My Thoughts On Civ5: - The Good and Not so Good (LONG)

Part I - The Good

Okay, So I've played CiV through a few times now, from Warlord to King. I'm going to keep ramping it up and seeing how it goes, but I wanted to post my interim impressions before doing so. I've played Civ in general since the beginning, and I think I've managed to play every single version that's come out.

This is going to be long, and I realize that some of this has been mentioned elsewhere, but the point of this post is to discuss the game play as I've experienced it.

I've tried organizing this post as best I can, but it's based off of 6 pages of hand written notes of thoughts as they occurred to me over the course of five games (2 epic length, 3 standard length, 1 one city challenge, 2 culture wins, 1 domination win, 2 space wins, 1 warlord game, 2 prince games, 2 king games, all continents, 2 large maps, 3 standard maps).

First, to start with the things I like, including aspects that I think are particularly good or suggestions for improvement.

Hexes.

I like the hexes a lot. I like how they affect movement, I like how they affect warfare, I like how they affect city growth, I like how they affect the way the map looks. It all feels much more organic.

City Growth

I really like how cities grow with culture now. One tile at a time is amazingly cool looking to see a city sprawling all over. Again, it seems so much more organic than how 1-4 did it.

I also like being able to buy more squares, it's a nice added bit of planning. I do wish I understood how the prices were calculated better, they seem to make no sense, especially since a lot of the times the tile I really want (to get a resource or something) is one of the cheapest tiles.

I also wish you could direct the growth of the city. While the AI is actually pretty good here (probably the best AI in the game), it doesn't make sense to me that I wouldn't be able to direct how my city grows.

New Combat/1 UPT

I really like the death of the SoD. I really like how ranged units actually have range. This is one area where Civ has gotten better with each iteration since 2 I think. I also like the red arrows for bombardment. Just a neat little thing.

I love the added tactical considerations of multiple terrain types and how to approach cities and developing choke points. In 4 you just took your huge SoD and moved it to the best defensive tile (hills + forest with a Guerilla II or Woodsman II unit in the stack being the ideal setup) and then bombarded over and over. Then collateral damage attacked over and over. Then cleaned up the mess.

Now, some improvements could certainly be made, such as allowing units to stack as long as they have sufficient moves to get to an unoccupied tile. Basically, the 1UPT would be enforced before you could end your turn (as it is now when you generate a unit in a city with a unit already there, the End Turn button changes to Moved Stack Unit).

I also think some tweaks as to how far units can fire, and which units can fire, should happen. Tanks not being able to fire at archers is a little silly.

Another thought is that ranged fighters should resolve like melee fighters. When two artillery go at it, resolve it like a melee fight between warriors.

Another thought is bring back the Zone of Control fire from Civ3. When you moved past an enemy tank (and similar units) in 3, there was a chance they would fire at you and damage you. I liked that.

Cities Defending Themselves

I like cities fighting and defending themselves. I do think that cities need a buffing (I had a strength 23 city do a whopping 2 damage to a barbarian trireme, the picture showed the city firing missiles), and probably some offense-related buildings should be added to the game.

Natural Wonders.

I think the natural wonders are a nice little addition to the game. I like finding them and seeing the little pop up. I wish there were more (like say 20 types with only 5+map size modifier placed per game). It gets a little stale finding the same ones over and over. I would like to see these developed more, either with unique tile improvements you could make on them, or unique buildings designed to take advantage of them if they are in a city radius.

Social Policies

I like the social policies. I like spending culture. In each game I find myself really thinking about which policy I want in terms of both immediate needs and long term goals. That to me is cool. Some of the choices have been fairly agonizing, because so many are useful. I also like that they are permanent, because it makes each decision matter that much more.

Now, it might just be my playstyle, but so far Autocracy has struck me as being extremely useless. My last game was a Domination win on King setting, and I didn't have Freedom or Liberty trees at all, and I still thought Autocracy was a pile of crap.

Domination Victory Condition

I like how it's based on people controlling their capitals now. Much better than how 4 did it (I found the land mass requirement in 4 to be fairly prohibitive). However, in the aforementioned Domination win, it did feel a little cheap. Napoleon was the last leader standing besides me, and we each controlled a continent. He had the bad luck of having Paris be right on the coast. So I sailed a flotilla of 14 land units, 2 great generals, and 7 escort ships and kicked Paris's butt. And I won. Now, I think it would be cool to have a "second capital" national wonder (like the Forbidden Palace was essentially treated in 4) that would require it to be taken as well to lose by Domination. Call it The Shadow Government national wonder or something. It would add difficulty to achieving the Domination win without being prohibitive and would also add strategy in terms of placement.

