Is Civilization forever dead?

[dexters]

Sorry, dexters, I agree with a lot of what you've been saying with regards to criticizing people's criticisms, but I think you're going too far here (and in some other posts I've read) talking about an "organized attempt" - how can you support that statement? More specifically, how can you demonstrate that the attempt is organized or deliberate rather than the result of an unconscious factor that affect people's perspectives?

For example, suppose there is an insular gamer culture - that insular nature could definitely affect people's perspectives, for example, suggesting that no one likes Civ V just because no one in that specific group likes Civ V. But that can be attributed to an unconscious "bias" (specifically, see: availability heuristic).

I appreciate you calling me out on that. I went too far.

I'm not suggesting conspiracy re: organized attempt, but I get the impression at least that there's a feeling that there's a need to refight the Civ4 v 5 story that 1) did not happen with previous games 2) a desire to shape narrative.

As for my other comments on 'insular gamer culture' I have no expertise but merely connecting the dots. There's been waves of very hateful movements coming out the gamer culture. Earliest such outbreak was the casual v hardcore debate thrown at Nintendo for their 'casual' Wii console and DS console and how it was destroying the industry and holding it back. That's something that wasn't there in the 90s. Maybe I'm wrong, but my impression is that things have gotten worse.

But your point is well taken. I'll pull myself back on this point. There's really no point to be gained.

 

[Ricci]

What is "un-civ"?

I was there from day one. What exactly is missing from Civ V that was in Civ I?

The game was NEVER historical in my opinion. It's simply the best 4x game there is.

Here I leave you a link to a thread started some years ago which states many features repeated along the entire series (CIV 1 to 4) which weren`t to be found in V.
On the other hand, the primary thing which kept me playing Civilization for so many years now (I don`t care to count), was the historical immertion of it, the feeling of being able, to some extent, to replicate nations, warfare, empires, etc.

This is the infamous thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=379091

 

[Ricci]

This is precisely what I meant in my previous posts. Not liking Civ5 is fine. Pointing out how horrible and crappy vanilla civ was- yeah that was absolutely the case, the game was outright broken and the devs admitted to that. But then dropping a sentence like "I have the intellectual capacity to figure out that the game is still fundamentally broken" is one of these judgements that ultimately everyone disagrees on.

I must disagree on your`s ultimate disagreement:
Get the BAT mod 4.1 for Civilization4 BTS, it adds a lot of stuff, specially in UI and graphics. This will change your perspective about the entire Civilization series up to date!

 

[j51]

Here I leave you a link to a thread started some years ago which states many features repeated along the entire series (CIV 1 to 4) which weren`t to be found in V.
On the other hand, the primary thing which kept me playing Civilization for so many years now (I don`t care to count), was the historical immertion of it, the feeling of being able, to some extent, to replicate nations, warfare, empires, etc.

This is the infamous thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=379091

Yeah, the features YOU listed in YOUR OWN thread, weren't all that important to the historical immersion, IMHO.

 

[m15a]

Wow. That thread got *derailed* quickly.

 

[Ricci]

Hahaahah, sure it did.

 

[Ricci]

Yeah, the features YOU listed in YOUR OWN thread, weren't all that important to the historical immersion, IMHO.

There were two different responses: to things in civ1 and not in civ5; and the issue of historical immersion. Didn`t think it needed clarification, maybe I should have separated que answers point by point to make it simpler.

 

[j51]

Meh, just a separate paragraph would have sufficed.

 

[noto2]

Here I leave you a link to a thread started some years ago which states many features repeated along the entire series (CIV 1 to 4) which weren`t to be found in V.
On the other hand, the primary thing which kept me playing Civilization for so many years now (I don`t care to count), was the historical immertion of it, the feeling of being able, to some extent, to replicate nations, warfare, empires, etc.

This is the infamous thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=379091

The things listed in this post are, if anything, an argument as to why civ5 is superior. The things Civ5 gave up, according to this post, are things like sliders and squares instead of hexes, and unit stacking.

 

[Thormodr]

The point is you're not being fair to Civ5 and you're criticisms seems so anachronistic and out of place most of the time because surprise surprise you haven't really played the game people are talking about. It's like someone complaining about vanilla Civ4 while the rest of us are on BTS. But this is the hill you've chosen to die on, keep digging.

