A warning from a 'fanboi'

Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions, but that is definitely the tone I took from it. If you, at least, don't mean it that way then I apologize.

I don't think they did quite right with the diplomacy. It may be true that it needed to be a little more organic and opaque than Civilization 4, but they may have taken it too far. I'm not entirely in disagreement here.

I like the social policies, but I am somewhat in agreement here as well. They could stand to have the social policies in *addition* to something like civics as opposed to a replacement. The social policies could be renamed and re-flavored to represent the cultural heritage of your civilization, and the Civics could be reintroduced and represent your actual active government. This would be fine, and would end up being superior to both Civ4 and Civ5.

I couldn't agree more about the buildings. I had built a handful of walls in cities and then decided I didn't want to pay for them once my border pushed out. I kept scouring the interface for a way to delete them. I figured "I have to pay for these things every turn. *Surely* I can delete them..."

I am not really a Civ5 fanboi by any stretch of the imagination. I have my complaints to be sure. I just feel that Civ5+BeyondTheWhatever will end up being much better than anyone guesses at the moment.

Civ4+BTS is currently, overall, superior to Civilization 5. I feel that the foundation of Civilization 5 is stronger, and that once it is debugged and expanded it will be a far and away better product. This is my exact and concise opinion on the matter.

You're actually starting to sound reasonable. :p Yeah, it wasn't a slight.. just pointing out that casual gamers like this iteration far more than a lot of the vets do.

I think the more you play Civ 5, the more we'll be in agreement. Those little things that annoy will start to become more and more annoying as the newness wears off. I just moved off the honeymoon phase early, and have seen the ugly wench for what it is.

Having said that, I do agree that in time, patches, and a dedicated modding community, Civ 5 will get back there. Unfortunately as of now, it's just not quite there.
 
So, let me explain a bit more what I mean. You said that winning the game on difficulties higher than you felt comfortable was a chore. It sounded like you thought this was a negative to civ 4 that was not true in civ 5. Was I somehow off base there?

Let me clarify. Winning even on a difficulty I can trounce easily, let's say Noble, is a chore. I eventually hit a point where I have to make a choice that I don't like. Enjoy the rest of the game, but knowingly do so with greatly reduced efficiency and clock in with a significantly lower score, reach domination X turns later, etc. Or, I can drill down to each little city and make little tweaks here and there to eke out a bit more efficiency. If I'm playing Starcraft or Company of Heroes time is a precious commodity. I only *have* a split second to scoot my Puma out of the arc of an American AT gun. Nothing tedious about it.

I'll put it in the words of a good friend of mine.

If a game is real time, or even has a time limit, there is micromanagement. If a game allows unlimited turn time there is tedium. There is no such thing as micromanagement when there is no ticking clock.

On a basic, not game specific, level I dislike TBS minutia. Multiplayer players working under strict time limits can easily make a different case, but I am referring to SP here.

But... Have you beaten 5 on Deity yet? Would it also feel like a chore and not be fun? How then is that a difference, except in the sense that the level where you could 'win and it not be a chore' was a harder labeled difficulty than in the previous game?

I have not.


Ghandi actually makes better bigger empires than other people too :). I know what they are going for here, but it isn't actually strategically true in this game. Civ 4 had a LOT more knobs to tweak for each civ. Philosophical leaders played differently than aggressive ones. I don't really think you can even really support an argument saying there are more varieties of strategies in civ 5, though I'd be curious to see a real debate about it.

Sure, in the game as it works you can take that one Order policy (forget what it was called) and build the forbidden palace. This will be nerfed to hell and back, but right now I suppose you are correct.

I would like to see a real debate about it as well. I want some of the more 'powerful' players to weigh in on it.

I agree that in civ 4 all cities can be as big as the biggest city, given time to grow. But not all could have a heroic epic, or a national epic, or a westpoint. The inclusion of certain types of effects, and national wonders all over the place allowed for city specialization that you don't get as densely in civ5.

I'm not arguing that Civ4 cities were necessarily less unique. I'm merely saying that the size of an empire was one-dimensional in Civ4. In Civ5, once it is balanced, I think you'll find that sizing up an empire is a more two-dimensional affair.

I don't think this has really changed. You are saying maintenance costs of buildings deter their production, so increase viable options? I guess that's true. But I think the value of buildings, and the very limited time scales in civ 4 were just as important. Opportunity cost is a far more interesting mechanic. Even then, the hammer costs in 5 are much larger, so I don't even see that as a difference.

Certainly the opportunity cost is a more subtle mechanic. I'm not even saying it was bad. It was a brilliant, even a genius, improvement over Civilization 3. Civilization 5 did lapse back into individual building maintenance, but I think they did so for the right reasons. Maybe I am just not seeing the whole picture, but I tend to be a lot more cautious about what buildings I build in 5. In 4 it's "Can I get by with building this or do I need to build a unit/research/wealth?" In 5 it's that plus "Can I afford it?" and "Do I need the happiness or the culture more?" I think that building or not building the barracks/armory line is a pretty legitimately complex question in Civilization 5.

