Civ V a step backward?

[Charles555nc]

So many contradictions from you guys:

A. Civ5 will be fine but if you dont think Civ5 is fine, its because you need to try it first. By your own reasoning you need to try it first before you can say it'll be "fine".

B. "You have to try it first before you can give your opinion". This is why you dont see people pouring gasoline on themselves, sure they have never tried before, but they pretty much gather that the end result will be bad, so they dont try it. If I hear about a game and the features sound weak, I shouldnt try it right?

Personally I have not read one exciting feature about Civ 5 yet (best improvement so far I think is road upkeep). And micromanaging 3 swordsmen does not an epic battle make.


P.S. I also liked the espionage system of Civ4. Religion added to the single player experience imo. Also, if its gonna be up to the community to create a decent ai, maybe they could get us involved in the ai development, so theres more time to mod it. Btw Im not a troll, I just couldnt get my old user name/pw to work, Ive been away for awhile.

 

[Thyrwyn]

I think the point that we (those us who are optimistic about Civ 5) are trying to make is this: when considering whether to be hopeful or skeptical about the new game you should also consider a) the history of the series; b) the design team itself, and; c) the changes we have heard about.

Given that a) the series has never had a clunker (ala MOO 3), and ; b) the design team consists of some active, respected former members of the Civ community - we are more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt with regards to c).

That said: You appear to prefer "epic"; I prefer interesting. I feel that the combination of 1UPT, ranged bombardment, and units moving at least 2 tiles will make for a more tactically interesting experience than the current SOD system. I would rather consider the challenge of "what is the best way to arrange and use the units in my <battle line> against his <battle line>" than "which unit in my <large stack> should I throw against his <large stack>".

 

[jahg84]

I liked Panzer General. The purpose is to attract people who like to look at Maps of battles and read about it. As one such I have to say I'm interested. I'm going to get CiV and see how well they integrated that feature into the game. It may not work as well as I hope but it is worth checking out.

 

[Hashishim]

My comment, i am hopefuly for civ 5, cant wait to see it, i feel it is going to be good; i just hope they have something similiar for religion found in civ4, just better done and implemented where it wont really take control of the whole game, but more like to bring variety or flavor.
And espionage system that was cool how it was implemented in civ4, did require improvement though but needs to be more looked at and tweaked. As espionage especially in modern times plays a big role especially for tactical and military.

And i hope for the modding of leaders, i agree for now it ok to have 18 civs and 18 leaderheads. But they should have for more inexperienced graphic artists(like myself) to have an ingame program where the player can customize its leader. Simliar to how they have in Mass Effect 2 and FPS games. Where can customize your character. only difference here is that it can allow you to create extra leaderheads for every civ. Also allow you using a neat interface to create civs. based on options etc.

Thats all that i feel should be there Atleast then it can satisfy those that feel that it'll be hectic to make custom leaders and civs

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Charles555nc, the fact is that you've made a few claims which have no basis in fact. You claim that the AI will be crap because "they haven't talked about it"?!?! Well that just proves you've not read any of the interviews to date. Aside from 1upt, the only thing they've *ever* really talked about, on a regular basis, is the AI, & how good its going to be. If they're talking about it so much, then they must be pretty happy with it.
Personally, though I'll deeply miss Espionage & Religion (but hope they bring both back down the track), I am much more excited about (a) City-States, (b) no more road Spam, (c) an end to "1 oil can build 4,000+tanks", (d) the new culture system, (e) more tactical combat (i.e. an end to the totally non-epic SoD (TM) ) & (f) better barbarians-& this is just the stuff I know about now. Who knows what the next 3 months will bring.
Still, at least you went an entire post without resorting to an ad hominem attack.

Aussie.

 

[michaelkottler]

Just a quick note to express my agreement with The Mighty dF's comments regarding CIV V. I too wonder if CIV V will be more of a side-game for many CIV IV players, and I agree that things like graphics and full-body/native language speaking leaders are of little importance compared with maintaining the high level of playability and customization which are so much a part of CIV IV.

 

[Savoir10]

P.S. I also liked the espionage system of Civ4. Religion added to the single player experience imo. Also, if its gonna be up to the community to create a decent ai, maybe they could get us involved in the ai development, so theres more time to mod it.

The reason they wont get you guys involved with the development of the AI, is because they would end up with an ultra-complicated version of Civ 4, that would be so bogged down with micromanagement, it would be unplayable.

Religion in Civ4. Ok, here's my take on it. You meet a Civ for the first time and he automatically hates you because you have a different state religion. You spam you neighbour with missionaries so he remains a quiet little lapdog until you invade him later in the game. You produce a missionary, send him to a port city, load him into a ship, send him halfway round the world, unload him, travel across a vast expanse of land. Only to have him fail in his mission. How is any of the above FUN.

I mean it. I want to know. I'm not being sarcastic, nor will I belittle your answer. I truly want to know how this is FUN.

