An Evaluation: Why CIV 5 is an absolute atrocity.

[Zadox]

This is the reason why 2K probably didn't release the demo ahead of time, as they planned originally to do.

Yep, that's what I thought when they announced delaying it. Unfortunately that means that they KNEW what the fan opinion was going to be and made the changes anyway.

Just like the guys from Stargate insulting their long time fans by telling them that Stargate Universe is "not your father's Stargate", Civ5 (so far) is not the fans next Civ game.

They can correct a bunch of stuff with expansions which is probably what they have in mind.

 

[lemmy101]

As a professional games reviewer (award-nominated, in fact) I can tell you that, in the vast majority of cases, there is no corruption and to say otherwise is grossly insulting, especially when you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I can't speak for smaller websites or for more... enthusiast reviewers rather than professionals, but there's a reason some people get paid money to review games and some don't - the ability to be objective, to not deduct hugely from scores because of subjective minutiae and to weigh up pros and cons.

Anyway, I've been loving Civ V, mainly because it's got rid of a lot of the things I despised from Civ IV. Warmongering is now actually a much more interesting part of the game, one unit-per-tile is a great addition and blah blah blah, so on and so forth.

Just a little note to the people who dislike it - that's fine, you have your opinion and that's perfectly acceptable. What isn't is to just assume that something you don't like, such as the removal of espionage, is automatically the majority view. In fact, having scanned through this thread, it seems to be completely the opposite. Don't forget that the majority of those enjoying the game will not be bothering to post on forums such as these, primarily because they're playing the game, so it's very easy to assume that negativity on forums automatically means universal hatred.

Hear hear Pluggy! Etc!

 

[ltarmstrong3]

What's really great about the Civ series since Civ4 is that small bug issues, unit imbalances, builing imbalances and trait uneveness is usually worked out in patches after much gameplay and actuall discussion by actual players like on this particular thread. Firaxis actually listens to feedback and eventually makes changes due to this feedback. Also, major game concept changes can (and will) eventually come out in expansion packs (and I will buy every one of them). I personally like chasing the rabbit and learning the game changes introduced and having to adjust my gameplay accordingly every time they come out, keeps it fresh. So keep complaining about this great game and it will only get better! I just hope the many stackable mods doesn't make discusion of Civ 5 impossible due to nobody having the same game!

 

[Crezth]

I refuse to spend my money for this game.

Firaxis is going totally crazy. The only true upgrade since civ2 is graphical (eye candy).
SMAC was a great game with many new ideas. But near to no one of that improvements have been kept.
Hardcore gamers does not give a **** to 3D graphics. Hardcore gamers want a DEEP game. Civ started his career as "the perfect strategic game" but, hey, we are in 2010, not in 1996....

So, what new IMPORTANT features civ has implemented in the last ..mmm.. 10 years? Culture and fishing boats? -_-

CIV REVOLUTION -> LOL
CIV 5 -> DOUBLE LOL

Um... so... what do you call just about everything in the Civ series?

Yep, that's what I thought when they announced delaying it. Unfortunately that means that they KNEW what the fan opinion was going to be and made the changes anyway.

Just like the guys from Stargate insulting their long time fans by telling them that Stargate Universe is "not your father's Stargate", Civ5 (so far) is not the fans next Civ game.

They can correct a bunch of stuff with expansions which is probably what they have in mind.

I don't know about you, but I am an ancient fan and I broke my cherry with Civ 2, back when it first came out. I love this franchise and I find it a lot of fun, and each new game puzzled me at first but then delighted me as I figured it out. Civ III was weird, Civ IV was weird, Civ V is weird. There's a pattern here and the only net result is each game gets better than the one before it.

There are a few fans left behind with each new iteration - the Civ 2 Loyalists see us all as traitors to the cause and revolution - and that can't be helped, but please don't insult us Civ fans who find the new game a fresh and thoughtful update on an old classic.

 

[ohioastronomy]

All those rants and whines from the 3 % of users who don't love the game make me really tired.

And you know this...how?

Truly good games get much stronger initial fan support and reviews than mediocre ones. It's virtually universal for fans to dismiss all critics as stuck in the past and to invoke silent legions of supporters (your tactics, and those of others in this thread, remind me of the old online forum claim that "lurkers support me in email".) Even the more positive game reviews, at least those not obviously rewritten press releases, honed in on the same weaknesses that are getting so much play here.

