Civilization is only for casuals and new gamers?!

[TheMeInTeam]

Ok, great, but in both these games these are fantasy settings where you're playing as aliens or other fantastical made up creatures. It's possible to do this sort of stuff for that reason.

Civ is, necessitated by its scope, a fantasy setting. It uses historical elements as reference, but the implementations are straight up fantasy. This holds true for everything from civics to the fact that you have a single decision entity with different flavors of what is in practice a command economy ruling over a nation for 6000 years, usually with high stability.

If devs wanted, they could design more unique civs. Force a different government with different bonuses in Egypt vs Rome vs Mongolia for example. Constrain units available and alter how units fight accordingly. Have a generic tech tree in each era, then give civs special parts on the tree. You could actually make civs play very differently to each other, especially if you implement fewer civs. Firaxis didn't do this, and they're neither right nor wrong for that choice (in contrast to its trash UI in newer entries). The game is more centered on generated situations than on major differences in how each faction plays.

 

[warpus]

Civ is, necessitated by its scope, a fantasy setting. It uses historical elements as reference, but the implementations are straight up fantasy. This holds true for everything from civics to the fact that you have a single decision entity with different flavors of what is in practice a command economy ruling over a nation for 6000 years, usually with high stability.

From that perspective, sure, but from that perspective every single video game is set in a fantasy setting. In the end Civilization sort of relies on the civilizations being similar. They're all human civilizations, they're all starting at the same time with just a settler or whatever, and they have minute differences that will influence your decisions along the way. It's supposed to present this scenario for you: "Imagine if all the world's great civilizations had the same start, with similar resources, spread all over the planet. What would happen?". The differences between these civilizations (in real life) are the result of the passage of time and to a degree starting conditions. The premise in the other games mentioned (Stellaris, etc.) is that the starting conditions of the players are very different. It's a different game with a different premise.

Civilization will probably never make the civilizations so wildly different. It would change the game into something that it isn't today. Unless they make it so that you the player decides how the civilization evolves and changes over time, which we already sort of do with the uhh what are they called. The purple things you research in Civ 6 that aren't technologies

If devs wanted, they could design more unique civs. Force a different government with different bonuses in Egypt vs Rome vs Mongolia for example. Constrain units available and alter how units fight accordingly. Have a generic tech tree in each era, then give civs special parts on the tree. You could actually make civs play very differently to each other, especially if you implement fewer civs. Firaxis didn't do this, and they're neither right nor wrong for that choice (in contrast to its trash UI in newer entries). The game is more centered on generated situations than on major differences in how each faction plays.

IMO this is a core element of what makes Civilization what it is. If you change it so each civilization is wildly different right from the start, it wouldn't really feel like the same game to me. To me one of the appealing aspects of Civ is that when you start a game, everyone's sort of the same. Based on your starting position and minute civilization pros and cons you then forge your way forward. If each civilization had wildly different game dynamics right at the start of the game, that would just be a different game. If the author of the video wants to play a game like that, it exists, and it's called Stellaris (or whatever). Civ does its own thing and it excels at it, there's no reason to change it just so it follows more modern 4X game dynamics or whatever.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

From that perspective, sure, but from that perspective every single video game is set in a fantasy setting. In the end Civilization sort of relies on the civilizations being similar. They're all human civilizations, they're all starting at the same time with just a settler or whatever, and they have minute differences that will influence your decisions along the way. It's supposed to present this scenario for you: "Imagine if all the world's great civilizations had the same start, with similar resources, spread all over the planet. What would happen?". The differences between these civilizations (in real life) are the result of the passage of time and to a degree starting conditions.

There's no way of knowing for sure what would happen in such a scenario, but given real history had extremely disparate capabilities between nations/empires when it comes to technological rate, military composition, quality of life, even city organization for nations of same approximate era it's not completely out of left field to give civs more varied special abilities if the designer wanted it that way. To be clear, I'm not saying Civ needs this. I'd say it would be safer left for a different IP to attempt.

Civ does its own thing and it excels at it

Or it used to. Civ needs to hire someone who knows how to make a UI up to better-than-1990's standards regarding end user experience. Civ 5 and 6 are both overt regressions in #inputs to accomplish basic tasks and UI accuracy/information presented. I won't mince words, in this regard they are a disgrace, a strategy game with hours added via extra inputs/poor controls and yet still managing to hide core gameplay rules form the player. No respect for that.

It could do a lot more to fight against false choices and not screw incentives too, the newer games have yet to match the balance required by civ 4 maintenance or tradeoff between military/civilian unit production, though Civ 6 isn't too bad in this regard if the AI would try to win games.

