why don't the developers give a *******?

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

No, what Star Wars is doing (and Star Trek, too) is blaming their franchises' problems on the fans, which is completely different.

Star Trek still has fans?
But that was kind of the point I was trying to make, maybe I just worded it the wrong way.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

As I have said before, it's marketing. If you make a new game mode, you can dress up as spooky cultists or furry barbarians and make a fun video saying "look at all the cool new stuff!" But you can't make a fun video saying, "hey, we fixed a whole lot of stuff that has been borked ever since launch". Even if players would actually prefer to have the base game fixed.

I would disagree with that. Civ is not really marketing dependent at all, and these are certainly not typical marketing videos (while I am sure they are edited and approved by the higher ups). It generally seems, to me, that these are devs who are just happy with what they made and actually enjoy sharing it with the robust community.

The only thing I agree with on OP is that they do probably pay lip service with “Civ fans are the best fans in gaming”, because we are not. By a long shot. I truly hope Humankind is the panacea that those who aren’t happy need.

Civ fans are definitely not the worst, they may actually be the best. Of course there will be individuals in every community at large that just suck, but from an overall standpoint the Cvi community has got to be a great one to work with. Multiple active online communities that discuss and create on a regular basis with no direct incentive, a huge group of lifers that are locked in to anything Civ no questions asked, astronomical gameplay times across multiple versions, and some crazy passionate people (which maybe do get TOO passionate sometimes). I mean all in all that is a pretty awesome thing to have for a game dev, even if they do take unnecessary flak from time to time (but in what community would they not).

 

[Zaarin]

Star Trek still has fans?

A fair question after how awful the new shows have been--though someone might have foreseen that when they hired a showrunner who actively hates the franchise. (I still like the old shows in case my avatar doesn't make that obvious. )

But yeah, Firaxis could be more communicative, but they definitely listen to their fans. I mean, we literally memed Tamar of Georgia into the game.

 

[King William I]

As a member of both Star Wars, DC's, and the Sims fanbases I can say that Civ fans are not the worst by a long shot.

As @Zaarin can tell you, Sims fans are so horrible they bullied at least one developer into quitting and they bully people who actually like the game

 

[Zaarin]

As @Zaarin can tell you, Sims fans are so horrible they bullied at least one developer into quitting and they bully people who actually like the game

Indeed, the Sims community is pretty hostile. Though I'd also temper that with Maxis/EA kind of set the tone--some of their community managers and PR people have been bullies themselves. It's something of a feedback loop with the Sims community and EA...

Compared to a lot of gaming communities, the Civ community is pure delight. Our discussions here can get intense, but 98% of the time they're at least civil.

 

[aieeegrunt]

So I will chime in here and say that I haven't really been a fan of the way the Civ franchise has been taken first in Civ 5 and then in Civ 6, but it's not that the developers don't care. They simply have a different vision for what makes a good Civ game than I do. I also can see that their vision has merit because my father who has also played every civ game ever made like this version the best. When I game I am looking to be challenged on an intellectual/strategic level. When he games, he is looking at it more from the role-play perspective. He has a tendency to start over if he misses out on his preferred wonders or if the early layout of the map doesn't let him build an empire he is comfortable with. I tend to enjoy the game most when I'm presented with such difficulties and have to reassess. So basically what happens is any change the developers make to the core game which would make me enjoy the game more, will probably make him enjoy the game less. One thing we do agree on is that having a new civ or map to try out is a good thing.

What is my point in saying all this? Those of you who are frustrated with Civ need to accept that Firaxis/2kgames maybe isn't targetting you as their primary customer anymore and that's OK because it is literally impossible to make a game that will appeal to everyone. My advice would be to start looking into other developers and see if one has a vision that more closely matches yours.

Some suggestions:
Freeciv- This game is based off of Civilization 2, but with updated graphics and some minor additions and balance changes to the game. It's also free to play as the name implies and not in a free to play but pay to win or a free to play but get spammed with ads way.
Humankind- This game comes out on April 22nd but many here are high on the game after participating in the beta.
Europa Universalis IV/other Paradox grand strategy games- Paradox seems to have a design philosophy more in line with what Civ had around Civ 4, where there should be layers of strategic depth and you will always feel like there's more to learn about the game and more ways to get better. Be warned that their games end up with a ton of DLC that is primarily feature-based additions. Some hate this, but I personally like the philosophy as it leads to their products having a longer lifespan than Civ games do.
Galactic Civilizations- I personally enjoyed this game but not everyone wants a space-based strategy game.

There are tons of other examples and hopefully, other people here can chime in. There's a ton of games out there. Don't force yourself to play one you don't like out of stubbornness. Look around and hopefully find a game you can love.

I tried to play Stellaris but the game is ridiculously obtuse. The simplest concepts are buried in the most laboriously overcomplicated UI I have ever seen.

Just moving a fracking ship around was torture.

All the nope

 

[The Civs 6]

As a member of both Star Wars, DC's, and the Sims fanbases I can say that Civ fans are not the worst by a long shot.

As @Zaarin can tell you, Sims fans are so horrible they bullied at least one developer into quitting and they bully people who actually like the game

The DOTA 2 community has entered the chat

 

[Baigan]

Firaxis gets some leeway for 1) being a mid-size game developer that 2) produces a game across multiple platforms 3) played by tens of thousands of players with different expectations 4) in conjunction with a publisher that they rely on for quality control. Not everything they touch is gold, but I'm sufficiently pleased with their product given the constraints.

I don't see how anyone can look at the development cycle over the last 5 years and claim that Firaxis is a company that doesn't listen to its customers. We've complained about forward settling, crappy coastal cities, lack of late-game content, lack of a diplomatic victory/world congress, general civ imbalance, slow development cycles, etc. The list goes on. They make efforts to address these things. Hell, the results of the survey they sent a few years ago directly informed how they tackled NFP. They've given exactly what most people thought they wanted.

Of course they can't address everything. No reasonable person could expect them to. That's a large part of why it's so frustrating that they don't release the DLL for modding, though I think there are uncommunicated reasons for that. If the recent NFP content doesn't interest you, that's fair. But being a paying customer doesn't entitle you to a gaming experience that's catered to your tastes. The content and communication that Firaxis produces meet my expectations given the leeway.

 

[Stilgar08]

If AI will not be fixed in Civ 6, what is the chance that it will be properly done in Civ 7? I'm afraid I'll have to say goodbye to the Civ6 for HUMANKIND, and I guess that's inevitable.

Ah, the shiny new gem in the shop... You'll see, it'll start with just the problems of most games nowadays and AI will have its struggle... See you for civ7 then.

Personally I don't already care for civ7. I want to play civ6 and intend to further do so! Therefore i have a lot of interest that FXS continues to patch the game. Because besides its great parts it IS full of bugs, problems and annoyances too.
And the major reason is that it's packed beyond believe, because new stuff sells, infrastructure {so to say) doesn't. But without it FXS will lose part of their base. I'm confident that they know this and will continue to improve the game.
Concerning that FXS has a pretty good record of continuing support for their games. That there are tons of content that can be directly linked to fan requests doesn't help the OPs argument either. It's baseless. AI needs to be able to use the features though. It isn't and that's a big miss. @Kupe Navigator: I have hopes for after NFP. I'm not even sure they are done with Civ 6 expansions. NFP season 2 is absolutely not out of the question. And if that really is the case there should be a time of consolidation of the games problems and improvement on the basic things too.

Finally: Being here and in the game from Civ1, I'm on @DJ_Tanner s side: don't speak for me, please. And if you guys started only with civ6 you have as much to say as we old far&€#.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Civ fans are definitely not the worst, they may actually be the best. Of course there will be individuals in every community at large that just suck, but from an overall standpoint the Cvi community has got to be a great one to work with. Multiple active online communities that discuss and create on a regular basis with no direct incentive, a huge group of lifers that are locked in to anything Civ no questions asked, astronomical gameplay times across multiple versions, and some crazy passionate people (which maybe do get TOO passionate sometimes). I mean all in all that is a pretty awesome thing to have for a game dev, even if they do take unnecessary flak from time to time (but in what community would they not).

