Your Worst Fear for Civ 4 (The Negativity Post)

[MarkG]

When the demo switched to a resource-trade, you could only haggle with resources and cash.

that's probably because people were cheating the ai promising gpt or resources for techs and then breaking the agreements...

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Freddz
Too much work with so many civs. Too bad.

meanwhile tons of people are for years demanding to be able to play against 12, 16, 20 civs...

[Senethro]

Originally posted by MarkG
meanwhile tons of people are for years demanding to be able to play against 12, 16, 20 civs...

Meh, single players.

Only multi is beautiful.

[Nikolai]

Heathen talk...

[alva]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Greatest fears:

- One on one unit combat instead of grouped and combined arms style combat like we saw in CTP2. That alone would releave much of the tediousness and micromangement from the game. Of course because it makes so much sense they likely won't do it.

- A dumbed down game designed to attract 9 year olds so that people of average intelligence become bored after the first game.

- promised features don't get delivered.

- A buggy and under developed MP which is unstable and crashes all the time.

- An AI which really isn't all that good. It would have to be significantly better then Civ3's simplistic "AI gains up on human" AI.

Besides your first point (ctp style combat), which we know isn't in civ4, so no need to go on about it.

Ketchup or mustard?

[Cort Haus]

What I fear is that many players will invest lots of time and energy early on in writing strategy articles on sites like this which soon become redundant as the game is subsequently tweaked. They will be reluctant to re-write their articles for every patch, so the vast repositories of wisdom become redundant, which is a great shame.

If there is a decently balanced game 'out of the box' (wishful thinking, some would say) perhaps this can be avoided.

Another fear is that there will never be a satisfied user-base, as different playstyles prefer different rules. Take resource scarcity in C3C. Wargamers loved it, as it gave more meaning to their campaigns and also tended to produce killer AI's (fun for fighting against). Builders were less keen as it often became impossible to get the resources they needed to compete, and small AI's were invariably crushed by larger ones, unbalancing the game from that POV.

Of course, anyone can mod in their own rules. but comparing strategies requires the same rules, which is why many of us like to play with a standard set.

[Aro]

Originally posted by MarkG
meanwhile tons of people are for years demanding to be able to play against 12, 16, 20 civs...

Well, not all the time...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
What I fear is that many players will invest lots of time and energy early on in writing strategy articles on sites like this which soon become redundant as the game is subsequently tweaked. They will be reluctant to re-write their articles for every patch, so the vast repositories of wisdom become redundant, which is a great shame.

This need not be the case. Avid fans could take it upon themselves to perform some sort of curation of strategy articles (plus nuggets of wisdom found in random posts). I believe that this was done for Civ2 with the Great Library project (never used it, so I'm not really sure). In any case, such a project would better off starting sooner than later. Would it make sense for AU to take on this responsibility?

Another fear is that there will never be a satisfied user-base, as different playstyles prefer different rules. Take resource scarcity in C3C. Wargamers loved it, as it gave more meaning to their campaigns and also tended to produce killer AI's (fun for fighting against). Builders were less keen as it often became impossible to get the resources they needed to compete, and small AI's were invariably crushed by larger ones, unbalancing the game from that POV.

Actually I think that customization options serve to satisfy the player base. What you're referring to, rather, is the absence of strategic options for various player "types" in the standard game.

To what extent customization will be required to keep players "happy" remains to be seen. I'm guessing "not a lot", at least within the first year after release (of course, there will always be those players that hate such-and-such right out of the box, but they are in the minority). Remember that when C3C came out, you had been playing Civ3 for over two years already...

[Freddz]

Originally posted by MarkG
meanwhile tons of people are for years demanding to be able to play against 12, 16, 20 civs...

