[CIV 5 Issues] - The complete list

[Lord Parkin]

Balance issue:

I've given this a bit of time to think over while I've played the game to test it more, and I've come to the conclusion that unit-boosting buildings (such as Barracks, Armory, Stable, and Forge) are heavily overpriced and almost useless in all but the most select situations in Civ5. The whole point of having an option to build a Barracks/Stable/Forge (etc) in previous versions of the game was that it's supposed to be an investment that pays off in the long term. This worked fine in those versions of the game (Civ4 in particular), because the amount of units that you build per city in the game is enough to make the buildings eventually worthwhile in at least a handful of unit-producing cities.

However, the same concept doesn't work when you transfer it to Civ5, because the number of units you need to (or are able to) construct is far, far less. I've come to the conclusion that in the present state, it is actually NEVER worth building a Barracks/Armory/Stable/Forge almost all of the time in Civ5, except for perhaps occasionally in one single city towards the mid-late game. Those buildings just aren't worth their cost. Also, the problem is compounded by the fact that units rarely die in Civ5. This means that having a greater number of non-promoted units (rather than a smaller number of units with a promotion or two) is even more important.

For instance, would I rather build 3 Swordsmen in a city, or 2 Swordsmen and a Barracks? The 3 Swordsmen of course.

Would I rather build 5 Horsemen, or 3 Horsemen and a Barracks + Stable? Don't be silly.

Would I rather build 5 Knights in a city, or 4 Knights and a Forge? You're kidding, right.

I've noticed that many other buildings aren't worth their cost/maintenance either. Basically one of a few things needs to happen. Either:

1 - Reduce the cost of these buildings so that they're actually worth constructing some of the time (for instance, halve the cost of Barracks/Stable/Armory).

2 - Increase the benefits of these buildings so that they're worth constructing (for instance, the Forge should give a 30-50% boost on units, not a measly 15%).

3 - Increase the cost of units relative to buildings to achieve the same effect... this I would definitely not be in favour of, as units are already too expensive for the most part in my opinion.

4 - Increase the hammer output of all terrain. Seriously, it's pathetic at the moment in Civ5. I have to aim to get Golden Ages as often as possible just to compensate for the abysmal hammer output, and even then it isn't quite enough.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

 

[Haggbart]

Balance issue:

I've given this a bit of time to think over while I've played the game to test it more, and I've come to the conclusion that unit-boosting buildings (such as Barracks, Armory, Stable, and Forge) are heavily overpriced and almost useless in all but the most select situations in Civ5. The whole point of having an option to build a Barracks/Stable/Forge (etc) in previous versions of the game was that it's supposed to be an investment that pays off in the long term. This worked fine in those versions of the game (Civ4 in particular), because the amount of units that you build per city in the game is enough to make the buildings eventually worthwhile in at least a handful of unit-producing cities.

However, the same concept doesn't work when you transfer it to Civ5, because the number of units you need to (or are able to) construct is far, far less. I've come to the conclusion that in the present state, it is actually NEVER worth building a Barracks/Armory/Stable/Forge almost all of the time in Civ5, except for perhaps occasionally in one single city towards the mid-late game. Those buildings just aren't worth their cost.

For instance, would I rather build 3 Swordsmen in a city, or 2 Swordsmen and a Barracks? The 3 Swordsmen of course.

Would I rather build 5 Horsemen, or 3 Horsemen and a Barracks + Stable? Don't be silly.

Would I rather build 5 Knights in a city, or 4 Knights and a Forge? You're kidding, right.

I've noticed that many other buildings aren't worth their cost/maintenance either. Basically one of a few things needs to happen. Either:

1 - Reduce the cost of these buildings so that they're actually worth constructing some of the time (for instance, halve the cost of Barracks/Stable/Armory).

2 - Increase the benefits of these buildings so that they're worth constructing (for instance, the Forge should give a 30-50% boost on units, not a measly 15%).

