Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[Drakarska]

I apologize as this post is not really a rant against Civilization 5.

I have noticed with deep regret that Paradox has decided to make EU4 a Steam exclusive. You can buy it from other vendors but you must use Steam. Very poor decision which makes it extremely unlikely to buy EU4.

So, in effect, Civilization 5 looks a little better in comparison.

Nutz. well, so much for an addition to my game librairy.

 

[ShuShu62]

I don't quite get what you are comparing. Rally points and path finding, which by the way neither are "unrealistic", both help the player control his troops with less - pointless - clicks. I'm sorry, but the "stupid transports", as you put it, were and are an essential part of any oversea attack in history of mankind, and the logistical efforts involved in building and using them had to be taken into consideration by any given power. This is an entirely different entity than in your comparison. The player is forced to give naval invasions more thought and consideration, just as in real life, since in real life leaders couldn't just throw their troops into the ocean and watch them swim towards their enemies.

As much as I am tempted to allow you and others to believe I struggle at prince and wish I could just press a button to win automatically...

I am not the one who is having trouble with boats magically appearing at a coastline but but not at having a bridge/boat magically appear when troops cross rivers (or do they just swim across the mouth of the Amazon?) or planes magically appearing at airports ( or are their arms just tired after flying in from New York?).

But have a boat magically appear at a coastline, and good grief, that like totally boggles the mind. Especially since the thought of having a rally point for invisible transport capabilities is a radically different concept than a rally point for visible land troops.

And while we are at it SunTsu... transporting troops is EASY compared to the need to transport food and munitions for them. Does that mean we should manually shuttle boatloads of food and weapons to each stack? That is actually an enjoyable focus of a civil war game I like, but line of supply has never really been appropriate for a grand strategy game like Civilization.

This is so clearly a 'CIV 4 didn't do it this way' rant that I almost feel guilty mentioning that change can actually a good thing in the rant thread. You know kind of like steam letting me buy the game for $5 rather than $50 might actually be a good thing too.

 

[jtravers88]

I hope that if there is another expansion, or in Civ VI, that the designers/developers can come up with some better ideas on how to increase difficulty, other than having the ai generate units without actually producing them. On Immortal level the military unit creation of the ai civs is nothing short of absurd.

It's fine that the ai civs have a head start, and production, science and culture percentage bonuses. But it is ridiculous that they generate dozens of units and still build improvements as well? Sure.

So as it stands, to play at this level, you have to spend 20 minutes setting up a game so that you have a map that is even defendable. You must have a map that lends to diplomacy for mere survival, or a mountain range or arch map. It's not fun.

If I can't play any starting position and have a chance of winning, then the design isn't correct. I just played a game where I had alot of resources but I knew that my position would mean constant attacks from 3 civs. Washington was producing so many units that I'm telling you it is just plain ridiculous. I'd be ashamed of myself if I came up with this as an excuse for increasing difficulty.

And I'm not looking for advice. I'm just ranting.

Moderator Action: Moved to the rant thread. Deleted the reference to "fanboys" because it is trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I read your post (#2382) twice, but couldn't find the rant in it. Is there one?

Is the following a rant?:

There's no need to buy Civ V. Panzer General has that same tactical feel, but then again it was a good tactical game. Civ V is some ugly morph of tactical and grand strategy game. It's as though two teams of designers worked on Civ V, but never talked to each other until five weeks before release when they merged the two designs together. Now, they can't rip out the bad design without essentially starting from stratch. That won't ever happen to Civ V. If we're lucky, they might start from scratch with a good design for Civ VI.

BTW, I don't believe one can get the whole Civ V game from Steam for just $5. That's their price for downloadable content, often just a new Civ.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[jtravers88]

I just started a new game on a 2 continent map. France, on turn 40, has 8 archers, 6 warriors and 2 workers.

At the very least, the ai civ should have to pay the upkeep. I don't believe with 2 new cities that the french can support all these units plus be making 5 gold per turn.

Can we at least get that. Build them fast, whatever, but make them pay for them.

 

[Funky]

This is so clearly a 'CIV 4 didn't do it this way' rant that I almost feel guilty mentioning that change can actually a good thing in the rant thread. You know kind of like steam letting me buy the game for $5 rather than $50 might actually be a good thing too.

