CIV 5, 10 months after release

[logintime]

Only an opinion... I, for one, disagree with you completely.

That's fair. My above statements are all my own opinion as well, so I don't mind if yours differs.

 

[Jimbo30]

b) if you like empire building, exploration, diplomacy, or generally peaceful games, you won't like this very much. Civ5 has been patched a lot, but it still offers very little for players who aren't predisposed toward warfare. This is particularly true of diplomacy.

It was like that 10 months ago maybe, but it's better now. Of course you aren't going to be left alone to build up and build up but you can still play that kind of game with a bit of balancing.

It's changed a bit since Civ 4 but it's also stayed the same. I excel at playing on the edge of being weak militarily + builder game and it's still a viable strategy in Civ 5.

 

[shihuacao]

Uhhhh, so few in 10 months... Well I guess Ill wait an other year then till I try it out again. Btw, whats with the dll source code, Im not sure, but it seems it is not yet released. I cant find a definite info.

It is always easy to find reasons to hate a game. Civilization V is not Civilization IV and will never be like it. If you don't accept this fact, there is nothing wrong, just don't pretend it is all this game's fault.

 

[Thormodr]

Keep in mind you've asked this question on a dedicated Civ5 forum, so the responses will be a bit weighted toward it. I'll try and answer your question as fairly as possible:

a) if you like tactical war games, you might find yourself enjoying Civ5. This is particularly the case if you are okay with bad AI, as it still does not know how to use units properly.

b) if you like empire building, exploration, diplomacy, or generally peaceful games, you won't like this very much. Civ5 has been patched a lot, but it still offers very little for players who aren't predisposed toward warfare. This is particularly true of diplomacy.

Given the reasons you listed for why you were turned off to begin with, I'd say you are more likely than not to still dislike Civ5. A few of those have been modified somewhat, but many of them remain gameplay issues still.

This is a pretty fair assessment of the situation.

Also, don't forget the extremely poor multiplayer.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I preordered the game and blocked out a week to play it upon release--one of the more foolish things I've done. The game had some glaring holes, like conquering the world with a handful of horsemen, never needing anything other than trade posts, puppeting everything, these sort of obviously superior strategies took the fun out of the game.

I've come back to the game after hearing about it non-stop from my friends buying it during the steam sales. Knowing it is deeply flawed on one hand, and having a promising new July '11 patch on the other, I dove back in. Instead of planning to own the AI on the hardest difficulty I could, I role-played. I picked social policies that seemed neat and played nicely with the computer opponents. And that was fun for a few games.

Now that I've got a cultural and domination victory under my belt, I feel like I've seen much of what the game has to offer. Wiping a continent with horsemen is no longer possible and the rebalanced policy trees are more fun to navigate. Good job July patch. There are a few exciting moments like deciding what what wonders to pursue and how to capture a city without losses, but I have one defeating problem: expanding is disincentivized. Since expanding means social policies stop, feel like there isn't anything to do into the late game unless I'm trying to puppet everything. So it's culture or domination or boring, and ignoring the instinct to expand onto every tile that has been honed by a lifetime of playing Civilization.

I essentially agree with the poster who said ten months later Civ5 is good for a few games but lacks the staying power that Civ4 had. Partially that's me getting older, partially my laptop which handles the late game so slowly, and partially it's playing on too low of a difficulty for tense moments to arise (aside from the AI DOWs which feel as much random as foreseeable and strategic). The problem is that I don't care to fix any of those causes so I can enjoy Civ5.

I'm not even bitter I paid full price while my friends paid $15 or whatever.

 

[MkLh]

It was like that 10 months ago maybe, but it's better now. Of course you aren't going to be left alone to build up and build up but you can still play that kind of game with a bit of balancing.

It's changed a bit since Civ 4 but it's also stayed the same. I excel at playing on the edge of being weak militarily + builder game and it's still a viable strategy in Civ 5.

I guess it depends on difficulty. On higher levels, peaceful playing with a weak military isn't really viable except maybe in some special circumstances (isolated etc.). Patches haven't changed that. In fact, the last patch made AI a lot more aggressive on higher levels.

 

[Jimbo30]

I guess it depends on difficulty. On higher levels, peaceful playing with a weak military isn't really viable except maybe in some special circumstances (isolated etc.). Patches haven't changed that. In fact, the last patch made AI a lot more aggressive on higher levels.

I disagree, playing on King/Emperor the AI will pick on you if it thinks you are easy meat but you can rush a few units and hold off much bigger armies with walls and terrain. I haven't seen anything really overwhelming in a good few games since replaying.

 

[V. Soma]

"Thal's Balance Mod and City State Diplomacy are a must IMO"

Absolutely.

