Civ V BNW Still Lacks The Civ Magic

I've played five games of Civ V BNW now, and unfortunately I've arrived at the same conclusion for Civ V G&K as well as vanilla - this isn't an interesting strategy / empire building / 4X game, this is a game about filling bars to fill more bars.

Just take a look at the game mechanics.

Science? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Unit XP? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Culture? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Religion? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Espionage? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.

There was much more variety in Civ 4 for example.

Civ was always about numbers vs numbers.
Actually every game is, some are just better at hiding it behind fancy interfaces.

gladoscc said:

I've played five games of Civ V BNW now, and unfortunately I've arrived at the same conclusion for Civ V G&K as well as vanilla - this isn't an interesting strategy / empire building / 4X game, this is a game about filling bars to fill more bars.

Just take a look at the game mechanics.

Science? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Unit XP? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Culture? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Religion? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.
Espionage? Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.

There was much more variety in Civ 4 for example.

Click to expand...

More variety in Civ 4? Yeah, that was a good one, your funny.
In Civ 4:
Science: Pretty much the same in every game, there really isn't any tactics here. Except the "I need gold fast" exploit .
Unit XP: The promotions do so little and units die anyway so easy so who cares.
Culture: Sit with three cities and hope that you survive.
Religion: You gain some gold if having one, otherwise not much to do, except going for the holy city perhaps.
Espionage: Besides the extremely boring walking around the map thingy, yeah, you really needed to put a unit on top of some strategic resources. But here Civ 4 really is really fill up the bar (espionage points).

Lets add one:
Combat: Attack the big stack with your big stack. Lure the AI to "move to the open" first.

Civ 4 was a great game and perhaps still is. Although one of the best things with Civ 4 was (is) the Fall from Heaven mod (and that's a mod, not something that the devs did).

Edit: One thing I miss form Civ 4 though is Corporations (a little bit vassals).

I keep hearing this "bucket filling" criticism but I never hear cool and fun alternative mechanics. Please name some games that have or describe what these alternatives might be!

Umm, timing decisions for example? When to advance an era, when to enhance a religion, when to go for which technology. The game is about numbers AND variations, more than civ4 ever has been. I have yet to see a strategy/builder game which has so many gameplay decision variations.

Comparing to civ4, where espionage, culture and religion were really only bars and nothing else (if that at all) gives a very good argument AGAINST your statement and not FOR it.

And yes, fall from heaven or rhye's are great MODS.

All in all, it's a turn based game, things depend on your /turn values, what do you expect? If you don't like it, don't play it...

If you're going to break it down like that why do any of us bother at all? Everything is just about doing one thing to get another. There's not a 4X game out there which isn't, at its core, about filling some bar or another up through certain mechanics to achieve victory. Your complaint has absolutely nothing to do with Civ 5 and just as little with Civ 4.

Veneke said:

If you're going to break it down like that why do any of us bother at all? Everything is just about doing one thing to get another. There's not a 4X game out there which isn't, at its core, about filling some bar or another up through certain mechanics to achieve victory. Your complaint has absolutely nothing to do with Civ 5 and just as little with Civ 4.

Click to expand...

Falconiano said:

Civ was always about numbers vs numbers.
Actually every game is, some are just better at hiding it behind fancy interfaces.

Click to expand...

I have never been able to see it from the PoV of the OP. It's just like . . . everything is about numbers and early advantages. Skill comes in when one needs to recover from an unforeseen circumstance, which, actually, isn't necessarily a strictly mathematical occurrence. Some games will go fine and others, less so.


Everything can be reduced to trivial acts.

gladoscc said:

Get numbers to fill up a bar, get bigger numbers to fill up more bars.

Click to expand...

You've just described every Civ game.

Filling bars?That's like saying call of duty or any fps is just "whack a mole" with pretty graphics.

Bad Wolf said:

You've just described every Civ game.

Click to expand...

Not to mention, if you happen to study social science, this is what you will be most likely to be concerned about: how to conceptualize massively complex patterns and systems, and how to simplify them to understand what's going on.

Do ALL the maths!

So, what's the magic that the TS is looking for?

As said, every strategy game, and definitely civ is about filling buckets and bars. So that shouldn't be the problem.
But what is the TS missing?

Civ5 has made CIV4 obsolete.Deal with it.

Who made real life? Why did they do such a bad job? It's obviously broken at its core. Gestation was so much better.

Money: All I do is work to fill up my wallet and then spend it. Why do I even bother? Why can't there be a less boring system? Why do you pay me by the hour? How predictable.

