Was there this much backlash for previous Civ games?

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

And it's fascinating how quickly otherwise rational people will jump on the "all criticism of the criticism of the game is wrong" bandwagon when they agree with the criticism. You're looking for evidence that validate your personal view as hard as anyone else.

Pot, kettle.

Please highlight where I said "all criticism of the criticism" is wrong. Until you do that, which I very much doubt you can, your post is nothing but a snarky, thinly-veiled jab and I'd thank you to edit it appropriately.

 

[Disgustipated]

And the other elephant in the room is I think people just enjoy bashing AAA games these days. And it's not just the woke thing either, they just enjoy bashing games from major studios. As mentioned above, Civ 7 does have more features than Civ 5 at launch. Yet has much more hate. But it's not this game. Avvowed is getting a lot of hate too. I haven't looked into that game very much, maybe it's deserved, I don't know. Some of it was because of what the art director said. As for Veilguard, that mostly was anti woke sentiment, but the writing wasn't very good either way.

The only game exempt from this has been BG3. I believe because people still believe Larian to be a smaller studio (they really aren't that small anymore).

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

And the other elephant in the room is I think people just enjoy bashing AAA games these days. And it's not just the woke thing either, they just enjoy bashing games from major studios. As mentioned above, Civ 7 does have more features than Civ 5 at launch. Yet has much more hate. But it's not this game. Avvowed is getting a lot of hate too. I haven't looked into that game very much, maybe it's deserved, I don't know. Some of it was because of what the art director said. As for Veilguard, that mostly was anti woke sentiment, but the writing wasn't very good either way.

The only game exempt from this has been BG3. I believe because people still believe Larian to be a smaller studio (they really aren't that small anymore).

More features doesn't automatically mean a game is better and less deserving of criticism.

Many larger studios have released games recently to critical acclaim. Avowed is sitting at mostly positive on Steam. Veilguard, despite the "woke" controversy, still has a respectable 69% score. There have been many AA+ games released to critical acclaim - the recent Indiana Jones game, the Silent Hill 2 remake off the top of my head.

I'm afraid your theory just doesn't track. Size of the studio is not a factor, and sounds like just another conspiracy theory. Quality of the game remains the main factor.

 

[protocol7]

My theory is that people just really don’t want to believe they like something that other people have mixed feelings about, so they come up with more and more elaborate and unprovable explanations why actually everyone agrees with them, despite actual evidence to the contrary. Whether it’s secret woke reviews, a tragic decline in the quality of discourse, a lack of understanding of what true art is, kids these days, or whatever, it has to be anything but that the game is a bit undercooked and needs six more months to finish the things they’ve told us they are going to finish over the next six months, even though that’s what the game reviews themselves say and the company has shared a roadmap to address. And I say this as someone having a reasonable amount of fun, excited for the fixes Firaxis has promised, and have given a thumbs up review on steam.

 

[cdstephens]

Ok, let me write it once again.

Reviews from anti-woke community could be of several types:
1. Directly complaining about the game being woke, written in English language. We know such post are there, but there are not so many of them.
2. Directly complaining about the game being woke, written in other languages. Those are also there, I've posted a link. I can't say how many of them are out there.
3. Written by people who dislike the game for representation, but not writing it directly. We can't say if they are there or not, but such things were pretty common in other projects targeted by anti-woke community.
4. Similar to previous one, but written by bots. Similar situation, we can't say whether they are there or not.

FAQ:
1. Search for some keywords in first category doesn't anyhow claim categories 3 or 4 aren't there. Those facts are irrelevant.
2. I don't claim categories 3 or 4 are there and how many of them. I claim what could be there and we don't know how many of them are there if any. By formal logic this statement doesn't require proof.
3. Once again, I don't claim they are there. You're calling me "conspiracy theorist" for things I don't say.
4. Before presenting facts, start from formal logic. Could you somehow proof that posts complaining about UI are not written by people who are actually dislike game for "wokeness"? Could you distinguish bot post from human one? If not, you don't know too.
5. I've written all this before, some things twice. Please read before reply. Please read the whole this post before reply.

P.S. From the first post of this thread I identified this as a potential reason, claiming that I don't know if those things are there.

It’s important to note that negative discourse about the game, negative discourse about the game from active players, and negative reviews are all 3 separate things. I think this is the key thing.

Basically, the kind of gamer that obsessively complains about wokeness might whine about it in forums or YouTube comments, but that doesn’t automatically translate into negative reviews. If anything, someone like that would probably refrain from purchasing the game in the first place. They could still contribute to a negative atmosphere about the game, but this is much harder to quantify.


