So, there are some good parts of Civ 5. But overall, I'm a bit disappointed, and will probably not really play that much until a good number of patches and gameplay mods come out.
Here are my Good, Bad and the Ugly/buggy. Feel free to add yours! (lots of good things here)
Good: City-states. These guys are ridiculously fun, and their missions are varied enough that it's a lot of fun to decide which ones to conquer, which ones to ignore, and which to save from other empires. I think they're the best addition to the game.
Bad:
-The logic of having citystates have the latest tech is kind of weird. In my game at King, I was a good 15 techs ahead of my opponents (time to up the difficulty level, I guess) and so the city states were dominant military forces in their region, and no one could attack them. I can't imagine how annoying this would be if I were the one trying to attack them and someone else had better tech.
Good: Policies: talent trees for your empire. This is very good too -- I see these more as "cultural" traits (which makes sense since you get them via culture) as opposed to true forms of government, which brings me to my bad point:
Bad: No civics. I don't want policies removed, I want civics (at least the government ones) added back. There's just something different about the government swaps that definitely adds to the game in a way that just building out one's policies doesn't -- I want both. I "honor" and "piety" to be aspects of my people, and then "democracy" or "dictatorship" to be the government they labor under, for better or worse.
Bad: I miss religions and corporations. I would have really preferred to see them refine (and simplified if necessary) instead of just removed.
Good: Diplomacy. Uh, well, I like research agreements, I don't mind not being able to trade techs (that always did seem a bit weird) but unfortunately this is the low point in the game for me...
Bad: Diplomacy. It is completely one-sided. I felt like in Civ 4 you had a lot of different states for your opponents -- people who hated you, people who liked you, nearby people who were stronger and might invade, weak people with strong friends you had to refrain from invading, and so on. In Civ 5 there is just "people I am trading with" and "the one guy I am at war with." My entire diplomacy game is completely managed. I just trade with and be nice to everyone other than the guy I am invading, then move onto the next. Sure, all the other guys are like "you are so barbaric" but they still trade with me and don't do anything to stop me and act surprised when I invade them next.
Bad: Diplomacy. Is there even a diplomacy boost for "mutual struggle" against a foe? Is there a diplomatic hit for trading with an enemy? Is there one for having similar/differing policies? This is where religion played a part, because it made nations different. Religion A would go to war with Religion B. If you had a certain civic, certain other leaders would be angry at you for it. Now, maybe these things are there, hidden, but right now I'm not able to tease it out, and more critically, it has no penalty for me. I've never gotten one leader coming to me and saying that they were angry for me working with their enemy. The only thing that any other leader ever initiated was "help me wage war on X" -- and no penalty for not doing so, as far as I can tell. They still happily trade and research with me. In the higher difficulty levels of Civ 4, I felt like diplomacy was absolutely vital and had to be very well managed to keep far more powerful nations from obliterating you. Now it's just the button I press every 30 turns to restart my luxury trades and research agreements...
Good: Resources. I like that strategic resources are limited, so you need to get more. I think lux resources should be too, big empires should consume more.
Bad: Resources. I don't think I ever built as many iron/horse using units as I had resources for them (and wouldn't have needed them, because of the 1 unit per tile). For limited resources to be interesting, they need to be... limiting.
Good: I love puppet states. I wasn't going to really manage that city anyway, so this is a great addition. One thing though, they tend to build barracks/armories. I get that I might want that, but because they can't make military units until I annex them, I don't get why they do so.
Good: Ranged combat is fun! Shooting over people's heads is a blast. But there are some issues:
Bad: There is a major disconnect in the progress of land unit tech. Because archers and crossbowmen are "ranged," they are actually significantly better than the first things (musketmen) that replace them. With a bombarding city and a few crossbowmen, you can exterminate musketeers at a distance. The AI seems totally inept at reacting to this. I want to feel like I'm winning battles because I made good decisions, not because the AI is stupid. Also, it just feels weird. Are crossbowmen really "longer range" than tanks?
