The Sizzle Factor

[oldStatesman]

I am trying to figure out why Civ 4 is not as 'charming' and lacks the 'sizzle' for lack of a better word, to me than past releases. (Before bashing, please read the entire post...)

I really was not around the community way back when, but I have read snippets about Brian Reynolds, who I guess had a big part in designing Alpha Centauri, and Civ 2 and part of Civ3 ...I think he left midway in Civ 3's development thus causing that game to be full of problems ...

Is the fact that Civ 4's interface is soooo different than Civ 3, in part a reaction, perhaps unconscious, to try and get away from Mr. Reynolds influences, a reaction because he left Civ3 in the lurch?

I mean, to me Civ4 is a good game, the gameplay is good, new things like religion and the combat system have promise, but the overall project management side seems to lack...it seems kind of a mishmash, something designed by committee, and lacks some of the 'charming' elements that made those older titles special...advisors who talked to you instead of spreadsheets; intuitive interfaces without icon 'overkill' , interesting wonder movies; elvis popheads in the city screens which in the current version seem sterile from the lack of popheads; the flavor of leaders who dressed for the time...

At times I feel that Civ 4's animated graphics are simply eye candy designed to distract from the lack of these other things...which is okay for the first few times you play, but wear off quickly.

Did Mr. Reynolds have that big of an impact on the past releases, that his absense now is reflected in the lessening of creativity, for lack of a better word, not in gameplay, but in presentation..., or am I wayyyy off base?

(Are we even supposed to bring his name up here?)

JMHO

 

[Kolyana]

oldStatesman I think that was a good post and well thought out. I've played *all* of the Civ titles (which will betray my age to a degree ) and the last two have missed a certain something ... this one particularly.

I think that they have added some GREAT concept and I have played the game none-stop since buying it, but there is still much missing here.

I know that they wanted to simplify certain things and take the tedium out of previous titles ... they talk about such at length at the end of the manual ... but in so doing I think that they have opened a different can of worms and taken steps backwards as much as they have forwards ... the net result isn't necessarily a 'better' title ... more of a sidestep.

Ass to this is obvious and GROSS lack of polish that no one can deny (bugs or not, just look at the damned, laughable civilopedia), and ys it's easy to admit that there is a complete lack of sizzle (The earlier Civs and Alpha Centauri had it in spades, so one caould argue that any title that came subsequent to these should only have got better and better).

 

[LeSphinx]

I'm a civaddict players since I'm 17 years old (Well now, I'm 33!!!).
I played civ1, civ2, alpha centauri, civ3 and now civ4.
Civ1 for me is HUGE: it's a legend. Sid Meyers make this happens!
For me civ2 and civ3 are close each other.
Civ4 is more like civ1 when I became available.
GREAT NEW thing appears in civ4 and you have to thing your strategy... to realize thant this time lots of thing can be possible.

In a game like that, you will have always good things, bads things and exceptionnal things...

LeSphinx

 

[winddbourne]

I got civ 1 when I was 15 and I've played everything including let downs like CTP ever since. I like civ IV, but I agree, Civ II was the big one for me. I miss the advisor screen with everyone arguing and the drunk miliary advisor when I decided just to kill everything. I also think these wonder movies are a step down from the ones in civ II, and I can't help but miss the slower movement through the tech tree too. I like the slower speed of expansion, but . . . I shouldn't be in the modern age with only five cities, there is something just plain WRONG about that. What gives me hope is that "updates" button they added, which tells me they aren't really done, and will be adding the needed polish one month at a time (I hope)

Also when we're on it what happened to my palace?????

 

[Psyringe]

Did Mr. Reynolds have that big of an impact on the past releases, that his absense now is reflected in the lessening of creativity, for lack of a better word, not in gameplay, but in presentation..., or am I wayyyy off base?

Hmm, I don't know. Nobody knows how much influence Reynolds had on the interface and on the "fluff" of the games he designed. That he lead a project doesn't mean that everything in it is his work.