This game has some clever design decisions, but by changing too much at one time they weren't able to properly balance all of them...and I think that some of them were ill-conceived attempts at reaching a "casual" audience which will satisfy no one.

 

[billyplod]

Can only agree - been playing 3 hours and spent 45 minutes seaching for where the research and tax rate changes could be modified.

 

[dirtforker]

I can't disagree with most of what you're saying, it's true. However, you might not want to complain for the lack of stuff that was in expansions like random events, which didn't come until years later with Beyond the Sword.

Also was there even espionage in vanilla Civ4? I though that came with BTS as well.

People have such short memories, pretty amazing.

 

[baal_isidro]

Why is there no "Top 5 Cities" List any more ???

I can't believe it. I was angry on release of Civ 4 about the lack of the upgradeable castle. Eventually I got satisfied with the Top 5 cities list which was quite cool.

Civ5 - No Top 5 Cities List
Civ5 - No castle

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Istanbul_Kop]

Guys, if you don't like CIV 5, do what I'm doing...still playing CIV 4 BTS.

Seriously, CIV 4 BTS with whatever mod takes your fancy (Thomas' War for me) is one of, if not the best game ever created.

Maybe it's just teething problems, but I already can't stand CIV 5, Its basically CIV REV 2. It's not what the PC fans wanted.

Gutted, absolutely gutted, but I will always have CIV 4, it still provides me with much joy, something I suspect CIV 5 won't do until features are returned in later expansion packs.

 

[Slayergnome]

SOOOOOOO ing tired of people ing about the fact they did not relase CIV 4.1 NOOOOO THIS IS NOT CIV 4 GET OVER IT. And some of the stuff you said was not even in the orignal civ 4 game i.e. random events did not come till the expansons. Secondly if you want to play Civ 4 so bad play it and ask them to relase another expanson i don't however want to play they same dam game.

Moderator Action: please remain civil, further do not use foul language, if you find you have triggered the autocensor, please rephrase.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Slayergnome]

And you know this...how?

Truly good games get much stronger initial fan support and reviews than mediocre ones. It's virtually universal for fans to dismiss all critics as stuck in the past and to invoke silent legions of supporters (your tactics, and those of others in this thread, remind me of the old online forum claim that "lurkers support me in email".) Even the more positive game reviews, at least those not obviously rewritten press releases, honed in on the same weaknesses that are getting so much play here.

This game has some clever design decisions, but by changing too much at one time they weren't able to properly balance all of them...and I think that some of them were ill-conceived attempts at reaching a "casual" audience which will satisfy no one.

Ok no they where not able to balance all of them, I agree. That is what patching and modding is for the exact same thing they had to do when Civ 4 first came out!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[luchofeio]

im sorry, but i dont understand those threads
like this one. Hes basicly saying that he doesnt like Civ 5 because its diferent then civ 4...

from what i read he wanted civ 4 + civ 5 combat system and thats all

 

[zonk]

Atrocity is too strong a word, but I have to agree with the meat of the complaints.

At a very baseline level - there were simply more concepts left out. Forget specific features, but "concepts"... I didn't care much for espionage in its IV implementation, but it wasn't a gamebreaker, and I did generally pay a bit of attention to it. Rework it, find a different way to implement it -- but the concept should not have been chucked aside. It was a concept without a replacement.

Religion had its faults, but it was an important concept which added a lot of variety and decision making to IV... Do I abandon my Judaism rush because Hinduism just took root -- and my Aztec neighbors are less likely to see my territory as a route to expansion if I follow their faith? Do I hope for Buddhism to take root from the other side of my Civ because snagging the Holy City from Charlemagne looks like it could be easily done? Do I still plunge ahead with my own religion founding, slowly spread it, and hope that by the time the apostolic palace is available -- I've been able to convert enough enemies into allies? Again - concept without a replacement.

Civics and governments, as a concept got a replacement, but I have to agree that it's a pale replacement. Social Policies would have actually made a nice addition to the civics and government system - but they're too shallow to function as a real "replacement". Yes, societies 'evolve' -- but that doesn't change the fact that a nation's leadership still took some basic form (be it despotism, some form of republic or democracy, monarchy, etc). Social policies would have made a great add-on/sister option to civics/government -- but they shouldn't have been a total replacement. At least the concept survived, but I think it was weakened and watered down.

