It is interesting to hear them talk about the game getting complex. I think in the latest version they hit that wall with the world government. It is probably one of the most unfun and distracting features that Civ games have gotten.
I do think they can add more complexity in other areas hough.
They need to really work on the Civ AI especially the military AI. The games are super boring once you learn the AI is basically garbage at managing armies.
Also the late game needs to be more meaningful. A lot of players never make it to the later ages because victory is achievable quite a bit sooner unless you're plating for science victory.
Civ games is not complex compared to other games like Europa Universalis, Crusaders Kings and EVE Online. I used to love Civ games but the newer versions are just not engaging for a long play time. It seems the permutation of outcomes are less compared to the other games or I know the result because I played hundred of hours so its less exciting.
Yes - chess has a relatively simple and limited ruleset, the complexity comes from the combinations possible.
Civ6 has a crazy amount of complexity to do basic actions - the complexity comes from the UI and all the rules, each city has a ton of things to build which each take many turns, there’s multiple skill trees of unclear benefits, there’s governments and policies, where you can build and what you need to build isn’t clear. During all of this kind of tedious action nothing interesting is happening.
I’d guess there’s a baked in assumption that people playing are already familiar with the game. The tutorial and in game recommended actions were not great.
I don’t mind some complexity (I like KSP, Starcraft) - Civ6 feels like a bad design problem.
Do you find civ 5 way more complex than the original civs? I always try to pick up the newer ones and I’m always struck by how incredibly complex they’ve become. Civ 1/2 you could basically be on top of everything but cob 5 seems like an impossible task.
There's an excellent episode of the games design round table podcast (http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/2013/02/14/episode-14/) where Jon Shafer (designer of Civ 5) and Soren Johnson (designer of civ 4) discuss this problem - amongst other things.
I have been playing civ since civ2 and have been a major fan. However, i have to say that the concept has change very little and much of the focus has been on making new and improved graphics than actually enriching the game.
My hope for Civ7 is that the advent of AI would bring about an overhaul to the whole diplomacy part. The ability to actually chat and negotiate in free language with AI players, would give a huge boost to the game IMHO
It's a bit of an unsolvable tension. Too little to do per city and the early game where you have few cities is boring, too much per city and the lategame is overwhelming. Add a way to delegate tasks to AI, and the question arises of why those tasks are in the game at all if you lose nothing by automating them. And if you discourage wide play (which is my main complaint of the prior game, Civ 5) then you're barely interacting with the broader world at all, and the rest of the map seems pointless.
While it is an amazing project, I can't wonder about the appeal of civ games themselves. To me they are a mess, the mid to late game itself is chaotic chore of micromanaging large number of units.
It's easily more complicated, civ 5 is like poker, except you have to manage the location of each card, an economy, map control, barbarians, nuclear weapons, warmonger penalties, forward settlements, citizen management, wonder rushes, map scripts, restart.
You are more than welcome to create a game with better AI and therefore better playability. The rules of Civ games are complex enough imo. It’s just a game after all.
The changes sound to me like Civilization is evolving into a completely different game. A big part of the appeal of the original Civ was the simplified combat. I think this may open that niche to other competitors.
I stopped playing Civ, not because of it's """complexity""", but because it's lack of polish in its complexity. Yes, on the surface when you play it there's a lot, but it's not unique in that regard.
What made me stop is that after understanding the base meta and how the systems work with each other, you realize how woefully unbalanced the game is. The moment two advanced players try to play a game, the starting position determines the result. It has such an absurd snowball effect that the game gets reduced to rock paper scissors.
Complexity is fine, if you can manage it and use it to enhance the player's experience (e.g., Dota) by using that complexity to give dozens of viable routes to play the game in and have a chance of winning. But complexity thrown in just to have these amazing "systems" that totally unbalance the game makes no sense.
Civ isn’t really that complicated compared to sc — “real-time” play is a big burden, and dramatically increases the search space.
I think the bigger blocker is that civ has no real tournaments to fuel AI popularity, that the game (and 4X in general) is likely buggier due to less online-play (meaning the AI is likelier to get trapped exploiting uninteresting bugs) and at least newer games are probably somewhat unoptimized and will have longer simulation times (thus slower training) (both valve and blizzard are quite good about making games playable on a toaster; Firaxis is.... not.)
"It is probably one of the most unfun and distracting features that Civ games have gotten."
It's controversial, but not without its benefits. Really depends on the type of gameplay you're going for, IMO. I enjoy a very diplomatic game of Civ4, for instance, and I try to squeeze every ounce of quasi-emergent diplomacy and even policy gameplay from what little I feel is there. But I realize I'm in the minority on this. Most Civ gamers seem to prefer a purely military game. In fairness to them, that's the clearest objective of the game. But I like that Civ allows you, albeit with a great deal of against-the-tide effort, to play a different type of game.
I never made the leap to Civ5, due to what I perceived as oversimplification, and a trend away from precisely those features I liked (but which everyone else seems to hate). So I can't really comment there.
The tutorial system helps. Civ6 with expansions gets equally if not more complex. There’s def a learning curve involved. I think the complexity really comes from have more “systems” within the game to take into consideration. The good thing is, when you’re new to it you can just choose one to maximize and go for that win condition. Say you want to learn the religious side in civ6, just try to maximize that, ignore all other systems, and go for the religious win condition.
I think the main thing it could use now is general UX polish. The Freeciv server messages are "noisy" and many of them could be hidden or represented in more graphical ways. Actually playing the game is pretty good if you already know how to play Civ, but I felt some unclarity about how many starting units I actually had, and it's the kind of game that demands plenty of tutorials for new players.
The other Civilization thread reminded me of this one hour presentation by Soren Johnson, the lead designer and AI programmer of Civ 4. It is also interesting to note that Civ 4 has a big mod scene and in patches/Mods the AI was extended (Better AI Mod). Also the sequel Civ 5 changed the approach to AI heavily (I dislike it).
I do think they can add more complexity in other areas hough.
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