Civilization 5 Announced

[Kristian95]

with all the discussions about Civ5 going on, at least Firaxis has responded quickly with patches...

Granted, there is still plenty left to patch, but at least it looks like they're in full swing patching

[Jowy]

Looks like they're focusing first on crashes so everyone can actually play the game, and perhaps then on the gameplay issues.

[Kristian95]

Looks like they're focusing first on crashes so everyone can actually play the game, and perhaps then on the gameplay issues.

Yup... not a bad strategy Let's just hope they keep the ball rolling when they get to the balancing and gameplay

[BCAgamer]

One thing that annoys me is the diplomacy display. There is no real Foreign Diplomacy screen that shows what Civs/City states have what relations with each other. There are a few other things, but I felt like since this hasn't been covered yet as far as I can tell I should throw it out there.

[sunrise089]

with all the discussions about Civ5 going on, at least Firaxis has responded quickly with patches...

Granted, there is still plenty left to patch, but at least it looks like they're in full swing patching

This is $&%^@^ embarrassing IMHO. I get that Civ4 didn't ship perfect, and I know PC game development is hard largely because of the huge variety of system components you need to ensure compatibility with, but the "we've signed up for the open alpha test" joke is just too close to home. Charging us $50+ and then not having save-game compatibility between your versions, and not having non-cloud saves at all for many players is pathetic.

People lurking Apolyton and CFC, setting aside the issue of whether 1UPT was worth the cost period, is there even a camp left who thinks it was appropriate for the game to be released in this condition?

One final though, this may be the first case I know of where a developer pulls out all stops to rush the release of a buggy game...to end up six weeks out of the big holiday shopping season.

[Mr. Svinlesha]

People lurking Apolyton and CFC, setting aside the issue of whether 1UPT was worth the cost period, is there even a camp left who thinks it was appropriate for the game to be released in this condition?

I do.

I just got the game yesterday and I've only played it for a few hours, but so far I've thought it was really fun and to be honest, I find most of the wailing and gnashing of teeth I've read on various forums to be a real overreaction.

Civ V is very different from previous version of Civ, and its true that the AI isn't great at warfare. But I give the folks at Fireaxis a lot of credit for "thinking out of the box." I think Sullla in particular underestimates how well he plays the game; I'm play at Prince and, while winning, I'm certainly not completely dominating my opponents the way he was at Emperor. And I've found it completely engrossing.

That's not to say the game is without its faults, of course -- just that so far for me, anyway, the good really outweighs the bad.

[ThERat]

In between all the ranting about bugs and mishaps (That's annoy me to no end too), I wanted to say something positive.

@Sirian

The maps you created are AWESOME in my mind. I have never played civilization on map I feel are just like the world could be/is. I really like them. Great job!!!

[MJW (ya that one)]

After a quick game (on king), on emperor I'm crushing the AI again. Below is the start I was given and then what I did. I don't think Firaxis balanced the levels correctly...

[Swiss Pauli]

One final though, this may be the first case I know of where a developer pulls out all stops to rush the release of a buggy game...to end up six weeks out of the big holiday shopping season.

I think they released now so that they can have a 1.x patched version out for the holiday season

Change of subject:

Playing my second game on King now, and Alex is on the rampage: he took out Rameses' 3 cities by T80 (ish) and is now taking a bite out of Oda (one city down). I'd been helping out my CS buddies against Oda, who was demanding tribute for peace before Greece took one of his cities. Now Oda handed over 500g (and I probably could have got more) for peace, which actually makes sense given the changed circumstances.

Elsewhere, Monty has his archers behind his jaguars as he attacks Kuala Lumpur. He might have got lucky with his troop-positioning, but at least the AI can get it right.

[timski]

This is $&%^@^ embarrassing IMHO. I get that Civ4 didn't ship perfect, and I know PC game development is hard largely because of the huge variety of system components you need to ensure compatibility with, but the "we've signed up for the open alpha test" joke is just too close to home. Charging us $50+ and then not having save-game compatibility between your versions, and not having non-cloud saves at all for many players is pathetic.

Save version incompatibility is indeed alarming, and I hope is not intended. I personally haven't experienced any serious technical problems while playing, so I believe the basic game engine to be robust. Like many games, it could have just benefited from a bit of polish.

The "open alpha test" arguments are valid, but take a very traditional perspective on game design. Typically where a boxed product had to be almost perfect at release, because options for patching were so limited.

In contrast, modern games can be much more iterative in their design. Most obvious in Massively Multiplayer Online Games and Facebook-style game development: The whole design becomes premised on continual feedback and development. Sirian (I think) hinted at this second approach. But I don't know whether Firaxis are capable of delivering on the second style of development. Nor whether the players will accept it. And I wonder if the acceptance of players depends on....

People lurking Apolyton and CFC, setting aside the issue of whether 1UPT was worth the cost period, is there even a camp left who thinks it was appropriate for the game to be released in this condition?

(Without wishing to sound arrogant.)

There are a lot of people who will be happily playing on easier settings, not especially worried by AI quirks, and will probably take months to discover some of the things we found almost immediately. For those people, this probably doesn't feel like an "open test" at all. But for sheer complexity, is quite a challenging game. Indeed, chances are by the time they discover balance problems, those problems will have been fixed.

For expert players, it's a tough sell. Playing at harder difficulties isn't exactly a fix, although it does present sufficient challenge to gain some enjoyment from the game. I'm somewhat Sulla-like in my perspective, albeit a tad more positive: Initially enjoying experimenting with the game, even if I'm sometimes appalled by what I find. If it takes 3 months (or worse, a whole expansion) to fix some of those issues, I'll fade away quite quickly. I'm hoping it won't be that long.