These are fair points, and I was definitely not saying Civ fans are the worst! The passion of the community is amazing and I really enjoy some of the historical insight that the posters here bring.

But, in my experience, for every erudite observation there is also a meltdown down whenever a female leader is announced, and double standards.

I think the community probably is amazing, if you are a man. But I definitely don’t think it’s the worst by a long shot. No one here has threatened me so I’d say we are 80% above the other gaming forums I’m part of haha!

 

[Josephias]

but 98% of the time they're at least civil

That's quite the point, isn't it (here a longterm fan who shortened the DOS folder name for Civ I as "civil" instead of "civ" ).

Being a long term fan of several franchises, I cannot but echo many of the ideas of posts on this thread.

- After all, everything is business. As far as they would liker (or not), Civ developers are working for 2K, not for us fans. So many of their actions are constrained by 2K strategy.
- Even if they were indie developers, they cannot care the whims and whishes for such a big community. The difference is, as indies they would do what they think is best, as employees, they would do what 2K approves.
- Communities have often overhyped expectations of what can be done in a reasonable amount of time and want it all: good AI, good graphics, and short turn times in a low-end computer. Of course, an individual fan may not want all of this, depending on its circumstances, but saying the other things are not a request of the community is just lying to yourself.
- Keep in mind community is just a part of the potential market and while developers might care, producers/financers do not. You must be careful a toxic community may even kill of the game. I've been involved in the HoMM community for a long time too, and after the fiasco of the VI installement, I can tell the developers tried to approach the fans a bit on VII, which was in part a step in the improvement path. However, the high demands/criticism of the community killed this improvement opportunity and now all we are left with is with cheap mobile games (which the chinese seem to pay for more than a standard title).
- It's clear Civ VI is highly flawed, but as far as the comunity goes, it seems it is still enjoyable. Also, most of past games tend to have as well its share of bugs and exploits, just we were used to use/avoid them and not care as much about them now.

 

[Isengardtom]

A fair question after how awful the new shows have been--though someone might have foreseen that when they hired a showrunner who actively hates the franchise. (I still like the old shows in case my avatar doesn't make that obvious. )

But yeah, Firaxis could be more communicative, but they definitely listen to their fans. I mean, we literally memed Tamar of Georgia into the game.

I actually enjoy the new shows (except Picard which was mehari let’s face it - First seasons of most Trek shows haven’t been great) Star Trek has a very toxic fan base though, also in gaming when that was still a thing.

as for the shows :
- it’s not what Gene Roddenberry envisioned (whatever : he was heavily involved in TNG season 1, which is the worst Trek ever made)
- it’s too dark
- it’s too “Woke”
- ...
The same criticisms were there when TNG first aired, and now again with the Kurzman era

Basically it often comes down to “ the old stuff was better in my view” which is often a feeling when people get older

This is no different with Civ. People are used to certain things and when that changes they don’t open themselves up to the new. How many Civ 5 fans still don’t like civ 6.
It’s not always easy to both please older fans, and trying to bring new things fo pull in new people playing the game.

Personally I think the devs do a great job. They put themselves on a very tight schedule with NFP promising monthly updates, during a pandemic with lots of work from home in place which makes interaction and collaboration much more difficult in a work environment believe me I can can relate. So there are bound to be a few issues that that take some time to resolve.

