Worrying review: Tom Chick says AI and Diplomacy are dumb. Has "Serious Problems"

[Nicopol]

I'm sorry, but you're again piling up vague accusations and personal attacks instead of saying on which grounds you actually disagree with him. You're not laying out an alternative opinion in any way, you just throw claims and accusations around ("ulterior motives"?).

You're saying that Chick's review is both (a) unnecessarily focusing on bad parts, and (b ) is factually wrong. Let's have a look. Chick's criticism is based on three parts:

- weak AI
- inefficient interface
- shoddy diplomacy

Now, look at Civ5 and ask yourself: Is the AI strong? Is the interface efficient? Is the diplomacy working well? It isn't. So, is Chick factually wrong when he criticizes these things in Civ5?

Regarding the claimed "unnecessary focus on bad parts", I'd like to ask: Since when have interface, diplomacy, and especially AI, not been core elements of a 4x game? What are you trying to say here?

You're also saying that Chick is habitually(!) "dissing popular franchises". You don't really provide any proof or example along with that, but you claim that you read several of his reviews. Well, let's see. Chick had a list of reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. Bioshock, 5/5. C&C Tiberium Wars, 4/5. Prey, 4/5. Caesar IV, 4/5. And so on. Where exactly is that "trend" that you take as a basis of accusing him of "ulterior motives"?

What you can see is that he gave HoMM5 a 3/5, and criticized that the interface hides a lot of information from you. Does that remind you of something? I mean, one could say that he highly values an interface that gives him a lot of information about the game (which is okay, as every critic will, and should, have his focus points). This means that his reviews are probably quite valuable for players with similar wants, and less valuable for players who don't care about these issues. But that's not the conclusion you arrive at. You arrive at slander and even accuse him of consciously writing dishonest reviews to "score points", and you don't even find it necessary to provide any evidence at all.

I'm sorry, but so far you're doing exactly what i said further above: You're throwing mud at the person (and badly sourced mud too) instead of addressing his arguments. And when called on that, you just do it again. I'm reminded to a politician in pre-election times who tries to discredit his opponent by attacking him with vague and unsourced accusations, hoping that something will stick, while completely circumventing the factual issues. This is a very poor way of dealing with a review (or a person), imho.

good post again

 

[lschnarch]

Psyringe:

If you must know, then here are the things I object to in his review:

He notes a lot of things good about the game, but he does not acknowledge that these make the game good, by giving the game a "C."

So, your main gripe with him is that he doesn't score the game as good as you would have liked him to do?
That seems to be the message you're sending.

First thing he notes is that the AI is bad, and even says that previous Civ AIs have always been bad. Where he fails is that he doesn't realize just how bad Civ IV combat AI actually was. In fact, it was generally much worse than Civ V AI!

So what?
Civ4 is Civ4, Civ0.V is Civ0.V.

The AI of Civ0.V in general and in detail was advertised to have been massively improved (4-lvl-AI).

One of the MAIN new features of Civ0.V is the 1upt.
If you introduce a new feature into the series which cannot be handled by the AI and even causes humans some problems in terms of managing it, then this can be criticized.
The fact that in previous games of 5 years ago dealing with a different system there were flaws and weaknesses as well does not change the fact that in the current game there isn't any improvement in terms of overall AI behaviour.

Civ IV combat is based on SoDs, (....)

In point of fact, that kind of differential can also be seen in Civ V Deity levels. The fact that he can perceive this more in Civ V is a triumph of transparency. He could not tell how bad the AI was in Civ AI, apparently.

So, for you it is a triumph of transparency that the flaws of Civ0.V are so obvious?
On the other hand, you put a spotlight on the weaknesses of Civ4 (which, once again, is some completely different game). Wouldn't that mean that Civ4 was "completely transparent" as well?

Second thing he notes is that Policies are bad because they do not change (or if not, then he cites no reason other than baldly stating that Religion and Civics are better). It's badly criticized, and I'm not entirely sure he really knows what's what in terms of the Policies.

