So how's the state of Civ 5 these days?

Willem

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When the game first was announced, I dragged my heels getting it because of the Steam activation. Then after reading all of the dissatisfaction by the hardcore players with the game, and about how much had been cut from Civ 4, I decided that it wasn't for me. It just seemed too dumbed down for my liking. I wanted something even more complex than Civ 4, not less. No health, no religion, no tech trading, empire wide happiness, even no ocean transports made me feel that too much had been removed from what I considered an excellent game. But it's been awhile now since the game has been out, and I see there's yet another expansion on the way, so how do people feel about the game these days? Especially those players that have been playing the game since the Civ 1 or 2 days. Is it worth considering now, or should I still stick with Civ 4?
 
I've been playing for decades, and I think Civ V is the best of the series, with a few minor caveats.

The Communitas Mod does a fantastic job of introducing complexity. :)
 
I think you're cheating yourself if you don't at least try it, I like 5 way more than 4.
To be fair, I got Civ4 + expansions at the same time I got 5 as part of a sale. I gravitated to the newer one mainly because I liked the combat better.
I did play a ton of CivRev but none of the earlier ones.
 
I've been playing for decades, and I think Civ V is the best of the series, with a few minor caveats.

The Communitas Mod does a fantastic job of introducing complexity. :)

So what's the basis of your judgement? I see religion made it's way back in with the first expansion, how about some of the other complexities that existed in Civ 4 but were removed? And no, I don't want to have to rely on some mod to give me the complexity that I crave in these games. After reading about the early game I just felt that much of the decision making was gone, how have they added it back since then?
 
I think you're cheating yourself if you don't at least try it, I like 5 way more than 4.

Well I am willing to consider it, now that I've come to at least accept the demon named Steam. I'm just trying to see if someone will give me some sound reasons for trying it.

I gravitated to the newer one mainly because I liked the combat better.

I read in the early game that the AI didn't know how to deal with the combat system. Has it become better at it? And I still have a hard time accepting the idea that an Archer can fire a bow for 400 miles, which is about what 2 tiles represent in my Civ 4 game. While I kind of liked the idea of one unit per tile combat, I thought it would have been better if they had used a separate tactical screen, like Rome: Total War.
 
The AI is vastly improved from vanilla release. Not perfect, of course, but at least competent.

I think complexity is a bit subjective. Sure, there is complexity. But some say there's not as much variation in that complexity. And others don't say that at all. It's inevitably going to be a matter of personal preference. So I'd recommend picking it up when it's on sale next. Gold edition can be pretty cheap nowadays.
 
The AI has improved some on the vanilla game, I can't really speak to the expansion because I never actually played it. They still make dumb mistakes on occasion, and have difficulty when trying to invade from another continent.
I didn't get the sense that the scale was dramatically different between 4 and 5, the archers can shoot over one unit but that's it (unless you count the longbowman, which is England's UU). They would also need line of site, like being on top of a hill to see over a forest. I also like how they are vulnerable to attack so you have to put your melee units in front to protect them.
Also it is much easier on the eyes and City States add a really cool dimension.
I think all the changes are better in practice than they probably sound to a hardcore Civ4 guy. I am aware a lot of people disagree with me though, so see if you can find a demo or buy it on sale for really cheap like I did.
 
Well just looking around at the upcoming expansion, I see that Tech Trading still isn't in the game, and "might" be in the next XP. That alone is a major turn off for me. While I can see no tech brokering, it makes absolutely no sense to me that you can't trade one of your own techs, and just removes an important opportunity for making a decision. What about health? And individual city happiness, rather than having it empire wide? Reading about the original game, it struck me that players no longer had to worry about developing unique cities, with the decision making that involved. They would all end up being rather cookie-cutter. Especially since culture expanded one tile at a time. You didn't even have to think about developing a city area, you dealt with whatever terrain type might turn up next. And has diplomacy improved at all, there were a lot of complaints about that early on as I recall.
 
I didn't get the sense that the scale was dramatically different between 4 and 5, the archers can shoot over one unit but that's it (unless you count the longbowman, which is England's UU).

