First Impressions

[Magma_Dragoon]

First impression: they spent... literally minutes QAing the quest system. And why is the interface so bad? Was the city view even designed by human beings?

 

[Kutuzov]

The single biggest issue with games like CiV, Civ BE, and many other similar games is, IMHO, the AI. It makes me sad to see these fantastic, complex, immersive "computer board games" get created, with obviously a huge investment of manpower, and the opponents we are to spend hours and hours playing against are treated like a tertiary feature. That is simply shameful.

It's the 21st century and while the industry has changed, and the games we play have become quite amazing in many ways, the artificial brains behind these games feel like they simply haven't kept up. I am the target audience for the Civ-like games and the 4X games, yet I've stopped buying them because I know it's all coating and no substance. I check in on the steam forums and the civ fanatics forums, desperately hoping to find posts about how the most surprising feature of this new games is the AI!! It's brilliant! Unfortunately this is never the case.

I'm sure many developers are already lamenting that the PC strategy genre is "not exactly super profitable," but I can tell you why you haven't been getting my money lately - I expect a modern PC strategy game to entice both my eyes and my brain, and that has largely stopped happening.

Agreed. As you have remarked, it is an issue with every 4x game I've seen, no matter which genre. And yet, we can find some very challenging AI in some computer war-games.

I've also read that some modders have been able to tweak the Civ AI so that it performs better yet the developers don't integrate these routines into their game. I have no idea why they don't and I'm not going to speculate why either.

However, I happen to love 4x games more than any other type of computer game and can't boycott them because of the poor AI. Instead, I have adapted my play-style to accommodate for the poor quality of the AI opponent. Eventually, I expect I will get tired of handicapping myself like this but hopefully, there will be some improvements before that happens.

 

[markusbeutel]

First impression: they spent... literally minutes QAing the quest system. And why is the interface so bad? Was the city view even designed by human beings?

Solved!

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/32/327662ee86c8f2193386442dfc26ffd29094b0eb90e9931086ced9297dc486f6.jpg

 

[ddd123]

Agreed. As you have remarked, it is an issue with every 4x game I've seen, no matter which genre.

thats why its incredible ppl still dont understand that the only thing that matters is multiplayer, the only place wher eyou can test real strategies and have real opponents

 

[Kutuzov]

thats why its incredible ppl still dont understand that the only thing that matters is multiplayer, the only place wher eyou can test real strategies and have real opponents

Ah, the multiplayer option. Of course, a large number of us would love to play against human opponents but let's be realistic, it's not really viable for most folks to play epic length strategy games like Civ or EU (NOT 4x I know) online. SP is the only way for us to play.

 

[Tinker]

thats why its incredible ppl still dont understand that the only thing that matters is multiplayer, the only place wher eyou can test real strategies and have real opponents

Too bad the netcode and everything about the multiplayer seems still as completely broken as it was in Civ V. Ugh.

 

[LeppidKingAgain]

I know that a great deal of you have complaints, and some of them are justified.

Personally, I got what I wanted; an immersive experience. While I agree that we shouldn't have to wait for expansions to get polish, I will be looking forward to what we get in the coming expansions.

 

[Bobolove]

Turn 250+. Is it just me or is it like almost impossible to capture cities. Ive been trying to capture a capital city for the last 100 turns without luck.

 

[Kutuzov]

Turn 250+. Is it just me or is it like almost impossible to capture cities. Ive been trying to capture a capital city for the last 100 turns without luck.

LOL. That was my experience playing earlier today too. Cities seem to be really tough to take. I'm going to have to rethink my current strategy when attacking cities because what worked splendidly in Civ V BNW does not work quite so well here.

 

[Dactyl]

I agree with this earlier post by @GAGA Extrem: "First impression is between "mixed" and "meh". Reminds me an aweful lot of CIV5 vanilla: Some good ideas, but mechanical problems, questionable design decisions and TERRIBLE balance. It's an okay-ish CIV5 spinoff, but not nearly as good as I have hoped."

 

[Strahlemann]

I was a little disappointed, when i first played BE yesterday. It felt as if the game was a much more simplified and reskinned version of CivV.

On my second session today I found it a bit more interesting then yesterday. It's not CiV BNW, but I think I will play it now and then. I hope there will be an expansion for BE in the not to far future, that will bring some neccessary depht into the game.. but I very much doubt it. I feel like BE is a release in the way that the remake of Colonization was back in 2008.

And, although there are now many people complainig about the state of BE.. the feedback to CivV vanilla (and Civ IV vanilla, too) was far more disastrous, if I remember correctly.

