Official announcement: Hot off the presses. Next Civ game in development!!!!!!!

[The_J]

More bad news on dev team....

XCOM And Marvel's Midnight Sun Developer Firaxis Hit With Layoffs

Around 30 developers are reported to have been let go.

www.thegamer.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/1663733823828262912

I was about to post the following, but you were faster: Matthew Kean, who was lead artist for Civ6 says:
"Damn, heard there were layoffs at Firaxis. I hope everyone that was hit by these are well and soon will land on their feet "

I guess it might be the midnight suns team though.

 

[Patine]

A lot of people comment on this, as though it were a ridiculous feature in a game that is supposed to be rooted in history.

I actually think it is a clever way to deal with the issue for game play reasons. Historically religions do try to convert other peoples, and there is a basic contest of religions. How do you depict that contest of ideas in a gameplay manner that is simple and visually interesting? I think they arrived at a reasonable compromise. I don't take the lightning throwing as literal magic, but as a metaphor for the competition of ideas between different religions as expressed by their Apostles.

I don't ever play for Religious Victory, which is really a rather one dimensional Domination victory of sorts. But overall I quite like the way religion is handled in Civ 6, although of course there is a lot of room for improvement....

I can also respect it as a visual shorthand, especially because they're attacking each other from above. At a greater level, it's kind of a literal depiction of "let's see whose god is stronger."

I don't have any issue with religious combat from a conceptual standpoint, but I think it's really tedious and dull and I want to see far fewer civilian units in Civ 7. I hope there aren't any religious units, actually. It just makes religion require more annoying micromanagement.

If they kept missionaries being able to spread religion and gave everything else to Great Prophets, making them more useful, I think that would work.

I have mixed feelings about religious units and the religious victory. All of the recent Civ games (4, 5, 6, not BERT ) allowed the player to buy religious units to actively spread the desired religion. Both Civ5 and Civ6 allow "inquisitors" to remove unwanted religions from the player's cities. All of the main franchise games also had passive ways to spread religion, using variations on the idea of religious pressure or natural spreading. The perception / opinion about whether one finds directing religious units fun or tedious will vary from person to person.

It makes sense to me that since Civ6 added a Religious victory condition, that a player (either human or AI) would need to take active steps to pursue that VC. It further makes sense that a player (human or AI) might need to take active steps to defend against another player who is pursuing the VC. It's analogous to what we need to do when pursuing a military victory or science victory -- be active, either on offense or defense.

Here's where my mixed feelings come in: I'm not yet sure if I find the RV to be a fun victory condition. I'm not sure if I want Civ7 to have an explicit Religion victory, or whether religion should play another role, e.g., diplomatic modifier from Civ4 or source of faith yield to be used for other things as in Civ5.

I still stick to the idea that I would rather see something in the line of, more or less, what I stated here:

I would rather see an alternative form of cultural zones speicifically for religious spread, but with allowances for underground practiced religions (which could resurface to dominance), syncretism, sectarianism schism herterodoxy, and heresy, entrepot cities, and, later on, coming into Enlightenment-style religious tolerance. Missionaries would have a part, but not quite to the degree of Civ6 Apostles.

 

[Pistol90]

That midnight suns was stupid decision ...

Firaxis have Civ to develop and earn money ... stop with stupid ideas with super-heroes or Civ spin-offs ...

Just develop good-next-civ-game ...

 

[pokiehl]

That midnight suns was stupid decision ...

Firaxis have Civ to develop and earn money ... stop with stupid ideas with super-heroes or Civ spin-offs ...

Just develop good-next-civ-game ...

You don't need to be so dismissive of other peoples' tastes. I don't care for Marvel or superheroes in general, but many people are big fans; why shouldn't they get games they want? I'm a big XCOM fan, and I certainly don't want Firaxis to abandon that franchise and only work on Civ.

Additionally, it doesn't take an MBA to understand that the Marvel franchise is big money. Midnight Suns apparently didn't sell well for whatever reason, but anyone interested in actually making money would have jumped at the opportunity to take a chance with the Marvel IP. Maybe the devs themselves were exicted about it too. At any rate, it's very easy to sit back and say "wow what a dumb decision" after it's all said and done.

Moreover, Firaxis has separate teams for Civ and XCOM/Midnight Suns; their working on Midnight Suns did nothing to impact Civ so the way you're framing this is flawed in the first place. And I'm not sure why you brought up Civ spin-offs, because we haven't had one in 10 years.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Jason Schreier casts light on a recent trend in video game announcements

https://twitter.com/x/status/1664293250310520835

Games are announced further in advance to help recruit devs with the right interests and skillsets to the project

 

[AntSou]

As far as I can tell, there's nothing inherently wrong with Midnight Suns. That it seems to be doing so poorly comes as a bit of a surprise. Perhaps their market research should have been better? I have no interest in super heroes, so I'm delaying getting the game until it's really cheap, probably a few years from now. On the other hand, the super hero crowd is perhaps more into a different kind of game?

