Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[joncnunn]

@Mudrac For the img tag to work, it must be hosted on an internet site. file://// won't work since no one else should be able to your local machine. (And you wouldn't want them to)

If it's only on your local, you can go into advanced and add a file attachment. I'm not sure in png is on the list or not, so you may need to convert it to jpg.

 

[Thormodr]

In terms of that. I meant that diplomacy doesn't mean that the AI has to hate you to the end of the game. This game covers the whole of history it has to fade away faster. Not that someone has to be your sworn enemy all the way to the end game.
But, when I think of it....

Spoiler :

Just took about 1-2 provinces every war and they all hate my guts and are forming Coalitions, so... There is a pretty similar problem. Who knows maybe that's the way it's supposed to work.

It is not supposed to work that way. Civilization 5 merely has horrendous diplomacy that was based on a flawed premise that even the designer admitted was not fun.

That AI should participate in helping you tell a story and not act as a complete psychopath.

Soren Johnson knew how the AI should act and has detailed it in this excellent one hour presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I've hesitated on linking this, but as a well-written examination of Civ 5's current state, I feel it deserves more exposure.

Sulla has written another review of Civ 5, including a playthrough of a game and an overall editorial on Civ 5 BNW as a whole. As I said, it's a well-written analysis of the game as a whole, and whilst I'm not up-to-date on BNW very much at all, I enjoyed the reading of it.

As with Sulla's previous articles, it's quite critical, but less so then his previous ones. Were it posted here, I doubt it would qualify as a rant, but I feel it still warrants reading.

 

[johnnybaseball]

I've hesitated on linking this, but as a well-written examination of Civ 5's current state, I feel it deserves more exposure.

Sulla has written another review of Civ 5, including a playthrough of a game and an overall editorial on Civ 5 BNW as a whole. As I said, it's a well-written analysis of the game as a whole, and whilst I'm not up-to-date on BNW very much at all, I enjoyed the reading of it.

As with Sulla's previous articles, it's quite critical, but less so then his previous ones. Were it posted here, I doubt it would qualify as a rant, but I feel it still warrants reading.

My issue with the article is essentially that most starts don't see you finding 6 ruins with the Shoshone before turn 30 AND having the Fountain of Youth in your territory. Those two things combine to make up a pretty unusual start.

 

[Thormodr]

I've hesitated on linking this, but as a well-written examination of Civ 5's current state, I feel it deserves more exposure.

Sulla has written another review of Civ 5, including a playthrough of a game and an overall editorial on Civ 5 BNW as a whole. As I said, it's a well-written analysis of the game as a whole, and whilst I'm not up-to-date on BNW very much at all, I enjoyed the reading of it.

As with Sulla's previous articles, it's quite critical, but less so then his previous ones. Were it posted here, I doubt it would qualify as a rant, but I feel it still warrants reading.

Thanks for that. I value Sullla's game analysis highly.

 

[joncnunn]

@Sulla's link:

1. Starting with Fountain of Youth is like starting a full difficulty level lower than normal.

2. He could have shaved 16 turns off his win time simply by building Shrines & Temples everywhere even though he wasn't going for founding a religion (timing to after the AI filled the last spot). Doing this he would have accumulated 2500 faith easily for 2 free GS to shave 16 turns off his victory. (He would also have had a shot of reaching 3500 faith which would have given him a free GE with the last 1000 faith for use for a space ship part if he had been able to keep Order.)

3. He completely ignored tourism while also not going all out for cpt, of course he ran into ideological unhappiness issues. If he'd simply built and ran the guilds at a point that they wouldn't interfere with science (such as the Writing Guild when Rean era was around the corner) he'd have gotten exotic over the AIs to counter act their exotic over him so he would have been able to keep his ideology. (Culture without some tourism of your own is like trying to defend yourself with city defense structures alone without units.) In addition this likely would have somewhat sped up his progress thru Rationalism and ideology which would also shave time off his victory.

4. Science victory in BNW actually is the most passive of the peaceful victories. (Only the Vanilla and G&K cultural victory were even more passive.) Perhaps he should have tried the Culture victory which is the most active of them to avoid late game drag?

5. It's actually fairly easy for a conquered city to bring in enough science after it comes out of resistance to avoid slowing down the empire. Just annex after it comes out of resistance (at a point where it won't interfere with national wonder construction) and make the science & growth buildings a priority there.

 

[Thormodr]

Well, I read through the article containing the sample game and Sullla's review of Civilization 5: Brave New World. It is definitely well worth the read and I think his criticisms as well as his praises are quite fair.