Thanks for an interesting discussion. *This* is what should be going down on this forum.
 
We did not pay to wait for patches. We paid to play a finished, polished game.

What computer games industry have you been participating in? I have purchased whole game which simply never worked period. And needing patching is par for the source in PC games.

And don;'t say "well Left 4 Dead worked" Left for dead is a console game. Blizzard is just about the only developer releasing fully polished games that is about it.

The total war series is horrible. The paradox entertainment games are horrible. EA is generally horrible. A lot of these get polished up to nice finished products, but many don't.

As long as CiV is great in 5 months (and if not great now it is at least very fun) then it is simply par for the course in terms of PC game readiness when released.

It would be nice if the economics were different, but they are not. You could have gotten the budget for a polished games with a simultaneous console release, but then all the civ 4 lovers would REALLY be screaming bloody murder because then they really would have had to rip the heart out of the game.
 
YOU just hit the nail on the head.

Welcome to computer gaming in the modern era. Either accept it or don't buy games at launch anymore.

Would it be nice if this weren't the case? Yes. Do I particularly care? No, otherwise I wouldn't have bought this and *GASP* Elemental at launch. I have money and I have patience. I'm getting what I consider to be my money's worth at the moment.

Then again, I've had zero instability issues with Civ V.
 
There's a lot of top flight developers besides Blizzard.

Bioware, Bethesda, Obsidian, Square (and until recently, Infinity Ward), etc. You may disagree, and your personal list may differ, but my point is the same. Most of these companies release high quality, high polish products, because they recognize that rushing out mediocre quality games hurts your reputation and bottom line in the end.

I still think Firaxis is a great developer and belongs in that list with a little bit of refocusing, but they're going through a lot of political capital and goodwill with this recent fiasco.
 
There's a lot of top flight developers besides Blizzard.

Bioware, Bethesda, Obsidian, Square (and until recently, Infinity Ward), etc. You may disagree, and your personal list may differ, but my point is the same. Most of these companies release high quality, high polish products, because they recognize that rushing out mediocre quality games hurts your reputation and bottom line in the end.

I still think Firaxis is a great developer and belongs in that list with a little bit of refocusing, but they're going through a lot of political capital and goodwill with this recent fiasco.

I don't think you're getting it. Square dumped FFXIV on us PC users. It's barely usable.

Don't get me started on Bethesda. Their QA has been a running joke since Daggerfall.

I don't seem to recall Obsidian's NWN 2 being "high quality high polish" this close to its release. Maybe you were high on some kind of polish :p

I suppose Bioware is a reasonable assertion. Love or hate the things they've made, I wouldn't call most of their recent releases buggy.
 
Because they were also console releases and thus ^^^ budget and less tolerance for patching.

Yes, this is likely the cause. I think PC Gamers are still coming to terms with the loss of the "Main Platform" crown that occurred in the early 2000's. We simply don't have the clout to make too many demands :(
 
Yes, this is likely the cause. I think PC Gamers are still coming to terms with the loss of the "Main Platform" crown that occurred in the early 2000's. We simply don't have the clout to make too many demands :(

We have the best hardware, but also we are few and we're too smart for today's leading marketing tactics. Why bother with us when there are millions of kids with haxxor nagging skillz.
 
We have the best hardware, but also we are few and we're too smart for today's leading marketing tactics...

This attitude is a big part of the problem. I'm not saying we should dumb ourselves down and "play ball," but when we are reflexively this abrasive I find it hard to blame developers for moving on. Say what you want about fleecing the sheeple, it sounds like a better gig than trying to please more than 3 PC gamers at the same time.
 
Unfortunately, Firaxis isn't renowned for prompt, regular patches like Blizzard are :(

Compared to Blizzard, Firaxis isn't renowned for much. (And this is coming from someone who loves Civ and doesn't care at all for the various _Crafts.) Blizzard is clearly a better run organization.
 
I do believe we'll get patches that fix most bugs, and I even think we can convince them to change a few planned features that annoy almost everyone in the community(*).

However, I'm not sure if they can do it fast enough that I don't lose interest in the game. I guess I'd be back when I hear from a major patch, but it had to be convincing.

Luckily, they want to earn money with DLC (yes, you heard it right)! That will give them added reason to fix the core game, else noone will bother.





(*) That said, I enjoy 1upt, hexes, social policies, strategic ressources, the new borders,... very much so far. I even think hidden diplomacy modifiers are interesting (not knowing what the pact of secrecy does isn't).

I'm rather talking about things like you can't sell buildings or the obvious uselessness of some buildings.
 
