Was Civ IV the last great Civ game ever?

[AJ11]

Ah yes... the old times... were not better at all.
Yes, there were good games back then, but all of you seem to have forgotten the chaff which existed back then, and exists now. There are plenty of good games around (Shogun 2, new Deus Ex, Skyrim, etc.).
And *every* major developer has had some train wrecks (except Valve, maybe - although I have played none of their games). Sometimes, they learn from them, sometimes, they get bought by EA. And some manage to go bankrupt in time to avoid the latter fate^^

And actually, in my opinion the "odd" iterations of Civ (1,3,5) have always been somewhat worse than the even (2, 4, 6?). Firaxis seems to push major new stuff into these odd releases, which get polished in the even ones. Hopefully this time as well.

You can't really count Civ1. It was the original and the first of its kind, limited by the available platform power then. By definition it has a "could do better" tag on it, especially as platform power increased dramatically over the next 20 years.

Personally, I thought Civ3 was a pretty good game, in many ways superior to Civ4 (especially the memory department; no memory CtD or save game glitches there).

Civ5 looks pretty bad, though.

I have to agree that EA just plain screws up everything it touches. It has the reverse Midas touch, sort of like Australia's current Federal government.

 

[Axios]

"Was Civ IV the last great Civ game ever?"

YESSS !!!

Quote!!!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

nd *every* major developer has had some train wrecks

MOST developers do not trainwreck their flagship titles!

Edit: and in term of gaming fundamentals, I agree with AJ11 on civ III. However much people might not like its design or AI, the game didn't strain systems like a FPS from 5 years in the future, and didn't have anywhere near the amount of basic control flaws or hidden rules.

As a fanbase we're still waiting on a complete title from firaxis, where you have a well-designed game AND gameplay 101 stuff works (none of this bugged crap like units ignore orders if you instruct the game to delay pop-ups and thusly move on their own at the start of turns).

 

[Seron]

Just from thinking of how many hours of CIV IV BTS I have played compared to any other game, I know that it is one of the best games ever. And even more proof is that when I played CIV V, I wanted to play CIV IV after about an hour through....

 

[Bad Brett]

It's not a question of age. It's a question of intelligence.

And unfortunately, stupid people are much more frequent and tend to spend their money more carelessly...

 

[NetGear]

I can see the attempt in civ5. Try to make things more accessible to non civers, less to micro manage and such. But did they succeed? in the end with all the bugs and bland gameplay, it alienates the base and thats not a good thing.

The thing is, these things are not what is merely problem with TBS per say, but with trends lately with the industry. Its a popular approach to make games accessible these days, drawing in new crowd, grow the community, bigger markets, more money, happier investors etc. and when it goes horribly wrong the game gets dumbed down and becomes a former shadow of itself.

 

[AJ11]

I can see the attempt in civ5. Try to make things more accessible to non civers, less to micro manage and such. But did they succeed? in the end with all the bugs and bland gameplay, it alienates the base and thats not a good thing.

The thing is, these things are not what is merely problem with TBS per say, but with trends lately with the industry. Its a popular approach to make games accessible these days, drawing in new crowd, grow the community, bigger markets, more money, happier investors etc. and when it goes horribly wrong the game gets dumbed down and becomes a former shadow of itself.

I give to you: D&D 4.0