Simplification?

[Celevin]

I'll give a few examples, from what I know so far:
-Transport ships are no longer needed
-Smaller total number of military units is very, very likely

Transport ships make no sense in the 1upt system. We can all agree the 1upt system is much more complex, as it takes up a lot more tiles with a lot more decision making. Transported troops are more vunerable, resulting in a larger need for "war ships". Ship combat, and transportation is more complex as a result.

10000 troops VS 100 troops has the same level of complexity. The complexity comes in how you use them.

-Master sliders are now gone

This results in gold, science and culture being separate currencies rather than one single currency. This is more complex, as culture can only buy policies and gold is used for things other than science.

-Tech tree split up between civics and techs, resulting in smaller tech tree

It being split makes it more complex and less streamlined. Now you need to manage both what tech you want to research, and what policy you're gunning after, and need to manage two separate currencies for them. Moreover, what policies you can gun for are determined partially by your science, meaning you need to time both.

Policies will take a lot of thought. Civics were just bonuses for researching techs.

Smaller does not mean "less complex", or "more streamlined". It might just take out redundant decision making, for example.

-Religion subsystem is gone
-Espionage subsystem is likely gone

Did these really add much? Espionage you could completely ignore in a game, and it hardly affected you. And the Great Wall wonder meant you either had average espionage, or OH MY GOD I CAN SEE EVERYTHING godly espionage. It added almost nothing. Some strats tried to revolve around espionage, but they weren't nearly as good as the basic one which is to ignore it.

Religion's the same case. It dominated relations so much that it took away complexity by making everything else hardly matter. If you had a religion, it was a no brainer to spread it and take advantage of the multiple bonuses. I've never had to sit back and actually think of what to do concerning anything with religion.

-Multiple leaders and combo-powers replaced by explicit per-nation powers

I don't see how this is less complex. There are more abilities to take into consideration.
Moreover, the current leader abilities seem to less dictate playstyle compared to bonuses. The entire "play the map" concept was diluted by traits such as aggressive, and philosophical. If anything those traits streamlined gameplay by dictating how you should play. I'm glad they're gone.

-Tech trading will no longer be a factor in research priorities

It's been replaced by a new system, though I admit the new research team-up isn't that complex. Moreover it, like religion, just dominated all diplomacy. It made little sense and had absolutely no place in any type of multiplayer match-up. It also gave the players a significant advantage over the coms. There was no brainer decisions to be made with tech trading enabled. It was a dumb, dumb system.

-Border pop system replaced by more direct, empire wide means of acquiring tiles

This is more complex. Not only do you have to control which tile you're going to purchase through a currency with other uses, thus making choices, but it takes a long long time to reach the max number of tiles, resulting in a hard choice for city placements. This is the opposite of streamlined.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Yep, removing the slider is probably best used as an example of reversing the streamlining of the game, not increasing the streamlining! How much easier can managing your whole economy get than by 2 or 3 sliders? (Yes I know that with specialists in civ4 it's a bit more complicated than that but you get the point)

@ Celevin,
I justed wanted to say that the Espionage Economy in civ4bts was one of the most effective at higher levels (maybe not at Deity but then so is almost every strategy not effective at Deity). The problem was it was extremely tedious, and it didn't scale well with difficulty - being almost useless at lower difficulties, especially Noble and below.

I never did think the Espionage system was done well with BtS. It's why I made a mod that removed it from BtS (actually, technically it was a mod that tried to fix the No Espionage version of the game - a slightly different purpose), though admittedly I have hardly ever used it myself. It's easier to just ignore Espionage during the game than it is to actively remove it from the game. The Espionage system is the prime example (IMO) of the most unstreamlined feature of civ. Apart from the passive espionage bonuses it was micromanagement hell, even worse than micromanaging workers and forest chopping. It's also an excellent example of a feature that sounds great in theory (and I bet lots of people really looked forward to it!) but was held back from being very fun because not enough thought was given to how it was handled by the UI.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Yep, removing the slider is probably best used as an example of reversing the streamlining of the game, not increasing the streamlining! How much easier can managing your whole economy get than by 2 or 3 sliders? (Yes I know that with specialists in civ4 it's a bit more complicated than that but you get the point)

