The Final Analysis?

[kaltorak]

He explains it very well. All he says is true, but I couldn't express it so nicely

 

[Dale]

I'm sorry Dale, but this is simply not true. At no point in time have I ever said I wanted Civ5 to be "Beyond the Sword version 2" or whatever name you might call it. I would prefer that you didn't go around claiming to speak for me when I said no such thing. I've made many comparisons between Civ5 and Civ4 because one is the direct sequel to the other, and Civ4 simply executed a lot of the same game mechanics in a better way. But I've also made many comparisons between Civ5 and Civ3, and even the original two Civilization games as well. My complaint isn't that Civ5 tried to innovate the Civ formula, it's that the new game mechanics put in place don't work very well. I mean, good intentions only take you so far.

Because I've had a couple of people ask me about this, I'm going to work on an article describing how I would design a new Civilization game, in the fantasy scenario where I was put in charge. Obviously not going to happen, but I can dream, can't I? Let me assure you, the result wouldn't look very much like Civ4. At the very least, I'd like to do a complete rework of the combat system and research mechanics, among other things...

Sorry, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth, just to me it sounded that way.

I'd be interested in your ideas for a Civ game. I've put mine out there, but I don't think too many people would like it since I believe it is impossible to represent 6000 years in a single game, and cut it down to 500 years.

 

[Dale]

Conversely, I can make the same claim; there are many people who have experienced #1, 2, 3 & 4 since release. But throwing claims back & forth would not make for a very engaging discussion.

Reading fail! I actually said they do occur, just not universally.

Here's an interesting fact for you...... over at 2k forums a few "guaranteed-next-turn-crash-saves" have been posted, and I can pick them up and play them with no crashes (along with some other people) even whilst others confirm the crash.

 

[Islet]

Reading fail! I actually said they do occur, just not universally.

Here's an interesting fact for you...... over at 2k forums a few "guaranteed-next-turn-crash-saves" have been posted, and I can pick them up and play them with no crashes (along with some other people) even whilst others confirm the crash.

I don't know whether I should laugh or shake my head in dismay.


Here is your quote:

there are many people who have not experienced points 1, 2 & 4 at all since release day

Highlighted for your convenience.


Here is my response:

there are many people who have experienced #1, 2, 3 & 4 since release

Highlighted for your convenience too. Did I mention anything about everybody would encounter the errors? Or that you denied that bugs exist?

Meanwhile, I've seen some of your comments at the 2K forums too, suggesting some most absurd and apologetic reasons for crashes and bugs. Post #18 for convenience sake.

A short preview for everyone else:

I've worked in a games studio before and they deliberately included code which detected if the game was pirated and introduced frequent random crashes to basically piss the pirater off.

 

[Dale]

Meanwhile, I've seen some of your comments at the 2K forums too, suggesting some most absurd and apologetic reasons for crashes and bugs. Post #18 for convenience sake.

A short preview for everyone else:

Ah.... so now you're calling me a liar? Nice attitude mate.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: @Islet and Dale: cool it, if you cannot engage each other civilly, don't engage each other.

 

[Zdarg]

More needs to be done to limit unit production. Those units whose numbers are not tied to resources like Iron need to be limited in some way. Perhaps total # of units can only be some % of population or some other factor.

Perhaps it's better to tie every unit type (except warriors and scouts) to a resource, prjbaby adding more of resource types...

 

[aatami]

How do you think it can be fixed though? Anything short of revamping the game's core mechanics would only seem to be a splash of paint to cover the flaws. See the latest patch on how they are going about this. Yes maybe they can "fix" the flaws by nerfing things but in the end would it really be as fun as say, Civ4. That's the main thing I take away from Sullla's article.

The article is quite clear on how screwed the base game is. You can't fix one thing without drastically changing the ideals of the game which is 1upt, global happiness, and smaller empire sizes. The gameplay's full of opposing ideas.

I wrote a long post, but got frustrated. I do not have the time to fight about things that are matters of oppinions.

In a few sentences: Instead of revamping completely, which I think is not necessary at all (why should it be? What should ciV be revamped into?), I would rather have the broken and unfinished elements fixed. To me, the game isn't pure trash and I do not agree on the "1upt is bad, it ruined the game"... Come on.

 

[Mac2411]

Somehow I doubt this thread will be the "final" analysis.

 

[blind biker]

Ah.... so now you're calling me a liar? Nice attitude mate.

As it is plainly visible for everybody, islet did not call you a liar.

By the way, are you the same Dale as the Dale from the 2K Games forum?

