Civilization 5 Rants Thread

Yep. You are right of course. The AI "playing to win" makes the game not fun at all to play. The AI should be there to enhance the experience of the player, provide a decent challenge and play competently.

Your link to the video in the Denouncing!!!!!! thread was very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

It's very clear that Soren Johnson had a key to the pulse of Civ players. He helped with Civ III and really listened to the fans with cIV. Very smart man that one. Unfortunately, he isn't an option in the future as he has fully embraced the dumbing down and streamlining of games. :(

Jon Shafer just tried to implement his vision of what he thought was fun.
Apparently he loved multiplayer in Civ III above all else and it showed. His AI in Civilization 5 was supposed to replicate the multiplayer experience. Rage quitting and lots of insulting. :rolleyes:

The dumb thing is why have the AI try to act like a human (a very dumb human of course) when you can just play a human in multiplayer???

Not that multiplayer works or anything. :rolleyes:

Just a thorough disaster. The sad thing is that Civilization 5 probably sold well enough and enough people bought the crappy DLC that they'll just turn around and do the same thing a few years from now. The future is bleak.
 
Just a thorough disaster. The sad thing is that Civilization 5 probably sold well enough and enough people bought the crappy DLC that they'll just turn around and do the same thing a few years from now. The future is bleak.

Maybe for the Civ franchise, but not for your gaming experience. There are some great companies like Paradox out there.
 
I would advice everyone to try few games on Epic spd with 0 city states and at least King difficulty with Random Personalities on. On random maps.

Im hooked on my current game more than 700 turns atm, almost a week, and the war for domination is pretty tough. No loading either, other than when needed to close the PC.

The AI even captured cities that I had multiple wonders in them and burn them to he ground, while I was on the other side of the continent fighting.

It was fun when dropped my happiness to -50 (multiple spawns of modern tank barbarians every other turn isn't funny either), and my money to -190, (cut off my routes too) destroying my armies.

It set me back at least 200 years :eek:

The war continues on.
 
The AI are just are insane and ungrateful as ever. No matter what I did in my last game, it lead to everyone other than Genghis Khan (perpetually Friendly) to alternate between denouncing me and being friendly.

Playing as Rome/Emp/Cont/Large/Epic, up until halfway through the Renaissance I was engaged in a 3/4 way battle - Japan to the North and Aztecs to the East declaring war on me alternately. Songhai was in the North-East, though not attacking me, rather on the receiving end of the Japanese and Aztecs as well. As it went, I shoved the Aztec expansion out of the mainland of the continent, and took the Japanese down to one city. The Songhai by this point were wiped out, I having taken their cities from the Japanese who had killed them.

Then it's happiness and sunshine for a while, I meet the people on the other continent, etc. Alexander (on the other continent) declares war, I launch a massive naval invasion (only to find it's just one city on an island), eventually get peace. In the meantime the Aztecs and the Arabs (my continent, South East) finish off the English.

Aaaand the Aztecs decide to declare war again. This time I finish them off down to one city. I also decide to liberate the English. The bastards (who used to be a good trading partner with all the cotton) immediate go from friendly to denouncing me. The Aztecs go from brutal war and one city left to Friendly.

Aaaaaaaaand then, Greece declares war again. As they're on the other continent, this amount to me casually killing their military (largest btw) one by one with a single battleship. Japan decides to join in....but is immediately conquered and wiped out, having their canons and riflemen overwhelmed and their last two cities taken by Lhasa. Can't trust those warmongering Tibetians.

I'm probably going to win whatever way I please at this point. Though happiness is an issue (swings up and down over 0), I have a massive empire, and I'm 1750 scorewise to Bismarks 1200.

Basically it was a good game up to the Renaissance with a perpetual war for survival, but then the AI started having mood swings.

War down to one city = Friendly....then denouncing me
Liberation = Friendly for a turn, then Denounces me
Trading partner (Bismark) = Perpetually sulky and guarded
Trading partner (Khan) = Perpetually happy - maybe he likes winners.
 
biggest let down ever.

game started off bad and quickly went down the drain for me, i have dial-up enternet access and me a steam dont get along, to well

then when i get the game the Empire wide happiness is realy limiting, the old civ4 system was much better and realistic.

the new policy replacing civics is another thing, civics were alot more realistic, and you could get access to all of them by late game, with policys your stuck with them for live and you have to be playing a culture victory to get enough culture to sue policys in later game.

