can you imagine playing V in...

[nokmirt]

Try going back and playing a game of patched, unmodded CivIV Vanilla. Vastly different game to BtS.

Even the mod I have of the Great War for vanilla had an absolutely terrible AI. I actually gave up on it, it was horrible. That's why I always wanted to move the mod to BTS 3.19, but never found the time. Civ 5 will get alot better before its over.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I've checked the numbers. You are far more likely to provoke a war from expanding close to a neighboring civ than by winning. It's something like 100 vs. 40, so it's not even close. Of course, there are penalties for warmongering. So perhaps the two combined do lead to a high number of DoWs.

 

[dannythefool]

To this I wholeheartedly agree. He may have been a good modder - a designer he's not.

So you two don't like BtS then? He's listed as a lead designer for that.

 

[zonk]

I've checked the numbers. You are far more likely to provoke a war from expanding close to a neighboring civ than by winning. It's something like 100 vs. 40, so it's not even close. Of course, there are penalties for warmongering. So perhaps the two combined do lead to a high number of DoWs.

Interesting... I've actually started just one single war myself - in all my games - to date. Yet, I find myself at war fairly often - even if I'm off by lonesome. Possible my recollection is a bit skewed, though, as I do tend to sprawl - so I'm usually only "off by myself" if I start out alone on an island.

 

[cf_nz]

It's not so much that they're all warmongers - if you go the whole game without being "ahead" - you can play without a single war.

The problem is that diplomacy right now is basically:

IF human_player = winning
THEN Action = Declare War

I guess it depends how hard you want the AI to try and win the game, the reality being that declaring war is probably the easiest way of disrupting the winning player. At the moment I haven't experienced mass declarations of war against me when I'm winning but 'friendly' AI players do start getting less 'friendly' towards the end.

 

[cman2010]

Yes, it surely looks that way. (In this respect it does resemble Civ3, actually, though I think 3 was somewhat subtler.) But it implies a really boring dynamic, micromanaging your position in the 'charts' so you're not number 1 - until you feel confident and finally go for it. Smashing all real or potential opposition from day one is obviously more exciting. And I think that's what this game expects you to do. It's not really Civilization, it's a wargame with a broken AI.

I think this is a good way of putting it this civ is very war orented right now, where in civ 3 I felt like I could go for a culture vic, as long as I had a good defensive military and could keep good relations with other civs, except if rome or suka?(the zulu leander) was next to me they would allways be agressive. I just thought of one more thing I realy liked about civ 3 if you had enugh money you could pay off another civ to attack antoher civ, I havent seen that as an option yet in this game unless im missing somethng. Anyway just want to state Im having a ton of fun with this game, between this and starcraft 2 I have no free time these days.

 

[mmmfloorpie]

I don't know why everyone is piling on to Vanilla Civ. Yes, I agree that Civ 4 had a lot of bugs, but all of the core concepts were there! There was depth and lots of options and many things to consider.

Regardless, I have only ever played vanilla Civ 4. I never had the expansion packs and that game kept me coming back for more atleast every 3 months over the past 5 years. I love vanilla Civ! I think it has 2000% more detail and depth than Civ 5 does and this is from a POV of having never played BTS or the other one. So please, don't try to say Civ5 is on the same level as vanilla Civ4!

If the rumours about bringing religion back in a mod are true, why did the designers go on a month long media tour saying that religions in Civ 4 sucked and ruined the game? First they say NOT having religion in the game is a good thing, but now they are going to make us pay extra for it in a mod/expansion? What's up with that?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Interesting... I've actually started just one single war myself - in all my games - to date. Yet, I find myself at war fairly often - even if I'm off by lonesome. Possible my recollection is a bit skewed, though, as I do tend to sprawl - so I'm usually only "off by myself" if I start out alone on an island.

Well, there are plenty of factors to determine it. There's probably at least 150 values in the XML file (none of which have to do with leader personalities, although many have to do with City-States). As of right now, I couldn't point to the right one to help you, but I do believe there's something there. Generally, I'm getting the impression that either aggressive action on your part or significant weakness on your part are the two biggest factors. But it's tough to tell.

 

[cman2010]

I think it may be what the one person suggested that the ai is programed to attack you when you pull ahead in the game.

 

[TheDisco]

when you played IV, you were paying consideration to the immediate, the mid game, the long game, your potential victory conditions, what would be your prod., economic, science city..

Still true in Civ5. Although to be honest both Civ4 and Civ5 the game is won by the mid game.

how you would develop and choose those cities (eg. economic: religion, tile output, buildings, trade routes, how diplomacy would affect them, etc.)

Still true in Civ5, except no relgion but instead added the extra dynamic of city-states.

who you should develop as long term friends and who could buffer you against who

True, the AI with it's "Declare war against my best allies just because he built a space ship part" makes forming alliances pretty pointless. But there is already a mod that fixes this...

when you should expand to another continent

Still true in Civ5

and could you afford to keep the colonies or would you have to vassal them, if you were going to vassal them, how long would you have to support them for. if you vassalised the ai, could you give them all your techs or could they escape being vassals by expanding.

