First Impressions

[Esperr]

...I havnt actually played yet, but just looking at the huns and austria how are they not just completely OP?

 

[bryanw1995]

I know, but Beach isn't a modder. he is considerably older, has a lot more experience in the industry, and has worked on CIV as well. He also has a background in making board games.

And correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Soren Johnson start out as a modder as well?

Last but not least, Sid hasn't actually worked on any Civ sequel since one. If anyone is going to dumb him down, it won't be him. And I see no reason to believe that will be the case, with G+K they obviously tried to add in a bit of complexity.
EDIT: Put it in my sig. Happy now?


This is one of the single best posts on this thread. I feel more of the old-school fans should read it.

Sid might not be directly involved in developing the follow-on games of the franchise, but don't kid yourself into think that he has no stylistic input. Wasn't he pretty involved in facebook civ and/or civ rev?

Funny quote about how we idolize the past. That Porcelain Tower quote is so true. Just think, Frodo and Sam wouldn't have even needed the light of elendil if they'd had an iphone with the flashlight app...

 

[smallfish]

...I havnt actually played yet, but just looking at the huns and austria how are they not just completely OP?

Huns seem to be geared more for OCC Domination - given that the only "genuine" Hunnic city is their capital, it would make more sense (and a bigger challenge) to have them being able to found only that city and go on a world conquest spree with Rams/Horse Archers

iow - you are playing as Raging Barbarian types.


Austria, now that I'm experiencing them a bit more, is situational. They can either develop into a powerhouse, or not and get crushed by Songhai or some other warmongery types. Its definitely not a guarantee that they will develop into one in an "isolated" start too.

 

[Andulias]

Sid might not be directly involved in developing the follow-on games of the franchise, but don't kid yourself into think that he has no stylistic input. Wasn't he pretty involved in facebook civ and/or civ rev?

Funny quote about how we idolize the past. That Porcelain Tower quote is so true. Just think, Frodo and Sam wouldn't have even needed the light of elendil if they'd had an iphone with the flashlight app...

Oh, why yes, the Civ facebook game that's failing miserably He also made CivRev

Don't mean to sound offensive, but to me Sid Meier comes across as some sort of a mascot. Generally speaking the Brian Reynolds, Soren Johnsons and Ed Beaches make the games while Sid does... what exactly? Why are they even called Sid Meiers what-have-you when the main designer isn't Sid Meier? It's always fascinated me really. Maybe I should rather start a new topic, although I am sure this has been discussed to death . I'll just leave this quote from Sulla to make my point:

Back in testing, someone made a mockup graphic of the title screen that replaced Sid's name with "Soren Johnson's Civilization 4", and that in truth was not an exaggeration. This was Soren's baby from start to finish, right down to something as minute as the foldout tech poster (which Soren did the initial sketchwork and planning for, and then I did the grunt work of typing up the details).

I've literally spent several lazy Sunday afternoon digging up what Sid's role in Firaxis actually is and well, coming up with nothing. He makes, I quote, "prototypes", that the folks at the studio test out, he also goes to meetings (uuh, ok). After all the reading I was left with the impression that he is trying to create an environment where creative minds like the Reynolds and the Jonhsons can make awesome games, which is really commendable. In other words he is rather the guardian-angel of the franchise than the one who's actually working on it.

But all of this is up in the air, just one thing is certain - he hasn't made an actual Civ sequel. Ever.

 

[PhilBowles]

...I havnt actually played yet, but just looking at the huns and austria how are they not just completely OP?

How are the Huns OP? They have a unique chariot archer, and it's not that good, just slightly faster and without a horse requirement (which is redundant anyway since no one would want chariot archers en masse except AI Egypt) - who calls Egypt overpowered?

They get a free tech, but not one that's on any of the paths you want to take immediately in the early game unless you're a Hun, so it doesn't give them much of an early-game tech boost.

Of course their key asset is the Battering Ram. Which means you have to tech Mining-Bronze Working more or less immediately, forgoing the now-important Pottery start or, indeed, The Wheel you need to get your horse archers. And you need to be able to produce it in numbers very early on, while at the same time having the numbers to produce units that can actually fight in case you encounter units. All of which has to be done before your enemy has an army or has teched as far as Iron Working or Horseback Riding, as either tech will stall your rams long enough for them to be killed. And if you don't get that early success, you're pretty much screwed for the rest of the game given the resources and time you're forced to devote to that early attack.

