Do you think Civ V is doomed?

[Luckystrike77]

I can accept that, it's a fact that out of 1 million copies sold there are only 20k playing it... And for a strategic is very sad...

Are you playing ignorant now or what? You think it's normal that all the buyers of a game is playing it 24/7? People do other things then just playing their favorite game too you know. Even a civfanatic as myself does other things, like sleeping and going to work.

 

[ohioastronomy]

The core design is not going to change. Since I'm one of the people who doesn't like the core design, that's a problem; I haven't had reason to go back to Civ 5 in quite a while. Civ 4 - after not playing it for years - is a better game for me, and fall from heaven is a lot of fun.

I actually hope that they don't bother with expansions and instead design a better Civ 6; we'll see soon enough I suspect. My bet is a dribble of low cost, high profit DLCs (maps, civs) while they look at sales and focus on the facebook cash cow.

Edit: and, yes, Steam ratings will be distorted for games where you leave it on in the background rather than dealing with long loading times; I know that I would just leave it running on my computer rather than logging out just to avoid the long dead stretches in loading the game and saved games. 20K seems very low, actually.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

Are you playing ignorant now or what? You think it's normal that all the buyers of a game is playing it 24/7? People do other things then just playing their favorite game too you know. Even a civfanatic as myself does other things, like sleeping and going to work.

So Football Manager players don't sleep, good to know...

 

[EmpireOfCats]

If its doomed or not depends on the willingness of Firaxis to make major, deep, and structural changes. It is certainly the prettiest Civ so far, but too much is just skin deep -- I find myself looking at the screen and wishing they would have just given Civ IV BtS the artistic make-over, rewritten it for multiple cores, and then released it as Civ IV BtS Redux or something.

Unfortunately, Civ V would need more work than I think Firaxis is willing to invest. And to be honest, I'm having more fun with Plants vs. Zombies right now than I ever did with Civ V. Sigh.

 

[Luckystrike77]

If its doomed or not depends on the willingness of Firaxis to make major, deep, and structural changes. It is certainly the prettiest Civ so far, but too much is just skin deep -- I find myself looking at the screen and wishing they would have just given Civ IV BtS the artistic make-over, rewritten it for multiple cores, and then released it as Civ IV BtS Redux or something.

Unfortunately, Civ V would need more work than I think Firaxis is willing to invest. And to be honest, I'm having more fun with Plants vs. Zombies right now than I ever did with Civ V. Sigh.

Play vs me in multiplayer and i will give you the challenge of your life! (And a fun long game)

 

[JohnnyW]

Yeah, I'm sure that's where most of the players come from.

I always start up a resource intensive game I don't like just to pad the numbers on Steam.

Every time I post these numbers Civ V is always right around the same spot. People just can't accept that 20,000+ people are playing it right now.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Sure, a few may be getting a sandwich, listening to music albums backwards, or negotiating peace in the middle east. The numbers are still there though, plain as day.

I actually have Civ5 open right now. Instead of playing it I am posting. I'm actually looking through mods to get some more inspiration for my own. I don't really care about the effect this has on padding Steam's numbers.

And it's not like I'm getting up for a snack or restroom break, I leave it running in the background for hours simply so I don't have to sit through that annoying video every freaking time I load the game to do some minor thing. I'll only close it if I decide to play a different game.

Of course, I'm probably one of very few who do something like this, so I'm not arguing this is a common thing.

 

[Atwork]

Play vs me in multiplayer and i will give you the challenge of your life! (And a fun long game)

If MP wasn't so utterly broken and under-developed that could be an option. But, that said, C5 is so watered down and devoid of things to do that it's be a boring MP game too.

Certainly, there'd be some challenge because you're playing a human equally able to exploit the easily exploitable mechanics of the game (steal first or second worker from CS w/out long-term repercussions), but ultimately it would come down to the humans exploiting a badly functioning AI and broken mechanics to see which human will ultimately wins the snooze fest of a game.

I'd rather gather some friends for poker night and continue hoping to god this game is salvageable.

 

[Atwork]

I'm probably one of very few who do something like this, so I'm not arguing this is a common thing.

No. You're NOT alone my friend. I too sometimes start the game -- have a peak around the mods -- go read about them on the forums. I've even opened my most recent saved game a few times thinking I want to continue the game. But, then -- I realize that I'm just not in to it -- I close the game and go find something else to do. I've opened the game probably 4 or 5 times in the past month and haven't played a turn.

 

[Tokira]

I definately don't think that the game is doomed. There are a lot of good aspects in the game and in my opinion its far better than Civ4 base game, which I played for about two weeks just to return to Civ3.

