Disenchanted

[Sikander]

Cunctator,

I agree that one of the game family's problems is the "more is less" late game, where process of getting more stuff (fun) ends up being the process managing more stuff, which is less fun.

I have never understood the slavish devotion to Sid's original Civ 1 model, where a "city" founded in 4000 BC retains most of it's properties until the present era. Why don't things scale? What is already an unrealistic and fanciful level of control by the player in 4000 bc only gets both more ridiculous and less interesting as time goes by.

I wish that a city started out as a one square affair, and as it grew it's influence expanded into adjacent squares. As populations and technologies both advance, so does the "city's" boudaries. It becomes a city state, a region, a nation, an empire. Yet the rapidity and simplicity of play in the early game needn't give way to being the mayor of 100 cities. The game should scale up so that is in fact several games depending on the scale of your empire and the social and political fabric of your state.

This would be one of the ways that crappy AI problems which have never been solved over many years and games could be adressed. Toss the model away, and start thinking creatively. To me the model of Civ isn't all of those painful shortcomings which have been glaring since Civ 1, but the idea of following and guiding a group through history. This is the interesting part for me.

[Zanzin]

An excellent analysis Comrade. I think you've hit some of the nail on the head there, talking about how, in general, civ3 went wrong.

[Arrian]

Powergamers & Sandbox Enthusiasts

Comrade,

Interesting breakdown of gamers. I'm not quite sure where I fall, though - probably somewhere around 60/40 Sandbox/Powergamer. I like working my way up in difficulty, and I appreciate a challenge - to a point. I like beating the AI, and I like building a large, prosperous empire (with lots of wonders, of course). MP really isn't for me, I don't think. Yet I hated SimCity. But anyway...

Your conclusion happens to jive with something I was pondering, but having serious trouble explaining, yesterday - that, strangely enough, the AI isn't actually the #1 thing. I think that really threw me, when I realized it. Sure, we all want a smarter AI (then, someday, in my perfect world, playing on "Diety" would mean playing against a really devious AI with all of its "intelligence" toggled on, instead of just a dumb AI with cheats). But the reality is that games can be loads of fun, even if the AI isn't anything to write home about.

I don't think Civ III fails horribly. Maybe that's because I fall in between your two categories... I don't know. I'd probably be happy if they patched in stacked movement, convinced the AI to upgrade (or just gave it upgrades), fixed the "only 2 automated pollution control workers to a square" thing, and beefed up the editor.

-Arrian

[Analyst Redux]

Comrade, that was a very useful synopsys of the competing desires of the core audience. Most people never take it to the next level like that, examining others feedback with objectivity, rather than running it through the filters of their own perceptions. Good work.

The one issue I would take with your bi-lateral division of the core audience is that I think there really is a third group for whom the challenge of a great AI in a stragety environment is the number one priority issue. These folks really do believe that any game should be capable of having powerful AI, if only the game's programmers were talented and dedicated enough. Someone else is going to have to think of a clever name for such folks, as my talents don't run in that direction. Herein, I will refer to them as "AI-loving".

I think that Firaxis believed (and continues to believe) that the AI-loving crowd is the bulk of their core audience. I'm not sure about that, but it is a significant part of the core audience. There are two kinds of posters on this message board who fall into that audience: (i) the kind who are utterly satisfied with the game (who don't really deserve to be derisviely blown off as "fanboys"), because it presents a much stricter challenge to beat than past efforts, and who are not, for whatever reason, bothered by the "Potempkin Villiage" methods used to create that challenge from little-changed AI; and (ii) people like some of those who approve of this thread, who are disatisfied with Civ III's failure to significantly advance the AI, but who also continue to believe that advancing the AI is possible--Vel is one example.

Which group I fall into should be fairly obvious: I'm almost totally powergamer, as my wont to deconstruct the workings of the product demonstrate. I'm consistently disappointed with the low priority treatment of multiplay in this series, as I regard it as the only viable future for it. About 10% of me falls into the AI-lover category, but I beleive that's more wishful thinking than realistic expectations for the game.

