Why Civ V is more complex than Civ IV

[damnyankees]

People forget that this is a new game.

Then they should not have called it Civilization V. They should have given it a new title.

Calling it Civ V is a signal that this isn't merely a new game from scratch, but an evolutionary step in a line of games. And calling it Civ V is a signal to the users that "you know all that gaming experience you loved from the first 4? Well, get ready for even better!"

To pretend that Civ V doesn't have a place in the context of it's predecessors is, to me, intellectually bankrupt. If you really want to say this is a new game with no connection to the old one's, it might as well be a first person shooter.

 

[polypheus]

Then they should not have called it Civilization V. They should have given it a new title.

Calling it Civ V is a signal that this isn't merely a new game from scratch, but an evolutionary step in a line of games. And calling it Civ V is a signal to the users that "you know all that gaming experience you loved from the first 4? Well, get ready for even better!"

To pretend that Civ V doesn't have a place in the context of it's predecessors is, to me, intellectually bankrupt. If you really want to say this is a new game with no connection to the old one's, it might as well be a first person shooter.

EXACTLY. If they had called this game by its proper name, Civilization: Revolutions 2 instead of Civ5, then all would have been fine!

 

[damnyankees]

EXACTLY. If they had called this game by its proper name, Civilization: Revolutions 2 instead of Civ5, then all would have been fine!

Serious question - were people upset by Civ: Rev? I've never played it and didn't go to the forums. But it seems to me that it was quite obvious that Civ Rev was a different game entirely - not something anyone who played Civ IV would expect to be "the next step" in anything. It was a different kind of game using the same basic ideas.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Then they should not have called it Civilization V. They should have given it a new title.

'should' 'should'. Gotta love the 'should' statements from people who have nothing riding on the game's success.

Calling it Civ V is a signal that this isn't merely a new game from scratch, but an evolutionary step in a line of games.

You choose to perceive the signal that way. I suspect others do too. And guess what? There would be a lot of people who do think it's an evolutionary step in the line of civ titles, but that's not to say it's without its flaws of course.

And calling it Civ V is a signal to the users that "you know all that gaming experience you loved from the first 4? Well, get ready for even better!"

More hyperbole.

To pretend that Civ V doesn't have a place in the context of it's predecessors is, to me, intellectually bankrupt. If you really want to say this is a new game with no connection to the old one's, it might as well be a first person shooter.

Save me the strawman. Don't accuse me of pretending it has no place in the context of previous civ games. The design of civ5 is obviously heavily influenced by the former civ titles. All I said in my previous post was that it doesn't have to take everything from civ4 into the new game. If your view of sequels is so limited that this is not possible for you to accept, then I suggest it's a reevaluation of your view that is in order.

By the way, you seemed to completely miss the point of my previous post, or you successfully managed to drag me off into what was only a minor point.

 

[Celevin]

damnyankees

Are you the same DamnYankees from the Fark forums?

 

[damnyankees]

Are you the same DamnYankees from the Fark forums?

Haha, yes. I have this handle on every forum I go to, and no one has ever asked this before.

 

[damnyankees]

'should' 'should'. Gotta love the 'should' statements from people who have nothing riding on the game's success.

You choose to perceive the signal that way. I suspect others do too. And guess what? There would be a lot of people who do think it's an evolutionary step in the line of civ titles, but that's not to say it's without its flaws of course.
More hyperbole.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. You seem to think that labeling a game "Civilization V" implies no connection at all to "Civilization IV", and that when I say that name is a signal of connectivity, you accuse me of hyperbole? I truly don't know what to say, other than I'm not sure you know what the word hyperhole means.

Save me the strawman. Don't accuse me of pretending it has no place in the context of previous civ games. The design of civ5 is obviously heavily influenced by the former civ titles. All I said in my previous post was that it doesn't have to take everything from civ4 into the new game. If your view of sequels is so limited that this is not possible for you to accept, then I suggest it's a reevaluation of your view that is in order.

