A cogent explanation on the shortfalls of Civ V

[dexters]

Nope, I was actually always on par or even ahead of the AI in tech. Its pretty hard for them to get that tech lead when their cities are constantly being burnt to the ground. Plus I was allied with every single city state on the map with full patronage which gave me a pretty good boost to science (many cases because I liberated them). Plus liberal use of tech treaties as well (had to do something with all that cash I got from razing cities).

so how is this automated play or cruising to victory. Seems like you were doing a lot.

 

[mrt144]

That's not really a game problem though. If they gave Civ5 AI units +30% combat bonus you'd have to exploit the AI too.

Their current method of pure prod. bonuses for AI will need to be adjusted and I'm going to keep mentioning it in hopes a dev sees it.

But the critique that Civ5 is a lesser game because diety play doesn't involve exploits X,Y,Z is bizarre to say the least. That even goes against with the 'combat AI sucks' critique which a lot of us agree with and want them to fix.

you're simply talking not having the exploits to play with, and presumably feel good about later.

I find that kind of play boring.

I'm saying that it's boring that moving up in difficulty levels doesn't require finding new ways of winning, even at the highest levels.

 

[mrt144]

so how is this automated play or cruising to victory. Seems like you were doing a lot.

Isn't the experience of feeling accomplishment more important than you telling him that it seems like he was doing a lot?

 

[dexters]

I'm saying that it's boring that moving up in difficulty levels doesn't require finding new ways of winning, even at the highest levels.

Agreed. Again if they fix AI bonuses on the top end, it wont be an issue.

 

[mrt144]

The problem is a lot of the mechanics has been moved to a global level while features have been removed. This by a matter of fact removes the ability to make as many choices. Less choices = less dynamics. If I only have 4 items I can only a few choices on how to combine them. If I have 30 items the choices are much greater. Finding the ultimate set of choices for a given start with a given civ on a given map is far more engrossing and difficult.

I still think in a year there will be a lot more choices given to us because this game was rushed. I don't really see the need to defend that fact.

I'd argue that the worst culprit of this is the food resources that don't do anything.

 

[mrt144]

Agreed. Again if they fix AI bonuses on the top end, it wont be an issue.

There should be more than just affecting the AI bonus though. Like nerfing horsemen vs. cities for starts.

 

[dexters]

Cities needs to be more defensible. Adding movement penalty within enemy borders would fix it too.

 

[r_rolo1]

I am sure you realize covering the maintenance cost of a city is fairly trivial in Civ4 and almost always possible. Covering the extra SP costs and unhappiness is not trivial (and the OP finds that objectionable).

To be honest, i don't see any diference between civ IV and V in this regard, not even in degree. In fact i think that in civ V things are even more trivial because the options you have to solve the SP rising costs and happy issues were ... streamlined to 2 or 3 ways: if you need happiness, you either trade for resources or buy a building ( there are other options but this two are the main ones and the ones that are minimally scalable ), if your SP costs rise you can either bribe some cultural CS, run some artists or build wonders... and all of the above is atleast as easy to do as any of the dozen of ways you can deal with Civ IV maintenance ( this excluding some more out-of-track alternatives like ignoring happiness, massive use of puppets or liberation/gift of a lot of cities after gathering a boatload of culture and then adopting the SP in question ).

If you think I'm wrong, feel free to counter me ... but please, do not enter in unproven generalities. It is bad for the discussion.

 

[TheHarshax]

I'll speak to point 5.

Civ4 unconditionally rewarded expansion of the empire. There was essentially no victory condition where an increased number of cities wouldn't be beneficial:

1.) Conquest/Domination: Military production is increased significantly with more cities.
2.) Space Race: The moment a city generated more commerce than it cost in maintenance, it was a net addition to tech speed.
3.) Diplomatic: Increased tech speed gives you the technologies/gold you need to bribe Civs to be friendly.
4.) Cultural: Allows you to build more temples and increased tech speed gets you to key techs faster.
5.) Time: More cities results in a higher score.

