As a old player of CIV series for 15 years, I have to say CIV5 is the worst

[NolanNZ]

I've played Civ since Civ I myself. Preferred Civ II to Civ III. Loved Civ IV from the get go - as it felt like they took the best bits of II and III, dumped the bad bits, and then added a few more interesting concepts for good measure. Civ IV BTS was definitely the pinnacle so far.

Then they announced Civ V and the concepts and I was like "hey this is cool, but it is definitely going to be quite a different game". It is a different game, and its a lot of fun. Easily the biggest issue is the AI - and until that is sorted out it will be a good game rather than a great game (I felt the same way about Empire Total War when it game out).

Of course, even this impression may be me just being fussy - I've had the game for about 4 days and I've already dropped 33 hours into it

 

[Lunacy]

I'm not as devoted a player as many others on this forum are. I got hooked on Civ back when it was Civ2. I don't play every day or even every week but I have enjoyed it on and off over the years. However, I have to say that so far Civ5 is a major disappointment. Civ3 and Civ4 impressed me in one way or another when they first came out and motivated me to learn the new features. With Civ5 I find that I'm pushing myself to play it just so I don't feel like I wasted $50 but frankly - I think I did. I hate the Steam interface. Sorry - I understand that game developers want to protect their games from piracy but things like Steam only end up annoying people like me who purchased the game legitimately. The pirates I'm sure will find a way around Steam and I'll envy them for not having spent the $50 ;-) I'm NOT impressed with the graphics. The opening video is cool - ONCE. I don't need to see that over and over and over again and it's stupid to have to go into the initiation file to turn it off. The loading time for this game is ridiculous. The graphics are particularly disappointing. I haven't yet figured out how to make the pieces into one single unit instead of having a bunch of them on a tile - not sure if you can even do that but it has long been my preferred way of playing. In my opinion the maps and units in Civ4 and even Civ3 looked WAY better. I'm also disappointed with the leaders and advisors. One thing I always liked about the Civ games was that they were also funny. The leaders and advisors looked funny and often said hilarious things. In Civ5 everyone looks straight out of some modern graphic novel and most of the exchanges are serious. I'm sure I'm not the primary target audience for this game since I only play sporadically and I'm a middle-age woman but I have to say that I expected more from this series. I'm glad I still have Civ4 installed.

 

[Danei]

I like Civ V, but, from a purely atmospheric standpoint, it sort of lacks the excitement of building an empire for me. Maybe it's because the cities don't look that impressive, maybe it's the lack of cottages/towns, or maybe it's the fact that there aren't roads going every which way anymore, but even when it's 1990 I still feel like I have an (admittedly large) group of settlements rather than a mighty empire.

It also seems like it's harder to imagine the in-game events happening in the context of a realistic (but alternate) history. Yes, I know Civ isn't a history simulator, but in previous Civ games, I could always envision (most of) the things that were happening in the game really happening to a civilization, immortal rulers aside. In V, it seems like the "flavor", so to speak, was built around the mechanics more than in previous games. I understand and agree with the gameplay-before-realism doctrine, but I think previous games achieved both pretty well.

This is particularly apparent to me in the social policies, which seem like they were designed for gameplay effects first and then had reasonably suitable names tacked on for flavor.

 

[Malecite]

Yea seriously what was wrong with the cottages and towns?

Civ 5 seemed to cut the heart right the hell out of all of the things I enjoyed about Civ 4. I dont get why at the end of Civ 4's lifetime, right when it was at its glory, none of the most successful features were carried over... In fact many of them were just mysteriously removed?

I enjoy some aspects of Civ 5 such as the revolutionized combat, and embarking yada yada. But SO much stuff was cut out that its like playing a hollow offshoot rather than a full fledged sequel. Add on the fact that the diplomacy makes no sense, is about as basic as the 1st Civ, and the AI combat prowress is just silly... well you got yourself some problems. I mean its just plain boring after a few rounds.

 

[Danei]

Yea seriously what was wrong with the cottages and towns?

What was wrong with them was that their growth from not-that-useful to amazingly good over a bunch of turns, while cool, encouraged people to build cottages early and never switch to anything else, which I suspect was deemed by developers as less interesting than more swappable improvements.

I can see both sides of that issue, but I don't really like trading posts, thematically. Why does Boston circa 1950 have a bunch of "trading posts" around it? Do trading posts like that even exist anymore?

