Dislike the direction CIV5 is taking? Tell us how you'd do it!

How will you build your next game:

  • Make your next game even more complex, further reducing chances of attracting new players.

    Votes: 18 14.8%
  • Make your game even more complex and add even more complexity through expansions.

    Votes: 52 42.6%
  • Create a simpler game that is going to attract new players; make it more complex through expansions.

    Votes: 48 39.3%
  • Create a simpler game. You'll add more complexity in your future games.

    Votes: 4 3.3%

  • Total voters
    122
Not my own. I made these polls to counterbalance the amount of rubbish (that now finally got sorted out by moderators) that was being dumped on developers and the game. Stuff that nobody wants to hear (deadlines, budget, company politics) are also a part of the game.

(Just like one cannot discuss the quality of the Catholic Church without taking note on force Christianization or the Inquisition.)

No, you obviously did not. Why do you keep up this ridiculous facade anyway? Either come out as a person who is for the game or keep silent on the issue.

If you wanted to counterbalance your perceived issue, would it not be better to give a balanced poll with proper and neutral options instead of the ones you've given, i.e.:
1) you're an idiot, and your opinion isn't wort excrement.
2) you're worse of an idiot.
3) you're beginning to see my rightness, keep going, and
4) you are totally in agreement with me, you are now of average intelligence.

Just because you cannot see beyond your own viewpoint doesn't mean we have to pander to your predjudices and pretend to bow down to your "wisdom".

So in conclusion, either drop the act or forever consign yourself to the position of ranter.
 
@Valkrionn

Teaching the AI to weave a victory plan is not exactly a novelty of Civ V ;) ... even unmodded BtS AI played to win from times to times ( to culture only , but I'm 100% sure that was not the coder's fault, but of time contraints ) and Better BtS AI mod had expanded that to all the BtS vic conditions ( that , by any reasonable standarts, are far less linear to plan than any of the Civ V VC ). Since it already happened in the previous game, it can't be argued that weaving a vic plan is the reason why the previous civ game and the current one are diferent in the issue we are talking about ( in other words, if the Civ IV AI didn't looked like a barking mad dog while having the possibility of weaving a vic plan, you can't blame the ability of weaving a vic plan as the reason for the perceived "madness" of the Civ V AI ).

Because of that, the reason must be situated in the quality of the lessons. Hence my previous post :D Unfortunately I'm not very optimistical about Firaxis getting it right, seeing the lack of game theory understanding they showed both in Civ IV and V :(

Oh, and I think that most of us agree that the naked and quantified modifiers of civ IV were too much ( not mentioning the blatant lies that came from there in some sectors ). I do not want them back. But that, IMHO , is a minor aspect: the main issue is that the AI actions should be understandable without resorting to high degree enfabulation. Civ IV AI does it by the very inelegant method of making a topic list with quantifiers , but Civ V must do it by indirect means. This means that the AI actions should look minimally based, a thing that is hard to acheive when the AI acts against their long term well being.
 
Too simple.

Build the simple game for facebook or something for housewives and little children. INFORM FANBASE OF THIS.

Use money to build good game for fanbase.

Continue to produce tripe for the trogs and champagne for those who have loved and cared for you with their $s for the last 15 years.
 
If you wanted to counterbalance your perceived issue, would it not be better to give a balanced poll

Balanced? If you sift through comments in this "general forum", you'll find that the 4th option to my poll is always:

4) "Make this game exactly the way I dreamed, hoped it to be. Me, not the other guy! Make the game of my dreams! No, no! You don't understand! Me! My vision!"

A balanced poll, as you say, would simply turn into yet another stream of selfish, utterly subjective angry shouts that say or quote everything (usually fabrications or outdated information) that proves their dissapointment is valid, and they will continue to do so until they burn out whatever they needed to burn out.

At risk of being called an idiot -- or worse -- I simply refuse to "give in" to this madness as long as I'm here.

As long as the opinion is steering hard left, the only thing that works is countering with hard right.

Ask not for balance where there is none.
 
Not my own. I made these polls to counterbalance the amount of rubbish (that now finally got sorted out by moderators) that was being dumped on developers and the game. Stuff that nobody wants to hear (deadlines, budget, company politics) are also a part of the game.

