Civilization 5 Announced

[Tredje]

They created a stale game stripped off the magic that civ games always had (yes, that famed 'one more turn' syndrome). Does anyone feel that one more turn urge?.

I find it funny and slightly ironic that one of the marketing ploys for Civilization 5 was the civanon-website, where addicted gamers meet in the hopes of curing their addiction to Civilization. One of the slogans was "no more turns." By creating Civ 5 the way they did they actually managed to accomplish this and cure me (and many others as well it would seem) from our severe malady.

[Rowain]

Uups mixing AW with Aggressive AI but since he had alot of wars I thought it was AW. BHere is one that is AW and not Marathon here. On the same board there are some other Deity-AW games too which were also won by some people.

@Speaker: I'm not deadset on defending Civ5.
My irk is the rosecoloured glance at Civ4. Just yesterday I had de Gaule march Units more than 15 tiles across a standard map to declare war on me without any tensions or demands beforehand while he has mutiple tensions with his own neighbour? His stack of Catapults and Chariots (8of each) would have been quite impressive except the fact that I had Maceman and Knights and the Civ4 AI has little clue at war too.

Not to mention the release Civ4 AI which was not really good at anything. One has just to reread some of the old reports to find alot of -comments for the AI. Had it not been for Blake and his great work we would still have the same crappy AI as Firaxis did nothing to better it.

Now will Civ5, even if a new Blake works on its AI, become a game most people here will enjoy? I doubt it. This game was , contrary to Civ4, not targeted at the Hardcore player so those that are happy to put tens of hours into micromanaging etc will never find Civ5 to their liking. Civ5 is, in its way, the same to the Civ-series as WoW was to the MMO-genre. Remains to be seen if it becomes a financial success (in relation to Civ4)

[Speaker]

There are no rose-colored glasses. Civ4 had (still has) plenty of issues. But it is still a fun, replayable, and reasonably-balanced game. Civ5 is not, and probably never will be.

[Sullla]

I don't think we're viewing Civ4 through rose-colored glasses at all. It was a fun game, and a very good game, immediately out of the box, whatever the Civ5 apologists will tell you. Civ4 did not need a bunch of patches and expansions to become a good game. Multiplayer was fine right out of the box too. The whole argument that the AI didn't become good until Beyond the Sword is also bunk; oh sure, at the tactical level the combat AI was nothing special, but the Civ4 AI was always very good at teching and winning by Spaceship. Check out Adventure Two's 70% loss rate (on Monarch) for plenty of evidence on that. You certainly weren't seeing lots of Immortal and Deity wins within two weeks of release with Civ4.

If Civ5 is designed to pull in lots of new audiences, Firaxis certainly isn't doing a good job of it, judging by the enormous amount of negative user feedback. Check out Amazon's user reviews, where "1 star" reviews outnumber "5 star" reviews more than 3:1. Or how about Metacritic, where the "official reviewers" score the game with a 9.0, but the user reviews only score the game a 7.2 - I could go on, but you get the point.

Finally, while that's a super-impressive Deity Always War game, it doesn't really change my original point. That game played on a Small map (only five opponents), had a corner start (no worldwrap) to present a single limited front, and specifically set No Tech Trading, which removes at least one difficulty level from Always War. Plus, it certainly wasn't a One City Challenge. So while I tip my cap to the team, it doesn't disprove my argument. (Not to mention, such a game was played 4+ years after release, not 4 weeks after!)

[Serdoa]

Civ5 is, in its way, the same to the Civ-series as WoW was to the MMO-genre. Remains to be seen if it becomes a financial success (in relation to Civ4)

I have to strongly disagree with this sentence. WoW gave you much opportunity to put hours and more hours into number-crunching (ever played a Rogue?) and perfecting your play. At the same time it made the MMO-genre accessible for basically everyone. Reason is that it is fun for both groups, be it hardcore or casual.

