So I was at the Penny Arcade Expo today, and so was Civ5! There was some kind of semi-public screening (with limited seating and you basically had to reserve a spot, I didn't go) as well as two very low-key stations a little ways away with the playable game (don't feel bad if you were there and missed it, I almost didn't see it myself).

I figured I might as well give my first impressions of the game after some hands-on play, and offer a chance for people to ask questions that they may direly want answered, since I'll be going back on both Saturday and Sunday. No guarantees on answers because I might not even be able to get on that station again, but I can try to keep an eye open for stuff if I do play it again.

Keep in mind all this is from someone who didn't hunt down every tidbit of the game, so treat it as coming from a Civ player who's only heard about the biggest changes (1UPT, hexes, etc.)

First, I tried Civ5 in 3D, the kind you have to wear the special glasses to see. I gave that up after a few seconds, because while having city boxes and stuff float in midair seems cool, I could tell it would be painful to try and play an extended session with. I'm thinking it was because of the tinting on the glasses, but I could be wrong.

Anyways, I eventually got onto a regular laptop that wasn't 3D, and started up a new game. First thing I noticed was that the controls are a little different, namely right-click being move unit - I managed to accidentally send my starting Settler running off while trying to get an idea of what the yields on everything was. (Later, I went into the options menu and found a setting that automatically revealed tile yields when economic units are selected)

Resources seemed a little more difficult to keep track of on the world map, as there wasn't a resource bubble toggle like in Civ4 that I could find. The tile graphics seemed fine, and the water-based resources like Fish are easier to notice at least (there are seagulls flying over Fish resources). It might get better over time, but I'd like the option of resource bubbles anyways. The fog-of-war cloud cover also had a tendency to obscure hexes that were on the northern edge of the clouds, if that makes any sense.

Strategic view is workable, but feels a bit cluttered to me. I was trying to find barbarian encampments, but I had to focus a bit in order to find them, because there were a lot of similarly shaped bubbles around (resources). Would be nice if there was a filtering system for the strategic view; I didn't notice any if there already is one in place.

Combat feels good. Expect some degree of micromanagement, especially when coordinating assaults. Capturing a city takes roughly three turns for a moderately prepared assault; the game will try to nag you if you try attacking with less than four units available, but I took two cities with 3 units each and a Great General, so it's not strictly necessary.

Gold is definitely a lot more important now. Rush-buying doesn't require anything in particular, so a well-timed rush can give you an early edge easily. There's no discount for rushing something you already put production into however. You'll also want to use gold for unit upgrades and diplomacy (city-states, research agreements, etc.) so there's some decisions you'll have to make. You won't have too much trouble making gold at least, since I was able to increase my GPT without even paying attention to it.

Diplomacy interface is terrible. I had a lot of trouble figuring out where my relationship stood with 'real' civilizations (city-states had a nice visible bar so they were easy to manage). I couldn't get a good overview of my existing deals (I agreed to a pact of secrecy against someone, except I couldn't figure out who I made it with or against later. I'm not even sure what a pact of secrecy does). Songhai came around demanding Silver, and I couldn't open any other menus to figure out what kind of impact it would have (Civ 3 and 4 allows you to examine your trade overviews and whatnot). I couldn't tell what the relationships between other civilizations were, other than the occasional message saying such and such made a research agreement or when someone came around asking me to declare war.

General user interface has some issues. I started hitting the function keys to open menus (Civilopedia is now F1, by the way), and it turns out that opening a new menu doesn't close the old one, so I had to click close on a half dozen or so menus manually. If I open a city view, click 'change production' and then exit city view, the 'change production' menu persists. Notification bubbles pop up on the right, but the menus where you select your choice show up on the left (lots of right-left-right mouse movements). Unit XP seems to be completely opaque, as I couldn't tell how much XP a unit had, or how much it needed for a promotion.

That's all I can remember for now. Things I'd like to do if I get a chance would be to examine the Civilopedia more in-depth, figure out hotkeys and shortcuts and such, and try more mixed-unit army compositions (I didn't try building any archers).

Hmm...
It was confirmed on early screens and interviews what you could show resources on regular view and turn on and off layers in strategic view.

And I hope UI will be more polished at release.

Thank you for the informations. Good work
On which difficulty level are you playing an on which game speed (fast/normal ...)?
I hope that modders will bring a better statistik for diplomacy

It's entirely possible that there are toggles for some of the issues I had, since I didn't try clicking on everything on the screen; I just tried to play it like a regular game. It took a good minute or so just to figure out how to manually assign which tiles a city works, and it turns out that's a relatively large and visible button you can click on the city screen.

I'm not exactly sure what the game settings were, since it was the default 'Play Now' settings and I didn't spend a long time looking at it. Offhand, I think it was Normal speed with Chieftain difficulty, although I vaguely remember a (2) next to the difficulty level.

The stuff you've said about diplomacy-especially coupled with things other hands-on people have said-leaves me *really* worried that Diplomacy is only half-done. I was all for hiding the *specific* diplomatic bonuses & penalties-but I'm distressed to hear that you won't have any indication of how a Civ feels about you-& what things you've done recently that could be contributing to those feelings :(.

Aussie.

Everything I hear just makes me more... cautious I guess? That's probably the best word to use. I respect the good work that modders do but these issues that you have addressed from your play session seem to indicate that the game may have needed more player input during testing and I don't think modders should be expected to 'fix' something as simple as a UI diplomacy screen.

They really should have gotten a demo out before release if they're really trying to push the premium pre-order stuff. If nothing else, a day or two would have been fine. As it is I think a lot of people are going to hesitate which isn't good for anybody, player, developer or publisher.

Thanks for relaying your experiences to us.

I also tried it; I'll add some comments.

So I was at the Penny Arcade Expo today, and so was Civ5! There was some kind of semi-public screening (with limited seating and you basically had to reserve a spot, I didn't go) as well as two very low-key stations a little ways away with the playable game (don't feel bad if you were there and missed it, I almost didn't see it myself).

Yes, they were in the nvidia area, not the 2k area. I found them completely by accident after being disappointed earlier in the day. Very odd.

First, I tried Civ5 in 3D, the kind you have to wear the special glasses to see. I gave that up after a few seconds, because while having city boxes and stuff float in midair seems cool, I could tell it would be painful to try and play an extended session with. I'm thinking it was because of the tinting on the glasses, but I could be wrong.

Totally agree. I tried this for about 10 seconds and decided I'd rather watch someone else play on the normal laptop.

Anyways, I eventually got onto a regular laptop that wasn't 3D, and started up a new game. First thing I noticed was that the controls are a little different, namely right-click being move unit - I managed to accidentally send my starting Settler running off while trying to get an idea of what the yields on everything was.

This is how it works in civ iv too.

(Later, I went into the options menu and found a setting that automatically revealed tile yields when economic units are selected)

When I was playing it was on the "always show yields" setting that pretty much all the screenshots we've seen use. Also it showed the resource bubbles. Someone must have screwed up the settings for you. Annoyingly, it did not show what the improved yield would be if you built the appropriate improvement, nor was this information easy to find anywhere, even in the civilopedia.

Diplomacy interface is terrible. I had a lot of trouble figuring out where my relationship stood with 'real' civilizations (city-states had a nice visible bar so they were easy to manage). I couldn't get a good overview of my existing deals (I agreed to a pact of secrecy against someone, except I couldn't figure out who I made it with or against later. I'm not even sure what a pact of secrecy does).

This part of the game can't possibly be complete. The civilopedia did not, as far as I could tell, even mention pacts of secrecy or cooperation.


By the way I also went to the presentation. I think it was the same demo they've shown earlier somewhere. It had you as England attacking someone, navally and then with land units, a GDR and a nuke. After the demo they answered questions and I though "Sweet! Finally we can get some new information." And then the other people in the room asked questions like "How many civilizations will there be?" Heh.

One thing that really irritates me is how they keep trying to convince people how clever the AI is by saying that it will sometimes come to you to set up a research agreement and then attack you afterwards, thus wasting your gold. I mean, that's going to be the pinnacle of stupidity 9 times out of 10 the AI does it, right? Mutual destruction is not desirable, guys!

isndl --> You play in final version??

General user interface has some issues. I started hitting the function keys to open menus (Civilopedia is now F1, by the way), and it turns out that opening a new menu doesn't close the old one, so I had to click close on a half dozen or so menus manually. If I open a city view, click 'change production' and then exit city view, the 'change production' menu persists. Notification bubbles pop up on the right, but the menus where you select your choice show up on the left (lots of right-left-right mouse movements). Unit XP seems to be completely opaque, as I couldn't tell how much XP a unit had, or how much it needed for a promotion.

When you had half a dozen or so menus open, could you move them around so they don't obscure one another?

Sounds similar to some reports from GamesCom - very little playing time, kinda rushed, and most likely the same preview build that's months old.

I think I'll wait til I play the game for days or see some chunky and in-depth coverage of a build that's closer to release build before worrying too much.

Thanks for the update, people have been expressing concerns about the diplo screen for awhile (no previewers/reviewers have said much about the screen) and your post seems to confirm those fears that it was implemented poorly. The web of relationships is well done in CivIV (it lets you see what agreements each civ has with each other) and I don't see why they couldn't just replicate that. I know they're intentionally trying to make figuring out relationships between civilizations more opaque, but I should be able to at least know if China has an open border agreement with England! Hopefully diplo and the UI quirks are just symptoms of a preview build: they'll be plenty of complaining on release day otherwise (well, people will be complaining no matter what :sad:)

Sounds very possible that there is some way to find out more detailed diplomatic information, just that no one so far managed to figure it out. Or maybe they haven't finished it in the preview build. I don't mind not having super detailed information on it, but I'd sure like to know what kind of agreements are in place atleast.

Sounds like the early press build that also went to Cologne.. I guess its several month old and I wouldnt put too much worry into the diplomacy issue. If anything, Sid knows how to present the information you need and I dont expect him to make such a basic mistake like keeping you completely in the dark of the diplomacy.

This part of the game can't possibly be complete. The civilopedia did not, as far as I could tell, even mention pacts of secrecy or cooperation.



Thx for trying to find this out! Also thx to both of you for sharing your thoughts!

Sounds like the early press build that also went to Cologne.. I guess its several month old and I wouldnt put too much worry into the diplomacy issue. If anything, Sid knows how to present the information you need and I dont expect him to make such a basic mistake like keeping you completely in the dark of the diplomacy.

I thought "Sid" wasn't the Lead Designer of this game.

Also, I find the "it's an early build... I'm sure great things will appear at launch" argument to be inadequate as we're now 17 days from release. Who knows? Maybe the 21st will hit and it will be amazing. Since they won't provide us with an early demo, like they once suggested that they might, nobody really knows.

You can always expect the worst if you want..

You can always expect the worst if you want..

"Who knows? Maybe the 21st will hit and it will be amazing. Since they won't provide us with an early demo, like they once suggested that they might, nobody really knows..."

