Viewing history as a whole... isn't as fun.

[TXDragon]

I don't think you have to plan out your end game plan while in the ancient age. except for cultrue where you'll have to limit your expansion. If you build a commerce and production focused empire then end game you have the choice of military, diplomatic, and scientific (a big empire will do well technologically). Even a large empire with cultural buildings in all of it's cities can sort of offset the huge amount of culture their gonna need for a new policy they just can't compete with a small empire focused on culture, but thats where your huge production and massive army can help you out.

 

[Gatsby]

Interesting point. I hadn't really thought of that aspect of it. But you're right... if you're starting at the dawn of your civ in 4000 B.C. and you're already thinking about assembling a spacecraft or winning a UN vote, you're thinking about winning a video game. You're obviously not immersed in the historical sense, and you never really leave that awareness that you're playing a game behind.

This is why the next Civ game should endeavour to put much more emphasis on survival and sustainability of civilizations. Insofar as it is unrealistic to have individual civilizations go from strength to strength for 6000 years, it is also unrealistic to have civilizations/leaders planning for UN or Spaceship or even Conquest/Domination victory as their ultimate goal throughout the game.

Civilization is a way for groups of people to maximise their own welfare by exploiting and attempting to contain and control the natural world. Throughout history, civilisation advances (including but not limited to science and technology) have developed/evolved in response to particular problems and circumstances faced by different societies. Civilisation advancement has rarely if ever been conscious or part of a clear long-term strategy e.g. "It's 800BC so I'll research Writing so I can beeline Liberalism and grab Economics and adopt Free Religion and Free Market in about 2000 years time" , but civ games tend to encourage both human and AI players to play this way.

What a future civ game ought to do, imo, is encourage players to approach the game more like this:

"Okay, I'm in the ancient era and I have three cities and am being assaulted by a constant stream of barbarians, my water sources may dry up due to overuse and/or the climate becoming drier and my arable land may become depleted from overuse. Meanwhile my people's health is limited and living standards are generally low, and this may cause civil unrest and rebellions if I don't look after it. So should I concentrate my efforts on finding ways to improve my people's health, building better weapons to fight off barbarians, or facilitating trade and improved management of my natural resources?"

Admittedly, Civ4 was quite good in some ways at getting the player to "Play The Map" like this, but there still wasn't enough focus on immediate needs when compared to goals in the distant future, because the pressures on a civ's survival and ability to sustain itself over the long term weren't really all that compelling compared to the pressure and impetus to become a superpower and win the game. Perhaps the next civ game should have a "blind research" option like SMAC with different categories of techs you could prioritize (e.g. "growth", "commerce", "military", "living standards"), along with research being dependent on available resources e.g. can't research horseback riding if you don't have any horse resources.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

This is why the next Civ game should endeavour to put much more emphasis on survival and sustainability of civilizations. Insofar as it is unrealistic to have individual civilizations go from strength to strength for 6000 years, it is also unrealistic to have civilizations/leaders planning for UN or Spaceship or even Conquest/Domination victory as their ultimate goal throughout the game.

Civilization is a way for groups of people to maximise their own welfare by exploiting and attempting to contain and control the natural world. Throughout history, civilisation advances (including but not limited to science and technology) have developed/evolved in response to particular problems and circumstances faced by different societies. Civilisation advancement has rarely if ever been conscious or part of a clear long-term strategy e.g. "It's 800BC so I'll research Writing so I can beeline Liberalism and grab Economics and adopt Free Religion and Free Market in about 2000 years time" , but civ games tend to encourage both human and AI players to play this way.

What a future civ game ought to do, imo, is encourage players to approach the game more like this:

"Okay, I'm in the ancient era and I have three cities and am being assaulted by a constant stream of barbarians, my water sources may dry up due to overuse and/or the climate becoming drier and my arable land may become depleted from overuse. Meanwhile my people's health is limited and living standards are generally low, and this may cause civil unrest and rebellions if I don't look after it. So should I concentrate my efforts on finding ways to improve my people's health, building better weapons to fight off barbarians, or facilitating trade and improved management of my natural resources?"

Admittedly, Civ4 was quite good in some ways at getting the player to "Play The Map" like this, but there still wasn't enough focus on immediate needs when compared to goals in the distant future, because the pressures on a civ's survival and ability to sustain itself over the long term weren't really all that compelling compared to the pressure and impetus to become a superpower and win the game. Perhaps the next civ game should have a "blind research" option like SMAC with different categories of techs you could prioritize (e.g. "growth", "commerce", "military", "living standards"), along with research being dependent on available resources e.g. can't research horseback riding if you don't have any horse resources.