Embarkation

Embarkation is great, because dealing with transports is a serious pain that really didn't add much to the game.

Space Ship

I like how the spaceship is built and then transported to the capital to be assembled. It gives you a way to prevent someone from winning via the Space Race. However, there should be other ways of interfering, but that will be discussed later.

On the Space Race though I prefer older ways of doing it as a mission that had variable duration and success odds based on what you built. That gave you a way to try and pull a come from behind win by spending less time building if you didn't mind it being riskier.

Strategic Resources

Being required to actually have a supply to build units/buildings is great. I actually went to war over resources in one of my games because I wanted coal for factories. In 4 that wouldn't have been required if I had even one source. This is a huge improvement.

I also really like how they are displayed across the top of the screen.

Tech Trading

I'm glad this is gone. I actually turned it off a lot in 4 because I hate it. The research agreements in 5 seem pretty good.

Happiness Causing Golden Ages

This is cool. I like how it adds a reason to try and have large amounts of excess happiness. In 2, happiness leading to We Love The King Day was fairly powerful (+1 City Growth per turn for Democracy/Republic, no corruption for other government types) so you had a reason to get happiness and eliminate unhappiness. I don't remember happiness in 3 all that well, and in 4 I never found a reason to have happiness more than "just enough to avoid unhappiness."

But, going back to 2, causing happiness and reducing unhappiness were actually two different mechanics. to get We Love The King Day you had to have 50% of the city's population happy AND no unhappiness. It was possible to have happy, content, and unhappy people all together in the city. I wish 5 had a little gradation like that. Just a little extra factor to think about and plan around, because otherwise happiness is a little bland.

Unhappiness Causing Penalties

This is cool too. -1 to -9 hurting growth, -10+ causing production/fighting problems. I like that it's more than just "no Golden Age for you!" Also decrementing the Golden Age counter is good.

Notifications On The Right Hand Side

I like the UI here. I like the left-click to go to/right-click to ignore interface. I like how the "End Turn" button changes to "Choose Production", "Move Unit", etc. I also really like how you aren't forced to cycle through all your cities at the start of your turn. Doing it when I want during my turn makes me much happier.

Great Person Generation

I like how each type of Great Person is independently gone after. I like the additional control this allows in trying to get great people. Nothing aggravated me more than focusing a city on Great Engineer in 4, just to have that 5% Great Prophet chance hit.

Great General Being Intrinsically Useful

Moving the Great General around the battlefield to maximize his synergy bonus is neat. It adds a definite tactical feel to using the Great General. I almost think it might be better to make him a military unit though, to prevent him stacking. Yes I know he's defenseless, welcome to more planning on where to place your general and having to think about approaches to his position and how to protect him.

Advisors

Ahh, welcome back my minions. I really, really, really miss the animated advisors from 2. Man they were awesome. This is a step back in the right direction. One thing I will say though, is we should be able to dismiss messages from Advisor Council, I don't need to be told every time that So and So city has buildings useful to military units and we should build there.

No Sliders

At first, this one really caught me off balance. The first Civ with no sliders! But after playing with it for a while, I think it causes you to actually plan things out a little better, rather than being able to tweak a slider to adjust for stuff on the fly.

National Wonders Needing Something In Every City

I know some people are complaining that this limits your empire size or is too hard with larger empires. Personally, I like them, but I do think that maybe they should have benefits based on how many of the component items you have in your empire. Like, for example, the National College gives +50% to the city's research and can only be built if you have a library in every city. Why not make it +40% science +1% per city with a library in it (and have it get better if you add more cities later). Obviously not all national wonders would benefit (Hermitage would, Oxford University and National Epic wouldn't, etc) but oh well.

Spheres Of Influence

I like how making friends with city states on another continent causes the major powers on that continent to yell at you. Very Monroe Doctrine.

Gradations Of Diplomatic Replies

I like how when another leader comes to you with a disappointment or you turn down a request you can either say "Get Over It" or "I'm sorry this has caused a divide blah blah blah". More variations like this to try and make diplomacy more in depth are good.

River Allowing Farms On Hills

This is a neat little tweak on the tile/improvement system. Sadly, it might be the only thing I like about the tiles/improvements.


I welcome discussion of these points. I was going to make this one post, but this part is huge already, so I'll make more posts with the rest later.

For the tl:dr crowd: too bad, read the post.

Nice refreshing ideas. Looking forward to Part II.

