Some reasons why I have decided to stop playing this game.

I was thinking of BtS. Try to claim, with a straight face, that the experiences of a lot of seasoned players of Vanilla Civ IV and Warlords didn't go into the fashioning of it. I seem to remember that the game information specifically mentions that the AI is smarter. In addition to that, of course, the programmers and QA people were very experienced from devising other strategy games. And then there were the beta testers.

 

I think the OP complaint is relevant:

1) The fact that he purchased the game give him the right to complain about it near the developers or any community.

2) The fact that developers are awared of this site, could enlight them for Civ5 by such complains, that are not that rare if you look at it closer. That could help them to do a less complicated game by the future. That's, at least, what i would like.

3) Ultimatelly, this complain could help him to analyse what displeases him in the game, and maybe with the help of other members to get a solution of game that he could tolerate a little bit more the game as it is.

 

Well, like they suggested in polycast, fireaxis is listening to some of the pleas like in the OP, because they released Civ Rev, after all . I hear that's far simpler than civ IV, and geared toward a different audience.

If there are enough current or potential players like the OP I'm sure companies will serve them...that's how business is.

 

I wish I play to CivRev, unfortunately i don't have any PS360 and won't buy it exclusively for it. Buy the way, I have a DS... but my sister borrowed it to me, since such a long time that i could say she stole it to me!

 

I second that. IMO, civ V should be even more complex.

 

This is what I would be afraid of, the developers mistakenly thinking that this is the opinion of the majority of Civ fans and not just the opinion of a person who isn't a good fit for the game anyway. Civ IV is one of the best games I have ever played, and the OP's complaints are silly. It's like buying a cheeseburger and then complaining, "ugh...this has meat in it?? I hate meat. this is no good because of the meat."

 

As I already say earlier in this topic, I intimately think that Civ4 is a little bit too much unnatural, so I wouldn't throw over the board the OP opinion.

The major unnatural thing I can remember is new cities cost. I remember a game where i had a good number of cities, 70% research at -15 gold (with some gold stock), and when I planted a new city in an everagely good spot, it cost me -15 other gold, so i had to drastically lower my research rate only for this city. That seemed huge to me. I would like this kind of annoying thing to disappear in Civ5.

 

I don't agree. If you choose to remove that system then you would re-introduce the infinity city sprawl strategy that plagued the previous games. If there is no disincentive for building more cities, the optimal strategy will always be to build as many cities as possible. That is unless you introduce another game mechanic to help reduce city spam. Whether ICS is more realistic or not is of no concern to me; what does concern me is the quality of gameplay which basically revolves around how interesting the decisions are that one makes along the course of a game. If there was no cost to building new cities, the decision of whether or not to build a new city would become a simpler one, and less interesting.

In any case, reducing ICS helps to keep the game more interesting in the sense you get more out of smaller empires. Rather than just relying on brute force approach (huge empires and huge armies) like most strategy games tend to reduce to, Civ4 and BtS prevent that at the outset and a fine equilibrium must be achieved. Admittedly this obviously ups the learning curve for new players but it would only take only take a few comments in a tutorial (or a better game manual!) to let the player know he/she cannot simply spread cities everywhere with no cost.

For more beginners to be able to get into the game, it's not a simpler game we need - it's better documentation and tutorials. If to have a basic question answered about game rules means one has to come to civfanatics or another fansite, and not just look up in the manual or civilopedia, then something's wrong.

 

I don't think infinite city sprawl is banned from Civ4. Just see what is doing the AI. I play in Emperor, and most games AIs have tons of cities, much more than myself. As to the player (me ), he can still infinite city sprawls, but that a tougher story.

And I don't think those city costs are visible enough; they are a surprise such as you have to save before creating a new city, or even a new settler, in order to reload if the city costs cripples too much your economy.

there should be at least an indicator of how much a new city would cost you, this would be of a great help. In order to prevent one to build a useless settler, new city cost should be always displayed in some corner of the screen. Plus, once the settler built, additionnal cost from distance of the capital that the new created settler is from.

I agree. The manual should be more detailled about city costs. Nowadays, the only way to understand new cities costs is a kind of reverse engineering.

That said, I would not be worried if Civ5 to nullify those city costs , and put in their place and in the place of goody huts and barbarians brand new civilizations, so that one expansion would be greatly disputed, as well as a rebellion/civil war system that would be to be considered before any new expansion.

 

Not on all difficulty levels, that's for sure. You may belong to the crème de la crème and feel that anything under deity is beneath you, but if so, you are decidedly in the minority.

 

I'm not talking about difficult levels. I mean variety of options. For example, most games are just hack and slash, you dont need to think, plan ahead. Civ series are for the players who like complexity.

 

... Civ4?

CivRev?

You're definitely in the minority, here. If everyone liked it complex, everyone would be playing Civ3.

 

I dont think so. I've been playing since Civ 1 and that's how I feel about the game. Most gamers would play Age of Empires or Rome - Total War if they want something they dont need to spend too much time on learning.

The OP is right. Civ is a hard game. That's why it's not a game for the masses.

 

I wouldn't say it is hard as such - you can easily play on settler and have fun remaking history. It has depth, and as you go up the levels you have to understand more and more about the interactions of everything, and know all the weird kinks, synergies, understand the obscure parts of the game like diplomacy which can be ignored for the entry level player. Some people won't be into that, but none of it is necessary on the very lowest levels - you can virtually win on Settler by default as long as you understand a few basic mechanics and don't actively try to lose.

 

Indeed, just about every enthusiastic Civilzaition gamer would surely want the developer to expand on the gameplay and develop new concepts that add to the game, while still keeping in spirit with what we know. The day most of us stop playing Civilization is whne the game seems too simple, monotonous and doesn't really provide any challenge or provoke thought. I haven't played Civilization III, but I'm sure that people would want to miss out of if the didn't play Civilization4/BtS, such as changes like the maintenance cost that keep the game balanced, the better modding possibilities, the new units, civilizations, features, etc.

 

Most of the original comments seem pretty accurate and make a good argument that Civ4 is a deep and engrosing game, but the author does not like such games.

One comment that seems simply wrong was "Mastering the game seems to boil down to calculate how many "hammers" the construction of this or that building or unit". Part of what makes Civ4 so great is that you do not have to worry about such things. I have no idea how many hammers most things are and play a decent game of Civ. Now I do have a pretty good idea why I would want do develop Mysticism or Archery (generally don't need to research either ) and that is another reason the game is so great.