What do you want to see in Civilization 5?

[Eran of Arcadia]

I detect some dislike of this demographic. I don't see why. Not everyone enjoys gaming in the same way; for instance, I can only play Civ3 on the lower difficulty levels, since I am not good at grasping some of the more complicated aspects of it. That doesn't mean I should "only play checkers".

 

[dh_epic]

I know lots of people who outright stopped playing games. Not because they experienced irreparable brain damage and are too dumb for 40 hour sessions, but because they don't have the time. And when they try to space out their game sessions every other weekend, they realize it's hard to resume a game they were playing before. That's probably close to the average consumer's experience.

Eran is right. People aren't necessarily stupid. It's just that most of them don't want to invest 40 hours to play a single session. A good chess game is over in less than an hour, and the people who enjoy chess aren't exactly missing a chromosome.

Some of us are willing to devote more free time to games. I'm not sure that makes us smarter. Maybe I'm the opposite of smarter for pulling some all-nighters playing Civilization.

You're making no sense at all. Civ expansion packs are a "single game". You install BtS, and you play BtS. That's a game. You install Warlords and you play Warlords. That's a game. It makes not a bit of sense to say one version, in a more complex state, is "bloated", while another, in that same state, wouldn't be.

Maybe I'm not being clear, because I guess you don't understand. Any new Civilization game has way more selling potential than an XP. Any time they release an expansion pack for Civilization, they're usually squeezing the existing Civilization players for more money.

99% of people who pick up BTS will already have played Civilization 4. They'll know what a settler is, how civics work, and how to maximize their great people. But only a slim majority of Civilization 4 players will have played Civilization 3. That's the key difference that allows them to make Civ 4 + BTS much more complicated than the Civ 4 by itself.

You might as well call BTS "Civilization 4: Advanced". An advanced version is a great way to boost sales beyond that of the basic version. But if you decided to skip making a basic version and tried to sell the advanced version, you'd sell only one product instead of two, you'd probably spend way more money on development, and you'd ultimately sell to a smaller hardcore audience. It's just bad marketing.

Who knows, maybe the day that will come instead is one where Creative Assembly decides to add tile yields and workers to TW, give it a better campaign interface, and then THEY sweep the market of all share. And Sid can go back to whatever he was doing in life before Civ1.

Fact is, Civilization outsells Total War by a long shot. It's probably not good marketing strategy for Firaxis to try to squeeze out Total War and steal their small audience. In chasing that small audience, they risk shrinking their own audience. It would be like Apple releasing an ipod with a mini-keyboard: while chasing down the smaller musician-pianist market, they might alienate the casual listener market frustrated with the larger and more complicated device.

It's probably much more profitable for Firaxis to follow the lead of a much larger seller, like Command and Conquer, Warcraft, or Sim City. You don't do that by simply copying all of their features and adding to what you already have. Adding a special Orc civilization to Civ, or making city management into a whole second half of the game unto itself -- those are both bad ideas. But Sim City is really accessible and easy to learn. Somewhere in that game is a lesson for "Business of Video Games: 101".

I hate to say it, but any company that makes it their priority to sell to someone like me or you will probably remain a niche company. That's just the way it is.



And anyone who claimed to be working for Firaxis was probably lying. I doubt they hate realism or try to avoid it. What makes more sense is trying to maximize sales and profits -- and that means keeping the game from becoming morbidly obese with too many features.

 

[Angst]

more max civs...

 

[maddanl]

I want to start by saying that I have played Civilization since the very first

version. So this is not a rant just to hear myself:

1. Keep the wonder movies by all means;

2. Lose the AI player Tremaine Advantage of crossing open ocean, its only

purpose seem to be to foster early war.

3. Bring back "Zones of Control " for land based units, to set and defend

boarders

4. Ranged units ( Archers, Longbowmen, etc) have at least a 2 square range

and can actually kill a hostile unit rather than just damage said unit.

fortressed units auto attack/defend in turn for stacked units.

5. Coastal Batteries have a 2-4 square range with improvements and kill

rather than damage naval units, until the modern era

6. Sea Raiders as well as land raiders (barbarians) like original

7. Military alliances do not allow for city building in principals territory,

unless by treaty.

8. Internal economic caravans can address city shortages and only need to

be sent 1 time but create a money burden for the receiving city each turn

9. Terraforming engineers can also raise a map square terrain 2 leves for farms

up to plains, as well as plant forest,grassland (only) can be double farmed

with supermarkets.

10. Territory maps cannot be re-sold/traded by the receiving AI player

must find empires on your own/their own.

11. Spies steal tech, foster civil war by causing a majority of cities to rebel

forceing change of present government for good or bad,steal maps

12.Bring back pollution,off shore platforms carry oil spill hazard, very hard to

clean (special sea unit,very costly) spill spreads until built, fishing at risk,

no oil until clean up.


13. Civ3 Resource based units and city improvements

14. Archaic unit meets modern unit in combat, Archaic unit has no attack

or defense value. In short, Your tremain ain't gonna hurt my submarine

15. Air units can bomb a city to a level such that the city can no longer

sustain a population and is destroyed, city defenses offset, no invasion

required. Like SMAC if there is an allied unit of another faction in the city

and you attack, you know have 2 or more wars.

16. Permisission is required to build an Embassy and is not auto granted

upon signing a treaty , a period of mutual trust must lapse.

17. Spies can operate out of embasissies, or may be inserted by submarine,

allowing that now, ONLY SUBMARINES ARE THE ONLY NAVAL UNIT THAT DOES

NOT CAUSE AN INCIDENT, AND MAY BE FREELY SUNK WITHOUT INCIDENT

IF DETECTED. All other naval vessels cause an "incident", with increasing

degree, to allow for first contact, after first contact, unless negotiated

by treaty, a "hostile incursion" occurs that can eventualy lead to war.

All "Hostile Incursions" are fired upon by shore batteries & frigates, until the

modern era when your navy takes over to enforce coastal limits. Or Quit

Prowling my shore line.

18. Air Units can sink naval units, ala "Midway", special unit required for

submarines.

19. Modern era allows for SOUSS submarine detection after tech achieved

and railroad like construction

20. Subs carry short range 4-6 squares nukes and cruise missles.

Cruise missles can target a specific city improvement.

21. Solar Plants actually help stop global warming

22. Long term allies can cooperate in spaceship construction, and some form

of diplomatic, or economic victory.

23. Keep the Religion element

24. Any city that converts to a player, can be "Sold" at auction to any player

contactee, including the original founder, for a limited time, and diplomatic

penalty, after time lapse you must supply and defend the city. City does

not provide all territory map, only map to next city without military info.

Diplomatic penalty varies with founder- purchaser state of war.

City conversion must be approved, Denied City Conversions not re-captured

by founder within short time limit, All Population now best founder land unit,

begin "Civil War unrest" each turn in nearby cities, will continue until all

affected cities are subdued by military, or change to popular government.

Population growth does not stop with each new citizen now a rebel.

