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Crux of it seems to be: > It asks a lot of the player, and takes a while to work it out. You have to play it once in order to understand what's going on. You h

• atroche 6y ago
  Yep, CK3 is in the top ten games on Steam, hitting almost 100,000 simultaneous players most days: https://steamcharts.com/app/1158310 https://steamcharts.com/app/1158310
  • onion2k 6y ago
    For comparison, Call of Duty: Warzone regularly gets 30 million players.
    • chrisco255 6y ago
      Ok, 100K simultaneous online players is nothing to sniff at for any game. That's a success, that's a hit. Might not be a triple platinum mega hit but a hit nonetheless.
      • onion2k 6y ago
        Absolutely. It's a huge achievement. However, in a discussion about the tastes of gamers and whether or not there's as much appetite for complex games today as there was when Civ was released, it says a lot that CoD is more than 100* as popular.
        • alickz 6y ago
          Warzone is also: 1. Free to play. 2. Marketing budget in the 9 figure range. 3. Comes from a long established series with ~20 games. 4. Available on all platforms. I'd be willing to bet there's more of an appetite for complex games today than when Civilisation was released from an absolute standpoint, just that there's also more people playing games in general so from a relative standpoint there's less.
        • mcv 6y ago
          Pac-Man was probably also more popular than Civilization. Hardcore complex grand-strategy games are simply not as accessible to as many people as more mainstream games, but Paradox proves there's definitely a market for it.
    • kilotaras 6y ago
      Are you sure? COD sold 75-80 million copies [1]. Getting 30 million regularly implies that one of third of them are actively playing at the same time. That seems rather unlikely [1] https://www.gamespot.com/articles/call-of-duty-warzone-sees-huge-spike-in-players-an/1100-6480548/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/call-of-duty-warzone-sees-...
      • TacticalTable 6y ago
        Call of Duty Warzone is free, the referenced stat was for last years COD title.
  • Erwin 6y ago
    Interesting someone bought it on Steam for 50 EUR, given XBox Game Pass for PC subscription (despite the weird naming) lets you have it for a fraction of that price (together with a dozen other good names, e.g. the new Flight Simulator and Wasteland 3).
    • rasz 6y ago
      lets you have it^^^^^borrow
    • unionpivo 6y ago
      I bought it as a signal to Paradox, to keep making such games, even though I don't have time at the moment to play the game. Various Microsoft game/whatevers on PC were such a shit show in the past (while on consoles it was great) I am probably not alone in just ignoring everything that comes out of microsoft on PC.
• soneca 6y ago
  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.
  • paulryanrogers 6y ago
    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.
    • WA 6y ago
      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.
  • 29athrowaway 6y ago
    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.
    • mcv 6y ago
      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.
      • 29athrowaway 6y ago
        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.
• m4rtink 6y ago
  Agreed - an extreme example being Dwarf Fortress. :) And popular games like Factorio or Satisfactory are far from simple. Also, in many survival games you can loose results of many hours of gameplay in an instant.
  • dependenttypes 6y ago
    Minecraft is another example. Until a recent version there wasn't even a build-in recipe book, you had to either discover them by yourself or search about them online.
    • HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
      That was back when the number of recipes was less than half of what exists today.
• remarkEon 6y ago
  I agree with what you're saying here, and Paradox is a good example. Hearts of Iron IV has a solid modding community, and while it can have a steep(ish) learning curve, that's sort of the point. That variety of what can happen in-game helps keep gamers coming back for more.
• legohead 6y ago
  I have hundreds of hours into Deep Rock Galactic, and I still play it almost every day. And I'm no anomaly - and there are plenty of games in a variety of genres that players stick with for hundreds of hours. Maybe Civ needs a little touch up in modern design - maybe the first playthrough is quick and easy, but "willing to spend time" with a game is definitely not a problem.
  • Narann 6y ago
    DRG is action coop run-based game. There is no complexity in it. H5 is tighter on resource management but it can't compare with grand strategy where plays could long for hours.
    • legohead 6y ago
      Which is exactly part of my point. I can play DRG for hours at a time, and it's a pretty one dimensional game. So there's no reason why something as complex as CIV can't thrive. His point that players don't have the attention span or a willingness to commit to a game these days is just wrong.
• tlarkworthy 6y ago
  Yeah factorio hits a similar note and similar late bedtime routine for me.
