Tell Firaxis what is making you nervous

[EmpireOfCats]

This thread is intended to help Firaxis and 2K judge what the worries of their greatest fans are at this point: Then they can tell us that everything will be fine, or secretly fix it. For example, the three things that make me hesitate to pre-oder this game are:

It is looking more and more like a military simulation, not a Civ game. All I keep hearing about is huge armies, large battles, ranged combat, city defense -- not economic models, research programs, or space races. The market is full of war games, but there is only one Civ franchise. I'm afraid the focus has been changed.

No Mac version. When Valve releases Left4Dead for OS X, Civ IV will be the only game I like that I will have to reboot for, and the only game I am looking forward to (the others are Diablo 3 and Portal 2, both which will have native OS X versions). In fact, it will be the only thing I'll need Windows for at all. I'm getting tired of rebooting, and there is no way I'm ever going to buy any OS X part from Aspyr again after the disaster that was Civ IV. There has been no information from Firaxis at all about a Mac version.

Political messages, political correctness. The original entry for the Ottoman Empire was crudely anti-American (see this thread), while the German entry is politically correct to the max, lifted right from John Cleese. I realize that somebody at Firaxis was trying to be funny, and that it is hard to find the right tone if they want to sell games in Germany. Still: Civ was always good about keeping the politics out of the history (so to speak), and so far, Civ V is not doing well at all.

So those are my three worries, in the order of importance: I won't buy another military simulation; I'd probably wait for a Mac version if Civ V comes out Windows only; if it is a politically correct game, I'd probably clench my teeth, buy the game and write nasty letters.

What are your worries?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

So those are my three worries, in the order of importance: I won't buy another military simulation; I'd probably wait for a Mac version if Civ V comes out Windows only; if it is a politically correct game, I'd probably clench my teeth, buy the game and write nasty letters.

Political incorrectness ftw!!

I think the game seems to come along great and I enjoy seeing Americans getting their panties in a twist over a pretty good generalization of their knowledge in history.

The things that make me somewhat hesitant are the steam and dlc-bits. I might not get the game out of sheer principle, but I'll see.

 

[GigaNerd]

Look, if 2K won't answer our questions, I doubt Firaxis will either.

 

[civ_king]

<snip>

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I'm hoping they show more of the builder aspects at E3

 

[nc-1701]

My biggest fear is that it will have lame cartoony graphics like CIV, I recently bought the BTS expansion and gave CIV another shot, but I just can't take the graphics. In CIV I found the graphics to be too big, poorly proportioned and generally they just felt like they were pulled out of a 3-D cartoon like Jimmy Neutron. I know many people will disagree but I just found them ugly and horribly distracting, especially with all the cows and rivers moving around the landscape was too distracting for me to focus easily. However based on the screenshots I've seen I'm hopeful, the graphics seem much crisper and in better size relation than the CIV graphics were.

I know Firaxis said they are keeping Great People, I hope they are still worked in a way similar to CIV, that was one of the things CIV got right. I also hope they keep the health and food resources from CIV I thought they added nicely to the economic gameplay.

I want artillery that works like C3C artillery, much better system than CIV imo.

Finally I want better diplomacy, in C3C it was much too easy to take advantage of the AI. Then in CIV they made it almost impossible to have good relations with the AI unless you instantly responded to their every whim and even then it wasn't always enough. I want an AI that is smart, and not bipolar.

 

[Graven]

No Mac version. When Valve releases Left4Dead for OS X, Civ IV will be the only game I like that I will have to reboot for, and the only game I am looking forward to (the others are Diablo 3 and Portal 2, both which will have native OS X versions). In fact, it will be the only thing I'll need Windows for at all. I'm getting tired of rebooting, and there is no way I'm ever going to buy any OS X part from Aspyr again after the disaster that was Civ IV. There has been no information from Firaxis at all about a Mac version.

That. I've mentioned it in another thread as well. It's completely ridiculous that they're ignoring a big chunk of their audience.

 

[frekk]

That. I've mentioned it in another thread as well. It's completely ridiculous that they're ignoring a big chunk of their audience.

That, and the Steam problem. There's no reason to force everyone to use Steam on a PC platform. Should be able to accomodate different audiences' preferences - Steam or no Steam, PC or Mac.

 

[PieceOfMind]

My biggest fear at the moment is in regards to auto-updating and what effect that could have on general use but in particular modding.

2K Games have not really provided us any information yet about whether updates will be forced, whether they will be required etc. All we've been told is that you might be able to avoid updates by disconnecting your internet whenever you launch steam, even if it's in offline mode. Frankly that is not helpful at all.

I know that for most steamworks games, especially MP-focused games, auto-updating makes a lot of sense. It doesn't make quite so much sense for a primarily single player game like civilization.

