(March 19th, 2013, 08:01)darrelljs Wrote: The 13th spot in Europe is easier than the 5th spot in South America, I assure youI have my doubts. Especially this time where you have 9 teams fighting for 4 spots and the 5th has to win vs the 5th from Asia. So I expect 6 out of 10 teams will play in WM 2014. (Europe 13 out of 53 and a lot of those that have to stay home are stronger than any SA-team except Brazil & Argentinia).
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New Civilization 5 Expansion - Brave New World
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Look at the five teams that qualified last year. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay. Paraguay was the weakest team and they won their group (and beat Slovakia 2-0 along the way)! I don't think there was any disagreement they showed well, with 5/5 teams advancing vs. 6/13 for UEFA
 .Your point that 2014 is not 2010 is well taken, so let's look at the FIFA world rankings. CONMEBOL has the #3, #6, #11, #16, #18 and #22 teams. The 14th ranked UEFA team is #23. Of course the FIFA world rankings lag real time, but take the Elo rankigns, where CONMEBOL has #3, #4, #8, #15, #16, and #21. The 14th ranked UEFA team is #23. I would say that its fairly balanced giving CONMEBOL 5 and UEFA 13. The incessant euro whining about the allocations is justified, but not when compared to CONMEBOL  .Darrell  (March 19th, 2013, 11:32)darrelljs Wrote: Look at the five teams that qualified last year. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay. Paraguay was the weakest team and they won their group (and beat Slovakia 2-0 along the way)! I don't think there was any disagreement they showed well, with 5/5 teams advancing vs. 6/13 for UEFA Sorry but the FIFA-ranking is complete shit. Look Brazil is ranked 18th behind Kolumbia and Ecuador. Are you really trying to tell me that those 2 are better than Brazil?. The system that they use is absolute Bogus. And about 2010: And since we are diving in the past. For 1978 it came to a direct fight betwen the 3rd of SA (Bolivia) vs the 9th of europe (Hungary) for the last spot. Hungary won easily (winning 6-0 and 3-2 )  .
Regarding the FIFA Rankings, it's skewed against the Host of the next WC, that's why Brazil is so badly qualified (a win against a major football country in a friendly is worth less points than a tie in a WC Quali match to the rankings). So, taking Brazil off, it doesn't look that bad (not that it looks good either). At least it's better than the Club Rankings we see, where teams like Chelsea and Atletico de Madrid are in front of the current World Champions Corinthians (and they are worse teams, with worse results recently and in the past - and I really dislike Corinthians, I'm not arguing with my heart here
 ).Your last argument is a bit unfair, though, Rowain. The fact that the top Euro teams are better than the top CONMEBOL teams doesn't invalidate the fact that getting 5th place in SA can be harder than 13th place in Euro. So, even if Netherlands, Germany and Spain can beat Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, it doesn't mean that Paraguay can't beat Belgium, Slovakia, Russia... (I'm not exactly sure which were the last Eurot eams to qualify). It's also not fair to say SA didn't have 2 representants in the final 4 of the WC since 1970. When Europe has 13 teams against 5 from SA, it's likely to expect that. Besides, it has nothing to do regarding the 5th against 13th debate. Let's take out Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands and England from the list and see how many European countries finished on the top 4 in the past WCs. Probably not many, I'd say. By the way, Colombia will be a major force in the next WC. Just remember that I've said it first.
Yeah the FIFA rankings suck, but you have to at least mention them because its what so many yahoos use. The Elo rankings however are fairly accurate, so focus on those. In 2010 group play the SA teams outperformed the European teams, which supports my point that they are deserving of five spots. By the time you hit the knockouts the bottom tier European teams were out, and the ones left were clearly the class of the tournament. I'm not arguing and would never argue the best teams aren't European. I'm arguing that its perfectly fair for SA to have 5 teams if Europe has 13, as the average quality top to bottom will be comparable.
If we are bringing up the ancient past, SA winners = 9, Euro winners = 10. Shouldn't the ratio be 13:5  ? The real landslide is Latins (15) vs. everyone else (4)!Edit: Crosspost with Ichabod, the Brazilian soccer guru   .Darrell (March 19th, 2013, 15:25)Ichabod Wrote: Let's take out Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands and England from the list and see how many European countries finished on the top 4 in the past WCs. Probably not many, I'd say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_...e_top_four
I have to run.
Guys, if you want to go discuss football, please create a new thread in the Off Topic forum. This thread should be reserved for information related to the upcoming Civ5 expansion, which is something that some members of the forum are genuinely interested in discussing. Thanks.
Two expansions has been the norm for the series. On that basis alone, it might be reasonable to speculate that Civ6 will be up next for the franchise.
Although I contributed actively to the Civ5 DLC chain and the first expansion, I have not been part of this second one and am just as much in the dark about World Congress et al as the rest of you. In fact, I wasn't even expecting them to do this expansion. I figured all the DLC grouped up was like an expansion. So in some sense, this is the game's third expansion, so yeah, feature bloat might be one way to characterize this many additions to the game. Or maybe they will have some cool ideas in there. What I'm really curious about is where Civ6 will aim to go. Is it going to be more like a Civ5.5 with mostly the same core mechanics as Civ5? Or will there be a more significant reboot, perhaps with some fresh ideas and/or throwbacks to earlier in the franchise? Lot of years away before that answer will emerge, but Civ6 itself seems a pretty safe bet. I haven't played much Civ5, but I didn't play much Civ4 either. When you've been working on a game for years, you want to be doing something else with your free time. I have one friend from World of Warcraft who's logged 3500 hours of Civ5. My wife has played hundreds of hours and it's my brother in law's most played game. It's much loved by some. Apparently, it managed to appeal to a new audience, which was one of its goals. But I personally agree with T-Hawk that its emphasis on external mechanics instead of the cities isn't my favorite flavor. I'm looking forward to RB reviews of the new xpack. It's been a while since I *didn't* know what was coming out the door with the franchise. - Sirian
Fortune favors the bold.
(March 19th, 2013, 17:08)Sirian Wrote: What I'm really curious about is where Civ6 will aim to go. Is it going to be more like a Civ5.5 with mostly the same core mechanics as Civ5? Or will there be a more significant reboot, perhaps with some fresh ideas and/or throwbacks to earlier in the franchise? Lot of years away before that answer will emerge, but Civ6 itself seems a pretty safe bet. You know, I'd honestly seriously consider taking up religion again if it helped prevent Civ 5.5. Quote:Apparently, it managed to appeal to a new audience, which was one of its goals. I'd be very sceptical of this claim, from eyeballing Steam numbers alone. I remember looking at them one day and seeing it dwarfed by Football Manager 2010 which had nearly three times the average players (c. 22k for Civ and c. 60k for FM), with the joint caveat that FM 2010 wasn't a steam only game and FM 2011 had already been released (i.e. we were comparing all Civ players with some FM players, and even then we were looking at a game well beyond peak for FM). Seriously, Civ 5 may have sold well, but it never showed good numbers in playtime (which is essential for a strategy game, especially if you're looking at a franchise).
Travelling on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
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