Abandonware?

[=7CAV=SPC.Henson.K]

Asking for a friend.

[chaney]

There was a hotfix a week ago.

[Dissenswurst]

I can only repeat what I already wrote in another thread:

Everyone is waiting for some communication from the developers/publishers. They're through with their initial roadmap (for 2024), and we don't have a new roadmap for 2025.

All we have is an additional update 7 (currently still only on the open beta branch) which delivered QoL changes, bug fixes and some stuff fulfilling frequent user wishes. I have reason to expect at least one further update (based on an answer I got from a dev in some thread in the Paradox Millennia forum), and the hotfix from last week is supporting that. Whether there will be more updates or there will be even a new roadmap - it seems no one knows. We're all waiting.

Note further that despite of some weaknesses and bugs the game worked from day 1 for most of the players. I literally had already hundreds of hours of fun with it. So I ask: Is it really the right question to ask whether this game is abandonware (if you are still pondering about buying it or not)?

[Henryk]

I fully understand this question. At the beginning the communication was much better. And now there is no roadmap or any announcement for 2025. So this really looks like the development has stopped.

[=7CAV=SPC.Henson.K]

I've noticed some subtle changes, but can't place when they were inserted into the game. For example, Raiders can now be upgraded.

[Dissenswurst]

Originally posted by SSG Henson USA ret.:

I've noticed some subtle changes, but can't place when they were inserted into the game. For example, Raiders can now be upgraded.

You can find them in the Paradox Millennia forum. They've listed all changes per update there.

[chaney]

Yes, there has been a tide of that kind of improvement from the start and it is continuing to happen. You can find documentation of some of it (check the news tab) but there have been many subtle changes that were made with no fanfare. I for one appreciate a developer that improves the game rather than shouting about how they are/will improve the game. I LOVE that they made re-integration of a previously controlled settlement faster - based on minimal community feedback and without making a big deal about it. I prefer that to a set of new skins every couple of months.

Note that the current beta and recent hotfix show there is still work on the game.

There are still problems, but the game is quite playable. Some details are not working but over all, the game, IMHO, is in a better play state than Civ VI was a year after it released.

The game never found a big audience. Maybe it was for lack of champion, no streamers gave it much attention after the beginning for example. Maybe it was because the game is not Civ. The graphics are not fancy, the personalities are not entertaining, and the systems are too complex for players who want to click fast and just take over the world. (Go military and conquest everything is as reliable as it was in Civ sadly.) Still, the systems the game uses are super for those of us who enjoy that ... maybe niche ... style. The vast variety of approaches that can work out depending on circumstances is a treat for sure.

There is no indication so far of ongoing new content. That may be a practical reality, but it is disappointing. These devs, while lacking a resource to create the kind of comic opponents Civ does, seem to have a practical understanding of game theory and math that has eluded other more successful titles. With the resources to make a game with more feeling of personalities, I have no doubt they could develop a fantastic diplomacy and trading system that would make this so much better a game than any existing offerings.

I congratulate them on putting together the features they did, and am disappointed with the idea that the game won't get the years of polish and features that the Civ franchise has. Hopefully there is an invisible champion that is supporting them, the result would be the dominant 4X of all time, but that just seems like wishful thinking.

I think "abandoned" is too strong and unfair a word for the game. They did what they promised to. It generally works well compared with other games of the last decade.

[taomastercu]

Originally posted by Dissenswurst:

I can only repeat what I already wrote in another thread:

Everyone is waiting for some communication from the developers/publishers. They're through with their initial roadmap (for 2024), and we don't have a new roadmap for 2025.

All we have is an additional update 7 (currently still only on the open beta branch) which delivered QoL changes, bug fixes and some stuff fulfilling frequent user wishes. I have reason to expect at least one further update (based on an answer I got from a dev in some thread in the Paradox Millennia forum), and the hotfix from last week is supporting that. Whether there will be more updates or there will be even a new roadmap - it seems no one knows. We're all waiting.

Note further that despite of some weaknesses and bugs the game worked from day 1 for most of the players. I literally had already hundreds of hours of fun with it. So I ask: Is it really the right question to ask whether this game is abandonware (if you are still pondering about buying it or not)?

Has any dev at all mentioned the Influence bug? If they fix that I'd settle for no more updates.

[Dissenswurst]

Originally posted by taomastercu:

Has any dev at all mentioned the Influence bug? If they fix that I'd settle for no more updates.