Great post. Too bad Fireaxis designed a cheesy pseudo wargame rather than something excellent that would "stand the test of time".

 

[Tutkarz]

This is why the next Civ game should endeavour to put much more emphasis on survival and sustainability of civilizations. Insofar as it is unrealistic to have individual civilizations go from strength to strength for 6000 years, it is also unrealistic to have civilizations/leaders planning for UN or Spaceship or even Conquest/Domination victory as their ultimate goal throughout the game.

Civilization is a way for groups of people to maximise their own welfare by exploiting and attempting to contain and control the natural world. Throughout history, civilisation advances (including but not limited to science and technology) have developed/evolved in response to particular problems and circumstances faced by different societies. Civilisation advancement has rarely if ever been conscious or part of a clear long-term strategy e.g. "It's 800BC so I'll research Writing so I can beeline Liberalism and grab Economics and adopt Free Religion and Free Market in about 2000 years time" , but civ games tend to encourage both human and AI players to play this way.

What a future civ game ought to do, imo, is encourage players to approach the game more like this:

"Okay, I'm in the ancient era and I have three cities and am being assaulted by a constant stream of barbarians, my water sources may dry up due to overuse and/or the climate becoming drier and my arable land may become depleted from overuse. Meanwhile my people's health is limited and living standards are generally low, and this may cause civil unrest and rebellions if I don't look after it. So should I concentrate my efforts on finding ways to improve my people's health, building better weapons to fight off barbarians, or facilitating trade and improved management of my natural resources?"

Admittedly, Civ4 was quite good in some ways at getting the player to "Play The Map" like this, but there still wasn't enough focus on immediate needs when compared to goals in the distant future, because the pressures on a civ's survival and ability to sustain itself over the long term weren't really all that compelling compared to the pressure and impetus to become a superpower and win the game. Perhaps the next civ game should have a "blind research" option like SMAC with different categories of techs you could prioritize (e.g. "growth", "commerce", "military", "living standards"), along with research being dependent on available resources e.g. can't research horseback riding if you don't have any horse resources.

It is exactly what i want to see in game. Its not like there is civilization and people inside. Its people who make civilization.

 

[mihaifx]

For me, the immersion breaks when I notice how empty the map is. My medieval kingdom has not established its national borders yet, but instead just looks like a loose collection of city states. Most of the world is completely uninhabited. It's kind of hard to tell the difference from turn 1 even though humanity has advanced two whole ages...

Well you're not building cities right then. I mean look at the AI, they're spamming cities every 2 tiles.


Regarding the topic, you guys are taking it too serious with the planning stuff. Thinking at a space win from turn 1 seems a little paranoic, to me...you gotta chill down and relax sometimes, and enjoy the game.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Well, it appears they solved the ICS problem....

That's exactly what they didn't.

Maybe the problem is that very few things seem to go obsolete besides military units. I'm not feeling the ages pass.

Not that many things go obsolete in Civ4 either. The grand majority of stuff that you build in Civ4 is here to serve you 'till the end.

 

[Brawndo]

Well, one problem in the Civ series is that you have to start and remain strong throughout the game in order to win. You cannot go through long periods of decline, or you will fall behind in techs and then it's good game.

History disagrees - Russia, for example, has gone through periods of enormous technological backwardness, political turmoil, and destruction, but it is still a major player on the world stage. If Russia's history were modeled in the game, they would be done after the Mongol invasions of the 1200s

 

[AlpsStranger]

I think I've figured what's bugging me about Civ5. In previous civ games, I feel like I could put myself into ancient times and pretend like I'm really there. My concerns were mostly 'in the moment'. I chose my tech direction depending on what I needed at that time for continued survival. I usually didn't think about how I should win the game until the industrial period at the earliest.

In Civ5 though, I feel like I need to be making decisions now that will affect my performance in future ages that I shouldn't even be imagining about. The information presented seems to foreshadow what is to come. I don't really need X building now, but if I don't build it then I will suffer in the modern age. Thinking 'in the moment' led to a few failures in my early Civ5 games, which were then corrected by planning everything out from the beginning.

I guess I enjoyed the fact that previous civs were loosely tied to governance. Let's face it, governments almost never think of the future, and for good reason. Alot of resources can be spent on a future that my not turn out as planned. So, they react to their present circumstances, altering their responses as events play out.

By removing the governance aspect of Civ, I think there is a break in the immersion. I can't put myself in a particular moment in history.