Personally, I could care less about the sandbox priorities. That's not correct. As a powergamer, I'm extremely leery of the tendency of sandbox features to undermine the powergame features. When I initially understood that the scenario tools were inadequate, my reaction was that I couldn't care less. But I've come to rethink that reaction and understand the importance of that feature to marketing the game. Further, it is an important feature with respect to preserving MY powergame priorities. Presenting an evenly balanced, not over the top powergame, side by side with all the mod tools any sandbox enthusiast would ever need to satisfy all of his most outrageous fantasies--that's the formula that perfectly serves both such audiences. I now realize that having a bad mod/scenario editor is a really bad thing for myself, even though I never planned to touch it.

Since powergaming, AI-loving, and sandbox playing are all direct tradeoffs, however, players of all groups should be concerned that the favored feature of another group is broken/missing, as the consequence is that your favorite feature is impacted. Every time you reduce the scope of the game, e.g. no MP, a bad editor, compromises get made within the game to make up for it. Those compromises, on this occasion, seem to have made more people unhappy than happy.

[Heliodorus]

Regarding MP versions - my experience suggests that the only players who play MP games are the powergamer variety. For someone like me, an 80/20 sandbox/powergamer hybrid, MP games are always laborious because you have to get on a horse and beat the hell out of it towards the path of greatest returns - there's no time for building the Trans-Polar Railroad (my favorite Civ1 waste of time in the end-game) and no security in colonizing the tiny islands of the South Pacific because your powergamer opponents will destroy them. So with Analyst, I have to disagree that MP is the only viable future for the game.

But for the record, I guess I've had really bad experiences with the sportsmanship of the players I find via MP, and I honestly think that most MP players are borish or are quitters (or both), oh, and don't forget the cheaters in games where that was possible. So I don't like MP.

That being said, AI is critical for my gaming style. As much as I agree that toys make the game, if that were my only source of pleasure, I'd be playing on basic difficulty settings. There has to be a challenge from somewhere, and the AI has to be that source. I'd love to help make good AIs, but I'm not a programmer.

I also think that from a marketing standpoint, MP only games aren't the sellers that SP or SP/MP hybrids are. I'd have to look at sales reports to be sure, though.

[Brutus66]

and don't forget the cheaters in games where that was possible[QUOTE]

Not to mention the players who are slow as hell or those that consistently fail to show or are late for the continuation of saved games. It can be a very aggravating experience.

[korn469]

Heliodorus

That being said, AI is critical for my gaming style. As much as I agree that toys make the game, if that were my only source of pleasure, I'd be playing on basic difficulty settings. There has to be a challenge from somewhere, and the AI has to be that source. I'd love to help make good AIs, but I'm not a programmer.

I also think that from a marketing standpoint, MP only games aren't the sellers that SP or SP/MP hybrids are. I'd have to look at sales reports to be sure, though.

From what I heard the sims just past myst to be the number one selling game of all time, and both of those are singple player only, both of which have sold millions of copies, compare that with

FAIRFAX, VA – JANUARY 16, 2002 – Mythic Entertainment (www.mythicentertainment.com), co-publisher and developer of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Dark Age of Camelot, today celebrated having sold through over 200,000 copies and recognition as Game of the Year in a number of categories by industry press. Co-published with Abandon Entertainment (www.abandonent.com), Dark Age of Camelot continues to be critically acclaimed by reviewers. It remains the fastest growing MMORPG to date, having vaulted past Microsoft’s Asheron’s Call and into the number three spot among US based MMORPGs in terms of peak concurrent players gaining quickly on Sony’s Everquest and EA’s Ultima Online

so multiplayer only games don't seem to be as popular as single player games

plus multiplayer in the Civ genre runs into another problem, the average "good" game of starcraft took between 20-40 minutes to play, start to finish with the player constantly involved in the game, with usually 2-6 players in a game, i played a couple hour plus games, and one time i played a 3 hour marathon game (it was an 8 player FFA)

