Reasoning behind divide among civ players
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lindsay40k
Emperor
There's much about cIV that winds me up. The shonky shift-click to pick out a specific unit from a stack. The slowness of large maps on my 6-year-old Dinomac. The lack of real mod support until I get round to wiping my HD and putting a Windows partition on it. The Barbarian uprising events. The archaic square tiles instead of hexes. The lack of sensible limits on how dense a population of soldiers you can have simply sitting on a hill in enemy territory with no supply lines. The weird tech design that let you develop Marxist theory before any factories exist, and disallow Classical era Republics if there's no Pyramids, and make Bronze Age weapons beat Iron Age weapons in a fight, and make the Kremlin irrelevant to a Bureaucratic Republic. The balance disparity between various UU's.
And yet a week doesn't go by without I dip a toe or dive right in. So much about ciV that's been stated repeatedly above makes it sound to me like a lowbrow mass-market game with historical flavour that's been stamped with the Civ franchise and thrown forth to sell units and bilk DLC. I have CivRev for a simple Civ game, and I'd rather keep micro in the city governance than the battlefield.
And yet a week doesn't go by without I dip a toe or dive right in. So much about ciV that's been stated repeatedly above makes it sound to me like a lowbrow mass-market game with historical flavour that's been stamped with the Civ franchise and thrown forth to sell units and bilk DLC. I have CivRev for a simple Civ game, and I'd rather keep micro in the city governance than the battlefield.
@lindsay40k, If shonky shift-click and general slowness are things that bother you, you might be interested to know that in K-Mod shift-click works in a much more intuitive and predictable way, and the game runs noticeably faster (particularly during the AI's turns).
lindsay40k
Emperor
Ooh, is that a Mac-compatible mod?
s.bernbaum
Mostly lurking
No. He has improved things by dipping into the programming and or dll, which is specific for the Windows version and won't work on a Mac.
No. Sorry. Mods like this are not possible on Mac, because (as far as I know) the Mac equivalent of gameCoreDLL.dll is not moddable. The dll is where the most fundamental parts of modding are done, and the dll just doesn't exist in the Mac version of civ4. Mods like this cannot be made Mac-compatible.
Karadoc, I'm waiting for you to hack the game engine itself. If anyone can do it, it's certainly you. 
Karadoc, I'm waiting for you to hack the game engine itself. If anyone can do it, it's certainly you.
Well, there's certainly some stuff worth changing in the engine; but I don't have the skills to do that.
The way to do it would be to disassemble the program and then edit the assembly code, but I don't speak that language. And even if I did, it would be extremely tedious to change anything but the most basic stuff, because it would take ages to work out what each bit of the code is meant to do, and changing anything could result in strange and unexpected bugs.
Also, one disadvantage to changing the .exe is that it wouldn't work as just a 'mod' anymore. ie. you couldn't just put the modded exe in a mod folder - you'd have to actually replace the original exe directly.
If someone provided the C++ code, then it would probably be worth fixing some stuff - but I think hacking it without the source code would just be too difficult for it to be worth while.
God-Emperor
Deity
It is also against the game's license. The "restrictions" sections includes at least two relevant things:
"(iii) you may not distribute a Modification that contains an executable file which has been changed or modified in any way".
and
"YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO REVERSE ENGINEER, DECOMPILE OR DISASSEMBLE THE SOFTWARE IN ANY WAY."
(In all caps, even. I doubt that makes it any less permitted than if it wasn't, but some nincompoops may have passed some law that specifically states the exact text that must be used in such a situation including the all upper case aspect.)
"(iii) you may not distribute a Modification that contains an executable file which has been changed or modified in any way".
and
"YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO REVERSE ENGINEER, DECOMPILE OR DISASSEMBLE THE SOFTWARE IN ANY WAY."
(In all caps, even. I doubt that makes it any less permitted than if it wasn't, but some nincompoops may have passed some law that specifically states the exact text that must be used in such a situation including the all upper case aspect.)
King Flevance
Deity
Overkill is what I see it as. Yes, stacks have always plagued Civ but resorting from infinite to 1UPT is insane and just goes to the other end of the spectrum and creates all the problems at that end. What they need is tile capacity, where each tile can hold X sea units, Y ground units, and Z espionage units with a high maintenance on espionage units and having Z be a high number.
Myself and a few others suggested this with 4 but it must have fallen on deaf ears.
