The Failure of Civ 4

CanuckSoldier said:
lurker

n. One of the `silent majority' in a electronic forum;
one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the
group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and indeed
is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking." Often used in
`the lurkers', the hypothetical audience for the group's
flamage-emitting regulars. When a lurker speaks up for the first
time, this is called `delurking'.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=lurker

An odd nick you have chosen AL, rather an oxymoron for a Civer with 2,402 posts :p

CS
And this has what to do with the topic?
 
Another way to increase the depth and dynamism of the game is to make it possible to have more strategies that are viable. Right now, the main viable strategy is a "get big fast" one. Land grabs all around, whether you're a builder or a warmonger. if you have a game that has gotten stagnant, the only way to get an interesting game is to start a new one. There should be ways to inject more drama and dynamism.

It should be possible for a civ to make deep investments that don't pay off for a long time, like the ant and the grasshopper. One strategy might be to forego immediate, short-term gains by investing in education and culture in the medieval era, which becomes an enormous advantage in the modern age. The down side of that is that you appear weak and stagnant to grasshoppers like the Mongols, and your investment in the future may come to naught because they swallow you up before you can cash in. On the other hand, maybe the "get big fast" strategy of the Mongols works in other situations, where you have many weak cities and obliterate your nearby rivals, giving yourself enough breathing room to make up for lost time. Then there's a middle-of-the-road strategy. No strategy should always win; it should depend on what civ you are, what civs you neighbor, the early game, and the map. The issue with civ3 is that it favors a "get big fast" strategy. It doesn't punish you (much) for getting too big; its only way of countering that is to have all the other AIs gang up on you, which doesn't necessarily work and gets boring really fast.

As far as mechanism goes, perhaps older institutions are more effective. You get extra culture from especially old improvements, after all. Oxford and Cambridge produce more good stuff than Podunk College, est. 1959. A University built in 1000 AD should be more valuable than one built in 1500 AD, all else being equal. Ditto for libraries, temples, marketplaces, etc. Education, wealth, and trade should have a greater significance in the game, and their significance should be long-lasting. Culture should also have greater significance, except this should be expressed through greater loyalty rather than larger borders. If you have a smaller civ with a well-developed culture, it should be really hard for some foreign civ to conquer you, because your people will keep rebelling against the invaders. If you have a large empire composed of three civs bolted together, on the other hand, you should be vulnerable because you don't have loyalty, you don't have common culture, and you spent all your time acquiring territory rather than building up the education of your people and establishing trade links, etc.

China and India spent the last 600 years in a sort of stagnant slumber, at least as far as world standing goes, but they have the advantage of large populations, a relatively cohesive culture, and a strong emphasis on education, and look at them coming on strong now. You could argue that the United States in the early 1900s and Germany in the late 1800s followed a similar trajectory.
 
While I understand the original poster's points on linearity and determinism, he's missing some basic gameplay reasoning here. Yes, if one looks at history, one can see the rise, fall, and occasional rise again of various great nations. However, how many people here would get frustrated and quit playing if the game was designed to regularly wreck a player's progress regardless of what he did, without giving him a chance to counter the game's mechanism, just to follow history?
 
There's a difference between wrecking your progress and just throwing a wrench in the works. Look at rebellions in real world history. Furthermore, most rebellions fail. They appear, take a couple cities, and then get the snot beaten out of them. If you run your civ well, that's the worst that will happen to you. Most of the ones that succeeded did so because of longstanding grievances against the government. They don't just appear out of nowhere, they appear because the rebels are oppressed, or discriminated against, the people are too heavily taxed to pay for unpopular wars, or their local governors are corrupt, etc.
 
Sheesh! The game isn't even released yet and people are saying it sucks on hearsay. Shades of civ 2 and 3!!! :eek:
 
ApAtheist: That's fine. I'm all for the occasional rebellion in the game, as long as the game provides the player with warning signs that it might occur and the tools necessary to prevent it (which Civ already does). The thing, though, is that once those tools are given, and the player understands how to use them, the original poster's cyclical game goes right out the window. The player will strive for linearity and determinism, because that should mean he's winning.