Thanks for sharing your impressions. Sounds like the gamescom build to me too. I'm not sure yet whether I should be happy that I can try out the demo before buying the game or that I'll get the full game three days later. Either way I hope a useful diplomacy overview makes it into the game!

First, I tried Civ5 in 3D, the kind you have to wear the special glasses to see. I gave that up after a few seconds, because while having city boxes and stuff float in midair seems cool, I could tell it would be painful to try and play an extended session with. I'm thinking it was because of the tinting on the glasses, but I could be wrong.


:wow: did not see something like that at the Gamescom.
Interesting, that this is also developed, quite cool :hatsoff:


Resources seemed a little more difficult to keep track of on the world map, as there wasn't a resource bubble toggle like in Civ4 that I could find.

For this (and also the tile yield and the grid) there is a small button (did i already say that some of the buttons are too small?) at the bottom left of the minimap.


Diplomacy interface is terrible. I had a lot of trouble figuring out where my relationship stood with 'real' civilizations (city-states had a nice visible bar so they were easy to manage). I couldn't get a good overview of my existing deals (I agreed to a pact of secrecy against someone, except I couldn't figure out who I made it with or against later. I'm not even sure what a pact of secrecy does). Songhai came around demanding Silver, and I couldn't open any other menus to figure out what kind of impact it would have (Civ 3 and 4 allows you to examine your trade overviews and whatnot). I couldn't tell what the relationships between other civilizations were, other than the occasional message saying such and such made a research agreement or when someone came around asking me to declare war.

:yup: same experience here from the Gamescom.


General user interface has some issues. I started hitting the function keys to open menus (Civilopedia is now F1, by the way), and it turns out that opening a new menu doesn't close the old one, so I had to click close on a half dozen or so menus manually.

:yup: yes, that's annoying.

I tried to play KB: Armored Princess in 3D. The same 10 minutes before you end and never return to this feature.

:wow: did not see something like that at the Gamescom.
Interesting, that this is also developed, quite cool :hatsoff:


Every game that uses 3D models as it's underlying technology (which is probably 95% of alle PC games released today) are able to be displayed in true 3D with the technology from Nvidia for example. So this really isn't anything developers have to do for themselves. Using the Nvidia system any Direct3D application that runs in fullscreen mode will be displayed in true 3D!

They have to pay attention to several details though if they want the 3D impression to be accurate and not painful to the eye. I don't know if Firaxis has done anything in that direction.

Anno 1701 (1701 A.D.) for example looks gorgeous in true 3D and the whole 3D hype hadn't even started yet when that game came out.

Hmm...
It was confirmed on early screens and interviews what you could show resources on regular view and turn on and off layers in strategic view.

And I hope UI will be more polished at release.

It appears that civ V options are just as well hidden an undiscoverable as in civ 4, yay.

I still quite curious if there is a diplomacy screen, every one of the forum users here who have gone to events to play the game can't find one, and thats a little worrying.

It appears that civ V options are just as well hidden an undiscoverable as in civ 4, yay.

I still quite curious if there is a diplomacy screen, every one of the forum users here who have gone to events to play the game can't find one, and thats a little worrying.

It was a version of several months old. I expect UI to be greatly reworked for a final one.

I thought "Sid" wasn't the Lead Designer of this game.

Also, I find the "it's an early build... I'm sure great things will appear at launch" argument to be inadequate as we're now 17 days from release. Who knows? Maybe the 21st will hit and it will be amazing. Since they won't provide us with an early demo, like they once suggested that they might, nobody really knows.

Sid's always the top dog.

I tried to play KB: Armored Princess in 3D. The same 10 minutes before you end and never return to this feature.

Seriously mate, you really do sound like you're bending over backwards to defend the short-comings of this game. They bragged about the improved diplomacy of Civ5 almost as much as they have 1upt. Yet this is the one feature they seem to be the most reluctant to show hands-on previewers in its most up-to-date form (well that & Social Policies apparently). In spite of your claims, that gives me good reasons to doubt that this is going to be nothing more than a War Game bearing the title "Civilization"-a feeling increased by the knowledge that there seems to be an entire Social Policy Branch whose *only* benefit is for waging war. Sorry, but the more I hear about Civ5 in the closing weeks, the less inclined I am to buy it-which is quite an achievement given that I was one of its staunchest supporters just a few months ago!

Aussie.

Seriously mate, you really do sound like you're bending over backwards to defend the short-comings of this game. They bragged about the improved diplomacy of Civ5 almost as much as they have 1upt. Yet this is the one feature they seem to be the most reluctant to show hands-on previewers in its most up-to-date form (well that & Social Policies apparently). In spite of your claims, that gives me good reasons to doubt that this is going to be nothing more than a War Game bearing the title "Civilization"-a feeling increased by the knowledge that there seems to be an entire Social Policy Branch whose *only* benefit is for waging war. Sorry, but the more I hear about Civ5 in the closing weeks, the less inclined I am to buy it-which is quite an achievement given that I was one of its staunchest supporters just a few months ago!

There are things what concern me, like lack of info about diplomacy system, or balance issues. But not the gameplay system in general.

I have some experience in designing live RPG games and I could tell you what creating working mechanics for them is hell more difficult than CRPG. You could only playtest it in your head, before actually running on a hundred of alive people. This gives great skills to foresee the system in action before actually seeing it.

And what I see in Civ 5 sounds very good for me. Not all decisions are the one I'd made, but looks like everything should work very well. Much better than Civ 4, from my point of view.

Seriously mate, you really do sound like you're bending over backwards to defend the short-comings of this game. They bragged about the improved diplomacy of Civ5 almost as much as they have 1upt. Yet this is the one feature they seem to be the most reluctant to show hands-on previewers in its most up-to-date form (well that & Social Policies apparently). In spite of your claims, that gives me good reasons to doubt that this is going to be nothing more than a War Game bearing the title "Civilization"-a feeling increased by the knowledge that there seems to be an entire Social Policy Branch whose *only* benefit is for waging war. Sorry, but the more I hear about Civ5 in the closing weeks, the less inclined I am to buy it-which is quite an achievement given that I was one of its staunchest supporters just a few months ago!

Aussie.

There's also a social policy branch called Commerce, but that doesn't turn Civilization into Monopoly.

This is how [right-click] works in civ iv too.

Not sure about your installation, but for me right-click in Civ4 never does anything except open a context menu. Granted, the context menu never had anything except Go To unless you right-clicked a city, but you wouldn't send a unit across the map with a single click.

Maybe Civ3 spoiled me or something, but I catch myself trying to right-click -> view Civilopedia entry on units even when that no longer works in Civ4.

isndl --> You play in final version??

I have no idea. I can try to get a version number if I play again, but I don't know what the latest version is either. It's definitely running Steam though, as shift-tab opened up the overlay.

When you had half a dozen or so menus open, could you move them around so they don't obscure one another?

I never tried moving them, but given the size of the windows (they're roughly comparable to how big the menus are in Civ4) I doubt they're designed to move.

It appears that civ V options are just as well hidden an undiscoverable as in civ 4, yay.

I still quite curious if there is a diplomacy screen, every one of the forum users here who have gone to events to play the game can't find one, and thats a little worrying.

I wouldn't say Civ4's options are that undiscoverable - I found it easy to toggle resource bubble notifications the first time I played, and I didn't even know the feature existed beforehand :). If I had to guess, it seems like the art direction for the UI makes the buttons less distinct (no colors to make it stand out) and so you're likely to not notice one. Not really a problem after learning the game, but it's a little harder on a new player.

There is a Diplomacy window (F4), but I find it lacking. It's split roughly 60-40 with Civilizations on the left and City-States on the right, and it really only shows available resources to trade with each Civ. I didn't notice any existing deals in that window, but I didn't look very closely (just one more turn! :blush:).

Aussie, you are at least gonna give the demo a try right?

There's also a social policy branch called Commerce, but that doesn't turn Civilization into Monopoly.

Hmmm, if I'm not mistaken, the Commerce branch is also primarily about boosting your military-namely your navies. So in fact you have Autocracy, Honor & Commerce which are all important to the military aspect of the game. Also, given the importance of happiness when it comes to acquiring cities via conquest, you could argue that the Piety Branch is also very useful in this regard. That seems like an awful lot of branches devoted to the military component of the game if you ask me!

Aussie.

The game *does* seem military heavy, but I am not sure it is much worse than Civ4.

A demo would be immensely helpful. We could then quit this hypothetical crap and argue about a game we're actually playing.

Aussie, you are at least gonna give the demo a try right?

I'm going to be watching this site-& Apolyton-very carefully. There are people at both these sites whose opinions I place great trust in. If they sing the praises of the game then, in spite of my current reservations, I will buy the game. Failing that, I probably will try the demo, but I fail to see right now how that can win me back if the opinions of those I trust can't do so. Its really disappointing because, barely two months ago, I was practically peeing my pants with excitement, but now I'm almost at the point of "Meh"!

isndl --> http://well-of-souls.com/civ/images/tech_tree3.jpg - this tech tree is the same, in you playing version game?

The game *does* seem military heavy, but I am not sure it is much worse than Civ4.

A demo would be immensely helpful. We could then quit this hypothetical crap and argue about a game we're actually playing.

Seriously, I've played *so* many games of Civ4 where war barely featured at all, & there were so many aspects of the game (like Religion, Civics, Unique Buildings, Cultural Assimilation etc) which had little or anything to do with war. With Civ5, though, it feels like every 2nd thing I read has to do with the military aspect of the game!

Aussie.

That's because war is more exciting in a review.

"5 turns ago I gained another tile" "My gold is going up!" "I finally built a forge in Rome"

all of these are much less exciting than, "The Germans declare war!" "My archers bombard the enemy and my legions engage!" "After smashing the German army I begin sieging Munich, the first step in toppling the mighty Reich!"

isndl --> http://well-of-souls.com/civ/images/tech_tree3.jpg - this tech tree is the same, in you playing version game?

I didn't notice anything different. It's a little big for me to have memorized in one session, though. ;)

Seriously, I've played *so* many games of Civ4 where war barely featured at all, & there were so many aspects of the game (like Religion, Civics, Unique Buildings, Cultural Assimilation etc) which had little or anything to do with war. With Civ5, though, it feels like every 2nd thing I read has to do with the military aspect of the game!

Aussie.

Well, maybe I am just more of a warmonger than I thought.:lol: It may well be true. It may *be* more of a wargame than Civ4.

IV is the only civ game I've been able to play without war, and that's 'cause the cIV AI is stupid.

Seriously, I've played *so* many games of Civ4 where war barely featured at all, & there were so many aspects of the game (like Religion, Civics, Unique Buildings, Cultural Assimilation etc) which had little or anything to do with war. With Civ5, though, it feels like every 2nd thing I read has to do with the military aspect of the game!

Aussie.

