Lunatic Irish Woman Seeks Sensible Civvers for Productive Discussion.

I've been reading the threads in the Civ5 Discussion Forum off and on today (in between bouts of playing ), and I have to say that I'm very disappointed at what I've seen in the forums so far.

There has been Civ5 bashing a'plenty amongst the comments and criticism. May I take a moment to remind some of you that the game is only in its second day of release? Did some of you honestly expect that the game would be perfect right out of the gate? While some of you are hollering like a bunch of Mollys and going boo-hoo, I have a sanity checklist for you.

1. The game is brand new, and needs some further tweaking by Firaxis (and modders).
2. The UI is different, and will take some "getting used to."
3. The game itself is somewhat different from what we as Civ4 players are used to.
4. The developers have left out a number of things that might have made the game better. (see below)
5. It is not Civ4.

Instead of ranting and trolling, the better approach would be to discuss what we like, and what we don't like in a rational, sensible, and constructive manner. That way, the developers can get some realistic feedback, and possibly address some of the issues that we feel are important. (And the modding community can get some good ideas on things that we all like or want.) Of course there are some issues with the game, and some teething pains. Heck, even operating systems have service packs.

Ok, so you're disappointed. Well, why not spend a few more days playing and exploring, to see if there really are issues to kvetch about? Give it a fair try. I personally think that the developers deliberately left out a number of key things in the interface, and with the game as a whole. And do you know why I think it was deliberate? They have left us room to mod the game. To leave our mark as a community on the game series that we love. At least that's my take on it.

Some positive discussion would be beneficial for all of us. Saying "It's crap!" without any positive suggestions is... well... crap, really... Constructive criticism is a much better approach, don't you think?

Just MHO.

-LM

Workers really need to be able to stack.

If someone plays Civ 5 and thinks it's "crap" I wonder what they are comparing it to, because it sure isn't civ 4. It's light years ahead of Civ 4.

2. The UI is different, and will take some "getting used to."

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The UI change from Civ 3 to Civ 4 took some getting used to. I have played though 2 demo matches and still I wish to go back in time and give the person that designed this UI an abortion.

1. The game is brand new, and needs some further tweaking by Firaxis (and modders).

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You mean they need to add civilizations that were in previous civ releases to vanilla instead of saving them for expansions and say "You asked for it and we has't given it to you!"

rujikin said:

The UI change from Civ 3 to Civ 4 took some getting used to. I have played though 2 demo matches and still I wish to go back in time and give the person that designed this UI an abortion.

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My point was, if you don't like parts of the game, express that in a constructive manner.

You mean they need to add civilizations that were in previous civ releases to vanilla instead of saving them for expansions and say "You asked for it and we has't given it to you!"

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I think it's very unrealistic to expect 2K/Firaxis not to release an expansion pack or two. That's just business.

I did not take more than 2 posts until the "crap cryin" trolls started to emerge again... and you really tried with your opening post

Poor community.


Moderator Action: please do not flame other users.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

It seems like the UI, particularly in the city screen, could be condensed into one overall screen. Is there anything that central hex grid space is used for other than allocating citizens? If not, why do we have to tab to do this? Everything being in tabs is bad UI, to me. There's also no quick and easy way to tell the exact hp of a unit or how much time a worker has left on a construction.

LM, as some of the posts here show, there will always be those who want to declare "X is better than Y" without any willingness to calmly discuss features, instead, in a game that's fresh and quite buggy.

I suppose my main peeves are the absence of feedback (diplomacy, cities) and the poor combat/negotiations AI. Unless, of course, the AI is meant to give up nearly every city it owns when only one has been taken, brilliantly simulating an inbred dynasty of rulers that has finally drifted down into rampant idiocy. If that's the case, they've achieved it remarkably well. Otherwise, I think the product needs considerable work, and I have no doubt at all it will receive that.

I did not take more than 2 posts until the "crap cryin" trolls started to emerge again... and you really tried with your opening post

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Well, hopefully more clear headed folks will join in and this thread won't get closed.

Lemon Merchant said:

My point was, if you don't like parts of the game, express that in a constructive manner.


I think it's very unrealistic to expect 2K/Firaxis not to release an expansion pack or two. That's just business.

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I found out long ago that does not work nor do companies care.

I am not saying an expansion is bad. Just DO NOT RECYCLE OLD stuff AND LABEL IT AS NEW!!! Its a ripoff and bad business.

Moderator Action: Warned for inappropriate language -- and spelling it out to bypass the censor is not allowed either
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I love it so far. It unlocked for me at 7am Tues, and even though I was busy all day and couldnt play it until the evening, it has worked flawlessly. I love 1 unit/hex - I used to play that way in Civ 1 and 2, and I'm glad it's the rule now. The UI is different, but I will get used to it. I even gifted a copy to my brother, so he can become a Civ addict.

Lemon Merchant said:

Well, hopefully more clear headed folks will join in and this thread won't get closed.

