a few complaints. (TRYING to be constructive)

[AsheMorgan]

So I started a city, and the first thing I realize is that I have to coordinate strategy with a bunch of people who I don't even know. Lame. Well actually it was the second. The FIRST thing I noticed was that I had to join a civ. I select Egyptians, and lo and behold, it put me with the French. I quit out of that and tried again, with the SAME results. (French have always been one of my least favorite civs to play.)
Back to the "strategy". When you have 30-40 people all trying to do different things, nothing happens. Everyones' strategy is at odds with everyone else's. I want a game where I decide the fate of my civ. Yes you can play independant, but it will take months of real-time play to do anything. Research is painfully slow on your own.
I'm also not a fan of having to wait for harvests (one per hour, I believe). This has always been the reason I loathe facebook games. That, and the endless build, wait, upgrade, wait, upgrade, wait, upgrade, wait grind.
One final note: the minigames can be fun. the first dozen times. after that there is no reason to play them. It is like beating one's head against the same patch of wall repeatedly. I've only been playing for a couple of days, and I'm pretty sure I'm about done with the whole experience. Boo, Firaxis. This game should have been titled "Civilization: Sid Meier Has Another Mortgage Payment."

Ok, that was a lot less constructive than I had originally hoped for. Sorry.

 

[Tatran]

I want a game where I decide the fate of my civ.

Don't ask yourself what you can for your civ, but what it can for you.

Also, the number of (very) active players is what really matters.

 

[starrywisdom]

Back to the "strategy". When you have 30-40 people all trying to do different things, nothing happens. Everyones' strategy is at odds with everyone else's. I want a game where I decide the fate of my civ. Yes you can play independant, but it will take months of real-time play to do anything. Research is painfully slow on your own.

Just so you know, the game will end before you get anywhere worthy of mention lol.

 

[Glinda]

Putting you in some random thread is a bug, and hopefully it will get fixed soon.

I actually have made some chums in the beta (before open, so who knows now there are a million billion players), just by playing smart and using the chat in-game. A couple people taught me how to play, and then I teamed up with them and others in later games. This is actually the part that makes the game fun and worth coming back to, for me.

 

[AsheMorgan]

@ glinda: (awesome name btw)...it's good to see that there are players out there for whom the group thing works. perhaps when i'm feeling a bit more generous i shall do as you say and attempt the teamwork thing with more of an open mind. guess i got a little used to how civ has traditionally worked in the past.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

i dont agree at all. i have made some real good friends by playing the game and we were complete strangers before we started playing. now we give each other tips on optimising and also continously discuss strategy.

we have closed borders and have only about 10 players, all of who are active. we had a couple of inactive guys who we got rid of by adopting meritocracy.

Our civ consists of about 4 of us who are the stronger players and sort of the leadership group and one of us seems to always be online to direct traffic.

We are the most powerful civ in our game. we took out all the early leaders who had large numbers of players, and have only one real threat now.

I am enjoying this game more than civ because of the teamwork aspect. However you have to have the right kind of people who will put the team first and you need to do so too, like when we really need a particular wonder you sell everything you got and buy that great person ...

 

[Glinda]

I agree; I love the team aspect. However, with the Open Beta, it's a LOT harder to co-ordinate people into the same game, so I am not sure how it will work in the future. Perhaps when all these bugs are sorted out, we will see.

 

[Shafi-is-back]

They have now allowed people to join multiple games, and i'm sure in the final version they will let you get in to any game you want, so hopefully it would not be a problem.