You're just getting a positively-reinforced bias because you're looking for these things. There are plenty of things in Civ 5 that have nothing to do with war, just like Civ 4. It's just you've played one and you haven't played the other (and you have a starting dislike due to a few changed/removed features).

You're just getting a positively-reinforced bias because you're looking for these things. There are plenty of things in Civ 5 that have nothing to do with war, just like Civ 4. It's just you've played one and you haven't played the other (and you have a starting dislike due to a few changed/removed features).

That isn't necessarily fair. While I am certainly far more fond of what I have heard about Civ5 than Aussie is I cannot entirely disagree with him on this point.

On the other hand, it would be hard to argue that war wasn't represented quite thoroughly in Civ4. I think that Civ5 may be *more* of a wargame, I am just not willing to concede that it will be disastrously so.

One interesting thing to consider may be the civics/units that get bonuses for being in friendly territory. It could well be that a builder could use a far smaller force than in Civ4 for defense.

Well, maybe I am just more of a warmonger than I thought.:lol: It may well be true. It may *be* more of a wargame than Civ4.

I think we can say it probably is. From the info we've seen and the dev's comments.

What we don't know is how the war component is balanced with the other parts of the game (building, exploring, etc.)

As someone above said, the other parts aren't quite as exciting to write about it a preview.

Seriously, I've played *so* many games of Civ4 where war barely featured at all, & there were so many aspects of the game (like Religion, Civics, Unique Buildings, Cultural Assimilation etc) which had little or anything to do with war.

I'm sad that it appears cultural assimilation is gone; you can no longer take tiles of any other player except through warfare (and the great artist), no matter how much higher your cultural output is.
I'm also sad that almost no-one seems to have a problem with this.

In general I am very positive about Civ5, but the diplomacy things mentioned here are the one big thing I'm really worried about. I've been saying since forever that hiding diplomatic info from the player is just frustrating.

You're just getting a positively-reinforced bias because you're looking for these things. There are plenty of things in Civ 5 that have nothing to do with war, just like Civ 4. It's just you've played one and you haven't played the other (and you have a starting dislike due to a few changed/removed features).

WRONG! WRONG!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!! :mad: Take a look at my postings in these threads from the time Civ5 was first announced, even up until about 2 months ago, & you will see that I was a staunch advocate for Civ5-based on everything I'd heard to date. I *loved* the shift to hexes & 1upt, & was very excited about City-States & purchasing of tiles. Then, about the start of August, I started hearing things that I *really* didn't like. The shift to an entirely Global Happiness system really irked me, what I see as the undue focus on the combat element of the game, the loss of certain resources & tile improvements-even if they are now inside cities! Even the Social Policies I'm less enthused about, given how many of them are combat oriented. So far from seeking things to positively reinforce a negative reaction-which I never had-its more that what I'm reading has turned me from an advocate of the game to a critic.

Aussie.

Don't be so mad, I'm pretty sure Religion will be one of the first thing to be reintroduced by a DLE (downloadable expansion). Meanwhile, it will be a great oppotunity for the modding company to be creative and invent new path.

Aussie:

2.5 social policies trees (Commerce is Navy + economy) out of 10 focus on warmongering and you're screaming about that? You can even neatly split the game into Military, Economy, Science and Diplomacy and Culture and the Military side would barely have larger than its share.

I just think you got tripped up over some detail and then just spiraled downwards.

The Diplomacy thing is worrisome, granted, but the social policy stuff is just being ridiculous.

Yea. I agree that diplomacy is something that could easily turn out badly if it doesn't change from the press builds. An overfocus on warfare isn't a worry for me though.

Thanks for the brief preview! I'm not too worried about the games apparent short comings, that is until I actually get my hands on it. I remeber when I first played IV all the menus and mechanics didn't seem so obvious too me. I would constently discover new menus and features and different buttons etc that I hadn't known where there. I hope that just a lack of time and being unfamiliar with the new game ui overall is really the case for "missing features". It took me a good few months to have everything I needed to know about IV to become apparent, this time with V I plan on reading the manual front to back before play so I'll be up to snuff with the game.

Nobody would be interested in a diplo write up.

"Monty asked my for a peace treaty." "Then I asked Monty for a research pact.

Now an explanation of what all the diplo options do would be nice.

While it is true that a diplo write up might not be the most exciting thing ever, I am concerned that no one seems to be able to find any kind of diplomacy "status" or "overview" information. Yes, it is almost certainly an old build. But if this is what is being publicly presented less than 3 weeks before release...I do not find this reassuring.

Maybe they want to keep the new diplomacy under wraps until release. But since this is one of the biggest new aspects of Civ V, it seems more likely that it just isn't ready yet. Working through Steam does allow them to keep tweaking/updating/patching right until release. Whether late changes will be fully tested and balanced, though....

Nobody would be interested in a diplo write up.

"Monty asked my for a peace treaty." "Then I asked Monty for a research pact.

Now an explanation of what all the diplo options do would be nice.

I actually have a slightly (<-emphasis) amusing diplo anecdote.

The first guy I met, Askia, asked me for a pact of cooperation. It didn't say what it did. I clicked "OK" and then tried to look it up, but there was no information anywhere. So I though, "OK, fine, well it sounds friendly anyway. I like him being friendly."

I then got writing, and Askia asked me for Open Borders. OK, fine.

Then I met Nobunaga. I immediately opened up the trade screen and looked for pact of cooperation, but it wasn't there. But Open Borders was! So I asked him if he wanted Open Borders. NO! That would not be acceptable. Oh, those wacky Japanese and their hatred of Open Borders.

Anyway, a few turns later, Nobunaga asked me for a pact of secrecy against Askia, and I said no. And then a few turns later he asked me for a pact of cooperation, and I said yes.

And then he asked me for Open Borders. The end.

What I`ve read about your experience of the game has gotten me slightly worried. Call me paranoid but i see a possible conspiracy.

If they see their tester feedback is not very positive gameplay wise then in order to keep the fanbase from canceling their preorders once fans have had a taste of the demo... they move the demo date to 21st September.

I think you're being alarmist.

What I`ve read about your experience of the game has gotten me slightly worried. Call me paranoid but i see a possible conspiracy.

If they see their tester feedback is not very positive gameplay wise then in order to keep the fanbase from canceling their preorders once fans have had a taste of the demo... they move the demo date to 21st September.
Preorders are a small part of the total sale. What would hurt is a lack of sales. Thus, making sure that the demo works is much more important than having a few preorders more or less.

Demos are not released by all games.Considered that they release it on 21 september it is clear that it's directed to people which would buy it months later or are not sure to buy it.
Civfanatics don't really count in their marketing strategy because our money is already in their hand or we are Day 0 sales.

I'm sad that it appears cultural assimilation is gone; you can no longer take tiles of any other player except through warfare (and the great artist), no matter how much higher your cultural output is.
I'm also sad that almost no-one seems to have a problem with this.


Nobody had a problem with it because people don't like it when one of their cities just suddenly decide to switch sides. I for one always disabled the option to make it happen to prevent it from ever happening prior to starting the game.

Seriously, I've played *so* many games of Civ4 where war barely featured at all, & there were so many aspects of the game (like Religion, Civics, Unique Buildings, Cultural Assimilation etc) which had little or anything to do with war. With Civ5, though, it feels like every 2nd thing I read has to do with the military aspect of the game!

Aussie.

The history of mankind is the history of war. It would bear no resemblance to our own history if little to no war broke out throughout the course of the game. Realistically, each nation should have to face war, probably more than once.

The history of mankind is the history of war. It would bear no resemblance to our own history if little to no war broke out throughout the course of the game. Realistically, each nation should have to face war, probably more than once.

Also, that game he's describing sounds *ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ*

While it is true that a diplo write up might not be the most exciting thing ever, I am concerned that no one seems to be able to find any kind of diplomacy "status" or "overview" information.

Yeah. Given they are constantly telling us how great the new diplomacy is, you'd think that would be pretty high up on their list of things to show off.

I hope it is not going to be something like "you just have to remember". One problem I have with game companies is that they live in a universe where everybody has time to play a game, every day. Us normal people with rea- ah, normal jobs find themselves in a situation where they can't play the game for two weeks or more. And then if I come back and load that really, really game I was playing, there is no way I'm going to just remember anything.

tl;dr: We need a diplomacy screen. Give it to us.

Yeah. Given they are constantly telling us how great the new diplomacy is, you'd think that would be pretty high up on their list of things to show off.

Just wonder if there is an option where "Diplomacy" can be turned off (like tech trade in Civ4)

But you guys know that the ''no info about what the IA think of the player'' thing was annonced as such and was one of the reason why they did not wanted religion in? They felt it was to easy to manipulate the IA and wanted single player game to feel more like you are playing against human (So they can basckstab you anytime if it's the best to win... just like you would do because you are human.).

I think this is a good thing, I always thought it was stupid in Civ4 to have + and - to a relation with the IA and to be able to predict how they would react.

About the missing information for cooperation pact and such, there is no way this is not going to be in the full game... Don't worry... it will at least be in the Super PDF manual.

Aussie:

2.5 social policies trees (Commerce is Navy + economy) out of 10 focus on warmongering and you're screaming about that? You can even neatly split the game into Military, Economy, Science and Diplomacy and Culture and the Military side would barely have larger than its share.

I just think you got tripped up over some detail and then just spiraled downwards.

The Diplomacy thing is worrisome, granted, but the social policy stuff is just being ridiculous.

Actually, Commerce is almost entirely about navy. My point though was that, with all the beefing up combat has gotten already, it didn't need to have almost 3 whole branches of the social policy tree dedicated to it as well. You can claim that I'm being "ridiculous" in that view, but it seems pretty obvious to me that a lot of good systems from Civ4 have been abandoned for no other reason except that it was too complicated for war-gamers to grasp, & that a lot of other unrelated game systems are being designed entirely with war-gaming in mind!

Aussie.

But you guys know that the ''no info about what the IA think of the player'' thing was annonced as such and was one of the reason why they did not wanted religion in? They felt it was to easy to manipulate the IA and wanted single player game to feel more like you are playing against human (So they can basckstab you anytime if it's the best to win... just like you would do because you are human.).

I think this is a good thing, I always thought it was stupid in Civ4 to have + and - to a relation with the IA and to be able to predict how they would react.

About the missing information for cooperation pact and such, there is no way this is not going to be in the full game... Don't worry... it will at least be in the Super PDF manual.

No, what they told us was that we wouldn't be able to see the specific bonuses & penalties. So no more "-1 Our close borders are sparking tension". They did *not* tell us that we wouldn't be able to tell if a Civ liked or disliked us. If that's gone, then I'll be *Extremely* unhappy :(!

Aussie.

No, what they told us was that we wouldn't be able to see the specific bonuses & penalties. So no more "-1 Our close borders are sparking tension". They did *not* tell us that we wouldn't be able to tell if a Civ liked or disliked us. If that's gone, then I'll be *Extremely* unhappy :(!