• an_opabinia 6y ago
  > Paradox games One brand! Look at Jon Shafer's experience with At the Gates. A Civilization designer. Changed too much, and got 3/5 star averages. A one-man show, a literal indie game, comparable in resources to Civilization 1. This is what Meier is talking about. Tossed out of Paradox, for that matter. Firaxis's Beyond Earth has barely 1 person who played at least 1 minute for every 10 that bought the game. 9/10 buyers just handed over money out of nostalgia, never playing a minute, nostalgia was and remained the only compelling association with that product. Okay, was it a bad game? Who knows, hardly anyone played it. That's the crux of what he's saying. We've barely covered just Civilization-adjacent products. Anyway, it's preposterous - that Sid Meier has never heard of Paradox, that he's unaware of their success, and that he hasn't contemplated it. It isn't about strategy games as a whole, it's about new games, about new experiences and changing 30% of the formula every year instead of 3% of it.
  • Semaphor 6y ago
    > One brand! That’s Strategy (and I don’t know if it’s true even there as most Strategy is RTS and I prefer turn based). There have been many deep and complex RPGs released, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Underrail, and Age of Decadence come to mind. > Okay, was it a bad game? Who knows, hardly anyone played it. Well, those who did play know it. And to me it was essentially a dumbed-down Civ V that, to make it worse, didn’t have the same amazing modding community behind it.
  • dependenttypes 6y ago
    At the Gates had its own share of problems that wasn't just because it changed too much. > Firaxis's Beyond Earth has barely 1 person who played at least 1 minute for every 10 that bought the game It is common for a lot of people to "buy" games on steam that they will never play. Especially with less popular games.
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > has barely 1 person who played at least 1 minute for every 10 that bought the game. What's that number based on? Feels like taking some telemetry more seriously than it should be.
  • 6y ago
• ironman1478 6y ago
  Yeah. Well designed strategy games can capture the attention of even not great gamers. I've played like 50+ hours of slay the spire and I think I've won like 5 times, but I enjoy it nonetheless because the design is fantastic and the complex mechanics explain themselves.
• dependenttypes 6y ago
  One of the goals for CK3 was to dumb CK2 down in order to reach a wider audience. I honestly would not describe any of the newer Paradox games as complex (yes, even Stellaris).
  • monadgonad 6y ago
    Have you played CK3? It's definitely not dumbed down.
  • mcv 6y ago
    I find it hard to imagine a Paradox game that could not be described as complex. Maybe some are not quite as complex as others, but they're definitely complex. Especially compared to any version of Civilization.
  • unionpivo 6y ago
    CK3 has more systems out of the box than CK2 when it came out. CK3 just just looks simpler because its presented in a lot better/cleaner way. (and the fact, that CK2 wasn't as complicated as EU4)
    • blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Hey don't forget Vicky II, which is mostly a complex spreadsheet simulator with sliders and a map.
      • unionpivo 6y ago
        My friend, let me introduce you to a game called Aurora 4x here is some gameplay[1][2] and forum where development happens [3] . There is c# revrite comming ... [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXqBYDSno7w [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77mvpSvVu10 [3]http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php
  • hollandheese 6y ago
    Maybe not, but they're vastly more complex than any Civilization game has been.
• philwelch 6y ago
  Paradox has been trending casual over their past few titles as well though. Hearts of Iron IV is far less sophisticated than HOI III for instance.
  • monadgonad 6y ago
    I think that's a trend that's reversed. From what I've seen of it so far, Crusader Kings 3 has the same depth and complexity as its predecessor.
    • mcv 6y ago
      It'd be a stretch to consider any of these games even remotely casual. I haven't played HOI3 or 4, but if they're as far on the extreme complexity end as EU4, then toning down on unneeded complexity may well be justified. The goal is not complexity for its own sake; it has to serve a purpose. Some of the complexity does, some of it doesn't. Revisiting some of those assumptions for a new version makes a lot of sense. That said, these big Paradox games have a tendency to accumulate a lot of complexity over the years.
      • philwelch 6y ago
        A lot of the complexity in EU4 consists of artificial mana mechanics, which HOI4 also has. HOI3 and Victoria II have complexity due to the underlying complexity of the simulation.
• michannne 6y ago
  I think most of the players playing Grand Strategy are veteran players who have been playing since the early Civs. I think Meier's point is that if grand strategy wasn't already an established genre then he wouldn't be able to make Civ today
• wink 6y ago
  Not sure if Stellaris is a good example though. It might be hard to master, but I've had a lot of fun with my first game already, so it's easy enough to get into (I don't like 4X games usually and I hadn't even played any RTS/Sim games for many years). I think the point was more "you're in for some work if you want to enjoy it properly". But if we're simply looking at the "playing to beat it/mastering aspect", then you're right.