Archwizard said:

Now, some improvements could certainly be made, such as allowing units to stack as long as they have sufficient moves to get to an unoccupied tile. Basically, the 1UPT would be enforced before you could end your turn (as it is now when you generate a unit in a city with a unit already there, the End Turn button changes to Moved Stack Unit).

Click to expand...

It almost works this way: 1UP turn is only enforced at the end of a unit's move command. You're saying you want to also be able to have a unit end a move command in a stacked state, so long as you unstack it before you end your turn? What would be the purpose of this? (Except maybe to get in an extra attack here and there? But of course that would need to be disallowed as well...)

River Allowing Farms

This is a neat little tweak on the tile/improvement system. Sadly, it might be the only thing I like about the tiles/improvements.

Click to expand...

I don't understand; isn't this how it's been since Civ I?

DagHammarskjol said:

It almost works this way: 1UP turn is only enforced at the end of a unit's move command. You're saying you want to also be able to have a unit end a move command in a stacked state, so long as you unstack it before you end your turn? What would be the purpose of this? (Except maybe to get in an extra attack here and there? But of course that would need to be disallowed as well...)

Click to expand...

Right now you can't attack through a unit that has ended its move next to an enemy. If I have a Cavalry (move 3) next to a Rifleman (mine) that has ended its turn next to a Rifleman (enemy), I cannot move my Cavalry onto my Rifleman (1 move), attack the enemy (2 moves) and then move back to my original tile (3rd move).

I don't understand; isn't this how it's been since Civ I?

Click to expand...

Not on hills. In 4 you can't build farms on hills.

I do wish I understood how the prices were calculated better, they seem to make no sense, especially since a lot of the times the tile I really want (to get a resource or something) is one of the cheapest tiles.

Click to expand...

I could be horribly wrong, but I think they are based mostly on how far away they are from the city center.

And nice write-up.

Moss said:

I could be horribly wrong, but I think they are based mostly on how far away they are from the city center.

And nice write-up.

Click to expand...

That is certainly part of it, but there are hexes in the same "ring" that cost 50, while others cost 100 and I have no idea why. And thanks!

Embarkation

Embarkation is great, because dealing with transports is a serious pain that really didn't add much to the game.

I would like to be able to stack a settler only on a ship because it's a major pain trying to move one 28 turns to found cities on different continents without protection. Or bring back sticking units together for great generals and settlers only since they can stack with military units.

This is going to be long, and I realize that some of this has been mentioned elsewhere, but the point of this post is to discuss the game play as I've experienced it. This is part II of my thoughts.

Again, I've tried organizing this post as best I can, but it's based off of 6 pages of hand written notes of thoughts as they occurred to me over the course of five games (2 epic length, 3 standard length, 1 one city challenge, 2 culture wins, 1 domination win, 2 space wins, 1 warlord game, 2 prince games, 2 king games, all continents, 2 large maps, 3 standard maps).

Part II covers things that currently exist in CiV that I really think need to be looked at or additions I think should be made.
There will be some overlap with Part I probably in terms of suggestions.

AI Behavior, Oh The AI Behavior

I'm just talking about diplomacy and the messages you get for now.

I was in a war on my continent, fighting Darius I and killing him off. Alexander sends me a message about how it's a shame that some people feel the need to kick around weaker people. The only problem with this is Alexander was right in the middle of killing off Bismark while he was yelling at me. Hypocrisy for the win.

Units next to another leader's units should not be treated the same as units near that leader's borders. It makes no sense to get yelled at for massing troops near another civ when it's really just a few of my troops near one of his in neutral territory.

France asks me for a Pact of Secrecy against Arabia. Roughly 5 turns later France and Arabia sign a Research Agreement. That makes no sense at all.

In a One City Challenge I was working on the Utopia Project for the Cultural Victory. I was right next to a much larger civ and I expected them to attack to try and prevent me from winning. They didn't. They just sat there and watched as I won. So much for the AI playing to win.

I was Allied with 5 City States (I had liberated 2) and Friends with another. I had killed 1 at the request of another one. I then launched an attack on another City State to get the resources he controlled. This prompted me to get the "City States are getting worried" message. To me, this does not make much sense. My history had been overwhelmingly helpful to the City States, and yet they're warning me.

AI Behavior, Oh The AI Behavior, Part II

This time I'm talking about war handling.

In the late stage of a King game it was just me on one continent and Napoleon on another. He had wiped out or allied with all the city states on his continent. I was sailing a fleet over to his continent to take his capital and complete the Domination Victory. The fleet consisted of: 6 Mech Inf, 2 Modern Armor, 3 Rocket Artillery, 3 Cavalry, 4 GDRs, 2 Great Generals with an escort of 2 Destroyers, 2 Battleships, 2 Submarines, 1 Nuclear Submarine. Napoleon sailed 2 of his Destroyers right by it and never said a word. I would have expected Napoleon to attack, because really, what other conclusion can you draw from my actions other than "I'm going to kick your...."