Aussie.

I think I remember watching a interview where they said that the reason for this is that they wanted the AI leaders to feel like real people by making their opinions on you obvious through their actions and not their words.

Whether this will turn out to be a great or a terrible design decision remains to be seen.

They said we would be able to tell what a civs mood/feeling towards us was through the new full body leader heads. So their body language and speech would let us know if the liked or disliked us. This is fine when we are in diplomatic talks and negotiations, but doesn't cut it if I want to know my standings between all civs on the fly.

Azazell showed me a pic, that is now gone, that did show what deals we had made, how long they lasted, and there was more different options that I cannot recall. He did say that they had just added that, makin it sound like since he started playing they had patched that menu in. Anyone who's curious can read and see where he posted this in his old pics thread, look for my postings, it's in reply to me. He also said that it would only say next to a civs name "hostile", showing when someone disliked you, but not friendly/cautious etc.

Anyways, if no real testers ever brought any of this stuff up, and the game doesn't release with some kind of on the fly standings between civs, I'll be greatly dissapointed. This won't be something for the modders to do. No, this is something for the devs to do now, if it hasn't been already.

I don't mind if there's little to no information on a status screen about how other Civs feel about you ("Hostile" or whatever is fine, but not necessary), but it would be silly if there was no way to see the active deals and agreements you have.

Don't be so mad, I'm pretty sure Religion will be one of the first thing to be reintroduced by a DLE (downloadable expansion). Meanwhile, it will be a great oppotunity for the modding company to be creative and invent new path.

I wasn't mad because of the loss of religion-I was mad because bjbrains suggested that I have disliked Civ5 from the outset, which is simply *untrue*!

Aussie.

So I played Civ5 some more today, not terribly much because of tight scheduling (I had to wait two hours in line for a chance to play Brink) but I did take a closer look at the map overlay toggles amongst other things. There is indeed a way to toggle resource bubbles and tile yields; it's hidden inside a little button with a scroll icon next to the minimap; I'd ignored it before because I thought it was the message log. The same button in strategic view lets you apply filters, but you can't combine multiple filter views (it's a drop-down list). I haven't been able to play with it to see if it really works the way I'd like.

There is an experience bar for the units, it's simply easy to miss if you aren't looking for it. It's a long bar running horizontally above the unit strength/movement numbers, and it shows the unit experience if you hover over it. I am finding it a little frustrating that the 'wait until fully healed' unit action does not give an estimate of how long it would take.

No good news on the diplomacy front. The diplomacy screen shows a number next to each civilization but doesn't tell you what that number is supposed to mean; after further investigation I concluded it represented their overall score. I'm not sure how well the menu currently reflects trade opportunities, as I haven't been able to play enough to get a feel for it. Still nothing apparent for getting a rough estimate of their disposition.

The Civilopedia feels unpolished, and to some extent automatically generated. There was at least one entry that essentially reads 'press this button to exit the [something] menu'. It uses a folder-style system, but defaults to having all the folders expanded so looking for a specific entry can be a mess. There's a search box, which I didn't get around to testing. I also realized that after opening the Civilopedia with F1, there's no close button, so I had to hit F1 again to close it.

If it matters, the version number shown on the main menu was 0.3.0.164

Looks like they're still using the months old preview version. No wonder they were kinda hidden at PAX.

Do you have any other sources citing a version number? I'd like to have an idea of how old it is, at least.

Do you have any other sources citing a version number? I'd like to have an idea of how old it is, at least.

No, but you found the same issues other previewers found. So it must be the same game.

That's the kind of assumption that has a tendency to cause problems.

I'm with Aussie on this. Civ V is increasingly looking like its a wargame, designed by a lead designer with a wargamer background.

Trouble is, I don't want "Panzer General with social policies". I want a game with rich diplomacy, economic options and social policies. Not to mention Trade, which I believe has also been dumbed down. Or Health, is now part of happiness (Fast food anyone?).

And I expect those features out of the box, not in an expansion

I believe Civ is meant to be a broad brush of history, not a history of warfare

I am pleased that warfare has improved as it was actually pretty crappy from Civs I through IV. I do agree however that they are emphasizing it too much though. Many aspects of the game have been either simplified or have been dropped or seem to have gotten worse.

Shame...

I'm with Aussie on this. Civ V is increasingly looking like its a wargame, designed by a lead designer with a wargamer background.

Trouble is, I don't want "Panzer General with social policies". I want a game with rich diplomacy, economic options and social policies. Not to mention Trade, which I believe has also been dumbed down. Or Health, is now part of happiness (Fast food anyone?).

And I expect those features out of the box, not in an expansion

I believe Civ is meant to be a broad brush of history, not a history of warfare

Was there ever a time in the history of the world that mankind was in a long lasting state of peace? I'm pretty sure that just about every year for as long as we've existed there have been tribes, societies, cities, countries, etc. at war. You will not be in a state of war all the time in Civ V, but chances are it will come your way at some point.

Funny how different people have different views. The diplomacy was the bit I hated in Civ IV. It seemed so brutally scientific and cold, and it was the most vital part of the game, almost to the exclusion of everything else. If you played with a lot of Civs (which I like to do), it pretty much made the game impossible to play at any significant difficulty level.

Just because something has numbers over it doesn't mean it is complicated. The fact that the information was handed to you on a plate and you knew everything seems "dumbed down" to me. As I say though, it's just my point of view.

For what it's worth, I didn't get the impression of a war-centric game after having played Civ5 for a bit. I haven't played much in the later ages, but overall balance of unit costs, land mass, and city spread means that you really have to focus on warmongering to get very far as a warmonger.

It's much easier to build just enough units to defend and then focus on infrastructure, because each unit takes about as long to produce as a building (of the same tech level) and you need three to four units minimum to to start taking cities. Then you'll need more units to help defend that territory, squash barbarians, etc. You'll end up pumping most your gold into rush-buying infrastructure, at least in the early game. Builders will be doing the opposite and buying units to beef up their army when needed.

Funny how different people have different views. The diplomacy was the bit I hated in Civ IV. It seemed so brutally scientific and cold, and it was the most vital part of the game, almost to the exclusion of everything else. If you played with a lot of Civs (which I like to do), it pretty much made the game impossible to play at any significant difficulty level.

Just because something has numbers over it doesn't mean it is complicated. The fact that the information was handed to you on a plate and you knew everything seems "dumbed down" to me. As I say though, it's just my point of view.

Never said I wanted *all* the information laid out on a plate like it was in Civ4 (like the -8 "This war is hurting our relationship"), but that doesn't mean I want it to be a complete *mystery* either. I want to be able to ask my Foreign Advisor what this Civilization currently thinks of me-in broad terms-& to occasionally remind me of things I've done to help, or hinder, them in the past. What I don't want is to be flying blind through the entire game without knowing if *any* of my efforts are having any impact on my neighbours at all!

Aussie.

Was there ever a time in the history of the world that mankind was in a long lasting state of peace? I'm pretty sure that just about every year for as long as we've existed there have been tribes, societies, cities, countries, etc. at war. You will not be in a state of war all the time in Civ V, but chances are it will come your way at some point.

Trust me, I don't mind having the occasional war, but I don't want it to be the *focus* of the entire game. I actually like the 1upt system, because I agree it will at least make war less tedious than it was previously. That said, though, too many systems (like some of the Social Policies & the entire Happiness mechanism) also seem to be aimed at the War-Monger, which really does bother me!

Aussie.

Perhaps I am near sighted - or simply optimistic - but I honestly think that there is less emphasis on the military aspect of the game. By that I mean that the military aspect of the game has been made less powerful and less of a crutch. I do think that the military aspect of the game has been made more interesting, though.

Maybe it's a function of the level I play (Monarch, usually), but in Civ IV, you could use a strong military to leverage your way to any of the available victory conditions, because more cities meant more of everything else - more gold, more science, more production, more units, more votes in the UN. . . It was the classic snowball effect, and - because of the limitless stack mechanism - it was unstoppable: whether you were on offense or defense, the size of your stack was the biggest factor in any war.

The 1upH mechanic means that war will be more interesting - we will have to pay more attention to it - but it also means that other factors become much more relevant in determining who will win, such as: the size of the front, the terrain, how your units are deployed. . . and a host of other factors.

But, in the grander scope of the game, war has become less powerful. It cannot be leveraged into a diplomatic victory - and may actually make that victory condition unattainable. Global happiness means that there is a limit to how much you can benefit from conquered cities. Puppets allow some wiggle room, but do not add units or production capability to your empire.

More cities means that Social policies cost more, so that smaller empires might be better positioned to achieve a Culture Victory - and continuous conquest will increase those costs without really giving you the means to make up the difference - probably putting that VC out of reach as well.

Research pacts require long term friends, which will be harder to find for aggressive, warmongering civs, meaning that they may tech slower, making a Scientific Victory harder to achieve.

Continuous aggression may very well limit you to a Domination Victory. If that proves to be the case, then the military aspect of the game is less powerful.

Since conquered cities bring their acquired tiles with them - there is even a place for limited conquest (which became more and more difficult in Civ IV, the later in the game you went, because of overwhelming native culture).

Looks like they're still using the months old preview version. No wonder they were kinda hidden at PAX.

Why would they do that? Why wouldn't they use the latest, best build they have?

Perhaps I am near sighted - or simply optimistic - but I honestly think that there is less emphasis on the military aspect of the game. By that I mean that the military aspect of the game has been made less powerful and less of a crutch. I do think that the military aspect of the game has been made more interesting, though.

Maybe it's a function of the level I play (Monarch, usually), but in Civ IV, you could use a strong military to leverage your way to any of the available victory conditions, because more cities meant more of everything else - more gold, more science, more production, more units, more votes in the UN. . . It was the classic snowball effect, and - because of the limitless stack mechanism - it was unstoppable: whether you were on offense or defense, the size of your stack was the biggest factor in any war.

The 1upH mechanic means that war will be more interesting - we will have to pay more attention to it - but it also means that other factors become much more relevant in determining who will win, such as: the size of the front, the terrain, how your units are deployed. . . and a host of other factors.

But, in the grander scope of the game, war has become less powerful. It cannot be leveraged into a diplomatic victory - and may actually make that victory condition unattainable. Global happiness means that there is a limit to how much you can benefit from conquered cities. Puppets allow some wiggle room, but do not add units or production capability to your empire.

More cities means that Social policies cost more, so that smaller empires might be better positioned to achieve a Culture Victory - and continuous conquest will increase those costs without really giving you the means to make up the difference - probably putting that VC out of reach as well.

Research pacts require long term friends, which will be harder to find for aggressive, warmongering civs, meaning that they may tech slower, making a Scientific Victory harder to achieve.

Continuous aggression may very well limit you to a Domination Victory. If that proves to be the case, then the military aspect of the game is less powerful.