Which in turn means you are not entirely sure that he doesn't not know what is going on.
Once again, you're making general statements but with a negative connotation. You don't put the finger on the "problem" (which YOU seem to see, yet others don't).

The Civs have different animations and opening statements depending on how much they like you, and they'll even point out aspects of your Civ they respect or fear. Secret Pacts are just that - secret pacts. There is nothing non-obvious about it. If you deal with the guy you just agreed not to deal with, the other Civ you formed a Secret Pact with will get annoyed with you. This is not rocket science. It's perfectly obvious.

Not being able to see modifiers for AI behavior is a plus for me, not a minus. He cites this as being an obvious lack, and states it like this is how it is for everyone.

The point is that the reason behind the AI's behaviour becomes not clear to the human player.
Even less taking into account that the human player seems to get "penalties" (you are massing troops at my borders!) for the opponent's units being somewhere where the human player's troops are located. In many cases this location is not remotely close to anything like "at my borders".

He goes on about the interface as well. The numbers on the top of the screen are actually useful to me. I'm not sure why he finds them useless and "messy," because he doesn't say.

One example: You don't get an information about which luxuries you are getting from which ally or by trading. Neither you get any information about how many to retrieve from "foreign" sources.
You CAN collect these numbers manually, by browsing your deal history and checking with all the city states, yes. Yet, you don't have any means at hand to retrieve this information by a button, by a menu item or in any other way "just at hand".

This is clearly an UI weakness.
There isn't any "fun" in having to do the collection of data by hand nor does it improve gameplay.

Furthermore, you don't have the chance to see any data when being in diplomatic negotiations. Literally, to be prepared for such negotiations you would have to manually keep track of all data externally.

He notes that you can't queue up orders for units, which hurts pacing in the endgame. I'm again not sure how this can be, since Civ V doesn't feature that many units to begin with. Does he have thousands of Riflemen that need units? He wails about 15-second bomber runs. Exactly how many Bombers is he fielding anyway? I mean, we were fielding gobs and gobs of Bombers in Civ IV.

It just doesn't matter if he is managing 10 or 20 units. If it pleases him to have 20 units in the field, and being able to afford this from a financial point of view, then that's it.

Things like this are player's choices, may they be good or bad.
The game should not try to punish the player for such things, nor should it try to "force" the player to follow a pre-defined path of playing. That would be very one-dimensional.
It may be appealing to some, to others it clearly is not.

The review is so bad, I'm highly inclined to call it a malicious misrepresentation of the game, if I didn't think that he was honestly that clueless.

I would not recommend this review to anyone who wished to find out what the game was about. Too many inaccuracies and purely interpretative statements.

The malicious misrepresentation I find by somebody else, to be honest.

From having read quite some of your remarks in the past I have got the impression that you're playing on midfield difficulty settings and smaller maps.
Which is ok, since that seems to be your preferred playstyle. Nothing to argue about that.

Yet, the picture may be completely different when playing on higher difficulty settings, with huge maps and finally taking into account that there may have been a pause of some days in your playing (after all, for some there is something like real life).

Finding back into such a game after some days is not very much supported by the game since essential information are not easily available.
Once again, this accounts to "UI weaknesses".

 

[Roxlimn]

lschnarch:

So, your main gripe with him is that he doesn't score the game as good as you would have liked him to do?
That seems to be the message you're sending.

No. My main gripe is that his review is wrong in places, and highlights the bad while largely ignoring the good. Didn't I say that already?

So what?
Civ4 is Civ4, Civ0.V is Civ0.V.

The AI of Civ0.V in general and in detail was advertised to have been massively improved (4-lvl-AI).