Sure, my perspective is biased by having now faced Attila three times as an AI and experiencing the AI's complete inability to use him effectively (although he has pulled off a nice threatening routine in my latest game), but nothing about his civ even looks overpowered. The Battering Ram has the most severe drawbacks of any unit in the game; the Horse Archer is still a chariot archer UU, and Animal Husbandry as a free tech is a bit meh.

Austria relies on having gold, which you need to play the game to learn is a lot harder to come by this time around - you also need to play to appreciate just how valuable city-state bonuses are (now that there are two additional eras - Atomic and Information - the city-state bonuses increase even more over time than they did before, quite apart from their inherent strength); once you start grabbing them as cities and lose those bonuses, you'll notice. It's reportedly very strong as an AI due to the AI's gold advantages, but while it plainly looks strong (far more so than the Huns), I doubt it's overpowered as a human opponent, and testimony from people who've played it suggests the same.

Huns seem to be geared more for OCC Domination - given that the only "genuine" Hunnic city is their capital, it would make more sense (and a bigger challenge) to have them being able to found only that city and go on a world conquest spree with Rams/Horse Archers

iow - you are playing as Raging Barbarian types.

I feel it would make most sense if they were only available as an AI "civ" so that they could be given precisely that kind of restriction, and indeed act like raging barbs (who ever clamoured to get to play the barbarians in Civ? Sure we all cheer when they in older games - or CSes in Civ V - create their own little empires from scratch, but that's because they're AI random elements). Something like the Mongols in the Rise of the Mongols scenario. I doubt they'd be very engaging to play anyway. I do like seeing them in the game, so I wouldn't want to just throw them out.

The trouble is, I've seen the AI try to play Attila... After you've beaten him to a pulp on Emperor two or three times in succession, the fear factor wears off (and I did genuinely feel, when first encountering him, that denouncing him as a city-state wanted me too in the early game would be a very bad career move. Right up until I experienced essentially no repercussions from doing so, and when we did get into a fight he lost comprehensively) - he needs to have the option to have a human at the helm just to give him the prospect of looking scary again.

The most probably role he seems to have taken on that I've come up with, is that he tries to create an environment where creative minds like the Reynolds and the Jonhsons can make awesome games.

Surely that's the essential job description of managers in most offices.

 

[bryanw1995]

A hero? I thought Shafer was responsible for the espionage of BTS, which wasn't received that well.

He was also the design lead, and overall the reception of BTS was extremely positive. "Hero" might be a bit of a stretch, however.

 

[Esperr]

How are the Huns OP? They have a unique chariot archer, and it's not that good, just slightly faster and without a horse requirement (which is redundant anyway since no one would want chariot archers en masse except AI Egypt) - who calls Egypt overpowered?

They get a free tech, but not one that's on any of the paths you want to take immediately in the early game unless you're a Hun, so it doesn't give them much of an early-game tech boost.

Of course their key asset is the Battering Ram. Which means you have to tech Mining-Bronze Working more or less immediately, forgoing the now-important Pottery start or, indeed, The Wheel you need to get your horse archers. And you need to be able to produce it in numbers very early on, while at the same time having the numbers to produce units that can actually fight in case you encounter units. All of which has to be done before your enemy has an army or has teched as far as Iron Working or Horseback Riding, as either tech will stall your rams long enough for them to be killed. And if you don't get that early success, you're pretty much screwed for the rest of the game given the resources and time you're forced to devote to that early attack.

Sure, my perspective is biased by having now faced Attila three times as an AI and experiencing the AI's complete inability to use him effectively (although he has pulled off a nice threatening routine in my latest game), but nothing about his civ even looks overpowered. The Battering Ram has the most severe drawbacks of any unit in the game; the Horse Archer is still a chariot archer UU, and Animal Husbandry as a free tech is a bit meh.

