Civil Discussion: How do you feel about Civilization V?

[Ex.plode]

I'm interested in seeing other peoples views regarding this game, personally I really like it and prefer it over Civ IV. I've been playing since Civ II so I am not a total noob, just wondering if we can have a civil conversation about why you like or dislike Civ V.


Please post in a constructive way, try to be as specific as you can and try not to make points without both evidence and explanation.



Why do I like Civ V?

The 1UPT idea, along with Hexes provided a very refreshing change to the franchise. Strategy matters, it isn't about who has the larger SOD anymore. The thing I do miss is the religion system (which appears to be coming back with gods & kings) and the option for espionage and subterfuge (which also appears to be making a comeback with gods & kings). I think the leader options aren't as strong as Civ IV's, I loved the idea of having multiple leaders with different abilities under the same civilization. I also really like the social policies, but I think some work needs to be done regarding when you can unlock certain branches, and possibly integrate the system that Civ IV had of being able to set your (edicts, rules? I can't remember)

That's all I really have to say right now, I'll see what else I can add in the morning.

Please take into consideration the civil aspect of this thread, I really don't want it to be closed due to disputes over which game is 'better'.

 

[omnishakira]

Everything in that game is awesome except the AI

would be my fav game if the AI was decent

 

[Haig]

I think the leaders' unique abilities + social policies give variety and flavor to the Civs, I like Social policies more than the previous traits (commercial, spiritual etc.). The different Civs are just done in an interesting way.

The combat system creates some truely epic and interesting battles and invasions, too bad AI has problems with it, but sometimes they do pretty well too. No more stacks, love it.

City-states are a gool way to wage war thru your small dominion in a far away land and spices up the games, still I'm thankful that expansion gives more diversity to dealing with them.

Limited resources is another feature that's a small change but makes a huge strategical difference in Civ V. After it previous Civs' resources feel a bit funky..

I love it how it takes more time to build the buildings, so you cant just have all the buildings in all cities, makes customizing towns more interesting. Of course if you create an industrial power city it's easier in the late game.

I think the in-game mod browser is brilliant, and I love the modders and their hard work. Almost feel sad for them because expansion means they need to redo their work..

The biggest negative for me has been irrational diplomacy and lack of some features I started to miss after hundreds of game hours, glad the game is bringing new stuff this spring.

I'm also proud of the developers, the patchings always show that they listen to fans' needs and ideas, and they want to improve the game more and more for us and them (they play Civ hell of a lot too I bet).

The Expansion so far looks amazing and done with love, they have lifted some stuff from peoples wishes and discussions, and some are new fresh ideas. One thing is sure, they haven't been slacking off in their fancy office sipping lattes. Instead I bet they work the game in a hellish North Korea -style pit.

 

[codekiddy]

As soon as Goods&Kings comes out this game will be namba ONE!

Religions in conbination with social policies and all that stuff will be awesome.

I think we agree, The past is over

 

[jjkrause84]

I recently tried Civ 5 again after a long break. I realized that every single complaint I have about the game really comes back to just one thing: global happiness. Because of the unrealism of global happiness:

- You can't really found cities in areas with cows, deer, grain, and coastline with a river.....if there are no happy resources.

- Food resources are often the last thing you will connect within a city, as luxuries are more important. This is the complete opposite line of action civs should be taking.

- It's not worth holding on to enemy cities that don't give you happy resources

- People, once angered, stay mad forever. This is just silly. The only way to lose unhappiness from captured cities is to build a courthouse, or to build a circus in a city on the other side of the globe.

- Unhappiness caused by city A can be alleviated by building happy buildings in a totally different city. Maybe they like to go there on vacation to take advantage of the new coliseum?

- You get punished for doing well. A really quick, sharp war of conquest can leave you crippled with global unhappiness, despite the fact that your people would actually be pretty pleased with themselves!


Global happiness is truly a game-breaking design choice, in my mind. It breaks the 'game' but it also breaks the feeling of leading a civilization, since you have to consistently make ahistorical choices to do well. To be honest, I'm still not convinced by 1UPT, but I can live with it. I still think it would be best if you were slowly allowed to stack. Maybe let each age allow you to stack one more? So, start 1UPT, then in the classical age you get 2UPT, etc. This would help the mid to late game feel "grander". You just don't feel like you're fighting a massive, industrial war with 4 tanks, 3 infantry and 5 artillery.

