Civilization 5 Rants Thread

logintime said:

I hate that! I'd be doing my thing in my territory, but every turn the camera would be pulled off to one of my distant city-states invariably locked in a drawn-out bombardment with a barbarian frigate. And I'd have nothing to do but watch... which is annoying enough when you just have one allied city-state. But when you have five or six? Heinously frustrating.

I think you can turn off the combat animations, which should make that go faster, but you'll still probably have the screen pulled over there.

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Wow, there are people that don't turn off combat animations?

Altough I'd love to think Civ devs come over here to see what their priorities should be to fix I find it very difficult to believe such a thing.
This is simply a textbook example of selling out, they got the big bucks now with a whole generation of console tards buying this garbage and thinking it's original or even innovative, look at Metallica, Star Wars, Final Fantasy, once you sell out you don't come back because for a business getting a lot of money tends to be the goal.
And sure, you'll have the occasional fanboy who will claim that Death Magnetic, FF10, Revenge of the Sith or CiV is the bees fricking knees, but I think instead of scoffing them we should pity them for never having known anything better then this bland, overcommercialized crap.

Derpy Hooves said:

Altough I'd love to think Civ devs come over here to see what their priorities should be to fix I find it very difficult to believe such a thing.
This is simply a textbook example of selling out, they got the big bucks now with a whole generation of console tards buying this garbage and thinking it's original or even innovative, look at Metallica, Star Wars, Final Fantasy, once you sell out you don't come back because for a business getting a lot of money tends to be the goal.
And sure, you'll have the occasional fanboy who will claim that Death Magnetic, FF10, Revenge of the Sith or CiV is the bees fricking knees, but I think instead of scoffing them we should pity them for never having known anything better then this bland, overcommercialized crap.

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Nice one derpy, very nice

Derpy Hooves said:

Altough I'd love to think Civ devs come over here to see what their priorities should be to fix I find it very difficult to believe such a thing.
This is simply a textbook example of selling out, they got the big bucks now with a whole generation of console tards buying this garbage and thinking it's original or even innovative, look at Metallica, Star Wars, Final Fantasy, once you sell out you don't come back because for a business getting a lot of money tends to be the goal.
And sure, you'll have the occasional fanboy who will claim that Death Magnetic, FF10, Revenge of the Sith or CiV is the bees fricking knees, but I think instead of scoffing them we should pity them for never having known anything better then this bland, overcommercialized crap.

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Very well put. It's almost impossible to put the genie back into the bottle after selling out. Unless Firaxis can somehow free itself from the anchor that is 2K Games.

Likely, in order to get what we really want, we'll have to look at younger, hungrier companies. I don't think Firaxis/2K Games has anything patented for the Civ formula. Others can do it and do it right.

For example, Kael is doing great things with Elemental and the Beta for Elemental:Fallen Enchantress is coming out in a few days. The game looks impressive to say the least.

Derpy Hooves said:

Altough I'd love to think Civ devs come over here to see what their priorities should be to fix I find it very difficult to believe such a thing.
This is simply a textbook example of selling out, they got the big bucks now with a whole generation of console tards buying this garbage and thinking it's original or even innovative, look at Metallica, Star Wars, Final Fantasy, once you sell out you don't come back because for a business getting a lot of money tends to be the goal.
And sure, you'll have the occasional fanboy who will claim that Death Magnetic, FF10, Revenge of the Sith or CiV is the bees fricking knees, but I think instead of scoffing them we should pity them for never having known anything better then this bland, overcommercialized crap.

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You're absolutely right. But it's so sad. FFIX, which I think is the best game in the FF series, has 5.3 million sold copies. FFX, which is crap, has sold about 6,6 million sold copies. Yes, +25% is a great boost. And by turning an exploration game into a run-from-point-A-to-point-B game, they probably saved a lot of time during the development... But still... Was it really worth it? I mean, do the executives and game designers really don't care about the quality? Is it really that fun to create a bunch of garbage and milk money out of the customers? Probably.

By the way, this is the worst example I've seen so far:

SKYLANDERS

The concept of the game is basically that you buy action figures that work as DLC. It was released in October 2011. To be able to use all the features in the game, you'll need:

The "starter kit"
$69.99

34 action figures
34 * $9.99 = $339.66

2 expansion packs
2 * $24.99 = $49.98

Total cost for the entire game

$459.63!!!

That's insane!

Unless of course you want the cases as well, in that case the total cost is:

$519.61!!!

But, there's more. These extra action figures have sold out in almost every video game store. If you find any, you'd better buy them all or else someone else will. The same strategy that Nintendo use frequently. If the shelves are empty, people will believe that it's really popular and will be willing to pay more. It's really pathetic when you know that there's a warehouse full of these items somewhere.

What's really sad is that this works so ridiculously well. Here are 16 figures for sale on ebay, to the fair price of $450.50.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SKYLANDERS-...262?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc0f69906

Yes, people are afraid that they'll miss these figures, that they are willing to pay insane amounts of money just to get them.