The game should never have launched in this condition, it is truly terrible in every sense. They did not even bother to try to start games with all possible setting options. I tooled around for half an hour and found fairly easy combinations which made the game crash even on standard maps and reproduced with other players, that is incompetence of an unforgivable magnitude.
 
There are many many bugs in civ5 and some of them really annoy me and totally ruin my game experience.


In my latest game i am playing as England and America declared war against Singapore wich is my allie. I needed the food from Singapore so i went to defend it, only to realize that America was NOT NEVER EVER going to make peace with Singapore. When i talked to him about it (i tried many many times) the "Make peace with Singapore" -trade option was dimmed and when i put my mouse over it then it just says that "America has declared a permanent war against Singapore". WTH is that?! To me it sounds like this war is going on for the rest of the game unless i give up (and make peace with Washington or just withraw my units) and basicly just let him take Singapore! Yes, i CAN make peace with Washington and i did it once i beated most of his units but after about fifteen turns he was back with with new units (the war between Singapore and America never ended) trying to take Singapore so i declared war against him again. This is just stupid also because the AI sucks in combat so much that i am able to keep his huge forces out of Singapore with just 2-3 units! Ive been doing that for about 250 turns now! The AI doesnt build many siege units and once it builds them it doesnt know how to use them. I play on marathon and difficulty level is King.


In my game before that, i werent able to declare war against my neighbor because "Peace treaty (10 turns) hasnt expired yet" and this lasted for the entire rest of the game wich was 394 turns.


So i would say that civ5 is pretty much unplayable at the moment and it needs to be fixed, sooner rather than later.
 
Compared to Blizzard, Firaxis isn't renowned for much. (And this is coming from someone who loves Civ and doesn't care at all for the various _Crafts.) Blizzard is clearly a better run organization.

Blizzard isn't owned by 2K Games.

2K Games is substandard to put it politely.

Diablo III is going to be fantastic. I think it is 8-9 years in the making now with no

release date in sight.

It'll be very addicting though and highly polished. They take their time because they can.

Blizzard is lucky in that they have their cash cow in WoW.

2K Games is always on the verge of bankrupcy. So, when you have a crappy publisher

like that, you tend to have to make decisions based on short term financial thinking.

I sure wish Blizzard owned Firaxis... :(
 
I have never liked to play Civilization as a war game. 1upT makes me want to avoid wars even more.

Think about sea warfare and task forces. Task force has different ships for different threats. Stacking made sense as it was possible to make fighting package of carrier, few battleships and destroyers. This added at least some realism.

Same thing in land warfare. I made one panzer unit and liberated Helsinki and took also one Greek city with same unit. What is this :):):):)? :)

Well, I don't want to bash the game yet and hope to find some game by being a pacifist nation.
 
At least 2k let Civ5 supports modding. Sega has been trying to kill off modding in Total War series. Lol at $10 DLC that adds in 15 unique units when you can just download a free mod with 300+ unique units.
 
Civ V indeed is one of the worst games in terms of release condition I have ever seen. Been playing Civ I-IV on a regular basis, but never seen so many poor areas.
A lot of you talk about bugs and glitches, or even main features like 1 upt. What about:

1. AI absolutely incapable of waging war. If it so happens that your opponent is on another continent - you just win.
2. Insane XP farming - I've had zero problems getting my units to lvl 6-7 simply by having them on a good hex during a war with one city-state. Not to mention sea bombardment - lvl 11-12 Destroyers every single game.
3. Techs slingshots - 10 days after release people are "polishing" strategies to get to rifles in 1 AD on King+.
4. Ability to save your culture, sell you cities and bank a number of SPs in a single turn? Come again?
5. Trade system is devoid of logic in every sense - some Civs will trade me luxury resourse "X" for another "Y" + small amount of gold - that's fine and logical. Another would require 5-6 luxuries for the same "X" + huge amounts of gold etc.
6. Being forced to pay maintenance on buildings for the entire game - so you were given the choice whether to produce them or not, but you no longer can choose to get rid of them?
And I am sure many many other...

These a core features that are all designed poorly. Disgusted is a weak term. After several games I am back to CIV IV - not because the ideas behind CIV V are not good, they're great - but because of the incompetence of their realization.
 
We did not pay to wait for patches. We paid to play a finished, polished game.

These statements are OLD.
The gaming industry is in this sad state exactly because you paid, and it's in this state from years now. When people will finally understand to download a demo and try a game before purchasing it, and choose NOT to purchase it if it is flawed, then the gaming industry will slowly get back to a point where released game are at least playable.
Paying and then complaining on an unofficial forum is completely useless and childish. For the series "cry me a river", Take2 doesn't really care of your person, they care of your money. If you want to actually change the situation and show a real and responsible protest then you should NOT buy, going the other way around is only self destructive.
 
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