Maybe the problem isn't Civ4 it's Civ in general.

[Huszar]

This must be why for me this is the best game in the series. I love strategy, and couldn't care less for sims or RPGs. A good game is a game that forces me to think, period.

Well, good for you. You are lucky that the developers' vision about how civ should look like matches your taste.

I am unfortunately not so lucky. I always loved the civ series because it was such a good mixture between strategy, empire building and God games.

Let me paraphrase you: a god game is one that is fun, period. I too like a challenge, and even though I'm a builder, I ocasionally do my warmongering. I like a game that forces me to think, but I don't like a game that forces me to work. I want to enjoy the few spare hours I have, I want to relax, I want to have fun with my wife (yes, she plays with me) and for this I want to enjoy every moment of my game; I don't want to work hard 5-6 hours in order to be happy for 2 minutes with the final victory. I need some rewards for my accomplishments during the game, not just at the end. I'm not saying there aren't any rewards, but there are 10 times less than civ2 had.

In civ4 you choose a final goal (conquest, UN, whatever) and then you work toward this goal. There are no intermediary checkpoints, moments in which you stop and enjoy what you've accomplished. This is why some people find it "boring": because the "one more turn" feeling is gone; ok, not gone, but faded. There are no immediate goals to enjoy. The small projects that were so rewarding in previous civ games and were the basis of the one more turn feeling are of much less importance, they are just small pieces in the big, primary goal, the final win against the AI.

The little joys and tiny rewards are gone, the God-like feeling is gone, and we have instead only more strategy. Good for some, disappointing for a good part of the civ series' fans.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

@Huszar

Signed.

 

[Xavier Von Erck]

This is why those of us who have played civ from the beginning, are disapointed in CIV.

Speak for yourself. Some of us are quite pleased. We're not whiners. We understand that if we don't like something, there's a modding community. My one complaint was that the games went by way too fast and it wasn't paced like the epic Civ games I enjoyed.

At that point, I had three options:

A. Stop playing Civ4.
B. Whine on an internet message board about it (this seems to be a popular choice among Civfanatics members)
C. Go and see if there's a mod that fits my fancy that is easy to install.

Gee, there was. Took less than one minute to install. Imagine that.

I find there to be more rewards playing this version of Civ. The AI is actually a war-time threat, they're not as easy to screw over diplomatically, and achieving a Permanent Alliance is an awesome feeling. Expanding in the face of the initial barbarian invasions, managing your money properly... great stuff. The problem a lot of hardcore Civ players have isn't that Civ4 is a bad game, but that they're a victim of their own expectations. These goofs sat around thinking the game would be a ton of things it never was advertised to be... "future scenarios"... "building cities on oceans"... "Playing with dinosaurssssyyyy's!!!"... ridiculous expectations.

For those of us with foresight, we figured we'd get a souped-up version of Civ with religion, civics, a better maintenance system and better AI.

What did we get? Exactly that.

It's too bad there's not a sub-forum to throw threads like these into. Too many of these threads aren't about the game, but rather about some fantasy-game some morts wanted to see rather than Civilization 4. Or random complaints because Firaxis couldn't account for every computer configuration before the game shipped. The devils!

The whiners have gotten really old. Just like they were when Civ3 was released. Just like they will be when Civ5 is released. They will whine, piss and moan. That's all some people know how to do because they are a victim of their own bloated expectations.

 

[Steph]

Very interesting ideas here.

I need to note everything for SSS.

I personnaly think such epic games should work on limited dynamic goals.

I mean, you need to be able to set some goals for a relatively short term, work toward this goal, and try to succeed. But a failure in such a goal should not be to harsh.

For instance, when you decide to go to war, you should have a goal, and state it. Like "My dear German neighbour, we think the border town of Francfort belongs to our natual borders, we ask you to give it to us"

Then, if they don't comply, you attack, clearly stating the casus belli is Francfort. If you win, you can get the city. And you may not need to fight many turns for that. A few decisive battles should be enough.

