Civ 5 criticism – looking beyond the detail

[TomThompson]

Hex ‘squares’, no unit stacking, this difference, that difference, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get lost in the detail. The telling comparison is this …why were you hooked on Civ 2/3/4 in a few minutes but still left cold by Civ 5 after a few days.

Civ is a micro-management game and micro-management games are addictive – really, really addictive. “Just one more turn” and then another and another and hey presto it’s 4 am next Wednesday. How do they do it?

Within that Russian doll of micro-steps, within mini-steps, within small-steps within bigger ones lies a multi-layered system of goals and, when completed, rewards. In a game of Civ in full swing each new turn brings you its own set of psychological fulfilments as you finally complete that road or launch that space shuttle. And the irresistible magnetism of the next turn is the anticipation of more…you know whats coming and you just can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

A good micro-management game will pace these rewards into a regular, continuous, overlapping stream, never letting your sense of anticip….ation wane. Civ 5 fails to do this…miserably. In the words of Clara Peller, “Where’s the beef?”

 

[SewerStarFish]

With everything toned down in CiV some of the Civilization franchise structural tenets change from part of the game to frustrating.

Just one example. roads: Yes building one on every square could get tedious but you built roads to your resources and your other cities before filling the cross. Now the effort to limit roads to just connecting cities, while a great idea especially for early civilizations, has them costing so much that I don't build them at all -- and still end up winning.

Not only am I not micromanaging but I'm not macromanaging. Just hack 'n slash then hit next turn.

 

[dribnairb]

why were you hooked on Civ 2/3/4 in a few minutes but still left cold by Civ 5 after a few days.

Actually, I wasn't hooked on Civ 2/3/4 in a few minutes. They all took me ages to get into. Civ 4 in particular was painfully bad when it first came out (crashes, slowdowns, awful interface, broken civilopedia etc) - but I could somehow feel there was something I was missing and that there was a great game underneath.

I almost feel like I've 'finished' Civ 5 already, even though I've only had one game even reach the modern ages. Personally I'm struggling to find the reasons to come back to it again and again - it doesn't feel like it's got the depth of t's predecessors.

But I can't give any concrete reasons as to why... how strange is that?

 

[brindle]

I almost feel like I've 'finished' Civ 5 already, even though I've only had one game even reach the modern ages. Personally I'm struggling to find the reasons to come back to it again and again - it doesn't feel like it's got the depth of t's predecessors.

But I can't give any concrete reasons as to why... how strange is that?

I think i know, Civ5 is the first Civ game that is about NOT building instead of building. Don't build troops since support is so high, don't build buildings because support is too high, don't build roads because.... yada yada yada

 

[SewerStarFish]

I think i know, Civ5 is the first Civ game that is about NOT building instead of building. Don't build troops since support is so high, don't build buildings because support is too high, don't build roads because.... yada yada yada

Exactly. What were they thinking?

 

[Thormodr]

Hex ‘squares’, no unit stacking, this difference, that difference, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get lost in the detail. The telling comparison is this …why were you hooked on Civ 2/3/4 in a few minutes but still left cold by Civ 5 after a few days.

Civ is a micro-management game and micro-management games are addictive – really, really addictive. “Just one more turn” and then another and another and hey presto it’s 4 am next Wednesday. How do they do it?

Within that Russian doll of micro-steps, within mini-steps, within small-steps within bigger ones lies a multi-layered system of goals and, when completed, rewards. In a game of Civ in full swing each new turn brings you its own set of psychological fulfilments as you finally complete that road or launch that space shuttle. And the irresistible magnetism of the next turn is the anticipation of more…you know whats coming and you just can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

A good micro-management game will pace these rewards into a regular, continuous, overlapping stream, never letting your sense of anticip….ation wane. Civ 5 fails to do this…miserably. In the words of Clara Peller, “Where’s the beef?”

Excellent first post. I agree that Shafer 5 does fail to capture the imagination of so many Civ players. Welcome to the forums.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Also, things tend to take a LOT of turns in Civ5. In order to get the 'One More Turn' effect, things have to be occurring on those turns. If it's going to take 16 more turns before I see a benefit, it's easy to walk away from the game. But when something I want to do or see happens every few turns, the temptation to just play until that next step is great...and then the next step...and the next.