Many of the landworking concepts, likewise seem gone.... we're back to rote "this is a hill, mine it... this is grassland, farm it...etc" tile actions. Bleh... I understand the counter-idea that, with gold now being so important - cottages might have been overpowered, but there are countless ways to deal with. One of the great things about civ IV's new tile options is that it made it a real decision based process. I NEVER automated my workers, at least not till early mid-game, because I wanted to make the decisions myself.... Keep the forest for the health? Chop the forest for a farm and get the hammer boost? Wait for watermills? Farm it? Farm it - then override with a mill? That's gone... Tiles are now no-brainers, or close to it.

The same goes for cities -- cities now feel dangerously like depots. They have less character. They have less individual decision paths. Someone in another thread complained that it wasn't "realistic" to have GP farms or commerce super-cities... I disagree... Are you going to honestly tell me New York isn't a financial capital? Paris isn't a cultural powerhouse? Birmingham isn't(/wasn't - if there was one fault with the concept in IV, it's that IV didn't model boom/bust cycles) a production center? Boiling all these individual city aspects up to a master/national commerce/science/culture counter was a mistake. Was pollution or individual unhappiness a gamebreaker? No - but it wasn't supposed to be... Yes, you COULD ignore it, for the most part -- but if you chose to, there were real - though small - advantages to micromanaging cities. Go for that extra pop by working a lake tile instead of mines? Depends... Do I want to build a wonder here? Make it a colonization embarkation point? Garrison?

When people say their complaint with V is that it feels like it's been 'consoled' -- this is what we mean.

Civ IV was turn-based, but in reality -- it felt like hundreds of little turns in each turn. You could make individual worker decisions -- and they mattered. You could make individual tile decisions - and they mattered. You could make individual city decisions -- and they mattered. None of them, in and of themselves, were gamebreaking decisions -- but it was the sum of the parts that ultimately led to the game's enjoyability.

V has lost that. Sure - you can still manually control workers... but what's the point? Sure - still decide what to build in a city... but why even pay attention? Why not just go back to the Civ II days of queuing up the rote, standard build queue, and then never look at the city again for centuries at a time?

We've lost the "turns within a turn" -- and what we have is basically a console-like gameplay experience. You do 'X' - and then the next 'X', and maybe then occasionally 'Y' (buy a new weapon, or whatever)....

Civ IV was calculus.... This is simple arithmetic. There's far too much "next turn" and far too little "50 mini-turns, per game turn".

I played that console abomination once -- a friend forced me, too... "Isn't this great," he said, "no more of that annoying micromanagement?".

"My complements to your surgeon," I told him, "you cannot even see the lobotomy scars."

I'm sorry if that sounds 'elitist'. One of my dad's favorite cliches is "opinions are like ***holes... everyone's got one" -- and that's true, and I recognize that mine is just one of many.

But you know what? I accept that consoles and "streamlined"/"accessible" games rule the gaming world because that's where the money is.

I just feel like, dammit, one of the few titles that used to be for ME -- one of the few titles that catered to us few fools that DO enjoy micro-decision gameplay, that DO enjoy the journey of a long, long game that requires weeks and maybe a 100 hours to actually finish (and then presents endless replay options to do it again) -- I feel like it's been taken away from me and given to the simplified ("streamlined", "accessible") masses.

I think it's a sad day... There have long been basically three game shops that I'd basically "auto-buy" from... I love Paradox's historical titles - I live with the fact that their "gold" releases are always public betas because at least they cater to that rich historical detail that bore 99% of the gaming world. I love Markus Heinsohn's OOTP series because yes, I'd much, much rather play a sports sim that models option years, rookie leagues, amateur drafts, and calculates VORP than a game that purports to model Dustin Pedroia's stance down to the butt wiggle.... and I've always purchased every single Civ title, every single Civ expansion since before Firaxis existed -- I go all the way back to the Microprose days -- because it was the one 4X/empire builder that didn't "simplify" things...

There are so few titles out there for those of us that do not EXPECT to finish a game in a single sitting... I feel like, with Civ V, one of those few is now slipping away into the hands of people who, dammit it all, already have an ample number of single-session gaming options.

