Civilization 5 Rants Thread

IMO, the GDR wouldn't be so bad if they had fleshed out the future age. As it is, it sticks out like a sore thumb and as a crappy meme.

Likely, what happened was 2K Games wanted to release the game ASAP to mollify their shareholders. That's why the late game feels so unfinished and dull. The ancient age is actually decent. (Crappy global happiness and 1UPT aside.) You've all seen a movie where they clearly ran out of money at the end, right? That's what Civilization 5 feels like. ;)

With the expansion, the 20th century will be expanded but likely there won't be much futuristic stuff to make the GDR at least a little more palatable.
 
Anymore, I highly doubt that there will be an expansion as good as Beyond the Sword was. Which as we all know, expanded on the late game by adding in new units (Anti-tank Infantry to deal with Armored units) and introducing new aspects of gameplay (Corporations).

I pretty much moved on from the Civilization series. The last three games (Civilization: Revolutions, Civilization IV: Colonization, and Civilization V) have been pretty disappointing, so I assume that somewhere between Beyond the Sword and Colonization, something went wrong. I guess that's when Take-Two bought Firaxis right?

Did anyone bother to click on the links I posted a couple pages back? One is a hex grid battle of Panzer General, the other is a hex grid landscape of Civilization V. Shaffer pretty much copied that over.
 
Wait, let me analyze this here.

So you're saying that you support the idea of the Civilization franchise becoming a war-mongering one, and not an empire building series which it was meant to be?

Put yourself in a situation where you have all the technologies except Nuclear Fusion, which is needed to build the Giant Death Robot. Suddenly, Genghis Khan and even Gandhi of all people throw a slew of Giant Death Robots towards you. All you have is Stealth Bombers and Modern Armor.

150 Strength versus 80 Strength (Modern Armor). Who is going to win?

I will, by building a spaceship before getting "all the technologies except Nuclear Fusion".

You yourself just admitted that you prefer Conquest and Domination victories as opposed to Cultural and Space Race victories. Civilization is a poor fighting game at best. It's recipe for success lies within the balance of research, maintenance, commerce, culture, and supporting an adequate army. Put all focus on military and you got yourself a serious imbalance in the game mechanics.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I've always enjoyed playing peaceful games. About half of the focus should be put on military development, tactics, and strategy; war has had a significant impact on quite a few civs in real life.

The GDR requires Nuclear Fusion, a very late tech. A technology victory is supposed to symbolize dominance in the tech race. The rocket should be ready by the time other civs are advanced enough to build GDRs, even if they beelined Nuclear Fusion. If not, your empire should be very close to getting the rocket and have the military might (and wile) to hold off the GDRs until it's done (note: GDRs can't defend and have a penalty against cities, and 5 archers with logistics can kill one in one turn until G+K comes out. Come to think of it, I think those stealth bombers you were talking about can do the same).

A civ that isn't that far ahead should consider going for a cultural or financial (UN) victory, or, heaven forbid, learn Nuclear Fusion, then finish the spaceship tech line while building GDRs. I wouldn't know about any of that because the only time I had military trouble in a science victory, it was from Gandhi eradicating my entire militarily-lightweight civilization in the span of 4 turns with nukes, sans my capital, which built the last part just before falling.

It just so happens that Civ 5 does have somewhat of an imbalance, but to me it has nothing to do with the GDR. It's imbalanced because the AI isn't very good in combat (though with the patches and NiGHTS or VEM it's a lot better than it used to be in some ways). Therefore, if you find yourself scoring low, no problem, declare war, take a city. I prefer to lay back on Prince and not start (first) wars, but a good warmonger game on a higher difficulty is fun once in a while. But anyway my point is that GDRs are fine.
 
I pretty much moved on from the Civilization series. The last three games (Civilization: Revolutions, Civilization IV: Colonization, and Civilization V) have been pretty disappointing, so I assume that somewhere between Beyond the Sword and Colonization, something went wrong. I guess that's when Take-Two bought Firaxis right?

I don't think it was Take-Two so much as a turn of events. The lead designer of Civ4 left, which was a shame. Sid also wanted Revolutions to be simplified (i.e., dumbed down), which lead to that title's problems. And both Colonization and Civ5 were Jon Shafer's work. You can actually see it in the gameplay problems both shared: limited options, broken mechanics, pretty enough graphics, and a tendency to penalize the player for doing well. Pretty much everything that Shafer has lead produced (including his Final Frontier mod) share these traits, which makes it baffling that they kept promoting him. I mean, surely someone noticed that Colonization had broken gameplay, right?

