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sunrise089 Wrote:1I'm all for nice terrain graphics, but animated and talking AI leaders add nothing to the game experience.
Correct. Flashy graphics are nice but they are no substitute for good gameplay.
Zed-F Wrote:You guys know there are a number of devs making fairly serious strategy games these days, right? Just look at Paradox's lineup and you'll see quite a few just from one publisher. Not to mention the indie scene.
Granted, most of these won't have Civ5's budget for bells & whistles, but weren't we just saying we don't need those for a strat game? 
Budget=squat vs a decent game. I don't want a game with good graphics. I want a game with good gameplay.
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Personally I'm rather ambivalent about graphics. I don't mind primitive graphics much at all, like roguelikes or Wolfenstein 3d or something. On the other hand I do kinda like eye candy when it doesn't slow down the game too much. I definitely don't expect it to be a top priority for games that aren't shooters/Final Fantasy though. On the third hand, so to speak, I find the cartoonish proportions and style of games such s Dawn of War or World of Warcraft off-putting.
Zed-F Wrote:You guys know there are a number of devs making fairly serious strategy games these days, right? Just look at Paradox's lineup and you'll see quite a few just from one publisher. Not to mention the indie scene.
Granted, most of these won't have Civ5's budget for bells & whistles, but weren't we just saying we don't need those for a strat game?
Normally, I'd argue that by definition indie games have less money for testing. But Civ 5 proves that having the money to test is no guarantee you'll actually use the results to improve the game. Having said that, Dominions 3 is an excellent case of an indie game that could've done with way more testing, IMO. It's fun, even though it has no real balance to speak of, but the UI is absolutely terrible and a severe impediment to enjoying the game, IMO.
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I think it goes without saying that budget isn't a good judge of quality. :\
Also, I would still support developing a simple 2d Realms Beyond 4X game.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
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I'm not a big fan of 'superfluous' bells and whistles either...
There are some places where polish really shines through in a game. Interface is huge for me - easy to access commands and information, summaries, etc can really improve a gaming experience for me. It improves the instant grab factor of a strategy game and the shelf life. Although it obviously needs a good game underneath.
Think Civ IV is an example of where this is done fantastically. And it's not cheap or easy to do for a complex system, such as that game.
It's really jumped to the front of my mind from playing some old retro games (inspired by this forum!), some of which have me wrestling with the interface to make it obey me or to see what's going on.
I was also curious, how well did Civ IV do from a financial point of view. Has V produced better numbers for them?
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Luddite's post of "what where they thinking?!" reminded me of the end of the angry video game nerd's Sega 32x review...
The balance changes will likely nerf Research agreements and GS. It might make inmortal hard but I'm not interested on playing that level with the 50% happyness handicap. Emperor will still be easy though. Does anyone have any thoughts on how much the AI in Civ5 cheats when compared to Civ4?
Edit: Luddite was talking in the CFC graphics card thread about how much effort Firaxis put into Nivida graphics.
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I guess you mean thisthread? Yeah, I was pretty annoyed when I found out that firaxis had designed a fancy new graphics technology which would only work on graphics cards not even released at the time, with miserable performance on anything less.
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If anyone wants to see a description of high-level Civ5 play, this is the most interesting game I've seen in many weeks. It's also a good demonstration why I have no interest in the game: high-level play consists of sucker punching the AI over and over again in its blind spots. Sell resources for gold, declare war to wipe out deals, use gold to instant-buy an army, kill AI with said army. Kudos to those who enjoy it, but it's not the sort of game that I find interesting on the strategic level. Thought some of you might enjoy the read though. At least this one doesn't abuse the absurdly broken research agreements!
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419636
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That was a good read.
It's very strange they still haven't fixed resource selling which was IMO the single most obvious abuse since the game was released.
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SevenSpirits Wrote:That was a good read.
It's very strange they still haven't fixed resource selling which was IMO the single most obvious abuse since the game was released.
It's almost like they were unlearning the lessons of Civ4...
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Which is exactly why in Civ 4 you weren't allowed to mix one time items in with per turn. For that matter you can get a loan while your at it the same turn as well and reneg via war.
In single player though, it's quite possible to win without taking advantage of such an exploit.
Sullla Wrote:. Sell resources for gold, declare war to wipe out deals, use gold to instant-buy an army, kill AI with said army.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=419636
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