I disagree. I think it is far more direct to simply set cities up to do whatever it is they do without the slider system. What you are describing would be more akin to having a slider set for *each* city. Rather, the *entire* concept is gone. A hex/building will produce some quantity of science, culture, money, etc. It won't produce a commerce layer which is then converted. This is actually drastically less complex.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Transport ships make no sense in the 1upt system. We can all agree the 1upt system is much more complex, as it takes up a lot more tiles with a lot more decision making. Transported troops are more vunerable, resulting in a larger need for "war ships". Ship combat, and transportation is more complex as a result

It is a serious flaw in Civ4 that you can just run around with loaded transports that defended themselves from all but a determined attack. This is streamlined conceptually even if it's worse/about the same as far as clicking through fluff.

10000 troops VS 100 troops has the same level of complexity. The complexity comes in how you use them.

Fighting a giant blob best defender style can be quite complex if you want exact victory odds.

This results in gold, science and culture being separate currencies rather than one single currency. This is more complex, as culture can only buy policies and gold is used for things other than science.

The intermediate commerce layer was more complex than merely having three separate currencies from the floor up. It will remove the need to fiddle with the sliders every few turns.

It being split makes it more complex and less streamlined. Now you need to manage both what tech you want to research, and what policy you're gunning after, and need to manage two separate currencies for them. Moreover, what policies you can gun for are determined partially by your science, meaning you need to time both.

Perhaps I am wrong in this case. The new civic system sounds fun regardless, but it may be a significant source of complexity after all. Hopefully it is good, meaningful complexity.

Policies will take a lot of thought. Civics were just bonuses for researching techs.

Smaller does not mean "less complex", or "more streamlined". It might just take out redundant decision making, for example.

I suppose I agree, but I think we're debating the meaning of words here. I consider things like removing the need to grab a unit and shove it on a transport to be streamlining.

Did these really add much? Espionage you could completely ignore in a game, and it hardly affected you. And the Great Wall wonder meant you either had average espionage, or OH MY GOD I CAN SEE EVERYTHING godly espionage. It added almost nothing. Some strats tried to revolve around espionage, but they weren't nearly as good as the basic one which is to ignore it.

Precisely, which is why they are wise to get rid of them altogether.

Religion's the same case. It dominated relations so much that it took away complexity by making everything else hardly matter. If you had a religion, it was a no brainer to spread it and take advantage of the multiple bonuses. I've never had to sit back and actually think of what to do concerning anything with religion.

Yeah, as neat as it seemed the religion system was pretty hosed in Civ4.

I don't see how this is less complex. There are more abilities to take into consideration.
Moreover, the current leader abilities seem to less dictate playstyle compared to bonuses. The entire "play the map" concept was diluted by traits such as aggressive, and philosophical. If anything those traits streamlined gameplay by dictating how you should play. I'm glad they're gone.

I actually hope much the same for the new traits. I hope they are a bit lighter touch. The Civ you choose needs to play somewhat differently, but not Terran vs Zerg levels of altered gameplay.

It's been replaced by a new system, though I admit the new research team-up isn't that complex. Moreover it, like religion, just dominated all diplomacy. It made little sense and had absolutely no place in any type of multiplayer match-up. It also gave the players a significant advantage over the coms. There was no brainer decisions to be made with tech trading enabled. It was a dumb, dumb system.

Call it a hunch, but I think the research team-up will be a lot less of a no-brainer.

This is more complex. Not only do you have to control which tile you're going to purchase through a currency with other uses, thus making choices, but it takes a long long time to reach the max number of tiles, resulting in a hard choice for city placements. This is the opposite of streamlined.

It may be more "complex" in one sense, but it seems bolder and less "fluffy" somehow. I prefer the idea of dictating my borders to the weird round mush you get in the current game.