Now, Civ5 tried to make strategy accessible for everyone but it seems certainly not to be much fun for the hardcore players. For the casual player I doubt that it is much fun either, as you are not rewarded all that much when you play it. Some paitings for wonders, no sort of winning video or anything and so on.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that Civ5 will be a financial success. After all you found mostly good reviews for it, so people will buy it. And many hardcore-fans will probably have bought it as well, without waiting for the reviews. I am one of them and I regret that I spent my money for it.

[Tredje]

I agree wholehearyedly with Serdoa's comment. Regarding Civ 5 being a commercial success I am fairly certain it will be one, as the reviews were good and a lot of people bought the game purely because of the name. I predict that the backlash, if there indeed will be one, will come when they start releasing expansions. At this point dissatisfied customers like myself who bought the original might show their frustration by not purchasing the expansion.

[Rowain]

I have to strongly disagree with this sentence. WoW gave you much opportunity to put hours and more hours into number-crunching (ever played a Rogue?) and perfecting your play. At the same time it made the MMO-genre accessible for basically everyone. Reason is that it is fun for both groups, be it hardcore or casual.

I remember well the uproar in nearly all existing MMO-foren when WoW released about it beeing an MMO-light with labels like 'too easy', 'too much carebear' and other not very nice adjectives. Even till this day hardcore-players besiege new MMO-developers to not make their game a WoW-clone.
Alas the only game (Vanguard) that tried to bring challenge and interesting gameplay back( including several brilliant new ideas) suffered under severe mismanagement which led to the release of an unfinished buggy game. Today it is revamped and has little similar to the visions and hopes it once contained.

So for alot of the criticism I read on this site and other boards sounds alot like those on the MMO-boards towards WoW when it released = stale boring and easy. If this game makes more money then Civ4 you can bet that civ6, 7 and 8 will be similar
That could mean bad news for HC-players and maybe even for Communities like RB .

[Sullla]

And I heard the same reaction from Master of Orion apologists when MOO3 came out:

"This game is really great, you just don't understand it yet."
"Stop thinking in terms of past Master of Orion games."
"Wait for the patch/expansion, this game just needs more time."
"Master of Orion 3 has so much potential!"

I have faith in the general consumer, who isn't nearly as stupid as marketers would have you believe. World of Warcraft succeeded because it was a good game. Civ5 will not be a long-term commercial success because it isn't a good game, and word-of-mouth will hurt it.

EDIT: This argument also falls apart, because we as a community eagerly embraced the (very large) changes in Civ3 and Civ4 without complaint. If we were old curmudgeons unwilling to accept change, then why was that the case?

[Rowain]

And I heard the same reaction from Master of Orion apologists when MOO3 came out:

"This game is really great, you just don't understand it yet."
"Stop thinking in terms of past Master of Orion games."
"Wait for the patch/expansion, this game just needs more time."
"Master of Orion 3 has so much potential!"

I doubt you can find any of those arguments (especially the first 2) in my post. So if these is an answer to me please refrain from putting words in my mouth.

World of Warcraft succeeded because it was a good game.

It succeeded because it filled the need of an easy accessible and easy to play MMO which didn't need the timecommitment the older games needed. The huge marketing machine of Blizzard/Battlenet didn't hurt either.
A lot of the fori of the MMO-world didn't find any good in WoW and contempted the game sever. Several of those argument became very heated too. I for myself have played WoW one month before I found it stale and far too boring but to each his own

[Jaffa]

Now, Civ5 tried to make strategy accessible for everyone but it seems certainly not to be much fun for the hardcore players. For the casual player I doubt that it is much fun either, as you are not rewarded all that much when you play it. Some paitings for wonders, no sort of winning video or anything and so on.

Because that is what you think a "casual" player would like?

I like Civ5, it appeals to me in a way that Civ4 never managed to. I've already played some absurd number of hours of Civ5, in many multi-hour sessions. I don't see how you can possibly describe that as "casual". I think the better distinction is between "strategy-focused" players, and "sim-focused" (or "story-focused") players. If you look at Civ5 as a Civ-style sim-game, and are willing to ignore it's failure to be a properly-balanced strategy game, it's great fun.

Also, I'm an achievement-junkie. Having Steam achievements in Civ5 is a huge bonus.