Was there anything GOOD about streamlining?

[Olaf_The_Great]

I don't get the point of "streamlining" a computer game. It's not like you have a limited number of keys. I like complicated, complex, and long games, not a "pick up and play" game.

 

[Hormagaunt]

I played mostly Epic games in CIV4, sometimes marathon, sometimes normal. I'm used to marketplaces taking 25 turns to complete.

I don't understand this statement. You mean people play Civ4 at some speed other than marathon? That's... weird.

 

[Celevin]

Bibor has some pretty good points. Investments are definitely more meaningful in Civ5 for some things. I would say that Civ5 messes up the instant gratification / investments in other places though, and I'll bring up what I consider two key examples (and some of my larger grievances against the game).

1) The maintenance mechanics in Civ5 don't really make cities feel like an investment. I build a new city, and I'm punished in two ways: policy cost, and happiness. However, these maintenance costs don't initially hurt me. Instead, they merely slow down the policy gains, and slow down the population gains which hurt me in the medium term. Compare this to Civ4 which had a very instant punishment in the form of less science. Civ5's city maintenance isn't impacting enough in the short run to make that city a detriment to the empire. The December patch relieved this a bit by taking away library specialists (pre-patch cities didn't even need to GROW beyond size 2-4).

2) Units are too much of an investment. Too much importance is placed on a single unit that should be able to be built and killed without thinking the game is over. In Civ4, I lost units all the time and rebuilt them. In chess, I sacrifice pieces to achieve goals, and have come back after losing a couple important ones in a row. In Civ5, if I lose 2 of my Horsemen on the attack, I feel like the game might come to an end! Upgrades only make things worse, as they're even more powerful in Civ5 compared to Civ4.


About streamlining in particular, there's nothing wrong with it. Streamlining isn't the cutting of content compared to just choosing what to work on. It's not like the developers took Civ4 and said "hey, we should take out religion / espionage in a patch because it's not adding much to the game". Instead for Civ5, it's just not wanting to use valuable developer time on those things instead of more important things.

 

[Gatsby]

I mean, seriously? The whole "you no longer have to worry about" mentality runs contrary to the nature of Civs, in that, the point of the game IS to worry about everything - like an actual leader does.

Spot-on, I couldn't agree more

 

[Nares]

In Civ5 the ability to buy hexes makes for some interesting decisions what to do with your cash in the early game.

It does, until you realize that the opportunity cost for buying hexes is so high, and that virtually any other expenditure of that gold is a better investment.

As for Bibor's point about the number and variety of options in CIV creating some sort of expectations and disappointment in/with CiV, I have to agree with others saying that the argument is weak. What he's doing is comparing actual decisions into civic choices, to the constant non-decision of instant gold purchase, and then saying that the variety of instant production methods in CIV somehow has less depth than the single omni-present option of instant gold puchase in CiV.

I like the analysis that described CiV as being boiled down to binary decisions. This is exactly what has happened, and it seems especially suited to Civ's future as a facebook game oriented to the Farmville crowd (10-16?).

 

[Celevin]

It does, until you realize that the opportunity cost for buying hexes is so high, and that virtually any other expenditure of that gold is a better investment.

What? A luxury is worth 10 gold per turn when not being worked. If a hex costs 100 gold, then it's worth it if it would take you 10 turns or more to get it culturally, not to mention you get that luxury hex in addition to whatever hex you got with culture.


Gold seems overpowered because production is underpowered. What would you rather, 1 production, or 2 gold? Because that's how it's balanced with resources and improvements. How much gold equals how much production? I'll go back to the specialist example I've brought up many times before: people yelled "engineers are strictly worse than merchants!" so engineers were buffed to 2 production. But what does that say about pretty much every other area that the two are compared?

Engineers should be changed back to 1 production, then all buildings/units should have their hammer cost (not their gold cost) lowered to a level that an overpowering majority of players agrees that 1 production is worth about 1 gold.

