Initial civfan reactions to Civ 4

[need my speed]

So we have complaints about the cartoony graphics and the tactical AI.

Curious how absent all the complaints about gameplay and mechanics and diplomacy and ever so on are.

 

[dexters]

Civ4 took a long time to get going. Adding Vassal states in Warlords was a huge game changer and fundanemtally changed the game. For better or worse.

Beyond the Sword then further added to it

OP has done a nice job of quoting and there's even a quote that alludes to other threads complaining (about the AI) giving tons of context to what was going on at the time without referencing those threads directly.

 

[PhilBowles]

The expansions got pretty much trashed though. Warlords was one of the worst expansions seen in the series, while even Beyond the Sword was mostly bloat. The Corporation system was never properly balanced, the AI couldn't handle it, etc. It actually took a community patch for Beyond the Sword to be playable.

Much of the complaints about Civ V long term came from "it's different". There existed a significant fraction of the community that didn't like the direction the series took. That's understandable at some level, but there comes a point where you should try and appreciate what is being done with the new one. Civ VI has brought a lot of that minority back out of the woodwork though.

I have the sense that most Civ IV players to this day play the game with mods, and criticisms levelled at Civ V have less to do with Firaxis' work on the games themselves than the fact that Civ V was less moddable. Civ V may also have been a victim of Civ IV's success, as well as simply the advancing age of the series as a whole. It did succeed in appealing to a wider audience than Civ III, while many older players had either stopped investing in new versions or were less likely to be active on forums. A lot of the love for Civ IV stems from the fact that for a large portion of the community it was likely to have been their first Civ game, or at least their second (and Civ III was a low point for the series).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

This thread shows that Firaxis haven't learned anything from previous releases and still makes rushed, imbalanced and unpolished games (why they need to relearn the same lessons with each new game?)

They have learned

1. make incomplete game
2. sell many copies of incomplete game
3. complete the game
4. sell the completion of the game (expansions)
5. make new incomplete game, which people will buy because the previous Complete game was so good

6. Profit

(if you don't like that model, you don't have to have it... instead don't buy the game until ~6 mos.-1 year after the second expansion is released...basically buy Civ6 when Civ7 is announced)

You get a complete game for a decent price (~50$ when I bought CivV when BE was announced) all you had to do was be patient and give them time to finish the game.

 

[Ogaw]

Lets hope 2K games keeps updating Civ VI, instead of just asking for more money right away with expansions and DLC.

 

[gberetfr]

Yes very interesting post ! And not surprising.

 

[Staal]

I have the sense that most Civ IV players to this day play the game with mods, and criticisms levelled at Civ V have less to do with Firaxis' work on the games themselves than the fact that Civ V was less moddable. Civ V may also have been a victim of Civ IV's success, as well as simply the advancing age of the series as a whole. It did succeed in appealing to a wider audience than Civ III, while many older players had either stopped investing in new versions or were less likely to be active on forums. A lot of the love for Civ IV stems from the fact that for a large portion of the community it was likely to have been their first Civ game, or at least their second (and Civ III was a low point for the series).

Hmm... that is rather speculative. I've played since Civ 1 and approve of all the overall changes. Neither does it discredit the reasons for new players to like the game or justify the reasons why some older players don't like the changes. On top of all of that there is no way to prove that the majority of older players that stopped playing, stopped because they did not like the changes. More likely they stopped because they stopped playing games period.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

They have learned

1. make incomplete game
2. sell many copies of incomplete game
3. complete the game
4. sell the completion of the game (expansions)
5. make new incomplete game, which people will buy because the previous Complete game was so good

6. Profit

(if you don't like that model, you don't have to have it... instead don't buy the game until ~6 mos.-1 year after the second expansion is released...basically buy Civ6 when Civ7 is announced)

You get a complete game for a decent price (~50$ when I bought CivV when BE was announced) all you had to do was be patient and give them time to finish the game.

But are they releasing an incomplete game, or are they releasing the game faster than they would have in the old days? And by "old days" I mean the times of slow modem connections and no real online community where what they manufactured and mailed out was basically what the end user was stuck with.