Popular government info is provided over time by "Polls" whose accuracy

varies with price. Or the ruler can guess, 1 time. Wrong= Govt Collapse

If government collapses, new seprate factions arise,new leaders, with severe

lose of tech/diplomatic skills research.

25. Add a Diplomatic skills element/track in the research tree leading

to more mutual benefit type treaties, open boarders treaties, mutual defense

26. Early stage of mutual defense only money or resources can cross boarders

leading to military units crossing boarders. Leaders may be bribed money,tech,

resources, city transfers, to violate defense pacts and attack pactee.

Downside, increased reluctance to form any treaty.

27. After 3 successful economic treaty negotiations, all economic treaties

auto-renew unless war

28. Restore Diplomat unit with "military bribe" and first contact ability only.

embassies must be negotiated as before, but do provide limited military info,

ie; "best unit".

29. Spies train in embassies and their skills/results increase with tech level

penalties for use vary with mission, risk loss of embassy/war














8

 

[Skallagrimson]

Eran is right. People aren't necessarily stupid. It's just that most of them don't want to invest 40 hours to play a single session. A good chess game is over in less than an hour, and the people who enjoy chess aren't exactly missing a chromosome.

40 hours? My most complex BtS space race vics are usually over in 11. That translates to a Saturday when I tell the friends I'm in game hermit mode and won't be joining them for the zombie pub crawl that night, LOL.

I guess what I'm ultimately pining for and wishing for is not necessarily "more complexity" for complexity's sake, but for more *realism* so that the time that *is* spent playing the game, is a more sweeping and engrossing experience, one where you really do feel like you ARE Genghis Khan rampaging the Siberian steppes, and not just a modern geek pretending to be him. I don't know if there are any ways that can express that without it being heard by people as "I want more complexity". If anything, good programming should handle more of the complexity in program routines, and reveal less complexity to the player. Have I digressed? I don't know...

Some of us are willing to devote more free time to games. I'm not sure that makes us smarter. Maybe I'm the opposite of smarter for pulling some all-nighters playing Civilization.

Some people spend that time in books. Some, watching movies or sports. Some of us play games. Essentially we want to spend some portions of our day NOT engrossed in what our day job entails or the petty dramas of modern dreary life. "Enough of this being a database administrator crap, let's be Emporer of CHINA tonight!!!"

You might as well call BTS "Civilization 4: Advanced". An advanced version is a great way to boost sales beyond that of the basic version. But if you decided to skip making a basic version and tried to sell the advanced version, you'd sell only one product instead of two, you'd probably spend way more money on development, and you'd ultimately sell to a smaller hardcore audience. It's just bad marketing.

I give Firaxis more credit than to simply call BtS "Civ4 Advanced". It really is literally a whole new game, and it's not necessarily that the rules are "more complex" to a huge degree, but they're just different from vanilla. If you start out in BtS without ever having played vanilla or warlords, for example, the Apostolic Palace won't be renamed by you the "Apopleptic Palace" for sending you into fits of rage that it's forcing you to stop a war in mid-conquest. That doesn't mean it's "more complex", just that it's... different. Different strategies come to the fore, and you can't ONLY just rely on military might to sweep the map as you could in Vanilla or Warlords.

Fact is, Civilization outsells Total War by a long shot. It's probably not good marketing strategy for Firaxis to try to squeeze out Total War and steal their small audience. In chasing that small audience, they risk shrinking their own audience. It would be like Apple releasing an ipod with a mini-keyboard: while chasing down the smaller musician-pianist market, they might alienate the casual listener market frustrated with the larger and more complicated device.

Actually Civ employing a realistic battle interface would be more like IBM-based architecture coming out with OSes that don't crash, laptops that don't take a million years to boot up, and peripherals similar to iPods that actually ....work. In other words, it would be a good idea, not pie in the sky impossible as is the mantra of the day.

It's probably much more profitable for Firaxis to follow the lead of a much larger seller, like Command and Conquer, Warcraft, or Sim City. You don't do that by simply copying all of their features and adding to what you already have. Adding a special Orc civilization to Civ, or making city management into a whole second half of the game unto itself -- those are both bad ideas. But Sim City is really accessible and easy to learn. Somewhere in that game is a lesson for "Business of Video Games: 101".

TBS is not MMO, but the principle behind MMO can be borrowed from to make a TBS more enjoyable. In the MMOs it's easier to get immersed into a character, and I think it's possible for a TBS to employ some character-immersion and a few real-time modes here or there to add some realism to that character-immersion experience. This doesn't mean "create an Orc civilization" or any of that nonsense. But if you're gonna be Ragnar of the Vikings, why not once in a while really DO Viking-like things, like maybe a duel challenge by a cheeky warrior, or a fun real-time romp while sacking a city? This isn't "complexity"... if anything it gives you a break FROM the complexity, with an added dimension of the simple.

So if some of that character-immersion enjoyment of WoW or Sims can be had playing Civ, thus opening up new market share opportunities for Firaxis, this is a bad idea, why exactly?

I hate to say it, but any company that makes it their priority to sell to someone like me or you will probably remain a niche company. That's just the way it is.

Wanting to enjoy a rich realistic immersion experience isn't a "niche". It's why there IS a Warcraft and there IS a Sims. Those games wouldn't exist if your claim were true.

And anyone who claimed to be working for Firaxis was probably lying. I doubt they hate realism or try to avoid it. What makes more sense is trying to maximize sales and profits -- and that means keeping the game from becoming morbidly obese with too many features.

What's morbidly obese about a realistic battle? Do you want a game to be stuck in "spear beats a tank" mode for-EVER???

 

[Skallagrimson]

Mostly good ideas, maddanl. Especially coastal batteries and the ability for those and for air units to sink ships (which can be made similar to the intercept effect on the planes: they either damage or sink, based on a probability).

One quasi-exploit I used to use in Civ2 was to go to all-economy, generate huge cash, and then just send spies out to buy up all the cities on the map. In a way I'm kind of glad spies can't do that anymore, as that wasn't a realistic ability back in the day.

Your mention of caravans joins a chorus of us all wanting better ways for cities to share food and hammers amongst each other. I think it's ridiculous that you can trade bananas across the ocean with another civ, but you can't ship bananas to your own people in another city to FEED them!

Then again this might get me started about the game's ability to mine warriors out of a coal mine... must... resist...

 

[dh_epic]

We're talking about two different things now.

You're focusing on realism and say Firaxis is against it. It's probably not true. I still haven't seen that "we hate realism" quote from them. (Although if they said that, I think they'd be pretty dumb.)

I'm focusing on complexity. I'd be willing to pull out the quotes from great game designers and software developers who are careful about "feature creep". Even if you disagree, you should dig up Soren Johnson's presentations to understand that Firaxis IS concerned with over-complexity.

The main point: the features you're requesting have been ignored because of what they will do to complexity (and, sometimes, game balance). Realism is beside the point.



So if we're talking about two different things, let's talk about two different things. Let's not mash them together...