Barbarians just sit there and take it. I'll use Archers to fire on Barbarian Archers, and then on their turn they do nothing. Why don't they fire back? Also, I'll use Crossbowmen to fire on a Barbarian Rifleman and the Rifleman just sits there and waits to get killed. Fight back already.

It seems to me that the AI fights wars okay with the units it has (I mean, it's not great but especially in more open areas it does okay). But, once all those units are dead it appears that the AI basically doesn't build anymore.

The AI needs to learn how to mount an attack across the ocean.

On Tile Yields, Resources And Improvements

Resources are too weak. In 4 I planned city sites around what resources I could see because the yields really mattered. In 5 they don't really. Cows, sheep, etc. really kind of stink. They need to be buffed up post-tile improvement.

Flood Plain being the exact same yields as Grassland is lame. The added food in 4 plus a downside (health hit) was good. But as is in 5 you could just remove Flood Plain and make Desert + River a Grassland.

I would love to see Natural Wonders get their own tile improvements or buildings.

There should be a way to claim resources outside your cultural boundaries. One thing I really, really miss from Civ3 was the ability to send a worker to a resource and build a colony on it, thereby claiming that resource for your civ. Other civs could come along and destroy your colony to build their own, and if a cultural boundary expanded to cover the resource an existing colony was destroyed and the resource belonged to the civ the just expanded to cover it. Bring this back!

Why are all hills the same? This was one thing in 4 that I really liked a lot. Desert + Hill, Plains + Hill, Grassland + Hill all giving different yields was great. Now it's boring again. And, to make it worse, it makes no sense at all. Grassland + Forest is 1 Apple, 1 Hammer. Grassland + Forest + Hill is 1 Apple, 1 Hammer. Grassland + Hill is 0 Apples, 2 Hammers. And so on and so forth. In Civ4 the tile yields added together in ways that made sense (Grassland was 2 bread, Plains was 1 bread 1 hammer, Grassland + Hill was 1 Bread 1 Hammer, Plains + Hills was 0 Bread 2 Hammers, Plains + Hills + Forest was 0 Bread 3 Hammers. See, logical progression: Hills were -1 Food +1 Hammer over base terrain, Forest were +1 Hammer over base terrain). The point of all this is diversity is good and adds more planning to both city locations and tile improvement placements. Everything being the same is boring and makes the terrain type seem like pointless window dressing.

Related to the above is the fact that Plains, Plains + Forest and Grassland + Forest all have the exact same yield: 1 Apple, 1 Hammer. Lame, see above.

A City built on a Resource should get the improved value for the tile.

There really needs to be a "Resource Overview" screen that shows all Luxury resources owned.

I also think that city buildings giving different stuff based on resources needs to return, that was great in 4 as well. I think it's better the way Marble is implemented in 5, in that only the city working it gets the bonus rather than civ-wide bonuses. All resources having the potential to affect buildings would add another level of planning. Stuff like the Mint and Monastery are great examples. I want the "regular" resources to get some love though.

Terrain heights don't seem to work as intuitively as I would expect. A Cannon has visibility 1. On a hill surrounded by 2 hexes of plains in all directions, it still only sees 1. I think hills should grant visibility +1 over flat (e.g. not Forest, Hills, Mountains) terrain.

The mouseover information for terrain it should show you movement costs and combat modifiers in addition to yield, title, and ownership. I have found the movement cost stuff in 5 to be really a pain in the butt to understand.

There needs to be a way to easily find resource tiles. The notifications for in your cultural boundaries are nice, but scrolling around the map to find others is a pain and NotFun. You should get notifications for every resource in explored territory.

On Cities and Buildings

In the list of buildings that grant Specialists, they should be organized by Specialist, not listed alphabetically. It's really obnoxious to scroll up and down to find the 3 Engineer slots.

You should be able to pick where the city is going to grow culturally.

Natural Wonders should have their own buildings or tile improvements. I know I've said this a few times, but I really want them to be more than "find them and yay static bonus." I think National Wonders would be great for this, and probably prefer this to tile improvement because tile improvements would necessitate changing them from Impassable terrain.

There should be buildings to upgrade city offenses as well as defenses. I find the attack values for cities to be pathetic. The example I used before was a str 23 city doing 2 damage to a barbarian trireme with missiles. That boat should have been toast in 1 hit.

