Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

  • Yes

    Votes: 853 50.7%
  • No

    Votes: 677 40.2%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 152 9.0%

  • Total voters
    1,682
Status
Not open for further replies.
I have as yet to see a valid or intelligent arguement for Civ5.
There is nothing that is sophisticated about this game. When rational people on the boards have offered valid complaints about the game, and have very reasonable demands for a strategy game released in 2010, such as ending movies, more management etc, I've read such gems as:

"WTH, ending cutscenes? I ROFL'd!! I don't care about ending cutscenes! Wonders? Meh, who cares?!"

...It makes me seriously wonder at the IQ level of the average fanboy.

People actually cheering at the removal of espionage, religion, civics: The very things that are the common crux of all civilizations? Perhaps an Eater Island civ should have been included for them, to see how that went.

Civ5, quite simply, is not complex, it is not deep and it is not a step forward at all. At the risk of sounding harsh, it is a simple game for simple people.
 
I have as yet to see a valid or intelligent arguement for Civ5.
There is nothing that is sophisticated about this game. When rational people on the boards have offered valid complaints about the game, and have very reasonable demands for a strategy game released in 2010, such as ending movies, more management etc, I've read such gems as:

"WTH, ending cutscenes? I ROFL'd!! I don't care about ending cutscenes! Wonders? Meh, who cares?!"

...It makes me seriously wonder at the IQ level of the average fanboy.

People actually cheering at the removal of espionage, religion, civics: The very things that are the common crux of all civilizations? Perhaps an Eater Island civ should have been included for them, to see how that went.

Civ5, quite simply, is not complex, it is not deep and it is not a step forward at all. At the risk of sounding harsh, it is a simple game for simple people.


I actually don't think the game is perfect, or even altogether good, but calling anyone who does stupid is uncalled for. Let's not forget we're talking about a video game.
 
True. Harsh words need to be devoted to ciV but not Civ players in general.

I can't stand ciV but I still respect people that do.
 
I actually don't think the game is perfect, or even altogether good, but calling anyone who does stupid is uncalled for. Let's not forget we're talking about a video game.

'Stupid' is nowhere in my post. There is a clear relation between the game, the manner of the posts and the IQ level of some players.
Of course we're talking about a videogame.
 
Moderator Action: A warning to people posting:

The discussion (speculation) about the intelligence or lack thereof of people who play civ5 is to stop now. It is neither civil nor constructive to get into that sort of argument. Warnings/infractions will be handed to those who ignore this.
 
Yep. In every heated discussion, everyone on both sides will always think that the arguments of "his" side are more intelligent, coherent, and sophisticated. Otherwise he wouldn't agree with them, would he? ;) So, if one participant in such a discussion uses his own assessment of the quality of the other side's arguments as a basis for estimating the intelligence (or other personality traits) of the others, he's usually showing a lack of understanding of these mechanics rather than actually making a well-founded point himself.

Another thing I've seen (on both sides) is a tendency to pick out the worst arguments of the other side (or even make them up), then shooting those down, while ignoring the better ones. That's good for closing the lines and keeping the anger level high on both sides, but it doesn't really help the discussion either.
 
Psyringe.

Say hello to Ad Hominem attacks, and Straw man arguments.

You knew there was a name for those tactics right?
 
At the risk of an infraction, I do have to agree with SidMeierGroupy: It is a simple(r) game for a simple(r) audience.

This does not have to be bad per se, e.g. I like the occasional game of Freecell once in a while. But Civ is supposed to more than that. It's supposed to be challenging and thought-provoking, which is a key part of being a long-time motivation. The difference is, I don't have to wait 30 seconds for the next game to load in Freecell.

And honestly, I think we should move beyond even arguing about whether it is dumbed down or not. Personally, I now take people who say Civ5 is actually more complex than previous versions as serious as people who say Checkers is more complex than Chess. It's so obvious that I feel awkward even having to argue the point. :crazyeye:

Hence I shall stop now and hope for Civ6 under new management. But just in case I have started taking notes on a few ideas and writing my first test algorithms to start my own little project. To bad I suck at GUI-programming (I'm a AI and neural network specialist). :(
 
It is a simple(r) game for a simple(r) audience.

I think the problem is that remarks like this can be read as an insult towards said audience (and in a heated discussion, they certainly will). I think it's perfectly okay to say that different people have different preferences / strengths / weaknesses and therefore will prefer different types of games - for example, I'm a terribly slow person in most regards, and I'm absolutely hopeless in games where I have to divide my attention between several spots at the same time. I simply can't do that, and I mostly don't enjoy it. But for some reason, if someone told me "you're too slow for contemporary FPS games", it wouldn't sound as derisive as someone saying "you're to stupid for a good TBS game". Therefore, if someone wants to make such a statement, it's a good idea to take extra care that it can't be read as meant in a derisive way, and in an already heated atmosphere it may be better to simply not making it at all.

In any case, discussing the audience has certainly less merit than discussing the game. (And yes, I'm aware that I'm not discussing the game here either, I'm discussing the discussion. I should probably stop now. ;) )
 
I think Thormodr has it right....we've had our time of fun and deep games...now the industry has decided that all we really want are coin-op (i.e. DLC) platformers and shooters as if it were stil lthe 1980s.

I LOVED WoW in it's original release. It was the most gloriously immersive and impressive game I'd ever played. I died....A LOT....but it was SO much fun. Over the years it became painfully user-friendly (not in an interface way), started holding the player's hand and became a "game" instead of an "Experience". It broadened the market....but lost me.

I don't think Civ5 will lose me....but it is certainly going down the same path.....
 
