New Expansion Speculation Thread

[Ivan Hunger]

I played Kongo in the game before last, I was able to buy campus buildings with faithc and I'm pretty sure that was their Founders Belief. I'll try and remember to check when I get home tonight.

No, @bumpyglint is right. Mvemba's leader ability is completely nonfunctional at the the moment. I tested it myself in a hot seat game yesterday, just to make sure. Since it's the only leader ability that's a trade off, that means it's currently all downside and no upside.

I'm not sure who should be more embarrassed. The devs for allowing it to happen, or the community for not noticing it all this time.

 

[SephiBBZ]

?? I didn't paid for a general "playable game", I paid for a very specific game with some presumed features. If I buy a Ferrari and they give a really bad (and sometimes broken) car it's not "ok" just because I paid for a car and I received a car. In that case I could rightly say that I'm disappointed even if I don't help them to fix my bad and broken car (and with Civ 6 I can even say that they lied, because 90 % of the problems in Civ 6 are so evident that it's impossible they didn't even noticed before the game arrived to us).
Patches are not "courtesy", it's something they do to increase the love in the franchise hoping you will buy their next game, but it's also a way to fix what they promised you: anyway a game should not be so broken to need so many patches as Civ 6, I think everybody noticed that this game received more fix (also in the gameplay) than 99 % of single player game.
I still find pretty ridicoulous that some people didn't get this and probably that's why they will never fix the major problems of Civ 6: people defend the franchise anyway, so they will never pay money to do a "courtesy" to you. They will never care if in Civ 7 the AI will not use airplane, because people will buy the game anyway saying "it's ok because it didn't work even in Civ 6", even if probably for a programmer fixing this problem is pretty easy.
I'm totally against this mentality.




It's possible that the style is different because of their country, but I think they could at least try to get closer to the Swedish system anyway. It seems they totally ignore us, but this is costing them a lot.

Maybe @Cerilis can think this is a coincidence, but if Civ V is still more played than Civ VI (even by Youtubers) I think there's a reason. If Civ V got over 95 % positive reviews on Steam while Civ Beyond earth and Civ VI got TERRIBLE reviews I think there's a reason. And if they keep with this policy Civ 7 will be the start of their end.
I hope this new expansion just fix the biggest problems in the game, that would be enough to me even if they don't add new special mechanisms
.

Quite simple Civ V is a finished game.
Not Civ 6, so any comparison with civ 5 should be made with the civ 5 without last expansion.
Moreover at the moment we cannot be sure that civ 6 will receive only one more expansion, so it is even useless to make comparisons.

 

[mitsho]

There‘s a mod that simulates a change of dynasties by alternating between auto-play and letting you play. It‘s quite interesting, but only for RPG or machoistic board players, since you can watch the AI screw up for 5-20 turns every so often and then have to clean up their mess. But it teaches you how the AI thinks and makes very clear very easy ways to improve them: For example, it‘s important to research Archery as soon as possible as otherwise your AI may leave it open for way too long. They also seem to like to research deep into the tech tree foregoing heurekas. And of course how they settle...

It‘s an infuriating mod but it teaches you that you cannot build the perfect empire. And if it were official, it would put pressure on Firaxis to fix the AI side of the game, since I do think most players do not even notice how bad the AI is at this game. So, to add to the discussion of the previous page, it is more about visibility of the large part of the player base than not knowing about the deficits of the game. And maybe an subscription system would be the way to go?

 

[Gorbles]

It seems pretty obvious to me that they are PAID to fix these problems while we are PAYING to have that problems fixed, it's totally legit to be disappointed if they are not doing their job while we pay them. I can help them if I want to, but I'm not supposed to do it, specially because tons of Civ 6 problems (as it was for Civ beyond earth and in some way for Civ V) are there simply because of lack of playtesting: just to give 1 or 2 example, it seems almost incredible to me that in the first version of the game nobody noticed that the AI was constantly hating everybody (destroying any diplomatic approach to the game) or that now the Kongo's ability TOTALLY doesn't work (they never get the "Founder's belief" bonus of a religion, even if it's in all their cities). I could give 1000000 examples (for real they didn't notice AI doesn't use airplane?? For real they didn't notice that in Civ V the AI could not move and shot in the same turn??) but this post would be too long.
I'm always ready to help a producer to develope a game I like, but saying that the Firaxis approach to the community and to the playtest is TERRIBLE seems pretty obvious to me, and everybody can be totally disappointed about it.

