viberider
Chieftain
If that is the case, they are farther off than I thought. Did they look at the competition in that area at all? They would have been better off starting from scratch, unless........................................
Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?
- Thread starter KingYosef
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If that is the case, they are farther off than I thought. Did they look at the competition in that area at all? They would have been better off starting from scratch, unless........................................
charon2112
King
I read your link, and it seems (to me anyway) that the things he lists as being part of a god-game are alive and well in Civ V.
-In god games, designers aim to create a believable miniature living world for us to play with.
-The playability/enjoyment for the player is in finding and tweaking the details and watching cause and effect principles in action. In other words, it's about letting the player experiment and 'play' with this alternative world to see what happens.
-The rules of god games are adapted to fit around the constraints imposed by real-world considerations and the setting of the game world (historical in this case). So the immersiveness of the game world comes first, the 'game' (what you need to achieve in order to win) comes second.
-The fun of god games comes from the "what-if's" and the seemingly unlimited possibilities for developing new strategies to achieve a better result next time. It stems from god-games creating an environment where it's not totally clear exactly how to win. Put another way, it's more about competing with yourself - the satisfaction of progressively optimising your performance in order to win better/smarter.
The problem with that persons theory is that Civ has always been a god game AND a board game.
We could debate this point all day.. But to be fair.. gameplay > realism has always been a Civ staple. It just seems in Civ V they took it to a new lvl IMHO
Stefanskantine
Angry Partisan
Yeah, here's a time where I agree with you. I also would like to see a requirment to build road to resources, or harbor/road to trade with neighbors. I think the more interactive trading is the better, which is why as mentioned I'm not broken up losing the "foreign trade route" so-called feature from IV.
The tradgedy is that the first game in the series which they make blockading a trade network with a single ship doable, they remove all strategic importance of such a blockade.
I like to play on sparse resources for strategic fun. A recent game I had no oil anywhere on the continent I was dominating, and only limited coal. I made some oil/coal colonies in far flung parts, realatively undefended and vulnerable. After the AI DoW on me eventually, I got a message that my trade link to one of said colonies had been severed. When I saw the enemy destroyer, my heart briefly leaped, thinking that perhaps Alexander, while undoubtedly a tactical boob, may have been a strategic genius. Then I remembered that his blockade was only robbing me of of a few GPT, and not my precious oil. Maybe the modders can crack this one too, one day.
To an extent it has always been a mixture of the two with cIV probably leaning the furthest away from the board game design.
However, ciV leans heavily towards the board game side of the equation. Jon Shafer's design philosophy is quite different from Soren Johnson's. You can read up on their design notes and see that quite clearly.
ciV is much more focused on victory. (The destination.) That is why you see such narrow and restrictive win conditions.
The journey is less important in ciV. Having fun and experimenting with things in an immersive, realistic world.
falconne
meep
Well you're entitled to your opinion but that's just not true for most of us. The Civ 5 world is not believable, there is very little to tweak, real world conditions have been tossed out the window and what-if's are academic at best. There is one clear way to win the game and the "what if's" are like side plots that just waste your time. Proper what-if scenarios for these games are ones that come up when you think laterally - where you might discover a new technique to play the game better. With Civ 4, you have your basic strategy for winning the game, but each game you can try something different to win faster and if it works, you incorporate it into your main strategy. With Civ 5, the fastest way to win is obvious. The "what-ifs" won't improve your game, they just delay victory. A "what-if" in Civ V is essentially just a handicap, like playing chess without your queen.
charon2112
King
Aren't there just as many win conditions in V?
Yes but i believe hes stating that he feels that the paths to achieve those conditions are much more linear.
Very much so.
Military victories are much more linear. Capture a few capitals and you win.
Cultural victories are much more linear. Only build 3-4 cities and spam cultural buildings almost to the exclusion of anything else.
Economic vic... oops I mean Diplomatic victories in ciV are much more linear and frankly are ridiculous.
Being so narrow and restrictive, it sucks the fun out of playing to be honest.
charon2112
King
What makes, for instance, a cultural or military victory path in V more linear?
For military, in IV and V, you have to defeat all other civs.
For cultural, in IV you have to bring 3 cities to legendary cultural level to win...and in V, you have to complete 5 branches of social policies and then create a utopia project. They're different, but what makes V's more linear?
For military, in IV and V, you have to defeat all other civs.
For cultural, in IV you have to bring 3 cities to legendary cultural level to win...and in V, you have to complete 5 branches of social policies and then create a utopia project. They're different, but what makes V's more linear?
Could you please explain, beyond just stating, what made Civ IV victory conditions less linear? If it's already been talked about, could you provide a link to a post?
ohioastronomy
King
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In Civ 4 you had to use Diplomacy for a Diplomacy win, e.g. get actual allies.
You could win a Cultural victory with an empire of any size, and you actually could use culture to erode boundaries from other nations. It emphasized things like religion which developed in utterly different ways from technology (like the Space victory).