There need to be buildings for more than land units. Why did sea units and air units get the NoLoveForYou mod? Sure, stables give +25% to build, as does the harbor, but that's it. Compare that to the 5 buildings for Land Units (Barracks, Armory, Forge, Military Academy, Arsenal).

Building maintenance seems awfully high. With all the stuff there is to do with gold, I think maintenance could stand to be lowered. Granted, it forces you to really watch what you build and in that respect it's a good thing. However, I think it is a little bit much right now. I can't remember if 3 had building maintenance or not (man, I actually really want to play 3 again but my dvd-rom drive is broken, grr) but I liked it in 2. It should be played with more. In 2, Adam Smith's Trading Company was a world wonder that paid for the maintenance of every 1 gpt building. Certain Governments paid for maintenance of other things. There's a wealth of possibilities here.

Please, for the love of WhateverHighPowerYouBelieveInIfYouChooseToBelieveInOne, let us sell buildings. Getting back 50% of the price you would have paid for it by buying it outright seems fair to me.

In the City View, when you go to build a building, either through Add To Queue or through Change Production, every building available based on tech should be listed, not just ones you can currently build. All units are listed, with unavailable ones grayed out (such as for missing a Strategic Resource). Buildings should be listed too. If I don't have a Military Academy, the Arsenal should still be in the list, but grayed out with the mouseover saying "Requires a Military Academy to be built." This way I can plan out better what I want to do without either having to consult the Civilopedia or trying to remember what exactly I have the tech for.

Research and Wealth building are woefully underpowered. 10% of hammers to income is pathetic. 100% is overpowered for sure, but something like 40%, or even start at 10% and have it modified by buildings or techs or social policies or whatever would be cool. Like in the Rationalism SP branch, let one of them grant "Cities building Research get a +5% bonus."

In the Civilopedia the entries for buildings should list what buildings they allow, not just which ones they require. In the same way that units show which units they upgrade to.

Puppet cities are ******** in what they do, I'm sorry but it's true. I've seen them build a garden without building money/science/production buildings. They build defensive structures when they are nowhere near the front lines. Too much focus on unit-related buildings.

I've seen puppet cities in the late game with no icon at all, not even wealth/research, not sure what that is about.

When you go to annex a city, the popup should tell you exactly what the happiness and culture hit is going to be (i.e. Are you sure? This will add 5 Unhappiness from the city, 3 Unhappiness from the population, and 300 Culture Points to the cost of your next Social Policy).

You should be able to pay a discounted amount to buy buildings/units currently in production (as you could in 2).

I miss the total buildings built listings (in Civ4: Info Screen [F9] -> Statistics). Also had total cities built/razed. Should added captured to the lsiting.

The Courthouse building is too much I think. I understand the desire to make annexing cost and all that jazz, but I think it's excessive. It costs 200 Hammers, making it the most expensive Classical Building (next are the Circus and Coliseum at 150 each). The maintenance is 5 gpt, again the most expensive (again, Circus and Coliseum are next at 3 gpt each). Those costs make it more expensive than any Medieval Era building, some are 200 Hammers, but none have 5 gpt as well. I do like that you can't buy it though.

On Great People

First and foremost: the Tile Improvements [don't make the moderators take action]. I'm sorry, but I would never, ever use one. And that's just sad. I used Great Specialists in 4 (especially Great Merchant, mmmm food). If the Great Person Tile Improvement stacked with, rather than replaced, Worker Improvements, I would totally use them. They should not stack with each other though. This one change would take them from bad to good.

I miss attaching Great Generals to units. I loved doing that in 4. And special promotions only available to units with a Great General attached were neat. Combat VI, Morale, etc. I like the synergy bonus they give to units in the area, that was a great addition, but I would love to see them bring back attaching with XP granted to the attached unit.

What factors go into what you get from a Great Merchant Trade Mission? Is it static?

On City States

There should be a lag between Ally status and a City State being willing to vote for you in the UN. I would actually say there should be an intervening election and you have to maintain Ally status continuously. I really hate it that I can see that there is 1 turn to the next UN Vote, so I can spend gold to get enough allies to win the vote. With the Aesthetics Social Policy in the Patronage branch giving minimum 20 Influence, ally status can easily be gained for 750 gold.

There should be more ways to gain Influence with City States. Buying them off with gold (while realistic *snicker*) is boring as heck. I love the other things, like kill this other guy, get me my workers back, build a road, etc. More of those would be great. It makes it much more interesting.

A Defensive Announcement should definitely give you influence with that City State, and rescinding it should cost you Influence, as should failing to declare war against someone that attacks them.