(Just like one cannot discuss the quality of the Catholic Church without taking note on force Christianization or the Inquisition.)

So you admit that it is a counterbalance to so called "rubbish". Fighting fire with fire and all that.

Using logic here, doesn't that make your poll rubbish? :lol:

The poll is indeed, hopelessly skewed so I didn't bother voting.

Firaxis seriously needs to re-evaluate why they are in business first and foremost before even contemplating making another game.

BTW: 2 wrongs don't make a right. ;)
 
So in conclusion, either drop the act or forever consign yourself to the position of ranter.

Thing of the past for some members which to be honest, throws oil on a fire already burning.
There's a few fighters hearing the alarm, pulling out the pipes, flooding water on the house of cards... but that won't help either. Mood, swings, stabs, punch, drunk, possibly drugs induced. How should we know?

What i *do* hate is the total lack of focused means by mostly anyone other than sarcasm, lies & other gimmicks to support negative agendas.
Gimme valid argumentations and i'll try debating and debunk the obvious flaws in the "reasoning" if i hold proof to the contrary but, honestly, it's also almost pointless.
Once people make up their minds and prefer attacking to constructive attitudes we only have to weather the storm until trash talk fades away where it should; outside a site dedicated to support a game series we *Like* rather than hate. Obvious to me.

Bash, rant, destroy all they want -- one day, mark my words, they'll regret it all. Most will come back (probably once only) daring to shamefully beg for pardon to the community, others will stay in their schizophrenic hell forever. I'm no psychiatrist and quite frankly this is the public web where we at least, rightfully so, hope detecting some sense of rational behaviors.
 
Bibor this poll shows that you still don't understand the issues with Civ 5 at all. The complexity of a game is totally irrelevant to whether it's a good game, and also irrelevant to the depth of its strategy.

Go is the best example. People have been playing it for more than 2000 years. And, despite its extremely simple rules, nobody has ever completely mastered it. You can learn the rules in an hour, but spend your entire life learning how to play. So is that a "complex" game or a "simple" game?

Civ V right now is the exact opposite. It takes many hours of play to learn the rules- as much as I've played, I still don't think I've learned all the details. And it doesn't help that the game interface and documentation makes it so difficult to understand what's actually going on.

But once you finally do understand the rules, you've pretty much mastered the game. Multiplayer is simply about exploiting the double moves as hard as you can, and in single player there's all sorts of simple ways to exploit even a deity AI. You have to try to "make it fair" by handicapping yourself to only the "fair" moves against the AI. And then there's just not much left to do. Build settlers, grab luxuries, sell them all, get a good military tech, then set up a choke poing and slaughter the hordes of AI units. That's it. As soon as you've finally learned the rules for the game, there's nothing left to learn. It manages to combine the worst parts of complexity and simplicity, while Go combines the best parts of both.
 
Oh, and I think that most of us agree that the naked and quantified modifiers of civ IV were too much ( not mentioning the blatant lies that came from there in some sectors ). I do not want them back. But that, IMHO , is a minor aspect: the main issue is that the AI actions should be understandable without resorting to high degree enfabulation. Civ IV AI does it by the very inelegant method of making a topic list with quantifiers , but Civ V must do it by indirect means. This means that the AI actions should look minimally based, a thing that is hard to acheive when the AI acts against their long term well being.

Actually there is a point in quantified modifiers (numbers). Imagine a RPG where a typical numerical strength modifier of a sword or a spell is replaced with words "strong", "very strong" and so on, without any information what those words mean exactly. While that would make the game less predictable, I don't think many would find it interesting, especially not HC-gamers. "A game is a series of interesting choices" and to make those choices, one needs enough information. Diplomacy in Civ5 is a failure because there isn't nearly enough information for making rational decisions.
 
That is comparing apples and oranges. Your example would fit if, say, buildings displayed just text for their effects, no actual data. As in, Forge simply showed "Increases production!".