Maybe there's too much of an overlap between people who like tactical games and people who don't enjoy or are neutral towards super hero stuff. But that's me completely making stuff up. I did see a lot of negative comments from marvel fans about the gameplay involving playing cards and being turn based, which from my perspective are the two strongest selling points.

My point is, sometimes relationships exist that aren't at all clear at a superficial level. Though I'd assume a company like 2k has a strong data analysis team.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

As far as I can tell, there's nothing inherently wrong with Midnight Suns. That it seems to be doing so poorly comes as a bit of a surprise. Perhaps their market research should have been better? I have no interest in super heroes, so I'm delaying getting the game until it's really cheap, probably a few years from now. On the other hand, the super hero crowd is perhaps more into a different kind of game?

Maybe there's too much of an overlap between people who like tactical games and people who don't enjoy or are neutral towards super hero stuff. But that's me completely making stuff up. I did see a lot of negative comments from marvel fans about the gameplay involving playing cards and being turn based, which from my perspective are the two strongest selling points.

My point is, sometimes relationships exist that aren't at all clear at a superficial level. Though I'd assume a company like 2k has a strong data analysis team.

I think you’re assumptions are correct - I’m no expert - but I’d assume the super hero crowd would have preferred an action game over a strategy game - but again that’s just a very base level assumption on my part.

I’m not particularly interested in the game specifically because it’s marvel themed and I’ve never cared much for marvel or DC.

On the other hand - Warhammer 40K released an XCOM like game and I purchased it.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

On the other hand, the super hero crowd is perhaps more into a different kind of game?

I suspect that's a big part of it. They also got a lot of flack from the tactical turn-based fans for the card system. Not that it's inherently a bad system, just not popular with those players. So, I'd speculate that they managed to lose appeal with both groups that they hoped to sell to.

 

[tedhebert]

As far as I can tell, there's nothing inherently wrong with Midnight Suns. That it seems to be doing so poorly comes as a bit of a surprise. Perhaps their market research should have been better? I have no interest in super heroes, so I'm delaying getting the game until it's really cheap, probably a few years from now. On the other hand, the super hero crowd is perhaps more into a different kind of game?

Maybe there's too much of an overlap between people who like tactical games and people who don't enjoy or are neutral towards super hero stuff. But that's me completely making stuff up. I did see a lot of negative comments from marvel fans about the gameplay involving playing cards and being turn based, which from my perspective are the two strongest selling points.

My point is, sometimes relationships exist that aren't at all clear at a superficial level. Though I'd assume a company like 2k has a strong data analysis team.

I think you’re assumptions are correct - I’m no expert - but I’d assume the super hero crowd would have preferred an action game over a strategy game - but again that’s just a very base level assumption on my part.

I’m not particularly interested in the game specifically because it’s marvel themed and I’ve never cared much for marvel or DC.

On the other hand - Warhammer 40K released an XCOM like game and I purchased it.

I suspect that's a big part of it. They also got a lot of flack from the tactical turn-based fans for the card system. Not that it's inherently a bad system, just not popular with those players. So, I'd speculate that they managed to lose appeal with both groups that they hoped to sell to.

All true imo...

Midnight suns is a pretty good game imho... As mentioned here, there probably just wasn't all that good a fit between market and game style... I certainly don't consider myself as a standard consumer in loving Marvel stories and heroes AND RPG style card-based games AND X-com like tactical playing field

 

[AntSou]

I certainly don't consider myself as a standard consumer in loving Marvel stories and heroes AND RPG style card-based games AND X-com like tactical playing field

All those "AND" reminds me of filtering information from a database and suddenly ending up with two observations out of a thousand

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

To step back from the world of game design for a moment, note that in any commercial sphere, nobody sets out to make something that nobody wants. And yet, time after time, companies spend vats of money making products ranging from cars (Edsel, anyone?) to games that, it turns out, were unwanted by the great majority of their supposed customers.

Having been associated with game design (board and miniatures, a much more intimate/'down-scale' market than computer games) I can say from experience that in the field of creative endeavor, from game design to movies, market research is frequently an after-thought to reinforce what the creative designer (movie director or game designer) have already determined they want to do. And so someone produces a board game on the Gran Chaco War and wonders why nobody but the game designer likes it and on a much larger financial scale EVERY YEAR companies produce movies that make audiences look at each other and say "What were they thinking? Didn't anyone notice that they were making a piece of crap?"

Well, no, they didn't, because they were all invested in it and quite simply didn't see what they were really producing in the end.
Computer games, that are both a creative endeavor and a massive financial endeavor, suffer from having a foot in both worlds: the creative people can always delude themselves that everyone is as interested in what they are producing as they are, and the financial types have to go strictly by statistics of What Sells because, frankly, they have little creativity and less understanding of what the creative people are talking about.

And so, all too frequently, we get games like Civ VI, that is a tremendous commercial success but utterly unplayable as a game, full of nifty systems that don't work together at all, and an AI that is only slightly competitive and so reduces the 'game' to an exercise in manipulating clunky systems.

 

[Kwami]

And so, all too frequently, we get games like Civ VI, that is a tremendous commercial success but utterly unplayable as a game, full of nifty systems that don't work together at all, and an AI that is only slightly competitive and so reduces the 'game' to an exercise in manipulating clunky systems.

