The Final Analysis?

Bibor said:

AIs building spaceship parts and AIs going for a diplomatic victory are valid threats even on my (King) level. Its very common for one AI to pocket 8 or more city-states even before it builds the UN.

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Yes, now AI can go shopping too!

The diplomacy system is now sufficiently complex.

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It sure is complex alright! In my recent game, me settling a city too close for Greek's comfort and then refusing their request to stop building more cities, snowballed into the whole world chain denouncing me and gang banging me! Yey!

To make it even more fun there is a bug now, that makes them declare at you over and over again while you are already at war. So I got them declaring at me every turn or two! 20 more turns and I'll be able to clearly pronounce German declaration of war!

Its affected both by intl. policy choices as well as the achievements of your own empire. Become too large or too advanced and AIattitude will promptly degrade, making further trades (including research agreements) hard if not impossible.

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You DO see the problem in this, right? You can't do anything, ANYTHING, without them hating you. I got "You are trying to win the game in the same manner as them and they don't like it." modifier from 4 civs on turn 60... Turn 60 FFS! I'm still thinking where to put my third city or if I even should put it in the first place and I sure as hell don't know in what manner I'm going to win, but apparently THEY do... And they DON'T LIKE IT!

There is what, like 3 positive modifiers? And how much negative modifiers, like 10? More?
I guess this further enforces the argument people were making about there being too many penalties...

EDIT: There should be more positive modifiers. Why not a positive modifier for continuous trading (same deal made 2-3 times) ? Why not a positive modifier for continuous open borders? Why not a positive modifier for "hey we have adopted the same policies!" (yeah I know ). Why the hell not a positive modifier for agreeing to help in war!?!?!? This one is especially ridiculous... And finally why won't they stop busting your balls for being "warmongering menace", when they themselves ask you to do it!?!?

Sure, domination victory is still an option. Good luck though getting to the other continent before UN is built. Or maybe you prefer getting your invasion force nuked?

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True. It's too tedious to bother. Especially now:

Better just buy some CS's or build the ship. Or go watch a movie or something.

This game is far from polished, but its rather difficult to talk reason into people that already made up their mind in september 2010.

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I was exited about the game and liked it very much. Played the demo over and over again. But after a couple of games I started to see the flaws. Still was optimistic, was sure it will all going to be fixed soon... It didn't.

It is a little better now post patch. I hope they continue heavily patching it like that (finish the damn patch already, for example these problems are maddening!), but it sure doesn't mean the critique is not valid.

Brau said:

I just finished reading Sulla's analysis of the last patch and the general state of Civ 5.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/whatwentwrong.html

I'm nowhere near a high-level Civ player, but I've always enjoyed Sulla's blunt assessments and detailed walkthroughs of the game. I began reading them around Civ4 and in many ways they have enhanced my own enjoyment of Civ in general. Just wanted to share my appreciation.

I admit I've spent more time reading the forums and following the ebb and flow of the controversies surrounding Civ 5 than actually playing. I love the art style, the quotes, the awe I feel when pondering the important people, works and wonders throughout history that the game highlights. I have had more fun with the game since the last patch but I find it hard to argue with the logical deconstruction that Sulla et al provides.

Whatever the future holds, thanks again for all the insight.

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I always have and still view Civ V as more of a war game than anything else. Nothing wrong with war games, but Civ is *supposed* to be more than that. I liked, and still liked, the widely varying ways to destroy your enemy thanks to 1upt.

That said, I pretty whole-heartedly agree with this review. Civ V was far too "unpolished" to be released the way it was, and its design goals were far too ambitious for the paltry sum of resources AI designers had to work with.

And I dont think this is going to be the "vista" of the Civ franchise. If there isn't another Civ in 2 years, the whole franchise is sunk.

They can't go back to the Civ 4 formula, and they can't just released a polish Civ V. What other options are there? I dont see any, which is why I think this is going to be the last Civ game.

Abegweit said:

Really? Like what?
Edit: and please PLEASE stop using the word "buggy". Bugs have nothing to do with the problems of this sad piece of cr@p.

