I think the game is lost to hardcore gamers like myself, due to the 1UPT fiasco. That (as Sulla has outlined in his piece
here ) has so many ramifications (military, economic and diplomatic) and has distorted the economic system, in particular, such that it no longer feels like a civ game. It is the 1UPT choice that skews the game so badly such that it plays quite well at the middle levels (Prince and Monarch say) but becomes a boring slog through a carpet of doom at higher levels (particularly Deity). Simply scaling the production and maintenance costs to allow the AI to have larger armies is a disaster at the top end when you have only a few hexes to put stuff on. And the AI just can't handle this in any way. The problem for the AI is much harder than moving a main army in a stack.
Only if the next major expansion completely revamps the combat system to allow stacking will the game be recovered. That doesn't mean going back to an unlimited SoD but some middle position where limited stacking is allowed. There are lots of ways that could be done and all would make a better game than we have now. But that means an overhaul of the combat system and a rebalancing of the production costs and unit maintenance. All the graphics, music and many screens can be retained, but the core gameplay needs to be redone, including the AI, and that's a big expensive job. I can't see it happening.
I'm not holding my breath and won't be buying any expansions that don't address this core issue.
I'm not a hardcore or high-difficulty player, myself, but I find the game to play quite poorly even at the lower levels, and I too attribute it to the stuff Sulla outlined. I tend to play at lower difficulty levels, enjoying the experience of just building an empire, but even at low difficulty, that process is made tedious and downright laborious at times. It's a chore to play the game, for me. In my opinion, 1UPT is a dismal failure which was only ever introduced to "solve" an existing game mechanic. It's a bush-league "modder" move, rather than what I'd expect of someone who designs whole games. You make one change to "fix" an existing game mechanic, then realize you have to make a boatload of other changes to make that one change work -- which you do -- only to end up with something that's neither an engaging tactical battle game, nor an engaging empire-building game.
To me, it's like the Club Dread of turn-based gaming. Not funny enough to be a comedy, not scary enough to be a horror film.
I think you're right, but from the perspective of someone that likes the design, I don't feel like a "revamp" or "dramatic improvement" of the game mechanics is necessary. Which means, if they make either single player or multiplayer competitive in some meaningful way and mop up some of the stability issues, I'll be quite satisfied with the game.
That's perfectly cool. I mean, I may decry what happened with the game and see deep, fundamental flaws in the game's design that affect (I daresay, infect) the game in far-reaching ways, but I would not deny someone else their enjoyment. In many ways, though, that highlights the very failure of the game.
Beyond the simple "I miss [game mechanic from past game]," I think the true failure of Civ 5 is to be as broad in its appeal as prior entries (yes, even Civ 3) were. If the game had been better developed, we ALL could be happy, rather than only one side or the other being happy. Past entries in the series accomplished this to greater or lesser degrees. But with Civ 5, you have either "fanboys" or "haters" (yes, I'm painting with a very broad brush here, and deliberately so). There's a real divide in the fan community about the game, and there just didn't need to be.
Even though I recognize that there are players who LOVE the new game, I hope they recognize that the folks who dislike the game don't just dislike it for little insignificant reasons, and that the very real split in the community's reactions underlines the fact that -- at least on some level -- this game dropped the ball. Not in the sense of making YOU personally happy, but in the sense of providing the community as a whole with a game that they can at least all be SATISFIED with, if not necessarily over-the-moon enthusiastic about. Ideally, we should ALL be happy with the game, and it's a damn shame that such a large portion of the fan community really isn't happy with how this one turned out.
As for future releases, I think we'll see new civs continue to be released as DLC, but I do not think they'll be included with an expansion pack. Why? Because publishers are greedy, of course. The expansion pack will instead have two civs that aren't available as DLC, and then focus on UI/multiplayer improvements and a new gameplay mechanic.
Of course, then we get to wait a year while someone tries to code an AI that can use the new mechanic. So, take that for what it is, haha.
Yeah, I'd agree that, as far as future DLC/expansions/patches for this game, there probably will be a few. Hotfixes/patches to resolve some of the AI issues (psychotic diplomacy, for example). DLC will be more civilizations, map packs, and maybe scenarios. Some "pro-level" mods, too, maybe a la what came packaged with BTS and Warlords. Expansions will probably add/modify existing game mechanics to a degree. Maybe tech trading will return (ha! Have fun with that... "Give us this technology...NOW WE HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU GAVE US TECHNOLOGY!!!"). Maybe religions will appear again in some other form. Hell, maybe a "moonbase/Mars" feature will be added to allow the game to progress past the modern period and be played on two separate maps -- Earth and the moon/Mars. I have no idea. But that'd be the direction I expect things to move.
As for the marketing...some civs/maps will be DLC-exclusive. Some might be rebundled with an expansion. Eventually a "Game of the Year" edition will come out that will package everything together (or a de facto "GOTY" via a big Steam sale).
And then that'll be that. On to Civ Facebook. Or another franchise entirely.
