Suggestions and Requests

[mrrandomplayer]

Civ5 just has a radically different design focus than previous Civ titles.
I don't know if Leoreth has played Civ5 before, but I have to repeat again that the mechanics are incredibly solid, especially now, after two expansions.
The only beef I have with Civ5, as I've repeated multiple times before, have nothing to do with mechanics;
The Civilopedia is grossly inaccurate and unprofessional; it feels like The History Channel abridgement of history.
The choice of leaders irks me, as it currently does for Beyond Earth as well.
And lastly, Civ5 broke the tradition of only largely having civilizations as civilizations.
Now we have non-civs like Venice (sorry mrrandomplayer) and Denmark & Austria giving credence to people who don't understand the distinction between civ and state included in a mainline installment of Civilization.

IIRC, Civ5 is classified as a 4X game, but in reality, it's a hybrid of 4X and a Tabletop Wargame.
People were making a lot of noise when it first came out because it bucked their expectations of what the Civilization franchise was known for. Pure 4X with an emphasis on single player.
It's kind of like how people are complaining about Destiny now because they had the expectation that it was going to be an epic, loot-based FPS with RPG elements AND was basically advertised and hyped up as such;
when in reality, it's an MMOFPS with design choices that fit for an MMO but not for the traditional experience the majority expected.
Hardcore players like the ones in this subforum are a dying breed and most games and their design seek to capture the largest market share possible nowadays.
Civ5 was most certainly influenced by the casual/dabbler/mainstream audience; which is just a side effect of a post-MW2 gaming industry.

Maybe Leoreth doesn't like wargames/ enthusiast board games?
I used to play quite a few of them which played very similarly to Civ5, like Twilight Imperium,
so I feel right at home playing Civ5, especially if it's multiplayer.

[insert Venetian nationalist rant here]

I've figured that actually going on a rant about why Venice is a civilization falls on deaf ears, so I've decided to leave it up to your imagination.

But seriously, on the topic of Civ5, I feel that Firaxis tried to make a radical departure from the previous tried-and-true formula to attract a larger audience, kind of like what Nintendo did for Pokemon Black and White, except to a much larger degree (sorry if that's the best example I can think of). That being said, I think that we should take into account the drastic change of playstyle that was implemented in Civ5 when we talk about changes we're taking from there.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

One unit per tile is the single biggest flaw in Civilization 5 and makes it absolutely unplayable. If it weren't for that I would consider it a pretty good game actually.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Forgot Sweden as well for Civ5.
If it were me, Vikings would do just fine, as it had always been in the Civ series.
There's no point to distinguish between an unbroken line of progression in a culture just because at one point, they followed the Norse gods and at another, started being Christian.
I suppose we should split Corea into different civs for different periods of Sinkyo, Confucian, Buddhist, and subsequently Christian dominance as well.

The Black & White example is on point really. Except I feel like Black & White are failures for capturing mindshare for different reasons.
Many of the designs in Gen5 possessed a lack of traditional Pokemon charm. There was a much larger upswing in mindshare with Gen6 because the designs were a return to form
(among other reasons, both aesthetic and mechanical). You only need to look at sales as proof.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/07/pokemon-x-and-y-sales-pass-12-million-mark

The ratio of copies-to-consoles sold is far better for X & Y with the 3DS as compared to Black & White with the original DS and
it's only been out for a much shorter time than its predecessor which had plenty of years to get their 15m lifetime sales.

@Imp: 1UP makes a lot of sense if you've ever played a wargame. I think it works fine except it needs a lot more flexibility with non-combat units.
IIRC, it's 1 combat unit and 1 non-combat unit per tile, which should be more flexible IMO.
With a special exception for Great Generals; no two Great Generals can share a tile.
Or an even more elegant solution would be that no unit may stack more than one GG passive buff at a time. Problem over.
But yeah, If you haven't played a wargame before, it does seem kind of alien.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

@Imp: 1UP makes a lot of sense if you've ever played a wargame. I think it works fine except it needs a lot more flexibility with non-combat units.
IIRC, it's 1 combat unit and 1 non-combat unit per tile, which should be more flexible IMO.
With a special exception for Great Generals; no two Great Generals can share a tile.
Or an even more elegant solution would be that no unit may stack more than one GG passive buff at a time. Problem over.
But yeah, If you haven't played a wargame before, it does seem kind of alien.

Exactly, 1UPT makes sense for a wargame, something Civilization 5 is definitely not supposed to be.

 

[THEK1NG]

the only thing I know that leads to instant collapse is when you don't own any cities in your own core.
All other problems (overexpansion, too many religions, bad civic choices for your time, unhappiness, etc) give you a few warnings before the really dire consequences.

This is confusing. I may have not covered at most like 3-4 tiles not using my culture but I did own all the cities that were considered in my core.

I had an okay economy, maybe one message of a modest crisis but that was it. I'm hoping for a message at the end of the game that says why you lost

 

[mrrandomplayer]

Forgot Sweden as well for Civ5.
If it were me, Vikings would do just fine, as it had always been in the Civ series.
There's no point to distinguish between an unbroken line of progression in a culture just because at one point, they followed the Norse gods and at another, started being Christian.
I suppose we should split Corea into different civs for different periods of Sinkyo, Confucian, Buddhist, and subsequently Christian dominance as well.

The Black & White example is on point really. Except I feel like Black & White are failures for capturing mindshare for different reasons.
Many of the designs in Gen5 possessed a lack of traditional Pokemon charm. There was a much larger upswing in mindshare with Gen6 because the designs were a return to form
(among other reasons, both aesthetic and mechanical). You only need to look at sales as proof.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/04/07/pokemon-x-and-y-sales-pass-12-million-mark

The ratio of copies-to-consoles sold is far better for X & Y with the 3DS as compared to Black & White with the original DS and
it's only been out for a much shorter time than its predecessor which had plenty of years to get their 15m lifetime sales.

@Imp: 1UP makes a lot of sense if you've ever played a wargame. I think it works fine except it needs a lot more flexibility with non-combat units.
IIRC, it's 1 combat unit and 1 non-combat unit per tile, which should be more flexible IMO.
With a special exception for Great Generals; no two Great Generals can share a tile.
Or an even more elegant solution would be that no unit may stack more than one GG passive buff at a time. Problem over.
But yeah, If you haven't played a wargame before, it does seem kind of alien.

I remember when I bought Pokemon White when I was in middle school, I hated the game for making such a radical departure from the older series; I didn't like the Pokemon design and thought that the story was overemphasized, but in hindsight, I actually do appreciate the radical innovations that Nintendo tried to take. I think the story was actually quite well designed, and the somewhat lack of resolution at the end was very well answered with B2/W2, which fixed some of Black/White's problems. I think the main failure of Black/White was that it failed to really convey that it was trying to take a new step, and that surprised a lot of the target audience (11-year-old mrrandomplayer and younger kids).

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Exactly, 1UPT makes sense for a wargame, something Civilization 5 is definitely not supposed to be.

This is exactly what I'm talking about.
People who were under the impression that Civ5 was going to remain a pure 4X game.
2K didn't really advertise it as a 4X-wargame hybrid; they only billed it as the next installment of the vaunted Civilization franchise.
But it definitely is a wargame; some people just haven't accepted it.
Your definition of what Civilization 5 is "supposed" to be is your definition of what you WANT Civilization 5 to be and incompatible with the direction Civilization 5 chose to take,
which was a more accessible, more PVP focused game rather than an intimate history simulator/4X domination oriented game.
And of course, we're obviated (although I still enjoy both types of games) because we don't provide the revenue streams the shareholders are looking for.
As I said, this market (our diehard one) is dying and unprofitable, especially for a larger company like 2K, which is in direct competition with many of the bigger players like EA, Ubisoft and Activision.
There's little reason for them to chase after a hardcore player who will pay $60 for a game and hole up, getting free map mods or game mods from the community. compared to an average Joe who will pay the $60,
then additionally, increments of $5, $15, $40, etc. for DLC and additional content like map packs down the line; who don't care about granularity of history and just want to stomp around with friends.
The additional charges are the reason why you can obtain base copies of games for cheap nowadays. I got Brave New World for $15. But that wouldn't be where 2K derives their revenue from,
seeing as how they sold/provided keys wholesale to online retailers like Humble Bundle and Steam. The profit comes from all the DLC sold after the fact. It's the loss-leader model at work.
Consoles used to be the loss leaders (they still are, with the exception of Nintendo which requires hardware to be profitable),
but now games themselves are the loss-leaders sold to you at a low price so you buy additional content which provides a substantial bulk of revenue.

TL;DR: You and I don't matter.

Paradox can pull it off with EU because they're NOT in direct competition with them and their size means that they can sustain themselves on lower profits.

 

[Leoreth]

Well, I generally expect a series of games to stick to its genre. Especially when it's a series whose first installment codified this genre.