Also, you talk about the blandness of the interface. IIRC the interface that comes closest to Civ4 is that of SMAC: bland, blue menues. You may look at SMAC's wonder movied and think "That was creative! Was that Reynolds' doing?". But you might ask the same question for SMAC's technology icons which looked like geometrical test patterns of an eight-year-old.

So, to sum it up, we don't really know and I think we have too little data to speculate. However, I admit that that's easy for me to say, since Civ4 doesn't lack a "sizzle factor" for me (despite the rather bland UI and some other issues).

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Also, you talk about the blandness of the interface. IIRC the interface that comes closest to Civ4 is that of SMAC: bland, blue menues. You may look at SMAC's wonder movied and think "That was creative! Was that Reynolds' doing?". But you might ask the same question for SMAC's technology icons which looked like geometrical test patterns of an eight-year-old.

Ah, but the difference is that with SMAC, that style was absolutely FITTING. Granted, I found the tech icons to be rather crude, too, but then again, this was more than made up for by the outright BRILLIANT quotes (and pseudo-quotes) they had accompanying it.

For CIV, an interface should giv you the feeling of ruling an empire. In this respect, CIV3 excelled, altough I had liked it if the interface would have changed through the eras. The CIV4 interface, however, could just as well be the interface of some, what do I know, waveform composer or a mathematics learning program.

And I'm fully with the OP that the "sizzle factor" in CIV4 is hardly detectable. I miss the points where you can feel that people had FUN when designing this game. CIV4 has the overall appeal of, say, Microsoft Excel plus Multimedia Extension. It is well-done, but it doesn't amaze. This game is good, but without glory. A lot of brains and no heart (with the one exception of Catherine of Russia).

 

[DrJambo]

I think the style of Civ IV is excellent and very appropriate. Plus, in the end gameplay is far more important and Civ IV excels in this department. For me, Civ 3 was the real disappointment of the series. Bug-ridden and linear.

 

[Nigel Stutt]

I got civ 1 when I was 15 and I've played everything including let downs like CTP ever since. I...
I like the slower speed of expansion, but . . . I shouldn't be in the modern age with only five cities, there is something just plain WRONG about that. What gives me hope is that "updates" button they added, which tells me they aren't really done, and will be adding the needed polish one month at a time (I hope)

Also when we're on it what happened to my palace?????

I liked Civ 1 as well but only because it was original. I played Civ 2 quite a bit. I dodnt play Civ 3 at all - too much like the originals. This one I feel is great and Im having great fun with it. Changes? I would still like to see less progression in the technologies and more that you can bypass to give more varied playability. Plus I would like to see more varied units to again give more playability. Also I would like to see less resources around as at the moment everyone has everything pretty much so theres no need to fight! I would like to see more reasons to fight and less defensive play.

I would like to see a proper city screen again and the return of the palace even though it was pointless.

But generally I like the game and am having fun.

Nats

 

[Meffy]

With apologies to my vegetarian friends, and acknowledging that each player's take on the various Civ games will be different:

In advertising there's a saying, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." It means that for an advert to get consumers' attention it ought to focus not on facts and benefits and numbers, but on style and glitz and sex appeal (real or imagined: "Ooo, baby, I love it when you wash your hair in 'HeavenScent shampoo' with dandruff control! Rrrowr.").

I don't entirely agree that CivIV lacks sizzle, but to me it feels as if there's more steak there than in previous iterations. More meat. More to sink my teeth into. I'll have the sirloin, please, with baked rival civ and some of that salad Caesar was offering back before I flipped Rome. =^_^= Yum.

 

[Scotty Mack]

I'm also 33 years of age and am all too familiar with that 'sizzle' factor you speak of.
However, having experienced things like this many times before, it's important to remember the power of nostalgia and the influence it can have on something like this.
Sentimental nostalgia, I have come to learn, can have a massive impact on our memories of something like Civ II.