 

[KahunaGod]

Civ5 supporters can argue all they want about the depth of the game. FACT IS: The designers publicly spoke on the fact that they thought civ4 was too "deep" and "complicated" and wanted a game more "accessible" for fans. They said that the success of Civ Rev was a major decision point. They sat down and made a PC version of that game. They said so.

You can argue till your blue in the face, fact is, CIV5 is Civ for Dummies.

 

[Nares]

What? A luxury is worth 10 gold per turn when not being worked. If a hex costs 100 gold, then it's worth it if it would take you 10 turns or more to get it culturally, not to mention you get that luxury hex in addition to whatever hex you got with culture.

The first seven tiles you purchase with gold cost more than purchasing a settler, which grabs seven tiles itself.

Additionally, you're discussing purchasing a resource tile. That's a relatively rare condition, in that you're not likely to purchase more than maybe one per city. You're much more likely to settle on or near it, and if you settled further away than that we're talking a much higher gold cost to purchase the tile, or some combination of culture and tile purchasing.

Using culture also builds towards social policies, which you seem to completely discount.

What you're describing as some sort of deep strategy never really amounts to more than "ha I bought that one tile." It's an available feature, but nothing close to a deep feature.

 

[Bibor]

You can argue till your blue in the face, fact is, CIV5 is Civ for Dummies.

There are people that like automatic, there are people that like manual. It's about the drive, not switching gears. I like automatic. I must be a dummy. Just like my girlfriend because she likes CIV5 more (and she admits that CIV4 has its appeals).

 

[Calouste]

Civ5 supporters can argue all they want about the depth of the game. FACT IS: The designers publicly spoke on the fact that they thought civ4 was too "deep" and "complicated" and wanted a game more "accessible" for fans. They said that the success of Civ Rev was a major decision point. They sat down and made a PC version of that game. They said so.

You can argue till your blue in the face, fact is, CIV5 is Civ for Dummies.

Just because Civ5 is less complicated doesn't make it a game for dummies. GO has about 5 rules, but requires such deep understanding and foresight that computers can now just about beat strong amateurs on even odds.

 

[Calouste]

The first seven tiles you purchase with gold cost more than purchasing a settler, which grabs seven tiles itself.

You get the hexes earlier when you purchase them then when you wait to purchase and move a settler.

Additionally, you're discussing purchasing a resource tile. That's a relatively rare condition, in that you're not likely to purchase more than maybe one per city. You're much more likely to settle on or near it, and if you settled further away than that we're talking a much higher gold cost to purchase the tile, or some combination of culture and tile purchasing.

Good that you know in advance where your horses are going to show up, not all of us have that skill.

Using culture also builds towards social policies, which you seem to completely discount.

What you're describing as some sort of deep strategy never really amounts to more than "ha I bought that one tile." It's an available feature, but nothing close to a deep feature.

 

[Celevin]

The first seven tiles you purchase with gold cost more than purchasing a settler, which grabs seven tiles itself.

Additionally, you're discussing purchasing a resource tile. That's a relatively rare condition, in that you're not likely to purchase more than maybe one per city. You're much more likely to settle on or near it, and if you settled further away than that we're talking a much higher gold cost to purchase the tile, or some combination of culture and tile purchasing.

Using culture also builds towards social policies, which you seem to completely discount.

What you're describing as some sort of deep strategy never really amounts to more than "ha I bought that one tile." It's an available feature, but nothing close to a deep feature.

I was only acknowledging the part I quoted. You said "opportunity cost", and "any other expenditure of gold is a better investment". I showed that the tile can pay for itself if you buy it. I'd rather buy a tile and improve the luxury than sit around for 20 turns waiting for culture. You're right, it's not a very deep feature (as much as I enjoy it), but it's definitely a worthwhile investment. Not enough to play as America though.

This is really true in the early game, not so much in the mid to late.

 

[joyous_gard]

I wish they streamlined the UI and not the mechanics. Oh well. Tiles/resources/improvements. That was fun and it was already streamlined - A for Automate. I am not happy with that. I am not happy with a lot of the dumbed down.