There are some gray areas that can be harder to distinguish as well. For example, is it “woke” that Britain is DLC while Mexico is in the base game? Firaxis clearly wants to showcase parts of history that the player may not know about (Rosencreutz has a cool video about this). Everyone has their own subjective understanding of the term and also their own judgement of whether it’s good or bad.

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

My theory is that people just really don’t want to believe they like something that other people have mixed feelings about, so they come up with more and more elaborate and unprovable explanations why actually everyone agrees with them, despite actual evidence to the contrary. Whether it’s secret woke reviews, a tragic decline in the quality of discourse, a lack of understanding of what true art is, kids these days, or whatever, it has to be anything but that the game is a bit undercooked and needs six more months to finish the things they’ve told us they are going to finish over the next six months, even though that’s what the game reviews themselves say and the company has shared a roadmap to address. And I say this as someone having a reasonable amount of fun, excited for the fixes Firaxis has promised, and have given a thumbs up review on steam.

There's certainly an element of tribalism at play, especially now since companies have conditioned us to play their games for 8-10 years at a time and pay for expansion updates throughout this period. An innate defensiveness is activated when we spend a decade of our lives doing something and someone else comes along and says it's lame and stupid. It's just natural behaviour, but unfortunately natural behaviour often isn't logical.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

By the way, this woke argument is nonsense. In the first place, the second era and it's colonization theme itself is so anti-woke....so Firaxis is woke and non woke at the same time?

It's an interesting dichotomy, on the one hand the game is themed around colonisation / exploiting the New World and on the other they have made some 'interesting' leader choices that some might describe as woke. It's possible that they've managed to annoy two separate parts of the fanbase and please no-one with the end result. I can't pretend I have hard numbers to back this up but just something I was pondering.

 

[Leyrann]

3. Written by people who dislike the game for representation, but not writing it directly. We can't say if they are there or not, but such things were pretty common in other projects targeted by anti-woke community.
4. Similar to previous one, but written by bots. Similar situation, we can't say whether they are there or not.

This is conspiracy logic.

2. I don't claim categories 3 or 4 are there and how many of them. I claim what could be there and we don't know how many of them are there if any. By formal logic this statement doesn't require proof.

More conspiracy logic.

You're calling me "conspiracy theorist" for things I don't say.

I am calling you a conspiracy theorist for the style of arguing you use, which is the same one that conspiracy theorists use: "But it could be true." "But you don't know that it isn't." "But you must consider it." "I'm not saying this, buuuut..."

4. Before presenting facts, start from formal logic. Could you somehow proof that posts complaining about UI are not written by people who are actually dislike game for "wokeness"? Could you distinguish bot post from human one? If not, you don't know too.

And more conspiracy logic, this time with a heap of asking someone to prove a negative. You can't prove a negative. The positive is what needs to be proven.

While that is true if you only look at whether the feature is there or not, there are features that were better designed in Civ5 than in Civ6 - World Congress being the most obvious example.

This is funny, because I very clearly remember that before the WC was added to Civ VI, it was a universally hated feature of Civ V. Even if you consider the implementation in Civ VI to be worse, that hardly makes it a draw for Civ V, does it?

Civ5's policy trees was also a vastly superior system to the Civ6's policy cards imo.

Shouldn't you be comparing them to the civic tree though?

Also, perhaps the system was superior, but the actual design and bonuses were a major contributor to Civ V's extremely narrow playstyle so I'd hardly consider them a good thing on the whole.

beyond the fact that they contibute to reduce the freedom of movements (only 6 available directions rather than 8)

That's a small price to pay for all movement being equivalent.

that they lead to much less detailed and interesting maps

Uh, no? Why would this be the case?

the core problem is that they can't be subdivided into smallers hexes (whereas squares can)

Perhaps not technically hexes, but you can subdivide them into triangles. Which is something I'd love to see, actually. I've talked about that at length several times in the past on this forum.

As we couldn't subdivide hexes, Firaxis never explored that solution for instance to manage the buildings within a city. Maybe that explains why we end up with Civ7 with an Empire that it's just a large continent-sized urban sprawl. I know some people appreciate but that's not how I perceive a believable world.

No? That seems extremely random. I see zero reason to believe this is the case.

Or was there simply not enough time thanks to 2k?

This is what I suspect, to be honest. I think Firaxis focused on the core and deliberately deprioritized the finishing touches, and might not even mind the outrage that much because it gives them something to point at when they tell 2K "we have to devote significant resources to polishing before we can focus fully on monetizable content like you want us to".