 

[vranasm]

I too am extremely interested how the already known changes will play out. Especially the 1upt seems very interesting. I always wanted in Civ games to make broad fronts, but the game design never promoted such gameplay. I too loved playing Panzer General and the whole series ;-).
The religions going away I am not that happy about, I feel they should have deepen them and better them, then just throw it away. Espionage i will not mourn about.

 

[Savoir10]

I too am extremely interested how the already known changes will play out. Especially the 1upt seems very interesting. I always wanted in Civ games to make broad fronts, but the game design never promoted such gameplay. I too loved playing Panzer General and the whole series ;-).
The religions going away I am not that happy about, I feel they should have deepen them and better them, then just throw it away. Espionage i will not mourn about.

Actually they have said that religion will be in Civ5, just not in the Civ4 format. I'm not sure how it will be implemented or how it will work, it's a case of wait and see.

Re: Panzer General. I have always said that if they combined PG2 and Civ3. They would have the perfect game. I'll be real dirty if they stuff it up.

 

[CyberChrist]

Religion in Civ4. Ok, here's my take on it. You meet a Civ for the first time and he automatically hates you because you have a different state religion. You spam you neighbour with missionaries so he remains a quiet little lapdog until you invade him later in the game. You produce a missionary, send him to a port city, load him into a ship, send him halfway round the world, unload him, travel across a vast expanse of land. Only to have him fail in his mission. How is any of the above FUN.

Sound no more or less fun than loosing a battle to a clearly inferior unit. It all boils down to a general problem with using a fairly simplistic random mechanism to determine absolute outcomes.

However, religion added options to adress the problem of hostile nations from a different angle than merely drawing your sword and removing religion lessens the diplomatic options available.

Also, perhaps you should have send more than just 1 Missionary. Surely you wouldn't expect that China would convert to Christanity either - after sending just Marco Polo for a quick cup of tea?

 

[Suho1004]

I will admit that I'm kind of addicted to religion in Civ4. I like founding them, I like spreading them, and I like building the wonders that related to them. I use religion to offset negative cashflow (Divine Right is generally a tech priority so I can build the Spiral Minaret).

When I first heard that Civ5 was going to do away with religion in the Civ4 sense, I was crestfallen. How could they do that, I thought? But then I saw my addiction to religion for what it was--a crutch. Even though I still rely heavily on religion on the early game in Civ4, I'm kind of looking forward to going cold turkey and trying out some new strategies. In particular, it will be nice to not have religion be the single most important factor (besides war) in diplomacy. So I guess you can say that I've changed my mind, and am looking forward to trying out the new system.

 

[Savoir10]

Sound no more or less fun than loosing a battle to a clearly inferior unit. It all boils down to a general problem with using a fairly simplistic random mechanism to determine absolute outcomes.

However, religion added options to adress the problem of hostile nations from a different angle than merely drawing your sword and removing religion lessens the diplomatic options available.

Also, perhaps you should have send more than just 1 Missionary. Surely you wouldn't expect that China would convert to Christanity either - after sending just Marco Polo for a quick cup of tea?

Yes i understand the mechanics of it. My question was and still is. How is this fun?

 

[volbound1700]

If they just took everything from Civ IV, then added stuff to it, it'd be another Civ IV expansion pack and not a sequel. A sequel starts over and rebuilds the game from scratch. Just adding more and more stuff to a game like Civ does not make it better.

You wouldn't happen to post on the ESPN message boards would you?

I already thank the city points system is an improvement... in Civ 4 all nations do is stack their cities with useless units and the city combat was very unfair even after you catapulted the crap out of a city. I mean I saw Riflemen beating Modern Armor... Warriors beating Axemen... etc.

I think religion should have been changed but not got rid of. I thought Medieval Total War and Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasions is a great tool on how religion works. It should have gone by a percentage and if you control a city and say your Christian and the city is muslim mostly, you can slowly convert it over to Christianity by one controlling it, 2 sending a missionary, and 3 building Christian buildings. However, don't make it to wear it was easy to totally change a city to your religion totally like the Total War system was. Also make it were the Holy Cities are very hard to get to change to other religions.

I also know this is politically incorrect but there should be ways to drive out religions by destroying temples, etc. I also think there should have been more religious monuments and symbols from the different religion, temples or buildings for civs that have not found a religion yet, and a few more religions (Greek Mythology, Viking Mythology, Maybe a split between Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Orthodox Christianity and maybe Sia'a and Sunni Islam)

I also think religions should have factors based on time... for example religions have lesser value in the modern eras while cities in middle ages get very discontented if you have different religion or maybe do it by civics (freedom of religion for example doesn't deal with religion much). Also make it were cities that have a majority % of your religion are more happy and productive so as to keep players from always choosing freedom of religion civic.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Religion in Civ4 represented a real lost opportunity. They were so fearful of offending people that they did nothing to allow for differentiation of religions, or differentiation *within* religions . It could have easily been done so long as specific religions weren't pigeon-holed in any way. As I've said elsewhere, Religion should have been taken out of Civics & given its own screen-where civilizations could alter the core dogmas of their faith as they saw fit (at the risk of offending other members of that religion with a different dogma). That would have avoided many of the pitfalls that Saviour10 has highlighted. Here's hoping that they devote most of an entire expansion to doing religion *RIGHT*!

