Is Civ 5 really "being dumbed down"?

[Thormodr]

I think Empire wide happiness is greatly simplified and abstracted and I'm not a big fan of it. The tech tree doesn't seem very deep either. (I am well aware that some techs were taken out and replaced by social policies which in turn were supposed to replace civics.)
Trade routes and the whole economic system don't look especially good either.

We'll see how it plays out when we all get the game. I am quite sure the game will be good. I do have my doubts whether it will be great though. Hopefully FFH3 will make up for it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Public discussion of moderation action (PDMA) is against the forum rules. If you have a beef with a moderator, then you should pm him/her and resolve it out of public view. As to the swearing, our forum rule forbid it regardless of what you or anyone else thinks personally. Please read the forum rules.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[rastak]

Sorry guys. Is there a list of banned words I could reference so I won't cause anymore problems?

 

[imperialman]

Sorry guys. Is there a list of banned words I could reference so I won't cause anymore problems?

I think it would just be best to say what you would to... a work colleague who is just slightly higher up than you are in the chain of command. If that works for you I guess. I often myself forget these forums are family friendly. I'll work on remembering though, I wouldn't want kids reading the swearing.

 

[Bad Brett]

Of course the game is dumbed down, though I understand that a of players like it. The difference between a good player and a bad player in earlier releases, was that a good player always took time to check his cities every turn. These players could spend several days to plan an assault.

Of course there are many players who don't have the skill, patience or time to play like this. These players love when all the micromanagement is removed, because then they will be able to compete with players who did all the micromanagement that they were too lazy to do.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: Public discussion of Moderator actions is not permitted under the rules of the site. If you feel the need to discuss rules or other policies of CFC, you may start an appropriate discussion thread in the Site Feeback forum. If you want to "chat" with a mod about something then you may do so via pm or in an appropriate thread. This is not appropriate. Posts deleted.

 

[imperialman]

To Birdjaguar, sorry for this but I'm unclear still. If something is tagged with mod action, is it against convention to reply to it? I genuinely don't know. Sorry. Please let me know.

Moderator Action: You may reply to the poster comment, but don't quote the problem post.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Sorry guys. Is there a list of banned words I could reference so I won't cause anymore problems?

If I posted them they would all show up as .

You can guess what is not allowed. If smilies show up in your post, then go back and edit it.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

Of course the game is dumbed down, though I understand that a of players like it. The difference between a good player and a bad player in earlier releases, was that a good player always took time to check his cities every turn. These players could spend several days to plan an assault.

Of course there are many players who don't have the skill, patience or time to play like this. These players love when all the micromanagement is removed, because then they will be able to compete with players who did all the micromanagement that they were too lazy to do.

Not to be rude, but your whole post comes of as "I spend 1 hour on each turn and that makes me better then most of you other lazy bums".

Being worse at the game and not having enough time to be arsed to spend a whole hour on each turn isn't the same thing. Could I have spent huge amounts of time making slight tweaks to every single city in my whole empire to insure that everything was running at 100% efficiency while playing Civ4? Sure! Is it any kind of fun? No.

Checking every single city and making tweaks has nothing to do with skill. The reason for why most people don't invest hours into making tweaks to every single city every turn isn't because its hard or difficult, its because it is such a painfully time consuming process that nobody can be arsed.

 

[SeismoGraf]

From Civ1 to Civ4 every new version got significantly more complex, while at the same time getting more accessible and user-friendly. I expect the same to be true for Civ5.

Even going further, Civ5 will arguably have the most challenging and complex military tactics of all the series. It will not just be an improvement, but a quantum leap. So my answer is a confident NO, Civ5 has not been dumbed down, it has been "smartened up"!

 

[bjbrains]

Of course the game is dumbed down, though I understand that a of players like it. The difference between a good player and a bad player in earlier releases, was that a good player always took time to check his cities every turn. These players could spend several days to plan an assault.

Of course there are many players who don't have the skill, patience or time to play like this. These players love when all the micromanagement is removed, because then they will be able to compete with players who did all the micromanagement that they were too lazy to do.

Are all your posts this arrogant and cocksure? You sound like you think you're the best player in the world and everyone else is an idiot because they don't want to spend hours managing their cities. I mean, that was true of your post in the GDR thread too. You seem to go out of your way to insult everyone else who doesn't share your point of view while simultaneously implying stating outright that they are "bad players".

 

[Schuesseled]

I don't feel that empire wie happiness is dumbed down, to coin that ugly phrase. It make it easier to understnad and grasp but without losing any complexity, you have 10 happiness that means you can have 10 more population, the only main difference is the game does the city by city calculations for you, you don't have to examine every city to find out thier net happiness, you can see at a simple glance how much spare happiness you have and therefore how much your cities will be able to grow in the foreseeable future. This is jsut an example of a better user interface.

 

[PawelS]

I don't feel that empire wie happiness is dumbed down, to coin that ugly phrase. It make it easier to understnad and grasp but without losing any complexity, you have 10 happiness that means you can have 10 more population, the only main difference is the game does the city by city calculations for you, you don't have to examine every city to find out thier net happiness, you can see at a simple glance how much spare happiness you have and therefore how much your cities will be able to grow in the foreseeable future. This is jsut an example of a better user interface.