I'm just trying to express how I feel this game fits into the series, which I have played since Civ II. And as I play through Civ V, what I feel more and more is that I'm not playing a Civ game so much as a Total War game, without the battles. That's how it feels.

The problem you have is you simultaneously want to embrace and distance yourself from the franchise, it seems. All those elements of the game which are good and Civ-like, you seem to want to pull into the sphere of Civ influence and. But when someone points out that either idea X or strategy Y has been removed or gutted, you hide behind the "it's a brand new game!" argument. You can't have it both ways. Either this is a Civ game or it's not. If it is, it's perfectly valid to critique it in light of it's predecessors. And if not, please don't invoke the predecessors at all.

By the way, you seemed to completely miss the point of my previous post, or you successfully managed to drag me off into what was only a minor point.

What point do you believe I've missed? I'm not sure to what you are referring.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm not sure how to respond to this. You seem to think that labeling a game "Civilization V" implies no connection at all to "Civilization IV"

I think the name Civilization V implies a connection the entire series. The tie to civ4 might be arguably the strongest, and probably most people really want that because it was the most successful game of the 1 to 4, but a connection to the games 1 to 3, even if not much connection to civ4, would still show a strong connection. (Hmm, that's tautology right there, lol, but I think you get the point)
It's worth remembering, that a lot of what's in civ5 (particularly in the code) is basically copied from civ4. While it has been built up from scratch, there are a lot of things that have been straight up "borrowed" from civ4. (It's hard not to have a feeling of deja vu when perusing the folders of the civ5 install.) In my view civ4 is still the game most similar to civ5, though I have seen reasonable arguments to say it is civ3 instead (I don't quite agree with those).

, and that when I say that name is a signal of connectivity, you accuse me of hyperbole? I truly don't know what to say, other than I'm not sure you know what the word hyperhole means.

I call it hyperbole because this:

And calling it Civ V is a signal to the users that "you know all that gaming experience you loved from the first 4? Well, get ready for even better!"

and my initial reaction to that was that it's a big overstatement. It's not quite the extreme I accused you of though.

I'm just trying to express how I feel this game fits into the series, which I have played since Civ II. And as I play through Civ V, what I feel more and more is that I'm not playing a Civ game so much as a Total War game, without the battles. That's how it feels.

I can understand that sentiment and agree with some of it. I think focus has shifted to war moreso than in previous games, and unfortunately that's where civ games are rather lacking, so not the wisest move.

The problem you have is you simultaneously want to embrace and distance yourself from the franchise, it seems. All those elements of the game which are good and Civ-like, you seem to want to pull into the sphere of Civ influence and. But when someone points out that either idea X or strategy Y has been removed or gutted, you hide behind the "it's a brand new game!" argument. You can't have it both ways. Either this is a Civ game or it's not. If it is, it's perfectly valid to critique it in light of it's predecessors. And if not, please don't invoke the predecessors at all.

A fair challenge, I must say.

If I can attempt to make my position clearer:
Civ5 is still a game that was designed to have the same basic gameplay elements as what was common to the previous four titles.
I argue that civ5 is a "new game" in the sense that while staying true to the basic gameplay, it doesn't have to rely on the specific features of previous games to remain a civ game.

To try and give a few examples:

Where civ5 sticks to the civilization series:

• Turn based, on a tile-based board.
• Take control of a cilization
• Achieve a victory condition from several
• etc.

It's worth noting that even CivRev sticks to those, so perhaps I am not restrictive enough?

Features that are not essential to the gameplay, and which could be reasonably *removed* in the design of a new iteration (IMO):

• Civ3-style colonies
• Civ4 vassal states
• Civ4 religions (though they were fun, they are not essential)
• Pollution
• Corruption
• Road improvements create commerce (civ1-2). In civ5 they now cost gold.
• Ranged combat (in civ3, removed for civ4)
• Attack,defense values (removed in civ4, not without a big uproar from fans though) (wouldn't have bothered me if used again in civ5)
• Workers as units (introduced civ3 IIRC).
• Health
• etc.