The original poster's statements read more along the lines of an inevitable collapse that could only be accepted and played through, and then forcing that concept on an unsuspecting player in a game.

Who here would enjoy watching the computer AI nation that's dead last suddenly rocket to first place for the win just because it used a "terrorist attack" option, or have their country be forced into being the world's whipping boy as a crumbling third world power even if their nation was just the previous turn rolling under a great economy and had a tech lead of a generation or so on his neighbors?
 
doronron said:
ApAtheist: That's fine. I'm all for the occasional rebellion in the game, as long as the game provides the player with warning signs that it might occur and the tools necessary to prevent it (which Civ already does). The thing, though, is that once those tools are given, and the player understands how to use them, the original poster's cyclical game goes right out the window. The player will strive for linearity and determinism, because that should mean he's winning.

That assumes that the formula for success is a simple one. It shouldn't be. It will depend on what your civ's (leader, in civ4) advantages are, what your map looks like, what the distribution of resources is, who your neighbors are, how various die rolls for wars and ship sinkings go, whether you make your third city an army builder or a cultural center, etc. Think butterfly effect. It's not random, but it's not completely deterministic either.

doronron said:
The original poster's statements read more along the lines of an inevitable collapse that could only be accepted and played through, and then forcing that concept on an unsuspecting player in a game.

Who here would enjoy watching the computer AI nation that's dead last suddenly rocket to first place for the win just because it used a "terrorist attack" option, or have their country be forced into being the world's whipping boy as a crumbling third world power even if their nation was just the previous turn rolling under a great economy and had a tech lead of a generation or so on his neighbors?

Yeah, that would suck. Collapses and meteoric rises should still be possible, but not randomly. It should be a consequence of your previous actions. I like the grasshopper and the ant metaphor. Some things pay off now. Other things pay off later. Choose wisely. If you pay too much attention to the future, you get eaten before you reap the benefits. If pay too much attention to the present, you get beaten by civs that kept the long view. It should be balanced so that sometimes you're best off as a warmonger, while others you're best off as a peaceful builder, while in others, a REXer, etc.

You have to be constantly evaluating your strategy and be ready to switch to a different one if conditions demand it. The punishment for expanding too slowly is obvious. Culture flips and guerillas are one way to punish expanding too fast. Focusing on some cities to the exclusion of others leads to rebellion. Ignoring technology turns you into a backwater with nothing to offer the big boys. Ignoring your military makes you a sitting duck. Ignoring your population makes your economy weak. There are many dimensions to a every civ, and making yours a successful one means tuning all of them to work in synchrony.

The problem is that the game has a very short memory. If I choose the wrong strategy for my environment in 1000 BC, it doesn't come back to haunt me in 1AD. In civ3, at least, you can apply the same basic strategy to every game and have a good chance of success. That's why it's important to have supply lines in the game. That's why it's important to have a trade model that really models trade. That's why it's important to have the potential for rebellion. That's why it's important to have random events. That's why it's important to have unique traits. Every game should be different. With civ3, they weren't.
 
bluemethod said:
As a game developer, I'm predicting that Civ 4 is not going to be successful as a game.

As a long time fan I'm predicting you're going to be sadly mistaken.

It's going to be their hugest success to date. Mark my words.
 
I'd like to clarify some things. First, I'm not trying to sabotage this game. I don't work for the competition. In any case, what's said here isn't going to convince anyone not to buy the game.

Secondly, I realize that one weakness of my post was the definition of 'failure'. I meant to say that Civ 4 will be a failure as a game. It'll sell commercially. Firaxis knows that hardcore gamers will buy Civ 4. All they have to do is slap on some new features, like religion and a change in the governmental system. Then they'll buy the expansion packs, the gold edition, etc. Meanwhile, by improving the graphics and dumbing down the gameplay, they can hope to get younger players. Naturally, they're not going to put anything controversial in this game, because they want a low ESRB rating.