Since conquered cities bring their acquired tiles with them - there is even a place for limited conquest (which became more and more difficult in Civ IV, the later in the game you went, because of overwhelming native culture).

As I've said elsewhere, Civ4 was the first game in the series where I could actually *win* the game without going for a massive expansion (either peaceful or military). Even if I didn't win the game, I could still retain a high position on the score-board. I certainly hope that Civ5 will continue-& improve on-this trend. However, I just get extremely worried when I read about how Happiness will now work (Global Only, rather than City Based & Global-which is what I wanted), how foreign trade routes are gone & how the concepts of foreign culture "infecting" your cities & tiles has been abandoned. I really want to be wrong, trust me, because I've spent the last TWENTY YEARS being excited about the Civilization Franchise. I really don't want it to end here!

Aussie.

Why would they do that? Why wouldn't they use the latest, best build they have?

For the same reason why they release demo on Sep 21. Preparing playable build takes human resources and they don't want to spend them. I assume that means:
- Programmers are very busy.
- There are a lot of open bugs.
- They aren't going to close all these bugs till release.

For the same reason why they release demo on Sep 21. Preparing playable build takes human resources and they don't want to spend them. I assume that means:
- Programmers are very busy.
- There are a lot of open bugs.
- They aren't going to close all these bugs till release.

....and again you leap spiritedly to their defense-they really ought to be paying you for this. Auncien is right: we're not saying that they had to provide the *most* recent build for PAX, but with little more than 2 weeks til release, it is quite disturbing that they're still using a build that is *several* months old!

....and again you leap spiritedly to their defense-they really ought to be paying you for this. Auncien is right: we're not saying that they had to provide the *most* recent build for PAX, but with little more than 2 weeks til release, it is quite disturbing that they're still using a build that is *several* months old!

its not disturbing at all. let them work on the game. why waste the time on a consumer show demo? i'd rather have people complaining about issues in a demo than in the first release build.

So the way I look at the UI is thus; in Civ4 it was pretty pants and most of the info I wanted wasn't avalible to me at a glance (ideed even the diplo glance screen wasn't avalible till much later). It wasn't till I discovered the BUG mod that I could access the info I wanted! So. I expect something similar in Civ5. Lazy developers pushed by stupid publishers will end up being covered by the fans. Again.

Even though i'm planning on getting the game ASAP there are many feature I worry about. Much like Aussie I worry about it being to wargame orientated, but if the war lives up to its promise of being a lot better than SoDs then I'm ok with this. Removing things like cultural assimilation, city level :), health etc are all bigger worries IMO as it seems to be (god forgive me for using this rubbish phrase) dumming down. From what i hear I also suspect I'll miss civics as well.

Still as we all should know by now the game won't be complete till the last expantion pack comes out. So we can all just carry on being treated like naughty children without bladder control as we jump around saying "where's my features!", by the publishers.

Not sure were that last bit came from but I think I'll keep it in. I guess I'm just feeling very cinical today.

Not sure were that last bit came from but I think I'll keep it in. I guess I'm just feeling very cinical today.

At this point, slightly more than two weeks before release, it is a failure of Firaxis' marketing if you're feeling like that.

Ideally, you'd want the war mongers to sit at home sharpening their swords, the culture bombers trying to figure out which combination of buildings to build, and the space ship people memorizing the tech tree, each in eager anticipation of how they will play the game. Unfortunately, the emphasis in marketing has been too much on combat, Panzergeneral, ranged combat, Giant Death Robots, and more combat. It is creating the distinct feeling that not all Civ play-styles are equal anymore.

Probably too late by now to fix this. Only a demo could do that, and we know how that is going to turn out.

....and again you leap spiritedly to their defense-they really ought to be paying you for this. Auncien is right: we're not saying that they had to provide the *most* recent build for PAX, but with little more than 2 weeks til release, it is quite disturbing that they're still using a build that is *several* months old!

Supposing what developers don't meet schedule and are going to release buggy version is now considered speaking to their defense? :crazyeye:

Agree with Thyrwyn on this one. Just because military mechanics have been massively overhauled doesn't mean they've become a larger portion of the game.

Military victories will be more difficult now I believe and military strategies will actually involve some... strategy? Rather than the only strategy being how large and of what composition your SoD would be.

Jon Shafer has also spoken about Wonders and making them more important and getting the balance right so that races to build them are epic again. The Social Policy "tree" is a huge addition as essentially a parallel tech tree, with many options for expansion or infrastructure bonuses.

As I've said elsewhere, Civ4 was the first game in the series where I could actually *win* the game without going for a massive expansion (either peaceful or military). Even if I didn't win the game, I could still retain a high position on the score-board. I certainly hope that Civ5 will continue-& improve on-this trend. ...and this one appears to be the first in the series in which massive expansion (especially military) will actually prevent you from achieving certain Victory Conditions.However, I just get extremely worried when I read about how Happiness will now work (Global Only, rather than City Based & Global-which is what I wanted), how foreign trade routes are gone & how the concepts of foreign culture "infecting" your cities & tiles has been abandoned. I really want to be wrong, trust me, because I've spent the last TWENTY YEARS being excited about the Civilization Franchise. I really don't want it to end here!

Aussie.Here we will have to agree to disagree:
1) Global Happiness: makes more sense to me and more accurately models reality than city-based happiness. City Happiness creates a collection of cities that are all the same size - no empire in history has ever looked like that.

2) Foreign trade routes: really? how did they improve the game? the system was entirely opaque and the player had no real way to influence it anyway. The system existed. It added commerce. The only impact removing them has is that the scaling cost paradigm needs to scale slower. And this one mechanic was the prime reason for late game inter-turn lag. This is the very poster child of an unnecessary game mechanic. The new trade route system is transparent and able to be influenced by the player. Effort->reward.

3) Civ IV culture: foreign culture never "infected your cities". It only mattered at your borders and the only solution to losing the culture war was a cascading conquest and the eventual elimination of your neighbor. The culture bomb sucked in IV and if it can steal claimed tiles, it will suck in V, too.

Other than that, the linking of culture to Social Policies is inspired and elegant: the more cultured your civ, the more evolved and effective your guiding ideology becomes. The more energy and effort you put into celebrating your culture, the more refined and ingrained your national sense of identity becomes. It is intuitive and has the effort->reward paradigm needed for a good game mechanic. And there are enough options that they can be used to pursue/assist a variety of strategies and victory conditions.

As I've said elsewhere, Civ4 was the first game in the series where I could actually *win* the game without going for a massive expansion (either peaceful or military). Even if I didn't win the game, I could still retain a high position on the score-board. I certainly hope that Civ5 will continue-& improve on-this trend. However, I just get extremely worried when I read about how Happiness will now work (Global Only, rather than City Based & Global-which is what I wanted), how foreign trade routes are gone & how the concepts of foreign culture "infecting" your cities & tiles has been abandoned. I really want to be wrong, trust me, because I've spent the last TWENTY YEARS being excited about the Civilization Franchise. I really don't want it to end here!

Aussie.

Jon Shafer, the leader designer, has said that his favourite way to play Civ 5 is with a small empire of only three cities. I'm certain you'll be able to win just fine as a peacemonger.

Agree with Thyrwyn on this one. Just because military mechanics have been massively overhauled doesn't mean they've become a larger portion of the game.

Military victories will be more difficult now I believe and military strategies will actually involve some... strategy? Rather than the only strategy being how large and of what composition your SoD would be.

Jon Shafer has also spoken about Wonders and making them more important and getting the balance right so that races to build them are epic again. The Social Policy "tree" is a huge addition as essentially a parallel tech tree, with many options for expansion or infrastructure bonuses.

Here's the thing. Overall I *love* the Social Policy Tree concept, but one thing that bothers me about it is how-if what I've been hearing is true-you don't need to give up the benefits of one policy to go to the one above it. The thing I really liked about the Civics system was that it forced often difficult decisions on the player (especially after I was done with modifying them :mischief: ) Its one of the things that makes the game fun IMHO!

Aussie.

....and again you leap spiritedly to their defense-they really ought to be paying you for this. Auncien is right: we're not saying that they had to provide the *most* recent build for PAX, but with little more than 2 weeks til release, it is quite disturbing that they're still using a build that is *several* months old!

There is a huge difference between internal builds and ones meant for public viewing. Internal builds can have huge, even game-breaking bugs and still serve their purpose, while external builds have to go through extensive quality assurance. No-one wants the focus of previews to be on crashes, graphic glitches, and game imbalance. Bearing this in mind, it is common for developers to make only one or two preview builds during development, so you don't waste too many resources.

Making a preview build for just one show (PAX) would waste lots of QA resources, which are probably the most stressed resources right now anyway, seeing as the real game will probably go gold within a week.

I'm worried by what we are told about diplomacy as well, but I wouldn't read too much into the fact that they are using an old preview build for conventions.

1) Global Happiness: makes more sense to me and more accurately models reality than city-based happiness. City Happiness creates a collection of cities that are all the same size - no empire in history has ever looked like that.

I did say that I wanted both City-based & global happiness-in the same way culture is both City-Based & Global in Civ5. What bugs me about the approach they're taking is how building a happiness improvement in 1 city boosts your overall happiness, or how conquering a city should lead to a massive downgrade of happiness nation-wide. It can-& should-be a mixture of both. So having a net positive happiness in most of your cities is good because it obviously contributes to a high positive happiness score for the empire, but you might have 1 city with a net negative happiness (& thus less productive) whilst your empire as a whole is steaming towards a Golden Age. Things like Luxuries should boost your *global* happiness, whilst happiness buildings should *only* improve local happiness.

2) Foreign trade routes: The new trade route system is transparent and able to be influenced by the player. Effort->reward.

I could say the same thing. Really? In what way? Trade routes in Civ5 sound really boring to me. With the removal of the Commerce Yield, they really had the chance to beef up Foreign Trade routes-by providing boosts to science, culture, hammers & food-not merely gold. Instead they seem to have simplified them almost to the point of irrelevance.

3) Civ IV culture: foreign culture never "infected your cities". It only mattered at your borders and the only solution to losing the culture war was a cascading conquest and the eventual elimination of your neighbor. The culture bomb sucked in IV and if it can steal claimed tiles, it will suck in V, too.

Again, I've played Civ4 more times than I can count, & I've never run into the problems you mention. Nor did I have to go to the extremes you mention to deal with the Culture War. Now I'm not saying that Civ4 culture was perfect, but it was a good starting point for future improvements & refinements to make it more fun-which is more than can be said for the Culture Bomb which, *yes*, can steal tiles in Civ5!

Other than that, the linking of culture to Social Policies is inspired and elegant: the more cultured your civ, the more evolved and effective your guiding ideology becomes. The more energy and effort you put into celebrating your culture, the more refined and ingrained your national sense of identity becomes. It is intuitive and has the effort->reward paradigm needed for a good game mechanic. And there are enough options that they can be used to pursue/assist a variety of strategies and victory conditions.

