Why was this game not working for me? I was "playing it the right way", purposefully avoiding the most broken elements. I'm a more "casual" player, which is supposedly the targeted audience. The noticeable bugs and such hadn't bothered me all that much, and while the pace of the game is terribly slow, I usually played Civ IV on the "Epic" speed anyway and didn't have a problem. So why wasn't I liking this?
To discover the answer, I went back and played a game of Civ IV. In one two-hour session I discovered why I am not liking Civ 5 but still love Civ IV. In a word, it's the land.
In Civ IV, my favorite part of the game is spotting the most perfect city-sites, and trying to build them up. The tension in the game starts from the very first turn, when I must decide if the starting location is "ideal" or could be improved by moving a tile or two (and even if it can, is it worth giving up a turn or two of research right off the start?). The tension continues as I must plot the locations of new cities, always looking for spots with the ideal mix of resources and farming ability. This quest for prime real estate always generates the most interesting conflict with the AI, and it's even more engaging when you consider that most historical conflicts between civilizations revolved around land and resources. Nobody ever fought wars over Siberia, but everyone wanted a piece of the "fertile crescent."
Back to Civ 5. It didn't have this tension. The only time during my games that I felt anything like this tension was when I was trying for a good location against France. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered. ALL the locations in Civ 5 are equally good (or bad). Not much food? No problem... ALL cities grow so slowly that you need maritime city food anyway. Not many resources? Still no problem. Resources don't seem to matter that much except for maybe iron, and there simply isn't much difference between one hex and another. In Civ IV, there is a huge, Huge, HUGE difference between having a gold hill in your city square and just a normal mine. In Civ 5? Not so much....
So in Civ 5, the game lacks tension. There is simply "the one right way" to grow (Magical Maritime Food), and cities can go anywhere. If the AI beats me to an "ideal" location, there's no sense of disappointment or challenge. I'll just make do with something less, and know that it's not that different. And because locations really don't matter, other big problems crop up. As has been well-documented here, ICS is now "THE" way to play. Much of the fun of being a "builder" is gone. All cities are pretty much equal in Civ 5, so who cares what goes where (and don't mention lame location-specific buildings that have no real impact)? And finally, where cottages gave you an interesting risk-reward mechanic in Civ IV (build cottage early so it grows into a money-pumping town, or build an improvement with more short-term impact...), Civ 5 has..... trading posts? And since growth comes from MMF and mines are worthless, they're always the right improvement?
I doubt that this rant has added anything really different to the discussion, but I wanted to get this off my chest. With Civ 5, I believe that somewhere hidden under all the bugs and issues is a good game screaming to get out. I think that the best way to unleash that game would be to add some real difference to tile resource values. If river tiles are so completely superior, then go all-in and make them food powerhouses. If resources are really important, give me a real bonus when I mine them or create a plantation. Give me a reason to put a city in a certain location and build it up. The way it is now, I'm just putting random dots on a pretty grey-brown map."
Tredje: "Perhaps others will disagree, but another Civ4 (and by this I mean a game designed along the same lines as Civ4, not merely a copy) is something I would have welcomed with a big smile on my face. The designers of Civ5 could have made changes to the tech tree, the buildings, the units, the wonders, the tiles, the resources, etc; they could have implemented Social Policies instead of Civics and got rid of religion. As long as they kept the mechanisms that underlie Civ4 and continued to reward the player for making strategic choices. Of course they would have been criticised for being too conservative, but they would have made a good game. I am not saying Civ4 was perfect, but it was a very entertaining game.
I agree with a lot of the criticism posted here, but I figured I would provide my own reason for loving Civ4 and why I don't feel the same way towards Civ5. This critique comes in addition to major problems like the moronic AI, obtuse diplomacy, having to watch the useless AI attack my City State ally for 50 consecutive turns and other basic design flaws.
I am not sure the developers understood the consequenses of them altering some of the very foundations of the Civilization franchise. I am not talking about hexes or 1UPT, but the overall balance when building your empire. There were definite choices to be made in Civ4, say between going to war early and developing a strong research base. You could not do both effectively, although you could alternate between them or attempt to balance them off against each other. The same was true for expansion vs income/research.
My main concern is the way science and the economy works in Civ5. In Civ4, like I said, the player had to prioritize. In Civ5 science is to a large degree based on population, which means that the traditional dilemma of extensive growth vs intensive growth is effectively removed. To get more science you need more citizens, and due to several factors small cities can contribute just as well as big cities, particularly early in the game. There is no option besides expanding. Anything else, like focusing on workers or infrastructure will only put you behind those that expanded. As for gold you simply have to connect your cities, spam trade posts (you don't need many farms if you have Maritime City States and mines only give +1 production.)
There are some other elements that influence how you design your empire: 1) Small cities are great. City growth after ~size 10 is very slow. Maritime City States allow for fast growth of small cities and no farms. The area surrounding a city is of secondary importance, since so many bonuses can be accumulated for the city center. Collosseums and social policies make sure you have the happiness to expand indefinitely. Buildings and wonders take a long time to build, and the benefits they provide are negligible compared to more cities. 2) A small elite army is able to conquer the world. Units (especially late in the game) have very long construction times. Upgrading units is relatively cheap, especially with all the gold you get from trade posts/captured cities. The AI is poor, so you will hardly lose any units. This means building units early and using them is worth it most of the time. With upgrades they will form the backbone of your army for millennia.
The result is that spamming cities across the map is the best playstyle throughout the entire game. Science will not suffer, like in Civ4, because science is a result of your population. In fact science will increase. Income will not suffer because new cities will get only the necessary building and you will spam trade posts / capture cities. In fact, the economy grows. Happiness will fall periodically, but this is easily negated with the correct policies / colosseums.
This is the reason that the aggressive AIs can spam units, crush their weaker neighbours and still have good science and a massive economy without building any science/economic buildings. This, to me, is poor work by the developers. Where are the decisions and the trade-offs between different approaches? As for the player strategies, I fear that they will merely be variations on the theme I have outlined here. Perhaps some will get enough culture for the necessary social policies, and then go for massive expansion, or you will simply expand from the get go. Either way, it's not too important, as long as you keep expanding.
Is it possible to remedy the situation? To a degree, certainly. Increasing the value of land by reworking improvement gains and resource gains (+1 production means next to nothing) should enable cities in good spots to outperform spam-cities. I also think something has to be done about city growth after, say, size 10. Building costs and benefits provided could be changed in order to make it profitable to focus on intensive growth. I don't think limiting happiness more would be a good change, since it only puts another constraint on the player. I'd like positive changes that reward the player for choosing to improve his empire in certain areas. Not like now where infinite extensive growth is rewarded. But I am unsure if any changes made in this department will be effective as long as science and income work the way they do now.
At the end I would like to include a couple of things I like about Civ5: I do like the Seaport building, it means cities with a lot of coastal resources can become powerful later in the game. I also like buildings like the Observatory and Solar Plant being tied to certain tiles like deserts or mountains. It encourages a player to make certain choices when creating their empire. Of course none of these choices mean anything as long as the economy in Civ5 continues to operate along the lines mentioned."