What DONT you like of civ4?

[Ramalhão]

oldStatesman, several people here talk about an expansion for Civ4, as it is almost (99%) certain. These people know that it will bring a lot of new civs, units, maybe some new resources, buildings and wonders. This is my point: to release only a few things that could ship in vanilla version, release it in a patch. Here are some examples:
- Blizzard gave new mercenary heroes in one patch for Warcraft 3 (ok, it's just 2 heroes, but it added a "bonus" to the game);
- Top Pop released a "free expansion pack" (Coast to Coast) for Railroad Tycoon 3, with new maps, new locomotives, some skinning tools and the last patch. Well, for me this "expansion" is only a "big patch" (the patch released after this "expansion" is the same, no matter if people have CtC).

New heroes and new locomotives could be equivalent as new units or even new civs for Civilization series. These things didn't really affect gameplay too much, so there's no need to release an expansion pack to sell (make us spent money) these things. More, these smaller things could be modded, so why will we buy an expansion pack which only brings "16 new civs and their UUs" if these things could be modded by anyone? My main point is: things that doesn't affect gameplay too much doesn't deserve an expansion pack.

If Firaxis release an expansion for Civ4 having only new civs, units and other smaller things, they will lose a lot of reputation. It already happened when they released PTW, because it brought mainly only new civs and the multiplayer mode, that should be shipped in vanilla version. Most things in PTW could appear in a patch, as they didn't really affect gameplay too much. C3C was released with things that affect gameplay, like AA units, feudalism & fascism, plague and flavour (even people didn't really used it too much). Conquests (the scenarios) was also a good idea. For me, it looks like Civ 3 was half game, PTW was another half and then C3C was the expansion pack. But most people bought 2 expansion packs. PTW cd is nearly useless now, as almost everything (except some mods and scenarios) reappear in C3C cd.

But we all know that C3C is still an unfinished game, as there's a lot of bugs yet - the most incredible is the submarine bug, which was corrected in PTW and returned in C3C . Generating games with a lot of American civilizations is also boring, it happens to me almost all the time (even after reinstalling the whole game again and again).

People at Firaxis know that these problems affected their reputation. In this forum there were several people blaming the "final patch", because a lot of bugs still exist and bother us. You can see a lot of people saying "I'll buy after some patches to fix most bugs". Also, I think you noticed that Civ4 will bring a multiplayer mode (at least Firaxis learnt a lesson ). I think Firaxis should release Civ4 only when it was really finished, without several bugs which make the game unplayable.

You can see several people here who aren't exactly excited with Civ4, these are potential non-consumers. If people cross their arms, accept everything as they do and think "that is the business model of the industry now", the game (and movie) industry will still abuse their consumers. If people (mainly fan-sites) write a lot of e-mails, blaming several aspects and, of course, don't buying these products, so game industry will began to take care.

I still wish Firaxis doing a "real final patch" for C3C, as some people will continue playing this game after Civ4 release. Maybe a "nice surprise for civ-community" as a patch for C3C could bring some reputation back (let's cross our fingers ). There are still people who play Civ2, some of them because "it's better than Civ3".

Well, let me finish here, it's too long . Maybe someone will tell Firaxians to read this .

 

[oldStatesman]

oldStatesman, several people here talk about an expansion for Civ4, as it is almost (99%) certain. These people know that it will bring a lot of new civs, units, maybe some new resources, buildings and wonders. This is my point: to release only a few things that could ship in vanilla version, release it in a patch. Here are some examples:
- Blizzard gave new mercenary heroes in one patch for Warcraft 3 (ok, it's just 2 heroes, but it added a "bonus" to the game);
- Top Pop released a "free expansion pack" (Coast to Coast) for Railroad Tycoon 3, with new maps, new locomotives, some skinning tools and the last patch. Well, for me this "expansion" is only a "big patch" (the patch released after this "expansion" is the same, no matter if people have CtC).

I do agree with you on all your points -

- unfortunalty in the real world that will not change anything. Software companies exist for one reason only: to make money. And development costs are so high, it only makes sense for them to release endless expansion packs. They HAVE to release Civ4 BEFORE the Xmas buying season. 75-80% of total annual revenues are generated in those few months before the holiday of most all retail business. If they miss that, they wil lose literally millions. So their choice is to wait and put out a slightly better product, satisfying the hard core but losing money; or put out the best they can do in the time allocated, knowing there will be problems, making some people mad but not losing money and then putting out a patch and expansion pack later.

