Why I won't be buying Civ-BE (even though I have money to blow)

[Ermak-]

Let me just say that I've been a huge fan of civ ever since civ2 on super Nintendo. I am also an exclusive multiplayer gamer now. I do not enjoy playing rigid AI script which uses cheats to be competitive. Given that here are my reasons why I won't be buying civ BE listed from most important to least:

1. Settings are too futuristic. If they were at least colonization of solar system with something resembling possibly future I would be OK. But this whole mambo-jumbo Warcrafting of Civ is an abomination.

2. Multiplayer was never fully fixed in civ4. In civ 5 it is much worse, with no lobby or even bare bones of matchmaking. It looks like an after though they added later. Given the constant crashes, random disconnects, bugged rooms, lack of rating , not to mention TRADE BUG which was know forever now and never been fixed. I see the priority they set mutiplayer to be. It's not even secondary, it has no priority whatsoever.

3. I don't want to support company which does not improve their games, but rather repakage and sell it to you again.

 

[OldEarthRelic]

There are threads on this already. The question is what will you be playing instead? Is the increased enjoyment of CivBE worth $50.

For me, I'd be playing CivV:BNW, so $50 for a change is worth it. For others, it isn't.

 

[SupremacyKing]

1. Settings are too futuristic. If they were at least colonization of solar system with something resembling possibly future I would be OK. But this whole mambo-jumbo Warcrafting of Civ is an abomination.

You do realize the game is about settling on another planet, not colonizing different star systems like MOO2, right?

The game does start with near future tech. That is why the player starts with a soldier unit that looks like a NASA astronaut with a P90 and the explorer unit looks like an astronaut with a Mars rover. The fantastical units like LEV destroyers, Mech robots are late game units.

 

[defiler]

1. Settings are too futuristic. If they were at least colonization of solar system with something resembling possibly future I would be OK. But this whole mambo-jumbo Warcrafting of Civ is an abomination.

You know warcraft is set on a medieval world and not in a futurist one right ?

 

[gunnergoz]

Thank you for sharing. However, your comments will not alter my intentions to buy any Sid Meier game I can get my hands on.

 

[stannis]

The only point you made with much relevance is about the shoddy AI. More than anything, that's what Firaxis needs to work on.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yep. This game probably isn't for you. Thanks for letting us all know. Good luck spending your money elsewhere.

 

[AriochIV]

1. Settings are too futuristic. If they were at least colonization of solar system with something resembling possibly future I would be OK. But this whole mambo-jumbo Warcrafting of Civ is an abomination.

Naturally if you don't like science fiction, then you're probably not going to like a science fiction game. That's fine, but I'm not sure it qualifies as an "abomination."

2. Multiplayer was never fully fixed in civ4. In civ 5 it is much worse, with no lobby or even bare bones of matchmaking. It looks like an after though they added later. Given the constant crashes, random disconnects, bugged rooms, lack of rating , not to mention TRADE BUG which was know forever now and never been fixed. I see the priority they set mutiplayer to be. It's not even secondary, it has no priority whatsoever.

It's absolutely not a priority, and it shouldn't be. Civilization never has been and (God willing) never will be an honest-to-goodness multiplayer-oriented game, and I hope they never spend any more effort trying to make it so than they already have. Such efforts will inevitably fail, and (if Civ V is any indication) make the core single-player experience worse for the rest of us.

 

[Karl0413]

Thank you for sharing. However, your comments will not alter my intentions to buy any Sid Meier game I can get my hands on.

 

[Westwall]

Ermak, that's your prerogative but I'm not entirely sure why you felt it was necessary to tell people about a product you won't be buying, unless you're hoping to convince others to follow suit.

Personally, I disagree with all your assertions, but especially those referring to BE as being a "Warcrafting abomination" and the notion that this is just a "repackaged" game with no improvements. Seems like you're basing these views on conjecture and opinion more than anything else.

Either way, it sounds like you already have your mind made up on the matter.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I tend to wonder about the point of these threads, if it's genuinely not straight-up trolling. Does the original poster expect to be convinced of a potential error in his ways? Unlikely. Does he expect to "enlighten" others and alter their behaviour? Even more unlikely. Have an impact on something else by posting their complaint? Least likely of all.

What would possess someone to enter a given game's forum and post "I won't be buying this game because X and Y"?

And the "setting is too futuristic"? Really? That's the major reason? It's a science fiction game, and not particularly soft sci-fi at that. Might as well get into the Civ5 forum and say "this setting is too historical: if there were dragons and unicorns I would be OK". It would make as much sense.

Anyway, It'd be dishonest of me to thank Ermak for sharing, when most of his post is ignorant, opinionated nonsense. Nobody's shoving the game down your throat, so be on your way now.

