Will there ever be a market for Civ IV remake?

[PPQ_Purple]

All this sounds horrible. You would literally take the core bits of what makes up civilization games (cities, complexity, long games...) and remove those in order to please *spits/ console players.
Human languages do not contain words evil enough to describe what I would say to those that did this.

 

[TheBirdMan]

I can't understand why "some" wants things should be finished before they ever did start.....

It is not that many years ago we played multiplayer-games by E-mail. The longest game I was in took about 18 months before it was over (CallToPower game, Play-By-EMail (therefore often called CtP PBEM-games)).

And in my home, fastfood takes about 1½hour to make - a good tasty meal takes longer (time)!

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I can't understand why "some" wants things should be finished before they ever did start.....

It is not that many years ago we played multiplayer-games by E-mail. The longest game I was in took about 18 months before it was over (CallToPower game, Play-By-EMail (therefore often called CtP PBEM-games)).

And in my home, fastfood takes about 1½hour to make - a good tasty meal takes longer (time)!

Amen to that brother. People these days are just too impatient to enjoy the good things in life. Which is all the more confounding when you consider that most of the people playing this game today are going to be people who were kids back when it came out and are adults now. Like, adulthood is the one part of life when you don't have homework or university projects or any other crap to steal your free time. You work 8h a day and play 16h. Well, maybe you sleep a hour or two but that's optional.

So clearly longer games and not shorter ones are the way to go.

 

[civac]

MP games lasting more than 2-4 hours tend to fall apart because someone needs to leave or loses connection. One should not dismiss this issue so casually.

PbEM and Pitboss games are a completely different type of animal.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

MP games lasting more than 2-4 hours tend to fall apart because someone needs to leave or loses connection. One should not dismiss this issue so casually.

PbEM and Pitboss games are a completely different type of animal.

Which is why multiplayer chess does not exist. Oh, wait.

When it comes to strategy games the reality is simply that the entire pacing and dynamic are different from other games in that MP isn't going to be finished in a single session.

Plus frankly multiplayer is a secondary consideration at best in strategy games. Singleplayer is and should be the primary focus.

 

[TheBirdMan]

PBEM-games are kind of singleplayer games. It's just much more challenging to play against other humans, when you know time isn't an issue and when you know your opponents doesn't quit if they get on their heels (neither should you yourself quit).

We even had a challenge-ladder for this: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-1/229972-ctp-challenge-ladder-february-2011

 

[s.bernbaum]

I agree that long games are good. I play single player mostly on Marathon and huge maps because that makes the game last longer. I'll play a few hours at most a couple of times per week, so my games last many weeks, not a paltry 2 - 4 hours. It is the immersion that counts. Too many people have no patience these days. All they want is instant gratification, which is probaly why CIV 5 and 6 have gone downhill to the way they are, from the high point of CIV 4.

 

[Slaughter]

IMO the best hope for modernized Civ 4 is creating open source engine for it.
OpenMW and its spin-offs has worked out internal workings of NetImmerse engine, so the work does not seem as daunting as it may seem.
Civ 4 makes heavy use of scripting languages, so the only thing that needs rewriting is C++ core.

What it would mean:
- Civ 4 on any platform, including mobile devices
- better multithreaded performance
- no more 32-bit memory limits
- no restrictions on what mod can and cannot change
- fixing hardcoded bugs

Of course graphics improvements would not be as impressive as with professional remake / remaster - just an upgraded renderer and some better shaders.

That, I have to agree. I think its, realistically speaking, our best chance would be an open source port.

I see fanbases like the Fallout fanbase going all "Give us remake!"* meanwhile, the classic X-COM fanbase got off its ass and made Open X-COM - and now there are even some guys making a open source port for X-COM Apocalypse (which is a totally different engine).

With a open source port, we could finally get rid of all the engine limits hampering us. I am pretty sure that with that, we could make the best Civ-like experience ever done. And then, as long as Firaxis doesn't bother us (good ol' needing original assets to play the port AKA buy the damn game first solves this), and I doubt they will, we can do whatever.

*with the exception of Lexx who has done a fantastic job with the "Fallout Et Tu" project, which is a Fallout port to the Fallout 2 version of the engine.

 

[Gumbolt]

You only have to look at Warcraft Reforged to see why some remakes don't work. With Warcraft Reforged they spent a lot of time and money trying to recreate graphics/sound that just didn't work. The owners gave unrealistic time lines for the development team. The game at release still needed another 12 months work to be close to the finished article. They should of just stuck with the original graphics and sounds. Most now play with the original graphics and sound .Blizzard's owner basically just ditched the project to focus on where they can make money. It's the community that stepped in to help edit maps and create a ladder system that worked so one on one games could be enjoyed online.

In terms of Civ 4 they may try to be clever, redo the graphics and recreate the old game. What actually could happen is they break a great game or release a new patch that ruins the game. They may even fix some bugs that stops things like galleon chains and espionage culture. Or create a patch that might break the game. It's a pretty solid game as it is.

If Civ 7 happens it will be a rehash of CiV and VI. Albeit I would prefer they came up with something different Civ 6 is now the finished article so maybe we will get some announcement at some point.