How is the rate of Influence loss calculated? It seems totally random and that is bad. This should be displayed with a base value (with explanation) and factors that go into the final result (like how Hammers are shown in the City Screen, and similar things).

On Units

Support vs. Maintenance Costs are way out of whack. I think I've maybe used 1/5th of my Support at most before the Maintenance Costs cripple me. That should have been a red flag I think.

Maintenance costs are too high. At one point I had 13 units (Musketman, Longswordsman x2, Cavalry, Cannon x2, Archer, Worker, Great Merchant, Great General, Great Engineer, Great Artist x2) and I was being charged 68 gpt. That's just over 5 gpt per unit, and most of those were civilians (I forget why I had all those people sitting around...). Great People should be free (if they are already then the situation is even worse, my above example becomes 8.5 gpt per unit).

Maintenance Costs are too obfuscated. I really, really hate how you have no idea how the Unit Maintenance is calculated. Civ should be about planning. You want me to plan an army, tell me what that army is going to cost me. Hypothetical Example: Melee units cost .5 gpt base. Each promotion above Warrior adds .5 gpt (so that Swordsmen cost 1 gpt). Being in neutral territory adds 1 gpt. Being in enemy territory adds 1 gpt. Being garrisoned removes .5 gpt. So a Longswordsman in enemy territory costs 3.5 gpt. You could even do things like have promotions that reduce maintenance costs.

Promotions such as Sentry (+1 Visibility) should work while the unit is embarked.

I miss the current units/total built/killed report (in Civ4: Info Screen [F9] -> Statistics).

You should be able to click on an enemy units to see information about it just like your own units.

The unit display and mouseover in 4 was far, far superior to 5. In 5 you can only see 9 icons worth of information before the picture gets in the way (and one of those is taken up by the Embark icon post-Optics). The mouseover should give you comprehensive stats (like in Civ4, where if you had City Raider I, City Raider II, and City Raider III the mouseover said: City Attack +75%, and you could still mouseover the individual promotion icon for details on just that promotion). The XP and HP displays in 4 were better, the level is displayed (you have to mouseover the XP bar in 5 to get the unit's level). Also, ranges (like Artillery having Range 3) are not displayed.

Stealth Bombers show gaining XP after a mission (+4 XP), but they do not have an XP bar. Does this mean that they just get XP for the Great General pool? Is this just a bug?

Ranged units should get extra XP for dealing the killing blow. Make it +3 XP for the kill, +2 XP for damage.

When an enemy unit moves away from me into the Fog Of War, I should see which direction the went to enter it.

On Other In-Game Topics, Such As The Map

There needs to be a more robust display of inter-civ relations. Like the numbers or not, the foreign relations screen in 4 had the right idea. Bismark is pleased with Catherine but hates Victoria.

Bring back Map Trading.

There should be a way to renew expiring agreements. It is extraordinarily disruptive to be exploring terrain to have Open Borders end on you with nothing you can do about it. The game could have you go into the diplomacy screen with the leader you have the agreement with, with that agreement already on the table, so you can reoffer it. If it's renewed you get a notification "An agreement where you provided Open Borders to Bismark has been renewed."

There should be a "Turns to next Golden Age" in the mouseover (based on current ) just like there is in the Social Policy culture mouseover.

I would like the Mini Map to have more texture. I like how it displays Mountains, I would like to see more symbols/colors for terrain types. Green for Grassland, Yellow for Plains, Beige for Desert, Semicircles for Hills, etc.

Bring back War Weariness. It's another factor in Happiness, City Building, Waging War. It should also be dynamic with progress of the war: Kill a unit, -.5 WW, lose a unit +.5, capture a city -1 WW, etc. You could (should) even have it relate to Social Policies. Autocracy is better for war than Freedom, etc.

I think the Autocracy branch of Social Policies needs some lovin'. I just can't see myself using it.

Barbarians spawning in the first Fog of War spot right next to your civ seems a little dumb. There should be a minimum distance, like 3 hexes, that barbs can't spawn in.

The Advisors need to be a little smarter. The Military Advisor likes storing 20 messages, one for each city that built a unit-related building. I've love to dismiss some of those, and perhaps keep only 2 as a "note to self" as to which 2 cities I want to build units in. In my One City Challenge game the Economic Advisor was telling me not to expand because I was at a good point, but all telling me to build a Settler. Contradictory advice that was also irrelevant!

The map should have a "Show City Radius" button, so you can easily see the 3-hex radius around cities, especially when selecting a Settler (Civ4 behaves this way). This makes city placement planning so much easier.

