Design decisions and other fun stuff

[xbman22x]

One way that it does seem to ruin the game is that there doesn't seem to be a clear reason for which player was picked as the winner. Since no score is displayed (even though internally, there must be one), no one knows in advance who gets the win when running into the time limit.

If time victory is an option, then there should be a fifth bar graph in the menu that shows you how everyone is doing so far, showing you who is ahead in score.

to get who is winning take all the bars and stack them on top of each other. the person with the longest bar wins. so the person who wins in a time out VC possibly could not be first in any single VC and still win in a time out due to the fact the it is all of the bars combined that determine the victor in in a time out VC. this is wrong and needs to be fixed. the winner in a time out VC should be determined by taking each civs highest bar and comparing it to the other civs highest bars. the civ with the highest bar wins.

[Kevling]

It's a measure of how much TOTAL progress the player has made towards all 4 victory conditions.

If Player A has achieved 90% of one condition and 0% of the other three, then he has achieved 90/400
If Player B has achieved 25% of all 4, then he has achieved 100/400 -

He therefore finishes ahead of player A, because he has made more advancement overall...

I can understand why Player A might think that unfair, but he should have worked quicker!

[Hodory]

Dear Elizabeth,

I am curious about what Firaxis team intended originally on the concept of government bonuses. The government that I am curious about is the Republic and its -1 population per settler. As it stands currently, a lot of people are using what is called "settler pumps" or "feeding" to put up one or two super-sized cities.

It was obvious from the beginning that this game differed greatly from Civ4. The very basic and fundamental concept of feeding a city's population with 2 food per citizen has ALWAYS been the basic rule of ANY Civ games in the past. And THAT concept was totally scrapped here. Okay, that is fine.

But was it really intended to allow players to build nothing but settlers and pump them into one city to make a maximum size-31 city with no regards to food in that very city's radius? If the design team intended things to work this way, what gives a lot of players incentive to play around with other government types? All these people will be doing is either picking Romans from the start or going straight to Republic (via mad research or Pyramids) and sticking to it with no regards to anything other than continuous production of settlers.

In this scenario, why do we even need food resource? You might as well scrap it out completely. Why even have other government types when you can build one super city that produces ZERO food, yet is able to produce hammers and trade in a grossly unbalanced amount? Heck, it is better to be in Republic and waste hundreds of years of game time creating this super city than to seek trade bonus through Democracy or any other government types.

Of course, if people do this continuously in multi-player matches, smart opponents will figure it out and find a way to put a stop to it. But that is not what I am concerned with. Single player games are just as big of a part of this game as Multi player games are. Lower level play is just as big of a part of this game as the higher level ones.

Especially at lower level single player games, this settler pumping approach is encouraging many players to seek nothing but Republic or Romans. I understand that the game was intended to give overpowered abilities across the board, but these overpowered abilities MUST be balanced out. As it stands, the Republic bonus is grossly out of balance and needs to be addressed.

I can either see revision through 2 ways:

1. Make each city have to support its citizen by having feeding requirement like in Civ4. It doesn't have to be 2 food per citizen, but it can also be 1 food per citizen to make it easier.

OR

2. Put a limit on the city size where the settler joining is not allowed beyond that point. One example will be in the lines of: Cities size 10 or larger cannot be increased in population by having settlers joining the city.

I believe that the bonus of the Republic government was made with the intention to ease horizontal expansion through creation of new cities, NOT a grossly out-of-balance vertical expansion made through force feeding one city into a super-sized city with the potential of reaching population limit all too quickly.

Your comment will be greatly appreciated. If the design decision was orignally intended to be the way things are right now, and if I can get that confirmation from you, then I will argue no more. But if it was NOT intended this way, then this definitely needs to be addressed.

[Black Jack]

The game will end in 5 turns
This really annoys me. I'm playing with a friend online, I've got a massive army ready to attack and a message pops up saying "The game will end in 5 turn". Why can't i play for a long as i want?

I don't want to build anything else!

When i have built everything i want to, why does every city ask me what shall we build? There should be a option that lets you stop building. It becomes a problem when you have above 5 cities that ask you what shall we build during every turn, but all i want to do is organise my troops. I had a game the other day where, near the end of the game, i couldn't move a single unit because i had to tell each city i didn't want to build... Then "the game will end in 5 turns" message came up. lame!

