An Evaluation: Why CIV 5 is an absolute atrocity.

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Stay on topic!

 

[anti_strunt]

Yes, they don't really change the game at all. I've been playing both CIV4 and CIV5 in parallel on and off, and when switching, it's interesting that the hexes/squares make not one bit of difference to the essence or feel of the games. The only problem is that a lot of extra development work must have gone into hexes and for so little gain, it could have been better spent on AI..or any number of things.

Also, it strikes me as weird that a strategy game in 2010 would *adopt* hexes, when wargames have been slowly *rejecting* them for many years. Hexes started as a board game abstraction, and the extra power of computers has largely made them redundant. Apart from some crusty Grognards who still love them. And that surely is not the market Civ5 was aimed at? Nobody would have complained if Civ5 had used squares and the fat cross just like 1-4, SMAC...

Surely by now hexes are an obsolete abstraction (other than for board games) and we should be expecting no squares or grids at all, but an open strategy map like in the Total War campaign map? Now *that* would be a leap in the right direction.

I really doubt hexes represented any substantial additional development time. It's just a matter of changing adjacencies in the path finding algorithms and graphics, which were all redone anyway. You can even keep nearly identical database structures since a hex grid is just a square grid with every other line offset by half. Pretty basic stuff I would think. Nothing compared with the time they must've taken animating the fancy pants leaders and recording their silly native dialogue.

Hexes really better than squares, IMO, and I don't think there is any reason to start rejecting one of the things Civ 5 actually got right (I did get some stuff right!) just because the package as a whole was flawed... Otherwise we're really letting sentimentality get the better of our judgement.

EDIT: I hope you realize the irony of making googly eyes at "crusty grognards who still love [hexes]" and then say that Civ fans would've been perfectly happy with keeping squares, like in every old Civ...

(Oh, and the Total War maps are actually made up of small squares, unless I’m mistaken… Moving to some sort of seamless vector map would completely change the nature of the game, and it wouldn’t be Civilization anymore, just a “civilization game” of a very different nature.)

 

[jowww97]

U must know Civ 5 is a strategic game based on the history of the world. Untill today we have espionage, we have fight for the "right" religion, and we have a technology exchange.

If CIV 5 really want to keep winning fans, they must think to improve this game based on the world, the politics, wars, and so many other things.

The question here is about to remove things like espionage, technology exchange, and religion wars. this is the most important things that create the current world.

I hope it returns.

 

[scratchthepitch]

That's nearly the only thing i agree with.



Civ4 scenario sucked anyway.



I do NOT care any bit. Didn't even notice it.



Religions were a pain. I never converted for not having rep hits.



Espionnage was a pain. Always disabled it, because i was so annoyed that friendly AIs constantly poisoned my waters or pillaged my ressources. I don't get how it was playable for you really.



Civics in Civ4 were poorly designed. Always used the same. I ever remember which ones: heredetary rules, bureaucracy, slaving, etc... just changing in late game and when i had enough ressources.



Cottages were a pain. They needed TIME to develop, during which you did what? Count the birds outside?



I can live without.



Maybe but it is WAY far of any fundamental......



I don't feel disturbed by that.



Civ4 random event were trivial, at best...



The last of my problems...



I disable them.



No framerate problems here...



Don't give a ****!

That's a good post. I never liked the way the the changes in Civ4 were implemented. They added extra complications, and they did so very poorly. If they were realistic, that is made the game more realistic in a historical sense, then I would have liked them. But the changes were not realistic, they were just additional things to look after and be annoyed by. Civ5 seems to be a step in the right direction, but the developers again skimped on the AI. If they had simplified the game to make it easier to program a better AI, and had made real improvements to the AI, then I would think Civ5 would be an improvement. But I think they just simplified things so it would be easier to adapt the game to consoles, and kept the same basic very outdated AI programming they have been using since the 1990's.

 

[jowww97]

That's a good post. I never liked the way the the changes in Civ4 were implemented. They added extra complications, and they did so very poorly. If they were realistic, that is made the game more realistic in a historical sense, then I would have liked them. But the changes were not realistic, they were just additional things to look after and be annoyed by. Civ5 seems to be a step in the right direction, but the developers again skimped on the AI. If they had simplified the game to make it easier to program a better AI, and had made real improvements to the AI, then I would think Civ5 would be an improvement. But I think they just simplified things so it would be easier to adapt the game to consoles, and kept the same basic very outdated AI programming they have been using since the 1990's.

U say this because have never played other civilization. U just start to play civ 5 and say things that u dont know, u say based on what others players says.

 

[Feanor73]

At OP : I can't believe you put 1upt in things "done right" considering the rest of your post : it has been explained in a lot of posts in a lot af threads : a large number of questionable design decisions are only consequences of this fundamental one.

While not advocating the return of SOD (clearly superior IMO to current system nevertheless) a medium way could (and should) have been found : limited stacking, CTP2-style combat, etc...

1upt leads to tedious micromanagement in SP, and stupid who-cliks-first-wins-fests in MP.

 

[anti_strunt]

U say this because have never played other civilization. U just start to play civ 5 and say things that u dont know, u say based on what others players says.

If he speaks of the "changes in Civ 4" I think it's safe to say that he is comparing it to prior versions...

 

[scratchthepitch]

U say this because have never played other civilization. U just start to play civ 5 and say things that u dont know, u say based on what others players says.

I've played all of first 4 of them along with a little of Alpha Centauri. I modded both Civ2 & 3 extensively. Never cared for Civ4 and consider it the worst of the first 4 editions since Civ1, which I never cared much for either, was made back when computer games were still young, so much could not be expected of it, like Civ4. I have not played Civ5, because I refuse to allow steam on my computer, I would have tried the demo, otherwise. My comments about that game are derived from what others have posted about it.

My favorite remains Alpha Centauri, which reminds me that I need to get a copy of this game before it disappears.

Here's a towel to wipe the egg off your face.

 

[BuddhaBubba]

I agree. It took me awhile because I was distracted by the shiny graphics and the new combat. But going back to the BOTM and playing is way better than any of the Civ 5 games. I think all us hardcore fans are pretty ticked off because they obviously ripped out all the complex mechanics (and controversial ones like Religion) to get a wider market. I guess they are suffering in this economy like everyone else and had to compromise to stay viable.

But what can we do about it? My only guess is that someone will come up with a Mod that completely reverts Civ 5 to all the good stuff that was in Civ 4, if that's even possible. If not, I'll just stick with Civ 4 and tell all my friends to boycott Civ 5.

 

[hussar]

Civ 5 sux, hands down worst piece of crap ever. I got a total of about 8 hours out of it, the game sux, the mechanics sux, the AI is so dumbass it didnt even get into community college at the local juevnile detention centre it obviously inhabited. They rehashed as much of CIv 4 as they could, look at the technology, what a total of about 5 changes? My thinking as to why it runs so slow, is that they just heavily modded civ 4 and charged new game price. the game sux, it flat out is terribad.
Here's how I imagined it went down in the Firaxis boardroom.

Sid Meir "Yea my wife smashed her Bently and my fourth kid needs a bigger summer house for when he is on vacation from Princeton, so we need to make a new Civ so that I can afford it"

Flunky number 1 "Yea Sid that's a great idea"

Sid Meir "So to save on all that pesky production stuff just hire some of those modder people off that civfanatics website, theyll work for free"

Flunky number 2 "Yea Sid that's a great idea"

Sid Meir "Call me when you need me to do the intro video thing"

Flunky number 1 "Yea Sid that's a great idea, your awesome"

Sid Meir "Yea I know"

dam your eyes sid Meir

 

[alin1975]

Well I absolutely hated Civ 4. Others have listed some complaints to which (for me) I can add, it never felt like Civ.

Now, Civ5 seems slightly better. Thats about all I can give it.

But... the animations tire me out to no end, as does the sluggishness with which this super computer I am borrowing seems to run the game. For a mix of reasons, a Civ 5 turn takes longer than a Civ 3 turn with twice the cities, and less gets done. And I am tired of looking at it after 2 or 3 hours... I used to do 12 hour+ sessions with earlier versions. Oh well.

The AI still negotiates like a total monkey. If they negotiated with each other this way, no deals would ever be made... Nice to see they kept at least a few things that sucked with Civ3.

Removal of the sliders, the stacking rules, the changes to the road system (etc) are yet another effort on the part of the designers to have as little as possible left of what made Civ, well, Civ. I fully expect that by Civ 7 or 8 we will have a real time game where troops are led by magical heroes that gain level and cast spells. Heroes will be controlled with a first person shooter interface where your strafing skill may gain you ultimate victory (celebrated with a video clip of your great general tea-bagging the enemy general's corpse).

On the bright side, I like the policies a lot, the graphics are less ridiculous than C4 (my opinion I know), and from what I have seen so far, the wonders seem ok.

But, all I can say is: glad I didnt pay for it. After civ4 I am never making that mistake again.

 

[hussar]

i fully expect that by civ 7 or 8 we will have a real time game where troops are led by magical heroes that gain level and cast spells. Heroes will be controlled with a first person shooter interface where your strafing skill may gain you ultimate victory (celebrated with a video clip of your great general tea-bagging the enemy general's corpse).

But, all i can say is: Glad i didnt pay for it. After civ4 i am never making that mistake again.

+1, awesome dude,awesome

 

[Naokaukodem]

It has come to my attention after much reading, day after day after day since before the release of V, a certain pattern concerning the players who were either very enthusiastic with the game before release as the ones pretty satisfied after. In many many advocating posts of theirs it was very quite often mentioned that "it's a blessing espionage is out, it didn't do squat" or "how good religion is gone for good, locked alliances for the entire game" ; "health, redundant, useless really." and it goes on with statements like "you could completely ignore health and happiness" ; "there is no need for anything other than cottages".
Ok, after a while I understood that these detractors of so many game mechanics have never truly learned to play cIV. I say this with utter respect and understanding that many cIV players (who happen to pretty much like ciV) were fond of a simpler civilization, thus trying to grasp a simpler game out of cIV, taking out many features and trying to ignore many others, assessing redundancy to keep it simple, etc. And please, simple is not for a dumber audience, is just a game we are talking about. It is fair for all of these gamers to be expectant and keen of V. [/I]

For me, Civ4 was the worst Civ ever made. I hated war wariness... it was very hard sometimes, i didn't know why. Maybe the era? Maybe war weariness is higher in modern era? That was ridiculous anyway, that after my first city blitz-conquered, half of my citizen were unhappy... see, war weariness is a good reason to hate Civ4. Also, one thing I really disliked in Civ4 was the fact that when taking an enemy city, it was surrounded by enemy culture. I feel like a charm when taking a city in Civ5, I have actually all the tiles the city worked... that's just awesome.

I wouldn't say everything is perfect though. If i would have to do a ranking, Civ5 would be above of Civ4 (greatly) but below Civ2 and maybe Civ3 also. Because i feel Civ5 is lacking something anyway. I mean, I have it since several weeks (since the realease) and i played only 2-3 games on the lower difficulty levels. I'm not playing it H24. Maybe it's because i'm more adult now, and less entitled to 'playing'. I noticed that with other games also. When i was young, i could hardly stop playing, now I play max 60 minutes in a row.

Anyway, one disturbing fact is that i play less Civ5 that i played Civ4 that i hated so much... and it was not that early... i mean, except the multiplayer where i had good game with 4. (but i feel multiplayer is limited because when fighting against a good player, not much happens. It's better to play against noobs IMO. Maybe some asymetrical game where some players play a weak entity and score by remaining the longer possible?) So, except the multiplayer, I played more Civ4 than Civ5. Sure there are defaults in Civ5, particularly when it comes to innovation. I wish there is rebellions and a sum of other good innovations, which were not in 5.

There is also the world generator which is a major problem. I prefer the one of Civ2. Brang us in more varied situations. I don't like the fact that the generator chooses between continents/archipelago/pangaea. I think those kinds of maps should be obtainable with the same generator. So we could have parts of archipelago, pangaea and contients within the same map.