 

[swordoflight86]

I don't understand your problems with the multiplayer. Why do you need matchmaking and ladders? Civ strikes me as more of the type of game you play with friends, not randoms. The games take multiple sessions to finish, making them less than ideal for such things, but perfect for playing with friends.

 

[manu-fan]

Science fiction? It's just a puzzle game. With cities, units, hexes, mechanics etc. to work out how to win. Yeah, there are fictional elements in the graphics, but it's the gameplay that I'm after.

 

[JokerJace]

The only point you made with much relevance is about the shoddy AI. More than anything, that's what Firaxis needs to work on.

That is wrong, Multiplayer is terrible, OP is absolutely correct on that one, too. It has ZERO usability. It has ZERO stability. I can literally not think of any major game in the last 10 years that did a worse job on it's multiplayer. I opened a thread on this a while ago on this topic and people seemed to agree. I also prefer to play multiplayer because of the terrible, cheating AI. That's why I'm not preordering this game. I want to see whether they fix it or not.

 

[Teproc]

That is wrong, Multiplayer is terrible, OP is absolutely correct on that one, too. It has ZERO usability. It has ZERO stability. I can literally not think of any major game in the last 10 years that did a worse job on it's multiplayer. I opened a thread on this a while ago on this topic and people seemed to agree. I also prefer to play multiplayer because of the terrible, cheating AI. That's why I'm not preordering this game. I want to see whether they fix it or not.

That's because Civ is meant to be a single player game.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I only briefly tried Civ5 multiplayer with friends, people I trusted, and the only thing that really bugged me was the enforced lack of animations, which put me off the whole thing. I think they fixed that later on and made it optional, at least, by G&K or BNW. I honestly can't remember having stability issues, the only other serious thing which could've put a damper in my enjoyment.

In general, swordoflight86 illustrated my stance of Civ multiplayer pretty well...

Why do you need matchmaking and ladders? Civ strikes me as more of the type of game you play with friends, not randoms. The games take multiple sessions to finish, making them less than ideal for such things, but perfect for playing with friends.

I wouldn't go to the extreme of saying Civ is purely a singleplayer game. But no matter the stability, quality of matchmaking, lobbies and what have you, it's highly unlikely you'll have a good experience playing proper, multi-session Civ games with random unknown players the system matched you with. You don't have to look farther than the human component to find the problem in that case.

 

[Sonereal]

That's because Civ is meant to be a single player game.

Since when is Civ supposed to be MP oriented anyway?

I am also an exclusive multiplayer gamer now.

I'm an avid CS:GOer these days. Why isn't a SP turn-based strategy game changing itself to be more like a competitive MP FPS?

 

[gunnergoz]

I tend to wonder about the point of these threads, if it's genuinely not straight-up trolling. Does the original poster expect to be convinced of a potential error in his ways? Unlikely. Does he expect to "enlighten" others and alter their behaviour? Even more unlikely. Have an impact on something else by posting their complaint? Least likely of all.

What would possess someone to enter a given game's forum and post "I won't be buying this game because X and Y"?

And the "setting is too futuristic"? Really? That's the major reason? It's a science fiction game, and not particularly soft sci-fi at that. Might as well get into the Civ5 forum and say "this setting is too historical: if there were dragons and unicorns I would be OK". It would make as much sense.

Anyway, It'd be dishonest of me to thank Ermak for sharing, when most of his post is ignorant, opinionated nonsense. Nobody's shoving the game down your throat, so be on your way now.

My take on it is that some people just hate feeling "left out" or "left behind" for whatever reason and have an urge to express their frustrations about why this is the case. OP's comments did not offend me, but neither did they persuade me to alter my own opinions. Perhaps the OP was eagerly awaiting a more traditional Civ follow on and was disappointed that BE is not what he was hoping for. I have had that sort of experience with other game firms and forums, so I can sort of relate.

 

[Sonereal]

My take on it is that some people just hate feeling "left out" or "left behind" for whatever reason and have an urge to express their frustrations about why this is the case. OP's comments did not offend me, but neither did they persuade me to alter my own opinions. Perhaps the OP was eagerly awaiting a more traditional Civ follow on and was disappointed that BE is not what he was hoping for. I have had that sort of experience with other game firms and forums, so I can sort of relate.

I would be fine with that if reactionaries didn't form PresDict and screw up immigration bonuses I need for industrialization.

 

[Mozzington]

Why do you guys seem to think Sid is making these games? Just because it has his name slapped across the box? It's a selling tool. I bet he popped into the office for an hour once while this whole project was going on...rest assured...this is not the work of Sid, not even close. It's a repackage of the same game being sold again to rake in the cash and maximise profits before moving onto 6.