Civ V game discussion

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,

They aren't doing that - you're jumping to conclusions without watching the linked footage or reading any of the recent interviews, it would seem.

I've been following Civ V closely enough, although I will admit after the annoucement of a Steam exclusive I stopped chasing down every piece of information available. From what we have available, they're stream-lining the experience to make the game more accessible. Part of this is masking information that the player has to make the systems less 'thinking' intensive.
Frankly, some of this sounds well and good. Civilization IV was, and is, the best Civilization because it removed a lot of the obstusiveness of Civilization III. It made the game easier to play rather than making the game easier by simply streamlining everything. Many people who previously were turned off by the complexity of Civ-style titles loved Civilization IV because of this, and even I prefered the Civilization IV way of things. It was simply a better package, although frankly anything with Leonard Nimmoy voice over is better than something without it.

Now, I may be jumping to conclusions here, sure. I'll freely admit that everything about Civilization V sounds, and looks, utterly fantastic! However, so far everything about the game is also raising those Red Flags my PC-centric-gamer-brain has been forced into evolving to see a mile away to prevent myself from buying watered-down console-style trash that is flooding the PC platform.
Accessability is the death-cry of nearly every single major PC series. Accessability means, as has already been mentioned, at worst a multi-platform release, which means that the game is dumbed down or changed (see C&C3, Supreme Commander 2, etc.) to ensure larger volumes of sales, or at best it simply means the game is dumbed down for the PC and results in a watered-down version of the previous installments. Being as Civilization IV streamlined basically every single aspect of the game, there's very little left that can be properly streamlined without reduction and thus I highly doubt they mean that they're improving on the near-perfect Civilization IV, meaning by extension that a more 'accessible' Civiliztion V will most likely mean a dumber Civilization experience over-all. Playing into that is the changes to the Diplomacy screen by masking the available information. This removes intelligent decision making. By extension, I predict we'll see a simpler version of the Civilization we know and love.
Believe me, I hope I'm wrong.

Quoting ZehDon,

reply 26

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,
reply 24
They aren't doing that - you're jumping to conclusions without watching the linked footage or reading any of the recent interviews, it would seem.

Believe me, I hope I'm wrong.

I'd urge you to follow the OP link, watch the video (if you haven't already) and read the interview there and at IGN (linked above us) - I think you're letting your fear of buzzwords (like "accessible") lead you down a path of assumptions. Believe me, I'm a VERY PC oriented gamer, since 1993 in fact and proud of it, but from what I'm reading from E3 today, and the video footage, I don't see anything as being "dumbed down". I do see a lot of streamlining (and if you think Civ IV couldn't benefit from some streamlining, you're much better/smarter at it than I am - I STILL can't figure out how to make any freaking money in that game!) but everything i've seen speaks to me on a personal level (from how combat looks now to how they broke science and economy into two seperate things) and I'm pretty stoked.

Also, as to your comments about accessible UI - in the interview he mentions specifically that there are options to turn on an advanced, more complex UI for the existing advanced players who want more information at their finter tips. Again, I'd urge you to read up a little, I think you'll be as impressed as I was (and I wasn't looking at Civ 5 to close up until about 4 hours ago, actually).

I was referring to non-civ games. I mean I am sure a lot of people who have watched favorite old series go down becuase of changes intending to grab new players but which wind up making current fans angry and of no interest to fans that were never interested in the series before. This is not always the case, of course, but it happens.

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,

reply 27

I'd urge you to follow the OP link, watch the video (if you haven't already) and read the interview there and at IGN (linked above us) - I think you're letting your fear of buzzwords (like "accessible") lead you down a path of assumptions...

Maybe, maybe not. Too early to tell yet.

What concerns me isn't just the accessibility thing -- from the article Bill linked:

"Jon Shafer: A major goal with Civ V is that it's accessible to more people than the previous Civ games. The best way to address that without chopping a lot of features out is to improve the interface and provide players with new tools for learning the game."

He mentions not chopping a lot of features -- how many are chopped and how will that affect the game? They do remove some features (religion for example) and do add some features so it's hard to say what the final balance will be.

But that same article has another potential red flag a couple of paragraphs later:

"Something else we've added to try and appeal to more casual players is the new advisor system."

