Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

  • Yes

    Votes: 853 50.7%
  • No

    Votes: 677 40.2%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 152 9.0%

  • Total voters
    1,682
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@Ayt

True, i haven't so far finished a civ V game :D For now I'm testing openings and bug hunting and noramlly get out of it as soon as i checked if my objective was attainable or not.

And I've been playing in between king and Immortal :D

About being dumbed down ... well, the general lack of intel on diplo ( no, not asking for a detailed and quantified measurement , just some basic stuff like saying who is pissed with who in the diplo screen ) makes the human-AI interactions a little like interacting with the content of a closed box. The combat is ok, but god , please teach the AI to keep their units together while marching to the objective ... and protecting the ranged units would also help :p. The UI is simply badly designed in general ( too many clicks to do anything in general , and worse, clicks in diferent areas of the screen in a good bunch of situations ). The lack of espionage and religion was never properly explained, especially given that the game itself has proof that they were considered to a degree of creating support files for it and even a religion that was not in civ IV, but in general i can live without them....

In resume, i don't feel that the game is dumbed down ... but the game brought back a lot of stuff that shouldn't be here in the first place ( UI clickfests, tactical Ai in a level of a civ III AI or worse, forcing the player to keep with maintenance of buildings they didn't choosed to have, blocking of units to a level that feels exploitative, civ III style ... ). And definitely the mechanics need a major tune up. In other words, it has potential to live up to the levels of the best civ games , but so far is competing for the worst places in that ladder.
 
Except that only 2 of now 5 Civs have been Micro focused.

Civ 1 and 2 were not very Micro focused and much more Macro. Civ 3 was Micro insanity, 4 was a little less.

So with Civ 5, that makes 60% of all Civ games more Macro than Micro.

That makes the Civ franchise a Macro based franchise.

You could easily argue that this makes Civ 3 and 4 less Civ than Civ 5.


I happens that old games lack features because of their oldness and difficulty to store more stuff on a floppy disk than on cd... maybe:D

Solid argument needs solid base.
 
The UI has been dumbed down/made more accessible.
Too early for me to comment on the depth of the gameplay though.
 
I haven't read the whole thread so excuse me if this has already been covered.

I would just like to say that I agree, it feels very dumbed down.

However I love the no stacking of units and in particular love the fact that the fight for resources is so much more important.

It was a bit silly to just have say, one oil square in Civ4 and make as many units with that as I want.

These are 2 very big improvements for me, but yes, there is a lot that has been removed that was fun in the last version.
 
In Civ 4 I built every building in every city. Why? Because I could. I built massive armies and steamrolled competition, without fear of unhappiness or losing money, because money and happiness where easy to get.

In Civ 5 I have to think ahead, I have to make decisions and can no longer rely on brute force or empire spamming without making tactical choices before hand, otherwise I cripple my empire. I can't spam every building in every city, mindless cranking out build queues as I drop city #25 on the map or capture enemy city # 30 on the far side of the next continent.

Which one is dumbed down again?
 
Voted YES.

I miss religions. (the worst is: I am agnostic...!!)

It is a HUGE part of the Human History and evolution and simulating a civilization without the good*/bad? impact of religions is like eating a cake in which the cook forgot to put any sugar.

I would have preferred a revamped religious system, where
- you name your religion (why using names, as if someone could see in the future?) the way you wish. When founding one, you choose teh symbol you want (even can upload/design your own symbvol)
- I want an ethic/philosophic tree like the tech tree: the religion you founded uses the valors from this tree: you make it what you want it to do... ex.: pushes your education level, (or reduces education levels of those who do not have it as state religion), increase stability (or do like a spy, can create conspiracies...), etc...
- like in some RPG (or Spore?), what you do influenses what teh religion is, if you are teh founder of course.
- I want the return of fanatics (civ 2 or civ3, can't recall), inquisitors (ex.: FFH mode, etc...)
-

In civ, I want to see more the use of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli...