One of the MAIN new features of Civ0.V is the 1upt.
If you introduce a new feature into the series which cannot be handled by the AI and even causes humans some problems in terms of managing it, then this can be criticized.
The fact that in previous games of 5 years ago dealing with a different system there were flaws and weaknesses as well does not change the fact that in the current game there isn't any improvement in terms of overall AI behaviour.

That's not true. There is improvement in AI behavior. In Civ IV, the AI will always, without fail, suicide its stack against you in ways that a human would never do unless he had no clue what he was doing. You plant your SoD in a nice, obvious, city with a killing field in front of it and the AI will always go there to get slaughtered.

Now, the AI only mostly suicides its units against you. It's not a huge improvement, but it is an improvement.

So, for you it is a triumph of transparency that the flaws of Civ0.V are so obvious?
On the other hand, you put a spotlight on the weaknesses of Civ4 (which, once again, is some completely different game). Wouldn't that mean that Civ4 was "completely transparent" as well?

Not sure what your point is. I like Civ IV.

Which in turn means you are not entirely sure that he doesn't not know what is going on.
Once again, you're making general statements but with a negative connotation. You don't put the finger on the "problem" (which YOU seem to see, yet others don't).

I was trying to be nice. Based on his words in the review, he doesn't really know what half the Policies in the Policy tree actually do for him.

The point is that the reason behind the AI's behaviour becomes not clear to the human player.
Even less taking into account that the human player seems to get "penalties" (you are massing troops at my borders!) for the opponent's units being somewhere where the human player's troops are located. In many cases this location is not remotely close to anything like "at my borders".

Well, you seem to have divined the trigger behind "massing near my borders" behavior. That wasn't so hard, right?

Super transparent AI means that we're not playing a Civ against other Civs. We are playing ALL the Civs. We're just remotely controlling the other ones, kind of like very distant puppets.

One example: You don't get an information about which luxuries you are getting from which ally or by trading. Neither you get any information about how many to retrieve from "foreign" sources.
You CAN collect these numbers manually, by browsing your deal history and checking with all the city states, yes. Yet, you don't have any means at hand to retrieve this information by a button, by a menu item or in any other way "just at hand".

This is clearly an UI weakness.
There isn't any "fun" in having to do the collection of data by hand nor does it improve gameplay.

Furthermore, you don't have the chance to see any data when being in diplomatic negotiations. Literally, to be prepared for such negotiations you would have to manually keep track of all data externally.

You have just pointed out a genuine and incontrovertible UI weakness in Civ V. You are now a better reviewer than Tom Chick.

It just doesn't matter if he is managing 10 or 20 units. If it pleases him to have 20 units in the field, and being able to afford this from a financial point of view, then that's it.

Things like this are player's choices, may they be good or bad.
The game should not try to punish the player for such things, nor should it try to "force" the player to follow a pre-defined path of playing. That would be very one-dimensional.
It may be appealing to some, to others it clearly is not.

For what it's worth, your point on Civ V being one-dimensional is incorrect, and it's not really that related to unit upkeep, which was also a feature in Civ IV, and Civ III, and Civ II, and Civ.

If upkeep makes Civ V weak, it makes all the Civs weak.

From having read quite some of your remarks in the past I have got the impression that you're playing on midfield difficulty settings and smaller maps.
Which is ok, since that seems to be your preferred playstyle. Nothing to argue about that.

Yet, the picture may be completely different when playing on higher difficulty settings, with huge maps and finally taking into account that there may have been a pause of some days in your playing (after all, for some there is something like real life).

Finding back into such a game after some days is not very much supported by the game since essential information are not easily available.
Once again, this accounts to "UI weaknesses".

I'm 100% sure that Tom Chick hasn't played on either Immortal or Deity at the time he wrote this review, since he mentioned the settings he was playing at I think on Three Moves Ahead or other podcast that I listened to.

If my view of the game is limited, then his view in this review is just as limited, if not moreso, since he doesn't seem to have perceived as many things as you and I have.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Moderator Action: Threads merged. They are both about the 1UP review and Tom Chick.