 

[Zadox]

.... but please don't insult us Civ fans who find the new game a fresh and thoughtful update on an old classic.

One man's "fresh and thoughtful update" is another's "hack and slash" of what's been accepted as the norm for the genera. I don't have a problem adapting, I have an issue with companies deciding that an established game series needs to be "reimagined". Fine, just "reimagine" a different title for the game and stop baiting and switching.

Again with the Stargate anology, just call SGU - "Lost in Space meets sliders" or "Sliding in Space" and that's fine. Viewer expectations would be managed properly.

I don't have an issue with the game as is, per se, but it needed to include what was built on from the last version. I have NO doubt that with expansions this game will be fantastic. I'm having fun with it now.

 

[Johivin]

To the gentleman who claimed that there is no corruption in video game reviews, I'd say for us not to forget that many gaming sites receive money from publishers for ads and despite what you may believe, the gaming community should not forget Jeff Gerstmann's unexplained removal from Gamespot immediately following the poor review he had given Kane and Lynch. It may not be true in England, but like most things in the US there is corruption in most professional fields.

As to the game itself, I have played each Civilization since the beginning, including the often overlooked SMAC. Each game has it's benefits and problems.

Pros of Civilization V:
Stacks of Doom have been a long time problem in the Civilization series and I am glad for their removal. I do enjoy the new combat system of Civilization V as I no longer will normally lose a highly advanced unit due to a single combat odds failure. Losing a top level unit due to a 5% chance of failure was always disheartening.

The game is beautiful in it's detail which is also one of it's drawbacks, in my opinion. Strategy games are about gameplay. Graphics should enhance the game not take up space that could've been used for more thorough gameplay additions. There have been too many reviews that raise a game's score primarily on it's "pretty" factor. There are games that are reviewed where they are promoted "despite serious control issues".

City States add a charm of their own and it's always nice to receive a free unit from a military CS. It, in some ways, does replace random events which is nice to see them in there in some respect. The fact that if you don't continue to give them $$ or units that your friendship with them will degrade is nonsensical to me. It would be one thing if it degraded because someone else's friendship with them rose, but to degrade regardless just means that you have to continue to throw gold at them.

Espionage is gone. That is a good thing to me. The Civ 4 system left much to my desire and my preference will always be more to the units of the Civ 2/SMAC era.

Religion was too powerful as it allowed you to ally with someone frequently just by changing your religion. The removal of this may create a minor void, but it is an acceptable removal by comparision to some other removals.

Cons:

Happiness at the civilization level. Building cities late in the game was frustrating because of happiness and the costs associated with buildings/units/etc., however, happiness is too easily achieved now. Natural wonders increase happiness permanently across the entire civilization. This, coupled with the lack of espionage, means that there are no more subversive methods of taking a city.

No more transports. As annoying as transports were, they provided what I feel is a necessary componant to the game. Once optics has been discovered, choke points go away. Just reroute your army through the water and bypass that point. In previous games, chokepoints were extremely useful. You could also control the waterways on both sides by positioning your naval vessels. Now it would be necessary to completely fill a sea, like the Red Sea, or line the shore with troops in order to keep your opponent from crossing. Yes, I understand that this is just a change in tactics. But it is a change to the simpler. No longer do you need to worry as much about defending your trasports with military units. Yes, in much of the game you'll need to defend them over vast movements but small 1-2 water tile movements are now simplistic.

Barbarians no longer form cities and can no longer take cities. Barbarians are less dangerous now as even if they destroy your defenses all you will lose is gold.

Which brings me to the problem that I see largest with the game. Gold. Gold is now king. It was important previously but with the civics and other implemented rules (Civ IV) it was not as crucial as it is now. With enough wealth, you can ally every city-state, purchase anything you wish and buy massive amounts of land quickly and easily. With a gold focus, there is a great deal more that can be accomplished. This, to me, is an incredible drawback. In the few games I played I was easily able to outmanuever my opponents due to my early ancient ruins discoveries of gold. My cities flourished and with their growth I was able to buy the alliance of several city-states. I then wiped out the nearby other neighbors using the alliances of my city-states. Gold may be important, but I believe it goes too far now.

