5 small details you like and dislike about Civ V

[TM Moot]

Dislikes

Trade Posts - looks like an outdoor laundrette
Rivers - unbelievably poor (still)
Pointless combat - when an allied city state unit is being bombarded by a barb ship, which is shown at the end of EVERY turn, often for hundreds of years..

 

[logintime]

(Cannot believe I'm doing this...)

Likes:
1. Some of the terrain graphics are very pretty. I'm thinking specifically of the mountains and the sand dunes in the desert. Nice terrain details like that go a long way.
2. Hexes. For the most part, it has helped make the world look better and more rational, movement-wise.
3. The end of road spam.
4. The way farms blend in with each other.
5. I never use strategic view, but I appreciate that it is there.

Dislikes:
1. Everything about diplomacy in this game. From the psychotic AI, to the lackluster options (declarations that do nothing? Open borders which serve no purpose other than going into their territory? A UN victory that has nothing to do with diplomacy and everything to do with having enough cash to buy off all city states at the right moment?), the diplomatic element of this game is terrible.
2. Trade posts. They are silly- why not have towns and villages instead? Especially since they function the same, only towns and villages make actual sense in the real world and weren't ever the eyesore that trading posts are.
3. The smallness of the world. From the map size, to the lower number of cities you can expect to have in a given game, to the lower number of AI civs (the city-states take up a lot of room), to the low production values in the terrain, to the limited types of resources, to the scale of things like warfare, it all feels scaled back in a bad way. Civs 1-4 had a wide and epic feel to them. In civ4, I could play on a huge map with 18 civs and it all felt expansive. I've never had that feeling in Civ5. Everything in Civ5 feels small and condensed.
4. Lack of religion and other features. Religion is the big one for me since it is such a huge element of world history. Why it is missing is unfathomable aside from the devs not knowing how to work it in. Espionage is also missing, as are wonder cinematics, proper endings (oil paintings just don't cut it), and the like. Really though, lack of religion. It kills me that they dropped this feature.
5. The UI. It is awkward and clunky and art-deco (not my preferred style by any means). Plus I hate the ugly mini-map. It's an ugly Microsoft Paint splotch of badness taking up the bottom-right corner of the screen at all times. Grrrr!

 

[Thormodr]

(Cannot believe I'm doing this...)

Likes:
1. Some of the terrain graphics are very pretty. I'm thinking specifically of the mountains and the sand dunes in the desert. Nice terrain details like that go a long way.
2. Hexes. For the most part, it has helped make the world look better and more rational, movement-wise.
3. The end of road spam.
4. The way farms blend in with each other.
5. I never use strategic view, but I appreciate that it is there.

Dislikes:
1. Everything about diplomacy in this game. From the psychotic AI, to the lackluster options (declarations that do nothing? Open borders which serve no purpose other than going into their territory? A UN victory that has nothing to do with diplomacy and everything to do with having enough cash to buy off all city states at the right moment?), the diplomatic element of this game is terrible.
2. Trade posts. They are silly- why not have towns and villages instead? Especially since they function the same, only towns and villages make actual sense in the real world and weren't ever the eyesore that trading posts are.
3. The smallness of the world. From the map size, to the lower number of cities you can expect to have in a given game, to the lower number of AI civs (the city-states take up a lot of room), to the low production values in the terrain, to the limited types of resources, to the scale of things like warfare, it all feels scaled back in a bad way. Civs 1-4 had a wide and epic feel to them. In civ4, I could play on a huge map with 18 civs and it all felt expansive. I've never had that feeling in Civ5. Everything in Civ5 feels small and condensed.
4. Lack of religion and other features. Religion is the big one for me since it is such a huge element of world history. Why it is missing is unfathomable aside from the devs not knowing how to work it in. Espionage is also missing, as are wonder cinematics, proper endings (oil paintings just don't cut it), and the like. Really though, lack of religion. It kills me that they dropped this feature.
5. The UI. It is awkward and clunky and art-deco (not my preferred style by any means). Plus I hate the ugly mini-map. It's an ugly Microsoft Paint splotch of badness taking up the bottom-right corner of the screen at all times. Grrrr!