If Firaxis were to implement some kind of tactical "battle screen" when two stacks meet, that would certainly be an increase in complexity. It would require a lot more development time, and more artwork. It would take more effort from players to learn and to master. It would make games last longer. Not that it won't happen, but for Firaxis to do it they'd have to put another element of the game on the cutting room floor. They would have to cut another feature, to save development time, keep MP games running fast, and hold back the number of things new players have to learn. That's what I mean when I say that most high end game companies avoid "obesity" in their games.

On the other hand, a battle interface that's more realistic could EASILY fly if it were less complex than the battle interface now. The problem is that nobody can describe what that new interface would look like. People ask for a mini-battle screen, and that is obviously asking for a bulkier game. Other people ask for the return of inherently imbalanced concepts from Civ 3 or Civ 2, and I damn well hope Firaxis isn't listening. The only other route is "ok, but, please just make it more realistic". I'm sure Firaxis would do that, but someone would have to show them the way to keep it simple.


As you dream of a game that combines the audiences of Total War and Civ, you ought to keep in mind that there's more to a (financially) successful game than personal taste. The math isn't as simple as "Fans(Civ + Total War) = Fans(Civ) + Fans(Total War)" . You're missing the number of fans who would be put off by complexity. You're also ignoring development costs. New fans are great, but how much are you spending to get them?

Civilization is kind of an anomaly in being one of the best selling, highly complex games. Diablo outsells Civ, and might as well be minesweeper the way you click-click-click your way through everything mindlessly. There isn't a better selling game than Civilization that is also more complex. Also of note, Total War isn't even on the radar of best selling games. I'm not saying that as proof that it's a bad game. I'm saying that to show you why Firaxis probably isn't tripping all over itself to copy it.

Spoiler :

FWIW, Civ 3 games were pretty damn long when you factored in all the little tricks you need to win. Civ 4 has come a long way to shortening it, and it's one reason why multiplayer is at least viable in Civ 4. And players who still want that 40 hour Civ 3 experience can flick on "Marathon". That's where my numbers came from.

 

[Skallagrimson]

We're talking about two different things now.

You're focusing on realism and say Firaxis is against it. It's probably not true. I still haven't seen that "we hate realism" quote from them. (Although if they said that, I think they'd be pretty dumb.)

It does end up being the same thing because Firaxis wrongly equates realism with both "excessive complexity" and "excessive imbalance". Well we already have complexity and imbalance in Civ as it is, in all versions. They only seem to be okay with complexity and imbalance IF said complexity and imbalance are... unrealistic as well. If they were realistic, that's anathema.

I'm focusing on complexity. I'd be willing to pull out the quotes from great game designers and software developers who are careful about "feature creep". Even if you disagree, you should dig up Soren Johnson's presentations to understand that Firaxis IS concerned with over-complexity.

They're willing to feature-creep Corporations, yet a freature-creep that would make a battle something other than a laughable cartoon of spear-beats-a-tank, is yet again, anathema. I think they're hypocritical on their application of their game philosophy constraints, there.

The main point: the features you're requesting have been ignored because of what they will do to complexity (and, sometimes, game balance). Realism is beside the point.

You keep saying a realistic battle is too complex. Why is it TOO complex? Are three little ridiculous icons on a screen the maximum a gamer can think about at any given time? Who are these gamers, anyway? These are the same gamers who think nothing of micromanaging the tile yields of 16 different cities in the modern era, worrying about corporation maintenance, food balance, happiness limits, health limits, what wonders if any might be a good idea to build, 50 different things juggled into the player's thoughts at a given time while at the *campaign* screen, and yet, when it's time for battle... duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, only one warrior at a time or my head will explode! I think it is, yet again, hypocritical.

So if we're talking about two different things, let's talk about two different things. Let's not mash them together...

It's Firaxis that mashes them together, not me. I'm not the one demanding people believe that realism is "too complex". I'm the one ridiculing the proposition.

If Firaxis were to implement some kind of tactical "battle screen" when two stacks meet, that would certainly be an increase in complexity. It would require a lot more development time, and more artwork.

Complexity for *them*, not that much for the *player*. Again, these are players who can do the stack movement walk and chew tile management gum at the same time. They're not exactly simpletons.

It would take more effort from players to learn and to master.

And corporations didn't? The Apostolic Palace didn't? They doth protest too much.

It would make games last longer. Not that it won't happen, but for Firaxis to do it they'd have to put another element of the game on the cutting room floor.

What did they cut out in BtS? Other than perhaps what little realism they had left of siege engine behavior.

They would have to cut another feature, to save development time, keep MP games running fast, and hold back the number of things new players have to learn. That's what I mean when I say that most high end game companies avoid "obesity" in their games.

There are plenty of game companies out there that invest time into programming and cater to players who similarly invest time in learning the skills. Prime example: World of Warcraft, which is far from "bankrupt", and can probably buy Firaxis with one months subscription revenues alone.

This incessant complaint that game development is too costly suggests that perhaps they're in the wrong business altogether.

On the other hand, a battle interface that's more realistic could EASILY fly if it were less complex than the battle interface now. The problem is that nobody can describe what that new interface would look like. People ask for a mini-battle screen, and that is obviously asking for a bulkier game. Other people ask for the return of inherently imbalanced concepts from Civ 3 or Civ 2, and I damn well hope Firaxis isn't listening. The only other route is "ok, but, please just make it more realistic". I'm sure Firaxis would do that, but someone would have to show them the way to keep it simple.

Even realistic *results* would be a step up, such that six Knights wouldn't be able to overrun an Infantry unit (I've given Sid Meier a challenge to that effect he has yet to take me up on: he and five of his buddies in Knightly attire charge at me and my li'l old M-4 automatic, full load of ammo, and we'll see how likely it is for the knights to prevail!!!)

But if people don't want to mess with the gritty details of battle tactics, again Total War as an example provides the means to avoid those details, with an auto-resolve feature. Players who enter into MP games can either agree to duke it out real-time in battles, OR to auto-resolve their battles, much as they also agree on map size and other parameters on entering a Civ4 MP game today.

This isn't brain surgery here. But it IS ...programming.

As you dream of a game that combines the audiences of Total War and Civ, you ought to keep in mind that there's more to a (financially) successful game than personal taste.

What part of "MARKET SHARE" still flies over your head? I'm not just talking about TW's market, but also Warcraft, Sims, ALL the games out there. If you take it to the next level, you might sweep the "map" of the gaming market completely--a gambit others have made and won at, and Firaxis won't, and ...won't.

The math isn't as simple as "Fans(Civ + Total War) = Fans(Civ) + Fans(Total War)" . You're missing the number of fans who would be put off by complexity. You're also ignoring development costs. New fans are great, but how much are you spending to get them?

Why did they program anything at all risking the notion that nobody would be interested in playing Civ to begin with? If you're too fearful, then obviously, you're in the wrong field. Period.

Civilization is kind of an anomaly in being one of the best selling, highly complex games. Diablo outsells Civ, and might as well be minesweeper the way you click-click-click your way through everything mindlessly. There isn't a better selling game than Civilization that is also more complex. Also of note, Total War isn't even on the radar of best selling games. I'm not saying that as proof that it's a bad game. I'm saying that to show you why Firaxis probably isn't tripping all over itself to copy it.