Did anyone bother to click on the links I posted a couple pages back? One is a hex grid battle of Panzer General, the other is a hex grid landscape of Civilization V. Shaffer pretty much copied that over.

Yeah, he decided he wanted to make Civ5 into Panzer General 2.0, without thinking about the total difference in styles and formats. Thus key features like diplomacy and building got neglected in favor of a bad war game.
 
I will, by building a spaceship before getting "all the technologies except Nuclear Fusion".

I didn't ask about Spaceship victories. I'm asking if you are going to be able to fend off an enemy who has GDRs while you only have Modern Armor units.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I've always enjoyed playing peaceful games. About half of the focus should be put on military development, tactics, and strategy; war has had a significant impact on quite a few civs in real life.

If you find yourself in constant war, then yes. A lot of your focus should be on building enough military units to fend off enemy units. If you are able to make peace with 'said' neighbor, then you should do so as soon as you are able to.

I'm not talking about real life here. I'm talking about Civilization V, and how it presents a huge imbalance in favor of war over empire building, which was essentially the best aspect of the Civilization series.

The GDR requires Nuclear Fusion, a very late tech. A technology victory is supposed to symbolize dominance in the tech race. The rocket should be ready by the time other civs are advanced enough to build GDRs, even if they beelined Nuclear Fusion. If not, your empire should be very close to getting the rocket and have the military might (and wile) to hold off the GDRs until it's done (note: GDRs can't defend and have a penalty against cities, and 5 archers with logistics can kill one in one turn until G+K comes out. Come to think of it, I think those stealth bombers you were talking about can do the same).

Point taken.

Yet for all it's glory, the Modern era still feels unfinished. Basically it's comprised of gaining new military units, rather than spreading Corporations or building up Culture like it was in the previous iteration.

If anyone has a real reason why Firaxis proposed putting in the GDR, I'll be delighted to hear it.

A civ that isn't that far ahead should consider going for a cultural or financial (UN) victory, or, heaven forbid, learn Nuclear Fusion, then finish the spaceship tech line while building GDRs. I wouldn't know about any of that because the only time I had military trouble in a science victory, it was from Gandhi eradicating my entire militarily-lightweight civilization in the span of 4 turns with nukes, sans my capital, which built the last part just before falling.

Unless I was at war I saw no reason to be building late-game military units or Nukes while building spaceship components at the same time. Then again, your opponent might have a dozen Nukes that could easily destroy most of your infrastructure and city population.

Trying to do both is just asinine. If you want Conquest, then build Nukes, if you want to be ahead in the technology race, then build up your science output.

For the record, Gandhi shouldn't even be considered being a war-monger. I strongly considered him to be a powerful ally and a leader whose main focus was to build infrastructure and stay on top of the technology race. The diplomacy AI is just terrible in Civilization V. Too many people have already explained why it's bad, so I'll stop here.


It just so happens that Civ 5 does have somewhat of an imbalance, but to me it has nothing to do with the GDR. It's imbalanced because the AI isn't very good in combat (though with the patches and NiGHTS or VEM it's a lot better than it used to be in some ways). Therefore, if you find yourself scoring low, no problem, declare war, take a city. I prefer to lay back on Prince and not start (first) wars, but a good warmonger game on a higher difficulty is fun once in a while. But anyway my point is that GDRs are fine.

It's not somewhat of an imbalance. It's a huge imbalance.

This is the first Civilization I've played where improvements and infrastructure don't seem to matter much. It tries to be slick in introducing a form of combat previously not seen in other iterations. Yet like you said, the combat AI is ridiculously stupid.

The only way I can have even a little bit of fun is if I decided to conquer every other civilization in the hopes that I gain a Conquest victory. I think it says a lot when people claim that 'Emperor' difficulty is about as easy as 'Settler-Chieftain' was on Civilization IV. I don't want a game that is a breeze to go through, I want a challenge that is fulfilling in more than one aspect of game play.

There are no slider bars, no graphs showing your line of progress. The victory screen is downright awful. Furthermore, Civilization V just feels unfinished.

