Can Civ5 become the best Civ of all time once it is fully polished?

[DaveGold]

I'll stick up for CIV1 and say that although it had problems it was one of the best games out there for its time. It had many great ideas and brought the civilisation board game to the computer screen. Whilst CIV2 and CIV3 were clearly more professionally built games I think they got bogged down with concepts they didn't really need. Whilst this was also true of CIV4 I just think CIV4 was just a really good game with lots of interesting features that supported repeat play. It was a very meaty game.

CIV5 has nice ideas but it doesn't feel meaty. There isn't tempo. Very rarely is there a very urgent, tough, decision to be made that can sway the game. Some people criticise religions and civics for being too flexible but they continually required decisions on what to do NOW. Policies require a handful of decisions over the whole game, perhaps three meaty decisions. That just isn't enough.

 

[DarkSchneider]

I think that's a good way to put it. There aren't a lot of important decisions in Civ V because there isn't a lot that you can do to advance your cause. Most wonders are missable, after the very early game you're consistantly behind in buildings, so researching more buildings doesn't open up additional options. Good decisions in war aren't helpful because you can only conquer so many cities before the unhappiness becomes unbearable at the national level. There's just not a lot that can be done.

 

[DaveGold]

I'd also suggest that a lot of later features in the game are balanced for strong nations. For example, a stadium would be good if, and only if, you've build every other happiness building in all your cities. A lot of players at the moment don't have strong nations and can't utilize the high end buildings and are disappointed with the technologies that provide them. Technologies don't solve many problems that an empires typically faces, such as overexpansion. If your income is low then technology only offers you the stock exchange, which takes longer to build than wonders, and lots of expensive buildings you'll never afford to maintain.

 

[Mokupo]

In my opinion, polishing will fix the game. I don't know if it would be better than all the others, but they could make some fixes. They put little patches (some MBs) every week, fixing it part to part.

- Things that could be fixed/added:

> Personality of the Leaders (As a lover of Tabletop RPG, would really enjoy some full of personality leaders. Bismark would be crazy for battles and agressive, Ramesses II would be snobby etc.)
> More difficult for Domination (they are just TOO easy when compared to the others.)
> Some bugs
> Strategic AI according to Personality (As I said, Bismark would be more destructive and direct, for example)

And some things I don't remember now

 

[polypheus]

I think it ultimately will come down to how moddable it is. If it can be modded to bring back almost all the lost features of Civ4 (or at least close equivalents) that were good but also made use of new mechanics like hex, quantified resources, etc. then indeed it can be a great game potentially. The question become whether the foundation of Civ4 is strong enough to do so.

Basically it needs to be able to be moddable so that the non-war aspect of the game becomes engaging and fun again. Right now that part is lacking and I'm not sure the base Civ5 is moddable for that.

 

[Collic]

In answer to the OP: Yes, of course it can.