How do you rate Civ V after the first 4 weeks?

I notice that the folks voting in the 2K Firaxis poll gave it 13% as "A" and 19% as "F." The folks in the CivFanatics poll gave it a 9% as "A" and a 15% as "F."

Thus, the 2K Firaxis folks seem to be more extreme in their love and hate of the game as of Oct 18, 2010, at 9:11 AM EDT. I wonder why that happened.

I loved it, was in love with it, the first week.
When i realized that diplomacy wasnt even a feature anymore, and that nothing but Trading Posts matter, i stopped playing.

Havent played it since, busy with Victoria 2 (latest patch) and X3 Terran Conflict now.
Same with Elemental, havent played that in weeks either.

You just get so tired when you fall in love with a game only to notice it was a shallow b1tch all along with no substance. And you go and hope and wait for patches and/or expansions to change it, and it probably will, eventually..

But the thing is, you paid for the game NOW, you already paid. You dont want the game you fell in love with "Eventually". You want it NOW, at the same time they took your money.
But no, you gotta wait.

So i just stopped playing for now. I'm sick of waiting for games i've already paid for, so i'll just forget about it for a few months.

I gave it a "B" I realy like the game and have not played a game this much in along time, but realize after soaking 32hrs into it for the last two weeks that it needs some work.

Panda_Power said:

I gave it an "A". I wouldn't have given it an "A" at release, but with the combination of mods I'm using with the game now, it's really excellent!

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Ehm we are speaking of the game not modded-not patched for now...

SirMaru said:

I notice that the folks voting in the 2K Firaxis poll gave it 13% as "A" and 19% as "F." The folks in the CivFanatics poll gave it a 9% as "A" and a 15% as "F."

Thus, the 2K Firaxis folks seem to be more extreme in their love and hate of the game as of Oct 18, 2010, at 9:11 AM EDT. I wonder why that happened.

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That's quite understandable, a casual gamer, new to the franchise, is more likely on a 2k forum (the first that someone visit for info) than on a board of Civ veterans and modders like this... Andconsidering casual an new players as the audiance that the game try to appeal, it'is clear that the Poll in 2K forum is a little more positive...

Let's see...

Does the ai build planes? NO
Is the ai below par? YES
Are the civ UB's unbalanced? YES
Are the civ UA's unbalanced? YES
Is diplomacy broken? YES
Can a neutral scout block your road and/or your attack aproach on a city? YES
Can the player unit block the ai from laying down a settlement? YES
Do resources seem extremly weak? YES
Do you encounter an eternal peace bug? YES
Do you get reminded every turn that your last peace agreament is over? YES
Do you run into the trade resource bug a lot? YES
Can Lonbows shoot as far as artillery? YES


These are just a few of my issues that we should all agree on. I give it a D-.

Below par. Beat it a couple of times and abandoned it during the third game, wishing I could get my 50$ back.

Somehow, it is nowhere near as fascinating as Civ IV: I don't get a feeling I am guiding a magnificent empire through history, I get a feeling I move toy soldiers across a cardboard instead.

*hums Baba Yetu and goes back to building Apostolic Palace*

Rime said:

I get a feeling I move toy soldiers across a cardboard instead.

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Maybe that is what separates the Civ V lovers and haters. I enjoyed the old Avalon Hill and Simulations Publications war games with the cardboard, punch out units and moving them on a cardboard map or a plexiglass covering a flexible map.

Civ V for me is the ultimate BOARD GAME. That is why I rated it an "A."

I rated it "below par." It is not a bad game, it is just not quite worth playing. I kept trying to like it but, after two weeks, was about to throw in the towel. But Thal's "Balance - Combined" mod totally changes the pacing, and that makes a surprisingly big difference. I still think that there are fundamental flaws in the conception, but modders have done some amazing things with other games, and so I will stay the course.

SirMaru said:

Maybe that is what separates the Civ V lovers and haters. I enjoyed the old Avalon Hill and Simulations Publications war games with the cardboard, punch out units and moving them on a cardboard map or a plexiglass covering a flexible map.

Civ V for me is the ultimate BOARD GAME. That is why I rated it an "A."

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I love board games too, but even on that criteria I'd say CiV is a bad board game because of the mechanics issues.

SirMaru said:

Maybe that is what separates the Civ V lovers and haters. I enjoyed the old Avalon Hill and Simulations Publications war games with the cardboard, punch out units and moving them on a cardboard map or a plexiglass covering a flexible map.

Civ V for me is the ultimate BOARD GAME. That is why I rated it an "A."

