Not excited...... not one bit

[Dale]

What the title says. I just can't get excited by this announcement, and the more I read, the less inclined I am to.

Whilst yes it's good to hear there's another game in the Civ franchise (though considering Civ5 sales numbers, did we ever think 2K would not fund another title from Firaxis?) there is much that I am reading that leads me to believe this game is not for me. I am one of those people who are searching for two ultimate games: a REAL SimCity4 successor, and a REAL Civ4 successor.

So what do I not like the sound of in this new game? I'll put it in one word: 1upt (okay not a word, but an abbreviated 4 word phrase ).

1upt killed Civ5 for me. Truly and utterly killed it. *poof* And sadly, 1upt defines the design for literally every other part of the game.

"How so?" you ask. Well, consider Panzer General, the 1upt game flaunted as the reason for it in Civ5. In PG, England is 500 hexes. In Civ5 England is 6-10 on an Earth map. You cannot engage a tactical combat system such as 1upt on a high-level overview strategic map such as Civ. It simply does not work. I cannot tell you how many AI hacks had to be put in place to have an at least "better than douche" combat AI.

The worst part is as I said above, 1upt defines the entire rest of the game's design. It introduces what I've heard called the "strategic limiting system". To cater for the strategic maps, the game design limits how many units you can build through yields, unit costs, constant wars, etc. And since yields are a lot smaller, that means cities are a lot smaller. This means the entire economy model of the game is totally skewed by 1upt. Diplomacy is heavily affected to. To help keep units down, the AI is encouraged to war much more often. So we see lots more smaller wars in Civ5. So the diplomacy model is also heavily skewed by 1upt. The concept of unit transportation was totally removed from the game, because 1upt didn't work at all with the system. Not only that, but because it's a "strategic game" the 1upt system was mashed by the fact of fitting it into a strategic game. It is not a TRUE 1upt implementation that grognards are used to.

I could go on all day, but I won't. You get the picture and I'm sure you're all smart enough to figure out other areas where 1upt dominates the game design. The bottom line is, because of the 1upt system, Civ5 has become a strategic game limited by a tactical combat system, AND a tactical combat system watered down by a strategic game design. It is trying very hard to be both a tactical AND strategic game, but as it stands is mediocre AT BEST, in either category.

Compared to other grand Empire strategy games such as Paradox games, Civ5 is mediocre at best.
Compared to other tactical combat games such as Slitherine or Matrix games, Civ5 is mediocre at best.

And sadly, they continue to rely on a system which for me, has totally killed the Civilization Experience.

 

[moysturfurmer]

I'm not excited, not one bit. Know why?

Hexes.
Hexagons are such a weird shape. If you make a grid system out of x and y axes, what do you get? Hexes? No, squares. Squares are a much better shape that hexagons. Squares have four sides and if you rotate them 45 degrees you have diamonds. Which are a girl's best friend. Like me. On a square you can go up or down and sort of diagonal. Hexagons you have to go in weird directions, I don't even know how to pronounce some of them. Hexagons have 6 sides, and 6 is the devils number. That's why Three 6 Mafia call themselves as such, because a 6 followed by two 6s, (like 555 but if the 5s were 6s) is the devil's number and do we really wanna play with the good Lord's feelings like that? My God is a vengeful God & long may he reign.

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[Rebel Fighter]

I'd disagree with you there. I like 1upt better than Civ 4's alternative. However, I wouldn't be against stacking a maximum of 2 units on a single tile as long as the units aren't too large or powerful (for example, if it was Civ 5, you wouldn't be able to stack 2 Giant Death Robots on the same tile). I think this would be a good compromise, but Firaxis will probably keep 1upt regardless (aside from the orbital layer).

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I'm not excited, not one bit. Know why?