Friendship: As I spend more and more time with certain people, I become better friends with them. I am sick of this bucket system. Why can't I be friends with people without putting in effort? Can't I just give them a percentage of my money per turn?

School: You do assignments to get marks. When those marks fill up, you get a course credit. When you course credits fill up, you get a diploma. Uninspired.

Age: My telomeres get shorter and then I die. Why can't I replenish my telomeres? Unrealistic.

IMO Gestation and even Conception were much better. Conceptions racing mechanics were top-notch (not to mention the cut-throat AI) and even Gestation had some great nuances involving placenta strategy.

Long story short, NO MORE Life DLC! Work on the sequel: after-life.

Edit: I should probably clarify this post. Yes, I'm a terrible, terrible person. But also, I disagree on the basic argument that Civ V is inferior because of the mechanic of "filling buckets". While perhaps not the best mechanic, lots of games secretly work like this, and lots of things can be reduced to this concept. Arguments on the complexity of IV < V should focus more on gameplay decisions, rather than the concept that slider > or < bucket, or stack of doom > or < 1UPT (spoiler alert: I think SoD sucks). I regularly enjoy playing CiV, CIV, and hell, even CivII, because they are all different games with their own strengths and weaknesses. The Civ magic is not in the game...it is in you.

I'm leaving my original idiotic post up so generations for all time can see it and know that lo!, whoever posted it has no regard for politeness. Um, sorry.

EYGuy said:

Who made real life? Why did they do such a bad job? It's obviously broken at its core. Gestation was so much better.

Money: All I do is work to fill up my wallet and then spend it. Why do I even bother? Why can't there be a less boring system? Why do you pay me by the hour? How predictable.

Friendship: As I spend more and more time with certain people, I become better friends with them. I am sick of this bucket system. Why can't I be friends with people without putting in effort? Can't I just give them a percentage of my money per turn?

School: You do assignments to get marks. When those marks fill up, you get a course credit. When you course credits fill up, you get a diploma. Uninspired.

Age: My telomeres get shorter and then I die. Why can't I replenish my telomeres? Unrealistic.

IMO Gestation and even Conception were much better. Conceptions racing mechanics were top-notch (not to mention the cut-throat AI) and even Gestation had some great nuances involving placenta strategy.

Long story short, NO MORE Life DLC! Work on the sequel: after-life.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Go back in time 15 years and pitch this. You'll be the creator of THE SIMS. Also, THE SIMS is just as close to the redundancy of life as one can get. CIV is just as close to the redundancy of society as one can get. However, one can find fun in redundancy.

Someone trying to say that Civ 4 BTS is more complex than Civ 5 BNW

A comedian you are not

EYGuy said:

Who made real life? Why did they do such a bad job? It's obviously broken at its core. Gestation was so much better.

Money: All I do is work to fill up my wallet and then spend it. Why do I even bother? Why can't there be a less boring system? Why do you pay me by the hour? How predictable.

Friendship: As I spend more and more time with certain people, I become better friends with them. I am sick of this bucket system. Why can't I be friends with people without putting in effort? Can't I just give them a percentage of my money per turn?

School: You do assignments to get marks. When those marks fill up, you get a course credit. When you course credits fill up, you get a diploma. Uninspired.

Age: My telomeres get shorter and then I die. Why can't I replenish my telomeres? Unrealistic.

IMO Gestation and even Conception were much better. Conceptions racing mechanics were top-notch (not to mention the cut-throat AI) and even Gestation had some great nuances involving placenta strategy.

Long story short, NO MORE Life DLC! Work on the sequel: after-life.

Click to expand...

This is scary because I think Civ makes you see life like this. I do this... it's weird. But you're right, life is like that, right? Everything is about filling up those bars!

Mortgage payments... paychecks... etc.

In only 2 games I've seen alot of amazing situations in BNW. Theres definitely no going back.

Freedom loving portugese being threatened late game by communist Americans at their border. Its a classic east/west germany or north/south korea situation. Using the world congress to isolate and hurt the "order" nations of the world. spreading blue jeans and pop music.

Sending knights and scouts to camp/protect archaelogical dig sites. Barbarians battling troops near spots as my archaeologist digs away.

battling barbs around the Horn of Indonesia to keep vital trade routs open.

Askia flooding my Civ and city-state friends with muslim missionaries(literally 10+), forcing me to DOW or lose Catholicism (and papal primacy) for 1000 years.

Russia building the Manhattan project before me and then settling a small city on my continent as I am 30 turns from winning culture.