Not that I know of, unfortunately. Though there might be a good chance for this being fixed if they should do another update, and I still believe we're going to see one. The related bug ticket there got already the status 'Confirmed'. If they wouldn't work on it, why should they bother to update the status of bug tickets?

[Henrique Lique]

Originally posted by chaney:

Yes, there has been a tide of that kind of improvement from the start and it is continuing to happen. You can find documentation of some of it (check the news tab) but there have been many subtle changes that were made with no fanfare. I for one appreciate a developer that improves the game rather than shouting about how they are/will improve the game. I LOVE that they made re-integration of a previously controlled settlement faster - based on minimal community feedback and without making a big deal about it. I prefer that to a set of new skins every couple of months.

Note that the current beta and recent hotfix show there is still work on the game.

There are still problems, but the game is quite playable. Some details are not working but over all, the game, IMHO, is in a better play state than Civ VI was a year after it released.

The game never found a big audience. Maybe it was for lack of champion, no streamers gave it much attention after the beginning for example. Maybe it was because the game is not Civ. The graphics are not fancy, the personalities are not entertaining, and the systems are too complex for players who want to click fast and just take over the world. (Go military and conquest everything is as reliable as it was in Civ sadly.) Still, the systems the game uses are super for those of us who enjoy that ... maybe niche ... style. The vast variety of approaches that can work out depending on circumstances is a treat for sure.

There is no indication so far of ongoing new content. That may be a practical reality, but it is disappointing. These devs, while lacking a resource to create the kind of comic opponents Civ does, seem to have a practical understanding of game theory and math that has eluded other more successful titles. With the resources to make a game with more feeling of personalities, I have no doubt they could develop a fantastic diplomacy and trading system that would make this so much better a game than any existing offerings.

I congratulate them on putting together the features they did, and am disappointed with the idea that the game won't get the years of polish and features that the Civ franchise has. Hopefully there is an invisible champion that is supporting them, the result would be the dominant 4X of all time, but that just seems like wishful thinking.

I think "abandoned" is too strong and unfair a word for the game. They did what they promised to. It generally works well compared with other games of the last decade.

The way you talk, it seems game is perfect and only reason is not popular is because no one famous supported.

The truth is AI is terrible, Diplomacy is 2000's level (there is not. Ai on diplomacy is also terrible), Quality of life is terrible (ugly ui's)

I always comeback to try new updates, but always stop playing for the same reasons (AI brainddead, no challenge. Ai still spam 100 cities, and pose 0 challenge(1 year after launch). There is no other way to solve that by razing. So game force you to use military all the time

Dev never fixed diplomacy or ai, but keep releasing super barebones dlc's with almost no content.

[chaney]

If you check the forum, you may find that I have criticized the game more times than just about anyone else, maybe the most. I NEVER said it was perfect. In the quoted text you will find some examples.

I have given many examples of why the game didn't appeal to the mass audience. This is just one particular musing, not intended to be an exhaustive cataloging of what has previously been posted in some cases multiple times. I'd be willing to repeat these things, but would ask that you then spend a similar amount of your time performing some kind of public service. I don't think the repetition has much value in these forums.

Yes, the AI is terrible. It may be worse than Civ VI, maybe not, I gave up on that because after a year they still had major systemic problems. I heard their Religion spam finally got discovered as a massive parametric bug ... but there were other things I didn't think worked well in the game. I do not expect a current PC game to have anything like a human level of play, so accept the (for now) practical idea that you need to play against other humans or let the computer players get strong buffs to provide a challenge. Not everyone agrees with that method, fine.

Diplomacy is poor. It started as barely a placeholder. With the last big update, it is a placeholder with a few levels of emoticon faces on top. I would love a good diplomacy system. I hear true Paradox games do a lot with it. But Civ ... while there is veneer making it appear to be more in depth ... were often worse than nothing. I recall one neighbor declaring war on me. I used the war to liberate a 3rd player's original Capital, returning it to them. They forever hated me as a warmonger. Would have been nice if that were handled better. Or take Humankind. Beautiful ideas for systems, very poorly executed. Sure you can game WarScore/Support, but the disconnections from human experience are pretty vast ... making it to me worse than nothing.

Graphics, yes, nothing great there. I'm more after information so that never bothered me much. Tie this with UI. It has improved a lot, but I crave more information from it. Some people miss the information that is there. Everyone thinks the Battle Viewer is ugly. But it has lots of very very powerful information in it. Miss that and you will think the combat system sucks.