Civ3 has a maximum of 540 turns, so to be able to consistantly play games that are less than an hour long, we are talking that you would need simultaneous movement a fairly fast conection and an unforgiving turn length timer, and in a 2-6 player game that on average lasts an hour or less if you start from 4000bc, then you are only going to make it maybe 1250AD and that is being very very generous (that is 240 turns, or 4+ turns per minute)

once you start saying that the average player won't mind a 2 hour, or a 3 hour, or even a 4 hour game then you are no longer talking about average players and you are talking about hard core civ multiplayers

so while i do think that a solid multiplayer component is needed that it is of secondary importance compared to single player, in this case the reason that civ3 not having multiplayer pissed me off so bad is because it along with the lack of a demo and the lack of an open beta (which jeff wanted) indicated to me that infogrames said "listen here firaxis, civ3 is coming out for christmas, make it so do whatever you need to"

and although civ3 had a fairly long development time i still think the game was rushed, basically they had to start civ3 development over with a largely different team at the start of 2000, so civ3 was in development for about a year a half, which is average and certainly not some ungodly amount of time to develop a game

not only was civ3 purposely dumbed down to increase the challenge of the AI, but it was also rushed, the U.N. and diplomatic victory probably proves this more than anything, but i am guessing that firaxis took what resources they had and made the product as good as possible, if they had more resources then civ3 would have been better for all players

this is a quote from bill roper from blizzard about warcraft3

Do you have any earth shattering revelations for us about Warcraft3?

We are currently preparing to enter the beta phase of the game and we intend to make a concentrated effort to focus all of our energies into really running the game through its paces. We intend the beta to run for at least 2-3 months so that we can fully test and balance the units while watching and playing hundreds of games with our dedicated beta testers. We have just announced signups for the beta on our website at www.blizzard.com and expect to be playing games with testers within the next 4-6 weeks.

Civ3 hit beta August 23, it went gold October 8, and it hit stores October 29...so it had a month and a half closed beta, and in my opinion if it had of had a three month open beta to supliment their closed beta starting on August 23 (when they should have announed that civ3 didn't have multiplayer) then many of the problems in civ3 would have came out earlier and would have hopefully been fixed and the game could have still came out in early december in time for christmas while also being a much better game

i think the number one reason that civ3 feels lacking, is because time ran out of the development team and that civ3 is lacking

[pg]

interesting..

Originally posted by Sikander
Cunctator,

I agree that one of the game family's problems is the "more is less" late game, where process of getting more stuff (fun) ends up being the process managing more stuff, which is less fun.

I have never understood the slavish devotion to Sid's original Civ 1 model, where a "city" founded in 4000 BC retains most of it's properties until the present era. Why don't things scale? What is already an unrealistic and fanciful level of control by the player in 4000 bc only gets both more ridiculous and less interesting as time goes by.

I wish that a city started out as a one square affair, and as it grew it's influence expanded into adjacent squares. As populations and technologies both advance, so does the "city's" boudaries. It becomes a city state, a region, a nation, an empire. Yet the rapidity and simplicity of play in the early game needn't give way to being the mayor of 100 cities. The game should scale up so that is in fact several games depending on the scale of your empire and the social and political fabric of your state.

This would be one of the ways that crappy AI problems which have never been solved over many years and games could be adressed. Toss the model away, and start thinking creatively. To me the model of Civ isn't all of those painful shortcomings which have been glaring since Civ 1, but the idea of following and guiding a group through history. This is the interesting part for me.

to me this says what the problem is perfectly(and i love those ideas, i must admit). you know it would be easier to rebuild (civ) from scratch than to continue to try and rework civ to include everything we want. rebuild, with the goal of doing what you intend, not the goal of making the improvements work in the accepted civ formula. the harder it is to rework something and the more overhead it requires, leads to more bad things in each addition. it's like a house of cards. each successive civ game so far has just been building on the last one(more or less), so if this model continues civ is doomed. once the overhead, and the model itself become the main problem it's time to start over.

civ as it is now will never work for mainstream multiplayer no matter what you do. the basic civ model needs to be trashed. it was good 10 years ago but it's severly outdated, and it shows. however, i realize most people will not give up this model until it proves without a doubt that it is indeed the main thing holding back development of the series. it seems like firaxis and everyone else clings to the civ1 model just because it's all they know. there HAS to be a better way. i think it's time for enlightenment.

btw, i think sid was more lucky than anything with civ1. i agree for it's time it was an amazing game but each consecutive civ game has relatively had less and less innovation and still clings to civ1's core as it's lifeblood.

