hooked gamers preview

[Peng Qi]

By "simulation" I am referring to the sandbox "build your own civilization" element of the game, not having everything play out in a historically accurate fashion.

Well, let's list all of the things that remove you from immersion in Civ IV then, and compare them to V. I will leave out things they have in common.

IV:
-One Resource=Infinite Quantity; this means almost no conflict over resources, which is the primary reason for real-world conflict.
-More Cities=Less Money; this has never been true.
-Global Warming=Tiles Randomly Change.
-Nuclear Plants meltdown constantly.
-Huge armies of axe-wielding marauders are the norm.
-Countries forced into positions of vassalage love their masters.
-Colonies cost, rather than generate, huge piles of money.
-Forms of government are unlocked by technological, rather than cultural, advancement.
-Gold is worthless to your citizenry unless you adopt universal suffrage.
-Vassalage improves the quality of your units for some reason.
-Bureaucracy is most likely to be found in small nations.
-Can't draft citizenry without adopting nationhood, even though peasant levies were common in the middle ages.
-Slavery involves mass-murdering your own populace and apparently constructing things out of their corpses.
-Serfs are a more effective labor force than non-serfs.
-Having a caste system removes the need for your scientists (and other specialists) to work in scientific buildings (and other buildings).
-People around the world, even those who have never heard of you, get irritated with their leaders if you have "emancipated" your population and they haven't.
-State Property somehow makes larger empires cheaper to manage.
-Environmentalism increases civilian health for some reason.
-Theocracies field better troops for some reason.
-Pacifism is a national civic.


...you know, this is taking too long. I think you get the point.

 

[Veneke]

Well, let's list all of the things that remove you from immersion in Civ IV then, and compare them to V. I will leave out things they have in common.

A very minor quibble but few colonies generated more revenue than they cost. You really only hear about the big ones that generated and didn't cost wealth - India, Malaya, Indochina, Central America and most of those only generated more wealth than they cost to maintain under certain conditions. Most colonies (those in N. America, most of Africa, the Middle East) were founded for reasons other than economic ones and cost a good deal to defend, maintain and improve than they brought in with revenue.

Quite a number of your points are little more than overly literal interpretations of ingame mechanics; Environmentalism, Theocracy, Vassalage, Civics etc. If you broke down any simulation game in that manner and dismissed it on those grounds you wouldn't have any simulators left. Suspension of disbelief is required for simulators to work. The question isn't really whether or not there are things in the game that detract from that suspension of disbelief but rather whether the game as a whole is capable of immersing you into what it's trying to simulate. You can argue back and forth whether it does or not, but in a comparison between IV and V on its capability of immersing you into the game as a simulator surely the Stories and Tales section is a better indicator than listing all the things which threaten the suspension of disbelief?

 

[Peng Qi]

Those were some good anecdotes there, but you've said nothing of logical substance. You basically said "well, I'm not bothered by the things in your list!" That's fine. I'm not either. Nor am I bothered by any of the paltry list of complaints I've seen levied against Civ V's immersion-factor. I think the thing bothering most people that they think is "unrealistic" or immersion-breaking is that Civ V's Diplomacy is based on Realpolitik, whereas Civ IV's is based on some idyllic vision of the world where if you're nice to everyone, they won't walk in and club you on the head and steal all your stuff if they sense weakness.

 

[Atlas627]

Removing the flip-flop decisions was one of the best things they could've done for a game. With the Civic system, none of your decisions meant anything. You could take it back whenever you wanted, and there was no decision to use civics at all. You always used them, and by the same amount as all the other civs.

With Social Policies, each decision means something. A lot. Sure, you have fewer decisions (you can't decide to redo/undo a decision), but they actually mean something! And you even have to make decisions about whether or not you will acquire any culture in the first place. Yay opportunity cost!

Some people want simulations, and some want games. Personally, I want a game right now, and I think CiV fits the bill.

And Europa Universalis is a game. It is very abstract, and has a win condition. In fact, it has multiple win conditions (whatever you roleplay towards). Do you have fun roleplaying? Yeah, you do in a lot of games with good themes. That doesn't make it a simulation.

The whole Civilization series has been games, not simulations. Even though Sid's original thought was "give the player the feeling that he is growing a civilization through the ages", that is not a simulation. A simulation would be "grow a civilization through the ages and see what happens".


As to this preview, I stopped reading once I realized that the reviewer was just bashing on the game. I didn't want to have to wade through the bias just to see the one new fact we might get. I just might drown first lol

 

[nokmirt]

Well, let's list all of the things that remove you from immersion in Civ IV then, and compare them to V. I will leave out things they have in common.

IV:
-One Resource=Infinite Quantity; this means almost no conflict over resources, which is the primary reason for real-world conflict.
-More Cities=Less Money; this has never been true.
-Global Warming=Tiles Randomly Change.
-Nuclear Plants meltdown constantly.
-Huge armies of axe-wielding marauders are the norm.
-Countries forced into positions of vassalage love their masters.
-Colonies cost, rather than generate, huge piles of money.
-Forms of government are unlocked by technological, rather than cultural, advancement.
-Gold is worthless to your citizenry unless you adopt universal suffrage.
-Vassalage improves the quality of your units for some reason.
-Bureaucracy is most likely to be found in small nations.
-Can't draft citizenry without adopting nationhood, even though peasant levies were common in the middle ages.
-Slavery involves mass-murdering your own populace and apparently constructing things out of their corpses.
-Serfs are a more effective labor force than non-serfs.
-Having a caste system removes the need for your scientists (and other specialists) to work in scientific buildings (and other buildings).
-People around the world, even those who have never heard of you, get irritated with their leaders if you have "emancipated" your population and they haven't.
-State Property somehow makes larger empires cheaper to manage.
-Environmentalism increases civilian health for some reason.
-Theocracies field better troops for some reason.
-Pacifism is a national civic.


...you know, this is taking too long. I think you get the point.

Amazing the things they have eliminated from CiV, no wonder everyone called it half finished.

This is the one I truly love!

-Colonies cost, rather than generate, huge piles of money.

Talk to the British about that!

The truth is CiIV was not perfect, but it was far more immersive and fun than CiV and it was so easy to mod. The thing is that I got used to V and hexes and could not go back to IV. Now if they can bring V along, maybe it will match IV, but that remains to be seen, it will take a second XP to accomphish that.

 

[Veneke]

Those were some good anecdotes there, but you've said nothing of logical substance. You basically said "well, I'm not bothered by the things in your list!" That's fine. I'm not either. Nor am I bothered by any of the paltry list of complaints I've seen levied against Civ V's immersion-factor. I think the thing bothering most people that they think is "unrealistic" or immersion-breaking is that Civ V's Diplomacy is based on Realpolitik, whereas Civ IV's is based on some idyllic vision of the world where if you're nice to everyone, they won't walk in and club you on the head and steal all your stuff if they sense weakness.

Not quite old boy. If you're going to paraphrase, you should at least have the decency to get it right. I said,

'Your point about colonies is flawed. Also, your list is irrelevant. Surely the stories generated by the game is a better indicator than you plucking a list out of thin air?'

You are quite right though, Civ V's diplomacy is the single most immersion-breaking feature. It's not how real diplomacy works and it isn't even how human multiplayer diplomacy works. Civ IV's diplomacy had flaws certainly and I don't think anyone suggested otherwise.

 

[Montov]

Well, let's list all of the things that remove you from immersion in Civ IV then, and compare them to V. I will leave out things they have in common.

IV:
-Bureaucracy is most likely to be found in small nations.

Nice list, but some are not valid of course.

Two of the main realism issues with Civ 4 was the research-slider and the civics. You could just change it dramatically on the fly, and that made it a gamey concept (and no strategic fun). Civ 5 improved it by gradually growing a system (Social Policies) and separating gold from science to increase the strategic choices in that regard.

 

[The_J]

Should change the thread title, since this is a preview, not a review. The article itself even states it is a preview.

Yes, we don't have "reviews" before the game is finished.

Moderator Action: Done.

 

[Gatsby]

Nonsense; Civilization has always been both. The previous Civilization games had a very strong simulation element, despite being much more challenging as a "game" than Civ V is.

I think Civilization's greatest strength is that it has the potential to be both a great simulator and a great 4X strategy game. To me the greatest appeal of Civilization is that each game is like a thought experiment, e.g. "what if the Americans built the Great Pyramids", "what if the Aztecs invaded Spain?"