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This has been talked about to death in other threads and I won't reiterate all the good ideas I have read but here are a couple:
* Start by fixing all the simple and stupid problems like not being able to load a save game (other than auto save in MP) and the hundreds of other bugs reported.
* Beef up the AI's tactical capabilities - also add some smarts similar to what Better AI mod did for Civ 4...
* Limit the # of units that can be made using some factor like % of population or something similar - possibly combination of several factors. This isn't a design change or a major change because this WAS promised prior to the release of Civ 5 but didn't become a reality. Possibly some tweaking to unit maintenance can achieve this?

Honestly this software is an alpha version and can be fixed by the developers if they are allowed to focus on it. I would expect it to take several months though.

Bugs and polish have nothing to do with the severe design flaws.

1upt in an empire building game with loose and shifting objectives is a problem - it's very difficult to make a decent AI for this in the first place, and it's equally difficult to compensate for AI inadequacies in a way that keeps the game fun - stacks of doom are less obnoxious than carpets of doom.
Mechanics that make casualty-less victories likely exacerbate the problem.

Degenerate strategies make a game unfun, rapid horizontal expansion has always been suspect number one in Civ games - which is why there have always been safeguards against it (corruption, maintenance). How well does Civ5 deal with it?
First: a limiter is less conductive to strategic depth than a cost/rewards system. Second: the limiter can be worked around with extreme ease. Third: the wide availability of per-city-bonuses exacerbate the problem by making ICS more rewarding. Fourth: Tying research to population reinforces the stragegy too. Fifth: the slow growth, samey tiles and lack of incentive to build most of the advanced infrastructure make the alternative of fewer, more developed cities unattractive.

All of these problems should have been obvious to competent designers before they even implemented their ideas. Truly fixing the game would require massive changes and admitting massive mistakes... business-wise it's safer to pretend that all is well and hawk some more DLC.
We see this in action with simple and heavy-handed fixes that fix exploits but sacrifice even more depth in the process... more of these won't result in a good game.

Despite some promising features, the overall impression is that the game was made by people who don't really understand or care about games.

Very well said (post above me). Now just waiting for the next guy to come and break your post into 100 different quotes and write 4-7 word replies to each ("It's HARD to make good AI!", "You just wanted Civ 4.5!" "ICS is a valid strategy!", etc...), while not actually addressing or admitting any of the problems. Not that your points comprise the entire list of ailments afflicting this game, but the ones you did cover you covered well.

This game wasn't made with love. It's a naked money grab of appeals to the lowest common denominator, full of half effort and ill-conceived balance overhauls that completely destroy mechanics (which would be fine if they WORKED, and provided similar or greater depth than what they replaced... but they DON'T), and ideas developed over 19 years and 4 previous games that were in place for a REASON.

As I've stated in another thread, very, very little in Civ 5 has been an actual net improvement. 1UPT could have been, but its implementation has primarily served to more thoroughly reveal the 'house of cards' design supporting it. The concept needed a whole lot more time and balance to flesh out, and probably needed to accede to "limited" UPT to become "just right."

But hey, isn't El Dorado COOL! Especially for Multiplayer it's SWEET to get 500g on turn 3, it makes it easier for me to pwn! Isn't Spain/Inca just AWESOME? Only 8 bucks! Babylon is just 5! What a deal! Expansion packs are for noobs, I'd rather pay $5 for every brain fart they come up with for the next 2-3 years!

Consumable resources I really really like and think should be modded in Civ4.
And probably ranged combat.
May be "culture tech tree" too, but not instead of the "real" civics.

But that's about all.

builer680 said:

Very well said (post above me). Now just waiting for the next guy to come and break your post into 100 different quotes and write 4-7 word replies to each ("It's HARD to make good AI!", "You just wanted Civ 4.5!" "ICS is a valid strategy!", etc...), while not actually addressing or admitting any of the problems.

