My totally unbiased and definitely not paid for by 2k review

Dale said:

I said I was still having fun. Besides, the AI IMO is about the same standard as Civ4 vanilla release AI. I think people forget how crap the Civ4 vanilla release AI was and keep comparing a new Civ5 AI to a 5 year old and seriously developed Civ4 BtS AI.

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While the BTS AI has definitely had more time to develop, I feel the Civ IV AI was better than random. My impression of the Civ V combat AI so far is that it's actually worse at combat than the barbarians. Combined with a combat system with a much higher potential for blowouts and you can literally beat 4 warriors, 3 archers, 2 swordsmen, 2 scouts and multiple cities using only 2 horsemen and a scout. (That's the example from my last game.) This is not by abusing known quirks of the AI, or even being particularly clever at all. It's just straight up attacking the closest guys on every turn you don't need to heal, and you literally never lose a single unit.

Seriously! It's not like I'm trying to not lose any units. On one turn, after killing a warrior, I left a wounded horseman in a far forward position in range of two archers and a sword. The archers attacked my fortified scout on the hill behind him instead, accomplishing nothing, and the swordsman walked out aimlessly onto the flatland next to the horseman. It's just unbelievable.

Thanks for a great review

I think the suggestions about Pact of Secrecy and Pact of Cooperation are spot on. For a time I thought they worked like you suggested, as it doesn't have much point otherwise.

I agree with many of your fixes, and many more - it's boggling how many things they missed. The game feels like it needs a couple months of solid work.

ZenithSD said:

I play mostly Earth maps, and i find it weird when my archers can fire at troops on the other side of the Adriatic or Red Sea.

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Gameplay > Realism

ZenithSD said:

Another issue i have with the game is trade routes. If you got cities on the banks of the same river, they're still not connected. That is with the sailing tech obviously. Again, it feels stupid when you see trade routes being established by harbors between cities on different sides of a continent but not through a river over 4-5 tiles.

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That is a good idea. Not sure about the tech, but it just make perfect sense.

Guardian_PL said:

Suggestion of mine - please do sth to the AI so it'll stop spamming Trading Posts everywhere, including riverside tiles. I've seen bazillions of AI cities having nothing but Trading Posts everywhere, with farms only on the grain resources

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I was thinking about this, b/c I noticed that sometimes the AI uses their workers reasonably - farms, mines and all that. I suspect that the cause of this is that the AIs almost never (or never?) annex conquered cities. With all the crazy building puppet states make, the AI needs to somehow compensate for the ever-increasing expenses. And I think I am indeed noticing that AIs who didn't conquer half the world don't use as much TP spam.

Very nice post

Afforess,

The inevitable question is, Are these things that can be modded and is there a possibility that you might be interested?

Could you please add the puppet city issue to the list at the end for more visibility please ?

I'm not referring to the exploit that was just fixed, but rather to the fact that puppet cities tend to do 2 very bad things:

1) Build buildings that require resources. They simply should never use your resources.
2) Build useless buildings that cost you maintenance, and which you cannot stop (especially now with the "exploit" removed). Example: Puppet cities building barracks/armory/etc when they cannot build units. They should just build happy/gold/culture/research buildings (in that order imo, but at least restricting it to those types would be nice)

Perhaps one of the main problem is the possibility to upgrade troop...
I mean, you have some ways to experience them easily, and they become overpowered even before 1AD... Then nothing can stop them as long as you pay to upgrade them.

And to answer JLoZeppeli :
Perhaps because everyboy who cries are just playing the game in the same settings : the best to win easily with game mechanics. As far as I know :
- Small world
- SuperOPleader like Darius/alexander/Ceasar and abuse of their bonus to make unbelivable combo
- Warmongering using IA lack of positioning or others tricks like workers to lure etc...

Seriously, try using one of the "bad" leader like iroquee, on large map, on decent difficulty, and tru some RP playing. It might be a decent challenge.

beholder2 said:

Perhaps one of the main problem is the possibility to upgrade troop...
I mean, you have some ways to experience them easily, and they become overpowered even before 1AD... Then nothing can stop them as long as you pay to upgrade them.

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Yeah, well I've still got very useful catapults in the modern era that I haven't the money to upgrade, so it goes to show how troops can last with you for a long time.

beholder2 said:

...using IA lack of positioning or others tricks like workers to lure etc...

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Sorry to go off topic here, but I have to ask, because I've seen it in many other posts around the forum. Why are people using IA for AI? Is it a translation thing where phrases can be reversed in different languages, leading to an inverted acronym? I've even seen KI too. Not criticising, just wondering .

Jamesds said:

Sorry to go off topic here, but I have to ask, because I've seen it in many other posts around the forum. Why are people using IA for AI? Is it a translation thing where phrases can be reversed in different languages, leading to an inverted acronym? I've even seen KI too. Not criticising, just wondering .

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Depends on language. In some "Artificial Intelligence" is actually the other way around.