Aussie.

 

[Depravo]

B. "You have to try it first before you can give your opinion". This is why you dont see people pouring gasoline on themselves, sure they have never tried before, but they pretty much gather that the end result will be bad, so they dont try it.

That makes no sense at all.

 

[CyberChrist]

That makes no sense at all.

I find the analogy both fitting and perfectly clear.

If you ever tried burning your finger on a flame then you don't need to go through the motion and drenching yourself in flamable fluids and set yourself alight in order to realize that you are probably not going to like the outcome of doing that a whole lot either.

The analogy to software being that if you once experienced a game mechanism that you severely disliked then it is a fairly reasonable to assume that you are not going to like other games making use of similar mechanisms.

 

[Quentonious]

uh, religion is going to still be in Civ5. read the whole post please.

 

[plasmacannon]

Going back to the original post:
"Does anyone else think that Civ series are going backwards with each new sequel? I mean religion, espionage was awesome in Civ IV. But now they're not going to be implemented in Civ V.
- I agree. I thought espionage was a great addition in Civ4. Religion added a new aspect that is refreshing, giving new goals instead of just crush or diplo?"

"I mean what's the point of making a sequel if you don't take the new parts from each sequel and put them in the new game. In my opinion, include EVERYTHING that was in Civ 1-4, including the expansion packs. (and Revolution) (But take out the micromanagement, pollution etc.) That means ALL the civilizations, leaders, units, buildings, wonders, terrain, religion, espionage, etc. And add new ones for Civ V. (Of course there is still room for expansion packs.)"
- I agree. Stop starting over, and having to add expansions to catch back up. Makes me feel like I just bought another Windows OS, now I have to upgrade to service pack verson x.x

"The thing I hate about the one leader/one civ thing, is I hate playing against the same people for a particular civ. Maybe have 3-5 leaders for each civ. That will broaden the game up, and makes each game unique."
- Civ 4 did have some empires with up to 3 leaders, others like the Inca, probably just don't have that much information known about them to create multiple leaders.

"Also include Ethnic diversity. It sucked in civ iv, they only did it for a few units. Make each unit for each civ ethnically diverse and make the cities ethnicly diverse."
- Makes since for some leaders, but, not others. How many leaders of the Zulu are white? or asian?

"The one makes me mad, is this stuff has been done already. In mods. Phungus420 had the ethnically diverse down, and the Thomas' War mod, had the new civs, wonders, etc. Heck, the mod even has animated random events. Why couldn't Firaxis think of these things before hand?"
-Sounds like great stuff. Maybe, they will add something similar in the expansions.

Espionage needs to be added back in via an expansion, if it's not going to be included in the Civ 5 base game. That added a fun different aspect to the game.
I am concerned about the 1 unit per hex part. Civ 5 is starting to sound like an old WWII tank board game from the 80s.

I watch ancient discoveries on the History Channel, and they have come up with several new possibilities that could be added as units to this game.
Korean turtle ship, Chinese unmanned xbow carts, Alexander's diving bell spy unit.

http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-discoveries/episodes#slide-10

I want to see multiple Unique Units for each Empire.
The US invented the Gatling Gun, but, in Civ4, we don't get a machine gun until a WW1 version? Or a Cowboy unit replacing the Curissier?
The Russians built a T-39 tank that the Panzer ammo couldn't puncture, but, they don't get it to defeat the Panzer with?
How about rings of walls around the city or elsewhere? Ever heard of Hadrian's Wall? or Julius Caesar's battle vs Vercingetorix? He built a wall to keep him in, and one to keep the reinforcements out. He built pit traps, caltrops, and spear-like wall defenses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vercingetorix
Hannibal took advantage of fog off a lake in a swampy area to surprise and defeat over 60,000 Romans, yet the Civ 4 Romans, are one of the most difficult to beat, and have few tactical methods to do it.
There are alot of new ideas that need to be added, because, they really did exist back then, and they do change how battles are won.

 

[The Almighty dF]

"Also include Ethnic diversity. It sucked in civ iv, they only did it for a few units. Make each unit for each civ ethnically diverse and make the cities ethnicly diverse."
- Makes since for some leaders, but, not others. How many leaders of the Zulu are white? or asian?

You seem to be confused.
Ethnic diversity doesn't mean "let's have multinational units for each individual civ"
It means let's have each civ have units that fit each civ. Chinese units, Arab units, Incan units, etc. In Civ4, all units basically look alike.

Sadly, from what they've revealed of Civ5, the designers were too cheap and lazy to bring that feature in.
Thankfully, that'll probably be one of the first things the mod community does.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sadly, from what they've revealed of Civ5, the designers were too cheap and lazy to bring that feature in.
Thankfully, that'll probably be one of the first things the mod community does.

Hmmm, on what basis do you make this claim? All we've seen to date are the graphics from the pre-alpha build which, from our experience with the lead-up to Civ4, is not really indicative of the final product.

Aussie.