Does that mean it will be successful, as a game? No. It doesn't mean that it will actually be fun to play. It'll be approachable for young gamers, who will eat up the marketing and buy it. Hardcore gamers will buy it and convince themselves that it's good in order to justify their purchase of the game. The game will be seen by the publisher as a cash cow, and Civ 5 will have even less creativity put into it. It will be a bad game.

History shows more flexibility in strategy (and less determinism) than the Civ games. When Germany lost WW1, was that the end for it? No, 20 years later, Nazi Germany almost conquered Europe (and arguably would have, if not for the two-front war and Pearl Harbor). After WW2, was that the end? No, 50 years later, Germany was a major economic power, with slightly better technology than America. You're not going to see that in Civ 4.

Secessions and civil wars would be great ways to balance the game. Firaxis doesn't want that. They want adolescent gamers to have a sense of accomplishment when they conquer one enemy with swordsmen, the continent with knights, and the rest of the world with cavalry. You get to see this one-color map, and that's satisfying. Setting up puppet states from your conquered enemies, losing half your territory in revolutions, etc., isn't satisfying to the adolescent gamer.

Supply lines are another good idea. I think it would complicate the game somewhat, but it would also add an element of real strategy. It will probably have to wait for a mod.

That brings up something important. I can't predict how well the modding will be in Civ 4. The game itself isn't going to be very good, but someone could make a mod like Counterstrike (in the sense of how well it uses the strengths of the engine). I think that without attracting normal gamers, there probably won't be much of a modding community, but I'll say that I'm at least hopeful that there will be a functioning modding community that is able to make something from this game. I want to play a good Civ 4 game. I liked Civ 1 and 3 (I didn't play 2), despite their flaws. However, I'm not going to sit here and worship Firaxis delusionally. I'm saying the truth: all the signs show that Civ 4 is going to fail as a game.
 
If only the hardcore players bought Civ4, it will have failed commercially, no matter how good a game it is. The hardcore Civ market isn't a lot bigger than the hardcore wargame market (which is roughly the same as the entire wargame market).

I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be a very fun game. I have absolutely no need to justify my game purchases and convince myself of their quality. Since I buy every game I am remotely interested in, I do buy a lot of crap games (on the average one a week or so). They just get shelved with the rest. Those that I enjoy, I keep playing. I like where Firaxis is taking the series, and I doubt that I'll shelve it, but if it is crap it too will go on the shelf (and I'll have to have a long talk with Barry).
 
bluemethod said:
Secondly, I realize that one weakness of my post was the definition of 'failure'. I meant to say that Civ 4 will be a failure as a game. It'll sell commercially.

The game will be seen by the publisher as a cash cow, and Civ 5 will have even less creativity put into it. It will be a bad game..
Hmm...
I definately read you wrong at first time.

Partly you impress the same kind of thoughts and feelings I have. Thing is that I didn't really wait any of those earlier games as much as Civ IV and that is mainly because I hardly play any games nowadays and that is one game I would like to possible play.
The game industry has gone to direction where I never would have liked it to go. Someone here suggested something about annual remakes (or something like). I don't hate anything more than them. Seen enough in the sports games market where especially certain titles have gone every year to the direction that hardcoregamers wouldn't like to see them go. There have been some better years of course but I stopped couple years back buying them simply because it was getting out of hand.

And that is possibility with Civ IV that it goes to direction nobody of the hardcore fans, who want to play more complex strategy game rather than just rushing adventure, would like it to go

But unlike you I think there are certain things that show that they actually listen to also hardcorefans. Of course the fear is that as they listen everybody they don't really listen anyone.

I put my faith into the modding community that if the basic game fails it can be put together into condition it starts to be fun. But as someone already pointed out it should be the company that does it not the fans. IMHO you can wait the game have certain aspects ready in the game as optional before you start to play after all I hardly can imagine anyone want to play some kind of game that is just software editing kit with instructions how to maybe make it work.