3 - Increase the cost of units relative to buildings to achieve the same effect... this I would definitely not be in favour of, as units are already too expensive for the most part in my opinion.

4 - Increase the hammer output of all terrain. Seriously, it's pathetic at the moment in Civ5. I have to aim to get Golden Ages as often as possible just to compensate for the abysmal hammer output, and even then it isn't quite enough.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Yes! I agree with the buildings-units costs. And I also agree with the reason for this being the case (fewer units, less aggregate advantage).
But remember that increasing hammer output would not be of any use in the balance between units-buildings. I kinda like the expensive units, because you would be more careful planning a war, not just pumping units onto the enemy. For me I think I prefer just turning up the yield of certain buildings. Forges, granaries and water mills are just terrible at the moment. And stables which you will not even be using the entire game!

I think the reason they went with this is they didn't want any building to be a game breaking factor, so they've pretty much removed many %-modifiers and replaced with low fixed sums. And ignored the hammer cost vs benefit. The same goes with food buildings and to a (much smaller) degree culture buildings vs city states.

Another "problem" is that later in the game every happiness building is extremely expensive to balance the growth-happiness factor. So at some point wonders almost feel second rate buildings because happiness seems such an important element.
I think they might ought to introduce some late game happiness elements such as a tech or some new resources for happiness (like hit movies in Civ 4), making a viable option to those buildings. Which would perhaps also stop the larger map types from being mostly empty in the late game (they could also have more different amount of happiness resources the bigger the map).

Don't get me wrong, I like the happiness economy affecting the entire empire. But I do feel they could have made some more interesting choices out of it (more diverse choice of happiness inducing techs, social policies, resources and of course buildings).

 

[Boojumhunter]

Possibly a notification issue?

The game ends too abruptly. Attack the final capital and you don't even get to see it fall to your troops. The game just comes an abrupt ha....

 

[nascarfan999]

When moving multiple tiles into an area you cannot see, if you try to end up on a spot that is currently occupied by another unit, the game stops you short of entering that square, but still takes away the movement point as if you did move into the square.

 

[PieceOfMind]

When moving multiple tiles into an area you cannot see, if you try to end up on a spot that is currently occupied by another unit, the game stops you short of entering that square, but still takes away the movement point as if you did move into the square.

That would definitely be a bug, and should be reported as one, if not done already. Bug Reports: http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=390

 

[Lord Parkin]

Invisible River Issue:

Playing my latest game with Alexander on Deity. Noticed that there's apparently an invisible river next to my capital, flowing north-west to the coast. You can see that the tiles along the invisible river produce an extra +1 commerce, as well as stating that there is a river there when moused over. Additionally, moving units back and forth confirms that there is a movement penalty across this invisible river. So there's all the signs of a river being there, except it isn't displayed on the map.

Perhaps it's an issue with there being multiple other rivers nearby, so the game has got confused with how to display it? Not sure.

Will also repost this in the bugs forum.

 

[Steppel]

Hi everyone!
At first: Im no native english speaker, please ignore my bad language. Here are some points i want to add.

Gameplay:

Stealthbombers dont get promotions.

Razed cities burn very slowly or partially really grow. Especially if you have one or more maritime allies. You have to enter the city and put the citizens out of work manually. Sometimes i have a burning city with zero citizens but one worker!?
=> City States shouldnt affect burning cities and citizens shouldnt work there.

Longtime wars dont affect your civilization. You can guard the last city of an early enemy and use it as an "military academy" for about 2000 years.

Even if u use the checkbox "avoid growth" cities grow. You have to manage the workers manually...

Animations:

Cruisers and battleships fire sidewards, but in reality they dont have to turn around... Their weapon does.

Attacking a submarine with a bomber (stealth or the usual) causes a wrong animation: the bomber flies one circle around the sub and bombs for every point of damage it does. If you do five points damage, it flies five circles (additional to the long fly ).