• LordIllidan 6y ago
  Paradox Games, Football Manager (not FIFA), etc - I don't think the market has died at all. There will always be a lot more players who play the mass-market games of course.
• mcv 6y ago
  Exactly. Europa Universalis 4 feels to me like Civilization on steroids. Less tech progress, but far more intricate, detailed mechanisms to understand. Even the most complex version of Civilization is pretty simple by comparison. And yet EU4 is very popular. (Should I give Stellaris another chance? I got it when it just came out and was disappointed, but I imagine they put a lot of work in it since then.)
  • kabouseng 6y ago
    The problen with Stellaris is the 101 add-on pack sold seperately. It feels like they are milking the customer and getting all add-ons can be very expensive.
    • mcv 6y ago
      I'm used to that from Paradox and I'm fine with having to pay extra for more features and more options, but I would have hoped the basic game itself would have had a bit more game in it. I had fun with basic EU4 and basic CK2, until eventually I decided I wanted more, and paid for it. Basic Stallaris seemed to be devoid of any content. I mean, there were some events, some planets had an interesting resource, but it was nothing like the lively piece of history in action that EU4 and CK2 are. But maybe it's gotten better since then. I tried it pretty early.
    • username90 6y ago
      The genre wouldn't exist without those add-ons. Since the market for grand strategy games is small this is their way to be profitable. That is how paradox sells all its titles.
    • blaser-waffle 6y ago
      The DLC thing is annoying, and is a serious problem for EUIV, but for Stellaris the biggest dealbreaker for me was that each patch or update completely changed the game. Totally altered X/Y/Z, did away with transportation methods, total 180. So then you have to relearn everything. And it's a slow paced, very abstract game to be begin with so it becomes a slog.
• everdrive 6y ago
  Most of the problems we have today are signal to noise problems. The signal to noise ratio of nearly everything has gotten worse, but the raw numbers have gotten better. There is a huge market for people interested in very complex games, but that market is 1) already pretty saturated since there are already a good number of complex games available. This is to include all the old ones, (such as Civ 1-5, or whatever we're on currently) which are generally still fun to play. And, 2) Since the market for people who love complex games is a tiny fraction of the (now enormous) general gaming market, it can feel quite futile. In fact, I suspect that gaming in the 80s on PC was so niche, that the percentage of people who could learn a Civ type game was much higher than it could possibly be now. Especially if you consider smart phone games. Further, this is just true in general. People say "games are so bad now," when what they probably mean is "per capita, most games are terrible because the market is so huge." However, there are more and better games available today than in any time in history. Again, this is true because for the most part all the old games remain available. You could extend this to almost any kind of media: books, movies, TV, music. There is simply MORE of everything, and so the mainstream center-curve feels more estranged.
• pwinnski 6y ago
  I think it's clear that there are complex games today that require a big time investment and thinking, but that section isn't the only relevant one, I think. > In the book, Meier reminds us that the bestselling games of 1998 were Civ 2, Warcraft II, Myst, Command & Conquer and Duke Nukem 3D. Aside from the last, all require more thought and engagement than the [redacted] that dominate gaming today. To avoid picking and choosing, what are the bestselling games of 2020, for comparison? How would we even determine that? That's where I think he's saying things have changed. Four of the top five best-selling games of 1998 were more thoughtful, while today he offers up "Candy Crush" and "Fortnite" in contrast. As I write this, the best-selling games of 2020[0] seem to be: Ghost of Tsushima, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Paper Mario: The Origami King, The Last of Us: Part II, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If that's not a perfect comparison, maybe throw in the top paid app on iOS: Minecraft. In terms of being one of the top five games, he's clearly right. There's not much room for something like "Civilization" on that list. But that might be the wrong way to think about it. If I sell X units in 1998 and it makes up 25% of all units sold, and then I sell X units in 2020 and it makes up only 0.1% of all units sold, that might seem like what I'm selling is much less popular, but in fact I'm selling just as many. It's the overall market that has grown up around me. In my hypothetical example, it has gotten 250 times as large. In reality, it might be even more extreme than that. Something like "Civilization" today might not be a best-seller the way it was 22 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's not a market for it. [0] https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/top-10/video-games/ https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/top-10/video-game...