Great post. I agree with everything you have said. Especially number 3 of your dislikes. The world really does feel very small. I still remember the furore when Jon Shafer did an interview with a Dutch gaming website and gave some hints about how small the upcoming game was going to be. Perhaps the opening musical score should have been "It's a small world after all". Lol

Also, I agree that the farms look very nice. They do blend in well with each other.

 

[TM Moot]

sorry, forgot to say my biggest (small) dislike...

City Screen

Ugly, cluttered, un-userfriendly...aarrggh.
So many clicks needed to do the simplist tasks.

Just waiting for a BUG mode for civ5 to sort it out (please)...

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Like:
(1) Foxes and sheep: Ohhh soooooo~ cute...
(2) Hexes: The #1 reason I don't want to go back to CIV4/FFH
(3) Improvements: It just looks much more natural. Farms for example.
(4) On-map wonders: A great idea, I always loved the great wall in CIV4.
(5) Specialist tile improvements: Even better with freedom after the latest patch! Yeah!

Dislike:
(1) AI: No questions, your honor.
(2) Interface: All colorful and shiny, but so bulky. I mean, if I had my old monitor and would have to play this - oh wow...
(3) Lack of religions: It could be annoying in CIV4, but in the end, religion was such an important factor for history that just leaving it out makes me sad.
(4) Water: When it is on the right side of the screen (from where the light seems to illuminate the map), you can see nice wave and flow effects. If it is in the middle of the screen, it just looks like a flat blue surface.
(5) Leader traits: Many seem so situational... And it would be cool to have the option to select from 2 or 3 per nation, like I could in CIV4 (Frederik vs. Bismarck).

 

[basta]

Like:
1) The special sounds: the grunt of workers finishing a build, of new policies to be chosen, etc. Kudos to the sound designer, great work.
2) The beauty of the map, rich colors, great details: for example, the slow drift of the clouds covering unexplored territory and the rendering of the oceans, with the sun's reflection shifting and the schools of fish with gulls circling
3) Hexes
4) The airplane attack animations--wonderfully well done
5) City states. In the end, I like them as an addition to the game

Dislike:
1) Cathy's petulance. "Je vous derange?!," Caesar's war declaration, and anything at all said by Wu Zetian. Washington sounding like Bill Clinton. Ghandi, that whiny passive-aggressive dough-boy with nukes.
2) Pointless, tedious, continual war from turn 34 onward. DoWs from Civs you haven't even found yet. Phony wars that last 100+ turns from civs on the other end of the earth. Or the predictability of wearing one civ down to the point of them offering a neutral peace treaty, and if you refuse it to move in for the kill, another civ will DoW immediately (even DoFs) just to make trouble, throwing pikemen at your rifles.
Take out an AI capitol and still, 100 turns later, they suicide attack you just to gum up the works. Sorry devs, but this is just ridiculous and not enjoyable.
3) Spontaneously generated barbs--poof! How real is that?
4) Scouts stuck being bombarded by barb tiremes until the industrial era, and having to watch it every turn.
5) Alexander buying up all the CSs by turn 100. Broken mechanic here.
6) (forgot this, but oh so annoying) Your "friends" asking for luxuries the turn they finish, not the next turn; along with paying these friendly extortions for 150+ turns, only to be backstabbed for the pleasure.

 

[blasto]

I love how the game manages to keep the feeling of a sense of exploration when playing a new game even though I have seen everything in the game a thousand times over.

I love raging barbarians and keeping encampments around my perimeters for AI worker harvesting as they try to send settlers in.


For me the worst is watching an automated worker make a beeline into the wilderness, like it thinks it’s a scout or something.

 

[Saint Augustine]

Subtle things like I like:
1) Mountains; love them, love that they are an actual obstacle, love that I can build observatories next to them
2) hexes animation, farm spill over, hill spillover, pretty sweet for lots of reasons
3) wonders on the map, they are big, it's cool that they are also on the map as something relatively big
4) UA's, neat in general. Just one example, Rome - soliders that can build roads and forts - this is so historically accurate that it makes me want to slap someone. Brilliant.

