Civ X or Civ 6 ?

[Civinator]

OP is referring to a hypothetical crowd-funded version of Civilization.

So this Civ X is not existing yet and therefore no link is possible.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I never said make it completely popular - I meant for it to have a slightly larger NEWER fanbase. After all - if we only make appeal to the original, older audience then it will never go beyond it's indigenous population.

That's the same thing though. There are always going to be new young people that want the old formula as evidenced by the fact that the franchise has been going on for decades. Turns out that a good formula always has fans. Trying to find "new" fans only ever accomplishes loosing what makes your game distinctive to the fanbase.

 

[Pangaea]

I tried to post something along those lines somewhere in the Civ 6 forum, and got shouted at. Criticism isn't very welcome, suffice to say. But it's a different game now, entirely. I honestly think the franchise ended with Civ 4. Whatever they're doing now is only Civ in name.

 

[Bruhmoment]

That's the same thing though. There are always going to be new young people that want the old formula as evidenced by the fact that the franchise has been going on for decades. Turns out that a good formula always has fans. Trying to find "new" fans only ever accomplishes loosing what makes your game distinctive to the fanbase.

There will be some new boys that want the old formula, but the favor goes in the masses' favor - I haven't seen many people say they want the old formula back aside from a few "partisans", and that's why they don't care about the smaller masses

 

[Fippy]

Civ6 has no AI so you have peoples playing in a sandbox, i mean it's not even strategy anymore

 

[The Snug]

There will be some new boys that want the old formula, but the favor goes in the masses' favor - I haven't seen many people say they want the old formula back aside from a few "partisans", and that's why they don't care about the smaller masses

You don't even know what you're talking about. You weren't a member of these forums when CIv 5 came out. I was. I remember. When it happened there was a general uprising against it. The hate for Civ5 from already existing civ fans was almost universal.

 

[Bruhmoment]

You don't even know what you're talking about. You weren't a member of these forums when CIv 5 came out. I was. I remember. When it happened there was a general uprising against it. The hate for Civ5 from already existing civ fans was almost universal.

It's the same formula - hate on the previous game. Civ 5 is loved and civ 6 is hated
Civ 5 was hated and 4 loved
Dunno about 3 but I imagine it's the same

 

[The Snug]

It's the same formula - hate on the previous game. Civ 5 is loved and civ 6 is hated
Civ 5 was hated and 4 loved
Dunno about 3 but I imagine it's the same

You're still not hearing me.

Each Civ Iteration was more beloved than the previous iteration by the fans...until 5. 5 was the first time that a mass exodus occurred. All of my friends who grew up playing each civ from the first all quit after 5.

 

[need my speed]

I can confirm The Snug's words.

 

[aieeegrunt]

That was my reaction as well. I bought 6 on a whim because of a sale

I enjoy the basic game but I hate the expansions even more than I did 5

 

[vorlon_mi]

All 6 games in the franchise made key decisions to change how the player leads a tribe from the Stone Age into space travel. That multi-era-spanning aspect is the key to what a Civ game is, IMHO.

It is also true that the dramatic changes from 4 to 5, e.g., 1UPT, global happiness mechanic, embarked units, upset many long-time fans. I don't think that a hex grid *alone* would have provoked so much anger and frustration. A crowd-funded successor to Civ4 would probably make different design choices than the Civ 5 designers did. I've read that Civ 5 was more ready for mutli-player ( more than 1 human player) in its initial design than Civ4 was. If true, I don't know what impact that had on other design decisions. The Civ4 Deity players are remarkably detail oriented, enjoy long-range plans, and most if not all employ a great deal of micromanagement: visiting every city, every turn. The fans of Civ5 (over in their forums) find less fun in that level of micro; I believe that reducing that level of detail work by the player was indeed a design goal for the Civ5 developers.

I would note that Civ6 is designed to be played on consoles as well as WIndows PCs and Macs. That's not necessarily a *younger* user base, but a much expanded user base. Civ X would have difficulty accessing that market, simply from a development tools viewpoint. The Steam data shows that tens of thousands of people are actively playing both Civ5 and Civ6. Whether they are "old fans" who are enjoying the new game, or "new fans" who only know these games as Civ, it's hard to say. It's not hard to follow the money.

 

[Fippy]

The Civ4 Deity players are remarkably detail oriented, enjoy long-range plans, and most if not all employ a great deal of micromanagement: visiting every city, every turn.

Hmm not really, turning off "Citizen Automation" for a city avoids silly tile changes. So now i only have to look at cities when i need something urgently (add maybe), or for a combined goal like or (classic example reaching pottery 1t faster so workers aren't standing around and can cottage).
Ofc when things are very hectic like barb pressure coming on turn ~40, checking cities frequently migth be needed to avoid serious trouble.

 

[sampsa]

The Civ4 Deity players are remarkably detail oriented, enjoy long-range plans, and most if not all employ a great deal of micromanagement: visiting every city, every turn.

Having tile yields on allows you to see what tiles are worked and what aren't, which most of the time makes it unnecessary to enter city screen. Of course, sometimes at city growth it's necessary to swap tiles between cities and so on. But what I'm trying to say is that once you get a good hang of it, 90% of the micromanagement is very easy and automatic. Though I guess this applies to everything that requires some skill - once you learn it, doing it doesn't feel detail oriented anymore, it's just how it's supposed to be done assuming you care about results.

I also think there exists a phase of learning the game where players make it more difficult than it is, doing things like maximizing overflow without actually doing anything with the overflow. Nearly always good micromanagement is about finding ways to work the best tiles in the most beneficial fashion.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Personally I can't play with tile yields on. It's just too distracting. Not that you need to as the small hut icon on each tile tells you where people are assigned. I still much prefer to manually check each city each turn and use that time to think and plan.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This popped up in my feed today, and now I see some posts where I'm inclined to respond .

Other than those 3 points, I don't see anything else wrong

The UI in Civ 5 is strictly dominated by Civ 4 in nearly every objective measure of UI. People can have different opinions about whether they like how things look, but in terms of # inputs to do things, speed of accessing important information, and time spent playing games Civ 5 is a massive regression from Civ 4. This by itself usually adds > hour per game in addition to IBT performance issues (back when Civ 5 was new-ish, I timed it).

For players that play fast, adding hour(s) of dead time amounted to making ~33% more dead time during a session, sometimes more if comparing peaceful VC between the two.

The UI is a travesty in 5 compared to 4, and only somewhat better in 6. It should not be possible to manage > double the number of cities giving those cities the same types of orders faster in the older game. It was both funny and sad to watch players complain about slow gameplay/boring lategame and then fail to make the connection that a large % of this problem was pure incompetence of UI slog in the newer Civ.

What makes this game exceptional from the others that it deserves the rank of "worst civ game"?

It's true that only 4 had fast UI design, and even its UI had some problems. What made 5 uniquely bad was perverse design incentives. "Tall vs wide" isn't a cancer concept merely because "you can't play wide" (you could, though it was proven suboptimal to expand significantly with military before going on final push).

"Tall vs wide" is also a cancer concept in strategy games because it disincentivizes conflict/competition over scarce resources. In Civ 5, it does that so strongly that mere existence is a deterrent.

It was a stopgap "solution" introduced *post release* into Civ 5 because the devs at the time couldn't balance the game.

Civ6 has no AI so you have peoples playing in a sandbox, i mean it's not even strategy anymore

There is still MP at least. And unlike 5, there is incentive to conquer people and pressure/threat created if/when someone does so successfully. The builder/district/eureka setup is handled well and there are lots of opportunities for optimization there. AI is "the suck" so it rarely matters in practice, but it's still good to acknowledge that the design of the system is a vast improvement over 5 IMO.

One day someone will ML train the AI in Civ and then none of us will be able to win at equal settings, lol.

 

[Bruhmoment]

This popped up in my feed today, and now I see some posts where I'm inclined to respond .



The UI in Civ 5 is strictly dominated by Civ 4 in nearly every objective measure of UI. People can have different opinions about whether they like how things look, but in terms of # inputs to do things, speed of accessing important information, and time spent playing games Civ 5 is a massive regression from Civ 4. This by itself usually adds > hour per game in addition to IBT performance issues (back when Civ 5 was new-ish, I timed it).

For players that play fast, adding hour(s) of dead time amounted to making ~33% more dead time during a session, sometimes more if comparing peaceful VC between the two.

The UI is a travesty in 5 compared to 4, and only somewhat better in 6. It should not be possible to manage > double the number of cities giving those cities the same types of orders faster in the older game. It was both funny and sad to watch players complain about slow gameplay/boring lategame and then fail to make the connection that a large % of this problem was pure incompetence of UI slog in the newer Civ.



It's true that only 4 had fast UI design, and even its UI had some problems. What made 5 uniquely bad was perverse design incentives. "Tall vs wide" isn't a cancer concept merely because "you can't play wide" (you could, though it was proven suboptimal to expand significantly with military before going on final push).

"Tall vs wide" is also a cancer concept in strategy games because it disincentivizes conflict/competition over scarce resources. In Civ 5, it does that so strongly that mere existence is a deterrent.