Again, Creative Assembly is not as bankrupt as you assert, and the success of Blizzard is a case in point that your claim of Civ to be "the most complex" game out there, equally inaccurate. I'm no n00b at Civ and yet when I sat down to try out WoW, the COMPLEXITY there was one of the more daunting aspects of that game. Far more complex than Civ when it comes to all the spells, etc., how character movement works, and how everything interplays. And yet, there are people in trailer parks addicted to it, complexity and all. Blizzard has blazed a trail and succeeded where Firaxis still today fears danger and doom. It's like saying Everest can't be climbed, after people have already climbed it.

players who still want that 40 hour Civ 3 experience can flick on "Marathon". That's where my numbers came from.

Mmmm. Okay. I play both Civ and TW as it is to get the fuller experience that I want out of a game, so might as well play 3 or 6 or 20. And I suppose I am the only one in the entire planet who wants a full character-immersion experience that DOES NOT require encounters with elves and dwarves and orcs and other ridiculous fantasy concepts. Perhaps.

 

[dh_epic]

I never said Civ 4 is the most complex game out there. But in terms of games that have sold multiple millions of copies? It's in a league of its own. Total War might be a profitable company, but it's still not making that Firaxis money.

You've missed the point on how BTS is a special case. Expansion packs ALWAYS add more complexity. That's why the features are included in an expansion, rather than the basic version. The simpler basic version scares fewer new players away, saves development costs, and lets them charge consumers again later for the new features.

You also assume that this is a choice between "complexity versus simplicity", the same way that you said that a game company has to go for "total realism" or "total fantasy". There's a middle ground. Too simple, and you aren't doing anything unique or special. Too complex, and you scare away a lot of players. Too simple, and the game isn't deep enough to hold peoples' attention. Too complex, and the games become too long for a lot of people, especially online players. Firaxis has found a middle ground that works for them. I wish they'd try something different, but then you can't blame them for milking a super-profitable formula.

Automation isn't a viable solution to complexity. How many people in multiplayer automate their workers? The answer is very few. Even though players might hate an excessively drawn out game that cuts into real-life responsibilities -- like work and family -- they hate losing even more. They play to win, or don't play at all. That means that a good MP gamer has to be better than the AI-assisted automation. (Besides that, Firaxis would still have to develop all that detail AND create a competent AI, with no real added profits for their company. Because of development costs, they probably need to decide on the optimal level of complexity BEFORE factoring in automation.)

Spoiler :

In terms of Blizzard games, people can finish a game of StarCraft or WarCraft in a couple hours. They're far less complex than Civ. Maybe the same number of units. But a much simpler economy. The buildings in 'Craft ARE the tech tree, and there's only 10 or so of those. Some fans might play more often than others, but the 'crafts are inherently friendly to a "Saturday only" type of player. Hence why they sell four to five times as high as 4X games.

MMORPGs are a very special beast. Yes, there are people who will invest hours upon hours into a game. They'll plug into the Matrix and never check out. But much of this appeal comes from the interactive persistent world aspect. I bet a 4X, Empire-Building MMORPG would do quite well, if someone could figure one out.

Realistic battles don't have to be too complex. But the way you're suggesting it -- with a special battle screen -- Civ 5 would be markedly more complex than Civ 4. Like I said, I still don't think Firaxis is against realism -- which is my central point. At least you seem to have conceded that and moved onto criticizing them for dumbing things down and being risk averse. I agree with you on one of those criticisms.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I never said Civ 4 is the most complex game out there.

My apologies. I misread this:

Civilization is kind of an anomaly in being one of the best selling, highly complex games.

But in terms of games that have sold multiple millions of copies? It's in a league of its own. Total War might be a profitable company, but it's still not making that Firaxis money.

And World of Warcraft is what, a fly-by-night operation in someone's basement?

You've missed the point on how BTS is a special case. Expansion packs ALWAYS add more complexity. That's why the features are included in an expansion, rather than the basic version. The simpler basic version scares fewer new players away, saves development costs, and lets them charge consumers again later for the new features.

Good, then make an "expansion" in which battles are not ridiculously cartoony and spear > tank -ish. If that will scare YOU away, well, I'll try to pick up the pieces and move on.

You also assume that this is a choice between "complexity versus simplicity",

No, Firaxis assumes it. I ridicule the assumption, remember?

the same way that you said that a game company has to go for "total realism" or "total fantasy". There's a middle ground. Too simple, and you aren't doing anything unique or special. Too complex, and you scare away a lot of players. Too simple, and the game isn't deep enough to hold peoples' attention. Too complex, and the games become too long for a lot of people, especially online players. Firaxis has found a middle ground that works for them. I wish they'd try something different, but then you can't blame them for milking a super-profitable formula.

By your simplistic analysis (hehe), Firaxis IS BOUND to scare away absolutely EVERYONE with BtS, because the complexities of campaigning there are unprecedented. 100% of all gamers on the planet will simply run away from Civ, never to ever ever ever ever EVER play Civ again in a MILLION years, because... they added Corporations! :::guffaw:::

Automation isn't a viable solution to complexity. How many people in multiplayer automate their workers? The answer is very few.

Because the automation parameters of the workers are CRAP. They'll do the most unwise things imaginable with your terrain, and the only rules you can give them are "don't chop trees" or some such. EVERYONE who strategizes tile optimization will make generally similar choices when it comes to how to improve tiles around a city based on if it's for production, commerce, or GP farm. So why can't worker automation be based on that? Oh, that's right "development costs".

Well, until those costs are invested, players are left having NO CHOICE but to MM a worker, because not doing so will be disastrous. It's not a high level requirement, to MM, but rather, a pragmatic one given the poor programming put into worker automation.

So here you're giving one example of bad programming and using it as an excuse for why any further programming can't be done. Sophistry is putting it mildly.

Even though players might hate an excessively drawn out game that cuts into real-life responsibilities -- like work and family -- they hate losing even more. They play to win, or don't play at all. That means that a good MP has to be better than the AI-assisted automation. (Besides that, Firaxis would still have to develop all that detail AND create a competent AI, with no real added profits for their company.)

Actually the battlefield automation exists today: the ridiculous spear > tank results of the present-day Civ. People *are* living with it, today, because they have no choice. And you demand that people never ever ever EVER should get that choice. Ever. I defy your vision of unnecessary limitation based on programming laziness. And I think a day will come when some enterprising group of programmers will decide enough is enough, and do it (closer to) right. And then out-sell Civ, rightly so.

people can finish a game of StarCraft or WarCraft in a couple hours. They're far less complex than Civ.

It takes months to level up a character to 70. Your assertion is absolutely ridiculous that WoW is "simple". A *raid* may be short duration, but then, so can a battle in Civ. Just because you start a game doesn't mean you have to finish it the same day, and by the same token, WoW players stick with their characters on a relatively permanent basis. It would be like playing "Tokugawa" forever in Civ. That's more complex, not less.

