I got in to civ really late. Civ rev was my first civ game (I know... I'm a civ n00b). I only migrated to pc a year ago, and am never looking back at consoles and civ rev was one of my favourite games. I tried the Civ 4 demo but couldn't get into it. But I tried it again months later and got the basic mechanics and I was so impressed with all the it had to offer. I would of bought it but, Civ 5 had already been announced and I decided to just wait for it instead. I waited, and waited, and waited, waited for the release date and man, the wait wasn't worth it. Where the heck is the ground gameplay from civ 4? Am I going to have to shell out another $40 to get all the missing content that was supposed to be in the final game. Did they dumb it down for the casual market? When I first played it, it was fun because it was new, but now it's just dull and boring... (my opinion) The turns take way too long, the game is poorly optimized and a buttload of feautures are missing. Why can't firaxis come out and tell the truth about the all the missing features? They already have our money so why not? I know it's only been 2 weeks or whatever since launch but there's no info. If they told everyone what they were doing and why all the missing features I bet that would shut alot of people up. I don't want a civ rev 2, I want a game that expands civ 4.

What is depressing is that, as a relatively new player to the Civ series, you are exactly their target audience.

I want a game that expands civ 4.

That's not Civ V. You want Civ 4.5, which doesn't exist. Civ V is an entirely new game, nothing is missing, everything the designers wanted to be there, is there...

What is depressing is that, as a relatively new player to the Civ series, you are exactly their target audience.

One thing I would love to see is all the people who complain about CiV not to support 2K or Firaxis again. By that I mean do not buy any DLC or expansion and stay away from Civ VI. But sadly 2K and Firaxis knows all these people who complain will still buy Civ VI so they have nothing to worry about. I guess they know that most will buy the DLC and expansions anyway "for a better game" so all who complain and still buy will have "sucker" on their forhead.

Sadly the game has been more "streamlined" for the common gamer and 2K and Firaxis dosn't really care about past game players. Hopefully the sales figures will reflect this, but I doubt it.

Sadly the game has been more "streamlined" for the common gamer and 2K and Firaxis dosn't really care about past game players.

No, it hasn't. If anything it's more complex to play effectively, even though there's less "stuff" than in BTS.

everything the designers wanted to be there, is there...

I think that's what so many people, including myself, have found disappointing. Once you get past the gloss and the hexagonal goodness, there's really not much there at all.

How has it become more complex? I do not see the complexity. Oh wait, do I build a baracks or forgo the baracks and just fight the barbarians? I do not consider that complexity.

Maybe I am missing something. Can you please explain please. Not making fun of you. Maybe I am not seeing it.

Well the good news is that you can pick up Civ 4 + expansions for next to nothing from Amazon.

How has it become more complex? I do not see the complexity. Oh wait, do I build a baracks or forgo the baracks and just fight the barbarians? I do not consider that complexity.

Maybe I am missing something. Can you please explain please. Not making fun of you. Maybe I am not seeing it.

For one (of many), in Civ IV by the late game, because production was fast you would have every building built in every city. There was not much strategy to that. In V, building is slower and you can't build everything everywhere. You need to think long and hard about what you want a city to accomplish and build buildings accordingly.

The interesting thing about the OP is, as said, he is the target audience, and he is unhappy.

I don't think that casual game players are going to be interested in a Civ style game, even if it is simplified.

I think Firaxis is trying to target a nonexistent audience.
Even a simplified Civ is too much for a casual game audience.

They already had the casual market covered with Civ Rev.
They should have made a Civ Rev for PC and made Civ 5 a true Civ game.

Only time will tell, but I sense a large mistake here.

Sadly the game has been more "streamlined" for the common gamer and 2K and Firaxis dosn't really care about past game players. Hopefully the sales figures will reflect this, but I doubt it.

It wont. Modern game selling is all about Hype + box sales. Who cares if people play it or even *gasp* like it they just care about the box sale. EVERY vendor in every industry count give dog's bottom about repeat business because they are under the impression there are thronging masses of suckers. If they start taking the heat they close the studio and rebrand it under a new label.

Look at MMOs more and more are going F2P and all bout the initial box sales - they dont care about robust subs. It is a get in get the cash and run mentality. Craptic and its treatment of champions, STO, SQE and its horrid prison violation of the Final fantasy franchise in FFXIV. Finally the formerly vaunted Stardock made elemental into a dog's breakfast.

Rat

That's not Civ V. You want Civ 4.5, which doesn't exist. Civ V is an entirely new game, nothing is missing, everything the designers wanted to be there, is there...

Im more confused by the game than think its bad or needed to be civ 4.5. But there are quite a few things that are missing without any plausable reason if the game was shipped "whole". Namely end game replays. The "End Game" information is horrible compared to even Civ I and its always been one of the best parts of actually winning the game.

I hate seeing the community jump into red and blue camps cause im firmly in the middle. I love 1 UPT and Hexes so much that it makes going back really really hard.

No, it hasn't. If anything it's more complex to play effectively, even though there's less "stuff" than in BTS.

this may be true, but unlike civ4, there is no need to play effectively as there is no challenge. even on deity the game is laughably easy.

It took me years to work up to the higher difficulties in Civ4.

this may be true, but unlike civ4, there is no need to play effectively as there is no challenge. even on deity the game is laughably easy.

It took me years to work up to the higher difficulties in Civ4.

you're obviously a better player than me. although I never go for domination victories.

I'm a huge Civ fan. I even have spread the love of Civ to family and friends like a good Civ3/Civ4 missionary. Thus Civ5 has been a pretty huge disappointment so far. My sister (one of my converts to Civ'dom) texted me not too long ago asking what I thought of it and I had to let her down easy about it.

Others have pointed out some flaws which are definitely true enough, but for me personally, I've been trying to put my finger on what is "wrong" with Civ5 and I think this post might have hit the nail on the head. It just lacks in depth. Barring the graphics, Civ5 comes very close to having about the same depth as a Facebook game. I'm not insulting, I'm being serious. Go play "City of Wonder" on Facebook, for instance.

Civ5 was made for a broader audience but has alienated some of the core audience (me, at the least). Additionally, I don't see how they will attract any of that larger audience since that audience already plays similar games online, for free. Furthermore, that "larger" audience 2k was shooting for? They don't want a war-game, no matter how streamlined, which (at it's core) is what Civ5 is.

In Civ3 and Civ4 I felt as if I were the leader of a semi-real civilization. In Civ5 I feel as if I'm playing a game. :-/

Agreed, its just not magical to me. I only picked up Civ 4+expacs like 6 months ago and I thought the game was amazing. I pre-ordered CiV, 1/2 played through 2 games, and I just dont get drawn in like Civ 4 did (or Mass Effect or Kings Bounty- the last 2 games that did that for me). I will definitely give it another shot down the road, hopefully after a couple patches and when I have more time, but the "it" factor is definitely lacking for me.

Finally the formerly vaunted Stardock made elemental into a dog's breakfast.



At least Stardock is communicating and releasing frequent patches. The game still sucks but if the Civ 5 AI doesn't improve in 3 months then Elemental will probably be my game of choice.

With that said, I like Civ 5 but it is very different than previous civs. It feels more like a board game and less like an experience of managing a civilization. There is plenty of strategy in picking buildings, building/placing units, tech ordering, etc. but like a good board game it isn't convoluted like Civ 4 could be. Complexity != strategy.

At least Stardock is communicating and releasing frequent patches. The game still sucks but if the Civ 5 AI doesn't improve in 3 months then Elemental will probably be my game of choice.

With that said, I like Civ 5 but it is very different than previous civs. It feels more like a board game and less like an experience of managing a civilization. There is plenty of strategy in picking buildings, building/placing units, tech ordering, etc. but like a good board game it isn't convoluted like Civ 4 could be. Complexity != strategy.

I agree with the board game thing, actually I was telling some friends I used to play Axis and Allies with that they should pick this up to play instead. I could see it being a great game in MP mode, with some friends you know will stick out a long game.

I almost wonder if that's what they were going for.

I do hear Elemental is shaping up nicely too, and they're giving those of us who pre-ordered a rebate for a free expansion which is nice. Do you have any idea when 1.1 will be out?

It's also nice that stardock stepped up and said "yeah, sorry, we screwed up hard", rather then just... where are you firaxis?

That's not Civ V. You want Civ 4.5, which doesn't exist. Civ V is an entirely new game, nothing is missing, everything the designers wanted to be there, is there...

Dude, get over that line. It got old. You pop up in every single thread and say the same thing. Read the threads, don't skim them for posts you can apply that line to. Thanks.

Dude, get over that line. It got old. You pop up in every single thread and say the same thing. Read the threads, don't skim them for posts you can apply that line to. Thanks.

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...

The interesting thing about the OP is, as said, he is the target audience, and he is unhappy.

I don't think that casual game players are going to be interested in a Civ style game, even if it is simplified.

I think Firaxis is trying to target a nonexistent audience.
Even a simplified Civ is too much for a casual game audience.

They already had the casual market covered with Civ Rev.
They should have made a Civ Rev for PC and made Civ 5 a true Civ game.

Only time will tell, but I sense a large mistake here.
+1

Nail hit on head.

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...

That's a huge generalization and you can't back it up.

I and many other people don't want ciV to be cIV.5. I want it to be a great game on its own. Not some bug riddled game with serious issues with game balance, brain dead AI and questionable game design.

Take your rose coloured glasses off please.

That's a huge generalization and you can't back it up.

I and many other people don't want ciV to be cIV.5. I want it to be a great game on its own. Not some bug riddled game with serious issues with game balance, brain dead AI and questionable game design.

Take your rose coloured glasses off please.

It's what I believe to be true. Civ V IS a great game on it's own right if one takes the time to learn the game. balance is good, design is fabulous, AI is...ok.

It's what I believe to be true. Civ V IS a great game on it's own right if one takes the time to learn the game. balance is good, design is fabulous, AI is...ok.

So are you claiming that people who are complaining have not taken time to learn the game and have not unlocked its deep complexities?

I think that's what so many people, including myself, have found disappointing. Once you get past the gloss and the hexagonal goodness, there's really not much there at all.

Amen to that. I know I'm new to Civ series but I'm not that casual gamer, gaming is what I do, I don't play the cheesy casual games I play the real games that require skill, but you don't see too many of those games now and that's why I'm worried for the future of gaming, the developers will cater to casual gamers to make more money leaving us real gamers in the dust, e.g Civ 5.

For one (of many), in Civ IV by the late game, because production was fast you would have every building built in every city. There was not much strategy to that. In V, building is slower and you can't build everything everywhere. You need to think long and hard about what you want a city to accomplish and build buildings accordingly.

No, there's not more strategy here. There's a reason why I could waltz through this game on Immortal on my third game when Civ 4 is still a struggle for me on Emperor. And I'm not even an avid Civ player. Although you can build fewer buildings, they made it painfully obvious which buildings you should build. There's fewer buildings available and most only give one kind of benefit and generally the only penalty is maintenance. You may be able to build faster in Civ 4, but there's lots more buildings available so you're building nearly all the time. Many buildings have multiple benefits and penalties and until the end game, it takes a lot of skill to figure out which one to choose. Even two science specialised cities in Civ 4 could have taken very different build paths as was needed, but in Civ 5 the build queue for each kind of specialisation is so obvious you may as well save the queue for each. And there's fewer specialisations required because of the game's much simpler mechanics.

Furthermore, the wider city radius and the lack of growing cottages means you no longer need to specialise tile improvements. The city will not use anywhere near its capacity, so you mine the hills and spam TPs everywhere else and simply switch priority to production or gold as the need arises. Every city thus has high production capability, so all you really need to decide is, "If this city is a science specialist and there's science buildings available, build one. Else, if there's economic buildings available, build one. Else, if their's happiness buildings available, build one. Else, build a workshop" and so on. It's not hard at all.

With Civ 5 having taken away so many mechanics and reducing the number of variables considerably, a lot more players are able to see a clear strategy to victory. I think this is where the argument by many who like it better come from, that Civ 5 feels more strategic. I know it sounds patronising, but I think many of them played Civ 4 like a simulation instead of a strategy game, because there were too many variables and the game felt too organic. There was a lot more strategy in Civ 4, but you have to spend a lot of effort on it to figure it out.

Civ 5 is a lot easier to "solve". The variables have been reduced to a handful of numbers which are your "dashboard". Very much boardgame like. They tell you how things are going - if one number gets too low, it's obvious what to do about it. Everything is much more loosely coupled than before, so you can adjust one aspect of your empire without affecting others. The only shared variable is money, so just spam TPs. If all the numbers are good, then just keep pressing End Turn. Once you've figured out the few simple rules to optimise the game, it really just plays itself.

It confuses me how missing some features directly leads to a conclusion that it's a civ for children. Chess is a 'real game' while being simple and easy to learn, you know. I'm not saying civ 5 is as complete of a game as Chess but just implementing simplicity doesn't automatically mean rubbish.

It confuses me how missing some features directly leads to a conclusion that it's a civ for children. Chess is a 'real game' while being simple and easy to learn, you know. I'm not saying civ 5 is as complete of a game as Chess but just implementing simplicity doesn't automatically mean rubbish.

Chess isn't that easy but everyone can play it yes. So if comparing with chess, I would say, it's chess with less pieces. More simple / less thinking. But yes it can be still great fun and challenging.

Also, charon, you are saying (as admittedly so many others do) that you would build every building in civ4 just because there was no upkeep. Well consider this. Opportunity cost was still to be considered for every building and if you built all buildings in every city, you simply weren't playing very efficiently. Yes, you could do that in civ4, but normally you really really shouldn't.
Upkeep/no upkeep, aren't fundamentally all that different, it's just somewhat harder to compute what investment is best if there is upkeep.

The ONLY 2 things I dislike about CIV 5 is the wait between turns, and that the satellite tech doesn't reveal the map....If they could patch those 2 things in I would be completely satisfied. I don't miss religion, sliders, stacks of doom, or espionage in the slightest.

The wait between turns needs to be fixed asap tho

After several expansions, some great modding from this community and a couple patches Civ V will be a great game.

Until then, despite the appeal of 1UPT, city-states and hex-tiles I'm just going to stick with Civ IV. Civ V is too bare for me, and the full game feels more like a fun prep demo for something better than it actually does a real $50 purchase. Nonetheless, vanilla Civ IV was only marginally better to how I felt it compared to Civ III. There were plenty of people (although less comparatively I think) who were frustrated with Civ IV, though it sucked and stuck with Civ III.

These things take time.

It's true that any time someone claims that in civ4 they simply built every building in each city, they are revealing they were not playing a difficulty level very challenging to them.

At Deity in civ4 bts, if you build every building, you're dead meat. Simple as that.

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...

Do you also tell every single person that has a valid complaint about Civ 4 to get over it because it's Civ 4, and not Civ 3.5? With the logic you are applying, it would only make sense to do that also.

I agree with Charon. Civ 5 is a great game. It's deeper and less tedious than Civ 4 in nearly every way.

It only lacks 2 things which will be patched or modded soon :

- a layer of polish : end game replays, some more screens like military support, or demographics graph...

- AI fixes / improvements : less gifts to players in peace treaty, building more units, more navy, improving a bit AI war logic (tactical AI). This last point is by far the most difficult.

Overall, Civ 5 >> Civ 4 in nearly every way. It's not Civ 4.5. If that's whay you want, then go play Civ 4.

People whined the same way about Civ 3 and Civ 4 when they were launched. We're generally afraid of changes, and some people need more time to adapt.

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...
It's not "true", it's just the overly cliché answer that you can apply to everything.
Everybody is aware that Civ5 is a new game.
Everybody with half a brain is also aware that if it's "Civ5", it's NORMAL to have expectation of a game built on the general principle of the others in the serie.

Stop handwaving any criticism by re-using the same old line, it's tiring and just reek of raw fanboyism.

Long time Civ player here and I fell into that early trap of expecting Civ V to be similar to Civ IV. After a few games I realized I had to play it totally different. The new open human like diplomacy has it's holes but I think it has a lot of promise. The 1upt system is also promising but due to poor pathfinding and an inept ai we have yet to see what can be fully achieved here.

My point is, is that Civ V has a lot of promise but that it is still in beta form. It is incomplete. It took Civ III to get to Civ IV so we are once again asked to help beta test a "finished" product. Sadly this is the computer gaming world we live in today.

When a dev team says: "It'll be released when it's finished." please jump up and support them!!

It confuses me how missing some features directly leads to a conclusion that it's a civ for children. Chess is a 'real game' while being simple and easy to learn, you know. I'm not saying civ 5 is as complete of a game as Chess but just implementing simplicity doesn't automatically mean rubbish.

