I have to agree with the OP. The more I play, the more I see behind the curtain and it seems like there's just no substance there. It took me YEARS to become a decent Civ IV player. In a week I was mopping the floor with V. Not only that, the numerous bugs and broken game mechanics just take all the joy out of the experience. There's no choice and very little challenge, even on higher difficulty levels.
I really, really regret giving it so much credit in that review that I wrote a couple weeks back. I feel like a complete idiot. This game needed months more testing and tweaking before release and some of the systems in it are just plain bad from a game design perspective.
I haven't played in days and that's really sad.
EDIT: And before I get tagged as the "I hate change" guy, I love 1upt, I love hexes and I love city states etc. I just hate the fact that this is like some panzer general mod with a bunch of Civ features stripped out and not an empire building game, that the AI plays like a bad 90s RTS skirmish AI and that there's one path to victory: build units. It just feels so empty to me =(
I really, really regret giving it so much credit in that review that I wrote a couple weeks back. I feel like a complete idiot. This game needed months more testing and tweaking before release and some of the systems in it are just plain bad from a game design perspective.
I haven't played in days and that's really sad.
EDIT: And before I get tagged as the "I hate change" guy, I love 1upt, I love hexes and I love city states etc. I just hate the fact that this is like some panzer general mod with a bunch of Civ features stripped out and not an empire building game, that the AI plays like a bad 90s RTS skirmish AI and that there's one path to victory: build units. It just feels so empty to me =(