Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[Brian Shanahan]

I can not believe how often this false reasoning is repeated and that it obviously seems to be accepted as accurate meanwhile. Honestly, I am a little bit tired of this fight and didn't want to take part in the combat any more. But maybe a last effort...

First of all this:



And this is, what Shaffer really said:

The best summation I have read of Shafer's critique is that it is a document which the subject titles say "X made the game better" but the actual substance of the article showed how each item actually didn't work and made the game worse. Even your highly selective quote shows that progression. In order to keep 1UPT (which Shafer has realised was a major mistake) he had to nerf production into the ground, or we'd have been facing an Ancient Age Carpet of Doom.

Face facts Deggial, 1UPT is useful for tactical level war games, like for example Panzer General, but when used in games like Civ which operate on the grainier strategic level and over a far greater range of time and possibilities and tech levels 1UPT breaks down utterly, and takes the rest of the game with it (because as has been noted every other single mechanic has to be broken to accomodate it).

Civ with 1UPT is like Football Manager without the ability to either bring in players from other club or develop your own. It breaks down when played.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

So you would call a game good if it is designed in a way that it is filled with chore like tasks? The most important factor in game is that it should be "fun", and talking about "laziness" in regard to a GAME is really insane.

There are many ways I would describe a game as fun, depending mostly on the genre.

But the two constants I have are a) a requirement that I think when playing, and b) a variety of valid choices. Civ 5 expressly removes both those requirements, mainly because to appeal to a very nebulous "casual gamer" crowd (using a wrong thinking to formulate strategy, I know many people whose only game played was chosen because of its complexity) they thought that these two qualities were a hindrance to the game not a help.

 

[Rooftrellen]

The best summation I have read of Shafer's critique is that it is a document which the subject titles say "X made the game better" but the actual substance of the article showed how each item actually didn't work and made the game worse. Even your highly selective quote shows that progression. In order to keep 1UPT (which Shafer has realised was a major mistake) he had to nerf production into the ground, or we'd have been facing an Ancient Age Carpet of Doom.

Face facts Deggial, 1UPT is useful for tactical level war games, like for example Panzer General, but when used in games like Civ which operate on the grainier strategic level and over a far greater range of time and possibilities and tech levels 1UPT breaks down utterly, and takes the rest of the game with it (because as has been noted every other single mechanic has to be broken to accomodate it).

Civ with 1UPT is like Football Manager without the ability to either bring in players from other club or develop your own. It breaks down when played.

I didn't read all of the critique, but what I got from it was "you should buy the game I'm making." I saw more of what he wanted from At the Gates than about Civ V, honestly, and it seemed more like an advertisement, saying "follow me, rather than say where you are."

1UPT is better than what we had before, in spite of the fact the AI doesn't handle it as well as it should. It also helps with strategy, besides introducing more tactics. Workers can't finish building things in one turn, so you must plan on what they should do, where they should be, and when, especially early. It allows you to see army movements better, because armies must be more spread out, which makes choices of when and with whom to go to war more interesting. It also rewards smart play. I'd much rather have the "terrible" 1UPT tactical battles than the "awesome" "strategic" fights of firing off all my catapults and sweeping up the remains of the enemy army.

Other things don't suffer, either. Playing the game as it currently stands, I don't feel like I wait long at all for buildings...or even units. In fact, I find myself sometimes stuck in a situation early, where I don't want more units (due to not wanting to spend more money and having enough to defend myself) and I don't have another building to make, either. That being said, I'm no deity player, but production is so fast, I rarely need to decide, even late in a game, between units and buildings, because production isn't bad. Science may be slightly broken, but it is in every civ game, concentrating too much on more recent events and ignoring the contributions of the past.

Resources are more strategic now too, since it's not either you have it or you don't, but rather how much you have, opening the door for more trade.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm not going to hate on the game here, but I do want to share my frustration with something.

I am playing the Huns. The first ruins I find give me my first ever Ruins Ram. The Battering Ram from the free upgrade of your first warrior.

I'm giddy, gleeful.