It was a stopgap "solution" introduced *post release* into Civ 5 because the devs at the time couldn't balance the game.



There is still MP at least. And unlike 5, there is incentive to conquer people and pressure/threat created if/when someone does so successfully. The builder/district/eureka setup is handled well and there are lots of opportunities for optimization there. AI is "the suck" so it rarely matters in practice, but it's still good to acknowledge that the design of the system is a vast improvement over 5 IMO.

One day someone will ML train the AI in Civ and then none of us will be able to win at equal settings, lol.

A bit of babble about the UI - from what I can remember in civ 5 it's smaller, so you could say it takes up less space. Not something older civ players would get used to, but more efficient overall

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A bit of babble about the UI - from what I can remember in civ 5 it's smaller, so you could say it takes up less space. Not something older civ players would get used to, but more efficient overall

What you are posting is not an answer to what you are quoting. Perhaps you quoted me in error?

 

[Bruhmoment]

What you are posting is not an answer to what you are quoting. Perhaps you quoted me in error?

Not that I don't remember, you were talking about U.I and I just added my thoughts about it

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not that I don't remember, you were talking about U.I and I just added my thoughts about it

I already mentioned that one might have variable preferences wrt how it "looks", however. And how it looks does not influence it dropping basic UI features.

The problem is all of the objective metrics of UI, where civ 5 is a strict regression from 4. You need more inputs to do the same things, it takes longer to do them (objectively, this was timed), and also need more inputs to access the same information. There's no good justification for that. It just wasn't important enough to the dev team or enough players that they cared to implement it again.

This is why I gave the 50 vs 20 city example, to illustrate just how massive the difference is. You could give the fastest human being in the world those 20 Civ 5 cities, and he'd still be slower than me managing 50 in Civ 4, turn to turn. I am reasonably fast, but nowhere near the fastest. Doesn't matter, Civ 5 UI and input lag are that much worse. So bad that even if the other guy could hit his controls instantly, the game's input lag would still hold him back too much. To people who take 20 hours to play one game, maybe that's not a big deal to add 60-90 minutes across one game. For people who would otherwise complete a full game in 60-240 minutes (depending on VC/map size), adding 60-90 minutes is a large burden, and an excruciating one in end-turn spam style culture games (it literally doubles game length relative to earlier title, without increasing meaningful decisions made at all).

The worst part is that 5 could have kept its exact GUI/button appearance, and simply allowed the same hotkeys, queues, and interactivity of the ledger/city list (for example). There is nothing about the presentation of Civ 5's UI that would prevent two-input city queue adjustment or selecting a group of 5 cities. The dev team simply...didn't feel it was important enough to retain those functionalities, even though at the time of Civ 5's release they were already old/established good features in numerous strategy titles dating back ~2 decades.

I have a problem with that. And I still have a problem with it in Civ 6.

 

[Bruhmoment]

I already mentioned that one might have variable preferences wrt how it "looks", however. And how it looks does not influence it dropping basic UI features.

The problem is all of the objective metrics of UI, where civ 5 is a strict regression from 4. You need more inputs to do the same things, it takes longer to do them (objectively, this was timed), and also need more inputs to access the same information. There's no good justification for that. It just wasn't important enough to the dev team or enough players that they cared to implement it again.

This is why I gave the 50 vs 20 city example, to illustrate just how massive the difference is. You could give the fastest human being in the world those 20 Civ 5 cities, and he'd still be slower than me managing 50 in Civ 4, turn to turn. I am reasonably fast, but nowhere near the fastest. Doesn't matter, Civ 5 UI and input lag are that much worse. So bad that even if the other guy could hit his controls instantly, the game's input lag would still hold him back too much. To people who take 20 hours to play one game, maybe that's not a big deal to add 60-90 minutes across one game. For people who would otherwise complete a full game in 60-240 minutes (depending on VC/map size), adding 60-90 minutes is a large burden, and an excruciating one in end-turn spam style culture games (it literally doubles game length relative to earlier title, without increasing meaningful decisions made at all).

The worst part is that 5 could have kept its exact GUI/button appearance, and simply allowed the same hotkeys, queues, and interactivity of the ledger/city list (for example). There is nothing about the presentation of Civ 5's UI that would prevent two-input city queue adjustment or selecting a group of 5 cities. The dev team simply...didn't feel it was important enough to retain those functionalities, even though at the time of Civ 5's release they were already old/established good features in numerous strategy titles dating back ~2 decades.

I have a problem with that. And I still have a problem with it in Civ 6.

How so? City UI looks simpler than from civ 4, so how could it take longer? You still just click whatever thing you see first, so what is the game missing?