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Comment by soneca | Hacker News Reader

Well, I quit Civilization on Civilization 3 because it was too much for me to handle. Same for Sim City at some point. It got more and more complex every version to the point it wasn’t much fun for me anymore.

So I “wasn’t there” 20 years ago already.

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Civ 4 was the greatest Civ. Civ 5 and beyond tried to turn it into some kind of board game.

"Death stacks" happen in real life. e.g.: every human battle ever, including Normandy in WW2, I don't know why Civ 5 chose to remove them.

Civ 5 and 6 have nice features but it's no longer Civ to me. Plus, the excessive amount of $60 DLCs are a no-no.

I think the death stacks make it too easy to just steamroll over the opposition. One military unit per hex makes it more tactical. It works for me.

Civ 4 has ways to prevent excessive unit stacking. Mounted units, catapults, artillery and air strikes cause collateral damage. Nukes make death stacks useless.

I think the game was fine the way it was.

And still is, isn't it? I don't think they changed Civ 4. Nothing wrong with different people liking different games.

> Civ 4 was the greatest Civ.

Alpha Centauri enters the room ;)

Alpha Centauri was a great game. Its spiritual successor Civ Beyond Earth was not.

I spent most of today playing Civ6 which was on sale (I’m on vacation)

I played the tutorial and then one and a half games against the AI.

It took 8 hours and not much happened. It had a fairly overwhelming UI and was really slow for each turn (even on fastest speed, tiny map, two players).

I’ll probably never play it again, it wasn’t fun.

Perhaps Civ6 just isn't your thing, but your experience could also be exactly what Sid Meier describes: You have to grasp the different mechanics to get to the fun, strategic part of the game - which takes a while. Like in chess, where learning the game doesn't end, but actually only really starts once you know the basic rules of piece movement.

As a non-native speaker, I sometimes have a similar experience when reading English books written in a rather ornate style, i.e. where I don't know some of the vocabulary: I can follow along just fine, I get the story arc etc., but the book just isn't fun because lacking the vocabulary I can't grasp the fine details of the atmosphere, the character descriptions etc.

I think a big difference between Civ games and chess is that chess has very easy-to-learn mechanics. There are only a half dozen different pieces and the rules are pretty simple. A beginner can start playing almost immediately and have fun from the start. I think Civ’s mechanics are several orders of magnitude more complex.

Yes - chess has a relatively simple and limited ruleset, the complexity comes from the combinations possible.

Civ6 has a crazy amount of complexity to do basic actions - the complexity comes from the UI and all the rules, each city has a ton of things to build which each take many turns, there’s multiple skill trees of unclear benefits, there’s governments and policies, where you can build and what you need to build isn’t clear. During all of this kind of tedious action nothing interesting is happening.

I’d guess there’s a baked in assumption that people playing are already familiar with the game. The tutorial and in game recommended actions were not great.

I don’t mind some complexity (I like KSP, Starcraft) - Civ6 feels like a bad design problem.

> Civ6 feels like a bad design problem.

Definitely! Multiple core mechanics are downright broken. Religion for example is a complete waste of time, as it has practically zero consequences outside of the mechanic itself. I can routinely beat the game while completely ignoring religion.

Playing against a lot of AI opponents is part of the fun. I would start on some easy mode on a standard map with the standard number of opponents and city states . That will be much more representative of the actual game experience.

I've been playing Civilization V for ten years. I'm skeptical they're going to be able to build a new Civ that will pull me off of it. I consider it the nearly perfected version of the franchise (opinions widely differ of course). Maybe in another ten years. Everything I've read about Civ VI indicates the overall gameplay is inferior (although obviously not graphically), there's no great reason to move on to it.

I'm still playing Age of Empires and Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, so I may just be trapped in a time vortex.

Personally, I prefer a small map, to have some more players to interact with. Only one opponent seems boring to me as well

It may be stage of life too. RPGs seemed like work to a younger me. Yet that younger self got bored with action games and made mods and mini games for years.

Now I have less free time but enjoy the feeling of progression in lighter RPGs like Deus Ex.

Audiences change over time among with the game offerings.

Yeah, if a game looks like Excel today with lots of charts and stats, I won’t play it. Don’t have the patience anymore.

I only play games that require minimum investment. Ones I can play 10 mins at a time with resolution. Stuff like Fifa or racing games for example. The only game I invested serous time in completing in the last 5 years was GTA on iOS. They just suck up too much time that is better spent on other stuff like spending time with family or exercising. I'm really surprised at how many dedicated adult gamers there seem to be these days, especially employed ones, as I don't know where they find the time.

I only exercise in ways that require minimum investment. Ones I can do 15-30 minutes at a time with resolution. Stuff like HIIT or 5k runs for example. The only exercise I invested serious time in the last 5 years was a half marathon. Exercising just sucks up too much time that is better spent on stuff like spending time with family, or unwinding with a video game. I’m really surprised at how many dedicated gym members there seem to be these days, especially employed ones, as I don’t know where they find the time.

No doctor ever advised playing more video games. Exercise is a requirement for good health, especially for the more sedentary job types. I've noticed a lot of these types of comments popping up on HN recently. They aren't constructive. Instead they are willfully ignorant and don't add anything to the conversation.

So first you malign my choice of how I spend my leisure time with an implicit “my hobby is more wholesome than yours” and now you call me ignorant? I had hoped to add to the conversation by holding a mirror up to your silly “my hobby is better than your hobby” comments by highlighting that there is no “right” amount of time to spend on relaxing and taking care of your well-being.

As I’m sure you are aware, mental health is an important component of overall well-being, and you will find that doctors have prescribed treatments involving computer games in a wide ranging number of studies since their popularity began to grow in the late 1980’s. Picking one well cited example at random from a 30 second Google search https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.0026... .

“No doctor ever advised playing more video games” is such a broad brush statement as to be useless to refute. It is factually wrong, and the first statement in our sub-conversation that truly deserves the label “wilfully ignorant” - you can learn more about the topic with a few minutes of searching for “video games therapy”.

You are likely aware that not everyone is neurotypical. Some people come alive in their creativity in a video game but struggle to communicate face to face, or struggle with the fine motor control to draw, paint, or write. Video games like Minecraft can become effective communication channels. Doctors and researchers can and do prescribe video games as therapy ( https://psychcentral.com/news/2019/01/28/therapeutic-video-g... ).

I never maligned your hobby. I enjoy video games too. That's why I play them.

Did you read your comments? Your posturing was obvious and embarrassing

They are constructive at least by pointing out that there is a segment of the population that finds physical exercises boring, not pleasant at all. Work, not recreation.

> No doctor ever advised playing more video games.

No doctor ever advised reading more thermodynamics textbooks either. And that's because it's out of scope. Most of medicine deals with the body. A smaller part deals with emotions. There is no branch of medicine concerned with cerebral skills.

Exercise enhances cerebral capacity. More to my point is that exercise is a necessary maintenance activity. It can also be a hobby

I think this is perhaps the worst comment I’ve seen on ycombinator.

Not only do you start with a double negative which is both hard to read and an incorrect statement, but you then ironically don’t add anything meaningful to the conversation.

Edit> he edited his comment

You run half marathon with no previous exercising except 15-30 long HIIT and 5km runs? Frankly, bullshit. There is quite jump from 5km run and half marathon. Half marathon does require serious training investment. This quite apparent nonsense. Even as you are trying to make analogy, you are just showing how absurd the theory is.

And also, people dont spend as much time exercising as they spend gaming, not unless majority of that gym time is pure socialization. Body would not handle it for majority of people.

But yes, the few individuals that do exercising related activities all the time do have those interfering with jobs and families. With families complaining about about that and with people who decide to cut down on exercising for that reason.

That's a pretty weird thing to call bullshit on, even if the analogy wasn't a true one. I completed a Tough Mudder, which is 10 miles plus obstacles, with no HIIT or running training, only some biking (commuting) and yoga. Bert Kreischer is an overweight comedian, likely alcholoic, with no training regiment, and he completed a full marathon in 5h33m.

> Bert Kreischer is an overweight comedian, likely alcholoic, with no training regiment, and he completed a full marathon in 5h33m.

That is really sort of thing you should not do.

I guess you can walk most of marathon, marathon distance is not some kind of unachievable hike. But as of actually running it, you should not and would not manage to run.

If you pick the right pace, most healthy individuals can run half a marathon. Your knees will explode, you may get injured, but you can do it.

> Your knees will explode, you may get injured, but you can do it.

Ok, I took the whole "your body is likely to get damaged forever" thing as "can not and should not run".

And also, healthy non trained individual wont run half marathon. May walk majority of it, but wont be able to actually run that distance.

I ran a half marathon on sand with no training, find a pace you're comfortable with and stick to it. Knees were fine, delayed onset muscle soreness the next day was extreme but passed. (had I not had to turn back because of a river mouth I would have gone further)

I found the same, when we had kid I realized that games I used to play are really not made for people like me. It just was not compatible with the baby. And gaming culture I was encountering at the time was ridiculously hostile to the idea of easier low investment game and offensive to people who voiced such wish.

> I'm really surprised at how many dedicated adult gamers there seem to be these days, especially employed ones, as I don't know where they find the time.

Judging from people I know, they get time because they either dont have family/social life or simply dont spend time with them. If they have kids, they expect partner to deal with all child related care and housework, not really interacting with their children.

If you are alone or divorced, having hobby that actually immerse you and eats your time for hours is not a bad thing.

For some, gaming time replaces the time that could be spent watching TV/etc.- it's another way to spend leisure time, and IMO, gaming is probably better for your mental health than watching 3 hours of the news /etc.

My experience is the opposite, it got less complicated. It's not challenging anymore because it's becoming easier to play. Maybe because the internet made playing it less complicated because of the information available or I know the game play too much and there's nothing new to challenge my knowledge of the game.

Civ 2 ranks among my most played games ever, but I skipped Civ 3 and 4 entirely, only to pick up Civ 5 and 6 again. I like 5. 6 not so much.

Civilization is in a weird space. It's too complex now for many gamers and way too simple for the gamers who grew up with strategy games.

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