Make Civ4 more like game X!

[rhialto]

Lots of posts contain suggestions to make civ more like game X, Y, or even on occassion, game Z. At worst, they are basically saying copy a certain feature wholly. At best it is a thinly veiled attempt to disguise the idea's origin by changing some superficial aspect and describing the system rather than the source.

But let's face it. Franchises that copy tend to fade into anonymity. Let's not copy ideas. Suggest ORIGINAL ideas. Let's make Civ4 more like... Civ!

 

[dexters]

I've been facing a lot of this when I read many of the Civ4 suggestion posts.

Because Civ as a game covers so much ground, politics, economics, warfare (land, air and sea) and also covers many genres, (it is at once a SimCity-esque nurture builder's game and a 4X killed or be killed empire game) all the forces, which I call niche factions, tend to converge into one tiny aspect and suggest grand improvements that would essentially turn it into Civ4 + SimCity or Civ4+ RTS resources etc.

These suggestions are almost always made in isolation without considering how the other aspects of the game would function or how it could change the dynamics and balance of the game. And they almost always ignore AI capabilities and want things only so they can execute them. As a big fan of Soren's ideas about AI, mainly as much fairness as possible, I have a big problem with many suggestions just by their sheer complexity.

So I end up being the grouch by pointing out that the said ideas don't really help Civ but only move it closer to another game/genre, and I get the sense people don't like being told that.

Kudos for bringing up this point. At least I know I'm not alone.

 

[Albow]

umm, hello? I think making suggestions from SMAC is not following your argument at all!

SMAC is as much Civ as Civ is, for crying out loud, it is a Sid game too ... it was very well thought out and has heaps of features which just bulldoze stuff found in Civ. Funnily enough, it is an older game, and its polished nature, and great gameplay make it last and last ... (not suggesting civ is not the same)

So, when people make suggestions from other games, don't groan, realise that this is an aspect people find very very fun from game X (or God forbid Y or Z) and that perhaps it has some merit.

Ok, enough ranting, now for my suggestion:

SMAC has this really cool govt model that ...

 

[dexters]

SMAC also has a lot of features that were essentially human only because the AI was simply incapable of understanding them. Not really the best starting point to make a suggestion.

Here's an idea. Construct Civ4 as it should be, without making references to every 4X game you've played and think about game balance, AI capabilities, and how the ideas will affect these problems.

 

[Albow]

how can you speak of the future if you cannot refer to the past?

@ Dexters

Why not make the A(i)S be able to use such a cool feature ... ipsofatso you get to have cool feature

 

[dexters]

how can you speak of the future if you cannot refer to the past?

@ Dexters

Why not make the A(i)S be able to use such a cool feature ... ipsofatso you get to have cool feature

That's a start, but how? It's easy to just say "...and the AI should be able to do this" but if the idea is inherently complicated, chances are, the AI won't be able to handle it very well. Then, it begs to question of if players really only want it for their own vanity and not to make Civ4 a better game.

 

[Stid]

have you ppl been drinking?

 

[Albow]

@ Stid: no hahaha, but perhaps I need to ...

@ Dex

I'm a consumer, I say what I want, then people who get paid lots of dosh go out and make it, so ... drum roll, I can consume it!

by the way, in case you were wondering, A(i)S is Artificial Stupidity, the AI doesn't think, it can only work on a bunch of formulas, so it will never be perfect, so why kill a feature that will rock in multiplayer just cos the AI is crap?

 

[rhialto]

...so why kill a feature that will rock in multiplayer just cos the AI is crap?

Strange as it may seem, the majority of civ players have never played multiplayer.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, in my OWN defense, almost everything I have suggested has come either from my own thinking on an issue, or has come from games so like civ that they are almost 1 in the same. So, for instance, Birth of the Federation is very much like 'Civ in the Star Trek Universe', an analogy made even more likely by the fact that both Civ2 and BotF came from the Microprose stable. The latters Espionage, combat and planetary management (analogous to city management) were superior to Civ3's, but its resource, trade and diplomacy systems left MUCH to be desired.
SMAC had a better diplomacy system than civ3, in many ways, but a poorer AI!
I for one see no problem, then, learning from the strengths of one game in order to improve another.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[searcheagle]

Lots of posts contain suggestions to make civ more like game X, Y, or even on occassion, game Z. At worst, they are basically saying copy a certain feature wholly. At best it is a thinly veiled attempt to disguise the idea's origin by changing some superficial aspect and describing the system rather than the source.