 

[Oerdin]

It's destined to be another Civ3. That is a mediocre product which introduced a few nice ideas but which is just a shadow of the game that preceded it and the game which followed it. Basically it's a warning to game designers about how not to design a game. Hopefully Civ6 will be like Civ4 in that it takes some of the ideas of it's not so fun predecessor, returns the game back to it's core, and spends more time polishing and improving on older ideas rather then trying to come up with new stuff which ends up not working very well.

 

[Luckystrike77]

If MP wasn't so utterly broken and under-developed that could be an option. But, that said, C5 is so watered down and devoid of things to do that it's be a boring MP game too.

Certainly, there'd be some challenge because you're playing a human equally able to exploit the easily exploitable mechanics of the game (steal first or second worker from CS w/out long-term repercussions), but ultimately it would come down to the humans exploiting a badly functioning AI and broken mechanics to see which human will ultimately wins the snooze fest of a game.

I'd rather gather some friends for poker night and continue hoping to god this game is salvageable.

Hehe, I hate those gamey players stealing CS workers. It shouldn't be possble to make peace right after etc. etc. But believe me, I win without ever using those kinds of sleezy tricks. I play as I always have, being a builder, a good diplomat, having a few but great cities. I also love to protect those city states vs those sleezy players.

 

[Atwork]

I hate those gamey players stealing CS workers....sleezy tricks

Uhm, you mean playing by the rules created by those who designed the game? If the designers created a game that provides "gamey" features that provides incentives to players to engage in actions that you consider "sleezy," maybe your observations evidence weaknesses of the game that need to be fixed. And I would support fixing such broken features -- that's the reason I mentioned the ol' steal the worker from the CS trick. So, more than me, I think you've called the game in to question.

I play as I always have, being a builder, a good diplomat

So, you must love the insanely long build times, being punished for building too much infrastructure, and the whacky diplomacy mechanics of this game?

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Much too early to tell... we must at least give the basic "concept" a full year to set in the minds of some real TBS players.
Actually, we're at dawn. The horizon is looming with a dozen plus good re-balancing mods already.
It's certainly doomed for anyone against the whole design but not to the casual gamers.
See, most people play for fun while others take their stuff too seriously. Wishing -- this could be like that, hoping -- that would be turned into this, waiting for the next patches to fix whatever else.

In the meantime... DLC sells, 2K still supports, Firaxis develops further more. Not my idea of a doomed gameplay. By far & wide.

 

[Drakarska]

Doomed? No. Replayability? Not for me thx. My dearest wish is that they would release the flipping code so the modders can work their magic. Which, IMO, is probably what 2K intended all along so that they could somehow profit from someone elses work.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

No, of course not.

 

[Luckystrike77]

So, you must love the insanely long build times, being punished for building too much infrastructure, and the whacky diplomacy mechanics of this game?

Build times: Yes, long build times and lower yields from tiles makes it much more challenging and rewarding to complete important structures, and more important to invest in culture (social policies) and science to make your empire more efficient.

being punished for building too much infrastructure You mean roads? The new road mechanic also makes the game more challenging; in warfare (controlling a road is more important, pillaging of a road is more devastating, troop transport is more dependent on securing that road) and in other aspects of the game like choosing when to build them, where to place them etc. Can't see anything else then benefits to gameplay here. I like upkeep for roads alot.

the whacky diplomacy mechanics of this game Well, I never play single player, in multiplayer diplomacy is only limited by your fantasy, cunningness and eloquence. For me Civ diplomacy with the AI has always been lacking.

 

[aatami]

IMO ciV is better than IV, since IV is just min-maxing and almost no variation.

 

[Polycrates]

Not at all....

It has a fair bunch of new mechanics, and I reckon most of them were good changes. Of course they need balancing and tweaking; that's pretty par for the course these days, and especially when you're trying something a bit new. When I'm playing the game, I'm thinking "x is too cheap/expensive/powerful/etc" and making a laundry list of simple tweaks I would make if I could be bothered mucking around with modding in this game, rather than "x feature is entirely broken". Which is great because our most excellent modding friends are already stepping in and doing a lot of this work to really get it where it needs to be.

That said, the diplomatic system currently stands out like a sore thumb as a Work In Progress - even with the patch it feels very much unfinished. Is it broken at core? I don't know, but I don't think so. Hopefully they can sort this out with a patch or expansion, and put in a map trading option while they're at it.

The only other feature that screams out its absence to me is foreign trade routes, and I really hope this can make its way into an expansion. It would be particularly useful for making interactions with city-states more interesting as well.

So fix some of that stuff up, throw in an inevitable expansion or two to round out the content and I reckon you've got one for the ages. I realise I might be in the minority on this forum though.

 

[Soneji]

I can't mod for **** with this

 

[Baron2]

You do know that the success of free to play games is to sell copies ?

CiV 5 is a resounding success in that way. Seriously, try to find a PC free 2 play game with more replay value. There might be SC2, and...that's it.