Yes it's a language mystake. I'm french, we say "Intelligence Artificielle". So commonly I say IA instead of AI on english spoken forums

edit : yes I guess a catapult could be still competitive because it's 'just' used to lower health and break city defenses. As long as it stay back and is not attacked, it's still useful. But I doubt a warrior, even well experienced, could do the same xD

beholder2 said:

Yes it's a language mystake. I'm french, we say "Intelligence Artificielle". So commonly I say IA instead of AI on english spoken forums

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Aha, thought it might be something like that! It's no problem, I (we) know what you mean. Its just as the only language I speak is English, I'm a little ignorant when it comes to these things

But it's truly a stupid mistake because when I write it, I spell it in english in my mind (I mean you don't pronounce letter with the same sound).

This is what we call "franglais"

French is : français
English is : Anglais

You mix and you obtain the 'franglais'

This was the cultural minute !!

kaltorak said:

And 60% final score? Come on, I'm sure you are having much more fun.

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Eh, Afforess' score seems to be much more of a "proper" score, as opposed to the inflated scores review magazines give (because, if you average review scores from them... the average won't be 50%).

For the review in general: Go, Afforess! It's a good review - I have a couple of minor issues with some points (e.g. your suggestions for diplomacy and your actual review of diplomacy - seems you let them off the hook... ). And I think the game is a bit better than your impression - but probably because I see a lot of potential in it.

So, let me say that I hope you mod Civ5 as soon as the SDK gets out, because implementing your suggestions/alleviating your criticisms would go a long way towards making Civ5 the game I want to play!

Cheers, LT.

Dale said:

there's many things I can't comment on.

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No need to comment, Dale
Just forward this thread and other smart CFC ideas to the devs
Thanks, and cheers

In my mind I set a Christmas deadline for civ5 to reach a solid 1.1.0.0 state with patches

Afforeness,

Great review, and I think the score is about right.

You left out one issue that really came to bug me... "tile bonuses" I have come to the point where flood plains, cows, sheep, etc... are really just nothing special. It used to be finding that cow was a big deal b/c it would really help a city, but now...
ehh... I can take it or leave it. The "bonus" provided by the tile is nothing special. In general, most of the resources given by any particular tile is +/- 1 from any other tile. Grassland, plain, hill, etc... and the "improvement" placed on any one tile is also fairly weak sauce.

I think your larger point about turns taking a lot of time plus doing nothing on most turns is the most salient and scary point. The game, unfortunately, is largely a simulation. We are all going through the motions, and when we do have a chance to make a decision, the decision is often rather unimportant.

Rarely in CiV have I found a "tough" decision. In Civ IV, there were always tough decisions, which improvement to build first, do I chop a forest now and hope it regrows, which building to produce first, which unit to make b/c of aggressive AI, which tech to get first, is now the time to risk building a 25 turn wonder, or do I get another settler out first...

In CiV, the tough choices are combat-related (combat is much better)... and social policy-related (new concept), but buildings, units, improvements, wonders, techs... nothing seems tough because most of the decisions seem to have little impact on what happens.
IF YOU REALLY NEED HAPPINESS, then you MUST build a theater, etc... so, wait 20-40 turns, and then you get to make another "tough" choice. However, in the meantime, there isn't much to do.

And I totally agree with your critique of the terrain... they spent countless hours designing something to make our lives more complicated. I try never to build trading posts because they are so much of an eye sore.
I can't wait for the Civ IV land/improvement mods...

Afforess said:

Capping at 30 xp is ridiculous. Basically, the game is saying that my units will never ever learn anything from combat with barbarians, even if it's barbarians who are just as strong as me, or stronger. I hated this in Civ4 too - so much so that I developed a dynamic XP gain system for my Civ4 mod, where units gain XP between 0.25 and 6XP a battle, depending on the odds they had, and the outcome of the battle.

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I definitely agree that an odds-based XP reward makes more sense, but I would go further by saying that any battle that has you with a decisive victory prediction should get absolutely zero XP under Civ V. I don't think any army has learned anything new from smashing through an opponent that is so strongly outclassed, and it would stop the XP farming in the game. There should always be a real risk/reward basis to XP.

Likewise I think you shouldn't gain XP from being shot at. That is another Civ V XP farm exploit (approach, get shot at, then retreat and replenish). This also doesn't reflect reality for what you could possibly learn from standing around and letting yourself be shot at before retreating (other than it is a pretty good idea to not do that).

You even don't need to retreat in early game. Just have a doc behind you/or having doc upgrade on the unit, declare war on another stupid Civ, Fortify your unit near one of his city, and wait. +2xp every turn, +4 with the right civic, and enjoy. Fortify + doc = +2 hp, which is what the city will hit you for.
Don't remember if fortifying on a hill/forest reduces damages. But it avoid your unit from behind backstab by a stupid lurking barb that is unlucky roaming in this area

The best is to find a barb boat that can shoot you. Exact same technic, but no war at all. Priceless.
It's even better when they come near one of your coastal/near coastal city. NEVER SHOT THEM !! Put your unit on the field and fortify. Being on your land equal behind doc : +2hp per turn when fortified. AWESOME !

solid review, makes alot of good points and nothing i can really dissagree with.

however, for me there is a huge fun factor that greatly increases the score. i understand that its not there for everyone, but I've put over 40 hours into the game since release, haven't managed to get to sleep before 1am a single night, and spend nearly every free moment in the game. I am still having a blast. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but the "just one more turn" magic is there in spades.

I am greatly anticipating what will happen when modders get their hands on the SDK.