An Evaluation: Why CIV 5 is an absolute atrocity.

[Disgustipated]

Most of the complaints in the OP are crap. They only talk about what was removed from Civ4: BTS. There is little use arguing about those points.

The simple fact is the game doesn't seem very fun. It's missing something. I think what's missing is meaningful building and progress. By this I mean city improvements, worker improvements, and techs. These need to be completely rebalanced and in some cases reworked.

The good news is the core of the game is relatively okay (hexes and 1 upt). But the game still needs a lot of work. It should have been released this time next year. It's like they forgot about peaceful building up of an empire. Yes you can build up, but as I mentioned above, it doesn't seem as fun as in past games. The balance is off.

 

[Buccaneer]

Blacky, I agree with nearly every single point you made, except for religions which I would only like to see added into Social Policies, if at all.

 

[Blackadar]

Blacky, I agree with nearly every single point you made, except for religions which I would only like to see added into Social Policies, if at all.

Heya Bucc, I forgot you hang out here. Nice to see you amigo.

Adding religion into social policies would be pretty neat. I imagine there would need to be a pretty heavy penalty for being able to change your religion.

 

[Soultrain420]

For me CIV4 BTS perfected the CIV experience. Without fail after countless campaigns every new campaign starts with the same feeling of optimism for claiming land and developing infrastructure for my nation. Then, sooner or later, you have to deal with the neighbouring countries. This never gets old for me. It ranks as my all time favourite game and I'm certain it has consumed the MOST playing-hours of any game I've played since the invention of video games. I've played every version of CIV as it has progressed. Each version was better than the last. Sadly I don't feel this way about CIV5. If CIV5 was the only version I ever knew I would probably have no complaints about the game, but I've been spoiled rotten playing CIV4 BTS. I truly expected CIV5 to build upon CIV4 BTS but they have taken away so much that it feels like it went backwards.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Copy to Clipboard
-- Antoine de Saint-Exuper

 

[darth13]

Unfortunately, CIV 5 is not so good....The worst of all is the horsehockey soundtrack!

 

[Surgeon]

To the OP:
Atrocity. I do not think it means what you think it means.

 

[Thormodr]

a·troc·i·ty
   /əˈtrɒsɪti/ Show Spelled[uh-tros-i-tee] Show IPA
–noun, plural -ties.
1.
the quality or state of being atrocious.
2.
an atrocious act, thing, or circumstance.

Origin:
1525&#8211;35; < L atr&#333;cit&#257;s, equiv. to atr&#333;ci- (s. of atr&#333;x ) fierce + -t&#257;s -ty2

a·tro·cious
&#8194; &#8194;/&#601;&#712;tro&#650;&#643;&#601;s/ Show Spelled[uh-troh-shuhs] Show IPA
&#8211;adjective
1.
extremely or shockingly wicked, cruel, or brutal: an atrocious crime.
2.
shockingly bad or tasteless; dreadful; abominable: an atrocious painting; atrocious manners.

Origin:
1660&#8211;70; atroci(ty) + -ous

&#8212;Related forms
a·tro·cious·ly, adverb
a·tro·cious·ness, noun

&#8212;Synonyms
1. felonious, heinous, monstrous, diabolical, devilish. 2. execrable; detestable.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atrocious

Actually, I think atrocity somewhat fits. After all, the game is shockingly bad, dreadful and abominable.

Personally, I would have used the word "travesty" but really we are just mincing words when we are describing Shafer 5. The game is a dud no matter which way you describe it.

 

[scratchthepitch]

If you love CIV IV, you will most likely hate CIV 5,

I found Civ4 to be so boring and pointlessly ahistorical as to be completely unplayable.

 

[bitula]

I'm actually one of those CIV5 "haters" and CIV4 "lovers" but I disagree with the OP on lots of his reasoning (And I am sure I am not alone). Just a few:

1) Hexes: quite indifferent to me, and I am quite sure many CIV4 fans don't see it as a major improvement.
2) 1UPTs. I hate the way these are implemented and not just because the AI can't handle it. There are several other reasons why this does not work.
3) Social Policies. I consider social policies one of the best Ideas (along with quantifiable resources) in CIV5 since it adds an additional dimension to game play. I think it is a different issue, that nonetheless these could go along with governments. So removal of government is not positive in itself, but that is another issue.
4) No end movies. Who the hell cares...

 

[Quillur]

My problem with Civ5 is simple: it's just not fun.

Similar or completely different to Civ4, the one thing I demand from a game is for it to be fun. But this one is tedious. So, back to Civ2 and Civ4.

 

[Naokaukodem]

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.

That's nearly the only thing i agree with.

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.

Civ4 scenario sucked anyway.

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??

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

No World Wonder Movies

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

I can live without.

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?

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

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.

I don't feel disturbed by that.

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.

Civ4 random event were trivial, at best...

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.

The last of my problems...

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.

I disable them.

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.

No framerate problems here...

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.

One Leader Per Nation

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

Don't give a ****!

 

[man-erg]

I'm actually one of those CIV5 "haters" and CIV4 "lovers" but I disagree with the OP on lots of his reasoning (And I am sure I am not alone).

No, you're not

1) Hexes: quite indifferent to me, and I am quite sure many CIV4 fans don't see it as a major improvement.

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.

2) 1UPTs. I hate the way these are implemented and not just because the AI can't handle it. There are several other reasons why this does not work.

SOD is irrititating. But so is 1UPT. I would have liked a much reduced stacking element. This does impact city building though and the whole game, as playing Civ4 after Civ5 makes me much more aware of the tedious time spent in 4 rapidly building loads of units then stacking them up. But then in 5, I've conquered the world with less than 10 units in the whole game! From 1 extreme to the other is not the answer.

3) Social Policies. I consider social policies one of the best Ideas (along with quantifiable resources) in CIV5 since it adds an additional dimension to game play.

Yes, I like those too. Civics should have been kept though, rather than replacing them.

4) No end movies. Who the hell cares...

Or wonder movies..or swaying trees..or pretty rivers.

I like the auto-embark of Civ5. But then I miss the wild animals at the start.

 

[HorribleHarald]

Religion and espionage are things that they should improve in 5. Taking with religions with was a good idea but not perfectly implemented in 4 same as spying. About spying... they got a good hunch but it has some irritating issues like tech stealing for AI lot of easier than player, destroying spaceship in a small city far away capital...
Now they are totally forgotten and what's we got now... hexes: nice but irrelevant, 1upt: nice thought but doesn't work in practice, now civV is one big "chess game", city states: nice but badly implemented. Diplomacy is only giving gold to them, I have better to do with gold, they are too weak.

 

[Humakty]

Civ 5 will rest on my harddrive untill full conversion mods are released (and they fix the AI, no point for a total conversion when the AI can't tie its laces) . But I do admit I did the same with civ 4.

Still the OP makes a point. Apart for combat mechanics, there is no point playing civ 5 over civ 4. Everything was axed away. Sure, DLC will give it us back, but I think I'll wait for bundles this time.

 

[migkillertwo]

Another rant with no discussion of the additions

I second this motion

 

[Humakty]

I second this motion

Ignore this thread / create a super positive thread ?

Suggestions :

-Why its super cool to play a console TBS on a computer

-Lack of feature creates some sort of superior gameplay

-DLC profit will allow 2K games to produce some other 'super streamlined' game

-Civ 5 haters : stake them in a bog, yes or yeah ?

 

[Licinia Eudoxia]

It's worth pointing out that this thread is 2 months old and someone bumped it yesterday.

 

[Humakty]

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

 

[Ricci]

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.

Civ4 random event were trivial, at best...

The last of my problems...

I disable them.

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]

 

[ImperialGuard]

Ignore this thread / create a super positive thread ?

Suggestions :

-Why its super cool to play a console TBS on a computer

-Lack of feature creates some sort of superior gameplay

-DLC profit will allow 2K games to produce some other 'super streamlined' game

-Civ 5 haters : stake them in a bog, yes or yeah ?

I second THIS motion