What point do you believe I've missed? I'm not sure to what you are referring.

The point of my post, and which I thought you may have missed because you didn't seem to mention, was that

"It's not because of what it doesn't have, but how it uses what it does have that Civ5 is a disappointment to most."

I think people are mistaken to believe the biggest problems with civ5 are what they have not used from previous games. The biggest problems with civ5 are in its own implementation and how the features that are implemented in the game do not work as well together as what was presumably hoped when it was designed. People are calling for more features and more complexity, but none of that inherently improves the balance, and if done poorly could actually damage it.

Sorry if I was a bit harsh in my last post - when you pulled something I said out of the context of what I'd written so you could make your point, it gave me the impression you weren't really addressing the point I was trying to make.

 

[damnyankees]

I call it hyperbole because this:

and my initial reaction to that was that it's a big overstatement. It's not quite the extreme I accused you of though.

You think expecting Civ V to be better than Civ IV is hyperbolic? I mean...what?

 

[damnyankees]

A fair challenge, I must say.

If I can attempt to make my position clearer:
Civ5 is still a game that was designed to have the same basic gameplay elements as what was common to the previous four titles.
I argue that civ5 is a "new game" in the sense that while staying true to the basic gameplay, it doesn't have to rely on the specific features of previous games to remain a civ game.

To try and give a few examples:

Where civ5 sticks to the civilization series:

• Turn based, on a tile-based board.
• Take control of a cilization
• Achieve a victory condition from several
• etc.

It's worth noting that even CivRev sticks to those, so perhaps I am not restrictive enough?

Features that are not essential to the gameplay, and which could be reasonably *removed* in the design of a new iteration (IMO):

• Civ3-style colonies
• Civ4 vassal states
• Civ4 religions (though they were fun, they are not essential)
• Pollution
• Corruption
• Road improvements create commerce (civ1-2). In civ5 they now cost cold.
• Ranged combat (in civ3, removed for civ4)
• Attack,defense values (removed in civ4, not without a big uproar from fans though) (wouldn't have bothered me if used again in civ5)
• Workers as units (introduced civ3 IIRC).
• etc.

See, I disagree with this. To me, the things you listed as "essential" to it being a Civilization game aren't actually characteristics of the Civ series at all - they are characteristics of all turn based history games. Those factors could easily describe Total War or Europa Universalis.

The question then become what makes a Civ game a Civ game? What separates it from the pack of the other historical, turn-based sim games? There is obviously no single answer to this question, but to me it has a ton to do with the immersion of being in an actual *civilization*. Here are a few things I genuinely think is missing horribly from Civ V, and you can decide for yourself if they are essential. And note these are not "mistakes" or "poor implementation", but actual design decisions which they looked at Civ IV and said "no, we don't want to do that anymore":

1) There's no government. Civ IV had civics which defined your form of government. Civ V doesn't. It just has social policies. But these aren't dynamic. Literally they are just another tech tree with different bonuses. There's no sense of a dynamic, changing society in them. There's no sense of government *at all* in this game. And what is a civilization without government?

2) Social character. In previous Civ games, this was created in a variety of ways. Different leaders behaved differenty in accordance with their character, creating national cultures. Civ IV had religion, which while technically empty did creates international ties between peoples. There were pacts you could make with people which had actual consequences. Civ V has none of this. Diplomacy is opaque and borderline useless. There's no sense of having friends or enemies, merely sparring partners, all of whom are trying to win a game, not *be* a civilization.

3) Tons of stats. This may seem silly to some people, but Civ IV had insane stats. Population, exports, pollution, crop yield. Was a lot of this merely scenery with no consequence? Yes. But it was so important. I could look and see the population of my empire was 275,983,843 people. I would think to myself "wow - I have a nation the size of America!" It was awesome. Civ V lacks this.