But I also agree that the 'not building' aspect is probably part of it as well. I find myself trying to 'economize' as much as I can on everything that I can and yeah, that does take some of the fun out of it. For example, as England, I *want* to have a large navy sitting around waiting to defend or attack, but I know that the cost/benefit ratio of doing so is extremely poor.

Anyways, yes, it's not really the individual details that matter, but the feel of the overall package. And at the moment, it just doesnt have that 'magic'. With that said, I think a lot of the issues can be corrected by some rebalancing and tweaking. I dont think the game is hopeless by any means but I *do* think that they have a limited time to make things right before people lose interest and dont buy DLC/expansions and the title folds.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

I think this might be the best thread on Civ 5 since its release.

I agree that it is missing something but it is so hard to put a finger on what.

On paper it's just as deep as the original Civ 4. I really like the hexes, the combat, the graphics, the UI and a lot of the changes.

But there's just a malaise of blah hanging over the whole experience. The resources - all the same. The buildings - do I really want any of them? The civ traits and UUs and UBs a bit ho hum.

The whole thing feels so "balanced" it's a little boring.

I agree that the whole thing has a feel of "not" about it. Not gonna do that. Not gonna build that. Not gonna bother to do anything but build an "army" of half a dozen units and capture the nearest city or two. But I'm not gonna annex them - that's for sure.

It's missing some element of encouraging risk taking in wildly different directions. The path to victory is always clear and it's always the same.

I think a lot of this can be improved as a lot of the game basics are sound, but there is some work to do.

 

[Generals3]

Hex ‘squares’, no unit stacking, this difference, that difference, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get lost in the detail. The telling comparison is this …why were you hooked on Civ 2/3/4 in a few minutes but still left cold by Civ 5 after a few days.

Civ is a micro-management game and micro-management games are addictive – really, really addictive. “Just one more turn” and then another and another and hey presto it’s 4 am next Wednesday. How do they do it?

Within that Russian doll of micro-steps, within mini-steps, within small-steps within bigger ones lies a multi-layered system of goals and, when completed, rewards. In a game of Civ in full swing each new turn brings you its own set of psychological fulfilments as you finally complete that road or launch that space shuttle. And the irresistible magnetism of the next turn is the anticipation of more…you know whats coming and you just can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

A good micro-management game will pace these rewards into a regular, continuous, overlapping stream, never letting your sense of anticip….ation wane. Civ 5 fails to do this…miserably. In the words of Clara Peller, “Where’s the beef?”

I guess this describes pretty well how i feel. I have always felt that the lack of many small things was what resulted in me being bored after a couple of days playing , together all those small things kinda engulfs the whole "micro management" lack

 

[eviltypeguy]

Excellent first post. I agree that Shafer 5 does fail to capture the imagination of so many Civ players. Welcome to the forums.

I agree that Thormodr 5 has yet to improve, and I hope that Thormodr six spends less time asking for tolls at Civilization 5 bridges.

Moderator Action: This discussion was going along just fine until you jumped in with your shot at derailing it. Your post is unnecessary and adds nothing tothe discussion. Take the hint.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Tyrael]

1) Not much happens in any given turn.
2) Nothing happens for a long time in between any two turns.
Just these two things make the game unplayable. Fixing these would allow me to have much more fun despite all the other flaws. I want to try ICS before they nerf it, for example. Heck, probably fixing 2) would make 1) tolerable. If they fix everything except time between turns, I will still never play Civ5 again, just like I wouldn't watch the best movie in the world if a commercial came up every minute or so.

Other things:
- Techs are boring. I often have 5+ options and want none of them.
- Buildings are boring. I often have 5+ options and want none of them.
- Winning is boring. You just get a picture. No replays, no video, no watching the culture of empires expand across the map and disappear as they are defeated.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Why do games become 'one more turn...'?

1) There is always something happening. You are always JUST ABOUT to do something really cool. One more turn and I finish a wonder, or that settler arrives, or that improvement finishes, or that building is done, or that tech is researched.
2) Constant feedback of what is in the near future.
3) Significant rewards for a lot of different actions.