...and if I want to add more content to the game right now, I'm forced to pay money for DLC that isn't available for all players. That stuff really adds up, and should I ever hope to gain all DLC content, I would of spent more money on that alone than I did for the initial release of Civilization IV and it's two expansions.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. GDRs are only there because in my opinion, Firaxis couldn't come up with a better option for the late game.
 
The identification of the key design problem with CivV was attributed by Sulla 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:"

So Luddite's the original genius.

And yes, the bottom line with self-professed fans of CivV is that they *like* that the Civ series has been converted into a board wargame. "So be it" we are told. The implication is that this may have been the conscious design decision of the producers/publishers.

1UPT, as implemented, is simply at the wrong scale.
Possibilities:
... 1) stack units and use a battle map based on attacker/defender terrains (Total War)
... 2) reduce the grid size units use; increase (or not) movement points
... 3) allow limited stacking (1x each combat type)
... 4) allow user defined units (Axis&Allies: ie unit = 7x current units in any combination)
... ... 7 = six battle fronts + 1 center (adds direction of attack/flanking/facing tactics)
... 5) unlimited stacking
 
i like these features in civ 5
the great improvements (the great people)
the cities self defense system
embark-able units
the hex grid
leader animations
leader comments
and that's all. what i don't like is
no religion
no super specialists
no health (city sickness etc.)
road maintenance (you should get gold from them!)
less land improvements
ridiculous AI (trade and diplomacy)
no world builder
one leader for every civ
no unit stacking
AI coveting land and wonders and saying they think you are trying to win the game their way (that is so not realistic)
no auto unit disbanding when you have - gold
city annexing - puppeting
building maintenance (do city maintenance)
no music for tiles
militaristic AI
no space view
no highlighting tiles
annoying end turn glitch (says i have to do this again even though i did it)
no barb cities
no reward from future tech
giant death robot (useless)
denoucing
so i don't know why i didn't wait for gods and kings or have to buy those mini packs for money.
 
I think it says a lot when people claim that 'Emperor' difficulty is about as easy as 'Settler-Chieftain' was on Civilization IV.

Yeah, it is. I've got a lot of trouble with Emperor on Civ4, but just rolled over the 'Emperor' level on Civ V. Maybe Settler-Chieftain is a bit exaggerated, but Chieftain is a good way to describe it, IMHO.
 
I don't think it was Take-Two so much as a turn of events. The lead designer of Civ4 left, which was a shame. Sid also wanted Revolutions to be simplified (i.e., dumbed down), which lead to that title's problems. And both Colonization and Civ5 were Jon Shafer's work. You can actually see it in the gameplay problems both shared: limited options, broken mechanics, pretty enough graphics, and a tendency to penalize the player for doing well. Pretty much everything that Shafer has lead produced (including his Final Frontier mod) share these traits, which makes it baffling that they kept promoting him. I mean, surely someone noticed that Colonization had broken gameplay, right?



Yeah, he decided he wanted to make Civ5 into Panzer General 2.0, without thinking about the total difference in styles and formats. Thus key features like diplomacy and building got neglected in favor of a bad war game.

Precisely. I still do not understand why after 18 months most people still don't see where the fail really is: Joni.

What is funny, though, is to watch the guy trying to clean his name... over there at the Stardock forums there was a thread posted last week about the betas of Elemental Fallen Enchantres; one of the questions of the FAQ posted referred to the campaign being developed, and the original version of the post said something like "The campaign is being designed by Jon Shafer, lead designer of Civilization 5 and Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword..."!!!! :lol::lol::lol:

I quickly posted in that thread requesting a correction because he only worked on a small component of BTS, and lo and behold, a few days later the correction was posted... nevertheless, that tells me the guy is trying to sell a "not so white lie" to try to clean his name, by confusing some people... "hey guys, I designed both the best and the worst Civ games, so my average performance is still good... right???"

A typical chanta, as we used to say in South America...
 
It's not somewhat of an imbalance. It's a huge imbalance.

This is the first Civilization I've played where improvements and infrastructure don't seem to matter much. It tries to be slick in introducing a form of combat previously not seen in other iterations. Yet like you said, the combat AI is ridiculously stupid.

The only way I can have even a little bit of fun is if I decided to conquer every other civilization in the hopes that I gain a Conquest victory. I think it says a lot when people claim that 'Emperor' difficulty is about as easy as 'Settler-Chieftain' was on Civilization IV. I don't want a game that is a breeze to go through, I want a challenge that is fulfilling in more than one aspect of game play.