Essential? To me, yes it is. It's what makes Civ Civ.

 

[PieceOfMind]

You think expecting Civ V to be better than Civ IV is hyperbolic? I mean...what?

and my initial reaction to that was that it's a big overstatement. It's not quite the extreme I accused you of though.

In other words, no, 'hyperbolic' in this case is probably what I was more guilty of.

See, I disagree with this. To me, the things you listed as "essential" to it being a Civilization game aren't actually characteristics of the Civ series at all - they are characteristics of all turn based history games. Those factors could easily describe Total War or Europa Universalis.

I know and honestly I didn't make much attempt to further that list because I can't be bothered and most of the things are fairly obvious. You struck on some non-obvious ones below though.

The question then become what makes a Civ game a Civ game? What separates it from the pack of the other historical, turn-based sim games? There is obviously no single answer to this question, but to me it has a ton to do with the immersion of being in an actual *civilization*. Here are a few things I genuinely think is missing horribly from Civ V, and you can decide for yourself if they are essential. And note these are not "mistakes" or "poor implementation", but actual design decisions which they looked at Civ IV and said "no, we don't want to do that anymore":

1) There's no government. Civ IV had civics which defined your form of government. Civ V doesn't. It just has social policies. But these aren't dynamic. Literally they are just another tech tree with different bonuses. There's no sense of a dynamic, changing society in them. There's no sense of government *at all* in this game. And what is a civilization without government?

2) Social character. In previous Civ games, this was created in a variety of ways. Different leaders behaved differenty in accordance with their character, creating national cultures. Civ IV had religion, which while technically empty did creates international ties between peoples. There were pacts you could make with people which had actual consequences. Civ V has none of this. Diplomacy is opaque and borderline useless. There's no sense of having friends or enemies, merely sparring partners, all of whom are trying to win a game, not *be* a civilization.

3) Tons of stats. This may seem silly to some people, but Civ IV had insane stats. Population, exports, pollution, crop yield. Was a lot of this merely scenery with no consequence? Yes. But it was so important. I could look and see the population of my empire was 275,983,843 people. I would think to myself "wow - I have a nation the size of America!" It was awesome. Civ V lacks this.

Essential? To me, yes it is. It's what makes Civ Civ.

1. I mostly agree. Civ5's "government" gameplay aspect is a lot more gamey and struggles to go any way to immersing the player, and it feels more like a specc'ing (I'm not good at RPG terminology by the way) up an RPG character.

2. Again I agree, but at the moment I think it is partly a problem of the game being unfinished. Unlike (1) above, this one will likely change in patches or especially expansions. Also, I think this point is most relevant to civ4 where leader personalities were done really well. I have less experience overall with the civs 1 to 3 but from those games I never had anywhere near as much the impression of distinct personalities. I find civ5's to be similar to civ1's, in that my views of the civs were mostly along the lines of how militaristic they were. I used to play civ1 as Russia just to avoid having them appear as a rival. In design I don't think civ5 has intended to stray away from distinct personalities, but they just haven't been done properly yet (i.e. unfinished). As I keep saying, it's disappointing to have an unfinished game, but one must use caution in attributing all failures to the design.

3. Simply don't agree. Stats are nice, and coming from someone who believes the UI is the most important thing that needs to be improved upon with each iteration, I actually think it's not all that critical to the gameplay, and civ5 still provides most of what is needed. The lack of a meaningful replay is the most disappointing, as even civ1 had that, and IIRC the next three games did too.

 

[allypower]

Now, in Civ V [...] is infinitely more complex. So complex, in fact, that the ai has not mastered it (one of the actually legitimate criticisms of Civ V).

Emphasized on the word infinite.

This is incorrect.

