Is Civilization forever dead?

[Absolution]

Yep. It died in 2010 with Civ5. Along with stacks of doom.

I have to agree.
Civ 5, and likely civ 6 as well, put more emphasis on bringing you challenges of a gaming experience, more than trying to imitate the challenges of a real world state.

Some people like it. I assume it is much easier to for different people to like.
Me, and probably several others here, prefer the "feeling" of historical playing.
And the modding, of course, which can not be competed.

 

[ferros]

It depends on what you mean with dead and also what you mean with Civlization. The oldschool Civlization that many of us grew up with during the 90's and fell in love with is probably as good as dead. The new simplified-Civ5ish-catertothemasses-type of Civlization is alive and kicking though. I would bet that Civ6 will probably bring in even more money than Civ5 did, so it will most likely be seen as a huge success as well and the franchise as a whole will probably be more popular than it has ever been.

 

[Blitzscream]

I've played Civ 2, Civ 3, Civ 4, and Civ 5. Each one of them has something about them that makes them great individually, and each has their flaws. I didn't care much for Civ 5 either and personally I found most enjoyment and still do with Civ 3. Remember no one is forcing you to purchase Civ 6 and their is nothing wrong if you still prefer playing Civ 4. I suggest if you are "stuck" with Civ 4 you check out the modding community that is still going strong.

 

[jjkrause84]

Sure. I'm not saying that Civ V is a bad game. Judged purely on its own merits, it is pretty fun. But in comparison to Civ IV--in my mind, the greatest strategy game ever made for the computer--it suffers. I think that Civ V found success by keeping a lot of the really fun and appealing aspects of the Civ series (a sense of progress, the fun of building things, etc) and making things simpler and easier than they were in Civ IV, so that they could easily appeal to more people. But to people who played and loved the strategic depth of Civ IV (or at least to me, anyway), it seems shallow.

This is basically my position. Civ 5 on its own is fine...but after Civ 4 it was so underwhelming (for all the reasons that were hashed out in incredible detail back when Civ 5 first came out).

 

[AriochIV]

Anyone who thinks Civ IV and earlier accurately imitated the challenges of a real-world state has a faulty memory. Civilization is not and never has been a simulation.

 

[nyyfootball]

Anyone who thinks Civ IV and earlier accurately imitated the challenges of a real-world state has a faulty memory. Civilization is not and never has been a simulation.

Civ does and has actually been a pretty good simulator of Thucydides' theory of international politics. "The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must". http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism-intl-relations/

Civ is an excellent tool for teaching Realism in international relations.http://www.iar-gwu.org/content/using-videogames-teach-international-relations http://www.e-ir.info/2012/06/18/how-civilization-became-a-course/

I think it is important that Civ remain an educational game at its heart.

 

[Esperr]

I feel as though CiV was the final perfection of the original civ formula established in the first game, comparable to a "perfect version" of civ 1. CiV was a radical departure from the series roots, and while it lacks some of the depth that four had I think it was ultimately a better game. I for one am excited about 6, although I hate the graphics, but thats something I think we can all get over.

 

[nokmirt]

If they give CiVI a better AI I am all for it. To me Civ 5 was a great game. It is fun to mod it, but my worst gripes are the AI, and espionage. Hopefully espionage is expanded on a bit in the new game. It should be deepened. From what I read diplomacy should be far better, and the AI has been built from the ground up. The new graphics are not for me, but I'll get used to them. Many people have mentioned Civ 4 being better than Civ 5. That may be so. However, I cannot play Civ 4 anymore, too used to hexes now.

 

[UWHabs]

To me, 4 was the pinnacle. It was hard, but you could basically work your way through it, and it was so rich that there were times playing it that my brain would hurt trying to plan what I wanted to do in the game.

5 had much much much less complexity. When it came out, I was disappointed. But then I went back to 4, and could never play it again. While 5 certainly did not have the richness of the past, the hexes, 1 upt, trade routes, ranged combat, etc... version just made it impossible to play the old version. It certainly didn't challenge me nearly as much, but it was still certainly a very fun game when you just wanted to go out, build some stuff, and go conquer the world.

Now oddly enough, I'm almost encouraged that 6 doesn't seem to be a radical departure from 5. That gives me more hope that they will have spent more time focusing on the AI, and ensuring that all the game elements are truly balanced and usable. I like how they seem to be encouraging more terrain-based strategies. I like how they seem to be somewhat moving back to the city specialization of 4, which was really the best part about it. In a lot of ways, I feel they're bringing back the better elements of 4 while keeping the general structure of 5. So I actually have good hopes about it.

I'm not going to pre-order, yet. I still haven't seen quite enough to make me jump on it. But I feel there's a lot of potential here for a release that could rival 4.

 

[Maniacal]

Yep. It died in 2010 with Civ5. Along with stacks of doom.

That stacks of doom in Civ4 were pretty lousy combat system.

