Civilization 5 Rants Thread

rezaf said:

Next you'll tell us that the range of bows was never so large as portrayed in the game, i.e. Archers could never actually shoot at something the other side of a metropolis.
Or you'll tell us that Knights were never really a predominant force as Civ portraits them to be, they were really only a very small part of the respective armies they fought in.
Maybe you'll tell us rural development didn't actually work like in Civ, with the leader sending a unit of workers to build farms all across the landscape.
Talking about the leader, you'll possibly also tell us about how the same rulers never actually lead a civilization from 4000BC to beyond 2000.

As Andulias wrote, Civ5 never was about historical accuracy, and Civ5 actually went great length to further reduce the portion of actual historical stuff in the game, so I don't really see what you're arguing about.

Civ5 has a lot of problems most of which have probably been discussed in this thread, but historical accuracy (especially when only concerning "fluff text") should be the least of Firaxis' concerns, imo.
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rezaf

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rezaf said:

Next you'll tell us that the range of bows was never so large as portrayed in the game, i.e. Archers could never actually shoot at something the other side of a metropolis.

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Ruerl said:

Certainly true, I would just wish they removed the "historical info.

I wish they don't. I wish the historical info would be accurate even when the game isn't! But ah, what the heck! The civilopedia has been getting worse and worse since III anyways.

I am not speaking about modern macedonia here but about historical macedonia, which is something entirely different, as for speaking greek. Well, that was done by the entire mediterrenean region, speaking greek is not however being greek.

That the word "macedon" is greek too does'nt change anything either, "Barbarian" is greek too, but barbarians are not greeks either.

The Greek that tutored him (Aristoteles) did'nt change that he in fact killed the city state culture (which is the defining trait for classical greece) for good. No, he was not greek, he was Macedonian, his name is "Alexander III of Macedon" if you want to go technical.

In short, I argue that he is not greek from the view that he was not a part of the greek culture, he was not by the greeks of the time considered greek either for that matter, he was not a part of the city-state thinking and his methods, army and organization was far superior to that of the greeks who where far more ritual on their warfare. He's associated with greece but was'nt really greek and the "classical greek hoplite phalanx" is'nt greek either for that matter, its macedonian. And the Macedonians knew how to train for war. Unlike every other greek city state (save sparta and the post-pelloponesian war Thebans). But then, i'd argue that classical greek culture died with the end of the Pelloponesian war too.

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I still don't see any reason not to call him Greek. Yes, he was known as Alexander of Macedon, just like Leonidas is from Sparta. There was no unified Greek state, there were many. And while the Macedons seem to have been considered oddballs by the rest, fact of the matter is that the kingdom was settled by Greeks and consequently, ruled by Greeks. And Alexander being a wild card that changed the political landscape of Greece and the Middle East forever doesn't render him any less Greek. Following that logic Augustus Ceasar should not be considered Roman because he changed the government from a republic to an empire, and Tokugawa shouldn't be considered Japanese because he was very much a warmonger, something nobody can accuse modern Japanese of. This is an issue of national identity, and I still see no reason not to call him Greek. He was a descendant of Greeks, his name and the name of his kingdom are Greek, he spoke Greek, he was surrounded by Greek, really, he is Greek

Regardless, all this kind of deserves its own thread, so let's just agree to disagree

Its the claim the game makes that the sword is superior that I have an issue with -Its also by the way a superb thrusting weapon as cutting tests show. But I would not call it "significantly sharper" its significantly easier to cut with due to the curved edge, but thats about it. (and an european longsword is significantly harder to make slashing cuts with unless you know how to do it)
And the small (and in battle insignificant) sharpness it has over the longsword comes at the cost of being more brittle.

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Silly that they claim it's superior indeed.

ohioastronomy said:

The older versions of Civ at least had the feeling that they could be historical simulations. People got angry when wars went on too long, for example; or religious fanatics would demand that you convert or face the sword. Civ 5 has people attacking you because "you're trying to win the same way they are" or because sending a rocket to Alpha Centauri somehow requires total war as a response.