So you can decide why you go to war, and say "we won the war". The goal is not always to destroy everyone.

 

[Halberd]

Speak for yourself. Some of us are quite pleased. We're not whiners. We understand that if we don't like something, there's a modding community. My one complaint was that the games went by way too fast and it wasn't paced like the epic Civ games I enjoyed.

At that point, I had three options:

A. Stop playing Civ4.
B. Whine on an internet message board about it (this seems to be a popular choice among Civfanatics members)
C. Go and see if there's a mod that fits my fancy that is easy to install.

Gee, there was. Took less than one minute to install. Imagine that.

I find there to be more rewards playing this version of Civ. The AI is actually a war-time threat, they're not as easy to screw over diplomatically, and achieving a Permanent Alliance is an awesome feeling. Expanding in the face of the initial barbarian invasions, managing your money properly... great stuff. The problem a lot of hardcore Civ players have isn't that Civ4 is a bad game, but that they're a victim of their own expectations. These goofs sat around thinking the game would be a ton of things it never was advertised to be... "future scenarios"... "building cities on oceans"... "Playing with dinosaurssssyyyy's!!!"... ridiculous expectations.

For those of us with foresight, we figured we'd get a souped-up version of Civ with religion, civics, a better maintenance system and better AI.

What did we get? Exactly that.

It's too bad there's not a sub-forum to throw threads like these into. Too many of these threads aren't about the game, but rather about some fantasy-game some morts wanted to see rather than Civilization 4. Or random complaints because Firaxis couldn't account for every computer configuration before the game shipped. The devils!

The whiners have gotten really old. Just like they were when Civ3 was released. Just like they will be when Civ5 is released. They will whine, piss and moan. That's all some people know how to do because they are a victim of their own bloated expectations.

Gee, talk about sounding harsh from your position of such wondrous "foresight". Obviously such foresight didn't tell you not to bother reading such threads as this, did it!

You like it, some don't ok? It's a wildly different format and feel to it, and some people won't like it.

And as for "grab a mod" approach ... well, some people don't WANT to mod. They want to play the game as it is out of the box. I program databases for a living, and the last thing I want to do in the evening is dick around with anything that reminds me of work - and yes, XML does that, I'm afraid. I want to take over the world instead.

Yet, just because I think that way doesn't make me a victim of bloated expectations...
Expectations, yes, because I was really looking forward to Civ4 but you can't call them bloated just because they've been disappointed by Firaxis choosing to go down a particular route rather than making Civ4 a better version of Civ3.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

@Xavier Von Erck

Excuse me, but if you hate whining that much, what on earth forces you to whine about people who feel disappointed and say so?

To make this question more understandable to you, I'll re-phrase in your own words:

If you see a thread where people write about what they don't like with CIV4 (input I guess is highly valued over at Firaxis - maybe they don't LIKE it, but they NEED it, nonetheless), you have three options:

A. Stop reading that thread.
B. Whine on an internet message board about it (this seems to be a popular choice among Civfanatics "fan boys")
C. Go and see if you can find any valid argument that backs up your point of view and present it in a civilised manner.

Quite obviously, your favourite approach is B) which is kind of a paradox, don't you think?

 

[CyberChrist]

... These goofs sat around thinking the game would be a ton of things it never was advertised to be... "future scenarios"... "building cities on oceans"... "Playing with dinosaurssssyyyy's!!!"... ridiculous expectations...

I must have missed the posts complaining about CIV due to the absence of such things. I find your post useless and pure troll bait.

Most people complain about things that USED to be part of the civ concept but has been taken out or changed beyond recognition because of the (imho very short sighted and nonsensical) 'for everything you put in you take something out' approach to making updates to a game. Using the 'if it isn't broken - why fix it?' approach would have produced a product that a lot more of the oldtimers would have been happy with.

Like always I need to finish by saying that despite the shortcommings of CIV, I still believe that CIV has bigger potential than any other previous civ version. Future patches and expansions will have to prove me right in this belief though.