 

[Lay_Lay]

I tried to go back and play Civ4, but the lack of tactics and use of terrain in combat makes warfare far less enjoyable.
Once you see Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy.

 

[CivCube]

Yes, Civilization is dead. No one buys Avalon Hill games anym--Oh wait

 

[AriochIV]

I tried to go back and play Civ4, but the lack of tactics and use of terrain in combat makes warfare far less enjoyable.
Once you see Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy.

I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but I agree...

 

[Karmah]

Trolls will be trolls , don't make the bridge too confortable with the cushion of your thoughs ,not worth it

Moderator Action: Please do not accuse others of trolling. If you have a problem with someone's post, please report it.
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[dexters]

I tried to go back and play Civ4, but the lack of tactics and use of terrain in combat makes warfare far less enjoyable.
Once you see Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy.

I see the 'dumbed down' and 'less strategy' get used a lot in reference to what Civ5 is and I can't for the life of me figure out what is being said.

Even the rudimentary diplomatic mind games the AI sometimes plays in Civ5 is leaps ahead of what you experience in 4, which is basically osicallating war to keep rivals in check. Find a weaker rival and turn them into vassals. Rinse repeat.

At least in Civ5 you can have an city-state crazed AI buying up alliances, while you're under pressure from your immediate neighbour who might INVADE putting you in a strategic bind. Fight the alliance happy AI buying off your city state allies which you need badly to hold off a 3rd Civ, or let them be and try to stand up to the runaway neighbour who has been plotting against you for half the game. Real choices. Real strategy.

Yes, there's no UI in Civ5 telling you those choices exist, but those situations are fairly common if someone is playing to their skill level. And its the most fun things in Civ. Not everything is sliders and needs to be quantified to consider 'strategic'.

 

[gimley_gunner]

I've played Civ 2, Civ 3, Civ 4, and Civ 5. Each one of them has something about them that makes them great individually, and each has their flaws. I didn't care much for Civ 5 either and personally I found most enjoyment and still do with Civ 3. Remember no one is forcing you to purchase Civ 6 and their is nothing wrong if you still prefer playing Civ 4. I suggest if you are "stuck" with Civ 4 you check out the modding community that is still going strong.

Totally agree with this and there's nothing wrong when you find your favourite Civ. Civ is only dead when it is uninstalled...

 

[kaltorak]

We still know very little, but nothing here screams 'we're forsaking Civ 5 as an abomination

Because it isn't.

I prefered civ4 over civ5 for a long time after civ5 release. But already long ago did civ5 surpass civ4. Not in every aspect ofc, I still preferseveral things from civ4, like many more stats, cities besides capital beeing more important, vassals, diplomacy, not having fraking tourism, and a few others.

But, overall, civ5 has been better for a long time.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I don't get why Civilization would be dead.
Sure, many people including me didn't like the direction Civ V was going, but everything we know about Civ VI -which I'll grant isn't much- suggests that they're going back to more complexity. The district system will let us specialize cities again and expand more, the corps and support units introduce a limited stacking element that can prevent carpets of doom without going back to stacks of doom, the research system suggests that we'll have more viable tech paths instead of V's liniearity, vanilla Civ 6 will already have the features introduced in G&K and BNW, and the lead designer is a seasoned veteran and not a rookie who's in over his head (or two rookies in BE's case) which is far more likely that the ideas are also well implemented from the start.

So far I like everything but the graphics which I'll eventually get used to. I don't think I'll ever like the art style, but I'll get over it.

 

[Teproc]

It's endlessly amusing to me that people who prefer CIV have this irrepressible need to put down everyone else by insisting that CIV is "more complex". It really isn't ! They have different areas of complexities and depth, and they are very different. And, for reasons previously explained, obviously VI is going to be closer to V than IV.

P.S. : Since the argument is always that "real old-schoolers" must prefer CIV : I've been playing the civ series all my life, starting with the first one.

 

[Naokaukodem]

For people who can't grow up, grow beyond their pre-established comfort zone, and hate change, then yes, Civ is dead, all music and film & TV sucks now, and everything was way better in the good old days.

For people who aren't scared of change, no.

Hahaha, thx for the good laugh. Scared of change, heh ? Let's talk about it.

Copy/pasting a part of one of my posts, because after all, I don't see why I should do efforts explaining a series that won't do any :

Changes are presented like revolutions, but just because it didn't existed before is not necessarily what makes it revolutionnary. People are so eager of novelty that they judge innovation within its only character of novelty, not considering any.other.aspect. Ever. "OMG it's new ! Buy buy buy..." This is so impulsive, immature and brainless.

Civ6 is really Civ5.1. I was so disgusted when I saw in the screenshots that rivers was still between tiles, making their navigation impossible. They are still rare and blocky. Absolutely no effort has been done, this is insulting. And it's what can be seen in most domains, graphics first. Firaxis people are so lazy, untalented, and arrogant.