Subtle things that I displike:
1) Rivers; i really wish they would take a look at the mechanics of rivers in general, this is something that is borderline for this post -- sorry
2) Songhai diplomacy screen, why is everything on fire all the time? I know it's a lot of changes but I wish the diplo backgrounds were related to in-game, current, diplomacy states. For example, did you just raze one of my cities and contact me? Fine, let the background be ablaze but, if I just burned your city to the ground and you contacted me, why can't the background be my capital? all serene looking?
3) barb camps, what the hell? why can't i contact you and bribe you to attack someone else while i chop that forest and leave my worker undefended? ha!
4) intro movie, hate the dream sequence, love the CIV sequence

 

[MAHak2]

5+

1. No more spaghetti roads

2. Different improvements for different resources. Not just mine and irragation like CIV3

3. Current leader system

4. The (real) the natural wonders

5. The scope of what is MOD'ible in CIV5. Too complex for me though


7-

1. No way to srcoll through names when founding cities, no Königsberg as Germany(mentioned before)

2. When you pick Honor policy you get notifications of barb. camps but none when someone else destroys them, so when you sends some mob up units they reveal a camp long gone. When someone else completes the "destroy camp" city-state mission they are still shown on map.

3. Not enoungh room to show many combats modifiers

4. Workers stop building even when there is many hexes to the frontline of a war. They should know better then questioning their master, i should have them sent to a Gulag camp for that.

5. El Dorado and Fountain Of Youth! Those ruins the 'authentic history aspect'

6. Giant Death Robots too! Can't imagine those in the next 50 years or what ever date the game ends. Prove me wrong Sid Meyer

7. It was easier to find 7 negative features then 5 good ones.

Last one don't know if i should laugh or cry.

Researching 'Banking' lets you build the Forbidden Palace! How are they related? Does the Emporer have a Forbidden Bank, in the palace, that only he can use?.

 

[Prince ByTor]

Like:
1. Clouds being the cover for unexplored territory.
2. Realistic-looking resources and tile improvements. No more cartoon bananas falling off the tree into a basket-Yes!
3. Detailed leader backgrounds that fit their personality/culture.
4. Combat animations, particularly two full strength melee units rushing into each other for an epic battle.
5. When wonders such as the Pyramids and Chichen Itza are built off the coast. No one ever said that my nation's monuments had to be built exactly how history had them. I think wonders like that would be impressive if they rose up out of the ocean or a lake.

Dislike:
1. When I want to order my military units but after every move the game drags the screen over to a worker who needs orders but I don’t want to move him yet because I don’t know what I want to do with him. Also, when I attack with an air unit and I have the screen positioned so I can see both takeoff and attack, then when the next air unit is auto-selected the screen recenters on the city where the unit is based.
2. That you can’t zoom out to globe view and view the world as a sphere. Yes, I’m aware it’s not possible to do with all hexagons (which I vastly prefer over square tiles), but I still miss that view.
3. There is no way to sketch or draw on the map. I want to be able to preplan and trace out where I want to found my cities right on the world itself like I could in Civ4.
4. Wonders seem few and far between in the later eras. I would certainly like to see more late game wonders such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Channel Tunnel, Autobahn, Burj Khalifa, or the Hubble Space Telescope. The possibilities are nearly endless!
5. That a military unit is fully on defense immediately after you order it to. I like the concept that the unit takes a few turns to further ‘dig in’, gaining a little defense each turn(up to a capped amount, of course) rather than being instantly on the fullest defense.

 

[Mods]

Like:
1. That the free wall from the great wall is not visible (So no double walls, that would be weird)
2. How farms look in general
3. Elizabeth's peace music
4. Natural terrain looks awesome
5. The animations of every unit

dislike:
1: The great wall grows and eventually turns into the great hexagon
2: Roads are all messed up when they branch out
3: Ugly trading posts sometimes I build unnecessary farms because only trading posts looks too ugly
4: My capital turning into disneyland
5: Late game cities on hills or next to water are very ugly (especially disneyland capitals)

 

[OrsonM]

dislike:

4: My capital turning into disneyland

Made me giggle.

 

[Gilkan]

Like:

1. The terrain. It's looks so nice, especially the mountains and water.
2. Ranged units are actually ranged. A massive upgrade from Civilization 4.
3. The city-state concept.
4. 1UPT. It makes combat more fun. No more SoD's.
5. I like the achievements. It gives you little things to do if you're bored with the usual Domination Victory.