[2K Elizabeth]

The game will end in 5 turns
This really annoys me. I'm playing with a friend online, I've got a massive army ready to attack and a message pops up saying "The game will end in 5 turn". Why can't i play for a long as i want?

I don't want to build anything else!

When i have built everything i want to, why does every city ask me what shall we build? There should be a option that lets you stop building. It becomes a problem when you have above 5 cities that ask you what shall we build during every turn, but all i want to do is organise my troops. I had a game the other day where, near the end of the game, i couldn't move a single unit because i had to tell each city i didn't want to build... Then "the game will end in 5 turns" message came up. lame!

As for your first question, this was a design decision to end in 2100 AD. i've discussed this at length elsewhere, search with "2100 AD"

As for building, if you truly don't want to build anything else, you can set your production to 0 hammers and focus on gold, science, or growth. I haven't ever really had a time when I ran out of things to build (unless it was something like the last 3 turns before I built my final wonder or something) but that is an option for you.

[Krikkitone]

Also if you want to 'not build' then just build military units and the game will repeat build them (then you can use them to defend those cities)

[IceCube]

she answered on quesstion i dont want to produce anymore but not on hodory post maybe too hard for you to answer elisabeth ?
majority of players only cares how to win a game they will use anything possible to achieve victory even to use some exploits wich are not left intentionaly or maybe they are ?
did anybody seen jason civ guru ?

[PhillyMike101]

As for building, if you truly don't want to build anything else, you can set your production to 0 hammers and focus on gold, science, or growth.

What if you have 9+ population in one city sans courthouse?

An option to leave cities idle/prompt less would suffice. I too sometimes am trying to coordinate an attack yet the game mandates I go to all of my cities that dont have anything building.

[xbman22x]

As for your first question, this was a design decision to end in 2100 AD. i've discussed this at length elsewhere, search with "2100 AD"

As for building, if you truly don't want to build anything else, you can set your production to 0 hammers and focus on gold, science, or growth. I haven't ever really had a time when I ran out of things to build (unless it was something like the last 3 turns before I built my final wonder or something) but that is an option for you.

hey elizabeth... how about you answer the important questions such as the Rome strat question asked by hodory. why do you guys continually choose to ignore this. cant you guys just officially say something like "it was intended to be this way" or "we will nerf rome" as examples. you simply ignore the dam question. at this point, i would be happy if you guys would simply acknowlage the existance of the question regarding one of the most "game breaking" strats i have ever seen in a civ game

[FadingBeano]

hey elizabeth... how about you answer the important questions such as the Rome strat question asked by hodory.

To be fair she has answered it before to the best of her knowledge on how to compete against it. And it is recognized as a fairly legit strategy since about day 1 of demo release. It is possible but it seems to early to tell if this is game breaking or not.

And hodory is about the 20th person to ask, she is probably tired of answering it.

[Sigmakan]

Its not really 2Ks job to create strategies. Thats the players job

[Hodory]

For starters, I did not ask Elizabeth for a in-depth strategy to beat a Roman mega city tactic. I was merely asking, at current state, whether or not what is being accomplished by the players with that Roman tactic is part of the intended design decision by Firaxis. I think there is a difference between the two.

At any rate, thank you Elizabeth for your answer to the best of your knowledge.

[xbman22x]

what is this i am hearing about best buy exclusive content? is this eventually going to be available to the general population?

[VideoGames4Life]

what is this i am hearing about best buy exclusive content? is this eventually going to be available to the general population?

nope hahahahaha americans ONLY!!!

[Miz isHere]

Rome Strategy is easily counterable unless you have terrible luck which is possible but unlikely. I feel to do this strategy you are banking on the other person being a total noob or the person having extreamly bad luck.


The people who are so worried about this strat just havn't played enough to work out the counters as yet.
I will guarantee that I will win vs this 90% of the time so if u want to win 1 game out of 10 vs the best players in the ladder go ahead. THE ROME STRATEGY IS NOT A WINNING STRAT VS A GOOD PLAYER
Enough said.