But let's face it. Franchises that copy tend to fade into anonymity. Let's not copy ideas. Suggest ORIGINAL ideas. Let's make Civ4 more like... Civ!

I sympathize with the sentiment that we don't want civ to become a composite of the most popular games on the market. However, I believe that your request not completely thought out.

When the airbag was the introduced, did all the other automakers sit back and decide not to compromise their franchise by adding the airbag to?
Or power steering? Or auto-gearshifting? etc

No, they recognized a good thing when they adopted it. The same thing is true of any industry. Everyone in the industry learns lessons from who succeeds who fails in their niche industry.

If I see something work well in another game and see how it could complement civ, then I will suggest it. Whether it is a concept or just a minor ease of use idea (such as the ticker in the SimCity3000).

Just remember that we all want to see Civ be a good game and to become an even stronger, better game. To do that we implemement the ideas that we think will work will in Civ reguardless of source.

 

[GoodGame]

I still say that CIV can take a thing or two from GALCIV. They're very similar already, minus the maps (I bet we could make a GALCIV clone from as a CIV mod).

I still want domestic politics, nyah nyah! (grin).

 

[dh_epic]

I've made comparisons before. But I don't htink there's anything wrong with that. Ripping off a feature entirely isn't only unoriginal, it's also impractical. Civ really is its own game with its own style.

But if I said "use RTS style resources", that's sort of an oversimplification. A lot of RTSes have maybe 4 or 5 resources. In Civ, there are more resources, and they come into fashion with the age. So Civ might use RTS style resources, but it would only use 4 or 5 resources at a time, with some becoming obsolete, and new resources popping up.

Does this mean I'm unoriginal and want Civ to be more like another game? I don't think so.

I just think it means that I want Civ to do something... and I'm trying to explain it in the best way that I can.

 

[dexters]

SMAC had a better diplomacy system than civ3, in many ways, but a poorer AI!

I agree. But I couldn't call it better diplomacy, just more options. IMHO, That's the logic many players and developers fall into. They introduce a ton of features that are essentially player only, put it in the back of the box, and once people dig into the games, they find the AI totally inept.

The rejoinder would be the Civ3 AI is also very bad. But to say that is to do it a great disservice. Having a passion for understanding the Civ3 AI, I have some feel of how it works and it is leaps and bounds beyond SMAC and Civ2's AI is even further behind.

Back when it was released, for those of us who cared about the game AI, Civ3's innovation isn't so much in the quantifiable features, but how the AI approached diplomacy. They treat each other and the player equally and doesn't really care who is the human player is. The world vs. player feel that was Civ and Civ2 was gone. I was finally able to sit down and do some real politicking and when it worked and I see the results, it is absolutely fun, because we as the player is one among many potential winners. We're not fighting the collective strength of all the AI nations, we're fighting what are at times, intimately human characters that is played by the AI, that's how good the Civ3 AI can be at its best. And it is often ignored and taken for granted that the Civ3AI can be that good.

That's sort of the point I'm getting back to with the suggestions.

A suggestion needs to account for AI abilities, because Civ is going to be a largely solitary game, especially the 10+ or 20+ hour epic games that is the staple of the community. I will take Civ4 with a strong AI and fewer diplomatic features than one with a weak AI and lots of features. It's really that simple.