Austria relies on having gold, which you need to play the game to learn is a lot harder to come by this time around - you also need to play to appreciate just how valuable city-state bonuses are (now that there are two additional eras - Atomic and Information - the city-state bonuses increase even more over time than they did before, quite apart from their inherent strength); once you start grabbing them as cities and lose those bonuses, you'll notice. It's reportedly very strong as an AI due to the AI's gold advantages, but while it plainly looks strong (far more so than the Huns), I doubt it's overpowered as a human opponent, and testimony from people who've played it suggests the same.



I feel it would make most sense if they were only available as an AI "civ" so that they could be given precisely that kind of restriction, and indeed act like raging barbs (who ever clamoured to get to play the barbarians in Civ? Sure we all cheer when they in older games - or CSes in Civ V - create their own little empires from scratch, but that's because they're AI random elements). Something like the Mongols in the Rise of the Mongols scenario. I doubt they'd be very engaging to play anyway. I do like seeing them in the game, so I wouldn't want to just throw them out.

The trouble is, I've seen the AI try to play Attila... After you've beaten him to a pulp on Emperor two or three times in succession, the fear factor wears off (and I did genuinely feel, when first encountering him, that denouncing him as a city-state wanted me too in the early game would be a very bad career move. Right up until I experienced essentially no repercussions from doing so, and when we did get into a fight he lost comprehensively) - he needs to have the option to have a human at the helm just to give him the prospect of looking scary again.



Surely that's the essential job description of managers in most offices.

I was thinking more along the lines of starting with pottery equals an almost guaranteed GL while still maintaining decent production with bonus from farms. But I heard that the library slingshot isnt as good in G and K anymore.

And I was just thinking with austria, late late game when you dont need city state bonuses anymore you can buy a fully developed unit producer. I mean, thats twelve free good well developed cities in the inudstrialish era. Great for turtling.

 

[fat_tonle]

Still having little trouble with 2-3 city beelining to a science or culture victory. Quite easily actually. Cultural with American on Emperor my 3-4th game in, science with Incas on the 6th game on immortal. Completely healthy relationships and no major threats until it was too late. Maximized CS relations with the Incas, although the shuffle map was a bit broken/bias.

RA's as nerfed as they were are still kinda broken especially with Porcelain Tower and scientific revolution.

 

[PhilBowles]

I was thinking more along the lines of starting with pottery equals an almost guaranteed GL while still maintaining decent production with bonus from farms.

And you'd be right if the Huns started with Pottery. Instead they start with Animal Husbandry, a tech useful for bonus resources and horses (which their UU doesn't need), but mostly useful as a bridging tech for The Wheel (i.e. trade routes) - sure it's great, but it's not something you'll get any substantive use of right at the start of the game.

But I heard that the library slingshot isnt as good in G and K anymore.

At this point I can only speak from the Maya perspective and, as the Maya get an exceptional early science building with Pottery, don't need to invest in archery tech quickly, and the GL route is necessary in order to beeline Theology and activate the UA, the Pottery start is pretty much automatic. I haven't once been beaten to the GL on Emperor - if the Huns did get Pottery as their free tech, it probably wouldn't benefit them unduly until you got to the highest difficulties or played against humans.

And I was just thinking with austria, late late game when you dont need city state bonuses anymore you can buy a fully developed unit producer. I mean, thats twelve free good well developed cities in the inudstrialish era. Great for turtling.

Late game you already have established cities and may be close to your happiness threshold, and the mercantile CS bonus in particular is likely to be most important then. If you've gone Patronage they're also likely to be granting you a lot of science. Of course, why go Patronage as Austria? But surely that in itself is an opportunity cost, since you're denied quite a powerful policy branch.

 

[bryanw1995]

Enjoying it so far.

Disappointed that turn times are still bad (if not a little worse).

My turn times were slow until I enabled fast movement. Apparently the game is not coded to use fast movement ibt.

 

[DKRI]

I´m way into my first game. Tried out a couple of times just to get a feel for it. Playing with the Swedes (biased as I am a Swedish native) not being overly impressed with them. As a turtling player the bonus to GP-generation is pretty ok as long as I get to maintain decent diplomatic relations w the AI:s though. I will also give away some of my spare GP:s to a militaristic CS so I can focus on buildings, letting them feed my military. I´m ok with the Hakkapellitta, uses them instead of cavalry. Never been much of a horse lover anyway. I do find that the Caroline comes a bit late in the game. Right now building lots of them as to prepare for the most awesome WWI-infantry army ever. Dido will soon feel their wrath.