As I've said, got no real problems with Social Policies-beyond what I said above-& I agree that I like the link between culture & Soc Pols-its actually something I've wanted to see for a while. That said, though, here in the real world culture also matters *beyond* your borders-& I believe it should in Civ5 too. Unfortunately, now it apparently doesn't!

Aussie.

For what it's worth, I didn't get the impression of a war-centric game after having played Civ5 for a bit. I haven't played much in the later ages, but overall balance of unit costs, land mass, and city spread means that you really have to focus on warmongering to get very far as a warmonger.



Did you get a feeling that there are more tiles with hexes than old squares?

Here's the thing. Overall I *love* the Social Policy Tree concept, but one thing that bothers me about it is how-if what I've been hearing is true-you don't need to give up the benefits of one policy to go to the one above it. The thing I really liked about the Civics system was that it forced often difficult decisions on the player (especially after I was done with modifying them :mischief: ) Its one of the things that makes the game fun IMHO!

Aussie.

My two cents on this is that the civics in Civ 4 are designed to be mutually exclusive--that is, you choose one in each area, and that's all you get at any one time. The social policies in Civ 5, though, are designed to "stack," though, so not having to give up earlier benefits won't be as game-breaking as the same sort of system would be with Civ 4's civics.

On the other hand, there are certain SP trees that are, in fact, mutually exclusive--you can only have one active at a time. This means that SPs require more long-term planning than civics. In Civ 4, there was no real long-term planning needed--you just chose the set of civics that best suited your current situation and that was that. Granted, they did require some thought, because too much civic switching would lead to anarchy (for most civs) and thus make your civilization less efficient. But there was no real long-term planning involved.

So, in the end, Civ 4 civics require an immediate weighing of priorities but little long-term planning, while Civ 5 social policies (seem to) require more long-term planning and less immediate weighing of priorities. I don't know right now if one system is better than another, since I haven't played Civ 5 yet, so I'm going to reserve judgment until I get a chance to see how SPs work as part of the bigger picture.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know if the SPs will really be as bad as you make them out to be. In all fairness, of course, they may turn out to be a disaster, but for now I am cautiously optimistic.

Civ IV culture: foreign culture never "infected your cities". It only mattered at your borders and the only solution to losing the culture war was a cascading conquest and the eventual elimination of your neighbor.

Again, I've played Civ4 more times than I can count, & I've never run into the problems you mention.

I resurrected my CivFanatics account because I found it hard to take Aussie_Lurkers comment at face value. I also played Civ4 a lot, and I regularly observed that newly conquered border cities wouldn't be of much use as long as the surrounding territory was flooded by the culture of remaining core enemy cities. In case a third civilization had settled nearby, the newly conquered cities were also prone to flip to this third party.

lockstep

Here's the thing. Overall I *love* the Social Policy Tree concept, but one thing that bothers me about it is how-if what I've been hearing is true-you don't need to give up the benefits of one policy to go to the one above it. The thing I really liked about the Civics system was that it forced often difficult decisions on the player (especially after I was done with modifying them :mischief: ) Its one of the things that makes the game fun IMHO!
The difficult decisions are exactly what I think makes civilization great as well. Where we disagree is that I think the social policy system does indeed require difficult decisions. Given that cultural victory is possible only if you unlock 5 complete trees, a standard game may allow you to adopt ~20 social policies over the course of the entire game, and once invested, the policies cannot be reassigned anymore. What do you do then? Do you invest into liberty in order to expand, even if you know you want to switch to autocracy later and lose the precious policies from liberty? Do you invest in policies and get their benefits right away, knowing that you won't be able to complete the rationalism tree anymore? To me, these decisions are a lot more difficult than the ones in Civ4, where a civic choice never burned any bridges.

I did say that I wanted both City-based & global happiness-in the same way culture is both City-Based & Global in Civ5. What bugs me about the approach they're taking is how building a happiness improvement in 1 city boosts your overall happiness, or how conquering a city should lead to a massive downgrade of happiness nation-wide. It can-& should-be a mixture of both. So having a net positive happiness in most of your cities is good because it obviously contributes to a high positive happiness score for the empire, but you might have 1 city with a net negative happiness (& thus less productive) whilst your empire as a whole is steaming towards a Golden Age. Things like Luxuries should boost your *global* happiness, whilst happiness buildings should *only* improve local happiness.
For realism, I agree with you. For gameplay, I have to say that I find the unhappiness caused by conquered cities to be a very neat idea. In order to warmonger, you have to be a builder as well, since you're not going to conquer a lot of cities without getting into a civil war otherwise. It makes the game - to my eyes, at least - quite a bit more complex.

I resurrected my CivFanatics account because I found it hard to take Aussie_Lurkers comment at face value. I also played Civ4 a lot, and I regularly observed that newly conquered border cities wouldn't be of much use as long as the surrounding territory was flooded by the culture of remaining core enemy cities. In case a third civilization had settled nearby, the newly conquered cities were also prone to flip to this third party.

lockstep

So you're accusing me of lying then are you? You might notice that I *also* said that, whatever faults existed in the Civ4 culture system, I believe it worked far *better* than the system they've gone with for Civ5-which effectively makes your culture USELESS outside your own borders (except on unowned tiles)! To me that, & an inability to buy owned tiles, is going to make the game way too dull for words!

So you're accusing me of lying then are you? You might notice that I *also* said that, whatever faults existed in the Civ4 culture system, I believe it worked far *better* than the system they've gone with for Civ5

I have noticed your many comparisons of Civ4 v. Civ5 features, and I generally regard them as well founded. However, I think you have at least unknowingly disregarded the "cascading conquest" effect described by Thyrwin and also regularly witnessed by me. (You didn't respond to Thyrwin "I always could cope with these problems" but "I've never run into the problems you mention".)

lockstep

Every aspect of Civ 5 seems to be better than Civ 4. I think they have learned a lot from Civilization Revolution, took the best part of it and mixed it with the more complicated formula of Civ 4.

So now you have more clear result from every action you make and a lot of the more obscure side of the game have been changed or replace by new mechanics.

Did you get a feeling that there are more tiles with hexes than old squares?

It feels like there's more space, but I think that's because they increased the number of tiles per world size, not because of the change to hexes. After hearing about units all having a base two movement, I expected them to have doubled the the number of tiles to keep the same relative scale; I haven't actually counted the number of tiles though.

Also, city spam feels reduced a bit, so there is more empty space during mid-game as well.

I have noticed your many comparisons of Civ4 v. Civ5 features, and I generally regard them as well founded. However, I think you have at least unknowingly disregarded the "cascading conquest" effect described by Thyrwin and also regularly witnessed by me. (You didn't respond to Thyrwin "I always could cope with these problems" but "I've never run into the problems you mention".)

lockstep

I can only tell you my own experiences, which is that I've not encountered the "Cascading Conquest" problem that you mention. If I had to really think about it, I'm sure there might be 1 or 2 instances where I've lost a city I've just conquered due to the culture of a neighboring empire, but I certainly can't remember any off the top of my head. If it did happen, though, it would be very rare indeed. I always pay close attention to building strong culture, so maybe thats why I haven't had the problem so often (when I conquer cities, they're often well on the way to being mine anyway!)
Anyway, you might note that I have *not* called the Civ4 system perfect. It had problems, not least the lack of control the player had over the process. However, I think that rather than taking the lazy approach of chucking everything but the awful Culture Bomb, they could have taken a little time to fix these problems in the existing mechanic (for the record, a number of mods exist for Civ4 that *do* fix this very problem!)

Aussie.

I can only tell you my own experiences, which is that I've not encountered the "Cascading Conquest" problem that you mention. If I had to really think about it, I'm sure there might be 1 or 2 instances where I've lost a city I've just conquered due to the culture of a neighboring empire, but I certainly can't remember any off the top of my head. If it did happen, though, it would be very rare indeed. I always pay close attention to building strong culture, so maybe thats why I haven't had the problem so often (when I conquer cities, they're often well on the way to being mine anyway!)

I'm sort of an "hybrid" player who in Civ4 paid attention to being of at-least-average culture (and correctly setting up three high-culture cities for a possible cultural victory), but also built up a strong military. In the early and mid-game, a recently conquered enemy border city might well already have leaned to my side, and flipping to third parties rarely if ever occured. However, if I wanted to consolidate my late-game lead and trim a rival without necessarily eliminating him, the "cascading conquest" effect (I eliminated him anyway to get some use out of his former cities) was not the exception but the rule.

In the end, maybe you should have qualified your response to Thyrwin by mentioning your specific kind of playstyle.

So you're accusing me of lying then are you? You might notice that I *also* said that, whatever faults existed in the Civ4 culture system, I believe it worked far *better* than the system they've gone with for Civ5-which effectively makes your culture USELESS outside your own borders (except on unowned tiles)! To me that, & an inability to buy owned tiles, is going to make the game way too dull for words!

If you're producing a lot of culture, chances are you also have a lot of wonders. You'll be popping out great people far more than the others, and as a result you'll have great artists to steal border tiles if you're put in a scenario where an AI or city state is simply too close to your borders for comfort.

As I said in the preview at VE, I had a chance to try every end game scenario with the preview build. I won a culture game with a main game focus on just one single core city, and it was a monster early game because of all the culture it was generating. I was forced into war, and had to fight back to eliminate the enemy near the end, but only made two puppet cities out of that. The rest of my culture came from the single city, and my relationships with cultural based city states.

I'm not sure if it's well known at this time, but the required culture for policy picks increases each time you create a new city, or annex one you've taken over. Culture wins are definitely possible if you want to sit back with a small number of cities (or just one).

Also remember, more great people means you'll have gold coming in (and better relationships with CSs) from great merchant missions, free techs from great scientists, fast wonder / building production from great engineers, and of course the opportunity to culture bomb often. That's assuming you don't build their unique buildings, or use them for golden ages.

Aussie

I've seen a lot of your posts and I think the best thing I've read, and I can't remember who said it, but they said that you seem to be after another expansion to Civ4 rather than a Civ5.

My feeling is that they have created a new game, having felt that Civ4BTS+mods took the old model as far as it could go.

This is now a brave new world and creates a new set of mechanics to explore, expand and mod. Over the course of time the subjects that were in Civ4BTS will be added, based on the new paradigm. I am looking forward to the new thinking, the new challenges and the new problems posed by the design.

I've explored Civ4, as much as I care to now, and based on the way I like to play, I find games tend to fall the same way. It's getting a little boring, and I'm ready for something, anything, new. Comparing Civ5 to Civ4 is not really interesting to me, because I don't want anything in Civ5 to be "the same as Civ4", because I want those new challenges. Just by being different, as far as I am concerned, it is better.

Aussie

I've seen a lot of your posts and I think the best thing I've read, and I can't remember who said it, but they said that you seem to be after another expansion to Civ4 rather than a Civ5.

My feeling is that they have created a new game, having felt that Civ4BTS+mods took the old model as far as it could go.

