Will we see a backlash on Civ4 like we did when Civ3 was released?

[Dinner]

When Civ3 was released I noticed several people quickly became very vocal critics of the game. Part of this was based upon legitiment dissatisfaction with the initial interface (lack of stacked movement etc...) but much of it was based upon civ 3 not being Civ2. Clearly many people loved Civ2 and just wanted Civ3 to be a slight graphical upgrade and were slow to warm to new ideas such as culture flipping. Do you think people feel as strongly attached to Civ3 as they were to Civ2 and do you think this will lead to a similiar backlash among some people in the community? Do you think those people will later warm to the changes as most eventually did to the changes made with Civ3?

[Sirotnikov]

I think that the backlash will be much smaller for several reasons.

First, Civ IV is supposedly much better and friendlier

Second, people have had their first "shock" when they expected the same exact nostalgic memories to come from Civ III as came from Civ I or Civ II. They had their really big fall on Civ III, and I think most of us have learnt a lesson. We realize that everyone has his own fantasy image of the best Civilization game, and most probably, no game is going to live up to that, especially in the eyes of every single player.

I hope, we, as hardcore fans have matured a bit.


This, and I hope Civ IV will rock my tensils

[Kc7mxo]

there's gunna be a backlash that makes the democrats opinion of the war in iraq look like a polite dissagreement.

but it won't really relate to how good the game is, just how different it is from what they thought it would be.

[alva]

First, Civ IV is supposedly much better and friendlier

I was thinking about the openings posts premise a couple of days ago. I think making and selling the next iteration will a lot more difficult than this one, in other words: civ5 may face the same trouble as Civ3 did.
That's only going to be true of course if Civ4 is as good as we hope and think it is and Civ5 won't be a lot better(I still am of the opinion that Civ3 is a better game than Civ2 is).
Civ4 isn't replacing a "legend", just a decent/good game.
Let's hope Civ5 will have an even more difficult task.

[Guynemer]

I don't think the problem was that Civ3 was different from Civ2, it was that it was, in many ways, a step backward from Civ2 (and especially SMAC).

In particular, less personality, less fun, less "one-more-turn."

Early indicators seem to suggest that Civ4 is a step in the right direction in regards to fun, as opposed to Civ3.

[Verenti]

I know my biggest Qualm with Civ3, didn't survive over to Civ4. Maybe it did.

It was how one Spearman of the computer could wipe out about a dozen archers of yours, Inversely One archer could anhilate your garrisons of Spearmen. This was on the lowest Difficulty level. (I don't play the higher levels)

So the only way to effectivly combat the Computer was make a B-Line for republic and get a huge Tech Surplus and use your advanced tech to crush them, however this (ai combat advantage) was slightly curtailed in Conquests.

The AI shouldn't get bonuses to things like "Combat" on the lower levels. If anything on the lowest level, I should modifiers to my combat values.

[Jon Shafer]

The only modification to combat in Civ 3 was against barbarians (win more on lower difficulty levels).

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Guynemer
I don't think the problem was that Civ3 was different from Civ2, it was that it was, in many ways, a step backward from Civ2 (and especially SMAC).

In particular, less personality, less fun, less "one-more-turn."

I have to agree with you there. Civ3 simply was not as fun or addictive as Civ2 was. Civ2 seemed ahead of its time while the initial release of Civ3 seemed to lack several key features many (if not most) people had come to expect in a game. Features like multiplayer, stacked movement and stacked combat.

[Verenti]

Originally posted by Trip
The only modification to combat in Civ 3 was against barbarians (win more on lower difficulty levels).

If you say so, All I know my campaigns succede more often than not in Civ1, 2/SMAC, where as in Civ3 they failed more so than succeded.

[asleepathewheel]

this game is vastly more polished than Civ3 was at release, as well as being much more thoroughly tested by both Firaxis and betas, so I expect it to be much better received. I'm sure there will be complaints about the changes-tile sharing, religion, killer maintainence.

though I have specific concerns of things, I guess will be revealed on Tuesday.

The game is much more immersive. Will the base like the changes in gameplay? Good question.

[Kc7mxo]

the thing i disliked most about civ 3 was its combat system. i think it is a giant step backward from civ2. and while i'm willing to see if civ4's method will be fun and interesting, i already believe its still less evolved than civ2's simple yet elegant system of firepower.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Yep, I am with Guynmeyer. I was actually WAAAAYYY glad that Civ3 wasn't simply Civ2b. However, I wasn't as happy with Civ3 as I probably thought I would be-largely because I had gotten so used to SMAC (with social engineering, shared cities/tiles for allies, improved diplomacy and trade, the UN!!) and Civ3 DID seem like a step backwards compared to that.
Now though I cannot say for certain, in the early days of Civ3's development, the game was going to be built on the SMAC engine (which is why I had such high hopes). However, about 3/4 of the way into development, the developer of SMAC 'defected' to create Rise of Nations. I assume that this made it impossible for the remaining Firaxians to continue development based on the SMAC engine (possible IP problems??) With Civ4, though, we are actually getting what I believe Firaxis WANTED civ3 to be from the start-but with even more and better features than even that Civ3 would have had (because they have had an extra 4-5 years to think about additional improvements to put in the game!)

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[hexagonian]

After playing some SMAC this past couple of weeks, I have to say that civ3 was a huge step backward in atmosphere and a moderate step forward in difficulty.

I wonder if the tradeoff was worth it.

I'm finding that I am more entertained by playing SMAC. Playing civ3 always felt like a chore. The odd thing is that both systems had the same tedium factor in unit management, but I felt more involved with the various factions. They felt alive, and had personality. They never did in civ3 to that degree. So the tedium feels less.

It appears like civ4 learned the lesson about atmosphere - and every indication is that unit management has become more user friendly - it still remains to be seen if they managed to also raise the bar on difficulty. Civ3's difficulty was due to a very stripped down game system (thus robbing atmosphere), as well as some rather obnoxious cheats.

Firaxis obviously did their homework on gameplay elements. It appears to have the hallmarks of many other games - rather than a stubborn adherance to outdated features that some fans felt should have been untouchable.

civ3 was never really a step forward, but was at best, a 4 year lateral move. Civ4 appears to be a nice step forward.

We'll see this week.

[Feeroper]

Interesting topic. I wasnt posting on these forums when Civ3 came out, but I remember alot of backlash from the Civ community in general. Personally I expect a fair degree of backlash, only because the anticipation of Civ4 is creating alot of hype, especially since they have changed alot of the fundamentals of the series with this one, its gonna be a bit of a crap shoot to see how the fan base reacts.

Personally, I am really looking forward to this game, I cant wait at all, but Im trying not to make a reservations as to what this game will be, because I want to go into it as open minded as I can. I find that any game with hype like this surrounding it is gonna endure backlash, but in the end will settle into its spot (IE: Neverwinter Nights, Master of Orion 3, Warcraft 3 etc...). I guess we'll find out soon though!

[Fidel]

there are inevitably going to be two types of complaints:
- ' i do not like concept X and concept Y. they are idiotic and i want to burn firaxis people on the pole
- concept XY and concept Z could have been better implemented.
however, given that they had betas this time around, and good betas at that, i really can not expect such a backlash. public opinion here is created by respected veterans. a thousand newbs who will inevitably flood the boards to complain about this game being 'br0ken' will be a temporary nuisance.