Help me love this game

[Desper_Taferro]

Greetings all,
i am one of these guys that have been to bussy playing civ to post anything on the past years and CiV made the, cease lurking and say anything.
I've been playing the Civ series since Civ2, loved SMAC and even enjoyed CtP (and i play the Total War series and Eurpoa Universalis, just to explain qht kind of gamer i am).
I wont make another list of complaints, just express my sadness because the game lacks so much yet it does many things good... I have the very same feeling i had with the very dissapointing Spore, it seems thers is a good game hidden somewhere but i just can't really find it.
Still i have the feeling the devs must strongly believe this is a good game and that perhaps us civ veterans just need a little change of our way of thinking...
I ask the community to help me and others like me that really want to enjoy that game, because we love the series and we are reluctact to accept it has fallen to the mass market mediocrity.
My experience so far: goodbye to huge-map-marathon-game (by the middle ages it gets already boring) and (tho i am a tabletop wargamer and love hexes and 1upt) war is no longer fun as i don't want to raze every city i conquer.

Spoiler :

In the longest game i've played so far... Arabia declared war on me because THEY settled to close to my borders and apparently it was my fault, as my armies were few the other civs in the continent (Greece, France, Japan and Iroquois) also joined in. I was shocked! I loved the fact that in Civ4 you actually needed a casus belli for a DoW, anyway i managed to wipe my nearest neighbour out and one by one the other followed the same fate. I ignored their peace offers (a city i will have to maintain and a bunch of resources i can grab myself?), because as you can't really trade techs or maps and there is no point in going diplo with those psychotic AI i keep the war going on...
So is this how a mighty empire must look like? A bunch of scattered cities across a land of ravaged trading posts?
In Civ4 i just made war until the other Civ capitulate (unless i was on my way for a conquest victory), and it felt so rewarding and realisting and inmersive!

So what now i do is trying to play tiny-map-standard-speed map, but it is like playing Revolutions, not a new iteration in the series!

Please help, how can i enjoy CiV?

 

[SpurnSpore]

So what now i do is trying to play tiny-map-standard-speed map, but it is like playing Revolutions, not a new iteration in the series!

Please help, how can i enjoy CiV?

When you wake up in the morning and are about to jump out of bed to play the awesome new CIV, realize it was just a bad dream, so stop and roll back into bed and wait for CIV6.

 

[aguds]

Try some mods. That's a good source for some love. Many mods fix issues aswell. Try the economy-mod for instance!

But a casus belli -mod is lacking still They are all Monty now.

 

[Desper_Taferro]

FACT is tiny-map-standard-speed game is pretty fun in higher difficulties, but still a ong way away from a Civ experience, it just becomes a light-cute-looking-wargame (well, VERY light).

 

[the343danny]

IMO essential mods: Economy Mod by Valkrionn and the Balance mods. Try Shiggs Earth map, because its quite fun. Bump up difficulty so there is more action going on. The Economy and Balance Mods both increase production and the Econ mod decreases unit production costs and ups research costs, so you will have much more time to do what you want to do. It makes the economy aspect (obviously the economy but also the way you build and improve your cities) more like Civ 5. Part of that is because improvements are so much more useful, and you no longer get the feeling that new cities are just as good as old ones, provided similar population. Also, Economy mod adds new buildings that use food resources as a requirement to build.

 

[Moon Pine]

Just knowing one thing and you will be relieved
This's only one guilty in Civilization - being weak

Just joking.
Yap, the most serious frustration the game provides is that when I make my empire growing stable, some warmonger declares way and wipe me out

 

[cr0ws]

Would it help you love Civ 5 more if I dressed it up in sexy lingerie?

 

[SMA333M]

I love the game and when I was starting to love it more, I got a game crash and now I can't continue my long game -.-

 

[Thormodr]

My best advice to make you love this game is to not play it.

If everyone did this and the Steam numbers dropped considerably then Firaxis and 2K Games would start to pay attention.

Next, you need to not buy any DLC or any further expansions for ciV. We all need to do this. I can't stress that enough.

Then, Firaxis and 2K Games would really start to pay attention. Hurt them in the pocketbook.

After ciV is acknowledged as a failure, they can hire a competent designer with a wealth of experience to make Civ VI and not try to cater to the mass market.

Then you'll have a game to love. It just won't be ciV.

The frightening part is that if we all accept ciV, play it and buy all the expansions and DLC then it likely will make more money than cIV and they will have no reason to change whatsoever. True Civ fans need to make a stand for the game we love. That's the only way we are ever going to get a quality Civ game again.

 

[Craftsman]

When you wake up in the morning and are about to jump out of bed to play the awesome new CIV, realize it was just a bad dream, so stop and roll back into bed and wait for CIV6.

Agreed. I would just change "bad dream" for "knightmare".

My best advice to make you love this game is to not play it.

If everyone did this and the Steam numbers dropped considerably then Firaxis and 2K Games would start to pay attention.

Next, you need to not buy any DLC or any further expansions for ciV. We all need to do this. I can't stress that enough.

Then, Firaxis and 2K Games would really start to pay attention. Hurt them in the pocketbook.

After ciV is acknowledged as a failure, they can hire a competent designer with a wealth of experience to make Civ VI and not try to cater to the mass market.

Then you'll have a game to love. It just won't be ciV.

The frightening part is that if we all accept ciV, play it and buy all the expansions and DLC then it likely will make more money than cIV and they will have no reason to change whatsoever. True Civ fans need to make a stand for the game we love. That's the only way we are ever going to get a quality Civ game again.

I agree 100% with Thormodr.

I am feeling like a dumb victim of a well orchestrated hype machine. It makes me think that Civ6 would follow the line of the hilarious screenshot shown here.

