gcm4738
Senator from Abyssinia
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In Civ V, the game shifted to being a tactical game within a set of largely pre-planned strategies. Earn your next badge along the path you chose this time. Choose vertical or horizontal. Choose your civics strategy. Now follow the path, and execute it tactically in a fairly obvious manner. The dominating strategies disappeared, but now the common complaints are about the rules being restrictive in play-style (1UPT, defined policy trees, etc) -- that's quite a state change for Civ.
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I clipped your post to this bit - but I agree with the whole thing. Expressed my feelings exactly. It was a hard thing to capture what was lost in the move to V but this post does it beautifully.
For me, maybe I'm optimistic to the point of being a deluded pollyanna but even if game design for $ these days will not allow a major title like civ to open things up to the point where players can either fail miserably or dominate spectacularly - maybe because it'll be a happier, safer experience for most of the people, or maybe because it's too risky that certain mechanics will be unbalanced or abusable until a year after release - I'm still hopeful that there will be some elements in VI that will make the experience interesting "one more turn-ey". In any case, due to my love of the Civ series overall I'll take the approach that I will play it from day 1 on its own merits without regard to what I liked or disliked about IV or V.
But like I say... maybe I'm being wilfully naive...