In civ 4, FOR EXAMPLE, right from the get-go, here are the possible rewards:

1) Getting a goodie Hut
2) City Growth
3) Tech research (generic)
4) Tech research (First Research bonus, aka First gets religion, first gets artist)
5) Buildings
6) Improvements
7) New Cities

A lot of these still exist in civ 5, but the 3rd bullet of good 'one more turn' is gone. Improvements aren't all that effective, no tech has a 'first' research bonus, improvements take too long to build, etc. This turns into what I feel is more "next turn" syndrome, where you are clicking through turns just to get somewhere.

 

[charon2112]

Well, in the making-of DVD for Civ IV, Soren mentioned toning down the micro-management as opposed to III, because too much micro-management isn't fun. Would you say that III is a superior game to IV?

Hex ‘squares’, no unit stacking, this difference, that difference, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get lost in the detail. The telling comparison is this …why were you hooked on Civ 2/3/4 in a few minutes but still left cold by Civ 5 after a few days.

Civ is a micro-management game and micro-management games are addictive – really, really addictive. “Just one more turn” and then another and another and hey presto it’s 4 am next Wednesday. How do they do it?

Within that Russian doll of micro-steps, within mini-steps, within small-steps within bigger ones lies a multi-layered system of goals and, when completed, rewards. In a game of Civ in full swing each new turn brings you its own set of psychological fulfilments as you finally complete that road or launch that space shuttle. And the irresistible magnetism of the next turn is the anticipation of more…you know whats coming and you just can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

A good micro-management game will pace these rewards into a regular, continuous, overlapping stream, never letting your sense of anticip….ation wane. Civ 5 fails to do this…miserably. In the words of Clara Peller, “Where’s the beef?”

 

[eviltypeguy]

I don't agree. I've played over 65 hours of Civ 5 now; and way too many times I've looked up at the time and realised I have to be to work in a few hours. It still has that "one more turn" feeling for me.

 

[SewerStarFish]

Well, in the making-of DVD for Civ IV, Soren mentioned toning down the micro-management as opposed to III, because too much micro-management isn't fun. Would you say that III is a superior game to IV?

In many ways, yes it was. But Civ IV offered a different and rich game by the replacement of the micromanaging aspects with religon, promotions, et al.

Too much micro-management may not be fun, but apparently too little is even less so.

 

[kingsfan]

There is so much variety in Civ 4. There is religion, espionage, culture, tech, you have lots of cities, lots of individual armies and pieces and you can pull back and see a spinning globe of mass information. When I first started playing Civ 5, I liked how they simplified things. I didn't have the ?'s that I had when I first started playing Civ 4 and then after about 3.5 games I hit the wall. Civ 5 seemed uninteresting to me all of a sudden. I didn't feel overwhelmed. I didn't feel compelled to do anything except push the next turn button and wait 30 seconds for the next turn to finally come. All of the diplomatic screens became boring, open borders? pact of secrecy? pact of cooperation? Small wars where one city is taken and then peace. I can't believe that the playtesters were happy with this game? None of them were fanatics that complained and said... this is boring.

 

[Yngvi]

There is no challenge to Civ V: it is that simple. There is no difficulty in handling the economy, none in feeding your pets, war is simply deciding which of the poor fools sharing your continent should meet its doom first.

 

[Law Lord]

It is well-known that Civ 5 has significant economy and balance problems. It is also well-known that previous Civ games had significant balance problems until corrected by not just one, but multiple patches. It is also well-known that previous Civ games, most notably Civ 4, were significantly improved by later expansions.

Given these three widely known pieces of knowledge, I don't understand what the point of continually starting new topics on this same subject is.

Civ 5 will be correctly tweaked to make game decisions more meaningful, or it won't be. Until at least three patches come out, threads which complain without pointing out specific problems and/or proposing specific solutions aren't adding anything to the discussion.

In a few months, if things haven't improved, I fully endorse letting Firaxis have it. Until then, I think it's best to either be specific, or stop complaining.

 

[Soro]

Exactly. What were they thinking?

They were thinking that they wanted a younger, larger following for the product, and that the old Civers would simply come along because of the brand. They're being cynical, and they may yet be proved correct.

 

[civplayah]

I like Civ 5, because it's different in a good way.

Don't really have much else to say, but I'll say that I don't understand where people come from when they say it's a fail.