I go looking for targets. Oh, look! I'm the first to find Skilldorado.

Gosh, there's a lot of coastline here.

Where did I start? Completely. Alone. No other civs. No city-states.

 

[Browd]

There is a certain poetic justice in that.

 

[whyidie]

I'm not going to hate on the game here, but I do want to share my frustration with something.

I am playing the Huns. The first ruins I find give me my first ever Ruins Ram. The Battering Ram from the free upgrade of your first warrior.

I'm giddy, gleeful.

I go looking for targets. Oh, look! I'm the first to find Skilldorado.

Gosh, there's a lot of coastline here.

Where did I start? Completely. Alone. No other civs. No city-states.

Someone just had a "Ram Dorado" post. Same scenario, except Mongolia was right next door to him. My last game same thing, except no El Dorado, just Washington next door. And 4 other Civs on my continent. Oh the fun I had!

Your situation, thats pants.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

1UPT is better than what we had before, in spite of the fact the AI doesn't handle it as well as it should.

No it is not, and part of the reason is the AI, there is no tactics involved in build a few melee and lots of artillery, sit the artys behind your melee and let the AI suicide. And stacking is a lot more flexible, if you're willing to think things through. And finally 1UPT is a tactical game mechanic, Civ is a Strategic game series.

It also helps with strategy, besides introducing more tactics.

First it introduces 0 tactics, as noted above. And with its "one right way" to win a war, pound everything with artys, walk into defenceless cities, it doesn't widen the strategic game in a war sense either, while the killing of the non-war mechanics (e.g. the reduction of both food and production yields combined with increased costs for units and pop) actually takes away from the strategic choices which were previously part of the main game.

Workers can't finish building things in one turn, so you must plan on what they should do, where they should be, and when, especially early.

The choice between "do I spread my workers to all my cities" or "do I team them up to get one city up quicker" is a far huger choice than the current "trade post every tile, unless I build Petra where I then mine desert hills" dichotomy in Civ 5. There's also the choices between farming and cottaging, when to swap to cottages after growth, when to convert to watermills/workshops etc, which have disappeared between Civs 4 and 5. Yeah I'm not seeing any planning here in Civ 5 especially compared to Civ 4.

It allows you to see army movements better, because armies must be more spread out, which makes choices of when and with whom to go to war more interesting.

When and where to go to war in Civ 5: If your neighbour has something you want (and it is after 75 turns on Deity) declare, even if he has a 10:1 strength advantage on you, as you will easily take care of his suicide squads, and will overrun him when he is gassed.

It also rewards smart play.

To paraphrase T-Hawk (a fan of the game): Civ 5 is a game where things happen to you for pressing end-turn, not where you work at the game, and sacrifice other options, to make things happen. It does not reward smart play, because in most cases all you have to do is wait, and for the rest you roll a map until you get the right starting conditions (e.g. getting the good religious options needs an early religious city state ally or Uluru, or Eagle Pursuit's "ram Dorado" situation).

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Since thawks name was brought up, and his reports receive far less attention then they deserve, here's a link to hid first Civ 5 report.
T hawk is a general fan of Civ 5, getting a lot of fun out of the mechanics, but manages to provide a impartial discussion of its flaws.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Since thawks name was brought up, and his reports receive far less attention then they deserve, here's a link to hid first Civ 5 report.http://www.dos486.com/civ4/index/index.shtml
T hawk is a general fan of Civ 5, getting a lot of fun out of the mechanics, but manages to provide a impartial discussion of its flaws.

As to stacking, I have to agree with Brian here, there are great tactics and strategy necessary to beat a competent opponent, however these measures are rarely useful against the ai (just like the tactics of Civ 5 combat is unnecessary to beat an ai).
However id say multiplayer likely serves more stacking then it does 1upt - especially when one takes worker tactics and collateral into account.
Therefore I prefer the Civ 4 system for mp, while in sp I feel the Civ4 ai can handle combat better (not saying one ai is better then the other, simply that the system of stacking works best for an ai ) and thus I prefer Civ4 sp combat.