No board game is infinitely more complex than other. Chess or Go are not infinitely more complex than Tic Tac Toe you know. Chess and Go are 10^118 or 10^355 times more complex than Tic Tac Toe, still they are finite numbers.

Civ 5 is a finite game, it is inaccurate to say it is infinitely more complex than Civ 4 or Civ 3 or Civ 2 or Civ 1 or even Tic Tac Toe. You play it on a finite state automaton i.e. your computer in finite time (your life).

 

[demidyad]

er what? you can see your population, crop yield etc in civ 5 just fine.

 

[jimbob27]

In other words, no, 'hyperbolic' in this case is probably what I was more guilty of.
I know and honestly I didn't make much attempt to further that list because I can't be bothered and most of the things are fairly obvious. You struck on some non-obvious ones below though.




1. I mostly agree. Civ5's "government" gameplay aspect is a lot more gamey and struggles to go any way to immersing the player, and it feels more like a specc'ing (I'm not good at RPG terminology by the way) up an RPG character.

2. Again I agree, but at the moment I think it is partly a problem of the game being unfinished. Unlike (1) above, this one will likely change in patches or especially expansions. Also, I think this point is most relevant to civ4 where leader personalities were done really well. I have less experience overall with the civs 1 to 3 but from those games I never had anywhere near as much the impression of distinct personalities. I find civ5's to be similar to civ1's, in that my views of the civs were mostly along the lines of how militaristic they were. I used to play civ1 as Russia just to avoid having them appear as a rival. In design I don't think civ5 has intended to stray away from distinct personalities, but they just haven't been done properly yet (i.e. unfinished). As I keep saying, it's disappointing to have an unfinished game, but one must use caution in attributing all failures to the design.

3. Simply don't agree. Stats are nice, and coming from someone who believes the UI is the most important thing that needs to be improved upon with each iteration, I actually think it's not all that critical to the gameplay, and civ5 still provides most of what is needed. The lack of a meaningful replay is the most disappointing, as even civ1 had that, and IIRC the next three games did too.

Both the civ4 and civ5 government systems are both very "gamey" but in different ways. Your analogy comparing civ5's system to leveling up an rpg character also works for civ4, but in civ4, it's closer to equipping your character for whatever you're about to go and do.

In civ4, you've got your specific civics if you're preparing for war, you've got civics for waging war, you've got civics for rebuilding after gaining new territory, and you've got civics best suiting to peaceful expansion. You can time your golden ages so you rarely have to take a penalty for flip-flopping. There's pretty much an optimal formula for everything you're doing, and once you've learnt if you find yourself using the same combinations over and over again. It's like in an RPG, if you're attacking a den of wizards and you haven't equipped any items that offer you anti-magic defence, you're doing things wrong. If you go into a market without equipping a mystic hat of bartering, you're doing things wrong.

Civ5 does the opposite by forcing you to stick to one set of "civics". At some point in the game, you're always going to be using the wrong set, and it's up to you to minimise the damage to your empire when that happens, and try and push your civ towards a situation that benefits the choices you've made.

In some ways the civ5 system is more realistic, as civilisations don't flip flop their social policies at the drop of a hat, but forcing a totally inflexible system upon us isn't the most fun thing to do. Sid has always said the civ series was about making fun decisions, so offering some flexibility would make the current system a lot more enjoyable. Once the strategies in civ4 were figured out, it became far more about choosing the optimal civics for your situation, and the "fun decisions" pretty much went out the window.

They could quite easily adapt the current system to give us the option to change policies, but give the player a severe penalty for doing so. Not 1-2 turns of anarchy, but something big, that would cause your nation to effective go into a "dark age". It could be a penalty to money, happiness, culture, great people, food or all of the above.

This way you'd have both the realism of what the civ5 system offers.....previous civ games were a bit silly in that you could flip between having the policies of a warmongering despot and then turn into a peace loving hippy 2 turns later. Coming up with a long-term plan for your civ and then sticking with it should be the optimal way of doing things, but having the option to change at great penalty would add more of the fun decisions the series is supposed to be about.