Now I have a game with these mods
set on a tiny pangaea map with 4 civs, 4 City States - on King level,
and by ca. 1500-1600 I have a very interesting game with AI-AI wars
and of course wars between me and AI, at times two AIs against me.
Nothing is certain at the moment, I say any of the 4 players can win it (!)

(I am Persia, AIs are
Germany (very aggressive,
Ottomans (peaceful),
Polinesia (kind of aggressive))

 

[zuraffo]

What I don't like about civ 5.
* I miss the old civ 4 specialist economy.

Well, specialist economy is back, in a big way. In fact, Having some sort of specialist economy is usually good for your empire, regardless of how wide it is. Hence, food is king.

* Unhappiness was very hard to deal with early game unless you had the right resources, witch made the starting location very important.

You have more options to deal with happiness now. TBH I never felt happiness was a problem, but they buff up the early trees now so your early game won't suffer too much from location.

* Maintenance was a huge issue since roads, building and units was expensive. I got the impression that I really couldn't work out a wide spectrum of tactics. Whatever I tried in different games it all ended up pretty much the same, but with a little tweak. In civ 4 you could go do a wide spectrum of tactics specialist cities, wonder rushing to get huge benefits, warmongering, rushing to get a lot of cities before your enemies, cottage spamming to tech like hell or eve go with a spy specialisation.

Are you trading luxury for your gold? it is possible to go negative income if you have some sort of side income to compensate. That, and they buffed up trade routes, I think.

Early game is when you need to diversify your tactics, but you usually wind up going down the world conquering route or peace builder route. The tactics phase stops right about after you enter renaissance, because which path you take to the renaissance usually determines the rest of your game.

* Multi player didn't work at all, it took forever for next turn to load and was very laggy.

I don't play MP so can't comment.

* Civics used to be fun "what civic serves my civilization best right now" options to play around with while it also had impact on diplomacy. Choosing civics that can't be changed fells boring and even unrealistic.

* The game felt a bit dumbed down to attract more ppl to play it (alot of ppl didn't like civ 4 because it was "too complicated").


* The AI was very poor, almost ********.

EDIT: I also didn't like the City States...

EDIT2: I also miss city health and I don't like that you have civilization happiness instead of city. I want to micro all my cities.

[/quote]

Those haven't changed.

CiV may never be the game we expected it to be, but judging on its own merit, the game has improved a lot since release, especially with the bug fixes, a lot of the game breaker is gone, and now it is possible to play the game for what it is.

I still think the game in this state (DLC included) should be the product they release in the first place. I have already made a mental note to only buy games about 1 year into their release, so I won't be a paying guinea pig again.

 

[zuraffo]

The actual combat (on land ofc. naval is a no show) is more interesting than in civ 4 i must say.

The mechanics are more fun, but the AI still do some pretty idiotic things that totally make you go "meh...", like leaving his GG within strike range undefended, shifting his range units about without really using it, etc. The only challenge the AI can bring to the table is its sheer number, especially on higher difficulty. But in a tactical setting, small group of elite units usually trumps sheer number. (That's also the reason why autocracy is underwhelming. Who needs a big army? Not only is the AI stupid, but by the time I get to autocracy, I already have my lvl10 core armies. At that point, having more armies is counter productive, since it clogs up your tactical field.)

All in all CiV is nowhere near as addictive as 4. You get tired of it very fast. Then you go away from it, hoping vainly that next patch will add that extra something that you miss, try it again a few times....well and this will probably go on for most of us that dont want to stop dreaming of a good civgame.

Amen.

 

[bitula]

It is always easy to find reasons to hate a game. Civilization V is not Civilization IV and will never be like it. If you don't accept this fact, there is nothing wrong, just don't pretend it is all this game's fault.

No, I dont pretend anything. Point is that Civ 5 is not similar to neither civ 4, neither to Civ1. I didnt play anything in between but it would be logical to say that Civ 5 is not faithful to the overall series, which made the game unique. Creating "an other game" under the label Civ 5 is simply a backstab to some fans, including myself. This should not have happened. So my expectation to slowly return to the roots of what made this game succesful is valid, and so steps are needed to be taken to make Civ 5 more Civ-like, otherwise there will be a final demise of the brand name and what it represents and at the end firaxis may loose their Civ customers and opt to stop the series and create rather other types of games.

 

[uberyeager]

In every previous Civ, right out of the box it was a great game (for it's time, of course). The thing that really set Civ 5 apart, is that it was a terrible game from the start. (Pretty game, but oversimplified, boring, terrible AI, etc.)

Given how bad it is, I can't imagine how any amount of tweaking will fix it, and I'm unwilling to throw more money at it, hoping it gets a little better. Say, maybe, it will go from horrible to bad.

After a little more research about the Civ series, I learned that the game designer leading Civ 3 & 4 left Firaxis, and a new guy led Civ 5, and left (pushed out, I hope) shortly after Civ 5 was released.

I would hope that Firaxis would learn their lesson (for Civ 6?), but it seems not, as CivWorld looks like it will be more "Civ for Dummies" style gaming.

To make a fun comparison with Star Wars movies, I like to think of CivRev being Sid Meier's "Ewoks", and Civ 5 being his "Phantom Menace". I really doubt I'll get "A new hope" anymore.

 

[Brichals]

No, I dont pretend anything. Point is that Civ 5 is not similar to neither civ 4, neither to Civ1. I didnt play anything in between but it would be logical to say that Civ 5 is not faithful to the overall series, which made the game unique. Creating "an other game" under the label Civ 5 is simply a backstab to some fans, including myself. This should not have happened. So my expectation to slowly return to the roots of what made this game succesful is valid, and so steps are needed to be taken to make Civ 5 more Civ-like, otherwise there will be a final demise of the brand name and what it represents and at the end firaxis may loose their Civ customers and opt to stop the series and create rather other types of games.

I'm really struggling to understand your point of view considering you don't play Civ5 but you have 2 main points here which are just hard to rationalise for me.

The biggest departure from the Civ series so far has been Civ 4. Civ 4 brought so many RPG elements where the other ones were immersive because of the game mechanics and macromanagement. Civ5 is so like the previous Civs it's almost retro.

Also 10 months in the game is getting 30,000 players at peak times and this never drops below about 15,000. In total thats maybe 150,000 - 200,000 Civ5 players on a daily basis. This figure is also rising. It must be one of the most played PC games currently. Firaxis losing customers??

 

[bitula]

The biggest departure from the Civ series so far has been Civ 4.

What???? This is the most strange oppinion Ive ever heard. IMO Civ4 is just a modern and enhanced version of Civ 1, there is no departure at all, it feels and plays the same, the only reason people dont play civ1 is that civ4 has everything which civ 1 had and has several additions which donot break the concept, just add content and dimensions, whereas civ5 breaks the concept and it doesnt feel like the genre or game type which defines Civ 1 and which makes it unique in the overall game market. Howeveer, note, I did not play Civ 2 or 3, so here you maybe right.

 

[Brichals]

What???? This is the most strange oppinion Ive ever heard. IMO Civ4 is just a modern and enhanced version of Civ 1, there is no departure at all, it feels and plays the same, the only reason people dont play civ1 is that civ4 has everything which civ 1 had and has several additions which donot break the concept, just add content and dimensions, whereas civ5 breaks the concept and it doesnt feel like the genre or game type which defines Civ 1 and which makes it unique in the overall game market. Howeveer, note, I did not play Civ 2 or 3, so here you maybe right.

Well I did play Civ1 (on a Spectrum??) and Civ2 (on Amiga??) but I can't remember them that well as I was too young. I think by civ2 I was old enough to play properly but still can't remember. I still think they were more 5 like than 4 like though. You had espionage like Civ4 but thats the only thing I think of now.

Civ5 is very much like Civ3 to me though which is the best in the series imo. In civ4 all the late game options and corporations, religions etc. turned it into a RPG which to me is not Civ (to a lot of others it is I know).

And BTW I also found Civ5 boring in the beginning but it was transformed in the first big patch after the staff change and has improved since then. I think you could be pleasantly surprised if you try it again and if you don't like it you didn't lose anything more than you don't have now.

EDIT: LOL Civ3 is more like Civ5 than I thought. Here I just found this on Wikipedia, I was curious which system I played Civ1-2 on so I went on a nostalgia search.

The initial release of the game had some bugs and glitches. Some of the features that Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had but were not included in Civilization III (at least initially) included elevation, a working UN system, a social engineering system and a 'group movement' command to simplify managing units on the map.

The first patch came very soon after the game's initial release and other patches were released subsequently, improving gameplay significantly. The patches also managed added certain features, such as the group movement command noted above. There were complaints about the addition of features and bug fixes after initial release. As with all games, the designers of Civilization III had to strike a balance between prompt release on the one hand and optimization of gameplay and the elimination of defects on the other.

Upon release, the reaction to Civilization III was very positive. It won several "Game of the Year" awards such as the Interactive Achievement Awards 2002 Computer Strategy Game of the Year.

 

[bitula]

Civ5 is very much like Civ3 to me though which is the best in the series imo.