 

[acjvanv]

I didn't read all the posts, but as always there are people who agree and there are people who disagree, but I do think then we can all agree on one thing:

MP is broken!

and since we are living in year 2010, nearly 2011 and we are talking about Civ, that is something that the designers just cannot get away with.

 

[Spoonwood]

I agree with most of what Sulla said. Interestingly, because of his article and his strategy, I tried Civ V again and stopped in the middle of the game out of boredom again.
When I play strategy games, I like to have as many choices and for the choices to have as much significance as possible without deciding the outcome of the game outright. Civ V seems to make sure that there are as few choices as possible and the choices are of little consequence as possible.
After the patch, besides the fact that the choice to delay using the culture points until a later era to pick a better social policy (more suitable to the current strategy) has been removed, even the choice of delaying the upgrades of your troops is disallowed. The Civ V team should lighten up a bit. It's not like I try to cheat by not upgrading the troops right away, I just don't know when/where they will be used so it's better to wait until they are actually used to upgrade and make them work better. It's pretty much a Civ tradition. Upgrading them right away might force me to produce enough troops with different upgrades so they, as a big group with different upgrades, they can be used anywhere. But that would take away another choice: having a small army.
I don't think all these bad ideas come from Firaxis though. Fundamentally (and probably simplistically), I think there are two groups of Civ players: the expert Naysayers and the for-fun Yeahshouters.
The expert Naysayers are those who like to compete, mostly in MP games but occasionally against the AI. They are the real experts of the game and like to show their knowledge of all the features that are OP and cause the game to be unbalanced (and cause them to lose some games). Their main purpose is to compete and win the game so removing the unbalanced features is more important to them than having more varieties for fun.
Their ideas are more reactive and along the line of "SOD sucks, let's find some way to prevent it". "Some of the wonders are too powerful, let's make them less consequential", and nerf and nerf and nerf, as Sulla observed. Most, if not all of their ideas are based on the word NO to start with. Defenders of the 1UPT would say something like "But it's better than the SOD. What's so smart about winning with a SOD ?", not how fun (or unfun) it is to move dozens of units around individually with them bumping into each others and every other units along the way.
The Yeahshouters have more joie de vivre and play the game looking for fun experience like getting the Pyramid, StoneHenge, Great Library, CS slingshot or at least the Oracle, free tech with Liberalism,etc that make them feel like they've made good decisions that contribute significantly to the final outcome of the game. A good game must have enough of these positive reinforcements to keep people captivated and not walk away.
In other words, the game should be designed around the Yeahshouters (someone posted a URL from gamasutra which essentially saying the same thing but in a more more professional tone and with data to back up the reasoning) by adding enough innovative and fun thing for people to do at regular interval, unfortunately, the Naysayers tend to be more influential in game design decision.

When Civ III came out, I also hated it but realized that the design reflected all the "deas the expert players had been complaining about Civ II (I'm a lurker on all the Civ board). Civ IV was an innovative surprise and not just a kneejerk smorgabord of "Let's not allow them to do that" ideas.

Before Civ V came out, I guess I was the only person who wished that they would simply make it like Civ IV rather than trying to "fix Civ IV" the same way they designed Civ III to fix Civ II. When I played Civ V I had that deja vu feeling of Civ III again. I just learned that Jon Shafer worked on Civ III. That explained it.

I feel pretty sure that Jon Shafer didn't work on the basic game for civ III. In fact, Soren Johnson did. Shafer did mod civ III, but you'd have to find and download and play his mods to see what they play like. Sulla indicates that he play-tested the Conquests expansion of civ III (he calls him "Trip"), but that's about it. Here's his professional profile.

 

[Camikaze]

I disagree a bit with the penalties part of Sullla's article/post.

The argument seems to rest on penalties not being fun. But penalising someone and rewarding them to achieve the same end are functionally identical. The only difference occurs when the penalties are themselves simply badly designed. I can understand that there is some psychological effect in penalising people rather than rewarding them, but if there is no actual difference between the outcomes of the two, then there shouldn't really be a problem.

The other main point made seemed to be in regards to realism. Or at least, not regarding it. Buildings adding costs makes sense. Yes, you could let a player build a completely useless barracks and not suffer the consequences of such a bad decision, but if you design the game such that that barracks really is completely useless, why should the player be exempt from a penalty? Doesn't it assist them in making a good decision if they see there is some penalty associated? A new player may not see the opportunity cost with creating such a building, but will more easily regard the penalty in building maintenance. Having a visible and clear penalty actually assists the player in making decisions, and is entirely realistic.

Good read, though.