Reputation? It will not be hurt in the long run as long as they eventually fix major things and seem to listen to the fan base. If the product is appealing, people will buy it. Most will put it down after a few months at most; the die hards will not. A year later, the expansion pack will come out, the casual gamer will buy it and dust off the original - play for a while until the next big game is released and then forget about it again. [Edit - just like in movies - LOR was always going to be released in at least 3 parts - as was Star Wars, etc. Less people will go to see a very very very long movie - more will go to see it if it is in sequential format. The same with games - the average person gets bored with a game quickly; if they gave everything out in one shot, that person would never play the game again.] Companies know these consumer habits - they use them to make more money. Only the die hards will complain a lot - and as long as the production company makes an attempt to listen by appearing occasionally on sites like this, makes fixes in a reasonable amount of time; even they will be mollified.

 

[N3pomuk]

True that Ramalhão I don't think we had to live with this many unfixed bugs in civ2, and I would go so far and say Civ3 wasn't that much more complicated than civ2.

Now what I don't like is that they won't have "terrorism" in. They already took it outof CIV3 before it was released. Thats not fair! How is the underdog supposed to take a crack at the bigboss? Tell me that it wasn't fun to drop a Nuke in an opponents city in civ 2 and get away with it! or suck the Morganites dry of energy in SMAC. It can add a wonderful dimension to the game which is left untapped because of One incident... geeezz Either I'm going to have to begg or Mod
Oh yea I also dislike the proportions of the Units the way they are now, but I guess that is something to live with, no game seems to have gotten this right though, most games from Empire Earth to Civ3 the horses look smaler than the Dragooner, or a Spearman the size of big bertha)

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Terrorism can just as easily be in through renaming it to partisans/rebels/guerilla, etc. (freedom fighters if one wanted to be trully PC about it)

I am really worried about the unit-based manaagement..although it might make sense if say a spy / merchant / missionary has to get to a civ to set up a spy network, trade route, or local church, and then the activities can be done through that in the civ 3 manner. Essentially for nonmilitary foreign functions, if the units were used to establish contact, and then the 'contact' is used.

(overall it makes more sense for the ancient age than the modern age)

 

[sgrig]

Terrorism can just as easily be in through renaming it to partisans/rebels/guerilla, etc. (freedom fighters if one wanted to be trully PC about it)

Well, if they included terrorists but named them "freedom fighters", then some people might get the feeling that Firaxis is likening all terrorists to "freedom fighters". So this approach wouldn't work. They should have included terrorism and called it by its own name. In C3C they had human sacrifice - that's not much better than terrorism.

Again, I hope that using the SDK, terrorists can modded in.

 

[homersheineken]

I just really hope that this unrealistic One vs. One combat system is scrapped. This combined arms idea does sound promising.

Also I'd like to see resources a little better represented. I just don't like that 1 resource is enough for your entire empire. ONe source of iron shouldn't be enough for a humongous empire and be able to continually build everything your heart desires based on just one occurance of a resource. I'd rather see a source produce say 1000 units total of a resource and then that's it (unless you can develop a tech to improve the amount) and each thing you build require a certain amount. And you can trade excess of it if you desire.

Also I think that it would be more fun strategically. Right now, you (and your opponents) just have to secure one source of resource. If, however, you had to keep finding new sources, it would be much more difficult to sustain your empire and would be make it harder and more fun to find new sources.

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

First off, given the whole debate over whether or not peoplee should complain, I want to say that I realize what we've seen so far isn't a finished product. I give the following complaints hoping the Firaxis will fix these things, and provide a better game when it actually hits the shelves, so we can bask in the warming glow of Civ's warm glow.

That said, I'm dismayed by what I've seen so far.

1) I can look at any Civ III screen and tell what's going on. I can tell where the units are, who they belong to, what the borders of the cities are, which cities have been improved, tiles roaded and irrigated, what terrain the units are on, etc. I can't say the same for Civ IV. Clutter, as mentioned before, is a big reason for this. Certain elements grab the eye while others fade into the background. The multi-units add to this, to the point where I'm not exactly sure what terrain their on. Yes, it's more realistic looking (aside from the aforementioned issues such as blocky coastlines and none-converging mountains which I hope will be eliminated when the game is being refined), but it's far less helpful.

2) The units look awful. The units in Civ III weren't totally detailed or realistic, but I felt they did the job. When I saw my first warrior actually *run* to the next tile, my jaw hung open. When he defeated his first barb camp and gave a triumphant yell, I squealed with glee (it was a MANLY squeal). The point is, I connected with him and my other units. They were MINE and any AI that thought they could kill them would have pain put to them. I don't feel the same connection to the Civ IV units. These blank faced wonders don't feel like actual virtual people to me... they're just generic 3/d models.

Part of both to these elements is partly due to the 2-d to 3-d switch. In all previous Civ installments, the team was building on what came before. Now, it's all been brushed aside and they're essentially started from scratch in building this 3-d environment. It's sort of like going back to Civ I again.