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So let me get this straight: If you (or someone else that you agree with) say that -insert a civ5 feature that you don’t like- is a problem, then you are right and it really is a problem. If somebody disagrees with you about this, then he is wrong and that he just refuses to admit that it really is a problem.

aziantuntija said:

So let me get this straight: If you (or someone else that you agree with) say that -insert a civ5 feature that you don’t like- is a problem, then you are right and it really is a problem. If somebody disagrees with you about this, then he is wrong and that he just refuses to admit that it really is a problem.

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There's a difference between a person responding within the context of the issue at hand, and responding as if there IS no issue, or with snappy one liner 'talking points...' examples of which I gave. Is that "straight" enough for you?

Dismissive comments such as the ones I mentioned have been the overwhelming counter "argument" from those who disagree with those of us who feel Civ 5 went in all the wrong directions... at the same time.

This is not the same thing as saying it's wrong to disagree.

But IF you disagree, it's more interesting to read those disagreements without the clutter of one liners about "casual vs hardcore" and "bts 4.5," and mealy mouthed apologizing for developers... who had all the tools they needed to build on something great to make it even greater, and actively CHOSE not to.

builer680 said:

Dismissive comments such as the ones I mentioned have been the overwhelming counter "argument" from those who disagree with those of us who feel Civ 5 went in all the wrong directions... at the same time.

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I think you should propably realize that all those ''arguments'' against AND FOR civ5 are all pretty much just opinions and nothing more. Some poster might say that some feature is bad because of ''this and this thing'', and second poster might agree that those things that the first poster pointed out really are bad things, but the second poster thinks that overall, the discussed feature has at least one so great ''thing'' that it overshadows all those bad things that the first poster pointed out.

For example, I like the combat system in civ5 (the AI could be a lot better though) but I also realize that moving a huge army can be tedious, but for me the sheer joy from combat situations overshadow the tedious huge army movement. For me the civ4 SoD was not fun because IMO, there just wasn’t any tactical possibilities in there. When you attacked to city or other SoD, you just picked the right order for your units to attack, when in defence, then the best defender emerged. Yes it was moved more easily than 10 units in 1upt -system but IMO, that didn’t exactly save the SoD. This is funny because somebody might feel just the opposite about this 1upt vs. SoD thing. But no matter how long story he would write, or how many flaws he would list from civ5 combat when compared to civ4 SoDs, Im still going to like the civ5 combat more than civ4 SoD. Why? Because that is a matter of taste my friend. If somebody hates pineapple in pizza then I don’t belive anyone can just make him like it by talking to him.

aziantuntija said:

I think you should propably realize that all those ''arguments'' against AND FOR civ5 are all pretty much just opinions and nothing more.

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The AI can not handle 1upt.
Production times are high because of the need to keep armies small.
Tile yields are low for the same reason.
The AI is exploitable with lump sum deals for per turn deals, then declaring war. Same with "unhooking" your luxuries.
Global Happiness does not work as a disincentive to ICS.
The computer opponents completely ignore the rules of the game in order to compete.
Multiplayer is missing promised options such as Hotseat and PBEM, and is very unstable to boot.
City location is largely unimportant to success.
Turn times are incredibly long.
Load times are incredibly long.
The game crashes frequently for many people, me included... who meet or exceed spec recommendations.
I could go on for another page, as I'm sure you know.


THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS.
THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS.

THESE ARE FACTS. Do you get it yet? No? Ok one more time.

THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT A MATTER OF TASTE. THESE ARE FACTS.


These are BASIC problems with the design, nearly (not entirely) all of which had been solved years ago or simply didn't exist before. Dismissive comments followed by hypothetical scenarios such as yours are a bad debate tactic designed to obfuscate and take away from the points.

Spend less time telling other people what they "need" to realize and learn how to address the points themselves. By the way, Happy New Year.

a matter of taste

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Some disagreements can be characterized as matters of taste. But, many of the issues that people have identified are not mere matters of taste. Poor combat AI, carpet of doom scenario, victory paths that railroad a player through a narrow range of options, limited diplomatic bargaining tools and a whacky diplomacy logic, etc. are not matters of taste.

