Your Worst Fear for Civ 4 (The Negativity Post)

[yin26]

Well, this was an obvious thread from me, right? We had the Yang thread, so here is the Yin counterpart. But I'm not talking about Civ 4 bashing. Here is my worst fear ("Civ 2.7" is too nebulous and makes people mad, so):

"An SP game that I can easily beat on the hard level right out of the box."

From there:

a) A patching process done to meet contractual obligations and not to build confidence in the series or the company (yes, I understand that by the same token you can't run your company into the ground releasing patches forever). At minimum, I hope the first patch corrects showstoppers, system compatability issues, basic balance issues, etc. The second should get at any lingering balance issues / bugs along with a few carefully introduced new elements based on player feedback. X-pack and repeat. But if we still see some showstoppers and noticebly bad balance issues after the second patch, then the idea of buying the X-pack becomes out of the quesion for me.

b) Lingering MP issues. That is, broken MP.

c) Promised modding abilities that go AWOL or never quite work in-game.

You can see that my biggest fear is one of wanting an immediate challenge from the game and at least a few months of shelf life. "a" "b" and "c" are long-range concerns that, if they prove of no worry, could go a long way in making up for many SP weaknesses. In fact, the general Poly crowd seems confident on these three, so even if the SP vanilla game is weak (note: but not broken!), there could be hope long-range.

[Solver]

In other words, you listed the things that are not going to happen .

[yin26]

If that's the case, fair enough!

[Modo44]

I really wanted to say something rude but it would be bad to get banned for such a silly thing...

My fear is: yin26 will not show us himself eating his copy of CIV.

[Krill]

My fear is that the game economics are dumbed down to the level that Micromanagement is a waste of time.

[Boris Godunov]

That Civ IV will be MOO3ed.

[Sirian]

My worst fear is that the diplomacy won't improve.

I more or less abandoned the Civ franchise in the wake of Civ1 due to insufficiently fun/varied diplomacy with the AI civs. I'm not much a fan of Free For All multiplayer gaming for the same reason: more turns on who lines up against whom (and why) than on anything else.

Civ3 dumped the "Player vs All AIs" that Civ1 and Civ2 offered in favor of AIs who (almost) treat player the same as another AI. The problem with that is that it made the diplomacy a bit too easy.

Civ4 needs something in between these extremes. "No diplomacy" sucks big time, but "cakewalk diplomacy" has also run its course for me.

No matter what else they get right, if the diplomacy has only one right answer (or none!) I don't expect to be able to enjoy the game for "years", but instead maybe only "months".


That's my worst fear!

Now time to knock on wood, make signs to ward off evil spirits, and cross my fingers. It would be really swell if my fear turns out to be unfounded.


- Sirian

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
That Civ IV will be MOO3ed.

This is my primary worry as well. But, I'll hope for something much better.

[ShaboobalaKhan]

I think my worst fear for Civ IV is that half the tech tree becomes useless, and it ends up being even more linear, and therefore much shorter, than in previous instances of the series.

If getting tech A is so much more useful than tech B, why would I ever bother to research tech B?

I fear techs will be unblanaced, and to create a viable civilization, I need to research the same techs, or pretty damn near, every time I play the game......especially on higher difficulty settings.

[asleepathewheel]

ctd on first game

moo3d is a concern

smaxed is concern. (ie, a hundred things added to the game which are said to increase "depth" but really just make the game easier for the player as the AI is too inept to handle more than the basics)

features that feel tacked on to the game (religion is a concern)

not enough improvement in the series is a concern.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

My fear is that the game economics are dumbed down to the level that Micromanagement is a waste of time.

You're kidding right??? I hope that Micromanagement is a complete waste of time-as I felt that was always a major failing of past games: that the difference between winning and losing came down to how prepared you were to MM, rather than deal with big picture issues.

Anyway, my biggest fear is that they have spent so much time on the combat/religion/health system, that they have done nothing to improve the diplomacy/trade systems. I really, really hope I am wrong on this score though!!
As to the whole MP vs SP issues raised by Yin. Though I admit that these are valid fears based on past experience, I get the sense that they have really knocked this on the head by getting MP up and running
FIRST, then using the testing of MP as the basis for improving the SP experience and AI-essentially kiling two birds with one stone.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[Aro]

My worst fear for Civ 4?
The game be delayed until easter...

[Addled Platypus]

1. the footprints units leave behind is still there...why ?

2. Great Pepole are produced to often

3. The mushroom cloud is not big enough (not a game stopper)

[Alex]

Originally posted by Sirian
My worst fear is that the diplomacy won't improve.

This is my worst fear too.

We have been provided lots of information about the game so far, but the least mentioned part of it is diplomacy. I wonder why information about this essential part of the game is so scarce... And this scares me a lot...

[Datajack Franit]

the game changing to be more "commercial"

just like the simpsons did