I think they should be called "suburbs" or something after a certain era, and retain the same behavior.

 

[Carver]

Yea seriously what was wrong with the cottages and towns?

.

They were just too complicated. The fact that they grew over time, producing different amounts of gold at different sizes and with different techs, and that their production changed based on civics. Cottages apparently required too much thinking and planning ahead. And, of course, civics are gone.

What was wrong with them was that their growth from not-that-useful to amazingly good over a bunch of turns, while cool, encouraged people to build cottages early and never switch to anything else, which I suspect was deemed by developers as less interesting than more swappable improvements.

I can see both sides of that issue, but I don't really like trading posts, thematically. Why does Boston circa 1950 have a bunch of "trading posts" around it? Do trading posts like that even exist anymore?

I think they should be called "suburbs" or something after a certain era, and retain the same behavior.

I think the choice you had to make between production and gold was quite interesting. In Civ4, as with all good 4x games, there is no single strat for all games; the player has to be flexible depending on the situation.

And, yes, all those trading posts make no sense at all.

 

[Malecite]

Swappable improvements?

So instead of a sweet structure that gained strategic value over time and actually required player attention I get a fox fur sale cart or a goddamn mine? I actually really enjoyed the cottages because they were so vital to your economy and required vigilence to avoid sacking. Plus depending on your government you could use either workshops or cottage economies flexibility. Communism, democracy... those things called governments... they were fun.

Now my civ is deemed Heroic in an unchanging political arena that lasts forever until the universe implodes, and along the way maybe we can become pious and orderly if were lucky.

 

[Carver]

Swappable improvements?

So instead of a sweet structure that gained strategic value over time and actually required player attention I get a fox fur sale cart or a goddamn mine? I actually really enjoyed the cottages because they were so vital to your economy and required vigilence to avoid sacking. Plus depending on your government you could use either workshops or cottage economies flexibility. Communism, democracy... those things called governments... they were fun.

Now my civ is deemed Heroic in an unchanging political arena that lasts forever until the universe implodes, and along the way maybe we can become pious and orderly if were lucky.

Well, you probably remember what the developers said: We didn't want people to have to perform hard calculations about what civics will work best, we wanted them to choose: What cool new benefit do I want?

 

[dexters]

I'll save my discussion on what I feel about Civ5 for a later date. Suffice to say, I'm still absorbing the game. But to echo the earlier sentiment, the tile improvements needs ALOT of work.

-Trading posts need to evolve just like cottages did in Civ4.
-More tile improvements
-Railroads are hard as nuts to see. Considering how critical they are (50% production bonus when connected to the capital and I'm squinting trying to figure out if I've missed a section)
-Some of the road graphics don't make sense. They've avoided spaghetti roading, but replaced it with roads that do figure 8s, but don't seem to run in a straight line on many instances.
-Bring back Vassal states for enemy AI civs
-Make City states more interesting. Right now, they work more like bonus resources. And I HATE having to bribe them every X turns to maintain alliance. There needs to be more to it that isn't
a) fetch quests
b) buying their loyalty with gold.

City states require more modifiers within player control. Light direct protection lowers decay of relationship. Allow Active trading by players to pawn off surplus resources etc.

 

[Malecite]

I would be alright with that, if somehow it were possible to shape those benefits to fit the requirement for a particular government style. Or perhaps repick them at some point.

I find it TRAGIC that the decisions I make in turn 10 are still guiding the course of my game 400 turns later when the people who made them are long dead, and the game I'm playing at that point is COMPLETELY different.

But hey it appeals to the WOW crowd... why have governments when your Civ can just grind culture to gain and other fraking level.

 

[pacificwing]

Spaceship and dandelion seeds was Civ 3.

Doh! You're right. For some reason, that cinematic popped in my head when I thought of civ 4.

I suppose my point was that there was nothing like this in Civ 5. It's that and the other small touches (or lack thereof) that illustrate the fact that Civ 5 didn't get the same level of attention as its predecessors.

 

[Danei]

Swappable improvements?

So instead of a sweet structure that gained strategic value over time and actually required player attention I get a fox fur sale cart or a goddamn mine?

Yep. They probably felt that was best for gameplay, as it led to cities whose specializations were easier to change "on the fly", to adapt to different needs.

I don't know why they decided to go the opposite direction with social policies.