Diplomacy, well it sucks in 5 compared to 4. 4 had a nice foundation that could be improved upon. Really that goes for the whole system in 4. With 4, they rebuilt the game from the ground up. One would think that they would use this as a new foundation for a couple sequels, but instead, it served no purpose as they decided to completely rebuild it again with 5; essentially "fixing" what wasn't broken. Although with the way the AI can't handle 5's rules, I would say they broke something they had just fixed.
I personally was turned off of how they went from an open source game which supported community around the game in favor of DLC. You can't make mods because they want to sell you mods.
The list honestly goes on. Overall they lost focus, simply put. Or shifted focus. Either way, the focus of the series isn't the same. Civ 4 took what Civ 1-3 was trying to accomplish and balled them into 1 thing that had room for improvement and ways it could be made even better. Civ 5 said "Nah, let's do this instead". I think that is why most long term Civ fans have 5 leave a bitter taste in their mouths. But it's just a guess based on my own views.
Myself and a few others suggested this with 4 but it must have fallen on deaf ears.
Diplomacy, well it sucks in 5 compared to 4. 4 had a nice foundation that could be improved upon. Really that goes for the whole system in 4. With 4, they rebuilt the game from the ground up. One would think that they would use this as a new foundation for a couple sequels, but instead, it served no purpose as they decided to completely rebuild it again with 5; essentially "fixing" what wasn't broken. Although with the way the AI can't handle 5's rules, I would say they broke something they had just fixed.
I personally was turned off of how they went from an open source game which supported community around the game in favor of DLC. You can't make mods because they want to sell you mods.
The list honestly goes on. Overall they lost focus, simply put. Or shifted focus. Either way, the focus of the series isn't the same. Civ 4 took what Civ 1-3 was trying to accomplish and balled them into 1 thing that had room for improvement and ways it could be made even better. Civ 5 said "Nah, let's do this instead". I think that is why most long term Civ fans have 5 leave a bitter taste in their mouths. But it's just a guess based on my own views.
Absolution
King
I liked Civ 4, but I agree with the above that there is a lot of downright weirdness in the design (I listed a few of these "immersion breakers" in another recent thread).
I resolved to hold back from buying Civ5 as I felt the series was becoming increasingly self-referential - it was trying to be the best version of Civ, rather than actually trying to be a good historical strategy game.
It looks like I was right. And this trend doesn't bode well for the future of the series.
Well, there's certainly some stuff worth changing in the engine; but I don't have the skills to do that.
The way to do it would be to disassemble the program and then edit the assembly code, but I don't speak that language. And even if I did, it would be extremely tedious to change anything but the most basic stuff, because it would take ages to work out what each bit of the code is meant to do, and changing anything could result in strange and unexpected bugs.
Also, one disadvantage to changing the .exe is that it wouldn't work as just a 'mod' anymore. ie. you couldn't just put the modded exe in a mod folder - you'd have to actually replace the original exe directly.
If someone provided the C++ code, then it would probably be worth fixing some stuff - but I think hacking it without the source code would just be too difficult for it to be worth while.
It was just meant as a general compliment. Lets not go talking about cracking anything as it's frowned upon by the mods, and I wasn't trying to start getting anyone in trouble.
God-Emperor
Deity
...she said, while trying to look cute and innocent.
My dislikes of CivV:
1> HUGE upgrade in equipment necessary to play. Even after upgrades to vid cards, maxing out memory, & turning off every other program necessary on a 64-bit, quad core AMD with 4 GB memory we can barely get it to run in slowest/dumbest settings.
2> The whole "Stream" thing = it's no one's business as to when we choose to play & some of us even like to unplug from the internet for privacy & security, What were they thinking (kickbacks?)?
It's a real shame they failed, because being an old board game player & realist, hex-based maps are SO much more realistic & interesting.
Good ol' Civ4 has a few drawbacks & as someone mentioned the AI doesn't do war very smart, but it SO many choices, paths, settings, & is downright educational. (witness recent Mansa Musa & Alpha Centurai findings... we Civ'ers already knew about them!)
PS: Anyone want to buy a barely used, 1st edition Civ5 boxed Gold set?
1> HUGE upgrade in equipment necessary to play. Even after upgrades to vid cards, maxing out memory, & turning off every other program necessary on a 64-bit, quad core AMD with 4 GB memory we can barely get it to run in slowest/dumbest settings.
2> The whole "Stream" thing = it's no one's business as to when we choose to play & some of us even like to unplug from the internet for privacy & security, What were they thinking (kickbacks?)?
It's a real shame they failed, because being an old board game player & realist, hex-based maps are SO much more realistic & interesting.
Good ol' Civ4 has a few drawbacks & as someone mentioned the AI doesn't do war very smart, but it SO many choices, paths, settings, & is downright educational. (witness recent Mansa Musa & Alpha Centurai findings... we Civ'ers already knew about them!)
PS: Anyone want to buy a barely used, 1st edition Civ5 boxed Gold set?
Doctor Phibes
Prince
Hi, just back to playing good ole Civ4 after a sojourn playing Paradox games and RPGs. And I have to say that it looks as fresh as ever. I do not intend to even install Civ5 on my new machine (though I am grateful to it for making me buy EU3) and I was one of those who pre-ordered it - the result was like getting a lump of coal in your Xmas stocking.
Well, I'm sure that these have been covered already, but here's just a few points in no special order:
1) I don't like to be patronised - it may be a computer game, but I'd like it to treat me as an adult, not a kidult. Civ5pedia is full of stuff like 'diplomacy is kewl, dood!!!' and 'this will earn you gobs of gold' (how much is a standard gob anyway?). The diplomacy is equally childish, but that's a whole subject in its own right. Compare with Civ4pedia, which - as @kenwyn has pointed out - is actually educational, and painlessly so. I'm not an ignoramus about history, but I confess I hadn't heard of Zara Yaqob till I played Civ4. Had heard of Mansa, but knew little. Some great further reading ensued.
2) Steam (nuff said).
3) Consolisation. Big clunky childish icons and a set of controls that are simply painful for a PC player - the number of clicks it takes to get the simplest thing done is appalling. (I guess some of this may be fixable with mods though, as it was with Bethesda's TES4:Oblivion).
4) The much touted graphics are, IMO, not in any way better than Civ4's. They lack dynamism, for one thing. I like being able to see that a mine is being worked, for example. Civ4 shows you this, among many other things, so the graphics are not just eye candy. And I think a Civ4 city looks a whole lot better than a Civ5 one when developed. And what about that Civ4 zoom out to show the whole planet? (The zoom thing is a whole issue in its own right, Civ4's has a seamless transition from orthogonal to flat map. With Civ5 you have to annoyingly flip to a rubbish-looking flat map.)
5) Deeply broken random incomprehensible garbage that Civ5 laughably calls diplomacy.
6) Most fundamental of all and utterly utterly unfixable without a complete game redesign - 1upt. For the AI player, the computational demands this makes are simply unmeetable - never mind figuring out tactics or (ha, ha!) grand strategy, ordinary traffic management (George Patten's great talent) is an enormous challenge. And, from the point of view of a human player, replacing the much-maligned SoD with a Carpet of Doom is less than no improvement IMO. All you've got is a clogged up map - the simple fact is that you need some form of stacking, even if it's temporary, just to solve the logistics/traffic issues. (As I always do, I'd cite poor old CTP2's solution as a reasonable way to limit stacks without creating too many mobility issues.)
7) City states. Awful mechanic. Feeding magic resources into gameplay from specially privileged mini-Civs is just wrong to my mind. But maybe that one is just me.
OK, tl;dr, and I've remembered a few more while typing, stopping there tho...
Finally, I would have cited things like the missing religion and espionage before G&K, but their reinvention is not going to get me playing again. 1upt alone is enough to keep me away.
Well, I'm sure that these have been covered already, but here's just a few points in no special order:
1) I don't like to be patronised - it may be a computer game, but I'd like it to treat me as an adult, not a kidult. Civ5pedia is full of stuff like 'diplomacy is kewl, dood!!!' and 'this will earn you gobs of gold' (how much is a standard gob anyway?). The diplomacy is equally childish, but that's a whole subject in its own right. Compare with Civ4pedia, which - as @kenwyn has pointed out - is actually educational, and painlessly so. I'm not an ignoramus about history, but I confess I hadn't heard of Zara Yaqob till I played Civ4. Had heard of Mansa, but knew little. Some great further reading ensued.
2) Steam (nuff said).
3) Consolisation. Big clunky childish icons and a set of controls that are simply painful for a PC player - the number of clicks it takes to get the simplest thing done is appalling. (I guess some of this may be fixable with mods though, as it was with Bethesda's TES4:Oblivion).