It's not confusing.

People who have difficulty beating Civ4 on middle difficulties are beating Civ5 on hard settings.

It would seem to be an easier game.

Whether you want to call it dumbed down or simpler or streamlined or whatever, it is much easier to beat according to many people.
Even fairly new players are beating it on harder settings.

So, where do they go from there? Once it's easy to win on the hard setting then it's not much of a challenge to continue playing.

This build-every-building argument baffles me, for two reasons:

1.
Who ever has enough production in every city in Civ 4 to do that? In a powerful production-specialized city you might just about build everything but the others have to pick and choose. A cottage city might be lucky if it manages to build a library and bank.

2.
I don't see build times being that long in Civ 5 anyway. Plus you can buy the buildings immediately if you want.

It's a complaint about something that isn't an issue, countered with an argument that makes no sense.

(Wow, that felt good! I actually stood up for Civ 5 instead of 90% of the time bashing at the moment :goodjob:)

People who have difficulty beating Civ4 on middle difficulties are beating Civ5 on hard settings.

It would seem to be an easier game.


They are beating it on hard difficulty because the AI is incapable of defending itself properly against a human in too many cases. At least that's why I win on hard difficulty :) The difference is very noticeable compared to Civ IV, where the simpler but less transparent combat system gave an advantage to the AI.

I have some doubts as to how many people are winning on deity without beating every other civ into a pulp.

They are beating it on hard difficulty because the AI is incapable of defending itself properly against a human in too many cases. At least that's why I win on hard difficulty :) The difference is very noticeable compared to Civ IV, where the simpler but less transparent combat system gave an advantage to the AI.

I have some doubts as to how many people are winning on deity without beating every other civ into a pulp.

That may be true, but the AI in Civ 4 is not what you'd call sharp. The main point is, it took a long time for people to figure out the best way to play Civ 4 because of the number of interconnected variables in it. With Civ 5, you pretty much “get it” after one game. It's got very few variables so it's much easier to get it all into your head and there's very little to do, so it's easier to figure out the best path. It may have emergent complexity, but very little inherent complexity.

The problem I see is, when the community gets a hold of the AI, they can actually make it quite brutal, simply because less complexity gives the AI more chances to use brute force to optimise its game. Also, with many clean cut strategies already being discovered, the AI can be coded to use them, instead of trying the holistic approach required in Civ 4. The gameplay won't feel like an epic romp through history, but a giant game of battle chess.

It's not confusing.

People who have difficulty beating Civ4 on middle difficulties are beating Civ5 on hard settings.

It would seem to be an easier game.

Whether you want to call it dumbed down or simpler or streamlined or whatever, it is much easier to beat according to many people.
Even fairly new players are beating it on harder settings.

So, where do they go from there? Once it's easy to win on the hard setting then it's not much of a challenge to continue playing.

I admit CiV5 is arguably easier to beat at least up to emperor due to AI but being easy hardly has anything to do with being simple. The game doesn't have to have more stuff in order to be balanced between difficulties. AI can be fixed via patch and/or better AI mod like in civ 4 to play smarter making the game more difficult to beat. The OP was linking missing features with the game being bad in overall quality which I didn't agree with.

It's not confusing.

People who have difficulty beating Civ4 on middle difficulties are beating Civ5 on hard settings.

It would seem to be an easier game.

Whether you want to call it dumbed down or simpler or streamlined or whatever, it is much easier to beat according to many people.
Even fairly new players are beating it on harder settings.

So, where do they go from there? Once it's easy to win on the hard setting then it's not much of a challenge to continue playing.
That's a problem, but a totally different one.
The game is easier, but that may be purely an inadequate AI thing.

The real problem isn't so much that it's easier, it's that it's dumbed down. There is much less to do each turn, and the decisions to take are so simple and straightforward that even when there is things to do, they don't require as much thought. There is also the fact that all as been so streamlined and stylized that you don't have the feeling of leading a civ anymore, but rather simply looking at some numbers.

Loss of depth, thought and immersion : these are the real problem. The AI may be improved, but when the very pillars of the game make for a shallow game, then it's a case of fundamentally bad design that is much harder to correct, and has much deeper roots.

This build-every-building argument baffles me, for two reasons:

1.
Who ever has enough production in every city in Civ 4 to do that? In a powerful production-specialized city you might just about build everything but the others have to pick and choose. A cottage city might be lucky if it manages to build a library and bank.


I can only imagine the people saying this are playing a civ4 game until time runs out.
It is funny how folk who never got close to "solving" civ4 (note that i too, didn't, i am a lowly emperor player) are making arguments that civ5 is better because "civ4 forced you to X" or "always allowed Y".


2.
I don't see build times being that long in Civ 5 anyway. Plus you can buy the buildings immediately if you want.

It's a complaint about something that isn't an issue, countered with an argument that makes no sense.

(Wow, that felt good! I actually stood up for Civ 5 instead of 90% of the time bashing at the moment :goodjob:)

I agree with this also. I have only played the first 200 turns 5 times now (so i don't really know too much about the game yet) and i have found there are many starting areas that have enough hammers. When i was russia on a plains/tundra hills start, hammers mines and granaries even seemed a superior option to the trading post spam many are complaining about.

(I also don't get how so many people say you have to expand so much slower in civ5. I have had better results expanding faster. And i don't mean rushing, even peaceful expansion. Happiness is an issue, but the fact is that settlers are comparatively cheap, increase empire production because city tiles are good tiles, it gives more places for building happy buildings in the middle ages, vertical growth gets very expensive food wise pretty fast, and horizontal growth results , more special bonus tiles, weak as they may be, and far better production. Some AIs actually go the same route)

This is me defending civ5's economy's complexity. "Trading post spam is always superior so it's a dumbed down game" doesn't convince me yet. People said and are still saying that about civ4 and cottages, and it isn't true either.

"I don't want a civ rev 2" -- but that is what he got. Look closely at the interface that is based on the principles of the Civ Rev interface.

Now Civ 5 cannot be ported to console directly. However, a reasonable approximation of it could be written to use about the same interface. Civ 5 for the consoles is a real and very profitable possibility. And although it might be watered down a bit, in context it would be a better game than the PC version if only because there will be far fewer technical problems.

For one (of many), in Civ IV by the late game, because production was fast you would have every building built in every city. There was not much strategy to that. In V, building is slower and you can't build everything everywhere. You need to think long and hard about what you want a city to accomplish and build buildings accordingly.
I thought I'd add - in my last game of Civ5 that I've finished yesterday I actually did build every building there is to build in each of my three cities (Further twenty-three cities were my puppets, cause there's no game of Civ5 without bashing skulls :sad:).
It was Immortal, low ocean continents. Now try to do that in Civ4 and be devoured.

I think the biggest problem with Civ5 is that there isn't much to do. I like marathon speed but it takes too long to see something happen. Not like Civ4.

The second biggest problem is the AI cannot handle onehexpertile and it becomes a problem. We could have the option of deciding how many men a unit could have. This would have fixed the design fault.

The third problem is that there isn't enough detail.
How can my workers chop forests down without bronze? Where did the bronze resource go?
For example they could have made it so we could see small caravans on the roads.


I still miss Civilization1 in which diplomacy screens would show the leaders dressed in a style appropriate to the age you were in.
or they would have rewarded you with palace parts.

Civ 5 is easy.

Build a mix of farms and circus tents at start.
Get into bed with every CS you can, starting with the Maritime ones first.
Replace farms with more circus tents.
Buy everything you need.
Unlock Patronage policy tree (get the science one for insane beakers)
Toy with the stupid AI.

What is depressing is that, as a relatively new player to the Civ series, you are exactly their target audience.

Actually, given that I'm among those severely disappointed in CiV -- I find this report very encouraging...

If nothing else, perhaps it will cause Firaxis/Take2 to rethink this effort/at least rethink HOW they undertake this effort to go after 'casual' players... Either that, or they go under and Sid licenses the title to another dev shop that gives it the Civ TLC.

I know I'm not alone in saying that Civ4 is an amazing game and is by far my favorite game of all time! I never got tired of playing it because all of the complexity and depth made it nearly infinitely replayable. If Civ4 had been the last iteration ever released, I would have probably kept playing it for the next 50 years, never to get bored with it.