Sullla grades Civilization 5 with all its expansions as now being an average game. I think Sullla is being a bit generous here as I'd rate Civilization 5 plus expansions as being below average, at best. 1UPT and Global Happiness are terrible design choices and they literally ruin the game. Diplomacy has gotten to where it is average, which saves the game from being a total unmitigated disaster.

Sullla summed up Civilization 5 plus expansions in 4 words, "Good ideas, bad execution." Seems reasonable.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/bnwreview.html

 

[TheHanzou]

Well it depends. In terms of progression as a series, as a successor to Civ4 and in terms of Player vs AI the game is certainly only average.

The Multiplayer is quite good, if you consider the game more of a board game and in terms of balance, alltough there is still A LOT of unbalanced things like Wonders (both normal and natural), half the factions arent playable etc....in my opinion the game could easily have supported another expansion, but i guess firaxis didnt think that way.

Most of the fun of playing for me gets removed everytime i see a Spain player find El Dorado, or people getting Faith from Ruins for a free pantheon while others get a unit upgrade, this stuff is just not balanced at all and i dont understand why not. Its not hard to balance this. Blatantly overpowered or underpowered stuff is just that....i really wonder WTH happened to game design.

why is fountain of youth even in the game like this, why does El Dorado give you 500 Gold? Why are half the factions not competetive with the rest. Its so easy to see this as a player i dont understand how the game designers cant see it, and if they did, why didnt they fix it?

 

[Mudrac]

Here's the picture.

 

[Mudrac]

I still don't really understand some of these critics. To me at some points in their reviews they basically complain about general things in Strategy Games both Turn-Based and real time. ''You use the situations but don't make things happen''. I don't know in CIV V I both use the given situations and make things happen as well. That has been the case in many Strategy Games. If someone attacks a base in StarCraft and loses all his units but damages the base badly. I use that situation to finish off the base that was simply too strong for me before that. Or you ''fill in your coffers and then pour them into something''. Well in Warcraft III I fill in my gold and lumber and pour it into something. Making the decision in what it will be, for the most of the time, isn't really that tough.

Unbalances. They have been around since the dawn of time. And once you play the game for quite some time you will simply notice that some things are just more useful and powerful than others. And you just wonder why are some things in the game at all when you never use them? Or why are some things crazy overpowered?

It's like 10-15 years ago people didn't really criticize these things a lot, even though some of them were a flaw to some extent or a bad decision in game design. They knew about them, but it was okay. Now suddenly every unbalance is a critic. It's like the General things of Strategy Games are getting criticized now. I don't really understand the situation?

I agree on the fact that the quality of the games has decreased over the past 15 -20 years. So you have to be much more picky these days. Back then the games were evolving every new game was a evolution of some given genre or idea. Today I think we have simply passed the general consensus for video games. It is no longer that the new game will be loved by everyone. But that now everybody choses what they like and play it, it is impossible to make something that everyone will like anymore. The size and diversity of the gaming community have increased drastically and you can't please everyone anymore. The Time we live in now is ''To each his own''.

Which does make me a little bit sad when i think about it

 

[Quineloe]

I've hesitated on linking this, but as a well-written examination of Civ 5's current state, I feel it deserves more exposure.

Sulla has written another review of Civ 5, including a playthrough of a game and an overall editorial on Civ 5 BNW as a whole. As I said, it's a well-written analysis of the game as a whole, and whilst I'm not up-to-date on BNW very much at all, I enjoyed the reading of it.

As with Sulla's previous articles, it's quite critical, but less so then his previous ones. Were it posted here, I doubt it would qualify as a rant, but I feel it still warrants reading.

The entire part 1 can be dismissed by "You can turn off ancient ruins".

I fully agree with the rest of his analysis, though. It's absurd how quickly Tradition snowballs into a maxed policy tree while liberty takes forever for less benefits.

It's sad how food caravans beat everything else, a mistake repeated in BE no less.

 

[reddishrecue]

Food caravans are great. You don't have to rely on other civilizations and make your own gold.

 

[Thormodr]

The entire part 1 can be dismissed by "You can turn off ancient ruins".

I fully agree with the rest of his analysis, though. It's absurd how quickly Tradition snowballs into a maxed policy tree while liberty takes forever for less benefits.

It's sad how food caravans beat everything else, a mistake repeated in BE no less.

Ancient ruins have been around since the original Civ game. I'd rather have them in the game and I'd rather have them balanced.

The Tradition tree is ridiculous, yes.

Yep. When population = beakers, food caravans are ridiculously overpowered.

Civilization 5 has vertigo. It suffers from severe balance issues.