Diplomacy on the other hand should be engaging, and feel like diplomacy, not simply tweaking a few values in order to get what you want. Is it there? Hell no. Will it EVER be there, if the system is reverted to numerical data? Again, hell no. Adequate information can and should be delivered without providing specific values.

So while yes, I agree that more information needs to be presented, I disagree on the scope of that information.
 
Actually there is a point in quantified modifiers (numbers). Imagine a RPG where a typical numerical strength modifier of a sword or a spell is replaced with words "strong", "very strong" and so on, without any information what those words mean exactly. While that would make the game less predictable, I don't think many would find it interesting, especially not HC-gamers. "A game is a series of interesting choices" and to make those choices, one needs enough information. Diplomacy in Civ5 is a failure because there isn't nearly enough information for making rational decisions.
I agree with Valkrionn, you are sort of confusing 2 diferent situations. I'm not sure about Civ V, but Civ IV diplo was made simply by levels ... for example, Friendly is everything above 10. For every pratical propose you didn't needed more than the diplo status and the reasons for those ( the modifiers list, not the quantifiers ) for your game. In other, even in civ IV you didn't need to have explicit values for the diplo modifiers in the UI.
 
Balanced? If you sift through comments in this "general forum", you'll find that the 4th option to my poll is always:

4) "Make this game exactly the way I dreamed, hoped it to be. Me, not the other guy! Make the game of my dreams! No, no! You don't understand! Me! My vision!"

A balanced poll, as you say, would simply turn into yet another stream of selfish, utterly subjective angry shouts that say or quote everything (usually fabrications or outdated information) that proves their dissapointment is valid, and they will continue to do so until they burn out whatever they needed to burn out.

At risk of being called an idiot -- or worse -- I simply refuse to "give in" to this madness as long as I'm here.

As long as the opinion is steering hard left, the only thing that works is countering with hard right.

Ask not for balance where there is none.

You keep telling yourself that, and some day you and others may come to believe that. Me, I won't be fooled.
 
I agree with Valkrionn, you are sort of confusing 2 diferent situations. I'm not sure about Civ V, but Civ IV diplo was made simply by levels ... for example, Friendly is everything above 10. For every pratical propose you didn't needed more than the diplo status and the reasons for those ( the modifiers list, not the quantifiers ) for your game. In other, even in civ IV you didn't need to have explicit values for the diplo modifiers in the UI.

It makes a huge difference what effect those levels have and how the modifiers work.

The most glaring issue is that the Civ4-AI (almost) doesn't care about power when deciding if it wants to declare or not. Instead of a fixed probability at each diplo level it should look a lot more at what it will get and how well defended what it wants is. About 85% of the Civ4-AIs now now willing to delcare @ pleased should be willing given the right circumstances.

The modifiers in Civ4 is also a bit artificial as they either stick or increase/decrease with time instead of increase/decrease because of actions (like Civ5-AI first gets annoyed if you settled aggressively, do it again and they get more pissed).

Civ4-AI is also painfully little aware of what's happening in the world. Darius is producing his units at his peace-rate while researching physics and democracy even if I'm beating up his neighbors. I only get a fixed -2 for declaring a war on his friends that I can easily calculate. Instead that negative modifier should depend on circumstances. Maybe it should also be split up sometimes like "-1 declared on friend" together with "-4 your aggressive behavior threatens our security".

Make the modifiers more dynamic and suddenly it will not feel like a numbers game anymore.
 
Easy to learn, hard to master.

I noticed that wasn't put down as an option. Weird. :think:

Seriously, I had two roommates who never play video games - and I don't mean they rarely play, but as in they've never owned a video game system, ever - pick up Civ4 from watching me play it. It took them a while to get the basics down, but they absolutely loved learning everything. They loved recreated their own version of history.

The idea that the general populace is stupid and catering to that stupidity is what gave birth to the term "lowest common denominator" as a marketing term. It's responsible for every piece of real bad media you hated.

:rolleyes: Besides,
Civ5 wasn't bad because it was dumbed down. Civ5 is bad for the nearly uncountable number of bad gameplay design issues that have been cataloged, re-cataloged, and yet again cataloged on these forums. If Civ5 was simpler than it was now, but actually had strategic value to it & good game design, I'd still be playing it.

