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Stairmaster posted:also gently caress you whoever though the jump from civ 4 to 5 was good 
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Oct 2, 2019 00:10
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Stairmaster posted:also gently caress you whoever though the jump from civ 4 to 5 was good They're fundamentally different games. Civ 4 was real good, and then they decided to try a couple new things with Civ 5 that completely changed everything, but also felt shallower from the way that they were starting over from scratch with room to grow in later expansions, while Civ 4 had a bunch of expansions to make it look way better. The old game still exists if that's what you want. That is what the shift to CK3 would be like. (the real thing to complain about is how lame their attempt at following up Alpha Centauri was)
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Oct 2, 2019 00:37
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Beyond earth sucked poo poo and they should have just released a remastered alpha centauri instead
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Oct 2, 2019 00:59
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Stairmaster posted:also gently caress you whoever though the jump from civ 4 to 5 was good The series lost me after how awful civ 3 was, so Civ 2 (or rather, Alpha Centauri) remains the best civ game I have ever played
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Oct 2, 2019 02:48
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Civ 4 remains the highlight of the series for me, mainly because the AI in 5 and 6 never seemed quite smart enough to handle the hex mechanics. In 4, they'd just throw a doom stack at you, which while somewhat inelegant, at least represented a serious threat to the player. I did like how you built up your cities in 6 though.
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Oct 2, 2019 02:51
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Giggle Goose posted:Civ 4 remains the highlight of the series for me, mainly because the AI in 5 and 6 never seemed quite smart enough to handle the hex mechanics. In 4, they'd just throw a doom stack at you, which while somewhat inelegant, at least represented a serious threat to the player. I did like how you built up your cities in 6 though. Is it too pedantic to point out that the hexes themselves are irrelevant here?
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Oct 2, 2019 03:01
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Yeah hexes were never the problem, it was that the AI had (and still has) no idea how to handle 1 Unit Per Tile.
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Oct 2, 2019 03:05
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Civ 4 remains amazing while no one chooses 5 over 6. I remember trying Alpha Centari a while ago. I got two turns in before the terrible UI and resolution made me close it for good. Boomers BTFO
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Oct 2, 2019 03:10
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actually all three were bad, but it was just easier to make a braindead ai when all you have to do is prioritize hammer/production and send unit stacks around weirdly hoi, which is the same, still beefs it civ 4 is a real rubbish mp game compared to 5 and 6 tho
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Oct 2, 2019 03:32
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Yeah SMAC was definitely the peak of the franchise, with 4 and 2 as runners up.Fister Roboto posted:Yeah hexes were never the problem, it was that the AI had (and still has) no idea how to handle 1 Unit Per Tile. Even 1UPT wasn't necessarily bad, it's that they did 1UPT on those tiny maps with no space to maneuver at all. Civ5 was a series of terrible design decisions one after the other basically. This guy did a good analysis of it: http://www.sullla.com/Civ5/whatwentwrong.html
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Oct 2, 2019 03:43
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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The best multiplayer civ game is Endless Legend
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Oct 2, 2019 03:45
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Average Bear posted:Civ 4 remains amazing while no one chooses 5 over 6. Gameplay-wise it's nothing special. Kinda tedious. Civ 2 with a couple wacky new mechanics on top. All the appeal is in the writing. The characters that still pretty strongly represent important elements of the world and all have a pretty strong flavor to them. There's a tone of little quotes and anecdotes and passages that represent some pretty neat sci-fi and worldly commentary. There's the dated CGI videos that still work pretty well. Beyond Earth pretends that it has something to say, but really doesn't, Alpha Centauri actually says a decent amount. We must dissent.
