Civilization 4: Age of Empires 2 TBS edition

[Aeson]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I don't want to threadjack because I am hoping StarLightDeath will follow up on your reply.

You already did threadjack by bringing up the topic.

Here is my post copied to your General forum thread so we can discuss the issue there:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4105498#post4105498

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally posted by Solver
First of all, last time I checked, Aeson was one beta tester, not two .

Secondly, you still seem to insist that beta testers purposefully go and make these positive posts. While in fact, these people were selected to be beta testers largely because of their ability to write elaborate posts.

BTW, EoN is a respected and long-time player indeed.

Yes I have known EoN since our very enjoyable days playing Civ2MGE on Civleague using the MS Gaming Zone as a host....long days ago indeed :-/

Not that I agree with his assessment of CIV and I stated such on this very article on C4P, but mature individuals can disagree and still play the game

And a very good analysis Aeson, I enjoyed the read.


CS

[Sirian]

Re: Civilization 4: Age of Empires 2 TBS edition

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
Civilization 4 is in fact Age of Empires 2 Turn Based Edition.

I'm Civ4's Game Balance and AI analyst, and I've never so much as seen AoE2 (Age of Kings?) on someone else's monitor, much less played it. Since a great deal of my advice was heeded, none of it (de facto) was coming from AoE2.

A lot of folks cite similarities in Civ4 to Alpha Centauri, and clearly there are some (I'm told), but I've never played that one either.


- Sirian

[vee4473]

Re: Re: Civilization 4: Age of Empires 2 TBS edition

Originally posted by Sirian


I'm Civ4's Game Balance and AI analyst, and I've never so much as seen AoE2 (Age of Kings?) on someone else's monitor, much less played it. Since a great deal of my advice was heeded, none of it (de facto) was coming from AoE2.

A lot of folks cite similarities in Civ4 to Alpha Centauri, and clearly there are some (I'm told), but I've never played that one either.


- Sirian

Did you come up with the ideas, or just analyze them? or both?

just curious

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

What people don't realise is that these are all HISTORICAL-BASED strategy games and, as such, they may each have a passing resemblence to each other. No harm in that, IMO, so long as the final product is fun and addictive. Seriously, though, all of the things EoN raised as criticisms are the very things I am most looking forward to. Its funny because, when I first heard that A/D values were replaced with a single rating, I was utterly ROPABLE!! But then Soren came online, explained it in more detail, and I was pretty much sold on the idea, a feeling which grew with every new review.
As for ZoC, I really don't see why units should have Civ2 style ZoC, but I would like to see some units have a civ3 style ZoC at the least-and perhaps a Civ2 ZoC for these units when they are in a fort. That said, though, I understand why the changes were made, and realist that it won't be very hard to mod in at least the Fort idea !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[StarLightDeath]

I'm going to hold back replying to Aeson's post for now until I have a better grasp of all of the strategies of civ4. I'll admit, the game is growing on me some, but many of the issues like melee artillery still remain. Also the horse in capital strategy is really beginning to get on my nerves and at this point I don't see how you can stop it since I've done it to people and lost to it also. I'll do another write up in about a week or 2 and I'll either further confirm what I wrote, or I will rescind it.


Btw, for helping to make such a great game you sure missed some obvious things. I found a way around the MP password in the first 2 hours of playing the game. Not that I'm questioning your amazing abilities aeson.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
I'm going to hold back replying to Aeson's post for now until I have a better grasp of all of the strategies of civ4.

That is a good idea. First understand what you are talking about, then make statements based on that understanding.

I'll admit, the game is growing on me some, but many of the issues like melee artillery still remain. Also the horse in capital strategy is really beginning to get on my nerves and at this point I don't see how you can stop it since I've done it to people and lost to it also.

It's not a perfect game. There are imbalances.

As I said though, if you really want balanced starts, used a balanced map script. If the map is imbalanced, gameplay necessarily is too, regardless of the balance of game mechanics. (Unless it just so happens to be imbalanced inversley to game mechanics.)

I'll do another write up in about a week or 2 and I'll either further confirm what I wrote, or I will rescind it.