But on the bright side, 2k seems to have been pretty liberal with Firaxis from what I can tell. Be happy EA isn't the parent company.

I was agreeing with your post until I got to this. Yes, EA is worse, but I definitely think the game would've looked much better on release without 2K, and they do not exactly seem liberal to me. Friendly reminder that until a few years ago, Firaxis' developers were banned from interacting with the community at all outside of specifically designated moments such as livestreams (and even those became more common over time, making me wonder if Firaxis was pushing for that).

Hexes were a good change, but they've run their course. I am surprised that tile shape wasn't changed for Civ 7.

What other shape are they supposed to have? Triangles? Octagon/square hybrids? Back to squares?

There aren't exactly many ways to tile a plane with polygons, and hexagons simply beat out all competition...

 

[Noble Zarkon]

And I see full name of the game is "Jon Shafer's At the Gates". Kinda tiny bit cringe mimicking Sid Meier naming convention.

Interesting marketing ploy when you're responsible for the worst release version of the Civ franchise ever, not sure that's something you want to highlight lol.

 

[aelf]

It's an interesting dichotomy, on the one hand the game is themed around colonisation / exploiting the New World and on the other they have made some 'interesting' leader choices that some might describe as woke. It's possible that they've managed to annoy two separate parts of the fanbase and please no-one with the end result. I can't pretend I have hard numbers to back this up but just something I was pondering.

I don't think those who dislike the (rather one-dimensional) colonial aspect of the game are as vociferous. And while it might be a factor is some people's decision not to buy the game, complaints about it are probably even rarer than open mentions of wokeness in the game. In fact, over here on CFC, there are significant voices who defend that game design choice based on the fact that Firaxis is based in US.

At the same time, the point that has been made that what people believe privately and what they say may differ. As I suggested above, people not complaining about colonialism doesn't mean that nobody is annoyed by it. And it may well be the case the while wokeness is not a huge factor causing negative reviews in and of itself, it might contribute to some people's negative perception of the game, adding on to other issues they have with it.

 

[Siptah]

There aren't exactly many ways to tile a plane with polygons, and hexagons simply beat out all competition...

I think this is something that's rather interesting in Ara: free-form "tiles" of different size and different number of neighboring tiles. Or a combined version as in AoW 4 with free-form city tiles/regions but hexes for unit movement, which might not alienate as many fans, and tries to combine the advantages of both.

 

[Methos]

But on the bright side, 2k seems to have been pretty liberal with Firaxis from what I can tell. Be happy EA isn't the parent company.

I was agreeing with your post until I got to this. Yes, EA is worse, but I definitely think the game would've looked much better on release without 2K, and they do not exactly seem liberal to me. Friendly reminder that until a few years ago, Firaxis' developers were banned from interacting with the community at all outside of specifically designated moments such as livestreams (and even those became more common over time, making me wonder if Firaxis was pushing for that).

@Leyrann I believe you're using the wrong definition of liberal. @King Flevance isn't using the political definition of the word, but the original meaning which is 'not strict, or exact; loose'. As in I was liberal with the amount of chocolate chips I put into the cookie batter.

 

[KayAU]

I know that's a very unpopular opinion in this section of the forum, but I see multiple problems in hexagons: beyond the fact that they contibute to reduce the freedom of movements (only 6 available directions rather than 8), that they lead to much less detailed and interesting maps, the core problem is that they can't be subdivided into smallers hexes (whereas squares can).

As we couldn't subdivide hexes, Firaxis never explored that solution for instance to manage the buildings within a city. Maybe that explains why we end up with Civ7 with an Empire that it's just a large continent-sized urban sprawl. I know some people appreciate but that's not how I perceive a believable world. Now another solution would be to manage elements smaller than a hex without any sub-grid. Maybe that works...

As for rivers, if they would be set in the middle of tiles (as they apparently rightfully are in Civ7), that would mean they could be made with 45° angles in a square map.

That's interesting. I hadn't really thought about the arguments of more directions to move in and subdivision. That said, I do still prefer hexes, not only for how they look (although that does matter to me), but also for their gameplay attributes. For one thing, all moves in a hex grid are equally long. With squares, diagonal moves are 1,4 times longer than vertical or horizontal ones. Another thing is that placing units adjacent to each other in any direction will form solid lines. With squares, defensive lines diagonally will have to be twice the thickness of vertical or horizontal ones. This matters more when you have tactical combat where unit placement plays a role. I do think there is good reason why hexes have been the tile shape of choice for so many war games.

With regards to subdivision for building placement though, where movement doesn't matter, I think you can absolutely do that with hexes, you just you just have to subdivide into other shapes.