Some fans might play more often than others, but the 'crafts are inherently friendly to a "Saturday only" type of player. Hence why they sell four to five times as high as 4X games.

Saturday only? You have NO IDEA of what your'e talking about, regarding WoW. Absolutely none. I've known lawyers who let their careers go to the toilet because they'd rather play Warcraft than... anything. Creditors calling, gas cut off in the home, everything, and they're still at their PCs casting spells at dragons, the rules of which are by orders of magnitude more complex than "duh, send axemen into city, see if win..."

There are women who sell their bodies online for Warcraft gold. Can Civ beakers or culture command such behavior?

much of this appeal comes from the interactive persistent world aspect. I bet a 4X, Empire-Building MMORPG would do quite well, if someone could figure one out.[/spoiler]

It wouldn't have to be MMO, though it could. It could simply be Civ with... non-ridiculous battles. Throw in a more MMO-ish aspect by just widening the MP scope a bit, and let the games begin.

Realistic battles don't have to be too complex. But the way you're suggesting it -- with a special battle screen -- they would be. Like I said, I still don't think Firaxis is against realism -- which is my central point. At least you seem to have conceded that and moved onto criticizing them for dumbing things down and being risk averse. I agree with you on one of those criticisms.

You continue to claim that Total War isn't selling to anyone (false) because Total War's battle interface is "too complex" (relatively false). And that I continue to disagree with.

 

[dh_epic]

By your simplistic analysis (hehe), Firaxis IS BOUND to scare away absolutely EVERYONE with BtS, because the complexities of campaigning there are unprecedented. 100% of all gamers on the planet will simply run away from Civ, never to ever ever ever ever EVER play Civ again in a MILLION years, because... they added Corporations! :::guffaw:::

Actually, it's by your simplistic interpretation.

You missed my analysis, so let me try an analogy. Civilization 4 Basic is like arithmetic. Civilization 4 with BTS is algebra. Throwing someone into algebra without having spent some time with arithmetic would be scary. But doing arithemetic for several months, a keener can rise to the challenge of algebra. Basic before Advanced. All at once will confuse the average person, and ultimately make them give up and find something more accessible.

Because the automation parameters of the workers are CRAP. ... So here you're giving one example of bad programming and using it as an excuse for why any further programming can't be done. Sophistry is putting it mildly.

I hate to break it to you, but Software AI just isn't as good as you can ever hope it to be. We're talking about hardware and processing limitations, let alone the sheer amount of time it would take to get it right. I'm surprised the Civ 4 AI is as good as it is, honestly. The Civ 4 worker AI slaughters the Civ 3 worker AI. The best we can hope for is that Civ 5 is slightly better. You're right about development costs. No matter how much you hate it, it's the truth.

If you're hoping that even ONE game company in the entire industry will give you perfect AI, I advise you to stay on the look-out for a tic tac toe game.

defy your vision of unnecessary limitation based on programming laziness. And I think a day will come when some enterprising group of programmers will decide enough is enough, and do it (closer to) right. And then out-sell Civ, rightly so.

There isn't a game company out there that doesn't work 10 hour days regularly, with 12 to 14 hours during crunch time. And crunch time often lasts months at a time. Calling them lazy shows how little you know about the industry.

If you really want to blame someone, blame the marketing department. They're the ones who say "it costs us $C per year to run our programming team. We expect to sell X copies at $50. In order to make a profit of $P, the game development cycle cannot last more than 2.5 years." That's how they stay profitable. Sorry, pal, but perfect AI isn't economically viable. Do you really think "two games in one" makes economic sense?

Saturday only? You have NO IDEA of what your'e talking about, regarding WoW.

You must have missed the part where I said MMOs are a special case where the entire audience is extremely obsessive. All bets are off if someone were to make an Empire-building MMO. It could sell gang-busters, or it could tank horribly. It would certainly weed out the saturday-only players.

You continue to claim that Total War isn't selling to anyone (false) because Total War's battle interface is "too complex" (relatively false). And that I continue to disagree with.

Except I didn't say that. I said that Civilization 4 absolutely kills Total War in sales. Total War is selling well, and making a solid profit. But if Firaxis is going to copy someone, they're going to try to get the 8 million StarCraft fans, rather than the 300,000 Total War fans.


My main point still stands about realism, which you finally seem to have given up on. I couldn't imagine any game company doing a historical style game outright saying "screw realism". But most top selling platinum level game companies will tell you over and over: you have to find a middle ground between simplicity and complexity. You need to keep development costs down, and need to maximize your appeal. That's probably why the tactics of Civ remain thin, not a hatred of realism.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Let's go to the kernel of the disagreement right here:

It could sell gang-busters, or it could tank horribly. It would certainly weed out the saturday-only players.

In your overall hypothesis, the "saturday-only" players are the dominant segment of the market and that "obsessive" players who really get into it and make a lifestyle out of it, are a tiny insignificant lot which should be shunned by any self-respecting game company as not worth the revenue.

Now with that as your premise, take yet another look at what's known in that world as "WarCRACK". Look at the obsession. Look at the lifestyle changes. Look at the desperation on the part of players to spend as much time as possible playing it. And now, look at Blizzard, which by your estimation would have to FAIL MISERABLY for going after that market:

http://www.blizzard.co.uk/press/050317.shtml

Except I didn't say that. I said that Civilization 4 absolutely kills Total War in sales. Total War is selling well, and making a solid profit. But if Firaxis is going to copy someone, they're going to try to get the 8 million StarCraft fans, rather than the 300,000 Total War fans.

At the level of logic and principle, what TW essentially brings to the table is a strategy wargame translation of what Warcraft brings to the table: an immersion experience with far greater verisimilitude than Civ's "3 macemen bonking heads" approach. TW's success is limited (but non-trivial) largely because their campaign interface took a giant leap backwards from what they had in the first release. But as a contrary example, Blizzard has more MONTHLY SUBSCRIBERS than what Firaxis will ever sell of all copies of every game and every expansion pack combined.

You keep claiming that feature-richness and "excessive realism" would put off gamers, but there Warcraft is over there, obviously NOT putting them off. You claim that AIs cannot be enhanced, while Blizzard has done it. You claim that there is no return on the investment into programming a rich interactive gaming experience, while Blizzard has reaped it (most likely with their hard-working programmers generously compensated and well-rewarded for their efforts). And even Creative Assembly, after having done a non-stellar job of it, has reaped honorable mention. So why is Firaxis so afraid, and why are you so afraid on Firaxis' behalf? Is it paralysis for paralysis' sake?

 

[dh_epic]

Like I said, MMOs are a huge exception in terms of game audience.

Not to mention, MMORPGs aren't exactly a risk. They're a proven commodity. The reason why Blizzard could expect to succeed with a MMO is because of the popularity of MUDs in the 90s, let alone the proven business model of EverQuest. It was an easy call for Blizzard to make.