[Brutus66]

I can see where you're coming from, and I think it would be exciting to see something based on an entirely new, innovative model. I can remember, years ago when Windows 3.1 was the thing and Win 95 came out, I did not accept the change very eagerly. But with each succeeding operating system, I have learned that change is good!

Your view that each succeeding incarnation of Civ was not as not quite as good as the last, well, I just don't go along. I really liked Civ2, right off the bat. Just my opinion though.

[Comrade Tribune]

Analyst, as always your comment is very valuable, and made me think hard.

You are right: There is a 3rd group, which one might call 'AI Perfectionists'. Somehow I suspect they are mostly, themselves, programmers (or working in a related field), and therefore, understandably, very interested in improving AI, because this is a really 'hot' technology. I believe, however, that AI Perfectionists are a very tiny minority; unfortunately, they are probably the only group Firaxians can truly relate to.

However, I think there are quite a lot of Sandbox Players who think they are AI Enthusiasts. However, unlike true AI Perfectionists, they would be perfectly happy with an AI that is strong but not intelligent -an important difference-, or with a challenge that is achieved by other than AI means. That may sound mysteriously, but it isn´t. I will explain immediately, after I am through with reading the new posts.

Finally, I somehow guessed you being a Powerplayer. But with civgames, Powerplayer and Sandbox interests coincide more than you think. Both types would like the game to be very complex, Sandbox Enthusiasts because this is where their fun is, and Powerplayers, because they want a game that can´t be solved too easily. If any fool can figure it out, where is the true Powerplayer´s advantage? You sit in the same boat with us.

[Arrian]

Exactly,

Some people just LOVE peeling layers off the onion - the powergamer, I have noticed, tends to love deconstructing the game. That's where the fun is for them. Me, I never even CONSIDERED the unbelievable things that could be done in Civ II (usually involving caravans) until I found this site. I'm still boggled by the OCC launches in the 1st century A.D. That sort of think requires a mind that enjoys picking something apart, stripping it right down to the "under the hood" stuff that people like me don't care about at all.

-Arrian

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Heliodorus
That being said, AI is critical for my gaming style. As much as I agree that toys make the game, if that were my only source of pleasure, I'd be playing on basic difficulty settings. There has to be a challenge from somewhere, and the AI has to be that source.

I actually agree with all of this, except for the last few words. What if one, I think, critical shortcoming of the entire series was corrected, which is the lack of serious domestic management? What if you had to fight off starvation today, bankruptcy tomorrow, inflation the day after that and revolution -not a revolution you control, a revolution against you- in the near future? What if simply keeping your Empire from falling apart under its own weight, without involvement of any foreign enemy, would be a major challenge? I think, under such circumstances, you would be thankful if the foreign enemies you still have on top of all that, are not too bright.

To sum my first cute little idea up in one sentence: The first enemy of your ship should be the sea.

[Comrade Tribune]

Re: interesting..

Originally posted by pg
...the basic civ model needs to be trashed. it was good 10 years ago but it's severly outdated, and it shows. however, i realize most people will not give up this model until it proves without a doubt that it is indeed the main thing holding back development of the series. it seems like firaxis and everyone else clings to the civ1 model just because it's all they know. there HAS to be a better way. i think it's time for enlightenment.

Exactly. You must be reading my mind. The basic premise is still sound, but they should have redesigned all the models from scratch.

[player1]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
You are right: There is a 3rd group, which one might call 'AI Perfectionists'. Somehow I suspect they are mostly, themselves, programmers (or working in a related field), and therefore, understandably, very interested in improving AI, because this is a really 'hot' technology. I believe, however, that AI Perfectionists are a very tiny minority; unfortunately, they are probably the only group Firaxians can truly relate to.

Try looking at CTP2 forums.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by player1
Try looking at CTP2 forums.

CtP is essentially a copycat of Civ; it didn´t change too much. It changed too little.

Of course, if a) the AI has to play by the same rules, and b) there are no challenges unrelated to the opponents, then the AI has to be strong, or no game. But who says I agree with a) and b) ?