There are other points that have been made elsewhere, but I would bring up these points.

To me, SMAC was the king of strategy games. Customization, originality, story, and the basics that make Civilization the long running series it is.

Civ V to me is like Civ III. A game that has potential but falls short of feeling complete.

((On an alternate note, anyone know when Fall from Heaven, the standalone game, is coming?))

 

[Boris Godunov]

Why is it people always feel they need to speak for others?

I've played Civ since the first one. I loved Civ IV when it came out, although at first it was a bit rocky. Guess what? I am loving Civ V, although there are some things that I would like to see improved, sure.

There's this desperate need for people here to have their completely subjective opinions somehow deemed as "facts" by the community. Very insecure, you know.

 

[Johivin]

Not sure who you're speaking to, Boris, I'm merely speaking for my own views on the game. Should people not be entitled to speak for themselves?

 

[ori]

((On an alternate note, anyone know when Fall from Heaven, the standalone game, is coming?))

Unfortunately that project died

 

[Boris Godunov]

I'm talking about the OP, which tells us if we loved Civ IV, we need to hate Civ V. It's nonsense.

And again, a lot of his complaints are subjective ones. For example, I am glad they took out religion and espionage. I never liked the mechanics of these in Civ IV. Corporations were even worse.

 

[kozzer]

If you love CIV IV, you will most likely hate CIV 5, here's why:

Absurdly Lacking MP Support

No improvements at all from CIV IV: No dedicated servers, no matchmaking, constant lag issue, framerate problems, no online ladder and rankings, no unit animation, random crashes, no way of reconnecting a game, no way of joining a mid-game through invite.

No reason to play MP at all.

Don't care, I never play MP. I've got too much to do to devote that much time to one sitting.

No SP Scenario

SP consists only of "Play Now" and "Custom Game". It doesn't get any more plain than this. And it has the stench of "sloth" and "greed" all over it.

Don't care - I never play scenarios.

No Tile Animation

Why the **** is this taken out? Why must players have to go into the city menu to see what tiles are being worked on??

This I agree with. Though I don't care so much about animation, but I definitely would like a way to know which tiles are being worked without having to go into the city screen. Probably my biggest beef with the UI.

No Religions

Religions weren't necessary, but it added flavors to the game. It was awesome trying to spread your state religion to the whole world, earning diplomatic favors and gold in the process. CIV IV lovers want the religion system to enhance so that it can impact the game in a more meaningful way, not remove it entirely.

Religions were okay in Civ4, but that system doesn't seem like it'd fit in Civ5 (mostly because of city states). City States are much better at stirring things up between the major Civs in a meaningful way pertaining to the current game. Religions were basically arbitrary.

No Espionage

Espionage was one of the best features to have been introduced in the CIV series. It gave players so many options and alternatives to go against their opponents without the risks of declaring open war: poison their water supply, scout out enemy troop strength, stir up a rebellion, steal their treasury, sabotage their wonder construction, etc. Why is this awesome feature removed completely?

Gawd I HATED espionage in BTS. HATED IT. Glad it's gone, and if it ever returns I seriously hope it's in a completely different form (or I have the ability to disable it).

No Civics

Civics was another extremely well-thought out feature that was added in CIV IV. Not only did it add flavors to each nation (Communism vs. Capitalism, Emancipation vs. Slavery, Universal Suffrage vs. Police State), it provides long term tactical options as well as short term flexibility to players to adapt their empires based on the current circumstance. Deciding and changing Civics was always a weighty decision because each one of them have their pros and cons. It makes each nation unique because rarely do two empires have the identical set of Civics.

In CIV 5 Civics are replaced by Social Policies, which is fundamentally a ladder of perks with bonuses that you can upgrade one at a time. It may still be strategic to decide on which branch of policies and perk to upgrade, but because of the fact that they are permanent and you cannot change them, they offer absolutely no tactical flexibility to players. All branches and perks add some kind of bonus to your empire with no negative side effects, so the decision of choosing which one to upgrade also becomes less significant.

SP's >>>>> Civics. If Civ4 had SP's and Civ5 had Civics, then I'd actually agree that something significant in Civ5 was dumbed-down. But since it's going the other way, the depth in terms of framing your cultural heritage and society has increased by a lot.