This is now a brave new world and creates a new set of mechanics to explore, expand and mod. Over the course of time the subjects that were in Civ4BTS will be added, based on the new paradigm. I am looking forward to the new thinking, the new challenges and the new problems posed by the design.

I've explored Civ4, as much as I care to now, and based on the way I like to play, I find games tend to fall the same way. It's getting a little boring, and I'm ready for something, anything, new. Comparing Civ5 to Civ4 is not really interesting to me, because I don't want anything in Civ5 to be "the same as Civ4", because I want those new challenges. Just by being different, as far as I am concerned, it is better.

Well said.

The social policies in Civ 5 are designed to "stack"

I knew the Stack of Doom was hiding somewhere...

If you're producing a lot of culture, chances are you also have a lot of wonders. You'll be popping out great people far more than the others, and as a result you'll have great artists to steal border tiles if you're put in a scenario where an AI or city state is simply too close to your borders for comfort.

As I said in the preview at VE, I had a chance to try every end game scenario with the preview build. I won a culture game with a main game focus on just one single core city, and it was a monster early game because of all the culture it was generating. I was forced into war, and had to fight back to eliminate the enemy near the end, but only made two puppet cities out of that. The rest of my culture came from the single city, and my relationships with cultural based city states.

I'm not sure if it's well known at this time, but the required culture for policy picks increases each time you create a new city, or annex one you've taken over. Culture wins are definitely possible if you want to sit back with a small number of cities (or just one).

Also remember, more great people means you'll have gold coming in (and better relationships with CSs) from great merchant missions, free techs from great scientists, fast wonder / building production from great engineers, and of course the opportunity to culture bomb often. That's assuming you don't build their unique buildings, or use them for golden ages.

Have you had a chance to notice how the increased culture threshold for additionnal cities works ? How much did it scale up ?
Also, if you stay with a constant number of city, by how much the next policy requirement ramp up ?

2) Foreign trade routes: really? how did they improve the game? the system was entirely opaque and the player had no real way to influence it anyway.


Not true. The player could influence it by going to war--in particular, a world war could seriously mess up your economy. Similarly, adopting Mercantilism had a large effect, although predicting the overall effect ahead of time was a bit tricky.

That said, I agree that the late game lag made the system cost more than its worth. But, I would have preferred a compromise system (your capital can establish a high-value trade route to each foreign capital) than would have kept the essence of foreign trade without the exorbitant computational cost.

Not true. The player could influence it by going to war--in particular, a world war could seriously mess up your economy. Similarly, adopting Mercantilism had a large effect, although predicting the overall effect ahead of time was a bit tricky.

That said, I agree that the late game lag made the system cost more than its worth. But, I would have preferred a compromise system (your capital can establish a high-value trade route to each foreign capital) than would have kept the essence of foreign trade without the exorbitant computational cost.

I concur, I would have been happy with a compromise too. Some kind of Foreign Trade Route system could have been really interesting *if* they provided more than merely gold!

Aussie.

Nobody would be interested in a diplo write up.

"Monty asked my for a peace treaty." "Then I asked Monty for a research pact.

Now an explanation of what all the diplo options do would be nice.

War write up: "he attacked my unit, I attacked his..."

If you do it on purpose, you can make everything sound boring.

But diplomacy review isnt boring at all. Example: "I met monty. He seemed nicer than in civ4". He asked for peace, resource trading, and after a few turns he even offered me a research agreement! And 3 turns after paying 300gold he backstabbed me with his army at my doors and no gold to rushbuy!!"

And if you tell the story of relationships between many leaders instead just 1, it can get much more interesting.

Never said I wanted *all* the information laid out on a plate like it was in Civ4 (like the -8 "This war is hurting our relationship"), but that doesn't mean I want it to be a complete *mystery* either. I want to be able to ask my Foreign Advisor what this Civilization currently thinks of me-in broad terms-& to occasionally remind me of things I've done to help, or hinder, them in the past. What I don't want is to be flying blind through the entire game without knowing if *any* of my efforts are having any impact on my neighbours at all!

Aussie.

So essentially, you want him to remind you of the things that you actively did for/against him? I think they're try to make this aspect more realistic, since in real-life you would look insane if you had to ask another leader why he hates you ("um, you bombed half of my cities?"). It's only mysterious if you've forgotten what you did in the past.

I think they're try to make this aspect more realistic, since in real-life you would look insane if you had to ask another leader why he hates you

In real life, you don't take two weeks off from international politics to take care of the children and work at your job. This is what I was talking about: Computer game producers have this problem realizing what real life looks like. Some of us can't play every day, or even every week.

In real life, you don't take two weeks off from international politics to take care of the children and work at your job. This is what I was talking about: Computer game producers have this problem realizing what real life looks like. Some of us can't play every day, or even every week.

Exactly. Also, even in the REAL WORLD, world leaders have FOREIGN ADVISORS to tell them what the state of Foreign Affairs currently is, & to keep the leader informed of recent developments. If the Foreign Advisor in Civ5 is incapable of doing even that small task, then we must surely question why they wasted the resources to put one in.

Aussie.

If you take William Hague as an example, and you believe the media innuendo and hype, his advisors do a lot more than just keep him up to date with international affairs.

Ok, I went to the small group demo of CIV 5 at PAX, and I played the game quite a bit at invidia's booth, probably a couple of hours total over the course of the weekend. I honestly think the worrying going on in this thread is unfounded.

Talking points I would like to add to this conversation:

1. At PAX the game was not being officially demoed by Firaxis or Take2, instead the playable demo was part of the invidia booth who had a whole suite of playable demos and betas set up to show off their hardware. I would honestly be shocked if the versions they had were not weeks or months old (and Civ 5 was not the only demo by invidia that suffered this problem).

2. In regards to the diplomacy thing, I never found and explicit menu that listed rival civ's opinions of me but I have to admit for never looking for it. Simply put I never needed it - the opinions that other civs had of me were always more or less clear. In talking to other civs, and especially in watching how they dealt with city states allied with me, figuring out how others felt about me was not some great frustrating mystery. In fact, it was a lot of fun to piece together the world's current diplomatic relations and figure them out for myself, without the game spoonfeeding me that information. Also, if you really MUST have an explicit diplomacy screen, I imagine that is why you have a foreign advisor in this game... though I must admit I never felt the need to speak with them.

3. Finally, and most importantly, the game "feels" like Civ. I don't know how else to put it into words. Its new, its different, but starting up a game and playing felt like settling down with an old and dear friend. It was amazing, simply put. I had my doubts about Civ 5 as well, no longer. And no, I am not a representative from Take2 ;)

Riss

Here's the thing. Overall I *love* the Social Policy Tree concept, but one thing that bothers me about it is how-if what I've been hearing is true-you don't need to give up the benefits of one policy to go to the one above it. The thing I really liked about the Civics system was that it forced often difficult decisions on the player (especially after I was done with modifying them ) Its one of the things that makes the game fun IMHO!
You're going to have more choices with social policies than civics. Quite frankly, even with all civic options available to you, there are only a couple ones that you would actively choose between over the course of the game. There are some obvious powerhouse choices. Before that final era, the civics options might as well be just bonuses for getting certain techs. On the other hand, you make a choice between policies each time you have enough culture to purchase them. And we've seen no evidence about losing policies, unless you count switching between opposing trees.

The civics tree is more like a "talent tree" from an MMO than the social policies. The civics represent choices and giving up something for something else, while the social policies represent a build-up of additional power over time. However, with any talent tree system, it is balanced around considering the whole tree. Considering Civ's slow build-up until every feature is eventually accessible in the final era, a talent tree system is not a good idea.

Where is a official article for PAX? :D Its somewhere video preview from PAX? :)

Considering Civ's slow build-up until every feature is eventually accessible in the final era, a talent tree system is not a good idea.

You need 5 out of 10 full trees to start building utopia. So if you not going for cultural victory, you'll rarely have more than 3 out of 10 full trees, IMHO.

You're going to have more choices with social policies than civics. Quite frankly, even with all civic options available to you, there are only a couple ones that you would actively choose between over the course of the game. There are some obvious powerhouse choices. Before that final era, the civics options might as well be just bonuses for getting certain techs. On the other hand, you make a choice between policies each time you have enough culture to purchase them. And we've seen no evidence about losing policies, unless you count switching between opposing trees.

The civics tree is more like a "talent tree" from an MMO than the social policies. The civics represent choices and giving up something for something else, while the social policies represent a build-up of additional power over time. However, with any talent tree system, it is balanced around considering the whole tree. Considering Civ's slow build-up until every feature is eventually accessible in the final era, a talent tree system is not a good idea.

But, you've got wild cards with the wonders.

@Azazell : It's just fan hand-on review !

I'm with Aussie on this. Civ V is increasingly looking like its a wargame, designed by a lead designer with a wargamer background.

Trouble is, I don't want "Panzer General with social policies". I want a game with rich diplomacy, economic options and social policies. Not to mention Trade, which I believe has also been dumbed down. Or Health, is now part of happiness (Fast food anyone?).

And I expect those features out of the box, not in an expansion

I believe Civ is meant to be a broad brush of history, not a history of warfare

I agree.

I am totally excited about the 1upt, I think it will be much better than SoD. I also like the change to hexes, and Love! the city states.

But was it that hard to add this things without dumbing down everything else? Diplomacy worries me SO much.

Has any one noticed if they still have the: "what do you think of 'name'?" question in diplomacy talks? Is it just me or could you gauge how an ally percieves someone else by asking them. If so the information may not be laid out in a screen but have to be found out by actually asking them. If they're not talking to you it'd be even harder. Or it might be actually more realistic in that you don't really know what the AI is thinking.
Although a list of your current treaties and trades is a necessacity.

The PC Gamer UK Review mentioned a lack of diplomacy screen as well. They Should have been reviewing gold code. Maybe firaxis are rushing it in for day 0 patch.

There's no discount for rushing something you already put production into however.

What happened to the production you already put in then? was it lost, did it overflow.

Has any one noticed if they still have the: "what do you think of 'name'?" question in diplomacy talks? Is it just me or could you gauge how an ally percieves someone else by asking them. If so the information may not be laid out in a screen but have to be found out by actually asking them. If they're not talking to you it'd be even harder. Or it might be actually more realistic in that you don't really know what the AI is thinking.
Although a list of your current treaties and trades is a necessacity.

I had looked for that dialogue option specifically, but couldn't find it. There's a "Discuss" button though I don't remember what it does, just that I was disappointed with the options it gave me.

What happened to the production you already put in then? was it lost, did it overflow.

I don't know, I didn't have enough time to test it that in-depth.

Perhaps I am near sighted - or simply optimistic - but I honestly think that there is less emphasis on the military aspect of the game. By that I mean that the military aspect of the game has been made less powerful and less of a crutch. I do think that the military aspect of the game has been made more interesting, though.

