Civilization 5 Rants Thread

DrewBledsoe, that was an excellent post.

I started a thread a while ago on that subject on god game design versus board game design because of a thread I saw a thread on 2K Games forums. While both of these approaches are legitimate, Civs I through IV have always been a god game design while Civilization 5 is more of a board game design. It's one of the reasons the latest iteration has divided the fan base so badly.

Here is the thread:

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?92858-Why-Civ-5-is-dividing-the-fan-base-God-game-vs-Board-game

Here is the thread I started on Civ Fanatics:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389538&highlight=god+game+design+board
 
DrewBledsoe said:
Which bit of my post isn't true, if you wish to discuss it?

I noted that you play as the leader of a single nation, but it's still (well it used to be) a god game. Trying to reduce Civ, which was all about the journey, to a simple win/lose mechanism, where the end result is really all that matters, was a very poor design decision.

I'm afraid the designers were the ones who just "didn't get it".
Click to expand...





The complaint is basically AI diplomacy choices that don't jive with your perspective of what you think is going on in the game. As if AI choices outside of your realm of control or understanding is a bad thing. This is what keeps the game interesting.

As far as "god" games go, some people definition is to actually play a diety like Populous or Black and White. (which happen to be God games)
 
blasto said:
The complaint is basically AI diplomacy choices that don't jive with your perspective of what you think is going on in the game. As if AI choices outside of your realm of control or understanding is a bad thing. This is what keeps the game interesting.

As far as "god" games go, some people definition is to actually play a diety like Populous or Black and White. (which happen to be God games)
Click to expand...

I still think you're missing, or not understanding the big picture. AI choices outside the players realm of control of course aren't on their own a bad thing, they are totally necessary. It's the game design that I think is wrong (as do many others). Exactly as Thormodr stated above, it's a question of design concepts.

As simply as I can put it, the civ series was all about "the thrill of the ride". Where you ended up wasn't that important. Civ wasn't something you'd play a few times then go "beaten it-move on to something new", because the thrill of the ride was there each and every new game.

That was somehow not understood by Civ V's designers.
 
Yeah, I get that. I think this is closer to a sandbox game than a god game still. The sandbox is controlled by a set of rules and you are able to throw the variables in and control one of them.
 
I don't know so much about game theory and all that, but I do know if I'm having fun or not.

What got me addicted to the Civ series was the aspect that at virtually any point during the game, there is something you are striving to accomplish... something challenging, and that you aren't sure you'll accomplish, but if you really optimize for it... whether its to secure a resource or be first to a key technology or capture that really sweet city or build that wonder....
with all the different in-game goals overlapping so there isn't very often that you are just clicking trhough turns waiting for something, because there is too much going on. And you never want to put the game down, since now you are concentrated on all the different things you want to accomplish, but if you come back in a day or two you might miss something important (a false perception, since the opposite is usually true for me, if I do manage to put it away for a bit, I come back with better ideas that I had overlooked). And then you always miss something, and know you could do something better... you want to play again, but the next game is so different your plans have to be continuously adjusted or even scrapped.

The early game in CiV is to me about the same as I expect from the series... exploring, not a huge number of options to choose from, but the choices you make here will be very important to set the tone of the whole game...

But then something goes wrong. There are too few variations on how to accomplish a given goal, so the optimum is pretty much the same in every game. And the UI is tedious so that the major obstacle to the goal is often how much tedium you are willing to endure. Since the options are fewer, there are long strecthes where you just want to fast forward a whole bunch of turns. Lots of clicking without much thinking.

Sure, some of the VC's in Civ4 you could write a very simple set of instructions to follow... a recipe... that would be pretty sure to get you that VC. In contrast, ALL of the VC's in CiV appear that way.

Mind you... if you just play CiV by the seat of your pants, at the proper difficulty level, it will be challenging and therefore rewarding experience to accomplish. But once you've done that... it isn't compelling enough to do it again and again. Get each VC once and you've figured it out. Time to move on to a new game.
 
problem just is the Global happyness system and too expensive buildings together with too many very good and very bad wonders (some u ll want every game - some never ...)
--> limiting choises so much

another very bad concept is the HUGE hit to happynes when capturing cities, what in fact makes capturing something bad instead of what it should be - a step closer to winning
--> achiveing something hard - while getting a negative outcome - just bad concept
 
kcd_swede said:
I don't know so much about game theory and all that, but I do know if I'm having fun or not.

What got me addicted to the Civ series was the aspect that at virtually any point during the game, there is something you are striving to accomplish... something challenging, and that you aren't sure you'll accomplish, but if you really optimize for it... whether its to secure a resource or be first to a key technology or capture that really sweet city or build that wonder....
with all the different in-game goals overlapping so there isn't very often that you are just clicking trhough turns waiting for something, because there is too much going on. And you never want to put the game down, since now you are concentrated on all the different things you want to accomplish, but if you come back in a day or two you might miss something important (a false perception, since the opposite is usually true for me, if I do manage to put it away for a bit, I come back with better ideas that I had overlooked). And then you always miss something, and know you could do something better... you want to play again, but the next game is so different your plans have to be continuously adjusted or even scrapped.