No Hamlets

Hamlets was an important tile improvement in CIV IV as the primary commerce provider. But its greatest strength is that over time it evolves into a cottage, a village and ultimately a town, encouraging players to build them early to reap the benefits.

In CIV 5 hamlet is replaced by "trading post" which has a MUCH uglier model and does not evolve.

At first I would have agreed. But after playing a few games of Civ5, (Trading Post graphics aside) I think that the way TP's work fits much better into the economic system of Civ5, and Cottages->Towns would have been overpowered. And I'm also happy to see the one-size-fits-all CE go bye bye too.

No World Wonder Movies

Now all we get is a still picture and some quotes that most people don't give a **** about.

Meh. I watch 'em once and then click through after that.

No End Game Cinematics

Players sit through 10 hours to beat the game and you can't even make a 10 second animation to reward and congratulate them?

Meh again.

No Commerce, Research and Culture Sliders

Commerce, Research and Culture used to be interlinked in building your empire. Any of these resources can be distributed freely using sliders to let players develop their nations in the exact way they want.

In CIV 5, commerce, research and culture are completely separate entities. And the only decision players can make is to decide how much of each resource to produce.

Again, like SP's, here's another place where Civ5 is the opposite of being dumbed-down. It's being "smarted-up", because you actually have to manage your economy, production, research, etc. You don't have the safety net of "oh I'm losing money, time to set the slider to 0!"

No Random Events

Random events provide small bonuses and surprises to your nation in the way of additional income, one additional food resource, increased culture, etc. Those bonuses are no way game-breaking, but they make you smile every now and then and make your empire feel like a real nation inhabited by living breathing people rather than some numbers and data on the screen.

Good riddance!

User Interface

Firaxis might have thought that they were very clever in making the UI much more streamlined and linear, but it is NOT! This type of UI may have been ideal for the console version of Civ because of the limitation of the controller, but for a PC CIV this kind of UI brings more inconvenience and frustrations than otherwise.

PC gamers want data and information easily accessible, laid out clearly right in front of them, instead of clicking through menus and menus before finding out what they want to know.

For the most part, I think Civ 5's UI blows away Civ 4's UI. There are a couple of (patchable) quirks, but it's much cleaner and efficient. People who say Civ5 isn't a deep game have not yet figured out the UI, because the vast majority of information and detail is there, it's just not on a cluttered screen.

City States

I really question the point of implementing City States. It may be fun to interact with them and build a good diplomatic relationship with them, but more often than not it's much easier, simpler and faster to just conquer them and take their resources than to waste gold buying their friendship.

The importance of City States as allies in war times is extremely limited too, considering that now military units cannot stack, and City States have such a small territory, their army size and strength naturally become very restricted.

I saw your post saying you'd look at CS's more closely, so let me say that I think CS's are brilliant! Play as Greece and complete the Patronage tree, and you'll see.

Framerate Problems

Even on Medium settings, and according to the requirements of the game my PC is more than enough to handle this game on High. It's painfully obvious that this game wasn't optimized.

I'm below the recommended specs, but am running the game on max-everything graphics with a smooth framerate. No crashes, either.

No Leader Personality Traits

It provides a historical and semi-realistic flavors to each leader. And although some traits provokes controversies and debates amongst historians for their accuracy, it's part of the fun too.

Leader traits == Civ Special Abilities. Which are unique this time, instead of a combo of 2 bonuses. Both systems are cool with me.

One Leader Per Nation

Is it really that much to ask for to have at least two leaders, even for a Vanilla pack?

So far. The UI still does have a spot for the Civ and a spot for the leader, so the door still seems to be open for multi-leader civs.

What CIV 5 managed to do right:

I agree with all of this.

Overall Conclusion: If you are a CIV IV fan, you will most likely hate this atrocity of a "sequel". Sequel, by definition, is supposed to improve on the original by fixing predecessor's flaws and enhance its strengths. But ironically CIV 5 has actually completely removed some of the strengths that made CIV IV so enjoyable, instead of building upon them and perfecting them. When counting the merits of the game from the aforementioned list, CIV 5's failings evidently outnumber its qualities by a staggering margin.

I LOVE Civ 4 BTS. In fact, it's my favorite game ever. But I think that before long I'll have to say Civ5 is better. I already think so, but it's still too early to say definitively.