As @Siptah mentioned, Ara: History Untold has a very different approach to map generation, which is just one of the reasons why I find it to be a very interesting game. It does away with regularly shaped tiles entirely, in favour of irregularly shaped regions, which are each subdivided into a variable number of zones. The regions are smaller than regions in games like Humankind, but larger than tiles. I believe I read in some recent post by the developers are about to reduce region size a bit, but below is a screenshot from an earlier build.

Spoiler :

Notice how region borders tend to follow natural boundaries like the rivers in this screenshot, which is why you can get long, narrow regions some places, while regions in more unrestricted terrain are "lumpier". As mentioned, each region is divided into zones, and zones can hold specific resources and improvements. There are different numbers of zones for regions, so this goes into the consideration when deciding which regions to claim, along with which resources are present, and how many adjacent regions there are. Generally, a region with 5 zones will be more valuable than one with just 2. The exception is for building Triumphs, Ara's version of Wonders. Triumphs take up an entire region, so those 2-zone regions are often a great choice for them. Unit movement is done in grouped armies on the region level, and is not directly affected by zones.

I think it's an interesting approach, and in my opinion, it works very well. I do wonder if other games, or even the Civ series itself will attempt to do something similar in the future.

 

[UWHabs]

My main memory related to him and civ5 is that if I recall correctly, he wanted to bring multiplayer like experience to single player game. That you would feel that you play with real people instead of AI. Main thing I remember from that was AI players being unpredictable, showing as friends and declaring surprise wars later, which made building diplomatic relation pointless and I hated that coming from civ4. I think this part was toned down during civ5 lifetime.

From time to time I followed his project "At The Gates" after he left Firaxis, but then forgot about it. Now looking for it again I see it's on Steam, but with negative reviews.

And I see full name of the game is "Jon Shafer's At the Gates". Kinda tiny bit cringe mimicking Sid Meier naming convention.

I think that was my problem with 5. In 4, you could have your alliances, you could learn which dials to turn, and that was the first civ game where I would give a neighbour stuff for free, or appeal to their demands, to keep the happy face. I know as long as I stayed happy with Hatty, it would be impossible for them to declare. Sure, it was gamey, but it did in some way mimic diplomacy.

In 5, you'd have an ally for the whole game, and like the turn after it breaks down in the modern era they would declare war on you because you were close to winning. Yeah, obviously as a gameplay function it made sense, but it just made trying to create and cultivate alliances completely meaningless.

That all being said, in my last game I was allied with Napoleon for the first 2 eras, but I knew going into the 3rd age if I got in quick I could knock him down. So yeah, I did exactly what I hate of the AI. But I still don't want them to do it to me

 

[KayAU]

The only game exempt from this has been BG3. I believe because people still believe Larian to be a smaller studio (they really aren't that small anymore).

I think it is also worth noting that BG3 is, in both my own and many others estimation, an absolutely excellent game. I did hear some murmurs that it was horrible and woke, but it seems whatever backlash there was, it was completely overwhelmed by the positive response to the quality of the game.

 

[King Flevance]

I was agreeing with your post until I got to this. Yes, EA is worse, but I definitely think the game would've looked much better on release without 2K, and they do not exactly seem liberal to me. Friendly reminder that until a few years ago, Firaxis' developers were banned from interacting with the community at all outside of specifically designated moments such as livestreams (and even those became more common over time, making me wonder if Firaxis was pushing for that).

I am not someone who follows 2k and Firaxis's relationship very close. It is hard to say if the release would have looked better because 2k no doubt, offers a lot of resources in this relationship even if Firaxis does not get full access. Now, how much restrictions overlap with assets is hard to say. Discouraging fan interaction could be seen as "for the benefit of Firaxis". Fans can bog down development with scattered focus on ideas, or this whole woke discussion that seems to be going on. We are not seeing an invasion of microtransactions. We do see a DLC model that was probably 2k's influence and this time we saw a Napoleon variant held for ransom requiring you to make a 2k account. But the worst of these is the DLC model but it is hard to see this as evil as it makes many developers tons of money in the digital age because gamers are more than happy to support it. It actually falls under giving people what they want. However, the clear remodel and direction of 7 is not "safe" or "sales driven", this whole system in 7 is innovative and risky. Especially, after Humankind's belly flop. It seems like Firaxis has a lot of liberty in their development in the sense that they won't deliver Civ 6.2 just to be safe. I think 2k trusts them to continue to lead the strategy market however they see fit. 2k are the ones that thought X-Com fans would be excited for a shooter instead of the remake they had been begging for and then turned to Firaxis to bail them out, which they did very well. Discouraging fan interaction can be a mixed bag depending on motive. But this is all speculation as I admit to not having followed their relationship closely. I have more theories than this one too.

