Proof from majority of voters that Civ 5 has been dumbed down...

[FlyByNight]

this poll is valid

No, it's not.

[Grashnak]

UPDATE ON POLL (10/7): Here is the most recent poll results; Yes - 47.19%, No - 43.35%, Undecided - 9.45%
That is less than 3% needed to take the majority, more than 50%, who agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down.

Out of 1,354 voters

You still don't get it. It could be 100% and it would be meaningless because of the often mentioned problems with your "poll". And then it would still only be 1,354 people out of the hundreds of thousands playing the game.

And you'd still be a moron.

[KingYosef]

You still don't get it. It could be 100% and it would be meaningless because of the often mentioned problems with your "poll". And then it would still only be 1,354 people out of the hundreds of thousands playing the game.

And you'd still be a moron.

When Rasmussen does a poll on the presidential election do they poll all voters? No, they don't. They poll a percentage of voters and use that as a gauge on what the general outcome will be.

[FlyByNight]

When Rasmussen does a poll on the presidential election do they poll all voters? No, they don't. They poll a percentage of voters and use that as a gauge on what the general outcome will be.

Civ V has sold almost 200,000 copies. Maybe 5% visit the civfanatics forums.

For all you know there is another site with a similar poll showing an overwhelming majority for those who think the game has NOT been dumbed down.

Polls not valid.

[wayninja]

You, and many others that try to argue your point seem to miss how this poll is valid.

What makes your examples silly and this poll valid is that the poll specifically targets users that have played Civ 5. This poll also doesn't force anyone to vote, so all the votes are authentic. Think about it. ;)

It absolutely is as valid and meaningful as this poll:


http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93382

Getting nervous about what the poll says about leprechauns? I thought so.

[Grashnak]

When Rasmussen does a poll on the presidential election do they poll all voters? No, they don't. They poll a percentage of voters and use that as a gauge on what the general outcome will be.

What they don't do is ask negative, leading questions of people who represent a small fringe group of the rest of society.

Asking a leading and completely subjective question and only asking it of the tiny part of the Civ community that hangs out at Civfanatics is no different than asking the people drinking at the local VFW legion if Islam should be the national religion of the US.

If you want anyone to take you seriously, start a poll that asks people a neutral question, say something like "On a scale of 1-10, how complex a game do you think Civ IV was. On the same scale of 1-10, how complex a game do you think Civ V is? "

But, of course, that wouldn't help you with your whining agenda.

[Montrealer]

That's an impressive amount of effort the OP has put into this thread. It's almost as if he believes something will happen if the percentage of Yes voters goes over 50%.

[Prexxus]

That's an impressive amount of effort the OP has put into this thread. It's almost as if he believes something will happen if the percentage of Yes voters goes over 50%.

Even if the poll was valid and EVERYONE who got the game thought it was dumbed down... whats the point? They made the game the way they wanted to. The game sold the way they wanted it to. This won't change anything even if the poll meant anything.

So congrats, you made a poll that about 550 users from a forum think that a game that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies is dumbed down from its predecessor...


















































...now what?

[deanco]

And you know what's funny?

Let's assume the OP is right, and it is an inarguable fact that Civ 5 has been dumbed down. This crappy poll with its leading, vague question and skewed sample *STILL* wouldn't prove it.

[Sombra]

I think more interessting is this poll over at civ fanatics because it provides much feedback regarding the different game concepts and what is hurting right now the game the most:


Domination victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 14 - DON'T LIKE it: 11 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

Spaceship victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 13 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 13)

Diplomacy victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 10 - DON'T LIKE it: 5 - NOT DECIDED: 12)

Culture victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 5 - NOT DECIDED: 7)


City-states
(LIKE it: 21 - DON'T LIKE it: 2 - NOT DECIDED: 4)


Social Policies
(LIKE it: 18 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 1)


Diplomacy
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 20 - NOT DECIDED: 3)


Hex tiles
(LIKE it: 26 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 0)

added: Pillage mechanic
(LIKE it: 9 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 7)

Terrain use in combat
(LIKE it: 22 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 1)

1-Unit-Per-Tile rules
(LIKE it: 23 - DON'T LIKE it: 2 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

Ranged combat rules
(LIKE it: 21 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 3)

Melee combat rules
(LIKE it: 22 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

Land units
(LIKE it: 20 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 6)

Naval units
(LIKE it: 19 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 5)

Embarkment
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 9)

Air units
(LIKE it: 7 - DON'T LIKE it: 4 - NOT DECIDED: 16)

Nuclear weapons
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 22)


Great Persons
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 4 - NOT DECIDED: 8)

Science: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 11 - DON'T LIKE it: 13 - NOT DECIDED: 3)

Gold: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

Culture: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

Production: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 10 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

added: Tile improvements
(LIKE it: - DON'T LIKE it: - NOT DECIDED: )

Cities: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 12 - DON'T LIKE it: 10 - NOT DECIDED: 5)


AI in general
(LIKE it: 3 - DON'T LIKE it: 13 - NOT DECIDED: 11)

AI in Diplomacy
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 19 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

AI in Combat
(LIKE it: 3 - DON'T LIKE it: 15 - NOT DECIDED: 9)


Prince - the even - difficulty level
(LIKE it: 6 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 13)


Its the the thread about features like them or not.

[Krehlmar]

There you go making claims where you have no basis in fact. You and 500 others are NOT a 'leading force'. You and 500 others are a small drop in the great big pool of Civ 5 players. Today alone there were almost 41,000 people that played Civ 5.

So please stop with the 'leading force' and 'majority of players' type of phrases.
Great job of not achnoledging the concept of "pools". Youknow those numbers that usually, not always, show what people think about something. You might've heard about them during election years etc.

The fact that there are people like ME and 500 other ME's that take the time to come here and speak out against what we consider bad choices proves that there is atleast a hundred silent people behind us.
Yeah sure, there might be a hundred of dumbd down "Yes" sayers aswell and you'll be content with your cute and fuzzy game but we are not and we want features.

Why do you Yes sayers have to act like we're all trying to usurp the world gouvernment, we're not. We love the game asmuch as you do, probably more; We love Civ to much to watch it turn into a casual game for Wii-console owners that play it for 2 days then never touch it again.

[Belgarion]

AI in general
(LIKE it: 3 - DON'T LIKE it: 13 - NOT DECIDED: 11)

AI in Diplomacy
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 19 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

AI in Combat
(LIKE it: 3 - DON'T LIKE it: 15 - NOT DECIDED: 9)


Prince - the even - difficulty level
(LIKE it: 6 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 13)


Its the the thread about features like them or not.

AI for the fail!

[Rylan]

You need to be very careful of the faith you put in numbers, King Yosef.

Judging by previous posts, a greater percentage of the posters in this thread believe you're an idiot, than the percentage of people referenced in your poll who believe Civ V has been dumbed down.

So, if you see 46% of people voting that way as absolute proof that Civ 5 is dumbed down, then you must also accept that you are, indeed, an idiot.

[Shiav]

Great job of not achnoledging the concept of "pools". Youknow those numbers that usually, not always, show what people think about something. You might've heard about them during election years etc.

go talk to president al gore about polls.

O WAIT! even though he was ahead in the polls, bush was president for 8 years. even when bush was behind in 04, bush won again.

the polls are really awesome eh?

btw "You, and many others that try to argue your point seem to miss how this poll is valid.

What makes your examples silly and this poll valid is that the poll specifically targets users that have played Civ 5. This poll also doesn't force anyone to vote, so all the votes are authentic. Think about it. "
Kingyosef

its called irony for effect. thats what the first part was. and if you REALLY wanted to poll all the civ users, theyd patch the game so that the next time i wished to play it, i could flll out a survey. thus polling EVERYBODY who plays the game, not just people complaining on civfanatics

[The Sovereign]

So, most people don't think this game was dumbed down. That makes sense, because it wasn't. Not to say it isn't a bug-riddled, poorly balanced mess. Everything builds too slowly, on every speed except possibly Quick (ironically, I wouldn't waste my time on that speed), but the game's foundations make every choice meaningful in a way that is new to the series.

[KingYosef]

UPDATE ON POLL (10/9): The trend continues in favor of Civ 5 being dumbed down... Yes - 48.78%, No - 41.96%, Undecided - 9.26%, Out of 1,480 Voters

[deanco]

It's a trend!

This trend proves (conclusively) that Civ 5 is becoming more dumbed down as time goes on.

[wayninja]

It's a trend!

This trend proves (conclusively) that Civ 5 is becoming more dumbed down as time goes on.

So is this whole forum.

[thefluffyrocker]

When Rasmussen does a poll on the presidential election do they poll all voters? No, they don't. They poll a percentage of voters and use that as a gauge on what the general outcome will be.

And that prediction is often wrong...

[thefluffyrocker]

I think more interessting is this poll over at civ fanatics because it provides much feedback regarding the different game concepts and what is hurting right now the game the most:


Domination victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 14 - DON'T LIKE it: 11 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

Spaceship victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 13 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 13)

Diplomacy victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 10 - DON'T LIKE it: 5 - NOT DECIDED: 12)

Culture victory - the way it is
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 5 - NOT DECIDED: 7)


City-states
(LIKE it: 21 - DON'T LIKE it: 2 - NOT DECIDED: 4)


Social Policies
(LIKE it: 18 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 1)


Diplomacy
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 20 - NOT DECIDED: 3)


Hex tiles
(LIKE it: 26 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 0)

added: Pillage mechanic
(LIKE it: 9 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 7)

Terrain use in combat
(LIKE it: 22 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 1)

1-Unit-Per-Tile rules
(LIKE it: 23 - DON'T LIKE it: 2 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

Ranged combat rules
(LIKE it: 21 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 3)

Melee combat rules
(LIKE it: 22 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

Land units
(LIKE it: 20 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 6)

Naval units
(LIKE it: 19 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 5)

Embarkment
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 3 - NOT DECIDED: 9)

Air units
(LIKE it: 7 - DON'T LIKE it: 4 - NOT DECIDED: 16)

Nuclear weapons
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 1 - NOT DECIDED: 22)


Great Persons
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 4 - NOT DECIDED: 8)

Science: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 11 - DON'T LIKE it: 13 - NOT DECIDED: 3)

Gold: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

Culture: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

Production: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 15 - DON'T LIKE it: 10 - NOT DECIDED: 2)

added: Tile improvements
(LIKE it: - DON'T LIKE it: - NOT DECIDED: )

Cities: the way you make and use
(LIKE it: 12 - DON'T LIKE it: 10 - NOT DECIDED: 5)


AI in general
(LIKE it: 3 - DON'T LIKE it: 13 - NOT DECIDED: 11)

AI in Diplomacy
(LIKE it: 4 - DON'T LIKE it: 19 - NOT DECIDED: 4)

AI in Combat
(LIKE it: 3 - DON'T LIKE it: 15 - NOT DECIDED: 9)


Prince - the even - difficulty level
(LIKE it: 6 - DON'T LIKE it: 8 - NOT DECIDED: 13)


Its the the thread about features like them or not.

This reflects the majority of other polls i have seen around and really confirms the trend i have seen as a whole.
People like the game design, but they hate the crap AI!

Anything dependant or largely related to the AI they hate. For the rest of the game people mainly think it's great.

Theres a few tweaks that need sorting out, smoothing over a couple of creases but if we took any notice of the drama queens out there <cough> KingYosef <cough> who seem more interested in drawing attention to themselves rather than any issue the game may have, you would think the game would explode in 5...4...3....

