Should I give it a second chance?

Hi. I played CiV when it first came out and I thought that it was a huge disappointment after Civ4 - Bts. At that point I agreed with most of the comments in the CiV-Rants thread and stopped playing the game after a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I have nothing against the people who like this game. I still play Bts regularly and I am not bored at all.

I do not know much about the current state of the game (Brave New World) and I would really like to know your opinion. Do you think that it is much different/better than before? Or is it more or less the same? What do you think?

Well, it largely depends on what you didn't like when you first tried Civ 5. If you only played the Vanilla version there have been a number of dramatic changes in both the early game (GnK) and the late game(BNK). I myself stopped playing Civ5 for about 3-4 months to pursue other games after getting a bit bored with GnK and after a few friends of my convinced me I picked up BNK and I never looked back.

As such, I would recomend you try Civ5 one more time. I actually never played Civ4 (The only game of the series I didn't play, I blame WoW!) but so long as your gripes about Civ5 are not about the base mechanics, ie hexes, etc., you will probably like it.

Also, watch some Let's Plays of BnK to see if you like how the new features look to you.

Hope that helped,

Dental.

Base mechanics seemed a bit problematic but I guess any game can be fixed. I will try Let's Plays. Thanks

I really thought it was a horrible war-or-nothing game when it was released. Whilst there are still niggles with it, it's much improved and the expansions have each added some much needed complexity. It's not all about war and psychotic AI behaviour anymore, in fact some of the AI's are quite reasonable and possible to form good pacts and trade relations with. My style of play is now supported which is generally a peaceful building of my empire and spreading my culture to others - whether they want it or not.

I suggest you give the BNW (and maybe even the G + K) demo a go. The expansions are both major improvements over the base game, so you might find Civ V more interesting now. And if you hate it, the demos don't cost you anything!

CPM, do you name your capital Raspur?

Civ5 is a bit of an acquired taste. You have to throw a lot of previous Civ views out the window and force yourself to like this bit by bit. I waited until G$K was released before I felt it was beginning to get good ...

Civ V BNW has fixed many issues:
- AIs are now less warmongering than before
- Early war isn't the prime way to victory anymore
- Cultural Victory isn't about getting Sistine Chapel, Alhambra, and 3 cities and waiting around forever
- Trade-routes allow one to start on tundra and desert and not be entirely crippled
- Trade-routes mean rivers are no longer practically mandatory at high levels

This all makes for a much better game, and if you didn't like Civ V earlier, well, you probably will find it at least somewhat fun now, and you may very well like it.

All that said, it's still 1UPT, if that was a problem before. And moreover, diplomacy is still a little sub-par: no vassalage, few options for interaction about warning/threatening civs, etc. Diplomacy is better, and World Congress is fun, but I would still say diplomacy is lacking compared to BTS, albeit not by that much anymore.

Rathelon said:

CPM, do you name your capital Raspur?

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Only if I'm playing as Arabia. Otherwise, I'm too unimaginative to rename my capital!

redmosquito said:

Hi. I played CiV when it first came out and I thought that it was a huge disappointment after Civ4 - Bts. At that point I agreed with most of the comments in the CiV-Rants thread and stopped playing the game after a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I have nothing against the people who like this game. I still play Bts regularly and I am not bored at all.

I do not know much about the current state of the game (Brave New World) and I would really like to know your opinion. Do you think that it is much different/better than before? Or is it more or less the same? What do you think?

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To be honest I cannot make that judgement for you.

I suspect the longer you play Civ IV BTS the less likely you are to embrace Civ V.

Civ V on debut was a good idea that was unfinished, and as such had many issues balancing, bugs, exploits and missing BTS features.

Over the next year there was about a half dozen MAJOR patches that significantly altered the gameplay and did a good job of restoring game balance for the most part (As well as squashing many of the bugs).

7 DLC's were released (primarily new civs and scenarios), usually proceeded by a patch.

GODS and KINGS (Expansion 1) reintroduced RELIGION and ESPIONAGE (lesser mechanic) to CIV V, also added Melee Naval units, expanded the tech tree layout a little (added a new age, but more a rejig then a major addition). G&K also greatly increased the depth of the Diplomatic AI. G&K also first introduced IDEOLOGIES into the mix and enhanced the role of CITY STATES and altered the nature of combat.

BRAVE NEW WORLD (Expansion 2) on the other hand greatly expands upon the end game, introduced the WORLD CONGRESS, IDEOLOGIES and TOURISM mechanics as well as greatly expanding (for the better IMO) the Culture Game (both the Victory and the Mechanic).

Both expansions added quite a few other more minor things too like new civs, new wonders, some new techs, new natural wonders, new city states, new social policies etc.

I would strongly recommend you give CIV V a go. It really does stand up on its own two feet now and is an exceptional game in its own right. BTS was great but CIV V is now better IMO. That said it is different, and if you can only look at what BTS has that Civ V doesn't (health resources and corporations for example) and not the reverse (ie city states, social policies, more in depth diplomatic AI, AI that play more to win, hexs, 1UPT, UI, UGP, UA, an interesting and immersive take on religion (much better then BTS) then you will likely not have much fun playing it.

If you do give it a go, remember that the core game is very similar, but the mechanics can and do vary. Some BTS strategies will fail wholesale if applied without consideration.

Anyway hope that helps.

It depends on why you quit playing.

For most players I would personally recommend the G&K expansion over BNW right now. G&K has a few issues but worked pretty well overall. BNW has some improvements but also (to me) drags in a way that Civ 4 BTS did not. It also has an affection for needless complexity (e.g. "tourism" as it relates to the new culture victory is partly based on your ability to put together an unrelated jigsaw puzzle that the AI gets an "autosort" button for but the player does not).

If you were frustrated before I'd wait to see how Firaxis patches BNW before proceeding with it. It has the potential to be great but I wouldn't say it's there yet.

cpm4001 said:

Only if I'm playing as Arabia. Otherwise, I'm too unimaginative to rename my capital!

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I don't rename my cities most of the time, but when I play Shoshone I do. I name all the cities after western Amerind tribes. Capital is Shoshone, 2nd city is Commanche (since they have the UU), then Apache, Sioux, Blackfoot, Navajo, etc.

When I first played Civilization 3 I thought, dear god... it's missing so much stuff from Civilization 2... I just can't play this. And then a year later, I can't go back to Civilization 2.

Civilization 4 came out and I thought, jesus what a heaping pile of crap, I'm going back to Civilization 3. And then a year later... I'm hooked.

So when Civilization 5 came out... no surprise... exact same response. Now I couldn't go back if I wanted to.

I selected "Even if you did not like it before, you would certainly like the current version" because if you like Civ IV BTS a lot, I am sure you'd like Civ V, as it is now, a lot.