There are no slider bars, no graphs showing your line of progress. The victory screen is downright awful. Furthermore, Civilization V just feels unfinished.

...and if I want to add more content to the game right now, I'm forced to pay money for DLC that isn't available for all players. That stuff really adds up, and should I ever hope to gain all DLC content, I would of spent more money on that alone than I did for the initial release of Civilization IV and it's two expansions.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. GDRs are only there because in my opinion, Firaxis couldn't come up with a better option for the late game.

I do agree with most of this... the Modern era is indeed grossly unfinished (wouldn't be surprised to see a second expansion that was focused on the future). But even if it was expanded, I'd still be all for GDR (or a mech) being at the end of the line.

And the victory screen? Yeah, it sucks. At least they patched in a map (they needed to patch this? Are they serious?), but it still sucks. Nothing is less satisfying than spending half your life playing a game and getting that in return. Oh wait, yeah there is. Ever lost a game of Civ 5 peacefully? It's the dumbest thing possible. It shows your pathetic, crumbled empire, which has been shattered by.... what? Another civ being slightly better? Why is it acting like I just got conquered? What a stupid ending screen. :gripe:

One thing we disagree on is the empire-building feel; I never felt it in 4 any more than I do in 5. NiGHTS in 5 is a lot more interesting than vanilla 5 when it comes to available buildings though. Also about 4 being harder than 5, well, that probably has more to do with stacks of doom than anything else. Also, they are probably comparing 5 to BtS which had a Better AI mod which was made by fans.

Steam's service always has sales for everything, which I knew going in. Picked up 6 DLC civs for $7 during the 75% off sale, and I still considered waiting til it was all bundled together and cheaper (which will inevitably happen).
 
Yeah, it is. I've got a lot of trouble with Emperor on Civ4, but just rolled over the 'Emperor' level on Civ V. Maybe Settler-Chieftain is a bit exaggerated, but Chieftain is a good way to describe it, IMHO.

I have a friend on Youtube who played Civ IV on occasion. Often played at Monarch difficulty and it said that it presented him with a good challenge, even though he's beaten a lot of games at that level.

But for all the games he played at Emperor, he has only won once. That wasn't even by himself, it was him allied with a human player going against the AI.

So yeah. You need to be lucky if you hope to win at Emperor, Immortal, and Diety difficulties.

My friend played Emperor on Civ V not too long ago and he told me that it was a breeze. I even hear of people claiming they've beaten the game on Diety difficulty without too much trouble.

So that could be one reason why so many people are bored with it.

Precisely. I still do not understand why after 18 months most people still don't see where the fail really is: Joni.

What is funny, though, is to watch the guy trying to clean his name... over there at the Stardock forums there was a thread posted last week about the betas of Elemental Fallen Enchantres; one of the questions of the FAQ posted referred to the campaign being developed, and the original version of the post said something like "The campaign is being designed by Jon Shafer, lead designer of Civilization 5 and Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword..."!!!! :lol::lol::lol:

I quickly posted in that thread requesting a correction because he only worked on a small component of BTS, and lo and behold, a few days later the correction was posted... nevertheless, that tells me the guy is trying to sell a "not so white lie" to try to clean his name, by confusing some people... "hey guys, I designed both the best and the worst Civ games, so my average performance is still good... right???"

A typical chanta, as we used to say in South America...

That's a good way to tarnish your credibility I guess. Trying to clean your name when the filth is still stuck on you.

I was laughing when someone on this thread mentioned that Shafer is a 25-year-old punk.
 
No. Emperor in Civ4 was still easy. Anybody familiar with Civ can beat it. It is maybe like immortal in Civ5. There's about 0.5 to 1 level of difference. Basically we need 1 level above Deity in Civ 5. maybe Sid level.

Compare that to the equivalent level in Civ3 which was harder and something you just had to grind out and micro like a biatch.

Saying things like Civ5 emperor is like Civ4 chieftain is discrediting this thread, it's just ridiculous.
 
I've just got the game, and making the transition between 4 to 5.
- Theres no mod to the UI more civ4 ish, civ5 UI seems to cartoony, large and for me it seems to interfere with the game experience.
- The intro movie being to hard to skip
 
Gwhaaaaaat ? :lol:

The virtually fool-proof stealth bomber beeline that can be played from any civ basically turns emperor into a settler/chieftain-fest, especially if you have full Honor by SB time. Then the bigger and more advanced they come, the more they pay out in easy kills. Then pile Autocracy on top of that.