I seriously doubt people prefer 'the taste' of poor combat AI, situations where effectively maneuvering one's military within their own borders is impossible, exceedingly limited game options along particular paths to victory (culture victory=must stay small), virtually no tools to initiate diplomatic bargains and illogical diplomatic behavior etc. etc.

But, I suppose it is true that some people just have bad taste

builer680, you're my new hero

I've burned out lately, so did Thormodr. Thank you for your hard work to get the message across.

This is my first post to these forums. I read the first page of this thread after following the link and reading Sulla's review. There are so many posts, I just skipped to the end after that and here I am. I'm not even sure why I'm posting now. Feel compelled to say something perhaps...?

I didn't agree with everything Sulla said with some of his smaller details here and there, and I had really wanted to like Civ 5 a lot, but I felt that he was otherwise dead on. When I got to the summary at the bottom of his review, I felt in my gut that I was reading someone's reactions and feelings that matched my own.

I don't really want to get into the 1UPT debate and would rather let that continue to go on back and forth without me, but again I guess I feel compelled to say something for some reason. When I first heard about it, I was skeptical. "Do they realize the scale and and nature of the game?" Then I was told that they were attempting to add an engaging tactical element. "That would be cool," I thought. Then I got really excited for a moment: "Wait! Are they adding an optional pop-up battle screen like some strategy games have done in the past?" [ie: Master of Orion 2] Answer was no... Still, I kept an open mind. The scale might be totally wrong but maybe they can make it work. When my archers were firing arrows over mountain ranges much like hitting Vancouver from Calgary, still I tried to keep an open mind and just go with it. Then I got hit with the traffic jams, and I thought *!$#^ me!

Maybe I sound like an idiot for saying this, but why not a battle screen where you zoom into the action? Too hard for multiplayer...? I would have liked that, especially if it were optional.

Still, that was never going to be the deciding factor for me. What killed it for me were things like "diplomacy".

In my last game it occurred to me that if I never made any friends, they could never suddenly freak out one day and denounce me for no reason whatsoever. As soon as that happened once, the whole world had an extra red mark against me: "Your friends have denounced you." Actually they were insane and backstabbed me for no reason, but I guess obnoxious AI is supposed to be fun and challenging AI? It wasn't long before the entire world declared war on me, for some reason, and even then they were too stupid to deploy troops to kill me off properly.

I did everything I could, again, to have a couple of AI allies but I haven't been able to figure it out. Everything you do pisses them off. I was even trying to supply friends with resources, and help them when they asked, which for some reason made then denounce me. Once and a while would be one thing, but it's happened every game. True, I had built a few wonders in my last game, had an OK army and decent-sized empire, but I hardly controlled 1/3 of the planet like Bismark did and I was only #3 or #4 in the overall standings. With the exception of coming to help allies when they were attacked and invaded, I only declared war once against one AI in that game and that was a Civ that had declared war against me and my once "allies" on countless occasions, conquered city states, and put a city right next to my capital pretty much forcing the war declaration after he ignored my warning to not settle there.

Diplomacy is just one thing for me, but a big issue...


I had liked Civ 4 but had stopped playing it before coming to Civ 5. Good times and all but I was done.

Sulla had pegged me completely when he described a section of the fan base who continued to try to be optimistic and described the game as having has "potential". I had used that exact word on many occasions. I had only got back into playing the game because of the patch and now I'm done again.

At this point, I'm not sure if I'll feel the motivation to give the game a chance again after many months and a few more patches. I might—we'll see I guess... I've given up on trying to be optimistic though. I'm moving on to accepting it as a dramatic disappointment for me, much like I did back with Civ 3.

For those who enjoy Civ 5 as it is, I'm happy for you. All the power to you, and may you continue to feel fun and satisfaction from your game purchase. I had really wanted to like it as well, but...

Atwork said:

I seriously doubt people prefer 'the taste' of poor combat AI, situations where effectively maneuvering one's military within their own borders is impossible, exceedingly limited game options along particular paths to victory (culture victory=must stay small), virtually no tools to initiate diplomatic bargains and illogical diplomatic behavior etc. etc.

