Is cIV too balanced?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
Maybe that is what is wrong, it doesn't allow people to play without taking casualties, doesn't allow people to spam cities, doesn't allow people to build caravans for the cheap cash in that the AI won't do. Lets face it, some people find playing WoW fun, that doesn't mean that it is a good game, just that people like simple games that they win all the time, or feel that they're winning.

All true IMO - except you forgot to include building a howitzer stack to take over the world in one turn.

[lord of the mark]

Way back when I suggested that Civ2 was the peak of the series, cause the real thing that made civ special was the historical lesson, that the key driver of macrohistory is the competition among states leading to ineluctable "progress", the cunning of reason in history, so to speak, AND that the key driver of differences among nations was geography and NOT anything racial or any "essence" in the Civ. Basically Jared Diamond meets Francis Fukuyama, but made into a game.

From which it followed that civ unique charecteristics would ruin what had made Civ unique. That they were still being called for as a gameplay enhancement, was a sign the Civ series had passed its own historical moment, it had made it contribution to the march of culture, and anything else to follow was purely "post".

Now that of course has nothing to do with sales, or forum activity.

I also suggested that Civ attributes would mean a deterioration in the community, since it would draw folks interested in the essentialist and racialist approaches to history, and foster the kinds of ultranationalist talk one saw in AOE boards.

I was told that the attributes were to minor an aspect of gameplay to do that.


From what I can gather, those who told me that were right. While the release of an Xpack can lead to nasty arguments about which civs belong in, my impression is that the civ unique stuff doesnt dominate the game, and AFAIK it hasnt ruined the community.

OTOH I dont know if whats been noted in this thread is a worthwhile new datum on that issue. I would suspect not, esp given the contrasts noted between the effects of Civ3 and Civ4.

I still see no evidence that what I said about Civ as a landmark was wrong. Im sure some would note many other features unrelated to the metahistorical issues, that acccount for that.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
If you're talking about against the AI, then the issue is you're equating spamming cities in previous versions with ability, especially in Civ2 where the AI got bored expanding after a while. Or Civ2 where the human could abuse Caravans like no tomorrow whilst the AI looked on, amused presumably.

Infinite City Sleaze was boring like the second time you tried it against the AI (the first time it was pretty cool, esp if youd been struggling to win on deity)

Camels were super, and really helped out us peaceful perfectionists (esp if you werent playing OCC). I suppose there were selfimposed rules on using camels to add new challenge, but I pretty much stopped playing the vanilla game before I got to the point I really needed that

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Elok
They'd remove the strength Seeker just mentioned, of easy mod-ability, and leave people whining about archaic gameplay.

Never played CIV (saw a roommate play it once); thought CIII sucked. EDIT: Does CIV have that "culture-flop" thing too? You know, where your city gets overwhelmed by a neighboring enemy city's cultural awesomeness and suddenly converts for free, taking all soldiers with it? If they didn't get rid of that, I feel comfortable saying that CIV sucks too, even without having played it. Because that's just terminally lame. It killed CIII for me.

Culture flipping remains in, though IIRC it may be an option you can toggle off (it may simply be "cities may revert to prior owner after a war" rather than "all culture flipping" though). I leave it on, so I don't recall exactly.

In my experience it's nowhere near as flukey as the CivIII implementation. You get fair warning (at least one instance of a "riot" in the city which is basically "hey, do something or you may lose this city!"). Stick enough military units in the city, and I believe you can get the chance of flippage to 0, but I'm not sure on that. I typically either fight the culture war, or let an untenable city go.

I never had a major problem with culture flipping, though, even in CivIII. I liked culture, and typically had a bunch of it.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I heard you, LotM, about "unique" civ traits. There was something very cool about how the only difference between two civs in CivII was their color. Same abilities, same units, etc.

CIVs unique traits/units/buildings are meant for flavor, and people went to great lengths to balance them. Still, there are some I think are better than others (dependant on map type, difficulty, and other such factors that vary game to game).

All in all, it doesn't bother me.

-Arrian

[Solver]

Flipping can be turned off completely in Civ4 actually. And under the default rules, a city you just conquered won't flip back.

It's nothing like the Civ3 flipping, really. You get a warning, you can see the chance of flipping and you can prevent it by putting a stronger garrison in. Plus it just takes much more cultural pressure to flip a city.

[Arrian]

Ah, thanks for correcting me. I have a fuzzy memory about it because I don't mess with the city flip option - I play under the default rules.

Though I *have* had cities I've conquered flip back after the war ends (after the requisite rioting).

-Arrian

[Dinner]

CIV 4 just seemed to suck. I played it for around a month before giving it up; I picked up again when the first expansion pack came out but that only lasted around a week before I again decided it sucked. It's just a boring ass game.

The strange part is I loved Civ1, Civ 2, and CTP2 and even thought Civ3 was ok but for some reason Civ 4 seems like the most washed up game lacking any originality of likelihood of fun. It just sucks.

[Provost Harrison]

if you liked CtP2 you have no credibility to call civ 4 sucky...

[Solver]

Originally posted by Arrian
Though I *have* had cities I've conquered flip back after the war ends (after the requisite rioting).

Impossible unless you tweak the options.

[Arrian]

Hrm. Faulty memory? Possible. Could you get a riot but no flip in such a situation?

-Arrian

[Will9]

The one feature I miised from Civ3 is the map editor. I used to make tons of maps for myself. Making maps for Civ4 is much harder. Someone at CFC is making a Civ4 version of the map editor. An early version was released a long time ago and its maker seems to be almost done.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141622

I can'y wait till it is done

[Arrian]

Agreed about the map editor: that's a major weakness.

The game's super modable, yay! But you have to learn all sorts of stuff to mod it, boo!

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Civ 4 seems like the most washed up game lacking any originality of likelihood of fun. It just sucks.

The Religion and Great Leader features were original to the genre, surely?

Were you one of those people who hated the game because the old policies of city and unit spamming didn't work?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


The Religion and Great Leader features were original to the genre, surely?

Were you one of those people who hated the game because the old policies of city and unit spamming didn't work?

1. This city spamming, surely you are referring to ICS - Infinite City Sleaze/Sprawl? When did the name change?

2. What gives you the impression everyone did that? In SP lots of people made it a point not to play that way, and IIUC in MP it was generally considered verboten. House rule kind of thing.