micromanaging

[William Allen Simpson]

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...least-surprise

For me, this was the last straw. I'm tired of these silly surprises. Every Civ game has had these gotcha problems. For Civ1 and 2, we had to spend endless hours micromanaging every city, because the builds and science didn't roll over into the next project. Civ3, 4, and 5 all had the same problem, but each time an update fixed it due to public outcry.

Sure enough, another Sid game with the same failing (excess capacity isn't returned) -- causing folks to park their research on previously completed technologies until they are able to calculate which research doesn't lose them value.
http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...arking-exploit

Same with Culture, and Mazes, and the other minigames. Post after post here complaining, as the unexpected lack of rollover doesn't make any sense. Even reading the manual (wiki) in advance doesn't help.

When are these designers going to learn that playing a computer game shouldn't involve the player having to be the computer! This is not fun!

[jordie3000]

The lack of rollover for some things is annoying, yeah.

[Glinda]

So your newest complaint is it's not fair that people who pay attention are doing better than you? Are you sure you actually want a game, and not just a village simulation?

[William Allen Simpson]

So your newest complaint is it's not fair that people who pay attention are doing better than you? Are you sure you actually want a game, and not just a village simulation?

I've not seen you playing CivWorld under this name, nor posts at Apolyton or CivFanatics, so I'm not sure about your Civ experience? "People who pay attention?" My group won in my first 2 games, and I played under my RL name.

I've been playing Civ since the board game in the early '80s -- and designed my own variant in '83, Barbarian Civil Diplomatic Empires (guess which rulesets were combined), sometimes called BCDE or Be Civil. I've worked on the networking code for a number of computer games in the '90s. And was a contributor to FreeCiv (although not recently). But I'm most widely known for my work on the project now called "The Internet". You may have heard of it.

In CivWorld, coordinating science is hell. As science minister, I'll announce what we're working on next, but wave off those who already have too many points. With lag, some will miss the post, or the post will disappear before they log in again. Science points are wasted, irritating everybody.

The lack of rollover is one of the most common complaints. I could link to the dozen or more posts here about loss of culture or minigames, but I'm sure you can do the text search.

Micromanagement and constant calculation of points isn't "a game" -- it's drudgery. As I've concluded: This is not fun!

[Glinda]

If it's not fun, go play something else? I find a lot of your suggestions are about changing the game to make it less co-operative, and more like other civ games without the elements the Facebook platform can provide.

As far as the science is concerned, the fact that it doesn't roll over makes it more difficult, I agree, but on the other hand, science is one of the most valuable commodities in the game, so it seems reasonable that players would need to spend it wisely. I love your idea that you can "wave off" other players, which says something about your attitude to co-operative play style.

In some of the teams I have been in, players are more likely to work out the best way to do the research together.

In response to your attempts to build ethos by implying that I have none, I've been in the top 10 of about 8 games now, and am #1 in game 210. On the internet, you might be interested to know, lots of people adopt pseudonyms, rather than being concerned with persistent identity.

[paintminion]

I agree Glinda, it's a part of the game you need to learn to use. And use in cooperation with the team.

[jordie3000]

I'm cool with a lack of rollover in culture, since each culture "move" can net a reward of culture points. The same is not true of science, though, as you can have a bunch of maze moves but each move doesn't get you anything (other than closer to the goal, hopefully).

I claim no amount of ethos/awesomeseriousgaming/internetcreating/pissingcontestcompeting, however.

[mugwump67]

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...least-surprise
Every Civ game has had these gotcha problems. For Civ1 and 2, we had to spend endless hours micromanaging every city, because the builds and science didn't roll over into the next project. Civ3, 4, and 5 all had the same problem, but each time an update fixed it due to public outcry.

But I remember the joy of figuring out "Oh, that's what workers are for!" in original civ, and countless other "aha!" moments over the years and its one of the main reasons I love the game so passionately. At lower difficulty levels micromanaging isn't important, but Diety level is hard--REALLY hard and requires it. I'm not sure why it shouldn't. And as far as multiplayer civ goes--I've never expected MP to be balanced or fair.

In CivWorld, one micromanagment thing that I absolutely don't like though is moving houses around whenever you want to change focus from food to science, etc. It wouldn't be so bad if clicks were more responsive and it was easier to scroll around your city

[dkk]

Do bear in mind that since this is still Closed Beta, there may be plenty of aspects that would normally incite one to /ragequit in a released game, but can still be fixed.

[Kent Campbell]

There is a certain level of player expectations when it comes to games and some things are more acceptable then others. I do not really mind not having roll over when it comes to Culture. But science is something different since some one can be a huge contributor and every one in the group can loose allot from one bad move.

To make the game easier for those that are not "hardcore" micromanagement fiends...you know who you are, I would not mind roll over when it comes to science. Especially since the puzzles are all or nothing and that all can cause allot of trouble. There are other things to manage, this does not need to be one of them.