rezaf
4901
To me, that exactly nails the reason why I see no need to keep a game “closed”, even if you want to release some DLC.
Only very few talented intividuals can ever hope to create graphics (especially animated models) that look professional enough to rival the creations a company itself can release. It’ll take ages and ages until a decent number of such high quality custom models are out, and once they are, the sale of DLC has usually long since stalled. So why keep the system closed in the first place?
rezaf
Why is it that all of your posts come across as you believing your opinion is the only one that matters here? Civ has a large and loyal modding community that Firaxis promised to support (“Civ V will be the most moddable Civ yet!”), so they should do so. I have no interest in modding the game myself, but I would certainly love to see and play whatever other, more talented people can come up with.
“Utter idiots?” Come on. Don’t be a dick.
Rywill
4903
The land-based tactical AI seems to have improved some. The AI still makes some boneheaded moves, but usually because of something like “There’s no clear path to where I want to get.” Which still isn’t acceptable (it should then decide “I guess I won’t move this turn”), but in an open field environment it seems to do better with putting melee units in front and artillery in the back. It also does better with retreating wounded units and turtling units in cities. Overall, though, it’s still not nearly competitive with a human player. On the sea, the AI doesn’t appear to have been changed at all. It still rarely bombards with naval ships (although it will overrun your noncombat ships if given a chance), and it still allows transports to get sunk all the time. Too bad.
It seems like one of the AI’s major problems is in deciding what units to build and/or transform into transports. I know fuck all about computer programming, but it seems like it should be easy to tell the AI “If your active-war opponent’s naval power is way more than yours, don’t put people on transports,” which would go a long way towards alleviating its naval problems. Similarly, when at war the AI needs to prioritize units: melee > artillery > cavalry > noncombat. Even a very simple ratio that was rigidly enforced (i.e., no building new noncombat units unless you have a 5:1 ratio of existing military to noncombat units) would make the computer play a lot better.
rezaf
4904
How many Civ5 patches have there been now? 4? 5?
The modding tools have been broken since day 1, and after all this time, nobody at Firaxis has seen fit to fix them - quite the contrary, now that the newest update even broke part of what little functionality actually works - even if it only worked when using several hacks that shouldn’t have to be used.
I didn’t expect them to release the SDK on day 1 (or anytime close afterwards), but the way they have treated modding until now I wouldn’t be surprised if the graphics tools remain broken and the SDK is never released. Most moddable civ yet, huh?
Also, you can always pick the other option and conclude they just don’t want people to mod stuff beyond the XMLs.
rezaf
That, or modding is not the primary concern and they’ll come in later to fix it up.
I know a lot of us like to make mods, myself included, but I’m pretty sure the vast majority of players don’t mess with the SDK and that a large number don’t even bother with the in-game browser for available mods. People in this very forum have been railing against the actual game and noting how bad this or that is, and Firaxis is making the effort to create a better experience. As far as I can tell, that doesn’t make them idiots, and it sure doesn’t make them disingenuous in their desire to make it moddable. It’s just part of the process of patching.
Fair enough, and I agree that Firaxis should either back up that promise or at least let the fans know exactly to what extent they intend to support modding. For the record, rules modding does work and is improved over Civ4 thanks to the new database system. I think the lack of progress with the other tools is mostly because too many employees were let go too soon, or moved over to the Facebook project – same reason why bugfixes are taking rather long.
rezaf
4907
Dan, I agree that maybe it just isn’t very high (or at all present) on their list of priorities, but - I can only repeat it - for a game that claimed to be the most moddable Civ ever pre-release, it’s VERY disappointing that you can’t do jack besides modding the XML files.
Scripting also works, to a degree, but many functions are “closed”, i.e. you cannot access them as a modder, plus the whole system isn’t exactly sophisticated (files need to be “overwritten” in case of being modular).
Everything related to graphics is either a pain in the arse or completely impossible. You cannot create bullding models (an area where you could hope to see results of decent quality pretty quickly), you cannot create unit graphics without using hacks (that now no longer works), you cannot create leaderheads.
Like I wrote earlier, I didn’t expect the SDK anytime soon, but what’s there is extremely disappointing, imo.
I think the base Civ5 sucks and new shiny stuff to try out would keep me around regardless - I also disliked Civ3, but I had it installed for a long time trying out new released stuff.
I haven’t fired up Civ5 in months. I think the last time was to try out the Mongols.
rezaf
[QUOTE=Rywill;2593335]The land-based tactical AI seems to have improved some. The AI still makes some boneheaded moves, but usually because of something like “There’s no clear path to where I want to get.”
I haven’t seen any improvement with the tactical AI in the last two games I am in since the new patch. At my city on the enemy frontier, the emperor AI continues to place infantry AND artillery directly next to the city. There are lines of site on the city from enemy held hills from which they should be blasting at me. Instead my own artillery behind the city destroys the infantry and arty as they are brought up. Bad Civ…bad…no!
That being said, I am enjoying the balance, policy and production changes quite a bit. The diplomacy was fun in my last game as well with a four on four match developing between continents. I found that going to war if a friendly nation asked, even if you have no intention or means of helping, is a good way to keep them friendly.
On the modding issue, I cannot wait until the talented Civ folks get their hands on the main tools. Some of my favorite gaming moments have come from Fall From Heaven and Dune Wars for Civ IV.