The DLCs I see not as adding to a base game, but fleshing out what was intended to be in the game from the beginning. If they had Early Access with free upgrades for early adopters, this would have all gone down better.

If you just want to win, you are probably right to write off this title. Even at max difficulty you should be able to outplay the computer using military. I don't expect that to change. But you might try challenging yourself. Commit to not taking over every neighbor (and eventually everyone.) Leave a manageable neighbor and try making friends with other players. Those Knowledge Treaties are excellent. It can be hard to not fully take over ... but give it a try!

[Henrique Lique]

Originally posted by chaney:

If you check the forum, you may find that I have criticized the game more times than just about anyone else, maybe the most. I NEVER said it was perfect. In the quoted text you will find some examples.

I have given many examples of why the game didn't appeal to the mass audience. This is just one particular musing, not intended to be an exhaustive cataloging of what has previously been posted in some cases multiple times. I'd be willing to repeat these things, but would ask that you then spend a similar amount of your time performing some kind of public service. I don't think the repetition has much value in these forums.

Yes, the AI is terrible. It may be worse than Civ VI, maybe not, I gave up on that because after a year they still had major systemic problems. I heard their Religion spam finally got discovered as a massive parametric bug ... but there were other things I didn't think worked well in the game. I do not expect a current PC game to have anything like a human level of play, so accept the (for now) practical idea that you need to play against other humans or let the computer players get strong buffs to provide a challenge. Not everyone agrees with that method, fine.

Diplomacy is poor. It started as barely a placeholder. With the last big update, it is a placeholder with a few levels of emoticon faces on top. I would love a good diplomacy system. I hear true Paradox games do a lot with it. But Civ ... while there is veneer making it appear to be more in depth ... were often worse than nothing. I recall one neighbor declaring war on me. I used the war to liberate a 3rd player's original Capital, returning it to them. They forever hated me as a warmonger. Would have been nice if that were handled better. Or take Humankind. Beautiful ideas for systems, very poorly executed. Sure you can game WarScore/Support, but the disconnections from human experience are pretty vast ... making it to me worse than nothing.

Graphics, yes, nothing great there. I'm more after information so that never bothered me much. Tie this with UI. It has improved a lot, but I crave more information from it. Some people miss the information that is there. Everyone thinks the Battle Viewer is ugly. But it has lots of very very powerful information in it. Miss that and you will think the combat system sucks.

The DLCs I see not as adding to a base game, but fleshing out what was intended to be in the game from the beginning. If they had Early Access with free upgrades for early adopters, this would have all gone down better.

If you just want to win, you are probably right to write off this title. Even at max difficulty you should be able to outplay the computer using military. I don't expect that to change. But you might try challenging yourself. Commit to not taking over every neighbor (and eventually everyone.) Leave a manageable neighbor and try making friends with other players. Those Knowledge Treaties are excellent. It can be hard to not fully take over ... but give it a try!

While i roleplay not military, the game don't give you enough tools to play pacific. Civ 4 had the culture system that were great. Old World ai build smart, so they will not spam your border with trash cities. Even ara is better, because at least diplomacy works and a strong partner actually help you.

Millenia ai is just annoying. You start a game saying "no military".

Then ai starts attacking you all the time, without ever hurting you, but just being annoying. There is nothing you can do to stop the weak ai to keep bothering you except to kill them.

I want either a challenge, or diplomacy options to allow me to convince the ai not to keep sending useless armies to me. The ai of millenia reminds me of total war rome, where once you at war, total anihillation is the only option

[Fatbill]

The reality is: there is almost no one playing this game.

Because there is almost no one playing this game, the devs are not going to put much more support behind it.

Why? Because they will never make the money back via DLCs or anything else.

It will just be another abandoned game like Imperator or Empire of Sin.

[chaney]

Originally posted by taomastercu:

Has any dev at all mentioned the Influence bug? If they fix that I'd settle for no more updates.

Someone made a mod to address it.

[=7CAV=SPC.Henson.K]

Originally posted by Fatbill:

The reality is: there is almost no one playing this game.

Because there is almost no one playing this game, the devs are not going to put much more support behind it.

Why? Because they will never make the money back via DLCs or anything else.

It will just be another abandoned game like Imperator or Empire of Sin.

That's to bad. This game has good bones, and after watching Civ VII previews, we're not getting a better game any time soon.

[JGr124_MUTbKA]

Originally posted by Fatbill:

The reality is: there is almost no one playing this game.

That's because of AI. This kills a game.