Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[Steamwerks]

I'm sorry but I'm going with Sullla et al over at Realms Beyond here. They are an independant voice vis-a-vis Civ 5 and its development team (being neither too big for 2K to try to subvert, nor too brown nosed to willingly roll over), and when the massive general consensus from there is that most of those picked for beta-testing Civ 5 were picked for their ability to talk what 2K/Firaxis wanted to hear, and not for their ability to play the game, give independant in-depth critiques or willingness to break the game to improve it I generally go with the consensus (especially when there is lots of evidence shown to back up that consensus).

Just checked out the discussion over there, and it's some pretty interesting stuff. I'd always wondered why the famously rigorous beta testing process for IV hadn't carried over to V.

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3296&pid=88047#pid88047

 

[lollibast]

Just checked out the discussion over there, and it's some pretty interesting stuff. I'd always wondered why the famously rigorous beta testing process for IV hadn't carried over to V.

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=3296&pid=88047#pid88047

didn't read through 200+ pages, but the end is amusing. It's about exploiting (of course). Pillage in enemy territory and repair with your own worker for good gold, and that was posted before pillaging restored 25hp

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

When I saw steam was a requirement to play Civ 5 I put the box down and didn't look back. Civ 5 is not the only game I have refused to purchase because it had a mandatory steam requirement.

I own Several versions of Civ (3,4,+ all expansions) and a couple of other games Sid did, I just want to say great job to all you devs over at Firaxis who made the decision to mandate steam in Civ 5 as some sort of DRM protection crap. Well, you won't see another cent from me.

And for those who say "Well steam helped bring us all those awesome obscure indie titles, we love steam!" Well that's perfectly fine with me! However, maybe you didn't notice but Civilization is NOT an obscure indie title and it DOESN'T NEED STEAM!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

[OmniPotent42]

When I saw steam was a requirement to play Civ 5 I put the box down and didn't look back. Civ 5 is not the only game I have refused to purchase because it had a mandatory steam requirement.

I own Several versions of Civ (3,4,+ all expansions) and a couple of other games Sid did, I just want to say great job to all you devs over at Firaxis who made the decision to mandate steam in Civ 5 as some sort of DRM protection crap. Well, you won't see another cent from me.

And for those who say "Well steam helped bring us all those awesome obscure indie titles, we love steam!" Well that's perfectly fine with me! However, maybe you didn't notice but Civilization is NOT an obscure indie title and it DOESN'T NEED STEAM!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

When you can find an alternative medium of distribution that developers like because they can control the DRM, let me know. I have Starcraft 2 and wish that I could do LAN. But I can't, because of the way they distribute it. And hats off to them for finding a way that minimizes theft.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

Together with my friend we decided to play Civ V multi (whenthey finally added animations - because playing without them seemed pathetic for us). I started my Civ V for the first time since... I don't know... 2011? And...

Techs pass too fast. We're still BC and I have medieval techs (on King). AI builds cities too slow - it's medieval FFS and they have... 2 or 3 cities...

And I can't build more than 5 cities because unhappiness become a problem and all civs declare war on me because I "aggresively build cities". God, this game is unplayable!

I think we'll switch back to Civ IV AND...



I just wonder... how on Earth they screwed such fantastic series?

 

[Camikaze]

I just want to say great job to all you devs over at Firaxis who made the decision to mandate steam in Civ 5 as some sort of DRM protection crap. Well, you won't see another cent from me.

I wouldn't have thought it was devs at Firaxis who made that decision, but publishers at 2K. Important distinction.

 

[Shadow717]

So every multiplayer game I play with my friend we start with unit animations being on. Yet once we load up the game for a second time after having finished and saved our first play session, they are turned off and cannont be turned back on. WHY and HOW the hell does this happen?! This wouldn't be much of a porblem if the animiations were purely cosmetic, but multiplayer civ5 does a crap job of informing you why your units are dying/dead short of a wall of text that appears telling you vaguely that a unit was attacked. This especially gets in the way come late game when lots of ranged units get involved.

 

[lollibast]

So every multiplayer game I play with my friend we start with unit animations being on. Yet once we load up the game for a second time after having finished and saved our first play session, they are turned off and cannont be turned back on. WHY and HOW the hell does this happen?! This wouldn't be much of a porblem if the animiations were purely cosmetic, but multiplayer civ5 does a crap job of informing you why your units are dying/dead short of a wall of text that appears telling you vaguely that a unit was attacked. This especially gets in the way come late game when lots of ranged units get involved.

Isn't it amazing how they turned a strategy title into a tactical war game from CIV to CiV while at the same time giving you absolutely no combat information on the defence and eliminating the combat log?

 

[Funky]

I find it similarly amazing (and somewhat amusing) that yet again a patch is announced and throughout the Civ 5 forums the momentous release of the patch is eagerly anticipated. Any criticsm of the game is gleefully countered with the good old mantra "Wait for the patch!" and the expectation arises that the major problems of the game will finally be vanquished. Then the patch is out, and there are more complaints than ever. Diplomacy, which was to be "fixed" after more than two years, has become even worse. Other major problems were not addressed at all. It's the same thing every time, like in the movie Groundhog Day, and the community never learns. Indeed, apparently now a patch-patch has been announced, and the cycle is starting all over again.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

"El Dorado" (buildings made of gold) is a "natural wonder"!? Come on FFS!