I hope that Firaxis and 2K Games (and possibly Valve) have thoroughly considered the patching process and aren't naively assuming that auto-updates will be a great thing for everyone. It might be that they've designed the game so that modding and updates will have zero issues with each other. I would congratulate them if they did, but I have my doubts that's even possible.

 

[Nicolas10]

<snip>

Moderator Action: Unnecessary comment.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Sex Workers! We refer to them as Sex Workers!

This is hate speech and if Civ_King doesn not retract it I shall be forced to post a separate topic asking that we all boycott Civ_King .

 

[Ahriman]

My biggest fear at the moment is in regards to auto-updating and what effect that could have on general use but in particular modding.

Yeah, autopatching seems like a problem if it breaks mods.

I know that for most steamworks games, especially MP-focused games, auto-updating makes a lot of sense. It doesn't make quite so much sense for a primarily single player game like civilization.

Agreed. Hopefully they are thinking carefully about this.

 

[White Elk]

My game breaking concerns over steam aside...

The only thing that concerned me thus far, was that units transform into transports. I can get over the oddness of that. But I was concerned that combined with 1UPT, it would become a real bear to make amphibious attacks. I think I'd prefer loading multiple units in a transport, than moving all those units individually. Seems time consuming. More so than loading transports. Some folks said that not having to load transports will save time. But I don't see it. You'd still have to move all those units to the coast; but then you'd also have to move each of them indivually across the oceans. At least with transports, you just move the units to a port, and then move them as a group across the ocean. But I figured I'd wait and see how Firaxis dealt with it.

 

[civ_king]

But 1UPT+New transport mechanism allows you to successfully defend against sea invasions

 

[CanuckSoldier]

I'm more worried about the lack of MP info, at this point in the Civ4 dev process MP was at least being plugged alot by the 2K marketing machine, in Civ5 we know nothing...and if the game is released on 21 Sept then the Gold(code is set for release) has to be at least a month or more before that, so at least I'd say in the beginning of August. So we have maybe 45 ish days of development left and alot of details are missing completely. This doesn't give us a warm fuzzy feeling of course, going from Gamespy to Steamwork no doubt is alot of new learning on the part of the programmers and this might be the cause of the delay, but at least they could let us know their plans.

CS

 

[evrett37]

100 days till release and they havnt addressed how mods will work...or wont because they are worried the answer will scare off the preorders.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Hakuna matata

 

[White Elk]

But 1UPT+New transport mechanism allows you to successfully defend against sea invasions

And with the new AI, the player might actually have to defend sea invasion in SP. Having multiple land units on sea tiles occupied by a transport wouldn't affect 1UPT on land. You'd still only be allowed to land one unit per tile. The transports would have to disembark along the coast.

Perhaps xUPT Transports could disembark on coastal tiles instead of on land tiles. That fits the bill of keeping to 1UPT on land, and adds a realistic touch in addition to decreasing excessive unit movement. Ships don't disembark directly onto land unless at port. They use landing craft.

Perhaps the 1UPT limit is open for modding. And can be altered for specific scenarios like sea, land and air transports. There are a number of things I would've wanted to see in mods... fantasy mod with bird handlers (an air unit on a mobile land unit), missile carriers (air, land and sea), Battlestar Gallatica like space carriers, jeeps and half tracks increasing unit movements, etc And I very much wanted to finally be able to load, loaded transports onto other transports! Helo transport on naval carriers, X-43 with payload on a B-52, and more. 1UPT prevents all that. But perhaps this will be moddable. Would be nice to use 1UPT but have exceptions for specific units. Civil units sharing tiles with military units makes me think it may be possible.

 

[frekk]

There are a number of things I would've wanted to see in mods... fantasy mod with bird handlers (an air unit on a mobile land unit)

Keep in mind that 1upt is not technically a correct description, since a tile can hold up to 3 units: 1 ground force unit, 1 air unit, and 1 civilian unit.

 

[Skwink]

I agree on the Mac part. Windows software is pretty expensive for me to buy just to play one game. But I can wait. Civ 4 did come out after a while. It seems like it will be hard to make custom leaders with these animations. I would rather just have a head and shoulders to mod with, then a couple really good leader animations that would be hard to customize.

 

[Rebel44]

I agree on the Mac part. Windows software is pretty expensive for me to buy just to play one game. But I can wait. Civ 4 did come out after a while. It seems like it will be hard to make custom leaders with these animations. I would rather just have a head and shoulders to mod with, then a couple really good leader animations that would be hard to customize.

Macs have very very small marketshare, esp. outside of USA. That have effect on software development decisions....

 

[CurseUppl]

Yep. Screw mac. I'd rather they save the money and put it on better testing & more features.

Harsh, perhaps, but it's not even a real issue since you can install Windows on it via bootcamp and whatever else will be available when it is released.

*edit* Forgot the big UH OH with Mac, also. You can't mod it properly since it won't have .DLLs (this is under the assumption that they're even gonna use it for Civ 5). You're better off using bootcamp.