[droll42]

I think the turn limit is ridiculous. you can have a cap at 2100 A.D. in there for players who want to play normally, but I just paid 60$ for a game that, if I want to, I should be able to play for as long as I want.

FURTHERMORE, a mode with a time cap just sounds like a lightning round, which is something you would only have if someone only had like an hour or less to play and wanted to go through quickly. why would you have that as the main game for a game like this?

it doesn't make sense period as to why you have this on the game. I should have the option of playing a short, fast paced game or a longer game. This doesn't make it any more exciting or fast paced, just more annoying.

[2K Elizabeth]

I think the turn limit is ridiculous. you can have a cap at 2100 A.D. in there for players who want to play normally, but I just paid 60$ for a game that, if I want to, I should be able to play for as long as I want.

FURTHERMORE, a mode with a time cap just sounds like a lightning round, which is something you would only have if someone only had like an hour or less to play and wanted to go through quickly. why would you have that as the main game for a game like this?

it doesn't make sense period as to why you have this on the game. I should have the option of playing a short, fast paced game or a longer game. This doesn't make it any more exciting or fast paced, just more annoying.

it takes hours to get to 2100 AD. it is by no mean a lightning round. and i don't mean to sound contrary, but every $60 game has an end. ours is one of the victory conditions or 2100 AD. you play until those. that's how we designed the game and wanted it played.

[droll42]

I just had 4 cities, was trying to get to the tech victory, and it only took like 1 hour to get to 2100 a.d. but that's not the point. I can look at any game that has an ending and notice one HUGE difference between that game and this one, it has a story. This one has no storyline to keep up with, and just with the design of the game doesn't make sense to have a mandatory time cap on it to me. I mean by all means, have one on there, but at least make it optional.

Also, I have to be honest. If you're designing the game on how you want it to be played, and not giving the options to the game player, you're a little behind in designing games.

[sidmeiershalfcousinpaul]

it takes hours to get to 2100 AD. it is by no mean a lightning round. and i don't mean to sound contrary, but every $60 game has an end. ours is one of the victory conditions or 2100 AD. you play until those. that's how we designed the game and wanted it played.

by hours you mean 2 right? cause that's how long it took me, and every 60$ game even the bad ones are atleast 7 hours to finish
you could've informed buyers that we were buying a demo, cause this surely can't be the full version

[nzgeek]

by hours you mean 2 right? cause that's how long it took me, and every 60$ game even the bad ones are atleast 7 hours to finish
you could've informed buyers that we were buying a demo, cause this surely can't be the full version

How long the game takes depends on how you play and what path you take. It all depends on the player. Some will try to get a victory as fast as possible. Others will stretch it out so that they can collect all the artifacts or destroy every enemy city.

Nobody has ever said that this was going to be one of those mammoth games that takes a week (or more) to complete. Every bit of info I've seen on CivRev mentions that it's all about fast games which only last a couple of hours.

And speaking of those other $60 week-to-complete games, how many of them have the same replayability as CivRev? Most of them have a fixed story line with fixed objectives, and once you've clocked the game there's not much fun in playing it through again.

I know I'm going to have far more fun playing CivRev than I'm ever going to have with half the other games I own.

[FadingBeano]

by hours you mean 2 right? cause that's how long it took me, and every 60$ game even the bad ones are atleast 7 hours to finish

So you played one round of CivRev that was 2 hours long and you think you are done???

I have put 6-8 hours in so far and I still have tons to do. I will probably need 300 hours to get all the stuff done. Such as winning each victory, on every difficulty with every Civ on every scenario. Scratch that, 1000 hours needed

[Sigmakan]

So you played one round of CivRev that was 2 hours long and you think you are done???

I have put 6-8 hours in so far and I still have tons to do. I will probably need 300 hours to get all the stuff done. Such as winning each victory, on every difficulty with every Civ on every scenario. Scratch that, 1000 hours needed

And then repeat that a few times because the game is so fun and addicting

[conchshell]

it takes hours to get to 2100 AD. it is by no mean a lightning round. and i don't mean to sound contrary, but every $60 game has an end. ours is one of the victory conditions or 2100 AD. you play until those. that's how we designed the game and wanted it played.

This is the main reason I didn't buy this game, the whole "we have spoken" thing vs listening to customers.