 

[calad]

I remember I was playing civ5 and I advanced to Renaissance Era. I built The Stonehenge and looked an animation. After that I had to pause for a moment and thought what the hell Im playing. Building The Stonehenge on Renaissance Era...

I quited and went to another game.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

calad - so true...

 

[Tachii]

lol @ some of the minor complaints people are having for this game.

I actually thought long and hard about something I could rant on, and I still haven't. AI stupidity may make me annoyed at times, but it isn't something to get my knockers on.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

lol @ some of the minor complaints people are having for this game.

I actually thought long and hard about something I could rant on, and I still haven't. AI stupidity may make me annoyed at times, but it isn't something to get my knockers on.

So, an AI that can't handle one unit per tile is your minor complaint? That's a major, not minor, flaw.

Which flaws mentioned do you consider minor? Just trying to understand your rant. You do have a rant, otherwise you wouldn't be posting here.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Tabarnak]

The AI is as dumb as civ4. The AI in civ4 is also way too gentle. This makes no sense from mankind history. At least in civ5 they actually warring you a lot more like it should be.

Devs didn't realize how much difficult is to program an AI from a 1upt view than a SoD view. That makes the civ5 game too easy in some proportions.

I will always stick with my personnal view :

Civ4>Civ5 for sp

Pros : More ''paths'' to choose, combinations, more interactions with the AI(tech trading, etc)
Cons : AI is way too ''friendly'' They don't team up against the human player like in civ5

Civ5>Civ4 for mp

Pros : 1upt is perfectly built for human players
Cons : Some civs are a bit overpowered on some maps. Eldorado and FoY can screw a game, but it's rare.

 

[Missiles]

I loved the stacking of units and how stackbattles could take five minutes. one could be in the other room making a sandwich, but by the sound of trumpets he can hear his victory.

 

[Socratatus]

To be honest, if it wasn`t for Steam mandatory, I could tolerate all the rest.

Mods fixes all, but even now, steam has made some modders selfish as they refuse to put their Mods anywhere but steam. So the days when Mods were available to all (like for 15 years +) are becoming `Mods available only to those who will vistit Steam works`.

It`s not good because it actually reduces choice of download locations and therby, gaming freedom.

 

[masterofroflnes]

1. cant trade world maps
2. Ai combat is horrible
3.no air transportation
4.sea transportation
5.useless resources ( the 20 iron you never will use ever in the industrial era).I would like it if resources can have different uses throughout the eras
6.diplomacy sucks
7.reilgion doesnt spark enough hate between civilization
8.no vassals
9.limited ways to win
10.the overall dumbdown version of civ ie : no corruption or unhappiness
11.finnaly the ai as a whole is dumb

 

[mynystry]

Wow, great rant Titler, I felt your frustration while reading it. Luckily for me I counld't go so long into the game, I got bored pretty quickly when I tried it and went back to CIV4BTS and it's great mods.

Damn, that was pretty long ago and I still don't dare to try CIV5 again...

RAAARRRGHHH....

I have a rant on page 87. But that was a long time ago, and the pain had faded since then. So recently I found myself thinking I could have a little fun just reinstalling Civ V and idly getting achievements for Civ V. I settled down to play a Huge, Continents map, on King difficulty as Harun Al Rashid aiming for a diplomatic victory maybe. 3 days later, after loading and re-loading trying to get around the ridiculous design elements, and swearing at the monitor that "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU PUT THAT IN, AND WHAT WAS I THINKING TO HAVE FORGOTTEN ALL THIS?!", I close the game in disgust and vow for it to be many months more before I go back to it. And came to the Rant thread to remind myself I wasn't alone in being disgusted...

...ENOUGH. I swear in real life at the game, and come to the Rants forum to enjoy other people abusing it...

I will not be buying Gods and Kings, you'll be unsurprised to hear.

 

[Mr.WorldWide]

To be honest, if it wasn`t for Steam mandatory, I could tolerate all the rest.

Mods fixes all, but even now, steam has made some modders selfish as they refuse to put their Mods anywhere but steam. So the days when Mods were available to all (like for 15 years +) are becoming `Mods available only to those who will vistit Steam works`.

It`s not good because it actually reduces choice of download locations and therby, gaming freedom.

+1

My sentiments in a nutshell and the Civ 4 mods were amazing. They kept me playing the game long after I had enough of vanilla Civ 4.

It's saddening to see how for some reason in modern gaming, form has won over function, now it seems as long as something looks cool or pretty the mechanics can be totally lacking.

Yes, so we got a pretty UI and guess what came with it, increased specs. Cool, but where is the meat, where is the real strategy? I play PC games because they require more thought, more planning then blasting zombies for 30 minutes on a PS3.

If I wanted dumbed down Civ game-play I would play Revolutions, I expected more from a PC game then just another get-rich-quick glam fest. Maybe I should give them more time but I don't see things getting better, just greedier(i.e. dlc), more DRM and in the end less freedom and less fun.