Final Verdict: We want our stack back and other great cIV features!

[the_lor]

I would like to see a few features from 4 brought back into 5, but I can’t support many of those statements.

1. The stacks were an abomination that made war entirely uninteresting.
2. I disagree on principle, and it wouldn’t work with 1upt, which I happen to like.
3. I disagree here as well. I thought that was a fairly shallow way to manage your empire. The current way requires a lot more long range planning and decision making to manage your economy, science, etc.
4. I more or less agree here. It makes little sense to me that conquering a city on another continent can make my capital unhappy.
5. This isn’t a new feature.
6. I would like some form of religion reintroduced. It was done horribly in 4, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done well. In Civ 4 it was auto-alliance or auto-hate, and it eventually became a pointless tech rush to found religions and get the GP buildings.
7. I honestly don’t care about graphics.
8. I vastly prefer hexes. Movement is a lot more fair/even now.

 

[JP1]

All of the changes listed in the poll are prefectly fine to me. The only issue I have with Civ5 other than obviously unintentional bugs and balance issues is the diplomacy. You make trades, beg, and make demands, and other than that, you essentially have a button which says, "Would you like do be more unfriendly with this guy over here?" and one which says, "Would you like to be more friendly with me?" Feels very ham-handed.

 

[CandleJack]

Civ 5 just needs some patches.

 

[jtwood]

How is it good to title a poll thread "Final Verdict we want our stack back.."?

How can you have a "Final Verdict" when you are opening a poll? It wasn't designed well, as a key option "Civ 5 is fine as it" wasn't added till page 5 by a mod.

And even then, that added option (as of this post) is doing better than all the other options except for "religion" and "local happiness". Hardly a final verdict, and it dosn't stack up.

It gets people's attention.

I'd venture a guess that he works in marketing or is the editor of a newspaper/magazine/blog, where headlines often sensationalize the drab content within.

 

[JP1]

All of the changes listed in the poll are prefectly fine to me. In fact, a vast majority of the changes in the poll make me very happy. (Hexes are great, one unit per tile is great, religion really boiled down to a very forced, unnatural way to push conflict which only worked because the AI enforced it, and so on.)

The only issue I have with Civ5 other than obviously unintentional bugs and balance issues is the diplomacy. You make trades, beg, and make demands, and other than that, you essentially have a button which says, "Would you like to be more unfriendly with this guy over here?" and one which says, "Would you like to be more friendly with me?" Feels very ham-handed.

 

[Mrdarklight]

Folks, this post has encouraged me to come forward and air my complaints too. Specifically, I think we need to change some of these things:

1. Why such high resolution? Civ 1 had very low resolution and was still fun.
2. Why such rich colors and smooth graphics? I prefer the blocky, low-color graphics of the original Civilization.
3. Whats with all the talking and music? In the classic days of gaming we just had beeps, and we were darn happy to hear those beeps too.

 

[jtwood]

Folks, this post has encouraged me to come forward and air my complaints too. Specifically, I think we need to change some of these things:

1. Why such high resolution? Civ 1 had very low resolution and was still fun.
2. Why such rich colors and smooth graphics? I prefer the blocky, low-color graphics of the original Civilization.
3. Whats with all the talking and music? In the classic days of gaming we just had beeps, and we were darn happy to hear those beeps too.

I know you're being snarky, but I would seriously rather play a game with a functioning backbone and poor graphics than the opposite.

If I had to choose.

 

[damahala]

I think limited stack should be a better idea then no stack at all. What I mean is the number of the unit one tile can hold should depend on its capacity. For example, the plains should be able to hold more units than mountain. That way, it doesn't actually defeat the original purpose of removing the giant huge monster stack, and also add more strategy factor back to the game.

 

[Hacksaaw]

Graphics could still be exceptional without going the 3d route, which was not necessary for Civ IV or V. The way graphics was implemented, rendered massively unnecessary loads upon the system.

im just amazed at the people who love 1 unit per hex. its utterly idiotic for anything before the modern era. where you can think of the units as whole armies covering fronts of many miles, were as any unit before that covers about 100 yards at most with a range of 100 yards at most.

Your whole army fits into one hex. if they wanted to give a tactical feel, they could have made battle boards an option for when armies fought.

If the stack of doom was so horrific, then perhaps some sort of supply limit could have been placed upon the units, especially as the game gets towards the modern era where limits on stacking and forcing armies to spread out makes some sort of sense.