 

[spider1]

I like Civ V because it's an interesting and fun game to play. I don't care if it's not realistic or the fact that things happen in contrast with real history or the real world. It's a game, that's all it is, and that's all it will ever be. If this game pleases me (and it does) then I will spend time with it. If not, I won't. This is a very simple thing for me.

I'm in my 60s now, and don't have tolerance for things I don't like or bore me. Civ V is simply nothing more than a fun game to play to me and that's all I need. Doesn't mean it's perfect, which it most certainly is NOT, but over all I can spend hours on V and feel the fun I've had has been well worth it.

As to the happiness factor jjkrause84 mentioned, sometimes you just have to curtail the size and number of your cities until happiness is under control and you can expand. Part of the life of playing any civilization game through out it's various incarnations is micro management of the cities. If someone hates micro-management, I can't understand why they would play this game anyway.

 

[nokmirt]

As soon as Goods&Kings comes out this game will be namba ONE!

Religions in conbination with social policies and all that stuff will be awesome.

I think we agree, The past is over

I am all for this yes sir! I just started playing again last night. Right now it is a lot of fun. Until the whole world gangs up on me again and it will. So I cannot wait for G&K and better diplomacy and AI, which are sorely needed.

 

[jjkrause84]

As to the happiness factor jjkrause84 mentioned, sometimes you just have to curtail the size and number of your cities until happiness is under control and you can expand. Part of the life of playing any civilization game through out it's various incarnations is micro management of the cities. If someone hates micro-management, I can't understand why they would play this game anyway.

Who said I didn't like micro-management? The thing I said I didn't like is tying the entire game to one single, over-riding, ahistorical mechanism. How many cultures in history cared if their people were 'happy'? It should be a consideration, but it shouldn't be the central consideration. This is especially true as there is quite a low hard-cap on happiness.....you can hit the happy wall.

At the happy wall there is nothing you can do to generate more happiness. At this point, you're stuck. You're stuck until you can travel to other continents or research new happy buildings. There is no way for happiness to increase or decrease based on things that happen outside of building new buildings or getting new resources. No war-weariness, no people clamouring because they're realizing that you're kind of a dictator, no populations resigning themselves to fate and becoming less-unhappy about being part of your empire over time, in a natural way. These are very serious oversights.

There are a great many ways to curtail wanton player growth, happiness was simply a very poor choice, in my opinion.

 

[VikingHaag]

=
- You can't really found cities in areas with cows, deer, grain, and coastline with a river.....if there are no happy resources.

I can and i do, a big industrial city with ho happyness resources!
Guess what you need to do? Just squeeze a city on a useless island with some luxuries you don't have, set to avoid growth once it pays for itself, set to produce wealth, and it's done. And such a small city can serve as a forward air base in case of war.

 

[spider1]

At the happy wall there is nothing you can do to generate more happiness. At this point, you're stuck. You're stuck until you can travel to other continents or research new happy buildings. There is no way for happiness to increase or decrease based on things that happen outside of building new buildings or getting new resources. No war-weariness, no people clamouring because they're realizing that you're kind of a dictator, no populations resigning themselves to fate and becoming less-unhappy about being part of your empire over time, in a natural way. These are very serious oversights.

Over all, I completely agree with what you said. It can be a real pain at the higher levels of game play. As to the sentance I bolded, I just consider it a part of the game. A part I wish they would redesign, but it's just something I deal with.

I don't play at levels higher than King for a reason. At that point it becomes more of a chore than something fun. I can win at those levels, I've done it just to prove to my self I can, but I won't go back there. If the game is past being fun, I'm not playing it.

 

[Mivo]

As soon as Goods&Kings comes out this game will be namba ONE! Religions in conbination with social policies and all that stuff will be awesome.

In my view, it all depends on the AI changes. While there have been improvements since the game's release, the AI is still struggling with and tripping over some of the core game mechanics (1UPT, diplomacy, grand strategical level). Adding more layers of complexity, such as religion and espionage, may further amplify the trouble rather than solve it.

If significant work has been done on the AI (combat and diplomacy AI in particular), then yes, Civ5 may well become a highlight of the series. Personally, I'd also be fine with further improvements to the multiplayer mode (much has been done here since release), as AI concerns don't matter if you play with and against other humans, but Civ players traditionally have a strong single-player preference (well, the length of a game admittedly doesn't make it very suitable for multiplayer -- it's why I really only with very few people that I have known for years, rather than just hopping into random games).