'Casual players'. Hmmmm.... I never considered Civ as a game for 'casual players'.

If they can accomplish this by UI and other tweaks that's great. If they also drop some (but not 'a lot of' features -- whatever they mean by that), maybe not-so-great.

Combine 'accessible to more people' + 'appeal to more casual players' + the trend that new versions of old games are simplified + as publishers get more involved they make decisions more to increase profits by increasing 'accessibility and casualness' than to preserve what made the game great in the first place (and making steam mandatory shows this is happening at least to some extent), and some concern is not unwarranted.

Quoting Nick-Danger,

reply 29

What concerns me isn't just the accessibility thing -- from the article Bill linked:

"Jon Shafer: A major goal with Civ V is that it's accessible to more people than the previous Civ games. The best way to address that without chopping a lot of features out is to improve the interface and provide players with new tools for learning the game."

He mentions not chopping a lot of features -- how many are chopped and how will that affect the game? They do remove some features (religion for example) and do add some features so it's hard to say what the final balance will be.

But that same article has another potential red flag a couple of paragraphs later:

"Something else we've added to try and appeal to more casual players is the new advisor system."

'Casual players'. Hmmmm.... I never considered Civ as a game for 'casual players'.

If they can accomplish this by UI and other tweaks that's great. If they also drop some (but not 'a lot of' features -- whatever they mean by that), maybe not-so-great.

Combine 'accessible to more people' + 'appeal to more casual players' + the trend that new versions of old games are simplified + as publishers get more involved they make decisions more to increase profits by increasing 'accessibility and casualness' than to preserve what made the game great in the first place (and making steam mandatory shows this is happening at least to some extent), and some concern is not unwarranted.

My thoughts exactly. Some potential red flags, but too early to tell.

I suppose, and the proof will be in the pudding, but I still say you're irrational fear of buzzwords like "accessbile to more people" and "casual players" is a little silly. Really, just because they have built-in tutorials (advisors) that can be turned off for the more advanced players that don't require that sort of hand holding? That's a red flag?

What about the new generation of strategy gamers, who weren't eased into the more modern concepts like you or I? My son is 9 years old and he loves Civ IV but it took a long time for him to get to a point where he could play it without driving me crazy with his questions and needing help. I'd have KILLED for an in-game advisor to be able to show him the ropes! I think in MANY cases (like I said before) it's not wrong to be worried when designers and PR types are throwing those phrases around, but I think (at least in this case) it's actually the meaning of the word, not slang for "console players allowed". When did being accessible make a game bad? I would certainly hope Elemental would be accessible! I don't want to spend 30 minutes trying to find out some piece of information because the desingers thought a more complex UI was going to appeal to a hard core market!

But like I said, proof is in the pudding and all that, it's possible I'm way off and you're right, and this will be a sad shadow of it's former self. If that's the case, we'll still have Civ IV, right? But I really think that even if Civ V is lacking in depth (again, I doubt it), it still looks FUN, and at the end of the day, what's more important? Tons of intense depth, or FUN? I'd rather have fun than a baffled look on my face as my cities crumble under the crushing burden of an economy I couldn't figure out.

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,

reply 31

...but I still say you're irrational fear of buzzwords...

Hyperbole more please kthx...

And it was a nice discussion til your below-the-belt comment.

Further consideration of your comments is forfeited, thx for playing.

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,

reply 31

I suppose, and the proof will be in the pudding, but I still say you're irrational fear of buzzwords like "accessbile to more people" and "casual players" is a little silly. Really, just because they have built-in tutorials (advisors) that can be turned off for the more advanced players that don't require that sort of hand holding? That's a red flag?

Your use of the word irrational is out of place. It's not irrational to be worried that a series might take a turn for the worse. Do you know how I know it is not irrational... because I have seen it before. Experience is not irrational. It is premature to know for sure, but it is certainly NOT irrational to be concerned about it.

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,

reply 31

I suppose, and the proof will be in the pudding, but I still say you're irrational fear of buzzwords like "accessbile to more people" and "casual players" is a little silly. Really, just because they have built-in tutorials (advisors) that can be turned off for the more advanced players that don't require that sort of hand holding? That's a red flag?