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Don't worry.
I'm too, just amazed at the dry and concentrated pure hate some people can bring forth because they managed to broke their computer or got bad luck with hardware pieces and thus the game does not run so well. Or how they weren't able to deduct from watching almost 3 (!) hours gameplay only the last 2 (!) weeks before release, to see what a kind of game there is to come... and now hate themselves or what?

Honestly, if you see 3 hours of gameplay of Civ V and played IV or even its predecessors for years and can not comprehend for yourself how it will be like to play this game... your beyond help.

The first 10-20 turns into game I knew exactly that my assumptions where right and was happy to play it how I imagined it the last 2 weeks after watching 3 (!) hours of gameplay.

Okay... so, even if you didn't watch any video, or haven't read anything about it, and it doesn't suit your tastes: just go through the sanity check list above and try to chill. -> There will be patches, mods, dlc and expansions.

And remember... not every review site is payed by every gaming company oO... when there are 50 % reviews for it (like our friend T. Chick did), then there may be reviews with 80-100 % which are honest and maybe, just maybe, it is just you? Ever thought of it?


Well, no point in caring as long as the whine does not demotivate the developers ...

You're up late.

People just need to relax and give 5 a chance. Civ is a fun game and all, but even if you dislike it a lot of people seem overly grief-stricken about the fact. Hey, 4 still exists, you know? If you prefer that, then play it. It's not like the existence of 5 somehow reduces the enjoyability of 4.

Honestly, internet. Honestly.

I've only played the demo, and I like Civ V so far. But!

I miss my "turns until healed", hover mouse "turns left to finish improvement" (you have to select the working worker to know), tech bar while in city screen, and numerical XP progress.

Let me elaborate on that last one. The bar is pretty, but useless. I don't get real info without hovering over it for the good old "20/30", because this is not an RPG. All you get from experience bars is stuff like "Ok, 3/4 of the bar looks full, I'm close to the next level", wich works in RPGs where you kill like 20 monsters per battle, and one battle can get you to the next level, so it's enough for decision-making. This is Civ, every battle is a one on one encounter (especially with 1upt), and a pretty isolated event I think about very carefully. What do you expect me to do with a bar? It's not like I can say "Oh, it's 3/4, let's take this unit on a killing spree so it levels up", because that's not the level at wich decision-making takes places. In short, RPGs are pure tactics (unless they're simple hack and slash, but w/e, think Dragon Age), and Civ works on all strategic levels (you know, grand strategy, operational, etc). This-is-wrong.

Also, ToGTFO.

Mouse over the bar to see the XP totals on the unit frame. The same works with HP.

bjbrains said:

Mouse over the bar to see the XP totals on the unit frame. The same works with HP.

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I know I can see it that way, it's in my post. I know I can see a lot of things with some extra clicks/hovering, but I don't see why I have to. Is this what streamlined means? What was wrong with the displayed info we had in Civ IV? How does half-hiding info make the game more accesible? Did some tester got scared or couldn't get into the game because this information was at hand? New players won't miss these things because they never had them, but I don't think they wouldn't welcome them. What's going on?

I am just really enjoying the experience, I have had too much fun to take time to make posts. We pre-ordered our copies for our anniversary in July, and I am not at all disappointed after the wait. It isn't perfect, but it just feels fun to play, and isn't that what games are about?

Lemon Merchant said:

Some positive discussion would be beneficial for all of us. Saying "It's crap!" without any positive suggestions is... well... crap, really... Constructive criticism is a much better approach, don't you think?

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Fully agreed, but hardly achievable in a public forum of a mass market game, I'm afraid. Venting frustration is so much easier than actually thinking about improvements, requires much less effort, and Internet forums are such a convenient place to vent anyway - they provide all of the advantages of a public soapbox while removing all of the risks.

As for my opinion, the reason why I'm not buying Civ5 has been banned from free discussion in this forum. I suggested an alternative way of handling this to the moderators, which was apparently talked about for a week, then I was told that they were looking for people to implement it, and now two more weeks have passed, the game is released, and nothing has happened. I do think I tried a constructive approach, but to be honest I'm rather disappointed with the results so far. It's the same reason that caused more than half of all user reviews on Amazon to end up at a single star btw.

Personally, I expect Civ5 (I might buy it at some time in the future when they change the distribution requirements) to be a bit less enjoyable for me than Civ4, simply due to a "regression to the mean" effect. Civ4 had such an inordinate amount of design decisions made just according to my personal preferences that it's unlikely to be topped. I also think that Firaxis had little choice but to do some major changes to the game, since Civ4 pretty much maxed out what could be achieved under the Civ1-4 paradigm, so the best way to make the sequel not look like a failed clone was to change the paradigm. So in a way, I respect many design decisions as sound and sensible even though I don't expect to like the outcome as much as I like Civ4.

I like Civ V, so far it's still got the same addicting gameplay.

But it seems to me they focused all their attention on the combat side of things and not enough on cities and empire management. Combat and warfare is great but not when it's the only thing that works well.

the UI is fine. The fact that u can't play a whole game without wanting to gouge your eyes out because the turns take so long is nuts and should of been rectified before they started charging persons money to purchase it.

FAIL.