But if the major crowd doesn't buy the game because it's too hardcore it can mean we won't see never another Civ...
So I think best chance is that it satisfies the large audience while at the sametime gives us "true fans" something to tinker with.

Personally I don't buy games much but now that I'm getting new comp I might take few to play with.
I'm careful in my purchases, not because I only spend money on those but also time and energy.

In overall we put way too much hope to the thing that one computer game is going to make big difference.
My advice, if you don't like it pick something else or stop playing.
For me it would be just another bad game in the market full of them.

That's my view, a view of gamer and tell you the truth if Civ IV fails like you predict and it is bad game, I might very well be an ex-gamer.
 
I don't think civ4 will fall flat on its ar$e. Why? Because civ2 and civ3 attracted a huge fan base, of CASUAL players, who don't read forums like this, mod the game, or worry about or even NOTICE bugs that drive hardcore fans nuts. This game will sell many copies, to those casual game buyers with extra cash to spend and to the RTS crowd who may be curious about civ4 and its new features and graphics. Those who will not buy it because of their experience with civ3 are a VERY small minority. Will civ4 ship complete? Probably not. Will it have bugs? Yes. Will there be a lot of nagging gameplay issues that pop up that were undiscovered in beta testing? Yes. Will some people avoid buying the game based on trouble with civ3? Yes. Will some delay purchasing the game, in order to get a more stable, complete version later on? Yes. (I'm one of them) But these things make no difference. With the marketing drive behind the game, and its legacy as a great series, it will sell, period.
 
i agree with u on every thing.

i do think it will sell beater then any other civ game, but that dosent mean it will be a good game.
 
I'm still not understanding this point of view. The clarification that Civ4 will be a bad game even if it sells well, that makes sense. But I'm failing to see exactly why bluemethod is so sure that Civ4 will fail as a game.

bluemethod said:
Meanwhile, by improving the graphics and dumbing down the gameplay, they can hope to get younger players. Naturally, they're not going to put anything controversial in this game, because they want a low ESRB rating.

"Dumbing down the gameplay" is a complete assertion here; unless bluemethod has been testing Civ4, there's no way to know about this one way or the other (and if he has been testing the game, please share some details with us :)). What is that based on? Looking at screenshots? I'll be the first one to criticize Civ4 if the gameplay falls flat (I was a beta tester for Conquests and I have a scathing editorial about it on my website), but it's ridiculous to hurl bland assertions like that around with no evidence one way or the other.

As for the second part of that - would being controversial make Civ4 a better game? If there were fountains of blood every time a swordsman killed a spear, and you got to oogle naked women in the palace view, would that actually make it a better game? I don't think the Civilization games have to be particularly "xxxtreme" to be successful. If the developers want to put terrorism in the game, ok, fine with me. But the Civilization games have never been about realism, only dressing up a strategy game with historical names and settings. I don't see how not including terrorism would make the game a failure.

Does that mean it will be successful, as a game? No. It doesn't mean that it will actually be fun to play. It'll be approachable for young gamers, who will eat up the marketing and buy it. Hardcore gamers will buy it and convince themselves that it's good in order to justify their purchase of the game. The game will be seen by the publisher as a cash cow, and Civ 5 will have even less creativity put into it. It will be a bad game.

Why do you think Civ4 is intended for young gamers? Because of the graphics? Seems like a lot to be reading out of nothing more than screenshots to me...

Secessions and civil wars would be great ways to balance the game. Firaxis doesn't want that. They want adolescent gamers to have a sense of accomplishment when they conquer one enemy with swordsmen, the continent with knights, and the rest of the world with cavalry. You get to see this one-color map, and that's satisfying. Setting up puppet states from your conquered enemies, losing half your territory in revolutions, etc., isn't satisfying to the adolescent gamer.

