New Civ V Expansion Announced: Call Everyone Else Heretics and Fill Their Cities With Spies

[GarfunkeL]

No game of suitable depth is without micromanagement but Civ4 handles it pretty well. As to workers, thanks to different automation functions (like automatically create trade network or long stretches of road), it's quicker than in earlier iterations. Fiddling with specialists doesn't take much time either as it's not something you need to do every turn for every city or even every 10 turns.

 

[attackfighter]

If you have 10-15 cities which is common in the late game the micro management piles up quite a bit

 

[coldcrow]

Point me to a 4X of meaningful depth without alot of micro in the late game. The only one I know is MoO3.

 

[ran88dom99]

I still want Civ-Evo 2. And Civ 4 is micro monster and all it's mods inherit the horrible grind. Unless MP is much more exciting?

 

[sser]

I found micro in Civ4 to be very manageable. The only times things spiked up was if I was handling multiple wars or doing over-seas conflicts.

 

[Harpsichord]

I'm still pissed that there is no traditional turn based multiplayer option.

 

[Lyesmith]

What everybody in this topic wants to say:

Nobody cares about Civ V, where's Alpha Centauri 2, you faggots?

I don't care about civ V anymore, but no. Just no.

YOu don't like SMAC?

It's one of my favorite strategy games.
But pretty much what attackfighter said.

Plus, I don't get all this rage for sequels. If someone want to make 4x in vein of SMAC, new IP should be perfectly manageable.

And by "someone" I of course mean Brian Reynolds.

 

[attackfighter]

What everybody in this topic wants to say:

Nobody cares about Civ V, where's Alpha Centauri 2, you faggots?

I don't care about civ V anymore, but no. Just no.

YOu don't like SMAC?

It's one of my favorite strategy games.
But pretty much what attackfighter said.

Plus, I don't get all this rage for sequels. If someone want to make 4x in vein of SMAC, new IP should be perfectly manageable.

And by "someone" I of course mean Brian Reynolds.

I get your point, Firaxis has been shitty after CivIV. Even the art style would go wrong in a SMAC2.

Thing is, a sequel would be good because SMAC is pretty well know today, it would sell well to almost any 4X fan. There would be more stimulus for them to make a new SMAC and for people to buy it than for a sequel. Also, science has advanced since 1998, and new paradigms may mean more hard-science aplications for a new SMAC techs. I loved the way you progressed technologically in SMAC.
Then again, most of Civilization's inovations after II are essentially watered-down SMAC gameplay fitted in. The only truly new inovations were culture and religion system, methinks.
I'm not sure a sequel without Brian Reynolds would work, though.

Religion isn't much of an innovation. At city level it's just a happiness/culture bonus that lets you build certain buildings and at state level it's an arbitrary effect on AI diplomacy. Both of those effects existed before, all religion does is tie them together into a single new feature, and it doesn't really push the series forwards in any sense. In fact it pushes the series backwards by gimping the AI since it now makes decisions even more arbitrarily than before and has another angle for the player to abuse. The only true "innovation" is that it's spread by prophets/random, which as far as I know hadn't been done before by Firaxis.

As for culture - of course it's an innovation. But the thing is I don't like it. Can't really explain why beyond that it's a personal preference.

One innovation you left out is Civ 4 great people. They're the best innovation in my opinion, since they add to the game by making specialists more useful and deep, without detracting from anything. Still it's not a huge innovation or anything and I don't feel like I'm missing them when I play AC.

In all I don't think these innovations have done much to improve the Civ series. They seem like minor features at best and shitty gimmicks at worst. They'd improve the series more if they focused on tackling the real problems - late game lag, "bigger is better" truism in regards to almost everything (land, population, etc.), horrible AI strategy and lack of realism (this is important in a game that's meant to simulate the real world on at least some level). There's of course more that I won't bother writing down. I'd rank Firaxis as being a shitty company since they've not only failed to improve on these flaws, but have actually made them worse over the past 15 or so years. In the end if Firaxis made a new AC I could only expect them to fuck it up. For the reasons I've already mentioned and more.

 

[Cassidy]

Religion isn't much of an innovation. At city level it's just a happiness/culture bonus that lets you build certain buildings and at state level it's an arbitrary effect on AI diplomacy. Both of those effects existed before, all religion does is tie them together into a single new feature, and it doesn't really push the series forwards in any sense. In fact it pushes the series backwards by gimping the AI since it now makes decisions even more arbitrarily than before and has another angle for the player to abuse. The only true "innovation" is that it's spread by prophets/random, which as far as I know hadn't been done before by Firaxis.