 

[Earthling]

I wouldn't say conquest is easier or simpler, just less tedious. In Civ4 there might be an odd case where a civ might still put up a fight after you have captured its capital (and everything between the border and that capital), but not many. It solves one of the problems with Civ4, which is that you often have to play on a long time to formally win a won game.

This is not really true, and I don't think people here either have experience or realize at all the situation with a capital-based conquest victory. It will lead to extreme abuse of players being able to declare war on all AIs and in a blitz of a couple of turns, take every capital, without otherwise being even close to a victory.

I justed wanted to say that the Espionage Economy in civ4bts was one of the most effective at higher levels (maybe not at Deity but then so is almost every strategy not effective at Deity). The problem was it was extremely tedious, and it didn't scale well with difficulty - being almost useless at lower difficulties, especially Noble and below.

I'm not sure the player has much familiarity with high-level play at all, given other comments about religions always being easy to found and never worrying about relations with the AI for that or other reasons.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I disagree. I think it is far more direct to simply set cities up to do whatever it is they do without the slider system. What you are describing would be more akin to having a slider set for *each* city. Rather, the *entire* concept is gone. A hex/building will produce some quantity of science, culture, money, etc. It won't produce a commerce layer which is then converted. This is actually drastically less complex.

I can switch my economy from putting all its commerce 100% into science to 100% into gold/wealth with 1 click of the mouse! If you are going to try to convince me that having to build individual buildings or individual improvements for each commerce type is a more streamlined way to manage your economy then I can assure you we are going to have to agree to disagree right now. I am simply on a different planet to you.

I concede that we are forming opinions off of not much hard info yet, but we clearly disagree on the whole concept of the slider. I'll just remind you by the way that CivRev didn't have a slider and it was quite tedious to have to go through each city switching emphasis from beakers to gold and vice versa all the time.

Please note as well that I'm not making a complaint here. I'm happy to see how the system works in civ5 and then decide for myself whether I like it or not. I'm disagreeing with you on the whole point of a slider's design. I don't demand that everything in civ5 has to be streamlined and not everything that's streamlined is necessarily better.

I'm not sure the player has much familiarity with high-level play at all, given other comments about religions always being easy to found and never worrying about relations with the AI for that or other reasons.

I do confess, I didn't read his/her entire post.

On this point:

I wouldn't say conquest is easier or simpler, just less tedious. In Civ4 there might be an odd case where a civ might still put up a fight after you have captured its capital (and everything between the border and that capital), but not many. It solves one of the problems with Civ4, which is that you often have to play on a long time to formally win a won game.

Much as I hate to admit it, I think they'll go down the civ rev route of adding an extra defense bonus to the capital. This would make it difficult to blitz through an AI and take only their capital. Plus, I'd imagine they'll make it a feature of the AI that they will put more effort into defending their capital at all costs when under threat, especially if a rival is already approaching a Domination victory.

 

[bjbrains]

This is not really true, and I don't think people here either have experience or realize at all the situation with a capital-based conquest victory. It will lead to extreme abuse of players being able to declare war on all AIs and in a blitz of a couple of turns, take every capital, without otherwise being even close to a victory.

That might be possible with SoDs, but with 1upt, it would take an incredible production/unit advantage to 'blitz' every other AI with units and take/hold their capitals, since you can't just stroll your armies right into their cities. If you can pull *that* off, then you deserve to win.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I'm not sure the player has much familiarity with high-level play at all, given other comments about religions always being easy to found and never worrying about relations with the AI for that or other reasons.

I must confess that I have done very little with espionage, but I don't think this comment was directed at me at any rate.

 

[Celevin]

This is not really true, and I don't think people here either have experience or realize at all the situation with a capital-based conquest victory. It will lead to extreme abuse of players being able to declare war on all AIs and in a blitz of a couple of turns, take every capital, without otherwise being even close to a victory.

I'd like to see that kind of coordination.