By comparison, the Culture victory in the current game is for small empires only (as in, 1-3 cities of your own is best) - and it involves a path which is almost exactly the same as a space win. The only difference is that you need slightly different buildings, and space is best for larger empires. Diplomacy is really a checkbook win combined with a bit of tech. In short, the peaceful paths are much less diverse and interesting than they were in Civ 4. Civ 5 also forces you to start very early on a given path - it simply isn't possible to decide on, say, a culture win a third of a way through a game.
charon2112
King
Whatever else the games faults may be, this I think is a positive thing. In this respect, V requires more forethought and planning. You really shouldn't be able to turn your civilization on a dime, 3/4 of the way through its history. This accentuates the empire building aspect of the game, in my opinion.
moscaverde
Prince
The journey was much less linear. Often in my games I didn't want to win, just playing was nice, building my empire trough time was nice. But I never was a very good or hardcore player either.
I believe I already said that, but some of my most epic games I lost.
@Thormodr
It would be great if you could start the thread about the different game designs (like the 2k thread).
Well put. All the victories seem less interesting and not as much fun to achieve.
The space victory remains about the same though and I arguably even improved as you have to truck the parts to your capital.You do have less space parts now though and you can't build one on the cheap and try and launch a faster one to beat your rivals now. I'd say that makes it a wash.
charon2112
King
But how? Specifically...?
ohioastronomy
King
- Joined
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The problem is that these games can take quite a few hours, so being forced into a fixed path has some drawbacks. And the AI tendency to attack you means that peaceful empire building is just not practical on many maps. It's a problem for peaceful builders.
Stefanskantine
Angry Partisan
I find the Civ V cultural victory to be in every way superior to Civ IV. Culture in Civ IV was a half-implemented feature. It did not meaningfully improve your empire, the only reason to really focus on it was if you were going for a culture win. Think about the UBs like the Pavillion, really no benefit whatsoever to the non-cultural player. In Civ V a culture win is a culmination of a long effort to improve your empire through social policy. I actually think Civ IV culture win was MUCH more linear. To win culture, you have to basically shut down your empire from normal tech/progress and put everything into culture, which resulted in a long grind of accumulating purple music notes. In V if you want a well-functioning empire you will be paying some attention to culture, whether or not you're going for that vic condition. Anyone in a commanding position in the game save the all out super-expansionist should have a cultural vic open to them.
I agree that diplomatic vic in V could use some work. But to say its more linear is odd. The main complaints, with which I strongly agree, are that you can play the whole game having nothing to do with CS, then suddenly get a bunch of allies with accumulated gold and win. That gold could also be conceivably deployed into spaceship factories, or GDRs if the player made a different choice at a very late stage. So most people complain, rightly so, that the diplo vic is not linear ENOUGH.
A simple change would make CS vote for the player that had accumulated the most total influence with them over the course of the whole game. So someone with a longstanding relationship with the CS, doing quests, gifting gold since ancient times, etc, gets the vote over the recent FOTM suitor with a large modern bankbook. This would be much better, IMO. But it rewards the longstanding CS devotee, over someone who is changing playstyles and victory goals on the fly. More linear then?
I agree that diplomatic vic in V could use some work. But to say its more linear is odd. The main complaints, with which I strongly agree, are that you can play the whole game having nothing to do with CS, then suddenly get a bunch of allies with accumulated gold and win. That gold could also be conceivably deployed into spaceship factories, or GDRs if the player made a different choice at a very late stage. So most people complain, rightly so, that the diplo vic is not linear ENOUGH.
A simple change would make CS vote for the player that had accumulated the most total influence with them over the course of the whole game. So someone with a longstanding relationship with the CS, doing quests, gifting gold since ancient times, etc, gets the vote over the recent FOTM suitor with a large modern bankbook. This would be much better, IMO. But it rewards the longstanding CS devotee, over someone who is changing playstyles and victory goals on the fly. More linear then?
In civ4, it was possible to win a domination victory without going to war, or without ever capturing a single capital city. I think it is usually pretty clear in any civ game that if you have captured every civ's capital already, you are just doing the mop up work to victory (and many argue they find that boring anyway). I must say it's a rather strange implementation of the rules for it to be the "last remaining player with their capital" rather than "player to possess all capitals".
Regarding culture vics, what you described is pretty much the way to win culture vic in civ4 as well. Just spam culture buildings in 3 cities, maybe with some great artist producing help from other cities. Otherwise, just survive and bump the slider a tad. I honestly don't agree that cultural victories in civ5 are obviously simpler or even more streamlined. At least now cultural dominance can actually boost other parts of your empire more obviously, like taking Honor and Autocracy you can go down a warpath. In civ4 the only affect on other aspects of the gameplay from culture was to push back borders and depending on the conditions, boost empire happiness a bit (common effects of cultural buildings,
from slider etc.).Heck, you even have to build that final wonder now to achieve the vic and during that time other civs make your life harder than what they typically did in 4. In civ4, there was nothing more anti-climactic IMO than rolling those last 20 or so turns to cultural victory, worrying that someone was going to DoW you any moment, and it not eventuating at all. They all just looked at you and said, "continue on your merry way to victory, well played good sir".
Diplo win is accurately described as the Bribery victory in civ5 and I am really disappointed about that one. There is no long term planning required whatsoever, except to get gold production up.
Doctor Phibes
Prince
Some interesting ideas there, actually. I must admit I'm not a fan of the Three Legendary Cities thing in Civ4. Trouble is, I'm less and less happy with the rigidity of social policy in Civ5, so the Five Social Policies thing seems just as bad. Yeah - cultural victory needs some work...
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