An Evaluation: Why CIV 5 is an absolute atrocity.

[Balzemon]

I am not playing Civ5 and do not own it. I had planned on purchasing it, but after being disappointed with Elemental I decided not to prepurchase Civ5. I feel it was a good decision on my part. Many of the elements that have been omitted from Civ5 I particularly enjoyed.

I will get Civ5, but at the moment I lack the overwhelming urge to get it now.

((On an alternate note, anyone know when Fall from Heaven, the standalone game, is coming?))

It has been shelved. Kael explains it in this thread.

 

[Johivin]

Ah, that's a shame. FfH was one of the most creative mods for Civ that I'd seen. So many creative uses for the code.

 

[zonk]

And again, a lot of his complaints are subjective ones. For example, I am glad they took out religion and espionage. I never liked the mechanics of these in Civ IV. Corporations were even worse.

But don't you think there should have been some flavor of 'replacement' - rather than a complete erasure of them? I liked religion, often found espionage to be annoying, and never really got the hang of corporations beyond always shooting for Mining Inc (to boost my own production) and Sid Sushi (to pawn onto the AI)... but they were important concepts - and they did add complexity and made for a richer experience. None of them were gamebreakers if you chose to set them aside and focus on other aspects. It's a game afterall - so there's some truth to the

Having bought every last expansion since I -- the only time I can remember a CONCEPT being dropped was when armies were dropped from Civ III to Civ IV -- but in some sense, they were replaced by a wide breadth of promotions, not to mention, brought back in a limited form via great generals and their usage in Warlords.

This just really feels like the first time a lot of CONCEPTS were completely dropped. Yes - much reaction is subjective, but I'm struggling to understand why it cannot be accepted as an objective fact that we "lost" more concepts than we gained. It's a subjective judgment as to whether it's "good riddance" or not... but if you ledger out what was added vs. what was lost (conceptually, I'm not talking specific functionality or implementation of the concept).... we lost more than we gained.

 

[Reginleif]

Stop criticising a vanilla game for things that were added and perfected two expansions later, as for the other ``complaints`` grow up and try something new. You and the people who think like you are a canacer upon the industry, because of your desires for the same-old same-old without any chance of new or creative ideas for development. You are the reason why Halo is popular!

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[boredatwork]

I've played 5 games of Civ5 now, 2 of them to completion.

I wish I could say I wasted so much time because I enjoyed the game but sadly I didn't.

And that's what makes me so dissapointed - Civilization meets Panzer General - This SHOULD have been my dream game.

It's not the features that have been removed, or the features that have been added. It's the pace of the game. Unless you're involved in Warfare it is horrible. Long build times mean far too many turns are "Sorry nothing for you to do this turn except hit the next turn button." Likewise the underwealming effect of many buildings and wonders means there's less carrot on a stick incentive to keep playing "just one more turn."

It's obvious that they spent the most time on the combat system because it's one of the few things that really stands out - even then though the unit promotions seem boring and detached from reality - +damage against rough or +damage versus plain? This is where woodsman or hillsman(?) would have been ideal, given that there is now the desirability of defending woods and hills. They also dumbed down the PG model by removing things like suppression and support fire.

I fully agree with people who thought the changes implemented were too ambitious for the amount of testing involved and the release feels more like a Beta than it does a slightly buggy final product.

 

[acm2033]

So what's wrong with just playing Civ IV??? If it's a great game (and I think it is), then fire it up!

Civ V is a DIFFERENT GAME.

Or better yet, develop your own. There's probably a market for another Civ IV-like game......????????

 

[Peng Qi]

The following items you listed as flaws are ones I consider positives:

No Religions

Religions weren't necessary, but it added flavors to the game. It was awesome trying to spread your state religion to the whole world, earning diplomatic favors and gold in the process. CIV IV lovers want the religion system to enhance so that it can impact the game in a more meaningful way, not remove it entirely.

No Espionage

Espionage was one of the best features to have been introduced in the CIV series. It gave players so many options and alternatives to go against their opponents without the risks of declaring open war: poison their water supply, scout out enemy troop strength, stir up a rebellion, steal their treasury, sabotage their wonder construction, etc. Why is this awesome feature removed completely?

No Civics

Civics was another extremely well-thought out feature that was added in CIV IV. Not only did it add flavors to each nation (Communism vs. Capitalism, Emancipation vs. Slavery, Universal Suffrage vs. Police State), it provides long term tactical options as well as short term flexibility to players to adapt their empires based on the current circumstance. Deciding and changing Civics was always a weighty decision because each one of them have their pros and cons. It makes each nation unique because rarely do two empires have the identical set of Civics.