What about the new generation of strategy gamers, who weren't eased into the more modern concepts like you or I? My son is 9 years old and he loves Civ IV but it took a long time for him to get to a point where he could play it without driving me crazy with his questions and needing help. I'd have KILLED for an in-game advisor to be able to show him the ropes! I think in MANY cases (like I said before) it's not wrong to be worried when designers and PR types are throwing those phrases around, but I think (at least in this case) it's actually the meaning of the word, not slang for "console players allowed". When did being accessible make a game bad? I would certainly hope Elemental would be accessible! I don't want to spend 30 minutes trying to find out some piece of information because the desingers thought a more complex UI was going to appeal to a hard core market!

But like I said, proof is in the pudding and all that, it's possible I'm way off and you're right, and this will be a sad shadow of it's former self. If that's the case, we'll still have Civ IV, right? But I really think that even if Civ V is lacking in depth (again, I doubt it), it still looks FUN, and at the end of the day, what's more important? Tons of intense depth, or FUN? I'd rather have fun than a baffled look on my face as my cities crumble under the crushing burden of an economy I couldn't figure out.

I'm younger than you think. I am the new generation of strategy gamers. And you know what? I like my games complex. So complex that it would take a lifetime to learn it fully. Call me insane, but it's the truth. Civ IV is a simple game, IMO. I like learning things the hard way. I started out Dwarf Fortress with no tileset, and used only the wiki to figure it out. And it was FUN.

I think Dwarf Fortress proves that "tons of intense depth" = Fun. IMO it's extremely Fun to lose a fort to magma when you didn't understand pumps fully. I have not found a single game except Dwarf Fortress that wasn't easy to figure out on my own.

And we've lost so many games to "accessibility" that we have a right to be wary. Show me one game that touted accessibility that wasn't "dumbed down."

I am different than most people.

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,

reply 31

I suppose, and the proof will be in the pudding, but I still say you're irrational fear of buzzwords like "accessbile to more people" and "casual players" is a little silly. Really, just because they have built-in tutorials (advisors) that can be turned off for the more advanced players that don't require that sort of hand holding? That's a red flag?...

The advisors themselves aren't a Red Flag, and neither are the inclusion of tutorials. These are helpful additions to the game for people who can't get their Civilizations to make money, for example. Please don't try to infer that we've said something we haven't, as helping more people to enjoy a great game is a good thing.
However, when these helpful additions ride in on the back of 'buzzwords', as you put it, like 'Accessible' and 'Casual Players' my brain automatically re-charts the times I've heard these buzzwords used in combination to other words like 'helpful', and reveals that the odds that these two additions are the only changes that ride in with those buzzwords are zero. Often, these helpful additions are coupled with the culling of game features, the removal of depth and a general shift towards making the game simple to such a degree as to detract from the overall experience. Two occurances stand out above all the others: Deus Ex: Invisible War and SPORE. Do I need to detail what's wrong with those games, and what they share in common with Civilization V?

Quoting Nesrie,

reply 33

Your use of the word irrational is out of place. It's not irrational to be worried that a series might take a turn for the worse. Do you know how I know it is not irrational... because I have seen it before. Experience is not irrational. It is premature to know for sure, but it is certainly NOT irrational to be concerned about it.

You say irrational a lot. But you are correct.

I see a lot of people jump to conclusions when the idea of "dumbing down" comes up but often it is well grounded. Civ5 wants more sales, MOAR MONAY! They want some of that 'casual gamer' crowd it seems? I don't mind converting those people to real games but Id rather they not go too far.

I would like to remind everyone that often a BETTER game results from 'simplifying' management, information delivery and sometimes features.

Like Fallout Vegas, they are chopping some of the sillyness with guns/big guns etc. Horrifing for some vet attached to the old wireless but modern design charges on forward.

I really wish ArmaII would update some of thier ancient design architecture personally (chamber/magazine simulation, fast radial interface for new players etc, basic 'armour' system).

Summary: Simpler is not always bad.

I've already seen Champions and Surprememe Commander 2 go down the toilet because they made them more "accesable". If they are making Civ V so it works on a console, I can tell you, there is NO possible way they can make a game like that anything but "dumbed down" so it works, the interface just won't handle all the things you need to do in a Civ game.