Just my opinion here, but that's really why I was hoping that Civ5 would have been an "upgrade" to Civ4....Civ4.5 in effect. Civ4 with hex tiles would be awesome! Civ4 with Directx11 graphics would be awesome! Civ4 with modern CPU support (multi-core) would be awesome! I would have paid $50 for those upgrades to Civ4 alone.

I really do see why the developers were trying to reinvent the game and broaden customer base. But quite honestly, I really don't want a reinvented game. I want an upgrade to my favorite game of all time! And I know you guys are gonna tell me to go back and play Civ4 if I love it so much. And that's fair. But will I ever get the Civ4 upgrades that I'm hoping for?

I know I'm not alone in saying that Civ4 is an amazing game and is by far my favorite game of all time! I never got tired of playing it because all of the complexity and depth made it nearly infinitely replayable. If Civ4 had been the last iteration ever released, I would have probably kept playing it for the next 50 years, never to get bored with it.

Just my opinion here, but that's really why I was hoping that Civ5 would have been an "upgrade" to Civ4....Civ4.5 in effect. Civ4 with hex tiles would be awesome! Civ4 with Directx11 graphics would be awesome! Civ4 with modern CPU support (multi-core) would be awesome! I would have paid $50 for those upgrades to Civ4 alone.

I really do see why the developers were trying to reinvent the game and broaden customer base. But quite honestly, I really don't want a reinvented game. I want an upgrade to my favorite game of all time! And I know you guys are gonna tell me to go back and play Civ4 if I love it so much. And that's fair. But will I ever get the Civ4 upgrades that I'm hoping for?

Actually - the game you want already exists... and it's completely free.

If you haven't yet -- you should really check out the Rise of Mankind/A New Dawn mod and mod-mod.... Afforess' latest/last implementation of AND is now self-contained (includes RoM), too (v1.75) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=372884).

I've been playing AND for years now, and I would have gladly paid for it as a BTS expansion.

It's got about double the techs, double the buildings, double the wonders, doubles the resources, doubles the events, and double the units of BTS vanilla.

It adds in the "Revolution" option, which is a much more effective sprawl stifler (civilizations that expand too quickly get rocked by revolutions -- nationalist/separatist units spawn and try to gain independence).

It includes a barbarian civ option, where barbarian cities can eventually spawn into new civilizations, as well as allowing barbarians to spawn generals of their own.

It adds additional diplomatic options -- embassies, different types of access (Right of passage, which allows only non-combat unit access), as well as trading workers, certain military units ('machine-based' -- siege engines and ships), and contact with other players.

It even has a customizable 1UpT option where you can limit the number of units to occupy a single tile (changeable in game, as you play).

I'm among those sorely disappointed in CiV -- but as the sunshine brigade likes to say, CiV didn't uninstall IV.... and thank god for that, because having already spent 1000s of hours playing AND, went back to it this weekend and I think it's easily got another few thousand hours in it.

@zonk
But he wants the hexes, and civ4-mods can't do that. But if this game really ends up being as moddable as civ4 was, we will probably see a hexes-civ4.5 someday in the future.

Also, you can't be very sure that when fatgordy says "i want an upgrade" that he means "i want double the techs and double the ressources". Many people do not.

Personally, while i'm not very happy with civ5, i subscribe to the "it's good that they reinvented it" standpoint. Anything less than reinventing it would also have been a letdown after civ4bts, which will probably be my favorite 4xgame for another 5 years now :). At least, with reinventing, it had a fair chance :)

That's a problem, but a totally different one.
The game is easier, but that may be purely an inadequate AI thing.

The real problem isn't so much that it's easier, it's that it's dumbed down. There is much less to do each turn, and the decisions to take are so simple and straightforward that even when there is things to do, they don't require as much thought. There is also the fact that all as been so streamlined and stylized that you don't have the feeling of leading a civ anymore, but rather simply looking at some numbers.

Loss of depth, thought and immersion : these are the real problem. The AI may be improved, but when the very pillars of the game make for a shallow game, then it's a case of fundamentally bad design that is much harder to correct, and has much deeper roots.

You don't know that the game is easier because you haven't played it. I'd not make these assertions that you are without some firsthand experience!

You don't know that the game is easier because you haven't played it. I'd not make these assertions that you are without some firsthand experience!

I think it's much easier --

It took me years just to be able to stalemate at Prince in IV, and playing the AND mod, I actually start on Warlord and use the Increasingly difficulty option.

I beat King already on V.... and would have won a deity game if I hadn't gotten bored with the prospect of few hundred more "next turns".

Part of this is probably my style of play -- I'm a dove and a builder, so in IV - it was critical that I kiss a lot of AI butt because my neglected army would make for easy prey for the AI.

In V -- since the AI is so utterly clueless militarily, I no longer suffer.... not to mention, militaristic CS allies supply my entire army (I'm not building more than 5 units or so.... for the entire game).

You'd think that would make V right up my alley -- but instead, I've found V to be incredibly boring as a "builder".... significant stretches of boring "Next Turn... Next Turn" play.

Civ 5 is easy.

Build a mix of farms and circus tents at start.
Get into bed with every CS you can, starting with the Maritime ones first.
Replace farms with more circus tents.
Buy everything you need.
Unlock Patronage policy tree (get the science one for insane beakers)
Toy with the stupid AI.
In other words, the game gets pretty boring after awhile.

and would have won a deity game if I hadn't gotten bored with the prospect of few hundred more "next turns".

I'm not so sure of that.

You know, it's harder than you think (or at least I think it's harder than you think :p). A lot of people don't realise the AI becomes a bigger obstacle to victory later in the game. It's particularly weak at the start of the game right now, particularly vulnerable to horseman rushes for example, but late-game Deity AIs are pretty scary.

I think Deity level is almost certainly one where you can't just claim you would have one it if you were a few hundred turns away still.

So are you claiming that people who are complaining have not taken time to learn the game and have not unlocked its deep complexities?

Many of them, absolutely.

I'm not so sure of that.

You know, it's harder than you think (or at least I think it's harder than you think :p). A lot of people don't realise the AI becomes a bigger obstacle to victory later in the game. It's particularly weak at the start of the game right now, particularly vulnerable to horseman rushes for example, but late-game Deity AIs are pretty scary.

I think Deity level is almost certainly one where you can't just claim you would have one it if you were a few hundred turns away still.

Scary how?

Unless it suddenly learns how to properly nest ranged units behind behind melee, not sure I'm seeing it.

Sure - on the higher levels, I've had the rest of the world go ape#### and gang up on me - but given the AI's complete inability to grasp 1UpT/hex as well how to properly keep it's embarked units from all dying - this is just a matter of not being caught flatfooted (either have the gold to buy your way out of trouble or make sure your army is properly dispersed).

Heck, in the deity game I didn't finish - this is precisely what happened. The remaining 7 civs all DoW me after I finished off (puppeted) the last civ on my continent. Not a problem, really... I had my militaristic CS units positioned around the CS allies abroad I wanted to keep, while the handful of caravels I built (never saw any point to upgrading them) were splashing tanks left and right (tanks which seemed to aimlessly wander around the sea). It just became a lot of boring whackamole - made much easier with a bunch of attack helicopters.

The only reason I stuck with as long as I did was to see the nuke gfx (sure, pretty cool).

And were you certain you would have won before an AI won a science victory? I do believe you, by the way, but I wanted to check how certain you were. Oh, and the scary AI I was talking about is this one.http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/8246/civ5screen0023e.jpg

You don't know that the game is easier because you haven't played it.
:huh:
And how exactly are you supposed to know if I actually played the game or not ?
Does blind fanboyism give you psychic powers ? Or are you just blowing hot air in a desperate attempt at handwaving criticisms ?

Many of them, absolutely.

This is exactly correct. CiV does have a couple of major problems which are causing many people to mistakenly think the game lacks complexity. The real problem is that, mostly due to the AI being so bad, complex and well thought out strategies are simply unnecessary. It isn't really their fault for not seeing them when the game doesn't require it. Why rack your brain to come up with the perfect strategy when any strategy, even terribly flawed ones, will get the job done?

If/when the devs fix the AI so that it can actually put up a fight on the highest difficulties then people will have to start thinking and will see the complexity in the game. Until then (or if it never happens) we'll keep hearing about how its dumbed down and lacks complexity (because without working AI it is).