 

[Lheim]

Because I've had a couple of people ask me about this, I'm going to work on an article describing how I would design a new Civilization game, in the fantasy scenario where I was put in charge. Obviously not going to happen, but I can dream, can't I? Let me assure you, the result wouldn't look very much like Civ4. At the very least, I'd like to do a complete rework of the combat system and research mechanics, among other things...

I'm looking forward to reading this!

Please do make a point of trying to take and work with the good things/good intentions obvious in Civ5's design.. well, not much, but namely hexes and attempting to limit army size.

I'd suggest some kinda civ3 style army system.. with a gal-civ style logistics rating to limit the maximum number of units into them. Lone units being able to weakly hack away at an army would be fair, but armies should be attractive!

 

[Camikaze]

Welcome to the forums, Lheim.

Please do make a point of trying to take and work with the good things/good intentions obvious in Civ5's design.. well, not much, but namely hexes and attempting to limit army size.

I don't entirely sure that merely identifying an issue without providing an adequate solution is really cause for praise, as much as I'm one for positivity.

 

[Lheim]

Welcome to the forums, Lheim.



I don't entirely sure that merely identifying an issue without providing an adequate solution is really cause for praise, as much as I'm one for positivity.

Fair enough. Actually, the comment about civ-3 style armies was meant to do that. You produce units, but they funnel into super-units called armies - combined strength, etc. One army, of a reasonable maximum allowable size.. perhaps the best unit/army defends on a tile, and if it loses, everything of yours in the hex is destroyed. No more SoD, hopefully no more CoD.

Whilie I'm at it.. what do you think of some kinda production pool system for terrain improvements? Getting rid, finally, of the worker unit?

 

[Venereus]

Hmm, the common thread I see is that the AI needs to be improved and more balancing tweaks need to be done.

I think that 1upt and tactical combat is a great idea but the rules haven't been refined enough. More needs to be done to limit unit production. Those units whose numbers are not tied to resources like Iron need to be limited in some way. Perhaps total # of units can only be some % of population or some other factor. I think it is reasonable to say that the country of Kuwait cannot field an army that is the same size as China's no matter how rich Kuwait is.

Population as a limiting factor to the amount of units you can maintain? Sounds like the mechanic a good old game has, can't remember wich one...

 

[Finite]

I am also very disappointed in the latest civ and I share most of Sulllas concerns.

I wouldn't blame everything on 1upt (like bad testing, lack of polish and documentation, cutting features like statistics and replays, unacceptably poor AI etc), though. Also, I see why they tried to take the franchise that way, sadly it just seems obvious that it just doesn't work on a global scale. I would have liked it to work but all the needed compromises make the rest of the game less fun.

Civ V can probably be salvaged by for example
- introducing some stacking to allow for larger armies and less clutter
- making some drastic changes to happiness/empire growth issues, like
-a) make money define how much you can afford to expand (like cIV)
-b) make happiness affect culture output and tile yields more than it does now
-c) take out most bonuses that increase by city count
-d) lessen the link between population and science so smaller empires can compete. Maybe reintroduce the slider so science costs gold, but make it slow to change it to make it more realistic?
- fixing combat AI and diplo AI (stacking gives AI some slack)
- a lot of balance work to make city placement more important and all buildings/units usable (modder example should be used more here)

I don't see all this happening without an expansion that Firaxis can get paid for, and after this sorry release I'm very reluctant of giving them any more money. But I probably will if they produce something worth it.

 

[JohnnyW]

You really do have issues remembering numbers, don't you? It is 78%
But the interesting thing is, while 78% say they prefer 1UpT, only 36% are sticking with Civ V, the rest has already gone back to Civ IV, considering going back to Civ IV or leaving Civ behind altogether. That tells me that while people might want 1UpT, they aren't ready to face the drawbacks 1UpT brings with it. Therefore, 1UpT must die, there is no other way forward for Civ.

I didn't vote in the poll, but my personal opinion is that I like 1upt and hexes, but I despise the moronic AI that cannot handle it (or many other things). IDK how much more I will play Civ5. I am working on a mod, so that'll probably keep me interested for a while.

 

[Stilgar08]

At this point I think it would be best to just limit everything. Seriously. Maximum 5 cities per civ (conquered cities must be destroyed), 10 pop each, and 30 units on Standard map size with double these figures for Huge. That solves ICS, carpet of doom, and gives the AI an easier time at pathfinding and alleviates some 1upt problems. Hope to see this in the next patch

Awesome! Love your username while reading this!
Maybe you would even be right?!?
Going back to my cIV-BTS while laughing!