Why Only Four Civs?

[CyberChrist]

Originally posted by Dale
I'm sorry, but an argument based off "historical credibility" for a game such as Colonisation (and Civ4 while we're at it) does not hold water.

Not whilst one group of soldiers will fight another group of soldiers and the other 100 groups stand around watching.

To use this point in discusions about these games is ludicrous considering the massive liberties these games take at history's(/realities) expense.

You guys seem to have real problems distinguishing between the concepts of realism and accuracy.

A game about/based on history can afford to take liberties on realism issues (like time scale, travel distances and combat system), but it has to keep a high degree of accuracy when it comes to historical facts ... if it is to be believeable to any degree as a historically based game that is.

Originally posted by Dale
I'm sorry, but I totally disagree with you here. Yes, sometimes that is the cause of shortcuts / alternatives being needed, but not always. Not even most of the time as far as I can tell.

It isn't really about agreeing/disagreeing here - I am telling you that is how it is done/happens (most of the time).

Originally posted by Dale
As far as the Firaxis designers go, they have always been fun gameplay first, reality second. They have constantly stated they make "fun games based on historical contexts".

Funny thing is that I haven't enjoyed a game of Civ straight out of the box since Civ2 without extensive modding involved. And even then it isn't until now with cIV modding that I am getting to a point where I am starting to be truely satisfied with the mod I have been able to make (my own personal heavily modded version that is - which is still a work in process).

However, I will give Firaxis team full credit for making a pretty good engine for cIV.

But the meat on the bones have always left the 'finished' game less than it deserved to be (imo).

[Dale]

Originally posted by CyberChrist
It isn't really about agreeing/disagreeing here - I am telling you that is how it is done/happens (most of the time).

I think you may not realise just how much of game development cycles I know about. I'm not an expert, but I've seen how it works in a few companies. And my experience has shown it is not nearly as much about timelines and money as the average gamer thinks.

[fed1943]

From what I remember about the "old" Colonization, more than
four civs would not be good, unless, of course, the new game
is very different.

Best regards,

[CyberChrist]

Originally posted by Dale
I think you may not realise just how much of game development cycles I know about. I'm not an expert, but I've seen how it works in a few companies. And my experience has shown it is not nearly as much about timelines and money as the average gamer thinks.

I was in fact talking about the reasons for why games end up not being entirely what they could be - not about day to day work in a software development invironment.

Of course, there is still the whole issue of lack of skill and/or creativity, as a cause for games ending up not working as good as they could have reasonably been expected to do.

All I can say if you never had any corporate deadlines forcing your pace is ... that you have been damn lucky.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by Dale
I think the over-riding argument is that the existing four provide the four different play styles.

England - huge populations
France - diplomacy
Dutch - trade
Spanish - conquest

Really, where would Portugal fit in? From a GAMEPLAY stand point I can see where they're coming from. Because if anything, Portugal would be almost identical to Spain in everything bar name and flag.

Portugal - exploration (+1 move for ships, half the eastern coast discovered at game start)

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Dale

Portugal will not be in the release of C4C which has upset some people. Let's leave it at that shall we?

Replace "some" with "lots".

[Unimatrix11]

Well, i am not ´upset´ about Portugal not being in - at least not as some posters here seem to be. But it does bother me to some extent for the following reasons:

Locutus gave the reason that the original was US-based and it was also said that C4C was intented to be just a remake of Col. And it is these two facts bother me.

a) The original was US-based.

Why ? I mean i can understand how the way of the US to its independence works as a model for the game-engine as a winning-condition for any ´civ´. I am fine with that. But this could also work in India or Africa - just as it did in the random maps of the original. So the US-basedness kinda drops out as a reason not to include portugal. In many games of the original, i did not interfere with any of the other nations too much anyways...

b) C4C is just a remake of Col.

As much as i like a Col-revival i think this is a missed opportunity. Sid is a lucky guy. He had like 4 good ideas (Pirates!, RRT, Civ, Col) and made them real. All of these 4 are certainly in my TOP25 of best games ever (and i played a lot since 1983) But now he confines himself to doing remakes of them. And then he seems to say ´oh col was fine the way it was - having 5 instead of 4... Who knows what that will result in ?! No - too risky. Never touch a running donkey...´ or what ?
And what he did change in those revivals so far is totally geared for the casual player, not the freaks that made strategy gaming through his games popular in the first place. In the newer Pirates! it´s all quick&funny kinda. I dont like it. Everything the player does is good. In the old one i at least had the feeling of being a pirate sometimes. Now I am some sunnyboy... yuck! Morale choices and the consequences of which (also in graphics) would have been a nice addition. Railroads was a bad joke compared to RRT. I dont want to even get started about that one. And now the guy who always ranked at the top of my best-game-makers-ever does not push for some daring new things (and adding Portugal is not really daring at all IMHO) even in the last one of his revival series ? C4C is, in my eyes, his last chance to get back on the throne and just replacing old graphics with new ones wont cut it. Unless he comes up with something new that is of course.