What the game really lacks (for some people), compared to CivIV, is not complexity, its flavor. This is why you have lots of people saying "It just doesn't feel right." Of course this part is always subjective, and so it only applies to some and not others.

And were you certain you would have won before an AI won a science victory? I do believe you, by the way, but I wanted to check how certain you were.

I suppose not - though, judging by the units I was facing -- it sure seemed like I had to have had a fairly decent tech lead... maybe they didn't upgrade or never built newer units, I don't know (all the AIs except the last one I conquered were constantly in debt). I just Sunday discovered the Victory conditions icon - and already deleted that deity game (the lack of time stamp/inverse chron order in save games means I pretty much zero out saves every time I quit a game) - so I guess it's possible the AI was on the cusp of winning via culture, science, or space race (I had seen a smattering of spaceship thrusters built... no other modules that I recall though).

That said, though -- "winning", for me at least, was always besides the point. I still cannot beat IV/BTS/RoM-AND (especially) when I start a game at a emperor or above (at least, not without either a dynamite start or a fair bit of cheating). The journey was always more fun than whether I won or lost.

I've tried of late to take less advantage of the AI -- House Rules around conquests, playing peacefully (I actually prefer to play as a dove/builder anyway) -- but the problem is, if you're going to war, there's just not a lot TO do.

Social Policies were neat - I still like the concept - but now they feel 'rote'... I find the decisions to be more or less automatic/push-button.... Big empire? Liberty + Piety + Commercial + Order. Science/space race? Tradition + Rationalism + Patronage. Culture? Piety for the 2 free policies.

It's the same with buildings -- the "do not cross" swim-lanes really take a lot of out of the game. On one hand, I'm spoiled by RoM/AND -- where buildings crossed multiple boundaries and were highly resource-centric. But - even in vanilla - buildings had multiple uses.... Religious buildings were more than just happiness -- they spread religion, they had commerce bonuses associated with certain wonders, you even science boosts (monasteries). Even simple granaries -- improved health + 50% pop per growht.

I have no problem with games that are easy to win.

My favorite sports sim is the OOTP series - but it's incredibly easy to snooker the AI in trades, and you can go from worst to first by just keeping an eye on the waiver wire. However - the journey is so much fun that I don't care. I've spent hundreds of hours building my dynasties.

I likewise love the Hoi2 series from Paradox -- yes -- I can turn the world grey as Germany - or most other majors - easily... but I still like the journey. As many times as I've Barbarossa'ed the USSR into submission, and done it in just 6-8 weeks -- I still enjoy the process of constructing my army, positioning everyone properly, then watching as my masterpiece of planning carves up huge encircled pockets.

Of course, being 'difficult' to beat adds a lot of replayability... but so long as the journey is fun, so long as I'm enjoying other aspects of gameplay -- I can live with that.

So - my real problem isn't so much that I can squash the AI whenever I so choose.... my problem is that the alternatives to doing that just aren't very interesting. Pick a win type and just do a whole lot of "Next Turn.... Next Turn..."

It really pains me - as someone who always played and struggled in IV as a "builder", who ALWAYS broke the cardinal rule (I always tried to build every last Wonder), who was the furthest thing from a warmonger - it pains me that Civ V should have been RIGHT up my alley.

Instead, what it's turned me into IS a warmonger... because then - at least I've got something to do beyond Next Turn my way to the next SP or what have you.

Why rack your brain to come up with the perfect strategy when any strategy, even terribly flawed ones, will get the job done?

I was thinking the same thing over the weekend. The saying "necessity is the mother of invention" basically sums it up - our strats are only as good as they need to be, and with such a crappy AI, I'm not really being forced to innovate. :sad:

I think the game has enormous potential, but despite my initial enthusiasm, I have to confess that I'm getting bored quickly. Gonna try a couple more games on progressively higher difficulty levels and see if that helps, but I'm not expecting much. The AI isn't going to play smarter on King, Immortal, or Deity... it's just gonna cheat harder, which means frustration, not challenge. :(

This is exactly correct. CiV does have a couple of major problems which are causing many people to mistakenly think the game lacks complexity. The real problem is that, mostly due to the AI being so bad, complex and well thought out strategies are simply unnecessary. It isn't really their fault for not seeing them when the game doesn't require it. Why rack your brain to come up with the perfect strategy when any strategy, even terribly flawed ones, will get the job done?

If/when the devs fix the AI so that it can actually put up a fight on the highest difficulties then people will have to start thinking and will see the complexity in the game. Until then (or if it never happens) we'll keep hearing about how its dumbed down and lacks complexity (because without working AI it is).

What the game really lacks (for some people), compared to CivIV, is not complexity, its flavor. This is why you have lots of people saying "It just doesn't feel right." Of course this part is always subjective, and so it only applies to some and not others.

I don't know ---

Even if you fix the AI, I'm still not seeing the complexity.

The build limitations, for example, were probably put in place to avoid the Civ IV "build everything" paradigm... but there was still complexity in that paradigm - do you path commerce or science? Do you intersperse a forge/factory to speed that path? Do you build food buildings... and if so - which ones?

In V -- it took me all of one game to figure (or get annoyed, take your pick) with the building times.... so the answer becomes pretty elementary -- how are you trying to win? Culture victory? OK - you can pretty much skip all the science buildings everywhere and just monument-opera-museum. Space/Science? Obvious enough.

If you're going to make it a decision - and I'm not entirely against doing it that way - whether to build certain things at all, that's fine... but make it a DECISION. It's not, right now... it's rote "Culture Building1 + Culture Building2 + Culture Building3" (or more accurately, BUY CB1, CB2, etc).

Yes - there are synergies between SPs, CSs, and what you build... but they're so automatic, so -- sorry, how about if I say "simplified" -- that it's not really complexity of any real sort.

Civ V punishes you if you play ala carte -- but it both 1)punishes you too much, and 2)makes the menu so simplified that if you're paying even the slightest bit of attention, you don't get punished.

There's no swimlane bleedover -- as there was in IV.

Eliminating religion, health, and city-level happiness is the real killer -- if you boil everything up to the top, then it just becomes a matter of having everything you do feed that topline.

Long time Civ player here and I fell into that early trap of expecting Civ V to be similar to Civ IV. After a few games I realized I had to play it totally different. The new open human like diplomacy has it's holes but I think it has a lot of promise. The 1upt system is also promising but due to poor pathfinding and an inept ai we have yet to see what can be fully achieved here.

My point is, is that Civ V has a lot of promise but that it is still in beta form. It is incomplete. It took Civ III to get to Civ IV so we are once again asked to help beta test a "finished" product. Sadly this is the computer gaming world we live in today.

When a dev team says: "It'll be released when it's finished." please jump up and support them!!

I do. I buy almost every Blizzard game. I still play WC3 and even Diablo2. They are the one developer I trust. Well them and Valve.

It's what I believe to be true. Civ V IS a great game on it's own right if one takes the time to learn the game. balance is good, design is fabulous, AI is...ok.

I'm sorry, but that last point is absolutely not true. I'm not a stellar Civ player. I have trouble on Prince in Civ IV, even after tons of practice. If I can beat Civ V on Deity (cultural victory, by the way) on my second try, there's something the matter with the AI.

:huh:
And how exactly are you supposed to know if I actually played the game or not ?
Does blind fanboyism give you psychic powers ? Or are you just blowing hot air in a desperate attempt at handwaving criticisms ?

Hot air, good choice of words. You've been critical on several occasions of the decision to use Steamworks and said you would not buy the game because of Steam. You don't seem like the type to change your mind once a decision has been made so I believe you're arguing using the reported experiences of others.

Hot air, good choice of words. You've been critical on several occasions of the decision to use Steamworks and said you would not buy the game because of Steam. You don't seem like the type to change your mind once a decision has been made so I believe you're arguing using the reported experiences of others.
You're right, I'm not the type to change my mind. I didn't.
I'm ALSO not the type to say something out of thin air, and I don't speak about what I don't know.

You jumped to the conclusion that allows you to discard criticism without considering any other possibilities - if it's a good example of how deeply you're able to think, it explains a lot why many fanboys don't think that Civ5 is dumbed down...

The last paragraph here is borderline, please tone it down a bit, thanks. :)

You're right, I'm not the type to change my mind. I didn't.
I'm ALSO not the type to say something out of thin air, and I don't speak about what I don't know.