It's not only a change to user interface, it's a change of the game mechanics - with a city-based happiness only these cities that have spare happiness can grow (without causing unhappiness), and in civ5 if you have spare happiness, any city can grow.

I don't say I don't like it though.

 

[Dale]

Of course the game is dumbed down, though I understand that a of players like it. The difference between a good player and a bad player in earlier releases, was that a good player always took time to check his cities every turn. These players could spend several days to plan an assault.

Of course there are many players who don't have the skill, patience or time to play like this. These players love when all the micromanagement is removed, because then they will be able to compete with players who did all the micromanagement that they were too lazy to do.

Actually you have it all wrong. A sign of a good player is that they know what their cities are doing every turn and DON'T need to check them every turn. If it's taking you hours per turn to come up with a strategy then you're a poor strategic thinker. Good strategic thinkers (and hence good Civ players) can alter their strategy fast and on the fly.

 

[Bad Brett]

I'll copy my post from another thread:

It's simplified in many ways that won't improve gameplay. In Civ IV, if you found an inland city on a new continent, it wouldn't have access to your resources. You had to make sure that it was connected to the ocean, and sometimes, you were even forced to sign open border agreements with AI's to get access to your luxuries. You could blockade enemy ports to prevent them from getting resources. You asked yourself "Should I go for Astronomy so I can deliver Ivory I found without signing an open borders agreement?" etc.

What I dislike the most with this change is that it removes the feeling of every city being unique. Yeah sure, there will be buildings that only can be build in certain cities, but it's not the same. You had to ask yourself "Is it necessary to build aqueduct here, will the city ever grow that big?" and "The corruption in this city is -2,20 gold every turn... Should I build a courthouse now or wait?"

All these decisions have been removed. Building a temple can never be a bad thing now, since it will increase the total happiness.

**********

The strategy now seems to be: "Oh, there's a luxury. I'll buy that tile so that my entire empire gets happy!" or "Great, I have 50 surplus happiness, time to declare war!"

No more trade network building. Roads will be nothing but a way to move your troops faster.

So don't tell me that the gameplay won't be simplifed. And they did exactly the same thing with Railroads! and Civ:Col.

 

[bjbrains]

Moderator Action: Attack a user's argument, not the user

 

[Bad Brett]

And yet, you repost, and the same level of arrogant, self-assured, elitism prevails. See the other thread for why you're OCD and not "better" at the game.

I presented arguments to why the game is dumbed down. Since you obviously rather discuss whether I'm good at the game or not than actually respond to what I wrote, I'll take it as you agree with me.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Culture can't be used to convert cities anymore, but I never found the idea of cities simply being able to leave its owner without permission to make a shred of sense to begin with.

It happened because the people of the city didn't like their government, or their lifestyle was too different from it, or they simply hated it, so they led an armed revolt (Much like Athens just before the birth of Democracy) and there's a chance they win, a chance the don't.

 

[bjbrains]

I presented arguments to why the game is dumbed down. Since you obviously rather discuss whether I'm good at the game or not than actually respond to what I wrote, I'll take it as you agree with me.

No. I don't. I'm more commenting on how you talk. If you're going to talk like a pretentious elitist, then I'm going to respond as such. Your argument basically consists of "New players are bad and don't want to spend time doing stuff". That's childish at best.

 

[Schuesseled]

I'll copy my post from another thread:

It's simplified in many ways that won't improve gameplay. In Civ IV, if you found an inland city on a new continent, it wouldn't have access to your resources. You had to make sure that it was connected to the ocean, and sometimes, you were even forced to sign open border agreements with AI's to get access to your luxuries. You could blockade enemy ports to prevent them from getting resources. You asked yourself "Should I go for Astronomy so I can deliver Ivory I found without signing an open borders agreement?" etc.

What I dislike the most with this change is that it removes the feeling of every city being unique. Yeah sure, there will be buildings that only can be build in certain cities, but it's not the same. You had to ask yourself "Is it necessary to build aqueduct here, will the city ever grow that big?" and "The corruption in this city is -2,20 gold every turn... Should I build a courthouse now or wait?"

All these decisions have been removed. Building a temple can never be a bad thing now, since it will increase the total happiness.

**********

The strategy now seems to be: "Oh, there's a luxury. I'll buy that tile so that my entire empire gets happy!" or "Great, I have 50 surplus happiness, time to declare war!"

No more trade network building. Roads will be nothing but a way to move your troops faster.

So don't tell me that the gameplay won't be simplifed. And they did exactly the same thing with Railroads! and Civ:Col.

You seriously need to stop trying to maximise efficiency, have every city build an aqueduct, your people like shiny new things.

Oh FYI, that means for your interest, roads are required for trade routes, which provide you with gold, thats the shiny yellow things that buy stuff.

I'm really curious, how was building a temple a bad thing in previous civs?