So, I regret to say that I can't help you love this crappy game. It simply doesn't deserve your love.

 

[Lord Monkey]

For gods sake, Thormodr, do you have to turn every thread into your own personal soapbox? He asked for ways to help him enjoy to game, not your sinister plan to bring those dastardly game designers to their knees.

Anyway... I would say experiment with different map types and strategies. Try to make good use out of abilities that everyone thinks are worthless (like Bismarck or Suleiman's). Play the underdog. Challenge yourself. Despite the extreme amounts of hatemongering on this board, Civ5 can provide hours of fun. If it's getting boring or stale, change one of the many, many variables, and if that doesn't work, take a break. Seriously, if you've enjoyed all the previous civs, the only thing that should push you away from this one is the lamentably one-dimensional AI. (They like to try to murder you)

 

[tom2050]

I agree, Firaxis can help me help them to love their game by doing as Thormodr described... which only works if we do something as well.

If anything, just use modded items, instead of buying.

If we don't, for Civ 6 we'll end up with something reminiscent of the 1982 Smurf Rescue game.

 

[Scaramanga]

Would it help you love Civ 5 more if I dressed it up in sexy lingerie?

Civ...

YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN' FEELIN'

 

[Desper_Taferro]

I still love the series and i will defend the good things CiV have. But the overall game doesn't give me the Civ feeling, that's all...
I guess the game woould be nice to play in a WW2 scenario a la Panzer General, because hexes and 1pt are kinda nice... it would, if the AI could handle it.

I just finished my first game, as i said a tiny-pangea-map-standard-speed-deity-difficulty game. And i even played the AI as intended, that is, making just few contacts when i needed a certain resource for instance. It was a pretty map, i had a nice mountain range that kinda isolated me from my nearest oppponent and a nice "line" of city states between me and the other two civs and it was pretty cool to have them brived (no other word can descrive how city states work) as a buffer against any aggresor.
But war is unavoidable and soon i found myself shoked realising i just need to rush for one more capital to win a domination game (i did it just for "fun's sake" as the capital was just one city away from the coast and i wanted to enjoy an invasion Normandy stile, you know). So i take the capital and poof! Victory screen, no 1 in all statistics and classfied as Caesar Augustus...
It just didn't felt not rewarding...
Anyway...
the point is, eventhough i managed to squeeze some fun from the game most of the turns were really really dull... And all the cities are just the same monument, colosseum, theatre, market, bank... etc...
Meh.

 

[Biz_]

play against humans

you can't really enjoy a strategy game if you don't have to do any strategic thinking...

 

[Asylumer]

You'd be surprised what a few modifications can do for the gameplay. My personal mod's latest build is giving me near non-stop action on Prince where I'm fighting Montezuma and his Jaguar hordes. AI is still pretty dumb but with sheer numbers from lower unit costs he can put up a decent fight. Unlike Vanilla I've been forced to make a tactical retreat more than once.

From my observations so far it seems a lot of the gameplay problems arise due to slow pacing and happiness crippling city-development.

 

[Knocky]

Put ciV on the back burner.

Wait two patches.

Then try again.

 

[viator]

Maybe this helps:
Try the Combined Civilization's Mods and Tweaks (CCMAT) by Jooyo which has most of the latest CiV5 MODs in it. See thread at http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389368. It is no Civ4 with RoM-AND MODs yet, but it helps waiting for better times....

 

[Guardian_PL]

For gods sake, Thormodr, do you have to turn every thread into your own personal soapbox? He asked for ways to help him enjoy to game, not your sinister plan to bring those dastardly game designers to their knees.

Anyway... I would say experiment with different map types and strategies. Try to make good use out of abilities that everyone thinks are worthless (like Bismarck or Suleiman's). Play the underdog. Challenge yourself. Despite the extreme amounts of hatemongering on this board, Civ5 can provide hours of fun. If it's getting boring or stale, change one of the many, many variables, and if that doesn't work, take a break. Seriously, if you've enjoyed all the previous civs, the only thing that should push you away from this one is the lamentably one-dimensional AI. (They like to try to murder you)

"Play the underdog. Challenge yourself." Yeah. Tie one hand behind your back. Play with your screen turned off. Move only one unit per turn...

It's not his personal soapbox, there are plenty of people with same approach, stop flaming him. There's thin line between love and hate - think about that phrase for a moment.


Now, we love Civilization games so much that to see it brutally raped in the name of almighty dollar makes us want to torch some place. It's not like we're just spewing venom on the series and spell doom for the franchise - we're actually working really hard betatesting this half-finished product and sending info to Firaxis to fix annoying bugs, balance gameplay, suggest changes...

But it still hurts to know that devoted fans that's been there for civ for decades have been shunned aside and casual consol gamers has been made a target audience for this iteration of civ.

Just knowing one thing and you will be relieved
This's only one guilty in Civilization - being weak

Just joking.
Yap, the most serious frustration the game provides is that when I make my empire growing stable, some warmonger declares way and wipe me out

You mean in multi, right? Cause AI can be mildly challenging while being mightily braindead only on Deity...

To the OP - play something else, and wait for the patches/mods. Around Christmas (y'know, it's a big thing for businessmen appealing to mainstream audience) something should come up and Civ5 could me more-or-less playable. Right now, I play Deus Ex and read manga

 

[TheMolossian]

play against humans

you can't really enjoy a strategy game if you don't have to do any strategic thinking...

Essentially this is my advice too. People are always complaining about the multiplayer, and yes, there are bugs in it, but the lack of animations is not a big deal to me, and it's a lot better than playing idiotic opponent civs.