Hacker News Reader

Comment by OskarS | Hacker News Reader

I've put around 20 hours into this game at this point, and I think the criticisms are way overblown. The UI is a bit clunky in spots, but the game is very solid, and very fun. I've played every Civ since IV, and mechanics-wise, this is my favorite one (actually, Alpha Centauri... but this one is a close second). I have not found it particularly buggy (as opposed to clunky).

It feels like with every game release there's this army of perpetually pissed of gamers just waiting to pounce on anything, and when you play it it's like "this is what people were so mad about?". Same thing with Dragon Age a few months ago: everyone talked about it like it was some disaster, but I played it, and it's... fine? I mean, it's not the greatest game ever, but it's not terrible. It's not as good as Inquisition, but better than Dragon Age 2. It's certainly nowhere near as bad as Mass Effect: Andromeda.

View on HN

_Every_ Civ game is loathed on release, and beloved a few years later (generally after a bunch of expansions). It's how it works. I think Civ 2 was the last one for which this was _not_ the case, tbh (it was so clearly better than the original).

(I had missed that there was a new one out, might have to give it a go, so that I can moan about how it's worse than VI, and then forget about that in a couple of years.)

I never got into Civ6. The rules were too different from the prior games and I fail to adapt. My favorite is still civ5 but I also really liked 4. I did try playing civ2 again recently and it now feels too unstructured.

Civ 2 was great. I mostly skipped 3 and completely skipped 4, but have played 5 a fair bit through the years and still feel that Civ 2 was better. Not graphically, obviously, but the game mechanics evolved relatively little from 2 to 5 and in some cases not for the better (unit stacking??) Worse, Civ 5 games all turn out smaller and shorter than what I used to do in 2. Fewer cities, fewer units, smaller and shorter wars. Pity it's such a pain in the ass to run Civ 2 these days.

Wine runs Civ 2 very nicely these days. It's just a desktop shortcut away for me.

All in all it's pretty funny to me how a lot of games from the Win98ish era are now easier to run on Linux than on Windows.

I loved the Civ II world war 2 scenario, I played that more than anything else.

> I think Civ 2 was the last one for which this was _not_ the case

Good addition. I just wanted to say I was pretty sure Civ 1 and 2 were immediately loved upon release.

I skipped 3 and 4, but I do remember plenty of complaints about 5 and 6, but they're great.

I almost never buy games on release day, but this is Civ. Maybe I should just get it right away. I keep starting new Civ 6 games for some reason.

AI knowing too much led me to stop with 3.

I vaguely remembering looking at 4 and same issue, maybe.

Then there was another Civ where boats were not needed any more - that looked to me to be a very different game, and it didn't appeal.

> Then there was another Civ where boats were not needed any more

6 & 7 (and maybe 5, I don't recall) don't require transports for land units because they now have the ability to "embark" with appropriate technology (In 7, this is from the beginning, but only on navigable rivers and coast), but boats are very much still important (well, on most map types.)

The AIs have never really been great, tbh.

> I think the criticisms are way overblown.

The game lost me as soon as the long fought war I was on the verge of winning was suddenly over at the end of the age. Units just gone hours down the drain. What supposedly happened narratively? The clock struck midnight and everyone decided to switch to farming?

this isnt a narrative game. Its a strategy game. Having a clock makes for better strategy imo.

I get it's not a narrative game. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be reasoning behind the mechanics. The fact that most of my troops just suddenly disappear at this arbitrary time to me at least has no reasoning behind it. It's just some arbitrary marker I have to plan around. I think asking what my troops supposedly decided to do is a fair question.

> and mechanics-wise, this is my favorite one

* Did you ever play V with Vox Populi (fka Community Balance Patch fka Communitas)?

* How did you like VI compared to the earlier ones?

I’m asking because V + VP is peak Civ for me, and because Civ VI was a complete disappointment for me (not helped by there being fewer modding possibilities).

I liked VI better than V (the districts were fun!) but never touched any mods. I think some of the ideas that were maybe a bit half-baked in VI comes together really nicely in VII.

Thanks. The districts were a nice idea from Endless Legend, but I felt they were a bit rough in Civ. Refinement of ideas from VI sounds like a good start, good enough that I’ll not completely write VII off ;)

I honestly can’t remember much of what V was modless, only my first 300 or so hours were without some VP variant (the mod is still in active development, and has been almost as long as V exists), and I’m at 2700 hours now. When you need a break from VII, I can just wholeheartedly recommend giving V + VP a try, it overhauls a lot of mechanics, fixes a lot of things, and vastly improves the AI.

I was big into civ5 and a bunch of mods including Vox populi. I enjoy 6 equally after the expansions.

Equally, I don’t enjoy five any less.

But that information doesn’t help much without you having played VII like OP ;)

> It feels like with every game release there's this army of perpetually pissed of gamers just waiting to pounce on anything, and when you play it it's like "this is what people were so mad about?".

As I understand things, the norm in the game industry is for even expensive, well resourced games from veteran studios to launch with numerous major bugs and performance issues: https://youtu.be/DPW6fkcM-14?feature=shared&t=46

If you're like me, you never see this. I play perhaps two games per year. I play games once they're being sold at 40% off and they've got 50,000+ positive reviews, I've got no interest in early access games or pre-orders. Either the bugs and performance issues have been ironed out, or they haven't and the reviews let me avoid it.

But just because I never see the bugs and performance issues, doesn't mean they weren't there on day 1 :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1iolpfn/steam_reviews_...

And more on that thread tell the story you tried to bury with the "gamers are toxic" narrative.

Here's a question I've been having trouble finding a clear answer to -- do you have to let it talk to the internet at any point if all you want to do is play single-player?

I mean, Inquisition itself was terribe compared to origins.

Your entire second paragraph is a strawman based on your subjective and unfounded "it's fine" opinion.

Unless you address actual points at face value instead of dismissing people as "perpetually pissed gamers" your entire point is moot. You just want to dismiss criticism.

I have no opinion yet on civ VII because I haven't tried it but there are legitimate concerns. Often times, companies have heard the concerns of their player base and reacted accordingly (not the loudest ones, but simply listening and evaluating if they might have a point and if driving your base away is worth it for an unseen/unproven growth)

Edit: my conjecture is that Civ switching is what is likely to make or break it for me. Either I like it due to refreshing gameplay or I hate it due to roleplay/continuity reasons.

The people dismissing criticism are the worst.

A fine case example is Cyberpunk 2077 at release - the game was ridden with bugs and several of them gamebreaking. That on top of failing to reach what it’s marketing had promised.

I enjoyed the game ok then and a lot more after a lot of patches - it’s a good game atm imo.

But the criticisms were more than valid yet there was no shortage of very vocal defenders. According to them the critics were haters, complaining about nothing, they themselves didn’t encounter any bugs (or maybe two in twenty hours) etc. It’s baffling how some people want to defend shortcomings in products - wouldn’t it serve them too if the products were better? (Some goes with any brand fanboys, not just games)

I don't know if people have a natural inclination towards authority or they've been primed against it but there's a notable trend online to demonize consumer advocacy of this kind.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com