My review of the livecast

[Mustakrakish]

Yeah I don't know how you guys can complain about the graphics, they are a huge improvement over civ4 for sure. In particular I really liked the sand dune graphic. The rivers still aren't perfect but whatever, the rest is awesome.

What on earth have YOU been eating?

Seriously, yeah, the river graphics were about the only thing in the game that I found to be disappointing and ugly (aside from the city walls, which we know are not the final look anyway).

When i first saw the river estuary it took me a minute to adjust to the two blue interseeding each other, but other than that i think it looks fine.

Probably just the lower resolution and compression of the video. I watched it full-screen and of course it was not at all comparable to high-res screenshots:



Resolution is lower, things get blurry, details lost, colors altered. All this is normal for a live stream.

I totally agree that the Civ5 rivers are still ugly - basically the only thing that isn't looking nice.

I would have loved if they'd made them more interesting - rapids, islands, meandering flows, waterfalls, etc. rather than just making them straight-sided channels.

And make a small graphical delta effect at the mouth.

Fix the rivers! Fix the rivers! And fix buildings/structures like forts lying on rivers too!

 

[Schuesseled]

Oh for the love of pete, sick fak.

Stop posting that exact phrase over and over, just put it in your sig.

 

[VikingMaekel]

Probably just the lower resolution and compression of the video. I watched it full-screen and of course it was not at all comparable to high-res screenshots:



Resolution is lower, things get blurry, details lost, colors altered. All this is normal for a live stream.

Can we all just get a look at Dehli's river and then look back at Berlin's river?
Yeah that's right

 

[Jaybe]

Fix the rivers! Fix the rivers! And fix buildings/structures like forts lying on rivers too!

YOU sir, should be forced to play exclusively in ... STRATEGIC VIEW!!

It's already been confirmed that the machine was also processing the video stream. Just a bit of overhead, don't ya think?

Besides, would you prefer they divert resources away from GAME PLAY???

 

[Schuesseled]

Can we all just get a look at Dehli's river and then look back at Berlin's river?
Yeah that's right

ahh the beauty of photoshop.

 

[krunsh]

I guess I must be the only one who doesn't think there's anything wrong with the river?

 

[Afforess]

Probably just the lower resolution and compression of the video. I watched it full-screen and of course it was not at all comparable to high-res screenshots:



Resolution is lower, things get blurry, details lost, colors altered. All this is normal for a live stream.

Heck, we should be happy there aren't buildings laying randomly in the river and ocean, like in Civ4.

 

[draxil]

I guess I must be the only one who doesn't think there's anything wrong with the river?

No you are not. There IS nothing wrong with the river, it's beautiful. Especially compared to a Civ 4 river

 

[PawelS]

Me likes the river too.

 

[Schuesseled]

its fine, i'd prefer it if it didn't have that realistic but ugly outflow, but other than completley fine.

 

[The_J]

Heck, we should be happy there aren't buildings laying randomly in the river and ocean, like in Civ4.

Oh, you didn't see the screenshots of the atlantean pyramids and the aquatic gardens of babylon?

 

[rastak]

Oh, you didn't see the screenshots of the atlantean pyramids and the aquatic gardens of babylon?

I'd say it was flooding but they took out random events......

 

[rschissler]

I noticed that there were hardly any roads. Are they really that big of a maintenance cost, and not worth building?

 

[AlexTheTall]

I read the topic and look a little bit at the vids, and I also saw that the borders aren't looking like a country anymore.

Someone said that was fine, because from Antic to a little bit further than the middle-age it was actually like this and I agree.

But are we sure that in the older eras it will be more of a "unified" country?

 

[Polobo]

I noticed that there were hardly any roads. Are they really that big of a maintenance cost, and not worth building?

He had plenty of gold but not enough workers. That said, with having the whole of Africa to yourself there really isn't that much of a need for roads except for trade routes (which I don't think every city was connected) and barbarian defense - which I would have expected to see some of given how much of Africa was open.

 

[planetary]

He had plenty of gold but not enough workers. That said, with having the whole of Africa to yourself there really isn't that much of a need for roads except for trade routes (which I don't think every city was connected) and barbarian defense - which I would have expected to see some of given how much of Africa was open.

Perhaps not. Some of his workers were sleeping, I thought I saw. It's not clear how much of what you observed was because of Greg not building enough, or Greg not managing them well enough. (Not to pick on him, of course. He did indicate that this was a sub-optimal run for demo purposes.)

On the other hand, maybe there's an upkeep cost associated with not just roads, but other improvements -- such that a more optimal number of workers per city is not as clear, or as high, as you might think.

 

[Zhahz]

My only complaint with CIV V so far is the dearth of special units/buildings and how limited some of the special abilties of the leaders are. I would have liked to have seen a greater variety of units as well. I'm sure these are things that will get resovled in time.

I think one thing they expect is that you'll treasure and keep units alive longer, so they will become specialized via promotions. In a way, a specialized unit is just a basic unit with built-in promotions, which somewhat takes away from the promotion system.

I also believe the AI can play stronger if you avoid gimmicky units that it'll never be able to use as well as a player.

As for leader special abilities, I think the idea is that you customize via SPs, so the "special abilities" are in your hands, and not so predetermined. They'll also be adding leaders over via DLC and/or expansions, so maybe they held back on some good ideas rather than dumping everything up front.

 

[krunsh]

No you are not. There IS nothing wrong with the river, it's beautiful. Especially compared to a Civ 4 river

Me likes the river too.

its fine, i'd prefer it if it didn't have that realistic but ugly outflow, but other than completley fine.

Good I think I never heard anyone say anything good about them. just a lot of complaint

 

[Gath]

Diplomacy:

The way he allied with the city state seems really. . . stupid. Monoco took a cheap bribe to join a losing war against his world's Super Power. Looks like city state diplomacy is extremely simplified.

 

[Yosomono]

Diplomacy:

The way he allied with the city state seems really. . . stupid. Monoco took a cheap bribe to join a losing war against his world's Super Power. Looks like city state diplomacy is extremely simplified.

I'm not sure characterizing 750 gold as "a cheap bribe" is really appropriate.
Countries have done a whole lot dumber things for a whole lot less material gain.