Less realism!

[brianshapiro]

warpstorm the later simcity games starting with simcity 2000 were more fun to me than the classic game. the original game you could easily get bored of like most sim games, but simcity 2000 turned into a game where it was fun to manage the city for a while. i think the realism in those games help.

as for civilization, i dont want realism that will make it so the game is unbalanced or unplayable, but there are definitely areas where realism is important. i dont think making the game completely disconnected from what societies and civilizations are like would work, and i dont think youre suggesting this either. the simplification i think should just be in abstracting details away, or making elements in the game representative of more complex elements in reality.

 

[Jon Shafer]

FEI (For everyone's information), in case you've all forgotten, Soren said that every feature added to Civ 4, another would be taken out. This means he believes the complexity level of Civ 3 to be ideal.

That having been said, hopefully much more complexity will be achieved through Python scripting.

But we'll have to wait and see.

 

[dh_epic]

I'll second that, Trip. I also hope that for all the simplification he does in Civ 3, he does it at the lowest most detailed level, to make room for more high level strategic concepts... Find great ways to simplify playing with little units and buildings and population heads, in favor of adding ways to make sweeping policies, large-scale events, and strategic decisions.

less of "this little guy should attack first because he is the strongest, this next guy should have a catapult go to work before he attacks" ... and certainly not a step backwards, in "the emperor goes to the washroom" scenario... but more "use brutality to get war weariness, and cause the big empire to withdraw" (just as an example)

 

[Duke_of_BOOM!]

Nothing is more annoying in the current game than having to send units in peicemeal.

That said:

Why can't they make a game that is realitic and has a simple interface?

Or better yet, streamline and re-release Alpha Centari?

 

[warpstorm]

Why can't they...streamline and re-release Alpha Centari?

(Like that skillful misquote?)

Because it didn't sell enough to interest EA in a sequel. In addition, most of the people who cared about it no longer work at Firaxis (or even on TBS games) anymore.

 

[CyberChrist]

Soren said that every feature added to Civ 4, another would be taken out.

A very sad statement IMHO.

 

[Colonel]

ok my final thing on this there is one realistic thing i think everyone can agree is that this cannot happen

and should not happen in the game

 

[Duke_of_BOOM!]

(Like that skillful misquote?)

Because it didn't sell enough to interest EA in a sequel. In addition, most of the people who cared about it no longer work at Firaxis (or even on TBS games) anymore.

(You should use brackets: [...] for trunciation.)

Eh? There is more than one TBS game in development? I thought everyone but Firaxis was going for the A.D.D. stategy [aka RTS] market.

What I would love to see would be Civ with an Operation Art of War combat system, as well as a Byzantine internal politics. Will never happen, but I can hope.

I think Civ could be simplified greatly by eliminating buildings and having (more) abstracted building such as having to chose a military unit/wonder or generic civic/happiness, science, or production improvement. And have technology enable higher maximum levels.

 

[Jon Shafer]

A very sad statement IMHO.

Perhaps, but that's how it goes. Civ is a mainstream series, it's designed for the masses, not us. Add in a bunch of new complex features and you alienate your market. That means less money and, you guessed it, no sequals...

I think everyone here can agree that watered down Civ is better than no Civ at all...

ok my final thing on this there is one realistic thing i think everyone can agree is that this cannot happen

and should not happen in the game

Well, it does. Very rarely.

I really don't see what everyone's problem with it is. All of the units are based off of a set of numbers from 1 to 25. Because of the nature of the system, numbers which aren't too far away from each other (for example, 1 and 25 ) have a chance of matching up and weaker units will defeat much stronger ones. But so what? If units are too spread out the game is imbalanced when a civ discovers a tech first. If tanks had, say, an attack of 22 or 24 to make sure they never lost to Spearmen, then even Infantry wouldn't be able to hold up very well. Or Riflemen. You have to give other units and civs a chance at winning.

 

[CyberChrist]

Perhaps, but that's how it goes. Civ is a mainstream series, it's designed for the masses, not us. Add in a bunch of new complex features and you alienate your market. That means less money and, you guessed it, no sequals...

I find your point of view a bit narrow.
Complex features only alienates new user if they HAVE to deal with them - leaving them in for the advanced users to activate/make use of opens up for a wider market and probably also higher praise of the product in generel.

I think everyone here can agree that watered down Civ is better than no Civ at all...

You assume too much.

I really don't see what everyone's problem with it is.
...If tanks had, say, an attack of 22 or 24 to make sure they never lost to Spearmen...

You show little understanding of the actual problem - the numbers you suggest does not excluded the unrealistic situation from occuring (and units can have much higher attack/defence than that anyway). People who falls behind severely in tech should pretty much ALWAYS loose with no noticeable damage to the technologically superior(99.999 times out of 100.000 at least). And before people start talking about Spearmen with explosives then those would be more properly called Infantry (or some other unit available at an appropriate technological discovery).

