The sad state of civ4 play outside of these forums

[Fish Man]

I was browsing the civ4 discord the other day and saw this. There's no helping some people...

 

[ArchGhost]

Play Civ 4 without too much micromanagement? You load up Civ Rev

Automate all you want there.

I love Civ Rev though.

 

[Pangaea]

Well, admittedly if they want to play Civ4 without too much micromanagement, it makes sense to automate workers. They'll behave like imbeciles more often than not, but I doubt those guys are stomping the game on Deity anyhow And the "damage" can be reduced by ticking off some boxes in settings so the automated workers preserve forests and previous improvements. That way they won't go into the braindead cottage-farm-workshop-cottage cycle. Pretty hilarious when you see one worker building a farm over a town, and another worker building a cottage over a farm. Not much foresight there

 

[elmurcis]

I want funny, interesting, challenging game but I don't want to do anything at all - make game do all good stuff and I just can sit and wait until "win button" appear.. yeah, right
Civ4 still is and will be one of best games available if we talk about cost-effective gaming (including everything - there are many nice games but this works fine on 1 GB RAM and 10+ yrs old laptop - can anything have better ROI??? )

 

[ztrapon]

Been playing some multiplayer on steam and yeah that's about my experience as well.

I try to educate though best I can

 

[Archon_Wing]

Not just Civ IV.

A lot of people never really learn the games they play and end up struggling on the lowest difficulties. I guess play for fun and you don't have to be any good. So they can just stick to chieftain or something.

This is why you see those nonsensical criticisms of Civ IV on reddit, because they really don't know what they're talking about.

But is it fair to throw rocks from a glass house? One of the "walkthrough" videos I made for folks in my sig six years ago has me expanding into the jungle early game, which is pretty bad really. It also goes on late game to struggle to stop the more advanced Sitting Bull on Noble difficulty (how does that even happen?) but you know, I just leave it as a reminder that everyone has to start somewhere. And also you don't have to be good at all to win.

I love this game, but I hate micromanagement. Which is why I usually stick to the lower difficulties myself. But in exchange I finish games in an hour or two and get to experience a variety of games.

 

[Pangaea]

It's the same mentality that drives the gaming industry towards "dumb, dumber, EA". Handholding and corridor shooters, even corridor "RPGs", is the order of the day. Pretty sad state of affairs. No wonder I have largely stopped buying games, when almost everything coming out is a bit crap.

 

[Fish Man]

It's the same mentality that drives the gaming industry towards "dumb, dumber, EA". Handholding and corridor shooters, even corridor "RPGs", is the order of the day. Pretty sad state of affairs. No wonder I have largely stopped buying games, when almost everything coming out is a bit crap.

Yeah. I'd say a major factor in driving this dumbing-down is pandering to increasingly ridiculous levels of players' wants for instant gratification these days. If they can't reliably beat the hardest difficulty within a week of toying with the basic game mechanics, then the game is clearly too confusing for new players.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, that's the other thing. Player agenda (read: whining) tends to water down gameplay when players were more likely do "deal with it"

It's not all bad though. Sometimes feedback is great and accessibility can bring a larger community that brings creativity.

 

[Fish Man]

Well, that's the other thing. Player agenda (read: whining) tends to water down gameplay when players were more likely do "deal with it"

It's not all bad though. Sometimes feedback is great and accessibility can bring a larger community that brings creativity.

Yeah...I guess. Listening to player feedback, it seems they made civ 6 a lot better (at least in terms of interesting mechanics), so that's good, I guess. The AI and aesthetic of the game, though...that's debatable.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Civ 6 took elements from both 4 and 5.

Guess where the good ones came from.

 

[Fish Man]

Civ 6 took elements from both 4 and 5.

Guess where the good ones came from.

Here's the thing...I feel like they tried too hard to copy some things from civ 4 and failed. I'm talking about the general mood of the game. Civ 5 was always somber and serious, reflected by the no-nonsense realistic HD art style and art deco straightforward HUD, as well as the melodramatic and overly formal declarations of, well, everything from every AI leader ever. "Very well, a maelstrom of death shall envelope us both" - like, that could be straight from a shonen anime...

On the other hand, civ 4 was more lighthearted. The leaders were shown to be a real threat with the better AI in practice but otherwise they could sound a bit like goofballs at times, and that was alright; it added to the unique style of the game. "Welcome to Rome! Care for some salad? I made it myself?", "Soon my numberless infantry shall destroy you all!", etc... It was charming, and unique, in an age where many other games were increasingly hyper-realistic and super-srs but lacking in any real depth.

But civ 6 took that idea and just went over the rails. You should see the tech and wonder quotes - a lot of them were a joke, in all senses of the word, and most of them aren't even funny. "It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut; they couldn't hear the Barbarians coming." - seriously, what? Put another way, "I want to feel like History is rolling, not like I'm watching stand-up comedy in a hipster coffee shop in New York...What's the point of having Sean Bean read the quotes if they are so devoid of content?" We want in-depth and serious but occasionally whimsical, not a grimdark tactical war simulator or shoddily done standup comedy.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yea I dunno what they were trying to aim for atmosphere in 6 either. Some of the quotes are indeed kinda bad, but I don't think that's most of them.

The game that does the silly right, is of course, Age of Empires!

 

[Fish Man]

Yea I dunno what they were trying to aim for atmosphere in 6 either. Some of the quotes are indeed kinda bad, but I don't think that's most of them.