 

[Earthling]

Look at "competetive" FPS games, they have been identical for about 15 years now simply because none of the players want to learn anything new.

Spah round these parts. (This is terribly untrue and even if it was doesn't really contribute much to any relevant argument, coming from someone who's in general not a fan of FPS's)

 

[Raider]

I am with people who are disappointed with this game. I played for several days straight, hoping to find good things about it, but the more I played, the more I realized how much of a bust it really is.

1. Thanks to the completely impotent AI, there is a complete lack of challenge. Even on emperor+, it's a pushover that offers no resistance and is absurdly easy to steamroll. There is simply no point to playing single player that is this easy.

2. There just doesn't seem to be anything to do. Most turn are spent shuffling a few units around and hitting the next turn button. Civ4 and Civ3 had a lot more things to pay attention to. Here, by late mid-game, there is just nothing to do, and turns are boring. And that's even with a war going on.

3. Civilizations are not very diverse, and their bonuses are random and vary between imbalanced and useless. Catherine's double strategic resources versus 50% chance to capture barbarian naval units? Really?

4. Graphics are often ugly and not very clear. Rivers are absurd.

5. Happiness system makes expansion past a very basic point counter-productive. Same with capturing cities in a war. It artificially slows down expansion far more than it should.

6. Bottom line, I was bored playing this game with weak AI, lack of anything to do, uniform and uninteresting civilizations, and a ton of other things is just not fun to play. Civ3 and Civ4 were both enormously fun and playable out of the box. Civ5 doesn't come close to that. I will see if I can return this game for a refund, as I am enormously disppointed.

 

[bernlin2000]

I'm sorry to hear it doesn't give you any excitement: I love the game, even if it is a different experience form CivIV (and it has its share of problems...that shouldn't be there). Play into the Modern Era and I think you'll get the same wow factor I did: seeing a rocket artillery obliterate a barbarian spearman (I guess they don't upgrade past that on the easier difficulties). I've never been this excited about combat in Civilization, but I will agree that other elements (like diplomacy) are not at the same level they were in Civilization IV, and I'm not getting as much satisfaction out of building as I did before: everything just seems to take so long to build and I find it easier to you destroy a bunch of encampments and buy things with gold. As a builder, I'm not so excited, but you find the things that interest you and focus on those. Then you go on the forums and complain about the other things you want back

That's fine, there was a percentage of people who hated IV and III and II and the original civ too. What I can say, is no one loves the Civ series more than me, and I think V is fantastic. In no way is this "Civ Rev with a new paint job"...there's definitely a couple of things I miss from IV, but no deal breakers at all. There's way more pros than cons.

Your right, but people have a bad habit of focusing on cons, and ignoring the pros. I don't know how CiV didn't meet people's expectations: it has all the features that were mentioned in all the previews that I've seen. Of course, they didn't mention the things that they left out (better resource management, for example) and things that weren't really finished at release time (AI, Multiplayer). You can look at what is there and say "There's some issues, but this is still a very fun Civilization game) or you can look at what isn't there and say "I can't/won't see past the problems long enough to enjoy myself: Civ5 fails!" I enjoy video games much more when I do the former...

 

[Vortigern]

I think almost everyone is in agreement with this - we miss cinematics. The wonder cinematics in civ4 were great, but I mostly feel a bit let down every time I finish the game and instead of a cool cinematic depicting my type of victory, I'm greeted with a splash screen saying "congrats, you won ..."

Of course I also hugely miss the whole 'building your own palace' element from civ2. I think most people do.

The combat system is a bit better, with stacking removed. It does stop these ultra-fortified cities developing and force you to spread out and watch your borders. However, I really hoped Firaxis would revolutionise the combat. I still think players should build 'armies' consisting of multiple types of units. If each 'army' could have say five 'slots' which could be filled with different combos of unit types, we would have a few armies to manouvre and not have the map crammed with dozens of different units filling the tiles until you run out of space to place them.

There are some AI issues I've found but nothing that can't be fixed with a patch or three, given time.

Previous civs all were released with great scenarios included. So far I've found one map of Earth on Steam and the starting positions are always randomised - no historical starting locations. Still waiting eagerly for some more decent scenarios like Crusades or World War 2.