 

[tzaari]

Here's the picture.

So what is the problem here? Tooltip says you have -133 for relations with Austria because aggressive expansion.

It looks like it is year 1545. If you started in 1444 it means you have expanded (agressively) from 1 province to ~20 province in 100 years, inside HRE. Every province you take adds in, like every hostile action against neighbors, for example getting caught for fabricating claims.

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Agresive_expansion#Aggressive_expansion

AI in EU4 tends to make its mind about you by considering several things, like your military power, amount of provinces and so on. AE is very important factor here. How big a difference you make depends also of that who we are talking about. Ottomans don't probably care a lot, some nearby christian countries tend to think you are being bad and your neighbors are thinking there must be a way to kill of this mad brute. Small countries tend to team up in coalitions more often, if one of the neighbors starts to eat everything around it. That is how it is supposed to go.

Also since you are eating the provinces inside HRE you make the Emperor very angry by not respecting his authority and returning the things for their rightfull owners, if he ask nicely.

 

[Mudrac]

So what is the problem here? Tooltip says you have -133 for relations with Austria because aggressive expansion.

It looks like it is year 1545. If you started in 1444 it means you have expanded (agressively) from 1 province to ~20 province in 100 years, inside HRE. Every province you take adds in, like every hostile action against neighbors, for example getting caught for fabricating claims.

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Agresive_expansion#Aggressive_expansion

AI in EU4 tends to make its mind about you by considering several things, like your military power, amount of provinces and so on. AE is very important factor here. How big a difference you make depends also of that who we are talking about. Ottomans don't probably care a lot, some nearby christian countries tend to think you are being bad and your neighbors are thinking there must be a way to kill of this mad brute. Small countries tend to team up in coalitions more often, if one of the neighbors starts to eat everything around it. That is how it is supposed to go.

Also since you are eating the provinces inside HRE you make the Emperor very angry by not respecting his authority and returning the things for their rightfull owners, if he ask nicely.

Well I suppose you are right. Since in Civ 5 even Civilizations on the other side of the globe hate you even though you don't affect them that much. So yeah EU IV's system is better.

 

[Strategist83]

Didn't care for Sullla's article. The guy obviously just hates V, and rose-tinting loooves IV so much (perhaps because he was involved in its development). I can relate to loving IV (EXCELLENT game) but his V-bashing is out of proportions. Yes, V has serious issues (like the devs not caring at all to fix the AI to a point where it is remotely able to play the game, for one) but IV wasn't exactly perfect, either, and he dismisses everything V does well just because he has decided he hates the game, it seems. As someone very critical when it comes to reviewing these games myself, I simply don't think his observations are at all objective. To offer an example, he complains endlessly about how ruins break the game and how the game therefore plays itself. IV had ruins, as well, and they were arguably just as powerful. No comment on that little fact. He finds the Fountain of Youth then complains he is free to sell off all his luxuries (which is blatantly abusing the AI and really no better than cheating). Etc.

Lots of stuff is wrong with V. Sullla picks on all the wrong things, though.

 

[HeliosDisciple]

It seems like any extended criticism of V eventually turns into GOLDANG KIDS THESE DAYS WITH THE FACEBOOKS AND FARMTOWNS BACK IN MY DAY



Also "ancient ruins" are dumb when you start in 4000 BC.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Lots of stuff is wrong with V. Sullla picks on all the wrong things, though.

I think he pretty much nailed it to be honest.

 

[reddishrecue]

I often get the feeling to just go back to iv. There's a good challenge there still in the immortal and deity levels there too.

 

[Tabarnak]

I have read Sulla's article and i think this is well done. Technically but also he nailed all the problems related to that game.

Tradition is like the slavery civic from civ4. Hard to pass by. He played a game that actually have approximatively 1/500 chance to appear(Shoshones AND FoY). So he missed the opportunity to actually play a more ''average'' start and focus on that average instead. But this is a minor fact compared to all the other unbalanced stuff.

I myself retreive bored playing singleplayer fairly rapidly and many civfanatics members discovered flaws right of the bat of vanilla and expansions. I mean i posted only 3 hours later how the internal trades were overpowered right after BNW came out.

Devs suck at this game, they didn't really care, or they didn't have the money to repair some things. Maybe a mix of all these.

Multiplayer is the way to play this game. A board game. A game which is pretty tactically intense when it comes to block or warring ennemies. But this game is certainly much better to play under mp than civ4 imho. The war weariness was a pretty bad feature. Thank god they put that away.

civ5>civ4 mp
civ4>civ5 sp