Actually it's more "any Civ prior to Civ 5 didn't do it that way", and they didn't do it for good reasons. I get your point of abstraction being necessary on some levels. But being able to transport units in planes having built an airport (without building transport planes) or units being able to cross rivers in one turn (which lasts 20 or so years early game) are a very different level of abstraction than magically appearing transports. I'd be surprised if you can't see that; for me it just feels absurdly wrong.
Not only that, but also gameplay-wise it's an awful mechanic, which not only greatly simplifies and distorts naval-related play, but also breaks the distinguishment between land and water, which leads to all sorts of undesirable scenarios.

I mean, do you honestly like this feature?? Or is it more that you can accept it because otherwise you are satisfied with the game, and defend it as a reflex of defending the whole game? This is an honestly curious question.


In regard to Steam; I use it and have made use of bargains and the convenience it offers. So I'm the wrong person to address with your last remark. However, I can totally understand the people who view Steam a lot more critically to the point of refusing to use it. They have very good points, which you can read in the plenty of Steam threads, and which you shouldn't just wave away, even if you draw different conclusions than them. In my opinion it should at least be made optional if you want to use Steam or not.

 

[Thormodr]

I'm not aware of any way to make Civilization V work without Steam. You don't have to buy Civ V from Steam (you can get it from another vendor on-line or brick-and-mortar), but it requires Steam to run. Perhaps, you have a rant after all. Please correct me, if I'm wrong.

Sun Tzu Wu

Well, what I meant was that other game companies have now sunk to Firaxis'/2K's level and made Steam a requirement. So in effect, it makes Civilization 5 look a little better by comparison.

UPDATE: Apparently the expansion for Fallen Enchantress will require Steam as well. Stardock how could you? After all your talk about being the independent little guy. *Sigh*

 

[Aristos]

Let's vote on how many here will give "At the Gates" a chance...

Oh, and yes, Jon Shafer is my biggest Civ5 rant, so this belongs here... doubts? Just look at how much more playable the game became after the "genius" was invited to leave the company... not perfect by all means, but a huge leap forward since the demise of such "genius".

So, who will buy "At the Gates"...?

 

[Civking5]

No matter what people rant about Jon shafer's game design, I would give his game a chance. Not many strategy games out there in the market these days.

 

[smallfish]

No matter what people rant about Jon shafer's game design, I would give his game a chance. Not many strategy games out there in the market these days.

well there are, perhaps not much in the 4X genre, but there are.

And I will be keeping an eye out on dis with interest too

 

[Thormodr]

Let's vote on how many here will give "At the Gates" a chance...

Oh, and yes, Jon Shafer is my biggest Civ5 rant, so this belongs here... doubts? Just look at how much more playable the game became after the "genius" was invited to leave the company... not perfect by all means, but a huge leap forward since the demise of such "genius".

So, who will buy "At the Gates"...?

To be honest, Civilization 5's biggest problem was greedy 2K Games. They pushed that half baked loaf of bread out of the oven way too early, merely to mollify shareholders. Not that Jon Shafer doesn't share some of the blame but an extra year would have made the game much better.

Anyway, At the Gates looks not too bad. It represents a period of time that has not been well represented at all for TBS. If it is priced right and it doesn't have the Steam demandment, I'd buy it.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Civ5 should have never been turn-based.

Civ 5 should never have been Civ based. If John Shafer had such an itch to remake PG, then he should have approached the IP owners of PG, instead of trying to shoehorn the mechanics of that game into another game which was in all essentials incompatible with those mechanics.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

It isn't a gamer preference, but rather a shift in the market. There are still plenty of gamers who enjoy complex games, but money is in the mainstream. Much like how movies and music is dumbed down for the masses, gaming follows the same trend.

I don't even think it is a shift in the market. It is a(nother) failure of capitalism. Games companies want to sell cheaper and easier to make games to everybody for higher prices. In order to do that they have to dumb them down, make them less complex and less intense in the main coding areas (i.e. AI behaviours and game mechanics), thus making the games simpler and easier. And in order to sell at a higher price they tend to amalgamate into monopolies or oligopolies, with the side effect of making games simpler and easier through the stifling of creativity (bigger companies are universally less creative and open to new ideas).

Now there are some exceptions to this in the industry, but if you think of the truly innovative games companies over the last thirty years, the Microproses, the Square Softs, the Lionheads, the (original) Eidoses, they've all been bought out, swallowed up and had their games churned through mills until all uniqueness, inventiveness and true quality has been removed from them, and eventually closed down, because once the magic of creativity went, the big multiples didn't know what to do with them and killed them as unprofitable (for that read relatively profitable in reality) branches of their empires. And all we've left now is a bunch of vampire squids whose only purpose is to suck the money out of our pockets and leave a small deposit of faeces in its place.

