An Evaluation: Why CIV 5 is an absolute atrocity.

[ohioastronomy]

@ the OP.

Ever pay attention to Civ IV while you played it? You know - like this quote:

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Complexity is not, in of itself, desirable unless it adds depth. Games can be simple and have depth. Games can also be needlessly complex and be shallow. Yes, in many ways Civ V is simpler than Civ IV, yet is it shallower? That's the argument I'm waiting to hear.

My basic problem is that, yes, it is far shallower. The military aspect has been emphasized to an extreme extent. The other ways of winning - traditionally perfectly valid and reasonably balanced - are now much more boring (having been "streamlined") and they take a long time. I did a game at King, continents, 6 players, marathon, small. Mopped up my two pathetic opponents with zero challenge before 1500 BC...then decided to try out a culture win. It's 1500 AD, I'm most of the way there, and it's painfully dull. I could have won before 500 BC if I sailed a few units over to the other continents. I will probably have to win with military anyhow since it's just me and Japan, and he'll attack me well before I can finish up.

So, at least it's a wargame, right? Nope, the AI is awful - I at least had to think about how to defeat enemies at intermediate levels, even if I could consistently win. A game against stupid AI who get lots of artificial edges (e.g. immortal/deity) is just not compensation.

There are some very clever ideas, but it's just not fun as a game for someone who knows what they're doing. And it's even worse if you don't go the military route.

 

[classical_hero]

Basically we will have to wait until the second expansion pack to get the game we really wanted. is really the game that should have been and is what should have been, so wait until the end of the series before we can make a full judgement about the game, but a bad MP is not a good thing.

 

[HannibalBarca]

snip

This. Times a million.

 

[Mekteus]

posters are so caught up about what was lost but NEVER talk about what is gained.

we lost Civ...
we gained a console game, i'm not happy...

noobs will be..

 

[boredatwork]

now its pretty much all down to combat, this is PG with CIV elements, not CIV with PG elements.

It's not PG anymore than it is Civ.

Combat while infinitely better than all previous versions of the game is still CIVilized meaning it's still wargame-lite. Many of the things which made PG such a slick system have been removed:

No supporting fire; no entrenchment; no supression; no attacking before moving; little unit variety; no supply; no real depth to maneuvre; no unit history; etc, etc

None of which I really needed if I found all the other aspects of the game remotely as engaging as I did in Civ1-Civ4. Adding PG-lite should have fixed the least enjoyable part of all of those titles and made the perfect game.


Unfornately whether by design or accident they redesigned the game to place more emphasis on military action by making it the ONLY thing I find enjoyable. The problem is after a few games when the novelty wore off the lack of depth means it's already becoming stale for me.

 

[bruntfca]

Have you ever seen the SMAC Wonder movies? Not only stupid animations like civ4..

If the movie is something original and contain interesting concepts / philosophies then it adds so much flavour to the game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO_xh7xIabk&feature=related

look at this, people still discuss about this 10 years after the release of the game
If i build the Pyramids, i don't want to see a stupid video that shows a tourist postcard of the monument, but a video that shows the ancient egyptians thougts and point of views about the monument. Come on Sid, you understood this 10 years ago, why don't you adopt this idea today?

The harsh truth is that Alpha Centauri was a "Brian Reynolds" design. Sid's name was plastered on it for marketing purposes. If you read the large epilogue written Brian from the original manual for AC, you can see that it was Brains baby. Civ games have since then often adopted (and often failed) a lot of Brian's ideas from AC.

Brain left Firaxis, and there was also some IP dispute about the AC property. The result is endless sequals and re-hashes of Civ, whereas the series should have evolved long ago.

 

[Revolucion09]

I dont agree most of the original post reasoning, but I agree with many peoples correction to this close-to-real review -> Civ 5 is a horsehockey war-game for kiddos and consoles

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[westward]

There is no comparison between Civ V at launch and Civ IV at launch. Civ IV was a tedious exercise in number-crunching and maze-running, that was more about balancing your checkbook than running an empire. Civ V is a thoughtful strategy game that rewards intuition, innovation, and tactics. The AI needs a ton of work, but at least the UI looks like someone actually put some work into, as opposed to slapping it together in Visual Basic at the last minute. And thank god they removed the visible modifiers from diplomacy. I'll never understand why people though having the concept of diplomacy dumbed down to a single positive or negative number was a good idea.

Comparing Civ IV and Civ V at this point in their respective "lives," Civ V is leaps and bounds ahead. Heck, Civ V is still further ahead because it's not bogged down by the ridiculous bloat of espionage and the awful, awful combat system. Stacks are a crutch.

 

[HannibalBarca]

Civ V is a thoughtful strategy game that rewards intuition, innovation, and tactics.

No. It has more gold farming than a Chinese World of Warcraft guild. Gold is everything. The whole game can be won with gold. That. Isn't. Fun.

 

[lodester]

troll thread? I think so.

Moderator Action: If you cannot post without name calling - then don't post.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I've been playing since the original Civ and Civ5 finally got it right with 1UPT. Everyone who wants their crutch victory mechanic (religion or being able to see everyone's exact disposition in diplomacy and victory conditions) might cry that Civ is dead but they lack vision.

Civ5 is, in fact, the best Civilization yet. It requires more tactics, better long term strategy, and true construction consideration unlike the spammy predecessors.

Don't get me wrong, i love every Civ (*ahem* Civ2, kinda passed) but V is a much needed upgrade to the game mechanics.

Anyone who judges on blanance and bugs at this stage is just whining. This is a PC release, and as much as we all hate it, patching is required to smooth out the bumps. Thank goodness this isn't a console release or we'd be pretty stuck with what we have.
I find it hilarious to see people call this a console release. "OMG how dare they position a game for the most lucrative gaming market in the history of mankind! THEY ARE FOOLS!" lol.

Civ5 is great. People making blanket comparisons to it's predecessors and "final judgments" on Launch Day + 2 are the real noobs.

In my humble opinion.
-lode

 

[bjbrains]

No. It has more gold farming than a Chinese World of Warcraft guild. Gold is everything. The whole game can be won with gold. That. Isn't. Fun.

Gold to production is incredibly inefficient. I don't know what you're talking about. Good luck trying to 'win the whole game with gold' when you can't make anything on a reasonable basis. Gold is a big part of the game, but food and production are equally important. Unlike Civ 4, where gold was essentially worthless for 90% of the game.

 

[HannibalBarca]

Gold to production is incredibly inefficient. I don't know what you're talking about. Good luck trying to 'win the whole game with gold' when you can't make anything on a reasonable basis. Gold is a big part of the game, but food and production are equally important. Unlike Civ 4, where gold was essentially worthless for 90% of the game.

Production is incredibly inefficient, period. Everything takes forever to build. You're much better off skipping mines and just dropping trading posts everywhere so that you don't have to wait 15 turns for a unit and 30 turns for a building.

 

[Bigend]

People making blanket comparisons to it's predecessors and "final judgments" on Launch Day + 2 are the real noobs.

I know, right? Imagine judging something for what it actually is, instead of what you think it could be. What kind of a noob would do that?

 

[ProudAmerican]

I love the game sorry you feel this way. Though I must say Im reather annoyed that a civ might still be POed at me 2500 years later because I conquered a City state early in the game. But besides that
Oh and a patch for faster load times would be nice to

 

[westward]

No. It has more gold farming than a Chinese World of Warcraft guild. Gold is everything. The whole game can be won with gold. That. Isn't. Fun.

I'm getting the feeling you haven't played the game much, as you don't seem to have a strong grasp of how gold-buying works and, the ratio of gold spent to hammers produced, or how to produce a good number of hammes in cities. Thanks for the "I HATE HAVING OPTIONS" comment, though.

Production is incredibly inefficient, period. Everything takes forever to build. You're much better off skipping mines and just dropping trading posts everywhere so that you don't have to wait 15 turns for a unit and 30 turns for a building.

I think I figured out why don't have any production.

"Civilization V: just dropping trading posts anywhere why won't my dudes build stuff"

 

[HannibalBarca]

I'm getting the feeling you haven't played the game much, as you don't seem to have a strong grasp of how gold-buying works and, the ratio of gold spent to hammers produced, or how to produce a good number of hammes in cities. Thanks for the "I HATE HAVING OPTIONS" comment, though.

I've played this game for 25 hours, that is, long enough to know that it is dull and flavorless. And there IS no way to add hammers in cities aside from mines, which don't do much on their own due to the hammer cost of buildings; specialists, which only add a few hammers anyway, and buildings which, as I already mentioned TAKE FOREVER TO BUILD. Only with factories and railroads can cities break 50 hammers per turn (and the railroad connections don't even actually affect the capital, brilliant move there), and even then that's barely enough to build modern units and buildings at a decent rate.

And how on Earth does wanting gold to have LESS of a role mean I hate having options? Do. Do you understand what options are?

 

[DocRock]

Relax guys... I have played Civ since the glorious first edition, including SMAC of course and Civ V seems good to me. We should be aware of the fact that BTS was the 2nd addon and released after massive patches. I agree with you that this is not the perfect way to release a game, but it's the standard today - so get used to it.

The removal of the Stack of Doom (tm) is one of the best ideas in the whole concept. We need some slight additions like the switching of units to avoid bottlenecks and just unnessesary retreats to reorganise your frontline, but it's a good start. It only needs more small tweaks to be really efficient. Of course, the AI needs to be optimised too.

But the whole concept of the game seems good to me. I really liked Civ IV (especially BTS), but it was too complicated in some ways (e.g. the required lib beeline, early rushes at higher difficulty levels and the amount of macro- and micromanagement needed at the late game). Do not confuse Civ V with PG. PG was IMHO the best turn based wargame ever made. But is was purely a wargame.. no city management, no techs, no tile improvements.. you know. Civilisation offers much more.. it just needs more patches to be perfect!

 

[westward]

I've played this game for 25 hours, that is, long enough to know that it is dull and flavorless. And there IS no way to add hammers in cities aside from mines, which don't do much on their own due to the hammer cost of buildings; specialists, which only add a few hammers anyway, and buildings which, as I already mentioned TAKE FOREVER TO BUILD. Only with factories and railroads can cities break 50 hammers per turn (and the railroad connections don't even actually affect the capital, brilliant move there), and even then that's barely enough to build modern units and buildings at a decent rate.

And how on Earth does wanting gold to have LESS of a role mean I hate having options? Do. Do you understand what options are?

Lumbermills? The Liberty social policy that adds +1 hammers to every city you have? Chopping? Alternatively, play on quick?

Also, you can build things, or buy them. If you cut one choice out, that leaves you with less options. Do you understand what options are?

 

[HannibalBarca]

Lumbermills? The Liberty social policy that adds +1 hammers to every city you have? Chopping? Alternatively, play on quick?

Also, you can build things, or buy them. If you cut one choice out, that leaves you with less options. Do you understand what options are?

Lumbermills aren't worth the (painfully slow) worker build time until steam power.

+1 hammer isn't worth much when almost everything costs 100 hammers or more.

Chopping only works for so long.

Playing on quick means you can't build 3 units without them going obselete.

And I'm not saying we should take the buy option out. That's been there since I've been playing Civ. I'm just saying that right now, buying is the ONLY option that doesn't take a, frankly, prohibitive amount of time in most circumstances.

 

[Ayt]

I haven't obtained Civ5 myself yet but what stikes me in this discussion is the type of complaints. What I get from reading this is that people are actually missing the redundant stuff that found its way to Civ4 and despice all the tactical improvements Civ5 brings. Can it be that Civ5 divides the hard-core strategists from the fun-players?

When the AI doesn't defend itself while you destroy them with 4 units in your first game while playing king difficulty you'll find that this definitely isn't a hard core strategy game.