That leads me to the following two points:
One shot per animation would be usefull i think. Bombers, canons, tanks or what ever dont have to fire multiple times for just one attack.

I miss an option just for fast aircraft animations (additional to the missing "fast animations").

 

[Ymir9]

I've run into infuriating issues where my trade deals don't seem to end properly. After 30 turns the cotton I sold bulk to Monty has apparently disappeared, and I assume the Aztecs are still getting it since I can't trade it in the diplomacy screen.
In another game a loan I took out from Askia led to never-ending payments; basically the 10 gold-per-turn in the deal didn't end long after the 30 turns had expired.
That and the way the numbers I enter into trade deals seem to like to change themselves and get truncated when I click "propose" often with disastrous consequences, makes the game almost unplayable for me.

 

[spoooq]

It might be nice if, when moving units by mouseclick to a distant hex, they halted when a new enemy was spotted. This would give you a chance to react. It would mean that there is no disadvantage to speedy clicking instead of inching forward, hex by hex.

 

[Hohenhol]

Hello people

As I am not so experienced with civ IV I really cant tell what has been taken out from the game,however as a gamer and as i played a lot of civ 3,i think that i can point out some issues.

first of all:technologies
usually i get from era to era without even getting the chance to use some units or benefits from the technologies i have researched to get to the era.There is a combination of low production from cities and really fast technology research.Dont tell me to build cities near hills as i always do even like this 26 turns for baracks 26 turns for armory 26 turns for a legionary takes you far out of your schedual,and even in marathon game length you get other issues,like spamming enter for 46 turns till a worker comes out to make the hills nearby more productive.I think it can be fixed,at least it should

I usually rant about Diplomacy:
Civ series has the amazing feature of diplomacy.In civ3 i loved how the AI at least was logical enough to make for a good opponent or ally.I remember that i would trade luxuries through trade routes and assist them in wars and civs could create a bond,ofc till the point were there are only your civ and theirs.Also if you obliterate a civ through war and you confine them in a small area leaving them to exist,with three towns,just for the sake of the game,i remember how you could get what you want from them through diplomacy(ofc you wouldnt just ask them their towns,but money or resources you could).I believe they had some A.I code that would make the enemy civ fear you or something depending on the units/cities lost i dont know.

Also social policies should have a diplomatic impact(although i get how difficult this is to do).I mean 2 civs that take the Communism policy,meaning they are communist countries,they are more likely to create alliances.The fascist would create their own coalitions and so on.You could have world war situations and more logical relations with the civs.In contrast early game social policies could cause bad relations due to the fact that yes 2 traditional civilizations could either go well OR go to war due to a DIFFERENCE in tradition.That difference could be represented by you know EASTERN civs or WESTERN civs having a bit different traditions.The same for HONOR social policies,2 honorable civilizations go to war because its all about honor.

These are just some ideas,i understand that i could be talking about a different game maybe civ 6,but what if this is possible or partially.Who knows.
Sorry for not having some practical issues i mean the only thing that i think has a practical impact on the game is the tech tree/production issue.I just want to get to play with the legionaries and ballistas for gods sake.Maybe a era limit feature,you know,era limit:medieval
Sorry for the giant post

 

[SMA333M]

1 thing I would like to see: how much maintenance do I pay for each unit ? My gold income went down badly when I made some more units, even though it says supply is 300+ (I'm in future age in a game) and I have less than 50 units.

And a question: what do you do when you have a Crossbowman with ranged attack promotions, then you upgrade it to Rifleman ? ... It's annoying to have Rifleman with ranged attack promotion.