 

[Matthew.]

I agree, although I think it is a combination of both. Look back 20 years and gaming was considered a "nerd" hobby--an off-shoot of D&D type of games. My intention is not to over-generalize, but you wouldn't find "gaming" in the "jock crowd" back in the day. Now, no one even bothers to question it odd if a bunch of jocks get together and play some multi-player CoD.

It ties in perfectly with capitalism: products that appeal to a larger target audience are going to result in bigger profits. Part of the dumbing down is trying to streamline the process, but part of is, too, that simpler systems are going to appeal to a larger portion of the population.

But yes, agreed on the capitalism doesn't mix well with art point.

 

[RD-BH]

re: Jon Shafer's "At the Gates"

 

[ShuShu62]

Actually it's more "any Civ prior to Civ 5 didn't do it that way", and they didn't do it for good reasons....

I mean, do you honestly like this feature?? Or is it more that you can accept it because otherwise you are satisfied with the game, and defend it as a reflex of defending the whole game? This is an honestly curious question.

....

Yes, I honestly do prefer auto..embarkation, always have. I disagree with your statement that this mechanic is new. But just as I am willing to think of the same invisible boats carrying the supplies for the troops can actually carry the troops themselves... I also think of 4x games as civ games, not just the 5 'Sid Meier' versions.

So MOO had auto-embarkation and I don't remember anyone complaining about it.
MOO II improved on that dynamic by forcing you to build transport capacity, but not actually load food/troops into that capacity.

MOM had auto-embarkation but since that was about Magic... we called auto-embarkation 'Flight' or 'Water-Walking'. And of course, I have already mentioned that in Civ units have always auto embarked into planes, just not boats.

No, the upset with autoembarkation has nothing to do with game mechanics of autoembarkation as a game mechanic. It has everything to do with some folks inability to accept the level of abstraction represented by autoembarkation.

Moderator Action: Last sentence deleted. Please make your points and not demean others or their arguments.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[ShuShu62]

I hope that if there is another expansion, or in Civ VI, that the designers/developers can come up with some better ideas on how to increase difficulty...

Back when Civ V first came out and I boycotted it because of the steam mandate (until steam sold it to me for $5 and my boycott ended), I went through a phase of going back and playing all of the golden oldies.

Some still really hold up (Alpha Centauri, MOO I, II), but they all are really striking in how much smarter the AI's have become in 20 years. Civ V definitely took a step backwards because 1 upt required a completely new AI for Civ, but even that Ai stacks up well against the old Panzer General Turtle-counter attack AI of old.

 

[Funky]

@ShuShu:

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I didn't play any of the games you mention so I can't really compare. I definitely belong to those folks you mention with the "inability to accept the level of abstraction represented by autoembarkation", though in my case "inablility" doesn't mean "not being able to", but rather "not wanting to".

I would be curious to know what further unnecessary abstractions you would be able to tolerate (or like?). I just suppose we are different gamer types. Having played some Civ 4 mods with a much more sophisticated and realistic slavery system for example, I find the abstraction of slavery in ummodded BtS quite unappealing. I guess I just prefer detail and subtlety in these kinds of games.

 

[Neomega]

MOM had auto-embarkation but since that was about Magic... we called auto-embarkation 'Flight' or 'Water-Walking'.

No. You had to cast those spells on units to give them those abilities. It was not an innate ability of all units. Furthermore, you had to research or have spellbooks in sorcery to cast flight and water walking.

So MOO had auto-embarkation and I don't remember anyone complaining about it.
MOO II improved on that dynamic by forcing you to build transport capacity, but not actually load food/troops into that capacity.

The MOO system was completely different. You are making weak comparisons.

 

[Jayman1000]

Having played some Civ 4 mods with a much more sophisticated and realistic slavery system for example, I find the abstraction of slavery in ummodded BtS quite unappealing. I guess I just prefer detail and subtlety in these kinds of games.

I just need to comment that this is the beauty of BtS compared to Civ V: BtS offers a vast modding potential, which Civ V will never come close to offer due mostly to the latters limitations, which all stems from 1UPT.

No matter what anyone says, it cannot remove the fact that BtS has so much more modding potential than Civ V.