Bad: Because of "ranged only ship combat," naval combat is just a disaster. Is there any logic to ships having combat strength when none of them are allowed to melee attack?
Bad: Airplanes apparently can't rebase beyond their range? This makes it impossible to use bombers in inter continental combat. Or I am missing something here? I pressed ALT-R with my bomber, and it could go to nearby cities, but not far away ones. There has to be a way around this.
Good: Gold. I love being able to use gold for stuff. I always thought it was moronic that in previous civs you couldn't use gold to buy things til late game. As if kings didn't consider stacks of gold to be the necessary prerequisite for an army. No one was willing to work just for gold until Democracy.
Good: One unit per tile. This is much nicer, fewer units, more tactics.
Bad: It makes naval invasions soooo painfully tedious. And they should be difficult -- see D-Day -- but the difficulty comes from just managing the transport ships bumping into each other in a silly line to dump onto the shore. The difficulty comes from tedious micromanagement, not any gameplay related item. Plus, because transports and naval ships can't occupy the same spaces, any barbarian/enemy ships are bound to free kill a few of your guys, not because you didn't build destroyers, but because they simply can't be everywhere. You feel like you are losing transports just because the speed of ships+view range ratios, not because you made bad decisions about protecting them. A good solution would be to give ships "intercept" missions over a given range of tiles like planes, because that's how "escorts" work -- they stand there and intercept people attempting to attack the vulnerable transports, instead of waiting til they sink one, then attacking them later. Why on earth can't transports (non-combat units) occupy the same spot as a destroyer?
Good: Speed of game. I have a somewhat older machine, and Civ 4 turns used to take a LONG time. Civ 5 turns are (so far) quite rapid. Good! I have noticed that save games are increasing in size, which means that autosave turns sometimes take awhile.
Bad: some of the graphics are a little weird. Worst of all: rivers. Oh god. Rivers look so bad. If they weren't such good places for cities, I would settle away from them just to not look at their dull blue swathes infesting my pretty country.
Buggy:
- sometimes when you trade lux resources with an AI, and they want 2-3 in exchange for their only 1, when you accept the trade, it gives ALL of your lux resources (even if you had 2-3 furs, when you click out of diplomacy, they're all gone, and your citizens are unhappy)
- in the combat odds simulator, it will often show AI units have bonuses they shouldn't have, such as cavalry with +def bonuses.
- AI ironclads seem to be able to go into the ocean... I never built one, so I don't know if it's just the AI.
- no "unit move lines" showing where the unit is going? If you're going to enforce 1 unit per tile, this is mandatory.
- automated workers waltz out onto the front lines of wars. This was fixed in Civ 4, come on. It's especially painful now, when that worker being in a square prevents your great general from moving through it...
- make save games automatically list the year and leader. I hate having to click through all the games to find what I named my save when I was tired last night, instead of just glancing at a list. Also, please, order by save date instead of name (seriously????)
- it says rocket artillery doesn't have to setup before firing, but it does.
- you have to put "automated workers don't replace improvements/forests" back in the game. This is vital.
- Forts need to double as airbases. (stolen from another thread)
- after awhile all your cities clamor for a lux resource you don't have, and if you have any decent sized empire with some trading partners, you have most. So they all tend to bunch up on one, say ivory. So then you find a person who has ivory, and trade for it -- for one of your "only have one" lux resources, so you don't have it any more. All of your cities go into "we love the king" and then when that and the trade completes, they all tend to desire that lux resource you traded away (since it was one of the few you didn't have). So they go back into "we love the king" because you get it back from the trade ending. I was able to game hundreds of years of "we love the king" from this. This feels like cheating.
- worker automation is very poor (or at least needs more options) which hamstrings the AI
- some weird unit/tech tree choices. There are two late renaissance horse units (cav/lancers, which strangely don't upgrade to anything) and then not a single real naval unit between frigates and destroyers? Ironclads don't count.
Here are my Good, Bad and the Ugly/buggy. Feel free to add yours! (lots of good things here)
Good: City-states. These guys are ridiculously fun, and their missions are varied enough that it's a lot of fun to decide which ones to conquer, which ones to ignore, and which to save from other empires. I think they're the best addition to the game. Bad: -The logic of having citystates have the latest tech is kind of weird. In my game at King, I was a good 15 techs ahead of my opponents (time to up the difficulty level, I guess) and so the city states were dominant military forces in their region, and no one could attack them. I can't imagine how annoying this would be if I were the one trying to attack them and someone else had better tech.
Good: Policies: talent trees for your empire. This is very good too -- I see these more as "cultural" traits (which makes sense since you get them via culture) as opposed to true forms of government, which brings me to my bad point: Bad: No civics. I don't want policies removed, I want civics (at least the government ones) added back. There's just something different about the government swaps that definitely adds to the game in a way that just building out one's policies doesn't -- I want both. I "honor" and "piety" to be aspects of my people, and then "democracy" or "dictatorship" to be the government they labor under, for better or worse. Bad: I miss religions and corporations. I would have really preferred to see them refine (and simplified if necessary) instead of just removed. Good: Diplomacy. Uh, well, I like research agreements, I don't mind not being able to trade techs (that always did seem a bit weird) but unfortunately this is the low point in the game for me... Bad: Diplomacy. It is completely one-sided. I felt like in Civ 4 you had a lot of different states for your opponents -- people who hated you, people who liked you, nearby people who were stronger and might invade, weak people with strong friends you had to refrain from invading, and so on. In Civ 5 there is just "people I am trading with" and "the one guy I am at war with." My entire diplomacy game is completely managed. I just trade with and be nice to everyone other than the guy I am invading, then move onto the next. Sure, all the other guys are like "you are so barbaric" but they still trade with me and don't do anything to stop me and act surprised when I invade them next. Bad: Diplomacy. Is there even a diplomacy boost for "mutual struggle" against a foe? Is there a diplomatic hit for trading with an enemy? Is there one for having similar/differing policies? This is where religion played a part, because it made nations different. Religion A would go to war with Religion B. If you had a certain civic, certain other leaders would be angry at you for it. Now, maybe these things are there, hidden, but right now I'm not able to tease it out, and more critically, it has no penalty for me. I've never gotten one leader coming to me and saying that they were angry for me working with their enemy. The only thing that any other leader ever initiated was "help me wage war on X" -- and no penalty for not doing so, as far as I can tell. They still happily trade and research with me. In the higher difficulty levels of Civ 4, I felt like diplomacy was absolutely vital and had to be very well managed to keep far more powerful nations from obliterating you. Now it's just the button I press every 30 turns to restart my luxury trades and research agreements... Good: Resources. I like that strategic resources are limited, so you need to get more. I think lux resources should be too, big empires should consume more. Bad: Resources. I don't think I ever built as many iron/horse using units as I had resources for them (and wouldn't have needed them, because of the 1 unit per tile). For limited resources to be interesting, they need to be... limiting. Good: I love puppet states. I wasn't going to really manage that city anyway, so this is a great addition. One thing though, they tend to build barracks/armories. I get that I might want that, but because they can't make military units until I annex them, I don't get why they do so. Good: Ranged combat is fun! Shooting over people's heads is a blast. But there are some issues: Bad: There is a major disconnect in the progress of land unit tech. Because archers and crossbowmen are "ranged," they are actually significantly better than the first things (musketmen) that replace them. With a bombarding city and a few crossbowmen, you can exterminate musketeers at a distance. The AI seems totally inept at reacting to this. I want to feel like I'm winning battles because I made good decisions, not because the AI is stupid. Also, it just feels weird. Are crossbowmen really "longer range" than tanks? Bad: Because of "ranged only ship combat," naval combat is just a disaster. Is there any logic to ships having combat strength when none of them are allowed to melee attack? Bad: Airplanes apparently can't rebase beyond their range? This makes it impossible to use bombers in inter continental combat. Or I am missing something here? I pressed ALT-R with my bomber, and it could go to nearby cities, but not far away ones. There has to be a way around this. Good: Gold. I love being able to use gold for stuff. I always thought it was moronic that in previous civs you couldn't use gold to buy things til late game. As if kings didn't consider stacks of gold to be the necessary prerequisite for an army. No one was willing to work just for gold until Democracy. Good: One unit per tile. This is much nicer, fewer units, more tactics. Bad: It makes naval invasions soooo painfully tedious. And they should be difficult -- see D-Day -- but the difficulty comes from just managing the transport ships bumping into each other in a silly line to dump onto the shore. The difficulty comes from tedious micromanagement, not any gameplay related item. Plus, because transports and naval ships can't occupy the same spaces, any barbarian/enemy ships are bound to free kill a few of your guys, not because you didn't build destroyers, but because they simply can't be everywhere. You feel like you are losing transports just because the speed of ships+view range ratios, not because you made bad decisions about protecting them. A good solution would be to give ships "intercept" missions over a given range of tiles like planes, because that's how "escorts" work -- they stand there and intercept people attempting to attack the vulnerable transports, instead of waiting til they sink one, then attacking them later. Why on earth can't transports (non-combat units) occupy the same spot as a destroyer? Good: Speed of game. I have a somewhat older machine, and Civ 4 turns used to take a LONG time. Civ 5 turns are (so far) quite rapid. Good! I have noticed that save games are increasing in size, which means that autosave turns sometimes take awhile. Bad: some of the graphics are a little weird. Worst of all: rivers. Oh god. Rivers look so bad. If they weren't such good places for cities, I would settle away from them just to not look at their dull blue swathes infesting my pretty country. Buggy: - sometimes when you trade lux resources with an AI, and they want 2-3 in exchange for their only 1, when you accept the trade, it gives ALL of your lux resources (even if you had 2-3 furs, when you click out of diplomacy, they're all gone, and your citizens are unhappy)
- in the combat odds simulator, it will often show AI units have bonuses they shouldn't have, such as cavalry with +def bonuses.
- AI ironclads seem to be able to go into the ocean... I never built one, so I don't know if it's just the AI.
- no "unit move lines" showing where the unit is going? If you're going to enforce 1 unit per tile, this is mandatory.
- automated workers waltz out onto the front lines of wars. This was fixed in Civ 4, come on. It's especially painful now, when that worker being in a square prevents your great general from moving through it...
- make save games automatically list the year and leader. I hate having to click through all the games to find what I named my save when I was tired last night, instead of just glancing at a list. Also, please, order by save date instead of name (seriously????)
- it says rocket artillery doesn't have to setup before firing, but it does.
- you have to put "automated workers don't replace improvements/forests" back in the game. This is vital.
- Forts need to double as airbases. (stolen from another thread)
- after awhile all your cities clamor for a lux resource you don't have, and if you have any decent sized empire with some trading partners, you have most. So they all tend to bunch up on one, say ivory. So then you find a person who has ivory, and trade for it -- for one of your "only have one" lux resources, so you don't have it any more. All of your cities go into "we love the king" and then when that and the trade completes, they all tend to desire that lux resource you traded away (since it was one of the few you didn't have). So they go back into "we love the king" because you get it back from the trade ending. I was able to game hundreds of years of "we love the king" from this. This feels like cheating.
- worker automation is very poor (or at least needs more options) which hamstrings the AI
- some weird unit/tech tree choices. There are two late renaissance horse units (cav/lancers, which strangely don't upgrade to anything) and then not a single real naval unit between frigates and destroyers? Ironclads don't count.
