I wouldn't say that one game requires more skill than another. They are quite different games..
You actually did say that.
You have a lot to manage, balance and finesse. Where in your typical RTS it's mainly just figure out how to spam the most effective units as quickly as possible.
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The argument I am witnessing does not appear constructive. The claim that Civ exists for MP cannot follow from statements about the existence of good MP players. The claim that Civ exists for SP cannot coexist with the fact of the existence of competitive MP players.
Civ has no feature in it that is 'for' SP, it is clear that every AI is functioning like a player, which leads to the generalisation that it is a contest of multiple players. But it's also clear that Civ's developers definitely did not give two horsehockys about a multiplayer connectivity or accommodating any actual form of netplay until they wrote in the Hotseat PBEM format. My personal bias is to say Civ was not designed for SP nor for MP, because I love dumping on it like that, but my actual point here is to say there isn't an argument about what matters going on right now.
Craig, you want people to acknowledge Civ competitive exists? It does. Playing games to go against rivals and develop skills, to play to win, that is not the only legitimate pastime or only legitimate game. Which one is Civ actually? Depends on how people choose to use it.
Ryika, this conversation made the most sense when you said "People who enjoy Civ5-PvE obviously prefer it over PvP. Or at least enjoy it enough to not feel compelled to try PvP. So these people are not looking for the same thing that you, as someone who prefers PvP, is looking for." But if you think randomness a là triple progenitor ruin does not severely curtail if not demolish the existence of the competitive subcommunity, you're wrong. And you appear to be measuring subgroups by size, which is really devastating to the universalism of your standpoint, which looks to be the only thing that could be going for it.
The competitive group is a subcommunity - Craig, there may be some people who put up with an AI merely because they can't do MP for external reasons, but you are underestimating the variety of experience one can have through a Civ session. Using YouTube or Achievement-statistics is not going to be proof of the whole picture, but there are more things we don't need to go far to see. [AAR] games in our very own Stories forum. All the people who talk about going up against AIs with their friend(s) - can you account for their existence, there's a lot of them. I don't even know how to explain them, but I'm not going to do it saying they are self-denying unfortunates who pine for a functioning MP to free them from SP purgatory.
And, most centrally to what I think you two are arguing about, the people playing Civ like a puzzle, exist. Yeah it's a given the AI is a dunce, and that's kind of lame, but that doesn't diminish the people hunting that turn time or making spreadsheets. I play Civ to enjoy it against rivals, with a competitive spirit, exclusively, but I can't deny the other forms of the game exist.
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The difficulty is when one has to trade off appeasing the subcommunities. You ought to make everyone maximally pleased as far as you can, sure, but a hard split can come up. Jon Shafer has claimed it is logically possible to avert that split with designer skill, but, since he's making a SP game we'll just put him in a cushioned room for now (sorry Jon). Then you have a question about Design itself, who do you make happy? I happen to think a game should strike a high note with somebody , and compromises all around only lower that high note, and my view is echoed by at least one multimillion dollar developer.
If you build a game for challenging contest between multiple (Human) rivals, can you not then write in what you have to (i.e. an AI), to still afford the SP experiences people want from the game? It's plausible, the spreadsheeters and puzzle-solvers can be pointed at any puzzle. Well, that's a conversation, and the affirmative form of it would serve all for-competitive players' interests, since they get everything they want (unless they want other people
not to play, but there are no such fiends). If we get past arguing our
existence to each other we could look at common goals and the creation of insight from understanding the real differentiation of the subgroups.