New game from Jon Shafer (lead designer of Civ V)

[sherbz]

Perhaps true, but a lot of people would say that lead designer of Civ V is no shining star on the old resume either.

And i would concur

(Civ IV junkie)

 

[beetle]

Perhaps true, but a lot of people would say that lead designer of Civ V is no shining star on the old resume either.

That’s harsh! Plenty of people getting plenty of play value from V. And I think Shafer gets a bum rap because V was kind of simple on release. But I think he deserves credit (1) for the overall architecture which is so very different (and better) than what we had with the I/II/III/IV line; and (2) the hooks that allowed religion and ideologies to be grafted into the game. I would love to see an interview with him to hear if any of the later developments were a surprise to him. My assumption is that they were on the drawing board at the time V was first released.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

That’s harsh! Plenty of people getting plenty of play value from V. And I think Shafer gets a bum rap because V was kind of simple on release. But I think he deserves credit (1) for the overall architecture which is so very different (and better) than what we had with the I/II/III/IV line; and (2) the hooks that allowed religion and ideologies to be grafted into the game. I would love to see an interview with him to hear if any of the later developments were a surprise to him. My assumption is that they were on the drawing board at the time V was first released.

Civ 5 made some improvements and some very noticeable regressions in terms of architecture. Shafer also trashed a decent (but not great) UI to replace it with a dumpster fire that still burns brightly today. Ed Beach's team has regressed it with Civ 6 also. There are similarly ongoing slow pacing and MP inconsistency/OOS. MP wasn't even playable on Civ 5 release, but even in BNW putting more than 4-5 people in a game still meant you weren't going to finish it.

There were good ideas there but the implementation never made it. Beach has only been somewhat better though, and the generation and retention of the "tall vs wide" cancer cast a shadow over TBS for many years that can't justifiably be blamed on Shafer...

 

[beetle]

Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy explaining to people why Civ5 is better than 4. That said, this is probably not a good forum/thread choice for such a discussion.

Shafer also trashed a decent (but not great) UI to replace it with a dumpster fire that still burns brightly today.

In my experience “dumpster fire” can only mean 1UPT and that you miss the economy slider (not sure if that the right term). Both of those, in hindsight, were awful. It is good that 5 killed them, and that those aspects remain dead with 6!

…and the generation and retention of the "tall vs wide" cancer cast a shadow over TBS for many years that can't justifiably be blamed on Shafer...

I agree that you cannot blame that on Shafer, but the strong shift to Tall from Wide was the proper medicine that Civ needed! Where you see cancer, I see chemotherapy.

FWIW, I played a lot of CivII/3/4/SMACX. I still think SMACX was the best of the lot, but 5 (after the BNW expansion) is objectively better than II/3/4.

I have not read anything that leads me to believe that Shafer is really to blame for any of the actually weak aspects of Civ5. OTOH, the flavor / traits aspects of the AI personalities (1) is overly complicated, and (2) does not really work. The AIs are all crazy, and they are all crazy in exactly the same way. What I take away from Shafer’s BatG blogs gives me no confidence that he recognizes his hand in the problem, so that makes me worried for BatG.

The resultant game play has gotten better with the patches and expansions, but I presume that is due to Ed Beach’s tweaking.