Until then, Blizzard was doing games like Warcraft and Diablo which could be divided into discrete 2 hour sessions. If Firaxis tries to make a MMO, they should look to EverQuest and WarCraft Online for inspiration. Otherwise, I would expect them to copy StarCraft (as much as I hated StarCraft).

MMOs have no mind-blowing AI to speak of. That's a great way to save development costs -- jacking up monsters, rather than making them as smart as humans. Otherwise, Blizzard has horrible AI. StarCraft is terrible that way. Micromanagement is HUGELY profitable. 10 marines versus 10 marines gives you a brutal battle with one or two survivors. But if you micromanage your marines and actually focus their attacks on one enemy at a time, 10 AI marines can be defeated by 10 human marines with 4 marines surviving.

Here's the real point:

I've never said that realism would put people off. I don't think anyone has ever said that. (On the other hand, excessive ANYTHING can be bad, though. That's a whole other story.) Your claims that Firaxis hates realism are pretty unsupported.

I think the real debate IS the relationship between complexity and profit. I'm glad the discussion has moved there. I concede 100% that a game twice as complex as Civilization 4 MIGHT actually be the hidden "crackilization". But it hasn't been proven yet. Old, big players like Sid Meier don't take risks. (Neither has Blizzard, since Diablo.) A small company might have the will to take a risk and make a two-in-one strategy game, but then it's hard to imagine how they'd do it without the resources of the big company.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Like I said, MMOs are a huge exception in terms of game audience.

People are people, and if they play an MMO that doesn't necessarily mean they will never pick up another game, ever. In fact, the success of MMOs shows what people DO WANT: a rich immersion experience with high degrees of verisimilitude, and they don't necessarily demand "simplicity".

It was an easy call for Blizzard to make.

And Firaxis doesn't learn from it.

Your claims that Firaxis hates realism are pretty unsupported.

The truth of it is obvious in what Firaxis has produced.

I think the real debate IS the relationship between complexity and profit. I'm glad the discussion has moved there. I concede 100% that a game twice as complex as Civilization 4 MIGHT actually be the hidden "crackilization". But it hasn't been proven yet. Old, big players like Sid Meier don't take risks. (Neither has Blizzard, since Diablo.) A small company might have the will to take a risk and make a two-in-one strategy game, but then it's hard to imagine how they'd do it without the resources of the big company.

I think it's possible that we can reach consensus that a release of the realistic battle interface in an *expansion pack* would be a workable approach for Firaxis. The risk would be limited because it's not a commitment to an entire version of Civ--it would be the same risk they already made in throwing corporations into BtS, albeit perhaps with a tad bit more development investment (unless they could quasi-plagiarize and back-engineer TW's battles, hehe).

Update: if nothing else, they could just play TW battles for a while to get a feel for the program *specifications* which are more than half the battle of programming anyway.

 

[dh_epic]

I know I'm repeating myself, but this is a last ditch effort to make my point. Firaxis doesn't hate realism. It's just that realism is often complex. Hence my focus on game designers who shun complexity in favor of "KISS".

Once you realize they're trying to find a middle ground -- a deep and interesting game without being complicated -- a lot of stuff makes sense. It's why you don't see elections every 4 years in Civ. It's why they cut caravans. It's why religions are really just 7 different instances of the same wonder, minus the need to build something. These are the actions of someone who actually kind of likes realism, but ends up scaling things back in fear of getting too complicated. Too time-consuming.

At the end of the day, that's what stops them from total realism, IMO. "Okay, if we add this, it's realistic. But (1) how much time will we waste trying to implement it, (2) how hard will it be to understand, and (3) how much fun will it add?" Looking at those trade-offs, some amount of realism makes it in, but a lot gets cut out.

I think a battle system (option) for an expansion pack is definitely more viable than putting it in the main game. But I'd still like to see it in the main game -- and believe we could see it -- if they found the will to cut something else out to "make room".

And for what it's worth, I don't think Firaxis will ever do an MMO. MMORPGs are proven, and even veteran organization like Blizzard can easily make the jump. But a MMO-Strategy game is just too risky, too unproven. It would take a younger company who still has that fire in the industry. Stardock might be on to something, in fact. I wouldn't expect Firaxis to take a risk like this. But if Stardock pulls it off, I wouldn't be surprised if Firaxis (or maybe Blizzard, or another big player) decides to follow suit. If I had the bank roll to do it, I'd easily fund it. I think it could be a HUGE money maker.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I think a battle system (option) for an expansion pack is definitely more viable than putting it in the main game. But I'd still like to see it in the main game -- and believe we could see it -- if they found the will to cut something else out to "make room".

Apostolic Palace gets my vote.

But a MMO-Strategy game is just too risky, too unproven. It would take a younger company who still has that fire in the industry. Stardock might be on to something, in fact. I wouldn't expect Firaxis to take a risk like this. But if Stardock pulls it off, I wouldn't be surprised if Firaxis (or maybe Blizzard, or another big player) decides to follow suit. If I had the bank roll to do it, I'd easily fund it. I think it could be a HUGE money maker.

IMO it wouldn't even have to be full "MMO". Just borrow some of the character-immersion experience *from* the MMO genre. I think that's the most addictive aspect of Warcraft for those who play it: in non-game time they're dull impoverished so-and-so from the suburbs, but during game time they're "Thunderballs, Warrior-King!" or something like that. The fantasy escape element works for a lot of people. I personally would prefer an alternative history escape into a character that's accessible from what we know of the past, like *being* Charlemagne or *being* Genghis Khan rather than some elf or some dwarf that (to me) it takes extra energy to pretend "exists". And then rather than stupid "magical quests" or "killing dragons", that character would primarily be concerned with reigning well in the kingdom they control, "Civ-like" in that aspect.

The catch-22 I seem to run into everywhere is that when a game company "gets" the need for character-immersion, they go way off the deep end into fantasy crap (Warcraft); and when they eschew fantasy crap and point more toward alt-history, they throw the character-immersion out the window and don't even retain any verisimilitude. (Enter three macemen bonking heads... I'm soooooooooo impressed at the programming there!)

Maybe Creative Assembly will actually listen to customers, unlike Firaxis. If they're as destitute and struggling as you claim, they may be more motivated to do so. Give them something that could potentially wipe Firaxis off the map, and maybe even dig into Blizzard's market share...

 

[dh_epic]

I support your vote on the Apostolic Palace Although it seems to me like they just shoved the UN into an early game wonder. For the work it takes to make this (and learn it), I'm not sure what you could accomplish by putting that work elsewhere. Maybe not a full fledged battle screen, but hopefully something that actually fixes collateral damage (and makes it more realistic in the process).

Let me repeat, I don't think Creative Assembly is destitute and struggling any more than I think White Castle is in bad shape. It's the difference between White Castle and McDonald's -- one is just bigger, does more volume. A game that sells less than platinum can still be profitable if the staff is smaller, and they find ways to cut development costs. (Probably by using the same game engine over and over. Firaxis still puts out a golf game, a railroad game, and a pirate game... none of which I'm interested in. But that's beside the point.) I'm sure Creative Assembly is doing quite well. But they're a tier below developers like Firaxis, Maxis, and so on...