[Shiav]

UPDATE ON POLL (10/9): The trend continues in favor of Civ 5 being dumbed down... Yes - 48.78%, No - 41.96%, Undecided - 9.26%, Out of 1,480 Voters

you should restart this poll right now, on THIS forum, so we all can vote.

[Murkk]

I think the game has been enhanced rather than dumbed down, if they fix a few AI issues and exploits. There are all sorts of different strats with the city states and social policies and how they impact play. CIV4 was high on micromanagement but low on strategy compared to CIV5.

[KingYosef]

less than a half percent to take the majority. <cough> ninja guy and johny boy

[SteveBeds]

Hi,
Had to join the forum to comment on this one.
Though I argree there are plenty of improvements to the game, the hexagonal tiles, units being able to travel across water without first building something to carry them in, better graphics etc.
I do have to say that most of the things that made CIV 4 enjoyable, espionage, many of the diplomacy options and the culture/research sliders have been removed. I have played several games to the end and I am getting annoyed that at the end of nearly every turn I am still researching future techs, when before I could slide down the research option in favour of culture or profit.
All I seem to be doing is telling cities what to build, units where to go and telling other cultures that i want/don't want open border agreements. VERY repetative.
I also agree that the non playing states are a pain in the ar$£ and I try to invade them ASAP as I see little value in them being there, or trying to be allies with them.
I also have to say that the Social Policies are pointless too since by the time you've finished a game many of them are still incomplete.

[Nekator]

And you'd still be a moron.
I´m again and again amazed, what 2K moderation let go as a "civil discussion", as long as it comes from their fanboys...

Not only do they fail with Civ V but also with the Community and Support.

[trainzebra]

you should restart this poll right now, on THIS forum, so we all can vote.

But then he'd be working with a sample that he doesn't know will turn out the way he wants! Gotta make sure the poll gets the right result after all.

[Nekator]

But then he'd be working with a sample that he doesn't know will turn out the way he wants! Gotta make sure the poll gets the right result after all.

Bullsh**

The polls in this forum about this topic had similiar results. You fanboys are only a (loud) minority, nothing more.

[trainzebra]

Bullsh**

The polls in this forum about this topic had similiar results. You fanboys are only a (loud) minority, nothing more.

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Civ V is currently played by 16,000 players with a peak of 48,000 players.

Civ IV isn't even in the top 100.

This is proof from a majority of players that Civ V is better. Your a fanboy if you disagree.

[Bad_Brett]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Civ V is currently played by 16,000 players with a peak of 48,000 players.

Civ IV isn't even in the top 100.

This is proof from a majority of players that Civ V is better. Your a fanboy if you disagree.

Yeah, because as we all know, everyone that plays Civ IV uses Steam... Those numbers make perfect sense. Console players who want as much action as possible and as little decisions as possible enjoy Steam and Civ V.

The real Civ fans enjoy being in charge over their games, without being forced to use third-party software... and they like complex game designs, with tons of decisions to be made every turn.

[Grashnak]

The real Civ fans enjoy being in charge over their games, without being forced to use third-party software... and they like complex game designs, with tons of decisions to be made every turn.

☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺. I've played every Civ game since the release of Civ 1 so I'm definitely a "real" Civ fan and I'm nothing like what you just said. You need to get together with the OP and take a remedial class in "not making assumptions".

[slowtarget]

UPDATE ON POLL (10/7): Here is the most recent poll results; Yes - 47.19%, No - 43.35%, Undecided - 9.45%
That is less than 3% needed to take the majority, more than 50%, who agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down.

UPDATE ON BIAS (10/11): Poll is still heavily biased and is increasing its bias through selective advertising. Validity of poll still decreasing.

[trainzebra]

Yeah, because as we all know, everyone that plays Civ IV uses Steam... Those numbers make perfect sense. Console players who want as much action as possible and as little decisions as possible enjoy Steam and Civ V.

The real Civ fans enjoy being in charge over their games, without being forced to use third-party software... and they like complex game designs, with tons of decisions to be made every turn.

My numbers are bigger. That is proof, who I sample is irrelevant. If you would like to disagree please find your own numbers that are bigger than mine. Until then I am right.

[slowtarget]

When Rasmussen does a poll on the presidential election do they poll all voters? No, they don't. They poll a percentage of voters and use that as a gauge on what the general outcome will be.

Yes, and Rasmussen goes through quite a bit of effort to ensure that the people who get counted in their poll are a true random selection of the population they are analyzing. If Rasmussen conducted polls by asking questions as people left churches or art museums they'd get two different answers, and both would be wrong. That's the difference between Rasmussen and you. You've created a biased poll that encourages only one segment of the population to vote. However, unlike Rasmussen, you don't seem to understand why this is a mistake.

Actually, Rasmussen was one of the pollsters who were known to have introduced bias into their polls by ignoring some of their selection patterns. If I remember correctly, they didn't poll any college students or anyone who didn't answer the phone in English. The first was done by accident (unless you're a conspiracy theorist) and the second was done out of practicality. And because of those really subtle mistakes, they've messed up their projections on a number of elections and public opinion questions.

[Nekator]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Civ V is currently played by 16,000 players with a peak of 48,000 players.

Civ IV isn't even in the top 100.

This is proof from a majority of players that Civ V is better. Your a fanboy if you disagree.
huh? maybe caus Civ V has Steam compulsive, while Civ IV has not? Wow you trolls get more stupid every hour...

[deanco]

UPDATE ON BIAS (10/11): Poll is still heavily biased and is increasing its bias through selective advertising. Validity of poll still decreasing.

Now that was funny.

[trainzebra]

huh? maybe caus Civ V has Steam compulsive, while Civ IV has not? Wow you trolls get more stupid every hour...

My numbers are still higher. That is proof according to the OP. Who my sample is doesn't matter.

[eoran]

Yes, and Rasmussen goes through quite a bit of effort to ensure that the people who get counted in their poll are a true random selection of the population they are analyzing. If Rasmussen conducted polls by asking questions as people left churches or art museums they'd get two different answers, and both would be wrong. That's the difference between Rasmussen and you. You've created a biased poll that encourages only one segment of the population to vote. However, unlike Rasmussen, you don't seem to understand why this is a mistake.

Actually, Rasmussen was one of the pollsters who were known to have introduced bias into their polls by ignoring some of their selection patterns. If I remember correctly, they didn't poll any college students or anyone who didn't answer the phone in English. The first was done by accident (unless you're a conspiracy theorist) and the second was done out of practicality. And because of those really subtle mistakes, they've messed up their projections on a number of elections and public opinion questions.

CivFanatics is a plural website where lovers or haters can vote, anyway... The poll has been linked here, site where all people seems to be a lover and the poll is still raising the "dumbed down" option day to day.

You can see that, the early days of the poll the "No" option was winning by a lot (more than 50%) but as time has passed people have been playing more and have come to recognize that the game has been a step backwards.

My english is not the best and someone else could have said it better. But I think that even a blind can see it.

[CoreDave]

Oh my god this thread is still rumbling on?

Well as its already at the top of the page I may as well throw my 2 pence in.

The OPs poll is clearly invalid due to reasons pointed out by others, IE it is a leading question and most importantly it is on a third party fan site and even under these skewed circumstances its only just managing to indicate a 50/50 split, meaning any "majority" that emerges will likely be extremely minor at best.

Couple that with the general issues with polls on internet sites were anyone can create any number of accounts in order to vote multiple times and your margin for error is so big that it overwhelms the results entirely.

A marginally better poll would be possible if you did it here on the official forums for this game (meaning a higher and more generalised percentage of the players might vote) and without a leading question. Even then though as membership of this forum is not tied to game ownership it would need numbers running into at least several thousands before it could be taken as truly reliable.

It is also fair to expect your average player to be less likely to visit and participate in online debate about their game. Issues with or a general dislike of the game will drive up that number further skewing the results.

Finally at the end of the day it doesn't matter anyway, the game is what it is and while we may see some changes and additions via patches, DLC and expansions it is highly doubtful that such polls will play any meaningful part in the direction the devs choose to take the game.

*edit* its not the idea of internet polls or indeed the possibility that this game is worse in some ways than its predecessors that annoys me. Its people posting stupid and clearly biased poll questions and then pointing to them as some sort of valid proof of their opinions. Word your polls correctly and impartially and make some reasonable efforts to get a true sampling and I will take your results seriously (and probably so would the devs if you really get a statistically significant number of votes), but trying to present the OPs poll in that light is utterly laughable.

[wayninja]

but as time has passed, people have been playing more and have come to recognize that the game has been a step backwards.

Ah, it's good to see people post evidence that the poll has nothing to do with being dumbed down and everything to do with "I'm dissatisfied by something".

[eoran]

Ah, it's good to see people post evidence that the poll has nothing to do with being dumbed down and everything to do with "I'm dissatisfied by something".

lol? :confused:

Step backwards in complexity means something to you? Maybe "dumbed down"?

If I think that im playing a Civ that is a step backwards then I say that im playing a dumbed down civ. Well, as I said my english sucks and maybe i can't catch the "irony", but man...

[Easy Money]

How are the 100,000+ people that are playing the game and not bothering with this forum represented... ;)

[wayninja]

lol? :confused:

Step backwards in complexity means something to you? Maybe "dumbed down"?

If I think that im playing a Civ that is a step backwards then I say that im playing a dumbed down civ. Well, as I said my english sucks and maybe i can't catch the "irony", but man...

I don't know what a step backwards means. Certainly though the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear it is not 'dumbed down'.

You are drawing, as is most of the rabid haters who somehow need this poll to justify their angst, a selective conclusion.

[eoran]

I don't know what a step backwards means. Certainly though the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear it is not 'dumbed down'.

You are drawing, as is most of the rabid haters who somehow need this poll to justify their angst, a selective conclusion.

I dont need a poll for say that the game has been dumbed down, is a personal feeling that I can't change as many other people. I just was saying something obvious: that the people were voting more and more "dumbed down" while they were playing more.

Is this something cool or bad? Well, I think that its just a reality and that can't assume if the game has been a step backwards in complexity or not. It's just a plural feeling.

But im not a rabid hater or a rabid fanboy that just spend their time attacking other people, im just a disappointed gamer. I think that is not bad.

[Novem]

What it seems like a lot of you are missing here is the fact that this poll only represents people on a certain website. Yes it's a Civfanatics site so you have to agree that there are more Civ fans there than other places, but again there are a lot of people out there that are probably enjoying the game and not posting in ANY forum.

Also to the OP, I voted in your poll. I voted no it's not been dumb downed. The 'Yes it's been dumb downed people' have a slight advantage, but it's no where near overwhelming. I see the poll as saying a big group thinks one thing and another big group thinks another and a smaller group is undecided. If all those undecided group picks a side you might very well see the No it's not dumb downed take a lead.

The poll is no where near a decisive mind set the OP makes it out to be.

[wayninja]

I dont need a poll for say that the game has been dumbed down, is a personal feeling that I can't change as many other people. I just was saying something obvious: that the people were voting more and more "dumbed down" while they were playing more.

Well pointing to a poll and then saying you don't need it is contradictory. If you don't need it, why are you pointing at it?


Is this something cool or bad? Well, I think that its just a reallity and that can't assume if the game has been a step backwards in complexity or not. It's just a plural feeling.

I don't know if it's cool or bad or what, my point is that people are taking "dumbed down" to mean anything they don't like about the game. Since "dumbed down" isn't really defined or quantified, it's simply being used as a catchall for anything negative.


But im not a rabid hater or a rabid fanboy that just spend their time atacking other people, im just a disappointed gamer. I think that is not bad.