Just stepping in here for a bit.

It's fine to be disappointed. It's not fine to draw a direct line between you paying for a game that the publisher maintains the revenue stream for, and the wages paid to the developers (by the publisher) for their 9 - 5 (well, often more in games dev) job.

Your money pays for a product (or a service, if you're being picky). It doesn't pay your way to tell the devs what they should be working on. Bugs not getting fixed is frustrating, but it seems you don't really understand why or even how this process works the way it does. You really think people play this game and don't note down bugs? Do you think that all you have to do to fix a bug is note down the fact that it happens? If so, that's naive.

Stop pinning things on "playtesting". To fix even one thing in a piece of software the size of Civ 6 requires a lot more than just noting a bug's existence.

 

[bumpyglint]

Quite simple Civ V is a finished game.
Not Civ 6, so any comparison with civ 5 should be made with the civ 5 without last expansion.
Moreover at the moment we cannot be sure that civ 6 will receive only one more expansion, so it is even useless to make comparisons.

Any game sold alone should be a complete game, expansion are an "extra" for people that want more.

Just stepping in here for a bit.

It's fine to be disappointed. It's not fine to draw a direct line between you paying for a game that the publisher maintains the revenue stream for, and the wages paid to the developers (by the publisher) for their 9 - 5 (well, often more in games dev) job.

Your money pays for a product (or a service, if you're being picky). It doesn't pay your way to tell the devs what they should be working on. Bugs not getting fixed is frustrating, but it seems you don't really understand why or even how this process works the way it does. You really think people play this game and don't note down bugs? Do you think that all you have to do to fix a bug is note down the fact that it happens? If so, that's naive.

Stop pinning things on "playtesting". To fix even one thing in a piece of software the size of Civ 6 requires a lot more than just noting a bug's existence.

I'm just saying that if the Developers tell me that in the game there will be Air units and then the AI can't handle air units it's like lying to me and I can be disappointed even if I don't help them to fix it (because I'm not paid to do it). If they tell me that Kongo has a special ability and then that ability doesn't work I can be disappointed again. That's were all the discussion started, if I buy a product that promises 100 and I receive 50 I can be disappointed and I am not the one that need to fix it if I don't want to, this should be something about we all agree.
I'm not a developers, obviously I don't know how to fix a game, but if the other videogames in the market don't need all these adjustments probably there is a reason. I would TOTALLY prefer a less ambitious game that works than a complicated mess full of problems, and I'm afraid that this expansion instead of fixing the current problems in the game will just add new complicated features (and it seems that in this forum some people would agree with this just because "I'm not actively posting about the problems of the game in a forum where developers will never answer me, not even knowing if I'm wasting my time or not") .

Probably I am not articulating this very well (as you probably noticed, english is not my first language, I'm sorry for this).
I've loved the Civ series since I was a kid, but I think that all the money and the attention the received thanks to Civ V made them overconfident about the fact that everybody will always buy their games, no matter what. Civ V had tons of problems at the start, this is totally not ok but they fixed a lot of them and I appreciated this. But then if they launch a new game YEARS LATER and it has the same problems or even more I can't say that I'm happy with this. Civ beyond earth was the first thing I forgave them, that could be a coincidence, but Civ 6 was the second bad step and I think this is not a coincidence anymore.
If the community totally forgot Civ beyond earth and if after YEARS they are still not playing Civ 6 instead of Civ 5 I think I'm not the only one (just look the steam stats, Civ 6 was played by MANY more people than Civ 5 at the start, probably they sold tons of copies, and then suddendly it started to go down really fast until it was less played than Civ 5). We'll see how Civ 7 will go, but I could bet 10000 € that it will not have the success of Civ 6 and Civ 5.

I'm a bit angry beucase Civ 6 could be one of the greatest game ever, it's really ambitious and I like this, so I really hope this new expansion will work because I would be the most happy about it!!

 

[Gorbles]

But you weren't promised a bug-free experience, and what you're describing is a bug. They haven't intentionally delivered something that by their own admissions breaks something they explicitly promised to you. Literally none of that happened.

You are not promised these things that you claim to have been. This is what gets people talking about entitlement. I get the language barrier, and I appreciate that you say you don't know how to fix these issues. That's not your fault, naturally. And again, it's perfectly fine to be annoyed about these issues - they affect you! But what causes problems is when you take that annoyance and disappointment and start making claims about broken promises or a lack of playtesting.