The game that does the silly right, is of course, Age of Empires!

Update: whatever this guy is smoking, I want some...

 

[need my speed]

Exactly, Undefeatable. I love that kind of... Immersion, I suppose? I once took it upon myself to add many more of such diplomatic messages, as well as touching upon the diplomatic modifiers and some other texts:

And so on. You get the idea. It's a lot of fun.

Oh, and, specially for Imp. Knoedel:

 

[Archon_Wing]

Update: whatever this guy is smoking, I want some...

Global warming.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Also stop reading the Civ Reddit.

 

[Fish Man]

Exactly, Undefeatable. I love that kind of... Immersion, I suppose? I once took it upon myself to add many more of such diplomatic messages, as well as touching upon the diplomatic modifiers and some other texts:

And so on. You get the idea. It's a lot of fun.

Oh, and, specially for Imp. Knoedel:

Wow, that's a nice collection! My favorite is the "military exercise...in your lands" one. I guess I just really like the passive-aggressive, patronizing, condescending, and snarky tone of the AI in IV. It makes it so much more satisfying when you beat the **** outta them, especially on a higher difficulty.

 

[Xpl]

In fairness people play games for a variety of reasons. Took me a long time to realise this after playing lots of games with a competitive edge. I had a friend for example who would play on Warlord or Settler difficulty exclusively because they wanted to build all the wonders and create huge uncontested empires or simply steamroll the AI with large armies. Could they have played games at a higher difficulty? Certainly, but that wasn't what was fun to them in the game.

On automation, I remember in Phil's lets plays years back, he would often automate workers quite early into the medieval period sometimes, since he would beat games extremely quickly and was a workhorse in how many games he uploaded (please come back!) It's also not too bad when you have a guaranteed victory in conquest/domination for example and don't want to cycle through 20 worker turns to then move your stacks around. There was some forum thread a while back of people beating the game at Immortal+ only automating workers too.

I also contest that there are lots of titles in the 4X genre that have inspired all of the Civ series, and a lot of people forgetting some of the awful mechanics of the previous games like the AP and peace vassals. 4 has a lot of precise details to it, but 5 and 6 have their own share of upper skill ceiling to them too, with some quite dedicated posters going strong. But whatever, these back and forth comparisons have been going on for nearly 2 decades, so it's just beating a dead horse at this rate.

 

[Fish Man]

In fairness people play games for a variety of reasons. Took me a long time to realise this after playing lots of games with a competitive edge. I had a friend for example who would play on Warlord or Settler difficulty exclusively because they wanted to build all the wonders and create huge uncontested empires or simply steamroll the AI with large armies. Could they have played games at a higher difficulty? Certainly, but that wasn't what was fun to them in the game.

On automation, I remember in Phil's lets plays years back, he would often automate workers quite early into the medieval period sometimes, since he would beat games extremely quickly and was a workhorse in how many games he uploaded (please come back!) It's also not too bad when you have a guaranteed victory in conquest/domination for example and don't want to cycle through 20 worker turns to then move your stacks around. There was some forum thread a while back of people beating the game at Immortal+ only automating workers too.

I also contest that there are lots of titles in the 4X genre that have inspired all of the Civ series, and a lot of people forgetting some of the awful mechanics of the previous games like the AP and peace vassals. 4 has a lot of precise details to it, but 5 and 6 have their own share of upper skill ceiling to them too, with some quite dedicated posters going strong. But whatever, these back and forth comparisons have been going on for nearly 2 decades, so it's just beating a dead horse at this rate.

I agree with everything you said.

It's not that I'm hating on V and/or VI, or saying that everyone who plays these games are trash. It upsets me, though, to see people who dismiss IV or earlier without even playing or learning a bit about the game, just assuming anyone who likes these games are blinded by nostalgia, etc. The issue I had, in this specific case, is people who asked me for advice earlier on how to play better but then dismissed the overwhelming majority of it because they want to win but they don't want to work to win.

At any rate, just stating my opinion, especially some thoughts that I think haven't been stated before. I completely understand people playing the game for reasons other than winning or tryharding deity; I myself derp around on settler quite a bit, in both IV and V.

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's not that I'm hating on V and/or VI, or saying that everyone who plays these games are trash. It upsets me, though, to see people who dismiss IV or earlier without even playing or learning a bit about the game, just assuming anyone who likes these games are blinded by nostalgia, etc.

Civ IV player explains why they hate you:

+5 Our mutual military struggle brings our peoples closer
-2 We are disappointed you have fallen under the sway of a heathen religion
-1 You refused to accept our State Religion!
-37 You have spread misinformation about our faith!
-12 You refused to try out Civ IV because it was an old game
-4 You declared war on our friend!
-1 You made an Arrogant Demand!
-2 You voted against us!
-5 This War Spoils Our Relationship


Civ 5 player explains why they hate you:
You have both denounced the same foe

They covet games you own!
They believe you are a warmongering menace to the world!
You have a different ideology
You caused their resolution for a third Civ V expansion to fail

Civ 6 player explains why they hate you
+3 Unknown Reason
-3 Unknown Reason
-3 Unknown Reason
-3 Unknown Reason
-3 Unknown Reason
-6 Different Governments
-8 You refused to make a promise
-6 Moved troops too close
-6 You use too many question marks
-6 You use too little question marks
-18 Your Warmongering