The early game in CiV is to me about the same as I expect from the series... exploring, not a huge number of options to choose from, but the choices you make here will be very important to set the tone of the whole game...

But then something goes wrong. There are too few variations on how to accomplish a given goal, so the optimum is pretty much the same in every game. And the UI is tedious so that the major obstacle to the goal is often how much tedium you are willing to endure. Since the options are fewer, there are long strecthes where you just want to fast forward a whole bunch of turns. Lots of clicking without much thinking.

Sure, some of the VC's in Civ4 you could write a very simple set of instructions to follow... a recipe... that would be pretty sure to get you that VC. In contrast, ALL of the VC's in CiV appear that way.

Mind you... if you just play CiV by the seat of your pants, at the proper difficulty level, it will be challenging and therefore rewarding experience to accomplish. But once you've done that... it isn't compelling enough to do it again and again. Get each VC once and you've figured it out. Time to move on to a new game.
Click to expand...

I so agree with that.

The replayability for me is that each civilization is unique enough for me to try them all, and a few of them towards multiple VC.
The replayayability of former itterations was that each game was unique.
 
How poorly does this game run?
Why does it take such a long time to process turns?
What is the game really doing?
What is the reason for this?

Thanks in advance,
Mr. :mad:
 
You're going to have to be more specific than "turns take forever". What size map and how many civs/city states are you playing with? What's your computer like? How long are your turns actually taking? The game runs a lot smoother than it did at launch. Personally, my turn time are pretty short, even late game on a huge map. Turns for me only took awhile at launch, where a huge map and 12 civs could result in a minute long wait in between turns, but now it's a lot shorter.
 
Kolbeg said:
How poorly does this game run?
Why does it take such a long time to process turns?
What is the game really doing?
What is the reason for this?

Thanks in advance,
Mr. :mad:
Click to expand...

1. It doesn't run poorly. Play on smaller maps.
2. Unit pathing.
3. Unit Pathing.
4. So units can move. :rolleyes:
 
Sounds like someone needs a new computer and/or play on smaller maps with less civs. Turn times have been improving with every patch and the general consensus is that it's not a major issue.
 
I run into issues on Large / Huge maps still, but mostly terrible framerate while the screen is panning from one side of the world to the next while cycling through my units.... it is... very annoying. Also very terrible load times when loading the level and more framerate loss at the start of every turn near the end of the game.

Oh. And my system specs are godlike. I do have AA on, and max resolution, etc, but I feel like I should be able to play just about any turn-based strategy game without having to worry about seeing my screen stutter...

6 core AMD Phenom II Black overlocked to 4.5 GHz.
12 GB ram
2 TB harddrive
2x NVIDIA 460 GTX via SLI.
 
I think this is because of a terrible programming of the game. My CPU is not great, and I´m running the game in the worst setup possible.
I´m trying to play on smaller maps but I have around 15 AI´s. Its a Small or Medium, since I´ve given up on anything bigger.
I manage to enjoy alot of other games SC2, Wow, Dead Space and HL2 just to give you some idea.

The point I´m trying to make is the evident poor making of this game.
Should it have to be like this?
 
chazzycat said:
Sounds like someone needs a new computer
Click to expand...

Exactly. Civ V ran poorly on my old computer. So, I got a new computer with some serious CPU and video power. Now Civ V runs fantastic. After the opening credits, that start up movie used to run all the way to where the kid was walking into the tent before it would go away. Now, the movie starts, I hit the space bar, and it just goes away. I still get a few inbetween turn freezes in late game on a large map as the the game whips me from one active unit to another. But nothing like what happened with my old computer. The game is a joy to play, but you have to have a decent PC for Civ V to run properly.
 
Kolbeg said:
I think this is because of a terrible programming of the game. My CPU is not great, and I´m running the game in the worst setup possible.
I´m trying to play on smaller maps but I have around 15 AI´s. Its a Small or Medium, since I´ve given up on anything bigger.
I manage to enjoy alot of other games SC2, Wow, Dead Space and HL2 just to give you some idea.

The point I´m trying to make is the evident poor making of this game.
Should it have to be like this?
Click to expand...

You're defeating the purpose of the smaller map if you're running 15 AI's! It's the AI moves that take up all the turn time, not the map size per se. If you're running the game under the worst possible conditions, how can you blame it's performance on coding? I mean, it's great that you can run SC2 and Dead Space. WoW is, what? A ten year old game? I'd hope you could run WoW... I'm just missing the point, I guess... :confused:
 
Kolbeg said:
I think this is because of a terrible programming of the game. My CPU is not great, and I´m running the game in the worst setup possible.
I´m trying to play on smaller maps but I have around 15 AI´s. Its a Small or Medium, since I´ve given up on anything bigger.
I manage to enjoy alot of other games SC2, Wow, Dead Space and HL2 just to give you some idea.

The point I´m trying to make is the evident poor making of this game.
Should it have to be like this?
Click to expand...

SC2 on its lowest settings looks about as bad as WC3 (and I'm guessing you're running it on lowest settings), WoW is ancient and was never a demanding game to begin with (MMOs in general never are), HL2 is ancient. I'd try getting a better computer. That's just the nature of computer games; eventually your comp is going to get old and you either have to upgrade it or replace it.
 
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