Believe me, a lot of things in games (and software) development could be fixed if they were allowed the time to be. Sadly, it's a business, and things have to be released on certain deadlines to keep the lights on. That's not a Firaxis thing. People keep mentioning Paradox, which is another example of a developer that releases great and complicated games, that unfortunately also have bugs in them. Bugs happen. You could be the best developer in the world, and your code would still have bugs

 

[nzcamel]

Any game sold alone should be a complete game, expansion are an "extra" for people that want more.

Well from that point of view; even with lacklustre AI (for great players - it's not so much an issue for me) and empty airports, vanilla VI was still a far more complete game than vanilla V.

I'm a bit angry beucase Civ 6 could be one of the greatest game ever, it's really ambitious and I like this, so I really hope this new expansion will work because I would be the most happy about it!!

Agreed. It is so very close to amazing; if only they could get a few areas running better.
If they don't I think IV will still be the best in the series.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Cue "we should all gonna sue the company!" in three . . .

 

[WillowBrook]

I seem to recall that last year there was a little teaser (maybe something on Twitter?) about a week before the official R&F announcement. Can anyone refresh my memory?

If that happened, do we (CivFanatics collective) think we'll see that again before the next expansion announcement? When?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I seem to recall that last year there was a little teaser (maybe something on Twitter?) about a week before the official R&F announcement. Can anyone refresh my memory?

If that happened, do we (CivFanatics collective) think we'll see that again before the next expansion announcement? When?

Yes. It was the wheel of eras from the main menu. It came out about 5 days before the official announcement.

 

[WillowBrook]

Yes. It was the wheel of eras from the main menu. It came out about 5 days before the official announcement.

Was that Thanksgiving week? Or the week after?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Was that Thanksgiving week? Or the week after?

It was the day before Thanksgiving.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Was that Thanksgiving week? Or the week after?

New Civ Tweet... what could this be?

 

[Duuk]

Well this thread took a turn.

 

[Dragonflow]

New Civ Tweet... what could this be?

Tamar of Georgia confir...oh wait no that already happened.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

But you weren't promised a bug-free experience, and what you're describing is a bug. They haven't intentionally delivered something that by their own admissions breaks something they explicitly promised to you. Literally none of that happened.

You are not promised these things that you claim to have been. This is what gets people talking about entitlement. I get the language barrier, and I appreciate that you say you don't know how to fix these issues. That's not your fault, naturally. And again, it's perfectly fine to be annoyed about these issues - they affect you! But what causes problems is when you take that annoyance and disappointment and start making claims about broken promises or a lack of playtesting.

Believe me, a lot of things in games (and software) development could be fixed if they were allowed the time to be. Sadly, it's a business, and things have to be released on certain deadlines to keep the lights on. That's not a Firaxis thing. People keep mentioning Paradox, which is another example of a developer that releases great and complicated games, that unfortunately also have bugs in them. Bugs happen. You could be the best developer in the world, and your code would still have bugs

You folks are arguing on a continuum, and there's room for valid disagreement about where on that continuum a company has delivered a satisfactory product.

Nobody dies when a computer game has a manufacturing error (thank goodness), so unlike a lot of products, there's no consumer safety concerns forcing software developers to be as error free as many industries need to be. Aiming for error free increases the cost of any product a lot, so games have an economic incentive to be somewhat right, not always right. Automobile makers used to make that same cost-benefit analysis, until the courts corrected them.

No one's going to force the entertainment software industry to aim for fewer errors except their potential customer base. So I think it's quite valid for people to argue that they're dissatisfied with the amount of errors relative to the price they've paid. It's also quite valid for people to argue that Firaxis should not fix errors in their game, as it will increase the cost of the product without increased your enjoyment. And it's also valid to complain about the things that bother you most, and dismiss the complaints of others, as Firaxis will presumably spend time to fix the things that annoy their customers most, even if they can't fix everything, and everyone wants them to fix their personal bugbears.

In the end, my personal feeling is that the Civ games are way too cheap, and the product quality reflects that. I'd like to see Firaxis adopt a new business model that lets them extract more money from me to deliver a more polished product, while still delivering the existing product to those who either can't afford or don't want to pay for a more expensive version. My second choice would be for the development team to stop adding new features and spend their time making the existing features work as smoothly as possible. Since neither of these seem likely, my third hope is that at some point they release the DLL and let modders finish the job Firaxis started.