Yeah Ive heard that also, so maybe Civ 3 is also a departure, but I played civ 1 and Alpha Centauri as much as civ 4 and they have the same game play style and feel. Espionage and Religion does not matter, these are just addons, they dont mess up the game play, just add some flavour. So Civ 3 may or may not stand out, but given that there was a civ 4 after 3 it may be that 6 will follow 5 and so then everything is OK. For me it is hard to believe that adding 10 new buildings/resources, bugfixing and balance tweaks can change a game that much, but well, sure Ill try it someday.

 

[Thormodr]

What???? This is the most strange oppinion Ive ever heard. IMO Civ4 is just a modern and enhanced version of Civ 1, there is no departure at all, it feels and plays the same, the only reason people dont play civ1 is that civ4 has everything which civ 1 had and has several additions which donot break the concept, just add content and dimensions, whereas civ5 breaks the concept and it doesnt feel like the genre or game type which defines Civ 1 and which makes it unique in the overall game market. Howeveer, note, I did not play Civ 2 or 3, so here you maybe right.

It's a good comparison. Civ II built on Civ I and was a wonderful game in my opinion.

I was not a big fan of Civ III. Poorly done in my opinion. Soren Johnson saved it from being a total disaster and I think he was humbled by the whole mess.

cIV was awesome. You are right in describing it as a throwback to Civ I. The designers really listened to Civ fans. I remember there being a 165 page plus document on the Apolyton Civ site. The developers were regulars on there and really took the massive amount of suggestions to heart. The game went back to its roots.

With Civilization 5, the designers didn't listen to their fans at all. The designer had a vision and he was going to damn well go through with it. The designer was also a huge fan of Civ III and the design of Civilization 5 was reflected in that. It also didn't help that 2K Games basically handicapped Firaxis at every turn either.

I will concede that Civilization 5 has come a long way since it's debut. It is now getting somewhat close to being an average game in my opinion. The problem is, it's still not a Civ game to many long time fans. It's more like they took a fork in the road and went off in their own direction.

I do hope that there will be another 165 page plus document for the designers to reflect upon and really listen to their fans when it comes time for Civ VI. (If it happens at all that is.) Perhaps it's just the odd numbered sequels that are bad.

 

[Brichals]

The reason I think Civ4 is a departure is because there were too many variables with unit types and resources. Do we really need every coastal city to have 7 crabs/fish/clams. Civs 1-3 didn't have this but people were still addicted to them. The immersiveness comes from very small choices in macromanagement to me. Some people might bet hooked on the more open ended Civ4 which can really give you a new game each time. There's a point where too many variables dilutes things and takes away choices, paradoxically. That's what I didn't like about Civ4 but I still overall think it's excellent. Civ5 simplifies things but overall it makes the choices you make more important.

 

[Bad Brett]

The reason I think Civ4 is a departure is because there were too many variables with unit types and resources. Do we really need every coastal city to have 7 crabs/fish/clams.

The thing that's so great with Civ IV is that it's perfectly possible to ignore many of these variables, without it affecting the overall gameplay too much. For example, if you don't like religion, espionage or corporations, you don't have to use it. You can still win the game. But, when you've conquered the world with axemen and catapults a few times, or when you've done the cottages spam over and over again, it might be interesting to try something new.

You can make gold by spreading your religions. Or you can try focusing on trade routes and improve them with Temple of Artimis, Great Lighthouse, Custom Houses and Free Market. Or simply run a SE.

If you want to build units, you may want to have a lot of mines. But, you can also adapt Slavery and focus on farms instead. Or use your workers to chop trees.

And the absolute proof of how good the game is... is in fact the complains. Have you heard these before?

- Civ IV was too easy, all you did was whipping Axemen
- Religion was OP, all you had to do was to spam missionaries
- Cottages were OP, all you had to do was to spam cottages
- The Pyramids were OP, all you had to do was to spam specialists
- Corporations were OP, all you had to do was to spam executives

Well... These things sure are powerful. But, there is no way you can do all these things in the same game. On highter difficulty levels, it's almost impossible to combine an axemen rush with building the pyramids or spreading your religions. So when these people complained, they actually showed us in how many ways the game can be mastered. And that's the difference.

 

[bitula]

The reason I think Civ4 is a departure is because there were too many variables with unit types and resources.

Well I am not sure what you mean, but there were no problems regarding variability in Civ1, and Alpha Centauri is almost even more variable than civ4 (you could build units from parts). All 3 were open ended. Variability is the main factor of replayability, thus I dont understand how can one like invariable, static gameplay. Its like playing chess against an opponent who always makes the same moves. So sure, I'd never play Civ 5 if all it offers is static gameplay and it is not open ended.