PLEASE: No Steamworks discussion here. There's already a thread for that. Let's try to keep this thread to gameplay.
Gamespot has some E3 coverage on Civ V. Some of it is still pretty thin, but I like what I'm seeing so far. Particularly now that there's a more visual look at how the one unit per hex & ranged combat systems will work (along with zone of control!), it seems like defending a border will be a lot more practical now.
Also some neat thingsa bout how the AI can react to units massing on the border, how city-states impact gameplay (such as the ability to join alliances with them, or liberate ones others conquered), and the replacement of annoying modal dialogs with notifications.
Any other thoughts?
Brad, one thing to remember is that they've got the $millions of 2K behind it. Plus, 2K is relying on Civ5 for PC dominance this Xmas. They've got consoles covered well, but Civ5 is really their only PC AAA for Xmas.
I wouldn't worry too much about them if I were you, just make the game YOU want and you'll get the rewards you deserve.
*waits for the response "how do you define difficulty...*
Civ revolutions would be an example of a game for casual players.
If you consider Civ4 casual, then what would you then call civ rev? Or do you consider them equally casual?
Civ4 (and chess) can be casual if you ignore much of the game. If you play Civ4 like the succession GOTM teams do, or good normal GOTM players, it's far from casual in any meaningful sense of the word.
War (the card game) -- casual. Bridge (the card game) can be casual if you ignore much of the game, but it's not casual.
Defining casual is only difficult if one wants it to be. This ain't rocket science...
Besides my beef with Civ5 (different thread), I totally dig the "no stack of doom" and hex tiles that are rolling out in the new Civ game.
Still it will be a long time before I pick it up, if I pick it up.
That said, nothing lasts forever. Succession is a fact of life in ecology and games. Games, game companies, and publishers all go thru succession and nothing lasts forever, pioneers move in to replace the fallen, and life goes on.
I've been following the civ news fairly closely but will check out the site you mention as I mostly follow civfanatics and the links they provide, and haven't seen your site, so...
Thanks!
As an aside, their switching to hexes is a good sign to this old grognard. I've preferred them ever since Avalon Hill started using them in '61 or so (post Tactics 2 IIRC). Kinda funny they're 'rediscovering' that old wheel...
I define casual in playtime terms. If you don't play that much your a casual. Because you don't play much you don't have the time to get into deep rulesets etc or buy that many games. Thus getting the casual gamer is about making them want the experince while convincing them that they can play at their own pace and without the need to spend half the time they DO play reading the wiki...
I don't define casuals as asstards who couldn't play a 'real game' if thier family depended upon it. I don't define casuals as people who don't play on the hard testosterone YEAHAAGH!!11!! difficulty level.
See, the problem with this definition is that you're equating 'casual' with 'bad'. The lower quarter of difficulty isn't a measure of anything except how good people are at the game.
These days I pretty well only play WoW one day a week, which sounds pretty casual (especially if you use Aractains time based definition). But that one day is a hard mode ICC raid, which is the highest tier of difficulty the game offers.
The best definition I've seen had to do with game mechanics. 'Casuals' are people who pick up and play, without more then a shallow understanding of how the game works. Once you can look at two items and quote the Spirit to mana regen formula to determine which one is better based on 70% FSR, you're not a casual anymore no matter how good you are or how often you play (and many people who can do that are in fact terrible healers despite knowing how things work).
No, I consider Civ Rev to be crap.
How much of chess do you have to ignore to play casually? The rules aren't that complicated. If you know them all, are you no longer a casual player even if you play once a year for 10 minutes against a friend?
You're bogged down the same thinking that screws up WoW players over this. Yes, if you play at a high level, you're probably not a casual. That doesn't mean the game isn't casual friendly. People getting world first hard mode clears in WoW are most definitely not casuals. That's their full time job. That doesn't change the fact that WoW is one of the most casual friendly MMOs in existence, which is the single biggest reason why it destroyed everything else on the market when it came out (and for years afterward).
That some people play Civ 4 at a high level doesn't make it a non-casual friendly game. The question is can someone who doesn't know how hidden mechanics like inflation work still play the game and have fun? Civ 4 is pretty successful in that department, but people still consider it a serious game. There's no reason why Civ 5 can't accomplish the same feat.
From the IGN interview:
Interesting...
Lumpers vs. splitters... You're splitting, I'm lumping.
Second, your statement "Yes, if you play at a high level, you're probably not a casual." -- we were discussing games being casual (you said you consider civ4 casual). This seems to be a part if not the substance of your definition of casual -- how much the player invests into the game. To me it's about the game's innate design/mechanics/difficulty -- how much the player can invest into the game. Big difference.
As such we're appling&oranging. My definition: A casual game can't be played 'more-than-casually' (as its design/mechanics/difficulty doesn't support that type of game play), where a 'more-than-casual' game can be played casually (ie - as with chess). Your definition is different. Neither of us are right or wrong, we're just different.
Viva la difference!
Back to topic, this is why I'd not call civ4 a casual game, tho it can be played casually.
At the end of the day, this is really all I care about, so cool.
Well so far I haven't seen anything that causes me concern for the quality of Civ V itself. I like a lot of the new directions they're taking with it.
I don't think they are "dumbing it down" based on what I'm reading. I think having the main map being more tactical in nature is going to add a lot of depth to the game.
As for 'dumbing it down' -- I guess it depends to me on who's saying 'accessibility' and 'casual'. If it's a game designer I tend to think of a more elegant interface, clearer choices, taking out parts that don't work and not leave them in just to pad the features list, etc.
If it's a marketing person saying 'accessibility' and 'casual' I tend to think 'dumbing down to attract a bigger audience'
Well, I think all the Civ V interviews have been to the lead designer I do think this iteration of Civ is looking very nice, lots of the choices and things they are adding or changing are pretty interesting.