You jumped to the conclusion that allows you to discard criticism without considering any other possibilities - if it's a good example of how deeply you're able to think, it explains a lot why many fanboys don't think that Civ5 is dumbed down...

So you didn't buy the game and you didn't change your mind, yet you speak about what you know.

Had a birthday recently? Was it a gift?

That's not Civ V. You want Civ 4.5, which doesn't exist. Civ V is an entirely new game, nothing is missing, everything the designers wanted to be there, is there...

so they meant to have automated workers destroy your civ so much that it's basically a useless feature in any competitive game?

It's true that any time someone claims that in civ4 they simply built every building in each city, they are revealing they were not playing a difficulty level very challenging to them.

At Deity in civ4 bts, if you build every building, you're dead meat. Simple as that.

As it is true they had not realized it was never about the number of buildings in the cities as much as it was about the build order (opportunity cost someone mentioned above).

I don't know ---

Even if you fix the AI, I'm still not seeing the complexity.

You don't see it because you aren't required to at the moment.

The build limitations, for example, were probably put in place to avoid the Civ IV "build everything" paradigm... but there was still complexity in that paradigm - do you path commerce or science? Do you intersperse a forge/factory to speed that path? Do you build food buildings... and if so - which ones?

Everything you say here is still all in the game. So I'm not sure what your point is here. Commerce, science, culture, production, food, etc buildings are all still around.

In V -- it took me all of one game to figure (or get annoyed, take your pick) with the building times.... so the answer becomes pretty elementary -- how are you trying to win? Culture victory? OK - you can pretty much skip all the science buildings everywhere and just monument-opera-museum. Space/Science? Obvious enough.

You can ignore the science buildings when going for culture because the AI is so dumb. Who cares if they can out tech you when they can't do anything useful with the tech? Its not a big deal if they attack you with rifles and cannons when you have longswords and trebs because you are going to slaughter them anyways. If the AI didn't suck this would be a concern. Imagine if a player were controlling those rifles and cannons rampaging in your land, instead of the clueless AI. Then the decision between a temple and a library might start to matter to you.

If you're going to make it a decision - and I'm not entirely against doing it that way - whether to build certain things at all, that's fine... but make it a DECISION. It's not, right now... it's rote "Culture Building1 + Culture Building2 + Culture Building3" (or more accurately, BUY CB1, CB2, etc).

You are still making all those decisions. Do you get a temple or a market? Or do you build a university? Or maybe a workshop so you can build the others faster? Or how about a unit to defend yourself? You still have to decide how to use your hammers or gold the best you can. The problem is with the state of the AI you don't get punished for making the wrong decision. You can simply buy/build CB1, CB2, etc and ignore everything else because the AI is unable to take advantage of the weakness you are creating by doing that.

Yes - there are synergies between SPs, CSs, and what you build... but they're so automatic, so -- sorry, how about if I say "simplified" -- that it's not really complexity of any real sort.

Civ V punishes you if you play ala carte -- but it both 1)punishes you too much, and 2)makes the menu so simplified that if you're paying even the slightest bit of attention, you don't get punished.

There's no swimlane bleedover -- as there was in IV.

You are correct that you don't get punished. That is because the AI sucks! It is incapable of punishing you for being stupid because it is even more stupid than you could ever be. You are seeing the results but not understanding the cause.

In the same way, even the smallest bit of thought will put you miles ahead of the AI. So long as the decision you are making is somewhat reasonable, even if it is far from optimal, it will work just fine. The decisions wouldn't be so automatic if the AI could actually punish you for not covering your weaknesses.

Eliminating religion, health, and city-level happiness is the real killer -- if you boil everything up to the top, then it just becomes a matter of having everything you do feed that topline.

All of the functions of religion are achieved through other mechanics now. It is not simplified just different. Yes, not having religion might eliminate some of the flavor you might have liked but it doesn't simplify the game.

Also, civ-wide happiness is not at all a simplification, strategy wise, from city-level happiness, quite the opposite. This is a perfect example of you not seeing the strategic complexity simply because the stupid AI doesn't require you to at the moment. Giving the player more power over how to allocate their population allows for tons of new strategic options. The problem is it is not necessary to explore those options at the moment. The AI is just so bad that you don't have to delve that deep in your strategy right now. If/when they fix the AI I can guarantee this will become a very large aspect of high level strategy in CiV and far more complex than simply growing each city to its happiness cap like CivIV.

ciV is a joke

No, it hasn't. If anything it's more complex to play effectively, even though there's less "stuff" than in BTS.

Really? Spamming horsemen is very complex. Is that not effective?

unfair comparison. Civ IV BTS, which many casual civ players are graduating from built on 3+ years of expansions and patching.

Civ V will become more complex with expansions, I'm more than certian diplomacy/city states will get expanded.

I really like the core game behind Civ V, which is weird. Despitenot being a Soren Johnson game, I can't help but get vibes of Civ3 everytime I play it.

Civ4 built on 3's ideas and tweaked things that didn't work. but it took civ3 to take the risk of breaking away from Civ2's (at the time) much beloved format for us to get where we are today.

So in a way, I think Civ V is a good foundation.

Now, if we're 4 years later, with expansions and DLC and the problems that are present today are still there, then I would have a totally different opinion.

It's true that any time someone claims that in civ4 they simply built every building in each city, they are revealing they were not playing a difficulty level very challenging to them.

At Deity in civ4 bts, if you build every building, you're dead meat. Simple as that.

Agreed. Seems like some who are so confident that Civ5 is better and more complex than Civ4 hardly even have played Civ4. :rolleyes:

So you didn't buy the game and you didn't change your mind, yet you speak about what you know.

Had a birthday recently? Was it a gift?
I also could have tried it at a friend's home.
I could have used some methods that the rules forbid to detail.
I could have asked a friend to let me try his account while he was working.
I could have got it as a gift, like you said.

See, there is plenty of possibilities.
I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have doubted my word if I had praised the game. But if I'm saying it's boring, then you spontaneously suppose I'm just talking about other's experiences ? What's the point about that ?
If you give me enough credit about principle integrity to not renege on my word, why would you doubt my principle integrity about making statements about things I didn't even do ? That's just absurd.

Anyway, the game is still extremely simplistic and streamlined, with little to actually do, and very obvious choices when there is something to do - it practically auto-play itself. And some people would pretend that it hasn't been dumbed down ? I am the one having reasons to doubt their word here, not the other way around...
unfair comparison. Civ IV BTS, which many casual civ players are graduating from built on 3+ years of expansions and patching.
Tiring overused excuse. Civ4 was already much more complex and deep than Civ5 before expansions. BtS refined it, but the core principles were nearly all already at release. There was already much synergy and lots of choices to make right from the start.
In fact, Civ4 took some time to be appreciated BECAUSE it was complex right from the start. Civ5 is quickly losing support because it's shallow. They are like polar opposite, not similar.

Also, Civ4 BtS went before Civ5. What's this absurd reasoning that the next game in the serie is supposed to be forgiven for not being as rich as the previous with expansions ? Why should it ? The know-how and concepts have already been defined in the previous iterations, how exactly can they be forgotten in-between and as such make it acceptable that the new game is inferior ?
I can accept less POLISH (because THAT comes with time and patches and the like), but worse DESIGN ? No, expansions have nothing to do with this.

You don't see it because you aren't required to at the moment.



Everything you say here is still all in the game. So I'm not sure what your point is here. Commerce, science, culture, production, food, etc buildings are all still around.
Yes - but they're all basically "one and only one" trait buildings now.... there's virtually zero mixing/matching and improving the AI isn't going to change that. A library had two purposes in IV -- it was a relatively significant early culture booster AND a research booster. Beyond UBs, there's none of that in 5 -- every building is a simply one-track multiplier.... Science... plus 50% science... plus 50% more science. There are no dual-purpose/multi-purpose buildings. Ergo, no real critical thinking -- if anything, improving the AI is just to go further to make it a rigid "science only"/"culture only" paradigm....



You can ignore the science buildings when going for culture because the AI is so dumb. Who cares if they can out tech you when they can't do anything useful with the tech? Its not a big deal if they attack you with rifles and cannons when you have longswords and trebs because you are going to slaughter them anyways. If the AI didn't suck this would be a concern. Imagine if a player were controlling those rifles and cannons rampaging in your land, instead of the clueless AI. Then the decision between a temple and a library might start to matter to you.
As long as research treaties remain, I'm not quite sure how one could possibly fall behind technologically. The only real difference I've found is that on King and higher -- the AI can keep up with me technologically.



