Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[The_J]

Originally Posted by Ajuga

[...]

Moderator Action: This is the rant thread.
Please post only here if you want to rant. Let the people be angry about whatever they want, no need to argue with anyone.

Originally Posted by Disgustipated

not sure where else to post this, I don't want to create a thread for one quick question.

[...]

The quick questions and answers thread is stickied in this forum, please ask there .

[VikingTy]

Fight a long battle against a AI, I show mercy and accept a peace offer.
He then denounces me and declares war 20 turns later....... From that point on I just stomp the dumb AI with zero mercy

[Brian Shanahan]

Originally Posted by Ajuga

Most people seem to complain about the most silly things in this thread.
The game is pretty good, the diplomacy needs some work but they are fixing that in the expansion so it's all cool.

Also Eurocentrism? What do you want then? South-Americacentrism?
Thing is, the European countries are the norm, America started as nothing but colonies from European countries and pretty much all non-European countries and civilizations died out early or were technologically behind.
The only exceptions being some countries in Asia which had the same technologies but were a bit ahead.

Lets see the actual problems of the game, listed in order of importance:
1) 1UPT breaks every other aspect of the game. They had to drastically slow down production, and population growth in order to ensure that Carpets of Doom didn't appear in the BCs. For a game which is based not around war but around building a strong empire, this was a horrible design decision.
2) The AI is both stupid and insane. The AI civs do not know how to use their units or advantages. In the game I posted earlier in the thread (or the US based counterpart) someone said (in paraphrase) "I'm worried about Ghengiz's keshiks, except the AI has no clue how to use them." If the AI cannot use the war mechanics, why implement them that they are now the dominant part of the game? The AI has been likened to Monty from Civ 4 quite a lot, though from what I've seen I'd go farther and say they've gone back to Civ 3 levels of insanity, where chance of a war dec is just a dice roll away. You can't stay friends with the AI, they'll just get angry over something they did. You can't help the AI, they'll just hate you for helping them. You can't join a dogpile you've been invited to, they'll call you a warmonger and try to backstab.
3) Most of the diplomacy exploits from Civ 3 are back, but now with the addition of city states you can break the game harder and more easily. You can sell luxuries for huge sums of gold, and then pillage the resource to break the deal, turn around and ally with a CS get a new resource, sell the two resources, for even more money, and repeat from step two. And they invented some new ones, like great scientists bulbing every tech in one go. Frankly this game was never tested in the first place, and quite a few of the more egregious exploits have never been removed.
4) Civs are massively imbalanced, way more than in any version of Civ 4. Some traits or UUs allow you to conquer the world at ease, while others are just sad (though that doesn't stop you from conquering with ease). Another sign of the absense of testing.
5) The game was (and probably still is from what I can see) way too easy. Deity was broken within a couple of weeks of release (by Sullla and co., RBSG3), while using the then weakes civ. People will say that the game was beaten by a group of top level players. Well there's two problems here; 1) The mechanics changed so much that previous experience should have counted for little, and 2) I don't think a single one of those players managed to beat deity for a long time with base Civ 4 (BtS Deity is by all accounts somewhat toned down), if at all. So playing the same level of an unfamiliar game, that they could only occasionally beat on a game they're pretty much experts on, means pretty much that the game was a pushover.

Pretty much everything else is lesser than this, but each single one of these five problems is a game breaker.

Note: While Firaxis had people on board designated testers, and a process called beta testing, it is obvious that when a game is released to the public in essentially a pre-alpha state, that neither of these things were set up to do what their names meant that they should do.

[PreLynMax]

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

Lets see the actual problems of the game, listed in order of importance:
1) 1UPT breaks every other aspect of the game. They had to drastically slow down production, and population growth in order to ensure that Carpets of Doom didn't appear in the BCs. For a game which is based not around war but around building a strong empire, this was a horrible design decision.

I strongly disagree with this. It's true the AI does not know how to handle IUPT wars, but I find that design to be revolutionary, far from "a horrible design decision". (-2)

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

2) The AI is both stupid and insane. The AI civs do not know how to use their units or advantages. In the game I posted earlier in the thread (or the US based counterpart) someone said (in paraphrase) "I'm worried about Ghengiz's keshiks, except the AI has no clue how to use them." If the AI cannot use the war mechanics, why implement them that they are now the dominant part of the game? The AI has been likened to Monty from Civ 4 quite a lot, though from what I've seen I'd go farther and say they've gone back to Civ 3 levels of insanity, where chance of a war dec is just a dice roll away. You can't stay friends with the AI, they'll just get angry over something they did. You can't help the AI, they'll just hate you for helping them. You can't join a dogpile you've been invited to, they'll call you a warmonger and try to backstab.

On top of that, this game favors war too much. Step on the AI's toes? It's war time. Accidently cross into their CS? It's war with you. This game tends to love warring with you, which I mentioned in a previous thread, is so tedious, it instantly causes me to ragequit like a malfunctioning operation system. I do agree that the AI has been programmed poorly, and should be completely scrapped and redone again. (+1)

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

3) Most of the diplomacy exploits from Civ 3 are back, but now with the addition of city states you can break the game harder and more easily. You can sell luxuries for huge sums of gold, and then pillage the resource to break the deal, turn around and ally with a CS get a new resource, sell the two resources, for even more money, and repeat from step two. And they invented some new ones, like great scientists bulbing every tech in one go. Frankly this game was never tested in the first place, and quite a few of the more egregious exploits have never been removed.

I never played Civ 3 (I skipped over that one, and the thought of playing whack-a-mole with corruption and pollution repelled me from ever playing Civ 3), nor have I ever know or used exploits, but I liked great scientists bulbing a new tech, it makes them a little overpowered, yes, but that's how great people are supposed to be like. I found great scientists in Civ4 pretty useless after the medieval era. (-1)

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

4) Civs are massively imbalanced, way more than in any version of Civ 4. Some traits or UUs allow you to conquer the world at ease, while others are just sad (though that doesn't stop you from conquering with ease). Another sign of the absense of testing.

The imbalance often favors most of the DLCs (Babylon, Korea, Spain), and not everybody uses or are able to afford DLCs, so it's more like buying a major cheater civ, but some of the civs that doesn't favor war aren't actually that weak (I found Egypt's
cheaper wonders great for a cultural victory, the Arabian's UA are great in any time, especially in diplomacy), but I agree some UA (cough cough England) are pretty useless. (+1)

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

5) The game was (and probably still is from what I can see) way too easy. Deity was broken within a couple of weeks of release (by Sullla and co., RBSG3), while using the then weakes civ. People will say that the game was beaten by a group of top level players. Well there's two problems here; 1) The mechanics changed so much that previous experience should have counted for little, and 2) I don't think a single one of those players managed to beat deity for a long time with base Civ 4 (BtS Deity is by all accounts somewhat toned down), if at all. So playing the same level of an unfamiliar game, that they could only occasionally beat on a game they're pretty much experts on, means pretty much that the game was a pushover.

Easy? I can barely beat the game on Prince. I found the fact that the AI gets bonuses makes me feel cheated. And yes, those bonuses DO count. If I play on a really high level Emperor to Deity) I will get massacred, even on Civ V. (-2)

Basically, I think you should be better sticking with a (obviously) superior Civ IV over V, though most of your arguments are weak and have no basis, I agree with some of them. (overall -2 influence).

[Brian Shanahan]

Originally Posted by PreLynMax

I strongly disagree with this. It's true the AI does not know how to handle IUPT wars, but I find that design to be revolutionary, far from "a horrible design decision". (-2)

I'm sorry you're calling a system which is older than computers themselves "revolutionary"? Yeah 1UPT has been around for a long time, but it has always been in one area of games, the tactical war-game, and for good reason.

1UPT comes to dominate the battlefield, and eveything has to revolve around it, for the simple reason that if you don't you very quickly get bogged down in an unplayable mess, due to the fact that there are too many units and not enough space to fit them in. By nerfing production and growth Civ 5 managed to (mostly) stop the too many units problem, but by having to actually keep something that is recognisably Civ have run afoul of the not enough space very quickly.

