The Failure of Civ 4

[Griffinfuhrer]

My opinion;

I think, making it so in Civilisation that a larger and more populous kingdom can go into a great period of decline, or even find itself conquered by a smaller yet more powerful kingdom is going to be one helluva difficult job to figure out a way to implement. Let me explain. Throughout history, the largest and most powerful civilisations were prone to civil wars, periods of decline and many other things. Why? Well, civil wars just didn't 'happen' because a Civilisation had been around too long. One of the major reasons were idelogical splits, ineffectual rulers, etc. Some of the largest nations in the world have also been some of the most primitive for many centuries of history. For example, the Manchu's in China practically hitting the breaks on innovation, new technological advances and reforms in the kingdom. But think about it; imagine if the Manchu's decided they wanted to keep pushing through technology and creating a powerful modern society that influenced the rest of the world. Then can you honestly tell that China with it's infinite manpower and resources with the technology to back it up would lose a war to England? Not bloody likely.

Let's cut to the chase. Why do civilisations decline? Ineffectual rulers, I would say. Some leaders could become more distracted with living a luxurious lifestyle then effectively managing their kingdoms. Civilisation keeps things down to the player itself; and a player PLAYING TO WIN isn't going to be ineffectual. Put a Civ player in the shoes fo the Manchus 500 years ago? Is he gonna hit the breaks on technological advancement? Hell. ****ing. No. You can't do it. It's a game. I'm playing to win; I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure my kingdom stays number one, and everyone else here is too. In real life, things aren't so simple. There are no fine satins and fine palaces in civilisation for you to construct and blow your entire kingdoms treasury. There's no pleasurable parts of being a ruler and no dancing girls and grand balls for you to distract yourself with here; there's one thing, your kingdom. In real life, there are many reasons for a ruler to neglect his kingdom and to allow it to slip into decline; there aren't any whatsoever in Civilisation. The Roman empire could be still dominating the mediterranian if real life was more like Civ. There's just no reason you'd want your kingdom to fall into disrepair on Civilisation; do so and lose. It's like one of your cities going into civil disorder and the Roman Emperor would of said 'forget them, they're only jews.' Let them riot." Are you gonna do that in Civ? Do you want to lose? Would you spend your entire treasury on a grand palace and let your kingdom dwindle into poverty and disrepair on Civilisation? Noone is. The biggest stay the biggest because in a video game; our motivations are one thing; WIN. Finding a way to make the player not want to win is going to be hard.

Thats my two cents.

 

[Tad]

i agree that the civilzation series in general has been very linear. it has always been a challenge to come back from behind in this game. what happens in the first 15 turns is usually a good indication as to how the rest of the game is going to play out. coming back from behind is possible, but some easy modifications to the game could be made in order to make it more plausable.

the handbook says to consider civ as if it were a board game. in most board games, random events occur (usually by drawing cards) that influence game play. in civ, random events do not occur and they should. if you have ever played the total war series of games, my idea of random events is inspired by how random events occur in those games. to put forth a few examples, maybe harvest yields could be unusually high or low in any given turn - this could effect population growth, and construction speed. maybe natural disasters could occur, free tech advancements, etc.

in addition to random events, i think civil war should be added back into the game. players should be given every opportunity to prevent civil war, but it should be allowed. political and social unrest should have some major consequences to civilizations, and civil war (or the threat of) is a great way to inject some realism into civilizations experiencing unrest. moreover, the more time a civilization spends trying to apease its own population, the greater chance other civilizations will have to play 'catch up' and even out the playing field.

just my .02. civilization has always been my favorite game, but it has always failed to take into consideration the ebb and flow all civilizations have experienced throughout time.

 

[mayonaise]

i think they didnt add revolutions because any player would get ticked off if half his empire suddenly disappeared and would find some way to make it not happen again-- i.e. reload a save or what have you.

i think their goal was to take out things that would tick off most players. some hardcores maybe would enjoy that and call it historically accurate, but frankly i doubt it. 12 hours into a game and half your work is wiped out? i dunno.

maybe the best bet would be to make it very preventable, but then it wouldn't even really be a factor. maybe have it base off religion. if you allow too much rival religion in your nation-- it might split off.

maybe this was said, but im not about to read 20 pages!

 

[Ratt]

I'll bet you $50.00 point blank that your dead wrong. We could easilly do an entire pay pal account transer of the losers $50.00 to the winner, 6 months after the games release; I'm more then confident this game is gonna kick ass, and take the sales charts like the black plague hitting england.

I agree with the topic starter, also in most foruns I've been there's not much ppl speaking about it so I'm guessing this is more of a game for veterans of the series, it's simply not very appealing to new ppl. In my opinion they need to implement more stuff in the game and some innovation to appeal to more ppl. Personally I'm not that concerned because the game is TBS but I think the game needs more aspects involved in the forging of a civilization, weather, day and night cycles, earth changing drastically due to the passing time or our actions, major events like a meteor strike, much more types of units and combat options and more things to research, I also think wonders should look more impressive.

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

So, basically, Ratt, you're saying it should be like Rome: Total War, but bigger, yes?


Later!

--The Clown to the Left