I'm not sure the player has much familiarity with high-level play at all, given other comments about religions always being easy to found and never worrying about relations with the AI for that or other reasons.

What's considered a high enough difficulty or level of play in order to be allowed to argue with you?

 

[bjbrains]

I'll just remind you by the way that CivRev didn't have a slider and it was quite tedious to have to go through each city switching emphasis from beakers to gold and vice versa all the time.

Well, you won't be having to do that since gold and science are no longer tied in any way (beyond research treaties). I doubt it'll be that much 'tedious micromanagement' since science is based on population (with buildings/specialists), while gold is gathered from tiles.

 

[Earthling]

If the fans had their way Civ5 would be an unplayable mess with even more dubious and rarely-used features. I am glad they will not get their way.

I am not sure who you are even trying to refer to anymore about moarists. It mostly seems to fit the description of various MMORPG or console games or something, I don't know. Anyway, you do not seem to be referring to players who know how to play the game at high levels and with an actual sense of game design and enjoyment and history of playing strategy games in depth

But if the majority of people here and in general had their way, civilization 5 would DEFINITELY be CivRev on the PC, or maybe an RTS game.

That might be possible with SoDs, but with 1upt, it would take an incredible production/unit advantage to 'blitz' every other AI with units and take/hold their capitals, since you can't just stroll your armies right into their cities. If you can pull *that* off, then you deserve to win.

People will pull that off in like the first week of release, on a default difficulty level, and probably higher. Really, have any of you all seen CivRev or a simillar system in action, the "capitol" thing is probably one of the worst features I can name by far.

And PieceofMind - I agree with you entirely. Civ 5's system of research/gold/etc... may not be bad, but the civ 4 slider is far more streamlined and easy to understand, I see no way around that at all. I really don't even know what to make anymore, because arguments get so inconsistent, different people always claiming different things. Just about everything single thing I've seen people say it's extremely simple and streamlined, so it's great, or it's incredibly detailed and complex, so it's great (talking about the same thing). And almost never do they agree with what I think a reasonable assessment of the feature actually is.

What's considered a high enough difficulty or level of play

I'm going to be honest here, and say that, non-experienced-programmer, players who haven't won say, non-gimmicky Emperor or Immortal level games, probably have no clue how many people play and enjoy civilization games at all levels. That's all right, and you can enjoy the game whatever way you play, but I can openly say I do not give a lot of weight to uniformed opinions on various features. If someone suggests that they ignore almost everything to do with the AI and bonuses, just to enjoy warfare and attacking, or something equivalent with other gameplay mechanics, I do not consider that a sound argument for or against those mechanics - a player saying to just get rid of something he never uses or doesn't understand, I will not take as good evidence.

 

[bjbrains]

I am not sure who you are even trying to refer to anymore about moarists. It mostly seems to fit the description of various MMORPG or console games or something, I don't know. Anyway, you do not seem to be referring to players who know how to play the game at high levels and with an actual sense of game design and enjoyment and history of playing strategy games in depth

But if the majority of people here and in general had their way, civilization 5 would DEFINITELY be CivRev on the PC, or maybe an RTS game.



People will pull that off in like the first week of release, on a default difficulty level, and probably higher. Really, have any of you all seen CivRev or a simillar system in action, the "capitol" thing is probably one of the worst features I can name by far.

I already explained why 1UPT makes this much more difficult to almost impossible. Civ rev was *NOT* 1UPT, so bringing it up isn't relevant.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I am not sure who you are even trying to refer to anymore about moarists. It mostly seems to fit the description of various MMORPG or console games or something, I don't know. Anyway, you do not seem to be referring to players who know how to play the game at high levels and with an actual sense of game design and enjoyment and history of playing strategy games in depth.

A moarist is any player who wants MOAR(the internet silly spelling of more, obviously.) I mean people who think Civ4 would have been greatly improved if it had 9 different kinds of road, 64 kinds of bronze age infantry, and tracked the phases of the moon.