 

[timtofly]

Folks, this post has encouraged me to come forward and air my complaints too. Specifically, I think we need to change some of these things:

1. Why such high resolution? Civ 1 had very low resolution and was still fun.
2. Why such rich colors and smooth graphics? I prefer the blocky, low-color graphics of the original Civilization.
3. Whats with all the talking and music? In the classic days of gaming we just had beeps, and we were darn happy to hear those beeps too.

You can change all of the graphic settings to low and swap out the sound files for those with beeps.

This thread would probably get wanted results if it was moved to the Civ4 forum.

About the AI. It is in it's infancy. In creating an AI that is more human thinking, it is going to take awhile. If any thing it needs to have a learning curve and every time you play the game, it plays differently to match your game strategy. If the developers did not allow for this, then I would call them dumb, not the AI.

This itteration has great potential, just give it time.

 

[Blitz66]

I've had my share of disappointments with Civ 5, but the OP does not speak for me.

I've been a Sid fan since Microprose too btw.

 

[timtofly]

Graphics could still be exceptional without going the 3d route, which was not necessary for Civ IV or V. The way graphics was implemented, rendered massively unnecessary loads upon the system.

im just amazed at the people who love 1 unit per hex. its utterly idiotic for anything before the modern era. where you can think of the units as whole armies covering fronts of many miles, were as any unit before that covers about 100 yards at most with a range of 100 yards at most.

Your whole army fits into one hex. if they wanted to give a tactical feel, they could have made battle boards an option for when armies fought.

If the stack of doom was so horrific, then perhaps some sort of supply limit could have been placed upon the units, especially as the game gets towards the modern era where limits on stacking and forcing armies to spread out makes some sort of sense.

If I understand you correcly, you want a supply cap to limit the amount of units? That is what they did in 5. They capped the limit.

If it is the graphics of what an army looks like on a map, 5 did that also. If your army fights or gets attacked, you have fewer "representatives". If you keep going without waiting for "re-inforcments" you may end up with only one soldier left. The only thing different is you do not have "wait" for a new unit to be created to join up with the existing one. The reality is there, just not the spamming.

 

[tpg0007]

Seems OP should just play IV then...what's the problem?

 

[WeneedmoreCivs]

Like most people here, I have been an avid Civ player since Civ I, and I have to say Civ V is such an abomination compared to cIV BtS expansions, not to mention the worst of the series by far.

Actually, the polls show otherwise, most people really like Civ V, it's just that the whiners and complainers are more vocal than those of us who actually like this version.

I believe I can speak for the majority of the Civ players here regarding features that absolutely must be brought back to Civ V, hopefully in future patches or expansions. These features are so essential to the whole Civ experience that I am not sure why Firaxis removed them in this generation.

Says who? Who made you the authority on the Civ Community?

1. We want our stack back: 1UPT makes moving units around so tedious and it's hard to get into formations in battle.

Really? I find combat to be easier now, it takes a good strategy to take down a city instead of a stack of 20 swordsmen to face off against their stack of longbowmen with +75% city defense.

2. We want the old strategic resource system back: who came up with the idea that one iron mine can only generate one swordman? If I have an iron mine, I should be able to put it to use and build as many iron units as I want.

??? One iron mine can provide iron for as many as 12 units (if you use Russia), doesn't it seem MORE realistic to have limited resources rather than these magical spots that can provide a source of Iron for 4000 years?

3. We want our slider back: the ability to shift the macro focus of your empire to either wealth/science/happiness is more dynamic than the current system.

Everything is based on production now, which makes more sense. Science comes from population and improvements, not from taxes. Simply by changing my production focus in my cities I can shift from an empire that promotes happiness, science, commerce, production or growth quite easily.

4. We want local happiness back: CiV's global happiness system makes the game MUCH shallower, it's like playing a game for 10-year-olds.

Really? I think Global happiness makes more sense. An individual city can have negative happiness and still be upset, but now the happiness actually plays a role in your civilization, providing golden ages in a way that is more than just "use great person to start golden age" and "build Taj Majal to enter golden age".

5. No more purchasing units/buildings plz: it makes no sense to buy a building and it's suddenly there the next turn. Firaxis please remove this feature. Realistically, gold should haste the production process, but not producing things out of thin air.

HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED CIVILIZATION BEFORE? This happens in every version of the game.

Wow. You could even buy WONDERS in previous games. Clearly you're not very experienced at playing Civ.

6. We want religion back: religion is what makes cIV a much deeper game than all others in the series, including ciV. Why did they remove religion?