I actually have a very similar complaint. There is no texture to it. Things like castles going obsolete(though many on here will laugh at me for using them in Civ4 at all I imagine) added a lot of flavor to Civ4. I certainly was aware what victory I was going for from the start of the game, but the emotional involvement had a subtly different texture. Civ5 has some how made early game feel more like the early build up in an RTS or something and less like the ages passing.

They definitely failed, on some subtle levels, to create the wonderful feeling of the slow unfolding of time.

 

[Drawmeus]

I agree to a certain extent - I had this problem in both Civ IV and Civ V. Civ IV was the first time I really started thinking about it as a game to be won, with opening gambits, a single correct path through the tech tree, and specific gambits at various times to win or get you closer to winning (e.g. selling out for an axeman rush early). Civ IV has this problem less than Civ V does, but I think a lot of that is because it's a richer game, because it has two expansions worth of alternate strategies and such built in.

Once you're seeing it as a game to be won, it's VERY difficult to break out of that mindset. The modding I was doing in Civ IV was aimed at much longer, more in-depth eras to be won (and winning each era counts equally to winning the game), with very strong 'resets' in between eras based on imperfect information, so a different set of civs should be the world powers in each era. The idea was that players who are thinking of the game as a game aren't going to stop doing so, but I can force them to break the habit of just plotting out a trajectory for the whole course of the game with clever design.

I will probably continue that work in Civ V once the C++ is released (and assuming I can ever break my Minecraft addiction... holy something that game is like crack, and I thought I knew addictive games, being a longtime MMO player and semi-competitive Magic: The Gathering player).

 

[DavidPBacon]

@ Drawmeus, wich mods for civ iV you did? I liked the ideas.

 

[C~G]

For me the whole historical immersion factor, at least abstraction of realism and "being there"-effect rose steadily on the civilization series culminating to Civ IV BTS.

With Civ V that bubble burst like letting air out of balloon at once and it is close to zero.

Now it feels like board game with specific goals in the mind towards win rather than being at helm of civilization that has yet to come great.

Other achievements compared to go for the win feel meaningless especially all the warmongering going on and not forgetting the total absent of actual diplomacy.

That was also my first gut reaction to the game when I tried it.
Were dealing with different kind of beast altogether and we might have to forget that we are trying to be emperor to Civilization but instead think that you're playing particular civlization with specific bonuses to win a board game with fancy leveling up and all that jazz.

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

I never really felt that immersion with Civ 4 either, until I played FFH. Honestly, FFH was the most fun I had with Civ 4, and I'm really disappointed that prospects aren't looking good for a Civ 5 FFH

 

[pickle]

Well, one problem in the Civ series is that you have to start and remain strong throughout the game in order to win. You cannot go through long periods of decline, or you will fall behind in techs and then it's good game.

History disagrees - Russia, for example, has gone through periods of enormous technological backwardness, political turmoil, and destruction, but it is still a major player on the world stage. If Russia's history were modeled in the game, they would be done after the Mongol invasions of the 1200s

this is one thing that has never been in civ and it has always got to me. I did manage to tame it to some extent in civ 3 by ramping the number of civs way up, so that an ai couldn't smash a neighbour at the start and suddenly and for all time be the major power in that continent.

I think that adding to the happiness thing that if the happiness goes massively negative there should be a chance of a civil war that will tear the empire in two, adding a new civ to the game. they could have some happiness points while in war that add/ take away some happiness depending on how the war is going, also add in a happiness penalty the longer you are at war if you have freedom or liberty that can be limited by having piety

 

[ProkhorZakharov]

This is why the next Civ game should endeavour to put much more emphasis on survival and sustainability of civilizations. Insofar as it is unrealistic to have individual civilizations go from strength to strength for 6000 years, it is also unrealistic to have civilizations/leaders planning for UN or Spaceship or even Conquest/Domination victory as their ultimate goal throughout the game.

Civilization is a way for groups of people to maximise their own welfare by exploiting and attempting to contain and control the natural world. Throughout history, civilisation advances (including but not limited to science and technology) have developed/evolved in response to particular problems and circumstances faced by different societies. Civilisation advancement has rarely if ever been conscious or part of a clear long-term strategy e.g. "It's 800BC so I'll research Writing so I can beeline Liberalism and grab Economics and adopt Free Religion and Free Market in about 2000 years time" , but civ games tend to encourage both human and AI players to play this way.

What a future civ game ought to do, imo, is encourage players to approach the game more like this:

"Okay, I'm in the ancient era and I have three cities and am being assaulted by a constant stream of barbarians, my water sources may dry up due to overuse and/or the climate becoming drier and my arable land may become depleted from overuse. Meanwhile my people's health is limited and living standards are generally low, and this may cause civil unrest and rebellions if I don't look after it. So should I concentrate my efforts on finding ways to improve my people's health, building better weapons to fight off barbarians, or facilitating trade and improved management of my natural resources?"