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Oct 2, 2019 03:47
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SlothfulCobra posted:Gameplay-wise it's nothing special. Kinda tedious. Civ 2 with a couple wacky new mechanics on top. All the appeal is in the writing. The characters that still pretty strongly represent important elements of the world and all have a pretty strong flavor to them. There's a tone of little quotes and anecdotes and passages that represent some pretty neat sci-fi and worldly commentary. There's the dated CGI videos that still work pretty well. Beyond Earth pretends that it has something to say, but really doesn't, Alpha Centauri actually says a decent amount. Some of them were really loving weird https://youtu.be/Lva8L-J8x04
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Oct 2, 2019 04:13
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SlothfulCobra posted:Gameplay-wise it's nothing special. Kinda tedious. Civ 2 with a couple wacky new mechanics on top. All the appeal is in the writing. The characters that still pretty strongly represent important elements of the world and all have a pretty strong flavor to them. There's a tone of little quotes and anecdotes and passages that represent some pretty neat sci-fi and worldly commentary. There's the dated CGI videos that still work pretty well. Beyond Earth pretends that it has something to say, but really doesn't, Alpha Centauri actually says a decent amount. Yeah the thing about AC is as a game, it's basically a Civ 2 expansion pack. It adds a bit to the formula, with the customizable units and the terrain stuff, but it's not revolutionary. It's the narrative framing that makes it so memorable, because you can tell they put a LOT of time into building this setting. There's a real good, but very long, video here that digs into the politics of the game and how it relates to the larger politics of the 90s, and how it kind of serves as a counterargument to the Civilization series itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m0aEO7CrxM
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Oct 2, 2019 04:17
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an hourlong video on politics in video games, tell me more
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Oct 2, 2019 04:28
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SlothfulCobra posted:Gameplay-wise it's nothing special. Kinda tedious. Civ 2 with a couple wacky new mechanics on top. All the appeal is in the writing. The characters that still pretty strongly represent important elements of the world and all have a pretty strong flavor to them. There's a tone of little quotes and anecdotes and passages that represent some pretty neat sci-fi and worldly commentary. There's the dated CGI videos that still work pretty well. Beyond Earth pretends that it has something to say, but really doesn't, Alpha Centauri actually says a decent amount. "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." This one is pretty funny how wrong it is in retrospect. You don't have to deny people access to information when you can just overwhelm them with it.
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Oct 2, 2019 04:36
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Fister Roboto posted:"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." Not everyone can be on the amount of  Kojima was when he made MGS2.
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Oct 2, 2019 04:39
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PittTheElder posted:Yeah SMAC was definitely the peak of the franchise, with 4 and 2 as runners up. this is some pretty intense grog and while 5 did have a lot of problems that fundamentally came from 1UPT, all the other problems this person either incorrectly diagnoses, misses at all, or were addressed in later versions of the game. though, there is no actual 'good' civilization in the sense of producing a balanced competitive board game, who the gently caress hates ff10? seriously. groggy as hell
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Oct 2, 2019 04:42
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Fister Roboto posted:"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." OTOH maybe it's Lal being a dumbass liberal with a bad analysis of history, that's what's great about the writing
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Oct 2, 2019 07:24
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Stairmaster posted:also gently caress you whoever though the jump from civ 4 to 5 was good Glad to see others eloquently answering that with eloquent explanations with what I was talking about. As for Alpha Centauri - yeah, this is a game you remember with fondness, not the one you replay over and over again. Beyond Earth might have lacked soul but I bet it's better as a game with all its balance and stuff. It can probably be replayed much more than AC till you exhaust it - only AC gives you reason to come back to its subpar mechanics and BE exists as a poor cousin of the main series but with sci-fi memes. Also yes, the beauty of many AC quotes is that they tell us about the characters. And some of them, like Morgan, are full of it. Meanwhile Civ6 approach with "DAE thinks this good thing is bad? Lol so edgy" quotes stand there as authorial intent of some sorts and they don't work at all.
