Is Civ 5 really "being dumbed down"?
- Thread starter hardcore_gamer
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I of course agree, and the fact is, as i see it, not many of us will be giving up civ 4 anytime soon.
RD-BH
Human
Maybe the strategy will improve by 'Civ5:Beyond Beyond' expansion.
Then I will build a time machine (future era tech) ...
... and tesseract back to turn 50 w/GDR and change history. 8)
Then I will build a time machine (future era tech) ...
... and tesseract back to turn 50 w/GDR and change history. 8)
If you can't handle that my friend, perhaps Sims 3 is more your speed.
I can handle it, but it's not fun to care about little details (like sliders), when there are more interesting things to do in the game.
And please don't make such suggestions, I'm not "dumbed down" enough to play silly games like Sims 3
And please don't make such suggestions, I'm not "dumbed down" enough to play silly games like Sims 3
Lancor
Prince
Well, it seems it's going down to: realism vs. gameplay...
Sliders might be a bit more realistic, as it's usually a normal thing for a nation to set where it spends it's money on which aspect of society etc... but removing them, I agree, seems to provide a more tense and fun gameplay. (okay, the "fun" we have yet to see)
Anyway, as I said in another thread, we should exspect or at least be patient, what future expansions might provide for us.
In a perfect world, surely there would be a switch for the game in the options menu: "unrealistic but very balanced and streamlined gameplay" vs. "historically accurate, realistic, but unbalanced and micromanagend-heavy gameplay" ;D
Sliders might be a bit more realistic, as it's usually a normal thing for a nation to set where it spends it's money on which aspect of society etc... but removing them, I agree, seems to provide a more tense and fun gameplay. (okay, the "fun" we have yet to see)
Anyway, as I said in another thread, we should exspect or at least be patient, what future expansions might provide for us.
In a perfect world, surely there would be a switch for the game in the options menu: "unrealistic but very balanced and streamlined gameplay" vs. "historically accurate, realistic, but unbalanced and micromanagend-heavy gameplay" ;D
RD-BH
Human
I can handle it, but it's not fun to care about little details (like sliders), when there are more interesting things to do in the game.
And please don't make such suggestions, I'm not "dumbed down" enough to play silly games like Sims 3
In defense of Sims 3 ...
... I won't speak to whether it is 'silly' or not.
... I will say it is strategic.
... Try to juggle a house full of simkids without strategizing your time management.
Zhahz
PC Gamer
The amount of food a tile produces had anything to do with the strategic depth of gameplay? It's some variety for sure, but there is nothing strategic about corn yielding more food than wheat. What you end up with around you is luck of the draw or what you get thru conquest and I seriously doubt many Civ IV players went to war over corn to get that extra 1 food.
Seeing exactly what modifiers you have going on in the diplomacy screen isn't utterly and completely dumbed down? You know exactly what's going on at all times - it couldn't be any dumber. It turns diplomacy into a spreadsheet exercise. There's nothing strategic about plugging numbers into a formula...if I do open borders, I'll get +2, if I research too much, I get -2...and so on. Having the raw math of diplo exposed dumbs down the system, if anything, because you no longer truly think or analyze, you just evaluate equations and formulas.
tom2050
Deity
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Well, the whole slider thing was already discussed in another thread. I'll recap here:
The slider wasn't 'removed from the game' because the slider is impossible to have in the game the way that commerce/research is setup. So technically, they couldn't have dumbed the game down, because they never technically removed it.
Now, as far as gameplay vs realism... it depends on how fun it is when you need some quick cash, but can't get any cash because you have to wait 50 turns to build banks to get a small portion of income.
If people get frustrated and complain over the incredibly low chance of losing a half-dead tank to an uber-spearman, if it turns out to be the way of a waiting game; I can imagine those same people in an uproar.
But we'll just have to see. I don't mind the new way at all personally; but depending on how it plays, the slider may be missed in the end.
So "strategic-only is deeper or as deep as "macro-managing"? I don't think so.
I usually don't even reply to comments like these. There is still a fair amount of micro in Civ 5, in case you don't know.
The slider wasn't 'removed from the game' because the slider is impossible to have in the game the way that commerce/research is setup. So technically, they couldn't have dumbed the game down, because they never technically removed it.
Now, as far as gameplay vs realism... it depends on how fun it is when you need some quick cash, but can't get any cash because you have to wait 50 turns to build banks to get a small portion of income.