Oh, I can see being dissappointed. It’s just the earlier vitriol that kind of stands out, but no worries.
As an aside, I take it you mean a better/full SDK, correct? Because a link to the Civ V SDK is sitting on my desktop as we speak.
I think he means an actual working SDK.
Well, it works … just not very well :)
So even your own opinion can’t be shoehorned into your false idiot/anti-modding dichotomy.
I think the base Civ5 sucks and new shiny stuff to try out would keep me around regardless - I also disliked Civ3, but I had it installed for a long time trying out new released stuff.
I haven’t fired up Civ5 in months. I think the last time was to try out the Mongols.
Maybe you should try it again after this most recent patch, if for no other reason than to see how the idiots have been expending their anti-modding resources.
Lorini
4913
So why is my own city asking me for incense?? I’m confused here.
Mazuo
4914
Cities that reach a certain size will ask for a luxury you don’t currently have to satisfy them and create a growth surge. There’s no penalty that I know of to taking forever to get that luxury for them.
rezaf
4915
Well, I’m not a native english speaker and my vocabulary is limited enough that I actually had to run dichotomy through a translator, so, even if it surely be described more eloquently, I’ll just use the term idiots, because it sums up pretty good how I feel about their decision.
And I actually think both of my picks are correct at the same time - the guys at Firaxis want to prevent modding for the time being BECAUSE they are idiots. Sorry, that’s how I feel about it.
Note that I don’t claim my opinion to be the absolute truth, or more correct than yours on the matter.
If you think you’re being treated well by Firaxis you obviously have totally different priorities than I have - and that’s ok, of course.
rezaf
I’ve played through about 5 games since the patch, now. After this patch, I swear Civ5 is now running faster than Civ4 did. Prior to the patch, I’d click “Next Turn”, and then alt-tab to a book, or work, or some other game.
I still find the game pretty easy to beat, compared to prior versions. My strategy now appears to be gunning for a Culture victory. For starting build, it depends on the civ, but usually I go for a Monument first, and then whatever I’m able to build next. I no longer look to build a Worker as one of my first few builds, as the Liberty culture path can eventually get me a free worker and a free settler. On Chieftan difficulty, I can win by the late 1600s, and Warlord isn’t too much different. The higher difficulty levels tend to see me mixing it up with some of the other civs, and stretching that out, but the end result is still the same.
Well, yeah, you’ll have that…
Rywill
4918
I do wonder about that. I’m an average strategy gamer, not brilliant strategist or good at min/maxing or anything like that, and Civ V gives me a good challenge on King level with average world settings. Anything below that is usually a walk-over. I see people saying they can trounce the game and so on, but then I see people saying they’re doing that on Chieftain level, or winning militarily on a small pangea map (which I think is definitely easier than, for example, a large continents map), and I wonder how many people can consistently demolish the AI on higher difficulties with regular maps. I’m sure some people can, but is the AI really so broken that most people can?
It really depends what you mean by “most people”, when it comes to Civ. There are a good number of people who have played the different versions of Civilizations over the years (decades!) who want a decent military challenge as part of the game. So far, Civ V doesn’t really do that, and provides multitudes of examples where the tactical AI is just plain stupid.
For those who are entirely new to Civ, it doesn’t matter so much, because they’ll still get beat up simply because the AI can out-build them. But the tactical weaknesses do unfortunately still detract from the overall game, for those of us who have spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours playing games in the franchise.
This is where the other discussion comes into play, because having a full SDK available would eventually make the game dramatically better in these areas. Civ IV got decent once modders could get in and play around with the nuts and bolts, which Firaxis copied into the official patches. By the end of Civ IV with mods like the Better BTS AI, the tactical AI was downright deadly. Firaxis does seem to be rather slow this time around at getting out the full SDK, although I imagine it’s still a ways away; they haven’t even done the obligatory multiplayer patch, yet.
Rywill
4920
I agree that the tactical AI detracts from the game. I would definitely like to see better tactical AI, it’s my #1 problem with the game. I wish they had worked on that before this balance stuff (although the balance stuff is definitely nice). But my question is whether the game is broken (or broken for most people) in its current state. People like Tom and Ben and whoever else is aboard the USS Civ 5 Droolz seem to be saying that the game is either unplayable, or at least much worse than Civ 4, in its current state. It doesn’t seem that way to me, and I’m wondering what others think.
And I’m one of the thousands-of-hours guys that you’re talking about. I skipped weeks of college classes when the original Civ came out, and have played every version except 3 religiously. For me, the improvements in 5 far outweigh the step backward in tactical AI. I’d love to have a challenging wargame alongside the other stuff it does, particularly since its combat model is so much more interesting than Civ 4’s. But stuff like social policies, better tech flow, skipping espionage and corporations, better civ abilities and units, better diplomatic options, and just overall better flow from beginning to end more than makes up for that, for me. And the game is still challenging to me on King level and above because the the AI’s bonuses and reasonable strategic play keep it competitive.
But I know Tom and Ben are also thousands-of-hours guys, and I take it you are as well, and the game obviously isn’t working for you. So I wonder what others think, and I wonder how bad the tactical AI breaks the game for everyone else. Can most folks walk over the AI on higher difficulties on regular maps? I don’t know. I know I can’t.