Dislike:

1. I think the rivers need some upgrading. They were better in Civ4. I could honestly care less about aesthetics though. It just needs to be thicker so I can see it!.
2. Denouncing and the "warmonger" attribute. In my last game I destroyed Julius Caesar before 0 A.D. The other AI's never forgave me. At least three would be denouncing me at once, and throughout the whole game they were always guarded or hostile. Even nations that hadn't even met Rome! And one of the nations that denounced me was a worse warmonger than me. And the worst part was that those two wars were the only ones I fought the entire game. I think they should fix that aspect of diplomacy as soon as possible.
3. Naval Combat AI needs work. AI has a hard time staging invasions and fighting you at sea.
4. Maritime city-states need a nerf, they give you wayyyy to much food currently.
5. City-states in general need a bit of a redo. I've seen city-states building artillery when the civilization they're fighting only has riflemen.

 

[Optional]

Like:

1) How tight battles aren't decided in one turn.
2) The minimap workings; you see your known world but it's not revealed yet in which corner you are.
3) The game remembers a half finished tile improvement.
4) Looting from tile improvements outside your territory.
5) Darting foxes.

Dislike:

1) Darius' nose; failed plastic surgery?
2) Ranged units can't do anything against units that are embarked?
3) Islands all occupied by city states.
4) No reforesting?
5) Jungle only appearing on plains?

3) when the mouseover says an improvement will be done in 1 turn when it actually means 2 turns.

And it's still not patched out!

 

[Vathris]

Like:

1. Having land that complements your empire. (Played Polynesia and got a beautiful island with a blue-water bays, fish, whales and jungle, looked like paradise. )

2. Submarines and the sonar pinging sounds they make when you click on them (makes me smile). Also torpedoing enemy ships, looks so awesome.

3. Loading ICBMs and guided missiles into your nuclear submarine and missile cruisers, planes and bombers onto your aircraft carriers.

4. The way borders look, the complementing colors and shading.

5. A good battle of wits in multiplayer, nothing like it.


Dislike:

1. The look of trading posts, I avoid building them whenever possible.

2. When road intersections loop over each other in weird patterns.

3. Watching an allied city state get it's fortified pikeman bombed by planes for 1 damage 3 times a turn... turn, after turn, after turn, after turn...

4. The fact that the leader music and empire theme music are the same, whenever I start any empire the music reminds me of the leader screen too much.

5. When I have a beautiful capital and decide to build walls, only for the walls to make a warped misshapen ring up the side of a mountain, or hill, exposing more than half the city. The fact that walls persist after Industrial era.


The game terrain and ambiance are gorgeous and there's so many little things I like that 5 doesn't scratch the surface.

 

[Ogden Reeve]

Sweet stuff:
1. Bonuses for completing a social policy tree (reminded me of the bonus you get in Diablo II when you collect all the items from a set)

2. Getting my scout upgraded to an archer and becoming a super scout.

3. Samurai combat animation (And just samurai in general)

4. I LIKE the diplomatic victory. It is more like the economic victory in Alpha Centauri, but I think that there should be a victory condition that you can achieve by stockpiling tons of gold. Just like in real life, a modern civ that has stockpiles of cash can pretty much rule the world. See the US who runs the show by providing millions of dollars in aid to many other countries. This always reminded me of the way you get city state support by giving them cold hard cash.

5. Medieval ownage with Cho Ku Nus powered by upgraded great generals.

6. Having control over who your next great person will be. Really disliked the percentage model that was in civ 4. Strategizing for a GS and having a 95 percent chance to get that GS only to receive a GA instead was extremely frustrating.

7. Tactical combat. Small civilizations can finally hold off against huge empires by using terrain and chock-points to their advantage.

8. Ironclads upgrading to battleships

Not so sweet:

1. No religions or corporations. The game practically begs for corporations as something to do in the mid-end game if you're not a warmonger.

2. Sometimes your great engineer does not insta build a wonder. We should know ahead of time if the use of the GE will insta build the wonder and if not, how many hammers will you have left to fill. Its extremely frustrating to use up a GE only to have another civ complete the wonder.

3. Not enough diplomatic options. Perhaps there should be a "League of Nations" to create pacts and embargos and things like that, while the UN will stay as only a victory condition.

4. Caravels zipping in and eating up your highly promoted embarked units

5. since the last patch its possible to get infantry before riflemen. Kinda strange.

6. Not being able to get more than 30 xp from barbarians.

 

[Dr. S. C.]