 

[dexters]

I post on a forum of gamers with mostly millenials including older millenials (late 20s early 30s) and the reaction is positive. the same criticisms are raised but the overall tone is different. No ham-fisted rants and this is a forum full of nerds who gets upset at perceived slights by corporations and lazy developers. generally a cynical media savvy bunch.

.There's sometimes the odd person who brings up civ4 and 1upt but I don't get the sense that it's the younger generations who are stuck in the past.

 

[gberetfr]

This thread shows that Firaxis haven't learned anything from previous releases and still makes rushed, imbalanced and unpolished games (why they need to relearn the same lessons with each new game?)

We are the ones stupid enough to still buy the game on release (me included), perfectly knowing that.

and for sure the strategy :

They have learned

1. make incomplete game
2. sell many copies of incomplete game
3. complete the game
4. sell the completion of the game (expansions)
5. make new incomplete game, which people will buy because the previous Complete game was so good
6. Profit

is part of the plan.

But a game software company is a company like any other, and like any company it doesn't have an unlimited amount of cash supply, at one point they have to release the game.

A game like Civ needs a tremendous amount of testing to balance. So tremendous in my opinion that it can be done only at a very large scale, which means a released game.
So yes in a sense we are beta testers and we willingly paid for it. By the way funding the future improvements.

So let's hope that it won't take so long to get a good game, especially the AI AFAIK.

 

[PhilBowles]

Hmm... that is rather speculative. I've played since Civ 1 and approve of all the overall changes. Neither does it discredit the reasons for new players to like the game or justify the reasons why some older players don't like the changes.

It's more to the point that it's an explanation for Civ IV's appeal, when on technical grounds it isn't really doing anything as drastically different from other iterations and is in some ways less faithful to the early Civ games than Civ V (witness the comments in the original post complaining about the departure from the older games' 'board game' art style. Compare and contrast with criticisms of Civ V for looking and feeling too much like a board game. As a Civ I veteran that feel was precisely what made Civ V feel like Civ to me, while Civ IV - as good as it was in many respects - didn't engage me with that same feeling).

On top of all of that there is no way to prove that the majority of older players that stopped playing, stopped because they did not like the changes. More likely they stopped because they stopped playing games period.

I'm not suggesting otherwise. Simply, Civ IV appears to be as popular as it is because, prior to Civ V, it was the most 'mainstream' iteration of the game since Civ I. It has more fans simply because it had more players, and those fans react exactly the same to Civ V and Civ VI as the older fans quoted in this thread reacted to Civ IV.

And yes, it is somewhat speculative, but anecdotally there are a lot of people on here who write that Civ IV was their first Civ game, including many who draw the less favourable comparisons with Civ 5 and 6. Look at the 'which iteration had the best AI' thread, for instance - the discussion stops dead when you go further back in time than Civ III. Not apparently because no one considers that I or II may not be in the running, just because too few people are left who played them. Not that many of us old enough to have played Civ I in its heyday are likely to be active on forums even if they still play the games - it's just the way these things work that forums are dominated by young people.

 

[Joch]

well again you get the same "apocalyptic"/"end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it" threads whenever a new Civ is released.

Having played Civ5, CivBE and now Civ6 pretty much from day one, I would say they were all quality products from the start. Yes they have some AI or balance issues, or some bugs, but all the features work and they are fun to play and eventually the games were improved/fixed by patches.

When I first saw all the negative comments in Civ5, I was concerned, until I realized most were unfounded or gross exaggerations.

When I then saw all the same negative comments in CivBE, I was annoyed, especially once I realized most were unfounded or gross exaggerations.

When I now see all the same negative comments in Civ6...well at this point, I just laugh.

..as a wise oracle once put it:

 

[Disgustipated]

I never said those things. I loved Civ4 upon release. It was a huuuge step up from Civ3, even Civ3 with expansions (the expansions were weak in that game anyways). Yeah some units like cruisers I felt were missing, but they were added in later with expansions.