 

[Jon Shafer]

I find your point of view a bit narrow.
Complex features only alienates new user if they HAVE to deal with them - leaving them in for the advanced users to activate/make use of opens up for a wider market and probably also higher praise of the product in generel.

This is why they're allowing flexible scripting options - in order to add that complexity.

But don't expect vanilla Civ 4 to be more complex than Civ 3.

You assume too much.

Well, then you're not really a fan of the series.

You show little understanding of the actual problem - the numbers you suggest does not excluded the unrealistic situation from occuring (and units can have much higher attack/defence than that anyway). People who falls behind severely in tech should pretty much ALWAYS loose with no noticeable damage to the technologically superior(99.999 times out of 100.000 at least). And before people start talking about Spearmen with explosives then those would be more properly called Infantry (or some other unit available at an appropriate technological discovery).

Think of them as you will, they're all 1s and 0s. Call them Infantry, call them Spearmen, call them what you like. Add in explosives for all care. All that matters to me is the engine - which is based around fun, not realism.

I hate to break this to you, but unless you're doing something completely out of line with those Tanks, the odds are close to 99.999. Unless you're using a 1 HP Tank to attack an elite Spear fortified in a Metropolis on a hill with Civil Defense the odds are always around 99%. And if you're attacking with so many factors against you, you deserve to lose 1 time out of 5 or 8.

 

[tcjsavannah]

I find your point of view a bit narrow.

Doesn't mean he's not right.

Corporations being what they are, they're in it for the maximum $ for the minimum effort.

If it takes a company five years to design the best game ever, they're not going to make money. They'll become a gaming legend, sure, but a bankrupt one at that.

 

[CyberChrist]

Well, then you're not really a fan of the series.

Again, you speak of things you apparently know little of and without doing any or little real research in advance.

I hate to break this to you, but unless you're doing something completely out of line with those Tanks, the odds are close to 99.999. Unless you're using a 1 HP Tank to attack an elite Spear fortified in a Metropolis on a hill with Civil Defense the odds are always around 99%. And if you're attacking with so many factors against you, you deserve to lose 1 time out of 5 or 8.

Again, you show your lack of research and understanding - this is not even hard to accomplish with the strength you suggested. Please stop posting untested nonsense as you are misguiding quite a few people.

 

[Arathorn]

ok my final thing on this there is one realistic thing i think everyone can agree is that this cannot happen and should not happen in the game

Except for the people who are arguing for random things like friendly fire (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=91378). Oh, wait! That was you!

So you want friendly fire casualties, but never to happen with a tank attacking another unit? That's just .

Oh, and there are lots of us that have no problem with one artwork representing different actual units over time -- no money for a real upgrade, but they are poorly trained and have scraped together enough knowledge to build tank traps.

Lots of reasons for this to happen, even realistically.

So, no, not everyone agrees with you. Not even you.

Arathorn

 

[Red Ant]

There has to be a compromise between realism and playability. One without the other is worthless. And whoever said the flight sim genre was dead?? What are you smoking man?? Ever heard of Falcon 4 SP4, LOMAC, Warbirds III, Il-2 and and and ...

 

[CyberChrist]

Oh, and there are lots of us that have no problem with one artwork representing different actual units over time -- no money for a real upgrade, but they are poorly trained and have scraped together enough knowledge to build tank traps.

Lots of reasons for this to happen, even realistically.

Well, many people have no problem believeing in lots of things. I know someone who believes in Santa Claus also.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Again, you show your lack of research and understanding - this is not even hard to accomplish with the strength you suggested. Please stop posting untested nonsense as you are misguiding quite a few people.

Actually, I looked all this up in a combat calculator before posting! Which means I did do research and test this.

You're the one spouting nonsense here, not me.

You seem to enjoy insulting everyone around here too. You must not have many friends.

 

[CyberChrist]

Actually, I looked all this up in a combat calculator before posting! Which means I did do research and test this.

Next time use Civ3 itself if you mean to come with serious results or please stop posting things you obviously know very little about.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Next time use Civ3 itself if you mean to come with serious results or please stop posting things you obviously know very little about.

The combat calculators use the same # system as the Civ 3 engine.

Unless you go and run your own calculations from Civ 3 and prove they're different.

 

[Punkymonkey]

There is no way you can say the current Civ titles have been "realistic" to todays standard but they are sufficient to what gamers want and developers can deliver. Every new title has been more realistic than the last but not so much that the game becomes tedious and boring. If you want a totally realistic civ game you should get into politics. A game has to be fun and if you try to make something too realistic it just becomes stupid because, after all, this is a game.