There should be a "Perform Queued Actions" button. It's nice that everyone with queued orders waits until the end of the turn to go, but there are times when I want to assign new orders to other units after the queued guys have gone. A simple button to have them all execute their orders at my discretion would be awesome.

Ancient Ruins should only promote a unit to your current era plus one, to a maximum of Medieval Era. Once your unit is a Medieval Era unit, any further Ruins that would have granted an upgrade should instead grant +30 XP. For example, if you are in the Ancient Era, you can get Classical Era units at best. Being able to get powerful units early is huge (I killed off Napoleon early one game because I had a Pikeman from Ruins promotions right away, I can only imagine what I could have done if I had gotten say a Longswordsman).

On Setting Up And The Aftermath

In the Advanced Setup options, things like World Age, Rainfall, and Sea Level should have mouseover help as to what each setting will do. This was in previous versions, I don't understand why it's gone now.

It would be nice if the Advanced Setup remembered what I did last game and plugged those values in as the defaults. I enjoy playing games where I tweak just one or two things from the last time I played, just to see what happens differently.

The Hall of Fame should note things like One City Challenge.

I miss the turn-by-turn replays. It was fun to watch a fast-speed replay of the game and see how everyone grew and shrunk during the game, things you couldn't see while playing.



That's all the notes I made, I'm sure I'll find more in the future. Again, I look forward to discussions based on what I've said. Thanks for reading.

gibson1314 said:

Embarkation

Embarkation is great, because dealing with transports is a serious pain that really didn't add much to the game.

I would like to be able to stack a settler only on a ship because it's a major pain trying to move one 28 turns to found cities on different continents without protection. Or bring back sticking units together for great generals and settlers only since they can stack with military units.

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Be it a transport or a trireme or a caravel, you're still building something to protect that settler.

I would love to see Natural Wonders get their own tile improvements or building

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Don't rape Mother Nature! I don't want tile improvements in the Grand Canyon.

As I've been playing, I don't keep puppets as puppets indefinitely. When I conquer large number of cities due to a war with another player, I leave them all puppets until their period of resistance is over, halving unhappiness. Then, one city at a time, I go through a process of annexation and integration into my empire. I annex one, purchase a colosseum and purchase a workshop while its working on its courthouse. The courthouse gets complete soon, and I have less unhappiness than if I were to have left it a puppet.

It would be nice if you could return any annexed city to being a puppet state, or establish that for any native city. Fix up the city like you want, then return it to autonomous governance.

brianshapiro said:

Don't rape Mother Nature! I don't want tile improvements in the Grand Canyon.

As I've been playing, I don't keep puppets as puppets indefinitely. When I conquer large number of cities due to a war with another player, I leave them all puppets until their period of resistance is over, halving unhappiness. Then, one city at a time, I go through a process of annexation and integration into my empire. I annex one, purchase a colosseum and purchase a workshop while its working on its courthouse. The courthouse gets complete soon, and I have less unhappiness than if I were to have left it a puppet.

It would be nice if you could return any annexed city to being a puppet state, or establish that for any native city. Fix up the city like you want, then return it to autonomous governance.

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It's not raping mother nature, thinking of it more like the observation decks and the Maiden of the Mists up at Niagara Falls. That could be an improvement that gives you +3 Gold Income. Think of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It's the tallest Volcano in the world. You could build a USGS field office and get +3 science per turn. There are plenty of ways to build logical improvements based on the natural wonders.

A few quick points:

The flood plains versus grassland distinction does have a purpose for green-thumbed players.

Resources are still important, but there are maritime CS for extreme growth.

If you want to pick which land a city acquires, BUY IT.

I agree on the need to be able to sell buildings.

Air units don't get prod buildings because the industrial era has a lot of prod bonuses to begin with (50% rail, 50% factory, etc).

Unit maintenance scales by era, and maintenance is fine.

Some very good points made. I'll touch on just a few.

In particular, I'd like to see the ability to attach a great general to a unit.

I'd also like to see the ability to sell buildings.

Finally, I like the idea about being able to build special buildings if a natural wonder is within your city radius.

Rashiminos said:

A few quick points:

The flood plains versus grassland distinction does have a purpose for green-thumbed players.

Resources are still important, but there are maritime CS for extreme growth.

If you want to pick which land a city acquires, BUY IT.

I agree on the need to be able to sell buildings.

Air units don't get prod buildings because the industrial era has a lot of prod bonuses to begin with (50% rail, 50% factory, etc).

Unit maintenance scales by era, and maintenance is fine.

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I'm not sure what you mean by green-thumbed players. I'd appreciate an explanation.

The Maritime CS are overpowered. Magical Food! My opinion is that the resources just don't matter, and that makes me sad.