Again, the continued insistence that Civ4 is intended for adolescents... I'm not sure where that's coming from. We just DON'T KNOW what the gameplay will be like, so I for one am reserving judgement until I at least get a copy in my hands - I hope that sounds reasonable. :)

I'd also pose the question of whether civil wars are the only way to have game balance. Word is that city maintenance costs are going to do that; I'm a little dubious about that myself, but I'm going to wait and see before calling things one way or the other. One thing I will say is that culture flips weren't much fun in Civ3 - in fact, they were probably the single most hated thing in the Civ3 community. How much fun would it be to fight a long and grueling war conquering enemy territory, only to have it "secede" and form its own new civ shortly thereafter? I think there might be some ticked off purchasers of Civ4 if that were to happen. ;) There definitely has to be some way to reign in the bigger=better problem of Civilization, but I don't think that civil wars are the only possible solution. We'll have to wait and see how Civ4 does in this regard; if it's a total failure, I'd be more inclined to agree with your point of view.

That brings up something important. I can't predict how well the modding will be in Civ 4. The game itself isn't going to be very good,

On what grounds?! Aside from making some assumptions based on looking at screenshots, I've seen very little hard evidence to back this argument up.

I'm saying the truth: all the signs show that Civ 4 is going to fail as a game.

I don't know about that, unless you have some evidence that I'm not familiar with (and I watch the Civ4 news releases pretty closely). We're all free to disagree, but I'm going to hold off judgement until I can play Civ4 myself. If it does turn out to be an unplayable piece of garbage, you will have my sincere apologies. But from what I've read in this thread, I've seen very little but assertions with little behind them. If you repeat the same thing often enough, it sometimes is enough to convince others that it's a fact. Better for everyone to try and keep an open mind and come to conclusions of their own accord. :)
 
Sullla said:
I'd also pose the question of whether civil wars are the only way to have game balance. Word is that city maintenance costs are going to do that; I'm a little dubious about that myself, but I'm going to wait and see before calling things one way or the other.

Civil wars are not the only way, nor should they be. No single thing should be the only way. Civil wars should be in there because it should be hard to hold things just as much as it's hard to acquire things. Moreso, even. Example: The United States invaded Iraq and defeated their military in less than 2 months. That was over 2 years ago. Then there's Britain and Ireland or India, Israel, and many more examples. It's not enough to occupy the land; you have to win the hearts and minds battle.
 
You see, the biggest problem in Bluemethod is that I think he has it '*ss backwards', so to speak. Far from making it a game only hardcore civers will buy, I think they have brought this game closer to the 'mainstream' market than in any previous iteration. Now, that should piss off hard-core civers, but largely hasn't. Why? Because (a) They have left enough of the best stuff from previous games to keep hard-core civers happy, (b) they have removed the bulk of the stuff that the majority of hard-core civers actually hated (pollution clean-up and corruption) and (c) they have finally made it so moddable that hard-core fans can mould the game into whatever best suits them.
I should point out though that, like Warpstorm, I tend to buy a lot of crap computer games-just so long as they are 'broad historical strategy'. My interest in those games, though, ultimately lasts about 1 month at most, at which point I return to Civ3. I doubt Civ4 will prove any different from Civ3 in that regard.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
 
bluemethod said:
Does that mean it will be successful, as a game? No. It doesn't mean that it will actually be fun to play. It'll be approachable for young gamers, who will eat up the marketing and buy it. Hardcore gamers will buy it and convince themselves that it's good in order to justify their purchase of the game. The game will be seen by the publisher as a cash cow, and Civ 5 will have even less creativity put into it. It will be a bad game.

History shows more flexibility in strategy (and less determinism) than the Civ games. When Germany lost WW1, was that the end for it? No, 20 years later, Nazi Germany almost conquered Europe (and arguably would have, if not for the two-front war and Pearl Harbor). After WW2, was that the end? No, 50 years later, Germany was a major economic power, with slightly better technology than America. You're not going to see that in Civ 4.

Secessions and civil wars would be great ways to balance the game. Firaxis doesn't want that. They want adolescent gamers to have a sense of accomplishment when they conquer one enemy with swordsmen, the continent with knights, and the rest of the world with cavalry. You get to see this one-color map, and that's satisfying. Setting up puppet states from your conquered enemies, losing half your territory in revolutions, etc., isn't satisfying to the adolescent gamer.

