civilization four in pcgamer

[dacole]

Being very very right in the head pcgamer listed civilization four as one of the top ten games for 2005. It was only a one page article which didn't have all that much new information but it does mean this is a serious project that is going to happen one thing that sounds great is that according to the article sid meir is actually involved in the process of creating this one which he was not in three (it was done by another arm of his company according to the article) one thing that scared me was when they said having listened to player criticism they were removing some of the nessecary micromanagment. WHAT THE ****!!?? Who in the world ever said that the civ games had to much micromanagement...what made them great was the level of micromanagment and what that implied. WE NEED TO NIP THIS IN THE BUD NOW. Let firaxis know you do not want a dumbed down civ!!! We do not want a wargame!!

[Shogun Gunner]

Kuci is going to show up and ask for his banana.

Detail, not micromanagement, is desired.

[dacole]

Would you say the previous games had to much micromanagment?? I certainly wouldn't. Any less would have ruined tha game, but then that is just my opinon.

[Alex]

Handling dozens of workers in the mid to late game is a lot of unnecessary micromanagement IMHO. I hope they find a way to streamline this boring part of the game.

(Seems like they are going to do it, because Soren already mentioned a new system for pollution and corruption).

Oh, and your poll lacks the banana option. There, I said it before Kuci.

[Solver]

Yes, it's not about how much micromanagement there is, but about what it is. Micromanaging 100 workers in the Industrial Age, that taking several minutes each turn, is NOT fun. It's something you HAVE to do on the higher difficulties especially, but it's not fun.

[dacole]

Wow I have to disagree, and I see why SMAC wasn't as popular as I thought it should have been even here...being able to decide where to put each worker in every city and thus set up very detailed amounts of exactly what you need and when you need it was part of the fun and the strategy involved. Bring out the spreedsheets and the calculators! Oh well.

[Gramphos]

It's totally dependent on what elements that are in need of micromanaging. I love to be able to control exacly what my cities do, but keeping the terrain clear from ploution is just time consuming. Where is the strategy in that? Decding what tiles are most important to clear, and find out how many workers you need to do the job at a reasonable speed?

[Solver]

Wow I have to disagree, and I see why SMAC wasn't as popular as I thought it should have been even here...being able to decide where to put each worker in every city and thus set up very detailed amounts of exactly what you need and when you need it was part of the fun and the strategy involved. Bring out the spreedsheets and the calculators! Oh well.

SMAC was very popular, but I think it's an excellent example of when too much complexity is bad. I loved the fact that it's complex, that was great. Deep strategy involved, indeed, and all. Problem? The AI SUCKED. The AI in other games may do a poor job with working soe concepts - the SMAC AI didn't understand half the concepts. It wouldn't do interesting units design, it wouldn't build crawlers properly, it could never land units on another continent, it would strangle itself with its own SE choices, etc. Too complex.

[dacole]

I agree with the SMAC AI but the email game was where it was and still is. Though up on the higher levels the cheats the AI got did make up somewhat for its problems. Though your right I've never seen it design interesting units.

[dacole]

Originally posted by Gramphos
It's totally dependent on what elements that are in need of micromanaging. I love to be able to control exacly what my cities do, but keeping the terrain clear from ploution is just time consuming. Where is the strategy in that? Decding what tiles are most important to clear, and find out how many workers you need to do the job at a reasonable speed?

Yup that would be where it was, as well as deciding if it was worth worrying about or if you should even develop the technology in the first place. (Yes I know not doing so was suicide) I do have to say that I am not going to mourn that loss if a better system is put in place which I think is possible. The way fungus was done in SMAC I thought was good. Being able to build improvments to take away the potential pollution might be a good way to do it.

[Solver]

I agree with email games, but it's very different from singleplayer,and a Civ game should always rely on a solid SP mode.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Shogun Gunner
Kuci is going to show up and ask for his banana.

Here!!!

Banana option