As for how people feel about Civ5, well, that has been discussed for a year and a half, and the ranting thread contains numerous opinions on the pros and cons.

I manage to have fun with Civ5, and I think the effort shown through patches does make a difference, and I look forward to the expansion. Ed Beach looks like a promising new lead designer as he actually has expertise and job/life experience, which may produce much better results. Having great ideas is one thing, having the practical experience to judge whether (and how) they can (be made) work is another. With Ed, I feel confident that he meets both criteria.

The AI in previous games wasn't much better, by the way, but the game mechanics were more AI-friendly, so it seemed better (and I guess that this is all that matters, regardless of what the AI is doing under the hood: if it provides fun and entertaining games, it's good). I do like 1UPT better than the SoD approach, though I'm missing some tweaks and "ergonomic" improvements (feels a bit cumbersome at times), and it is a real challenge for an AI programmer. The previous designer attributed less importance to the AI (or seemed to, based on some statements), which always puzzled me, so I hope it receives a higher priority. (But it's a very difficult task -- there are not many complex strategy games that feature impressive AIs.)

I liked and disliked aspects of every Civ game, so I don't even know which I would pick as my favourite, and I don't know if it even matters to try and figure it out for myself. As long as the games continue to have some of the core features that I genuinely love about the series (such as random maps with customizable parameters, tons of different, upgradeable units, and the whole "toy train" feeling), I'm very likely to buy whatever they throw at me, and I'll always find ways to enjoy the game.

 

[qec]

I love Civ5. If I could marry it I totally would. I played Civ4 for a couple years or so, but never got huge into it, same with CivRev and Colonization (newer Version). I have nearly 900 friggin hours logged in Civ5 and that's the only game I've ever played that much of, with Civ4 coming in second at about half that.

I really liked the other 2 Civ games I've played, but I think what makes the biggest difference for me is the 1UpT. I could never really play effectively with stacks, maybe I just never got into enough or tried hard enough, but I always struggled to keep up with the A.I and also attack properly with stacks. I played a lot of board games when I was younger and I don't know if that has something to do with loving the 1Upt so much or not. I don't think I'd want to go back to stacks after playing 1UpT. I picked up Shogun 2 over the holidays and was more into it for the strategy than the real-time battles, but after playing Civ5 since release I couldn't get back into the stacks, even limited stacks like shogun has, so I never even beat 1 game of it other than the tutorial.

Anyway, I'm super happy now that they have announced the expansion. I got to admit, I was getting a little worried they may have moved on from Civ5.

 

[WilliamKendall]

My experience with CIV5 is limited to only a few hundred hours so far, but I've enjoyed all of the older CIV games. CIV5 finally got a more sophisticated combat system, similar to Panzer General II, which I remember reading contributed to the design of this CIV remake. This change makes it one of the best CIV experiences ever, perhaps the best. The leader animations are incredible, though I often miss the simplicity of the original CIV leaders and their cute songs.

My biggest two frustrations with the game are really only minor complaints. (1) Trading resource for resource with AI players often yields trade results that require me to drop 3-5 items for their 1. I can't explain how much this frustrates me and makes the game feel fake. (2) The game startup video and load times kill valuable minutes of life, even when I click through screens. This does discourage play from time to time, as I may only have a half hour to engage in the evenings.

I recently enjoyed playing CIV5 as England on the maps with a "New World" to explore and settle. The British naval advantages make these maps quite exciting once the caravel appears in my arsenal. I have only limited or no experience with the other CIV5 civilizations; my first game was to conquer the world as Egypt on an easy setting.

 

[Ex.plode]

I'm actually surprised there has been so many positive replies, I am used to seeing people bash this game into oblivion xD.

The AI is a problem in almost every game though, remember the rampaging AI in civ 3? Just running through your borders, if you tell them to leave you get warred :|


I really hope the G&K DLC isn't mad expensive, but then again it seems worth it.

 

[nokmirt]

I'm actually surprised there has been so many positive replies, I am used to seeing people bash this game into oblivion xD.

The AI is a problem in almost every game though, remember the rampaging AI in civ 3? Just running through your borders, if you tell them to leave you get warred :|


I really hope the G&K DLC isn't mad expensive, but then again it seems worth it.

I feel it should be about $30 dollars US.

