Civilization 5 Rants Thread

kiwitt · Jun 4, 2011

I agree

Civ 1 -> Civ 2 -> Civ 3 -> Civ 4 progression seemed to be enhancing on the same good bones framework. Although some may question some of the new concepts introduced in each minor/major upgrade, it did not break that it was essentially a great game concept.

Civ 5 broke that progression. It does not feel like an enhanced Civ 4, like Civ 4 felt like an enhanced Civ 3 and so on.

As for the mass market; really after Colonisation II, the dumbing down had started. It had good graphics but poor game-play. So the coders who made Civ 5, had previously worked on Civ:Rev and Colonisation, so the outcome of Civ 5 was in hindsight expected.

Thormodr · Jun 4, 2011

kiwitt said:
I agree

Civ 1 -> Civ 2 -> Civ 3 -> Civ 4 progression seemed to be enhancing on the same good bones framework. Although some may question some of the new concepts introduced in each minor/major upgrade, it did not break that it was essentially a great game concept.

Civ 5 broke that progression. It does not feel like an enhanced Civ 4, like Civ 4 felt like an enhanced Civ 3 and so on.

As for the mass market; really after Colonisation II, the dumbing down had started. It had good graphics but poor game-play. So the coders who made Civ 5, had previously worked on Civ:Rev and Colonisation, so the outcome of Civ 5 was in hindsight expected.

Spot on. To continue the process a little further, we should expect to see a console version of Civilization 5 within the next 1 1/2 years. All the streamlining and dumbing down will truly bear fruit then. The designs will be so similiar that they literally won't have to change a thing. Much needed $$$ to placate 2K Games' shareholders at little additional cost.

JohnnyW · Jun 4, 2011

I wonder if this is the biggest thread in the general discussion forum.

Psyringe · Jun 4, 2011

JohnnyW said:
I wonder if this is the biggest thread in the general discussion forum.

Nah, it's not even in the top 30. Click on the label of the "Replies" column to sort threads according to their length.

DrewBledsoe · Jun 4, 2011

Thormodr said:
Spot on. To continue the process a little further, we should expect to see a console version of Civilization 5 within the next 1 1/2 years. All the streamlining and dumbing down will truly bear fruit then. The designs will be so similiar that they literally won't have to change a thing. Much needed $$$ to placate 2K Games' shareholders at little additional cost.

Am I the only one who prefers the Civ Iv graphics? The ones in V look more cartooney than ever. Especially with all the map generation I've seen. A bit of plains here, some grassland there, some tundra, all within a tiny geographical region. Utterly horrible. But then, apparently the tiles don't really matter now either.

Sadan01 · Jun 4, 2011

DrewBledsoe said:
Am I the only one who prefers the Civ Iv graphics? The ones in V look more cartooney than ever. Especially with all the map generation I've seen. A bit of plains here, some grassland there, some tundra, all within a tiny geographical region. Utterly horrible. But then, apparently the tiles don't really matter now either.

I think the water effects (especially if viewed from a distance) in Civ V are spectacular however graphics do not make a game. In saying that, the city screen graphics coupled with the small tile output icons and resource icons makes it very messy and I find it hard to focus on each individual tile as compared to how it looked in Civ IV.

There really isn't even one area of Civ V that is done very well (with exception of the quit to windows button :lol:

).

JohnnyW · Jun 4, 2011

DrewBledsoe said:
Am I the only one who prefers the Civ Iv graphics? The ones in V look more cartooney than ever. Especially with all the map generation I've seen. A bit of plains here, some grassland there, some tundra, all within a tiny geographical region. Utterly horrible. But then, apparently the tiles don't really matter now either.

I also was extremely disappointed with the map generations in 5. Maybe it's because the outputs were so similar. Maybe it's because of the terrain layouts.

IDK what it was, but I was never very satisfied with them. I didn't feel like I was actually looking at a world in which I was controlling a civilization...I felt like I was looking at a "bored" game.

MoonFlare · Jun 5, 2011

DrewBledsoe said:
Am I the only one who prefers the Civ Iv graphics? The ones in V look more cartooney than ever. Especially with all the map generation I've seen. A bit of plains here, some grassland there, some tundra, all within a tiny geographical region. Utterly horrible. But then, apparently the tiles don't really matter now either.

Civ5 graphics are crap.Only water and a few tiles look really good.Everything else is dead.It's like a still picture.Static and boring.And not that high-end for those high system reqs.That engine is not optimized.They wasted to much money on the intro movie.Civ 4 - everything is alive.It's moving.Trees grow,birds fly,wind blows.There is light in farms,mines are actually mining and other examples.

Thormodr · Jun 5, 2011

MoonFlare said:
Civ5 graphics are crap.Only water and a few tiles look really good.Everything else is dead.It's like a still picture.Static and boring.And not that high-end for those high system reqs.That engine is not optimized.They wasted to much money on the intro movie.Civ 4 - everything is alive.It's moving.Trees grow,birds fly,wind blows.There is light in farms,mines are actually mining and other examples.

I agree 100%. Civilization 5 looks sterile and its game play is sterile.

cIV has game play and graphics that made the world come alive.

Added to that, the rivers in cIV look great and very natural. In Civilization 5 they look unnatural and weird.

The sad thing is that for all the high end requirements that is demanded for the "organic world" in Civilization 5, the graphics really aren't so hot.

Psyringe · Jun 5, 2011

MoonFlare said:
That engine is not optimized.They wasted to much money on the intro movie.Civ 4 - everything is alive.It's moving.Trees grow,birds fly,wind blows.There is light in farms,mines are actually mining and other examples.

