What do Civ5 opposers still like in Civ5?

Hi There!
Didn't find this sort of discussion, and please note, that it won't make sense if those who like Civ5 or don't seriously deslike it post here, and please don't post things you don't like, since there are several threads for that. So the point is, that this thread is for those who hate or strongly dislike Civ5 compared to Civ4. And here I ask them about the minor stuff which happens to be nonetheless unambiguously good/better (feature, idea or implementation) even to them. Here is my initial list of things I (who strongly dislikes Civ5) like in Civ5:
1) No death in a single turn. I - so far - like the fact that units can survive more than one turn. This adds up to strategic deepness and micro management, enabling units to retreat, heal and then reengage.
2) Locked workers. I like the fact, that you can lock worker citizens as so to avoid rearranging them by the game. This feature is still not perfect - but a good Idea- since sometimes the workers are rearranged anyway. It should be fixed in a way that for example the moved resource is shown in read as to see which citizen has been moved. And then you could confirm the repositioning or change it.
3) Leader animations on diplomacy screen. Leader animations are graphically - and probably artistically - better (more detailed texture and model and better animation).
4) Fast turns at late game. Despite several's experience I've found the turns are faster than in modded Civ4 games. (This may mean nothing though, since I compare custom content with a base game).
5) Ranged attack. Although somewhat unrealistic, I still like the fact that units can fire from distance and that the missile volley is animated.
6) Road maintenance. Maybe I am alone with this, but I like the fact (if properly balanced, which is not the case now) that you need to maintain roads. This avoids the unrealistic and huge grid of roads at the end of the game. In Civ4 you can grid a whole continent without a penalty.
7) Great people can build land improvements. This is a nice feature, but must be better balanced.
Well, nothing else I can think of ATM, but I'll add to the list as soon as I recall something new.

a) Hexes
b) Quantifiable resources (to a certain degree)
c) As you said, units not being killed when losing a fight
d) Some of the music pieces are realy nice
e) that you can call up the Interior Advisor from within a city screen

I think that's it.

1) Hexes
2) Graphics (not "better" than Civ4 but different)
3) Multicore-support

Some good improvements do not compensate things what are forgotten in CIV5.
I tried to like civ5 because of good things but I now realize that CIV5 is just one boring game.

Intro-movie and.... and.... mmm, I was sure there was more....

HorribleHarald said:

Some good improvements do not compensate things what are forgotten in CIV5.
I tried to like civ5 because of good things but I now realize that CIV5 is just one boring game.

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That's not what the OP asked. Regardless of whether you think it's a good game, what aspects of it do you like? (one would presume that if someone didn't like *any* aspects of the game they wouldn't see it as something that could be improved, and thus wouldn't spend time discussing it at all, negatively or otherwise)

I myself enjoy the game mostly, so I won't bother posting about the bits I like. I like the idea of this thread though OP

1-tile islands can be easier to settle. (Locked workers is a byproduct of no whipping and has existed before except now can they remember where they worked because of enemy units. It is more accurate to like "no whipping" rather than "locked workers.")

1.) Does not make me lose sleep.

The Box has pretty pictures on it.

DD

1. one unit per strategic resource count
2. shipping the spaceship parts to the capital
3. natural wonders

I think that's about it.

There are plenty of things I like about it, which is why I get irritated with all the screams of "HATER!!" that often greet any criticism of the game. Unfortunately, for me, the things I like about Civ5 are undermined by the sheer boredom I feel when I play it, so I'm still in the "cautiously hoping for future patches and mods" camp. Yes, the game has potential, but I didn't pay $60 for potential, and I don't want to pay more for an expansion to make this game fun and engaging.

Ranged combat in combination with 1UPT if it works, which it doesn't atm due to terrible AI. At first i thought that policies might be more interesting than the government system but don't think so anymore. Can't think of anything else really. And then there all those bugs and balancing issues and the fact that a turn takes like forever while the game's at least 75% simpler than Civ4. Oh well.

While I'm not in the "civ5 hater" group you aim for, I feel that Civ4 is in many ways a better game than civ5. Interestingly, I agree with most of the primary design changes but disagree with the secondary decisions. Let me give a couple of examples:

1) Removal of the sliders. This is a great decision. In Civ4, you typically ran the science slider as high as possible, often something >= 70%. I didn't like this because it made culture and gold buildings relatively weaker than science buildings, and the designers therefore compensated by giving them larger bonuses. Since removing the sliders means you have to separate the different parts of the economy, this change opened a lot of design space like libraries working differently from +x% science buildings, culture being typically flat instead of tile-based, etc.

2) Adding Social Policies to make culture relevant. In Civ4, you only built as little culture as you needed unless you went for a culture victory or played on lower difficulty settings where you actually have a chance to flip cities. In Civ5, it's legitimate to build a lot of culture in order to unlock more social policies. The implementation is in many ways bad, though, one of the main culprits being cultural city states.

3) City states. Are an interesting idea. Here, the implementation is downright appaling, though, but the idea is quite good. Make relations to them actually feel like diplomacy rather than just a money sink and you're onto a great system.

