Sherlock
Just one more turn...
Dear Christ. We don't all have 45 minutes to burn listening to someone we don't know opine about a game he hasn't even played.
Word.
Dear Christ. We don't all have 45 minutes to burn listening to someone we don't know opine about a game he hasn't even played.
I don't think that's actually necessary. Always consider the source.Is there a transcript for people who are actually self confident of their own reading and interpretation abilities?
That would be fitting. Again, consider the source.It's clickbait.
Civ4 is about a decade that way <-----------------How you are not allowed to be clever and devise new, brilliant diplomatic, economic, military plans?
Aren't you frustrated by how long the turns take? How little you can do in 5 minutes of game time? How lazy your brain becomes, conditioned to think less and "experience" more? How you are not allowed to be clever and devise new, brilliant diplomatic, economic, military plans? How playing on larger maps or higher difficulty level is not about intellectual conditioning but sheer stamina to spend so many hours in front of the screen?
Brain activity / second in this franchise is dropping. Has been dropping for the last few years.
If you like it as it is then... yes, there's nothing wrong with Civilization 6.
I don't. For me, playing a game is mental exercise. I'm not firing up Civ to get my daily dose of OCD therapy. I have towels in different colours for that. Or SMAC
Systemic.systematic
Can't say if he likes Civ, but he does like the CivFanatics off-topic forum.I get the impression that the podcaster doesn't simply like the civ series.
Systemic.
Out of curiosity, is Civ6 radically different from Civ5? Because anything less probably won't be enough. If it's only slightly different from Civ5, it'll still be the same generic 4X mess that Civ5 was. Probably will be as poorly optimized, at that. And always-on DRM care of Steam, no less.
Then they likely already got it wrong.Gameplay wise I think their current ultimate goal is to lessen those moments in civ 5 where you are just waiting for something to happen
Could swear Shaffer was trying to do the same thing. It did not end well, at all.tl,dr; The main differences in gameplay will be a little more active thought required, with fewer turns just pressing the 'end turn' button
Systemic.
You are correct, sir. I read that in the wrong way.systematic is correct
Indeed. If you're looking for a return to civ 4 I'm highly pessimistic of civ 6 satisfying you. I don't expect a paradigm shift from what I've read.Then they likely already got it wrong.
To expand on the two changes I've mentioned.Clearly, there are a bunch of mechanics I need to read up on, because I could barely make heads or tails from your response (given how unfamiliar I am with Civ6).
Thank you, very much.To expand on the two changes I've mentioned.
I agree with your assessment. Sounds like a novelty mechanic, which will eventually be reduced to one or two "correct" choices. Though even two choices would be an acceptable improvement over Civ5, frankly.Eureka moments are boosts to tech research (about 40%) based off your actions in the game. Settling next to the coast gives a boost to sailing; Building a wonder gives a boost to Architecture, etc. My expectation is that this will be initially fun until a meta emerges saying 'Machinery is not worth it, but you MUST get education'.
Could be fun, likely falls flat on its face. Oh well, if it's mainly associated with improvements and wonders, you can always build the improvements, and on harder difficulties, the AI will always build the wonder one turn before you, so the fact that optimal gameplay pushes you away from building virtually any wonders isn't really a big deal.This introduces opportunity costs in a degree that does not really exist in civ 5, and the specifics will vary from map to map, so like I said, I'm more optimistic about this latter change.
Maybe this forum needs a new subsection in addition to the 'Ideas and Suggestions':
"Issues and Concerns"
Which could be the home to all the complaints and concerns threads people start. Because I atleast and I would guess a lot of other forum members are mostly interested in reading threads focused on analyses, strategy and mixed reactions rather than a thread that stars with a negative biased that some other people get upset about in the general forum, but such threads could live on in a sub forum instead...
Also I'm honoustly wondering in how far you've actually followed the devs in their promotiontalks of the game.
Civ VI appears to be full of meaningful decisions: districts, eureka's, trade routes (which can often be incentives to war for the AI), the depowerment of science with the introduction of culture tree, religion and the religious victory, governments, civs with more uniques than ever. Need I go on?
Civ VI appears to be full of meaningful decisions: districts, eureka's, trade routes (which can often be incentives to war for the AI), the depowerment of science with the introduction of culture tree, religion and the religious victory, governments, civs with more uniques than ever. Need I go on?
Boredom with CIV5 demystified
Hi, I'm a CIV player. I'm not a bigshot like Sid Meier or a company like Firaxis. But I know stuff. Hell, I'd have to be really dumb not to know at least something about computer gaming. After all, I've been playing computer games for 18 years now.
The thing is, Sid Meier is not a great game developer. No, really, he isn't. Yes, he's famous, he has some really cool games that bear his name, games like Civilization, Alpha Centauri, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates etc. But he's not a great game developer. What he is good at is finding great game developers.