Hexes.
Hexagons are such a weird shape. If you make a grid system out of x and y axes, what do you get? Hexes? No, squares. Squares are a much better shape that hexagons. Squares have four sides and if you rotate them 45 degrees you have diamonds. Which are a girl's best friend. Like me. On a square you can go up or down and sort of diagonal. Hexagons you have to go in weird directions, I don't even know how to pronounce some of them. Hexagons have 6 sides, and 6 is the devils number. That's why Three 6 Mafia call themselves as such, because a 6 followed by two 6s, (like 555 but if the 5s were 6s) is the devil's number and do we really wanna play with the good Lord's feelings like that? My God is a vengeful God & long may he reign.

I'm not excited about this post, not one bit. Know why?

Black text.
Black text is such a business choice compared to orange. There have been countless debates over whether posts in online forums are business or casual, and it's been proven by my statement that clearly they should be orange and therefore casual.

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[KevinLancaster]

I'll pass on the snark to the next person, thank you guys.

-----

Well, considering you seem to be a game developer yourself, couldn't you try making your own game? It seems like the Civ series is pretty much set on this path for the foreseeable future. I will also give the standard Civ 5 fan response of, "Did you try it with the expansions?", but since you seem to disagree with the core of the 5 era games it's pretty pointless.

Then again this isn't a successor to Civ 4 so to talk about your desires for one in Civ BE are a bit silly. It is only a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri so to expect an experience closely like it is still a bit of a stretch, disregarding its age and the fact that Brian Reynolds isn't with Firaxis now.

What is nice is because of that, they are breaking new ground so the game could be very different from what we've seen in Civ 5, and more fun to someone like you even if it isn't the Civ experience that you've expected from the past. They also have a different lead developer, and Ed Beach (the lead on the expansions, and a board game enthusiast) is still around for advice while Jon isn't so if you disagreed with his decisions he's gone now.

EDIT: I've just read about how you were really excited for Civ 5 before it came out. Sorry man. I suppose you are trying to ward off others from feeling the same about Beyond Earth. I just try not to get excited from anything openly, just hold it in until it comes. I missed out on the Civ 4 era by the way, my computer didn't meet its specs for a long time so I kept on playing 3.

 

[Teproc]

I'm not excited, not one bit. Know why?

Hexes.
Hexagons are such a weird shape. If you make a grid system out of x and y axes, what do you get? Hexes? No, squares. Squares are a much better shape that hexagons. Squares have four sides and if you rotate them 45 degrees you have diamonds. Which are a girl's best friend. Like me. On a square you can go up or down and sort of diagonal. Hexagons you have to go in weird directions, I don't even know how to pronounce some of them. Hexagons have 6 sides, and 6 is the devils number. That's why Three 6 Mafia call themselves as such, because a 6 followed by two 6s, (like 555 but if the 5s were 6s) is the devil's number and do we really wanna play with the good Lord's feelings like that? My God is a vengeful God & long may he reign.

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[ls612]

1UPT would work better IMO with SMAC-style customization of your army forces. I don't mind it too much in Civ 5, especially since units can normally survive four attacks from a similar unit before actually dying.

 

[Krajzen]

Compared to other Civilization titles, Civ5 is the best selling game from franchise, also on top of steam most played games 4 years after release.

 

[ToothedBomb]

Sorry to hear the gameplay changes aren't to your liking, Dale.
Hopefully there will be other titles that do fit your tastes in the future.

I'm not excited, not one bit. Know why?

Hexes.

This post is pretty great.

 

[Buccaneer]

Dale, I have tremendous respect for your work on the WW2 and AoD2 mods but I totally disagree with you regarding 1upt. I cannot even imagine a Civ game without it. I do realize that the AI has a tougher time with unit placements and order of fire but it makes the game much more fun to play than Civ4 (as with pretty much every other improvement that Civ5 has over Civ4 - SP, religion, espionage, resources, trade, culture/tourism, etc.). I never heard of Panzer General but I had spent years playing traditional wargames, so that's why I love it. If Civ6 does not have 1upt, then I will not be buying that version (as I did when I skipped Civ3).