In CIV 5 Civics are replaced by Social Policies, which is fundamentally a ladder of perks with bonuses that you can upgrade one at a time. It may still be strategic to decide on which branch of policies and perk to upgrade, but because of the fact that they are permanent and you cannot change them, they offer absolutely no tactical flexibility to players. All branches and perks add some kind of bonus to your empire with no negative side effects, so the decision of choosing which one to upgrade also becomes less significant.

No Hamlets

Hamlets was an important tile improvement in CIV IV as the primary commerce provider. But its greatest strength is that over time it evolves into a cottage, a village and ultimately a town, encouraging players to build them early to reap the benefits.

In CIV 5 hamlet is replaced by "trading post" which has a MUCH uglier model and does not evolve.

No Commerce, Research and Culture Sliders

Commerce, Research and Culture used to be interlinked in building your empire. Any of these resources can be distributed freely using sliders to let players develop their nations in the exact way they want.

In CIV 5, commerce, research and culture are completely separate entities. And the only decision players can make is to decide how much of each resource to produce.

No Random Events

Random events provide small bonuses and surprises to your nation in the way of additional income, one additional food resource, increased culture, etc. Those bonuses are no way game-breaking, but they make you smile every now and then and make your empire feel like a real nation inhabited by living breathing people rather than some numbers and data on the screen.

User Interface

Firaxis might have thought that they were very clever in making the UI much more streamlined and linear, but it is NOT! This type of UI may have been ideal for the console version of Civ because of the limitation of the controller, but for a PC CIV this kind of UI brings more inconvenience and frustrations than otherwise.

PC gamers want data and information easily accessible, laid out clearly right in front of them, instead of clicking through menus and menus before finding out what they want to know.

City States

I really question the point of implementing City States. It may be fun to interact with them and build a good diplomatic relationship with them, but more often than not it's much easier, simpler and faster to just conquer them and take their resources than to waste gold buying their friendship.

The importance of City States as allies in war times is extremely limited too, considering that now military units cannot stack, and City States have such a small territory, their army size and strength naturally become very restricted.

No Leader Personality Traits

It provides a historical and semi-realistic flavors to each leader. And although some traits provokes controversies and debates amongst historians for their accuracy, it's part of the fun too.

 

[mmmfloorpie]

Atrocity is too strong a word, but I have to agree with the meat of the complaints.

When people say their complaint with V is that it feels like it's been 'consoled' -- this is what we mean.


Civ IV was calculus.... This is simple arithmetic. There's far too much "next turn" and far too little "50 mini-turns, per game turn".

I played that console abomination once -- a friend forced me, too... "Isn't this great," he said, "no more of that annoying micromanagement?".

But you know what? I accept that consoles and "streamlined"/"accessible" games rule the gaming world because that's where the money is.

I just feel like, dammit, one of the few titles that used to be for ME -- one of the few titles that catered to us few fools that DO enjoy micro-decision gameplay, that DO enjoy the journey of a long, long game that requires weeks and maybe a 100 hours to actually finish (and then presents endless replay options to do it again) -- I feel like it's been taken away from me and given to the simplified ("streamlined", "accessible") masses.

There are so few titles out there for those of us that do not EXPECT to finish a game in a single sitting... I feel like, with Civ V, one of those few is now slipping away into the hands of people who, dammit it all, already have an ample number of single-session gaming options.

Excellent review. I know exactly how you feel! I grew up playing simulators during a time when it seemed like that was all video game companies made! There was Sim City, Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Command and Conquer, all of the other "Sim" games and a bunch of other ones I'm obviously forgetting. Those were the types of games I love. Consoles and PCs lived in harmony back then.

Now EVERYTHING is about the next big console alien shooting game. Nobody cares about the strategy games anymore!

It seems like the only PC games nowadays are ported from the consoles. Remember when it used to be PC games that were ported to consoles???

Like you, Civilization was my last bastion of sim/strategy gaming. I had ultra high hopes for Civ 5 but they have been completely destroyed now. Obviously, Civ 5 was developed to cater to console gamers. Now that the game is released, I wonder how long it will take for Firaxis to announce the console versions. I'm thinking not long!

First I lost Sim City and now Civilization. What's left?

 

[Johivin]

Stop criticising a vanilla game for things that were added and perfected two expansions later, as for the other ``complaints`` grow up and try something new. You and the people who think like you are a canacer upon the industry, because of your desires for the same-old same-old without any chance of new or creative ideas for development. You are the reason why Halo is popular!

Civ 4 Vanilla was substantially more complete then my experience with Civ 5. There are improvements that have been made in combat with Civ 5 and some other things that I approve of, but a portion of it -was- lost. When you have a long running series you build on the series and make improvements.

The issue with many series is when they rehash the exact same thing over and over again. Civ V, in some ways, is more in tune with Civ:Revolution. It's an attempt to speed up the pace fo the game and simplify the elements. There is no downside of picking a policy. In many ways, Civ V takes all of those negative situations and throws them out the window. Have a city that was unhappy? No longer as happiness is now at the global level. Have a civic that lowers _____? No longer as policies don't have negative effects. Having trouble raising culture? Don't worry! Just buy up all the land with gold. Having trouble getting your troops past a choke point? Embark them and go around in no time at all.

These are simplifications of the process and rather then making the game deeper, the game has become more shallow. There is less thinking involved.

 

[Flavorable]

But don't you think there should have been some flavor of 'replacement' - rather than a complete erasure of them? I liked religion, often found espionage to be annoying, and never really got the hang of corporations beyond always shooting for Mining Inc (to boost my own production) and Sid Sushi (to pawn onto the AI)... but they were important concepts - and they did add complexity and made for a richer experience. None of them were gamebreakers if you chose to set them aside and focus on other aspects. It's a game afterall - so there's some truth to the

Having bought every last expansion since I -- the only time I can remember a CONCEPT being dropped was when armies were dropped from Civ III to Civ IV -- but in some sense, they were replaced by a wide breadth of promotions, not to mention, brought back in a limited form via great generals and their usage in Warlords.

This just really feels like the first time a lot of CONCEPTS were completely dropped. Yes - much reaction is subjective, but I'm struggling to understand why it cannot be accepted as an objective fact that we "lost" more concepts than we gained. It's a subjective judgment as to whether it's "good riddance" or not... but if you ledger out what was added vs. what was lost (conceptually, I'm not talking specific functionality or implementation of the concept).... we lost more than we gained.

Except that you don't mention the value of the concepts.

How important was Religon? Did it actually really add much if anything to the game? What about espionage or corporations?

Now, how important are Hexagonal tiles? What about 1UPT? Or city states?

 

[sumoworm]

Firaxis should have learned its lesson and not make the same mistake twice.

why, when you haven't learned your lesson and you keep buying their incomplete games? They sold a ton of civ iv's that were buggy as august in mississippi and they are selling tons of civ v's that are as incomplete.

sounds to me like they have a great business model going. release a new version of their popular branded game to legions of fans who remain loyal to Firaxis no matter how many times they get screwed - then let the modding community fix everything!

If I had any cash I'd buy some Firaxis stock.

If I didn't have morals, I'd try to sell you some beachfront property in Kansas!

 

[Meteora]

Why does Civilization V need dedicated servers...?

 

[robertb]

I agree totally with you. The game turned out to be exactly what i feared. A MAJOR graphical enhancement and a devestating loss of gameplay.

But you forgott to mention the techtree. Is it totally boooooooooring in civ 5. I am now in 205AD and i find myself thinking of the current civ 4 game.

But i will give it several tries and hopefully some mods will enhance the game.

As an old boardgame wargamer i simply love the hexagons

 

[robertb]

espionage was very usefull, stealing thech should you fall behind.

religion....... damn, i did not realize they are gone. Damn i really love that.

Well in the maingame there was hardly no diffrence but there is some mods that have a lot of diffrent effects from religions.

 

[Txurce]

If you are just going to log into the forum and post something completely irrelevant and unconstructive to the debate, why even bother log in?

What debate? Half your posts are telling people who agree with you that you agree with them. A quarter of the time of the time you get lazy, over-state, and get called on it. And a quarter of the time, you get specific and actually "debate." For example, how do you feel about buildings? There's a huge topic, because there's been a huge change in their build expense and upkeep. You have to make choices, as opposed to building everything on the city list. How does that affect the game? My guess is that you have little idea at this point... not that it stops you from passing extreme judgment.

 

[Flavorable]

Yeah, I agree, I'm really trying to actually discuss things with him, but whenever I make a point he just ignores the entire post. Really, its kinda like hes trollin'.

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[GreyIago]

If you love CIV IV, you will most likely hate CIV 5, here's why:

Absurdly Lacking MP Support

No improvements at all from CIV IV: No dedicated servers, no matchmaking, constant lag issue, framerate problems, no online ladder and rankings, no unit animation, random crashes, no way of reconnecting a game, no way of joining a mid-game through invite.

No reason to play MP at all.

CivIV MP sucked, so does CivV, so hate CivV love CivIV. Got it.

No SP Scenario

SP consists only of "Play Now" and "Custom Game". It doesn't get any more plain than this. And it has the stench of "sloth" and "greed" all over it.

Really? People played the scenarios?

No Tile Animation

Why the **** is this taken out? Why must players have to go into the city menu to see what tiles are being worked on??

Because you have to go to the City Menu to change what tiles are being worked on? I mean, I know that this is an RTS and you don't have a lot of time, but one click is going to kill you?

No Religions

Religions weren't necessary, but it added flavors to the game. It was awesome trying to spread your state religion to the whole world, earning diplomatic favors and gold in the process. CIV IV lovers want the religion system to enhance so that it can impact the game in a more meaningful way, not remove it entirely.

I don't blame you for this.

No Espionage

Espionage was one of the best features to have been introduced in the CIV series. It gave players so many options and alternatives to go against their opponents without the risks of declaring open war: poison their water supply, scout out enemy troop strength, stir up a rebellion, steal their treasury, sabotage their wonder construction, etc. Why is this awesome feature removed completely?

Because Espionage was horrible.

No Civics

Civics was another extremely well-thought out feature that was added in CIV IV. Not only did it add flavors to each nation (Communism vs. Capitalism, Emancipation vs. Slavery, Universal Suffrage vs. Police State), it provides long term tactical options as well as short term flexibility to players to adapt their empires based on the current circumstance. Deciding and changing Civics was always a weighty decision because each one of them have their pros and cons. It makes each nation unique because rarely do two empires have the identical set of Civics.

Really? Civics was a band-aid method. Select and apply. Want to change? No problem. I'm terribly sorry you think the Social Policies are "less weighty" than plug and play Civics.

In CIV 5 Civics are replaced by Social Policies, which is fundamentally a ladder of perks with bonuses that you can upgrade one at a time. It may still be strategic to decide on which branch of policies and perk to upgrade, but because of the fact that they are permanent and you cannot change them, they offer absolutely no tactical flexibility to players. All branches and perks add some kind of bonus to your empire with no negative side effects, so the decision of choosing which one to upgrade also becomes less significant.

Let me ask you something: Was it a tactical decision for Russian to turn into the Soviet Union?

No Hamlets

Hamlets was an important tile improvement in CIV IV as the primary commerce provider. But its greatest strength is that over time it evolves into a cottage, a village and ultimately a town, encouraging players to build them early to reap the benefits.

In CIV 5 hamlet is replaced by "trading post" which has a MUCH uglier model and does not evolve.

I always automated my workers on CivIV. I find it more necessary to control them here. So I'm not qualified to comment.

No World Wonder Movies

Now all we get is a still picture and some quotes that most people don't give a **** about.

LOL

No End Game Cinematics

Players sit through 10 hours to beat the game and you can't even make a 10 second animation to reward and congratulate them?

Go get MW2.

No Commerce, Research and Culture Sliders

Commerce, Research and Culture used to be interlinked in building your empire. Any of these resources can be distributed freely using sliders to let players develop their nations in the exact way they want.

In CIV 5, commerce, research and culture are completely separate entities. And the only decision players can make is to decide how much of each resource to produce.

So in CivIV you could decide how much you want to produce. In Civ5 you can decide how much you want to produce. But CivIV had SLIDERS?

No Random Events

Random events provide small bonuses and surprises to your nation in the way of additional income, one additional food resource, increased culture, etc. Those bonuses are no way game-breaking, but they make you smile every now and then and make your empire feel like a real nation inhabited by living breathing people rather than some numbers and data on the screen.

Random events were idiotic. No one tells the US Government "Oh, hey, you're randomly having parties thrown in your favor." Please.

User Interface

Firaxis might have thought that they were very clever in making the UI much more streamlined and linear, but it is NOT! This type of UI may have been ideal for the console version of Civ because of the limitation of the controller, but for a PC CIV this kind of UI brings more inconvenience and frustrations than otherwise.

PC gamers want data and information easily accessible, laid out clearly right in front of them, instead of clicking through menus and menus before finding out what they want to know.

You sound more like a console gamer, tbqh. So this just confused me. I like the UI because I like to see what is going on rather than having a bajillion screens I may not need right then and there. I find the top-left drop down for research, unit, cities is awesome as it links you to more detailed information if the info provided isn't enough.

I'm still dying to know what info we NEED that are ARENT getting.

