would remove it, simplifying ?

They're removing religion as it was in Civ4 because they don't like how its main purpose was to create arbitrary alliance structures based on the randomness of how particular religions spread. They'd prefer alliance structures to be determined by the diplomacy system.

 

[The Almighty dF]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=245548

I think this answers the topic's question.

 

[snowlyon]

...it's a bit early imo to decide what kind of direction the game is taking without getting some play time in on it. given the information provided...I would say that it is moving more "sideways" than "backwards" which isnt necessarily a bad thing.~

 

[plasmacannon]

...it's a bit early imo to decide what kind of direction the game is taking without getting some play time in on it. given the information provided...I would say that it is moving more "sideways" than "backwards" which isnt necessarily a bad thing.~

From what has been provided, we can say that;
1) Based on Graphics it's a step forward.
2) Based on the hex map transformation, is a step towards games of the past. Whether you think this is forward or backwards is up to you, but, it's not new.
3) Based on the single unit per tile, same as #2. Stacking made Civ different than so many other games. I think they wanted to reduce the maximum number of units, but, they went too far. A limit number of units check box could have reuced the numbed to what the buyer would like. Give us options, not absolutes.
4) Probably more.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Is it true that Conquest is the only Victory condition allowed in Civ5? I hope not.

 

[Sparthage]

Is it true that Conquest is the only Victory condition allowed in Civ5? I hope not.

What? Where did you hear that?
Also, there's other victory conditions than conquest?!

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Ramesses-Rules the answer is no.

 

[Maeztu]

No.
They're massively reworking the combat engine, moving to hexes, and removing clunky mechanics that didn't work well like espionage.

What do you know about the combat engine?

Comparing Civ III and Civ IV, the combat engine IS a step backwards. Instead of 2 figures (attack and defense) you only have one. And they removed the armies because they didn't know/didn't want to spend time teaching the AI to use them.

Also, instead of teaching the AI how to use the siege weapons properly, they destroyed them.

You cannot bombard cities with ships in Civ IV, another step backwards.

I have read that science trade is going to be disabled in civ V, again instead of fixing it, they removed it.

It is not actually 1 step backwards from Civ IV it is 2 steps backwards from Civ III.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

Ramesses-Rules the answer is no.

Good. I did some checking. They only changed the rules for Conquest requirments. Now you must capture capital cities and you can't use the "stack of doom" technique. Warfare is going to become a lot more tactical on the battlefield. If you like computer chess, you will love it. If not, you will get frustrated by all the little calculations you'll need to do in the battles. Since I never use the Conquest strategy, I wish they had not made these "improvements."

Next question: Do they still have the Vassal state feature? I wish they'd get rid of that.

 

[eireksten]

Since I never use the Conquest strategy, I wish they had not made these "improvements."

The new combat system might help you defend your civilization when you're smaller, as strategic decisions might play a bigger part than mere size. I think this might open up quite a few interesting strategies You don't have to conquer to benefit from a more strategical war mechanic.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

The new combat system might help you defend your civilization when you're smaller, as strategic decisions might play a bigger part than mere size. I think this might open up quite a few interesting strategies You don't have to conquer to benefit from a more strategical war mechanic.

It might cause some of the players on this forum to experiment with more non-military based victory strategies, since attacking or defending a huge empire is going to become even more tedious than ever on the battlefields. I have played a lot of computer chess. It will seize upon any small miscalculations you make. I don't want to play computer chess on a Civ5 screeen. I hope that they didn't go THAT far in complicating the combat mechanics!

 

[Ahriman]

What do you know about the combat engine?

The same as anyone else.

1 military unit per tile.
Combat won't necessarily result in attacker or defender being compeltely destroyed (eg units might just have hit points).
Some units have multiple tile ranged bombardment attack.
Terrain will effect bombardment range (eg some units can't shoot over a forest or hill).
Damaged defenders will still "defend" at full strength (eg damaged unit might have same combat ability just fewer hit points left until they die).

 

[plasmacannon]

Combat won't necessarily result in attacker or defender being compeltely destroyed (eg units might just have hit points).

This part sounds similar to MoM, or Civ3.

 

[Ahriman]

I think its far more likely to be something like battle for Wesnoth, where each unit does damage, and has hit points, and like a D&D character operates at full potential until it hits zero hit points and dies.

In Civ2/3, units would fight to the death (with rare exceptions).

In MoM, units would lose squad members as they took damage, which would reduce their combat potential (fewer men left in the squad).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK here's my additional thoughts: I agree with Ahriman's reasonings on why Civ4 style religion was removed. Though I personally *liked* the addition of religion (& hope it makes a reappearance down the track) it was poorly implemented in Civ4-largely due to its arbitrariness & the inability to make the religions significantly different from each other. Hopefully if religion does make a full-blown appearance, these problems will have been removed.
As to espionage, I thought it was clunky & horrible in Vanilla & Warlords, but actually felt it worked well in BtS. There were enough passive missions to make it worthwhile without having to do a huge amount, but with enough active stuff for people who wanted to use it as a genuine strategy. The system also rewarded patience over spy spam, which I thought was good. So I am disappointed that espionage was removed, but again hope that they'll bring in an even *better* version in future expansions (either that, or maybe there'll be BtS-style espionage mods for people like me ).

As for combat, I actually think that the shift to 1UPT, combined with the increased movement rates & the fact that units won't *always* die in combat helps move the game even further away from the "Bigger=Better" approach which dominated Civ1 to Civ3, but which finally got a knock on the head in Civ4!

Aussie.

 

[Iceciro]

I am greatly looking forward to 1UPT combat. Stacks of doom just feel wierd. If cities have "hit points" I assume that will mean less defenders hiding in them and sallying out when you're weak, and more grand combats on the field and at borders. And thus, less dominance of "city defender archers vs catapult bombardment and suicide axes" and more of actual manouvering.

 

[Maeztu]

civ3 was great. had a blast
civ4 was better - had more of a blast

i suspect a positive pattern
i suspect civ5 will be better than 4

If civ4 was better than civ III, why they are removing religion? Seems to me that the inclusion of religion wasn't an advance. After all, they are removing it in Civ V, because it hampers diplomacy.