[sidmeiershalfcousinpaul]

So you played one round of CivRev that was 2 hours long and you think you are done???

I have put 6-8 hours in so far and I still have tons to do. I will probably need 300 hours to get all the stuff done. Such as winning each victory, on every difficulty with every Civ on every scenario. Scratch that, 1000 hours needed

I have beat the game with 6 civilizations sir. Have most of the achievements on xbox 360. 300 hours? 1000 Really? It took just took me 40 minutes to get the domination achievement on king difficulty with the zulus the most it took was my first playthrough because I was taking my time which was almost 2 hours with germany.

[teekun]

This is the main reason I didn't buy this game, the whole "we have spoken" thing vs listening to customers.

Well if you didn't buy the game, you aren't exactly a customer are you?


In any case, if developers changed a games design every time a handful of customers said they wanted it to be different, you'd end up with a disaster of a product.

[LtFrankie]

Well if you didn't buy the game, you aren't exactly a customer are you?

In any case, if developers changed a games design every time a handful of customers said they wanted it to be different, you'd end up with a disaster of a product.

Bull****. I never really played any Civ game before and I know that some say it's watered down compared to say, Civ4. But dang, more like watered down in some spots. It's a great game, but there's a serious lack of options, and it's not about doing something different. But for some reason, game devs, especially the bigger ones like to give the finger to the customers.

I can't decide on what civilizations to play against, I can't turn off the turn limit, I can't decide what victory conditions I want to work, I can't decide difficulty of AI in multiplayer or wheher I want it off etc.

I personally haven't gotten past 2100, but a couple of us just want to box the last enemy and experiment, ie: sandbox style. I love doing that in RTS & turn based games. Or instead of boxing the enemy, I can manipulate how powerful he becomes, like if I let him expand a bit or not.

What's worse for me is the sticky cursor. There's no setting for cities to be idle. If I have them produce a unit, then that's yet another unit I have to click b or x on so I can freakin' click b for end turn.

I don't know if this was all out of stupidity, lack of space/technical issues, game got rushed or it was out of laziness and they had to cut out some stuff to finish it. But it definitely wasn't a "design decision". Eliz is the "community manager", she handles public relations, also known as propaganda (actual meaning, don't get mixed up with any stigma or emotional/irrational attachment the word has now). Her job is to keep us happy, to say there's nothing actually wrong with xxxxx.

I'm sure they may consider releasing a scenario WITHOUT the turn limit though. We've given alot of dissent, and if it really isn't something they can't do because of technical reasons, they will release one because it atleast seems plausible. In one scenario, you start off in the second millenium and I'm at like 2300 on it so far.

So I'm not too worried about the turn limit, so long as we can show we want a scenario without a turn limit, or a sandbox style (no victory conditions, no turn limit) mode. Hopefully they can make it so you can turn off advisors and be able to just straight up end the game immediately, I don't know if they can add any new options though.

[droll42]

Bull****. I never really played any Civ game before and I know that some say it's watered down compared to say, Civ4. But dang, more like watered down in some spots. It's a great game, but there's a serious lack of options, and it's not about doing something different. But for some reason, game devs, especially the bigger ones like to give the finger to the customers.

I can't decide on what civilizations to play against, I can't turn off the turn limit, I can't decide what victory conditions I want to work, I can't decide difficulty of AI in multiplayer or wheher I want it off etc.

I personally haven't gotten past 2100, but a couple of us just want to box the last enemy and experiment, ie: sandbox style. I love doing that in RTS & turn based games. Or instead of boxing the enemy, I can manipulate how powerful he becomes, like if I let him expand a bit or not.

What's worse for me is the sticky cursor. There's no setting for cities to be idle. If I have them produce a unit, then that's yet another unit I have to click b or x on so I can freakin' click b for end turn.

I don't know if this was all out of stupidity, lack of space/technical issues, game got rushed or it was out of laziness and they had to cut out some stuff to finish it. But it definitely wasn't a "design decision". Eliz is the "community manager", she handles public relations, also known as propaganda (actual meaning, don't get mixed up with any stigma or emotional/irrational attachment the word has now). Her job is to keep us happy, to say there's nothing actually wrong with xxxxx.