Of ALL the games I can think of, the Civ series is the least likely I would ever think someone would be crazy enough to make for a console. Add to that, there were only 2 games I was thinking of buying this year: Elemental and Civ 5, so I can't beleive they may be out at near the same time. It will be Elemental for me, hands down.

Quoting PurplePaladin,

reply 37

Add to that, there were only 2 games I was thinking of buying this year: Elemental and Civ 5, so I can't beleive they may be out at near the same time.

If you add King`s Bounty Crossworlds you got the same list as me for this year. Due to the issue not discussed in this thread I might still pass on CIV V. Havent quite decieded yet.

I will buy Civ5 for two reasons:

1) They made Civ4, which earns them a one buy sight unseen. For the same reason i will buy the next Ironclad (SoaSE)game (if it is something that remotely interests me).

2) Grand Strategy games a rare in this day and age and if not enough people buy them, we might lose (sp?) them completly.

Just IMHO and YMMV, of course.

Frankly, I am a little disappointed they are removing the religion aspect from the game. I actually liked the "Beyond the Sword" addition of the Apostolic Palace. I always enjoyed the race to spread my founding religion around the world.

Religion can be a fun, viable concept as long as no-one is prone to sue at the drop of a hat. Alas, people are prone to sue at the drop of a hat. If you want to see what religious variance can do for a game, go take a look at the FfH mod for CIV IV. There, religion has a tremendous effect upon your playstyle, more powerful than leader traits...

Given the constraints that a AAA publisher has to work around with regards to religion, I am not surprised that they have decided to strip it back out.

I am not worried that the removal of religion will hurt the game honestly, though it would've been nice to have some underlying structure to build upon for Mods of said religions...

If by making the game more accessible they look at the BUG mod for Civ 4 I'm all for it. Civ 4 Vanilla lacks so much easily annoying info that you have and is poorer for it.

*Edit* Now I read this a day later its not that understandable. The discussion has moved on so I can't be bothered fixing it for nobody to read.

About diplomacy modifiers being hidden: from what I understand, it's because different AIs will react differently to the same events : one of your neighbours might be waiting to backstab you and feign good relations while another might be naive and thinking you can do no evil (when in this cas *you* are the bacstrabbing bastard)

By hiding the modifiers, it prevent you to know a treason is coming (or to think that it was just random), and by having AI reaction not set in stones but slightly random an experienced player won't be able to game the diplomacy too much.

I have been reading both interviews and I have to admit the game looks amazing. The change to "panzer general like" combat is a great idea in my book.

Quoting Nick-Danger,

reply 32

Quoting VeryAngryDwarf,
reply 31
...but I still say you're irrational fear of buzzwords...Hyperbole more please kthx...

And it was a nice discussion til your below-the-belt comment.

Further consideration of your comments is forfeited, thx for playing.

My apologies for the poor phrasing, I didn't mean any offense.

Quoting Sareln,

reply 41

Religion can be a fun, viable concept as long as no-one is prone to sue at the drop of a hat. Alas, people are prone to sue at the drop of a hat. If you want to see what religious variance can do for a game, go take a look at the FfH mod for CIV IV. There, religion has a tremendous effect upon your playstyle, more powerful than leader traits...

Given the constraints that a AAA publisher has to work around with regards to religion, I am not surprised that they have decided to strip it back out.

i seriously doubt the change was made along those lines.

Jon Shafer: One of our early goals was to improve the diplomatic experience in the game. In particular, we want there to be a sense of mystery to it, where the player doesn't know exactly what to expect from the other players. Additionally, we want the AI to be fairly rational when it comes to how to deal with challenges and opportunities. The leaders all have unique personalities, but they are not locked in to any particular behavior. Gandhi might have a strong preference towards peace, but that doesn't mean he will never declare war.

In Civ V a leader will not hate you simply because of a social policy you've adopted, or something along those lines. The religion system in Civ IV was a method for directly influencing the actions of the AI players that simply didn't fit within our new vision for diplomacy. The team discussed possible mechanics for a religion system in Civ V, but without the diplomatic effect it simply lacked a lot of what made it interesting in Civ IV. We have no desire to include a feature just to say we included it - the goal is to make sure everything fits and adds to the fun.

http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/109/1096888p1.html

Quoting Nick-Danger,

reply 29

"Jon Shafer: A major goal with Civ V is that it's accessible to more people than the previous Civ games. The best way to address that without chopping a lot of features out is to improve the interface and provide players with new tools for learning the game."

