My thoughts don't merit their own thread, and are too positive to go in the rants thread, so I'll post them here, where they'll do no harm (or good).
When Civ V came out I had a PC that wasn't up to the job, so the decision wasn't "should I buy Civ V at full price?" but "should I buy a new computer and then pay full price for Civ V?" I was messing around with parts lists when user reviews made me say forget it. What really dissuaded me was a succession game where they beat deity using an ICS strategy like weeks after release. I took the negative reviews users posted much more to heart than the almost entirely positive ones written by games reviewers.
So I waited. Here it is, three years and an expansion later, and I have a new PC that can hack Civ V. Civ IV doesn't run on it due to Win 7. Civ III does, but I couldn't get back into it. If I wanted to play Civ, I had to go with V.
One complaint about V that never impressed me was the Steam issue. Steam is pretty dang good in my book: economical and convenient. So when a sale popped up for a package deal, I got it. I've played the hell out of it, too. 291 hours, according to Steam. Steam's handy for stuff like that.
So, V has some good points for me. I think the biggest is the streamlined mechanics. I like that that Wonders don't go obsolete now or would prefer that in order to build a musket unit you should need a supply of saltpeter, a gunsmith, and a shoe factory.
I also like the different Civ abilities, which make for a more varied game. Persia is a much different experience than, say, Germany. I like that the Americans don't suck this time out. The map looks pretty good. In fact, when I see a city view screenshot from IV now, I think it looks ugly.
Not that appearances should matter all that much. Civ V-- and many other games as well-- suffer under weight that has nothing to do with the core game. The first time I started V, I watched the introductory movie. Impressive. The animation was so realistic that it was well on uncanny valley. I remember thinking "wouldn't it have been cheaper to hire actors?" and "that was nice, but I'll never watch it again." If a strategy game came out that didn't have an introductory video, or, for that matter, music, speech and ambient sound, I'm not sure I'd notice. I certainly wouldn't miss skipping them and turning them off. I don't miss the bloody wonder movies, either. The map is what matters.
Speaking of gewgaws, do I really need to be whisked away to Elizabeth's throne room for a private audience every time she has a thought? Why must I leave my cities or fronts and go to an unchanging forest clearing whenever Hiawatha wants to renegotiate the price of crabs? Streamlining is Civ V's best feature, but it still grinds to a halt every other turn so I can see that Swede's fireplace again. It's like they wanted to design a car and glued a bunch of framed paintings to it to class it up, so while you're driving, one flies loose and the view is completely blocked by a portrait that you've seen a bunch of times already. You're bored and distracted at the same time.
Hexes are nice, and should have been in from the beginning, or at least by Civ III. By picking up the game so late I've missed most of the unit problems that seemed to plague the game early on. I'm of the opinion that the stack of doom was a problem that didn't need a solution but for whatever reason the designers had to go fix it. It works OK now. Combat in Civ has always been wonky, it's just wonky another way now. Sneak attacks were easier with stacks (including AI sneak attacks). 1 per hex looks and feels a bit more realistic to me.
One thing I have to ask is why are we still messing around with workers? Why not improve tiles with gold or faith or hammers whatever from the map, and, for that matter, purchase tiles as well. It's good that in V you at least don't have to open the city screen to choose production. Some of the interface with V is quite good, IMHO, for instance the tech tree.
I have more thoughts about Civ V-- I should, after 300 hours-- but this is already TL;DR.
) before I make up my mind.