Me personally, I would enjoy that kind of deep character immersion in a historical setting you're talking about. But only so much of that comes from the actual implementation of the game. In MMOs, a lot of character immersion comes from being part of an in-game community.

MMOs let you interact with other characters who are human, who can go beyond any programmer's abilities into the most deep and unpredictable relationships. You band together in guilds, develop your own gang with different figureheads, maybe even get married. Many become some kind of entrepreneur offering in-game goods or services. Sometimes helpful, sometimes ruthlessly profit-seeking. You develop a reputation among your peers, and your name gets uttered by hundreds of people as "oh, I heard Skallagrimson defeated Chaos by himself!"

So if you take out the benefits of a in-game community, what else is it about MMOs that you and I would like? The ability to build a character. I'd like to see that in Civ 5 for sure. The challenge is figuring out how to do it. I think the game currently puts way too much emphasis on economic wrangling and not nearly enough on developing a truly unique civilization. Everyone will build libraries and banks and roads -- that's important, but unfortunately really predictable. In the real world, the big variables are philosophical and cultural -- collectivism versus individualism, science versus superstition, tyranny of the majority versus protection of minorities... I'd love to play a game that lets you really develop that unique character, to define your people. Civ 4 has that to a slight extent, but not nearly enough for my liking. (No strategy game does, IMO. Yet.)

 

[Skallagrimson]

I support your vote on the Apostolic Palace Although it seems to me like they just shoved the UN into an early game wonder. For the work it takes to make this (and learn it), I'm not sure what you could accomplish by putting that work elsewhere. Maybe not a full fledged battle screen, but hopefully something that actually fixes collateral damage (and makes it more realistic in the process).

I don't understand why they can't get siege engines right. Siege engines are FIXED in battle, they don't "charge", they don't "advance" (while attacking), and when they "withdraw" in Civ, at best that can represent when they managed not to spontaneously explode and kill their crew, which may have happened some of the time, but not near as often as Civ insists they did during an attack. I can agree to siege engines not totally eliminating an opponent, but I must protest Civ's idea that each and every time a castle garrison ducked behind the walls during a trebuchet attack, 9 out of 10 of the trebuchets would mysteriously fall apart and the crews would magically die. NONSENSE. To kill a trebuchet crew you had to attack THEM... with arrows if they were dumb enough to be within range, or cavalry otherwise.

You say Firaxis "doesn't hate realism", well, whatever it is they do feel about it, they don't *achieve* anything near it.

Me personally, I would enjoy that kind of deep character immersion in a historical setting you're talking about. But only so much of that comes from the actual implementation of the game. In MMOs, a lot of character immersion comes from being part of an in-game community.

The community adds a different level or layer of immersion. The more purely-MMO aspect of Warcrack, for example, adds more of a social immersion than a character immersion, most of the time, although interaction during an actual raid will often have the same effect as multiplayer in Civ: it *can* be character-immersive if all the players are "in-character" as their gaming style, or it can be very character-dissociated if the play is of a more out-of-character style.

What's more purely character-immersive about Warcrack would be the fact that you more directly interact in the game, with that character. Your character is not some abstract concept of "Tokugawa" which you only ephemerally understand as having been the original substance of your playing experience, but rather, the game character is an intensive focus of all aspects of play. I wouldn't ask my "dream game" to go to that level, though. I would simply hope such a game would gear things a little more *toward* a first-person interaction with an experience of "being King" (or Queen), with courtiers, with rival claimants to the throne, with religious leaders who are sometimes supportive or sometimes undermining to your rule, with people who love you or hate you (or may have no choice but to fear you), etc.

I think a more satisfying game experience would involve not so much a gamer's self-image of being some nerdy modern person who knows how to calculate tile yields with modern statistics, but rather, a self-image of a powerful ruler who can make wise AGRARIAN decisions in a more realistic AGRARIAN way, or wise TRADE decisions in a more realistic TRADE way (which may, for example, involve having to deal with various subtle trade pressures put on your merchants by subtly hostile kings, and how to deal with that reciprocally without starting a war), and generally face problems more in the way an actual king would have had to face them.

Everyone will build libraries and banks and roads -- that's important, but unfortunately really predictable. In the real world, the big variables are philosophical and cultural -- collectivism versus individualism, science versus superstition, tyranny of the majority versus protection of minorities... I'd love to play a game that lets you really develop that unique character, to define your people. Civ 4 has that to a slight extent, but not nearly enough for my liking. (No strategy game does, IMO. Yet.)

That's certainly an aspect or a dimension of what I'd like to see as well. *POLICY*, and not merely tile-flipping or switching "civics" once every 500 years, but the passage of laws or decrees; the favoring of one noble family over another; etc. Sure there were economic decisions a-plenty, most especially on trade policy, taxation, etc., but a non-trivial slice of a king's day did indeed have to do with what you describe. What sort of a kingdom will this be? Will I be a religious king and persecute "heretics"? If so, to what extent and to what limits? What shall I do to this one particular individual who was caught denouncing my rulership? Should I ignore the fact that he's a great scientist and may be of use to me if I give him a milder punishment and put him to work? Or would that be a perpetual drain on public attitudes towards the Crown and be more costly in the general loyalty of the masses no matter how many technological advances this man may bring?

There's so much that can be done in that direction, with, I believe, very limited effort to program it.

 

[dh_epic]

I don't understand why they can't get siege engines right.

I know you never played Civilization 3, but their siege system was similar to what you talked about. Catapults didn't engage in direct battle. They could attack from a one tile distance. (I think cannons could even operate at a 2 tile distance.) And they had no defensive capability, meaning they were sitting ducks if left alone.

There was a problem, though. In implementation, they were realistic. But in practice was a different story. Catapults were super-powerful because there was no risk when dealing damage. The second that someone moved next to your stack of catapults, they were dead meat. You haven't seen a lack of realism until you've seen an army that's more than 50% catapults.

Civilization 4 closed a lot of exploits. I gotta give em credit for it. No more buying the tech advantage away from the AI, no more gaining free gold by lowering your tech slider on the last turn of research. They obviously tried to close the siege-unit exploit that was Civ 3. The operative word is "tried", because they ultimately accomplished nothing besides making things more unrealistic.

You can choose to believe they just hated realism. But trust me, the Civ 3 system was nothing to be proud of. And I hope, strongly, that Firaxis tries a new strategy for siege units next time around. I remain optimistic that they will, too -- siege units have changed in pretty much every single game since Civ 1. That suggests they're open to playing with it until they get it right.

I wouldn't ask my "dream game" to go to that level, though. I would simply hope such a game would gear things a little more *toward* a first-person interaction with an experience of "being King" (or Queen), with courtiers, with rival claimants to the throne, with religious leaders who are sometimes supportive or sometimes undermining to your rule, with people who love you or hate you (or may have no choice but to fear you), etc.

MMORPGs get that for free from the MMO component. Rivals to your authority, factions, supporters and detractors... They pretty much don't need to implement a damn thing, and humans will put it together. Humans are social animals. Creative and unpredictable.

