Why there isn't general Civilization board?

I've listed few thing which makes me :( in these games (mostly in Civilization 4). I'd like to have answers on the questions and feel free to add your own issues.


1) Winning:

Whats the point?

I mean really, why do you want to have highest score or get land just to achieve domination victory or send spaceship first?

I'm bit worried (yes) when I read different topics and "winning" and getting score is coming more and more important subject in them. Like people are forgotting you can have your own objectives. Wouldn't be a big thing because everyone can have fun on their own way and it's not others business. I'm just horrified because game is more and more created and balanced around this. What this game has to offer players which want to try Switzerland game -- small peaceful nation in middle of powerhouses?


2) Too much combat oriented:

See 1). Plus Warlords tells it all.


3) Units:

Civilization 4 took the ridiculous factor to the next level. I'm playing on world where one square is generally accepted like what, one hundred kilometers wide? Still I can move single grenadier units. Imaging them as grenadier divisions won't fix the thing because, meh, 10 000 men army only with... National units are by far the worst this kind of units.
Still on the subject, not the issue though. It's funny to load some fan made scenario which features whole world and you can command units which are named "swordsman", "spearman" or "F-15". And speaking of dozens WW2 scenarios where you move "PzKpfw VI" or such.


4) Graphics:

Very much issue on the fourth game of the series. I don't care if it's slow or something, get faster computer or stop whining.
It's just plain ugly. I like the neat features on the map, wonders etc on the cities. What I don't like is it looks like someone has vomited on the screen, so much hassle. I've complained about game graphics only few times in my life (and I play hardcore strategy hex games...).
Sadly I've played only few short games with Civ4, mainly because graphics. If someone releases simple coloured terrain tiles like Civ2 I'd be happy to give it another shot. And units which animations won't take forever. Playing with 3d units without animations makes spammikone a dull boy. Movable camera is not necessary.
3d graphics may fit in every game but sometimes 2d works better. Why more and more people think 2d is inferior?

Maybe graphics issue, I hate those leaderheads and "witty" and "funny" diplo chat. :) Stupid to see same faces for 4000 years. Moddable I know.


5) Units:

4th edition. Despite removing all the usefull info about combat strength of units in building screen and civilopedia they replaced it with icon of face of the unit the real problem is one combat value. Even your units can have traits or whatever they are called, it just messes the feeling you are not moving divisions, just separate units. I've never liked the chess feeling. And if you don't understand what I mean, try playing Victoria. There is IMO right way to present armies even it's completely diffent game they would fit here perfectly.
Clearing pollution was more fun than micromanaging right traits to units.

8) Not really Civilization related but..
No competiton:

We had this utterly useless Call to Power series. Other Civ-style games are space themed. Just WTF?
I wouldn't write this rant if I know there is other developers making commercial Civ-style games. Because of the poor Civilization 4 I'm worried Civ 3 is going to be the last playable 4x based on earth game, and still it has its own flaws...
You are thinking right now "just shut up and play some other game" or "Civilization is not meant for this". You're right. I hope there would be something to move on. Civilization 4 as now is for console generation. I hope we would get some new visionaries on this inbred genre of one game series. Atleast that happens for FPS's and RTS's now and then. There are dozens of good ideas to steal -- like remove current city radius system and replace it with economic management of Imperialism of something. Or actually make the border system realistic. So many things to improve!

1) The point to winning, I suppose, is that it's a game. You can ignore victory if you wish, which I infact think is a good idea.

2) I suppose this is a matter of opinion, but I think the only real danger of making it too combat oriented is the fact that on higher difficulties, you pretty much have to use war because it's the AI's weak point.

4) The high graphics requirements are a problem because they force people to use smaller maps than they could otherwise, no matter how good their computer is. You have a point about the graphics don't look very good, though. The real problem with 3-D graphics is that it makes it much harder for people to make graphics modpacks, which allow people to find graphics that are more to their taste.

I hate civ 4's graphics in general cuz I have a slow comp but I don't have the money to upgrade but still want to play. Maybe less combat oriented but its still pretty good. Combat of course still suck when a spearman kills my tank they sure need to fix that even after all these years. Some one should introduce them to the rock paper scisors idea.

They could fix spearman beats tank by giving tanks a 100% bonus against melee units. (Archery units too, for that matter) They seem to assume that you won't encounter many ancient units when you have tanks.

Anyone who's had a spearman defeat a tank, please post the screeny.. I assume roughly one out of a million or so tanks just might suffer some breakdown when it's about to run over the 20th spearman in a row.
+100% against melee means nothing when you already have 7:1 strength advantage. It'd just make it not 1 in a million but one in a trillion or so for the spear to win.

Civilization is the best game in the world, but one thing that consistently sucks are the graphics.

They don't even need to make it more complicated (which would slow our computers down even more)....

WHAT THEY NEED is to get someone who has aesthetic sense and just clean up the entire map and make it look decent. I agree that it looks like someone vomitted on the screen. Fine, you can't make it that complex because it will run too slowly...but it's really just that the graphics are not aesthetic at all. I've seen some 8 bit Nintendo Games that were beautifully aesthetic...

I love showing Civ to other geeky gamer friends (usually shoot em up fans) and they laugh at the graphics and ask how old is the game...which I sheepishly reply that it is actually new.

I think the graphics are so crappy that they remind me of 8 bit Nintendo, and like I said--there are some Nintendo games that were more aesthetic!

Having said that, I love the game to pieces.