Admittedly, Civ4 was quite good in some ways at getting the player to "Play The Map" like this, but there still wasn't enough focus on immediate needs when compared to goals in the distant future, because the pressures on a civ's survival and ability to sustain itself over the long term weren't really all that compelling compared to the pressure and impetus to become a superpower and win the game. Perhaps the next civ game should have a "blind research" option like SMAC with different categories of techs you could prioritize (e.g. "growth", "commerce", "military", "living standards"), along with research being dependent on available resources e.g. can't research horseback riding if you don't have any horse resources.

I don't think this would actually be a very good idea. I think Civilization works much better as a strategy game than as a simulation game. For me, medium-term planning is far more interesting than short-term planning. When I choose which tech to research first, I want to do it based on my plan for the early game (Ancient/Classical eras). I don't want to do it based just on the immediate benefit of the technology. The latter approach may enhance realism, but it makes the game less interesting to play. I've never felt the need to plan much further ahead than a Civil Service slingshot or saving up culture for Patrongage.

I never liked Blind Research, as I felt it removed a great deal of strategic control and added an unwanted luck factor to the game. Putting additional restrictions on tech research, especially random ones like the presence of horses, would be really frustrating when you find yourself cut off from what you want to do and forced down a path you didn't want to take.

Culture victories are the only kind that require planning from the start; all the others are inevitable for an empire with a sufficient advantage. I can understand why culture was designed in this way; it gives small empires a unique advantage. Keeping your empire small is now a viable strategic choice, not a self-imposed challenge. Just as small empires have a hard time generating a lot of production and winning conquest, large empires have a hard time generating a lot of culture and winning cultural.

 

[Roxlimn]

So we want a bunch of buildings that will go obsolete that we will never build, and more music files? This is what will make Civ V a better game? Really?

 

[cephalo]

So we want a bunch of buildings that will go obsolete that we will never build, and more music files? This is what will make Civ V a better game? Really?

That sounds rather vague doesn't it? I'm not sure if there's one thing I can point out. It seems though that the story is told over a single arc, while previous Civ games had 'sub-plots'. If that makes any sense.

 

[Roxlimn]

cephalo:

By "previous Civ games," did you mean "Civ IV?" I'm asking this because it seems to me that there wasn't really a whole lot of Civ 3 things which went obsolete, and I can't recall, but I'm not entirely sure the music changed much, either. Certainly, it didn't make enough of an impression for me to remember.

 

[TXDragon]

Culture victories are the only kind that require planning from the start; all the others are inevitable for an empire with a sufficient advantage. I can understand why culture was designed in this way; it gives small empires a unique advantage. Keeping your empire small is now a viable strategic choice, not a self-imposed challenge. Just as small empires have a hard time generating a lot of production and winning conquest, large empires have a hard time generating a lot of culture and winning cultural.

I agree with you there but the large civs with greater science and production could pretty easily conquer the small ones when it seemed like they really had a chance to win culturally. A small nation can't even really rely on City States for help because of the decreased amount of money they will make. The big Civ can easily ally with or conquer their city states and there is nothing the small backward empire can do to stop them.

That's one thing about city states that bothers me, their loyalty is so shallow. For a little bit of gold the city state that your empire has been forming a relationship and trading with for however many hundreds of years will gladly throw all of it's units at you and raze your cities. I always buy my opponents City states before I go to war. (not that I've found city states to make any differnce in a war except for neutral ones to block units and roads by standing in one spot their entire existence.) I think they should be harder to sway from their ally than they are right now.

 

[cephalo]

cephalo:

By "previous Civ games," did you mean "Civ IV?" I'm asking this because it seems to me that there wasn't really a whole lot of Civ 3 things which went obsolete, and I can't recall, but I'm not entirely sure the music changed much, either. Certainly, it didn't make enough of an impression for me to remember.

I mean all of them. My favorite ones were Civ2 and Civ4. Civ3 was less enjoyable for me, but I definately played it alot more than I did Civ5.

I'm not so sure how important it is for obsolescence to happen. I can't say with confidence that its a big deal.

 

[Roxlimn]

cephalo:

Okay. I have vague recollections of Civ 2. This is before national borders and influence and such were implemented, right? Workers moved around with shovels and such? "3D" sprite animation? That game is simpler than Civ V. If you liked that, why not Civ V? Perhaps, you mean, you liked Civ 4, and find Civ V unenjoyable because it's not a progression of Civ 4?