I bash the AI, but I do not want a perfect unbeatable AI. Just one that you know, does not do such stupid things. If they organize the combat system to help the AI to fight better and move its troops in a better way. Hey, thats fine by me. I'd be more than satisfied. In the meantime I'll have fun bashing or being bashed by the current AI. I play domination for the most part so I am regularly at war with most of the world in no time. I'll never learn to play nice. Sorry about that, but can't help it!

I have been playing Empire Total War (But even worse in ETW there are loopholes for the human player to win and take cities unlike in CiV, its known as carcass shot, and the AI does not defend against it, it simply gets blown to bits if stuck in a fort.) and the AI is pretty bad as well. So yes, its not just a civ problem. This is present in all strategy games. All developers can do is try to find ways to improve upon it.

 

[WilliamKendall]

I play domination for the most part so I am regularly at war with most of the world in no time. I'll never learn to play nice. Sorry about that, but can't help it!

It does seem to be fairly difficult to remain at peace when your military continues to grow and your units transition through a fancy tech upgrade. I think my divisions start itching for a fight and somehow manage to start a conflict all on their own. And of course, there is always that annoying neighbor who needlessly threatens you one too many times or fusses about the nearness of a recent city you just built.

 

[Mivo]

I have been playing Empire Total War (But even worse in ETW there are loopholes for the human player to win and take cities unlike in CiV, its known as carcass shot, and the AI does not defend against it, it simply gets blown to bits if stuck in a fort.) and the AI is pretty bad as well.

Shogun 2 features a much better AI than Empire, and if you haven't played it yet, it's actually worth a try (maybe wait until after the expansion for a good deal). It's not perfect either, but it does fairly well without getting ridiculous bonuses or behaving irrationally. It's probably by far the best TW game ever (AI-wise anyway).

GalCiv2 had the best AI in any strategy game I have played, and it actually scaled well too. It wasn't just a matter of bonuses and advantages, but it played smarter on higher difficulty settings and would taunt you at lower levels that if you had not throttled it, it would have beaten you. There's also AI War, which has an impressive AI (today on sale on Steam, just three Euro or so). Some games, like the Kohan series, don't have the best AI, but manage to provide a challenge without any "in your face" type of cheating at least up to intermediate levels.

But anyway, this is slightly OT, sorry about that! I do agree that Civ5 could improve the most by AI changes, and happily, I think that is precisely what we'll see in G&K! Very excited about it, too.

 

[WilliamKendall]

I'm actually surprised there has been so many positive replies, I am used to seeing people bash this game into oblivion xD. The AI is a problem in almost every game though, remember the rampaging AI in civ 3? Just running through your borders, if you tell them to leave you get warred...

CIV5 is an impressive game however you try to spin the long line of problems and annoying bugs. When it comes to turn based strategy, there are few games that even approach the quality, depth, and balance of the Civilization series. I'd be surprised to find a list of the all-time best PC strategy games that did not include a recent CIV title.

Yes, the AI has always done crazy things. I fondly recall lifting fog of war in either CIV or CIV2 and being surprised to see AI-run triremes traversing the open seas without worry of sinking.

 

[Brichals]

I prefer it over Civ4 but the new expansion features make me realise there are some things missing. UN victory is crap, some of the UI is annoying, slight lack of features. It's very absorbing and balanced and I love the art and music. I played Civ3 a lot, probably was harder addicted to that. But it's old now. I played Civs1 and 2 when I was young and so can't remember them that much.

 

[Ex.plode]

I feel it should be about $30 dollars US.

I bash the AI, but I do not want a perfect unbeatable AI. Just one that you know, does not do such stupid things. If they organize the combat system to help the AI to fight better and move its troops in a better way. Hey, thats fine by me. I'd be more than satisfied. In the meantime I'll have fun bashing or being bashed by the current AI. I play domination for the most part so I am regularly at war with most of the world in no time. I'll never learn to play nice. Sorry about that, but can't help it!

I have been playing Empire Total War (But even worse in ETW there are loopholes for the human player to win and take cities unlike in CiV, its known as carcass shot, and the AI does not defend against it, it simply gets blown to bits if stuck in a fort.) and the AI is pretty bad as well. So yes, its not just a civ problem. This is present in all strategy games. All developers can do is try to find ways to improve upon it.

I am super aggressive as well . That being said I wish there was some sort of way to win with a couple allies (or just 1) without having to kill them off as well