Mastering Civ4 was a matter of mastering expansion of your empire. Virtually every situation rewarded you for expansion of your empire. It wasn't a matter of if you should expand, but when. This is not the case for Civ5, and I consider that to be a benefit. It encourages varying gameplay styles.

Small empires are not at an inherent disadvantage to larger empires. In some cases (as in the case of cultural victory), you are rewarded for maintaining a smaller empire. In other cases, you can still maintain some parity with a larger empire (largely due to the global happiness mechanic, separation of research from commerce, and city-states). And in some cases, you are at a disadvantage, such as military conquest.

This makes gameplay less one dimensional as it pertains to victory conditions. It does force you to make difficult choices (e.g. should I expand to that 4th/5th city for a military/tech advantage and effectively eliminate cultural victory as an option). It does attach more permanence to your decisions than the decisions made in Civ4. It means the cost of your decisions won't be relegated to solely opportunity cost. But I consider these difficult decisions the basis of a good strategy game. I consider the long-term ramifications of your decisions an improvement. The flexibility you miss, I am happy to see gone. It rewards well-thought out plans and foresight. And to me that is what a strategy game is about.

The game certainly needs massaging. But ultimately I feel once more work is put into balancing the game, the decisions are going to be harder to make in Civ5 than they are in Civ4. The path to victory will be less evident than it was in Civ4. It's not there yet, but I look forward to it. The game design is certainly better set up for it than Civ4 ever was.

Nice rebuttal. I couldn't agree more.

 

[Mac2411]

Nope, I was actually always on par or even ahead of the AI in tech. Its pretty hard for them to get that tech lead when their cities are constantly being burnt to the ground. Plus I was allied with every single city state on the map with full patronage which gave me a pretty good boost to science (many cases because I liberated them). Plus liberal use of tech treaties as well (had to do something with all that cash I got from razing cities).

In the few instances where they were slightly ahead of me it didn't matter much. Its not too hard to win if they are only one unit type ahead of you, especially if your units are veterans.

I was constantly at war throughout the entire game (I never declared on them though they always attacked me first) from about 1000 BC to when I finally got the cultural win in the late 1800s. The problem was I wanted Bollywood so I couldn't actually finish someone off and take their capitol. I would raze them down to one last city left and then make peace. Then their neighbor would attack me and while I was kicking his butt the original one would rebuild and then decide to try me again. Somehow I became the bloodthirsty warmonger when I was just defending myself .

This was on Deity standard size map (well I think it was standard, I used random map settings but it looked like a standard map) by the way.

You are obviously a better player than me.

 

[mercury529]

5 years after the release of the game...

I mean, if you want to keep your argument consistent here.

The problem I'm having with Civ 5 right now is that until they rebalance the gameplay anything less than optimal right now is tedious and uninteresting.

This is my whole point. You are using 5 years of information to explain to me how nuanced Civ4 is. You would not have been able to do that after less than a month of playing.

The game needs rebalancing. Civ4 was barely playable at this point after its release. Give it time.

To be honest, i don't see any diference between civ IV and V in this regard, not even in degree. In fact i think that in civ V things are even more trivial because the options you have to solve the SP rising costs and happy issues were ... streamlined to 2 or 3 ways: if you need happiness, you either trade for resources or buy a building ( there are other options but this two are the main ones and the ones that are minimally scalable ), if your SP costs rise you can either bribe some cultural CS, run some artists or build wonders... and all of the above is atleast as easy to do as any of the dozen of ways you can deal with Civ IV maintenance ( this excluding some more out-of-track alternatives like ignoring happiness, massive use of puppets or liberation/gift of a lot of cities after gathering a boatload of culture and then adopting the SP in question ).

If you think I'm wrong, feel free to counter me ... but please, do not enter in unproven generalities. It is bad for the discussion.

Unproven generality? This was the very crutch of the OP's "you can't transition to cultural victory type" argument. So either he introduced some unproven generality you didn't feel the need to correct him for, or I am arguing within an accepted framework.

 

[dexters]

Isn't the experience of feeling accomplishment more important than you telling him that it seems like he was doing a lot?

I would feel quite accomplished doing what he did. Back room dealing, buying off CS. I belt those military CS helped him with free units too.

