A Civ V retrospective: what features do you love and, which ones do you hate?

One of the few things I just about entirely hate in Civ5 is the Espionage system. This is just incredibly poorly implemented. Cases of point are:
  • Instantly spawning spies and re-spawning spies after kills. Should instead have changed this to work like Caravans in BnW: There's a cap based on era, but you need to put resources into building spies if you want them.
  • Horrible implementation of espionage buildings. First of all, the overall just suck. Secondly, the fact that you need to plop a Constabulary AND a Police Station in every single town in order to build the national wonder is just stupid, because in most games enemy spies will only be in your capital and, on rare occasions, your #2 town.
  • Lack of espionage actions. Basically, the spy will always try to steal techs, even if you don't want him to (at least the Diplomat option in BnW gave a way out for this). He can't do anything actively apart from stealing techs. I really like the intrigue feature, but the whole idea of intelligence collection could have been vastly expanded: Why can't the spy collect information of enemy city locations? Or tech progress? Or location of City States that target civ knows but you don't. Or Natural Wonders they have discovered. And here I'm not even mentioning all the "negative" actions like destroying buildings, poisoning wells etc. because those can be a pain to deal with (I'm looking to you, Civ4).
  • Lack of coordination between espionage and diplomacy. Why can't you choose to send a foreign spy out without killing him for diplomatic goodwill if you want? Why can't you tell a third party that someone is planning against them when you are asked to join a war (that's not particularly espionage oriented)?

Anyway, that was my rant about Espionage, one of the few features in Civ5 I really hate. Oh yes and I agree with others, Warmonger Hate is just stupid in the way it is implemented.
 
kaspergm said:
One of the few things I just about entirely hate in Civ5 is the Espionage system. This is just incredibly poorly implemented. Cases of point are:
  • Instantly spawning spies and re-spawning spies after kills. Should instead have changed this to work like Caravans in BnW: There's a cap based on era, but you need to put resources into building spies if you want them.
  • Horrible implementation of espionage buildings. First of all, the overall just suck. Secondly, the fact that you need to plop a Constabulary AND a Police Station in every single town in order to build the national wonder is just stupid, because in most games enemy spies will only be in your capital and, on rare occasions, your #2 town.
  • Lack of espionage actions. Basically, the spy will always try to steal techs, even if you don't want him to (at least the Diplomat option in BnW gave a way out for this). He can't do anything actively apart from stealing techs. I really like the intrigue feature, but the whole idea of intelligence collection could have been vastly expanded: Why can't the spy collect information of enemy city locations? Or tech progress? Or location of City States that target civ knows but you don't. Or Natural Wonders they have discovered. And here I'm not even mentioning all the "negative" actions like destroying buildings, poisoning wells etc. because those can be a pain to deal with (I'm looking to you, Civ4).
  • Lack of coordination between espionage and diplomacy. Why can't you choose to send a foreign spy out without killing him for diplomatic goodwill if you want? Why can't you tell a third party that someone is planning against them when you are asked to join a war (that's not particularly espionage oriented)?

Anyway, that was my rant about Espionage, one of the few features in Civ5 I really hate. Oh yes and I agree with others, Warmonger Hate is just stupid in the way it is implemented.
Click to expand...

I second that. In fact, I don't see what was wrong with how Civ4 implemented spies as a normal unit (other than them magically getting plucked from behind my front lines). I would send them along with my armies to sabotage walls and castles or throw cities into revolt for an easy capture. It seems like all you can do with spies in Civ5 is steal techs and manipulate city states, but I can just spend gold on the latter, and most of the time, the AI just has backfill techs that you could probably research yourself in the time it takes for your spy to steal them.

Another thing that irks me in Civ5 is that, until you get Currency (or Guilds in BNW), there is almost no way to avoid losing gold per turn. Both buildings and units cost money, and you can't put cities in an idle state because Wealth and Research aren't available from the start. More than once I've had cities build pointless wonders (or wonders I knew I wouldn't be able to finish before the AI) simply because I needed to stop spending gold.

