Dear Civ fans,
In light of all the Civ 5 bashing that seems to rage on the forums I decided to rewrite a balanced and as honest review of Civ as possible. This, so that people arent deceived by the mass negativity, but also here a different sound.
First about myself, Im a long time Civ fan, played Civ 1,2,3,4 and now 5. Civ I is my alltime favourite and I guess I played it the most of all. The nostalgia. Also Im the kind of player that wants two things, I want to be challenged but most of all, I want to play through history and put my stamp on it. My default diff used to be around Emperor or sometimes harder. The problem being that on King and such, you have to little a challenge, on Immortal and such you sometimes feel like you are working instead of playing a game.....
So to the review, noting I played for 4 days now so its a first impression...
Pros:
- I like what the devs did, in trying new stuff, some things quite radical such as the 1Upertile and removing religion. It takes courage and I like that they try new stuff, which doesnt mean its all for the better...
- I like the one unit per tile. Maybe I like the effect of the removal of doom stacks more than the implementation of the one unit per tile but I really think its an improvement. The ranged units give something extra to. It seems to add a layer of strategy and thats good. Its no longer amassing the biggest stack and steamrolling nation after nation. This is GOOD.
- I like the city states. They add some flavour to the world. While they probably need some balancing I like them. I like them as allies, I like them as nice cities with luxuries to incorporate into my empire.
- I like the bigger influence of terrain. Suddenly a city in the mountains becomes hard to conquer. You cant bombard it and can only approach it slowly and with fewer units. I can imagine myself thinking about this stuff more and more as I decide where to settle a city. No more lonely tiles are important because you used to be able to place ur stack of doom at a forrest hill, but all of a sudden the whole patch of land makes a difference. This is good.
- I like what they did with city defenses. No longer you can stack a lot of troops in it but the city becomes dependent on the troops around it. And I like how it doesnt have to be manned with a unit in every city anymore. In case of a lonely enemy or barb.
- I like how resources are required for every unit. No more fueling an armada with one oil resource.
- I like the slower expansion. This is a huge plus to me. No longer its landgrabbing untill 1000 BC and thats it. Settling new land is FUN. And its great that this fun element is extended over the longer course of the game. No longer your only options for expansion after 0 BC are conquest or diplomacy, its also just building settlers. I really really love this!
- I like how culture is added over all the cities and gives new policies. This is definitely an improvement. And I figure cultural victories becoming more fun now.
- I also like the policies. They seem to give much more choice and options to the player. It would be nice though if their influence could be seen more instead of just numbers changing.
- I like how the map is made more alive. Yesterday I was just looking at my cities with their nice city walls, roads, bridges, farms, rivers. It just looks nice and fun. It gives you a connection with your Civ and a makes you feel proud of what you created. Its nice.
- I like puppet states. Its a good way to be able to expand even if your empire isnt ready for it. If your empire is healthy you can just annex. If its less healthy you can make your own puppet show, but still expand. Its a good solution. But a downside is the lack of being able to govern the states a bit more. And the high cost and long build time of courthouses to incorporate cities into your empire. Still this has potential!
- Lots of other small things and maybe not so small things , such as: seeing a wonder being build outside a city, repairing pillaged improvements, no more roads everywhere, natural wonders, embarking units by themselves etc etc...
Cons:
- Loading in the middle of a game in multiplayer? Suddenly out of nowhere a loading screen pops up.
- The game seems heavy on specs. Starcraft 2 runs smoother than Civ 5. Seems weird to me.
- Religion being removed almost completely. I see and acknowledge it didnt work all that good in Civ 4, but now its to underrated. Religion had a big impact on history, I hope they add religion in an expansion. (btw I really dont miss espionage, hated that stuff xD )
- It crashes too much. I havent had any crashed but my multiplayer partner had some issues. But its prolly nothing that cant be fixed.
- I dont like it how there are much less units so it seems. Even though it fits to the 1 unit per tile, my armies seem so small. I dont know what it is.
- I dont like it how many good minor features got lost in the process of making Civ 5 compared to Civ 4. Wheres the power graph? Wheres the Wonders of the world screen? Wheres the clock? Seems a bit silly.
- Sometimes the AI seems a bit dumb. Sometimes it acts very sane, sometimes it suicides unnecessarily units.
- Science seems to dependent more on the size of your empire than on your economy. Im not sure, I might be mistaken but it seems harder to create a Tech horny society to jump the whole world in tech. Building libs, unis and such might still do the trick but yea.
- I miss cottages and I dont like trading posts. I guess I hate the looks of trading posts the most, (they look like ugly ugly ugly military encampments the size of your cute cities). I hope they change it quickly, and if they dont Ill look up some sort of mod I guess. Still I miss cottages. They were great.
- Less civs and leaders? Less civs possible on a map? Too bad.
- The overall pace of the game seems to have gone down.
I dont know what to think about the new happiness system but I like the way it balances itself. If it goes to low the empire stops growing and it recovers. Good stuff. But I always seem to lack it. Maybe its just me. Theres more things I havent made up my mind about, such as diplomacy and no more sliders but Im confident about how it will play out.
So this has become quite a review. I hope its helpful. To conclude: Im positive about Civ 5 so far. Not thrilled but quite positive nonetheless. They made some brave changes and generally I like them! Some definitely need patching but I trust Firaxis will do their job. I guess only Blizzard releases finished products these days. Civ 5 has got a quite some potential and is very enjoyable already. I base these conclusions on only a couple of days playing so its just a first impression, but I like it so far. I cant wait to play some more and see what patches and expansions add to the experience.