The seed of Civ 1 took 4 turns to plant, Civ II added a farm and road...beautiful, Civ III made the road a railroad, and Civ IV changed the farm to a lovely hamlet which will become a village in 15 turns.

I have no clear idea of what I mean by this, but it sounds nice.

Scotty

ps. As far as I'm concerned, Civ IV is a work of art.

 

[Meffy]

a lovely hamlet

... played by Arnold Schwartzenegger in another thread. :-}

 

[CautiousChaos]

Hmm... I really agree with a lot of what's been said here. I'm teetering on loving Civ4. A few things hold me back. I suppose that there's nothing gained from my message. It's unlikely these things will change. But...

Advisors

Civ3: You had little figure heads in the upper corner which gave you tidbits of information or advise on the current game. For the veteran player, this was non-essential, but for the more casual gamer it was helpful and helped create the suspension of disbelief that you had advisors.

Civ4: You have spreadsheets. None of them are interconnected like in Civ3 (you have to exit and then click another advisor). They lack some of the shortcuts. And they lack any personality. In Civ4, I feel much more alone and on my own in this respect.

Victory Conditions
Civ3: So many variations to how you could play and win. Regicide, capture the flag, variable aggression levels for both barbs and civs. My favorite was to set conditions so that losing two cities eliminated you. I miss this level of control. It made for shorter games when needed.

Civ4: Back to basics. The standard diplo, culture, space, etc victories. With no UI way to modify the conditions of those victory settings. It's a take-away for me.

Graphics
Civ3: They were passable, even pleasant. Pastels, muted colors. Even the interface blended into the general theme nicely. You could tell there was a theme to the interface and styling. Then you could download mods like Rhye's color schemes if you wanted something different. I miss opening the aerial view of a city and seeing the rivers and trees in the autumn setting.

Civ4: Beautiful details up close. Running water, environmental sounds, moving animals, animated characters. Very realistic scenery. Far superior to Civ3 in those regards. But at a price. A huge performance impact. Very difficult to read maps. Lots of clutter. I'd gladly trade a more 2-D approach with a slight graphics upgrade if it would buy me even an extra 10 frames per second. It's great eye-candy, but awfully expensive when you just want to play the game.

Diplomacy
Civ3: Not bad, but definately not perfect. Behaviors were somewhat erratic. Eventually, you'd be at war no matter how nice you were. Passable, but not easy to suspend that disbelief.

Civ4: Much better quality and "reasoning". The animated figureheads are much more convincing. Emotions are better modeled. Missing is the period-specific garb. It hurts the immersion when you see Roosevelt in a suit in 100 BC. Also when every AI offers you Music and 20 Gold for Drama. Every time. Constantly.

Performance
Civ3: It wasn't the fastest game in the world, but I rarely had to wait too long for a turn to expire, even with huge maps late in the game. A few seconds at most. Downside is that I always had to start in the ancient time period, which invariably made for a longer game. I sometimes want to play shorter games.

Civ4: Improved one thing for me - the ability to elect which time period in which to start. That's huge. Sadly, though, the overall performance of the game is just plain terrible. It takes foreever for a turn to end, long waits when a diplo event occurs. And when a map event occurs there's this latent scrolling to the map site which invariably causes swapping and lags. In order to enjoy the Civ4 experience, you have to have patience. Not for learning the game or for a technology to be discovered, but for waiting for actions to occur.

There's a lot Civ4 offers; great music, more interesting gameplay with religion and great people, better diplomacy, and more interesting random maps. But it just shoots itself in the foot with the 3d graphics and performance. I thank Firaxis for thinking of bringing Civ4 "alive". The cost for me is crippling and in the end detracts from the experience. In the end, I'd prefer Civ4 with all it has to offer, minus the 3d experience.

Ok, that's my steam.