Firaxis implemented religion in the lamest possible way: the politically correct one because having unique units like Crusaders and Mujahideens and different pluses and minuses would offend the sensibilities of multikult. Mods like Fall From Heaven 2 demonstrated accurately the lost opportunities in it.

As for culture - of course it's an innovation. But the thing is I don't like it. Can't really explain why beyond that it's a personal preference.

One innovation you left out is Civ 4 great people. They're the best innovation in my opinion, since they add to the game by making specialists more useful and deep, without detracting from anything. Still it's not a huge innovation or anything and I don't feel like I'm missing them when I play AC.

In all I don't think these innovations have done much to improve the Civ series. They seem like minor features at best and shitty gimmicks at worst. They'd improve the series more if they focused on tackling the real problems - late game lag, "bigger is better" truism in regards to almost everything (land, population, etc.), horrible AI strategy and lack of realism (this is important in a game that's meant to simulate the real world on at least some level). There's of course more that I won't bother writing down. I'd rank Firaxis as being a shitty company since they've not only failed to improve on these flaws, but have actually made them worse over the past 15 or so years. In the end if Firaxis made a new AC I could only expect them to fuck it up. For the reasons I've already mentioned and more.

That is pretty much how it has been. Even as a 4x, adding a few more Grand Strategy-esquefeatures like having maximum command limit and replacing stacks with units attacking as a whole coupled with such max limits that require you to appoint appropriate leaders from a limited for each army, navy or air force you build could greatly enhance combat. Designing a deterministic combat system would also be incredible and mostly welcome and of course AI improvement is something that needs no mention... instead they fucked up everything with the stupid 1 unite per tile and pulled other retarded things like roads costing maintenance. But the real improvements are not really important things to bother investing time and money into when your priority is to make a 4x game casual and console friendly, no matter how idiotic it sounds.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Civ VI was released as a multiplatform Facebook game + consoles.

 

[Average Manatee]

hahaohwow.jpg.

People still play Civ 5? How did an expansion to a game that every civ fansite declared dead almost instantly upon release get an expansion funded?

The AI is sophisticated (and nasty) enough to plan a betrayal 15 turns in advance. And you can use your spies to find this out.

And that's why playing with people is way more fun. Also, how will that work in multiplayer? Pops a quiz on the enemy screen, asking him when he is gonna betray me?

The answer will always be yes but without the time notification.

I'm more concerned about the "ai able to plan" comment because in Civ 5 the AI is unable to plan even 1 turn in advance. It was ridiculously fatally broken to the point where it would declare way on you for tresspassing in its territory merely because its units went into YOURS.

 

[UF6]

Everyone keeps wanting a SMAC remake, which would be nice, but I wouldn't mind a MoO remake either. MoO 1, not the crap that was MoO 2 or 3.

http://www.firaxis.com/company/faq.php#3

They don't have the rights to the game. EA does...

Question :
I really loved Alpha Centauri! Are you planning to make Alpha Centauri 2?

Answer:
We’re all big fans of Alpha Centauri as well. However, the rights to that game are owned by Electronic Arts (we were making games for them at the time) so any decision to make a sequel is up to them.

 

[UF6]

hahaohwow.jpg.

People still play Civ 5? How did an expansion to a game that every civ fansite declared dead almost instantly upon release get an expansion funded?

The AI is sophisticated (and nasty) enough to plan a betrayal 15 turns in advance. And you can use your spies to find this out.

And that's why playing with people is way more fun. Also, how will that work in multilayer? Pops a quiz on the enemy screen, asking him when he is gonna betray me?

The answer will always be yes but without the time notification.

Have you seen the sales on Steam for that game? The people who play that game aren't the same people who play Civilization I-IV. I seen people who I know who never would dare touch the series think Civilization V is fun, since its dumbed down to the point they should have a push here to win button on the side.

 

[Average Manatee]

Have you seen the sales on Steam for that game? The people who play that game aren't the same people who play Civilization I-IV. I seen people who I know who never would dare touch the series think Civilization V is fun, since its dumbed down to the point they should have a push here to win button on the side.

Nope, I've only seen the torrent comments

Seriously though everyone I know who has played it agreed it was horrible, even those who had never played other Civs and/or love stupid crap.

 

[Lyesmith]

Thing is, a sequel would be good because SMAC is pretty well know today, it would sell well to almost any 4X fan. There would be more stimulus for them to make a new SMAC and for people to buy it than for a sequel.