 

[sir_schwick]

I do not know about the rest of the posters here, but I do have useful observations:

1) While it is a Civ 4 forum, none of us have played Civ4 and make Civ 3 assumptions. Thus those assumptions sometimes show in my posts.
2) I treat the idea like a first draft. Often others will find inconsistencies and fallacies that I would not have. Really crazy ideas often contribute elements that fix or really complete good base ideas.
3) You can learn from games in completely different genres/platforms. Copying features wholesale is impractical because of context, but closing your mind b/c the inspiration is an RTS or FPS is even more impractical.
4) The Civ 4 Suggestions forums are very Darwinian in nature. Most of the posters are good about killing really bad ideas and bringing out the good ones.
5) While overcomplication is common, I try to back up and simplify once ideas are on the table. I understand the pain with reading through terribly long posts and new unit descriptions.
6) These forums are theorhetically perused(sp?) by Firaxis members looking for ideas. If they pick up on something interesting out of an overdone post, we have accomplished our mission.
7) I assume that only 10-20% of any system I propose would ever be implemented if it was seen as a really good feature. The assumption exists that most ideas are overdone and trimmed because of holistic needs.

My 2 Ruples.

 

[dh_epic]

That's pretty much the way I see it too, Sir Schwick. Not that every idea is brilliant, or that bringing a mini-game into a game is a good idea... let alone some of the bloated and overcomplicated suggestions...

But there's a bunch of good threads here and there. And after you've charted out the "what if the entire game were focused on this one feature" design, there's often enough sensible people to trim all the micromanagement down to a few major decisions. There's enough sensible people to recognize that the game of Civ is bigger than any one feature, and the player ought to focus on big visionary decisions, instead of small repetitive actions.

Frankly, some of those people even recognize problems with existing Civ 3 features. There just happens to be an opposition of people who want as little change as possible, or people who cannot accept the idea of limiting the scope of any feature -- existing Civ 3 (or Civ 2) feature or potential Civ 4 feature. Hence people who tell me that micromanaging workers is the point of Civ 3; or that 10 times the naval units would make Civ 4 more realistic and thus better; or it's way too much fun to manage which cities go into your provinces from drop down lists and it's the entire point of provinces. Some people just can't see a bigger picture.

 

[sealman]

Taking ideas from similar games and expanding on them is ok. While I have never played SMAC, I assume it is very similar to civ so there should be no problem since both games are in the same genre. The problem I have are the ideas that come from other genre of games. For example:

The was once suggestion that battles should resort to a first person shooter aspect where you control the units to kill the AI troops.

Taking a good idea from another Turn Based Strategy Game and building on it for CIV is fine with me, but leave the RTS and other genres alone.

 

[sir_schwick]

Taking a good idea from another Turn Based Strategy Game and building on it for CIV is fine with me, but leave the RTS and other genres alone.

I just cannot agree with the sentiment of assuming an idea is bad because its source was not a TBS. Although in original forms ideas from other genres would not work, they could be the basis for ideas that do work in the context of Civ. Eliminating a vast library of ideas for the ideals of genre purity is impractical, especially when you do not have to sacrifice genre integrity if you take those ideas and put them in appropriate context.

The was once suggestion that battles should resort to a first person shooter aspect where you control the units to kill the AI troops.

And notice how quickly this forum killed that thread and them procedeed to mutilate the body. The posters here are discerning and argumentative enough to find the practical in ideas that contain it.

 

[sealman]

I did not intend to indicate that an idea in an RTS game should not be used in an TBS game.

There are a lot of ideas that get posted where someone says something like "They way Total War handles warfare is great and it should be applies to Civ". To me it seems that these posters do not look at the possible fact that the reason that feature works so well in those games is because it is a RTS game and it would not be practical in a turn based enviroment.

While my example thread was shot down quickly (most likely because only one person thought it was good idea and he later recanted), there are many other similar ones that just keep coming back.

if there is a good apsect in a RTS game that, if properly implement, make CIV a better game, then by all means, it should be done. But to do so just to please the few players who want a hybrid of CIV-TOTAL WAR is just idiotic.

note: I do not intent to knock "Total War." I, myself, have never played the game but I have heard from many people, whose opinions I do respect and even from people whose opinions I don't, that it is a great game and worth adding to my game library.

 

[sir_schwick]

Okay, so this is more a message for some of the exteremists on this forum. I agree that sometimes ideas live a little long and things do get out of hand. The idea of context is very important and one I am trying to remember in future posts.

PS: On TW, great game but never combine Civ and it.