You are still making all those decisions. Do you get a temple or a market? Or do you build a university? Or maybe a workshop so you can build the others faster? Or how about a unit to defend yourself? You still have to decide how to use your hammers or gold the best you can. The problem is with the state of the AI you don't get punished for making the wrong decision. You can simply buy/build CB1, CB2, etc and ignore everything else because the AI is unable to take advantage of the weakness you are creating by doing that.
But they become auto-pilot decisions --- in IV, it wasn't THAT rare to switch streams... A city I had pegged for a cottage farm or a production city might find itself building library because I needed the culture boost to keep it from getting swallowed by neighbors. Once you start down a building type path, I cannot see how an improved AI is going to change that. Like I said above, if anything - that just locks you in MORE to a sequential build because your city is never going to be culturally overrun and if you've started down the cultural victory path, you cannot really change course.... It's a limited menu of -- pick a peaceful VC and stick with it... or shift to a warmonger win. Since the UN and space race require you to go through the tree - I suppose science has a tiny bit of bleed, but like I said - tech treaties make it comically easy to keep up with research.




You are correct that you don't get punished. That is because the AI sucks! It is incapable of punishing you for being stupid because it is even more stupid than you could ever be. You are seeing the results but not understanding the cause.

In the same way, even the smallest bit of thought will put you miles ahead of the AI. So long as the decision you are making is somewhat reasonable, even if it is far from optimal, it will work just fine. The decisions wouldn't be so automatic if the AI could actually punish you for not covering your weaknesses.

Disagree. Once you crack the synergies, you've got the path. It's as simple as that. All I can see the improved AI doing is making it a bad idea to dabble in SPs -- for example, now -- since I'm a wonder whore, I do open the Tradition SP for the wonder bonus on the 2nd SP... Perhaps the bad AI allows me to do this sort of dabbling and a tougher AI won't -- but that makes the game worse, not better -- because it just reinforces the rigidity of "there is a single best answer". The beauty of IV was that there were "best answers", not any "single best answers".



All of the functions of religion are achieved through other mechanics now. It is not simplified just different. Yes, not having religion might eliminate some of the flavor you might have liked but it doesn't simplify the game.
Sorry, I have to disagree. Religion was multi-faceted -- like I said, there were aspects of diplomacy, commerce, and science baked into it. Now - those concepts are completely disentangled. Nothing cross over -- diplomacy is diplomacy. Science is science. and so on.


Also, civ-wide happiness is not at all a simplification, strategy wise, from city-level happiness, quite the opposite. This is a perfect example of you not seeing the strategic complexity simply because the stupid AI doesn't require you to at the moment. Giving the player more power over how to allocate their population allows for tons of new strategic options. The problem is it is not necessary to explore those options at the moment. The AI is just so bad that you don't have to delve that deep in your strategy right now. If/when they fix the AI I can guarantee this will become a very large aspect of high level strategy in CiV and far more complex than simply growing each city to its happiness cap like CivIV.

Such as? Can you provide an example?

Right now - happiness is just a global number that sits atop the screen... I pretty much ignore it so long as it stays positive. I know I'm missing out on GAs -- but I get ample GPs to trigger GAs manually anyway. By the time some of the bonuses show up - half happiness to culture, for example - I find myself running ~+50 happiness anyway.

If nothing else, it most certainly seems pointless to put happy buildings at the city level... Hell -- might as well just give me a nebulous "happy buy" option -- because in those rare instances where I do need to bump happiness, what do I do? I just grab the first few random cities that don't have a temple or a theater or what have you and buy them.

@AKKA

I'm not making excuses. I LIKE the core ideas in Civ5, and I have high hopes. And as I noted if XP and patches fail to perform then I withdraw that position. But I've been active on-line with Three Civ game launches. Each time a new mainline installment launches, there will always be X% of people who loved the last game that felt 'betrayed' and 'left out'. Ironically, I kind of felt like that with Civ4, up until BTS hit and a lot of the issues (let me call it game-play preference) were addressed

Civ3's launch was also plagued with a lot of the same slandering Civ5 is getting
- Too different from last game (tough luck, Civ3 was the right direction for the franchise)
- corruption sucked (they eventually toned it down)
- numerous bugs
- 'AI' don't work as advertised (soren fixed/patched a lot of it)

Also was in the Civ4 alpha/beta team. I don't know what process they used for Civ5, but I can tell you both games felt the same when new.

Civ4 obviously had the advantage of building on the concepts introduced in Civ3.

Civ5 is to Civ4 whas Civ3 was to Civ2. Complete break while keeping key ideas like culture.

Civ 5 is easy.

Build a mix of farms and circus tents at start.
Get into bed with every CS you can, starting with the Maritime ones first.
Replace farms with more circus tents.
Buy everything you need.
Unlock Patronage policy tree (get the science one for insane beakers)
Toy with the stupid AI.

/signed

Loved Civ 3. While Civ 4 was to complex for me (since i am no longer a student and have to work for my living :mischief:) Civ5 is a keen disappointment. :cry:
Used the quotet "strategy" and won every game until now. Thats not what I was expecting

I agree with the topic

I am a civ fan since civ 2, civ 4 was probably the best game i have ever played. Civ 5 is VERY disappointing, starting with the graphics, and following with everything.

I wasn't expecting a civ 4.5 i was expecting a CIVILIZATION game, with "that" they all have had, I didn´t liked it at all. I feel tricked. As somebody has already told, civ 5 is like a facebook game

Yes - but they're all basically "one and only one" trait buildings now.... there's virtually zero mixing/matching and improving the AI isn't going to change that. A library had two purposes in IV -- it was a relatively significant early culture booster AND a research booster. Beyond UBs, there's none of that in 5 -- every building is a simply one-track multiplier.... Science... plus 50% science... plus 50% more science. There are no dual-purpose/multi-purpose buildings. Ergo, no real critical thinking -- if anything, improving the AI is just to go further to make it a rigid "science only"/"culture only" paradigm....

Why does it matter that buildings are single purposed from a strategic point of view? In fact making a building dual purposed reduces the importance of your decisions. What's the point of having to decide between a science building or culture building first when you can build one that just does both? You talked about interspersing a forge/factory to speed things up. How is that different from throwing in a workshop/factory to do the same? Other than now you don't get the happiness bonus from the forge so you really have to think about if its really worth it to you. If you want an extra bonus from your silver and gold then you have to build a mint too. When previously you might have built the forge for the happiness and the production bonus was just a nice perk. You don't get everything handed to you on a silver plate rolled up into one nice little package. Your decisions actually matter more now since you are not getting side bonuses that cover your weaknesses for you.

As long as research treaties remain, I'm not quite sure how one could possibly fall behind technologically. The only real difference I've found is that on King and higher -- the AI can keep up with me technologically.

Better AI would use research treaties properly themselves nullifying this advantage. Any advantage you can gain from research treaties can be equalized by an AI if its programmed right. For example maybe they would only sign an agreement with you if they are ahead of you in tech. Then they would actually get more out of the agreement than you would. They could also be just as active in trading with each other as you are with them. Again, the failing is with the AI.

But they become auto-pilot decisions --- in IV, it wasn't THAT rare to switch streams... A city I had pegged for a cottage farm or a production city might find itself building library because I needed the culture boost to keep it from getting swallowed by neighbors. Once you start down a building type path, I cannot see how an improved AI is going to change that. Like I said above, if anything - that just locks you in MORE to a sequential build because your city is never going to be culturally overrun and if you've started down the cultural victory path, you cannot really change course.... It's a limited menu of -- pick a peaceful VC and stick with it... or shift to a warmonger win. Since the UN and space race require you to go through the tree - I suppose science has a tiny bit of bleed, but like I said - tech treaties make it comically easy to keep up with research.

How are they auto-pilot decisions any more so than in IV? Your production city might still need to build a culture building so you can get more tiles to work (or even just to unlock more SPs) for example unless you plan on spending all your cash on buying tiles. How is that different from it building a library like you mentioned above?

I also find it funny that people seem to forget that IV had some sequential buildings as well. You needed a library to build a university, an observatory to build a laboratory, a forge to build a factory, etc.