Without letting nostalgia getting too much in the way, I can safely say that Civilization I was a godawful game. Civilization II was great but designed by Brian Reynolds. Colonization was designed by Brian Reynolds. Alpha Centauri was designed by Brian Reynolds. Railroad Tycoon 2 (arguably a billion times better than RRT 1 and the best in the series by far) was designed by Pop Top Software. Civilization 4 was designed by Soren Johnson. I think you can see where I'm going with this. Oh, and Civilization 5 was designed by Jon Shafer. Who the hell is Jon Shafer? Oh, he's the guy Firaxis says knows how to design games better than I do. Well I want my 50€ back Jon. Because you and Firaxis lied.
Unlike Blizzard, Sid Meier nor Firaxis never really understood how or why their games work, which is bizzarre, considering Sid almost single-handedly (lol) defined the 4X genre. Unlike Blizzard or Black Isle or DMA/Rockstar (etc.) a game having a Sid Meier's label is not an assurance of quality. But the man knows how to sell himself, that's for sure.
If you need further proof that Sid doesn't know jack about computer games, please watch this video (Sid Meier's speech at GDC).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY7aRJE-oOY
To understand Civilization 5 and its failures, we need to turn the clock back 25 years and take another look at Shigeru Miyamoto's masterpiece Super Mario. It would be silly of me to go into an in-depth description of this game, but the basic principles are very important.
The four basic principles around which Super Mario is built are these:
1. For doing okay (having skill) you're neither being awarded nor punished.
2. For performing badly you're punished.
3. For peforming great you're rewarded.
4. For having non-essential talents (exploration, persistence, memory) you're being awarded further.
Now try to think about any great game you played and ask yourself do these four principles apply to that game. I can say with a 99,9% certainty that they do.
Now try to apply these principles to Civilization V (regardless of difficulty level) and you'll notice that they don't fit.
In Civilization V the logic is this:
1. for doing okay you're rewarded.
2. for performing badly you're not punished.
3. For performing great you're not rewarded.
4. For having non-essential talents you're rewarded.
If you watched the video, this is exactly what Sid Meier has been saying on GDC. And he's okay with it. Well good for him. Except games and gamers don't work the way he thinks they do. Isn't it bizarre that the publicly best known game developer has no clue about stuff he's been doing for the last few decades?
Somewhere in these 25 years, as game became more comples, a fifth rule emerged and it's pretty simple:
5. Players need to feel the consequences of their decisions
What this means is that actions from rules 1-4 can form a certain "group of actions" and the player can choose between several of these groups to make a "decision". A very simple example of this would be if the next level of Super Mario would depend on what exit you took at the previous level. Another example would be going Specialist Economy in CIV4 or deciding to be a healer in World of Warcraft. Generally speaking, "switching back" from your decision is possible but painful, almost impossible or completely impossible.
***
The reason why Civilization IV plays so much better than Civilization V is because the designer of Civilization IV knew exactly what I've been typing for the last hour here. He took all five rules and distributed them evenly to last throughout the whole duration of the game.
Lets look at the first 100 turns of the game and tell me which of these wonders, techs or concepts have a greater impact on your game.
The Pyramids - very powerful SE
The Great Wall - very powerful Classical tech stealing
The Oracle - powerful slingshots
Great Lighthouse - very powerful early economy
Writing - powerful early tech pace
Alphabet - first to be able to trade techs
Polytheism, Meditation, Monotheism - first to found an early religion
Iron Working - powerful early rush warfare
Literature - powerful tech trading tool
Construction - powerful early warfare of a different (balanced) kind
Good resources in BFCs - very powerful early growth, production or commerce
Neighbours, their attitudes, religion and location - they will define your game for the next X turns
You can argue which of the stated wonders/techs will have a greater impact. Yes, you will argue. ARGUE. Because you can. Because all these can be ARGUED about. Because they are worth arguing about.
Now play the first 100 turns of Civilization 5 and try to find game-defining decisions you made. There are few, if any. And this problem just copies itself to the next 100 and next 100 turns, until the game is over.
***
Conclusion
Civilization 5 is a game that doesn't reward the player, doesn't penalize the player, offers rewards only at extremely specialized playstyles and - worst of all - strips the player of the liberty (and hazard) of real decision making. The game basically runs itself, with a here-and-there very gentle nudge from the player.
Good Sid Meier's games were never really Sid's and I doubt he'll stumble upon a new Brian Reynolds or Soren Johnson anytime soon.
Have a nice evening.
You can't really comment on it if you didn't listen it through. This kind of an answer is exactly why I made a podcast out of it.
I couldnt quote his post because the thread is closed. But i do remember that post and only took 5 min to retreive it. It resumes a bit what he's trying to explain.