Will be interesting to read. Though I've been playing for about a year now (though obviously not with the final product), and I don't pretend that's enough time to even understand the game all that well. Just that it's better than a few days. Perhaps I don't know what I'm talking about either, but we'll have to wait and see about that until someone figures it out and explains it to us!

Btw, for helping to make such a great game you sure missed some obvious things. I found a way around the MP password in the first 2 hours of playing the game. Not that I'm questioning your amazing abilities aeson.

You were doing so well in the first paragraph too, such a shame to end it this way. First you make an assumption about what I was focusing on, what I was responsible for, and/or what I should have been doing with my time in the beta, without the slightest clue of what any of those actually were. Then you make a disparaging remark based upon your ignorance of the issue. Very classy.

I expect that you will document and fix every single bug in the game yourself. Hop to it buddy.

[My PitBull Tank]

this is the new age of gaming, it's called "$$$$$$"

same thing happened in Battlefield 2, the latest and greatest FPS. They put in a lot of eye-candy, but in reality the game sucks because of things like bunny hopping (where your toon has a 60" vertical leap, making spud webb look like a guy with lead shoes), and allowing rolling on the ground while what you see on your screen does not track that.

Basically, the games are dumbed down and not too good for competition, but they are fun as hell, still!!!

So, although I don't have any complaints YET for Civ 4 (i'm really an FPSer guy, loads of issues with most of the new ones), I can see that they don't cater to your kind.

You'll just have to accept that you are one, and the rest of us are a million. So far they've sold 6 million units (?), so this is made for the average player.

MOD AWAY and be happy! So far, so good for this gamer.

[Sid1]

Re:scinding

I posted somewhere -- after playing for the first few hours -- that I hadn't noticed the same buzz that I got from SMAC and Civ3. I was wrong.

The more I play, the more I realise how deep and immersive Civ4 is; and, the more I realise that I have to re-learn how to play properly, not using tricks and clicks but working out a cohesive strategy.

IMHO Civ4 doesn't copy other games it pays 'humourus homage' to them. There's the bell ringing from Rome: Total War; the musical flourish at the beginning from Caesar 3; the Lion King cadence in the main theme; etc. You could run a whole thread on these linkages.

For my money -- and it was my money that paid for the game, although I traded in 'Pirates!' and 'R:TW' to reduce the cost, LOL -- the Firaxians and Fans did a great job in creating this new iteration of a game that has given me the greatest entertainment value of any dollars that I've ever spent. (OK, I'm a fanboy -- grandad actually).

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally posted by StarLightDeath
I'm going to hold back replying to Aeson's post for now until I have a better grasp of all of the strategies of civ4. I'll admit, the game is growing on me some, but many of the issues like melee artillery still remain. Also the horse in capital strategy is really beginning to get on my nerves and at this point I don't see how you can stop it since I've done it to people and lost to it also. I'll do another write up in about a week or 2 and I'll either further confirm what I wrote, or I will rescind it.


Btw, for helping to make such a great game you sure missed some obvious things. I found a way around the MP password in the first 2 hours of playing the game. Not that I'm questioning your amazing abilities aeson.

That bug was known to the dev's before release, the fix just didn't make it into the 1.00 release, I guess us testers were more concerned with gameplay testing than testing for ways around the pw protection. And the last versions were not tested by us, just the inhouse testers, as they were "release canidates" and those are fast tracked.

CS

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I'll bite, what is the 'Horse in Capital Strategy'? Anyone wanna fill me in? Thanks

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[vee4473]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
OK, I'll bite, what is the 'Horse in Capital Strategy'? Anyone wanna fill me in? Thanks

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Glad I wasn't alone in the head scratching

[Aeson]

I think he means if you start with Horses in your capitol's radius, or maybe even founding your city on the Horses.

[Fidel]

yeah, some whining has already been reported on that issue

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=134764

[TomVeil]

From a market psychology point of view, beta-testing has its risks. The beta-testers will generally only come out raving (as most of the testers frequenting Apolyton do) if:
a) you accede to their demands on how to change the game
OR
b) you convince them to appreciate that what does result from the tests is a very good product.

Since a) would be ridiculously hard given the wild divergence of gaming styles that the Apolyton testers seem to have, I think b) is more likely.

But I like reading the "hated it" rants, because it lets me lets me know what to look out for in the next month or so as I come to my own conclusion about the game.