If you decide on going for a cultural victory and ignore other aspects such as science and unit production a good AI should spank you back to the stone age. In order to stay competitive and not risk being destroyed by a decent AI (or human player) you would have to play a more balanced game. If you play a game against me and you build nothing but culture buildings in all your cities, and ignore science, or build all the science buildings and spend all of your cash on research pacts while ignoring unit production I can guarantee you are going to lose all of your cities. You have to play a more balanced game and not fall too far behind in any one area. A good AI should be able to do the same thing. Instead, against the AI as long as you have 2 or 3 units to defend you are perfectly safe. So now when it comes to that point where you are deciding to build cultural building number 3 or throw down a library so to not fall too far behind in tech your decision might actually matter. Instead of not mattering at all like it does now because the AI isn't going to punish you for falling behind.

Disagree. Once you crack the synergies, you've got the path. It's as simple as that. All I can see the improved AI doing is making it a bad idea to dabble in SPs -- for example, now -- since I'm a wonder whore, I do open the Tradition SP for the wonder bonus on the 2nd SP... Perhaps the bad AI allows me to do this sort of dabbling and a tougher AI won't -- but that makes the game worse, not better -- because it just reinforces the rigidity of "there is a single best answer". The beauty of IV was that there were "best answers", not any "single best answers".

Again, this is only because you can ignore other aspects of the game relatively safely. Yes you might want to spend all your SPs on getting you closer to that cultural victory we have been talking about. However if the AI is attacking you with a scary attack force and has all the unit upgrade SPs can you afford to ignore them yourself? Currently yes. Because no attack force the AI can put together is scary. If the AI were any good then maybe not. If you were getting slaughtered because the AI's units were getting double exp, additional bonuses for being near each other, and bonuses for attacking when wounded you might have to think twice about spending that next SP point in the piety tree.

Sorry, I have to disagree. Religion was multi-faceted -- like I said, there were aspects of diplomacy, commerce, and science baked into it. Now - those concepts are completely disentangled. Nothing cross over -- diplomacy is diplomacy. Science is science. and so on.

Actually no. Just as an example, city-states are just as multifaceted. They are involved in diplomacy, commerce, and science as well. Everything is there in the new mechanics just different. Of course the AI is crap at dealing with them properly though.

Such as? Can you provide an example?

I have 3 excess happiness. Do I let my production cities have them so I can work more mines? How about my GP farm to run more specialists? Or maybe I let my trading post cities grow so I can get more gold? You have full control over where your population goes now. That opens up so many more options.

Right now - happiness is just a global number that sits atop the screen... I pretty much ignore it so long as it stays positive. I know I'm missing out on GAs -- but I get ample GPs to trigger GAs manually anyway. By the time some of the bonuses show up - half happiness to culture, for example - I find myself running ~+50 happiness anyway.

If you are running at +50 happiness you aren't expanding enough (small empire cultural strats aside). That would be like having a happiness cap of 10 in CivIV but never growing your cities above size 5. You are wasting quite a bit of potential. However, because the AI is so terrible it is not punishing you for it. If you are going for a small empire cultural strat then yeah happiness is going to be much less of an issue, but there are other downsides to that kind of plan (low science, low production) that the AI can take advantage of if it didn't suck.

If nothing else, it most certainly seems pointless to put happy buildings at the city level... Hell -- might as well just give me a nebulous "happy buy" option -- because in those rare instances where I do need to bump happiness, what do I do? I just grab the first few random cities that don't have a temple or a theater or what have you and buy them.

Again, if needing more happiness is rare then the problem is you aren't expanding enough to reach your potential population cap and the AI isn't punishing you for it because it sucks. Try that against a good player that fully uses their happiness cap and see what happens. Also, if in addition you have enough gold to buy everything you want then its again because you don't have a large enough military upkeep costs and the AI isn't punishing you for that either.

The problem is you see being able to do whatever you want and being able to ignore the other aspects of the game as being a fault in the complexity of the decision making process. In reality its because you are not being pressured to make good decisions. Try some of what you are talking about against good players and I can guarantee it will go badly for you. It only works against the AI because the AI sucks.

I could have used some methods that the rules forbid to detail.
Yeah lets not go there.
I could have asked a friend to let me try his account while he was working.
Yes, you could. But then you are unlikely to have played enough time for a truly informed opinion.

I could have got it as a gift, like you said.
Yeah, sure. But which was it?

Im lukewarm about the gameplay, but im outraged at the loading and turn times. Poor coding is obviously to blame. I dont know how people can still defend this game. See threads:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381326

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381428

@AKKA

I'm not making excuses.
Uh, yes in fact, that's exactly what you were doing when trying to find EXCUSES for the game by saying it's unfair to compare it with Civ4 BtS because the latter had two expansions.
Civ3's launch was also plagued with a lot of the same slandering Civ5 is getting
- Too different from last game (tough luck, Civ3 was the right direction for the franchise)
- corruption sucked (they eventually toned it down)
- numerous bugs
- 'AI' don't work as advertised (soren fixed/patched a lot of it)
Yeah I know. I had to make my own mod to make Civ3 enjoyable, because the vanilla version was just not that good (corruption...). But despite its flaws, Civ3 made the serie advance, and included new concepts and gameplay inventions that made nearly impossible to go back and still enjoy the previous games.

Civ5 had the opposite effect : rather than continuing to build the serie toward more interesting mechanics, it cut them down and dumbed the whole game. Rather than having a game that may have flaws, but compels me to go forward and makes me unable to enjoy previous iterations because I feel something is lacking, it's the contrary : I have a game which compels me to go BACK because I feel something is lacking when I play THIS ONE.

That's a rather essential difference between the mixed reactions of all these launches.
Yeah lets not go there.

Yes, you could. But then you are unlikely to have played enough time for a truly informed opinion.

Yeah, sure. But which was it?
What do you care which it was ? Looking for a pretext to discard criticism ? Because I don't see any other reason.

Just accept that I can play enough to have a good idea about what I'm talking.

What do you care which it was ? Looking for a pretext to discard criticism ? Because I don't see any other reason.

Just accept that I can play enough to have a good idea about what I'm talking.

Hey, I'm just thinking its a little odd. I wasn't expecting you to be playing the game but here you are offering opinions on it. Look, if you actually own the game and can spend enough time with it to really delve into it then it would add weight to your opinions to say so. Since as you've shown, you can own the game without buying it then its not like you're conceding anything in the Steam debate to say so.

And were you certain you would have won before an AI won a science victory? I do believe you, by the way, but I wanted to check how certain you were. Oh, and the scary AI I was talking about is this one.http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/8246/civ5screen0023e.jpg

Well thank God we got rid of huge stacks, because THAT is so much better...

I noticed this on my last Deity win - we traded road spam for unit spam. There is literally one...on...every...tile...

Well thank God we got rid of huge stacks, because THAT is so much better...

I noticed this on my last Deity win - we traded road spam for unit spam. There is literally one...on...every...tile...

Didn't you already hear? 1 Unit Per Tile (aka 1upt) was a design decision.
:mischief:

As it is true they had not realized it was never about the number of buildings in the cities as much as it was about the build order (opportunity cost someone mentioned above).

Even taking that into account, there were a huge number of buildings in civ4 bts that trying to build every one meant you weren't building enough units, or not building wealth at critical points in the game, or so on. It's simply ridiculous for people to come here and claim there were no hard decisions about buildings in civ4. Maybe it would apply... if they were playing Always Peace games.:rolleyes:

Agreed. Seems like some who are so confident that Civ5 is better and more complex than Civ4 hardly even have played Civ4. :rolleyes:
:yup:, or more accurately, didn't let themselves be challenged by the game.
/signed

Loved Civ 3. While Civ 4 was to complex for me (since i am no longer a student and have to work for my living :mischief:) Civ5 is a keen disappointment. :cry:
Used the quotet "strategy" and won every game until now. Thats not what I was expecting

Have you tried upping the difficulty a tad? Bear in mind that the corresponding difficulties in civ5 are generally being considered as a tad easier, so Prince in civ5 is a bit easier than Noble in civ4, for example.

Have you tried upping the difficulty a tad? Bear in mind that the corresponding difficulties in civ5 are generally being considered as a tad easier, so Prince in civ5 is a bit easier than Noble in civ4, for example.

Well, I uped the difficulty every game and the strategy works finer the more I get used to it. Try to get one city state to become hostile with the civilizations around him. Give him nearly every unit you get from other CS and some of yours. Watch him burn down the earth while you stay friends with every civ around :crazyeye: