Is Civ 5 really "being dumbed down"?

[Kruelgor]

I see alot of people here love to bash Civ Rev. Why is that? Most peopel here havn't even tried Civ Rev but yet say it's a dumbed down version? Why is that? So if Civ Rev is a dumbed down version, the same can apply to Civ V as well.

I played Civ Rev for about 10 minutes on the Playstation 3 before I returned it to the store for a refund. It was purely idiotic. The babble which comes out of the goofy characters' mouths was hideously obnoxious.

 

[cheesemijit]

CivRev was fun, and infact was the reason i found out about civ4 so i have a personal debt to it.

 

[Dale]

CivRev was a fun and successful game, IF you remember who the target audience for the game was and approach the game in that manner.

 

[Schuesseled]

I played Civ Rev for about 10 minutes on the Playstation 3 before I returned it to the store for a refund. It was purely idiotic. The babble which comes out of the goofy characters' mouths was hideously obnoxious.

Yep, amazingly terrible that jibberish.

Awimo kalitty bang hum.

 

[pineaway]

Yea the gibberish was absolutely horrible but... without it we would never had the backlash that has lead to the leaders talking in their native tongue like were getting now.

 

[Kruelgor]

Awimo kalitty bang hum.

this made me laugh...haha!

 

[Spatzimaus]

Yep, amazingly terrible that jibberish.

Awimo kalitty bang hum.

Bah Weep Granah Weep Ninni Bong!

(I seriously want to mod in a new leader who talks like that.)

 

[Kruelgor]

Bah Weep Granah Weep Ninni Bong!

(I seriously want to mod in a new leader who talks like that.)

For what civilization? Congo?

 

[Schuesseled]

I'd probably prefer it if they all spoke english, or at the very least stuck to the script.

Hearing Elizabeth say

"I greet you"

And then below the subtitles say Welcome to England.

If they couldn't even get the english voice actor to follow the script what hope do we have

 

[silentknight111]

For what civilization? Congo?

Knights who say "Ni" Civ.

 

[Kruelgor]

I'd probably prefer it if they all spoke english, or at the very least stuck to the script.

Hearing Elizabeth say

"I greet you"

And then below the subtitles say Welcome to England.

If they couldn't even get the english voice actor to follow the script what hope do we have

Yeah, that's pretty bad. They dropped the ball there big time. Someone said the Russian translations don't match at all what they really said.

 

[Schuesseled]

Ni ni ni ni ni.

---

None of it does, i guess they didn't feel like scripting the voice acting to match the ingame text.

 

[Spatzimaus]

For what civilization? Congo?

I take it you don't get the reference, then.

It's the universal greeting... from that classic of Western cinema, Transformers: the Movie. (The movie that had Weird Al on the soundtrack.) Think of it as the analogue of that five-note greeting from Close Encounters.

So in theory every civ should say that when they first meet you. But I'd settle for just having one.

 

[Kruelgor]

I take it you don't get the reference, then.

It's the universal greeting... from that classic of Western cinema, Transformers: the Movie. (The movie that had Weird Al on the soundtrack.) Think of it as the analogue of that five-note greeting from Close Encounters.

So in theory every civ should say that when they first meet you. But I'd settle for just having one.

Transformers, huh. Universal greeting. Ok.

 

[mjs0]

Ni ni ni ni ni.

---

None of it does, i guess they didn't feel like scripting the voice acting to match the ingame text.

City State of Ni:

Bring me....a shrubbery!

 

[silentknight111]

City State of Ni:

Bring me....a shrubbery!

It would definitely be an "irrational" city state.

 

[Ikael]

I don't mind simplification, but the fact that now the only way to preassure or ruin an enemy civ is just WAR WAR WAR and more WAR pisses me off to no end. Religion is removed, culture is almost useless now that it has one use, and one use only (social policies), economy matter little (as did in other previous games, I admit). It is not a question of complexity, but of loss of depth. I hope to play the game and be proven wrong, but I am not liking the look of it not one bit.

 

[Panzeh]

I don't mind simplification, but the fact that now the only way to preassure or ruin an enemy civ is just WAR WAR WAR and more WAR pisses me off to no end. Religion is removed, culture is almost useless now that it has one use, and one use only (social policies), economy matter little (as did in other previous games, I admit). It is not a question of complexity, but of loss of depth. I hope to play the game and be proven wrong, but I am not liking the look of it not one bit.

I'm not sure how you can ruin someone with religion when religion pretty much served to define alliance blocs, and it's very difficult to aggressively hurt someone with culture, the point where you're better off with war. I'm just not seeing where you can ruin someone in Civ IV without war, aside from diplomacy.

 

[Txurce]

I don't mind simplification, but the fact that now the only way to preassure or ruin an enemy civ is just WAR WAR WAR and more WAR pisses me off to no end. Religion is removed, culture is almost useless now that it has one use, and one use only (social policies), economy matter little (as did in other previous games, I admit). It is not a question of complexity, but of loss of depth. I hope to play the game and be proven wrong, but I am not liking the look of it not one bit.

War has always been by far the most common way to ruin an enemy civ. However, there are still diplomatic, cultural, and space race victories that allow you to win without war, war, war. Why do you think that won't work for you?

 

[mmix2000]

Look, complexity leads to more strategical and tactical options and makes the game richer at the expense of time invested in learning curve and playing. The entire concept of consolization of gaming industry revolves around that disbalance. You generally have a GenY market consisting mostly of instant-gratification fans, they cannot be made to do "complex stuff" due to short attention span so everything is made push-button for them. Games such as Civilization are major losers in that race as they implicitly require some learning (as opposed to other game genres), thus Sid tried to save the day with CivRev which is simply horrible.

In all honesty I did not expect Civ5 will ever see the light of day. I expected Civ4 to be the last of it the same as SimCity2000 was the last of its kind. However, unlike most of you I am really not so disappointed in dumbing down of Civ series because there will eventually be two expansions plus SDK. Modders will make this entire story a happy ending for everyone, the Fireaxis/2K will end up selling us a platform upon which we can create a truly rich and powerful, yet modern looking, Civilization game. Those who are not into complexity will end up just avoiding those mods.

There is no way in todays market composition to convince a major game publisher to stand behind a game not targeting general public but instead targeting just the smart and mentally capable to consume a more complex game. We just have to play along.