I'm sure they may consider releasing a scenario WITHOUT the turn limit though. We've given alot of dissent, and if it really isn't something they can't do because of technical reasons, they will release one because it atleast seems plausible. In one scenario, you start off in the second millenium and I'm at like 2300 on it so far.

So I'm not too worried about the turn limit, so long as we can show we want a scenario without a turn limit, or a sandbox style (no victory conditions, no turn limit) mode. Hopefully they can make it so you can turn off advisors and be able to just straight up end the game immediately, I don't know if they can add any new options though.

THANK YOU. If the game stays like this, theres a good chance I'll get bored with it in a week or 2 and then turn it back in for credit towards something better. Seriously, I just want to play my way. Honest to god, as harsh as this is, I feel like I'm playing a game meant for the nintendo 64. I'm wondering if I just wasted 60$ on a game that'll hold my interest for a week at the most. Hell, I could just go back to MGS4 since I was working on the fox-hound emblem, which is at least more fun then going through practically the same exact game 50 times.

I'm also completely perplexed at how the gameplay can become so rigid sometimes when it's on the next-gen consoles. That's just a poor design job.

[FadingBeano]

Holy complain Batman.

deep breaths people.

Since we apparently like to count hours I'll do mine. Lets see, 2 hours per game x 320 games = 640 hours. I'd say that is a lot.

[vale]

So what was the thinking behind no option to always force an end turn confirmation.

This is my biggest pet peeve, and it was always the first option I turned on in past civs. I had hoped that the demo just wasn't showing the full features of the game and that would be present, but no such luck.

I really dislike having to check my cities before I move my armies lest I accidentally trigger the end of the turn by moving all my non stationary armies.

Even worse is when I have nothing but stationary armies and the game just speeds through turns until I finish a tech, complete a build, or have a population growth.

[LtFrankie]

Holy complain Batman.

deep breaths people.

Since we apparently like to count hours I'll do mine. Lets see, 2 hours per game x 320 games = 640 hours. I'd say that is a lot.

There is nothing worse, less contributing or more hypocritical than complaining about people complaining.

The turn sppeding is very annoying. As is the sticky cursor, lack of setting idle cities and how you can't just END the turn without clicking every freakin' unit and making sure every city is building something. You can't have your city really constantly make more units, because that's one more thing you have to click 'b' or 'x' on before clicking 'end turn'.

I think the scenarios was an attempt to help soften the fact you can't control any pre-game variables beyond choosing the single player AI difficulty (no individual AI settings) & your civilization.

[teekun]

Even worse is when I have nothing but stationary armies and the game just speeds through turns until I finish a tech, complete a build, or have a population growth.

Whenever I have nothing but stationary armies, the game always prompts me to confirm a turn end.

[vale]

I get turns skipped all the time in the early game when I very specifically do not want them skipped.

This reminds me of a related complaint. Why is there no Civ IV shift-enter equivalent. (Forces the turn to end regardless of units with movement available).

If I'm building a victory wonder, or my colony ship is on the way to Alpha Centauri, I really don't want to have to work through a bunch of garbage just to end my turn.

So summary:
Early game, when you have few cities and may actually want to micromanage what is happening, the game speeds through turns if it thinks you have nothing to do regardless of your wishes.

Late game, when you are waiting on a VC to finish and just want to skip ahead to the important part, the game wants you to enjoy every last second of those turns and to make sure to fortify all the random units throughout your empire.

Something seems off about this choice.

What was the thinking behind the unit cap? Were the systems unable to manage so many units at a time? Are console users getting hit by this cap because of DS limitations? Why is there no notification when you hit the unit cap, instead it just randomly stops creating units (which in all honesty is a relief unless going cultural in which case I felt obligated to clear space for great people).

[FadingBeano]

There is nothing worse, less contributing or more hypocritical than complaining about people complaining.

Yes there is. People complaining about stuff just to complain for the sole purpose of venting their anger.

I was complaining of the way people were complaining.

Some of these are rage complaints, (ie. starting a post with Bull****) they are not constructive at all for the forums.

deep breaths before posting is a good thing.