Carpet-of-doom vs stack-of-doom wow you realy fix the problem firaxis.:(

and AI are stupid trade is messed up when one empire as 2 gold and i have 2 issence would it not be smart for us to trade, or atleast give me some more 150 gold for it. then there is diplomacy no matter what you do they hate you, i was trying to play a game as arabia maybe go i was aiming at fun merchant empire,(i never play for the victorys) i was in the middle of the pangea surronded by hostile forces, and broke. and no matter what i do the ai hate me cause my army is smaller than theirs.
nothing i did made them happy, every one attack me, it was horrible.

the classical era was over and done with before i could enjoy it, annoying logistics of moving every single unit was a pain. what happen to unhealth, religion, it was such a let down.

then to top off my day it had an update and the game refused to play without the update so i had to wait the 30 hours to play and the update caused more harm the good.

i am sticking to my civ4 mods revdcm, realism invictus, FFH2, and if i can get it install properly rise of mankind a new dawn.

p.s. kind of annoy that the mods are sweeping all the complaints under the carpet too, the game sucks get over it.
 
Civilization 5 have only a good AI typ that wants to win. No memory or personallitys...

It wants to win allright... if only it knew how to... :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Last game, the "weak" germans, emperor, Standard, 10 civs... Ghandi is the runaway, he has atomic weapons, a 70,000 pile of gold, but I decide to invade his continent in a last ditch attempt to stop his running away.

I liberate half his empire (as half of it is puppets from finished Incas and Polys)... what does he do?

Nothing. He takes his pile of gold to his grave. Not a single unit rush buy, not buying atomic weapons to obliterate my invasion army... nothing.

So yes, this Shafer AI wants to win... but does not know HOW.

A serious case of Wishful Thinking AI... good job Shafer!!!! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

(Thormodr, my friend and neighbour, disagrees... one day he will see the light too... just wait for his products from Stardock, and you shall see the true quality of this "developer"). ;)
 
well, that video only proves that the previous designer at least knew what he was doing...
 
well, that video only proves that the previous designer at least knew what he was doing...

Did he necessarily need to prove it via that video? :mischief:
 
you are right... no, he did not need to. Civ4 is enough proof, specially compared to 5. :rolleyes:

I have to say though, I didn't follow Civ 5's development that closely as T2 is "just another publisher" to me so I have no interest in what makes them money or what they do with their development teams.

My point though is that I wonder how much of the "blame" for Civ V's inherent flaws should really lie on Shafer's shoulders? I don't believe that T2 give their respective studios a lot of freedom although I could be wrong here too. I seem to think that T2 may have said something to the effect of "we want something that is more casual than the others... Make it so" ... Shafer :)scan:) oversaw their plans. If this is the case, I have to admit, he did a good job of making something someone "casual" probably could get into and enjoy. But at the same time, Firaxis have given the "finger" to their already established fan-base in the process. Hey Mods, a "middle-finger" emoticon would be a great addition! :mischief:

Hmm, conjecture? Absolutely. I'm sure there are folks here that followed development quite closely. I write all this as all this time, when I've given thought about the absolute pile of :yuck: that Civ V is, I've always blamed Shafer for it (as I would have Johnson if Civ IV turned out to be a pile of :yuck: which thankfully it didn't), but since the acquisition, the publisher should take blame too.

After all that, I've said my piece about Civ V many times over now. I'm over it :). It's been just over six months since it was released. The game has improved only slightly after countless patches. The DLC push is still going strong. I suspect I can see Firaxis'/T2's drive with Civilization V. It isn't delivering the "best" possible game to the established fans. It's about money and plundering new fans in new markets.

I do not hold my breath for Civilization VI. :cringe:
 
I have to say though, I didn't follow Civ 5's development that closely as T2 is "just another publisher" to me so I have no interest in what makes them money or what they do with their development teams.

My point though is that I wonder how much of the "blame" for Civ V's inherent flaws should really lie on Shafer's shoulders? I don't believe that T2 give their respective studios a lot of freedom although I could be wrong here too. I seem to think that T2 may have said something to the effect of "we want something that is more casual than the others... Make it so" ... Shafer :)scan:) oversaw their plans. If this is the case, I have to admit, he did a good job of making something someone "casual" probably could get into and enjoy. But at the same time, Firaxis have given the "finger" to their already established fan-base in the process. Hey Mods, a "middle-finger" emoticon would be a great addition! :mischief:

Hmm, conjecture? Absolutely. I'm sure there are folks here that followed development quite closely. I write all this as all this time, when I've given thought about the absolute pile of :yuck: that Civ V is, I've always blamed Shafer for it (as I would have Johnson if Civ IV turned out to be a pile of :yuck: which thankfully it didn't), but since the acquisition, the publisher should take blame too.