I think maybe Firaxis market research division fouled up a bit. There were dozens of great, and very popular ideas on these forums and many others, about what players wanted from Civ 5. It appears the target market's input was totally ignored by the designers who did only what they wanted to do - not exactly a good way of going about it in this hyper-competitive market.

 

[fed1943]

I play civ series since its begin, 1991 from memory. IMO,

Civ I was a great idea and a good game;

Civ II was a very good upgrade of civ I and so a very good game;

Colonization was a new way and a good game, while not as good as civ II;

SMAC was a very good game with new ideas, still better than Civ II;

Civ III, while not really bad, was much behind, nevertheless Conquest somewhat
saved it;

Civ IV was a very good game, some new ideas, better than the previous and BTS still
better;

Civ V... still new to it (aren't all of us?) but it looks worse than its ancessors.
But I cannot say yet that Firaxis/Take2/Steam/whoever convinced me.

 

[Setzertrancer]

The bottom seems to be the same in all these posts: people fear change. It seems to be even more so when it comes to the video games said people are/were good at. Look at "competetive" FPS games, they have been identical for about 15 years now simply because none of the players want to learn anything new.

I've played every Civ game since Civ 2 on my playstation 1 (didn't have a PC) and Civ 5 is an outstanding game with bugs that will be fixed. Since so many new ideas have been added to the series, some gameplay tweaking will also be done.

Just be glad this won't get the console treatment like Civ Rev and just be left to rot with all that game's problems once they have your money.

I am a non competitive player, I have never played CIV multiplayer and I'm not very happy with CIV V so far. Maybe it will be fixed with patches. But the lack of map trading or map reveal with Satellites is the most rediculous thing about this game. (My 2000AD Civ dosn't know the earth is round, or even any of the world outside it's borders). A close second is no Technology Trading, again unrealistic and third not being able to spend money on Scientific reasearch.

City states seems to have just been tacked on as an attempt at a new mechanic to replace the many things they have taken out of V. I doubt it's very realistic to receive such rediculously huge bonuses from them, which is the only reason it's not worth just destroying them.

this takes away from the realism I loved about CIV and it looks like they are turning this into a competitive game with so called balance between players, which is why I can't exploit the effort another player went to in exploring the world. But I play this game for fun as a simulation. It's no longer a Simulation game, it's now a strategy game, with more emphasis on gameplay then realism.

At this rate I can't even begin to imagine how unrealistic CIV 6 is going to be. what's next not being able to trade gold between CIV for game balance reasons, then maybe not being able declare war on a civ smaller then you.

 

[Rince]

I still think players should build 'armies' consisting of multiple types of units. If each 'army' could have say five 'slots' which could be filled with different combos of unit types, we would have a few armies to manouvre and not have the map crammed with dozens of different units filling the tiles until you run out of space to place them.

Don't you feel that this would undo the advantages of having 1UPT in the first place? It would take away the tactical component that Civ5 combat has now and replace it with battles between mini-stacks which would all have more or less the same composition (2 ranged + 3 melee for example) and therefore would be much more bland.

 

[Senethro]

I am a non competitive player, I have never played CIV multiplayer and I'm not very happy with CIV V so far. Maybe it will be fixed with patches. But the lack of map trading or map reveal with Satellites is the most rediculous thing about this game. (My 2000AD Civ dosn't know the earth is round, or even any of the world outside it's borders). A close second is no Technology Trading, again unrealistic and third not being able to spend money on Scientific reasearch.

City states seems to have just been tacked on as an attempt at a new mechanic to replace the many things they have taken out of V. I doubt it's very realistic to receive such rediculously huge bonuses from them, which is the only reason it's not worth just destroying them.

this takes away from the realism I loved about CIV and it looks like they are turning this into a competitive game with so called balance between players, which is why I can't exploit the effort another player went to in exploring the world. But I play this game for fun as a simulation. It's no longer a Simulation game, it's now a strategy game, with more emphasis on gameplay then realism.

At this rate I can't even begin to imagine how unrealistic CIV 6 is going to be. what's next not being able to trade gold between CIV for game balance reasons, then maybe not being able declare war on a civ smaller then you.

Are you going to use realism as an argument against city states? Really?

They're nearly exactly the same mechanism as corporations anyway. You give them money and they spit out resources.

While the no map trading thing is daft, I like the effect of it. All the sim city builders stay at home in complete ignorance while people who invest in exploration are rewarded.