-cc

 

[Darwin420]

Might just be me, but I have no issue with the 3D graphics. And the more I play, the more I'm learning how to pinpoint things on the maps. It's becoming less cluttered as I learn how the game displays things.

I must admit, my only real problem with cIV is the worldbuilder. The "integrated" thing is a piece of &#^@. I miss being able to enter the separate worldbuilder and do everything from there, and then load my newly made map in the game (including hotseat).

 

[Trainwreck20]

I have played all the CIV titles and take-offs, having always much preferred TB over RT. Part of the 'sizzle' problem is 'been there, done that'. Several posters include their ages (got em all beat, so far...) and how many variations they have played. The genre is no longer new, it is hard to make a leap forward like the first Civ game, and we hav been playing Civ for almost 20 YEARS! The basics are still the same...hard to make a 20 year old steak sizzle too appetizingly.

 

[CautiousChaos]

Hmm.. Interesting take.

Suppose you had A1 steaksauce with your steak for the past 20 years, then you go to a new steakhouse that doesn't serve steaksauce, what would you think? You would sort of expect them to carry A1 or at least something comparable.

I'll agree that it's tough to change the steak.

Putting the steak on a pedestal in the middle of your plate to simulate a 3d steak experience might certainly look nice, but before long you'll tire from trying to eat your steak off the 3d pedestal and will take it off and put it on your plate where you can really get to work.

I think the 3d effects look great, but they just cost soooooo much to use.

-cc

 

[oldStatesman]

I want to thank everyone for having a good discussion minus animosity on this topic! Well done! See -we can have different opinions and not bash each other - there is hope for the community!

I want to point out I am not saying Civ4 is not a good game - it is. There are lots of innovative things in it...but I am having trouble immersing myself like I did in the past. It is not all about the gameplay; 95% yes, but to me this game lacks the 5% of ssomething, call it sizzle, that the other games in the franchise had. That undefinable something that makes it stand out and shine head and shoulders above other games in the genre; to steal from Tom Wolfe, "The Right Stuff".

(Note: I am ignoring the tech problems for this topic, because I'd like to discuss the game as it could be - I kow they are there, I have them, but it's nice to leave that discussion to other threads for once.)

I feel bad even comparing it to Civ2 and Civ3 or SMAC .... they are all different games and stand on their own merits, as Civ4 should.

I guess I will come back and revisit this thread in about 6 to 8 months - and see where it stands then...

But thanks again for the real discussion to all!

 

[Trainwreck20]

I like the general look of the 3D and the new graphics, but they do make it difficult to go to war and know what is going on strategically. I am finding it difficult to 'glance' at the map and know where the real threats are coming from. Some of it is a simple as the colors are too close in shade or not prominent enought on the units. I may get better at this with time; however, this is what is currently slowing down my game play (and damping the 'sizzle') as much as the somewhat plodding graphics of my formerly respectable computer.

On a separate topic, the AI does seem to be improved (not much record, though, to base that on yet), and the diplomatic +/- system makes the world make more sense. I have always enjoyed playing the game as much as winning, and this seems to add quite a bit to my enjoyment.

 

[MeteorPunch]

In my opinion Civ 4 takes a few steps forward and a few steps back. Overall it is about the same as older versions (for the time each one came out). The vision of the developers was far too shortsighted - the game could be way better. The civ franchise and gamers that play it deserve more.

 

[eg577]

There are a lot of small things that I like and don't like about civ4. We still have a weak AI, navies are still pretty useless and the wonder movies are no civ 2 masterpieces. I do like the new combat system, civics, and the great people system. My overall opinion however is determined by one big thing: The graphics negatively affected the game with crashes and memory leaks.

Ironically we've all been saying for the past year "If you don't like this and this about civ4 you can always MOD IT". Well where is that XML file where I can change the CTD field to 0?

 

[Meffy]

I agree that the tabular information listings need work. There's stuff you want to know that's not available (or not easily). And they ought to be more interactive, as they were in Civ III or more so.