Is Civ 5 really "being dumbed down"?

An interesting thing to note. If anyone watched Google techtalk about Civ AI "Playing to loose", you probably noticed what game developers actually say what actually Civ 4 was simplified in gameplay compared to Civ 3.

The difference is what players and game developers consider different things for complexity. For players it's number of features - religions, health, etc. For game developers it's number of strategic choices and how difficult they are.

From gameplay point of view Civ 5 is going to be much more complex than Civ 4.
 
stealth_nsk said:
An interesting thing to note. If anyone watched Google techtalk about Civ AI "Playing to loose", you probably noticed what game developers actually say what actually Civ 4 was simplified in gameplay compared to Civ 3.

The difference is what players and game developers consider different things for complexity. For players it's number of features - religions, health, etc. For game developers it's number of strategic choices and how difficult they are.

From gameplay point of view Civ 5 is going to be much more complex than Civ 4.
Click to expand...

It appears the English language is being dumbed down by Google techtalk if the AI is "playing to loose".

It bad enough reading game reviews where reviewers don't know the difference between your and you're. *Ugh*

Anyway, time will tell but the game still looks like it's catering to noobs in order to widen the fanbase by watering down the product. Mark my words. There will be a console version of ciV within two years. The game was designed for it.

Luckily, FFH3 will be coming out and the designers won't let that be dumbed down. :)
 
Thormodr said:
Anyway, time will tell but the game still looks like it's catering to noobs in order to widen the fanbase by watering down the product. Mark my words. There will be a console version of ciV within two years. The game was designed for it.
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I don't think there will. Consoles with 4-5 years (Wii ~10 years) old hardware and a shortage of memory hardly can run this game, and more importantly, console players are not interested in this kind of games.
 
FFH3? Only if its a mod for Civ V ... the standalone project was canceled for the time being.
 
I will be quite happy to pay for an expansion that brings back religion. Here's to hoping they will make one eventually.

I will reserve judgement until I have played the game, but we did lose religion, corporations, espionage, wonder animations, technology trade, city health mechanic, random events, the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers...

Believing the game has not been dumbed down after all that is difficult. I apologise for my scepticism.
 
Watiggi said:
Some people actually like a bloody complex game you know. And if Civ 5 doesn't deliver on that, then what game would? :wallbash:
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My fear exactly. Nothing is sacred any more, the game has to be simply fun or it just doesn't deserve to exist. It can serve no other purpose in life such as educational or ekill-developmental, it has to be quick fix fun.

If from all the games that used to be smart only Civ got dumbed down I wouldn't blink an eye. I can share. But when this happens across the board so as to lead to today's situation that all games are dumbed down, then we have a problem. And in my opinion with Civ it was completely unnecessary, Civ had a large loyal fan base and no matter how much you simplify Civ you won't expand the fan base so as long as the game is even slightly more complex than farmville at which point you'll just replace one established fan base with another that needs to be grown. This is where simcity killed itself, it chased me away but didn't really interest my idiot neighbor.

To make a parallel with chess since someone mentioned it, imagine the rules change so now you have 8 queens and a king and king can be eaten and whoever eats the king first wins. Hell, the game would be lots of fun, you get to kill queens all day long, even a mentally challenged person can learn to "shoot" queens, but ultimately the game would be DUMB. And in all honesty it would insult real chess masters to hear the players of this game refer to themselves as "chess players"

Back to the roots, Sid, back to the roots. There is no coin for ya in dumbville.
 
Watiggi said:
Some people actually like a bloody complex game you know. And if Civ 5 doesn't deliver on that, then what game would? :wallbash:
Click to expand...

Call to Power 2? Massive tech tree. 12 units max in combat. How many shielding units do you put in? How many fire units you put in? (archers) How many flanking units you put in?

Spy games, Slavers, diplomats etc etc.

Civ V compared to Call to Power 2 is way dumbed down because of lack of options, and lack of choices. Tech tree alone, Civ V should be held in shame.
 
Rime said:
I will be quite happy to pay for an expansion that brings back religion. Here's to hoping they will make one eventually.

I will reserve judgement until I have played the game, but we did lose religion, corporations, espionage, wonder animations, technology trade, city health mechanic, random events, the butchers, the bakers, the candlestick makers...

Believing the game has not been dumbed down after all that is difficult. I apologise for my scepticism.
Click to expand...