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Funny thing is there is no such diplo modifier, there is no "you're trying to win the same way we are". Both games do something right and wrong in that regard (apples and oranges as someone said), but that diplo modifier you rant about is nowhere to be found in my version of V, don't know about yours. I love it how most people here rant about things that aren't actually in the game any more. Not that anyone is stopping you, I just find it silly.

If I had to rant about something though, it would have to be the warmonger penalty. Firaxis! It's a nice idea, but the implementation is sloppy! Fix it already! And add those bloody "Do you plan to attack us" and "Don't convert me" diplo options! It ain't that hard, the AI can already use them!

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Naokaukodem said:

Exactly ! The series started to go down seriously with the 4th. Maintenance system vs global happiness, the two things that make you mad.

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Brian Shanahan said:

Actually the maintenance system was perfect for nerfing ICS without destroying gameplay choices. It gave you some very interesting decisions on tall vs wide, especially in the early game, and eliminated many of the artificial breaks implemented on the game in Civ 3 (some of which reappeard in civ 5).

It improved the game a lot.

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Drakarska said:

Agreed, even after C3C came out, ICS was still a major pain in the short hairs. Glad IV fixed that particular issue.

@ Andulias; um, you might want to check out the code bro, diplo hits are definitely in there, so your condescending shot at Ohio isn't really valid.

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Andulias said:

Ummm, no, it's not. It very much isn't. There's this thing they had called an expansion pack, right? It removed "You are trying to win the same way we are"

Just stating facts.

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ohioastronomy said:

I've seen the text in diplomatic messages in the base version. I'm not willing to waste more money on DLCs or expansion packs that don't fix basic design flaws in the version of this game that I enjoyed the least by a wide margin. But it certainly does represent progress that they removed a juvenile text message. Oddly enough, I still see numerous reports of random and unprovoked AI attacks even if you do fork over the cash for the expansion. This suggest that the underlying issues remain.

More to the point, I'm not the only person who has noticed that this awful version of civ is one where even the loose simulation aspect in earlier versions is lost. I have also noticed your compulsive baiting of people who don't share your elevated opinions of civilization 5 and your wisdom. Color me unimpressed.

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Andulias said:

I merely pointed out you were wrong. You consider that baiting? Hate the game for whatever reasons, whether relevant or not, whatever, I don't mind. There are plenty of people who hate IV and III as well, it's only natural.

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Brian Shanahan said:

Actually the maintenance system was perfect for nerfing ICS without destroying gameplay choices. It gave you some very interesting decisions on tall vs wide, especially in the early game, and eliminated many of the artificial breaks implemented on the game in Civ 3 (some of which reappeard in civ 5).

It improved the game a lot.

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Naokaukodem said:

Actually it was just making impossible something few people did with a major change. It was like killing rats with an atomic bomb.

While no one could really proove that ICS was superior, it replaced it with a system of maintenance system that was obscure. For example, no one could say how many gold per turn a new planted city would cost to him, before actually doing it. It was very frustrating.

Now they replaced this system in 5 with a global happiness, that is even more frustrating : you barely can't expand naturally anymore past your second or third city in Prince or above, while there's still plenty place and good city spots and you can still build settlers. That's frustrating. Not taking into account the fact that happiness is not easily managable : improoving it costs time, during while you barely can't do anything.

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jaateloauto said:

Putting the AI to focus on production meant that it starved the citizens to death.

How is it this game is dumber than all it's predecessors? I'm not an expert, but I think by starving people to death and in effect have less production isn't the way to go when you want to achieve the opposite.

In the same game (first of the expansion) I've also seen Japan who denounced me create an army, bring it to my borders and then have it declare a war on remote Sweden while on the same turn Gandhi who lives on the other side of the world declares a war on me out of the blue (and never sends one unit before offering peace).

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lollibast said:

to be honest, it reflects the generall progress of the western world:
sustainability is overrated, quick profit > all
declaring war is just fun, we have seen it with GW (should make him US leader in CiVI)

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Syntax Error said:

Now this is factually untrue. Watch Maddjinn's Carthage LP. Guy planted a whole mess of cities and managed happiness quite fine.

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