I strongly believe in capitalism, yet this makes me wanna puke. It would surprise me if they use something simular for Civ 6. I can imagine crying kids running all over the city in a desperate search for a Giant Death Robot figure. Or people on these forums bragging about how they got their hands on the Walmart exclusive Giant Mutant Missile Mech Squid.

Bad Brett said:

You're absolutely right. But it's so sad. FFIX, which I think is the best game in the FF series, has 5.3 million sold copies. FFX, which is crap, has sold about 6,6 million sold copies. Yes, +25% is a great boost. And by turning an exploration game into a run-from-point-A-to-point-B game, they probably saved a lot of time during the development... But still... Was it really worth it?

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I actually enjoyed FFX a lot. It's not the best in the series, but it was a solid entry in my view, and the character advancement system was done well. The setting and scenery were also greatly realized. The main gripe I have is that the voice acting was painful, but that's where you just mute the sound during cut scenes.

And FFXII is fantastic. It's not linear, it has good voice acting, the setting is strong, the world is huge... about the only complaint I have with it is that the story isn't so compelling.

Now if we're talking FFXIII or FFXIV, that's a whole different story...

I'd say one of the problems with combat animations is my tendency to forget about having them on or off, I wish this damn game would at least save user settings.

And those Skylander things, honestly, it's not that much different from the Pokemon and Dragonball Z cards I grew up with, it's more expensive ofcourse but it's just banking on the same ol' principle, kids are fricking idiots.

Not to derail too much but the last FF game that I played that I thought was good (and best one overall) is FFVI, it is the last game in the series where the main character is not some brooding emo man-child with ridiculous hair or some disturbing kawaii lolicon that you just know legions of lifeless japanese are fapping to.
Here I should note that the game fell apart piece by piece, with Final Fantasy VII they destroyed the story, the first brooding emo protagonist was introduced, Cloud and they turned the main villain into one as well, Sephiroth, what many people call the best villain.
Sephiroth has no depth, not even a decent personality beyond "I am evil and want to destroy world becuz hurr durr", the only thing the guy has is a ridiculous sword and that he's super pretty and kawaii, which is only relevant if your a girl or a godamn weaboo.

Ever since FFVII they changed the template from a group of protagonists finding some mysterious rocks to save the world with their interpersonal relations developing during that time into some terrible anime full of gratuitous fanservice and people looking pretty while they're depressed, FFVI reads like a half decent book, FFVII+ like freaking Naruto.

But ofcourse just destroying the story was not enough, with the newer incarnations of the game they even took away control for anything but the main character, even removing the ability to make any real choices with him, essentially turning the game into a visual novel.

As far as your specific examples go, I've heard half decent things about FFIX, not a masterpiece but at least possessing a decent combat system, just looking at the cover though the sheer amount of androgenous furry's kind of repulses me.
FFX, decent gameplay but probably the worst storyline ever, characters that grate on your soul and a story that revolves around nothing, a very nice depiction of everything that went wrong after FFVI but before they destroyed the last bastion of gameplay as well.
From what I read on Wiki, FFXII's combat system actually looks fairly interesting, innovation is not something common to the FF franchise but perhaps this contained some of it, the characters look like emo-man-child-galore so there's no way in hell I'm ever playing it but kudo's on finding something a bit above par in the current state of this franchise.

Just let me end my ranting with a request for you guys to check out SpoonyOne's reviews on FFX X-2 and FFVIII, he can probably explain a lot better what exactly went wrong with this series, and if you havn't yet, play FFIV to FFVI, IV and VI have the best storyline ever shoved into a Final Fantasy game, especially VI, with a villain that actually has some depth, tons and tons of character development (with probably the biggest cast ever put into a FF game), some quite effective pulling of the heartstrings and probably the biggest mindf*ck you'll ever get in a game like this.
FFV is more interesting for it's gameplay, allowing you to make any combination of classes on a single character, making for a very interesting and tactical combat system.
As far as my credentials go, I played everything until part 8 (except part 3) that I was not able to finish due to lack of interest, and from what I've seen from friends I have no reason to want to return to playing any of the newer games.
/rant

firecat318 said:

Another thing that really pisses me off is when the AI settles right on your borders just because there is a luxury resource there or because it has a wheat tile or something else. Then they will blame you for being too close to them and eventually they will declare war. I just wish you could somehow have peace with another civ even if you were inferior militarily wise and if you bordered them. Imagine the USA and Canada - Canada has a tiny military compared to the United States, but the United States doesn't invade them just because they're weak and they present an easy target. It's called mutual cooperation and something this game needs. Perhaps creating a road from your capital to another AI's capitol would allow trade between the two civs.

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I agree that the diplomacy should be improved, but when you bring out the point that the AI shouldn't attack you because they are closer to you and weaker, you should take into consideration that most empires/nations irl doesn't need to be the only one standing, the strongest, and conquer the others. And people like Ghandi who just likes to stand by and wonder spam, normally isn't going to attack you because of your close borders, He might just wanna trade and negotiate with you

CIV V! Y U NEVER GIVE ME IRON?

Derpy Hooves said:

As far as your specific examples go, I've heard half decent things about FFIX, not a masterpiece but at least possessing a decent combat system, just looking at the cover though the sheer amount of androgenous furry's kind of repulses me.

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If you haven't played it, you should pick it up. FFIX was what Civ5 was supposed to be, a tribute to the fans. Even the founder of the series, Hironobuo Sakaguchi says that it's his favourite FF game.

Yes, many of the characters look annoying. I hated it when I first tried it, mainly because I hated the character design.. But the thing that differs FFIX from the other FF games is that it's not about beating the bad guy - It's about the meaning life. The main protagonist is not emo, he's more of a clown. It's actually the only game that makes me cry every time I play it, mostly because of the beautiful music. Dpn't ruin the scenes by watching them on youtube, but listen to this piece of music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXlE8ZESSEI

Pure art. Seriously, pick up the game. NOW.

I have no doubt that the soundtrack is great, Nobuo Uematsu is a fantastical composer, Dancing Mad, the final boss theme for FFVI, a 17 minute work of art that showcases so many beautifully arranged styles that it is almost impossible to imagine it was written by a single guy is one of my favorite pieces of music ever composed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMFCM0SKbnY
I havn't heard that particular piece of music you linked before but it is just as great as I imagined, coming from this composer, even on the album I linked that song from, there are several orchestrations of FFIX music that I really like and even the most horrible FF game will still have some tracks that are worth listening to, altough because he has tended to focus on more happy themes because of the subject matter of the recent FF games (the main character might be a brooding emo but everything else tends to be soaked in cute and bubbly) I often find myself liking the older, experimental compositions more.
I don't actually own a PSX and even though they planned on a PC release they never followed through, I'm fairly sure I could get it running though so I might give it a shot.

I suspect Nobuo's music plays a great part in the rather eyewatering tendencies these games exhibit, most of the well renowned titles have these kinds of emotional songs combined with a meaningful moment, perhaps it's retrospect it's somewhat formulaic pulling at the heart strings but at least it's very well done.

My rant is that I hate that I took the time to read this entire thread. *peew* =)

Revenge of the Sith was the best of all 6.
FF VII is as good as III
please stop hijacking.

Neomega said:

Revenge of the Sith was the best of all 6.
FF VII is as good as III
please stop hijacking.

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You best be trolling or 12 years old son.
And I don't particularly care for FFVII or III, VII I found dissapointing, III I never even played.

Moderator Action: First line works to sour the thread, even if it's only intended to be light-hearted.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Can we please stay on topic? Its Civ V rants here.

It's at least somewhat on-topic to see how one man's prize is another man's poison. FFX actually had turn-based combat, which put it miles ahead of most of the others for me in gameplay. That and FF games before VII were on the inferior Nintendo -- you know, a bland, overcommercialized crap console.

And sure, you'll have the occasional fanboy who will claim that Death Magnetic, FF10, Revenge of the Sith or CiV is the bees fricking knees, but I think instead of scoffing them we should pity them for never having known anything better then this bland, overcommercialized crap.

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Thus, I pity this man, who has been so thoroughly indoctrinated by his own preferred bland, overcommercialized crap that he refuses to see the value in anybody else's bland, overcommercialized crap.

First, of all, I'm not trolling or stirring the pot or anything. But I know on this thread nearly everyone plays V, and that is great because it means you like the game, albeit somewhat. and I agree they have to resolve many of the issues that have been brought up.

But, when they lok at steam and see how many hours have been spent playing the game they think "Ok, they complain, but they like it...the complainers are in the minority." so, the only way to get them to listen is if there was a V strike for like a week or something...to get their attention. when they see low activity on steam for a week, that will get attention. then perhaps they will really start to look at what can be improved.

Moderators...I do not know how you will feel about what i just wrote. But to my knowledge nothing of what i said is illegal or incendiary. I want the game improved as much as you do.

â strike might get notice, but a boycott of Firaxis games/DLC would actually get them to do something.... probably the wrong thing, like spend even more money on marketting and less on product development.

kcd_swede said:

â strike might get notice, but a boycott of Firaxis games/DLC would actually get them to do something.... probably the wrong thing, like spend even more money on marketting and less on product development.

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ah, don't worry... the strike will come without the need of any type of organization. Casuals do not sustain franchises like Civ. Soon enough, the casuals will be gone, and all what will be left will be... this thread. Jon Shafer will have his name attached to the worst civilization game in history, for ever, no matter his BS excuses... the only doubt is, will they go back to the roots, or will they persist on their mistake? The answer to that will be the answer to civ's future.

As simple as that.

In the meanwhile, Paradox Interactive, my friends... far better simulation of real-politik for true hardcore.

a strike against Firaxis haha get over yourselfs lads.

they made a game you dont like, big wow.

it was their game to make however they wanted.

Moderator Action: Not at all conducive to civil or productive discussion. Just going to produce a negative reaction.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889