 

[Xavier Von Erck]

A. Stop reading that thread.

Oh, really? Is that why people go into threads such as "Civ4 named game of the year" and whine and moan that Civ4 "sucks"?

B. Whine on an internet message board about it (this seems to be a popular choice among Civfanatics "fan boys")

Civfanatics "fan boys." Civ-fan-atics. Why people who aren't "fans" of Civ post here amuses me. It amused me when you goofs were whining about Civ3 and it amuses me now. Plus you always get so defensive when someone takes a poke at your whiny selves. It's entertaining.

C. Go and see if you can find any valid argument that backs up your point of view and present it in a civilised manner.

Well, I'm too busy refuting all your... argu... hahaha... ments. Wait, you don't make any other than "I don't like Civilization games!"

well, some people don't WANT to mod.

I don't want to mod either. That's why I grabbed one. Amazingly, I grabbed a mod to make Civ3 a really great game too.

Total time of "work" it took to download and install mods? Less than one minute.

They want to play the game as it is out of the box.

Okay, good. You did that. You didn't like the game. Rather than grab a mod (so hard!) to fix your issues, you prefer to whine. And then you wonder why people read posts like yours and say "Hey, what a whiny little girl!" When the answer to your issues is less than two clicks away yet you choose to write long rambling *****fests regarding the game because "installing a mod is work!" then you deserve all the scorn possible.

You don't like the game.
You don't want to try mods.
So why are you here?

 

[Banira]

The whiners have gotten really old. Just like they were when Civ3 was released. Just like they will be when Civ5 is released. They will whine, piss and moan. That's all some people know how to do because they are a victim of their own bloated expectations.

Speak for yourself, indeed. You have several options open to you, one of which is, don't click and read a thread that contains something you don't like.

 

[Turner]

Moderator Action: That's enough of the flaming in trolling.

DemonDeLuxe, Xavier Von Erck, warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Zombie69]

I want to relax [...] I don't want to work hard 5-6 hours in order to be happy for 2 minutes with the final victory. I need some rewards for my accomplishments during the game, not just at the end. I'm not saying there aren't any rewards, but there are 10 times less than civ2 had.

See, this is where we differ. I find relaxing games to be boring and simply will not play them. If i don't feel that my neurons are working hard, the game is not worth it for me.

In my case, it's not 5-6 hours of work for 2 minutes of victory, it's 20 hours of a fun challenging game usually not even followed by victory because when i know that i'm going to win, there is no challenge anymore, hence no fun and i will quit the game instead of finishing it. My reward is the game itself and the fun i have figuring out a way to win.

I think Fireaxis clearly made this game with customers like me in mind, and i'm glad they did.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Oh, really? Is that why people go into threads such as "Civ4 named game of the year" and whine and moan that Civ4 "sucks"?

If you look at the topic title of this thread, you will notice it reads "Maybe the problem isn't Civ4 it's Civ in general"

Civfanatics "fan boys." Civ-fan-atics. Why people who aren't "fans" of Civ post here amuses me. It amused me when you goofs were whining about Civ3 and it amuses me now. Plus you always get so defensive when someone takes a poke at your whiny selves. It's entertaining.

I fail to see why someone who actually IS a "civ fanatic" must glorify each and every move the developers do and is not allowed to criticise a certain edition? Seeing that I have played each and every CIV game there has been for long times, I quite definitely qualify as being a "CIV fanatic". So I'm forced to agree to everything they do to the game concept? THAT approach is "entertaining" - it's the difference between being a fan and being what they call here a "fan boy".

 

[lonestar007]

Few things I have noticed that seem to detract from the overall "fun" factor of the game:

Put the number of turns until city growth or production finished back on the main page. I recently found a city at stagnant growth with a bar half full. No idea how long it had been this way. Also, my Hagia Sophia and rifleman look the same half-finished, yet are different by almost 40 turns. With more than a few cities, it is silly to have to slide over each one and check all the time. Right now the little bars filling up tell me nothing.