Some people have rightly pointed out that some of Civ4's features were very unrealistic. But those unrealistic features were opportunities for improvements in future Civ iterations, in terms of both gameplay *and* realism. It is possible and desirable to improve game features so that they are more fun and also more realistic. Unfortunately this sort of improvement did not happen in Civ5 for the most part, as throwing the baby out with the bathwater seems to have been the preferred approach of Civ5's developers.

 

[Gatsby]

Well, let's list all of the things that remove you from immersion in Civ IV then, and compare them to V. I will leave out things they have in common.

IV:
-One Resource=Infinite Quantity; this means almost no conflict over resources, which is the primary reason for real-world conflict.
-More Cities=Less Money; this has never been true.
-Global Warming=Tiles Randomly Change.
-Nuclear Plants meltdown constantly.
-Huge armies of axe-wielding marauders are the norm.
-Countries forced into positions of vassalage love their masters.
-Colonies cost, rather than generate, huge piles of money.
-Forms of government are unlocked by technological, rather than cultural, advancement.
-Gold is worthless to your citizenry unless you adopt universal suffrage.
-Vassalage improves the quality of your units for some reason.
-Bureaucracy is most likely to be found in small nations.
-Can't draft citizenry without adopting nationhood, even though peasant levies were common in the middle ages.
-Slavery involves mass-murdering your own populace and apparently constructing things out of their corpses.
-Serfs are a more effective labor force than non-serfs.
-Having a caste system removes the need for your scientists (and other specialists) to work in scientific buildings (and other buildings).
-People around the world, even those who have never heard of you, get irritated with their leaders if you have "emancipated" your population and they haven't.
-State Property somehow makes larger empires cheaper to manage.
-Environmentalism increases civilian health for some reason.
-Theocracies field better troops for some reason.
-Pacifism is a national civic.

Most of these are fair points. It was also totally unrealistic (and imo quite annoying) that the Mercantilism civic blocked foreign trade routes, when mercantilism is actually all about the idea that trade generates wealth!

But instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater by getting rid of civics entirely, why not refine and expand the civics system? To use my above example, have a new economic civic called "Autarky" with similar effects to Civ4's Mercantilism, and give Mercantilism a different set of qualities that reflects its historical character such as a high civic upkeep cost coupled with greater revenue from foreign trade routes.

A similar sort of refining/expanding approach which simultaneously improves realism and gameplay could be fruitfully applied to just about all the flaws you mentioned.

 

[The Pilgrim]

Again, there's no reason it can't be both, and difficulty level has nothing to do with it

While I agree that it should try to achieve both, the difficulty has lots to do with that. Civ3's Sid didn't feel very historically accurate or laid back either. However, I wouldn't know, since back then I was struggling on monarch. Partially, I believe, because I was focusing on sandbox building more than on competitive aspects of the game. Today I choose to go away from that and play on higher levels. On prince, for example, AI is not nearly as aggressive as on immortal+ or even emperor and you have plenty of breathing space to spam your wonders and build magnificent yet not very effective cities. It's really our choice.

-One Resource=Infinite Quantity; this means almost no conflict over resources, which is the primary reason for real-world conflict.
-More Cities=Less Money; this has never been true.
-Global Warming=Tiles Randomly Change.
-Nuclear Plants meltdown constantly.
-Huge armies of axe-wielding marauders are the norm.
-Countries forced into positions of vassalage love their masters.
-Colonies cost, rather than generate, huge piles of money.
-Forms of government are unlocked by technological, rather than cultural, advancement.
-Gold is worthless to your citizenry unless you adopt universal suffrage.
-Vassalage improves the quality of your units for some reason.
-Bureaucracy is most likely to be found in small nations.
-Can't draft citizenry without adopting nationhood, even though peasant levies were common in the middle ages.
-Slavery involves mass-murdering your own populace and apparently constructing things out of their corpses.
-Serfs are a more effective labor force than non-serfs.
-Having a caste system removes the need for your scientists (and other specialists) to work in scientific buildings (and other buildings).
-People around the world, even those who have never heard of you, get irritated with their leaders if you have "emancipated" your population and they haven't.
-State Property somehow makes larger empires cheaper to manage.
-Environmentalism increases civilian health for some reason.
-Theocracies field better troops for some reason.
-Pacifism is a national civic.