I do agree that if NFP is the end of civ 6 development, some patch work is needed post NFP with some updates on bugs and UI/AI

 

[Abaxial]

So I will chime in here and say that I haven't really been a fan of the way the Civ franchise has been taken first in Civ 5 and then in Civ 6, but it's not that the developers don't care. They simply have a different vision for what makes a good Civ game than I do. I also can see that their vision has merit because my father who has also played every civ game ever made like this version the best. When I game I am looking to be challenged on an intellectual/strategic level. When he games, he is looking at it more from the role-play perspective. He has a tendency to start over if he misses out on his preferred wonders or if the early layout of the map doesn't let him build an empire he is comfortable with. I tend to enjoy the game most when I'm presented with such difficulties and have to reassess. So basically what happens is any change the developers make to the core game which would make me enjoy the game more, will probably make him enjoy the game less. One thing we do agree on is that having a new civ or map to try out is a good thing.

Luke, I am your father!

It seems to me that a lot of the flak thrown at the developers is either unrealistic expectations ("make the AI smarter!" - that's not an easy thing to do) or people having a different vision of the game (it seems clear that many people expected something quite different of the corporations mode and didn't like what they got). However, I think it is fair enough to point out inaction of the developers on basic things that are obviously wrong. I will mention one that HAS been fixed: it has always been obvious that the end-of-game graphs were scrunched up small and surrounded by empty screen space. Finally this has been fixed, which is great - but why did it take years to fix something so simple that stares you in the face every time you finish a game?

 

[King William I]

I actually enjoy the new shows (except Picard which was mehari let’s face it - First seasons of most Trek shows haven’t been great) Star Trek has a very toxic fan base though, also in gaming when that was still a thing.

as for the shows :
- it’s not what Gene Roddenberry envisioned (whatever : he was heavily involved in TNG season 1, which is the worst Trek ever made)
- it’s too dark
- it’s too “Woke”
- ...
The same criticisms were there when TNG first aired, and now again with the Kurzman era

Basically it often comes down to “ the old stuff was better in my view” which is often a feeling when people get older

This is no different with Civ. People are used to certain things and when that changes they don’t open themselves up to the new. How many Civ 5 fans still don’t like civ 6.
It’s not always easy to both please older fans, and trying to bring new things fo pull in new people playing the game.

Personally I think the devs do a great job. They put themselves on a very tight schedule with NFP promising monthly updates, during a pandemic with lots of work from home in place which makes interaction and collaboration much more difficult in a work environment believe me I can can relate. So there are bound to be a few issues that that take some time to resolve.

I do agree that if NFP is the end of civ 6 development, some patch work is needed post NFP with some updates on bugs and UI/AI

The sheer irony of people complaining about how woke Star Trek is is that TOS was both almost never made and was almost cancelled several times because of how woke it was (for its day at least. An Asian second in command? A Black lady that was third in command? Unamerican! Commie propaganda!) He even had to dial it back just to get it to air O'hura? (Please don't kill me for any misspelling) was supposed to be Kirk's second.

 

[Linklite]

I actually enjoy the new shows (except Picard which was mehari let’s face it - First seasons of most Trek shows haven’t been great) Star Trek has a very toxic fan base though, also in gaming when that was still a thing.

as for the shows :
- it’s not what Gene Roddenberry envisioned (whatever : he was heavily involved in TNG season 1, which is the worst Trek ever made)
- it’s too dark
- it’s too “Woke”
- ...
The same criticisms were there when TNG first aired, and now again with the Kurzman era

Basically it often comes down to “ the old stuff was better in my view” which is often a feeling when people get older

New Trek is very different in tone and even the lore. I mean, DS9 pushed boat out a bit, but not this far and it was also visibly recognisable as Trek. When I was watching Discovery, if you didn't have the Star Trek in front of the name, it wouldn't even occur to me that it was Star Trek.

Essentially, they created a whole new franchise, but rather than creating their own IP, they hijacked Star Trek to springboard their visibility. Apparently, they improved after I stopped watching and became more Trekky, but thanks to their platform decisions, I'm no longer willing to pay extra to give them another go. I was interested in Picard, but since I've heard that they made it very violent and with swearing as well as deconstructing the heroes (sigh), I'm not even interested in that anymore. Abrams did films which, in my opinion, is a different genre anyway, and so gets less of my ire. In short, they hijacked the franchise for their own very different ideas and then wonder why the fanbase gets upset.