As you see, I may have contridict the OP quite massively, I don't think Civ5 is a perfect game. I am even disappointed with it. We can do so much with a game like Civ! Ah, rebellions... as someone said previously, if the game is bad, it's not because of the reason advanced by the OP, simply.

That's a good post. I never liked the way the the changes in Civ4 were implemented. They added extra complications, and they did so very poorly. If they were realistic, that is made the game more realistic in a historical sense, then I would have liked them. But the changes were not realistic, they were just additional things to look after and be annoyed by. Civ5 seems to be a step in the right direction, but the developers again skimped on the AI. If they had simplified the game to make it easier to program a better AI, and had made real improvements to the AI, then I would think Civ5 would be an improvement. But I think they just simplified things so it would be easier to adapt the game to consoles, and kept the same basic very outdated AI programming they have been using since the 1990's.

Yes, the AI is the same as Civ1. I'm annoyed with bad AI when it comes to difficulty levels:

If it's too hard, I get really mad at all the advantages the AI has. When playing Civ2, difficulty levels were not my concern at first. That's only by seeing the game was pretty easy if we did things in order, that I dared to play higher difficulty levels. Since then, I wanted to be able to complete the game in higher DL, but that was not the case in Civ4, which made me very angry. The fact is that Civ4 is not transparant enough. You don't know how i appreciate the fact that Civ5 indicates me how many angry citizen I will have if i puppet/take control this or that city. That's a really appeciable thing. We didn't have this in Civ4. I had pity for those who looked for detailled mechanisms in those forums... for me a game have to be understandable by ourselves, who ever we are. In Civ4 we had to do that exploit here (example: research a useless tech for ourselves to sell it to the AI), this thing here. That was anti-fun. And the huge amount of advantages the AI has in higher DL was ridiculous. I believe Civ5 is easier, yet it has no unobvious mechanic and i'm currently playing on 'hard' and feel it's pretty easy. So for now the AI is not my concern for Civ5. MAybe it will become though.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

For me, Civ4 was the worst Civ ever made. I hated war wariness... it was very hard sometimes, i didn't know why. Maybe the era? Maybe war weariness is higher in modern era? That was ridiculous anyway, that after my first city blitz-conquered, half of my citizen were unhappy... see, war weariness is a good reason to hate Civ4. Also, one thing I really disliked in Civ4 was the fact that when taking an enemy city, it was surrounded by enemy culture. I feel like a charm when taking a city in Civ5, I have actually all the tiles the city worked... that's just awesome.

I wouldn't say everything is perfect though. If i would have to do a ranking, Civ5 would be above of Civ4 (greatly) but below Civ2 and maybe Civ3 also. Because i feel Civ5 is lacking something anyway. I mean, I have it since several weeks (since the realease) and i played only 2-3 games on the lower difficulty levels. I'm not playing it H24. Maybe it's because i'm more adult now, and less entitled to 'playing'. I noticed that with other games also. When i was young, i could hardly stop playing, now I play max 60 minutes in a row.

Anyway, one disturbing fact is that i play less Civ5 that i played Civ4 that i hated so much... and it was not that early... i mean, except the multiplayer where i had good game with 4. (but i feel multiplayer is limited because when fighting against a good player, not much happens. It's better to play against noobs IMO. Maybe some asymetrical game where some players play a weak entity and score by remaining the longer possible?) So, except the multiplayer, I played more Civ4 than Civ5. Sure there are defaults in Civ5, particularly when it comes to innovation. I wish there is rebellions and a sum of other good innovations, which were not in 5.

There is also the world generator which is a major problem. I prefer the one of Civ2. Brang us in more varied situations. I don't like the fact that the generator chooses between continents/archipelago/pangaea. I think those kinds of maps should be obtainable with the same generator. So we could have parts of archipelago, pangaea and contients within the same map.

As you see, I may have contridict the OP quite massively, I don't think Civ5 is a perfect game. I am even disappointed with it. We can do so much with a game like Civ! Ah, rebellions... as someone said previously, if the game is bad, it's not because of the reason advanced by the OP, simply.



Yes, the AI is the same as Civ1. I'm annoyed with bad AI when it comes to difficulty levels:

If it's too hard, I get really mad at all the advantages the AI has. When playing Civ2, difficulty levels were not my concern at first. That's only by seeing the game was pretty easy if we did things in order, that I dared to play higher difficulty levels. Since then, I wanted to be able to complete the game in higher DL, but that was not the case in Civ4, which made me very angry. The fact is that Civ4 is not transparant enough. You don't know how i appreciate the fact that Civ5 indicates me how many angry citizen I will have if i puppet/take control this or that city. That's a really appeciable thing. We didn't have this in Civ4. I had pity for those who looked for detailled mechanisms in those forums... for me a game have to be understandable by ourselves, who ever we are. In Civ4 we had to do that exploit here (example: research a useless tech for ourselves to sell it to the AI), this thing here. That was anti-fun. And the huge amount of advantages the AI has in higher DL was ridiculous. I believe Civ5 is easier, yet it has no unobvious mechanic and i'm currently playing on 'hard' and feel it's pretty easy. So for now the AI is not my concern for Civ5. MAybe it will become though.

Do you think that war is something cheap as in Civ V?? See about Afghanistan and the people and the political changes around the world. One of the major reason of Obama victory was the Afghanistan war leaded by Bush...
Either economy gets affected by that... It's the war rule number one. End it faster, possibly winning...

If you like wargames, there is plentry of choices, Civilization was a civilization building and management game, with war of course, but not a wargame (and to be honest, Civ V is not a good one too with this poor AI).

And on the other statements, maybe you don't want to admit it to yourself.... That Civ V is a failure...

 

[Thormodr]

Bashing civ 5 seems to never grow old ! 2K actually managed to have quite a buzz about their game.

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

Oscar Wilde quotes (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

I suppose people are still talking about the game so that's good for them. Probably not the buzz they expected after 2 months though.

This quote by Oscar Wilde sums up my feeling for why I don't appreciate Shafer 5:

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”

Oscar Wilde quotes (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic, 1854-1900)

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_only_thing_worse_than_being_talked_about_is/11674.html

 

[manu-fan]

Nearly everything that the OP posted about is the reason I like Civ V. Yes, I've noticed that the AI is a bit lacking, but the game is really fun for me.

1. 1 Unit per Hex

2. Overall happiness

3. City States

4. Embarking units

5. Hexes

6. No having to manage Science/Culture sliders

7. Ranged units

8. No having to spread Religion

9. Toned down Barbarians

10 And tons of other stuff

Cheers.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Do you think that war is something cheap as in Civ V?? See about Afghanistan and the people and the political changes around the world. One of the major reason of Obama victory was the Afghanistan war leaded by Bush...
Either economy gets affected by that... It's the war rule number one. End it faster, possibly winning...

Yeah but it was put at an extremum in IV... your whole country starving, your research to 0... i don't think the Iraq war made American people to starve and scientist to strike... it may have been expensive, granted, but the cost in IV was just... enormous. I find it pretty ok that in Civ5 an army has a significant cost (3 gold per unit), maybe it's cheap but it is without taking account the need to have a bigger and bigger army everytime, not to mention the game that have been truly BALANCED in order to do that. Also, what costs the most in your budget in Civ5? It is the army... so no, it's not so bad.

Maybe the only thing to add would be to make the difference between a conscript army and a regular army. For example, you don't have to build units anymore in the old scheme, but you only build the weapons. Then, you can draft cheap units in order to grow an army. If you want a more competent army, you can still build units in the same old fashion, your soldiers would be a lot more skilled.

If you like wargames, there is plentry of choices, Civilization was a civilization building and management game, with war of course, but not a wargame (and to be honest, Civ V is not a good one too with this poor AI).

I don't particularly like wargames, but i like Civ a lot because of its simplicity and the feeling we can get out of it.

And on the other statements, maybe you don't want to admit it to yourself.... That Civ V is a failure...

I would more say that IV is a failure.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

To all those angry that Fraxis took away certain things that spiced up the game in Civ4:

I think Fraxis released this game wanting to introduce a host of new features previously unseen in a Civ game. The development team focussed more on bringing the player base these new features, than bringing back old features; because that would be a lot like remaking civ4. If you remember the same thing was done with Civ4 (adding city health, military strategic overhaul, religion, civics, ect.) Why would Fraxis focus their energy on remaking civ4?

Now that they have a foundation with all the new features they can fix balance issues and bugs by listening to feedback from the civ community, and then once these issues have been addressed and fixed they can add in the older gameplay features from civ4 on top of the new features and gameplay changes from CiV so that when these older features are added, they blend perfectly with the new design. If they added in older features from civ4 for vanilla civ5, and then added the new features we see now in an expansion, there would be major complications and plenty of bugs.

Fraxis had to set a foundation based on new material, and then they will most likely build with older material off this foundation. I expect a return of religion, espionage, random events, corporations, and maybe even tile animation. Hopefully there will also be a return of the endgame world map player.

To further prove my point lets look at civ4. Civ4 was introduced with tons of new features (Civics, religion, unit promotions, great leaders.... i said more in paragraph 1), but there were few features that civ3 had that were brought into vanilla civ4. Espionage and Great generals (and even random events if you count random volcano explosions in civ3) are two examples that were in civ3 but not in vanilla civ until added in later expansions.

I personally loved religion, i loved city health, i loved random events, and even corporations were cool. But these things won't work well right now if the current game isn't balanced out first. To have religion we need to address and fix issues within the diplomacy system, to add health we need to address and fix issues with the current happiness system, to add espionage both the diplomacy and happiness system must be understood and balanced out.

I'm sure Civ5 is going to keep getting better and better. We have already seen promising patches and there is sure to be more on the way.

 

[Zogar]

Bashing civ 5 seems to never grow old ! 2K actually managed to have quite a buzz about their game.

LoL. Good one.

I think Fraxis released this game wanting to introduce a host of new features previously unseen in a Civ game...
Now that they have a foundation with all the new features they can fix balance issues and bugs by listening to feedback from the civ community, and then once these issues have been addressed and fixed they can add in the older gameplay features from civ4 on top of the new features and gameplay changes from CiV so that when these older features are added, they blend perfectly with the new design.

Yes and no. They did try to improve the war aspect of the game. They destroyed the empire-building side of the game doing so (and I'm not talking about religion or espionage). The issues you mention won't be fixed :
- 1upt forces you to have fewer units and lower production. People seem to neglect this point, but for a builder-fan it's probably the biggest reason why Civ5 is not liked. How could you add any building when you can't already build the current ones ? As low as it is, it's still too high for good 1upt (too many units in later stage of the game).
- global hapiness needs a serious overhaul to prevent ICS without being too harsh to new players as is the case now. It will end up a lot more complicated than it is now if you want a good balance.
- AI is horribly bad. It was already the case before, but 1upt makes for a lot harder AI coding. They already couldn't code decent AI in previous games, now it's harder than ever. Guess what happens... AI only knows how to make war.

There's no fixing all this in a decent time frame, which means no fixing at all from a dev's viewpoint. They should focus on the war / diplomacy aspects in future expansions, since it's what gets good feedback from players who like Civ5, and cut their losses on the building / economy part since it will never live up to its previous level because of 1upt and too simplified mechanics.

 

[mchl]

It's funny that most reasons given to why CIV 4 are better came from the expansion packs. And not just the warlords one, the beyond the sword.... which came out over 2 years after CIV 4 was released.

There will be one or two expansion packs after the bugs are fixed. The first year they are just working on bugs and trying to gather everyone's ideas to put what seems logical into a new version. I'll bet you anything that the second expansion for this game is going to make it a great game just like all the others. The question is can you hold out that long.

Problem is this game has too much of a risk or boardgame feel... I don't like that as much as any previous civ. I would much prefer to have an option to play without Steam.


On another note, religions were the worst thing to ever happen to civ I hope they never come back, I've been playing a long time... I generally see a trend where when a civ player likes religions they didn't play civ 3. Civ 3 was the best, you can argue one way or the other for veterans out there but civ 3 was the best.