But, I suppose it is true that some people just have bad taste

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I guess that there is a group of people, including me (maybe it is even vast majority), who prefer 'the taste' of poor combat AI, exactly as Sid Meier explained in the pre-launch reviews.

IMO most people in general play games to jump away from reality of everyday life. Put themselves into the role of leader, claiming the feeling of power and success after tiresome work. They dont want a real challenge to cope with, that will consume too much of their brainpower, emotion and attention. Games should be easy and pleasant, not brainwashing. It is meant as simply way of achieving satisfaction: I pwnd Monty again today!!!, not another work.

There comes the problem problem with 1UPT from: it is easy and non-frustrating, so lots of people prefer it over stacking mechanics known from previous Civ's incarnations. However, only few can see that this feature is game-breaking (in whole), as Sulla explained in his article, at least as I understand it properly. Too bad, devs obviously didnt knew this either (and WHO should knew this, if not game designers? ehh).

I am pretty sure that for making Civ 5 playable for dissatisfied old fans, 1UPT with all its consequences, along with other oversimplifiactions, should be removed from game. That means massive reworking of almost all in-game mechanics towards classic one.

Maybe devs could just add an option allowing to switch between 1UPT and xUPT enviroment (the solution known from Civ4 mods), to make a subtle paradigm shift?
If they couldnt include such a thing in the single patch, then maybe they could sell it as a superb new woo-hoo feature in expansion (yeah, I know how this would look like, but let's not discuss it further)?
Meanwhile, additional effort could be put into making stacking mechanics "more accessible" I am not that hard-headed to contradict this, and as long as it will make the game more popular (thus: polished), I will support the idea.
Combat in Civ's 1-4 have its flaws - I think nobody here will deny it. Personnally, I am getting angry especially at the combat results : when I am frequently losing high xp units during attack with 99% odds, or when my stack is completely destroyed, without causing single casualties to enemy.
Combat system from Civ 5, where attacker is not destroyed after failure, is more user-friendly, and might work along with stacking. Maybe additional features like retreat possibility for defender and gold cost for healing, would help also.

Conclusion : IMO Civ 5 is broken beyond repair possibilities by now. The extent of must-do changes is so overhelming, that I simply cannot imagine how to include them in patches. Especially if they will continue to resemble the one released in December. The only way to improve gameplay and salvage Civ franchise for me, is to create completely new working system, be it still called Civ5, (possibly its expansion) or not.
Of course, if devs are still interested in keeping gamers (should I say customers?) like me in their pocket.

@builer680 Ok you seemed to completely missed my point. I was talking about these argues between civ5 features, like somebody liking the hex grid vs. somebody hating the hex grid, that’s just an opinion. I also gave you an example of a feature with my reflections on 1upt vs. SoD. Those are just opinions, somebody likes SoD somebody hates SoD, neither side is "right" in this debate.

I think it’s a bit unfair to try somehow claim that I was saying something stupid like: "The tile yelds in civ5 being lower than in civ4 is just an opinion" because I wasn’t saying that. I also weren’t saying something like: "Production times being longer in civ5 than in civ4 is just an opinion." And I certainly wasn’t saying that "Civ5 crashing is just an opinion".

So as you can propably allready see, im not going to focus on answering to all your statements on civ5, unless of course they are written as flaws in wich case, most of them would be just your opinions. Why do tey change from statements to opinions if they are listed as flaws instead of just statements? Heres why: For example this: "Production times are high because of the need to keep armies small." is just a comment. BUT, if you say it as a civ5 flaw though, then its -again- just your opinion and not a fact. So as a comment something like this: "Production times are longer in civ5 than in civ4" might be- and pretty much is a valid statement, but if you list it as a flaw, then that same comment isn’t anymore a true as a flaw, then it becomes –yes you guessed it- just an opinion. Just like pineapple in a pizza, somebody likes long building times.. err I mean pineapple in a pizza and someone hates pineapple in pizza. It’s a matter of taste.

builer680 said:

The AI can not handle 1upt.

