Why the Civilopedia so pitiful in every Civ game?

[I was NC]

I have no knowledge of software development, but imagine there are verbal descriptions of what happens, if for no other reason than internal controls. Doing so is not that difficult: if ABC, then XYZ. Why not simply copy/paste that work into the Civilopedia (with some adapting/editing)?

This has been an issue for every entry since at least V (didn't play III or IV). Players routinely must go to the forums for answers to basic questions. The exact same information has to be written down somewhere in the developers' documentation. Just put it into the game! For example, instead of saying "taking this step will result in more of ____," type in how much more!

My guess is the company treats creating the explanations as an entirely new and separate step. Those responsible start the text from scratch, yet don't have the same lack of familiarity as a someone who isn't an employee. They spend more time creating a worse product.

Certainly possible I'm wrong.

 

[stealth_nsk]

1. Game design documents are not the same texts as those presented to players.

2. Ingame encyclopedia requires at least translation and formatting after it's written.

3. Many things are likely to be automatically generated from ingame database, but that's reatricted to standard categories like units or buildings (providing they have their flavor texts and images in the database). I once made a mobile encyclopedia for Total War: Attila and I had a pipeline to update from ingame data after each patch. Articles like game concepts have to be written separately, though.

4. Writing texts themselves is only part of the work, they need to be have good search, navigation and integration within interface for players to actually find them. Some of the questions people ask here on the forum are actually answered in civilipedia already.

 

[AriochIV]

They have traditionally spent more effort on the flavor text than the actual game information. That just seems to be their priority.

If the UI was better constructed, it wouldn't be as much of a problem. I barely ever opened the Civilopedia in Civ6... as much as I have maligned the Civ6 UI, at least it told you the basic things you needed to know.

 

[I was NC]

1. Game design documents are not the same texts as those presented to players.

This is kind of my point: why not use the design documents as the first draft of what's presented to players? Seems like it would be both easier to do and more complete.

 

[stealth_nsk]

This is kind of my point: why not use the design documents as the first draft of what's presented to players? Seems like it would be both easier to do and more complete.

It's so wrong idea, it's hard to decide where to start:
1. Design documents will not help players. They use a lot of terms you'll just not see from the player side.
2. Design documents are not structured the way civilopedia does. Particular structure depends on a company, but usually most of the information for design documents is stored in spreadsheets.
3. Showing internal documentation within a game looks so unprofessional what even indie developers don't do it.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

My memory is too hazy but I think it was good in IV. Agree with the general sentiment though, I like the flavour it provides in VI but often lacking as a useable guide to the game. By all accounts it is worse in VII.

 

[Gorbles]

This is kind of my point: why not use the design documents as the first draft of what's presented to players? Seems like it would be both easier to do and more complete.

Initial problem: translations.

Do you know what doesn't translate well? Context-specific design language.

(this is not an exhaustive list; idiomatic and / or expert domain stuff is generally hard to translate)

 

[Chapel]

It's hard to translate so let's just not bother doing any work on it is pretty terrible.

 

[I was NC]

Do you know what doesn't translate well? Context-specific design language.

Nope, I didn't know that, falls under having no knowledge of software development. Still don't get how the documentation is not a good starting point and/or checklist for what to include, but will take your word for it.

Appreciate the respectful response.

 

[Gorbles]

Nope, I didn't know that, falls under having no knowledge of software development. Still don't get how the documentation is not a good starting point and/or checklist for what to include, but will take your word for it.

Appreciate the respectful response.

Sorry, tone is hard to discern over the Net, my question came off a bit more aggravated than I felt it needed to be on second read (even if you didn't take it that way).

Could it be a starting point? Yes. But you need a technical expert to break to down into readable parts for a technical writer to be able to phrase correctly. From there is also requires localisation, which probably requires a further handshake with dev in to ensure the translations maintain the mechanical clarity required for the player.

For a personal example, I'm a Brit, but on top of that my written and spoken English is excellent (disappointingly monolingual though ). I do a lot of technical writing to aid developers, product, marketing, whoever. I'm good at breaking down concepts (and this is something you get better at the more you practise it). But even still, with well over a decade's domain knowledge in my current job, I liase with a technical writer on every enhancement and new feature that needs documenting. Because for all my skill, I still write like a developer, and my language makes fundamental (subconscious!) assumptions about things I'd consider trivial (but aren't).

And we don't have to handle translations! Thankfully.

All that said, the Civilopedia still needs work. I'm not trying to say it shouldn't be done. I haven't spent a lot of time with it yet so I don't know if the issue is signposting, or a lack of actual contextual info.

 

[Chapel]

All that said, the Civilopedia still needs work. I'm not trying to say it shouldn't be done. I haven't spent a lot of time with it yet so I don't know if the issue is signposting, or a lack of actual contextual info.

My $0.02 as a non expert who has looked at it a fair amount but has no expertise in anything like that, it's a disaster. None of the entries connect to each other(that I have found so far) how you would expect them to, there are no pages for huge swaths of information (like the individual French great people possibilities and their effects), there is minimal mechanical information in what is there, the techs don't even list their prerequisites. It's near useless.

 

[I was NC]

Sorry, tone is hard to discern over the Net, my question came off a bit more aggravated than I felt it needed to be on second read (even if you didn't take it that way).

The apologies are all mine: I genuinely appreciated the response. Your second even more so.

Understood the translations would be difficult (well, sort of understand, never seen that kind of file). Even so, seems like writing explanations without it, likely from scratch, also would be at least very time consuming. We attorneys joke about how none of us ever start a document without a starting point. Perhaps my incredulity at this process comes from a professional bias.

Regardless, clearly something needs to change. Frankly another option would be to just not offering a Civilopedia at all. Don't spend hours creating something that many players find inadequate or useless. Arguably having one shouldn't be necessary, the in-game descriptions could be enough.