Wait, wonder animations made it harder to play? I must have been doing it wrong . . .
 
Better UI and more context sensitive so you can do 10 things with a right click rather than having to go to a button matrix and click on "move" or "stop" each time = dumbed down according to many people.

Same with gameplay, more clear tactical consequences of your actions = dumbed down.

There's no reason to listen to what "other people" say, play it yourself and judge.
There's always 2 sides to every forum, 1 who thinks everything is dumbed down, and the other who are called fanboys by the side who thinks everything is dumbed down. (sigh)


A good example is Space Empires V. Ever played it?
That game could REALLY use some "dumbing down", having 50 buttons onscreen gives the illusion of complexity, while it is in fact just buttons, useless buttons for "move" "stop" "attack" etc, which when hidden under your mouse cursor instead is called "dumbing it down".

So if Civ5 is dumbed down according to the usual term, i'll gladly welcome it.
UI and control improvements is always needed.
As for removing religion etc, well they added a huge branching multi-tree of social policies instead of a flat decending list. I'd say its adding complexity, not removing.
 
CTP2 was great, but time has ran it over. You cant really say go play CTP2 instead? If we speak of "smarter than Civ5 but uglier" then there is quite a few games available, sadly all of them are a decade old.
 
Baleur said:
Better UI and more context sensitive so you can do 10 things with a right click rather than having to go to a button matrix and click on "move" or "stop" each time = dumbed down according to many people.

Same with gameplay, more clear tactical consequences of your actions = dumbed down.
Click to expand...
Have you been reading what is going on? Not one person said the game was dumbed down because of what you said. Removal of espionage system, removal of Relgion, removal of happiness etc etc, is why people say the game is dumbed down.

I havn't read one person say more clear tactical consequences of your actions=dumbed down.

Please if you are going to defend the game, do it properly instead of making false statements of what people are actually saying is dumbed down.
 
mmix2000 said:
sadly all of them are a decade old.
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Wouldn't that be when games had many options and had alot of bigger tech trees? :eek:

Maybe instead of saying Civ V is dumbed down, how about games in genarl all have been dumbed down so the casual gamer would get into it.
 
Davor said:
Call to Power 2? Massive tech tree. 12 units max in combat. How many shielding units do you put in? How many fire units you put in? (archers) How many flanking units you put in?

Spy games, Slavers, diplomats etc etc.

Civ V compared to Call to Power 2 is way dumbed down because of lack of options, and lack of choices. Tech tree alone, Civ V should be held in shame.
Click to expand...

I'd argue that just adding more things doesn't make a game more difficult/"smarter." Let's be honest--did corporations really add anything at all to your game experience? Did you miss the "Smarter" more complicated setting up embassies between CivII and CivIII? Did you miss colonies between III and IV?

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no idea whether this new game will be more or less challenging. It's just that a lot of the reasons people think it'll be worse are pretty silly to me at this point. It would be different if we hadn't heard this all before---every five years or so.

If it's just more "options" you're looking for, more "stuff," maybe you should take a week or a month of your time and find some people to play a little "Campaign for North Africa."
 
I didn't care for colonies in Civ III. In fact I didn't care for that game at all.

I think Civ V will be a great game. I think they sped it up. I love how I can complete a game in Civ Rev in a day. It still takes 6, 8 or more hours to play. At least for me. But I can complete a game.

It's not very often I complete a Civ or Call to Power 2 game because the end games get boring.

So this streamlining, dumbing down, what ever we call it, could be for the best for most people.

Only one hour and fifteen minutes to go.
 
Yeah, I agree with the end of the games. I typically start over at some point because I want to start something new. Hopefully, they've slowed down the beginning of the game and sped up the end. We'll see. :)
 
Ricci said:
Maybe CivRev was the worst thing that happened to the franchise..
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Well if you are going to make a statement like that, please explain yourself. How has Civ Rev damaged you? How has it ruined your gaming experiance?
 
No religion
Diplomacy is, at best, random and superfluous
City states were done incorrectly

The only good thing done was switching to a hex tile format. Otherwise, this game is a bland, boring, main stream appeasing bomb so far.

Now this is my 1st day impression, it could change, but in reality it likely wont. This is like going from Sim City 2k to the new Sim City where it's a complete joke and plays like "the sims". Sorry firaxis, this game is not for me. Enjoy my money tho; sadly I cannot resell this thing even for 10 bucks
 
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