 

[Leyrann]

@Leyrann I believe you're using the wrong definition of liberal. @King Flevance isn't using the political definition of the word, but the original meaning which is 'not strict, or exact; loose'. As in I was liberal with the amount of chocolate chips I put into the cookie batter.

That was in fact how I understood the word, I simply disagree with the assessment. In my opinion (at least based on the available data, which isn't as much as I'd like), 2K holds Firaxis' leash far too tightly.

I think this is something that's rather interesting in Ara: free-form "tiles" of different size and different number of neighboring tiles. Or a combined version as in AoW 4 with free-form city tiles/regions but hexes for unit movement, which might not alienate as many fans, and tries to combine the advantages of both.

I suppose that is one solution, but I'm not sure if that's the way to go. You can create more 'natural' shapes, but tiles do a lot to improve readability and simplicity for pretty low cost.

I'll once more mention that you could use a hexagon design for things like unit movement, while subdividing them into triangles for things like city sprawl.

...in fact, now that I think about it, maybe I should do a write-up on how such a design would have improved some aspects of Civ VII.

It is hard to say if the release would have looked better because 2k no doubt, offers a lot of resources in this relationship even if Firaxis does not get full access.

That's a fair point, what I meant is mostly that I think the release would've been better if 2K offered their resources with fewer demands in return. In general I get the impression that 2K really wants to pursue aggressive monetization schemes, quick releases at the cost of quality, et cetera. Put simply, I feel like Firaxis has "make a good game" at the top of their priority list, while 2K has "make a lot of money" at the top of their priority list.

But the worst of these is the DLC model but it is hard to see this as evil as it makes many developers tons of money in the digital age because gamers are more than happy to support it. It actually falls under giving people what they want.

There are several Paradox titles out there that use a much healthier DLC scheme imo. Age of Wonders IV for example.

 

[Maiq]

More features doesn't automatically mean a game is better and less deserving of criticism.

Many larger studios have released games recently to critical acclaim. Avowed is sitting at mostly positive on Steam. Veilguard, despite the "woke" controversy, still has a respectable 69% score. There have been many AA+ games released to critical acclaim - the recent Indiana Jones game, the Silent Hill 2 remake off the top of my head.

I'm afraid your theory just doesn't track. Size of the studio is not a factor, and sounds like just another conspiracy theory. Quality of the game remains the main factor.

Yeah I think people like to dunk on greedy AAA game releases, which this obviously is. I mean, the game has been out for 3 weeks and we get a DLC tomorrow before the game is remotely finished.

 

[TheGrayFox]

There absolutely was backlash to previous Civilization titles but no where near the scale and level of negativity we are seeing with VII. Even ignoring the negative reviews and the fact that this is the worst rated Civ title critically, looking at player counts and estimated sales numbers, it seems like many wrote VII wholesale.

 

[Kerosene31]

Review bombing on Steam is just the new normal in gaming in my humble opinion. I stopped looking at Steam reviews a long time ago. There's people who will complain about DRM. There's also a whole cultural/policial thing that bleeds into gaming. Pricing, etc. Just about every game on Steam starts out mixed. People review bomb as kind of a statement, but it ends up being meaningless because it happens every game.

There's an old Steam joke about the player "Played Game X 2000 hours" and the review reads, "Worst game I ever bought".

In my opinion, constant negativity is just the new normal in video games. For me, video games are my escape from the drama of the real world. I get enough negativity from work and the news. I just want to play games and have fun.

Quite frankly, the amount of drama and rage is downright comical at times The older I get, the more I realize that time is the most valuable resource. If you aren't enjoying your spare time, make a change and find something to maximize your fun in those few spare hours we get.

I would guess that Civ games are a lot more visible than they were back in the day. I recall Civ 5 being absolutely blasted when it came out (Civ 4 maybe still being one of the best in the series, definitely at that time). I don't recall it being as bad 5 -> 6, but it was far from smooth.

For me, I bought the game and I enjoy playing it. I also knew exactly what I was getting into. 4x games always launch with things needing improved. It would be great if 7 could release and be everything that 6 is with countless patches and multiple expansions. That's not what is going to happen. That's why people need to know what they are buying.

Waiting for updates and a sale is a perfectly reasonable plan, one some people should stick with. There's still lots of people playing older games too, always have been and always will be.

I'm having fun playing now and glad I jumped in, but that's not the answer for everyone. My recommendation - watch some of the videos and make your own decision. That's what I did.