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I belive that this however is not a valid statement no matter wich way you put it. Altough im not the best person in the world to discuss about this, but as far as im concerned, I belive that there are some great chess software (yes chess is 1upt) out there that can easily own a casual chess player. Therefore, the best chess AI would most likely beat most of the worlds people in a chess game, and as a result of that we could say that the AI did indeed handle 1upt very nicely. But of course if you are a world class chess player, then perhaps in your case the AI cannot handle the 1upt system, at least not well enough for you, therefore it is your right to claim that: "In my opinion, the AI cannot handle 1upt, at least not good enough for me". But you know what? It would again just be your personal opinion and nothing more.

@Atwork I know this here what im going to write is hair splitting and I apology for that on advance. Before moving into my text, everyone must read this fair warning: -WARNING- THE FOLLOWING TEXT WAS NOT MEANT TO HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CIV5. IT IS JUST AN EXAMPLE AND I BEG THAT IT SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH. Ok get ready cause here we go: if you really, I mean REALLY think about it, isn’t for example a poor AI really just a matter of perspective? Imagine a chess game wich would be a fairly easy for an average adult who just happens to know chess rules. Well of course the average adult would beat the game easily because the game is so easy, so we could safely assume that the adult would describe that particular chess game as "perhaps a bit too easy for my taste". After that we would give that same "fairly easy for an average adult who just happens to know chess rules" -chess game to a six year old kid who just happens to know chess rules. It happens that the kid loosed the game, in fact the kid wouldnt win it no matter how hard he tried. Well we could safely assume that the six year old certainly wouldn’t describe it as "perhaps a bit too easy for my taste". Most likely he would describe it as "Hard".


So there you have it, its not all black and white you see.


At the end of the day I must say (and I really have said this a million times) that civ5 has its flaws, it is not perfect and it needs a better AI, not only for the combat but also for the rest of the game. Critics is good, but fighting over things that are simply "just a matter of taste" is stupid.

DLL said:

When my archers were firing arrows over mountain ranges much like hitting Vancouver from Calgary, still I tried to keep an open mind and just go with it.

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Archers cannot shoot over mountaisn nor hills in civ5. Well they can shoot over hills with ''Indirect fire'' -promotion. That is if that promotion is still available for archers after the patch, at least i havent seen it for a while..

DLL said:

For those who enjoy Civ 5 as it is, I'm happy for you. All the power to you, and may you continue to feel fun and satisfaction from your game purchase. I had really wanted to like it as well, but...

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Thanks m8!

builer680 said:

THESE ARE NOT OPINIONS. THESE ARE NOT A MATTER OF TASTE. THESE ARE FACTS.

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I'll bite, if only for my own amusement. Very few of those have any factual basis and some of those that do show obvious exaggeration for effect. I admit to being very picky in my judgement of course. Please put forth the facts in support of your case.

All the minor complaints which Sulla complained about were actually the complete opposite in the patch and he still complained about them. He used to be complaining about the spawn of great scientists and now he says it's too nerfed. He used to say that meritocracy was too powerful for sprawl, now he says it's been too nerfed. While diplomacy and tactical Al is awful, I think it's interesting that Sulla enjoys playing these games and writing about how it's awful. The stuff he says is mostly legitimate, he just puts on quite a massive pessimist skew.

The Government said:

All the minor complaints which Sulla complained about were actually the complete opposite in the patch and he still complained about them. He used to be complaining about the spawn of great scientists and now he says it's too nerfed. He used to say that meritocracy was too powerful for sprawl, now he says it's been too nerfed. While diplomacy and tactical Al is awful, I think it's interesting that Sulla enjoys playing these games and writing about how it's awful. The stuff he says is mostly legitimate, he just puts on quite a massive pessimist skew.

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Well there is such a thing as going too far. And there is also such things as people thinking that solutions for problems they've already noted being too draconian. There is nothing unreasonable in what Sullla has said. So please stop building strawmen, and actually engage in proper arguements.

aziantuntija: Great post.