3) Leaders - I feel this transition is going to be like the transition from Civ I to Civ II. The graphics in Civ I weren't great. You essentially had flat panel leaders with the same advisors depending on their government and five expressions that affected nothing but their face while everything else was frozen. In Civ II, you had a standing 3-d Model for that civ's emissary. In every technical way, that model was an improvement over the leader screen in Civ I. 3-d over 2-d. Whole body movement over just the face. But I like it so much less. I felt it looked ugly, it didn't tell me much about the civ, and it just felt like they did what they did because they could do it (albeit, not very well), not because it fit with the game. I began to loathe diplomacy, because I never wanted to see that marionette-like figure. I preferred the screen of Civ I. I feel like we're getting the same thing here. Technically, better leaders but far less enjoyable/aesthetically pleasing.

4) Unit promotion - I like the underlying concept, but from what I've heard I feel like this is going to create too much micromanagement. The benefits are weak and varied. I like knowing that an elite unit Sipahi is an elite Sipahi and what it will do. I like being able to quickly figure out how to distribute my forces. With the promotion (and don't get me wrong, I like the idea of integrating a RPG like system), I feel like I'm going to spend my time thinking "Okay, I could attack with this unit here, and defend with this unit here because it has the guerilla 1 bonus... or wait, should I defend with this one because it has a higher retreat ability and I don't want to lose units over this... or maybe I can get this one really strong unit that I had on my eastern front over in time... wait a second, didn't I have a unit somewhere that had blah blah... <goes searching>" Unless unit promotion is a LOT more common in Civ IV, we'll have to spend a lot more time micromanaging our units to make the one with the right attribute is in the right place at the right time. Plus, some of them are very weak. Do I really want to spend 10 minutes looking for the exact pikeman that has a 30% defense bonus on hills? Or am I just going to shrug my shoulders, not waste the time, and play as though all my pikemen are equal and use them en-masse (in which case, the whole idea of promotion is wasted).

5) Religion. This really rubs me the wrong way. Yes, religion is a one of the big forces in the definition of history. But I don't really feel like this is one of the main forces that world leaders had at their disposal, at least not in the way they've described it so far. It just sounds like it's going to add a lot of complication to the game with little benefit. Of course, I was skeptical about Culture in Civ III too, so who knows, maybe once I play, it'll all come together and I'll see the error of my ways. But, right now, I remain skeptical.

 

[GoodGame]

The multi-units would look better in proportion with the terrain.
They look a litte cartoonish, and I'm guessing that's to keep them relatively easy to mod.

I bet the terrain will be rather hard to mod, at least in 3d.

And I'm wondering too what's with the cartoony LH's, unless that's just to help make modding easier. Realistically, you'll probably be able to scan in a medieval portrait and animate, so not an issue.

I'm leaning towards "I may hate the graphics overhead, but it'll be balanced by how plastic it is"

I'm hoping it won't be a case of "I thought it'd be easy to mod in Python, but it ain't". Modding small gameplay tweaks directly, and base improvements to the game logic will probably be what's makes it shine.

 

[The Fjonis]

Crazy Eskimo -- well put, I agree with you.

 

[Arathorn]

I don't like that I can't play it and form my own opinions yet.

The rest...well, most of it is still unknown, so I wish to withhold judgment.

Arathorn

 

[mhIdA]

- The interface: It seems too a la RTS, with somany icons.

- To few civs: After the 31 civs of C3C it sounds too little of what I'm used to, but since the game it was design from the beggining, could be a matter of balance the game. If not an ha-game utcome.

- The eras: Put the emphasis on 2 early eras, with more techs and more time spend on it, where the game is already strong. It seems too RaR mod and possibly a consequence of so many complains about modern era. But if the 2 later eras outcome more worked in an espansion so we have an half-game.

- Economic tile-based: More roads and mines or whatever in every single tile? Why not, if people don't want change things too much, focus the wealth on cities instead in the whole map? Given foods and shields/hammers related to # of citizens a city have, with a bonus once achieved 3, 6, 9 or something. This # boost with some city improvs (marketplaces, banks, stock exchange, workshops, factories, plants). The commerce also increase by 2, 3, 4 gld if 2, 3, 4 cities are connected by roads or harbours.

- Sinthetized oil: This could be a way to balance the game, provide oil to civs to civs who don't had this resources without start a war or made trade to achieve them. Once again the modern era are worked in the simpliest way possibly. It was a much better way if we could make an agreement with a civ who has oil, rubber or aluminium in their territory to exploit them against the payment of gold and add in the search of discovery the tech, included the pre-req techs that allow that civ to exploit the resource. The advanced civ send also workers and miltary units to defend the resource and once workers are not need they could joi to the nearist city of resource. Some kind of neocolonialism.

- Shields => hammers: Shields is so civ-like, it's a trade mark, a distinctive sign, its tradition. How nice it would be tell to my grand grandchild when he was learn Civ10 and he ask me why CIV use shields instead of hammers like the others games, and I respond to that The others games are others games, but CIV is CIV, and the reason, well, it stand te test of time, its lost in the darkness of history.