Thus, while I can see the advantages of 1upt, I think that against an incompetent opponent (ai) stacking is better suited, while against a competent opponent (mp) stacking allows greater opportunities for tactical finesse.
So while I appreciate 1upt, I would definitely prefer stacking.

[Sorry if this babbles on a bit]

 

[woodshadows]

Since thawks name was brought up, and his reports receive far less attention then they deserve, here's a link to hid first Civ 5 report.http://www.dos486.com/civ4/index/index.shtml
T hawk is a general fan of Civ 5, getting a lot of fun out of the mechanics, but manages to provide a impartial discussion of its flaws.

As to stacking, I have to agree with Brian here, there are great tactics and strategy necessary to beat a competent opponent, however these measures are rarely useful against the ai (just like the tactics of Civ 5 combat is unnecessary to beat an ai).
However id say multiplayer likely serves more stacking then it does 1upt - especially when one takes worker tactics and collateral into account.
Therefore I prefer the Civ 4 system for mp, while in sp I feel the Civ4 ai can handle combat better (not saying one ai is better then the other, simply that the system of stacking works best for an ai ) and thus I prefer Civ4 sp combat.

Thus, while I can see the advantages of 1upt, I think that against an incompetent opponent (ai) stacking is better suited, while against a competent opponent (mp) stacking allows greater opportunities for tactical finesse.
So while I appreciate 1upt, I would definitely prefer stacking.

[Sorry if this babbles on a bit]

Here's a revolutionary idea - why not have both 1upt AND stacks? Best of both worlds. Move stacks on the map like in previous Civ's, have a hard limit of number of units per stack, then take the units to a separate map when battle is engaged in, to fight 1upt style, with the option for 'quick combat' for those not interested in fighting out tactical 1upt battles. It worked great for the total war series, or age of wonders, or any other number of far superior games. Think of all the tedious movement saved, not having to move 20+ units on a huge world map, with all the problems of pathing errors and being woken up by enemies close by. What sort of world is CiV that a group of artillery move around alone in a forest, while several miles away infantry stand on guard? Why a map littered with units? What a bizarre decision on the developers part, who thought it would be a good idea to take 1upt from a tactical game (panzer general) and just blindly apply it to the strategic layer of a predominantly strategic game? Jon Schafer has admitted he made a huge mistake, it's unfortunate that it took his desire to promote and gain funding for his new game to get him to admit his shortcoming in CiV design. He did little justice to a great franchise, forcing loyal Civ-ites to suffer through the many years it will take for there to be a C(i)VI.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Here's a revolutionary idea - why not have both 1upt AND stacks? Best of both worlds. Move stacks on the map like in previous Civ's, have a hard limit of number of units per stack, then take the units to a separate map when battle is engaged in, to fight 1upt style, with the option for 'quick combat' for those not interested in fighting out tactical 1upt battles. It worked great for the total war series, or age of wonders, or any other number of far superior games. Think of all the tedious movement saved, not having to move 20+ units on a huge world map, with all the problems of pathing errors and being woken up by enemies close by. What sort of world is CiV that a group of artillery move around alone in a forest, while several miles away infantry stand on guard? Why a map littered with units? What a bizarre decision on the developers part, who thought it would be a good idea to take 1upt from a tactical game (panzer general) and just blindly apply it to the strategic layer of a predominantly strategic game? Jon Schafer has admitted he made a huge mistake, it's unfortunate that it took his desire to promote and gain funding for his new game to get him to admit his shortcoming in CiV design. He did little justice to a great franchise, forcing loyal Civ-ites to suffer through the many years it will take for there to be a C(i)VI.

I always promoted the following for Civ combats :

You don't move units anymore, but instead you move armies. Of course you can move several armies, and even several small detachements, aka actual Civ5 units, but you are then more vulnerable to mass attacks. Your army composition determines the outcome of the battles, with a formula of their own (I trust Firaxis for this), the number of your troops, some odds and the terrain type, not to mention your army characteristics. (like if they can be upgraded like in Titan Quest, Legions bonus giving you advantages in open fields but disadvantages in forest for example ?)