I know it has been mentioned, but we need a drop-down menu or words in the city screen for build orders. My fifteen inch screen or laptop makes these little pictures useless and changing build orders very difficult and annoying.

On the same note, why are there only pictures in the military advisor? Was the game designed for illiterate people? Can we have the leaders name and country to select on this screen as well; it can actually be quite useful. Right now it’s a pain with a lot of little cartoon pictures.

Change religion so there is a reason for me to dislike countries of other religions. Right now they only dislike me, I could care less. In multiplayer, the religion aspect is useless because nobody really cares what religion you are. I have a few ideas for this, and have seen some other good ideas, but I want to care about religion, I really do. But right now there is no reason.

The tech tree sucks because it is difficult to grasp and see. In previous civs it was easy to plan your technological advancement. You worked for the tech five steps down the tree as much as for the one you were currently researching. Not so much now. I feel there is little planning involved in technology, just pick the best right now and you will get there eventually. The tech tree might be just as good, but the presentation is very poor, and thus planning very confusing and difficult.

What really got lost for me was the feeling of constant monitering of my nation. In civ 3, to win I had a set of things to check every turn or every other turn. I was able to plan several turns in advance becuase all the information about my nation (production times, city growth, happiness, etc...) was easy to see and use together. Now it feels more like a bunch of cities working independantly than a nation. This is only because I cannot see numbers that allow me to plan my nation as a whole, and checking each city takes too long, so I just hit the enter key with no anticipation of what the next turn might bring.

I think that is all for now

 

[jcikal]

Oops, double post!!! Sorry.

 

[jcikal]

...I find relaxing games to be boring and simply will not play them. If i don't feel that my neurons are working hard, the game is not worth it for me.

... when i know that i'm going to win, there is no challenge anymore, hence no fun and i will quit the game instead of finishing it. My reward is the game itself and the fun i have figuring out a way to win.QUOTE]

Ditto on that thought. It's how the game plays and how much fun/challenge I have along the way that makes/breaks a game for me. I've already mentioned this before but from what I've seen so far in this particular topic I think it bears repeating so here it goes:

I believe that features need to be included as options rather than deciding to either leave a feature in or out. Most complaints seem to be from missing features from previous Civ games. I think that rather than complaining among ourselves, we need to let Firaxis know what features we want added back to the game as options that can be turned on/off.

You want advisors? click that feature on, you don't like culture bombs? turn that feature off. Letting the developers know that we want some particular features is more important than casting the game to doomland altogether. Can Firaxis indeed add some of these features back into the game as an add-on pack? Maybe, maybe not, but we'll never find out if we don't ask.

Maybe some of the powers that be here at Civfanatics can come up with a poll-like question (made by the Civfanatics mods only, otherwise everyone and their family will be making a list) in which we can choose to click on the features we want from a list of missing features that can be added back to the game. That way, Firaxis can get a good idea of the most important features we the end users want added as options into the game.

Of course, in order for the poll to work, it would have to show up on the main screen so everyone can see it. Also, only the mods can add to the list, otherwise, we'll see everyone adding/commenting on every little aspect of the game. The important thing here is for Firaxis to be able to just click on the results of the poll (after a reasonable amount of time has passed, say a month or so) so that they can get a good idea of the features we want from the list that was presented to us and whether or not they can add them as an add-on pack or patch in the game.

Does anyone agree or even like this idea? If so, let one of the mods in this site know.

 

[Steph]

You want advisors? click that feature on, you don't like culture bombs? turn that feature off. Letting the developers know that we want some particular features is more important than casting the game to doomland altogether. Can Firaxis indeed add some of these features back into the game as an add-on pack? Maybe, maybe not, but we'll never find out if we don't ask.

Of course, in order for the poll to work, it would have to show up on the main screen so everyone can see it. Also, only the mods can add to the list, otherwise, we'll see everyone adding/commenting on every little aspect of the game. The important thing here is for Firaxis to be able to just click on the results of the poll (after a reasonable amount of time has passed, say a month or so) so that they can get a good idea of the features we want from the list that was presented to us and whether or not they can add them as an add-on pack or patch in the game.