Sure I can buy them, and I do when I really care. However, I just think it makes no sense at all that I can't guide the growth of my own city.

Woo sell them all!

That makes no sense at all. Those bonus affect everything, and stack with existing bonuses. Also, your opinion is belied by the fact that the Arsenal is an Industrial Era building that grants +20% to the production of land units. And you only addressed production, not things like +XP to new air/sea units.

You really think it's fine that you are given no details at all as to what goes into that maintenance figure or how to control it?

Archwizard said:

The Maritime CS are overpowered. Magical Food! My opinion is that the resources just don't matter, and that makes me sad.

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I've found Maritime city states inland. #:|

Good writeup. I'll just respond to a few points.

Archwizard said:

I was in a war on my continent, fighting Darius I and killing him off. Alexander sends me a message about how it's a shame that some people feel the need to kick around weaker people. The only problem with this is Alexander was right in the middle of killing off Bismark while he was yelling at me. Hypocrisy for the win.

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We still have some work to do to understand diplomacy. Factors may include: your military strength, your happiness, your culture, how close your borders are, your actions regarding city-states, etc. I wish they would just make the modifiers transparent as in civ 4. The hidden modifiers don't make the game more fun.

Barbarians just sit there and take it. I'll use Archers to fire on Barbarian Archers, and then on their turn they do nothing. Why don't they fire back? Also, I'll use Crossbowmen to fire on a Barbarian Rifleman and the Rifleman just sits there and waits to get killed. Fight back already.

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I've seen this too. I think it happens when the barbarian is in an encampment? The barb AI needs to be programmed that camping its camp isn't always the best move.

There should be a way to claim resources outside your cultural boundaries. One thing I really, really miss from Civ3 was the ability to send a worker to a resource and build a colony on it, thereby claiming that resource for your civ. Other civs could come along and destroy your colony to build their own, and if a cultural boundary expanded to cover the resource an existing colony was destroyed and the resource belonged to the civ the just expanded to cover it. Bring this back!

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Yes.

Why are all hills the same? This was one thing in 4 that I really liked a lot.

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At least since they made this change the UI shouldn't bother calling terrain things like "Grassland, Hill" and just call them "Hill".

I really liked the improvement system in civ 4. Cottages, workshops, etc. That's something I'd love to see in an expansion (or just a mod).

In the list of buildings that grant Specialists, they should be organized by Specialist, not listed alphabetically. It's really obnoxious to scroll up and down to find the 3 Engineer slots.

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This is a great example of one of the MANY small UI annoyances that add up. I'm quite unhappy that they made the UI worse than in civ 4. Luckily the interface should be relatively easy to fix, hopefully by Firaxis. If not, I'm sure mods will solve these things; there are already several okay UI mods.

Please, for the love of WhateverHighPowerYouBelieveInIfYouChooseToBelieveInOne, let us sell buildings. Getting back 50% of the price you would have paid for it by buying it outright seems fair to me.

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Just letting us destroy the buildings without giving us gold would be a welcome feature. If they do a gold return it needs to be balanced with building wealth (which probably has a too low exchange rate at the moment).

First and foremost: the Tile Improvements [don't make the moderators take action]. I'm sorry, but I would never, ever use one. And that's just sad.

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Indeed.

Support vs. Maintenance Costs are way out of whack. I think I've maybe used 1/5th of my Support at most before the Maintenance Costs cripple me. That should have been a red flag I think.

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I can't understand why "Unit Supply" is even in the game when there is unit maintenance. It just seems to take up some useless screen space on the Military Overview window. Unless it's somehow a factor in the unit maintenance costs??

I miss the turn-by-turn replays. It was fun to watch a fast-speed replay of the game and see how everyone grew and shrunk during the game, things you couldn't see while playing.

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The game is actually saving .Civ5Replay files in Replays folder. The file size scales with map size and turn count. So maybe this info is there, they just didn't get around to making the game use this.

You have a lot of good points here. I'm finding that civ 5 is definitely a fun game. If they could solve the many polishing issues then it could be a great game.

I agree with your 2 posts

Ever take a huge chunk out of a warmongering civ, resurrect a civ he'd destroyed, given it back all it's cities, then have it complain immediately because you have troops massing in their borders? (the guys who had JUST freed them). Then they refuse any sort of cooperation pact, and after about 4 turns, still without an army, they declare war on the guy you had just saved them from, after you'd sued for peace.

I try to have fun, i really do... but i mean... really?

It's like the bonus's (cows, wheat etc) where only added in for make the map less boring. They serve no other purpose really.