Yes, it's such an unplayable game that many of the users here have hundreds or thousands of hours of playtime with it. I mean, come on. Maybe you don't like the game, but it should be obvious that many other people do.

Also, Midnight Suns was a great game. Maybe it didn't appeal to a large audience because of the theming, but it was actually a very well-made game and it was a lot of fun to play. Oh, well.

 

[Virdrago]

Yes, it's such an unplayable game that many of the users here have hundreds or thousands of hours of playtime with it. I mean, come on. Maybe you don't like the game, but it should be obvious that many other people do.

Also, Midnight Suns was a great game. Maybe it didn't appeal to a large audience because of the theming, but it was actually a very well-made game and it was a lot of fun to play. Oh, well.

I've played thousands of hours of civ 6. I like the game's ideas, but I hate the uncompetitive AI and the systems that don't fit. Religion sucks to start, and certain civs being pigeonholed into "only can win with war Zulu, never can declare war Canada, only science win Korea, no religion Kongo" isn't immersive. Consistently doing well on Immortal with no issues when I couldn't normally beat Emperor from Civ 1 to 5 can be boring. GDR's (which are scientifically impossible) and rock bands which I can't shut the music off of for the win. Ugh. I've finished 6 games in 7 years, mainly because clicking "next turn" for 3 straight eras to the finish is a waste of time.

After the Medieval/Industrial when the whole world is known, it gets boring and I restart. None of the new "fixings" helped that. There's still no such thing as naval warfare, airplanes are barely used by the AI, and some of the newest leaders have mostly super OP abilities that make some of the old leaders redundant. The AI doesn't care if you're killing the rest of the continent, as long as it isn't them, they'll blissfully ignore the genocide, until it's their turn. I love the first few eras of Xpand, Xplore, and early wars. The various UU/UB abilities are flavourful. The rest is a mishmash of good to great ideas that weren't implemented well. I still play, but Civ 6 is a sandbox to me, not immersive fun.

So yes, civ 6 is unplayable for a lot of people. It's a great game to start, then comes the middle and end. Though I love most of the concepts, I hate the Spore-like sandbox on lower difficulties and the "only play one way - war until you're ahead" on higher difficulties. There is no in-between.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yes, it's such an unplayable game that many of the users here have hundreds or thousands of hours of playtime with it. I mean, come on. Maybe you don't like the game, but it should be obvious that many other people do.

Also, Midnight Suns was a great game. Maybe it didn't appeal to a large audience because of the theming, but it was actually a very well-made game and it was a lot of fun to play. Oh, well.

I have over 4000 hours in Civ VI, 7000 in Civ V, have been playing the Civ Franchise for over 25 years.

I never said I didn't like the game - I said it was unplayable, and @Virdrago above detailed many of the specific reasons why I also believe that is so.

And Midnight Suns may have been a 'great game' and 'fun to play' but unless it engages its audience, it is a Failed Game from both a creative and commercial standpoint. That's all I can say about that title, because the Marvel Universe failed to engage me from its beginnings in comic books, so MS was never even worth my consideration.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I have over 4000 hours in Civ VI
...
I said it was unplayable

 

[Kwami]

I have over 4000 hours in Civ VI, 7000 in Civ V, have been playing the Civ Franchise for over 25 years.

I never said I didn't like the game - I said it was unplayable, and @Virdrago above detailed many of the specific reasons why I also believe that is so.

And Midnight Suns may have been a 'great game' and 'fun to play' but unless it engages its audience, it is a Failed Game from both a creative and commercial standpoint. That's all I can say about that title, because the Marvel Universe failed to engage me from its beginnings in comic books, so MS was never even worth my consideration.

So, you've played it for 4000 hours, but it's utterly unplayable. That uh... doesn't make sense?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

The man has 7000 hours in Civilization V. By his standards 4000 hours is just warming up and getting a feel of the game.

 

[pokiehl]

The harsh criticism leveled at Civ in this forum (ostensibly filled with civ fanatics rather than casual fans) is great proof of the old maxim: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Even evaluating my own feelings, this seems true. The issues driving me away from Civ 6 are admittedly mostly specific nitpicks that I’d scarcely notice were I a more casual fan.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The harsh criticism leveled at Civ in this forum (ostensibly filled with civ fanatics rather than casual fans) is great proof of the old maxim: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Even evaluating my own feelings, this seems true. The issues driving me away from Civ 6 are admittedly mostly specific nitpicks that I’d scarcely notice were I a more casual fan.

There's that, but fans also criticize what they love. Usually, from a desire to see it improved.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

So, you've played it for 4000 hours, but it's utterly unplayable. That uh... doesn't make sense?

The game has been out for 4 years. In the past year I have played less than 10 hours of Civ VI, because it has become unplayable. A mass of mechanics and systems that flatly do not complement each other, and frequently degrade the basic systems in the game until they don't work at all as intended (or at least, as they played earlier).

Civ VI is a game that should have been either left alone over a year ago, or should have gotten much more care in the tinkering they did to it. NFP and everything since have done it no favors, IMHO.