And the other problem with 1UPT is that if it is not being used as it should, or if it is being used outside its proper area not niched off, it completely destroys the balance of the game. And Civ as a series was never about what 1UPT is strong in, wargames, it has always been about building an empire (or country) that is strong on a strategic level. I'm sorry but no matter how hard the devs tried (and frankly they didn't try hard) the fact that Civ is a strategic level game and 1UPT is a tactical only mechanic means that the game and the mechanic are irreconcilable. The disconnect is about as bad as if one of the missions in Fallout: New Vegas was; "here is The Times cryptic crossword. Solve it in thirty minutes or the building you're in blows up". The needs of the tactical wargame mechanics seriously affect the empire building side of the game, and completely adversely, while on theother hand the remaining strategic elements have a huge retardant on the tactical wargame side of the game. You should no more mix the two than put paprika into your apple crumble.

[Scipioness]

Not wishing to make more noise in a forum I'm new in (sort of), so I'll jump in here.

I've been a Civ lover all the way back from Civ2. SMAC took weeks of my life. Liked 3, loved 4, when I got it working. Infact, I worry I'll be dismissed as someone that only contributes moans here; and I suppose there would be a point to that, sadly.

I've been trying so hard to get CiV. Like, really hard. I play a game, get fed up, drop it for a fortnight, go back, convinced that it's my problem, not the games. Must have tried 50 times to like it, even think it OK, but I just can't. I just find the whole experience of playing it a chore (for all the reasons in 10 skimmed pages I've read here, probably not as many as in 89!); previous titles in the series I could just enjoy the process, even if I wasn't trying to heavily micro manage a win. Even when I was trying to take it seriously as a series of mechanics to master, it was great there too.

Finally given up on CiV; I tried, I failed. With any luck, 6 will be a return to prior glory. The love and joy I've had from previous titles means I'll make with the cash; but if it's as bad as 5, they may lose me altogether.

[Disgustipated]

I'd like to see a few more difficulty levels. I find one difficulty level too easy, and the other one too difficult. I wish there was something in the middle. The jump in AI power from one diff. level to the next is astonishing.

All I can really say is happiness management, and financial management in this game is a serious chore. It's so difficult to keep happiness > 0, and income > 0.

[PreLynMax]

I've looked back at my old saves, and I found out my average ragequit date was around 50-70 turns (normal speed). Can't really get into this game as much.

[phoenix_sprite]

I've played about 5 games so far, and played the polynesian scenario (which was fun). I'm having a hard time enjoying the game and it doesnt seem as complete as Civ4, it's leaving a lot to be desired. The DLCs, the diplomacy and the shifty AI are among things which really peeves me off.

Can anyone show me something good about this game before I go back to Civ4?

[Txurce]

Originally Posted by phoenix_sprite

Can anyone show me something good about this game before I go back to Civ4?

You picked the worst thread on the entire forum to ask this question.

[lordsurya08]

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

I'm sorry you're calling a system which is older than computers themselves "revolutionary"? Yeah 1UPT has been around for a long time, but it has always been in one area of games, the tactical war-game, and for good reason.

1UPT comes to dominate the battlefield, and eveything has to revolve around it, for the simple reason that if you don't you very quickly get bogged down in an unplayable mess, due to the fact that there are too many units and not enough space to fit them in. By nerfing production and growth Civ 5 managed to (mostly) stop the too many units problem, but by having to actually keep something that is recognisably Civ have run afoul of the not enough space very quickly.

And the other problem with 1UPT is that if it is not being used as it should, or if it is being used outside its proper area not niched off, it completely destroys the balance of the game. And Civ as a series was never about what 1UPT is strong in, wargames, it has always been about building an empire (or country) that is strong on a strategic level. I'm sorry but no matter how hard the devs tried (and frankly they didn't try hard) the fact that Civ is a strategic level game and 1UPT is a tactical only mechanic means that the game and the mechanic are irreconcilable. The disconnect is about as bad as if one of the missions in Fallout: New Vegas was; "here is The Times cryptic crossword. Solve it in thirty minutes or the building you're in blows up". The needs of the tactical wargame mechanics seriously affect the empire building side of the game, and completely adversely, while on theother hand the remaining strategic elements have a huge retardant on the tactical wargame side of the game. You should no more mix the two than put paprika into your apple crumble.