Coming up with an AI that can do the same thing? Much harder. Although I always felt that Tropico was a game that did a decent job of that!

Sure there were economic decisions a-plenty, most especially on trade policy, taxation, etc., but a non-trivial slice of a king's day did indeed have to do with what you describe.

Let me start off by saying that I totally agree with you. But the next part is harder to swallow. The only way you can expect Firaxis -- a game company trying not to shake up the level of complexity in their franchise -- to add something like that is if they take something else away. So, in my opinion, there is a trade-off between those trivial economic decisions and actually determining the style of kingdom you want -- what part of society will your power will come from, who you will scapegoat, what are your age old cultural values.

And there's the rub. If we simply ask for more politics, someone from Firaxis will tell us that it's too complex. And if we try to find a compromise and say "okay, we can sacrifice some depth in the economy if you would just make the politics deeper", a ton of diehard fans will say "NO I LOVE JUGGLING TILES AND MOVING WORKERS THAT IS A HUGE STRATEGY". And hence, Firaxis plays it safe and sticks with what they know.

And that's pretty much why big, established companies have a hard time taking risks. As you can see, I'm still pretty critical and cynical about Civ 5. But for different reasons than you. (Still don't buy the "anti-realism" thing.)

 

[Skallagrimson]

There was a problem, though. In implementation, they were realistic. But in practice was a different story. Catapults were super-powerful because there was no risk when dealing damage. The second that someone moved next to your stack of catapults, they were dead meat. You haven't seen a lack of realism until you've seen an army that's more than 50% catapults.

This is the point where a good game programmer would sit back and think about it for a minute or two. What WAS it about catapults in ancient and medieval times that would motivate an army to include some of them, but not to have 50% or more of their forces comprise catapults? If they can't answer this rhetorical question on their own, they should consult someone familiar with the history of medieval warfare.

Why NOT have 50% or more catapults, in a real medieval battle? Actually if we're talking about a siege sometimes very nearly 50% of the effort was in fact toward the erection, placement, and operation of siege engines, more often build at the site of the siege than transported from the homeland. (Gives the axemen something to chop during the day...) But the reason they got away with this was because the besieged defenders were holed up inside a walled city or a castle. If there was a SALLY, that is, if the defenders poured out of the battlements to attack, then having the 50% plus investment in siege engines would quite possibly turn sour very quickly if the troops assigned to defend the engines from attack were spread too thin.

So back to the answer: A unit of pikemen can really only defend *so many* siege engines from cavalry. If I were to design auto-resolve battle rules for a stack, I'd say that a stack with 6 pikemen can defend 6 catapults/trebuchets from 6 knights with all the ordinary defensive bonuses, etc., from said pikemen, but beyond those six, any additional catapults in the stack would be vulnerable, and not necessarily requiring additional knights. If there are additional knights they should be able to completely whack the extra catapults, and if there are not, it should be a probability of their being able to reach the undefended cats without interception by the pikes--similar to the "flanking" effect in BtS but perhaps a bit more deadly to the siege engines on the defense.

In addition to the stack-defense ratio consideration, you also have to consider the time it took, in real battles, for catapults and trebuchets to be *ready* to attack. This is why horse archers and knights are given a bonus vs. siege engines in Civ--to express the ability they had to overrun the siege engines before they could react. However, *EVEN INFANTRY* could easily overrun trebuchet units if said units have the trebs packed up in the wagons in transport mode. This is illustrated fairly well in Age of Empires where the trebuchets are pretty powerful, but you need TIME to get them setup, and for that period of time, the trebs need to be defended by melee or cavalry or archers, against a rush by horse *or by foot* while they're unpacking. For a translation of the "real world" to civ, I'd say that siege engines should require a one-turn "setup period" between when they're moving and when they're ready to fire. Perhaps even one-turn for catapults, onagers, and mangonels (which would just require wheeling into position and finding range, etc.), and two turns for trebuchets (which would have to be *assembled* as well). Obviously armies that relied on speed and mobility, such as Genghis Khan's, would often leave the siege engine train behind unless they were preparing to lay siege to a city.

Overall in ancient and medieval warfare, the "siege" in "siege engines" was put there for a reason. In field combat they didn't often give a lot of "bang for buck" due to the slowness and expense of the weaponry--plus a highly mobile field opponent could, without great difficulty, do one of those "flanking attacks" as captured in BtS.

You can choose to believe they just hated realism. But trust me, the Civ 3 system was nothing to be proud of. And I hope, strongly, that Firaxis tries a new strategy for siege units next time around. I remain optimistic that they will, too -- siege units have changed in pretty much every single game since Civ 1. That suggests they're open to playing with it until they get it right.

What you describe of the Civ3 version seems to just need the added balancing factor of a time delay to being able to use them, especially for trebuchets. Plus I'm not averse to *SOME* spontaneous destruction of siege engines on attack (perhaps 20% which reduces as the crews become more experienced over time), but it's nothing short of ridiculous that siege defenders ducking behind walls can make 9 out of 10 trebuchets explode and kill all the crews, just by taking cover. That plus the "charging up the hill with a trebuchet" notion...

Just make 'em fixed, make 'em slow, make 'em MOSTLY survive during their own attack, and make 'em vulnerable *to* attack if not defended by an adequate number of men-at-arms. Add all of that together, and most players will find them useful almost exclusively during a siege, just like real generals of real ancient and medieval battles did.

And there's the rub. If we simply ask for more politics, someone from Firaxis will tell us that it's too complex. And if we try to find a compromise and say "okay, we can sacrifice some depth in the economy if you would just make the politics deeper", a ton of diehard fans will say "NO I LOVE JUGGLING TILES AND MOVING WORKERS THAT IS A HUGE STRATEGY". And hence, Firaxis plays it safe and sticks with what they know.

I don't think they took anything away at all when they added corporations and early-era spies. And if you think about it, from a programming perspective they don't need to: the programming work for established features has already been done, so it's not like they can recoup all the programming time by taking something out of the game. They don't "get the hours back" as you seem to imply. Adding things takes additional programming time, but again, with corporations they've shown that they haven't laid off all the programmers, yet. So really, tile yield and worker MM can conceivabily coexist with a new internal political dimension to the game, a new non-ridiculous battle interface, and why not reach for the sky here: a first-person "sack the city" mode with a bit of stress-relieving rampaging of pillage, and... well, perhaps and adults-only mode for the rest.

Conceivably anyway. In reality Firaxis will set programmers to work on some other new thing, the requirement for which is maximum player frustration such as the Apopleptic Palace (as I've come to call it). Or an even more destructive form of global warming, in case having half your high-tech city turn to dust wasn't maddening enough!

You see, they DO program new things, but it's seldom the right new things.

And that's pretty much why big, established companies have a hard time taking risks. As you can see, I'm still pretty critical and cynical about Civ 5. But for different reasons than you. (Still don't buy the "anti-realism" thing.)

Regardless of what you think they think, or what I think they think, what they have in fact done, vis a vis "realism", speaks for itself.