Massive tangent from Civ 6, though. I think there is always going to be some toxicity. The franchise (whichever franchise that may be) will always provide something that isn't what the fanbase wants, if only because the fanbase isn't monolithic. We have to remember that the company is made of humans too. Firaxis has listened and tried to make Civ VI the game we want, even if we don't agree with everything they've done (I certainly don't). How we go about getting what we want is very important, being nasty about it isn't the way (said Din).

 

[aieeegrunt]

Civ6’s weakpoint is the severe lack of playtesting. This is probably my favorite iteration of Civ since Civ2, but oh boy the lack of polish and things like TurboTourism that should have been obvious after even a single playthrough...

What I am hoping happens is that once all the content publishing is done we get a few months of polish.

 

[Zaarin]

The sheer irony of people complaining about how woke Star Trek is is that TOS was both almost never made and was almost cancelled several times because of how woke it was

No, there's a difference. Trek has always been political, yes, but old Trek generally said, "Let's have a discussion about a topic." From VOY on it's been, "Here, sit down, shut up, and let me tell you what to think."

Basically it often comes down to “ the old stuff was better in my view” which is often a feeling when people get older

I'm still young, and, while I watched a smattering of TNG reruns on TV in the early 00s, I essentially discovered Trek in college ten years ago. It's all too easy to write off people who disagree with you as just nostalgic or biased because then you don't have to deal with their arguments.

 

[InsidiousMage]

It seems to me that a lot of the flak thrown at the developers is either unrealistic expectations ("make the AI smarter!" - that's not an easy thing to do) or people having a different vision of the game (it seems clear that many people expected something quite different of the corporations mode and didn't like what they got).

I feel like if Firaxis communicated about their design philosophy and intentions then stuff like this would be less of a problem. I am one of those people who thinks that the M&C mode is basically a bait and switch but I have no idea if that is a fair assessment or not because I don't know if what I wanted was ever something that Firaxis could or would deliver on. Maybe "smarter AI" to make the game more challenging isn't a priority because Firaxis doesn't see the AI as the source of difficulty in the game. We have no idea because Firaxis doesn't communicate with the player base despite it never being easier to do so.

 

[Archon_Wing]

it’s not what Gene Roddenberry envisioned (whatever : he was heavily involved in TNG season 1, which is the worst Trek ever made)

lol, if TNG kept up with what Gene wanted, it would have died then and there. Perfect characters with zero conflict was the original concept.

Picard was pretty decent, but they were a bit too casual with the violence and killing of some characters for shock value. I did feel like it was a decent continuation and I've not liked any Trek since Voyager. But most of it was because it's going forward past the TNG/DS9/VOY era and not just yet another rehash of the TOS era.

 

[Zegangani]

I feel like if Firaxis communicated about their design philosophy and intentions then stuff like this would be less of a problem. I am one of those people who thinks that the M&C mode is basically a bait and switch but I have no idea if that is a fair assessment or not because I don't know if what I wanted was ever something that Firaxis could or would deliver on. Maybe "smarter AI" to make the game more challenging isn't a priority because Firaxis doesn't see the AI as the source of difficulty in the game. We have no idea because Firaxis doesn't communicate with the player base despite it never being easier to do so.

I think the C&M Mode is quite a good Mode considering it's just a DLC and the tight NFP Timeframe. And when it gets the Tourism Bug Fixed, it will be much better to play with. And even if it just makes use of existing Mechanisms, it's a great Mode and especially beneficial for Late-Game.
Otherwise, a really good Industries/Coroprations/Monopolies System would require a larger DLC just for this mechanism (or even an Expansion) to make it interact with other Mechanisms (Like GPP, Technologies...etc), and perhaps with a World-Market for the resources ( requires a resources overhaul to make Luxury/Bonus resources stockable).