 

[warpus]

There's no way of knowing for sure what would happen in such a scenario, but given real history had extremely disparate capabilities between nations/empires when it comes to technological rate, military composition, quality of life, even city organization for nations of same approximate era it's not completely out of left field to give civs more varied special abilities if the designer wanted it that way. To be clear, I'm not saying Civ needs this. I'd say it would be safer left for a different IP to attempt.

When the civs start, they're all just humans with shovels and a horse buggy or whatever. You start the same, with minute pros and cons, and you build from that. That's not what happened in history, but that's what the premise of Civ is, or at least that's what my interpretation of it has always been.

The main variable that is different for each civilization is the starting point. The game says: "Given that all players are more or less given the same resources and tools, how will you make best use of this starting point as you build up your civilization?"

To me the game has always revolved around that concept. It seems to be done on purpose instead of them just being lazy or whatever.

Or it used to. Civ needs to hire someone who knows how to make a UI up to better-than-1990's standards regarding end user experience. Civ 5 and 6 are both overt regressions in #inputs to accomplish basic tasks and UI accuracy/information presented. I won't mince words, in this regard they are a disgrace, a strategy game with hours added via extra inputs/poor controls and yet still managing to hide core gameplay rules form the player. No respect for that.

I didn't notice the UI problems myself. I design UI for a living so that surprises me. Maybe I'm just too cynical about game UI and have very low standards though, that is very possible

It could do a lot more to fight against false choices and not screw incentives too, the newer games have yet to match the balance required by civ 4 maintenance or tradeoff between military/civilian unit production, though Civ 6 isn't too bad in this regard if the AI would try to win games.

The worst part of Civ is always the "AI". If you are just starting to play the game it isn't as big of a problem, but as soon as you start seeing the patterns some of the magic just starts to fade away, as you are reminded that you are just playing against a stupid machine.

Let me rephrase my previous post and say that Civ is good at what it does.. compared to all the other games that try to do the same thing.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Let me rephrase my previous post and say that Civ is good at what it does.. compared to all the other games that try to do the same thing.

Which is why smart developers who want to make a 4X game are well advised to NOT try to do what Civ does. Civ does not have to be the be all and end all for the genre, because it doesn't actually define the genre. But it is pretty much the be all and end all for that corner of the genre that Civ does define; simulation of human development starting from a point where you are pretty much "the same" as your rivals.

You've hammered it Warpus.

 

[Akka]

I didn't notice the UI problems myself. I design UI for a living so that surprises me. Maybe I'm just too cynical about game UI and have very low standards though, that is very possible

Seriously ?
That's the very first thing which made me start to be disappointed in the game, the very console-ish UI with bad utility, ugly appearance and low information-to-effort ratio.

 

[Mouthwash]

Most strategy games I've played have ludicrously and needlessly awful UIs. Would you consider yourself a representative sample of UI designers, @warpus?

(Not trying to be rude here, but I just don't understand why the developer's vision is always so far off-base from the player's.)

 

[Akka]

Especially when you have games like Supreme Commander which already had a near-perfect UI over a decade and a half ago.

 

[MaryKB]

I don't understand, can anyone please explain to me what's wrong with Civilization's UI, and how you feel it could be better? I'm guessing that means like how your controls and everything are laid out? For me I wouldn't consider that a complaint of Civilization, I can very easily figure out what's going on in my nation, and by hovering my mouse over icons I can get good details I need, and I also have report screens for more depth of information. I also feel it's really easy to move my units and do what I need to do, so I'm just not sure what's wrong with it or how it could really be improved? I enjoy simplicity, and how I interact and how my game looks certainly wouldn't be my complaints for Civilization 6.

My personal issue is I feel this latest version seems (to me at least) to be so heavily focused on forcing conflicts inorganically, I do believe Civilization 5 still has much more enjoyable diplomacy.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't understand, can anyone please explain to me what's wrong with Civilization's UI, and how you feel it could be better?

Civ 5 and 6 are both overt regressions in #inputs to accomplish basic tasks and UI accuracy/information presented.

It's been a long time since I played Civ 5, but off the top of my head its UI could be improved by

-making the building queue system identical to Civ 4's
-adding a pathfinding system so that you can click on a unit and see where it's been ordered to go, like you can in Civ 4 (combined with 1upt the refusal to display pathfinding information to the player is unconscionable)
-making it so that you can see which tiles your cities are working without having to enter the city screen, which is already the case in Civ 4

I've never even played Civ 6 so can't speak to it at all.