This also isn't good for strategic diversity, because it forces you to beeline the Economy techs or else go bankrupt. And if I had a nickel for every bankrupt AI I ran into in the early game... well, you know the rest. Trade routes help a little, but only if there are other civs or city states to trade with (sucks to be you if you're an island civ). And I know there are hacky ways of making gold without Wealth, like building units or buildings and then disbanding/selling them the next turn. But seriously? Relying on hacky techniques like this just to keep your empire afloat reeks of bad game design.
 
Natmandoo said:
What I miss from IV was the roaming wild animals that acted like barbs - added a bit of immersion, other threats than barbs and civs.
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I actually hated that precisely because I felt it wrecked immersion. This isn't Age of Empires; each unit represents a large formation and hazards such as wild animals just aren't important on that scale. A barbarian can be conceived as an entire warband, but wolves and bears don't work in groups that large (and aren't as persistently aggressive as they were in Civ IV in any case).
 
PhilBowles said:
I actually hated that precisely because I felt it wrecked immersion. This isn't Age of Empires; each unit represents a large formation and hazards such as wild animals just aren't important on that scale. A barbarian can be conceived as an entire warband, but wolves and bears don't work in groups that large (and aren't as persistently aggressive as they were in Civ IV in any case).
Click to expand...

I never liked it either, and always turned them off. To me it was annoying, kind of like having to clean up pollution from Civ III. Of course, I've never liked barbarians as well, as they just seem to get in the way of what I am trying to do, and usually turn them off too.
 
The honor opener has stayed the same since Vanilla since killing barbarians give off culture. With raging barbarians, making social policies will be faster.
 
The honor opener. All barbarians killed make you social policy points that add up.
 
Which is neither new (it's been in the game since vanilla) nor anything like a luxury. Got it.
 
kaspergm said:
One of the few things I just about entirely hate in Civ5 is the Espionage system.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
I really liked the Civ4-Espionage-System, the budget, the buildings, the spy-units to scout enemy territory. It felt real and was fun, except for the sabotage. (Problem with sabotage was that the game did not help you to locate and repair the destroyed tile improvements. You could search the map for minutes to find it while a stack of 20 workers was waiting and would fix it in 1 turn. So problem was the missing UI-function.)

Civ5-Espionage-System feels disappointing. And unfair. If I have 20 Cities, why am I restricted to the same small number of spies as a nation with only 1-4 cities?
 
3. City States. I am frankly not in love with this concept ...
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One of the maior problems with City States is that you get large diplomatic penalty for conquering them and eventually get an eternal war.

If you start near one or more City States, they often deny you good places for founding cities and building a compact empire. You often have to build your Empire around them. Your competitors might buy an alliance with the city states before declaring war on you so they are a permanent threat to your security. In that case it would be natural to conquer them early but this increases your warmonger score and causes diplomatic isolation.

I also don't like how city states sometimes act as one group diplomatically (eternal war) while on the other side they often give quests to bully other city states. If you play a scenario of Ancient Greece with only Greek City States, it might be ok, but a world-wide alliance of small states is strange.

Removing City States from the game is a problem since some Social Policies and UAs rely on them.

Overall City States are an element which on one side might give you a high early bonus to culture, faith, food, happiness, but on the other side may really make it difficult to build your Empire since you should not touch them.
 
That I cannot truly torque off AI's by answering the outrageous demands of a AI with "Gift unto me all of thine cities, and I shall trade the Bejesus into them with internal TRs ."
 
reddishrecue said:
Im not understanding your question.?
Click to expand...

You said said something about the "new" honor. He stated that honor tree hasn't been changed since vanilla civ5, thus it's not "new". You also said something about it comparing to a "luxury", which he assumed meant luxury resource (+4 happiness). He then stated that killing barbs has nothing to do with luxury resources.
 
Thats true, honor isnt new, it has been the same since vanilla. Thanks for clearing that up., sorry for misleading information. :eek2:
 
I like 1UPT, but it's a shame they never managed to evolve it into a more engaging solution. Not surprising, but still a shame.

megabearsfan said:
And there's a 10 bad ideas:
1. Focus on "strategy board game" feel rather than empire-management sim.
Click to expand...
I can get behind this one. Actually, I support almost all of both your lists. The only one I disagree with is the criticism of 1UPT (tactical combat shoehorned into a global scale). This highlights where 1UPT should have evolved.
 
kaspergm said:
One of the few things I just about entirely hate in Civ5 is the Espionage system. This is just incredibly poorly implemented. Cases of point are:
Click to expand...