Exactly.

[Mythdracon]

I find the idea that the poll is "biased" to be misleading and biased in and of itself.

Civfanatics is a site full of people who loved Civ 4 and enjoyed it, and they are typically hardcore gamers BUT NOT ALL. In fact a sizable portion of them are casual Civ lovers who go to Civfanatics forum for the conversation/analysis/tips/humorous stories etc. The poll therefore does reflect a diverse group and should be taken into account. People who point at the poll and say "well that's hardly proof, most people who like the game are playing it". This is what we call supposition, and it is not backed up by evidence.

I take it one calling Civfanatics "biased" is to lead some people to conclude the poll is not a fair measure of people's reactions to the game. But in fact, it is, given the nature of the Civfanatics site. Plus, everything is "biased" in some way shape or form anyway, including the commentary of both those who love and dislike the game. Bias is hardly a scratch against anyone arguing in favor of using the poll or those who argue against it.

[eoran]

Well pointing to a poll and then saying you don't need it is contradictory. If you don't need it, why are you pointing at it?

Well, man... Im pointing a poll because all people here are pointing the poll. lol Even you. Someone was saying that the pod was pointless, and although it is not accurate or professional does have some sense as I was saying.

[eoran]

I don't know if it's cool or bad or what, my point is that people are taking "dumbed down" to mean anything they don't like about the game. Since "dumbed down" isn't really defined or quantified, it's simply being used as a catchall for anything negative.

Are you saying that the people is voting "No" even if they think that the game has been dumbed down but they like it? We're all mature to know what we voted and why.

If someone don't know what that means, he can read some definitions:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dumbed+down
dumb down: To rewrite for a less educated or less sophisticated audience.
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/dumbed+down
dumbed down: Simplified, with a strong connotation of *over*simplified. Often, a marketroid will insist that the interfaces and documentation of software be dumbed down after the designer has burned untold gallons of midnight oil making it smart. This creates friction.
wikipedia...
dumbed down: Made condescendingly simple

If you read the thread some people say that they like the game has been simplified, and other dislike it. I think it's a bit offensive say that the poeple just vote "yes" or "not" just because they dislike it or not.
Personally I do not like the simplification, but other people enjoys it

[lemmy101]

I think this sums up everything better than anything else ever could: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fEjJ4Ecy9Q

[neil5280]

Where's the emoticon for watching a train wreck?

[wayninja]

Are you saying that the people is voting "No" even if they think that the game has been dumbed down but they like it? We're all mature to know what we voted and why.

No, I'm saying people are voting yes just because they don't like the game or find some flaw with it. Regardless of how 'dumbed down' it is.


If you read the thread some people say that they like the game has been simplified, and other dislike it. I think it's a bit offensive say that the poeple just vote "yes" or "not" just because they dislike it or not.
Personally I do not like the simplification, but other people enjoys it

Personally I think it's naive to think otherwise. In fact, you used the phrase 'step backward' which isn't in the poll at all. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but if this isn't representative of bias, I'm not sure what is.

I'm not accusing everyone that has voted of this, just that the bias is evident.

[SilentOne83]

Civ 5 has indeed been dumbed down. There's no question about it.

[SilentKnight111]

Wait. So if I can get a majority of people to agree something is true, then it's proven true?

So the world really was flat, once?

(Not saying it's dumbed down or not, just saying the title of this thread is bad)

[FlyByNight]

Civ 5 has indeed been dumbed down. There's no question about it.

Nope, you're wrong, no doubt about it.

[Shiav]

Wait. So if I can get a majority of people to agree something is true, then it's proven true?

So the world really was flat, once?

(Not saying it's dumbed down or not, just saying the title of this thread is bad)

the world was flat until the 1500s. then everybodies like, hey! i have an idea! and then they believed the earth was a sphere. then in the 20th century these guys went into space and said, hey! i got an idea! and now the earth is an oblate spheroid.

KingYosef, i am going to make this poll, right now, right here. well find out what happens. (even though i dont believe in polls it seams to be the only way to get thorugh to you)

[slowtarget]

the world was flat until the 1500s. then everybodies like, hey! i have an idea! and then they believed the earth was a sphere. then in the 20th century these guys went into space and said, hey! i got an idea! and now the earth is an oblate spheroid.

Er...

Actually, most educated people knew the Earth was round well before the 1500's. The Greeks figured it out long before that and the knowledge was common to sailors and scientists.

In celebration of Columbus Day: Columbus stands out over the rest of them because he was not only a mediocre navigator, but he really sucked at math and geography. While everyone else who cared to figure out the size of the world had estimated the world to be pretty much the right size for hundreds of years, Columbus and his friend estimated it to be drastically smaller due to a number of embarrassing errors. He actually expected to find China in less time than it took him to reach the Caribbean. Everyone else told him he was wrong and that he had over half the world to sail across. Isabella paid him off just to keep him from working with anyone else.

And physicists and astronomers figured out that the Earth was an oblate spheroid long before anyone went into space.

[KingYosef]

Those who think Civ 5 has been dumbed down has just hit the majority of voters at over 50%!!!!!!!!!!! :D

More to come in my official update later. :cool:

[wayninja]

Those who think Civ 5 has been dumbed down has just hit the majority of voters at over 50%!!!!!!!!!!! :D

More to come in my official update later. :cool:

Must feel good to finally be right.

Ok guys, let's pack it in. We had a good run, but must simply admit defeat and stop playing the game.

[thefluffyrocker]

Those who think Civ 5 has been dumbed down has just hit the majority of voters at over 50%!!!!!!!!!!! :D

More to come in my official update later. :cool:

"official" update...ooo, look at me i'm trying to be important.
/pat
It's not all bad, i'm sure your mummy loves you, even if no one else does.

[avoll]

Personally I think this is a stupid argument for both sides. It is blatantly obvious things have been removed from the game, however I think they did so with good intention, and I think it would come off better if they would even out the gameplay.

Granted I would like to see a tad bit more details added back into the game/add new ones, but I think some of the streamline changes that have been made are good, and in my opinion they just need to find a good happy medium.
I feel like they didn't do a very good job with play testing, and overall the game just needs tweaked.

Don't light me on fire here, but I think people just need to back off a little and wait and see what comes out for a patch after all of our play tested feedback gets incorporated.

[Taciturn Scot]

I feel like they didn't do a very good job with play testing, and overall the game just needs tweaked.

Don't light me on fire here, but I think people just need to back off a little and wait and see what comes out for a patch after all of our play tested feedback gets incorporated.

Amen to that.

With regards to your playtesting comments, I am a Beta tester for another game company and it's not unusual to see customers have a poke at the playtesters when things areen't working properly in the game. 'Why didn't the beta testers spot this. I spotted it within 5 minutes of starting the game:mad: !!!' is a good one. The testers most likely DID report the problem but the programmers decided to prioritise some other problem. This game had a release date and you can be sure that had it been delayed by another month you'd have had a ton of people complaining that they'd rather be playing the game in an unfinished state rather than be playing nothing.

[Rykks]

Sorry, but I had to post a response in this thread seeing as this was just covered in my statistics course. Let me just put in my 2 cents. I would have to say that this survey reminds me of a survey conducted by Shere Hite where she mailed 100,000 surveys to different household across the U.S. and got back 3% of what she sent out. Now 3,000 plenty over the amount of responses needed to make a statistic, for lack of a better word, about the population. Based on the responses Shere got back about 98% of women in the U.S. were unsatisfied with their marriage and 75% said that they had an affair. However, ABC news and the Washington Post later conducted surveys of their own and got back that only 7% of women in the U.S. were unsatisfied with their marriages and only 7% said that they had an affair. So why was Shere's numbers so different? Well, part of it can be attributed to the fact that only 3% responded meaning that the people who did respond had a reason to respond. Such as the fact that you hear more people complaining about things going wrong than things that are going right. Just like the majority of people in this forum might have reason to complain as to maybe get the Devs to change the game into what they want.

Anyways... sorry for the long post if you want to learn more about this survey conducted my Shere Hite I would suggest just looking up her name. Also threads do not elicit a response from me, but I just heard about this and will most likely be questioned about it so this gave some nice practice. Again, I'm just college student you can take my argument, change it, refute it, or cast it aside.

Also sorry for trying to keep this old thread alive it for those this post may annoy.

[wayninja]

Such as the fact that you hear more people complaining about things going wrong than things that are going right.

Why would people complain about things going right?

Actually, nevermind. I think I'm in the perfect place for that.

[KingYosef]

Sorry, but I had to post a response in this thread seeing as this was just covered in my statistics course. Let me just put in my 2 cents. I would have to say that this survey reminds me of a survey conducted by Shere Hite where she mailed 100,000 surveys to different household across the U.S. and got back 3% of what she sent out. Now 3,000 plenty over the amount of responses needed to make a statistic, for lack of a better word, about the population. Based on the responses Shere got back about 98% of women in the U.S. were unsatisfied with their marriage and 75% said that they had an affair. However, ABC news and the Washington Post later conducted surveys of their own and got back that only 7% of women in the U.S. were unsatisfied with their marriages and only 7% said that they had an affair. So why was Shere's numbers so different? Well, part of it can be attributed to the fact that only 3% responded meaning that the people who did respond had a reason to respond. Such as the fact that you hear more people complaining about things going wrong than things that are going right. Just like the majority of people in this forum might have reason to complain as to maybe get the Devs to change the game into what they want.

Anyways... sorry for the long post if you want to learn more about this survey conducted my Shere Hite I would suggest just looking up her name. Also threads do not elicit a response from me, but I just heard about this and will most likely be questioned about it so this gave some nice practice. Again, I'm just college student you can take my argument, change it, refute it, or cast it aside.

Also sorry for trying to keep this old thread alive it for those this post may annoy.

You might have a point but you fail to acknowledge the trend that this poll has taken with it's history. If you notice that this poll was the other way around for the first week or more with the results in favor of those who don't agree of more than 60% at one time. But, as I reported in my updates, as time went on we saw the results flip flop. So your whole theory goes out the window and can't be compared to this very different poll. Nice try... NEXT...

[KingYosef]

Why would people complain about things going right?

Actually, nevermind. I think I'm in the perfect place for that.

Again, ignoring the fact that this poll was the other way around for the first week or so when it started. You might have a valid argument but the history shows that this poll could easily go either way. But, it went the way of truth and history is there to show us. ;)

[wayninja]

Again, ignoring the fact that this poll was the other way around for the first week or so when it started. You might have a valid argument but the history shows that this poll could easily go either way. But, it went the way of truth and history is there to show us. ;)

Yes, you are totally right, I completely concede.

Your opinion has been proven as universal truth. There really is no argument that can hope to combat this.

Oh, and also. There are more leprechauns (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93382) in the game.

[KingYosef]

UPDATE ON POLL (10/11): The results now showing a Majority of 50.03% agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down, while those who disagree at 41.02%. Undecided now sits at 8.95%. Out of 1,565 voters.

[KingYosef]

Yes, you are totally right, I completely concede.

Your opinion has been proven as universal truth. There really is no argument that can hope to combat this.

Oh, and also. There are more leprechauns (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93382) in the game.

The Leprechaun poll is funny, but it has no validity or reason to back it up. I would think you had a better move to try and discredit this poll.

[wayninja]

The Leprechaun poll is funny, but it has no validity or reason to back it up. I would think you had a better move to try and discredit this poll.

Nope, I couldn't have done any better than the numerous people that have already discredited your poll. I find it funny that in your obsession over it, you are completely blind to anything you don't want to hear.

