Civ4 complexity

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Trip
Wouldn't improved and changed be the same thing?

Unless you're assuming the "changes" are making the game worse than its predecessors.

No, "change" as in you are glad it's different but lose respect for it because it didn't have the balls to stick up for it's beliefs.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Trip

Soren Johnson, aka the Lead Designer for Civ 4, aka the guy who decides everything that will or will not be in the game, has stated that for every feature added to Civ 4 (compared with Civ 3), another would be taken out. This states, quite plainly, that Civ 4 isn't going to be any more complex than Civ 3.

So don't get your hopes up.

I'm rather disappointed that this is the attitude taken towards development. There are many areas in Civ3 which could definitely require additional sofistication while leaving others the same or simply ironing them out.

Sadly, this was not the way Civ3 was designed compared to Civ2, or Civ2 with Civ1 so I see no compelling reason why limit the new features to taking out other stuff which might well have been necessary to keep.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Sadly, this was not the way Civ3 was designed compared to Civ2, or Civ2 with Civ1 so I see no compelling reason why limit the new features to taking out other stuff which might well have been necessary to keep.

Well, if you weren't a newbie you'd know that there is a lot of complaint about the complexity of Civ3. Not necessarily on this board, but in the general gaming community. Firaxis has to make money you know..

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Apocalypse

Well, if you weren't a newbie you'd know that there is a lot of complaint about the complexity of Civ3. Not necessarily on this board, but in the general gaming community. Firaxis has to make money you know..

precisely if I were a "newbie" I wouldn't be posting here and would already consider the game too complex

Also, equating game sales with games of moronic intellectual capacity is just wrong. A lot of best-selling games are incredibly sophisticated, far more than Civ even.

[mrmitchell]

if he was a newbie he wouldn't have 8000 posts

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Master Zen


precisely if I were a "newbie" I wouldn't be posting here and would already consider the game too complex

Also, equating game sales with games of moronic intellectual capacity is just wrong. A lot of best-selling games are incredibly sophisticated, far more than Civ even.

No, you're a newbie.

And complexity does not equal intellectual capacity. Chess didn't need to be complex.

And many of the best selling games aren't that complex. Myst isn't that complex. SimCity has pretty much the same stance on complexity as Civ. The Sims is pretty straight forward. C&C/Warcraft aren't complex. Diablo is not complex.

If you saw what's happening in a lot of genre's, you'd be happy the level of complexity is staying the same.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
if he was a newbie he wouldn't have 8000 posts

You're only defending him because your join dates are close.

And there are a lot of people with many posts that don't actually contribute anything.

And if I really wanted to, I could add a few thousand from the old SMAC board, a few thousand from Sidgames, and a few thousand from a couple other sites and blow him out of the water.

[Master Zen]

Apocalypse, no offense, but this is a forum to discuss and debate suggestions for Civ4. Take your trolling and newbie calling somewhere else. Defending your point passionately does not require name-calling so please grow up.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Apocalypse, no offense, but this is a forum to discuss and debate suggestions for Civ4. Take your trolling and newbie calling somewhere else. Defending your point passionately does not require name-calling so please grow up.

I'm not trolling. You're avoiding the issue that complexity isn't viable for marketing.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Hi Apoc, long time no see.

Wasn't EU one of the more complex games out? And wasn't it quite successful?

I'd say from a general observation that games have got more complex as time has gone on. Even FPSes never used to let you move in more than 2 dimensions before, now it's 3, with multiple POVs in some of them, vehicles, puzzles to solve...

Games are undeniably more complex and becoming even more so. To what level of complexity Civ4 could reach without alienating some TBS gamers is another issue.

[Master Zen]

Let's see, calling people "newbies" the epitome of addressing issues.


Anyway, I have said what I've said about complexity. Civ3 is far from being the most complex game on the market. Many RPGs are incredibly complex, let alone flight simulators and a number of wargames which have made the bestseller list. I agree that making Civ3 TOO complex will be a killer, but I am merely disagreeing in Soren's perception that Civ3 is aready as complex as it should get without having to take out stuff.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Hi Apoc, long time no see.

Yep. I want to be important again.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Wasn't EU one of the more complex games out? And wasn't it quite successful?

It actually didn't sell *that* much. Especially some of the games in the series. And the basic game wasn't too hard to understand.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I'd say from a general observation that games have got more complex as time has gone on. Even FPSes never used to let you move in more than 2 dimensions before, now it's 3, with multiple POVs in some of them, vehicles, puzzles to solve...

Puzzles were in FPSes for a long time. And part of it is lmitations. A lot of this stuff wasn't possible before. With Civ, a lot of things have always been possible.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Games are undeniably more complex and becoming even more so. To what level of complexity Civ4 could reach without alienating some TBS gamers is another issue.

Well, a lot of series are keeping in simple. RPGs especially. And one of the reasons why certain RTSes like RoN are praised is because a lot of the complexity is streamlined.

In the strategy genere, there aren't many technological limitations involved in limiting complexity, so now it's mainly about finding the right balance so as not to scare people away.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Let's see, calling people "newbies" the epitome of addressing issues.

It's important to put you in your place.

Originally posted by Master Zen
Anyway, I have said what I've said about complexity. Civ3 is far from being the most complex game on the market. Many RPGs are incredibly complex, let alone flight simulators and a number of wargames which have made the bestseller list. I agree that making Civ3 TOO complex will be a killer, but I am merely disagreeing in Soren's perception that Civ3 is aready as complex as it should get without having to take out stuff.

Then you disagree with Soren's marketing data. Many RPGs aren't incredibly complex. They may have a lot of things to do, but not necessarily features. Example: Morrowind is fairly simple really, but is in a huge world.

[mrmitchell]

I can't say how to implement this, but I just want micromanagement to be available, however, I would prefer that intelligent automation is available as well.

EDIT: I mean intelligent automation too. And by that I mean damn smart. Smarter than me. (Actually, that's not too good an example...how about smarter than TEH OMFG SID or TEH OMFG SORNE?)

[Master Zen]

Ok, it's obvious you really have no compelling arguments to pursue other than newbie calling, I think I'll just leave it at that and address other more intellingent posts.