Those are all very good observations, except that I disagree about NIA needing two buildings. Hermitage has a similar mechanic, and I resent the forced Opera House more than the forced Police Station. Both are okay though.

MrUnderhill said:
Another thing that irks me in Civ5 is that, until you get Currency (or Guilds in BNW), there is almost no way to avoid losing gold per turn. Both buildings and units cost money, and you can't put cities in an idle state because Wealth and Research aren't available from the start. More than once I've had cities build pointless wonders (or wonders I knew I wouldn't be able to finish before the AI) simply because I needed to stop spending gold.
Click to expand...

I think I wish that gold was a little easier. It is definitely something I struggle with at some point most games if I do not go 4-city Tradition.

And I know there are hacky ways of making gold without Wealth, like building units or buildings and then disbanding/selling them the next turn. But seriously? Relying on hacky techniques like this just to keep your empire afloat reeks of bad game design.
Click to expand...

Building wonders for the fail gold I have heard of. Anyone advocating building then immediately disbanding units or buildings is doing something seriously wrong -- and should be posting to the forum for help! I have never been that desperate. I have disbanded units or workers to get through rough periods.
 
I don't know if you'd call them features, but in no particular order:

--Lack of early era gameplay. A large portion of Civs get early unique units. A large portion gets ignored. BNW in particular is so anti-war/aggression. The thing is, this game has city-states which is the perfect excuse to justify it as well. If you roll Atilla, you should be allowed to sack a neighbor city-state and be rewarded for it (as in, getting the city/land/resources), instead you are greatly punished for it. Spending crucial hammer/gold on military units, trashing diplomacy options, sacked city-state a drain for too many turns (even just the time to build a courthouse and the 4 gold maintenance). There is like zero incentive for this kind of play, which means large portions of the game gets ignored.

--Agreed with Kasper on the spy system. I basically just use them as free city-state rep and ignore the system beyond that. The spy buildings are the only improvements I never build at all.

--The RNG nature of religion. Some games you meet two faith CS's right away, get desert folklore and Sinai, some games you don't. And religion is powerful, which is the problem. It is like El Dorado as a main game feature, which is too RNG for my liking in a strategy game.

--Snowballs. I realize it is common in most strategy games, but I can still hate it. I kind of like what EU does where if you are a tech leader, it becomes difficult to research new techs where if you are behind, you get discounts. You can still get far behind (very far, if you start as NA/Africa), but it helps slow down the snowball at least. It also lessens the focus on research in general. Like if you are already ahead and getting massive penalties to research, there is incentive to focus on other parts of your empire (economy, military, expansion) because the returns on focusing on research just aren't there in comparison.

--Warmonger hate, but specifically at certain points in the game (see first point). It kind of goes along with what was said about everyone acting as one group. If it is 700 BC and I sack a city-state, China on the other side of the map should have little to no reaction. In terms of immersion, news of a city getting conquered would either never reach that far, or take months for news to travel, nor would it provoke a major reaction in many cases. In terms of gameplay it also makes a bit of sense; if I am on the other side of the map, a distant war which has no effect on me is of little concern.

Warmonger hate should change with time, maybe be based off a similar system of trade-route range. Like if it is ancient era, your warmongering ways should only provoke close neighbors. Much later on then it should work like it currently does, where genocide pretty much leads to trashed diplomacy or war.

--Theming bonuses. The feature isn't bad exactly, just feels unnecessary. Largely out of laziness I just ignore theming bonuses, but still it feels like a lot of extra pointless clicks through another window with no added enjoyment or challenge. Kind of funny, but my comment on laziness seems to be the challenge. If you can be bothered to click through a separate trade window to match pieces you get a minor tourism bonus. If not, no bonus for you.

This entire feature could be scrapped and I wouldn't even notice or care.
 
I suppose I should add some things I love.