.. and vassals, depending on your orientation (not depending on a treaty)

... pest, and unstability/stability system like in Rhye's mod

and, and , and...
... strategic battle system like in Hearts of Iron 3 !
... tactical battle like in Total War !!! (if teh player wishes)
... game continuing on Alpha Centauri after an "end game"...


etc...
I have now to hope my life will be long , very long, because iot is not with Civ5 that I will see this...
 
@vandyr

Your post shows a lot of lack of knowledge of both games ,especially of civ IV ( that or you should had played it in a level where it actually chalenged you ). Oh ,and in civ V you can actually rely on brute force and empire spamming, probably even more than in civ IV , because the thing that makes empire spamming less desirable in civ V ( :) ) is far less constricting than civ IV version ( maintenance ) ;)
 
Definitely overall no. Yes for military aspect (not because of 'chest style' but because AI.

Lots of people complain about missing things from Civ 4. But most of these things were parts of the addons. So... Just wait for improvements and patch, like with civ 4 in some sort of way
 
@vandyr

Your post shows a lot of lack of knowledge of both games ,especially of civ IV ( that or you should had played it in a level where it actually chalenged you ). Oh ,and in civ V you can actually rely on brute force and empire spamming, probably even more than in civ IV , because the thing that makes empire spamming less desirable in civ V ( :) ) is far less constricting than civ IV version ( maintenance ) ;)


I played 4 on Noble and 5 on Prince, which is, from what I understand, comparable difficulty between the two games. In Civ 4 at that level, empire management was simplistically easy, whereas in 5 it is not. Judging from what you say about 5, I'm guessing you haven't actually played it much above warlord. Its very easy to cripple your empire in 5 by doing those two things, which is why you have to be careful and make sound decisions :) Quite the opposite of dumbed down to me.
 
I never played civ V below prince and normally have been playing it between king and Immortal

Happiness is not cripling enough as a measure of how it stops big empires ... it still leaves you with a army, you can still tech, you can still generate cash, you can still increase your army. Compare with civ IV maintenance and you will see the diference ... happiness in civ V will not stop me of making a army and stomp the AI out ... at best it will make the fight harder, but if you can either tactically outbeat the enemy, use better quality units or bring numbers, that is not a issue. That was my point.
 
If you think that is a representative sample of the playerbase and not just some grumpy fanatics, good for you.


Sure you can offend more then 150 people and call them fanatics and what else, or you can just agree, that they changed the complexity of the game too much to the casual side, so that they have angered many people.
 
I never played civ V below prince and normally have been playing it between king and Immortal

Happiness is not cripling enough as a measure of how it stops big empires ... it still leaves you with a army, you can still tech, you can still generate cash, you can still increase your army. Compare with civ IV maintenance and you will see the diference ... happiness in civ V will not stop me of making a army and stomp the AI out ... at best it will make the fight harder, but if you can either tactically outbeat the enemy, use better quality units or bring numbers, that is not a issue. That was my point.

My response got gobbled up by the 'server too busy' gods, but, I find that managing a huge empire and a huge army in civ 4 is easy, whereas in Civ 5 its not. Maybe I need to spend more time playing Civ 5, which I will :) but my point is that to me it requires more forethought and planning in this game in order to accomplish those things.
 
Sure you can offend more then 150 people and call them fanatics and what else, or you can just agree, that they changed the complexity of the game too much to the casual side, so that they have angered many people.

I don't think it's the complexity but the balance that is the issue.
 
I don't think that CIV 5 is a bad game but I don't feel it is a step onwards. Dumbed down? Perhaps.

The UI is simpler and cleaner but I'm running under spec and so I don't appreciate it. The UI just fills my screen with big boxes of big writing and I can't see the map behind it. I prefer the CIV 4 terrain graphics.