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Oct 2, 2019 10:11
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Mister Olympus posted:this is some pretty intense grog and while 5 did have a lot of problems that fundamentally came from 1UPT, all the other problems this person either incorrectly diagnoses, misses at all, or were addressed in later versions of the game. Maybe you'll like this guy analysis more https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts/404789
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Oct 2, 2019 10:14
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Average Bear posted:I remember trying Alpha Centari a while ago. I got two turns in before the terrible UI and resolution made me close it for good. Boomers BTFO cant appreciate the classics smdh
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Oct 2, 2019 10:30
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I really miss SMAC terraforming. Starving put an enemy because you built a mountain range between your borders, causing your side to capture all the moisture was some big brain plays. Personally I’m waiting for Vicky3 so I can gently caress around with a SMAC total conversion mod.
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Oct 2, 2019 10:57
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ilitarist posted:Glad to see others eloquently answering that with eloquent explanations with what I was talking about. What? No, it really isn't. It's not the lack of flavor that made me completely ditch this game, but its subpar mechanics. The AI, even on higher difficulty levels, was so passive through the entire game that you could pretty much ignore it and just spam trade agreements. The first time I played the game, I won – one of the enemies timidly tried to stop me, but was so far behind that it was like fighting a toddler. I bought Rising Tide, hoping it would fix the game's most glaring flaws, but instead it made it worse. The AI players would inexplicably love me because I had plenty of satellites, a lot of cities and I built some secret projects. Again, throughout the entire game, one rival decided they don't like me and tried to stop me by sending a mass of inferior soldiers through a one hex-wide chokepoint. Again, I won without even trying to.
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Oct 2, 2019 11:32
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Demiurge4 posted:I really miss SMAC terraforming. Starving put an enemy because you built a mountain range between your borders, causing your side to capture all the moisture was some big brain plays. yeah the terraforming stuff was really cool and unique. also planet busters leaving huge craters/lakes
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Oct 2, 2019 11:38
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Gantolandon posted:What? No, it really isn't. It's not the lack of flavor that made me completely ditch this game, but its subpar mechanics. The AI, even on higher difficulty levels, was so passive through the entire game that you could pretty much ignore it and just spam trade agreements. The first time I played the game, I won – one of the enemies timidly tried to stop me, but was so far behind that it was like fighting a toddler. Ah. Well I didn't play it that much (but I've played AC) and expected it to be fine gameplay-wise, coming in between Civ5 final expansion and Civ6. Now I know.
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Oct 2, 2019 11:56
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Yeah Beyond Earth is bad not just because it has some poorly thought out mechanics but also because the writing is so shallow. The tech quotes are incredibly boring and makes all the leaders seem like cardboard cutouts of an ideology that the suits at Take2 don't approve of. quote:Yes, the world is beautiful and unspoiled. But it is wrong. Correct it at once. Some hard hitting commentary here, Mr Kozlov.
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Oct 2, 2019 12:00
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I think you've chosen a relatively good one. It's dumb but there's something in it at least. Kozlov seems to have at least some character from what I saw. He's a military man in charge of non-military stuff. It's not Hamlet but he's much better than others. I've looked into other leaders and the only memorable one is a Ferengi Australian guy who is comically greedy. Other quotes are... Patent your discoveries. Each new species represents an opportunity for uncontestable ownership of that lifeform. — Suzanne Marjorie Fielding, "Transplanetary Management, Methods, and Resources" (accompanies "Alien Biology" tech) Oppression, chaos, and death may come from the barrel of a gun... but so, occasionally, does victory. — Rejinaldo Leonardo Pedro Bolivar de Alencar-Araripe, "Principles of Modern War" (accompanies "Ballistics" tech) We have discovered alien life on our new world. Unsurprisingly, it grows, reproduces, dies, and cannot understand French. — Élodie, "Remarques" (accompanies "Alien Lifeforms" tech) Natural selection is an effective process for organic optimization, but is too slow to be truly useful. — Daoming Sochua, "Scientific Morality Vol. III" (accompanies "Tissue Engineering" tech) I just took some random ones. Now that I've read them it feels like they were written by the same person who had chosen tech quotes for Civ6. They are not memorable at all and are just... witticisms. They're pristine and none-offending, you can't agree or disagree with them, there's nothing to discuss like with that Lal internet quote.
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Oct 2, 2019 12:17
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All the decent writing is in the Civopedia of the unit, tech and wonder descriptions. There's a few interesting ones but especially the Promethean project has incredibly problematic ethical questions that need to be answered but the language is very bare and non-confrontational despite the fact we're talking about the creation of a superior human genome. Edit: Compare that to SMAC where every faction is an extreme ideology taken to the next level with advanced technology and basically no human rights. Demiurge4 fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 12:29
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They just lack punch. Morgan for example was so effective because his were so pithy, and the voice actor really sold the hell out of being a charming, sociopathic CEO. He also had a coherent moral philosophy: we matter as much as any future generation so let’s take everything for ourselves now, and to hell with tomorrow. It’s evil but it is easy to articulate.You could probably summarise the other SMAC philosophies in a single sentence too, and there were some natural enemies there (Gaia v Morgan; Believers v University) to spice things up. For BE I would struggle. Uh...one of them is a techbro capitalist but also kind of self aware about it? One of them is an environmentalist but also a snooty French lady?
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Oct 2, 2019 12:34
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They *all* sound very self-aware. Maybe that's a problem - today the most popular entertainment is about supermens in funny costumes joking about how funny their costumes are. Maybe today it's hard to write a character who honestly believes that human suffering is the same as computer program throwing an exception so you shouldn't really care about it, today your evil dictator should make jokes about how all this dictatorship business is dumb.
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Oct 2, 2019 12:43
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BE was trapped on being from earth borne countries instead of wholesale cartoonish ideologies, imo there would be some major flak if, say, neo-france was a eugenics cult
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Oct 2, 2019 15:30
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Yeah, SMAC is the best 4X ever made by far and it's something we'll probably never see again because "good tight 4X design" and "good writing" are both seemingly lost arts.
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Oct 2, 2019 17:49
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boomers itt acting like political philosophy 101 is unequaled writing and that smac didn't have it's messy parts
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Oct 2, 2019 17:51
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smac has horrible 4x design lol The military balance is a complete mess and supply crawlers essential render any difference in Empire planning irrelevant the day that they are discovered
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Oct 2, 2019 17:59
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Agean90 posted:boomers itt acting like political philosophy 101 is unequaled writing and that smac didn't have it's messy parts It's better writing than any 4x game after it.  It's at least aware of ideology including the ideology implicit in the 4x genre, so much better than Civ or Endless Space or what have you.
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Oct 2, 2019 18:16
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I tried SMAC a few years ago and could not endure more than a couple of hours of it. The concept and writing are indeed cool but the gameplay is some awful dated poo poo, is just Civ 2 all over again Also I played Civ 5 a lot before trying Civ 4 and could never get into it. Yeah, Civ 5 AI is dumb and diplomacy is bad, but 5 is way superior on everything else
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Oct 2, 2019 18:21
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smac's mechanics are somewhat exploitable. but it's the bad non-competitive civ 2 ai that really prevents it from being close to a perfect game.
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Oct 2, 2019 18:32
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Elias_Maluco posted:Also I played Civ 5 a lot before trying Civ 4 and could never get into it. Yeah, Civ 5 AI is dumb and diplomacy is bad, but 5 is way superior on everything else Eh, the Civ 4 AI and general balance are miles ahead of Civ 5.
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Oct 2, 2019 18:46
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Gort posted:Eh, the Civ 4 AI and general balance are miles ahead of Civ 5. I dont care about balance that much, I only play SP. And yes, Civ 4 Ai seems better, but in everything else, Civ 5 is superior, thats what I meant
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Oct 2, 2019 19:01
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