Supply lines are another good idea. I think it would complicate the game somewhat, but it would also add an element of real strategy. It will probably have to wait for a mod.

That brings up something important. I can't predict how well the modding will be in Civ 4. The game itself isn't going to be very good, but someone could make a mod like Counterstrike (in the sense of how well it uses the strengths of the engine). I think that without attracting normal gamers, there probably won't be much of a modding community, but I'll say that I'm at least hopeful that there will be a functioning modding community that is able to make something from this game. I want to play a good Civ 4 game. I liked Civ 1 and 3 (I didn't play 2), despite their flaws. However, I'm not going to sit here and worship Firaxis delusionally. I'm saying the truth: all the signs show that Civ 4 is going to fail as a game.

If we all play it, and like it, than it is a success as a game. One person's opinion does not mean a game is a failure - although you are quite welcome to it. I mean, I personally think Counterstrike is a stupid game, but it must do something right because it is the most popular online game.

You keep sourcing a lot of your reasons for this failure to a lack of creativity. What a lot of people need to understand is that just because something doesn't add a whole lot of new stuff with each update, doesn't make it a bad game. It's good to be creative and try new things. BUT there is no reason why people shouldn't stick to tried and true methods. The idea that everything has to be new and creative is very post-modernist.

When I read through your post again, it basically seems to say 'Civ will be a failure unless it does this this and this." Effectively you're doing what the rest of us are doing - suggesting ideas - but in a much more aggresive manner. If it doesn't put them in, it won't be the end of the world. From what I've read so far there's a bucketload of new stuff that excites me and my friends, so we're prepared to give it a chance.

Given that you are a developer, I think you should be the person here who should be preaching to us about not pre-judging a game. Imagine if we all said your games were gonna be a failure. How would you feel then?
 
Terrorism - Yes - perfect for the underdog
Concentration Camps - Yes - perfect for resisting or unhappy citizen
Civil War - Yes - it seems to be a constant thing in the worldr
pollution - Yes - dead trees and infertile land... too bad this isnt going to be in cIV

MAybe its a memory issue to include these into IV, but it shouldnt be an issue for "hardcore players". I agree and Have opened many threads debating what bluemethod has strongly suggested.
 
brinko said:
Terrorism - Yes - perfect for the underdog
Concentration Camps - Yes - perfect for resisting or unhappy citizen
Civil War - Yes - it seems to be a constant thing in the worldr
pollution - Yes - dead trees and infertile land... too bad this isnt going to be in cIV

MAybe its a memory issue to include these into IV, but it shouldnt be an issue for "hardcore players". I agree and Have opened many threads debating what bluemethod has strongly suggested.

Including these is hardley going to take up any memory. The reason they are not in is that they are bad for gameplay (except maybe civil war - if it is done right (big IF)).

Do you really want a pesky small nation irritating you with terrorists. Considering the events of the last few days i am suprised that anyone would condone terrorists at the moment.

Do you really need concentration camps? Just starve them to death.

As for pollution... it is one of the most hatted aspects of civ 3.
 
:eek: You'd think BLUEMETHOD had started a thread, 'Yo' Mutha So Ugly..."

How many posts are actually from Firaxis employees? Anyway.

The fact is, Civ3 was a pretty hokey piece of programing - it might not be a complete farce, but :crazyeye: They even make up new bugs in the 3rd add-on, which was basically adding functionality that people were asking for from the start - compare the title to Civ2 and the only thing it could claim superior is is graphics.

Civ3 was a cynical marketing ploy - Firaxis sold the title with it's title, not it's quality - and the fact there remains little to no competition - thus, excellence, is entirely optional.

Now, HUZZAH :D Civ4 is on thew horizon, and, lo, it features such modding opportunity that those realists amongst us most surely suspect some further Civ3 skulldugery afoot - yes, Civ4 will be a game, but the modders will be the ones to make it worth playing.

"Customers pay for the pleasure of programming Civ4"

Now that is marketing.
 
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