BTW, I went back and reread my post and do not see anything demeaning said, other than encouraging you to play the full game and pointing out my suspicion that you haven't really played the game you insist on criticizing all the time has been confirmed. Others have encouraged you as well and you for some inexplicable reason equated that person with being passive aggressive.

I'll get out of your way, though Posting non-sequiter (sometimes out of date) critiques of Civ5 in the middle of an exchange between two other people do not necessarily endear you to the participants , Even if you put a smiley after every single post.

Not a problem. Please note that you criticized cIV unfairly, a game that I quite like, but I don't feel the need to respond to your complaints. Water off a Ducks' back. I may not agree with your position but you are free to express it. All I ask is that you allow me the freedom to express mine. I think that's fair.

About smileys, I am a happy person.

 

[Thormodr]

Exactly. The expansions added a lot of 'stuff', but the core game remains the same. You're never really under pressure to do anything. It leads to large stretches of just hitting enter.

This isn't to say that Civ 5 didn't have some good ideas. In fact, it had loads! The Civ specialties are interesting, limited strategic resources should have been done ages ago (although there is still too much iron/horse/etc.), having happiness spawn golden ages was nice, having cities expand one tile at a time was interesting, etc. etc.

The problem for me was that the core mechanics (global happiness, 1upt and city-states) broke the game in an irrecoverable way. You can be at war for millennia with zero happiness implications but if you take a city your happiness plunges? The production times were far too long as a result of 1upt, the scale is all wrong (archers firing for hundreds of miles), everything in the game disincentivizes expansion (in a 4x game!).

We'll see how Civ 6 goes. Maybe it'll be fine, but I'm not hopeful. Going from 92 techs in Civ 4 (iirc) to 50 in Civ 6? Ouch.

I'll return to what I said earlier: my fear is that there is a philosophy behind Civ right now that is deeply 'un-Civ'. Coming at it from a board game perspective (the newest fad in game design) does nothing more than push abstraction to the breaking point. People start designing mechanics first and then shoe-horn in ex post facto justifications rather than starting with the source material (history) and coming up with mechanics to represent it.

I really hope I'm wrong, but I very strongly doubt I am.

I agree with your analysis or Civilization 5 and its expansions, certainly. I do think that Civilization 5 with the CBP (Vox Populi) mod is actually a decent game, though.

Although I have some reservations, I am somewhat optimistic for Civ VI. I am impressed with Ed Beach's board games and I feel he did a pretty good job with Civ III Conquests.

Here is a pretty good forum post critiquing his board games:

http://http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=7722

I do hear you about the potential for boardgameificafion of computer games. I am a board game player myself and while I like a number of Euros, I do tire of games that are mechanics first with really no justification of why they are there. There is a reason that they are nicknamed "soul less Euros." There needs to be a blend of mechanics and theme. So in that, I agree with you.

I guess we'll wait and see.

 

[Monaldinio]

Mods are fanfiction....they always go way too far and wind up in absurdity.

I always prefer the main game; the way it was 'meant' to be played.

Yes, some mods driftes in absurdity, because the modders put to many stuff in the mod, like C2C. They dont focus. But in my opinion my mod isnt absurd or overloadet.
Its an ecxellent example for well developed Features!

Dunno maybe players don't know how to install mods for CIV?
There is tons of excellent mods for CIV naming only Realism Invictus, Rise of Mankind, Pie's Ancient Europe, Total War, Dune, Fall from Heaven 2, Conflict on Chiron, C2C, Rhye's and Fall, Final Frontier+ and a lots more.

Thank you!!!

 

[Naokaukodem]

It's called: ''Everything is better in the past'' syndrome.

There's no more valid external reasons to prefer things from the past than things from the future, except when the present is hostile / imperfect, but as this will ever be (until we all go into heaven), there's 50% chance to turn ourselves towards the one or the other. This is called being conservative or progressist.

But what about preferring things for valid internal reasons, be them already existing or yet to exist ? That way, some things past would be better, some thing present would be better, some things future would be better, and that, from different argumented perspectives.

 

[Aristos]

The point is you're not being fair to Civ5 and you're criticisms seems so anachronistic and out of place most of the time because surprise surprise you haven't really played the game people are talking about. It's like someone complaining about vanilla Civ4 while the rest of us are on BTS. But this is the hill you've chosen to die on, keep digging.