Heck, there are a bunch of browser games I enjoy that are much simpler, but I keep playing because there's a level of strategy and discovery there that is completely absent from Civ5.
 
I agree with Valkrionn, you are sort of confusing 2 diferent situations. I'm not sure about Civ V, but Civ IV diplo was made simply by levels ... for example, Friendly is everything above 10. For every pratical propose you didn't needed more than the diplo status and the reasons for those ( the modifiers list, not the quantifiers ) for your game. In other, even in civ IV you didn't need to have explicit values for the diplo modifiers in the UI.

Well, I do like numbers like "-4 for declaring war" or "+1 for trade relations". It's much better than guessing.

I guess the reason some don't like this kind of numerical information is that they think it breaks immersion. But in CiV things like "We don't like you because you try to win the same way we do" are thousand times worse immersion-breakers. So with CiV that point is moot.
 
Ultimately what seems to have happened, is that Firaxis was pushed into making and releasing a game with rigid deadlines. Decisions were rushed. The game isn't messed up because any of the specific features are fundamentally flawed as some have suggested. It's messed up because ideas are still being thrown around as to how to fix the basic design.

"Good" gaming companies already have most of these issues resolved before the game even has a release date set. The problem is, IMO, that 2k is pushing Firaxis around. "Good" games get patched because things come up that weren't obvious after much testing. Most of Civ Vs flaws were blatantly obvious. So many "easy to catch" bugs were in the game upon release. That right there just proves the game wasn't ready to come out yet. When the game came out, it felt like an Alpha model. With all the patches so far, it feels like it's in mid-beta stage.
 
Well, I do like numbers like "-4 for declaring war" or "+1 for trade relations". It's much better than guessing.

I guess the reason some don't like this kind of numerical information is that they think it breaks immersion. But in CiV things like "We don't like you because you try to win the same way we do" are thousand times worse immersion-breakers. So with CiV that point is moot.
You like them, but have to admit you don't need them for any pratical propose in game, and if you really wanted to know them IMHO those would probably fit better in the Civilopedia than in the diplo window, suposing OFC you have the resons stated fully in the diplo window, just not the numbers.

On Civ V... well, I've not seen yet the SDK but the stuff in the XML makes me cringe...
 
I think what Bibor is wanting is for unhelpful rants such as:

the devs are complete morons who couldn't code their way out of wet paper bag, plus their evil and smell bad. Shafer is the anti-civ and all his ideas are rubish and he as ruined civ forever (plus he is evil and has a bad haircut) civ5 is a complete ruinious pile of stinking poo and every design decision was wrong and everything is coded wrong and there is absolutely nothing in it that any thinking person with an IQ above a cheese sandwich could remotely like and that it is so dumbed down that my senile cat could beat it on diety first game with one paw tied behind its back (provided he can stay awake because the game is so boring). Plus the publishes are $ hungry and perniciously evil and want to turn civ into farmville lite for more $ and steam and DLCs are naughty and kill little baby kittens just for fun.

to go away and to become more reasonable like:

imo I dislike elements x,y,z of civ5 design/implementation
mistakes a,b,c resuling in h,j,k were made and doing l,m,n,o would have mitigated/avoided this
I like what such and such was aiming for but because of this and that it just doesn't quite work for me

you know - reasoned repectful debate and constructive critism without pointless ranting and trashing anyone and everything with a differing views (whether they be civ5 likers/dislikers/it needs work/its broken, devs, 2k or whoever)

the poll I think is meant as a catalyst for discusion and is PURPOSELY biased to mirror the many and various biased "I hate civ5" polls that litter the forums.

Its a rhetorical tool to say: hey the devs are neither evil nor stupid and are just trying to make ok/reasonable choices based on their point of view, the information they have, and the constraints that they are under in the real world
 
No what Bibor is wanting is: "We're sorry Bibor you were right all along, the game is perfect. We are so so sorry for doubting your word". Because it is what he has been angling for for the last few months on the forum.

And he is getting the reasoned arguements why there are serious, game-crippling problems with Civ 5, it's just that he is incapable of either listening or posting counter-arguements.
 
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