Is Civ V finally worthy?

If its any consolation, Ed Beach (or was it Dennis?) stated that that "win the game" negative trait is removed in the xpac, among many other changes to diplomacy.

That was behaving very strangely in my last game - I had it as a negative with almost everyone, including Polynesia (apparently going for culture, while I was going for science and was culturally behind) and Songhai (a minor power who were behind in technology, had declared no wars so didn't seem to be planning domination and hadn't made any efforts to befriend CSes).

That's not a modifier I mind in principle (I'd prefer them to remove "You built wonders they coveted" since there's no way of knowing which wonders anyone's going for in advance so you can't adapt your strategy to keep certain civs onside if you want - you can at least guess victory conditions each civ is after), since in principle it's a modifier you can influence by altering your choice of victory conditions in line with what civs you want to be friendly with want, which is surely something diplomacy should encourage. But to avoid ridiculous situations like the above it should only apply (a) to a civ that's realistically in the running for victory, and (b) only against civs that are likewise genuine rivals - it would make no sense for you to get a penalty against a dominant civ if you aren't a realistic threat to its victory whatever condition you're going for.
 
Multiplayer is amazing. Civ 5 is the best Civ game of the series... to play with friends... when the game doesn't crash or get stuck.

Multiplayer wise Civ 4 doesn't come close (Purely because the many aspects allow for humans to pit their tactics in different ways without the far less tactical stacks of dooms) If only they could make it more stable so like the 15% of games that crash wouldn't crash anymore and an easier way to have players rejoin if Steam drops/game crashes that doesn't cause the game to crash upon rejoin.
 
How does MP fare in it with 5+ players currently?

Has firaxis even lifted a single finger to get the engine running more quickly? How fast are between-turn times now? Do people still spend 1-3 hours per game not playing the game?

If these don't have favorable answers, then no. If these don't have favorable answers, the game can absolutely never be worthy. The most important part of a game is being able to play it at all. Civ V does its ****dest to avoid allowing someone to do that in single player by making turns last an eternity even on above-spec machines. It then double-slaps us in the face by making large-scale MP games unplayable (in the literal sense; people drop/disc constantly or it goes out of sync).

The user interface remains a disgrace. It literally takes 2-3x the amount of inputs to get some things done in V as in IV. That's failure.

Multiplayer wise Civ 4 doesn't come close (Purely because the many aspects allow for humans to pit their tactics in different ways without the far less tactical stacks of dooms)

Entering someone's border at tech parity with a "stack of doom" was an exercise in idiocy in civ IV. The last time someone did that in MP, I watched him go from 133% of somebody's power to dead in <20 turns. Tactics matter in civ IV too.

Too bad civ IV also suffers from slow gameplay, slow movement with animations off, etc. Not as bad as V though.
 
How does MP fare in it with 5+ players currently?

Has firaxis even lifted a single finger to get the engine running more quickly? How fast are between-turn times now? Do people still spend 1-3 hours per game not playing the game?

Haven't played with more than 3 humans since the patch, but turn times are still slow just as they still are in single-player as you get to the late game - but not obviously any slower than in single player.

The user interface remains a disgrace. It literally takes 2-3x the amount of inputs to get some things done in V as in IV. That's failure.

Quite aside from its simple ugliness, some of the interface decisions in Civ V are baffling.

Why, when there's so much empty space at the side of the screen, do unit commands need an openable submenu? Especially when a box the size of the promotions box along the top of the unit info could fit all the commands in and be a more intuitive layout.

Why is fortify, one of the commonest commands in the game, in the submenu rather than the main unit menu?

Why is the pointless advisors bubble so gigantic (diplomacy and, less so, social policies are at least plausible go-to checks) while demographics, economy and victory progress are hidden in another submenu?

Why is the relationship network not in the diplomacy view any more? And why is there a separate page for 'you' and 'Global politics for everyone except you' when all the info on the former could readily be included in the latter?

Why so massively oversize the ugly bubbles when they could make them smaller and fit a larger number of useful ones in?

Why does the city screen default to "citizen management off" when you start/load a game so that you have to turn it on as your first action whenever you play?

Likewise, when loading a game (but not when starting one), why does the tech info you're researching default to 'hidden' and need exposing?
 