 

[warpus]

Seriously ?
That's the very first thing which made me start to be disappointed in the game, the very console-ish UI with bad utility, ugly appearance and low information-to-effort ratio.

I mean yeah when civ 5 first came out I made similar observations. But that was a while ago so now I'm used to the look and feel of civ 5/6. The UI doesn't bug me when I play, once I got used to where everything is and how to get stuff done.

Would you consider yourself a representative sample of UI designers

Probably not. I design UI for very specific types of projects, and 98% of the time I'm doing something else.

Since I do design UI for users though, and since some of the projects I build are somewhat unique, I've had to come up with some .. unique UI solutions. Over time I've gained an appreciation and understanding of what works and what doesn't. Some of this is knowledge I learned at school, but a lot of it is just experience that sits in my brain and nudges me in the right direction

 

[civvver]

I don't have details but civ5 takes too many clicks to do anything. You click through tons of menus to get info you need or switch builds or do anything really. Someone did a direct comparison of the number of clicks + shortcuts to queue a brand new city in civ4 vs civ5 and it was like triple the actions.

 

[Ryika]

I don't understand, can anyone please explain to me what's wrong with Civilization's UI, and how you feel it could be better? I'm guessing that means like how your controls and everything are laid out? For me I wouldn't consider that a complaint of Civilization, I can very easily figure out what's going on in my nation, and by hovering my mouse over icons I can get good details I need, and I also have report screens for more depth of information. I also feel it's really easy to move my units and do what I need to do, so I'm just not sure what's wrong with it or how it could really be improved? I enjoy simplicity, and how I interact and how my game looks certainly wouldn't be my complaints for Civilization 6.

My personal issue is I feel this latest version seems (to me at least) to be so heavily focused on forcing conflicts inorganically, I do believe Civilization 5 still has much more enjoyable diplomacy.

Try Enhanced User Interface for Civ 5 for ~100 hours or so and then try to go back to playing the unmodded game, and you'll likely understand what many people are complaining about.

Lack of proper hotkeys is another big issue. You're basically forced to use your mouse for pretty much everything that isn't unit actions, which just isn't how people play if they have a background in anything that includes competitive multiplayer.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

What if they changed up the whole formula? Instead of adding recognizable civilizations you start out as a cultural group like 'Germanic,' 'Indian', or 'Middle Eastern'. Each one would have a totally different gameplay style, and they would also transform into subcultures like France or Egypt as you played, with more ordinary unique bonuses.

That's a really cool idea !
In simplified game logic: Pick one of 6 - 8 (or more or less, who knows?) "Civs" who independently discovered agriculture.

Have some milestone quests/events/achievements that allow you to evolve/differentiate your civ.
European* -> European Barbarian -> Celtic/Germanic/Slavic and in the late game you get mongrel civs like Spaniards, Germans and Russiasns.
Good concept, but later eras can become a total nightmare in terms of balancing and "historical accuracy."





Divided into Romans, Greeks and people who just say "Bar bar bar" over and over again.

 

[The_J]

This might also just not anymore by Civ .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Since I do design UI for users though, and since some of the projects I build are somewhat unique, I've had to come up with some .. unique UI solutions. Over time I've gained an appreciation and understanding of what works and what doesn't. Some of this is knowledge I learned at school, but a lot of it is just experience that sits in my brain and nudges me in the right direction

FIraxis has several major, specific UI deficiencies in recent games:

1. You need to do far more inputs than is necessary to accomplish the same thing. It's to the extent where managing 50 cities in Civ 4 is substantially faster than 20 cities 5 or 6. By several minutes per turn (2-3 times slower at least in mid-late game in the newer games). Civ 4 wasn't perfectly optimized in that regard, but it's glaring how much more straightforward and fast it was, despite the newer games being allegedly "streamlined". You lose hours/game on this stuff (I used to make videos, and have actually recorded the difference).
2. The UI is inaccurate (displays information different from what will happen). Concrete example: game shows you'll make a ranged attack, your unit instead moves towards target and does not.
   
3. The UI fails to present the rules of the game in a way that players can constrain anticipation of what will happen. In a strategy game, this is degenerate. Concrete example: how war weariness works.

Civ 4 had some of these issues too, to a less extreme extent than the newer titles. For example the game would average opinion if you had vassals, but the game's UI didn't display this and would therefore display false information. Heck, prior to a patch the combat odds were on rare occasions wrong .

I don't understand, can anyone please explain to me what's wrong with Civilization's UI, and how you feel it could be better?

1. It can avoid making players spend several hours to complete the game longer than a good UI.
2. It can avoid lying to players about what will happen.
3. It can accurately constrain anticipation of the game's rules to what the game actually allows.

In contrast to something like a "good strategy game UI", these are not things that other games can't manage. Even in the context of the Civ franchise, it has regressed on these points.

 

[warpus]

Great, now I'm going to start noticing all this stuff. I'm not sure I understand #3 though

I've definitely noticed #1, but thought it was my mouse and/or me messing up

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Great, now I'm going to start noticing all this stuff. I'm not sure I understand #3 though

I've definitely noticed #1, but thought it was my mouse and/or me messing up

War weariness - without looking up Victoria's posts on it, how do you determine how much each action contributes to WW in game? What do you get for killing units inside/outside territory...and does killing inside/outside matter in this game like it did in Civ 4? For declaring war...and how much does a given CB reduce it? What are the cutoff points for penalties in your own cities?

It's not an isolated problem. Sometimes, the game will show units greyed out and tell you why you can't build them. Other times, the game will not make the unit even visible because you haven't met conditions, internally inconsistent to showing greyed out units sometimes.

Warmonger penalty? Think you know how that one works? It turns out you get more warmonger penalty for taking cities after someone declares on you than you do if you were the aggressor in Civ 6, because reasons that the game never actually displays anywhere.

In this regard even Civ 4 was pretty bad, but the newer games are worse still.

~~~

As for #1, consider that in Civ 4 you could select multiple cities with control-click (or using the city list screen), and queue builds in all of them simultaneously with shift-click. Let's say you want to queue 3 things in 5 cities. In civ 4 this is 8-9 inputs total. In civ 6 by default you can't queue, and it will take at least 3 inputs to make each single build per city...this particular scenario is 5x more inputs to do the same thing.

#inputs continues to scale up awfully as you increase the number of units and the number of cities to control. You get non-linear variance in terms of amount of time doing rote micromanagement even when just comparing civ 4 to 6, and 4 was far from perfect. Hearing a developer claim they "streamlined" the UI to make it more accessible while adding hours to gameplay via that alone is laughable.

Very few players stop and do this math. Instead, they will just say that the mid-late game is more boring. The 1-4 hours (depends on map size) of extra tedium is spread over the game, and back-loaded. This is most glaring to players who are relatively fast, since it can be > than the time spent actually making decisions/playing the game. It's there for everyone though. It's further hampered by the design problem of making games that are functionally over take a while to end, but the UI itself is the bigger culprit for late game tedium. Even for relatively slow players that complete a game in 8-10 hours, having 20-25% of their total play time (more distributed in the late game) spent on rote inputs before making more decisions is not insignificant.

 

[mitsho]

Ceding Cities ADDING warmonger penalties is another glaring example of #3...

I want to note that how good the UI is, has nothing to do with how much micromanagement is possible. These are two different problems. You can allow for a lot of optimization while letting most players sail unopposed. The idea behind Civ 6 was "meaningful choices", i.e. that the game poses you questions all the time and you answer A, B, C, D (which building is best NOW? Which cards do you choose for your government? Where should this unit go?). That's a bit of a difference to true empire management due to this being way more linear than say the "moving the science slider when you want and otherwise leaving it alone" of civ 4.

I would define my ideal civilization game like that: "The number of decisions I have to make each turn stays roughly the same throughout the game". That would mean either a) way fewer units and other elements that grow exponentially or b) changing rules throughout the game, i.e. it's fun to move your first warrior around, but I don't want to have to move my scout manually to that last patch of the undiscovered map in the Industrial Era. Though, this belongs back with the micromanagement question, not the UI.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

War weariness - without looking up Victoria's posts on it, how do you determine how much each action contributes to WW in game? What do you get for killing units inside/outside territory...and does killing inside/outside matter in this game like it did in Civ 4? For declaring war...and how much does a given CB reduce it? What are the cutoff points for penalties in your own cities?

One option is, just don't. Yes, Civ can be "power gamed," usually using other people's highly detailed analysis of the math behind various things. But the intention of Civ, as a game, has never really been "I will base my decisions about what buildings to build in the bronze age on the fact that I know I am playing for a space race victory in 1937." The game is designed for leading your Civ as best you can at every step along the way from founding a first settlement into some far off future. If you overestimate the willingness of your people to go along with your war mongering ways, so be it. Deal with the consequences and lead on as best you can from there.