This is absolutely true. 1UPT is a feature for tactical war games, not the Civ series. Jon Shafer has said several times that he borrowed from the Panzer General series, which IMO was a huge mistake as the two games are on a totally different scale.

Ranged units are another thing that don't make sense. I always thought there should only be melee units...not only does the ranged unit concept break the "scale" of the game, the AI can't use them either.

[BMacklin]

When Gandhi declares war on you at first sight, something is terribly wrong!

[DemonMaster]

Originally Posted by BMacklin

When Gandhi declares war on you at first sight, something is terribly wrong!

Oh, he has done that in any civ version. Perhaps one of the co-workers creating civ was British.

[BMacklin]

^ lol.

[Brian Shanahan]

Originally Posted by lordsurya08

Ranged units are another thing that don't make sense. I always thought there should only be melee units...not only does the ranged unit concept break the "scale" of the game, the AI can't use them either.

They took out ranged bombardment between civs 3 and 4 simply because ranged bombardment in 3 was way too powerful and couldn't be toned back at all for 4.

But that is a recurring theme with a lot of the ancilliary problems with civ 5. They are problems that were seen in the design of civ 3 and were fixed for civ 4 only to reappear again in civ 5.

[vanillasine]

thank you moderator for this wonderful thread. maybe we can close in on 2k rant posts before there is even 100 rave posts.

I declined to buy civ V at the beginning because better players than I quickly tested it out and said it was no good. I waited for it to be on sale (ty 75% off @ steam) until buying and trying it out myself.

I now confirm, that it is still no good. please see posts above me to see why.

[Gorgo]

Originally Posted by Brian Shanahan

And Civ as a series was never about what 1UPT is strong in

That as a summary is spot-on.

I hope I can see Civ V as an aberration at worst, or as a brave experiment that failed at best, and we won't have this jarring schizophrenic vision moving forward.

As it stands, I'm pretty angry that I bought this incomplete mutant of a game on the day of release. It'll sit on the shelves with every other Civ I've paid hard-earned cash for, but it is not going to be revisited time and again.

I hope however much cash was made from this game is enough to overlook the damage it's done to the faith of reasonable chunk of a very committed and passionate community.

[OneFootInThe...]

Originally Posted by Gorgo

That as a summary is spot-on.

I hope I can see Civ V as an aberration at worst, or as a brave experiment that failed at best, and we won't have this jarring schizophrenic vision moving forward.

As it stands, I'm pretty angry that I bought this incomplete mutant of a game on the day of release. It'll sit on the shelves with every other Civ I've paid hard-earned cash for, but it is not going to be revisited time and again.

I hope however much cash was made from this game is enough to overlook the damage it's done to the faith of reasonable chunk of a very committed and passionate community.

+1 1UPT ruined CivV. It is still a good enough concept for newcomers but it has less depth than Civ I.

did the same (bought on release), and it sits on Steam shelf... hope for better future in few years with VI when and if they make it.

Won't be buying that one straight away it seems, though.

[gaiko]

Well, this "weak" argument is not Brian Shanahan's, as was mentioned; It wasn't even Sullas', who attributed the original "root cause" analysis to Luddite.

"1) One Unit Per Tile: Yes, the largest change in Civilization 5 is ultimately its largest design flaw. This will be a controversial point, as I know a lot of people really enjoy the new combat system, but it has to be said: the One Unit Per Tile restriction is the core problem with Civ5's design. Everything is based around this restriction. Everything. It determines how city production works, it determines the pace of research, it explains why tile yields are so low. Civilization was completely rewritten from the ground up to make use of the One Unit Per Tile limit on gameplay. Luddite has written the best summary of how and why this system doesn't work, so I'm going to let him explain further before I continue:"

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

One other thing that is often forgotten in pointing to 1UPT as the root cause of CivV's problems is its negative impact upon the military AI. 1UPT, with consideration of all of its geometrical/positional aspects required to make this a meaningful design decision, is inherently more difficult to program for for this very reason. Add to this ranged units, and a huge burden was created for the AI developer. This was simply too much to expect in a commercial game.

Is it any surprise, then, that the AI is so inferior at military?