You are correct that I am generally not referring to experts or people who deeply appreciate the game.

But if the majority of people here and in general had their way, civilization 5 would DEFINITELY be CivRev on the PC, or maybe an RTS game.

I certainly wouldn't want to see either of those.

And PieceofMind - I agree with you entirely. Civ 5's system of research/gold/etc... may not be bad, but the civ 4 slider is far more streamlined and easy to understand, I see no way around that at all. I really don't even know what to make anymore, because arguments get so inconsistent, different people always claiming different things. Just about everything single thing I've seen people say it's extremely simple and streamlined, so it's great, or it's incredibly detailed and complex, so it's great (talking about the same thing). And almost never do they agree with what I think a reasonable assessment of the feature actually is.

Perhaps I am overusing or misusing streamlined. What I am referring to may be better referred to as a "cleaner" mechanic. The slider isn't a very clean mechanic, if I may humbly say so. It forces an empire wide decision in a lot of cases where local ones would make more sense. Of course, the slider *is* a core part of the strategy... in Civ4... but I would argue that it is not necessarily key to the Civ experience as a whole. I think I'll prefer not having it, but I was probably incorrect to refer to it as an issue of streamlining.

I'm going to be honest here, and say that, non-experienced-programmer, players who haven't won say, non-gimmicky Emperor or Immortal level games, probably have no clue how many people play and enjoy civilization games at all levels. That's all right, and you can enjoy the game whatever way you play, but I can openly say I do not give a lot of weight to uniformed opinions on various features. If someone suggests that they ignore almost everything to do with the AI and bonuses, just to enjoy warfare and attacking, or something equivalent with other gameplay mechanics, I do not consider that a sound argument for or against those mechanics - a player saying to just get rid of something he never uses or doesn't understand, I will not take as good evidence.

You're free to do so, and I wouldn't blame you. I won't bother mentioning my Civ4 accomplishments, but suffice to say that I am aware the game can play radically differently at different difficulty levels. (I am certainly not some kind of super great player.)

 

[Earthling]

I really don't mean to be condescending there, and I'll back up and say the number one thing about that, is the AI, which is what I really had in mind for "understanding the game" (as most of the discussion I was thinking of was people talking about the AI). Somebody who says "Nah, the AI will do this and this cause it does it so hard at Noble" I'd almost rather not respond to, but I will still try to give what I think is a better informed view.

Again, arguing with details or an understanding of the civ4/3/other game systems is fine. And someone who has clear experience or programming knowledge, regardless of particular preferences in civ games, I'll respect their expert views too, on what is reasonable and feasible and fun. But you can't make an AI good at something just by saying you think the AI will do it, and moreover, people saying the AI does or doesn't do stuff in civ4/previous versions, when various sources on this forum actually know the correct answers for civ4/previous versions, is tough. Arguments in principle, like an argument for how you think the AI should play the game (roleplaying or whatever) is fine, and arguments where people actually know how the system works in civ4 or what specifics are applicable, that's great.

 

[Disgustipated]

I am personally really confounded that people think this game is simpler than Civ4. I just don't get it. They are concentrating on features that are missing rather than the whole.

I really hope I'm proving wrong. I still say the devs should release more info to set our minds at ease. Holding everything back until release date seems fishy to me.

 

[bjbrains]

I really hope I'm proving wrong. I still say the devs should release more info to set our minds at ease. Holding everything back until release date seems fishy to me.

Who said they're "holding everything back until release date"? A better explanation is that the next month has two of the biggest gaming conventions (gamescom and PAX prime). It's the usual in marketing, and I'm sure we'll know enough in two months.

 

[AriochIV]

They have eliminated a fair number of "features" compared to BtS, but for the most part they have clear reasons for doing so, and in most cases, I think it's a clear improvement. I think most people agreed that features like religion, corporations and espionage were poorly implemented in Civ IV, even if they had fun elements. Changes such as the elimination of switching civics or removal of gold/research sliders aren't about "accessibility" but rather about removing features that nobody used or that everyone used the same way. Everyone kept the research value at the max they could afford, and nearly everyone chose the same civics (or switched between Organized Religion and Theocracy at times of peace and war, respectively), so what's the point of a "feature" that doesn't provide any real choices?