 

[I was NC]

On the off chance someone with Firaxis reads this thread, the take-away is not something like "Those responsible for the Civilopedia should have worked harder." Rather, the problems are systemic. Something needs to be fundamentally different for the resource to be widely seen as useful. My thoughts here are an attempt at proposing such a change.

 

[Big J Money]

It's so wrong idea, it's hard to decide where to start:
1. Design documents will not help players. They use a lot of terms you'll just not see from the player side.
2. Design documents are not structured the way civilopedia does. Particular structure depends on a company, but usually most of the information for design documents is stored in spreadsheets.
3. Showing internal documentation within a game looks so unprofessional what even indie developers don't do it.

As someone who has worked on video games, I can add:

4. Design docs are out of date most of the time, and there's very little impetus to update them. This depends on the company, but in the video games industry especially, I've never heard of a company that actualy makes the maintenance of design docs a priority. Shipping the game is priority. What I've seen is that they're written up to the point that they get the original idea across and someone can begin work on the feature. And once the work is in earnest, the docs are forgotten about and the true state of the feature is best understood by reading the code, speaking with the developer, or sometimes even speaking with QA (which is its own problem, but I won't get into that).

 

[Big J Money]

1. Game design documents are not the same texts as those presented to players.

2. Ingame encyclopedia requires at least translation and formatting after it's written.

3. Many things are likely to be automatically generated from ingame database, but that's reatricted to standard categories like units or buildings (providing they have their flavor texts and images in the database). I once made a mobile encyclopedia for Total War: Attila and I had a pipeline to update from ingame data after each patch. Articles like game concepts have to be written separately, though.

4. Writing texts themselves is only part of the work, they need to be have good search, navigation and integration within interface for players to actually find them. Some of the questions people ask here on the forum are actually answered in civilipedia already.

5. Manuals and help text have a bit of a flaw: they can't be finalized until the feature is completed, or they will be inaccurate. This not only includes the work to write and localize them, but also for QA (or someone) to review all of them. When you ship a game, and it's rushed at all, it means that the features don't get completed until very late. By that time there just isn't time to write them well. i.e. The publisher would have to approve delaying the release in order to have a better Civilopedia. They aren't likely to do that.

You see this in other games where the manual or the help text has wrong info in it on launch. In the day we live in now where games are almost never considered complete on release anymore, rather now after a few patches, it would not surprise me if Firaxis decided that they would rather be missing info than to have so much wrong info.

I'm not saying I like this practice, just that it's pretty common now and Firaxis aren't the only ones.

 

[I was NC]

The publisher would have to approve delaying the release in order to have a better Civilopedia. They aren't likely to do that.

That all makes sense, thank you. So it is a systemic issue, but my thought for how to address it won't work. Oh well.

 

[stealth_nsk]

5. Manuals and help text have a bit of a flaw: they can't be finalized until the feature is completed, or they will be inaccurate. This not only includes the work to write and localize them, but also for QA (or someone) to review all of them. When you ship a game, and it's rushed at all, it means that the features don't get completed until very late. By that time there just isn't time to write them well. i.e. The publisher would have to approve delaying the release in order to have a better Civilopedia. They aren't likely to do that.

You see this in other games where the manual or the help text has wrong info in it on launch. In the day we live in now where games are almost never considered complete on release anymore, rather now after a few patches, it would not surprise me if Firaxis decided that they would rather be missing info than to have so much wrong info.

I'm not saying I like this practice, just that it's pretty common now and Firaxis aren't the only ones.

In other areas of software development it's generally the same. I'm actually worked a lot in setting up those processes right and there are some way to make documentation actual (the practices are called "DocOps"), but even in more traditional industries like fintech, that's really rare.

 

[Verrucosus]

The civilopedias prior to Civilization VI were not pitiful at all. Those of the first three games did not have a comprehensive "game concept" section, but they had excellent manuals, especially the first one by Bruce Shelley. The game concept entries in the last three games were more or less copied from the manual. Civilization IV and V had decent manuals, Civilization VI did not.

Firaxis decided that they would rather be missing info than to have so much wrong info.

My imagination is having a cynical moment:

"We at Firaxis have thought long and hard about how to make our games more accessible. Extensive documentation might make our game look as complex as it has become in its seventh incarnation. Also, the constant changes we plan to make based on our highly sophisticated interpretation of the telemetry we will collect from you means that any information might well be outdated by the time you read it. Rather than take the slightest chance of giving you out-of-date information, our civilopedia will not include any information that might need to be changed. Also, there will be no manual. Most of you don't read it anyway (see already: Civilization II manual, p. 4). Instead, our dedicated team has come up with a brilliant and intuitive next-generation user interface that will make any additional documentation redundant if not confusing. Our telemetry already shows that players who don't know how the game is supposed to work have a better experience because they will not easily recognise the bugs. Don't overthink it. Just build something you believe in!"

 

[Big J Money]

Please be careful how you quote people. I actually said "It would not surprise me if Firaxis decided[...]" which is quite different from the declarative "Firaxis decided[...]". I don't claim to know the exact reason Firaxis makes any development decision.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

All that said, the Civilopedia still needs work. I'm not trying to say it shouldn't be done. I haven't spent a lot of time with it yet so I don't know if the issue is signposting, or a lack of actual contextual info.

've never heard of a company that actualy makes the maintenance of design docs a priority. Shipping the game is priority. What I've seen is that they're written up to the point that they get the original idea across and someone can begin work on the feature. And once the work is in earnest, the docs are forgotten about

Yeah like when you decide a Settler should be able to defend itself a bit (great choice) but forget to tell the team writing the civilopedia .....