The way I see it, Jon Shafer is a fan of tactical wargames, somehow wound up in position of lead designer and tried to use a popular franchise as a vehicle for his own favorite style of game. 4X and tactical wargames have never really been successfully combined, and he is too bad of a designer to pull it off. Soren Johnson would eat that guy for breakfast, and I'm not just saying that because of their respective games, but how they talk about game design in their interviews and articles.

I'm still very much in agreement with Sullla's infamous review that pretty convincingly showed that 1UPT took over every aspect of the 4X part of the game and ruined it in the process. The problem isn't that Civ5 is a 4X game with tactical elements, but a tactical wargame dressed up as a 4X game.

I agree about the loveless and often offensively wrong civilopedia. The inclusion of Venice had me rolling my eyes, but even more so at its gimmicky status as a "OCC civ". Unique Assets were often without imagination, focused on fringe aspects of their civilizations and were often rather useless or very situational (that's worse in an open game than in RFC). I also dislike the gimmicky nature of city states, and again how this mechanic wound up in too many UA's as if they needed to advertise it.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Can anyone name specific examples of Civ5's Civilopedia's flaws? I mean I believe you all when you say it's bad, but I haven't really read it myself.

 

[merijn_v1]

Here is an online version.
http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/

 

[citis]

Could plague be limited if you run your thriumph golden age? In many case this golden age is hard-earned, and it is a pitty to see it ruined by plague. So I propose that triumph arc could give immunity from plague during its golden age.

 

[cudfather]

Immunity sounds pretty strong; how about temporary immunity (lasting as long as the Golden Age) and then the plague hits after the GA is over (even if there is no plague in neighbor countries)?

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Here is an online version.
http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/

I skimmed it a bit but was unable to find anything offensive or factually incorrect so far, but maybe I'm just an insensitive idiot.

 

[Atlantic Pacf.]

I skimmed it a bit but was unable to find anything offensive or factually incorrect so far, but maybe I'm just an insensitive idiot.

I just eyeballed the article for China, and it gave me eyebleed.

Spoiler alert: China was emphatically not isolated from the outside world.

 

[Tigranes]

Spoiler alert: China was emphatically not isolated from the outside world.

You mean ever or most of the time?

If you can read Chinese, can you explain me please why Chinese wikipedia has so little info about ... China?

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

You mean ever or most of the time?

If you can read Chinese, can you explain me please why Chinese wikipedia has so little info about ... China?

I can read Chinese to a certain extent, but it was unnecessary in order to find the problem with the page you mentioned. That's the article in classical Chinese (). This is equivalent to Latin in the Western world, but unlike Latin is almost never taught as a separate subject because of the inaccurate myth that the Chinese language has never changed and therefore everyone descended from the Yellow Emperor should be able to read Confucius as easily as their shopping list. As a result, China does not have the legions of high school Latin teachers and unemployed Classics graduates who probably keep the Latin Wikipedia going.

Other contributory factors include the fact that Wikipedia was blocked in mainland China for many years and the existence of Baidu Baike. This is an online encyclopaedia which anyone can edit (provided their edits do not touch areas sensitive to the Chinese government or Baidu management). This is a another great innovation by Baidu engineers and the fact that the first version was almost word-for-word identical with the Mandarin Wikipedia was entirely coincidental, whatever the GPL says.

I could rant for hours about Baidu's unpleasant business practices.

 

[Atlantic Pacf.]

That said, the article in Mandarin is much more substantive.

 

[ozqar]

I'm guessing this must have been proposed before (perhaps it's already a mechanism and I haven't realized it), but is it possible to import/export food from one city to another (within your civ or internationally) and actually see the importing city grow in population?

This would be in the way that Romans would import grain from Egypt and Rome would grow to a size larger than it's surrounding area would support otherwise.

 

[narvego]

I wanna random coal, oil and aluminium on map

 

[Chep]

Importing food would allow too many exploits/super-megacities, imho.
Yeah sure it could be managed somewhat, but Alpha Centauri showed the problems of this mechanic far too vividly for my taste.

-----

How about the following idea though:

Getting a city liberated to you gives you a temporary stability bonus (like a reverse-razing).

This would allow to stabilize a vasall that just capitulated to you to overcome his huge temporary stability malus and would somewhat make vasallizing someone interesting again.

This should have little to no effect on the player him-/herself, since I can't remember ever getting a city liberated to me, and with it being a decaying and probably limited bonus it won't help keep civs alive long beyond their intended livespan.