But that's the thing, the area that one unit it shoots over might represent 200 square miles, or hex miles in this case. So the second tile the enemy is on might be 400 miles away. With stack combat, it didn't matter about range as an Archer could be attacking from anywhere within the same 200 square mile area that the enemy was on.

Also it is much easier on the eyes and City States add a really cool dimension.

Well I certainly can agree that the game looks way better than Civ 4, I was pretty impressed with the initial screenshots. I can't really comment on the City States as I don't really know how they work. It seems to me that they should only be a factor in the early game though. You don't see too many of them these days. IIRC, there's only 2 that exist in today's world, with Rome being one of them. Singapore is the other one? :confused:

I am aware a lot of people disagree with me though, so see if you can find a demo or buy it on sale for really cheap like I did.

I have been thinking about the demo, but that won't show much more than what the original game is like. Which is what turned me off of getting Civ 5 in the first place. I felt that it broke Sid's rule for the overall franchise, (1/3 the same as the old version, 1/3 new, and 1/3 improved). Civ 5 seemed to remove far more than it should have.
 
Here in the Civ 5 forum most replies will obviously be positively biased towards Civ 5. Which is fine, each to his own. But there's a vast amount of players, especially among those who loved Civ 4, to whom Civ 5 is wrong in far too many ways. For me it's not just the lack of any kind of meaningful complexity which makes the game unplayable, it's also the whole feel of the game and the fact that regarding historical plausibility it makes no sense at all. Be it your example of archers shooting hundreds of miles, city states which in their implementation don't resemble anything that ever existed in our history, governments never changing in thousands of years, or your entire empire becoming unhappy when you are successful in war.

In my opinion every single change from Civ 4 to Civ 5 has been for the worse, some of them dramatically so. That's not saying you won't like it, maybe you will. But most of us who enjoyed Civ 4 were utterly shocked over what Civ 5 had done to the game, and have gone back to Civ 4 which we still are playing very frequently.
 
That's not saying you won't like it, maybe you will.

Well that's the thing. I don't want to spend money on a game that's only going to disappoint me. I've been playing Civ since the first version was available for the Commodore 64, and I was very impressed with version 4. I thought it was by far the best of the franchise. But while reading about the game after Civ 5 came out, I felt it was taking a step backwards, not forwards. I was hoping that some of the issues I saw with it had been resolved, and while some were, it doesn't look they have been for the most part. Not enough to bring me back to the franchise at least. It looks like I'll have to wait for Civ VI and see what they do with that one. I may just end up playing Civ 4 for a very long time to come yet.
 
Here in the Civ 5 forum most replies will obviously be positively biased towards Civ 5.

Well yes, the hundreds of people that view and post in the Civ5 forums, and (tens of) thousands of people that play the game probably would have a positive opinion of it, hence why they post here and play the game. As you say, that's perfectly fine, but you hint that it might be invalid, which it most certainly is not.

'Most of us who enjoyed Civ4 were utterly shocked over what Civ5 had done to the game' would be an exceptionally hard comment to substantiate. I loved Civ4, but obviously love Civ5 as well (which is why I bought Civ5 in the first place). This is the case for innumerable people. You may notice the Civ3 forums still have members too, despite the existence of Civ4. The hundreds and thousands of people alluded to above have not all entered the series with this game!

RE: health - that essentially is in the game, just not under the same name. Happiness is both global and local.
 
Then don't. No one will force you and you've generated a long enough list if CIV features you desire and CiV features you decry that I'm comfortable predicting you would merely return to the forum after playing a couple of games to rant about how CiV isn't CIV next gen.
 
As you say, that's perfectly fine, but you hint that it might be invalid, which it most certainly is not.

Not at all "invalid", just a different opinion and different expectations of what a game (or more precisely, a Civ game) should offer.

'Most of us who enjoyed Civ4 were utterly shocked over what Civ5 had done to the game' would be an exceptionally hard comment to substantiate.
Agreed. Replace "Most" with "Extremely many".