Thanks for the laughs! Civ4 is a great game, but silly in its way, just like any other video game is.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I liked the preview, my thoughts exactly... Didn't found out anything new though.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

Civilization tries to come across as somewhat educational, to me. There's lots of historical information here and there in tidbits. It gives the series a simulation-y feel, but really they've all been "games".

If you want a real sandbox strategy feel, you should really try out Europa Universalis, Victoria, or Crusader Kings. I think they are all still 50% off on Steam.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Educational? Not in Civ 5, I've never been actually offended by the way they talked to us via the Civilopedia, look up my thrad "Civilopedia"

 

[Veneke]

The Civilopedia used to be pretty decent.

Speaking of educational, however, I remember Civ 1 (I think?) stopped every so often to ask questions about various different things ingame that related to real life events or discoveries. The answers were in the manual iirc which became a bit of a pain when you lost the manual... they also stopped if you got a few right in a row I think? Jeez, I can't remember. But there was an educational aspect to the civilopedia at one point in time.

 

[Seek]

Educational? Not in Civ 5, I've never been actually offended by the way they talked to us via the Civilopedia, look up my thrad "Civilopedia"

Wait, you're saying you don't learn things unless you're offended by the information? That's an umm ... unique perspective!

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Wait, you're saying you don't learn things unless you're offended by the information? That's an umm ... unique perspective!

Well I told you to look up my thread, that is no way educational, it's offesnive.. We're not children, yet they talk to us like ones.

 

[Lyoncet]

The Civilopedia used to be pretty decent.

Speaking of educational, however, I remember Civ 1 (I think?) stopped every so often to ask questions about various different things ingame that related to real life events or discoveries. The answers were in the manual iirc which became a bit of a pain when you lost the manual... they also stopped if you got a few right in a row I think? Jeez, I can't remember. But there was an educational aspect to the civilopedia at one point in time.

That was actually early copy protection. Games would be designed to occasionally break and make you look up something in the manual to make sure people weren't spreading copies around. So it was actually not really trying to be educational, it was just an anti-piracy measure.

 

[Wolle68]

I think Civilization's greatest strength is that it has the potential to be both a great simulator and a great 4X strategy game. To me the greatest appeal of Civilization is that each game is like a thought experiment, e.g. "what if the Americans built the Great Pyramids", "what if the Aztecs invaded Spain?"

What if Americans built the Great Pyramids? They would have gotten less anarchy.
No wait, they would have eaten better.
Sorry, they would have a better choice of government.
Or maybe they would have more and better workers.
(Civ I, II/III, IV, and V, respectively)

Do any of these answers make sense to you? Is the last one somehow more silly and less satisfying? Civ is not a good place to look for answers to these kinds of questions. Never has been and never will be.

Some people have rightly pointed out that some of Civ4's features were very unrealistic. But those unrealistic features were opportunities for improvements in future Civ iterations, in terms of both gameplay *and* realism. It is possible and desirable to improve game features so that they are more fun and also more realistic.

I don't think any aspect of any Civ game can really be called "realistic". It's more a question about suspension of disbelief. Of course, once that breaks down, everything becomes silly, but that's a very subjective issue. It would be refreshing if the Civ 5 detractors stopped phrasing it as objective fact.

 

[Buccaneer]

It's not a flaw. This is a game. The entire Civ series has been a series of games, not a simulation.

If you want simulators, there's plenty out there. Civ is not one. It rides the line between the two sometimes, but it can't be mistaken for a simulation when there's obvious ones out there. It's a 4X game, there are victory conditions, you must win or lose.

Nonsense; Civilization has always been both. The previous Civilization games had a very strong simulation element, despite being much more challenging as a "game" than Civ V is.

Ah, there's the dichotomy again, particularly between two people that I trust and like. I obviously strongly side with MadDjinn. There's been too many trying make Civ into something that it is not and come away disappointed, frustrated and angry or at the minimum, having to really suspend belief and make something out of nothing. There is a reason for victory conditions in all Civ games and the AI must do better at winning and beating the human player.