Did Civ2 have this kind of criticism when it came out?

I really don't remember hearing anything bad about civ2 when it came out. THere were no rantings of bugs or horrible game flaws. Compare the release of civ2 to the release of civ3. When civ2 came out it was so clean and polished. There were no bugs that I know of, at least not until the MP portion came out. And the original civ2 had 1 patch for its entire game life. Compare that to civ3 which now needs a patch the day it was released, and I can assume it will be periodically patched for the next few months. That is of course if they don't give up on it like they did with CTP2. Compare the way this game was handled and developed to that of other games such of Age Of Kings. Ensemble studios should be the model for other game companies, especially Firaxis who doesn't seem to understand what testing is. ES hires real players who have played the games for years and are the best players out there. For example AOM (Age Of Mythology) is being tested by Swinger, The_Sheriff, Maimin_Matty, and a few others (For those of you who don't know those players were experts in AOK and AOE). When a ES game comes out, there are virtually no bugs and all patches that come out are usually geared towards playing features or civ balances. I can't help but think if Firaxis had hired expert players of Civ2, AC, and CTP2, we wouldn't be having this problem right now. And I won't even go in to the management differences in ES and Firaxis. Comparing the two is like comparing a Major League baseball team to the little league you see playing at your local park.

[Seeker]

These were the first criticisms I heard of Civ 2 vs 1:

-silly yellow units (first thing edited out)
-the Alpine Troop (also editable)
-Bad AI; not asking for Deep Blue here but AI could not use aircraft carriers period, lone destroyers appearing and committing suicide one by one.
-generally the AI tended to hurl units suicidally one by one
-Missing some of the cool stuff like replay, march into city, animated waves.
-Isometric view annoyed some people.
-No big amphibious invasions! Civ 1 AI could occasionally pull this off.


After it was out for a while:

-That we were offered so many Microprose expansions with very crappy scenarios. FW was quite good though.

-It was difficult to appropriately edit tech and alliances for scenarios

-As time wore on people found the caravan to be an unbalanced unit. If you are good, trade effectively allows you to easily build most or all wonders and rack up incredible amounts of money.

-The railroad/howitzer paradigm was a bit silly. In the modern age there was often no real need to build units besides howitzers and transports.

[Zanzin]

Well, when civ2 came out, it was, what, 1996? Hardly any people had the internet then (at least compared to the number that do now!)

Community sites like this were few and far between....which basically means, there wasn't an avenue for gamers to get together and meet and criticise like this!!

Maybe if the internet had been in full force back then, it would have been heavily flamed. But we don't know, because the internet simply didn't exist on the level it does now.

Hope that answers your question!

[TCO]

They were criticised for releasing Civnet, when they were alreaddy secretly working on Civ2. They were also criticized for not enabling MP code in Civ2 and for charging for MP in the Civ2 MGE expansion.

sound familiar??

[Robert Plomp]

The more people gather together, the more they'll complain.
That's because people addopt each other's complains.

[Jason]

Yep. It used to be comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic for a "community," lots of great folks posted, Brian Reynolds, Alan Emrich etc.

I remember the isometric view messing with a lot of people, and some (including me) had sound card troubles for a while that caused random crashing. Also the victory lap stuff ticked people off... No nice replay with the map, no text file generated with your glorious conquests, and so on.

My feeling is that serious, dedicated fans tend to get a bit possessive of a game franchise, and feel betrayed if it doesn't go in the directions they want - this is true of any game with "fanatic" fans. When you have a message board community with a bunch of disputative regulars, what's happened is pretty predictable.

Anyway, nothing to stress over. When you get right down to it, the valuable information is either in specific forums (strategy or civilizations or mod forums for example) or in the threads of reputable posters. You only have to read stupid rants if you are a sucker for punishment or like wasting time

[Hoek]

We were expecting more this time around

[TCO]

Originally posted by Hoek
We were expecting more this time around

Perfect example of Jason's point. Well, at least I whine about the server, while Andy whines about the games...

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by EnigmaticGod
And the original civ2 had 1 patch for its entire game life.
...
Ensemble studios should be the model for other game companies, especially Firaxis who doesn't seem to understand what testing is.
...
I can't help but think if Firaxis had hired expert players of Civ2, AC, and CTP2, we wouldn't be having this problem right now.

On the money!!!

(The game is still great, but its shortcomings are unnecessary and embarassing.)

[Ming]

One might think from reading these forums that Civ II was the "perfect" game... and that it was released in perfect condition. HA HA HA HA... many people must have very short memories. Even after all the patches... the release of MP... FW... it still has many flaws and problems. We have just gotten used to the problems because overall, it's a great game. Civ III will fall into that category eventually... or at least I hope so

[TCO]

Originally posted by Ming
One might think from reading these forums that Civ II was the "perfect" game... and that it was released in perfect condition. HA HA HA HA... many people must have very short memories. Even after all the patches... the release of MP... FW... it still has many flaws and problems. We have just gotten used to the problems because overall, it's a great game. Civ III will fall into that category eventually... or at least I hope so

Can't you tell by know? Is it that hard to tell?