For example, an army with 3 base horsemen and 2 pikes may lose against an army of 5 pikes. Or an army without range units may lose against an army with ranged. Things like that.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I think sulla wrote about a similar concept for his "new Civ" idea.
Anyway, while I like more choice and options, I doubt id ever use such a tactical map, as I don't have the time, and I worry how it would impact other parts of the game.

 

[JanghanHong]

Someone just had a "Ram Dorado" post. Same scenario, except Mongolia was right next door to him. My last game same thing, except no El Dorado, just Washington next door. And 4 other Civs on my continent. Oh the fun I had!

Your situation, thats pants.

For those who missed it:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=490076




Also, I don't think anyone who keeps posting here will ever play BNW, or even G&K, they'll just keep talking about the basegame and compare that to BTS, and yeah, people pointed out the logic flaw on that long time ago, nothing changes.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Here's a revolutionary idea - why not have both 1upt AND stacks? Best of both worlds. Move stacks on the map like in previous Civ's, have a hard limit of number of units per stack, then take the units to a separate map when battle is engaged in, to fight 1upt style, with the option for 'quick combat' for those not interested in fighting out tactical 1upt battles. It worked great for the total war series, or age of wonders, or any other number of far superior games. Think of all the tedious movement saved, not having to move 20+ units on a huge world map, with all the problems of pathing errors and being woken up by enemies close by. What sort of world is CiV that a group of artillery move around alone in a forest, while several miles away infantry stand on guard? Why a map littered with units? What a bizarre decision on the developers part, who thought it would be a good idea to take 1upt from a tactical game (panzer general) and just blindly apply it to the strategic layer of a predominantly strategic game? Jon Schafer has admitted he made a huge mistake, it's unfortunate that it took his desire to promote and gain funding for his new game to get him to admit his shortcoming in CiV design. He did little justice to a great franchise, forcing loyal Civ-ites to suffer through the many years it will take for there to be a C(i)VI.

You mean MOO stacks, with a seperate battle map?

That is something I would like to see, providing proper implementation.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

Also, I don't think anyone who keeps posting here will ever play BNW, or even G&K, they'll just keep talking about the basegame and compare that to BTS, and yeah, people pointed out the logic flaw on that long time ago, nothing changes.

I'm following T-Hawk's reports on the game religiously (what can I say I'm a sucker for good writing), and all I can see is the worst traits of Civ 5 being buffed up to dominating positions, while the best traits get nerfed into the ground because the braindead AI can't deal with them or they break the 1UPT which can't be touched (despite it destroying the game).

 

[Qgqqqqq]

As someone also following T hawks writings, that's a rather aggressive view of the points raised there.

 

[spider1]

I haven't played Civ V in a while, so I thought I'd start up a game to check out any changes Steam has downloaded to me. Well, there must have been some because I AGAIN lost almost all of my mods. I'm so tired of Steam downloading something and I lose my mods.

So, screw it. I'm already playing other games and have limited space on my SSD so I've uninstalled all of Civ V files and it'll just stay that way until Civ VI comes out. Honestly, I have no real point to make other than just wondering if anyone has heard any rumours about Civ VI.

 

[Civking5]

And you think civ6 will come without steam?

 

[Matthew.]

No. Digital distribution is here to stay. By the time a Civ6 gets released I would be surprised if any PC games are published physically.

 

[JanghanHong]

No. Digital distribution is here to stay. By the time a Civ6 gets released I would be surprised if any PC games are published physically.

DRM is here to stay because PC gamers are notorious for thinking that there leet haxxor pirating skills don't affect the standard economic model.


Civilization X will be sold and distributed mentally via Vivendi-Activision-EA-Valve's HiveMind (tm) platform. The off-line version will be distributed by nanobots that are dissolved in nasal sprays that you apply straight to your frontal cortex.


In fact, using a time machine, I have a rant post from 25 years from now.

Spoiler :

Goddamnit, Firaxis, I refuse to inhale this game!