My firts impressions:

Tech: I´m pretty happy that the GL has lost a lot of it´s value with the new tech tree. Still good, but not game changing. The value of RA:s is was less now, not sure if I like that as RA:s are a necessity on the higher difficulties to have even the slightest chance of keeping up in tech w the AI:s. The fact that you have to research all techs to win a tech victory is a good thing. I mostly go for tech as I find that to be the easiest/only viable winning strategy on the higher difficulty levels, thereby never ever researching the techs not leading to winning the space race.

War/combat system: I really like the changes to the combat system. Previously my main strategy has been to turtle with a small army, level up units and then crush my enemys as soon as I get artillery (extra range, logistics, kill everything). Now I have to sacrifice more units. Using XP to heal is also kind of necessary when you capture cities. Sofar I have been trying to level up in defence and then use new non upgraded units as cannon fodder in offence. There are so many more strategic options now, not as straight forward (and then I haven´t even tried out the naval combat system yet).

Catapults/trebs not needing iron is a great improvement to me, and probably the feature that will change my style of play the most. I almost always have found myself lacking iron, having 2 or 4 at the most, often 0 wich makes early game aggression that much harder (especially since the old tech tree/GL rush kind of made me researching iron working rather late) having one or two swordmen and 0-1 catapults. With the AI teching away during the reneissance I usually was not able to use cannons other than defensively, XP:ing up so that my artillery could crush them as soon as I got to industrial.

Religion: Managed to found the first religion. Propably made some bad choices there so it´s not really gamechanging for me even though I have spread jewishness all over the continent. Quite fun though, and played the right way it could really make some changes to overall gameplay.

Espionage: havent had that much use of it as I am in tech lead and has been more or less from start. Stole one tech from a part of the tree that I had neglected but will propably have to move my spies back home for protection.

Diplomacy: way better than before, even though I still feel that I´m experiencing a lot more hate than I deserve as I am kind of a nice player as long as you don´t piss me off. I also find it much easier to keep up good relations w CS with the new quest system. Before I haven´t had a chance of doing that as the AI usually sits with tens of thousands of gold with me being broke (only late game trying to save up enough to buy over a few city states and declaring war as to prevent AI from a diplo win when I assemble my last parts of the space ship).

Gold/happiness: quite contrary to what other people here seem to have experiencied, I have way much more gold and luxury resources than I am used to from vanilla. Could be related to the fact that I went down to playing on emperor level from normal deity though. Don´t really remember how it was like not playing deity on vanilla.

Social policies: Liberty has always been OP. The change has made it less so wich is good. Otherwise I have not had any reason to not go for liberty wich has been a bit dull. As i never ever have been able to win a cultural victory on Deity (much due to the fact that I find it impossible to ally with cultural CS:s) I do not really understand why they made the Piety-tree worse than before. Might be so that it wouldn´t replace rationalism as default? Tradition still sucks though.

Over all impression: really pleased, family and employer not so pleased as time spent on playing Civ will increase exponentially to lack of sleep/ability to focus on less important parts of my life.

 

[tirnaog]

PC handles it fine.
I am not seeing the slow turn issue that others have. touch wood

 

[blackcatatonic]

Yeah, same here re. the turn times. If anything it's a little faster than before, although I haven't got to the uber-late game yet, so can't say for certain.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I won't claim that the underlying flaws of Civ5 aren't still there. Gun to my head I still consider Civ4 a better game, but I think I finally genuinely like Civ5. It's not perfect and I'm not sure it really deserves to be the next Civ after BTS, but I think I can finally call it a good game without reservation.

 

[Buccaneer]

Finally finished my first game - Byzantium, Emperor, small Small Continents, standard setting

Without trying hard, I wanted to play around with religion, I won a cheesy domination victory at little over turn 200. Did it mostly with Swords/Longswords, Cats/Trebs, Cataphracts/Knights and Dromons/Gallesass. I was going up again some weak units throughout the whole game (Spain, Polynesia, Ottomans, England and Iroquois). Iroquois were ahead of me in techs yet when I got over there (Onondaga was on the coast closest to me), they came at me with Mohawks and one Crossbow.