BTW, I went back and reread my post and do not see anything demeaning said, other than encouraging you to play the full game and pointing out my suspicion that you haven't really played the game you insist on criticizing all the time has been confirmed. Others have encouraged you as well and you for some inexplicable reason equated that person with being passive aggressive.

I'll get out of your way, though Posting non-sequiter (sometimes out of date) critiques of Civ5 in the middle of an exchange between two other people do not necessarily endear you to the participants , Even if you put a smiley after every single post.

Not a problem. Please note that you criticized cIV unfairly, a game that I quite like, but I don't feel the need to respond to your complaints. Water off a Ducks' back. I may not agree with your position but you are free to express it. All I ask is that you allow me the freedom to express mine. I think that's fair.

About smileys, I am a happy person.

Hey you two, stop it. If 2/3 of the entire LowerMainlander Civ fanatics force is fighting, how can we ever form a group and share our interests?

Thor, you know me (here), you know how many times I was infracted for saying what I think of Shafer's original "work" in a very straightforward manner (too much, perhaps...). You know my initial, clear and unrelenting position about Civ 5 vanilla. I say that to illustrate how far to the "opposed" side I was, remember?

Well, I will never change my mind about Shafer and what he did (and did not), but I also kept my mind open, and kept following, and reading about what Ed and team were preparing for the expansions... and when BNW finally was done, man, I can tell you, you are missing it. Even with the disaster that Shafer created, even with that very same engine, Ed and his team managed to create something that today feels very much like the masterpiece that civ 4 was. Honestly. Believe me, I am not the traditional "easy to convert" person, quite the opposite: stubborn as hell.

Yet I have to admit that BNW changed the whole story for me. I tried multiple times to re-install civ4 in these years, and it always ends up the same: a quick uninstall, and a fire up of BNW. I just cannot play 4 anymore, not because of anything specific, but because BNW, with all its quirks, has truly become deserving of the name Civilization.

I won't forget Shafer's "experiment" and I am 100% sure that time will prove it (just watch), but I am also willing to acknowledge how much better Civ 5 is now after Ed, and therefore keep playing HIS masterpiece, while keeping high expectations for civ 6 (even if some early signs are concerning).

Don't miss on what the BNW experience has become. You have still many months to enjoy it, because I am also pretty sure Civ6 will need a lot of balancing and patching after release. BNW will keep you from being a happy trigger and help you wait for a better moment to jump on the wagon.

And you two, stop fighting and let's meet and create the Lower Mainland Civ Task Force or something...

 

[Ricci]

The things listed in this post are, if anything, an argument as to why civ5 is superior. The things Civ5 gave up, according to this post, are things like sliders and squares instead of hexes, and unit stacking.

As stated in the OP, things included in the entire series up to CIV4, which were (to that date) missing in V. That´s what they are, in the first place.
Superiority among them has been, since 2010, an issue of extense and formidable debate.
For the matter, I concurr hexes are better and 1UPT is definitely not. The later being somehow considered by the new civ devs as it is being modified.

 

[Falk]

Analogies are bad, folks online need to avoid using them as often as they do.

This one is especially-bad because it conflates the making of something with the consumption of the product. A better analogy would be "why do you enjoy watching people while they read books" which as you can imagine doesn't actually make it a good analogy

It's even weirder because you agree Let's Plays and the like are a completely different beast from playing the game yourself

Not being precise is kind of the point of analogies. They use not identity but similarity to make a point. And my analogy is much better than you make it sound. Playing a game is not a passive process - playing a game and talking about it is creating a story, which probably is why people enjoy watching others playing games.

Reading a book is passive, it's not interesting to watch. A "Let's write" might actually be a thing though - I'm sure many people would pay to watch George R.R. Martin write a book, in weekly episodes or something.

 

[Brutus2]

I disagree. I think the way things like city-states, 1UPT, religion, trade routes and combat were implemented in Civ V makes it superior to IV.

I can't go back to IV now.