What i'm getting at is OCC is not that fun operationally and requires more diplo play.
And he's done that. Civ5's sucky combat AI also allowed him more hands on wars too.
if he prefers Civ4 to 5 then it's preference, not because of a broken mechanic at that level.

 

[mrt144]

I would feel quite accomplished doing what he did. Back room dealing, buying off CS. I belt those military CS helped him with free units too.

What i'm getting at is OCC is not that fun operationally and requires more diplo play.
And he's done that. Civ5's sucky combat AI also allowed him more hands on wars too.
if he prefers Civ4 to 5 then it's preference, not because of a broken mechanic at that level.

It's hard to isolate preference for a product from the properties of the product.

 

[dexters]

It's hard to isolate preference for a product from the properties of the product.

In the absence of concrete data, and the person in this regard doesn't need an interpreter such as you to 'defend' him, I can only assume preference.

He also left ALOT out in his original missive. Initially it was just a blanket complaint about how automated it felt to him. Well that's subjective. When we dig deeper, we find out he's doing all these things. alliances, wars to cripple the AI so they don't send MI against his Rifles.

 

[r_rolo1]

Unproven generality? This was the very crutch of the OP's "you can't transition to cultural victory type" argument. So either he introduced some unproven generality you didn't feel the need to correct him for, or I am arguing within an accepted framework.

Your comment on civ IV is from your own doing and that was the one I was refering to. You stated that countering maintenance in civ IV was more trivial than countering the similar features in civ V. I'm asking proof of that statement, and to be honest i don't see in the OP any reference to civ IV maintenance in this context ( or to be more precise, not at all atleast explicitely ), so don't shield behind him.

 

[MeteorPunch]

At this point I am not trusting that these developers can fix it, as they were the ones who designed and released this train wreck. I am still clinging to hope (maybe they were severely rushed by publishers?), but that is all I have, hope.

 

[Svest]

so how is this automated play or cruising to victory. Seems like you were doing a lot.

I was but at the same time I wasn't. For the first half of the game I was doing quite a bit. For the second half of the game it was just cruising. I was basically controlling my 5-6 units to mop up meaningless resistance and setting my 3 cities to build wonder after wonder. The AI had already been crippled. I was just going through the motions until the victory screen popped up.

Now this is really no different than pretty much any other Civ game played on high difficulty. You win the game in the first half and you just go through the motions to finish it up in the second half.

My only real point was that you can take advantage of the terrible combat AI to get to any kind of victory you want. Had the AI posed a challenge in combat I suspect things would have been much different. I would have had to think much more about what I built rather than queue up all the wonders and hit next turn, I probably wouldn't have had so many automatic CS allies from liberating them, I probably would have had to optimize my culture path, and I might have had to worry about the AI out teching me, I wouldn't have gotten so much free gold, and my units probably wouldn't have survived to be ~lvl 15.

Until the combat AI is addressed its hard to say what else is out of line in the game (if anything) because that one aspect being so screwed up has such a major effect on the rest of the game. If they can manage to fix the combat AI then I think many of people's other complaints will suddenly vanish as well.

 

[Asylumer]

The problem is a lot of the mechanics has been moved to a global level while features have been removed. This by a matter of fact removes the ability to make as many choices. Less choices = less dynamics.

"A game is a series of interesting choices" - Sid Meier

Sid pretty much explains why the latest Civilization falls short right there. Combat has some increased potential but everything else becomes much less involved and the choices that we can make aren't particularly interesting. Well, besides Combat, but the AI doesn't give us much opportunity to engage in that facet of gameplay to its fullest.

 

[skallben]

Horsmen needs a nerf and city walls needs a buff.

 

[pagh80]

Its a good post that i mostly agree with but you fall through at some places.

There are also fewer options. Techs cannot be traded. Maps cannot be traded.

This is a choice the developers made and not cause of poor AI. I kinda like that you cant trade techs or maps. It brings out another type of gameplay.

Puppeting cities does not help this because, as mentioned, they will bankrupt you.

It depends on your game. Read this thread about strategies involving cultural victory. But i agree that the penalty for more than one city is too steep.