You just have to be on your guard for the inevitable, and totally predictable, early game AI rush. Once past that it is all phony war waiting around to collect GS bulb string and trading for money for RCs.

At most you may sweat over PorcTower for the RC boost, but you are getting Rationalism anyway, so no game breaker here.
 
I do agree with most of this... the Modern era is indeed grossly unfinished (wouldn't be surprised to see a second expansion that was focused on the future). But even if it was expanded, I'd still be all for GDR (or a mech) being at the end of the line.

Man, I sincerely hope they fix the late game in THIS expansion! As in the GS bulbs, stealth bombers, nukes, the UN vote.....
 
No. Emperor in Civ4 was still easy. Anybody familiar with Civ can beat it. It is maybe like immortal in Civ5. There's about 0.5 to 1 level of difference. Basically we need 1 level above Deity in Civ 5. maybe Sid level.

This is true because why?

You have no proof to back this up.

This friend I'm referring to I only know from Youtube. I've listened to his commentary and I've watched his 'Lets Play Civ 4' videos.

Monarch for him is easy. Emperor and Immortal on the other hand, aren't.

Instead of trying to put words in my mouth, prove to me that Emperor is easy.

The only reason we need a higher difficulty above Deity in Civ 5 is because the AI is ridiculously stupid. If you want to make the game harder for yourself, be my guest.

Compare that to the equivalent level in Civ3 which was harder and something you just had to grind out and micro like a biatch.

Saying things like Civ5 emperor is like Civ4 chieftain is discrediting this thread, it's just ridiculous.

Dude, you realize that this is the Rants thread right?

People can say that Civ 5 emperor is like Civ 4 chieftain how many times they want so long as they're not breaking forum rules. This is the place to express it, and I've seen other people refer to it as well.

...and how am I discrediting this thread? You look to me like you're a supporter of Civ 5 who is just sick of all the ranting going on about that game.

Don't try to come in here and try to act all offended because I said a few things concerning the flaws of Civ 5.

I suggest you rethink the statements you're writing down before you decide to shoot me or anyone else down because I don't like Civ 5 that much.
 
Moderator Action: The rants thread is meant to serve as a venue for complaints about the game. However, people are free to post here to point out inaccuracies in statements made. These posts could be quite helpful to people frustrated with the game.

If you have a problem with a post, you should report it, rather than responding to it.
 
Well let's see, Civ3 conquests added 2 difficulty levels, DemiGod and Sid. So 8. I managed to win on Emperor (5/8) after several years playing on and off. I didn't read strats on CFC then, I hardly knew such sites existed.

Civ 4 I got to grips with Emperor (7/9) after about 8-10 playthroughs. I jumped in at Prince and moved to Monarch in my second game. I dabbled in deity but found that too challenging, although it is fairly doable I'm sure if you pick your map types and opponents etc. I think I did win one deity 2 civs map but I rigged the conditions pretty strongly. I played Civ4 maybe max 200 hours. I learned how to make specialised cities from watching Lets Plays and then found the game manageable.

In Civ 5 I was King up to about 200 hours played, now Emperor is the best challenge and Immortal I can win if I preset the map to favour me. This is still a good challenging level. Trying to win immortal with a random map and a random civ is a challenge up there with the previous versions in my opinion. There were a lot of stupid abuses that were possible that were patched out, now the game is tougher.

The Civ5 macro AI is good I think but the tactical AI is bad unfortuately (even if it gets bonuses with the macro side, it still uses them fairly well). That's why I'd put it about 0.5 to 1 level easier than Civ 4. A sid level where the AI gets a combat bonus might help.

Don't forget also, the guys jumping in to immortal, deity level, whatever, have probably been playing Civ for years in one form or another. There are some carry over skills. Also it is easy to share strats nowadays, in Civ 3 days we were all on dial ups if we even had internet.

Also if you think that something like a stealth bomber rush is cheesy, don't do it. Make a house rule not to stack Great Scientists. Personally I don't know how it's done but surviving into that era on Deity whilst going for a specialist strat, is still not easy. Not anybody can do it I'm sure.

The point is, Civ5 is still challenging and you can give yourself house rules. Civ4 might be bit harder, but i would say Civ 3 is still harder. So really it makes no sense comparing difficulties. Only how much you can enjoy the game.
 
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