LIKES:
1. (Probably gonna get hated on for this one, but) I LOVE that there's no religion!!! Worst thing from civ4 (the only other game I've played); I always felt forced to take Theocracy as soon as it opened to keep everyone elses' religions from messing with my new cities.
2. The way culture spreads one tile at a time, and that culture can no longer "push" your neighbors' borders around; not only more realistic, but much better paced.
3. How resources were stream-lined by reducing their number; especially pigs felt slightly OP, and copper pointless given all the units that can use either copper or iron.
4. The way civ choice actually feels important now; actually unique UAs instead of getting two out of a dozen-so non-unique traits, UUs and UBs provide more significant bonuses, and all the different music, with peaceful and war variants, and leaders speaking their languages (to an extent) is very immersive.
5. That science is tied to citizens instead of gold (directly, anyway) makes so much more sense.
6.That flat space gives a defense penalty; don't remember if this was ever in civ4, but it just makes so much sense and requires even more forethought for warring.


DISLIKES:
1. There's no separate option for "Quick combat (attacking)" and "Quick combat (defending)," AND that quick combat is an ADVANCED game option instead of a player option; that makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever...
2. There's no little animations for worked tiles (like civ4), which makes it easy to see what your cities are working without going to the city screen.
3. That trade routes can only be by road or harbor; at least give us river again!
4. Naval and Air units' animations are way too slow; and worse, even switching to strategic view doesn't help the naval units.
5.Not only that there's a lack of multiple leaders, but that multiple leaders aren't even supported and mods have to go through roundabout loopholes to give civs other leaders.
6. The way citizens get "scared" by a single barb archer who's 5+ tiles away; I know how to take care of my units, damit! On the next turn, My warrior will get rid of it, and it wont even be able to touch you!!!

 

[headcase]

Like:
1. The pen sound!
2. How the leaders' animations change when you denounce or declare on them, especially when they're acting friendly.
3. The organization of the tech tree (war stuff on the bottom, peace and exploration stuff on the top)
4. Great end-of-game log, almost as good as Civ4 now.
5. Edit: the way the borders naturally expand AND the way they look in general just feels right (well, the hexes are obvious but that's pretty unavoidable and probably for the better)
6. You can swap the hexes units are standing on if they both have enough moves...


Dislike:
1. ...which Civilopedia neglects, among other concepts.
2. Civilopedia's game concepts index is bloated with a lot of redundant information and tiny articles that seem to only be there to (poorly) compensate for the simplicity of the search function.
3. The AI's ridiculous cheating for happiness (the rest I can stand).
4. Pressing F12 immediately destroys your progress.
5. No battle prediction in vanilla unless you're at war with the other party - but holding alt fixes this
5 (new). (this is more of a big thing than a little thing but) no Nimoy!

 

[qartar]

Likes
1. No more road spaghetti.
2. All around better graphics (but not as much better as it is slower). Unit graphics are much better proportioned; less cartoonish than Civ 3/4, more individuals in a group is also a nice touch.

Dislikes
1. Graphics glitches: taking several seconds for a resource to completely apply itself to the map, a whole turn for improvements to show up, the occasional combat animation glitch.
2. Jumbo sized interface.
3. Air combat taking forever. Do you really need to show the units taking off and landing every sortie?
4. No zones of control, something that I missed in the previous versions also. Makes forts pretty pointless when you can move right past them.
5. Natural wonders: stupid chintzy happiness and they bring up that stupid pop-up every time. (Fountain of Youth and El Dorado being in their own class of loathsomeness.)
6. Trade deals and open borders automatically end every time they expire, each element of the deal has its own notification (same as minor civilization war declarations), cannot be renewed until after they expire so your units get ejected from friendly territory without recourse. Really preferred the minimum turn but indefinite deals from Civ 4.
7. Soulless buildings (better in recent patches).
8. Trade posts. Ugly and absurd.
9. Civilopedia suggests that 'Panzer' is German for 'Panther'.

And all the big stuff.

The fact that walls persist after Industrial era.

Walls do occasionally persist: Saint-Malo. If you are referring to the fact that you need to build walls and a castle for defense all the way into the modern era then yes I agree it is a bit absurd.

 

[OrsonM]

Likes
9. Civilopedia suggests that 'Panzer' is German for 'Panther'.

I feel another scavenger thread comming up!!