Agreed 100%. Stack of Doom in Civ IV was the dumbest thing ever. I have 2000+ hours of Civ V play time in steam and still play it ever week even after 6 years. I have been a Civ fan since III and V is by far my favorite. So much so, that I almost feel it may be too soon for a new one although I have faith the changes they are making will be well done.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

The thing that bothers me about Civ V is that it went from the strategic approach of Civ IV to a more tactical one. Consider this:

Civ IV: 10-50 cities in a typical game (depending on map size and your playstyle)
Civ V: 3-15 cities in a typical game (ditto)

Civ IV: ~100 units in a typical game
Civ V: a dozen units in a typical game (a few dozen if you're a warmonger)

Civ IV: wars decided by raw production + technological power (stack size + tech advantage or disadvantage)
Civ V: wars decided by superior battle tactics (very easy against the AI, unless way behind in tech)

Civ IV was an empire-building game, no question about it. In Civ V, you manage a large nation at best, not a globe-spanning imperial power. Ofc you *can* still do that, if you focus all resources towards it, starting from the civ choice and ending in the right ideological tenets. But the game is heavily skewed against expansion, and imo it suffers from it. Imo, Civ IV's mechanic of having to balance initial city founding costs with cash-generating buildings was the best balance regarding expansion and development that we've seen in the series so far. It may not have been very realistic (since founding cities cost money while the buildings cost nothing), but from a gameplay pov it worked very well in both enabling expansion and slowing it down from the mad-hectic pace of Civ II and III (where you literally spammed Settlers until the globe was entirely covered with cities! ).

Now while I'm intrigued by the 'spread out' buildings of Civ VI cities, it has me worried for two reasons. The first is immersion. The 'districts' shown to us so far in the screenshots are not really a part of the city, but rather exist as isolated blobs in its hinterland. Perhaps by the industrial age they'll all melt into one huge mega-city though (at least if there's enough population). The second worry I have is that such a detailed focus on each single city (juggling adjacency bonuses and whatnot) seems to imply a tactical approach in city-building as well, leading to suspicions about small empire size (again). I mean, who has the mental fortitude to juggle optimal district combinations in 20+ different cities? Not today's casual gamer (who is their main target group). Not to mention that the map size would have to be truly huge to accomodate this. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they have gone this route, but I have my doubts about it.

EDIT: The AI's ability to use the new district system worries me as well. They better have done something about the combat AI too, since they've chosen to stick with 1pt...

As for why there should be a 'feeling of empire building', as opposed to managing your tiny nation among the rest, it's simply a personal preference, but one that many veteran players share, I'd imagine (since they've stayed with the series for so long). Real life tends to crack us under its iron heel at the best of times, so it's good to be KingEmperor, once in a while. YMMV, and ofc that directly affects your enjoyment of Civ VI, regardless of which approach it takes in the end.

 

[Le Sage]

No, the series ain't dead for me. I was initially hugely disappointed in Civ5 and indeed considered the series dead at first. After the expansions, and after buying it for my wife, it ended up being the number one game we play together in multiplayer, her and me, even beating Minecraft on that front.

In fact, I've had nothing but fond memories of ALL the instalments in the Civilization series. From my youth years, to the late nineties with Civ 1 and 2 and on to my modding and putting in a tremendous amount of energy into Civ4. Civ5 ended up being very memorable, although in a very different manner than the previous instalments.

Now I'm sitting here, together with my wife, waiting for Civ6, and I'm quite sure it'll be just as memorable as all the previous games in the end, just perhaps in a new and surprising way.

 

[noto2]

Just reducing the number of things the player must keep track of does not make the game go from the strategic level down to the tactical.

Civ3 standard maps often involved empires of 50-100 cities, and I don't miss that. Even Civ5 can get bogged down in the late game when I have 30 military units to keep track of. In this aspect I say less is more. You can have a game with a very complex design that affords the player deep strategic options, without forcing the player to micro-manage a billion different little things.

More is not better. Better design is better. In Starcraft, each race had something like 15 units it could build. It worked beautifully. To raise complexity, they could have increased it to 100, but that would have been an awful game. Instead, what Blizzard did was give the player different layers of strategy. Some units were ground, some air, some ground units could hit both, some couldn't hit air... some units were invisible, some units could detect them, some were small and were able to dodge large caliber shots...etc, etc.

That is an example of good design and it's why Starcraft became S.Korea's national sport.

Managing 100 cities and 1000 units doesn't give the average player an "epic feel". It's just boring and most players will just close the program and do something else.