[Black Jack]

As for your first question, this was a design decision to end in 2100 AD. I've discussed this at length elsewhere, search with "2100 AD"

As for building, if you truly don't want to build anything else, you can set your production to 0 hammers and focus on gold, science, or growth. I haven't ever really had a time when I ran out of things to build (unless it was something like the last 3 turns before I built my final wonder or something) but that is an option for you.

Thanks for replying Elizabeth.

I understand that it is a design choice but it was a bad one! The developer shouldn't decide when you should stop playing. They should have capped the era but let you continue playing until you reach a victory condition or better yet, the host should be able to set the win conditions for a match and the game would only end when that condition is met.

Your second comment was a blatant lie because i have tried customising my workforce to only produce gold, food etc but the city still asks what shall we build... So i have to spend about a minuet repeatedly pressing B (360) so that i can get to my units and give them orders.

Another thing, the random map generator was another poor decision. It would be better if players could choose the battlefield. For example, it would be good if players could set the game so that everyone started off on their own island for a different game-play experience.

It may sound like i don't like this game but i do, it's just that the game lack options and i would like to see the game patched to resolve some of the above issues.

[Mysterio]

Your second comment was a blatant lie because i have tried customising my workforce to only produce gold, food etc but the city still asks what shall we build... So i have to spend about a minuet repeatedly pressing B (360) so that i can get to my units and give them orders.

Calling her a liar is harsh and unnecessary. A city will always produce at least 1 hammer and 1 food, because the center tile always produces 1 hammer and 1 food. I'm guessing that slipped her mind.

Another thing, the random map generator was another poor decision. It would be better if players could choose the battlefield. For example, it would be good if players could set the game so that everyone started off on their own island for a different game-play experience.

I disagree. The random map generator is essential.

[Black Jack]

Calling her a liar is harsh and unnecessary. A city will always produce at least 1 hammer and 1 food, because the center tile always produces 1 hammer and 1 food. I'm guessing that slipped her mind.



I disagree. The random map generator is essential.

You make no valid argument.

She told me something that was not true, therefore, she lied. I wasn't trying to insult her.

Random map generator is good but it would be better if we could choose the type of map to play on.

If you disagree please explain your reasons, otherwise, there's no point you posting.

[Mysterio]

She told me something that was not true, therefore, she lied. I wasn't trying to insult her.

If I ask you a question and you answer it incorrectly because you forgot a certain detail, can I call you a liar? I don't think you'd appreciate me doing so. Considering the nature of her job, do you honestly believe her intent was to deceive you?

Random map generator is good but it would be better if we could choose the type of map to play on.

You said, "...the random map generator was another poor decision." I thought you meant that having one--period--was a bad idea, but it looks like I misunderstood. I like it the way it is, but I'm a random kind of player.

[KrashKrunal]

I have beat the game with 6 civilizations sir. Have most of the achievements on xbox 360. 300 hours? 1000 Really? It took just took me 40 minutes to get the domination achievement on king difficulty with the zulus the most it took was my first playthrough because I was taking my time which was almost 2 hours with germany.

Try making a save where you can get all victory conditions on Deity difficulty. Those games take me somewehre between 3-5hours... and that's when I'm trying to be as quick as possible to finish the game.

So what was the thinking behind no option to always force an end turn confirmation.

The only time you don't get a 'End Turn' confirmation is durign the first few goes or when you've fortified all your units and are not producing any new ones, in which case pressing L1 or movign the Left/Right analogue stick has the ability to stop the next end turn. Try it, I know it works for me.

[LtFrankie]

Yes there is. People complaining about stuff just to complain for the sole purpose of venting their anger.

I was complaining of the way people were complaining.

Some of these are rage complaints, (ie. starting a post with Bull****) they are not constructive at all for the forums.

deep breaths before posting is a good thing.

I think what matters is the points I'm making, not if I appear "angry" or "harsh and mean".

While the turn end game isn't the biggest thing for me, I can't stand the sticky cursor. I can't set cities to be idle, sometimes I run out of buildings to build and then when I have it produce a new unit, that's yet another unit I have to click 'x' or 'b' on. It's annoying when I don't have a need to use my units yet or a need to make any new units and I'm just trying to say, finish a Wonder or whatever.

[Shadow696984]

ok my question is are you going to give voice acting to the US and other countries just like how some already have it?