4) The much touted graphics are, IMO, not in any way better than Civ4's. They lack dynamism, for one thing. I like being able to see that a mine is being worked, for example. Civ4 shows you this, among many other things, so the graphics are not just eye candy. And I think a Civ4 city looks a whole lot better than a Civ5 one when developed. And what about that Civ4 zoom out to show the whole planet? (The zoom thing is a whole issue in its own right, Civ4's has a seamless transition from orthogonal to flat map. With Civ5 you have to annoyingly flip to a rubbish-looking flat map.)
5) Deeply broken random incomprehensible garbage that Civ5 laughably calls diplomacy.
6) Most fundamental of all and utterly utterly unfixable without a complete game redesign - 1upt. For the AI player, the computational demands this makes are simply unmeetable - never mind figuring out tactics or (ha, ha!) grand strategy, ordinary traffic management (George Patten's great talent) is an enormous challenge. And, from the point of view of a human player, replacing the much-maligned SoD with a Carpet of Doom is less than no improvement IMO. All you've got is a clogged up map - the simple fact is that you need some form of stacking, even if it's temporary, just to solve the logistics/traffic issues. (As I always do, I'd cite poor old CTP2's solution as a reasonable way to limit stacks without creating too many mobility issues.)
7) City states. Awful mechanic. Feeding magic resources into gameplay from specially privileged mini-Civs is just wrong to my mind. But maybe that one is just me.
OK, tl;dr, and I've remembered a few more while typing, stopping there tho...
Finally, I would have cited things like the missing religion and espionage before G&K, but their reinvention is not going to get me playing again. 1upt alone is enough to keep me away.
Osmowstroyer
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2012
- Messages
- 253
Reasons why I don't like CivV (but I play it, though civIV is better):
-No healthness: Seriously, why?
-Diplomacy: AI hate you
-No religion: it got fixed in G&K, but you need to BUY it.
-Mods: difficult
-Steam: perhaps the main reason (for me)
-Multiplayer: the same as above, a really small community and stupid civV players who only know bothering you
-Civ powers: it is a great concept (RFC?) but some civs are underpowered because of these.
-No healthness: Seriously, why?
-Diplomacy: AI hate you
-No religion: it got fixed in G&K, but you need to BUY it.
-Mods: difficult
-Steam: perhaps the main reason (for me)
-Multiplayer: the same as above, a really small community and stupid civV players who only know bothering you
-Civ powers: it is a great concept (RFC?) but some civs are underpowered because of these.
So do that. Steam doesn't stop you.
There's enough wrong with Steam that is actually real; there's no need to push this kind of FUD.
Fluffy_Rabbit
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2011
- Messages
- 99
I played CiV a few times having bought it asap. Shocking waste of money. Agree with most of the anti-CiV comments above.
IMO best thing about CIV is the mods - RFC, K-Mod and (my favorite) Dune Wars are all just incredibly good and so different from each other. Not sure how/when CiV will be able to compete with that
Good to see Karadoc active in this thread - K-mod is really awesomely good and yes you will get totally pwned by the AI
As for SoD v 1UPT, yes the SoD is kinda ridiculous and unrealistic. However within CIV the flanking attack makes a big difference, particularly for weakening or killing siege units. More simply having a big defensive stack of artillery usually does the trick of weakening the enemy SoD. 1UPT is even less realistic than SoD.
I once played a mod (cannot remember which) and it had a reverse promotion "overcrowding" or something where units were degraded when SoD was too big. Also in PIE's mods big stacks can simply revolt to barbs when too far from capital - lots of fun.
Also the CIV diplomacy is somewhat robotic however peace-mongers with good relations nonetheless DoW from time to time - it is not totally predictable. Random personalities helps here as well.
IMO best thing about CIV is the mods - RFC, K-Mod and (my favorite) Dune Wars are all just incredibly good and so different from each other. Not sure how/when CiV will be able to compete with that
Good to see Karadoc active in this thread - K-mod is really awesomely good and yes you will get totally pwned by the AI
As for SoD v 1UPT, yes the SoD is kinda ridiculous and unrealistic. However within CIV the flanking attack makes a big difference, particularly for weakening or killing siege units. More simply having a big defensive stack of artillery usually does the trick of weakening the enemy SoD. 1UPT is even less realistic than SoD.
I once played a mod (cannot remember which) and it had a reverse promotion "overcrowding" or something where units were degraded when SoD was too big. Also in PIE's mods big stacks can simply revolt to barbs when too far from capital - lots of fun.
Also the CIV diplomacy is somewhat robotic however peace-mongers with good relations nonetheless DoW from time to time - it is not totally predictable. Random personalities helps here as well.
