Sure it will be profitable. (Deep games like Victoria 2 is said to need just 70.000 copies for profitable, and still the CEO is reluctant to make it)
But with a game of the name Civilization, they expect it to be a Potosi Mountain!
Was there anything GOOD about streamlining?
- Thread starter Haig
- Start date
Sure it will be profitable. (Deep games like Victoria 2 is said to need just 70.000 copies for profitable, and still the CEO is reluctant to make it)
But with a game of the name Civilization, they expect it to be a Potosi Mountain!
Despite your implication that civ5 haters are schizophrenic, civ5 is just a damn boring game.
If you've never played EU3 I recommend you give it a shot and compare the 2 games. I doubt you will though because you seem content playing a mediocre game and praising it as a grand masterpiece of strategy. If I cared more it would make me sad.
I'm a dummy too, what's surely perfectly right, given that most of the writers here surely have a better ability to play civ than me.
However: The only thing I understand amongst all this critizism is, that the AI should actually be able to master the tactics components of it's own game (aka warfaring) at higher levels in a challenging way.
Everything else only seems an issue to what someone is used to, and I think everyone will get used to the rest, after upper shortcoming is fixed. Until this will happen everyone should leave "the church in the village" please.
The problem with your line of reasoning, though, is that the Civilization games have been all about micro-decisions and micro-rewards from the very start. It's not about instant gratification, it's about "just one more turn." The whole "one more turn" feeling, in my opinion the essence of Civilization as a series, is founded on micro-decisions and micro-rewards. You want to play one more turn because there's always something to do on this turn and there's always something to look forward to on the next turn.
(It's also why a Civilization game will never be both a good Civilization game and a good casual game: a good casual game is a game that's easy to pick up, easy to play and easy to put down. A good Civilization game is a game that's hard to put down.)
It's not "today's schizophrenic players" who feel that Civ 5 is too slow and dull, it's Civilization players who feel that. The very thing that interested us in Civ I through IV, Colonization and SMAC, just isn't there in Civ 5.
Oerdin
Deity
Was there anything good about streamlining? Not just no but HELL NO!
To answer the thread question; yes. There have been numerous complaints that the UI is not as comprehensive, and can get pretty annoying at times, but it is more accessible. Lots of people obviously find hotkeys very useful, but being able to do everything with a mouse seems to me to be terribly important in terms of accessibility. It means that all players can have easier access to all features, even if once that access is found, the processes become more time consuming and tedious. Some may not find that a net positive, but I think it is pretty important, and is probably part of the reason Civ5 appeals more to the casual gamer.
jacyp
Winter Lover
SpearMan153
Prince
Speaking of hot keys: I only found the ones in civ4 because of this forum. Gave the game a whole new lease of life for me. Easy build queues, rally points etc cut out heaps of annoying popups and mouse clicking and made civ4 x2 fun.
So hotkeys are great but not much use if you can't easilly find out what they are. A good UI will have hints to what the hot keys are. Thinks like tooltips saying Alt Click to add to queue.
But alas good UI is expensive - sigh...
SpearMan153
Prince
As a software developer and on behalf of the devs can I just say: never knock the devs its all the pointy haired boss's fault.
Streamlining is not about conserving resources it is all about a "less is more" design philosophy. This is really hard to get right for a game like civ where one person's streamlining is another's dumbed down.
Streamlining is things like:
- don't need to connect resources by roads
- simplified trade route system
- no whip
- puppet city system
- simplified tech tree
The idea is to drop low value features and to reduce/eliminate repetative low value sub tasks. Again in games like civ people differ on the "low value" part.
Removing non core (yes great to have, important but essential) features like religion and espionage IS about conserving resources and was exactly the right decision for civ5 from a risk/project management point of view (assuming new and improved versions are added in later expansion).
Given the decision to :
a) write a new game engine from scratch
b) radically change combat system
They would have been crazy to try and shoe horn religion and espionage into the budget. The problem is they didn't give themselves the budget needed for the rest of the game.
I don't get the impression that the dev's priorities were screwed. I think they did a pretty good job given the constraints they were under.
The management decision to release the game in its rushed, unfinished state howerver was... debatable.
What I suspect they underestimated was the work needed to get their shiny new game engine running and also the amount of tweaking to get a descent tactical and diplomatic ai (given the more complex design). So I'm speculating that they probably blew the budget on the game engine and had to rush everything else.
Result: bad tactical ai, insane diplomacy, poor performance and stability problems.
Given time (and budget) constraints you have 2 choices
a) cut scope
b) cut quality
I think they had already got the scope about right (enough for a good game with everything cut that could be cut). Quality is what suffered.
Yeah, that's precisely why I think it's more important to have features accessible with mouse clicks than to have hotkeys. Hotkeys are great if you know what they are, but the casual player is far more likely to just rely on their mouse.