I think CiV is the best Civ game; I actually prefer games with a lot of penalities, beacuse it's a realistic take on running a country, and ever decision is crucial, like chess. I think vanilla CiV was absolutely a step in the right direction, I, too, have over 1000 hours packed into it, and with Gods and Kings its only going to make the obsession burn brighter.
 
I have a truly crappy computer and turns times are not nearly as bad as people complain they are. It was much worse for me in Civ4. And that was with a better computer.

The fortify button should be in the main controls, the advisor button should go away, and the game should save your interface settings between loads (it does for some things, but not others.)

So? The game isn't perfect, but the fact that you have to resort to complaining about minor UI mistakes means that the game is excellent. I just suck it up and hit the extra button to fortify. And that is the only thing that takes longer to do in CiV over CIV. The rest of the UI is better designed. I took more time trying to find the buttons in CIV.

As for the diplomacy screen not offering you a chart of people's relations with each other, I think that was a design decision. Now defensive pacts are sort of secret pacts. Is there anything else that chart ever gave you?
 
I have a truly crappy computer and turns times are not nearly as bad as people complain they are. It was much worse for me in Civ4. And that was with a better computer.

I've played both Civ IV and Civ V on this laptop, which is newer than Civ V, and Civ IV is the faster game.

The fortify button should be in the main controls, the advisor button should go away, and the game should save your interface settings between loads (it does for some things, but not others.)

So? The game isn't perfect, but the fact that you have to resort to complaining about minor UI mistakes means that the game is excellent. I just suck it up and hit the extra button to fortify. And that is the only thing that takes longer to do in CiV over CIV. The rest of the UI is better designed. I took more time trying to find the buttons in CIV.

I'm a fan of Civ V, but it's exactly these kinds of minor annoyances that shouldn't be understated because they're often the things that put people off to begin with - as in everything first impressions count for a lot. Something as trivial as renaming the Civilopedia the more generic "Help" in the main interface is a clumsy loss of flavour where none is needed. Simply the console game look of the interface put me off for several months, and I'm a lifelong Civ fan since the first game.

I had problems with the Civ IV interface as well, naturally, though many of these were visual rather than things that affected utility.

Again it was ugly, and in that case the main page buttons were too small, numerous and cluttered to be useful as quick access. Some certainly could have been dealt with in sub-menus or tabbed pages, as was the case in previous Civ games.

The central placement of the unit commands was unintuitive, as most people will default to mousing towards the left most of the time (but not as far as they need to to use the Civ V unit menu).

In general, Civ V has a better city screen interface (although I miss the food store). Showing net production in the main view rather than '6 food produced - 4 food consumed' is an obvious change that should have been made years ago.

Though it took a little getting used to, a city bar that actually shows turns to production and growth is a clear improvement, and it's strange that it took the Civ series so long to institute something that's been a standard of, say, the Total War series for well over a decade (i.e. numerical values displayed for relevant city traits).

As for the diplomacy screen not offering you a chart of people's relations with each other, I think that was a design decision. Now defensive pacts are sort of secret pacts. Is there anything else that chart ever gave you?

Making the interface look like a cheap console game is a design decision. Civ III abandoning the 'stonewashed' interface background was a design decision. Losing the We Love the King Day palace was a design decision. Including Cristo Redentor as a Wonder was a design decision. Design decisions aren't always good decisions.

It's not about providing new information, it's about the way the information is provided - and especially since interciv relations between your rivals are more important to keep track of in Civ V than in any previous version of the series. Yes, you might get a moderate negative modifier for upsetting an ally's ally in Civ IV, but it wouldn't dictate your relations with a third party as it does in Civ V. If I visit the Global Politics page in Civ V, I have to scroll through 10-12 civs to identify who's friends with who, who's at war with who, who's denounced who... and then I need to switch to the default diplomacy page to identify which civs are allied with which CSes.

In Civs I-IV, I had a single colour-coded web right in front of me that gave me all the relevant information at a glance. CS relations could be included either along the top/bottom of the same screen as the CS name together with the icon of its ally (if any), or by putting an appropriately-bordered CS icon alongside that representing the civ it's allied with.

That also saves space on other pages, potentially enough to reintroduce the extremely frustrating omission of a 'tradeable items' page - as it is, you again have to scroll through every civ and every CS to identify what its trade goods are, and there's no way at all of seeing which resources they already have (so aside from occasional advice from the Foreign Advisor - on, naturally, yet another page), you don't know if they already have what you want to offer). The fact that nothing shows your active trade agreements or the length of time any given agreement has still to run is also a simple irritant with the interface.
 
How does MP fare in it with 5+ players currently?

Has firaxis even lifted a single finger to get the engine running more quickly? How fast are between-turn times now? Do people still spend 1-3 hours per game not playing the game?

If these don't have favorable answers, then no. If these don't have favorable answers, the game can absolutely never be worthy. The most important part of a game is being able to play it at all. Civ V does its ****dest to avoid allowing someone to do that in single player by making turns last an eternity even on above-spec machines. It then double-slaps us in the face by making large-scale MP games unplayable (in the literal sense; people drop/disc constantly or it goes out of sync).

The user interface remains a disgrace. It literally takes 2-3x the amount of inputs to get some things done in V as in IV. That's failure.



Entering someone's border at tech parity with a "stack of doom" was an exercise in idiocy in civ IV. The last time someone did that in MP, I watched him go from 133% of somebody's power to dead in <20 turns. Tactics matter in civ IV too.

Too bad civ IV also suffers from slow gameplay, slow movement with animations off, etc. Not as bad as V though.

I understand there was tactics still of course in Stacks of Doom (after all I used to play Civ 4 frequently too, primarily multi). But its nothing in comparison to Civ 5.

6 player games work 97/100 times for me. 8 player games at a much lower rate. And 8+ games don't work still.

In between turns in multiplayer have sped up vastly. Its no longer a plodding pace (unless there are several players with terrible connections).
 
If it's worth it depends only on your current economic situation.
If you have a job and can buy any computergame you want, of course it's worth it.
But if you are a student or unemployed and can only buy a game now and then. Then there are much better strategy games out there, like Europa Universalis 3 or Total War Shogun 2.
 
So? The game isn't perfect, but the fact that you have to resort to complaining about minor UI mistakes means that the game is excellent.

Every time people have pulled out the stop watch on mid-late game turn times, it's been ugly.

And forcing people to click 2000 extra times per game or more isn't exactly "minor". It's a hallmark of bad controls = crummy game. Civ V is basically the equivalent of going back to a drop down menu to simply go down a flight of stairs in an RPG. Just walk on it? NO WAY. You have to walk on it, open a menu, scroll down to "stairs", then go down them.

That kind of trash isn't acceptable. When I let's played warlords 2 (1993), which competed with civ ONE, I noticed it has better user interface conventions than civ V. That's not a joke, though it should be. Units don't auto-move to death, when you give a command (IE ranged attack in civ V) it ALWAYS happens. You don't lose 1-3 hours on AI turns. Whether it's actually a better game is debatable since it's a strict war game. HOWEVER, it BLOWS CIV V, a game that came EIGHTEEN years later or so, out of the water in terms of basic controls. That isn't minor. It's a travesty. Firaxis/failaxis slapped the entirety of the community in the face by REMOVING useful hotkeys from previous games. Nobody was forcing anybody to use them! It's almost certainly one of the easiest things to change (unlike their clunky engine), and yet they wouldn't give it the time of day. Unacceptable.

I understand there was tactics still of course in Stacks of Doom (after all I used to play Civ 4 frequently too, primarily multi). But its nothing in comparison to Civ 5.

You'd have to be at an elite level in both games to say that with any honesty. I don't think either of us fits that requirement.

As for the diplomacy screen not offering you a chart of people's relations with each other, I think that was a design decision. Now defensive pacts are sort of secret pacts. Is there anything else that chart ever gave you?

Sigh. More canned stuff.

Unfortunately, you can still largely figure these things out in civ V, especially if you personally note the DoF/diplo talk. They pulled mostly convenience in order to maybe make the game slightly less predictable...to rookies. That's some "design decision", kind of like the one where they decided they didn't need a decent UI :/.
 
That kind of trash isn't acceptable.

Sure it is. It's just not optimal. There's a key difference. There are plenty of things I want improved in the game, but that doesn't necessarily make the game, or those parts of the game unacceptable; it just means that there are some serious issues with it that should certainly be fixed. But the game and the UI remain perfectly acceptable to most of those that play the game. You seem to be equating not optimal with not worthy, which I don't think really holds.
 
Multiplayer is amazing. Civ 5 is the best Civ game of the series... to play with friends... when the game doesn't crash or get stuck.

Multiplayer wise Civ 4 doesn't come close (Purely because the many aspects allow for humans to pit their tactics in different ways without the far less tactical stacks of dooms) If only they could make it more stable so like the 15% of games that crash wouldn't crash anymore and an easier way to have players rejoin if Steam drops/game crashes that doesn't cause the game to crash upon rejoin.

Pitboss is the best multiplayer game mode for an epic Civ experience. Something that still doesn't exist for Civ5.

Sure it is. It's just not optimal. There's a key difference. There are plenty of things I want improved in the game, but that doesn't necessarily make the game, or those parts of the game unacceptable; it just means that there are some serious issues with it that should certainly be fixed. But the game and the UI remain perfectly acceptable to most of those that play the game. You seem to be equating not optimal with not worthy, which I don't think really holds.

Every Civ game I've played has needed some modding or an external program just so basic micro is less monotonous. Making the interface more difficult to navigate for micro any purposes is an extremely dumb design decision.
 
Gameplay, I said gameplay. You are talking about flavor.

But yes, RAs are slightly forced, but so is uh, 1UPT, and naval embarkation, and social policies, and everything else. Game mechanic, then find some flavor.

If you are going to use CS to represent smaller nations, ... So flavor-wise, it is entirely appropriate that they can only expand through actual conquest.

Gameplay is improved because of the existence of CS, and will be even better once G&K comes out.

No interesting game mechanics to strategize around.

Furthermore, CiV is a much better game to play multiplayer than CIV, as the game design was based around good game mechanics rather than flavor.

So your bottom line: it sucks as a historic strategy game, but it has great game mechanics. They don't mak sense in terms of historic realism - but they are great anyway? That's your point? That's the very reason why I prefer IV. Because I want a game with great historic flavor, not with great game mechanics that have nothing to do with real world history.
 
So your bottom line: it sucks as a historic strategy game, but it has great game mechanics. They don't mak sense in terms of historic realism - but they are great anyway? That's your point? That's the very reason why I prefer IV. Because I want a game with great historic flavor, not with great game mechanics that have nothing to do with real world history.

You are taking my argument to the extreme. I never said it had no flavor, I think it has great flavor. But I acknowledge that it may not be enough flavor for some. In that case, they should probably stick with CIV.

I am aware that is why you would prefer IV. That is my argument.

Besides, you don't seem to want a game with great historic flavor, you want a simulation. I would call V a game with great historic flavor.

I also clearly presented that as my bottom line by placing it as the bottom line in my post, as a summary. You don't have to word your response so indignantly.


To other posts:

The games are not getting worse, your expectations are simply getting even higher than the quality of the games are increasing. Disproportionately high. Producing a AAA game is more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than producing some blockbuster movie titles, yet you get many more hours for your enjoyment. I don't see how anyone can complain about the game not being perfect when it is underpriced. You get way more than you paid for.

@TheMeInTeam
Your argument seems to simply be a rage post, but I will attempt to indulge you. I do not know where you get this idea that the UI is terrible, that it wastes so much time, and that it is so much worse than previous games. I really can't argue with you because I don't believe your facts.

As for making it a bad game, I guess we could still discuss that if I were to assume your initial facts about the bad UI. Can a bad UI/control scheme ruin a game? Absolutely. Is it the only thing that matters? Certainly not. There are many other things that make a game, and are more important to its quality. Can a control scheme make a game? Sure! Halo was the first successful console shooter because of its control scheme (and solely because of its control scheme). The entire Wii console was marketed from the start on its control scheme, and the world bought it. And still are buying it.

The important thing is to identify where the game has succeeded and where it has failed. If the UI has frustrated you to the point that you can't play anymore, then it has failed for you. I certainly don't have a problem with it. I have identified where I think the game succeeds, and where I think it fails. I don't think anyone is going to convince anyone else that their opinion is wrong.
 
I agree with many of the points of your main argument, but I think you're off-track in some of the below as well as trivialising or misrepresenting some of the concerns that people express with Civ V:

You are taking my argument to the extreme. I never said it had no flavor, I think it has great flavor. But I acknowledge that it may not be enough flavor for some. In that case, they should probably stick with CIV.

I am aware that is why you would prefer IV. That is my argument.

Besides, you don't seem to want a game with great historic flavor, you want a simulation. I would call V a game with great historic flavor.

Agreed fully that Civ IV's main appeal for its diehards vs. Civ V is in perceptions of its flavour rather than anything mechanical - and likewise that Civ V has great flavour in its own right. However, it seems bizarre to describe people who want more Civ IV elements as wanting a "simulation".

You yourself have pointed out that much in Civ IV is as preposterous from a historical perspective as Civ V. Complaints I've seen about lack of 'realism' in the Civ V happiness system, especially as far as war is concerned, or the way resource happiness benefits work, are equally true of Civ IV.

My favourite element of Civ IV, and one that many people pine for - dynamic cultural borders and occasional cultural takeover of cities - is one of the least realistic mechanics Civ has ever introduced, and as far as "historical" flavour is concerned, it has essentially none (since it doesn't approximate anything that has historical precedent) - it was just a lot of fun, and hugely flavourful gamewise.

People miss the slavery mechanic. Was this especially good design? Not really - in principle it's an interesting tradeoff between population and production, but strategically made population control much too easy and so was in active conflict with the happiness and health systems from the same game. Was it historically accurate as a simulation? Not in the slightest - it seems inspired by Hollywood images of pharoahs whipping slaves to death en masse to complete pyramids, something now known never to have happened. But it's that very point - that it does evoke a familiar, stereotyped image of the past, however inaccurate - that adds flavour.

People miss Civ 4 religion from a flavour perspective. It never crosses their mind quite how absurd a system that allows you to research Priesthood without having a religion (if someone else got it first), and where polytheists who aren't Hindu don't know how to construct temples, is as a simulation. It's not a simulation they're after.

People miss civics. Also generally poor from a design perspective, due to weak balancing, limited costs, and the simple fact that you could go for large portions of many games without ever needing or wanting to change your civics. But people can intuit a difference between slavery and hereditary rule that makes them feel as though they're role-playing a civilisation's government (and irrespective of the fact that, in a historical simulation, these two options would not be mutually exclusive. In Civ IV land, monarchies never had slaves). in Civ V we talk about policy branches - who even registers the names of individual policies or talks about selecting monarchy for the benefits to centralised happiness management? It's just one of five policies taken in order to fill out Tradition.

This is same reason that people were complaining "there's no religion in Civ V" despite a policy branch called Piety, a bonus tied to temples and monasteries, and a policy called Theocracy, all of which gives religion a bigger footprint in vanilla Civ V than in any of Civs I-III - to them it doesn't "feel" like religion. I suspect the G&K system will make the same flavour mistake - it's going to be bogged down in too much detail and too many options to choose from that it will end up feeling mechanical rather than flavourful, just as social policies are perceived to vs. civics.

To other posts:

The games are not getting worse, your expectations are simply getting even higher than the quality of the games are increasing. Disproportionately high. Producing a AAA game is more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than producing some blockbuster movie titles, yet you get many more hours for your enjoyment. I don't see how anyone can complain about the game not being perfect when it is underpriced. You get way more than you paid for.

Despite the tone, I think the points made about changes to the interface are valid. There genuinely are accessible elements that have been removed - even aside from unfortunate cosmetic decisions like replacing the web diagram with a lengthy list, there is no resource/trade items page at all, for instance. This isn't a case of the game simply not keeping up with the competition, it is the active removal of interface elements common in previous incarnations.
 
I agree with many of the points of your main argument, but I think you're off-track in some of the below as well as trivialising or misrepresenting some of the concerns that people express with Civ V:



Agreed fully that Civ IV's main appeal for its diehards vs. Civ V is in perceptions of its flavour rather than anything mechanical - and likewise that Civ V has great flavour in its own right. However, it seems bizarre to describe people who want more Civ IV elements as wanting a "simulation".