Not an option in Civ4 either at all until the expansions came...

who were your competitors and how could you alienate them from their friends if they were going for religious or diplo, could you get to their main culture city in time if they were going for culture.

Still true in Civ5

was it worth switching civics to placate a dangerous enemy.

In Civ5 this is done more strategically than tactically with Social Policies

could you outculture an enemy city and swamp it to take their crucial tiles and starve them.

True that aspect is gone but you still can develop culture so as to expand your borders faster or slower. But culture has other importance in Civ5 such as social policies.

literally dozens of competing layers of aspects that you had to balance to play the game successfully..

Still true for Civ5

now it's wait for the ai to attack (which they will but you won't know why), soak it up knowing they have no reserve, then walk in take their main cities and raze the rest when they quit and give you them. but that sounds like i'm blaming the AI for the game's inadequacies which i'm not...

AI is inadequate due to that strategy being viable. I think they should bring back an AI that you could actually allie with rather than always knowing they will DoW if you are weak or if you are winning

having given this game a really good go over the last few weeks i'm running out of enthusiasm. i really worried that this game would keep me in the house for 3months solid and that i'd be playing it for years obsessively.

the depth has gone. the depth has GONE. this isn't far away from civrev. WHO are they chasing after with this game? what demographic or group of gamers? even The Settlers is more "immersive" and complex than this.

Depth isn't gone at all, it is just different. Lots of depth in Civ5 that did not exist in Civ4 such as:

1) Strategic resources that can be used up
2) Better tactical warfare (if AI worked better)
3) Building maitenance
4) Culture, happiness, expansion, golden ages, and social policies all complexly intertwined
5) More complex city border expansion
6) More complex City-State dynamic


Just quit for a while and wait for the mods. By the way many already exist which vastly improve the game, including:

1) Economy mod
2) ActiveCityDefense
3) Emigration
4) Improved non-psycho diplomacy (dont remember actual name of this mod)
5) others...

 

[Sadan01]

I have an amazing imagination, so not only can I imagine playing Civ in five years time, I can imagine playing it dressed like a chicken while riding a purple donkey.

Sorry for the OT post, but the above post is surely signature worthy. In fact, thanks Binky.

I think it may be what the one person suggested that the ai is programed to attack you when you pull ahead in the game.

Agreed. Certainly in every game I've played thus far of Civ V, the AI's have declared war once I started pulling ahead. Maybe it does have something to do with the AI's seeing it as a good way to divert you from winning - i.e. having to fight a war when going for space victory is a good way to get your cities from building components and building combat units instead. However, imo I think we give the AI too much credit. But then again, if I'm playing a game where an AI is getting out in front, I'm going to do one of most likely two things:

1. Declare war and try and either destroy the AI or at least get him to build a ton of units and hopefully sink his economy.
2. Get another AI to declare war on the leading AI. Let them fight it out.

Option one is usually preferred.

In Civ V, the AI tends to attack you when you're out in front or sometimes even for no reason at all. So I suspect we're giving the AI too much credit in its present state. Notice the fact that if you refuse to sign an open borders treaty with anyone, they won't attack you at all. Where's that patch again?

 

[sherbz]

IMO they went wrong with getting rid of Sulla from the design team. I think we should start a petition to get him to redesign civ 5

 

[Sock Bramson]

heh, and they said disco was dead. spot on post, man.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

So you two don't like BtS then? He's listed as a lead designer for that.

Alex Mantzaris?

Edit, it seems that JS is credited there as well.

 

[SidMeierGroupy]

I have an amazing imagination, so not only can I imagine playing Civ in five years time, I can imagine playing it dressed like a chicken while riding a purple donkey.

Ha ha ha !
Classic.

 

[lschnarch]

So you two don't like BtS then? He's listed as a lead designer for that.

Well, the question could easily be reversed, I think.
BtS had corporations. Where are they now?
BtS had espionage. Where is it now?
BtS had events. Where are they now?
BtS strengthened religion via the AP. Where is religion now?

So, what does this mean? Was he doing wrong previously or is he doing wrong nowadays?

The answer is, at that time he was a 22-year-old working together with Alex Mantzaris.
Any more questions?

Still true in Civ5, except no relgion but instead added the extra dynamic of city-states.

Would you mind telling us which kind of "extra" dynamic you see in City States?
You bribe them, you conquer them or you leave them alone.

But you're well advised when you bribe them.

2) Better tactical warfare (if AI worked better)

 

[Psyringe]

The problem is that diplomacy right now is basically:

IF human_player = winning
THEN Action = Declare War

You know that this puts Civ5 diplo AI on the level of that for Civ1? Civ1 had that literally in its AI code, with the additional condition "if the year is 1900".

 

[Louis XXIV]

BTW, take a look at the XML files (both for Global Diplomacy and for leaders). You'll find there's a lot of things there. You'll also find some Civs don't care about winning and don't care about stopping you either.

 

[mrhell]

It's not fair to compare 5 vanilla to 4 vanilla, since the design team had all of the mods, expansions, etc. from 4 to learn from in designing and building 5.

 

[lschnarch]

It's not fair to compare 5 vanilla to 4 vanilla, since the design team had all of the mods, expansions, etc. from 4 to learn from in designing and building 5.

And they learned - zilch.