After all that, I've said my piece about Civ V many times over now. I'm over it :). It's been just over six months since it was released. The game has improved only slightly after countless patches. The DLC push is still going strong. I suspect I can see Firaxis'/T2's drive with Civilization V. It isn't delivering the "best" possible game to the established fans. It's about money and plundering new fans in new markets.

I do not hold my breath for Civilization VI. :cringe:

again, you are right... with only one possible exception. The guy couldn't hold his mouth shut. He bragged about his special AI, how wonderful it was, he bragged about depth and strategy... let's not even consider the fact that when you accept the LEAD position, you accept full responsibility for the result... let's ignore that for a moment. But when you brag about the product, you OWN it. Period. He bragged, he owns it.

I have no doubt T2/littleflameaxis have a huge part on this... I'm not naive. But the guy added his bragging to it, and now he owns the pile of crap.

In any case, show goes on. Let's see what comes from him at Stardock... in the meanwhile, being one of the early/first buyers of their GalCiv series, any new buy is suspended until new orders... two shaferite products in a row is too much to bear in one century.
 
again, you are right... with only one possible exception. The guy couldn't hold his mouth shut. He bragged about his special AI, how wonderful it was, he bragged about depth and strategy... let's not even consider the fact that when you accept the LEAD position, you accept full responsibility for the result... let's ignore that for a moment. But when you brag about the product, you OWN it. Period. He bragged, he owns it.

I have no doubt T2/littleflameaxis have a huge part on this... I'm not naive. But the guy added his bragging to it, and now he owns the pile of crap.

I didn't know he was sprouting off about how good his crap was. Thanks for the insight there. :goodjob: In that case, I 100% agree with you. As you said, you speak up and brag about something that you've done, you're owning it, period. :)

In any case, show goes on. Let's see what comes from him at Stardock... in the meanwhile, being one of the early/first buyers of their GalCiv series, any new buy is suspended until new orders... two shaferite products in a row is too much to bear in one century.

I had no idea that JS had gone to Stardock. He didn't have anything to do with Elemental, did he? :lol: Ummm, I check checked his Wikipedia page:

Following the release of the game, Shafer left Firaxis to work as the project manager on the Elemental game series at Stardock.
:rolleyes:

I agree with you here too. I love GalCiv. If he's working on any new project involving GalCiv, I won't be buying straight away. I'd be the first to give a :thumbsup: to Brad Wardell, but I would retract that if a steaming pile of :nuke: was to be released under the name of Galactic Civilizations. Hopefully Brad will keep any future project involving that franchise on the straight and narrow.
 
I agree with you here too. I love GalCiv. If he's working on any new project involving GalCiv, I won't be buying straight away. I'd be the first to give a :thumbsup: to Brad Wardell, but I would retract that if a steaming pile of :nuke: was to be released under the name of Galactic Civilizations. Hopefully Brad will keep any future project involving that franchise on the straight and narrow.

You might be in for a surprise then... Brad has some sort of "fixation" (love? :rolleyes:) when it comes to defending his new "acquisition"... I have been called insane by Brad himself in their forums for critizicing (spelling?) his new "star"... coming from the CEO and founder of the company that I supported with my money since GalCiv1, when it was completely unknown to the gaming industry, it's a little, well, unacceptable. But he did.

In the end, I think the second quote in your signature explains it all...

A little off topic in appearance, but closely related to the core of this thread, so I hope the mods respect that.
 
1. I heard 2KGreg bragging about the AI, but not Shafer. Ricardo, do you have a link? The only things I heard from Shafer about the AI is that (a) he isn't an AI programmer, so someone else was brought into the team to program the AI, and (b ) that it's not financially viable for a publisher to invest money in good AI.

2. Sadan01, Shafer was not involved in Elemental's initial failure. Shafer left Firaxis (under circumstances that haven't been revealed to the public and that have triggered a lot of speculation in all kinds of directions) and was hired by Stardock. As far as I remember, he is now part of the Elemental team, but not as a designer, his task is improve the moddability of the engine. I doubt that Stardock can afford separate teams at the moment, so if he's still at Stardock when GalCiv3 comes around, then he'll probably be a part of that team too.

