Who's Buying the New Civilization?

[HeraldtheGreat]

Most likely, though I'll likely hold off a few months and buy during steam's winter sale, assuming I have the willpower.

 

[Lord Tirian]

At least we know now that Will Miller is incompetent.

How do we know that? At this point "reaching new audiences" is pretty much just a PR blurb pretty much every franchise iteration is throwing out. You can't really say "we don't care about new audiences" unless you are a niche developer.

Plus, they're lead developers together, but they're not the only people working on it. Firaxis has been good about this thing, XCOM's Jake Solomon was rather unknown before, too, and it worked out rather well, all in all.

 

[Willem]

Why is there no "Maybe, if the game turns out to be fairly good" option? I'm certainly not going to commit to anything until i get a sense of whether it was well done or not. I skipped Civ 5 because I didn't like some of the things I was reading about it, and I might do the same with this game.

 

[Boygor]

Day one purchase I've been very happy with everything Firaxis that I've bought from CIV I to Brave New World.

 

[True_Candyman]

How do we know that? At this point "reaching new audiences" is pretty much just a PR blurb pretty much every franchise iteration is throwing out. You can't really say "we don't care about new audiences" unless you are a niche developer.

Plus, they're lead developers together, but they're not the only people working on it. Firaxis has been good about this thing, XCOM's Jake Solomon was rather unknown before, too, and it worked out rather well, all in all.

Incompetent was a brash word for him to choose, but given the context the developers are giving off a strong impression that they are reaching new audiences by essentially doing a civ V vanilla and streamlining (read: dumbing down) the game. Then they are praising a game (civ rev) a large amount of their core audience thinks is not a strong one in the franchise to put it conservatively.

Those are recipes to get some of your core audience feeling uneasy and to lose first day sales. Maybe this idea behind the game will get them more in the long run, but new audiences won't be the main people paying keen interest to the very first press releases on this game.

 

[m_dorian]

Option missed: I need to have more info to decide.

 

[kingchris20]

Yes preordering ASAP. Firaxis is my favorite game dev studio! The "Tech Web" sounds very interesting!

 

[Quintillus]

There really needs to be a "maybe" option. But since there isn't, I went by the assumption that this meant "on day 1", and since I almost never buy games on day 1, and this isn't a slam-dunk after Civ5, I had to vote "no". It really depends on the additional details, how fun the demo is, and the reviews of people who didn't like Civ5 very much.

I was getting interested until I saw this:

It's a tough balance to strike because we want to reach a new audience. We want to get to those XCOM fans who may not have played Civ because history wasn't their thing, or strategy gamers that are playing a lot of these strategy games on IOS, that haven't tried Civ before. We want to reach those people, so we're trying to make the game more accessible for them, but also catering to our hardcore fans. We think a lot about 'oooh, what would they think if we took this out and put this in'. We try to listen to that, but we really want this product to stand on its own, and we've taken some risks, and made some changes that are surprising I think to fans, but I really think that they'll like it. David and I are relatively young designers. This is our first big Civ product. We've worked in Civ a little bit. We've done our time on Civ stuff, but it's really a testament to Firaxis to trust us and let us take this chance and make this new thing.

www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/12/civiliza...-the-new-factions-aliens-technology-and-more/

This is one of the absolute worst statements you could make about a game you are developing. I'll wait and see how it actually turns out, but way to kill any hope right off the freaking bat.

Will Miller: One good example of that is that, in my mind, there are two kinds of Civilization games. There's Civilization 4 and Civilization 5, then there's Civ Rev. Civ Rev is my favourite, it's the last Civ that Sid Meier himself has designed, that's in the Civ canon.

CivRev is the weakest title in the series by miles, this statement in no way reassures me that Will is competent enough to be a lead designer.

Oh my. That is discouraging. The trying to appeal to iOS strategy gamers is concerning, since that generally means casual gamers, but XCOM at least doesn't raise a red flag.