Maybe it's a function of the level I play (Monarch, usually), but in Civ IV, you could use a strong military to leverage your way to any of the available victory conditions, because more cities meant more of everything else - more gold, more science, more production, more units, more votes in the UN. . . It was the classic snowball effect, and - because of the limitless stack mechanism - it was unstoppable: whether you were on offense or defense, the size of your stack was the biggest factor in any war.

The 1upH mechanic means that war will be more interesting - we will have to pay more attention to it - but it also means that other factors become much more relevant in determining who will win, such as: the size of the front, the terrain, how your units are deployed. . . and a host of other factors.

But, in the grander scope of the game, war has become less powerful. It cannot be leveraged into a diplomatic victory - and may actually make that victory condition unattainable. Global happiness means that there is a limit to how much you can benefit from conquered cities. Puppets allow some wiggle room, but do not add units or production capability to your empire.

More cities means that Social policies cost more, so that smaller empires might be better positioned to achieve a Culture Victory - and continuous conquest will increase those costs without really giving you the means to make up the difference - probably putting that VC out of reach as well.

Research pacts require long term friends, which will be harder to find for aggressive, warmongering civs, meaning that they may tech slower, making a Scientific Victory harder to achieve.

Continuous aggression may very well limit you to a Domination Victory. If that proves to be the case, then the military aspect of the game is less powerful.

Since conquered cities bring their acquired tiles with them - there is even a place for limited conquest (which became more and more difficult in Civ IV, the later in the game you went, because of overwhelming native culture).

Let me say that I 100% agree with this statement.

To take it a step farther, with clever social policies and deployment a small (effectively non-military) civilization has the possibility of stopping a large war machine in its tracks.

Look at the tradition tree: it's built exactly for allowing smaller civs to 1) gain a slight population advantage given their geographical size; 2) provide a substantial bonus to warding off aggressors.

Can you imagine playing a 4 or 5 city game with 7 land units and 5 navel units in civ4? It might be possible in ciV if you manage to secure a peninsula to yourself. Not exactly a warmonger setup.

Exactly. Also, even in the REAL WORLD, world leaders have FOREIGN ADVISORS to tell them what the state of Foreign Affairs currently is, & to keep the leader informed of recent developments. If the Foreign Advisor in Civ5 is incapable of doing even that small task, then we must surely question why they wasted the resources to put one in.

Aussie.

:agree:

The +3 and -8 modifiers felt too "gamey", but that doesn't mean we should get no information. It just shouldn't be quantified (IMO).

What happened to the production you already put in then? was it lost, did it overflow.

It doesn't work that way, there is no "rushing" of production anymore, instead you can straight up buy things.

For example if your working on a settler and find yourself needing to have warriors, you can click on the purchase buutton and buy a warrior for x gold. It won't affect what your currently producing. (edit - unless it was a building or wonder then i guess it would, and i also wonder what would happen the the hammers invested.)

It doesn't work that way, there is no "rushing" anymore, instead you can straight up buy things.

For example if your working on a settler and find yourself needing to have warriors, you can click on the purchase buutton and buy a warrior for x gold. It won't affect what your currently producing.

But what if I'm building a Temple (and have 10 hammers already invested) and then buy a Temple. Can I have 2 Temples in my city? or do those 10 hammers disappear or do they overflow to the next thing I build (since I can't build a Temple any more)

Yeah just though of that myslef, i have no idea what happens to hammers i those cases.

But what if I'm building a Temple (and have 10 hammers already invested) and then buy a Temple. Can I have 2 Temples in my city? or do those 10 hammers disappear or do they overflow to the next thing I build (since I can't build a Temple any more)

I believe the effort of the 10 hammers is wasted, so you need to plan accordingly. Also, if something costs 70 gold to build and 4 turns to build, you can't wait 2 turns of production and pay the difference (35 gold, in this example) - it's still 70 gold to purchase.

Not sure what would happen if you needed 50 hammers to build something and you were producing 11/turn what would happen on turn 5 with your extra 5 hammers - I assume THOSE are not lost, and would spill over into the next building project?

For example if your working on a settler and find yourself needing to have warriors, you can click on the purchase buutton and buy a warrior for x gold. It won't affect what your currently producing.

(Pulls up soap box. Clears throat.)

Let me say that I think this sucks. In fact, I've always thought it sucked to be able to buy yourself out of a situation like that.

Let's imagine you're Switzerland and you see the evil French attacking you. No problem! You just give somebody (who exactly?) in your country a bathtub full of money, and -- presto! -- immediately there's your brand new aircraft carrier sitting there on Lake Geneva, ready to fight off the enemy.

It don't work that way. You can't just throw money at the problem, you actually need physical parts that need to be put together. Paint has to dry. Stuff like that. You can't rush science by throwing money at it, why can you rush production?

Rush buying was always really, really fake and should be taken out of the game, every game, completely, forever, with no exceptions.

(Gets off soap box. Feels better now.)

@ rushing- I remeber reading in a preview or interview that you cannot rush something you've put hammers into. So if you want to rush a building, you either do it right off the bat, or don't do it at all. Since there is no more discounts they won't let you rush something you've already put hammers in. So it's all or nothing, in a sense.

maybe there was a Genoa Private Military Company who just happened to have an aircraft carrier.

@ rushing- I remeber reading in a preview or interview that you cannot rush something you've put hammers into. So if you want to rush a building, you either do it right off the bat, or don't do it at all. Since there is no more discounts they won't let you rush something you've already put hammers in. So it's all or nothing, in a sense.

no i recon you read wrong, purchasing something your already building (if you can only have one) eill probably just cancel it.

I keep reading about the poor diplomacy with the main AIs and I have to wonder if this was one case where they chose realism over game-play. In real life you have no measurable way to tell where you stand with another nation in diplomacy, you just know. USA knows that Iran doesn't like them.

From a game-play standpoint, you don't really need to know whether you are -10 or -7, you just need to know that they are pissed at you and war is a strong possibility. I, for one, thing it's good to take out trivial quantitative measurements on diplomacy if this is in fact the case. Additionally, perhaps they added a lot more randomness to how a nation reacts to your actions. In Civ IV you'd just know you were going to be severely negatively impacted by having a different state religion, and you'd always go -1 for rejecting a demand or request for aid. Perhaps Civ V is trying to reflect real life where all leaders aren't going to react the same to your actions towards them.

Additionally, perhaps they added a lot more randomness to how a nation reacts to your actions.


I hope they do not do this, or at least the random factor should be fairly small. We do not need the AIs acting like MOO1 "Erratic" leaders. Diplomacy is not interesting when you know there is no point to ever attempting any positive action, because the dice will inevitably roll against you and your actions will be meaningless.


In Civ IV you'd just know you were going to be severely negatively impacted by having a different state religion, and you'd always go -1 for rejecting a demand or request for aid. Perhaps Civ V is trying to reflect real life where all leaders aren't going to react the same to your actions towards them.

Civ IV already had variable responses by leaders -- some cared more about certain things, others reacted more strongly to different triggers. It was not always the same "-1" response -- you could often refuse Gandhi something and get no penalty, while Catherine would give -2, etc. Mao did not really care much about religion, while Isabella cared about nothing else. Mansa Musa would trade anything with anyone, anytime, anywhere, while Tokugawa took a major effort to get any kind of deal.

Admittedly the variability was not as great as it could have been, but it was not nearly as cut-and-dried as many have been saying. Hopefully Civ V will go further in this direction and AIs will have distinct personalities.

I hope they do not do this, or at least the random factor should be fairly small. We do not need the AIs acting like MOO1 "Erratic" leaders. Diplomacy is not interesting when you know there is no point to ever attempting any positive action, because the dice will inevitably roll against you and your actions will be meaningless.


Tough luck, I watched a video interview just recently where they said that the AI would be very unpredictable.

You need 5 out of 10 full trees to start building utopia. So if you not going for cultural victory, you'll rarely have more than 3 out of 10 full trees, IMHO.

It's also possible that civs not going for a cultural victory might have more policies unlocked overall. If they spread them around for other bonuses instead of focusing on getting to the end of a tree, it might be more advantageous for them.

It works both way though, a double edge sword. Just cause the AI is "unpredictable", plays to win, and have various flavours with randomly determined ratings, doesn't mean the AI will be war mongering all the time/against you all the time. I really like the flavours they added to the Leaders, you might know someone, but you ain't really sure how they will react to this or that.

For all you know, Izzy can show up at your door in her night gown for some open borders treaty.

I am happy that they made it more like you are playing vs human player that are trying to win, instead of AI that are restricted in there action by gameplay element that do not restrain the players action like in Civ 4, or AI that just feel like obstacle that will do everything to make the player loose and won't care about other AI like in Civ rev.

I think it's gonna be perfectly fine that way.

Yea. Civ 4's AI was dictated by die rolls mostly, along with calculations of power level, etc. The problem with that is that the AI had little ability to adapt to a situation, and many of them were easily 'shut down' just via "active diplomacy". Not to mention that only a few AIs were ever capable of winning versus a competent player, many others played so poorly (Pericles *cough*) that they could never win. On the other hand, certain AIs (Shaka, Montezuma), were dangerously aggressive, often irrationally so. I'm not saying it was terrible, but the AI (Which is the basis of diplomacy) was always Civ 4's biggest flaw.

Tough luck, I watched a video interview just recently where they said that the AI would be very unpredictable.
I thought the BtS AI was unpredictable before I understood how it worked. How can a reviewer grasp the probably complex AI after an afternoon or two?

It depends on whether it was some reviewer with a couple hours of play time calling the AI unpredictable, or if it was the devs saying it.

Anyway, I'll stand by my point (which has also been mentioned by other people in other threads). If the AI is too random, then diplomacy becomes pointless because positive actions do not lead to positive results. Why ever try to be friendly to an AI if it is just going to "play to win like a human" and stab you in the back?

I will be very disappointed if the designers have taken this "play to win" trend too far and we end up with the proverbial lobsters in a tank, with the highest always getting pulled down. The result would be that the AIs would not really be playing to win, but rather acting as a conspiracy of all AIs against the human.

Hopefully we will get AIs with enough randomness to be interesting, but not so much as to make diplomacy meaningless.

If the AI is too random, then diplomacy becomes pointless because positive actions do not lead to positive results. Why ever try to be friendly to an AI if it is just going to "play to win like a human" and stab you in the back?



If the AI wants to have any chances of winning (well assuming it is going for a domination victory, at least) it will (assuming there are lots of civs on the map) have to ally them self's with others including the player or else it will just get mauled, then after the other AI's are no longer a threat then it might consider stabbing the player in the back and I for one don't find it all that unreasonable.

The AI will remain a friend with the player while he makes himself useful and then turns its back on him when he either stops being useful or the AI decides that it has more to gain by braking up the friendship then keeping it.

That way, the player will have to actively maintain him his status as a useful ally if he wants to keep the AI friendly. Sounds fair to me.