Anyway, I did mess up on my beliefs and the only one I got value out of was God of War. Whenever I got close to another GP (500 points), I would start buying units with faith. Built about 8-10 units that way since I had no use for another Prophet. My religion was dominant but didn't get any value from its spread.

I had fun, as usual, despite not taking advantage of any real G&K changes (combat ended up about the same but thought that my Swords/Cats lasted too long). I totally ignored diplomacy, as usual, but worked on maintaining two religion city-states (that was fun to do). Next time, I'll go back up to Immortal and bring in some of the new Civs. I want to go up against the Huns and Austria.

 

[Disgustipated]

Okay I bought the game yesterday after seeing the first couple and last couple pages of this thread.

I like it so far, but hardly seems worth $30. The content seems a bit light. I'd say it's worth $20 at most. To be honest, this is how Civ5 should have been when it initially came out. It's sad I have to pay $30 more to get a complete game. Civ3 was released unfinished too, so I can forgive them on this.

Major complaint is turn times. Please tell me there's a way to resolves this. I used to never have problems on standard sized maps, now I do. I shudder to think how bad a huge map would be.

The game is slow, part of the problem is I've been playing marathon since Civ4 days, but I may have to give up marathon. More turns + increased time between turns = slower game.

I like espionage and religion. But I'm still not sure how religion works. I was hoping to get a late religion like islam, then I quickly realized there's a limited number of religions, so I have no religion. A couple of my cities have other people's religion, but I can't see what effect it has. I see nothing on the city screen? What does religion do for my cities?

 

[Andulias]

Okay I bought the game yesterday after seeing the first couple and last couple pages of this thread.

I like it so far, but hardly seems worth $30. The content seems a bit light. I'd say it's worth $20 at most. To be honest, this is how Civ5 should have been when it initially came out. It's sad I have to pay $30 more to get a complete game. Civ3 was released unfinished too, so I can forgive them on this.

Major complaint is turn times. Please tell me there's a way to resolves this. I used to never have problems on standard sized maps, now I do. I shudder to think how bad a huge map would be.

The game is slow, part of the problem is I've been playing marathon since Civ4 days, but I may have to give up marathon. More turns + increased time between turns = slower game.

I like espionage and religion. But I'm still not sure how religion works. I was hoping to get a late religion like islam, then I quickly realized there's a limited number of religions, so I have no religion. A couple of my cities have other people's religion, but I can't see what effect it has. I see nothing on the city screen? What does religion do for my cities?

What makes the expansion so good isn't that much the addition of the new systems, rather the tweaks to the already existing ones, like the tech tree, combat or diplomacy.

Only a limited number of religions can be found, so you missed your chance. Each religion has a "follower" belief that gives a certain bonus to cities that follow it. For more information click here, the introductory guide was stickied for a reason

 

[Disgustipated]

I do like the changes to ships. No longer do I have to watch a barbarian ship and an AI player on the ground shoot at each other for thousands of years. I like the early ships can't attack ground units.

Unfortunately my wounded caravel was on his way back home. I just did the right click, and allow the computer to choose the best route. Well the computer took me close to an enemy composite bowman. Kind of BS that they can attack me, but I can't attack them? Well, they sunk my caravel.

 

[binhthuy71]

I do like the changes to ships. No longer do I have to watch a barbarian ship and an AI player on the ground shoot at each other for thousands of years. I like the early ships can't attack ground units.

Unfortunately my wounded caravel was on his way back home. I just did the right click, and allow the computer to choose the best route. Well the computer took me close to an enemy composite bowman. Kind of BS that they can attack me, but I can't attack them? Well, they sunk my caravel.

For me, the new classification of ships has only one glaring fault; melee ships can't take barb camps. If they can take a city then why not a barb camp?

 

[PhilBowles]

For me, the new classification of ships has only one glaring fault; melee ships can't take barb camps. If they can take a city then why not a barb camp?

A city can conceptually have a dock, and mechanically ships can always move in or out of cities. A unit that takes a barb camp moves onto its tile, so you'd have to end up with your melee ship on a land tile, somewhere it couldn't otherwise go.