[snoopy369]

The original was US-based, and probably this one also, because most of their sales will be in the US, and the company is based in the US...

I personally don't think that's the reason for leaving portugal out, mind you. I think it is gameplay-related. But what do I know... it could be a lot of things.

Also, he had FIVE good ideas, at least ... SMAC ... Also, some earlier stuff (like his civil war stuff). He had quite a few good ideas

[Unimatrix11]

Yeah, okay 4+ good ideas ...

But i think you got my point. If i had made a great game 20 years ago (or 15), and i´d realize the kids dont know it at all anymore, because it wont run on their machines and they are busy RTSing or somesuch, then i´d sit down and make a title that would really deserve a ´II´at the end of its title, not just put my name in front of it.
See, it´s like John Lennon (if he still was alive), would make an album containing all new versions of old beatles songs (he himself wrote back then) and call it ´John Lennon´s Help´ or whatnot. It´d sure prefer new songs from him - even if they were some kind of reminsence of the times when the Beatles did publish ´Help´. (I am no Beatles-expert - i dont know if there ever was an album titled ´Help´). Cause Sid is the John () of TBS - just hope nobody shoots him...

EDIT: I can see how there is more dime in doing ´popish´ remakes than in doing ground-breaking new freak stuff. And of course Sid is just a human and Firaxis just a company. It just would be so nice, if they´d drop in one of those ground-breaking freakers, that shows their creativity and game-making potential, once in a while, just to let us freaks know, there is still someone out there, who cares to do that... Cause i mean: So Civ... been there, done that. Just tried GalCiv2 (was on budget so i got it) and turned it off after a couple of turns, cause i knew where it was headed and what it would be all about... 4X... again... Just as You have said in a post above: Replace the names, change the graphics, and it is still the same game...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Unimatrix11
Why ? I mean i can understand how the way of the US to its independence works as a model for the game-engine as a winning-condition for any ´civ´. I am fine with that. But this could also work in India or Africa - just as it did in the random maps of the original. So the US-basedness kinda drops out as a reason not to include portugal. In many games of the original, i did not interfere with any of the other nations too much anyways...

Because that's what Sid does, he makes games about US history. Look at Gettysburg, Antietam, Railroads and indeed the Colonization games. Not to mention most of the flight and other military sims he made in the 80s. Even Civ, while not about US history specifically, has a very, very strongly US/Euro-centric focus -- especially Civ1 did (which is the only game in the series actually made by Sid). Sid Meier just makes games about the topics he knows and cares a lot about (who can blame him?), and as an American that happens to be a lot of US-centric stuff.

One could easily make games like Railroads, Colonization, Civilization and his various military sims a lot less US-centric than they actually were by including more elements from the rest of the world (which is kind of what was tried with Civ4, with varying degrees of success), but that's just not what Sid traditionally does.

As much as i like a Col-revival i think this is a missed opportunity.

I won't disagree with you there. I would like to see a true Colonization sequel as well, in which it would make a lot of sense to expand the scope to include the rest of the Americas, (West) Africa and maybe even more. But this is clearly a remake a la Pirates!/Railroads!, not a sequel. That said, at E3 this week Take-Two teased us with a title screen for a Pirates! II, so maybe we'll see a full-fledged sequel to Colonization yet, if the first game sells well...

(And if not, we can surely rely on Dale to finish the game for us in his Age of Discovery mod )

[Dale]

Originally posted by Locutus
(And if not, we can surely rely on Dale to finish the game for us in his Age of Discovery mod )

Ain't THAT the truth!

[Unimatrix11]

LOL !

But Pirates II ? Thats something i was longing for for 20 years now... Dont tell me they teased you with some Elite IV, too ?

No but seriously... mind giving us your opinion on P2 here ? Your ´first impressions´ ?

[Locutus]

We know absolutely zero about Pirates II, it's hasn't even been formally announced. All we have is a title card that was quickly flashed in a compilation video of future games from Take-Two at their E3 press conference. If I hear about an official announcement I'll post a news item about that under our Misc category, so keep an eye on that...

[Dale]

Ummm..... didn't we already get PII a couple of years ago? Where they made you "dance" to woo the Gov's daughter? bleh

[snoopy369]

That was 'remake' Pirates, not 'sequel' Pirates.

Sequel Col would be Col:Africa or Col:South/East Asia or something