An annoying thing about units: an AI player left a scout in my territory, on a tile. I wanted to build a road through that tile, and I had to wait several turns for AI unit to move. Btw, can you cancel Open Borders in Civ 5 ? Oo

Tech tree must be re-made in my opinion. Not everything, but industrial age / modern age. You get Fighter now and several turns later you can get Jet fighter... same for other units. Also being able to skip Rifleman and get Infantry directly is bad... also GDR without Robotics (!!!). P.S. about GDR: I still want an option to take it out of game if I want. It's a special unit, therefore I believe it should have such option. Also there should be one for nukes.

Classical age is too short... (I think Classical it is...).

Moving units can take ages and it's annoying. Why can't we move 10 units with 1 click, keeping their formation too... ? It's more annoying for naval units, when 1 unit can move only like 4 tiles, while other can move 7 but you want to move all at once.


"*Purchasing the same tile can cost differently for different cities that are close to each other." - I believe that's normal. Because a city can use culture to expand in a certain tile, while other will use it for another tile (I'm talking about the ones marked with pink). So tiles don't have same price for all cities. It's by culture.

It's strange when you explore with a warrior and it gets upgraded (after destroying barbarian camps) even to rifleman, even though you are still in ancient times.

And ofcourse, don't forget Diplomacy... I put Egypt back on map (after it was conquered by China), then I offered them Defense Pact because I didn't wanted to see China getting so big and powerful. They refused ! They had no units so after few turns, China declared war and conquered all the towns back... lol

 

[Venereus]

1 thing I would like to see: how much maintenance do I pay for each unit ? My gold income went down badly when I made some more units, even though it says supply is 300+ (I'm in future age in a game) and I have less than 50 units.

And a question: what do you do when you have a Crossbowman with ranged attack promotions, then you upgrade it to Rifleman ? ... It's annoying to have Rifleman with ranged attack promotion.

The supply is just a value that if surpased, you get a production penalty in your cities (25% I think it was). A red icon with an exclamation sign appears on your top bar that says that. I got it last night in a Deity game.

About that question, yes, the ranged promotions become a waste when you upgrade, is one of the known issues.

 

[rjg85]

I have already played Civ 5 for over 100 hours so clearly I enjoy it, but I too have come accross too many flaws for my liking that often sees me quitting games before their conclusion because they become ridiculous. Just to note that I play marathon game length, huge maps, and on either Prince difficulty or above.

1) Navies - The AI Civs simply never have one except for maybe one or two ships, and whenever I attack with my naval forces accross the ocean the AI do stupid things like embark their best land units into the sea for instant destruction by my ships.

2) Ancient Ruins - Because AI Civs never have a navy I can always exploit all the ancient ruins on island chains (Australasia on the Earth map). This eventually means I have one unit 'find advanced weaponary' time and time again until they become Riflemen in ridiculous years like 500BC. One Riflemen unit is adequate to conquer any city single-handedly at this point.

3) AI Knowledge - The AI Civs seem to have psychic knowledge of game events. I will explore new areas with my navy that no other AI Civ is even aware of, yet when I conquer City States in AI unexplored areas every AI Civ becomes angry at me for being a warmongerer. How do they know? They don't even know the place exists!

4) City State Requests - I often try to ally myself with the friendly City States as their requests are more reasonable. The annoying request however is when they ask you to connect their city to your capital by road and then station military untis in all tiles adjacent to their city so you physically can't build a road on any tile. This comes usually after I have just spent ages building a 10 tile long road right up to their cultural border.

5) Barabarians - Barbarian camps simply do not defend themselves. I can march an archer unit right up to a camp and commence a ranged attack until I eliminate them with absolutely no thought as to where I position my archer. Barbarian ships always approach my cities yet do nothing but sit there and get bombarded to destruction. (Interestingly this kept happening to one of my cities connected to my capital by road but when I built a harbour in that city the barbarian ships would 'blockade' my trade route despite the road still being there; building the harbour actually worsened the trade route income).

6) AI Exploitation - The AI Civs make stupid decisions when facing overwhelming odds of destruction. I noticed on my map that Ghandi was about to have his last city captured by the Romans. When I entered the diplomacy screen Ghandi was still willing to pay gold for my excess luxury resources. I took all of his gold in return for a few resources which I got back 3 turns later when his empire was inevitably eliminated. Idiotic.