If people get frustrated and complain over the incredibly low chance of losing a half-dead tank to an uber-spearman, if it turns out to be the way of a waiting game; I can imagine those same people in an uproar.
But we'll just have to see. I don't mind the new way at all personally; but depending on how it plays, the slider may be missed in the end.
Buccaneer said:
So "strategic-only is deeper or as deep as "macro-managing"? I don't think so.
I usually don't even reply to comments like these. There is still a fair amount of micro in Civ 5, in case you don't know.
charon2112
King
less complexity = dumbed down
more complexity = smartened up
It seems, after reading the manual, that unfortunately many of the elements in Civ V have literally been 'dumbed down'.
more complexity = smartened up
It seems, after reading the manual, that unfortunately many of the elements in Civ V have literally been 'dumbed down'.
remember when Civ4 came out? there was a thread in the forum that was named "so you hate civ4, don't you?" or something close. and it hit close to home for me. I hated it at first, was so different than civ3 (which I liked immensely). But, the game was different. not worse, just different. And after playing for a while I found my place.
You could argue that things in 4 were "smarter" than 3 (religion, policies, etc.) and you could say that 4 was "dumbed down" (fewer cities (this I didn't like. I liked many, many cities...)) but it was like a brand new chapter in a good book. And I'm sure that 5 will be the same. It will take some getting used to, and a lot of reading in the strategy forum, I'm sure, but still - I can't wait! can you?!
(and yes, I wasn't thinking when I chose my nick that some day there will be a civ5. talk about dumbed down
)
You could argue that things in 4 were "smarter" than 3 (religion, policies, etc.) and you could say that 4 was "dumbed down" (fewer cities (this I didn't like. I liked many, many cities...)) but it was like a brand new chapter in a good book. And I'm sure that 5 will be the same. It will take some getting used to, and a lot of reading in the strategy forum, I'm sure, but still - I can't wait! can you?!
(and yes, I wasn't thinking when I chose my nick that some day there will be a civ5. talk about dumbed down
)EmpireOfCats
Death to Giant Robots
I'm not sure anymore if "dumbed down" is fair except for minor stuff -- I predict "farm spamming" now that you don't need access to fresh water any more -- but I am worried that so much has been taken out that the total game has become less complex. For instance, there is no copper, there is no pollution, there is no espionage, there is no religion -- all stuff that you used to have to think about, but no more. This is sort of like taking the rooks out of chess: The game is still complex, but you're missing what used to be an important part.
Some things are more complex: city states, quantity that matters for strategic resources, ranged attacks, unique abilities of civs instead of traits*, transporting spaceship parts to capital, excess happiness used for golden ages...
* I think it's more complex because there are more unique abilities in Civ5 than traits in Civ4, and many of them have quite complicated effects.
* I think it's more complex because there are more unique abilities in Civ5 than traits in Civ4, and many of them have quite complicated effects.
I can handle it, but it's not fun to care about little details (like sliders), when there are more interesting things to do in the game.
And please don't make such suggestions, I'm not "dumbed down" enough to play silly games like Sims 3
Indeed, I really would not wish that on anyone. I was just joking around anyway. Enjoy the new game!
It should have said "micro-managing" instead of "macro". Sorry.
My point was that if someone plays the game by automating all of the works and let the governors manage their cities while only focusing on "strategic" level decisions, that is not playing as deep as one who would manage all of workers, units, cities, sliders, etc. manually. That, to me, is a more complex and deeper game. If one lets the AI do a lot of stuff for you, then one is either being lazy or playing dumbed down. I see no indication that Civ5 has been dumbed down, just some could play it that way.
All Civs age and get stale apart from SMAC.
Unless you loathe sci-fi and that genre. Almost nothing in SMAC, while a great game, interested me in playing it.
I only leave the citizen management to the AI, about city production and what workers do I prefer to decide myself, because these are interesting aspects of the game for me (as opposed to sliders and deciding what individual citizens do, which I do only in emergency situations), and also the AI is very bad at managing production and workers (at least in Civ4, we'll see how it is in Civ5).
So I guess I'm not completely a "macromanager".
If the international relations were too simple and predictable, they shoud have improved them instead of removing them (when you can't see the relations, it's basically the same as they didn't exit at all). A good text here:
http://g4tv.com/games/pc/57652/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-V/review/
Seems like Civ5 relies heavily in three elements: a new combat system, city-states, and social policies. In other areas (techs, great people, wonders, terrain improvements..) there is little sign of improvement. It's interesting to see how long they will carry.
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