I think the problem is that remarks like this can be read as an insult towards said audience (and in a heated discussion, they certainly will). I think it's perfectly okay to say that different people have different preferences / strengths / weaknesses and therefore will prefer different types of games

[...]

Perhaps the term 'casual gamer' might serve. This is not an insult, it's a recognised industry term, and I can recognise the attraction of casual gaming too. It's not a perfect fit, but categorising people is never easy (and frankly best avoided usually, but we are talking about a target demographic in this case).
 
@Markstar: Good luck with the modding, hope you can put some extra dimensions on the game.

@Psyringe: Yes, you should probably stop now. The thread has to do with whether Civ 5 is dumbed down or not -which it has been-, not on what you think hurts peoples' feelings.
 
I think it will take some significantly high quality mods to make the game appealing to many of us now. Trouble is, most of the mods, even those that add more mechanics, would stick to the "spirit" of the new game, which has been simplification and abstraction in defiance of reality. There are some things that just kill the game for me, like the global happiness mechanic.
 
I think it will take some significantly high quality mods to make the game appealing to many of us now. Trouble is, most of the mods, even those that add more mechanics, would stick to the "spirit" of the new game, which has been simplification and abstraction in defiance of reality. There are some things that just kill the game for me, like the global happiness mechanic.

Oh trust me, it's not as if the big-name modders are entirely interested in maintaining the 'spirit' of the new game. Of all the sub-groups of civ4 players, modders have some of the deepest appreciation of civ4's features and how they can be extended and a lot of them would not hesitate to use ideas from civ4 as inspiration for a civ5 mod, especially considering the popularity of civ4 and the general disappointment that many civ5 players have been expressing.

I'm not sure if it has already happened, but it would not surprise me if it doesn't take long for a modified happiness system to get modded into the game.
 
@Psyringe: Yes, you should probably stop now. The thread has to do with whether Civ 5 is dumbed down or not -which it has been-, not on what you think hurts peoples' feelings.
Well, I was trying to explain to you why your remarks were perceived as insulting. Given that this just triggered another snide reply, I can only guess you're either not all that interested in bringing your thoughts across in a constructive way, or simply enjoy the battle that you're fueling by insulting a whole customer group. I'll keep trying though - there's always the odd person out who's willing to question his former behavior, and to take a step back even when in the middle of a heated battle. Which makes the attempt worthwhile.
 
@Markstar: Good luck with the modding, hope you can put some extra dimensions on the game.
Oh no, no mod. I'm more going for a FreeCiv2 approach (it'll be years since, as I said, I'm not good with GUIs yet).

One thing I liked about Civ2, for example, was that even back then it had a great multi-monitor support. You had those independent windows that you could re-size to fit your needs. Since neural networks are all about parallelism and I love my two-monitor setup, that's on top of my list.

I'm just starting out and since I have a live, including a girlfriend that I'm living with and who I actually enjoy spending time with, I know it's a long shot and might never happen. All I have right now is a command line program for testing and some Matlab algorithms to simulate combat odds, etc..

On a side note, talking about complexity, I'm just going to mention that the hex system is basically the old system with each row indented by half a step (the rest is just drawing it nicely). I'm just saying, it's a nice feature and all but it's makes the internal calculations actually easier (because things like distances are now more straightforward). I'm not saying it's a factor in the "dumbing-down" argument, but it's not something that makes the game more complex either, as it actually limits the number of neighboring tiles, obviously.

Oh trust me, it's not as if the big-name modders are entirely interested in maintaining the 'spirit' of the new game. Of all the sub-groups of civ4 players, modders have some of the deepest appreciation of civ4's features and how they can be extended and a lot of them would not hesitate to use ideas from civ4 as inspiration for a civ5 mod, especially considering the popularity of civ4 and the general disappointment that many civ5 players have been expressing.

I'm not sure if it has already happened, but it would not surprise me if it doesn't take long for a modified happiness system to get modded into the game.
I don't think mods can save this for me, even when you add some interaction between the buildings and different aspects of the game (military, science, culture, happiness, etc.), as well as improving the AI CONSIDERABLY. The long loading times of Civ4 already annoyed the heck out of me (it is faster to go back to the main menu and load there than to load the save from within the game), so I'm just not willing to make the choice between playing a small map or waiting 30+ seconds between each turn. But I do hope you are right, oh, how I wish you are right.
 
Not to mention pretty much being forced to use Quick Speed. :(

Regarding the hex calculations, yes it is no longer necessary for there to be distinction between the two types of distance that civ4 called "plot distance" (the shape of cultural expansions) and "step distance" (the shape of a unit's movement range - a square). This is a big advantage and makes lots of things just work more nicely.
 
Oh trust me, it's not as if the big-name modders are entirely interested in maintaining the 'spirit' of the new game. Of all the sub-groups of civ4 players, modders have some of the deepest appreciation of civ4's features and how they can be extended and a lot of them would not hesitate to use ideas from civ4 as inspiration for a civ5 mod, especially considering the popularity of civ4 and the general disappointment that many civ5 players have been expressing.

I'm not sure if it has already happened, but it would not surprise me if it doesn't take long for a modified happiness system to get modded into the game.

Yes true, but Civ 4 inspired mods for Civ 5 would be harder to reconcile with future expansions.

Civ 5 like mods for Civ 4 I think would be better right now - there are a few features inspired by Civ 5 I'd like to see in Civ 4: Limited stacks and ranged combat (I believe quite few mods have had these for a while), city states, a cultural policy system that supplements government civics instead of replacing them, median excess happiness contributing to golden ages is good - it encourages keeping cities happy.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom