104 Hours Later – CiV Reflections

I have put over 100 hours in now. I have tried a few mods but I am bored.
For me it's the complete lack of interaction with the other civs as the diplomacy is so shallow.
There is no attempt at long standing friendships, no choices about whether to join a war or change religion. The list is endless.
I miss trying to get other civs to ally with me when I am attacked and the careful decisions about who to be friendly with and all that.
I won't even bother with the AI or the other civ4 comparisons for me the whole immersion I had in the other civ games is gone and I tried so much to love it as I was so desperate to play it.
I honestly think that by comparison it's not on a par with any other civ game.
I think that the people who say it's wonderful are admiring the emperors clothes ..... One game of SMAC or civ 3 and 4 and you see how naked it really is.
All this talk of mods and patches won't change it for me even the music and the graphics are not a patch on civ4 and that was 5 years ago when it came out .

It took me about three hours to throw away my MOO3 disc...about two hours to throw away my EE III disc.

I've put in 59 hours on Civ V since release day. I'm not bored of it, but after awhile of playing I suffer from the same 'gaming fatigue' I used to get from Civ IV and Civ III. All these posts of "I"ve played for 100+ hours and am bored" are reminiscent of the people in MMO"s that hit max level within two weeks of launch and then decry the developers for not putting in enough content. I imagine, if I'd put in 100+ hours already I'd be bored too. Spread your gaming around, or do some other hobbies

I dont' get a ton of time to play these days, but when I do I split my time between Warhammer and Civ V. I can't play any game that much, doesn't matter how good it is.

For those who cannot put a finger on why this game doesn't work, let me offer my 2 cents after over 24 hours or so. I actually **do** like the game, but think that the AI in terms of strategy is lacking. But also in character. The AI doesn't feel real because there are no allies / enemies like one would expect. They all kind of seem like mindless drones. I think they should add some more character to the AI and in the diplomacy screen. That's where I think the focus should be next.

If what you are trying to say Vandyr had any reflection on reality then there would be no hardcore gamers as they'd be bored out of their minds.

Also 100 hours from release to this day isn't nearly too much... less than 2.5 hours a day.

This is CivFanatics after all.

Toady said:

If what you are trying to say Vandyr had any reflection on reality then there would be no hardcore gamers as they'd be bored out of their minds.

Also 100 hours from release to this day isn't nearly too much... less than 2.5 hours a day.

This is CivFanatics after all.

Click to expand...

Yea that's true. One guy has already put in 240 hours, which is insane to me, and people do it in other games too..I used to play Lineage 2, where players would put in 14-16 hours a day to level up...mind boggling to someone like me. I just don't have that much patience for a game, even if I really like it.

Ive stopped playing Civ V......

OP here again. 117 hours now, and I did make an effort to not wander away leaving the game running this time, so I think the additional 13 hours is kind of accurate. OK, maybe I did wander off once or twice..

So I made another go at playing. To recap my original post I am playing on a new rig – Core i7, 8GB Memory, GeForce GTX 460, all drivers and whatnot current. I randomized some setup options and wound up with Mongolian, Map Type unknown, Standard size, Emperor Difficulty, Standard speed. My goal was to enter the game with an open mind and start fresh.

I wound up on a Continent, with Washington to my right and Alexander to my left. I tried avoiding my usual aggressive style and tried instead to focus on playing with the diplomacy, seeing how I could work with my neighbors. Things went well with George as I built up to four cities or so. We had Open Borders and a Cooperation Pact, as well as a few Trades in the mix. Alex was less willing to do much of anything on the Diplo front, and eventually gave me one of those ‘Your Empire is Puny’ taunts. Has anyone figured out what the f-ing right answer is to one of those BTW? Anyway, I went with the option two ‘Whatever’ reply, and Alex’s attitude went to Hostile and he started moving troops towards my border. Suspecting he was eventually going to be a prick I already had some horsemen in the pipe anyway, and was working on some swordsmen as well.

Note that at this point in the game I am actually enjoying myself. I expect an attack from the Greeks at any moment and am rushing to reinforce my borders, while trying to keep America happy and on my side. Any turn now Alex will attack, I will be the innocent victim, and the chips will fall where they may. I’m ready. Bring it, toga-boy!

Any turn now he’ll attack...I make a few insane demands to goad him on.

Any turn now...I move troops to his border. That will get things moving. I’ll fidget with my ‘Happiness’ and try not to go broke while I wait.

Any...turn...now...

Huh? What? Alexander declares war! By this time I have a solid line of horsemen, melee troops, and archers positioned to meet his attack. Still the first ten or so turns of the war are a give-and-take as he seems to have a LOT more muscle than I do. Yet eventually his line falls and the slow, plodding process begins to take his cities one by one. Did I mention slow and plodding? During this period there is no real military threat and it seems I am just keeping an eye on tweaking gold and happiness by rush-building coliseums and markets while I make my way slowly across the continent playing Pac-Man against the Greek cities. ‘Crazy Alex’ sues for peace a couple of times, but wants ME to give HIM Recourses and/or Gold as part of the deal. Can you say delusional? My revenge counter-invasion continues.

Then my new computer (which is pristine and has not given me a second of trouble to date) locks up. We’re talking ‘stone-dead unresponsive no CTR+ALT+DEL happening here shut up and hard reboot it’ locked up. Oh well. I lost a few turns, no big whoop.

Several days later I re-load the game. Things are still going well with George diplomatically, I have a slew of Greek Puppets (Alex is down to 2 cities, the Capital long since fallen) and the ‘Next Turn’ dance goes on. I am now bored again.

Out of the blue America says our borders are a problem and cuts off our Cooperation Pact. Heck, at least it’s something different! I cut poor, battered Alexander a break and make peace, then begin the mega-multi-turn march of all of my units across the continent to prepare for war with George. He has slight tech edge for now but I know I will catch up by time my units are in position, eventually be at war and repeat the city gobbling until I own this land mass. Then it is off to the next continent and eventual victory.

But of course before I could get to that point my computer froze again when I tried to open a Diplomacy session with George.

Check, please!

I’m done for now. I am envious of those that enjoy CiV in the current state, but I think I am logging out for the time being and going back to IV. For those of you that may be on the fence about purchasing a copy of this game, I say wait. I see potential here, and hope it will be improved over time with patches and mods, but right now, as said in my OP, I just find this game boring. Just my opinion, and you know what those are good for...

On the bright side, the back and forth on these boards has been a hoot!

GKling said:

I’m done for now. I am envious of those that enjoy CiV in the current state, but I think I am logging out for the time being and going back to IV. For those of you that may be on the fence about purchasing a copy of this game, I say wait. I see potential here, and hope it will be improved over time with patches and mods, but right now, as said in my OP, I just find this game boring.

Click to expand...

Kudos to you for keeping at it for so long. At least you can say you really tried, and formed your own opinion based on a lot of firsthand experience. (You lasted almost twice as long as I did, too.) I agree that it has potential, definitely. (Though I do wonder how engaging I'll find even the polished, patched game if I'm not its target audience.)

I just wish I'd waited a year or two to buy the game; there wasn't much point in spending the money on release just to put it back on the shelf for a year or more.

Just my opinion, and you know what those are good for...

Click to expand...

For making people mad on the internet, apparently.

I'm in at around 110 hours or so. I took a week off and started playing BTS for the first time. I played vanilla civ4, but this BTS is wicked good. I have only completed 1 match and it was a time victory on Noble difficulty and it was HARD fought. I think I won by 80 points. I learned a lot on that game, specifically the need to have a massive, massive navy as well as a mix of ground units.

Now that I'm loving BTS, I went back to Civ5 to take my turn in a succession game that I'm playing and I actually had a lot of fun with my turn set. I may go back and give it another go. One of the things that killed civ5 for me was learning the horsemen rush, it's tough to unlearn that when it is so easy to do and stomp over everything early game.

It's a tough call and I'm in agreement that civ5 has to potential to be awesome, but it really lacking in the immersion factor, crappy diplo and dumb AI. I'm glad they are working on the AI and Diplo for the next patch.

You should try some mods as people have mentioned above.

Current game:
- Economy mod + city def
- Everything started random (random personalities is a must for me)
- Huge, Marathon (meant to click epic) with extra civs thrown in
- Just wrapping up a culture win with Egypt

Looking forward to starting next game because I really want to try out the City State Diplomacy mod. Sounds like it will add another dimension to things

Rohili said:

The simple fact is that Civ V lacks replayability value. I was pretty addicted to it during my first few games, and kept pressing the "Next Turn" button into the wee hours of the night.

But like most games, it loses its appeal after a while. Once you have tried out all the social policies, played with the various units available, built all the wonders, etc, there is nothing new to it any more.

Civ V is particularly afflicted by this problem because it has been more "streamlined". What this really means is that there are fewer options the player can choose from; fewer strategies to pursue; fewer ways to tweak his cities and civilization. Thus, a player runs out of things to do much faster, and gets tired of the game more quickly.

Click to expand...

I share the same thoughts. I still haven't done everything I could in BTS, but on CiV, I've already tested out all the social policies and played around a bit with the City States.

This game lacks depth, substance, honestly, and dedication. They had a working formula in the past game. Why change everything and revamp it for the next title?

Target MC said:

I share the same thoughts. I still haven't done everything I could in BTS, but on CiV, I've already tested out all the social policies and played around a bit with the City States.

This game lacks depth, substance, honestly, and dedication. They had a working formula in the past game. Why change everything and revamp it for the next title?

Click to expand...

Actually, that is an interesting point. With BTS I shifted around to like 5, maybe 6 civs, because there was so much depth in terms of content. I played Hatshepsut for like 80% of my games, and switched around to maybe Washington, Caesar, Montezuma, and Tokugawa on random or for novelty's sake.

With Civ V I've played EVERYONE. I'm just so bored that every game I try somebody new just to see if it magically gets more fun.

One really easy way they could add more replayability to the leaders/civs is by giving them another UU/UB slot and some leader traits....then there'd be more combinations/strategies/etc. Part of what made Civ IV so fun was the random leader choice--you might get the same civ but a different leader, which was fun.

mihaifx said:

Categorizing a game as boring is very subjective. How many games of Civ4 did I play? Just 1. After finishing a long game, building most wonders, conquered 50% of the map I just didn't feel the will to start another game. It was too long, micromanagement of units and cities was too time consuming, there were bugs in unit selection, AI was really dumb (keeping stacks of units in every city instead of concentrating them for defense), diplomacy was reduced to asskissing and so on.

Click to expand...

So you played one game of Civ IV vanilla, probably before it was completely patched up/balanced, and before any expansions were out?

I hate to break it to ya, dude, but I think you missed out on a lot by not going back and trying it with a fully batched BTS! It's almost a completely different game. When Warlords came out I kept playing both vanilla and Warlords GOTM, but when BTS came out, I never went back to play either again.

By the way, this experience is part of the reason I have not bought CiV yet. Letting you all be my guinea pigs, and get the developers to fix the game for me when I do finally decide to try it (with CIv IV, I waited aobut 6 months before jumping in, and it sounded like I missed most of the worst growing pains by doing so).

And now that CIv IV Complete can be had as cheap as $5-$10 for download, there is no risk to go back and try. Just a thought.