No offense intended, but usually the "I can't believe they did that" moment finally reveals itself as late as the release month, or if they hide it, on release day by the first purchasers. It's unreal but some companies just bury certain info I guess hoping we might not find out or something. Firaxis certainly hasn't done this yet. I mean they removed Majesty 2 AI teams and no one really seemed to know that until after the game was purchased. PC Ghostbusters didn't have a multiplayer component and none of the gaming news sites corrected their information until after release. East India Company's multiplayer turned out to just be a battle skirmish and not the bulk of the game, also not revealed well until late in the game.
I don't think Civ V is going to do anything so drastic, but those were just three of several games I almost purchased and wound up passing on due to the information available very, very late in the game.
Civ 5 will be great due to the modding community. The PG style combat, presumably with the ability to mod in new unit abilities (like the Civ 4 ranged bombardment mod for example ), will take the warfare aspect of Civ to a new level. I HATED the stack-o-doom city ping pong. Now I can actually defend my borders at the borders in a more realistic way. Zone of control means blitzkrieg will be more fun too.
Somewhat off topic: but this is why I very rarely pre-order games (and only from companies I know make games I like, such as Stardock and Blizzard). Most games I wait a couple of weeks before buying, because by then you learn all these little details.
When in doubt, wait 2 weeks and check again. Your wallet will thank you, and the good games that don't try to deceieve you will also when your money goes to them.
*looks at his Elemental pre-order*
Ummm.... rules are made to be broken
Hey it's my general rule too, but I did pre-order Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii and haven't regretted it. I think it's fine to follow a general rule and break that once in awhile. The real point is, if you've been playing games long enough, on any system really but especially PC, there is a reason why you wind up distrusting info given out and being suspicious. I've been screwed in the past by too many companies not to be wary, and I don't think 50-60 bucks is something I am willing to just throw away and shrug at when it turns out the company was misleading our just outirght lied. Again, as far as I know, none of the Civ games have had any gotcha moments (but there were a couple in the line that were not very good games), so it's not as if I think its certain they will pull a rabbit out of a hat, but I won't rule out the possibility. I am not such a fan of Civ that I will give them 50 bucks regardless of what they do. Heck, they won't be getting that amount of money from me for a reason that cannot be spoken of in this thread as it is. If they don't fk it up, maybe 20 at some point or... there is a possibility someone might buy it for me. I have received games that way before after all.
I am actually glad Elemental is going to be different. I know I appear to be the odd man out, but I really am not that impressed with what I saw so far. Just my personal take, I am happy there are a majority of you who like what you see so far.
As for cut scenes, they are nice I guess, but I would much rather have stimulating game play than eye candy cut scenes. If not having impressive video clips allows you to devote more resources to the core game I am all for it.
They're definitely not dumbing it down.
First off, they're taking adjacent tiles into consideration in battle. That's a very cool thing.
Second, some of the "policy" options sound very interesting from a diplomacy point of view.
I also like what they're doing with cities not needing to defend themselves and players needing to "buy tiles".
I also like the way they're handling resources. It's very useful and interesting and intuitive.
What's going to make or break them in my opinion is how they handle unit movement. Stacks of doom are very annoying to be sure. But there's a reason why Panzer General never succeeded in the mainstream - moving units over large maps was very tedious. Games like Civ IV had stacks of doom because it was easy to move a lot of units, a long distance, with minimum interaction. A LOT of people don't like having to manage dozens of units. This can be balanced if they're able to really closely tie unit count to resource count (example, you could tie an infantry or archer unit to food).
My general rule on pre-orders is I pretty much never do it other then Stardock games I want to get in on the beta for. Dragon Age was the first game I pre-orderd outside Stardock and frankly I didn't really need to do that. I was just too geeked up for the next Baulder's Gate (and I've played thru it twice so far).
I also almost never buy games on release day...cost too much. I wait at least until they are on sale but most likely I wait for the Game of the Year edition which is usually cheaper then the original main game *and* includes all expansions and DLCs. I did this with Fallout 3. Civilization games have been the only big exception, I always buy the game and expansions on release day. Unfortunately not this time...because of other reasons not talked about in this thread.
That's the game the civ dev and others are hearkening back to? Not Panzerblitz?
Three thoughts:
-I'm getting old
-too bad... PB is orders of magnitude better
-I'd agree with your statement if it was about PB, but not PG
PG seemed pretty mainstream and simple to me. Tedious yes, but moreso because it was boring/simple.
Don't mind me, obviously I'm not the market big publishers are interested in.
*wanders off muttering to myself*
I found X-Com tedius when I cleared one side of the map with a team and needed to reenforce the other team with them who were waiting at the entrance to the UFO a long way away.
Unit moving must have a required feature in my opinion: waypoints. (Which requires perseistent movement orders through turns obviously).
This encompases production centers having a rally waypoint as well as indavidual unit waypoints.
I'm curious what redeeming qualities the stack 'o doom combat in Civ4 has. Seriously, combat and the lack of strategy or tactics involved with it in Civ4 was one of the things I liked least about it. I'm glad they're starting to make it more realistic by being able to use units to blockade, or actually fortify landscapes instead of just a defensive boost.
I don't think the stack of doom itself is the best either, but if I were to design the game for me personally based on what it is I enjoy, I would still have units stacked and combat would be tactical. I prefer setting up armies of units, then playing out the battles in a separate tactical battle. To me this is more realistic, as the scope of map size in a game like civilization would mean that my archers are shooting unrealistic distances if each unit is in it's own hex. Plus I like to mix and match units that offer ranged, support and air/ground capabilities.
It's just what I prefer. I don't like the combat system they have in place based on what I have seen so far, but that could change as I see more information.
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