Been a long time since I have played a new game with that wow factor that keeps you playing for hours.

 

[Slaughter]

@Gumbolt

That is true. But Reforged's original plan was dope, there's a pretty good article about it. The planning was totally crap. Not to mention, outsourcing something like that is dumb as hell.

I have to agree ditching the OG graphics is a bad idea. I think something like what The Ninja Warriors Once Again is better - redo the old graphics with more detail and higher resolution.

 

[drewisfat]

With Warcraft Reforged they spent a lot of time and money trying to recreate graphics/sound that just didn't work.

??? They spent virtually no time and no money lol. Pretty sure it wasn't a mistake either. Think they just wanted to stop supporting battlenet 1.0 and if they were going to do a little work and piss people off regardless, might as well release a paper tiger and get whatever money you can for it. Even a discussion about the graphics is an intentional distraction to removing ladder, removing clans, destroying the chat capability, downgrading the servers, etc.
I wasn't surprised by reforged at all. I had played on and off and the "classic team" they had appointed to improve the game ~2 years before reforged improved nothing and just removed host bots, broke custom game maps, and increased the drop/crash rate.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Which is why multiplayer chess does not exist. Oh, wait.

When it comes to strategy games the reality is simply that the entire pacing and dynamic are different from other games in that MP isn't going to be finished in a single session.

Plus frankly multiplayer is a secondary consideration at best in strategy games. Singleplayer is and should be the primary focus.

Not much of a Dominions fan I guess, lol.

~

Civ 4 MP games could be completed in 2-4h on blazing timer, depending on number of players. A remastering of Civ 4 should keep most of the core design, but fix a few things:

• 3.19 bugged overflow gold (trying to close an "exploit") and they left it bugged forever. Lingering issues like that, "game thinks you're pressing alt when you aren't", and having the buttons to take promotions/explore etc move after selecting the unit are all obvious candidates for a fix and would have no place in a "remastered" version of the game. These should be uncontroversial fixes, and if someone thinks a remaster should keep these that person is wrong.
• It should never be the case that units with orders carrying over from previous turns move before player hits end turn for current turn. It is possible to lose workers to barbs right now because the game literally prevents you from cancelling the order, even if you try. While Civ 4 has the best UI/controls of any mainline Civ title, stuff like this is still objectively broken and should be addressed.
  
• The UI should not lie about relation averaging, or it should not choose what information to display arbitrarily.

After the above, we get more into the realm of opinion.

• Address peace vassals/game throwing
• Separate TAP from UN victories, and make TAP require you to actually run TAP religion for religious victory to be an eligible option. Rather than building TAP in Confucian, switching to Buddhist, and having all your Buddhist allies vote you winner as you run for "religious victory in a minority religion" unopposed.
• Some of the map scripts (tectonics, no water maps) are wildly out of balance compared to normal maps, and in a remaster these could use a pass so that they're more reasonable. Not all scripts should play the same, but for example global highlands is mostly fine...while tectonics can give one person space for 15 cities on green and another an okay capital...surrounded by swaths of plains with no or limited food/commerce to the extent that they can't even pay for 5 cities while still researching decently. Similarly, no-water maps aren't scaled in a way that's sane for default civ count.
• Some traits, UUs, and UBs could use a balance tweak and/or change. SEALs as UU for America is just weird for example...they are certainly elite soldiers. However lots of nations have elite soldiers, and the SEALs were formally established after the biggest wars the US has fought. Prats could be renamed. Maybe the missing trait combinations could be added.

 

[Kaiman]

At least now with Warcraft 3 Reforged I can play it online with friends without all being in the same room.

 

[Slaughter]

At least now with Warcraft 3 Reforged I can play it online with friends without all being in the same room.

You could always do that.

 

[Thormodr]

I wouldn't have a problem with cIV having updated graphics. I'd definitely buy it if it came out.

 

[AdamCrock]

I don't see why not ? IMHO Civ 4 is the best of all Civ's so why throw away our precious game instead giving it a new life ? I am all in support of the remake !

 

[civac]

Civ4 graphics while cartoony and dated has the advantage that most things are represented clearly on the world map.

 

[TheBirdMan]

Wrote it before and repeating it.

Yes!


Just..... to those who might give it a serious shot: Don't try to invent the wheel once more. Keep your focus on an update of the game-engine.

I will be more than ready to pay just as much for such a update, as I would for a completely new game.

 

[lymond]

Civ4 graphics while cartoony and dated has the advantage that most things are represented clearly on the world map.

Don't agree so much about cartoony (except the leaders), but great point on the clear visuals, which is a point I had been trying to make. IV is easy to see and play, even now, and always will be, whereas prior versions are very hard to deal with today visually. I don't think they need to change much in that regard, and I certainly don't want to lose the aesthetic of this game, but I think by virtue of an updated engine the visual quality will upgrade regardless.

My key issue is fixing the memory problems with an update of the engine.

 

[Ita Bear]

I would just love to be able to play a 18+ civ map without requiring an eternity between turns in the late game.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear