An Evaluation: Why CIV 5 is an absolute atrocity.

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I've fond myself forcing to play more to see if I enjoy the game. It's the first time i've had to do this... Hopefully the expansions in the future will upgrade the experience.

Going to try the game on normal speed now as marathon is so dull it is crazy!
 
I agree, and there really isn't any concrete reason listed.

They just wanted to make jungle tiles useful, which flies in the face of the fact that the only thing stopping humanity from slashing and burning all the jungles it can reach in order to create more farming and grazing land in real life is concern for conservation and the ecosystem. And even that doesn't stop us a lot of the time.
 
Ahhhh, Sid had no part in Civ II? No wonder it was so great.

As far as I can tell, after developing Civ I he didn't return to the series until Civ IV (although I could be wrong about III), but the only Civ he's ever been credited as lead designer for, is the first...

They just wanted to make jungle tiles useful, which flies in the face of the fact that the only thing stopping humanity from slashing and burning all the jungles it can reach in order to create more farming and grazing land in real life is concern for conservation and the ecosystem. And even that doesn't stop us a lot of the time.

Consider it the spiritual successor of the National Park of cIV, where the Forest Gnomes of the Siberian taiga would provide you with 20 free specialists if you asked them nicely and built Forest Preserves...
 
This is not a sequel

It is a re-branding of Civ !!

why?

Because those who have witnessed Civ I-IV are now in their late 20s-early 40s!

time to get our kids hooked !

And yes, totally disappointed with Civ 5...feels like i'm playing something between Civ II & III but with better graphics !
 
THIS IS WHY TUTANKHAMON DIED!

No, but seriously, I did everyone really expect the game to be a Civilization IV standalone expansion set named Civilization 5?

I like both of the games. After 2 fun games of Civ5, I don't even miss Civ4 animated wonders/win movies/end game replay thingy/religion/instertgoodiesfromciv4here.
I enjoyed playing Civ4 too, but Civ5 is just so much more funat the moment that I'm probably going to uninstall Civ4 after this message.
 
Sid can't get out of Civilization without it exploding?
Really, Civ III was going to the wrong away,then Sid came and made 4 go back to the Civilization style (Play civ I and then 4,it looks the same game!) and then he got out,and civ V is AGAIN IN THE WRONG AWAY,please Sid,come back and save civilization!
 
I can never figure out why would surrounding jungles give university scientific bonus. Anyone care to explain?

Just to make jungles not completely useless? Completely OT, but I don't understand why jungles don't provide production like any forest in any of the civ titles (as far as I can recall). People make things out of tropical woods, right?
 
Wow, this thread has grown!

Have decided I actually quite like the game after playing on standard speed and dropping an atom bomb on Nagasaki. Sick, yes but fun? Yes!

I should have tried nomal speed before jumping into marathon or epic :)
 
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.

Bingo.

My last two games, I've pretty much teched straight to currency, set all my cities to gold farms, gone completely with trading posts -- there's really no point in building any other types of improvements, excepting resource-based improvements -- and now I just purchase everything.... and I do mean EVERYTHING.

I'm making a ridiculous amount of gold - 400 per turn - and likewise bilking the AI of all of their gold. The only time I take a city off of gold duty is for the occasional wonder (and there are precious few of those worth using.... the pyramids maybe, for faster trading post builds).

Something is seriously flawed IN a Civilization game if there's absolutely no point in BUILDING anything in a Civilization game.
 
Bingo.

My last two games, I've pretty much teched straight to currency, set all my cities to gold farms, gone completely with trading posts -- there's really no point in building any other types of improvements, excepting resource-based improvements -- and now I just purchase everything.... and I do mean EVERYTHING.

I'm making a ridiculous amount of gold - 400 per turn - and likewise bilking the AI of all of their gold. The only time I take a city off of gold duty is for the occasional wonder (and there are precious few of those worth using.... the pyramids maybe, for faster trading post builds).

Something is seriously flawed IN a Civilization game if there's absolutely no point in BUILDING anything in a Civilization game.

Try this mod:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381883

I just started a new game on it, the game feels so different on Epic now that I get to enjoy the era's accordingly. Also, the AI seem to cope with this alot better.
 
I can never figure out why would surrounding jungles give university scientific bonus. Anyone care to explain?

As a brazilian, I'm happy to!

You see, all those fancy medications that you use are most of the times basically sinthetic versions of active principles of plants or even poisons of animals that you find in... tropical jungles!

The biodiversity present in these areas are a wealth that can't be translated into numbers for the science.

Here in the Amazon Forest (not really "here", as where I am, since I'm far from it, but you know what I mean) we have scientists from all over the world, covering all kinds of interests: the farmacy and medical "industry", energy industry (interested in biomass), scientists that studies the real capacity of the jungle in absorbind the CO(2) from the atmosphere etc etc.

So that's how a jungle can help in science.

Biodiversity.
 
This is not a sequel

It is a re-branding of Civ !!

why?

Because those who have witnessed Civ I-IV are now in their late 20s-early 40s!

time to get our kids hooked !

And yes, totally disappointed with Civ 5...feels like i'm playing something between Civ II & III but with better graphics !

I approve the necessity of "relaunching" the CIV series to make it more accessible to a larger and more casual audience, but there should always be options to change the complexity and depth of the game according to the player's preference, particularly for the older CIV fans who have played the more advanced predecessors.
 
Ideology isn't game design. When I heard the designer say paraphrased "you shouldn't see number's in a diplomatic situation thats just not realistic", I knew what was up. The game is in alot of ways gutted of 20 years of innovation and if not for the hexes, 1UPT, reduced road spam, special units costing resources, and a few others I would have it shelved.

Its more confusing than a catastrophe. I think its just a young designer who got pretty much free reign and were dealing with his mistakes due to his immaturity, ideology, and preconceptions. But were also getting his brilliance and fresh new concepts.
 
Didn't play civ 5 for 3 days, then now started a game with france, and played 6 hours straight...
crazy wars against lunatic Ramkhaengkhamkhahshashas, Suleiman actually managed to use his catapults right, Gandhi is the only Civ that hasn't been warring yet.
Bismarck is still too stupid for his own good (declaring war, then realizing that I'm moving catapult and swordsmen and great general to his border...then cries for peace with nice gifts).

Just one more policy, oh university is coming in 3 turns, ah golden age, ah gunpowder let's wait for that before quitting...
 
No ReligionsReligions weren't necessary, but it added flavors to the game.
Yeah, I agree with this. I miss all the extra buildings, too. Although thinking back, it is a bit odd to discover religions as part of the science tree!!! I think Religion needed some slight reworking - perhaps linked to the Social Policies - but not total removal. To be added in an expansion?

No EspionageEspionage was one of the best features to have been introduced in the CIV series.
I always found spies underwhelming, so don't really miss them, although I agree that it is good to offer alternative options and a couple of times when I was threated by a more powerful neighbour, did switch to mass spying to get at them. To be added in an expansion?

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),
Goes right back to Civ 1 (in some form) , I believe. (it was a long time ago....) I can see the point that it is unrealistic to change civics overnight, but then civ has NEVER been realistic!!!! <...looks out of window to check that there really are no giant archers firing hundreds of miles across hexes on the landscape....>

However implemented, a chosen government type is a *must* have.

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.
Agree 100%. I have no idea what was wrong with that system that required its total removal. Having said about Civ being unrealistic, the Civ 4 cottages were far more realistic that the trading post spam that seems to cover the globe in Civ 5. If trading posts evolved into 'markets', then 'suburbs' or 'malls' it would be sufferable. But they don't, so it isn't. To be added in an expansion?

No World Wonder Movies
Agreed. Even having seen them over 50 times, when I built a wonder in Civ 4, I always watched the movie as it gave a little sense of wonder and attachment to the civ I was building. yeah, sounds silly :) To be added in an expansion?

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?
Yes and most importantly no end of game REPLAY :( This has been such a feature since Civ 1. My question is "Why is it not there???" Is there some technical reason why the records for the map (that seems smaller than in Civ 2) cannot be saved at each turn? To be added in an expansion?

No Commerce, Research and Culture Sliders
Shocked at first by their removal (again, they have been fundamental since Civ 1. What next? No settlers?) . Nearing the end of my second game and not missing them now. Perhaps just adjusting sliders was too unrealistic, now you have to adjust tiles and buildings to adjust the levels slowly.

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.
Yes, that's always been a foundation of the Civ series. It's going to take me a while longer to really figure out if the Civ 5 system is better or worse.

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.

I agree with you. I don't like it and I can only assume the reviewers who mention how good it is are console players. Or have certainly never played previous versions or Paradox games or even Total War to see how much information can be fitted clearly onto a PC game screen at one time. Or they aren't being totally objective...hmmm...

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.
Agreed - but I found the fun wore off after the 5th message from them sending me on some quest. ie about 7 minutes into the game :mischief: I will pre-order the expansion that includes a "Switch off ALL City States button" right now!!! Why do the want ME to discover a natural wonder? :crazyeye: Why do they never merge with another city state to become a larger nation, like they have done in reality?

They just seem to take up so much time in the game, for no improvement in game play at all. I'm increasingly getting to like some of the Civ 5 features. But I'm increasingly getting to hate the city states and my next game is going to have them set to zero. :mad:

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.
This was the same, probably worse in Civ 4 on release. As i recall, on release the game was barely playable for many, many users, due to poor performance, memory leaks and CTD's. These got fixed quickly though, and I would hope that Civ 5 gets similar treatment over the next few months.

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.
Yup. Surely can't be that hard to implement? To be added in an expansion?

What CIV 5 managed to do right:
Hexagonal Tiles
No Military Unit Stacking
Strategic Resource
I like all these too. These items added to Civ 4, together with the "auto-embark" and some other tidying-up tasks would have been enough for me to have been very happy with Civ 5 as an improvement over Civ 4.

As it stands, I think we can expect much more in the expansions. I'd say that right now, an expansion that contained a religion system, leader personalities, spies, town and civics would be a HUGE seller - even with those who say they don't need no religion and Civ 5 rocks exactly as it is! ;)
 
I spent over $100 getting Civ 4 completed by the expansions. I'm not going to do that again, and it's clear this is even more unfinished than Civ 4 was at release. I've been fooled twice now. I'm not paid to beta-test or design 2K's games.
I will find more interesting ways to spend my entertainment dollars than on Civ 5's expansions. Maybe Hootie's 2nd album ...

:goodjob::lol::lol::lol::goodjob:
 
Perhaps just adjusting sliders was too unrealistic, now you have to adjust tiles and buildings to adjust the levels slowly.
I agree with most of your post and don't know for sure that you are sarcastic with this quote,but i read it in many others.Sliders are not unrealistic.In my country,like most of them in a world,there is a budget voting every year where the money in treasury are distributed among the departments(ministries in mine).For example ,&#1072; country that is part of EU, there is a minimum percentage of budget that must go for culture:culture:.The sliders are most realistic tool for game like Victoria,that is trying to be simulation.
 
If you love CIV IV, you will most likely hate CIV 5, here's why:

Absurdly Lacking MP Support

Been playing Civ for close to 20 years. Never played MP, never want to. Hope if MP is an issue they improve it for you.

No SP Scenario

I never really liked the scenarios, though I agree that greed may have something to do with this. I'm sure we will see a DLC scenario pack sometime soon. That shouldn't happen and I can see if you liked scenarios then this would be a negative. I always played on randomly generated maps because I wanted to build my empire.

Interestingly enough, with the combat being much more tactical in Civ V, the game probably lends itself better to scenarios than past versions of Civ.

No Tile Animation

This isn't a big deal to me. I always looked at the city screen to see what was being worked.

No Religions

If they bring back religion, I hope they do so better than in Civ IV. Religion ended up being the end-all-be-all of diplomacy in Civ IV. I figure that's going to happen in an expansion pack. I don't feel that Civ V is lacking without it. Different game, different challenges.

No Espionage

You may be the only person alive who liked the espionage in Civ IV.

No Civics

I like the Social Policies. I'd recommend that they can be changed, perhaps at a 50% cost penalty or something like that. But I do like that the game forces you to make tough choices. Do you adopt the policy that helps you in a war now or the one that could add long-term gold benefits to your civ? Personally, I like Social Policies more than Civics.

No Hamlets

I'd like to see trading posts evolve a bit and I agree the graphic is a bit ugly, but I'm not overly worried about this one.

No World Wonder Movies

Entirely agree.

No End Game Cinematics

Entirely agree.

No Commerce, Research and Culture Sliders

Disagree. I like having to maintain all 3 separately. It's far more of a challenge to balance your empire now than it was with just slider.

No Random Events

Meh. Many Civ players didn't like the random events. I know at times I didn't - watching a stack of barbarian swordsmen conquer an entire Civ just doesn't float my boat.

User Interface

I love the user interface and I don't play consoles. IMO, it's the best UI ever created for a TBS game.

City States

If you're conquering them, you're doing it wrong. Love the city-states and the dynamic they bring to diplomacy. Or, I would, if they'd fix the diplomacy. :) But yeah, having your Civ at war and seeing your enemy bribe a city-state that's next to your capital to attack you is pretty awesome.

Framerate Problems

My system doesn't even meet minimum specs and I'm playing on medium (DX9) with no problems. I agree the game needs to optimized a bit...much like Civ IV did.

No Leader Personality Traits

I could see this, but it's not that important to me.

One Leader Per Nation

I have 18 leaders. I don't need a bunch more.

What CIV 5 managed to do right:

Hexagonal Tiles
No Military Unit Stacking
Strategic Resource
Fully 3D Leaders with Spoken Native Language

Entirely agree.

I disagree with your overall conclusion mostly because the stuff you mention isn't all that important to me. I'm more interested in the 4X - exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination. I get that in Civ V.

I love Civ IV + BtS, though it only became the classic game it is with BtS and many patches. At this stage, I really like Civ V. It's not a game I love yet, but we'll see how it shapes up over the coming months and years. Yeah, I want my wonder movies back. I want better AI. I want less opaque diplomacy. I'd like to see religion re-implemented. I want my dominance graphs again. But at this point, I'm having a blast playing Civ V because it's an excellent game in its own right.
 
This is not a sequel

It is a re-branding of Civ !!

why?

Because those who have witnessed Civ I-IV are now in their late 20s-early 40s!

time to get our kids hooked !

And yes, totally disappointed with Civ 5...feels like i'm playing something between Civ II & III but with better graphics !

Finally!

Someone who realizes that this is the fist ever Civ to take such a radical departure from the rest of the series! If we could all understand that instead of accusing one another of wanting "Civ 4.5" or telling others "just go play Civ4 then".....I think a lot of the recent uproar could be understood.

Maybe not agreed with by all (or even 'most') but certainly understood.
 
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