Does anyone agree or even like this idea? If so, let one of the mods in this site know.

This options idea is a good one, but it should have been done from the beginning.
Including with things like "Use 3D sprites / old FLC animation for units"
That's what I don't like a priori with CIV. Firaxis claims to have added a lot of flexibility with XML, Python and so on.
It's probably true. But what if the game engine can't handle more than one option with a few different parameters?

I'll give you an example with something I plan for SSS about population expansion.
I want the settlers to work with two ways, and your select your method in the game settings:
a) You build settlers, good old civ way
b) Population expand "alone" through natural growth and immigration.

What if option b) (or a) ) is not supported at all by the game engine?
The only solution is then to use let say option a), and change a few parameters.
You can tweak a bit the game. But within the limits it allows.

For instance, I dislike the way resources work. I want my resource to limit my army size. I have 10 oils, I can not support more than 10 armors.
Currently, with 1 oil, I can build 100 armor, and then continue to support them if I lose my oil. I don't like it.
Can it be modded easily? No. Because the game engine was not planned to include this feature.
Perhaps with the SDK it can be done, but I'm not sure.

In SSS, I want to add the option to use either methods. It's a lot of work. but I think it's worth a try.

Instead of trying to get new players with 3D graphics (OK, they are fashionable today, but their are well... ugly...), They should have tried to expand the gameplay option, keep some old stuff, add new one, and everything as options so everyone can do what he wants.

 

[anti_strunt]

I don't want to mod either. That's why I grabbed one. Amazingly, I grabbed a mod to make Civ3 a really great game too.

Total time of "work" it took to download and install mods? Less than one minute.

Okay, good. You did that. You didn't like the game. Rather than grab a mod (so hard!) to fix your issues, you prefer to whine. And then you wonder why people read posts like yours and say "Hey, what a whiny little girl!" When the answer to your issues is less than two clicks away yet you choose to write long rambling *****fests regarding the game because "installing a mod is work!" then you deserve all the scorn possible.

I’m enjoying Civ 4 right now, althought I haven’t played for long. Regardless I’m already planning for multiple possible modifications. However, I wonder if you aren’t underestimating the amount of work it might take to mod in (back?) ”an epic feeling of immersion”… because I doubt it will be as easy as increasing the number of turns…

 

[Nilrim]

"When you hunt TWO rabbits, you'll surely lose them BOTH".

Someone has to tell Firaxis, I guess.

I got a chuckle out of that. Use an in game quote to make a point, but I think a very good point and right on target. The problem is that Firaxis and more importantly 2K who has recentlly bought Firaxis are very happy with the sales figures from the game. They are making a bundle of money and many sites are naming them 'Game of the Year' etc. It is sad to say but I don't think the bean counters care a bit about how we feel as long as the game keeps selling.

 

[Breunor]

Interesting suggestion, thanks for that.

I often find I'm well in the lead long before 2050 AD, so that actually finishing the game seems unnecessary except to get properly listed on the high score table. I suppose that means I'm playing at too low a difficulty level (Noble). But have you found this, and how do you handle it?

I rather fancy stopping the game earlier than 2050 AD. Perhaps this is feasible by some simple changes to one XML file (I think I see how to do it but haven't tried yet). Pity there isn't a simple option to select in the game interface.

Yes, I also find I am usually ahead in score. I think if you play 'score only' games, you probably have to up the difficulty a bit -- with all of the victory conditions, a key is to keep up in science to avoid a space loss. With score, production is more important.

I suspect we have similar gaming styles. So, 'score only' games I ususally bump up about one level.


Best wishes,


Breunor

 

[jcikal]

...It is sad to say but I don't think the bean counters care a bit about how we feel as long as the game keeps selling.

Unless it's curtains for the Civ series, they do need to care if they hope to sell future installments of the series.