Those who have played Civ5 for thousands of hours: how do you remain interested?

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MerchantCo

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Civilization 5 has been my favorite game for the last three years. I own all of the DLCs and expansions, but now I'm losing interest. I've played all of the scenarios several times, I do well on all difficulties, and I've used every civilization at least once. I'm getting tired of Civilization 5, and I'm considering just moving on.

I don't know why I'm getting bored. I love history, geography, warfare, and diplomacy. Civilization should be the perfect game for me, and it has been - but now, it isn't. I've only played for 390 hours, and I see plenty of people who still enjoy the game after playing for thousands of hours. Why am I losing interest? Should I take a break from it?

I think I'm just having trouble enjoying myself. I do everything in a mechanical, disinterested fashion, and I know exactly what to do when I play - what buildings, units, social policies, wonders to choose, how to attack, when to attack, where to explore, and so on. I yearn for the days when I was a noob, and did everything just for fun, not caring if I was making a huge mistake or not.

How do you manage to stay interested? :confused:
 
Take a break. I can pretty obsessively play Civ for maybe a month before I lose interest for a good few more. I'm also beginning to lose interest again now.
 
I play other things but eventually comes back to civ (especially after G&K and BNW).

I also try to vary myself, not doing the same thing over and over. I have seen some LP where the player do the same thing over and over. I usually try to add a little bit of roleplaying in the game. Also I never ever cheat (CS worker stealing without taking out the CS as well, making deals that are fudgy, and so on) because, the game is not one of the hardest to begin with, so doing that sort of things (just because they are there) will make the game boring.
 
Play in it in spurts. Go away for a few months to play other games then come back. Several new games have cone out recently so I have plenty to play to keep me interested in other stuff
 
When I lose interest, I play other games (recently found the beauty of Garry's Mod) and after a while I watch some YouTube Let's Plays of Civ 5 and think: 'Heck this game is good and I'm gonna play it so hard when I get home' and lose myself again to this masterpiece of a strategy game Firaxis has created
 
I switch back and forth between Civ and SimCity 4.

The only other games I play are Tomb Raider and Elder Scrolls. Both of those franchises kick out anew game often enough to break the routine.

If you are willing to devote ~15gigs of HDD space and about 20 hours setting up all the mods, SimCity 4 is a great change of pace from Civ if you enjoy empire building
 
Like other people say, take a break. There are very few game that I've played a lot for over 6 weeks solid. RTW and Mario Kart that I can think of. Go and do something that doesn't bore you that seems like the perfect game for you until you get bored of that and do whatever.
 
Well, I put V down after 650 hours or so. I have been playing since Civ I .

I rarely play when I travel. On vacation I play Sid's Pirates! I will mix things up with scenarios and mods. The other thing that I do when I take a break is to read a history, biography, or historical fiction. Usually after that I'm eager to return to Civ and play Napoleon more like Napoleon, or Hannibal more like Hannibal, etc.
 
If you're bored of the routine of doing everything right, then here's what I recommend:
Do a game on Warlord or Chieftain, with either totally random settings or whatever seems fun, along with choosing out whichever civs you love or love to destroy.
Totally screw around doing whatever you feel like without any regards to what's best.
Have fun :D.
If not, maybe take a break from civ. :\ I've taken many breaks from the game and it's perfectly fine, eventually you'll come back wanting to play 400 more hours.
 
I roleplay or drop down to prince and be the world bully as all civs cry about it but can't do anything.
 
At the risk of getting lynched by the "fanatics" around here:

I don't see it as a problem that you are getting bored with CiV; it's perfectly healthy and normal. 390 hours is a perfectly respectable amount of time to spend on a game - you would be lucky to get 50 hours of gameplay out of most games.

Those people who still play it after thousands of hours are rare exceptions and should not be the standard to aspire to. Go play another game or find something else to do with your life.
 
I pre-ordered Civ V and have just under 1000 hours under my belt. While not nearly as much as a few others, I personally find the best way not to get burnt out is to play it in between other games. Sure I get bored of Civ, but then I'll just play something else. And if you don't play anything else(Ye, right) try MP. It will totally change your view of Civ and your game style.

But if you think someone with +1000 hours of game time is a bit excessive, Civ has nothing on WoW with over 450 days played on my main. I sold my soul for game time :/
 
Do you play multiplayer?

I find myself getting bored in singleplayer mode as the AI can be predictable. In multiplayer you add the random element of the human mind. It also gives you people to talk to during the game.

You mentioned playing at all levels, what about changing the setup to target a victory condition? It makes it quite interesting when everyone is playing for a Cultural Victory or Domination, rather than their own aims.
 
MerchantCo said:
I yearn for the days when I was a noob, and did everything just for fun, not caring if I was making a huge mistake or not.
Click to expand...

Then play that way :D

Seriously.

Lower the difficulty you are used to and ignore Rationalism, go full Commerce, and plant a bunch of merchant houses. If you lose, so what?

Either way don't force yourself to play. Take a break. Chances are you will get in the mood to play a Civ-like game again, and there isn't much out there that plays like a Civ game other than... Civ.
 
Once you get on, you don't get off.
 
I play other games, but Inevitably come back to civ. I also rarely play the same civ twice, and am trying to play every single civ. I also find that doing the "Challenge of The Week" on reddit is actually quite fun and interesting :D
 
Js_9001 said:
If you're bored of the routine of doing everything right, then here's what I recommend:
Do a game on Warlord or Chieftain, with either totally random settings or whatever seems fun, along with choosing out whichever civs you love or love to destroy.
Totally screw around doing whatever you feel like without any regards to what's best.
Have fun :D.
Click to expand...

More specifically: play like these guys play civ 5. http://m.youtube.com/#/user/unitlosttube?&desktop_uri=/user/unitlosttube
 
I started playing CiV in january and am approaching 1100 hours. I've barely played another game since I started. I feel there is always some sort of challenge for me. I want to win with every civ, I want a Deity culture victory in BNW where I can feel I'm building up tourism early and not it doesn't come down to just beelining NVC and Internet. I want to beat Deity consistently with a variety of civs. Most of the games I play still offer up situations I feel motivated to tackle. I don't have a better explanation than that. Though after all these hours I am starting to feel an urge to play something else.
 
I downloaded a bunch of maps and civs from the mod section of Steam and that helps to keep it interesting for me.

There are also plenty of times where I play the crap out of this game for several days on end and then walk away for a couple of days or weeks to "refresh" my interest.
 
Those 1k hours don't (usually) come from continuous play, ya know. Civ5's out for some years now; pretty sure everyone gets bored and wander off to other games, then inevitably come back :D
 
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