Lexicus
Deity
"look at my THICC YIELDS",
The really funny part of this is that we all know thicc yields are a thing in Civ 4 but not in 5 or 6
"look at my THICC YIELDS",
That strategy works well for some games, but part of the reason why civ4 is modded more than civ5/6 is that civ4 is more friendly towards modders. If they count on modders to do the work for them, at least open up the game for the modders. I won't even try to mod civ 5/6 because I know I will quickly get annoyed by not being able to do what I do now with the civ4 engine.It sounds like the devs are so used to modders creating better versions of what they make, that they just produce a simple version to accommodate those that can't handle the complexity immediately, expecting the modders to do the rest later for free.
The problem with that approach is who will pay for FHH2 when we all have it already with source code and everything? Colonization is essentially a big mod. The changes to the non-modable parts (mainly the exe) are minor. The biggest difference is that Colonization added support for drag-n-drop widgets, allowing moving units and cargo in the colony screen. It's just 2 new python functions to add widgets and dropping a widget will make the exe call a DLL function with info on both dragged widget and the widget it is dropped on. Fairly simple implementation, but it unlocks a whole lot of modding possibilities.If they were smart about it, some mods that are radically different, could have been created and sold to us as expansion packs, such as the Fall from Heaven mod, rather than selling an over priced initial version such as CivVI.
The problem with that approach is who will pay for FHH2 when we all have it already with source code and everything? Colonization is essentially a big mod. The changes to the non-modable parts (mainly the exe) are minor. The biggest difference is that Colonization added support for drag-n-drop widgets, allowing moving units and cargo in the colony screen. It's just 2 new python functions to add widgets and dropping a widget will make the exe call a DLL function with info on both dragged widget and the widget it is dropped on. Fairly simple implementation, but it unlocks a whole lot of modding possibilities.
I think the Devs know exactly what they are doing..
many peoples today are more interested in writing messages all day, or discussing streams, than thinking about their strategies ig.
They are reaching out for that market, and could care less about how their AIs work..
most of their buyers could also care less since it's more important what new countries are added, and what everybody has to say about them,
than planning something ig.
Looking at Steam's top sellers for 2018, Civ 6 is platinum and Civ 5 is bronze. Civ 4 is nowhere to be seen. From a business model, what they are doing makes sense. Odds are that their new customers aren't civ veterans and serving the veterans apparently just isn't the best business model for them. I suspect it's like Star Wars. The veterans flame the new movies, but they wouldn't actually make them if they didn't profit from doing so.The problem being the ones that made it a success are getting older and fewer while the younger generation is getting larger.
Are the few of us less enough to justify the effort. Reading up, quite a few of them find the newer generation of Civ acceptable and will argue that it's actually better.
Looking at Steam's top sellers for 2018, Civ 6 is platinum and Civ 5 is bronze. Civ 4 is nowhere to be seen. From a business model, what they are doing makes sense. Odds are that their new customers aren't civ veterans and serving the veterans apparently just isn't the best business model for them. I suspect it's like Star Wars. The veterans flame the new movies, but they wouldn't actually make them if they didn't profit from doing so.
Civ 6 is apparently 70% off right now, but I still still stick to the civ 4 engine.
Yup those numbers are actually quiet unimpressive...
Civ urgently needs what Schumpeter called Destructive Creation. If FXS has to be on the destroyed part, so be it; well deserved, if you ask me.
I'm not on the inside so I can't reasonably estimate how much development mistakes hinge on poor project management vs simple emphasis on milking the DLC model. Certainly the low bar this part of the gaming community sets allows them to get away with putting out junk.
I think what they are getting at is that Civ5&6 are being played more because they are newer, not because they were better made.If these numbers are to believed, Civ4 is being played by 1980 people, compared to 25-26k for Civ5 and Civ6.
https://steamcharts.com/search/?q=Civilization
Which would place it comfortably into the top 200 played games on Steam, out of at least a 1000 titles. Not too bad for a 13-year old game.
Incidentally it also beats the crap outta Beyond Earth, which was an abomination and a good indication of things to come.
You can get Civ4 on steam and that version is inferior to the GOG version or the disc versions. The problem is that steam has some anti cheating system which intentionally crash games if a player tries to snoop around in memory or the code. The goal is to avoid FPS games where one player can see through walls and similar cheats. It is however horrible for the modding community that modders are locked out of the running game because it hides important information like where in the code a crash occurs. If the game crashes for no apparent reason, GOG or disc versions allow using a debugger to get a whole lot of information on what happened while the steam version is like "none of your business. You aren't supposed to know anything about this".Civ IV is likely the last civ I will own because everything later requires steam.
Gawd! No wonder I can't debug anymore. I thought it was Windows 10. GoG here I come!There are a bunch of other pros and cons regarding steam, but killing the ability to debug mods is a big negative, which most people are unaware of.