I'm not being a Pollyanna here... we won't know how all these choices distill into a playable or unplayable game until we actually play it. All I'm saying is that the choices they're making for Civ V (and the rationales for them) make sense to me at this point. The complexity looks like it's still there, just without some of the less interesting buttons that have to be pushed every turn.

 

[12agnar0k]

so what's the point of a "feature" that doesn't provide any real choices?

Precisely, I don't know why people are trying to categorise a decision into "simplification or complexification" what if its niether.

For example, the slider, this gave the user practically no choice, you simply held it at near enough full science all the time, this made producing gold a "secondary purpose" which really limited the effect gold has on the game. Now with more options for gold put into the game and the slider removed so we no longer covert all gold into science, gold becomes far more important to the game, and science is created by other means.

Why should this be either simplfication or not, Personally I think it adds more depth to the game, more purpose to gold, and less reliance on gold for science, which is the opposite to simplification. But Simplfication or the reverse was not the "goal" of this mechanics change, infact none of the changes to the game are about making it simpler, civ5 seems to have as much depth as civ4 or atleast a decent amount, and it has removed some of the less appealing mechanics of civ4 too. The one goal that is related to simplification was streamlining the UI, so that new players wouldnt be over burdend with information, instead it is contained in tool tips and drop down bars and frees up lots of UI space to make the game more astetically pleasing rather than overloading you with facts and figures, its worth mentioning though, if for some reason you are against making your game prettier and easier to the eye, you can on the options menu, change to a UI more like civ4 where all the information possible is displayed at all times rather than simply what you need.

...

So please stop saying the game is being simplified, it really isn't, a few mechanics that didn't work very well have been either removed or replaced, mostly they are replaced and not removed. So the depth will still exist, just the information is different than that of what came before and afterall this is what we want from the sequels no?

Also anyone who thinks this game will be anything like CivRev is delusional, it has more in common with civ4. Though some features from CivRev have made thier way to Civ5, as it should be too, features that work and are interesting will carry over to sequels. Such as "a more elegant UI", "Domination Capital Victory", "Gold has more importance", to name a few. But they are implemented not to make the game simple, anything learnt and brought from CivRev is being implemented to keep Civ5 fresh and alive but not in a way that compromises its overall complexity.

 

[TijBonaparte]

I'm very sad about the «simplification» no more civic and a lot of cool thing remove. It ok to change the games but there simplification is not good for me. I like a little challenge and micromanagement.

It could be nice to instal some law and reel gouvernement. In galatic civilisation you have reel gouvernement and reel decision.

 

[lietkynes]

They have eliminated a fair number of "features" compared to BtS, but for the most part they have clear reasons for doing so, and in most cases, I think it's a clear improvement. I think most people agreed that features like religion, corporations and espionage were poorly implemented in Civ IV, even if they had fun elements. Changes such as the elimination of switching civics or removal of gold/research sliders aren't about "accessibility" but rather about removing features that nobody used or that everyone used the same way. Everyone kept the research value at the max they could afford, and nearly everyone chose the same civics (or switched between Organized Religion and Theocracy at times of peace and war, respectively), so what's the point of a "feature" that doesn't provide any real choices?

I'm not being a Pollyanna here... we won't know how all these choices distill into a playable or unplayable game until we actually play it. All I'm saying is that the choices they're making for Civ V (and the rationales for them) make sense to me at this point. The complexity looks like it's still there, just without some of the less interesting buttons that have to be pushed every turn.

This.

Everything that I read until now makes a lot of sense. And I can't really complain about them removing all the Civ4 poorly implemented features like gold/science slider, espionnage or corporations.

Culture was also a bit meh in Civ4, rushing libraries and theatres in border cities to avoid flipping was weird.