Religion was okay, but it was not really that realistic. I simply played every game in a race to found as many religions as possible to build their super building that would generate TONS of gold for me. Tell me, is Mecca an economic powerhouse? How about the Dai Miao? Has that made its region crazy rich? Clearly not, but that was generally the main point of religion. That and the religious wars.

7. Bring back the graphics of cIV: as many players have noted since the game's release, ciV's graphics is absolutely terrible. Rivers and trading posts are just plain ugly. It's just about on par with Civ III if you ask me.

The graphics are basically the same as Civ IV, not exactly terrible.

8. We want the old map grid back: sure, hexes are interesting at first glance and seems to make the game look complicated (reminds me of a boardgame), but after several games they begin to get on our nerves.

Again, "it's too hard for me!" Waaa! I really don't see much of a difference between hexes and squares and it doesn't make it any more difficult.

Firaxis, please pay more attention to what we the core Civ players really want. Until these problems have been fixed, I'll stick to my cIV.

They did. Core CIV players wanted modability and a game that could stack mods without becoming unstable. If you want stacks back, there's a mod for that. If you want religions, there's gonna be a mod for that. If you want unlimited resources, there's a mod for that. Stop whining and complaining, especially when some of your complaints show a MASSIVE amount of ignorance. Just play Civ IV or V and stop whining about it on these boards which are meant for constructive discussion.

 

[cembandit]

Poll is a fallacy.

//Edit

Much better poll now, sorry.

 

[Gath]

I think local happiness was functional better and more fun.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I think local happiness was functional better and more fun.

I think other issues with the game have prevented most players from giving global happiness a fair shake.

 

[badbonez]

I voted something else, but it doesn't have to be an import from cIV. What I miss is espionage, there must be a way to figure out what your opponent is building in his cities or what direction his strategy is.

I also miss:
The animations when a wonder was completed
The animation after achieving a victory
The ability to resign
More map choices
...probably a few other things I can't recall off the top of my head.

But as you can see, these are minor things and will probably get patched in. Just remember what cIV was like BEFORE BTS. BTS was a great addition to the game, I expect they'll do similar things to ciV.

 

[ZenithSD]

1. 1upt is fine. Ranged combat is not, it looks out of place and unless you view the game as skirmishes between groups of villages it makes no sense. What the hell they were thinking when they said "Hey...lets make archers having longer range than tanks"

2. Strategic resources are also fine. It's happiness and bonus resources that i feel were badly implemented. It makes perfect sense that with a single resource of oil you should be able to sustain a smaller army than an empire who has three.

3. I have to agree that the slider did provide depth to Civ4. However the old system was not that great either, as science was basically the only way to go unless you were late in the game and went for a cultural victory.

4. Global happiness looks fine. The old system was about the same anyway. Plus turning extra happiness into golden ages is a great improvement and it also makes sense.

5. I totally agree about buying stuff with gold. It's crap. Total crap. A neat idea i can think of is to bring back the old slider, and have science, culture and production as options. A slider for each city would be even better. That would leave maintenance, unit upgrades and diplomacy as the main uses of wealth.
Not only the way this works currently ingame is unrealistic, but it's also frustrating. Say you want to buy a worker. It doesn't matter if you got one in queue half completed. It still costs the same. It doesn't matter if you got the public policy to increase production of workers by 25%. It still costs the same. If they really wanted this system at least make it work like Universal Suffrage civic in Civ4.
The same thing can be said about buying tiles. It has "lazy" and "dumb" written all over it. Expanding tile by tile is a good change, however instead of being able to buy the tile, you should be able to chose the tile or tiles you want to focus your culture on. Each tile should have simple modifiers to the culture required to get it, based on the type of terrain, it's features and natural barriers.

6. Religion. It was far from perfect in civ4, but removing it from a game that's trying to simulate an alternate history of human civilization is just shallow. On the other hand, the bonuses for founding or even having a religion were far too great in the previous civ, especially the religious shrine. The huge economic boost it gave was both imbalanced and unrealistic.

7. More eye candy is always better. Well...not always but in this case it is. It's actually sad that the world map feels more real than ever yet the game feels artificial and abstract. Like someone said in some other thread on these forums, it's "chess with funny rules", it's no longer trying to be a simulator.

8. Nothing wrong with hexes in my opinion. This change is definitely for the better.

Overall, i think Civ5 has great potential. In the hands of a skilled modder.

 

[NCC81701]

Something else: Working Diplomacy