He mentions not chopping a lot of features -- how many are chopped and how will that affect the game? They do remove some features (religion for example) and do add some features so it's hard to say what the final balance will be.

But that same article has another potential red flag a couple of paragraphs later:

"Something else we've added to try and appeal to more casual players is the new advisor system."

'Casual players'. Hmmmm.... I never considered Civ as a game for 'casual players'.

I've been following Civ V closely enough that I've read all information (and in fact help to compile all the news reports into a single news feed at http://www.weplayciv.com). Firaxis use the old rule of 33% new, 33% stays, 33% dropped. It's been the rule of Civ since the beginning, and hasn't changed for this new version (Gamasutra ran an article on it for Civ V just last week).

The "casual players" that Jon is referring to are the new players they will gain via Civ Rev. Civ Rev relied heavily on advisors to help new players to the series, and they are porting those advisors across.

I would suggest anyone scouring the internet for information seriously take a look at the news feed at WePlayCiv (http://www.weplayciv.com) as we have every base covered. Our Civ 5 info centre is a complete compilation of all known info for Civ 5.

Quoting Nick-Danger,

reply 29

But that same article has another potential red flag a couple of paragraphs later:

"Something else we've added to try and appeal to more casual players is the new advisor system."

'Casual players'. Hmmmm.... I never considered Civ as a game for 'casual players'.

If they can accomplish this by UI and other tweaks that's great. If they also drop some (but not 'a lot of' features -- whatever they mean by that), maybe not-so-great.

Combine 'accessible to more people' + 'appeal to more casual players' + the trend that new versions of old games are simplified + as publishers get more involved they make decisions more to increase profits by increasing 'accessibility and casualness' than to preserve what made the game great in the first place (and making steam mandatory shows this is happening at least to some extent), and some concern is not unwarranted.

Define 'casual player'. If you manage to do it in a way that lines up with what anybody else says, let me know. They've been trying to do this on the WoW forum for years, without success. Nobody agrees on what a 'casual' is, or just what splits them up from the 'hardcore'.

I'd contend that Civ has always been a great 'casual' game, because of it's turn based nature. It doesn't require twitch reflexes, hours of uninterrupted game time on a tight schedule, or coordination as part of a team. You can play at your own pace, at your own difficulty level, whenever and however you want. The basic mechanics are generally pretty simple and not hard to understand except when obscured by poor UI (like the slider thing, which is easy to not notice and usually causes the "how do I actually make money?" type questions, fixed in Civ 5 by splitting income and science into seperate mechanics).

Quoting Nick-Danger,

reply 8

edited: lol Bonscott posted essentially the same thing using the same terms while I was posting this.

LOL.

Many of the arguments in the thread in the end won't matter to me since I won't be buying the game anyway due to the issue that shall not be talked about in this thread.

But to the "consolisation" of the game. We can see this in many games, even if a console version won't be made. It's still a dumbing down no matter what you call it.

One great example was Elders Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Oblivion was made mainly for the console with a PC port. And the UI really suffered because of it. BUT we got really lucky in that the modders came to the rescue and modded in a better UI for PC players. Heck, I still use the BTMod UI change in that game.

The question will come if the same thing happens to Civ 5, how much can the modders change in the UI to remove the consolisation of it and get a proper PC centric UI in. And a lot of that depends on what is allowed with the mod system going thru Steamworks (sorry to say the word, but had to).

All in all we'll see.

The updated graphics of Civ 5 look great. But I'll be honest I am still not impressed with much else I've seen in terms of gameplay changes. And this coming from someone that has loved all previous 4 Civ games.

I'm liking what I'm seeing.

My main issue remains the use of Steamworks but that's a seperate issue.

Seeing the cut scenes and such make me feel better about having Elemental take a very different direction as we could never have competed with that level of production value. Those cut scenes of theirs are amazing and the sheer polish of the game is just breathtaking. Far beyond what we are capable of doing on Elemental. Luckily, Elemental has evolved to being sufficiently different enough that they won't feel similar.

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