I can't say the same for Civ5. Civ5 was so bad at release my play time was stuck at only 8 hours until well after 9 months after release. After some patches and the expansions I grew to love the game. I still miss my large empires of Civ4 however.

 

[Grotius]

Heh, great original post! Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

 

[PhilBowles]

well again you get the same "apocalyptic"/"end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it" threads whenever a new Civ is released.

Having played Civ5, CivBE and now Civ6 pretty much from day one, I would say they were all quality products from the start. Yes they have some AI or balance issues, or some bugs, but all the features work and they are fun to play and eventually the games were improved/fixed by patches.

When I first saw all the negative comments in Civ5, I was concerned, until I realized most were unfounded or gross exaggerations.

When I then saw all the same negative comments in CivBE, I was annoyed, especially once I realized most were unfounded or gross exaggerations.

When I now see all the same negative comments in Civ6...well at this point, I just laugh.

..as a wise oracle once put it:

In fairness, the negative comments were actually right where BE is concerned. The fanbase may have a habit of crying wolf, but BE is one of those cases where there actually was a wolf.

Yes, some of the complaints were exaggerated though rarely grossly so and the game suffered more for being bland than for being actively bad, but it's not a great example to use of a case where complaints were unfounded.

 

[LDiCesare]

I loved Civ IV on release. I want a game that challenges me. I never bet cIv IV at highest difficulty level. I already bet Civ VI without cheese (just war carts) on deity. There's no comparison.
Of course, people whined abnout Civ IV. The ATI graphics card glitch was the worst bug ever, but it got patched quickly.Civ VI problems are much deeper (bas UI design, no AI).

 

[PhilBowles]

I loved Civ IV on release. I want a game that challenges me. I never bet cIv IV at highest difficulty level. I already bet Civ VI without cheese (just war carts) on deity. There's no comparison.
Of course, people whined abnout Civ IV. The ATI graphics card glitch was the worst bug ever, but it got patched quickly.Civ VI problems are much deeper (bas UI design, no AI).

As it happens I was thinking looking through the complaints - even at release, none were about the difficulty level or really the AI (the AI complaints seemed to be comparisons with the AI in previous games rather than complaining that Civ IV's was especially bad). Civ games getting easier is a persistent complaint with Civs V and VI that certainly has merit to it. Possibly it's just that I was rustier with Civ IV, but going back to it recently I found the difference between Civ V and Civ IV more drastic than I'd recalled. Early impressions are that Civ VI is a bit easier than Civ VI, though probably not to the same degree that Civ V is easier than Civ IV.

 

[Willburn]

I loved civ 2 3 4 but not 5 and now 6 again is great but can become amazing. Civ 1 was great for its novelty.

 

[Krystyn]

Plus ça change, indeed! Always good to keep things in perspective.

So very true!! I would agree that Civ 6 isn't perfect, but very little is at first glance. (Ok, well I probably am...but then some who know me might even disagree with that! ) When Civ 5 first came out I wasn't all that enthralled, but after Gods and Kings and Brave New World - well, there must be a reason why I've logged over 500 hours in it & have friends with well over 1,000. I'm very confident that as Firaxis listens to and responds to the many voices on the forums, and as mod makers add their wonderful touches to the Civ 6 world we'll see a continuous evolution/improvement of the game that will be an ongoing delight to experience.

For now, after only 43 hours in game (in the less than a week since launch), I'm very much enjoying this new experience, and extremely impressed with the plethora of outstanding new features and mechanics that the devs have brought to us. Is it perfect? No, at least not yet, but give it some time, and it will get closer and closer as the weeks and months pass.

To the Devs: Keep it up, folks, and thanks!! (Oh, and maybe give us a way to allocate & re-allocate luxury resources when and how we want, and to...uhh...ok...'nuff said for now)

 

[TruthfulCake]

The criticism about Firaxis releasing an "incomplete" game implies that there can be a "complete" game on release, whatever that means. People who cite the lack of refinement of elements like the UI or the AI as reasons they deem it "incomplete" obtusely ignore the fact that a video game is a product that can never reach 100% "completion" by that definition. There will always be bugs, and there will always be a way to improve the quality-of-life aspects in the game. That does not make the game a dud on release, seeing as it is more than just playable - many find it enjoyable, despite the human tendency to complain about new things.

The truth is, video games take years to develop, and for a game that is as multi-faceted and rich in content as Civilization, there may not always be enough time to iron out the little non-gamebreaking issues when they have to experiment with new ideas and figure a way to balance them out. A lot of work has to be put in to design the system and how the little gears interact with each other. And of course, playtesting and bug fixing only goes so far as the developers ascertain that their system works as intended. They couldn't have enough time to imagine all the creative exploits people are finding out now if they were to focus on the macro aspects of the game. No, they would leave the discovery of such exploits to the people whose time with the game would be used 100% for playing and 0% for designing.

I find it an acceptable practice. After all, no amount of time put by developers alone will be enough to create a perfect game. Games like Starcraft II had 3 years between announcement and release, and it still was full of bugs, imbalances, and exploits that they have to slowly patch up for years. In the end, I would much prefer Firaxis' approach of releasing the game when it is functional and let the players contribute in the patching process by submitting their reports. There would have been no sense in waiting 3 more years after the it was announced, since upon release people would still find bugs and things to rant about anyway.

Point is, we players are way more numerous than the staff members at Firaxis are. We take much less time to discover stupid things about the game because there are so many of us, and because none of us are actually burdened with developing the game.

Some people need to realize that they are not just paying $60 for the product they get upon release. They are making an investment that entitles them to all the incremental patches that they will get for the product - and considering Firaxis' track record, the patches will be substantial and consistent, and they will continue to patch it for years to come. They are paying for a functional and enjoyable game that they can play and enjoy now, and for even better versions of it that will come in the future.

Therefore, with the certainty of patches being a constant, I have trouble understanding the logic of people who complain about the "incompleteness" of the game. From the way they have been complaining, it seems they would have wanted to wait 3 more years to get a game that they assume they will be 100% satisfied with, and wouldn't mind not getting to play a 50% satisfactory version of the game for three years. Well isn't that just bollocks, since they will eventually have invested the same amount of money anyway? They get much more out of their money's worth if they can get to play a functional (albeit unsatisfactory, they might say) version of the game in the meanwhile they are waiting for their "perfect" version to arrive. This is not to mention that they are theoretically accelerating the progress toward the "perfect" version by being in the loop and having the ability to report bugs and exploits.

Some people feel entitled to use the $60 they spent to heartlessly criticize the hard work of people who obviously put a lot of effort in their creation, and make ridiculous and asinine assertions about the people behind the scenes. They can fiddle with the game for only a few hours and belittle the whole team who developed the game with the best of intentions, calling them a bunch of 19-year-olds or something equally as insensate. Well this bunch of "19-year-olds" actually made this game a refreshing experience with all the new mechanics they hadn't tried in previous iterations, and even added a lot of neat little touches that a few hours of level-headed gameplay would let them discover, if they weren't so hell-bent on seeing only the negatives.

I realize that, by ranting about these "some people", I am doing quite the same myself - making insinuations about people I don't know and maybe inadvertently strawmanning a little. The difference is, there is considerably less effort in making a thread full of entitled complaints than in making a game I would enjoy for thousands of hours to come. I feel much less like a prick for criticizing about these people than I would for making ill-natured baseless comments about the hardworking devs. Complaints also need way less investment in time and funds (about zero) to make, compared to any video game.

Also, like everyone, I paid for the game and therefore it is in my interest to see the game improve. Thus, seeing the community give constructive comments is in my best interest, as it helps point the devs to the right direction as to how they should improve the game. However, more often than not, the criticism some people make are destructive and unrealistic, such as: "throw away all your significant investment in the graphics and art, and redo all from scratch to please my subjective sense of aesthetics" or "refund me my money because I am not used to how this game is working compared to previous titles." Thus, by drowning out constructive feedback, either by discouraging the devs or by simply flooding the forum with the same kind of complaints, these people are working against my best interest. And unknowingly, against their own best interest.

Therefore, I find it great that we are shoving all these complaints back to their collective faces with this thread.