4) Building maintenance. This is one of the few areas where 5 is actually more complex than 4. In 4 you only had to decide which building yields more benefit, in 5 it's actually a question of whether a building even makes sense in a certain city. This can, theoretically, also be used to create stronger buildings which are more expensive, but this isn't really done in the game

5) National Wonders requiring you to have buildings in all your cities. If only NW were stronger, this would make me seriously consider only settling good spots so I can have the required buildings. In Civ4, you needed a certain minimal number of good cities to profit from them so they boosted mid-to-large empires instead of small empires.

6) More unique civilizations. Playing the Iroqouis or India feels really different from playing other civs. Civs in 4 also had their strengths and weaknesses but playing them wasn't vastly different for the most part.

8) Tactical combat. Stacks of doom were quite boring for me. Of course, the AI likes to suicide its units but that's not the fault of the combat rules as such.

9) Strategic resources. They are now actually relevant but the devs were afraid to really make them scarce so they are a non-issue in many games. The idea is once again great, though.

10) Road maintenance. Again, badly balanced, unfortunately. +1 is just too expensive compared to buildings, +0.5 or so would be better. Road-spamming was quite an annoyance to me in 4.


I would add why I still think Civ4 is a better game but you only asked for what we like in Civ5, not what we don't like. The three most important reasons are shorter build times compared to science, a better and more interesting tech tree and city maintenance.

Hexes

road maintenance.

Quantifiable strategic resources.(should really be applied to all resources IMO but thats another matter)

Natural wonders

1UPT(I like it in theory but would rather see an XPT system in general, however both are better than unlimited stacks.)

Ranged Combat....Strategic resources...hit points

Outside of that, i'm just kind of like, "Civ IV did it better"

4) Fast turns at late game. Despite several's experience I've found the turns are faster than in modded Civ4 games. (This may mean nothing though, since I compare custom content with a base game).

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You are comparing awful turn times with HORRIBLE turn times. In both cases, the amount of time standard + late-game between-turns takes on machines with ABOVE recommended specs is a joke.

I'm pretty neutral to #7, but agree on the others. IMO, the GPP special tiles need a buff so they can actually compete with the alternatives. If the restore balance between GPP options I'll like the model...right now scientists are too good, merchants too bad.

- I definitely like 1upt as a design concept and even most of its implementation in this game.
- A lot of people don't like the new AI, but IMO it *is* better than any previous version by a significant margin and will improve. Once they give REASONS the AI likes/hates you, this game will be a lot more engaging.
- Social policies are a new look on government, and while people won't like the "changed" factor, it allows for some dynamic play/planning. I DON'T like the patch direction for them though.
- Promotions. People criticizing V promos forget just how bad old ones were. Combining insta-heal with making the unit stronger X_X? I like how promotions now are even more terrain dependent
- Navies are a bit more important in this iteration; that is a good change
- Embarkation. There are so many terrible UI problems in this game, it's easy to miss good decisions. Embarkation is by far the least clumsy model we've seen and penalizes overseas starts far less than ever.
- No tech trades. In SP abusing these became mandatory to high levels if on, MP also but it was usually disabled there. Research agreements make more intuitive sense than brokering 1 thing into 2-5 things depending on luck.
- Reduced spawn luck: It's still around, but you see fewer HUGE swings toward W/L based on turn 0 spawn location. The less of this the better.

hexes
1upt
1upr
CSs
UAs
graphics

SuperJay said:

There are plenty of things I like about it

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Should have just stopped there. Couldn't you answer the OP's question without slinging more criticism at the game? Plenty of threads for that. And you wonder why 'hater' is tossed around so much. Absolutely no need for anything that you typed beyond what is quoted.

There is not a lot that I actually like in Civ5. Very few of the new concepts are interesting except perhaps in the most general sense, and even the few ones which are, are so badly implemented that they don't manage to be likeable, or are so trivial they don't mean anything.
Let's see...

- I really like the idea of limited ressources, making it actually useful to own large amount of them. It's the single best concept of Civ5, and probably the only one that is really interesting.
- I like the idea of culture being able to change your civilization, even though the actual social policies are a complete wreck in nearly any way.
- I like the concept of maintenance for roads/railroad, but it's very badly implemented, especially considering how the 1upt makes it completely useless for actual transport.
- I don't mind hexes, but it's really a complete non-issue. I'm indifferent about them being in or not.

Seriously, even trying, I can't find anything more that was actually conceptually interesting beyond this. That's how and why I consider Civ5 irredeemable, nearly everything is badly implemented or just flat-out boring/wrong/idiotic.

SuperJay said:

There are plenty of things I like about it, which is why I get irritated with all the screams of "HATER!!" that often greet any criticism of the game. Unfortunately, for me, the things I like about Civ5 are undermined by the sheer boredom I feel when I play it, so I'm still in the "cautiously hoping for future patches and mods" camp. Yes, the game has potential, but I didn't pay $60 for potential, and I don't want to pay more for an expansion to make this game fun and engaging.

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Agreed.


In order of importance for me personally:

No stack of doom, 1upt.

Hexes.

Nice music.

Thats it, on all other counts i'd rather be playing Civ 4, especially with regard to diplomacy.