But one of the lead designers citing CivRev as his favorite game in the series? That's a major red flag.

I also saw in GameSpot's preview that 1 UPT will remain:

When other players start showing up, it will most likely result in open warfare. It was at this point in the interview that I asked whether Beyond Earth would bring back unit stacking, or continue using the one-unit-per-hex rule introduced in Civilization V. According to lead designer David McDonough, Beyond Earth will not have military unit stacking. "I am a big fan of the way warfare was designed in Civilization V," McDonough added. "I thought it was very elegant and would make a good fit for this game as well considering we’ve added these alternate game layers--such as the orbital layer--which sort of let you break that rule by launching units into space and having them effect units on the ground without being stacked on top of them."

Which is also quite concerning, particularly as that's a concrete detail rather than an abstract one like one of the lead designers preferring CivRev. Granted, perhaps the orbital layer will make it more tolerable, but 1 UPT alone moved this front "might buy near release" to "definitely play the demo first" for me. Although at least in this version, you won't have the "archer firing across the English channel" immersion-breaking problem.

 

[Lachlan]

No thank, i dont want this spin-off Civ !

I would prefer a new expansion for Civ 5...
Or new DLCs...

Alpha Centauri, disliked it, not fun...

Would prefer a new MOO 4 in the MOO 2 style...

Unless that Civ BE is connected to Civ5, matter of playing from 4000 BC to 2500 AD...

 

[Lord Tirian]

Incompetent was a brash word for him to choose, but given the context the developers are giving off a strong impression that they are reaching new audiences by essentially doing a civ V vanilla and streamlining (read: dumbing down) the game. Then they are praising a game (civ rev) a large amount of their core audience thinks is not a strong one in the franchise to put it conservatively.

He praised, specifically, the asymmetric balancing of CivRev, though. So this might not be a negative! I think playing with asymmetric balancing (i.e. very different factions, similar to Starcraft) as concept are quite neat and a non-historic setting allows them to do so.

The XCOM bit is also interesting in conjunction with the iOS bit: There's an XCOM port on iOS out, so Firaxis really is raising the bar in terms of mobile gaming without dumbing down the game either.

This makes be hopeful that they do understand that "dumbing down" and "accessible" are not the same thing.

 

[Buccaneer]

Isn't this like going to your favorite sports team's fan site and asking whether you like that team?

 

[The Swede]

I guess the smart thing to do is to wait a month or so, but I know I will have it on day 1....

 

[GreekAnalyzer]

Going to buy (probably) after I see some gameplay. If it looks good then I will, but otherwise no.
EDIT: Basically what Quintillus said above.

 

[cpm4001]

After a few reviews roll in and I have a chance to play a demo or something, then I'll get it.

 

[sendos]

I am also interested in this new civ game. It's the combination of civ 5 and SMAC, but I do wish to see the reviews first. I mean, I had much interest in getting RTW2 before it came out, and then the reviews are rather mixed, with some saying it's rather glitchy. Would have been nice for OP to specify further on that poll, as you can see it's rather moot: of course we all want to buy it.

Also, to Firaxis if they're listening here: make sure the MP is better than civ 5 MP.

 

[KevinLancaster]

I said yes, though it depends on whether or not I have enough money at the time. Also whether or not my computer matches the specifications. It's nice to have insufficient funds sometimes .

 

[bhavv]

I'm not gonna buy it.

But buy it I will.

Because it is cocaine.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

Omg to everyone saying I should have put in a "maybe" poll choice, I realize that but it is too late now and I meant early day one preorder whatever. Not within a year or two or three.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

[Fabio1701]

Hope it's on Steam. whether I wait for a sale depends on reviews. That being said, I am now bored of Civ5BNW and have been playing a lot of crusader Kings 2 (after a haitus, as they have expanded into india). As things are going though, I will likely get bored of that by August....

It might just depend on my level of desperation upon release. I have been waiting over a decade for this game after all....

 

[KevinLancaster]

You should have put in a twice option as well.