[techumseh]

But in terms of the scale and intensity of the complaints...not even close!

[PMLF]

Now there are a lot more people with internet access than when Civ2 was released. IMO, this is the reason for more complaints now than in Civ2's release.

[Kc7mxo]

Ahhh. But, in civ 2, tanks did not lose to cavalry on a regular basis. hah.

waaaaaa i want my firepower back!

[TCO]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Ahhh. But, in civ 2, tanks did not lose to cavalry on a regular basis. hah.

waaaaaa i want my firepower back!

Well...you also had a hard time with deity as I recall from the Aol boards...even when you were a more senior board poster. So maybe you're just not good at taking on the AI? Why not give yourslef some help by tweaking the modern units to higher A/D levels?

[Sparky]

Actually as extremely good as CivII was, I felt it was incomplete at release. Look at the following examples:

1) No multiplayer at release (or for years after)
2) Only 2 scenarios at release (this was int eh era of simcity2000, when 6-10 scenarios were standard)
3) The World maps sucked compared to Civ1 (ditto for CivIII!)
4) There were a bunch of unfinished premade maps, like the Mediterranian, and a Pacific map that looked suspiciously like it belonged with a WWII scenario)
5) Odd choice of civs. Carthaginians??? Try the Phoenicians.
6) Unpolished WWII Europe map. Several rivers in Siberia are sloppy and don't line up.
7) Redendant units. The rifleman, fanatics, alpine troops, paratroopers, and partisans all did the same thing, but had slightly diffeent abilities.

[Ming]

Remember that a spearman could take out a battleship in Civ I

And many of us whined about the bugs in Civ II... many that were NEVER fixed. But I think the fact that the gaming internet community is far larger now is the best reason... more people with more opinions... more people that can whine

[TCO]

Originally posted by Sparky
Actually as extremely good as CivII was, I felt it was incomplete at release. Look at the following examples:

1) No multiplayer at release (or for years after)
2) Only 2 scenarios at release (this was int eh era of simcity2000, when 6-10 scenarios were standard)
3) The World maps sucked compared to Civ1 (ditto for CivIII!)
4) There were a bunch of unfinished premade maps, like the Mediterranian, and a Pacific map that looked suspiciously like it belonged with a WWII scenario)
5) Odd choice of civs. Carthaginians??? Try the Phoenicians.
6) Unpolished WWII Europe map. Several rivers in Siberia are sloppy and don't line up.
7) Redendant units. The rifleman, fanatics, alpine troops, paratroopers, and partisans all did the same thing, but had slightly diffeent abilities.

Very well written post. DinoDoc take note and read...

[Moe]

Well, it seems to me, that the people who are most upset often speak up much louder than the people who are quite satisfied. (they are probably playing the game right now, and not worrying about complainting)

Oh yeah. I'm new, so hi y'all.

[Ludwig]

I think you also have to take into account that a great number of people became very, very good at playing CivII.

They also became very, very good at designing scenarios for CivII.

Now CivIII comes out, and the expert players become frustrated when they aren't immediately Bobby Fischer at it, so they howl that the game is "unbalanced". [It may indeed be unbalanced, but no one - no one - can know that after playing it for a week.]

And, more justifiably, the scenario designers have an unfinished scenario design tool that in its current state is a massive step BACKWORDS from what was already available for CivII. Naturally, they are angry about this and complain - but in the course of venting their frustration about this [or MP, the other favorite] they feel compelled to construct the best anti-CivIII case possible, so they come up with clever arguments about how every last feature of the game is bad, even the features that have nothing to do with scenario design [or MP].

[Imran Siddiqui]

Um.. wha?

When civ2 came out it was so clean and polished. There were no bugs that I know of, at least not until the MP portion came out. And the original civ2 had 1 patch for its entire game life.

Buy the same version of Civ2 that I did? It had at LEAST 5 patches, and even then things weren't totally fixed.

Compare that to civ3 which now needs a patch the day it was released, and I can assume it will be periodically patched for the next few months. That is of course if they don't give up on it like they did with CTP2.

Ummmm... Firaxis had NOTHING to do with CtP2, so they couldn't give up on it, if they wanted to .

[Venger]

I am already kicking AI ass on my first game of Civ3 - so it's not a matter of not being able to use some kind of Civ2 tricks (tricks don't interest me). I didn't use any of the bugs in Civ2, I removed bribing cities and modern units, and upped the tech paradigm and such to make it more challenging.

I want the game to challenge me not with distraught corruption rates but with smart gameplay and an intelligent AI...

Alas, when I got Civ2, I went ape$hit. Sure there were some bugs, but it was a quantum improvement on the previous game. I missed some things, like disasters, but overall, it's hard to think of something in Civ2 that was a backwards step from Civ1...

Evolution...

Venger

[Ludwig]

Maybe not you personally, Venger, but as far as I can see there is a LOT of criticism of the type I have described.