--unique tile improvements, definitely need more of these. I love playing the map, and these are great for it. Even tile improvements which are not particularly strong are still fun to use, like Kasbah.

--As much as I didn't enjoy theming bonuses, I do overall love the BNW culture game and also the Ideology systems. The indirect warfare angle was a great addition and I love both inflicting damage or fighting against it from tourist leaders. Great way to diversify war other than number of pointy sticks.

--Trade-routes. Or rather the idea of them. I hate them in BE, nor do I care for them much in Civ 5 as far as creating resources by magic and not being able to control when you direct them (need to wait X turns to reapply). But the idea is great. I'd love if the base of Civ 6 was created with these in mind. Instead of creating food through magic, trade-routes should move resources from one city to another. I love the idea of a farming/fishing village sending food to a booming metropolis heavy on specialists or an industrial powerhouse supplying outlying cities. They way they were implemented was a bit lacking though.

I guess what I really want is more interaction between cities within an empire rather than each city just doing its own thing, a way for some cities to specialize in a particular area especially if the map dictates it rather than each city just blindly building and specializing in everything (or more accurately every city specializing in science lulz).
 
Matthew. said:
Warmonger hate should change with time, maybe be based off a similar system of trade-route range. Like if it is ancient era, your warmongering ways should only provoke close neighbors.
Click to expand...

As of the Halloween patch, you got your wish! Warmonger hate acquired in the Ancient and Classic Eras is quickly forgotten for the rest of the game. In addition to that, any civs you kill before meeting other civs do not cause warmonger hate.

I would love to know how this mechanic works for CS, but I have not seen it discussed, and have not experimented myself. Based on how other warmongering works, my assumption is that the player can kill off one (and only one) CS with zero repercussions. I would also guess that additional CS kills before you meet other civs don’t generate warmonger hate, but will cause the usual CS animosity. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help the Mongols or Huns any more than other civs. A friendly CS is still better than a puppet city, so optimal play still does not call for an early kill. But maybe, before deciding you have farmed enough workers and xp, check to see if that CS you were going to make peace with is allied with a strong rival?
 
kaspergm said:
One of the few things I just about entirely hate in Civ5 is the Espionage system. This is just incredibly poorly implemented. Cases of point are:
  • Instantly spawning spies and re-spawning spies after kills. Should instead have changed this to work like Caravans in BnW: There's a cap based on era, but you need to put resources into building spies if you want them.
Click to expand...


  • That's a very good approach. I actually like the espionage system for the most part and the fact that it's not based around battlefield units, but spies should require resources invested into them.

    [*]Horrible implementation of espionage buildings. First of all, the overall just suck. Secondly, the fact that you need to plop a Constabulary AND a Police Station in every single town in order to build the national wonder is just stupid, because in most games enemy spies will only be in your capital and, on rare occasions, your #2 town.
    Click to expand...

    That's more a flaw with AI coding than the buildings - it's quite reasonable for the player to conduct espionage in secondary cities. Even so, given spy caps, no one's ever going to usefully build the buildings in every city and the national wonder shouldn't require it (in fact I dislike this requirement for every national wonder - early in the game's life it might have been a useful constraint on wide empires, but the sheer power of a couple of the NWs, especially the National College, makes it an unnecessary penalty now that the game already favours tall empires).

    [*]Lack of espionage actions. Basically, the spy will always try to steal techs, even if you don't want him to (at least the Diplomat option in BnW gave a way out for this). He can't do anything actively apart from stealing techs.
    Click to expand...

    This, however, is I think a case of misusing spies. Most spies post-BNW should either be based in city-states or be diplomats with other civs (if you just want intelligence without risking the spy) - stealing techs is sometimes useful, but too slow to allow you to catch up if behind.

    I really like the intrigue feature, but the whole idea of intelligence collection could have been vastly expanded: Why can't the spy collect information of enemy city locations? Or tech progress? Or location of City States that target civ knows but you don't. Or Natural Wonders they have discovered. And here I'm not even mentioning all the "negative" actions like destroying buildings, poisoning wells etc. because those can be a pain to deal with (I'm looking to you, Civ4).
    Click to expand...

    These are all good options.
 
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