7) Liberation - After conquering another city that previously belonged to an extinct AI Civ it gives you the option to liberate them. This should be a great way to gain an ally in your war and essentially treat them like a vassal state, but the first action they do is make peace with your enemies and then get angry with your war against their conquerers in diplomatic meetings. Because they offer no help at all I inevitably abandon them only for them to be re-conquered under 20 turns later. Pointless.

I still love Civ 5 overall but so many of my campaigns become abandoned when ridiculous things make the game a farce and the challenge dissapears.

 

[CreepyD]

I thought of one that isn't mentioned as far as I can see, it's only a small one.
'Play Now' on the main menu doesn't remember your previous games' settings.
It only does if you play a Modded game oddly.

This is a great thread.

 

[Black Rose]

I so agree with so much in this list. I had many points to complain about, but I see now that my list is narrowed down a bit. Anyway, here are my pointers (haven't read all the responses, only the list itself, so apologies if I repeat someone).

The bugs:
1.1: Menu and Game Options
* An intro movie that you cannot skip until after a long time. On the contrary to what some maight say, it takes a lot less time if you manually switch off the intro movie, it really sucks up a lot of resources.

1.4: Normal Map View
* Not correct tile improvement display when selecting worker actions, sometimes wrong yield. Especially the case if a forest is to be chopped down.

1.7: Messages & Notifications
* Repeating message of end of peace treaty every round, although in a variable amount.

2. AI & Unit behaviour
* City state settlers that don't move away from a civ's borders, they stand immobile for the rest of the game if they can't settle down at the exact spot.
* Too long wait after attack, especially when range-attacking land units with a ship.
* Enemy not using settlers well, standing inside territory rather than settling down somewhere nearby.
* Great General couldn't pass an enemy scout, even while moving on my own roads.
* Research agreement: Greece declared war with me two turns after entering a research agreement, a benefit that should come after 90 turns (I play at marathon speed), which instantly gave us the benefit of a free tech. Is the AI exploiting a bug in the game?
* Diplo-message from the french between turns, and then the russians, saying the same thing: "I've noticed your relationship with Augustus Ceasar. While that's nice, it would be best that you leave their protection to us." Right after, the french took back its guarantee to protect a city state I was allied with. Now, is this a spelling error, where my own leader name appears instead of the city state I'm allied with?

3. Graphics & Artwork
* Memory/graphic bug? - Barbarian spearman unit sign without unit, passed through without any incident, but the sign remained at low red health bar. It was next to a rival city I had Open Borders agreement with.
* Memory/graphic issue? - One of the cows on a coastal tile was actually standing in the sea.

4. Gameplay & Game Mechanics
* Ocean tiles trapped between ice and land is called "lake" without "fresh water"
* Skip the "a" in "[City] will produce A [wonder] in XX turns".
* Peace treaties should be longer than 10 turns at long game speeds (marathon).
* Spending all ship movement, and then gaining an upgrade or promotion that gives the ship +1 move, will not wake the ship unit so that you can spend 1 more movement the same turn.
* Must you declare that you protect a city state EVERY turn? It doesn't remain in effect, and you cannot withdraw the protection like you see other civs do as a "public declaration".
* Gifted a unit to a city state, but it never arrived. It was a 1000 gold Legion, so it annoyed me very much.


What I would like to be different:

1.1: Menu & Game options
* A button on the main menu for playing the intro movie, and disabling the intro movie at startup as default.

1.4: Normal map view
* Red warning circle around enemy units, so that you know who you are at war with at a glance.
* Minimap improvements: Zoom in/out on minimap (slider for this?), drag screen on minimap, overlay functions: terrain only, culture colours/borders (as normal), show/do not show terrain (desert, plains, grassland, mountains), units -friendly and unfriendly, resource dots, and cursor popup over territory to display civ's name.