 

[Gorbles]

I don't think anybody said people couldn't be dissatisfied? I mean, we're often all arguing on that infinite Möbius strip, it's what forums are for

You raise an interesting point about raising the base price to allow for a less frantic / compressed developer cycle, but unfortunately consumer sentiment is to push back against that as hard as possible. I like the idea, personally. However, people were already annoyed at the base price in Civ 6 reflecting the changes of the past close-to-a-decade in pricing.

Modding is another fun tangent. Personally, as a games modder of some history myself, I'd actually encourage people to push the actual tools to their limits. I get that it's tempting to ask for the thing that will grant you as much control as possible, but likewise, if you're not using the tools that are already out there, Firaxis aren't going to see the usage metrics that make them go "hey, we can use this customer base as argument for more time on tools". The DLL situation in 6 is already going to be different to 5 (with additional licensed stuff built in and so forth). It's only going to get more complicated in terms of providing modding support that isn't through the sanitised, official-tools channels.

To tie this back to expansion wishes (I will ramble endlessly about modding hypotheticals if allowed), it'd be a good work-for-reward thing for their social media to maybe highlight the work of prominent modders. Show what can be done with the current tools.

 

[Giskler]

Maybe the guys arguing could go find a room and we could get the thread back on track.

Moderator Action: Please report posts or discussion you are having issues with. When we ask you to moderate, you can make posts like this. leif

 

[bumpyglint]

You folks are arguing on a continuum, and there's room for valid disagreement about where on that continuum a company has delivered a satisfactory product.

Nobody dies when a computer game has a manufacturing error (thank goodness), so unlike a lot of products, there's no consumer safety concerns forcing software developers to be as error free as many industries need to be. Aiming for error free increases the cost of any product a lot, so games have an economic incentive to be somewhat right, not always right. Automobile makers used to make that same cost-benefit analysis, until the courts corrected them.

No one's going to force the entertainment software industry to aim for fewer errors except their potential customer base. So I think it's quite valid for people to argue that they're dissatisfied with the amount of errors relative to the price they've paid. It's also quite valid for people to argue that Firaxis should not fix errors in their game, as it will increase the cost of the product without increased your enjoyment. And it's also valid to complain about the things that bother you most, and dismiss the complaints of others, as Firaxis will presumably spend time to fix the things that annoy their customers most, even if they can't fix everything, and everyone wants them to fix their personal bugbears.

In the end, my personal feeling is that the Civ games are way too cheap, and the product quality reflects that. I'd like to see Firaxis adopt a new business model that lets them extract more money from me to deliver a more polished product, while still delivering the existing product to those who either can't afford or don't want to pay for a more expensive version. My second choice would be for the development team to stop adding new features and spend their time making the existing features work as smoothly as possible. Since neither of these seem likely, my third hope is that at some point they release the DLL and let modders finish the job Firaxis started.

I totally agree, that's why I'm saying that I would prefer they would fix the actual problems than adding new feature that probably will not even completetly work.

I don't think anybody said people couldn't be dissatisfied? I mean, we're often all arguing on that infinite Möbius strip, it's what forums are for

Actually that's exactly what happened, someone said that I can't be disappointed if they don't fix the problems of the game if I don't actively help them (or "try" to help them, because they don't even answer us). That's the sense of my posts. Then I also said that I'm even more disappointed because it's obvious that they sold a game totally conscious of the problem it had (I repeat, 90 % of the problems, expecially on the launch, were so obvious that they had to know them), they simply knew that the fanbase would have bought the game anyway, so they didn't spend money for something that would have increased the sales just a bit. And I'm not talking only about the bugs (they are the less important thing to me).

Obviously I would never sue the company for this, like I would never sue a restaurant that promised me a pizza made of high quality ingredients and that actually sucks (even if they sold it to me totally conscious that the pizza would have tasted bad), but in both case I think I can say to be disappointed without helping them how to create a new recipe.

Maybe as you said it's not a Firaxis thing and the fault is about who put that dead-line, I don't know, but I just know that the game has tons of good ideas developed in a pretty bad way. I really hope the new expansion will be focused on improving these old features.

I really hope this new expansion will be great, I'm someone who would totally put money on it if they work on this!!!

I didn't want to "disturb" the thread or offend someone obviously, I'm sorry if I did it!

 

[WillowBrook]

New Civ Tweet... what could this be?

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I'd totally forgotten it was the day before Thanksgiving.

Now, will they follow the same pattern this time around? Will we get a cryptic teaser on the 21st?