Sigh. Yes, not all of them understand what they are sacrificing by making that demand. Quantity definately isn't quality, and never has been. Then the same persons go on and play with 8-12 civs in their game anyway after trying 313 civs once or twice because it sounds cool and then finding that the flavour has gone off a little as every civ becomes more anonymous... It's not that feeling of hating another civ anymore... those damn russions or french or whatever.
It would have been better to expand the number of civs in an expansion in my most humble opinion. Great unique civs makes for a lot more replayability than 20-30 grey civs.
I'll wager when they make SMAC 2 (if they will) then the large public will scream for 20-30 different factions, mainly because it is not clear what the option of a lesser number of factions would mean for diplomacy, personalities, unique traits and unique strategies. It has always been like that. So, so what?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Dominae
This need not be the case. Avid fans could take it upon themselves to perform some sort of curation of strategy articles (plus nuggets of wisdom found in random posts). I believe that this was done for Civ2 with the Great Library project (never used it, so I'm not really sure). In any case, such a project would better off starting sooner than later. Would it make sense for AU to take on this responsibility?

Yes!

That would be excellent, and as you say, the sooner this can be planned the better. I remember, for example, some great Civ 3 articles which were written at a time when cash to buy AI tech, not research, was most valuable at the start of the game. This got changed and the strat opening was redundant. A 'Strat Tzar' could encourage individuals to update their work, and maintain the central repository for the accumulated wisdom. Up-to-date contributers get to keep their name in lights, so to speak.

What you're referring to, rather, is the absence of strategic options for various player "types" in the standard game.

Good definition.

[vomitus]

My nonworst fear are more gay-looking leaderheads. I'm specifically thinking of Hannibal from Civ 3 when he's smiling. Firaxis could very easily have chosen a better image than that.

My worst fear is that Civ 4 will simply be the same game as before with nicer graphics, like many, many other sequels are. However, after looking at the screenshots, it seems apparent that it's more than just the same game with nicer screenshots. But we'll see when we actually play it.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

@ Vomitus. If the screenshot I saw earlier today of the City Management screen is anything to go by, then I doubt that Civ4 will be anything much like Civ3 at all. I looked at that screen, on and off, for over an hour-and I still have heaps of unanswered questions about what a lot of the info there means. This was NOT a problem I had when transitioning from Civ2 to Civ3.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[AeonOfTime]

@The_Aussie_Lurker: This was NOT a problem I had when transitioning from Civ2 to Civ3

You call that a problem? I'd rather define it as a pleasure

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by Freddz
Sigh. Yes, not all of them understand what they are sacrificing by making that demand. Quantity definately isn't quality, and never has been. Then the same persons go on and play with 8-12 civs in their game anyway after trying 313 civs once or twice because it sounds cool and then finding that the flavour has gone off a little as every civ becomes more anonymous...

Making many "unique still balanced" Civ is a big effort. I'm not sure it'll become any easier if you add more Civ later, because you must rebalance the whole group and you'll probably end retuning many original trait just for the sake of make some room for the new entry Civ. In real life is not easy to define whole nations by a few labels, if not for pub joke purpose. You don't care to try 32 different Civ if the whole tactic and strategy is the same but for few (hence unbalanced) civs.

Originally posted by Freddz
It would have been better to expand the number of civs in an expansion in my most humble opinion. Great unique civs makes for a lot more replayability than 20-30 grey civs.

Hmmm, only because different way to win the game can depend from unique trait, IMHO. You can gain similar effect playing with different start position, resource distribution and so on. Some concept are easier than carefully modelling different civ: as you mentioned in others points of your post.

Originally posted by Freddz
I'll wager when they make SMAC 2 (if they will) then the large public will scream for 20-30 different factions, mainly because it is not clear what the option of a lesser number of factions would mean for diplomacy, personalities, unique traits and unique strategies. It has always been like that. So, so what?

Can Firaxis offer a different target than "more, more, more factions, units, maps" when the most common expansion theme is "more, more, more factions, units, maps"?
BTW, I agree SMAC is not epic because of a large number of Civ, but for the whole effort of rebuilding mankind on a different, hostile world. I hope SMAC 2 will expand this concept, and I'm confident most of fans will support this approach.

[asleepathewheel]

my "worst" fear is that if the game sucks the beta testers won't reveal themselves to take their punishment

worst, no, but the more scapegoats the merrier.