1.5: City Screen
* population number of the city

2: AI & Unit behaviour
* Naval units should be able to clash in melee with each other. Not too fond of the ranged attacks either, maybe a basic range of 1 should be sufficient.
* Naval bonuses from wonders and civ qualities should apply also to embarked units.
* Ability to buy land from city states (at higher cost?), or through negotiations with that state.

4. Gameplay & Game mechanics
* Variable Barbarian encampment gold when sacking them, both more and less.
* Ruins should sometimes yield settlers (don't think they do as of now...), and more often gold and culture.

 

[JBConquests]

What seems to be missing is poor AI combat tactics concerning protecting ranged units.

For example, my last game I played, the AI advanced towards my Longswordsman to get within firing range with an archer. It barely scratched my Longswordsman but the next turn my longswordsman took 2 steps and took out the archer with little effort. What a waste of an archer!

 

[SMA333M]

I'd also like to see lower maintenance for units. I understand this is not Civ 4 and I actually like it with lower number of units... but I don't like it when I can only have make few units in future age, after my civilization is well developed. And I checked AI too.. they have same problem. All AI have -gold/turn because of their military.

I wanted like 40-50 units for future combat but I can hardly sustain 19 (including workers and 1 general !!!). I had 3 generals but only kept 1 because of huge maintenance. And when you think my entire civ focused on gold... that's bad. I should have a huge income. I have 10 cities and I want 1 unit for each as defense + like 10 ships for navy + like 10 airplanes + like 10+ ground units for invasions. Yes I like number 10 for Civ 5 ... maintaining that is just too expensive.

 

[Steppel]

Possibly a notification issue?

The game ends too abruptly. Attack the final capital and you don't even get to see it fall to your troops. The game just comes an abrupt ha....

Yes, that´s true! Same thing with science victory and the starting animation of the spaceship. One more turn before the endscreen would be nice.

 

[LegioCorvus]

4. Gameplay & Game Mechanics
* Ocean tiles trapped between ice and land is called "lake" without "fresh water"
* Skip the "a" in "[City] will produce A [wonder] in XX turns".
* Peace treaties should be longer than 10 turns at long game speeds (marathon).
* Spending all ship movement, and then gaining an upgrade or promotion that gives the ship +1 move, will not wake the ship unit so that you can spend 1 more movement the same turn.
* Must you declare that you protect a city state EVERY turn? It doesn't remain in effect, and you cannot withdraw the protection like you see other civs do as a "public declaration".
* Gifted a unit to a city state, but it never arrived. It was a 1000 gold Legion, so it annoyed me very much.

I just discovered the "must declare to protect a city state every turn" bug today.

I'm also getting sick of the AI's city placement, but I believe that's been mentioned.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388984

 

[ClasuSiosa]

So far i think the teching needs to be slown down by 25%+, and prodution - espesially units - needs a 25% or more increase. Maybe some sort of placeholder tech between era's to slow transition.
I also think that you are punished too much for expanding, i understand needing to slow down expansion early but, 33% culture per policy is too much!
Rapid expansion happens, and some of the nations that did so also had some of the most radicle changes/advances in government, to name a few: Rome, Macedonia, Mongolia, Russia, Napoleonic France, Imperial Britain, The USA, the Dutch, Prussia, Austria, Athens, Asseria, Babylon, Persia, Islam, Israel, etc.
Maintenence i wouldnt mind, but so much culture penulty? Also it shouldnt create so much to annex cities and razing cities shouldnt have a HUGE diplo cost, i dont mind some.

With the return of building maintenence you should be able to sell buildings.
Workers should activate in the presence of an enemy.
Would like the start-up video to be "skipable".

I have found that some of the change requests are already included, namely units activating at the end of an auto move (after you press "end turn"), and some of the map interface settings.