You yourself have pointed out that much in Civ IV is as preposterous from a historical perspective as Civ V. Complaints I've seen about lack of 'realism' in the Civ V happiness system, especially as far as war is concerned, or the way resource happiness benefits work, are equally true of Civ IV.

My favourite element of Civ IV, and one that many people pine for - dynamic cultural borders and occasional cultural takeover of cities - is one of the least realistic mechanics Civ has ever introduced, and as far as "historical" flavour is concerned, it has essentially none (since it doesn't approximate anything that has historical precedent) - it was just a lot of fun, and hugely flavourful gamewise.

People miss the slavery mechanic. Was this especially good design? Not really - in principle it's an interesting tradeoff between population and production, but strategically made population control much too easy and so was in active conflict with the happiness and health systems from the same game. Was it historically accurate as a simulation? Not in the slightest - it seems inspired by Hollywood images of pharoahs whipping slaves to death en masse to complete pyramids, something now known never to have happened. But it's that very point - that it does evoke a familiar, stereotyped image of the past, however inaccurate - that adds flavour.

People miss Civ 4 religion from a flavour perspective. It never crosses their mind quite how absurd a system that allows you to research Priesthood without having a religion (if someone else got it first), and where polytheists who aren't Hindu don't know how to construct temples, is as a simulation. It's not a simulation they're after.

People miss civics. Also generally poor from a design perspective, due to weak balancing, limited costs, and the simple fact that you could go for large portions of many games without ever needing or wanting to change your civics. But people can intuit a difference between slavery and hereditary rule that makes them feel as though they're role-playing a civilisation's government (and irrespective of the fact that, in a historical simulation, these two options would not be mutually exclusive. In Civ IV land, monarchies never had slaves). in Civ V we talk about policy branches - who even registers the names of individual policies or talks about selecting monarchy for the benefits to centralised happiness management? It's just one of five policies taken in order to fill out Tradition.

This is same reason that people were complaining "there's no religion in Civ V" despite a policy branch called Piety, a bonus tied to temples and monasteries, and a policy called Theocracy, all of which gives religion a bigger footprint in vanilla Civ V than in any of Civs I-III - to them it doesn't "feel" like religion. I suspect the G&K system will make the same flavour mistake - it's going to be bogged down in too much detail and too many options to choose from that it will end up feeling mechanical rather than flavourful, just as social policies are perceived to vs. civics.



Despite the tone, I think the points made about changes to the interface are valid. There genuinely are accessible elements that have been removed - even aside from unfortunate cosmetic decisions like replacing the web diagram with a lengthy list, there is no resource/trade items page at all, for instance. This isn't a case of the game simply not keeping up with the competition, it is the active removal of interface elements common in previous incarnations.

I think you just summed up my complaints with Civ V in this post. Awesome and wholly true :goodjob:
 
It's unacceptable that with new versions, it's getting worse.

+1.

When a game released 5 years earlier has faster turn times, less clicking, and a more intuitive interface than CIV V, that's unacceptable. Optimization has nothing to do with it, as a game could always be faster, could always have less clicks, etc. The fact that CIV V fails miserably compared to CIV IV in these aspects = unacceptable, especially considering that CIV V was aimed at streamlining and bringing new players into the fold.

Unacceptable.
 
It's unacceptable that with new versions, it's getting worse.

+1.

When a game released 5 years earlier has faster turn times, less clicking, and a more intuitive interface than CIV V, that's unacceptable. Optimization has nothing to do with it, as a game could always be faster, could always have less clicks, etc. The fact that CIV V fails miserably compared to CIV IV in these aspects = unacceptable, especially considering that CIV V was aimed at streamlining and bringing new players into the fold.

Unacceptable.

Well, that goes back to the point that 'unacceptable' has a necessary implication that it isn't acceptable, obviously. It is certainly acceptable, as can be seen by the fact that many people play the game. If these people did not accept the state of the UI as it is, then they would not play the game.

My argument isn't that the UI isn't crap (though I don't have much of a problem with it). It's that complaining about it being 'unacceptable' is completely misusing the word to overreact to a deficiency.
 
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