You wear this poll like a security blanket to try to rationalize an opinion. It's just kinda sad, really.

[Yalbik]

The Leprechaun poll is funny, but it has no validity or reason to back it up. I would think you had a better move to try and discredit this poll.

2 out of 3 polls say the majority of civ players do NOT say that Civ V has been dumbed down:
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=90685

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94311

I wonder what 4 out of 5 dentists think?!? :eek:

But all silliness aside, I fail to understand what this poll is intended to accomplish? Let's say the numbers hit 80% in favor of "dumbed down"....then what?

Would we then know conclusively that the game has been dumbed down? Of course not...there is no objective measure of "dumbed downedness". The best we could say in that case is that '80% of players who answered the poll believe the game is "dumbed down"'

Perhaps dumbed down games sell better. Perhaps they are much cheaper to produce. Perhaps polls like this are entirely invalid. What importance does this information have whatsoever in terms of the game?

[deanco]

KingYosef, what's the margin of error in your poll?

The polls you see on TV always state the margin of error. What's yours?

[Taciturn Scot]

I would think you had a better move to try and discredit this poll.

Read Post 235

[clickbouyow]

It is all subjective, anyway. Some like it, some don't. That is why there are mods.

[EggPuppet]

An opinion poll is a nonsensical way to establish whether the game has been dumbed down. It's immediately obvious that it has been - you could identify many aspects of the Civ 5 game mechanics that are clearly simpler than they were in Civ 4.

But that doesn't mean it's a worse game. Some of the simplifications were good, some were bad. Removing stacking makes the game simpler to understand, but the consequences for gameplay are very positive. On other points, like global vs. local happiness values, it's debatable whether the simplification was good for the game or not. The simplicity of lategame tech options is probably an example of a bad change, since it pressures the game flow towards one-dimensional warfare, and away from the multiplicity of playstyles that is supposed to be a major draw of the series.

[Nekator]

[QUOTE=EggPuppet;1219516]An opinion poll is a nonsensical way to establish whether the game has been dumbed down. It's immediately obvious that it has been - you could identify many aspects of the Civ 5 game mechanics that are clearly simpler than they were in Civ 4.

But that doesn't mean it's a worse game. Some of the simplifications were good, some were bad. Removing stacking makes the game simpler to understand, but the consequences for gameplay are very positive. On other points, like global vs. local happiness values, it's debatable whether the simplification was good for the game or not. The simplicity of lategame tech options is probably an example of a bad change, since it pressures the game flow towards one-dimensional warfare, and away from the multiplicity of playstyles that is supposed to be a major draw of the series.[/QUOTEOne of the few good postings here..

It´s true, not all changes were bad, but even if they brought something new, they destroyed it with the bad AI. The path finding for units is terrible as well as how the enemy AI uses them.

[FloRead]

I am enjoying Civ 5. I like it so much, I'm always playing a turn in between cooking, watching the kid, doing the laundry, etc.

However, I do feel Civ 5 IS dumbed down. Quite massively in fact.

Earlier Civs, I am always checking my cities to ensure growth is going along smoothly. Checking to ensure my military units are stationed at the right places. Looking at enemy civs to ensure I am not being threatened. Checking the turns to certain productions being completed. Checking if my science output is keeping up to pace. Making sure my workers are building or updating tile improvements. Everything done to ensure that looking ahead a few turns, everything is going according to plan.

With Civ 5, I find myself just clicking next turn without a thought. And worse, clicking next turn very often without doing anything! I always play marathon games but in Civ 5, I find myself wasting a lot of turns not doing anything, not because I want to waste the turn but I genuinely have nothing to do. Even trying out standard games, I find myself clicking turns away doing nothing.

The core of Civ 5 is fun, but I really wouldn't mind a little more complexity.

[rhugga]

A poll with over 1,500 votes from Civ fans that proves the majority agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down... http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381961


View Poll Results: Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumb down?
Yes - 783, 50.03%
No - 642, 41.02%
Undecided - 140, 8.95%
Voters: 1,565.

UPDATE ON POLL (9/25): As you can see, more than 1 in every 4 players think that Civ 5 has been dumb down. Numbers don't lie, this release is below Civ par.
UPDATE ON POLL (9/27): Now the numbers continue to rise as 33 percent - 1 in every 3 players agree that Civ 5 has been dumb down, while 11 percent are uncertain.
UPDATE ON POLL (9/28): The numbers continues to rise for those who believe that Civ 5 has been dumb down to a now 37 percent. Undecided still sits at 11 percent, while 52 percent are opposed.
UPDATE ON POLL (9/30): With the numbers still rising, now 40 percent of users think that Civ 5 has been dumb down with roughly ten percent undecided! That means only 1 in 2 users actually think there is no dumbing down of the Civ 5 game! Have us skeptics been wrong? Or is it only a matter of time before one realizes that the game is dumb down?
UPDATE ON POLL (10/1): Yes, you guessed it! The numbers continue to even out for those who think the game has been dumb down, which now sits at 41.19 percent. The number of undecided is at 10.18%, while those who don't think it has been dumb down now drops below the 50 percent mark to 48.63%. At this rate the majority will think the game has been dumb down will even with the opposite view in less than a week. Stay tuned...
UPDATE ON POLL (10/3): The trend continues as it has been over a week now since Civ 5 has been released and the poll numbers are showing that users continue to agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down. Out of a 1,045 voters, 44.31% now agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down, while the declining 45.36% disagree. The number undecided holds steady at 10.33%.
UPDATE ON POLL (10/5): Well, we saw this coming. Now the majority of voters at 45.23% agree that Civ 5 has in fact been dumbed down. Those that disagree sit at 44.90%, while undecided declines also to 9.88%.
UPDATE ON POLL (10/7): Here is the most recent poll results; Yes - 47.19%, No - 43.35%, Undecided - 9.45%
That is less than 3% needed to take the majority, more than 50%, who agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down.
UPDATE ON POLL (10/9): The trend continues in favor of Civ 5 being dumbed down... Yes - 48.78%, No - 41.96%, Undecided - 9.26%, Out of 1,480 Voters
UPDATE ON POLL (10/11): The results now showing a Majority of 50.03% agree that Civ 5 has been dumbed down, while those who disagree at 41.02%. Undecided now sits at 8.95%. Out of 1,565 voters.

1. I have always felt like I have been in control while playing the Civ game. Civ 5 has me feeling like someone is holding my hand throughout the whole game as I'm being fed a choose your own adventure bedtime story. I just found myself hitting the next turn button without much to focus on or manage. Very disappointing.

2. Don't like the city states, or atleast how they are implemented too much into the game. They are just annoying and uninteresting.

3. Bring back religion. They should have just improved on this feature instead of omitting it. Omitting religion from Civ is like omitting the egg in an omelet.

4. They took away almost all the great features. I'm talking about: vassal states, tech trading, map trading, diplomacy, espionage, religion, health/sickness, random events, scenarios, wonder animations, end-game cinematics, and culture, research, and commerce sliders. This is just the ones that I can recall off the top of my head.

5. Also, civics. Now civics has merely become a ladder of perks that you upgrade. Has absolutely no flexibility. These are features that kept your mind buzzing as your culture advances into each era. If I want a barbaric Civ I should be able to choose so... at any time I wish, and any point in the game.

In conclusion, I'll be setting this game on the shelf and hoping for a big change. As for now, I can just go and play my PS3 and get the same feeling from a console game. Before anyone decides to flame me and call me names for posting this fact, just keep in mind that I have been a Civ player since I bought my first copy of Civ 1 in the early 90's.

Polls in forums rife with fanbois have absolutely no merit. No one really needs a poll to see this game was a huge let down with no replay value -- something that made their previous titles so popular.

I never imagined being so utterly bored with a Civ title as quickly as I am with this one.. After doing all you can to make the game interesting past the first few games I've already shelved it.

[FlyByNight]

I don't really need a poll to see this game was a huge let down FOR ME with no replay value -- something that made their previous titles so popular FOR ME.

I never imagined being so utterly bored with a Civ title as quickly as I am with this one.. After doing all you can to make the game interesting past the first few games I've already shelved it.

Thanks for your opinion (changed your quote for correctness). My opinion on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. Civ 5, as it stands right now, for me, is the best of the series. And will only get better.

[Tupisac]

Since Civ 5 is so successful and allowed so many new people to finally understand and enjoy the game - there are already some screenshots from new Civ 6:

http://tinyurl.com/35nreje

[Rykks]

You might have a point but you fail to acknowledge the trend that this poll has taken with it's history. If you notice that this poll was the other way around for the first week or more with the results in favor of those who don't agree of more than 60% at one time. But, as I reported in my updates, as time went on we saw the results flip flop. So your whole theory goes out the window and can't be compared to this very different poll. Nice try... NEXT...

Well my point kind of fails as you say, but even if this poll was in favor of Civ 5 not being dumbed down based on the fact that you used a voluntary response survey your numbers still would not be a good predictor of the population. See right now your population that you are surveying are not all the people that play Civ 5, your population that you are surveying are people who play AND go on this forum which is what you could call a sub-group of the true population. However, your point could disprove my theory about people complaining to the Devs, but that is all you can truly say from your survey only if it does flip-flop which you have constantly been pointing out that for the past few times you have checked it hasn't based on your logic.

[avoll]

Since Civ 5 is so successful and allowed so many new people to finally understand and enjoy the game - there are already some screenshots from new Civ 6:

http://tinyurl.com/35nreje

O man, I cant wait to buy this, buying stuff is really fun.

[Shiav]

Er...

Actually, most educated people knew the Earth was round well before the 1500's. The Greeks figured it out long before that and the knowledge was common to sailors and scientists.

In celebration of Columbus Day: Columbus stands out over the rest of them because he was not only a mediocre navigator, but he really sucked at math and geography. While everyone else who cared to figure out the size of the world had estimated the world to be pretty much the right size for hundreds of years, Columbus and his friend estimated it to be drastically smaller due to a number of embarrassing errors. He actually expected to find China in less time than it took him to reach the Caribbean. Everyone else told him he was wrong and that he had over half the world to sail across. Isabella paid him off just to keep him from working with anyone else.

And physicists and astronomers figured out that the Earth was an oblate spheroid long before anyone went into space.

i am well aware of this, as one ancient mathmetician looked at the shadows on water wells in two different towns to figure it out. but King Yosef needs proof, proof more than someone elses number he needs something to back him up. so when you have two sets of data that contradict the only way to prove which is correct is to find a middle ground or physically show it, as in both of my examples

[Nationalist]

There you go making claims where you have no basis in fact. You and 500 others are NOT a 'leading force'. You and 500 others are a small drop in the great big pool of Civ 5 players. Today alone there were almost 41,000 people that played Civ 5.

So please stop with the 'leading force' and 'majority of players' type of phrases.

50% of 1565 is close to 800 people, not 500.

If you dismiss the (almost) 800 you also dismis the 600+ who think like you.

Polls are always picking a very small fraction of the population. 1500+ answers from over 40000 (your figure) represents a huge sample. Even if the answerers are voluntary no one can assume the result is automatically flawed, it may be, but the actual percentage of people believing Civ 5 is dumbed down might also be higher than 50%.

Civ 5 is disappointing, either compared with expectations or when you begin to analyse each component: bad diplomacy, poor combat AI, huge lags for many, repetitive city states behaviour, linear tech tree, none of the possible promising new features has depth, major Civ series' proven assets eliminated. Even the little fancier parts (building the palace option, the city view) are out.

[Shiav]

50% of 1565 is close to 800 people, not 500.

If you dismiss the (almost) 800 you also dismis the 600+ who think like you.

Polls are always picking a very small fraction of the population. 1500+ answers from over 40000 (your figure) represents a huge sample. Even if the answerers are voluntary no one can assume the result is automatically flawed, it may be, but the actual percentage of people believing Civ 5 is dumbed down might also be higher than 50%.

Civ 5 is disappointing, either compared with expectations or when you begin to analyse each component: bad diplomacy, poor combat AI, huge lags for many, repetitive city states behaviour, linear tech tree, none of the possible promising new features has depth, major Civ series' proven assets eliminated. Even the little fancier parts (building the palace option, the city view) are out.

when he posted only 1000 people had voted. and it doesnt matter how many people vote, cuz polls dont matter. my poll on this website shows the exact opposite.

O, btw the game has sold bout 300k copies. 800/300000=.3%

And, as i said earlier, polls are not correct. in 2000 (think wayyy back) Al Gore was favourite to win the presidential election. He went on to be the greatest president ever. O WAIT

[FlyByNight]

50% of 1565 is close to 800 people, not 500.

If you dismiss the (almost) 800 you also dismis the 600+ who think like you.

Polls are always picking a very small fraction of the population. 1500+ answers from over 40000 (your figure) represents a huge sample. Even if the answerers are voluntary no one can assume the result is automatically flawed, it may be, but the actual percentage of people believing Civ 5 is dumbed down might also be higher than 50%.

Civ 5 is disappointing, either compared with expectations or when you begin to analyse each component: bad diplomacy, poor combat AI, huge lags for many, repetitive city states behaviour, linear tech tree, none of the possible promising new features has depth, major Civ series' proven assets eliminated. Even the little fancier parts (building the palace option, the city view) are out.

Yeah, get with the times. My post was last week. Also, the 41,000 figure was people that had played THAT DAY ALONE; not how many people owned the game.

This poll is not a random sample of Civ 5 players. It is heavily biased and is a sample of Civ 5 players who ALSO frequent the civfanatics site. For all we know, the pollster (King Yosef) scoured his neighborhood/school/office to get people to sign up at civfanatics just so they could answer 'Yes' to his poll.

Finally, polls are only about gauging people's opinion, they have nothing to do with making something a 'fact'. So, just because a majority of people participating in a poll (at a website that may not be representative of the entire civ player population) think the game has been 'dumbed down', does not make it so. Likewise, just like all of your statements are merely opinion, and you're entitled to them, they are merely that. They are not fact.

[Shiav]

Yeah, get with the times. My post was last week. Also, the 41,000 figure was people that had played THAT DAY ALONE; not how many people owned the game.

This poll is not a random sample of Civ 5 players. It is heavily biased and is a sample of Civ 5 players who ALSO frequent the civfanatics site. For all we know, the pollster (King Yosef) scoured his neighborhood/school/office to get people to sign up at civfanatics just so they could answer 'Yes' to his poll.

Finally, polls are only about gauging people's opinion, they have nothing to do with making something a 'fact'. So, just because a majority of people participating in a poll (at a website that may not be representative of the entire civ player population) think the game has been 'dumbed down', does not make it so. Likewise, just like all of your statements are merely opinion, and you're entitled to them, they are merely that. They are not fact.

i think we should just give up debating, they dont seam to change their minds no matter how we prove them wrong. toads will be toads, trolls will be trolls, and washington will be dead, as i am about to invade his sorry butt

[da_Vinci]

KingYosef, what's the margin of error in your poll?

The polls you see on TV always state the margin of error. What's yours? Well if you must know ... http://www.dimensionresearch.com/resources/calculators/conf_prop.html

1620 sample, 50% point estimate, 95% confidence interval (the margin of error) is 2.43 percentage points.

dV

[KingYosef]

Yeah, get with the times. My post was last week. Also, the 41,000 figure was people that had played THAT DAY ALONE; not how many people owned the game.

This poll is not a random sample of Civ 5 players. It is heavily biased and is a sample of Civ 5 players who ALSO frequent the civfanatics site. For all we know, the pollster (King Yosef) scoured his neighborhood/school/office to get people to sign up at civfanatics just so they could answer 'Yes' to his poll.

Finally, polls are only about gauging people's opinion, they have nothing to do with making something a 'fact'. So, just because a majority of people participating in a poll (at a website that may not be representative of the entire civ player population) think the game has been 'dumbed down', does not make it so. Likewise, just like all of your statements are merely opinion, and you're entitled to them, they are merely that. They are not fact.

LOL! You guys will say anything to discredit a VERY valid poll. Just because you don't like the results you think the poll is worthless.

[wayninja]

LOL! You guys will say anything to discredit a VERY valid poll. Just because you don't like the results you think the poll is worthless.

It's not worthless, it's awesome for a good laugh.

[FlyByNight]

LOL! You guys will say anything to discredit a VERY valid poll. Just because you don't like the results you think the poll is worthless.

LOL! You guys will say anything to try to validate a VERY invalid and biased poll. Just because you like the results you think the poll actually has merit.

[Yillb]

LOL! You guys will say anything to discredit a VERY valid poll. Just because you don't like the results you think the poll is worthless.

You went back and updated your old posts with your 10/11 update. I think you are batsh!t insane.

You really don't know how real polls are conducted. You don't know how real trends are figured. And you don't know how to draw a conclusion from the data.

Polls are not open-ended opt-in popularity contests. They have a timespan and then they are over.

Polls are conducted from a random sampling of the population. You use a certain number of people in order be able to get a general view of the whole population.

You ask multiple questions in a poll. A good first question to ask is whether or not you have played the game (demo or retail).

Your poll can't tell anyone anything about anything except that registered forum accounts (not people) voted one way in the poll or not.

Your poll is just as worthless as the one on the homepage of CNN.com. The only difference is CNN doesn't proclaim that it "proves" anything.

[GrimDanfango]

I think the issue that's baiting so many people here isn't so much the questionable statistics... for me it's the title. "Proof!!" is man-cow-excrement... it's nothing of the sort.
"General consensus that roughly half of people who responded believe Civ 5 has been dumbed down..." would have been far less disputable.
The OP has instead gone for the British tabloid newpaper headline approach, which is a method guaranteed to whip up a storm of intelligent people into attempting to disprove something that was nonsense to begin with.

There's no way to stop people making idiotic claims based on statistics... if there was, the Daily Mail wouldn't exist :-P

[Calbrenar]

Next time you're in college check out a class on statistics. Let me know what the teacher tells you about having to take a proper sample.

I.E. A forum where the majority of the players are either hard core fans that are endlessly nostalgic or new players having problems and looking for answers, may not be the best place to look for accurate data.

[Nationalist]

Next time you're in college check out a class on statistics. Let me know what the teacher tells you about having to take a proper sample.

I.E. A forum where the majority of the players are either hard core fans that are endlessly nostalgic or new players having problems and looking for answers, may not be the best place to look for accurate data.

:)

So, the other (smaller half) of naysayers (or maybe yeysayers, depends) are ... who? I'd love to see a description for those staunch defenders of serene truth.

The poll here looks pretty much the same. Must be a conspiracy or the hard core fans are taking over with the same ease one can take a city in Civ 5's improved gameplay the hardcorers just love to hate.

[FlyByNight]

:)

So, the other (smaller half) of naysayers (or maybe yeysayers, depends) are ... who? I'd love to see a description for those staunch defenders of serene truth.

The poll here looks pretty much the same. Must be a conspiracy or the hard core fans are taking over with the same ease one can take a city in Civ 5's improved gameplay the hardcorers just love to hate.

You assume too much. 'Hardcore' has no bearing on those who love the game and those who hate it. There are 'hardcore' people in both camps.

[KingYosef]

You went back and updated your old posts with your 10/11 update. I think you are batsh!t insane.

You really don't know how real polls are conducted. You don't know how real trends are figured. And you don't know how to draw a conclusion from the data.

Polls are not open-ended opt-in popularity contests. They have a timespan and then they are over.

Polls are conducted from a random sampling of the population. You use a certain number of people in order be able to get a general view of the whole population.

You ask multiple questions in a poll. A good first question to ask is whether or not you have played the game (demo or retail).

Your poll can't tell anyone anything about anything except that registered forum accounts (not people) voted one way in the poll or not.

Your poll is just as worthless as the one on the homepage of CNN.com. The only difference is CNN doesn't proclaim that it "proves" anything.

Uhh... we aren't polling politics here. When you want to know about a specific product you poll the users of that product. You don't poll random citizens of England with questions like, "do you approve of Obama, the President of England?" This would make no sense because Obama has nothing to do with being President of England. Just like polling random people on the street has nothing to do with how the playability of Civ 5 is.

[Nationalist]

You assume too much. 'Hardcore' has no bearing on those who love the game and those who hate it. There are 'hardcore' people in both camps.

No, you assume this little diversion of yours will determine some of the audience to forget your own inconsistencies.

[Rulakoranor]

There's a bit of a glitch in your argument. The fact that many people find the game has been dumbed down does not mean they think it's worse.

It's a trick question. The game is less complex than its predecessor, but that doesn't mean its less fun. More complexity and micro-management doesn't always mean more fun. In fact it often means the opposite.

Also some aspects haven't been dumbed down, the combat for example is more complex in civ 5.

Honestly though civ 4 wasn't a very complex game, they just removed some of the features and added in other ones. The biggest difference is there is less information in civ 5 it seems, the city view for example has very little information. So yea some of it has been "dumbed down", but that's hardly game breaking.

Now I'm not saying I wouldn't want more features, or more information, but it's just not game breaking for me. I enjoy civ 5 more than civ 4, although civ 4 was a great game as well.

[FlyByNight]

No, you assume this little diversion of yours will determine some of the audience to forget your own inconsistencies.

Haha, nice one! Except your statement makes absolutely no sense.

What diversion?
What inconsistencies?

I only said 'hardcore' does not equal 'hate Civ V'. I'm a 'hardcore civver' but I think Civ V is the best of the series.

[Yillb]

Uhh... we aren't polling politics here. When you want to know about a specific product you poll the users of that product. You don't poll random citizens of England with questions like, "do you approve of Obama, the President of England?" This would make no sense because Obama has nothing to do with being President of England. Just like polling random people on the street has nothing to do with how the playability of Civ 5 is.


When Rasmussen does a poll on the presidential election do they poll all voters? No, they don't. They poll a percentage of voters and use that as a gauge on what the general outcome will be.

I think you made the comparison :rolleyes:

Actually: Poll: Europeans still love Obama (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42185.html)

And a 31 page report from the survey: http://www.gmfus.org/trends/doc/2010_English_Key.pdf (see page 30 for Methodology)

So you are now measuring playability? Well I was just playing it, so it must be very playable.

"Likely Civ V player" would probably be someone on a forum about Civilization.

But your poll doesn't tell anyone about how many people actually played the game, or anything else for that matter except for the fact that they have a registered account on a forum.

Again, it's as useless as any Internet poll and you are still batsh!t insane if you really think you have "proved" anything.

(And a poll on this forum is just as useless for "proving" anything)

[KingYosef]

I think you made the comparison :rolleyes:

Actually: Poll: Europeans still love Obama (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42185.html)

And a 31 page report from the survey: http://www.gmfus.org/trends/doc/2010_English_Key.pdf (see page 30 for Methodology)

So you are now measuring playability? Well I was just playing it, so it must be very playable.

"Likely Civ V player" would probably be someone on a forum about Civilization.

But your poll doesn't tell anyone about how many people actually played the game, or anything else for that matter except for the fact that they have a registered account on a forum.