For Civ4, Firaxis had licensed a middleware game engine (Gamebryo). It's not the best engine out there, and it's not optimized in any way for strategy games (it's at its base the same engine that Oblivion runs on), due to this (and Firaxis' inexperience with the engine) it had some definitive performance problems when Civ4 was released. However, Gamebryo is a pretty solid solution that probably costs substantially less than developing a new engine of equal quality from scratch.

Assuming that Firaxis did in fact _not_ opt for the cheaper solution (licensing middleware again), but tried to develop a new engine, it seems that money wasn't the problem here. I think it's more probable that they overestimated their capabilities of programming an efficient engine in the required timeframe with the resources available. The rivers in the release version of Civ4 were really embarrassing (if one cares about graphics), though this has apparently been fixed lately.

Agent Cooper · Jun 5, 2011

The very first thing 2K/Firaxis should have addressed before giving any thought to the gameplay, is game stability.

The game breaks down so often that I have more breakdowns with Civ 5 than all other games I've played since the release - combined. This is the mark of a broken game. Never ever happened with Civ 1-4.

Iranon · Jun 5, 2011

Looking sterile isn't a problem, it's part of the chosen art deco aesthetic. Of course, this could have been pulled off well with much simpler tools and freed up resources for more important things.
I always found stock Civ4 ugly, and it also didn't put its relative technological sophistication (compared to what you need to make a strategy game look acceptable) to good use.

Leif Roar · Jun 5, 2011

Iranon said:
I always found stock Civ4 ugly, and it also didn't put its relative technological sophistication (compared to what you need to make a strategy game look acceptable) to good use.

Both true. Civ IV's graphics were functional, though, which Civ V's really isn't. Even though Civ V has fewer unit types than Civ IV had, it is harder to tell them apart, despite Civ V's use of identifying icons. In Civ IV it was also readily evident which tiles were being worked and which tiles had rails rather than roads. The city graphics were also much more informative in IV.

bruntfca · Jun 5, 2011

Iranon said:
Looking sterile isn't a problem, it's part of the chosen art deco aesthetic. Of course, this could have been pulled off well with much simpler tools and freed up resources for more important things.
I always found stock Civ4 ugly, and it also didn't put its relative technological sophistication (compared to what you need to make a strategy game look acceptable) to good use.

I and a lot of people think that the sterile "Art Deco", (Stalin propaganda images), was a terrible idea. Having an interface stuck in 1920-30 sure does kill any immersion. The icons are terrible, lots of them have been found as stock photo-shopped images.

Worse of all the interface graphics actually hurt my eyes. Just turn on the resource icons, florescent green 2D blobs on a 3D map, settlers that look like warriors that in any event look invisible standing on a trading post. The coast and ocean sure looks nice though.....

Thormodr · Jun 5, 2011

bruntfca said:
I and a lot of people think that the sterile "Art Deco", (Stalin propaganda images), was a terrible idea. Having an interface stuck in 1920-30 sure does kill any immersion. The icons are terrible, lots of them have been found as stock photo-shopped images.

Worse of all the interface graphics actually hurt my eyes. Just turn on the resource icons, florescent green 2D blobs on a 3D map, settlers that look like warriors that in any event look invisible standing on a trading post. The coast and ocean sure looks nice though.....

Indeed. The theme was questionable.

Also, those trading posts that look like circus tents. *Ugh*

Tatran · Jun 5, 2011

Well, after today I don't know what's worse, an absolute horrible AI or totally incompetent human players.

The purpose of a game is winning or AT LEAST trying to win.
And not sitting idle and watching one team dominating the game already halfway.

Both, Civ5 and CivWorld have the same problem.

Aristos · Jun 6, 2011

Thormodr said:
cIV has game play and graphics that made the world come alive.

Not only that (which is important for immersion), but 4's graphs are also FUNCTIONAL: the provide immediate feedback as to what tiles are being worked... nowadays I need a valiant effort from Thal to get a simplistic form of said feedback...

Thormodr · Jun 6, 2011

Found an awesome comment on you tube. Lol.

I used to play Civ IV when I was really young.. I used to skip the intro and was very ignorant of the song. But now, after 4 years, I search this music up. and im really teary.. i dunno WHY..
Gantor555 1 month ago

We know why Gantor555. We know why.

The opening song Babu Yetu is so epic in nature. *Sigh*

Civilization 5 can't hold a candle to it. No contest.
Right from the very beginning, cIV is totally more epic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5rJe-rAjW4

Longer version of that most awesome of all songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCsDPwqWsPM&feature=related

If you can listen to that song without a tear coming to your eye you truly have no soul.

Aristos · Jun 6, 2011

Thormodr said:
Found an awesome comment on you tube. Lol.

We know why Gantor555. We know why.
The opening song Babu Yetu is so epic in nature. *Sigh*
Civilization 5 can't hold a candle to it. No contest.
Right from the very beginning, cIV is totally more epic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5rJe-rAjW4

Longer version of that most awesome of all songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCsDPwqWsPM&feature=related

If you can listen to that song without a tear coming to your eye you truly have no soul.

Soren did even that right... as far as I know, he knew Tin from Stanford, he knew the quality of his music, and invited him to "impress" him with an opening theme for "some game in the making" in 2004 (?)... the rest is history.

Oh, how I miss vissionaries... :rolleyes:

kiwitt · Jun 6, 2011

Thormodr said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCsDPwqWsPM&feature=related

If you can listen to that song without a tear coming to your eye you truly have no soul.

I have a soul :cry:

... long live [civ4]

!!!

What happened Firaxis ? ... we want an answer now ! ... There is no excuse for what you delivered ... did you make Jon Shafer the fall guy ... come on ...

Meanwhile I will play, mod and help people with Civ 4 for as long as I am able.

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