Or are you claiming that there HASN'T been any *****ing that, when translated, boils down to one variant or another of "Corruption makes the game too hard. This means the game is unbalanced," or "Resources are too hard to get. This means the game is unbalanced," or "The new Espionage system makes it impossible for me to bribe cities. This isn't fair," or my personal favorite "The AI expands too fast. He is always building on open squares inside my territory. That's not fair and the game is unbalanced".

I'm annoyed at the absence of decent scenario tools, personally. I don't think I've played CivII in years without playing one of the scenarios. But the core single-player random-map out of the box game is better than CivII was.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Ludwig
Or are you claiming that there HASN'T been any *****ing that, when translated, boils down to one variant or another of "Corruption makes the game too hard.

It makes the game tedious, unenjoyable, and completely unrealistic and unplayable if you want anything other than a current world map simulator. Want an empire? Forget it.

This means the game is unbalanced," or "Resources are too hard to get. This means the game is unbalanced,"

Look at the issues in particular. For instance, if you don't have oil you are screwed because you can't produce tanks (which is dumb, because you could produce tanks without oil, you would just not be able to drive them anywhere). But you can trade for oil. Additionally, the ability to buy or trade units should be added, so even if Civ A won't trade you oil, he did trade some to Civ B, and now Civ B will trade you 3 tank units for 600 gold... smart, realistic, and dare I say, complex gamesmanship and fun!

or "The new Espionage system makes it impossible for me to bribe cities. This isn't fair,"

City bribery is just stupid, and I have said so since Civ2. I edited my rules to disallow the human player from seeing it as an option...of course the AI doesn't use that so it can still try it, but I'm normally a democracy by then...

or my personal favorite "The AI expands too fast. He is always building on open squares inside my territory. That's not fair and the game is unbalanced".

Fair isn't the problem it's both a stupid of the AI and horribly unrealistic. Do the Mexicans come start a city in the middle of Nevada because nothing is there right now? Las Vegas' culture rating isn't high enough to close off the whole state. That's what they complain about.

As to expanding too fast - I have no problem with expansion as long as it stops at reasonable borders. In fact, I edited my Civ2 Rules text to increase some Civ traits to expansionist just so I'd have other large countries to oppose...

I'm annoyed at the absence of decent scenario tools, personally. I don't think I've played CivII in years without playing one of the scenarios. But the core single-player random-map out of the box game is better than CivII was.

I don't like scenarios, but the ones done for Civ2 are outstanding. I don't play them, but even I can appreciate a scenario for the English Civil War in one turn and Star Wars in the other!! That's what an open rule system allows...

Venger

[CyberGnu]

Don't think so, but CTP and CTP2 did... But they apparently did well anyway... No, wait, they DIDN'T!

so maybe Firaxis should sit up and take note of the critisism...

The criticism of civ3 and civ2 don't compare. We may have whined that diplomats were too powerful, but we didn't complain that the game was fundamentally flawed. Lets face it, this game can never ever be a multiplayer game. Can you imagine the amount of turns it would take just to get monarchy? Every game would become a diplogame, they would take months at a time. ANd lets not even get started on culture. You can never conquer someone because of culture and corruption. So the only way to win the game is to launch a spaceship. Who is going to want to play the game like that? Just think about a duel in civ3. One guy would have all the horses or some other incredibly valuable resource that the other guy doesn't. You think he's going to trade the resource? The game is going to come down to who has the most luck of the resources. Some of you might say duels aren't civ anyways, but you're a small minority and all competitive play is based on duels. There will be no ladders, which in turn would effectively kill any hopes of an MP popular game. All of your are screaming for MP, you see what they did to single player. Are you in that much of a hurry to be disappointed again? Lets face it, the civ series is seeing it's final days. They need to change the name to Sim City 3.

[Admiral PJ]

I wasn't that impressed with the improvemts of civ2 over 1, its good points were only the graphics, units like spies, better tech tree city views and that it could be edited a lot - scenarios were nice too.

I believe the series sequel style of games making is good, as code can be reused so it should take less time to make and allow more features and depth (although constant windows software updates make coding troublesome).

[Admiral PJ]

I don't think large turn based strat games work that well with multiplayer anyhow, unless you stick to a small 3 player map and play for 50 turns.

[MrB]

I swear, bashing new releases must be the new national passtime, I haven't seen a game forum lately that hasn't got loads of *****ing about very little.

For people that'd rather go play buggy never to be fixed CTP, fine... do so and be happy. Everyone else should give it a chance and remember it probably took a while before you appreciated all of CIV 1 or 2's little nuances.

I fully expect to see someone come here and complain that CIV3 is the worst game ever 'cos it's turn based!

Personally though, I think it's great. The culture thing is a major plus, I always did prefer the peaceful options. Having to find resources to make units and stuff is a very welcome addition too. Makes the whole thing feel more realistic and probably adds layers of strategy that no-one's really explored yet.

All in all, three thumbs up, and I'm confident we won't be dropped in it like with Activision and CTP.

Actually I never had a problem with civ 1 and 2. There has never been anything about those games that I didn't like. Civ3 is just shoddy workmanship, and Firaxis knows it.