Jolly Rogerer
Prince
- Joined
- May 16, 2008
- Messages
- 402
This is a critical point! Civ5's development was reactionary rather than organic. Don't like SoDs and suicide Cats? Don't worry, you'll never see another stack again no matter how inappropriate a decision that is for a game of this scale. It's more important for Civ5 to not have the same problems as Civ4 then it is for Civ5 to be worth playing on its own terms.
Don't like the way religion was done in Civ4? Don't worry, it's gone completely!
While it's true that a good UI should allow everything to be done both with the mouse and with the keyboard, who cares about the casual player when it comes to Civilization?
I play a lot of games casually -- half an hour now, an hour then, a quick game if I have the time before going to work in the morning. Civilization isn't one of those games. A half hour bout of Civilization isn't playing Civilization -- it's warming up.
Civilization isn't, won't be, can't be casual -- Civilization is a game of lost nights, long weekends and annoyed girlfriends. Anything else just isn't Civilization.
Firaxis chose to redo almost every feature. They even decided to fundamentally change the economic system. Out goes commerce, in comes population based science. It's a huge and completely unnecessary change. Same goes for city maintenance, and brining in global happiness instead. And of course, they chose to totally change the design philosophy behind AI behavior and the diplo system.
The new tech tree rules(only AND-prereq with arrows connecting and no dead end) makes it extremely hard to make a good tech tree. For what gain? The Civ4-style tech tree could easily have been explained in a tutorial. Not that many players had problems understand it in the first place.
Would it have been crazy to keep religion? Well, yes, since they decided to redo everything else. If however they had kept more from Civ4, but only with the changes needed for the new combat system and hexes, religion could easily still have been in the game. In fact, religion is out because of the design philosophy behind the AI, not lack of resources.
Bottom line: Firaxis was overly ambitious and didn't understand their own limits.
You are so right. Those things you mentioned not to worry about is what I WANT to worry about. It actually made me sad when I read your list.
Well, that's a fair argument, but accessibility for casual players is still a positive to come out of streamlining. Whether or not it's a net positive is entirely debatable. Civilization can be played casually; I'm a casual player. Was in Civ4, still am with Civ5. You can play for hours at a time casually; I don't really think time per session or even addiction to the game is a real indicator of how 'casually' you play it. It's more got to do with how you play the game.
moscaverde
Prince
Being too a casual player of Civ 4 (I largely disliked Civ 5), I agree with Kamikaze on the mouse vs hotkeys debate. I never looked after the hotkeys and don't really care about them; I probably use only the shift and alt from the keyboard and everything with the mouse. Although I don't think this is streamlining.
"Streamlining is things like:
- don't need to connect resources by roads
- simplified trade route system
- no whip
- puppet city system
- simplified tech tree"
Meh, all bad decisions IMO.
"Streamlining is things like:
- don't need to connect resources by roads
- simplified trade route system
- no whip
- puppet city system
- simplified tech tree"
Meh, all bad decisions IMO.
Streamlining are almost always good. Most developers steamline as much as possible. One reason is that the more streamlined a game is the more strategy you actually can get from the game. If you are going to add features you'd better make sure those features are necessary for the bigger picture. If you look at real strategy games (Cvilization is not that hardcore ) they have all the features for a purpose and I am pretty sure they tried to cut as many features as possible.
I do understand however that for some people all the micromanagement is a big deal. It's just like all those playing The Sims players would go crazy if the developers in The Sims X would cut changing clothes and only have furniture that really serves a purpose. The Sims players wants to feel that they really are that little Sim on the computer. Many Civilization players feels the same about the Civilization series. They really need as many toys as possible to make them feel that they really are the ruler of a civilization. Others like me just look at Civilization as another strategy game.
As I have said repeatedly I see alot of POTENTIAL in Civilization 5. I think it is more fun right of the box than any other Civilization game (even with mods). But Firaxis and 2K really made a bad call releasing it in the shape it was. AI are terrible and balances needs alot more attention.
) they have all the features for a purpose and I am pretty sure they tried to cut as many features as possible.I do understand however that for some people all the micromanagement is a big deal. It's just like all those playing The Sims players would go crazy if the developers in The Sims X would cut changing clothes and only have furniture that really serves a purpose. The Sims players wants to feel that they really are that little Sim on the computer. Many Civilization players feels the same about the Civilization series. They really need as many toys as possible to make them feel that they really are the ruler of a civilization. Others like me just look at Civilization as another strategy game.
As I have said repeatedly I see alot of POTENTIAL in Civilization 5. I think it is more fun right of the box than any other Civilization game (even with mods). But Firaxis and 2K really made a bad call releasing it in the shape it was. AI are terrible and balances needs alot more attention.