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Yes i love them to, but i play them with friends at my place... With Civ i like to play a computer game in single or multi, not a boardgame...

And that's why i say that a lot of the lovers, the newest to the franchise, quite don't understand Civ at all...

After these few weeks, I'm still enjoying the game. I love the new mechanics are fun to use and I find I always have some interesting choices to make. It's not a re-skined version of IV, examples of weak sequels are your EA sports titles that come out every year.

Those calling it "incomplete" are WAY off base in my opinion, Elemental would be your real example of an incomplete game at release, that AI couldn't find a way to win if you gave it all your stuff and a GPS. A truely "unplayable" game would be Battlecrusier 3000AD when that first came out.

There are a few bug and tweaks that could be implemented, and the upcoming patch seems to address 90% of them. I'd give it an A-, I expect the patch to bring it up to a solid A. I fully expect this game will end up at A+ when we have the complete edition will all the expansions and DLC in a couple of years.

Voted B because the AI is incredibly stupid.

Example: Bismarck has 4 units next to my unitless city (my fault). What does he do? He just circles around the city and doesn't attack it once until my support gets there and finishes his units off.

♥

I give it an F.

It's incomplete. Not only is it incomplete, the reason it's incomplete is because carefully selected elements of previous games have been removed with the intent to add it later as purchasable add on content.

Sid Meier is no longer an honest man.

I won't buy another game from them, I will raise my children to hate the company. It's the least I can do.

DarkMaster said:

The analogy is excellent. But the student would answer:

Professor, I understand all this, and I wholeheartedly agree. However, the university does not consider your course so important that I can spend as much time as I need in my essay. The essay you asked of us is a very complex one, but there are so many courses requiring easier assignments that weight so much more in the GPA, I can't devote my fully attention. I'm sorry, but that's the way things work around here.

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In that case, perhaps the student should not have signed up for the course in the first place

DashieBaby87 said:

Voted B because the AI is incredibly stupid.
Example: Bismarck has 4 units next to my unitless city (my fault). What does he do? He just circles around the city and doesn't attack it once until my support gets there and finishes his units off.
♥

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So far playing one on one with a single AI (no City States or Barbarians) I've lost 3 and won 2. My losses were at King Level and my wins were at Prince Level. I use the Duel Board and start in the Industrial Age.

That's way enough competition for me. Remember, I do like to win once in awhile. Having just one AI definitely improves the AI skill level. Losing all the time to human players would NOT be enjoyable for me.

I voted A.

It's the first time I've ever bothered to play a game to completion above Chieftain level. Normally I`d get maybe halfway through then abandon out of lack of interest.

I think it's hilarious that people who gave it a D are also posting on the formus and have already played 80+ hours. It's kinda funny that somoene would play a "D" level game that much for that long.

The same I valued it at the beginning: average. time perhaps makes the wine better but not not a game. And the patches won't fix the gameplay flaws so no higher rating after the patches either.

greggbert said:

I think it's hilarious that people who gave it a D are also posting on the formus and have already played 80+ hours. It's kinda funny that somoene would play a "D" level game that much for that long.

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It's Civilization.. we're all still hoping (needing?) to find the soul of the game that just doesn't seem to be there.

greggbert said:

I think it's hilarious that people who gave it a D are also posting on the formus and have already played 80+ hours. It's kinda funny that somoene would play a "D" level game that much for that long.

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It's actually not --

For one thing - Civilization games are not single-sitting games, nor were they ever expected to be. This isn't (or isn't supposed to be) some mindless FPS where you shoot for a few hours, try some new maps, or new weapons, then set it aside. If you haven't played a Civilization for at least 50 hours, it's awfully hard to truly "judge" it.

Second, the title has a pedigree. For many of us, this is truly our 5th iteration (or 15th, depending on how you want to categorize expansions) of the series. Civ gets 2nd and 3rd chances whereas a "new" title will not - we're used to constantly finding out new aspects to the game (lacking here, but present in previous versions).

Finally, a lot of people who hate V have stuck with it because contrary to the flimsy flinging of 'HATERS!' -- we very much DO want to like this game. I've logged 100+ hours easily - but most of the last half have been more experimentation and modding... Trying to see if I can put together house rules that would make the game enjoyable... investigating whether there are mods that can be done to enhance the game to an acceptable level. I've probably spent a good 20 hours with SDK already, to no avail.


You might want to take note of the title of this forum -- it's not PC Game Fanatics (who occasionally play Civilization) or 4X games fanatics (who think Civilization is/was one of the best). The posters here aren't going to so quickly relegate a title to the dusty shelf if it's got "Civilization" in the name.