Cheers!
In light of all the Civ 5 bashing that seems to rage on the forums I decided to rewrite a balanced and as honest review of Civ as possible. This, so that people arent deceived by the mass negativity, but also here a different sound.
First about myself, Im a long time Civ fan, played Civ 1,2,3,4 and now 5. Civ I is my alltime favourite and I guess I played it the most of all. The nostalgia. Also Im the kind of player that wants two things, I want to be challenged but most of all, I want to play through history and put my stamp on it. My default diff used to be around Emperor or sometimes harder. The problem being that on King and such, you have to little a challenge, on Immortal and such you sometimes feel like you are working instead of playing a game.....
So to the review, noting I played for 4 days now so its a first impression...
Pros:
- I like what the devs did, in trying new stuff, some things quite radical such as the 1Upertile and removing religion. It takes courage and I like that they try new stuff, which doesnt mean its all for the better...
- I like the one unit per tile. Maybe I like the effect of the removal of doom stacks more than the implementation of the one unit per tile but I really think its an improvement. The ranged units give something extra to. It seems to add a layer of strategy and thats good. Its no longer amassing the biggest stack and steamrolling nation after nation. This is GOOD.
- I like the city states. They add some flavour to the world. While they probably need some balancing I like them. I like them as allies, I like them as nice cities with luxuries to incorporate into my empire.
- I like the bigger influence of terrain. Suddenly a city in the mountains becomes hard to conquer. You cant bombard it and can only approach it slowly and with fewer units. I can imagine myself thinking about this stuff more and more as I decide where to settle a city. No more lonely tiles are important because you used to be able to place ur stack of doom at a forrest hill, but all of a sudden the whole patch of land makes a difference. This is good.
- I like what they did with city defenses. No longer you can stack a lot of troops in it but the city becomes dependent on the troops around it. And I like how it doesnt have to be manned with a unit in every city anymore. In case of a lonely enemy or barb.
- I like how resources are required for every unit. No more fueling an armada with one oil resource.
- I like the slower expansion. This is a huge plus to me. No longer its landgrabbing untill 1000 BC and thats it. Settling new land is FUN. And its great that this fun element is extended over the longer course of the game. No longer your only options for expansion after 0 BC are conquest or diplomacy, its also just building settlers. I really really love this!
- I like how culture is added over all the cities and gives new policies. This is definitely an improvement. And I figure cultural victories becoming more fun now.
- I also like the policies. They seem to give much more choice and options to the player. It would be nice though if their influence could be seen more instead of just numbers changing.
- I like how the map is made more alive. Yesterday I was just looking at my cities with their nice city walls, roads, bridges, farms, rivers. It just looks nice and fun. It gives you a connection with your Civ and a makes you feel proud of what you created. Its nice.
- I like puppet states. Its a good way to be able to expand even if your empire isnt ready for it. If your empire is healthy you can just annex. If its less healthy you can make your own puppet show, but still expand. Its a good solution. But a downside is the lack of being able to govern the states a bit more. And the high cost and long build time of courthouses to incorporate cities into your empire. Still this has potential!
- Lots of other small things and maybe not so small things , such as: seeing a wonder being build outside a city, repairing pillaged improvements, no more roads everywhere, natural wonders, embarking units by themselves etc etc...
Cons:
- Loading in the middle of a game in multiplayer? Suddenly out of nowhere a loading screen pops up.
- The game seems heavy on specs. Starcraft 2 runs smoother than Civ 5. Seems weird to me.
- Religion being removed almost completely. I see and acknowledge it didnt work all that good in Civ 4, but now its to underrated. Religion had a big impact on history, I hope they add religion in an expansion. (btw I really dont miss espionage, hated that stuff xD )
- It crashes too much. I havent had any crashed but my multiplayer partner had some issues. But its prolly nothing that cant be fixed.
- I dont like it how there are much less units so it seems. Even though it fits to the 1 unit per tile, my armies seem so small. I dont know what it is.
- I dont like it how many good minor features got lost in the process of making Civ 5 compared to Civ 4. Wheres the power graph? Wheres the Wonders of the world screen? Wheres the clock? Seems a bit silly.
- Sometimes the AI seems a bit dumb. Sometimes it acts very sane, sometimes it suicides unnecessarily units.
- Science seems to dependent more on the size of your empire than on your economy. Im not sure, I might be mistaken but it seems harder to create a Tech horny society to jump the whole world in tech. Building libs, unis and such might still do the trick but yea.
- I miss cottages and I dont like trading posts. I guess I hate the looks of trading posts the most, (they look like ugly ugly ugly military encampments the size of your cute cities). I hope they change it quickly, and if they dont Ill look up some sort of mod I guess. Still I miss cottages. They were great.
- Less civs and leaders? Less civs possible on a map? Too bad.
- The overall pace of the game seems to have gone down.
I dont know what to think about the new happiness system but I like the way it balances itself. If it goes to low the empire stops growing and it recovers. Good stuff. But I always seem to lack it. Maybe its just me. Theres more things I havent made up my mind about, such as diplomacy and no more sliders but Im confident about how it will play out.
So this has become quite a review. I hope its helpful. To conclude: Im positive about Civ 5 so far. Not thrilled but quite positive nonetheless. They made some brave changes and generally I like them! Some definitely need patching but I trust Firaxis will do their job. I guess only Blizzard releases finished products these days. Civ 5 has got a quite some potential and is very enjoyable already. I base these conclusions on only a couple of days playing so its just a first impression, but I like it so far. I cant wait to play some more and see what patches and expansions add to the experience.
Cheers!