3. Even if Shafer designs or co-designs games in the future, I wouldn't totally exclude the possibility that he has learned from his mistakes, even though he doesn't admit them publicly. I do agree with with the general notion in this thread that Shafer's work on Civ5 left a lot to be desired. And seeing his name on further strategy games will probably raise my skepticism. However, I'd still give them a shot if the rest of the package seems appealing.
 
1. I heard 2KGreg bragging about the AI, but not Shafer. Ricardo, do you have a link? The only things I heard from Shafer about the AI is that (a) he isn't an AI programmer, so someone else was brought into the team to program the AI, and (b ) that it's not financially viable for a publisher to invest money in good AI.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/10/code-to-joy-jon-shafer-on-civilization-v/

RPS: So one of the bigger reasons why you were made lead designer is because you know both sides. Programming and design.

JS: Yes. Which is becoming more common, but to be proficient enough in programming to handle all the gameplay rules, you have to be fairly experienced. We had other designers at Firaxis who were senior to me, but they weren’t programmers or they hadn’t played Civ. It’s such a specialised role. Our teams are getting bigger now, so on Civilization V I didn’t program all the AI. Only about half. We had a combat programmer doing combat AI, and a programmer doing the AI for the workers and explorers, but I programmed all the game rules and the diplomatic and economic AI.
 
My point though is that I wonder how much of the "blame" for Civ V's inherent flaws should really lie on Shafer's shoulders?

I'd have to say a lot. When you look at his involvement in Civ 4, you can see the problems that would emerge in Civ 5. His mod that shipped with Beyond the Sword (the one in space) was pretty to look at but incredibly slow, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of its demands on the computer. Long turn times were the norm. And he was heavily behind Colonization, which combined incredibly limited gameplay choices, poor mechanics, and some serious and obvious bugs. I love Civ 4 and could only play Colonization for a couple days before I gave up on it.

When you look at Civ 5, it combines all of the issues his prior contributions had. The AI is atrocious and diplomacy is irrelevant to overall gameplay. There's a big focus on war. The game looks pretty and moves slow. Serious and obvious bugs were shipped. Poor mechanics are present. Interface is poor. And while there are plenty of people at Firaxis who worked on it, Shafer ultimately is the one who called the shots and prioritized things. That he both bragged about the AI and then said in a later forum that he thought there was no point to putting effort into making decent AI is just icing on the cake.
 
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/10/code-to-joy-jon-shafer-on-civilization-v/

RPS: So one of the bigger reasons why you were made lead designer is because you know both sides. Programming and design.

JS: Yes. Which is becoming more common, but to be proficient enough in programming to handle all the gameplay rules, you have to be fairly experienced. We had other designers at Firaxis who were senior to me, but they weren’t programmers or they hadn’t played Civ. It’s such a specialised role. Our teams are getting bigger now, so on Civilization V I didn’t program all the AI. Only about half. We had a combat programmer doing combat AI, and a programmer doing the AI for the workers and explorers, but I programmed all the game rules and the diplomatic and economic AI.

thank you, neighbour :)

Psy, any more doubts?
 
It wants to win allright... if only it knew how to... :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Last game, the "weak" germans, emperor, Standard, 10 civs... Ghandi is the runaway, he has atomic weapons, a 70,000 pile of gold, but I decide to invade his continent in a last ditch attempt to stop his running away.

I liberate half his empire (as half of it is puppets from finished Incas and Polys)... what does he do?

Nothing. He takes his pile of gold to his grave. Not a single unit rush buy, not buying atomic weapons to obliterate my invasion army... nothing.

So yes, this Shafer AI wants to win... but does not know HOW.

A serious case of Wishful Thinking AI... good job Shafer!!!! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

(Thormodr, my friend and neighbour, disagrees... one day he will see the light too... just wait for his products from Stardock, and you shall see the true quality of this "developer"). ;)

Another wonderful Civilization 5 horror story. :lol:

Such an awful, awful game. :sad:

We shall have to wait and see on Jon Shafer. I have Elemental and since it was such a debacle, I get the next two "expansions" for free. Jon Shafer is working with Derek Paxton (aka Kael) on Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. We'll see what comes out of that. I think Jon Shafer is working mostly on the campaign. So we'll see how good that is when it comes out. (Some time in the fall I believe)

Supposedly, Jon Shafer will be designing his own game for Stardock in the future. Then, I think we'll get a definitive answer on how good his skills are.

Meanwhile, I'm fooling around with the demo for Pride of Nations. It's pretty fun and it's certainly deep and complex. No casual, mass market crap here. ;)
 
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