Again, it's as useless as any Internet poll and you are still batsh!t insane if you really think you have "proved" anything.

(And a poll on this forum is just as useless for "proving" anything)

You missed the mark. If you can't figure out the analogy then let's move on.

So would you say that a random person on the street, or a registered member of a Civ forum has more credibility toward a poll on Civ?

Just take a look at the other poll started in this forum that was suppose to be unbiased and prove this one wrong. Just goes to show that this poll is correct and valid. Since you don't like the results you obviously are trying to make a mockery of it, but you failed.

[Anguloke]

A poll with over 1,500 votes from Civ fans that proves the majority agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down...

The majority of people thought the world was flat at one point in time. That didn't make them right, nor those in your poll.


1.Civ 5 has me feeling like someone is holding my hand throughout the whole game as I'm being fed a choose your own adventure bedtime story.

Its an interesting general statement that completely avoids any specific things that do this in game.

I see no difference at all.


2. Don't like the city states, or atleast how they are implemented too much into the game. They are just annoying and uninteresting.

City states are great. Great to make alliances with a city state you know is not going to be a competitor, rather than being forced to ally with other nations you don't want to help or work with.


3. Bring back religion. They should have just improved on this feature instead of omitting it. Omitting religion from Civ is like omitting the egg in an omelet.

It is? Its been in 2 versions of the game. And really is just tedious unit spamming to spread, in order to make money off an out of balance civic. It was easy mode for people who couldn't play the game without the same cookie cutter civics. That was a major dumbing down of the game they removed.


4. They took away almost all the great features. I'm talking about: vassal states, tech trading, map trading, diplomacy, espionage, religion, health/sickness, random events, scenarios, wonder animations, end-game cinematics, and culture, research, and commerce sliders. This is just the ones that I can recall off the top of my head.

Most of those have nothing to do with dumbing down the game.

Tech trading was ridiculous and the new research pact is a much better system.

Map trading again was a silly system. Almost always again an easy mode player's money making strategy. Sell maps. Those who knew how to play the game better knew you didn't want to trade maps or have opponents trading maps. You wanted them to know less about the territory outside their exploration.

Trading tech and maps were the dumbed down issues in the old game. Not trading them makes it much more strategic.


5. Also, civics. Now civics has merely become a ladder of perks that you upgrade.

Perks much less over powered than some of the old ones. They are nice bonuses but nothing game breaking like some of those in Civ 4 (especially the religious ones).


Has absolutely no flexibility.

No flexibility? There are plenty of trees to follow. The only change on the new civics I'd change is being about to give up selections.



These are features that kept your mind buzzing as your culture advances into each era.

Not really. People just waited for the over powered ones to then took those cookie cutter civics every time. Like the over powered money for each temple/church/etc in other cities including other countries.

The new system has me changing lines depending on the type of victory game I'm playing, and which civilization I'm playing.


In conclusion, I'll be setting this game on the shelf and hoping for a big change. As for now, I can just go and play my PS3 and get the same feeling from a console game. Before anyone decides to flame me and call me names for posting this fact, just keep in mind that I have been a Civ player since I bought my first copy of Civ 1 in the early 90's.

In conclusion you are clearly an easy mode player that doesn't actually understand what dumbing down is, and blindly fear any change.

[Yillb]

You missed the mark. If you can't figure out the analogy then let's move on.

So would you say that a random person on the street, or a registered member of a Civ forum has more credibility toward a poll on Civ?

Just take a look at the other poll started in this forum that was suppose to be unbiased and prove this one wrong. Just goes to show that this poll is correct and valid. Since you don't like the results you obviously are trying to make a mockery of it, but you failed.

I said a forum user (of that forum) would be a "likely Civilization V player." I won't say they have more "credibility" because I don't know what that means. Are they more credible because they have a account on a fourm? Did they have to play Civilization 1 to 5?

Polls don't prove anything. They measure people's opinions and perceptions. I don't care about the results. I don't think anyone (except you) actually cares whether or not you (or anyone) thinks the game isn't playable or "dumbed down" (which is it?)

More like a mockery of you champ. ;)

Let's try this again: you think a poll "proves" something.

On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution (http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/darwin-birthday-believe-evolution.aspx)

Clearly only 4 in 10 "believe" in evolution. A majority doesn't. Does that mean evolution has been proven wrong?

Oh, and fyi, if you did sell a product you would survey (likely) people as to why they didn't use your product or used a competitor's instead. Kinda good for business to try to sell more product.

[Desertfoxza]

the people that say CIV 5 is not dumb down probably did not understand everything in CIV 4

[Ruiner66]

Bush was elected into office twice. Proof that the majority can be wrong.

[CaptainBinky]

Note to OP:

Next time you do a poll, use less provocative wording.

When you say "dumbed down" it means that by implication, if I like the game as it is I must therefore be an idiot.

I don't like this implication, I don't like the poll, I don't the tone, so screw the poll, basically. This is why the people who like the game get wound up.

[deanco]

Note to OP:

Next time you do a poll, use less provocative wording.

When you say "dumbed down" it means that by implication, if I like the game as it is I must therefore be an idiot.

Let's not forget the "Who else agrees" part. People who agree are going to click. People that don't, won't.

Well, that's it. I think we can declare this poll a smoking, burnt-out carcass. Even the vultures know there's no more meat on those bones.

[FlyByNight]

the people that say CIV 5 is not dumb down probably did not understand everything in CIV 4

Great argument!!! I wonder if I can counter somehow....hmmmm....how about this:

I understood everything in CIV 4. But CIV 5 is not 'dumbed down'.

[neil5280]

Why am I still watching this thread? :(

[Nationalist]

Haha, nice one! Except your statement makes absolutely no sense.

What diversion?
What inconsistencies?

I only said 'hardcore' does not equal 'hate Civ V'. I'm a 'hardcore civver' but I think Civ V is the best of the series.

Only in your mind and words hardcore equals hater of Civ 5. I don't think anyone here who expresses a critical or very critical opinion on Civ 5 is a 'hater'. Most (including myself) are long time fans of the Civ series who played most of the releases and love the game. Furthermore, I believe many waited for Civ 5 hoping it will bring them a renewed desire to spend many hours playing their favorite game. It is not the case and, bugfixes and tuning aside, there are several major flaws which seem very hard to eliminate since they look more like being part of this release's concept.

These polls are pretty illustrative for the current state of mind of the longtime civers, have nothing to do with the 'hate' (a simplistic, silly smearing)of this release, do not intend to hurt the series, on the contrary. The reaction is clearly far from merely 'controversial' (another cliche which could well go along with 'hate'), there are a lot of hardcore fans (read - advised and well versed) who are very unhappy with the current state of affairs but don't want the series to die, quite the opposite.

[asurania]

The game is buggy
the game is dumbed down
and it is not what longterm civilization player thought it would be

won't get into details since all that is avaliable on the forum

[CaptainBinky]

:( It's like the last 9 pages never happened.

[inseeisyou]

While there are still some ways to attack the validity of this poll, it really has to be considered at best partially credible at this point. Did you know Gallup polls that represent the entire United States are taken of 1,500 people? While the randomness of sample might be a weakness of the poll, I don't see it specifically targeting one group or another. One only needs to browse around the forums to see there are just as many "civ defenders" as "civ haters". Some may say "the people that like the game are playing it!" but that really does not hold up to scrutiny. The same people that make that argument are in another thread bragging about having a computer capable of playing the game while they browse the forums.

Statistics is statistics and although not an exact science it would be wrong to totally dismiss any results with this size sample.

[Morthis]

Uhh... we aren't polling politics here. When you want to know about a specific product you poll the users of that product. You don't poll random citizens of England with questions like, "do you approve of Obama, the President of England?" This would make no sense because Obama has nothing to do with being President of England. Just like polling random people on the street has nothing to do with how the playability of Civ 5 is.

Sure. So let me ask, what measures are in place to ensure the only people voting are Civ V owners who have played the game enough to form a fair opinion? Oh right...


While there are still some ways to attack the validity of this poll, it really has to be considered at best partially credible at this point. Did you know Gallup polls that represent the entire United States are taken of 1,500 people? While the randomness of sample might be a weakness of the poll, I don't see it specifically targeting one group or another. One only needs to browse around the forums to see there are just as many "civ defenders" as "civ haters". Some may say "the people that like the game are playing it!" but that really does not hold up to scrutiny. The same people that make that argument are in another thread bragging about having a computer capable of playing the game while they browse the forums.

Statistics is statistics and although not an exact science it would be wrong to totally dismiss any results with this size sample.

The sample size is decent, that's true. The problem is, this is the kind of sample that would normally simply not do. There is nothing that restricts people from voting more than once, they simply need to make another account. There is also no requirement that the voters have actually played Civ V. Now since it's a Civilization forum, it's likely most players there own at least one of the Civilization games, but that does not mean they own Civ V. Given how common bandwagoning is on the internet, I would not be at all surprised if a fair amount of people voted that Civ V is dumbed down simply because someone else said it (the opposite could be true as well, but people on the internet usually seem to err on the side of being negative :p).

Regarding this forum having as many civ defenders as civ haters, I don't think either of them are very good examples. They're extremists from both camps and I doubt they're representative of the average user. I would guess the average user feels there are things in Civ V that need to be fixed, but I doubt you'll find them hating every single aspect about it the way the haters represent it. In fact, on CFC I've seen multiple mentions that even on Deity, the game is entirely too easy, yet I know some casual Civ players who have lost King games, a difficulty most veterans probably find trivial.

[Kruelgor]

When the CEO looks at global game sales and sees that console games are selling 50 to 1 when compared to PC games. There's naturally going to be that temptation to "dumb down" a pc game just incase there is the decision later down the road to convert the game over to console.

However, I've read there are no plans and never will be any plans to bring Civ 5 to the console.

[jlozeppeli]

Or maybe it will be announced on Xbox360 when polished and fixed... Like a betatesting on PC to make sure that console release will be OK.:D

[GrimDanfango]

I honestly can't believe people are still debating page after page about the meaning of this poll.

The poll means very little, by any and every possible measure of a balanced piece of research. The responses are leading and the sample is hugely weighted.

You cannot argue against that... it's fact.


There's nothing wrong with the poll existing however, each to their own. The only problem I can see is that the title is claiming something entirely untrue, this is no proof. Rarely can any statistic be considered proof even when it's researched in a balanced way. As I said before "General consensus that roughly half of people who responded believe Civ 5 has been dumbed down..." would have been correct, but as it is it's simply baiting people into arguing a pointless argument.

The statistics themselves are just stastistics, there's nothing innately wrong with them. The problem here is that they do not support a conclusion one way or the other, so arguing what they mean is somewhat irrelevant.

How's about everyone gives up? Anyone with an ounce of sense knows this is nonsense... and anyone without is going to rave on until their dying day.

[Draco]

However, I've read there are no plans and never will be any plans to bring Civ 5 to the console.

I do not know, looking at the code...

I have seen hundreds of thousands of console gaming code. How it is coded. How and what they do.

If this game was not coded for easy translation to console, then it had to be coded by console developers.

Time and time again, I find they took the harder approach to coding, but easier to convert, then taking the easy methods that are harder to convert.

The biggest problem for me is simply this. 99% of all video games rest on graphics. Any two bit script kiddie can sling code.

At no point in time did the graphics artist do any thing more then create a menu, gameplay, and ui that is strictly made for consoles. There is no way to even change the keyboard shortcuts. If you actually look at the menu system, it has the bear minimum to pass for pc. IF you look at any other pc game, the menu systems are very complex. If you look at every console game the menu system are not. It is very clear that civ 5 was created for easy of use for consoles.

