Pazyryk
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2008
- Messages
- 3,584
Bibor, I have also played since civ1 (using a dos emulator on a mac originally, with 2 min turns) though I can't say I've played 100s of games (probably more like a dozen) over the last 20 years. I won't address your personal critique of Sid Meier. I think there is a lot of merit in your arguments about good gameplay, but I think the assessment below is not quite accurate. I think it is (at the risk of causing insult) a shallow impression that may deserve some further consideration:
Now I have to admit that I had the same exact thought after playing civ5 through a couple times. I still think you are basically right about a few aspects of the game. However, I've come to appreciate the basic difference between decision making in civ4 and civ5. In civ4, decisions have immediate, obvious effects that are (in most cases) easily corrected or reversed later. The research slider is the extreme example of this, but the same applies to many other aspects of civ4 including wonders/buildings/sling-shot-strategies and so on that you list above (for example, playing tech-trade-catch-up in mid game could almost always offset a late start in research, at least up to Immortal difficulty). Decisions in civ5 have longer-term or delayed effects that are not so obvious (or of no effect at all) in the short term. For example, focusing on culture buildings/wonders early (or the border-expanding Angkor Wat) has little immediate impact (one could just buy that valuable tile for 50gp anyway so why bother?) but it has a large effect in late game: no need to buy tiles for 300gp; "filled" borders out to 4 or 5-tile radius so you don't have to worry about encroaching civs; continued policy advancement, and so on. The same can be said for research focus (no obvious early effect, but it is essentially impossible to make up a late tech deficit in civ5 unlike civ4), commerce focus, military focus, and so on. It's pretty hard to build all available buildings in civ5 (much harder than in civ4) so you have to make these decisions early, and they do have large consequence on how the game plays out later.
So, if you like deep decision making where the payoff/consequences are not immediately obvious but have large long-term effect, play on and give it a second chance. If you want rewards/punishments to be immediate and obvious, civ5 is probably not the game for you even after the rough edges are patched up. If you've already played more than a few games and haven't observed what I described above, then it is probably time to move on. (By "move on" I'm not saying don't criticize. By all means you should criticize, vent your rage, then take your losses as a good citizen-consumer [I'm sure you've done it before], and move on to another game.)
I'm not saying civ5 is without serious defects. ICS-as-optimal-strategy is the one that bothers me the most. Perhaps it's rougher even than civ4 at initial release, although that was a lot worse than people tend to remember.
Lets look at the first 100 turns of the game and tell me which of these wonders, techs or concepts have a greater impact on your game.
The Pyramids - very powerful SE
The Great Wall - very powerful Classical tech stealing
The Oracle - powerful slingshots
Great Lighthouse - very powerful early economy
Writing - powerful early tech pace
Alphabet - first to be able to trade techs
Polytheism, Meditation, Monotheism - first to found an early religion
Iron Working - powerful early rush warfare
Literature - powerful tech trading tool
Construction - powerful early warfare of a different (balanced) kind
Good resources in BFCs - very powerful early growth, production or commerce
Neighbours, their attitudes, religion and location - they will define your game for the next X turns
You can argue which of the stated wonders/techs will have a greater impact. Yes, you will argue. ARGUE. Because you can. Because all these can be ARGUED about. Because they are worth arguing about.
Now play the first 100 turns of Civilization 5 and try to find game-defining decisions you made. There are few, if any. And this problem just copies itself to the next 100 and next 100 turns, until the game is over.
Now I have to admit that I had the same exact thought after playing civ5 through a couple times. I still think you are basically right about a few aspects of the game. However, I've come to appreciate the basic difference between decision making in civ4 and civ5. In civ4, decisions have immediate, obvious effects that are (in most cases) easily corrected or reversed later. The research slider is the extreme example of this, but the same applies to many other aspects of civ4 including wonders/buildings/sling-shot-strategies and so on that you list above (for example, playing tech-trade-catch-up in mid game could almost always offset a late start in research, at least up to Immortal difficulty). Decisions in civ5 have longer-term or delayed effects that are not so obvious (or of no effect at all) in the short term. For example, focusing on culture buildings/wonders early (or the border-expanding Angkor Wat) has little immediate impact (one could just buy that valuable tile for 50gp anyway so why bother?) but it has a large effect in late game: no need to buy tiles for 300gp; "filled" borders out to 4 or 5-tile radius so you don't have to worry about encroaching civs; continued policy advancement, and so on. The same can be said for research focus (no obvious early effect, but it is essentially impossible to make up a late tech deficit in civ5 unlike civ4), commerce focus, military focus, and so on. It's pretty hard to build all available buildings in civ5 (much harder than in civ4) so you have to make these decisions early, and they do have large consequence on how the game plays out later.
So, if you like deep decision making where the payoff/consequences are not immediately obvious but have large long-term effect, play on and give it a second chance. If you want rewards/punishments to be immediate and obvious, civ5 is probably not the game for you even after the rough edges are patched up. If you've already played more than a few games and haven't observed what I described above, then it is probably time to move on. (By "move on" I'm not saying don't criticize. By all means you should criticize, vent your rage, then take your losses as a good citizen-consumer [I'm sure you've done it before], and move on to another game.)
I'm not saying civ5 is without serious defects. ICS-as-optimal-strategy is the one that bothers me the most. Perhaps it's rougher even than civ4 at initial release, although that was a lot worse than people tend to remember.