 

[Jediron]

The problem with warfare is simple:
1)The biggest pitfall is there is no limit how many units you are building, which, is crazy.
Germany lost the war due to lack of resources and manpower. At any point of time, any nation is limited to with it can "bring to the table" at any point in time. These parameters are not present (beside a general, overall cap of total units) in CIV 5. That's a shame.

2)Hextiled warfare in CIV 5 is a nightmare, there's no OP fire and hardly any room for tactical manouvring. It all boils down to get your units in range of fire and fire away (if possible).
1 UPT makes things worse, not better and surely not "more tactical". I was hoping for a TW-style of battles; im my mind that's the best solution to combine strategical warfare with tactical warfare. A realtime tactical battlemap, just like in TW.

You can say everthing you like, you can discuss all the positives and negatives; about the difference between 3,4 and 5. One thing i do now; i had more fun with three and four then i have now with V. Infact; i hardly have any fun with V; thanks to the issue's you have read about here on the forum and in this topic.

 

[mrt144]

Most of that list wasn't in the original Civ IV, it was almost all added in expansions.
Religion is the only thing that was "missing" there that Civ IV started with.

Other things you mention aren't "missing" they're just handled differently.

When two expansions come out for Civ 5 in 3 years, then you can compare features.

So you're basically saying they plum forgot that these things existed before. How sad.

 

[mrt144]

Civ5 is less complex than Civ4. That is by design.

The commerce system alone is a step backwards in decision making because of how they integrated one feature is with another in Civ 4.

 

[jjkrause84]

Crikey, I never even did that, a bit underhand if you ask me.

Really!?

The AI did it to me a lot and I was hapy to do it back.

Another trick I liked was, if I gor a Great Spy early, pop the bonus to immediate espionage points on a crucial nearby enemy and then have spies travel ahead of my invading army inciting revolt just as my army rolled up so that their city defense disappeared.....great stuff there!

 

[Thormodr]

Really!?

The AI did it to me a lot and I was hapy to do it back.

Another trick I liked was, if I gor a Great Spy early, pop the bonus to immediate espionage points on a crucial nearby enemy and then have spies travel ahead of my invading army inciting revolt just as my army rolled up so that their city defense disappeared.....great stuff there!

Interesting style of gameplay. Sounds like it would make a great AAR.

Sadly, you can't do this in the new streamlined ciV. I shudder to think about the
dull as dishwater AARs that are going to come out.

 

[Toady]

TL;DR:
It's not because of what it doesn't have, but how it uses what it does have that Civ5 is a disappointment to most.

I think you are wrong.

I would argue that the order of importance is:

1) Missing - Removed - Lack of Content (check my previous post where i list most of it)

2) Erroneous Implementation of Changes to Existing Content (global happiness, diplomacy, commerce, 1upt combat, Research - Production - Income correlation)

3) Bugs & Poor AI

4) Whatever other detail one can come up with


You see the issue is that 3 & 4 are PATCHABLE... patches don't add content nor do they reinvent game concepts. Patches fix code for bugs and change stats for balance.

The reason people are so disappointed and vocal about Civ V is because of 1 and 2... which aren't patchable... hell point 2 issues might not even be modable.

You go on and say how things like vassal states, colonies, health, pollution ... etc etc are not essential.

Well Spearmen and Horsemen and Siege are not essential either... you could have Melee units and Ranged units and combat would still work. Would it be immersive? Would it make you want to play 1 more turn? Would combat strategies feel more complex or less complex?

Take a look at the most popular modpacks for CIV IV, all of them add content and the most successful ones add new game concepts. The users love them for this. They want to have more to do, it gives them a feeling of being more involved and more immersed into the game.

More parameters = More diversity = More flexibility = More strategy / tactics

Can you argue that this is wrong?