Looking at the code, the menu, game play, and UI, they went really out of there way to make the game compatibly with something that should really never have been a problem. Heck, read the manual. You would just need to replace a few paragraphs and you got a console manual.

Bottom line, if it was never suppose to go to console, then why would converting it to console be just a few mins work?

[Morthis]

I do not know, looking at the code...

I have seen hundreds of thousands of console gaming code. How it is coded. How and what they do.

If this game was not coded for easy translation to console, then it had to be coded by console developers.

Time and time again, I find they took the harder approach to coding, but easier to convert, then taking the easy methods that are harder to convert.

The biggest problem for me is simply this. 99% of all video games rest on graphics. Any two bit script kiddie can sling code.

At no point in time did the graphics artist do any thing more then create a menu, gameplay, and ui that is strictly made for consoles. There is no way to even change the keyboard shortcuts. If you actually look at the menu system, it has the bear minimum to pass for pc. IF you look at any other pc game, the menu systems are very complex. If you look at every console game the menu system are not. It is very clear that civ 5 was created for easy of use for consoles.

Looking at the code, the menu, game play, and UI, they went really out of there way to make the game compatibly with something that should really never have been a problem. Heck, read the manual. You would just need to replace a few paragraphs and you got a console manual.

Bottom line, if it was never suppose to go to console, then why would converting it to console be just a few mins work?

And how is it again you supposedly have access to the source code? I highly doubt you have access to the source code of Civ V, and I have even more doubt that if you did, you'd have the time and ability to determine that so easily.

[Anguloke]

it really has to be considered at best partially credible at this point.

Why? Its not only biased, its based on complete misinformation. Given that the OP doesn't even stay consistent on what is "dumbed" down between the two, and even goes to include just omissions that have nothing to do with dumbing down (Wonder video have nothing to do with the difficulty of the game).

Its clear its more a fear of change, and a design for old easy mode mechanics (given the OP highlights them specifically). Those old easy mode mechanic are what dumbed down the game.

So no we don't need to accept this poll even partially.

[inseeisyou]

Why? Its not only biased, its based on complete misinformation. Given that the OP doesn't even stay consistent on what is "dumbed" down between the two, and even goes to include just omissions that have nothing to do with dumbing down (Wonder video have nothing to do with the difficulty of the game).

Its clear its more a fear of change, and a design for old easy mode mechanics (given the OP highlights them specifically). Those old easy mode mechanic are what dumbed down the game.

So no we don't need to accept this poll even partially.

I agree the OP's obvious bias is less than ideal for any statistical study. That being said, I believe the vast majority of people have their own opinion about the game and will vote accordingly. You do not seem to have been brainwashed by his "complete misinformation".

The term "dumbed down" is also indeed somewhat vague. I think it would be fair to say a large number of voters viewed the poll as like/not like. There will be those who simply do not like the game and want to choose the negative choice. However, there will of course be those on the other side who like the game and simply vote the positive choice.

As for your summary that it is a "fear of change", I certainly question your ability to so succinctly sum up the thoughts and voting intentions of over one and a half thousand people.

You might be interested to check out the poll on this forum that was created by someone opposed to the original poll and see that it is shaping up in much the same way as the first...

[Kruelgor]

A forum poll can be altered meaningless if someone really wants to. If they're hell bent on skewing the results into their favor they can take the time to create multiple forum accounts and do what they need to do.

The same lies true for those TV shows where callers call in and vote. There are computer programs where hackers can easily setup hundreds of thousands of vote calls.

[wayninja]

The reason this poll is silly has nothing to do with mistakes in sampling techniques, statistical analysis, or MOE/bias, the reason it's silly is because it's an opinion.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an opinion. An opinion can't be proven right or wrong if it's not scientifically quantifiable.

The problem with this is that KY is trying to suggest that a majority opinion somehow alters and shapes reality. That somehow if enough people agree with him that somehow his opinion will become a fact. Which is silly.

[inseeisyou]

The reason this poll is silly has nothing to do with mistakes in sampling techniques, statistical analysis, or MOE/bias, the reason it's silly is because it's an opinion.

There's nothing inherently wrong with an opinion. An opinion can't be proven right or wrong if it's not scientifically quantifiable.

The problem with this is that KY is trying to suggest that a majority opinion somehow alters and shapes reality. That somehow if enough people agree with him that somehow his opinion will become a fact. Which is silly.

I completely agree. Opinions do not facts make, and I think at the core that is what is getting people fired up, using a term like "proof". It may or may not accurately reflect the majority opinion, but it will never prove the majority opinion is "right".

[Anguloke]

I agree the OP's obvious bias is less than ideal for any statistical study. That being said, I believe the vast majority of people have their own opinion about the game and will vote accordingly. You do not seem to have been brainwashed by his &quot;complete misinformation I'm not everyone. Look at the blinkered brainwashed by the teaparty... Just because some aren't brainwashed doesn't mean many more can't be.
The term &quot;dumbed down&quot; is also indeed somewhat vague. Vague? Its completely misused.
I certainly question your ability to so succinctly sum up the thoughts and voting intentions of over one and a half thousand people. I never claimed it represented them all, that's just your made up strawman.
You might be interested to check out the poll on this forum that was created by someone opposed to the original poll and see that it is shaping up in much the same way as the first... Seen it. That poll couldn't possibly be tainted by this one... nah. And even if it was accurate, it doesn't necessarily make it right. As I've said before, many many people, thought the world was flat, and the center of the universe. They were likely in the majority in their time... that doesn't make them right.

[inseeisyou]

I'm not everyone. Look at the blinkered brainwashed by the teaparty...

Seriously? I think I'm beginning to understand you a little better.


I never claimed it represented them all, that's just your made up strawman.


Its clear its more a fear of change

Well maybe you didn't use the term "all" but what exactly is "clear" then? You are obviously stating what you believe to be primary reason people voted a certain way. Over 1.5 thousand people. Refer to my previous post for my statement on that again.


And even if it was accurate, it doesn't necessarily make it right. As I've said before, many many people, thought the world was flat, and the center of the universe. They were likely in the majority in their time... that doesn't make them right.

I agree per my post above and wayninja's comment. I've never tried to state that the game has been proven as "dumbed down". Primarily because a concept like "dumbed down" is subjective and no amount of opinions could change that. The vote could be a thousand to one and that one person could still have a valid argument. It is not something like a measurement or calculation. I simply advocate taking the poll at face value, which does have a decent sample size and is clearly in favor of one choice over another. There is at least more meat on the bones than if I put the two options on a dart board and threw a dart. Although your flat world example is true and does serve a point, it would be a fallacy to try and claim because once a majority was wrong, the majority must always be wrong. I once knew someone that wrote something on the internet that was a lie. Yet not everything written on the internet is a lie. To the extent that you are demonstrating the majority opinion is not fact or truth, I certainly agree.

[victorpurri]

I'm probably the first one that agrees with the majority (I think that Civ5 has been "dumbed down") but also thinks the result of this poll is not valid. Let me explain:

I think that Civ5 is trying to reach a broader audience. It seems to me as a conscious decision to cut out some features from Civ4 in order to attract "softcore" fans (opposed to "hardcore" fans that most of us are). Probably Firaxis realized that religion, spies, unit stacking, detailed city screents, etc. was overloading a large portion of the users, and is probably trying something "lighter" for this version.

About the poll, although the sample size is large enough, I think that it is highly biased. For a poll to represent with high confidence level a population, the sample must match the profile of the population. In this scope, for example, it means that the proportion of softcore/hardcore gamers in the sample must match the proportion of the population. And as has been said before, the majority of forum users are hardcore "civvers", therefore the sample is distorted when compared to the population. It could still be that the majority of the 300k people that bought the game agrees with the poll, but this poll itself doesn't prove anything.

BTW, even though my opinion is that it has been "dumbed down", I still think it's more fun than Civ4. I'm one of those that likes to move units around and not have to care about which tiles every city is working on. (go head, call me dumb, but I'm not embarrassed to like a "dumber" game :))


Statistics is statistics and although not an exact science it would be wrong to totally dismiss any results with this size sample.
What? I think that you are highly mistaken here, Statistics is an exact science. You're probably confused because it deals closely with probability theory and the results are often not concrete like 1, 2 or 3, but probabilities, like 1%, 2% or 3%.

[inseeisyou]

What? I think that you are highly mistaken here, Statistics is an exact science. You're probably confused because it deals closely with probability theory and the results are often not concrete like 1, 2 or 3, but probabilities, like 1%, 2% or 3%.

I wouldn't call myself highly mistaken or confused. To the extent that statistical values such as standard deviation, mean, or skewness do have "exact" values given a sample (a calculation which will yield the same result regardless of who calculates it) it is exact. As far as using these results to actually predict an event or how the sample represents the population, this is where the uncertainty is introduced. As others have pointed out, polls do have "margins of error".

[Veshta]

That margin can be all but ruled out with enough responders though.

Civ5 had roughly 100k units sold in the first few weeks, half of which were probably to "Civ Newbies", so a poll number of about 1-2k will be more than sufficient to say for certain what the consensus is.

You can always argue that people who like it are not polling, but to that I'd say that most of those people have had no or very limited experience with the franchise so couldn't answer even if they wanted to as they have no way to make an actual comparison.

[rivetM4n]

1. I have always felt like I have been in control while playing the Civ game. Civ 5 has me feeling like someone is holding my hand throughout the whole game as I'm being fed a choose your own adventure bedtime story. I just found myself hitting the next turn button without much to focus on or manage. Very disappointing.

2. Don't like the city states, or atleast how they are implemented too much into the game. They are just annoying and uninteresting.

3. Bring back religion. They should have just improved on this feature instead of omitting it. Omitting religion from Civ is like omitting the egg in an omelet.

4. They took away almost all the great features. I'm talking about: vassal states, tech trading, map trading, diplomacy, espionage, religion, health/sickness, random events, scenarios, wonder animations, end-game cinematics, and culture, research, and commerce sliders. This is just the ones that I can recall off the top of my head.

5. Also, civics. Now civics has merely become a ladder of perks that you upgrade. Has absolutely no flexibility. These are features that kept your mind buzzing as your culture advances into each era. If I want a barbaric Civ I should be able to choose so... at any time I wish, and any point in the game.


I agree with all these points.
It is made for a less intelligent generation i fear...lol
Considering buying one of those one-button keyboards that I can use for this game - tap, tap, tap.

What seemed to happen when they implemented a new element to warfare (hexes), they lost all the other features in the game. It is beyond me, but it brings me closer to what I am about to point out next:

As it stands it seems the Civ5 series has just released its foundation for future expansion packs (and 2-4 patches to bring the vanilla up to par of course) nothing more.

Next expansion - RELIGIONS (rofl)

This seems the marketing strategy for all game releases like this these days.
2k/Firaxis is just another business, trying to please shareholders (while being able to please heir creative egoes of course) and packaging products as good as possible to entice the consumers.
Consumers buy. Then the consumers enter the "guinea pig" phase, test the products, report defects, tells the company how the product should be.
Company makes new products, package it, entice consumer, consumer buys, tests, reports...and the spendage-bonanza is secured!

The cost of actually releasing a Perfect product without defects is considered to be cost-inefective.
Keeping the customers asking for more add-ons is the way to go.

So as we feel as we do KingYosef, the company has just succeeded -

cause we will both buy the expansions...lol

PS:
I do appreciate the great amount of work that has been put into this BASE-PACK of Civ 5 - ad I hope that we will have a decent game in a couple of years with expansions and mods.

[Anguloke]

Seriously? I think I'm beginning to understand you a little better. Yeah seriously. Do some looking around at some of the candidates they support? Look at some of the misplace and misguided outrage. And nice of you to focus on that and completely overlook the point... that just because I wasn't brainwashed by the poll's bias, doesn't mean others aren't going to be. Look around you and see how easily people are swayed even when they don't have real or correct information (this comment has nothing to do with the Teaparty). Fear and hate driven by fear are some of the bigger guiding factors of humanity sadly.
Well maybe you didn't use the term all Maybe? It is fact I did not use it.
You are obviously stating what you believe to be primary reason people voted a certain way. Over 1.5 thousand people. Refer to my previous post for my statement on that again. No I believe its going to influence the voting. It doesn't have to be the primary reason to do that. And your previous statements were wrong before and wrong now because they are based on assumptions and misconceptions.
I simply advocate taking the poll at face value, Its face value is flawed. I will say it does point to a dissatisfaction with the game from that sample. We can't say that sample applies to anyone else other than it. Go to World of Warcraft forums. If you go by the number of posts complaining there, you'd think no one likes that game. Yet it maintains the strongest subscription numbers of any MMO (and no I don't play WoW). You could put in polls there and likely get some of the same results as this one.
Although your flat world example is true and does serve a point, it would be a fallacy to try and claim because once a majority was wrong, the majority must always be wrong. Where did I claim the majority is always wrong... oh wait I didn't. The point was not to assume the majority is always right.

[Anguloke]

I'm probably the first one that agrees with the majority I think that Civ5 has been dumbed down For those that think this I sure wish they'd put down examples rather than just a blanket statement.

[Shiav]

gratz, your stats have increased:
+1 troll ability
-1 life
-1 intelligence
+1 disunity
-1 game quality

[victorpurri]

For those that think this I sure wish they'd put down examples rather than just a blanket statement.

I listed a few examples in my post: Civ5 doesn't have religion, spies, unit stacking and detailed city screens. What I see against the "dumb down" argument is: city-states, enhanced combat and hexagonal tiles. But I still think that the overall gaming experience is not so deep as it was in Civ4.

[SilentKnight111]

Got to World of Warcraft forums. If you go by the number of posts complaining there, you'd think no one likes that game. Yet it maintains the strongest subscription numbers of any MMO (and no I don't play WoW). You could put in polls there and likely get some of the same results as this one.

Agreed. I see it all the time, since I do play WoW. It's quite evident there that the people who don't have issues are playing the game, adn those that do are posting on the forums. You especially see it after a big patch.

I see all this complaining in the same light. "You broke WoW" and "You broke Civ".

[Anguloke]

I listed a few examples in my post: Civ5 doesn't have religion, spies, unit stacking and detailed city screens. What I see against the &quot;dumb down&quot; argument is: city-states, enhanced combat and hexagonal tiles. But I still think that the overall gaming experience is not so deep as it was in Civ4.

If they could do religion without the over powered convert spam on other cities, then yeah I'd love to see it added. But if they just repeated that mess again like Civ IV then no. It was one of the most easily abused aspects of Civ IV which actually made that one of the things that dumbed it down. Unit stacking is dumbed down compared to the tactical way it is now. The problem is the AI. And what detail in city screens do you miss? The current one shows what it needs to.

[Veshta]

As a newcomer to the Civ franchise, I think they got it right. I'm a hardcore gamer, just never played Civ before, so don't get the impression that I'm just a casual gamer who wants it all easy mode. Sure, they could have made things a lot more tedious to manage, but that's not the kind of difficulty that makes things fun.
Never played Civ before or never played turn-based-strategy before? If you are the "generic" gamer you mostly dabble in FPS and RTS games which are entirely different beasts to TBS .. either way, Welcome.

My reasons for voting in the affirmative:
Civ5 seems to have been designed for the people not familiar with the TBS genre and that is what the main problem is. They have made it so accessible that experienced TBS players are not getting anything out of it. In itself not a problem, all games benefit from a training-wheels step to ease players into the gameplay, but Civ5 has nothing beyond that step at all.

One size fits all, doesn't matter if you play on chieftain or diety the steps you have to take are exactly the same, just more leniency on lower levels.
- Buy magical maritime food.
- Spam trading posts (only have farms as alternative but with #1 who cares and mines are pathetic)
- Clutter map with cities (90% of which would be impossible in earlier versions).
The only "challenge" is to try for a cultural victory on larger maps with few landmasses but even then it deteriorates into a warmonger game (puppets are policy/culture neutral), all other game types are pure gold/population races = bigger is better .. always.

Gone are the challenging OCC scenarios, the tight beaker/hammer races of small empire vs. large, the decisions needed before a city was even contemplated, variations in improvements, meaningful diplomacy (AI "plays to win" so WILL attack regardless), static environments etc. .. and in exchange we got a new combat system (that the AI has no hope of competing in and probably never will). Looks to me like we got the short end of the stick.

And no, the flaws cannot be patched out as they reside in the basic mechanics. The whole happiness/gold/science system is so poorly thought out that you need to completely redesign the entire game which is a bit late.
Modders will do it eventually with full-conversion packs but the game itself does not have anything worth more than any other typical game released today - 40-50hrs worth or so (not counting the time wasted between turns, extremely long animations, crashes etc.).
Entertainment value is on par with market today (like modern FPS games) roughly ten hours worth, rest is spent mastering the game (ie. figuring out that tradepost spam + gazillion cities > all at all times) before getting bored.

In short: It shouldn't have been sold as a SM:CIV game. Would have been more honest to market it as Civ:Revolutions II as it shares far more in common with that portable game than the "proper" Civ series.

[DraconisRex]

Again, all thousand voters have more bearing on the leading group. If the poll was only people that agree with me then it would be highly suspect. The fact that the poll is almost split show more validity toward the victor. That is why I said I have over a thousand voters as each voter contributes to whom is the the leader whether they vote yay or nay. Get it?


Your poll is meaningless. There is no sample methodology. There are no error bars. We don't know the source of the voting. We don't know if it's a representative sample. For all we know you have 500 sock-puppets...

And then we just have the whole "stupid" part of the poll. Eighteen percent of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. This is despite his long-time membership in a black, Evangelical Christian church from which he was forced to resign due to politics (the Rev. Wright issue).

When one-in-five can't even get the President's religion right... Despite it being as obvious as a coal-pile in a ball-room, and a many-month "scandal" about being a member of this "radical black Christian church" why would we think people can tell something much more difficult, such subtle AI changes between games?

So, end the end, who cares what these people think? People are dumb. And the only thing polls like this do is reinforce the awareness of ignorance.

[DraconisRex]

I agree the OP's obvious bias is less than ideal for any statistical study. That being said, I believe the vast majority of people have their own opinion about the game and will vote accordingly. You do not seem to have been brainwashed by his "complete misinformation".

The term "dumbed down" is also indeed somewhat vague. I think it would be fair to say a large number of voters viewed the poll as like/not like. There will be those who simply do not like the game and want to choose the negative choice. However, there will of course be those on the other side who like the game and simply vote the positive choice.

As for your summary that it is a "fear of change", I certainly question your ability to so succinctly sum up the thoughts and voting intentions of over one and a half thousand people.

You might be interested to check out the poll on this forum that was created by someone opposed to the original poll and see that it is shaping up in much the same way as the first...

It's a meaningless poll. It's not a representative sample. If I went to a skinhead meeting and ran a poll about "worthless ethnic minorities" it'd probably have a lot of "yes" votes...

Which gets me to the point: Population Bias. Internet forums are ALWAYs disproportional to whiney. Heck, even before the Internet and you had to direct dial to a BBS, they were disproportional to whiney.

I've been on so many forums about why "game X" (despite millions of sales and multiple awards) was the "worst game ever. Oblivion, the sequel to Morrowind.... Worst game ever.... At least according to the forums. Fallout3... I got BANNED for unloading on the whiners one day for every "the game hasn't even been released yet" person like myself, there were at least half-a-dozen "Bethesda will RUIN FALLOUT FOREVER...."

We know how that turned out... Multiple awards plus it's an extremely moddable game that allows you to practically make your own FO3...

And so on... And so on... And so on... Especially right after a game has been released and "pet feature X" or "pet strategy Y" is no longer valid.

For me, I'm only here because I needed to verify that all the whining about Steam making the game impossible was false. So, despite over ONE-HUNDRED "one star" reviews, most of which INSIST that you MUST be logged into the Internet to run the game EACH TIME YOU WANT TO RUN IT, you don't have to...

So, if you want to look at a poll... Look at the one-star Amazon reviews. What a bunch of clowns. Complaining about something that's not even true.

[DraconisRex]

While there are still some ways to attack the validity of this poll, it really has to be considered at best partially credible at this point. Did you know Gallup polls that represent the entire United States are taken of 1,500 people? While the randomness of sample might be a weakness of the poll, I don't see it specifically targeting one group or another. One only needs to browse around the forums to see there are just as many "civ defenders" as "civ haters". Some may say "the people that like the game are playing it!" but that really does not hold up to scrutiny. The same people that make that argument are in another thread bragging about having a computer capable of playing the game while they browse the forums.

Statistics is statistics and although not an exact science it would be wrong to totally dismiss any results with this size sample.

No. Those polls have sampling rules to reduce bias to error-bars. This poll is as meaningless as it fails to accurately sample the entire, versus the subset of Internet Whiners that Internet Forums produce, population.

For example, if I went to a Fundamentalist Christian website and polled: "Is the theory of evolution true" I should expect over 90% will say no. I expect that because I've seen it too many times.

If I take a poll of biologists, and I mean working scientist biologists, and ask them the quest, they respond that the Theory of Evolution is "true," well, according to 99.97% of that population. That is, virtually every working biologist, the most competent to convey an accurate opinion on the matter, say "yes."

Now, I, of course, go with the biologists. They're right, the fundamentalists are wrong. End of story.

And yet polls will tell you otherwise, these results on this issue, the US, which show that:

24% of Americans believe that both the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism are probably or definitely true
41% believe that creationism is true, and that evolution is false
28% believe that evolution is true, but that creationism is false
3% either believe that both are false or have no opinion about at least one of the theories

(The 24% that agree to both are "theistic evolutionists." That is, they believe God controls evolution.)

In short, 73% of Americans are WRONG. So, there's a poll for you.

You sample biased people and you get silly results. Like this poll which has no controls whatsoever and is sampling from what we, as adults, should realize is quite probably a biased sample.

After all, new games bring out the whiners for a lot of reasons. We know this. And it'll settle down. Ask this poll a year from now, I suspect the results will be different.

But even then, it will be a flawed and pointless poll.

[deanco]

Guys, guys... even King Yousef is not updating the poll with his latest so- called *trend*. :rolleyes:

It's time to consign this thread to the scrap heap of Internet history (which is where it belonged in the first place) and move on. Dontcha think?

[EnigmaCode]

It's time to consign this thread to the scrap heap of Internet history (which is where it belonged in the first place) and move on. Dontcha think?

Agreed! It was funny to read though. :p

[inseeisyou]

It's time to consign this thread to the scrap heap of Internet history (which is where it belonged in the first place) and move on. Dontcha think?

I agree, I think I will call this one quits. Whenever evolution, Obama, the Tea Party, Bush, Fundamentalist Christians, World of Warcraft, and Darwin are all brought up in the same thread it has obviously degraded to arguing for the sake of arguing.