But I too have no interest in Beyond Earth solely for the subject matter. I hate seeing any futuristic stuff in Civ5 (robot, xcom, future tech, spaceship to a distant something), let alone a game that's based on that stuff.

 

[werothegreat]

Having more than one unit per tile was the thing I absolutely hated most about Civ4. I'd be minding my own business, building cities and getting culture, when the AI would roll in with a stack of 100 longbowmen, and even though I had mechanized infantry by that point, that stack of 100 longbowmen would chew up and spit out my tanks just through sheer numbers. Having only 1 unit per tile is the saving grace of Civ5.

 

[CanaDutch]

I wonder if a system could work where within the main large tiles grid there's another grid with smaller hexes for military units. That way there's much more space for military units to maneuver and military squadrons would be on a more realistic scale compared to cities that still take up 1 large tile.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I wonder if a system could work where within the main large tiles grid there's another grid with smaller hexes for military units. That way there's much more space for military units to maneuver and military squadrons would be on a more realistic scale compared to cities that still take up 1 large tile.

That would be a really interesting idea to play around with! The kinda thing that has the potential to bring together 4ists and 5ists.

I wonder also about the potential of stackable movement of groups of units, and then a zoomable battle map for turn based attacks in the current style. That would also mean less micromanagement on the main map.

But I imagine 1UPT and its merits and drawbacks has been discussed half a million times on these forums, and since we already know the forgone conclusion for BE i fear this is a dead end discussion :/

 

[Lord Tirian]

First of, Dale, loved your mods and maps - they were amazing and I missed your work in Civ5.

But, personally, I agree and disagree with you. I think, conceptually, 1UPT is a good idea to make a game manageable and make it something beyond a sheer question of numbers.

Now, Civ5's implementation is... tolerable to me, it has issues - but rather than throwing it out of the window, I hope that they rather iterate on it (especially the issue of path blockage) keeping your very valid criticisms in mind.

A spin-off like BE seems like a good place to experiment.

 

[RRtexasranger]

1UPT was probably the best thing that happened to Civ imo. However, I would like to see some minor tweaks in the future, to prevent annoyances like allies blocking paths in your own territory.

 

[Sonereal]

I agree completely with what Dale said about how 1UPT has pretty much borked the scale of the game. On the other hand, HYPE TRAIN IS LEAVING THE STATION CHOO CHOO.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think the game is far bigger than one system and if the only real complaint is the scale of the world, that complaint is less of a problem here. Certainly, archers can't shoot for miles, but modern artillery can.

But, like I said, the game is bigger than a single system. I find stacked combat to be excruciatingly tedious these days. But Civ4 obviously has so much going for it that I don't hold that against it. Likewise, CivBE will rise or fall based on more than one thing.

 

[Algeroth]

So uhm, you are saying that you doesn't like 1UPT, right? Because every other word after i either redundand or complaining that decision on one part of the desing inevitably influences other parts, which is something like 101 of game desing and in fact it praises the (basic) skills of designers.

And Civ was never a grand empire strategy game.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm also not excited, not one bit. And you wanna know why?

Civs!

I go way further back with the franchise than most of you youngsters on this forum, back before it was even called Civilization! Back then, you could gobble up all of the resources on the map simply by moving your original settler in one of four directions with a joystick. Starting with "Civilization" (which, I will remind you, back in the day was just called "Civilization"; in other words, Civ-No-Number, in other words Civ Zero; I'll leave you to work out what ever happened to Civ I when Civ II followed Civ Zero)--anyway, as I was saying, starting with Civilization they added this crazy idea that seven or more other rivals would be competing with you for the resources. I mean come on, like Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde ever consumed any of the pellets!

Ever since "Civilization," the game has been, compared to chess, a mediocre turn-based strategy game wedded to a mediocre resource gobbling game.

I'm waiting for a worthy successor to that old pre-Civ Civ.

 

[Securion]

Not excited? Thats what my wife usually says.

When she heard about this game she started making plans as a single.

Yea.
She know whats coming.