The decision making is not as fun in V as it was for IV and the UI is still crappy.

I switched to BUG in IV and so I don't remember the UI in IV so I labelled it crappy because I switched to BUG.

 

[Hormagaunt]

You get the hexes earlier when you purchase them then when you wait to purchase and move a settler.

It costs much more to buy the hexes than it costs to buy a settler.

If you buy the settler as soon as you can afford him, move, then settle, then you'll have those 7 hexes much sooner than if you wait for the cash to buy them. That includes buying them as soon as you can afford each one. You'll still get them later than by buying the settler as soon as it's available.

Plus, buying the settler and moving him out gets you hexes that are further away than you can possibly buy.

 

[Nares]

I showed that the tile can pay for itself if you buy it.

Being able to purchase one tile that can pay for itself is hardly a major increase in depth of strategy.

EDIT: Shame on me for not reading your entire post. You acknowledge it's hardly comparable to the removal of several layers of strategic depth.

 

[Bad Brett]

The thing that surprises me here, is the talk about how easy it was to "whip anything you needed" in Civ 4. It sounds so easy.

...Yet I've had no problem beating the harder difficulty levels in Civ 5 without even bothering to learn any strategies. Rush build some early units, lure the AI into a choke point and attack. Raze/sell everything you conquer. Buy Coliseums. Rinse and repeat. It might have gotten better in recent patches, but honestly, the game is so boring that I'll probably never play it again.

 

[lschnarch]

It might have gotten better in recent patches, but honestly, the game is so boring that I'll probably never play it again.

That's exactly the reason why it has some supporters left.

We can argue all day long, but even I as a strict critic of the game have to admit that it clearly has an audience ("Buy hexes, yeahhh!").

 

[Eskel]

I wonder if gold-oriented economy of Civ5 wasn't prepared for buying credits with real $$$.
If everybody do so, why shouldn't firaxis? Wouldn't be this a step towards true entertainment of XXI century?

 

[Celevin]

It costs much more to buy the hexes than it costs to buy a settler.

If you buy the settler as soon as you can afford him, move, then settle, then you'll have those 7 hexes much sooner than if you wait for the cash to buy them. That includes buying them as soon as you can afford each one. You'll still get them later than by buying the settler as soon as it's available.

Plus, buying the settler and moving him out gets you hexes that are further away than you can possibly buy.

Often in the early game I don't have the gold to buy a settler. So I'll (especially if going Tradition) buy a hex, get the luxury, sell it, and then buy the settler.

There's not much point in arguing this. If you buy a hex, you get more gold back at the cost of worker returns. It's nothing like settling a whole new city.

 

[Iranon]

Streamlining in itself isn't good or bad.

While Civ4 tried to get rid of the really braindead micromanagement (e.g. beaker and hammer overflow... although they never quite got the latter right), there are still many small-scale optimisation problems. Example would be granularity-related play like 'all to food until grown' or 'all to GPP until Great Person spawned'. These are pretty much always a concern if you want to use Slavery well which is one of the most powerful mechanisms in the game.
As an upside, this creates additional layers on top of the grand strategy - typically which short-term benefit you should prioritise to best further your overarching strategy. As a downside, it distracts from the 'grand strategy' side of things.
While Civ4 has plenty of depth there, it can be overshadowed by details - unless you're tackling the highest difficulties (hard enough that the majority will probably never reach them), executing an adequate strategy brilliantly is generally more successful than executing a brilliant strategy adequately. Civ4:BtS was certainly guilty of being 'more complicated than strictly necessary', pretty much on the edge of what's acceptable in a mainstream title

Ideally, streamlining would make a game less forbidding/tiring without reducing depth significantly. I do mind if a lot of depth is sacrificed, and I also mind if concessions are made for appearances. An interface that looks friendlier but is less convenient reminds me less of true streamlining and more of bolting on some tacky non-functional spoilers.
I get this vibe a lot in Civ5: 'looks good/sounds good/gets rid of what players didn't like' taking priority over 'plays well'.