Originally Posted by PreLynMax

I strongly disagree with this. It's true the AI does not know how to handle IUPT wars, but I find that design to be revolutionary, far from "a horrible design decision". (-2)

Basically, I think you should be better sticking with a (obviously) superior Civ IV over V, though most of your arguments are weak and have no basis, I agree with some of them. (overall -2 influence).

[Buttercup]

Well... what can I say...

Civilisation was released in 1991.

Good heavens, practically anything filling a computer screen was cool back then. Civilisation was both cool and original.

What was the primary gripe of an otherwise unfaltable game? The crappy AI, of course.

What does AI mean in terms of Civ games?

1) Where the AI civ chooses to build its cities.

2) How the AI civ operates its units in battle and peace time.

3) Why the AI civ declares war and it's general attitude to the player's civ.

4) What items and at what cost the AI civ is prepared to trade anything.

5) Who the AI civ chooses to ally with in any given situation.

6) When to retreat from battle and the extent of the severity of the peace settlement.

I have not played all the games in the Civilisation series. I have only played Civ2, Civ3, Freeciv and Alpha Centuri. However, all these issues regarding the CRAPPY artificial intelligence aspect of the game appear in every single release, even, sadly, the Civ5 it appears.

Of course this thread has 90 pages of frustration and despair, its so (insert swear word) obvious what is wrong with the Civ series that I can't honestly understand why anyone would even think of picking up any new Civ game until the problems from the first game, 20 YEARS AGO, have been fully or near fully resolved.

20 YEARS OF HAVING THE SAME COMPLAINTS LEVELLED AT THE CIV SERIES.

20 YEARS.

And what do we have?

Yet another civ game which is exactly the same as the first game except for some arbitrary cosmetic changes designed not as an improvement but simply designed as means to make the game 'different enough' to be worthy of new cellophane wrapping and a $30 player investment.

"Bored of the game? Hey, try this 'new' version which has a Platinum tile instead of a Gold tile"

"Have you solved the AI problem yet, you've had, like 20 YEARS to get to grips with it now?"

"Erm... um... Look, nice shiny Platinum!"

I mean, seriously... how can it be put into words that all humans can understand, regardless of an IQ of less than 50 and regardless of a level of greed which would put the original Genghis Kahn to shame?

IT'S THE CRAPPY AI

So here I am, a potential customer for Civ5 and what do I see? Zero improvements over Civ2. Why in god's name would I buy something I already have? All I've been thinking for the past 10 years is "Wonder when the new improved version will come out?" and, quite frankly it hasn't, and it never will! Why do I need to upgrade from Civ2? Oh right, because modern PCs can't read it, oh ok, I'll downgrade to Civ3 then. But, holy crap, I sure hope I don't have to keep downgrading every time Windows needs a cash boost!

I mean, christ, don't tell me, please don't tell me, Civ5 is still doing that thing where:

Your warrior spots a rival's civ's unit after climbing a mountain - immediately you have full contact with that Civ and 2 turns later you receive a demand from halfway across the globe for all your cash or it's war? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

You completely screw over the Ai civ in a deal, utterly bankrupting them, then, 20 turns later when the deal is to be renewed, they say, yeah sure, let's trade with these awesome people again! OMFG, Is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

Just as you finish off one AI civ, cleaning up the last city or two, another AI Civ, regardless of size, military capability, diplomatic history, trade agreements, will, inevitably, attack you because, heaven forbid, you might get bored having a spell of NOT fighting but instead take the opportunity to explore all the other game options the game provides? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

You have just annihilated an assault of 20 archers with your legion of tanks and the AI civ decides the best course of action is to refuse to meet your emissary and send out a further 20 archers to have another go at the tanks? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

The Republic form of government is the only form of government which has practical applications regardless of victory conditions and therefore is the form of government the AI is least likely to learn first? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

The list of AI retardations is endless and hilarious.

The list of AI retardations solved after 20 YEARS of intensive development is unstarted and hilarious.

How much would it have cost to employ one engineer on his/her own to examine this problem over the course of 20 YEARS?

I'm sorry? That's a potentially 'wasted' investment?

Oh well, guess I'm not investing any further cash for people who don't have any concept of 'investment' then...