When I respond to a thread like this, I put myself into the position of the thread starter. I would much rather hear positive as well as negative views and form my own opinon than to only hear opinions which are all on the same side. Naturally, most responses so far have been positive, so I feel it will help the OP to hear the other side as well. It is undenyable that VERY many people feel the way I do. And regarding what the OP has been writing about what he likes in Civ games, it seems likely that he will be one of "us". That's not implying that those who like Civ 5 are inferior. In the end it is fun we seek. Less complexity and lack of historical plausibility equals less fun for many players, but that doesn't necessarily have to be so for everyone.


Willem said:
I may just end up playing Civ 4 for a very long time to come yet.
There are far worse ways to spend your time! Many of us have been playing the game for eight years and it still hasn't become old. If you haven't done so already, you may also want to try out some of the excellent mods out there.

EDIT: Sorry Browd for attaching your name to the quote.
 
If you haven't done so already, you may also want to try out some of the excellent mods out there.

Yes I have done so. But I prefer to use my own changes to the game. Though I could never consider playing it without the BUG mod anymore. If only I knew how to work with C++, I have some ideas that would be great for the game, especially regarding religion. One of my big disappointments with Civ5 at first was that they removed it altogether, rather than improve on it. At least they added it back in with the first XP.
 
Then don't. No one will force you and you've generated a long enough list if CIV features you desire and CiV features you decry that I'm comfortable predicting you would merely return to the forum after playing a couple of games to rant about how CiV isn't CIV next gen.

Well if I haven't bought the game by now, it's pretty obvious that I'm well aware that's it's not Civ 4 next gen, so it would be pretty pointless for me to rant about it. Fortunately, the Steam activation requirement delayed my purchase long enough for me to decide that it wasn't going to be the kind of Civ game that I wanted. I'm just posting now to see if maybe time, several patches and an expansion have made it so. It doesn't sound like it though. Maybe I'll finally give it a try when Civ 5 Complete comes out, with no expectations that it will be anything but a temporary diversion for awhile, not a game I can take seriously for any length of time.
 
I prefer to use my own changes to the game. Though I could never consider playing it without the BUG mod anymore. If only I knew how to work with C++, I have some ideas that would be great for the game, especially regarding religion
Yeah BUG is a must-have. Further, I would recommend K-Mod. It doesn't alter the overlying religious system, but it includes hundreds of little changes to the game which overall vastly improve the gaming experience. It also dramatically improves the AI.
 
When I respond to a thread like this, I put myself into the position of the thread starter. I would much rather hear positive as well as negative views and form my own opinon than to only hear opinions which are all on the same side. Naturally, most responses so far have been positive, so I feel it will help the OP to hear the other side as well. It is undenyable that VERY many people feel the way I do. And regarding what the OP has been writing about what he likes in Civ games, it seems likely that he will be one of "us". That's not implying that those who like Civ 5 are inferior. In the end it is fun we seek. Less complexity and lack of historical plausibility equals less fun for many players, but that doesn't necessarily have to be so for everyone.

That's fair enough, though I'm not sure the last line is an accurate representation of the opinions of those that like Civ5. In general, I think it's safe to say that people like the game not because they think it is less complex and not as historically plausible, but because they disagree with the assessment that the game is lacking in complexity and historical plausibility. It's not a matter of the game being objectively less complex and some people just preferring it simpler, but rather of people having different opinions as to what amounts to complexity.

With regards to the bolded bit, I guess you're right that Willem does kinda sound like he'd probably fit into the category of people who will prefer Civ4. I guess my point is that it shouldn't be this way! ;) If asking about the state of the game: the state of the game is fine! Very enjoyable!
 
Further, I would recommend K-Mod. It doesn't alter the overlying religious system, but it includes hundreds of little changes to the game which overall vastly improve the gaming experience. It also dramatically improves the AI.

Yes I just some mention of that one tonight. Can it be used with BUG if I have BUG installed as a standalone mod? I found a mod that limits founding religions to one per civ that's compatible with the latest version of BUG, but it requires BUG to be it's own mod, rather than simply installing it into Custom Assets.

Hope this isn't getting too off tangent for a Civ 5 thread.
 
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