 

[Light Cleric]

Don't worry. your post doesn't sound harsh to me at all. I have been playing computer games for nigh on thirty years now and in that time I've seen them evolve from simple text-adventures and 'shoot-em-ups' into the very, very complex beasts they are nowadays. Computer games like this require teams of skilled artists and programmers to create just like movies do nowadays. This talent doesn't work for free so the developers have a limited time to develop their game and they have to make decisions about what can be in the game at release and what will come in DLC later. For example, religion in Civ V GK was much better that religion in Civ IV. It took a lot of time to develop and code that into the game, both the UI for it and its function in the game.

I don't expect a game to arrive fully developed anymore unless it is quite simple in its scope because the costs of developing games is astronomical now.

The programmers and artists probably did the best they could under the time constraints, but it doesn't change the fact that someone screwed up something along the line. Pushing the game out too early is the company's fault. It seems like it was either a problem there or a problem in the design phase. I think in the case of the buttugly UI, it was the design phase. If companies are going to keep releasing games that basically require DLC + at least one expansion to feel "complete", they need to start not charging the complete $50-60 price of a complete game or they can fully expect the backlash they're getting here. It has the feel of just kicking it out to get more money with the rushed timeframe, recycled engine with many of the same bugs(unit movement animations going endlessly until the next turn starts which is actually kinda funny but also a pretty obvious bug).

 

[Karmah]

Too bad the netcode and everything about the multiplayer seems still as completely broken as it was in Civ V. Ugh.

I played two duels , one FFA and one COOP vs AI , so four MP games . I had two resynch that went well and that s it.

Where are the bugs ? I missed them I guess.

 

[Karmah]

Love the game , can't have enough , very excited , able to patiently overlook traditional realease flaws of fireaxis game , since I m gifted with a memory that surpasses even a goldfish.

 

[Tinker]

I played two duels , one FFA and one COOP vs AI , so four MP games . I had two resynch that went well and that s it.

Where are the bugs ? I missed them I guess.

It's more in that it still very frequently crashes (which ruins games), has no proper option for war still except clicking as fast as you can (you can go Hybrid mode, but that also locks everyone else when a war erupts for some bizarre reason). These are issues that were in Civ V and should not have been in BE anymore at all - nothing changed, there's no multiplayer additions, it's just there.

 

[Mustakrakish]

It seems like going deep into specific affinity to the point of simply ignoring all possible techs that doesn't give you points in that affinity is a very very viable strategy. I don't think that is good.

Have to try out contact victory, maybe it's the only viable option to spread out. The problem is affinity unit progress is so cheesy that when you fight with just one tier lower opponent, it's a massacre. My conclusion is that simplifying unit progress to 4 tiers with insta upgrading was a very bad move. But alas, this is one thing, I believe, that won't be changed.

 

[Stalker0]

Agreed. As you have remarked, it is an issue with every 4x game I've seen, no matter which genre. And yet, we can find some very challenging AI in some computer war-games.

A lot of people hold Galactic Civilizations 2 as the golden standard for 4x AI, it can be quite challenging on higher settings.

Part of the issue is AI design itself is very hard. But the problem is also that 4x games don't add features with AIs in mind. 1 UPT is harder on AIs than the old stacking system was. The tech web is going to be harder than a linear tech tree for AIs to navigate. That is why ultimately the newer 4x games have weaker AIs overall than older games imo.

As for the multiplayer argument...the 4x genre remains a SP one, just as RTS is an MP one. The vast majority of people play these games against computers...simple market fact. AI is a part of these games, not a special add on.

 

[Stalker0]

The problem is affinity unit progress is so cheesy that when you fight with just one tier lower opponent, it's a massacre. My conclusion is that simplifying unit progress to 4 tiers with insta upgrading was a very bad move. But alas, this is one thing, I believe, that won't be changed.

Some work can be done in readjusting the combat strengths of units to make higher tiers less overpowering. I think that is something that is very patchable.

 

[Pyramid Head]

I know what rating situation reminds me of
[snip]
Welocme to the club, Firaxis
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[Lord Tirian]

Some work can be done in readjusting the combat strengths of units to make higher tiers less overpowering. I think that is something that is very patchable.

Yeah, that'd make a lot of sense as well w.r.t native life as well. Right now, I'm finding it too easy to outpace the strength of the native life, making it mostly a non-threat once you get the first round of upgrades for all units (of course, it's partially because with the full unit roster you just have so many more abilities than the natives, which only have one ranged unit).