When I first heard about this whole crowd-funding outburst, I've got hopeless thought of Brian Reynolds also jumping on bandwagon.
This way brand recognition wouldn't be such a problem.
Any 4x from him would be much expected.

 

[sser]

Ugh. Seeing where Brian Reynolds and company all ended up really hurt my gaming heart.

 

[Kylearan]

This is quite old now, but for anyone here who hasn't seen Sulla's analyses and critiques of CIV IV & V need to go here and read:

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/

The Civ V stuff is filed under "miscellaneous". Kinda gives some foreshadowing as to what he thought of the game :D

He was one of the devs for CIV IV, so he knows what he's talking about. Very insightful and informative articles. Too bad I bought CIV V before I read them

 

[attackfighter]

I don't like how he mixes critique in while reciting the events of a game and offering strategy tips all at the same time. His articles are too long and varied because of that. I'm interested in the critique he has to offer, but there's no way I'm going to read through so much filler to get at it.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't like how he mixes critique in while reciting the events of a game and offering strategy tips all at the same time. His articles are too long and varied because of that. I'm interested in the critique he has to offer, but there's no way I'm going to read through so much filler to get at it.

It's a good way of demonstrating the problems encountered with the game in a logical fashion, and done in the same way that a person familiar with Civ IV would experience them. The strategy "tips" are to show how shallow the game is. Concrete examples of shallow strategy are a lot more persuasive than potentially misleading generalizations.

 

[chernobog]

Promotions added micromanagement to a series that was already overloaded with micromanagement.

My main issue with promotions was that they added almost nothing to the game. They were simply way too weak to matter usually and also a no brainer choice so no real way to specialize...

The bonuses are negligible but if nothing else when you promote a unit, they are restored to full strength. Mutant regenerative healing takes many turns to restore them otherwise.

 

[Metro]

Late to the party on this one but what a fucking joke. So they nickel and dime people with $5 DLC ranging from civilizations to maps to scenarios... sell a 'Game of the Year' edition and then announce a fucking expansion? What a naive dumbfuck I was thinking that, at the very least, the DLC would take the place of expansions that, in the past, delivered the same thing the DLC was delivering. But, hey, why do one or the other when you can do BOTH! And the icing on the cake is the shit they're charging you for -- religion and espionage -- used to be in the base game in prior iterations but now apparently it's worth another $20-$30. Don't get me wrong, I was never crazy enough to buy this crap. I entertained it when it eventually sank to $5 or so but friends repeatedly told me the series died with the fourth game so I heeded their warnings.

Truly one of the most shameless cashgrabs I've seen in gaming history.

 

[Malakal]

You know what is even worse? This piece of shit game has dedicated fans that think that the AI is somehow competent and they even whine on civfanatic forums when they lose.

Hate it when casual gamers ruin my fun by killing my loved series.

 

[Emily]

You must be kidding right? There is no way that you could lose in Civ5, just no way at all. AI just dosent even know how to atack you, let alone think something more advanced.

 

[Malakal]

You must be kidding right? There is no way that you could lose in Civ5, just no way at all. AI just dosent even know how to atack you, let alone think something more advanced.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=456690

There. A guy, a noob, is being outproduced and out teched at prince. EVEN if it is his first civ game and EVEN if he has not played any civ games before how is that possible? What, hes not building cities? Seriously, people are that stupid.

 

[Emily]

You must be kidding right? There is no way that you could lose in Civ5, just no way at all. AI just dosent even know how to atack you, let alone think something more advanced.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=456690

There. A guy, a noob, is being outproduced and out teched at prince. EVEN if it is his first civ game and EVEN if he has not played any civ games before how is that possible? What, hes not building cities? Seriously, people are that stupid.

hahahaha
just look at this quote

I'm being out-produced and severely out-teched, and it's like learning a whole new game. I'm even having trouble surviving the first few turns, when -in my latest game- the nearest civ declares war and comes over with 7 Hoplites and several archers. And it was only due to his ineptitude that I survived.

what does ineptitude means?
ineptitude - having no qualities that would render it valuable or useful

 

[attackfighter]

Eh, I don't see how you could possibly lose a civ style game at such low difficulty. I'm pretty sure you could just turn on the AI governor for all of your cities and stuff and win like that. Heck I was playing Alpha Centauri competently (relative to the AI) when I was 10, and it was the first proper turn based strategy I had ever played. Judging by the guys post he's 16+...