Many of buildings are dull. A whole line of buildings will do virtually the same thing, 3 happiness for 3 gold, 4 happiness for 3 gold, 4 happines for 5 gold. This means I don't really care what I'm researching as I'll just get another building much like the last building; I could probably buy the previous building somewhere in my empire if I wanted it.

There doesn't seem to be any great change in military strategy through the ages. I might be missing something but I could use the same strategy with archers+warriors and then cannons+riflemen. This means that the game doesn't ever feel like it's progressing.

A lot of the interesting civic choices have been moved to policies but this means that the technologies are dull. Compare that to CIV4 where there was a competative race through nationalism, liberalism, gunpowder, astronomy, democracy, etc with game changing consequences. I just don't see that in CIV5.

I suspect that the economics/civics are better as a whole but I haven't played enough to be sure. For any particular problem there seems to be a number of solutions - buy it, build it, get it with policies, get it from city state allies, etc. Only time will tell if there are genuine choices here or whether some imbalanced strategies dominate.

In terms of combat, I've found that a simple strategy of preserving troops can work very well. The AI will move troops into positions where it loses them. You don't lose troops. You win. I'm hoping it gets more complex as I play more games.

One unit per hex, few units, and fewer hexes does give less micromanagement. Even if you have to click a couple more times because your workers can't walk over each other it's still less management over a whole game. You're making less dull decisions than with CIV 4. This would be good but, for the reasons stated above, there are long periods where's there's nothing going on that needs any decision at all! No decisions means no interest.

So does less decisions mean that the game is dumbed down? Probably. I certainly feel that there aren't so many interesting decisions to be made. If there are decisions to be made they seem to be crucial, since losing a single unit or adopting a bad policy can be a disaster, but often they're not rushed. CIV4 games seemed to have an impetus that CIV5 doesn't have.
 
Civ 5 isnt a dumbed down console titel. It is a complex strategy game and will only become more complex when more civilizations/expensions are added.

so big no for me.
 
I never played civ V below prince and normally have been playing it between king and Immortal

Happiness is not cripling enough as a measure of how it stops big empires ... it still leaves you with a army, you can still tech, you can still generate cash, you can still increase your army. Compare with civ IV maintenance and you will see the diference ... happiness in civ V will not stop me of making a army and stomp the AI out ... at best it will make the fight harder, but if you can either tactically outbeat the enemy, use better quality units or bring numbers, that is not a issue. That was my point.

That sounds like a balance issue rather than a "dumbed down" issue. They simply need to make extreme unhappiness have a greater combat penalty (e.g. 75% penalty in neutral and hostile territory).

Sure you can offend more then 150 people and call them fanatics and what else, or you can just agree, that they changed the complexity of the game too much to the casual side, so that they have angered many people.

Many people on this forum are unhappy with the game, clearly. However, it should be noted that:
1. Most people who like the game are playing it rather than posting here;
2. People who don't like the game are more likely to voice their displeasure;
3. Given the level of hatred exhibited in most threads in this forum, many people will have either stopped visiting the forums altogether or be in a more friendly sub-forum (such as Stories & Tales).
4. The thread title is deliberately worded to attract people who are discontented with the game. Many people who are happy with the game will stay clear of yet another we-hate-Civ5 thread.

Given that, despite these factors skewing the result, the majority of people still believe the game is not dumbed down, indicates the unhappiness might not be as widespread as some posters seem to believe. Another poll in six months' time would be much more telling.
 
I tried reading this thread again and was given another huge headache... I will still hold that the majority who thinks it's dumbed down just don't like it, and are using that as an excuse on why they don't. I also think people think the game's dumbed down because they think it's too easy. Both are horrible reasons.

To anyone who thinks this game is "dumbed down", I challenge you to play Wu Zetian to her full potential. Since this is a simple game, this should be easy, right? I guarantee you'll need a couple play-throughs just to see how to play her well. I practically theorycraft for a living, and I'm still cluing in.
 
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