City States

I really question the point of implementing City States. It may be fun to interact with them and build a good diplomatic relationship with them, but more often than not it's much easier, simpler and faster to just conquer them and take their resources than to waste gold buying their friendship.

Yeah, I hear that's the best way to deal with opponents too.

The importance of City States as allies in war times is extremely limited too, considering that now military units cannot stack, and City States have such a small territory, their army size and strength naturally become very restricted.

Have you even played? I held off a two front attack using three archers and two swordsmen. I mean, really. Go play the game.

Framerate Problems

Even on Medium settings, and according to the requirements of the game my PC is more than enough to handle this game on High. It's painfully obvious that this game wasn't optimized.

I know, it should totally be able to run on my XBOX.

No Leader Personality Traits

It provides a historical and semi-realistic flavors to each leader. And although some traits provokes controversies and debates amongst historians for their accuracy, it's part of the fun too.

Yeah, cause I like knowing that I'm selecting all peaceful civs to compete against.

One Leader Per Nation

Is it really that much to ask for to have at least two leaders, even for a Vanilla pack?

Yeah. I bet you most people will only use one leader.

Overall Conclusion: If you are a CIV IV fan, you will most likely hate this atrocity of a "sequel". Sequel, by definition, is supposed to improve on the original by fixing predecessor's flaws and enhance its strengths. But ironically CIV 5 has actually completely removed some of the strengths that made CIV IV so enjoyable, instead of building upon them and perfecting them. When counting the merits of the game from the aforementioned list, CIV 5's failings evidently outnumber its qualities by a staggering margin.

lol sequel.

The extremely lacking single player and multiplayer aspect of the game is just utterly unforgivable, emitting the overwhelming impression that the entire package feels very incomplete, and you wonder if Firaxis did this intentionally knowing that the committed mod community will do their job for them.

Yeah. Makes you wonder how everyone gave it great reviews. rofl

 

[cece84]

IMHO the situation is really simple..

They are exploiting the "honorable" civ brand to make money making games that are of easy access for casual players. On the other hand many concepts are downgraded and over simplified.

Civilization AS AN EVOLVING PROJECT IS DEAD MANY YEARS AGO. If you like to play the same game as 10 years ago with updated graphics and minor changes you are welcome.
Civ 4 was "void" like civ 5 for me, but with many years (and expansions) they obtained a solid product.
An infinite number of expansions (with only small changes) and an eternal wait for a good mod/scenario is no option for me.

If you are one of that players that played civ for the total immersion it can give you can feel what i'm saying. The appearance is the same but the game lacks of depth.

Maybe in Civ6 you will be able to change clothes to your leader like The Sims LOL

 

[zonk]

Except that you don't mention the value of the concepts.

How important was Religon? Did it actually really add much if anything to the game? What about espionage or corporations?

Now, how important are Hexagonal tiles? What about 1UPT? Or city states?

But that's the point --

Civilization was never supposed to be about the value of a single concept.

Yes, I am absolutely a fan (even not yet knowing how to properly use it) 1UPT/hex - it's a big, big step forward.

BUT - Civilization was never supposed to be a turn-based Age of Empires. Warfare was just one aspect.

Civilization used to be about the sum of its many, many, ever-growing list of parts - for a lot of us, that's why we love(d) it. Once you start "streamlining" down to the point of just a few of those parts surviving, it becomes dangerously close to just another 4X.

I can accept that the gaming world at large thinks that is an absolutely nutty concept -- "less is more if you do the 'less' better" rules the day in most games. But it didn't used to in this series.

City states, quite frankly, were fun the first few games - but I'm finding them increasingly annoying... Diplomacy seems to revolve around them now... who is protecting who, who's allied... with a CITY STATE! They've become far too big a cog in the grand scheme of empire diplomacy. Hey, it's just 3 days -- but it seems a lot more wars and diplomatic actions revolve around someone doing or not doing something to a city state than they do interaction between empires. RoM (or whichever smaller mod RoM incorporated them from) conceptualized them better, frankly. And, of course -- even if they were perfect -- I still have a hard time awarding much credit for a feature a wonderful modder created for free in IV being a centerpiece of a $50 V. I'm not saying there should be any shame in incorporating some of the excellent ideas and features that modders built in IV, absolutely - if it's a good idea and someone came up with it for free, take it, improve it, add it into the next retail version -- but you certainly don't get to sell it as a "feature", much less one of the preeminent features of the new release.

 

[mattavich]

I agree with everything hamtard says.

Also on the performance issue, i'd like to just point out that for me civ4 had slightly worse performance. I play with DX 11