Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[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

 

[Quineloe]

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.

Huts in Civ 1 could be detrimental. This is not the case in Civ 5. Balancing huts would be fairly easy, i.e. make the first one give you a free tech, the next one culture, then archer upgrade, then the gold, and from there on out only small amounts of gold.

What gruntles me a bit is that a goody hut is like three times as much gold as razing a barbarian camp. It should be the other way around. This is the perfect example of "making stuff happen" and "letting stuff happen to you". Removing barbarian camps requires actually defeating the barbarians in it. Ruins require walking over them. If Barbarian camps gave +200 gold, Honor might suddenly be interesting

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

So you're saying Food caravans aren't overpowered, walking into culture and free tech ruins isn't way too good, being able to send the AI to war against another AI for a few gpt isn't too easy, an aggressive AI not declaring war on you with a 8:1 number advantage isn't too peaceful and getting free stuff from city states by chance without working for it isn't too easy?

What do you think is wrong with BNW, if that's not it?

 

[DocRock]

Are we talking Single or Multiplayer here? because, you know, in Single Player balance isn't a real issue. Half of the civs are weak? Well, then just take a civ from the other half or opt in for an extra challenge. Goody huts are too good? Just turn them off! By the way, they were pretty strong in Civ 4 too. That's way many people just turned them off!

The FoY is too strong? i can't even remember a game where I started with it. Because it happens nearly never. What if an AI, i.e. Spain, started with it? Now that would have been some extra challenge.

Sulla is right about Tradition and trade routes, but the other things sound like he would be better of playing chess. If you want a living game, you need some random elements. If you don't want it, then just turn them off.. What is so difficult about that? Or just don't use them. Back in my C64 days, nearly every day came with a cheat. You could opt in to use it or you decided to play a fair game.

MP is a whole different approach but I never played any Civ game in multiplayer, so I cannot comment on that.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I have to agree with Sulla especially on one major point, the tooltips and more generally the poor documentation. As someone who occasionally revisits the game and doesn't invest a huge amount of time in rote learning all of the various bonuses and unit abilities, it really frustrates me when playing to have to dig and search for info. I'll look up a building in the civilopedia and find 3 or 4 different entries about it, most of which are ambiguous or short and pointless descriptions of something. Entries on historical significance of something should not get in the way of looking up what you actually need to know. When you do find the page you want with the info, there are these gargantuan icons for the bonuses, none of which show at a glance what the bonus does. You have to hover over every one of them and then hope the tooltip is actually useful. To make matters worse, if there's more than a few of them, you have to scroll those enormous icons just to view them all.

I should ask too, if anyone's aware of a mod that completely overhauls the civilopedia I'd be grateful.

EDIT... To add, nowhere near enough hyperlinks in the pedia. Alot of the time when I need to find something I have to use the search box. That brings me to the search box which is terribly designed too. It doesn't select-all when you click it, which would be the most obvious thing to do for a search box, or even just clear it. No, you have to hold down backspace for a few seconds everytime you want to use it. ugh

 

[Mudrac]

I should ask too, if anyone's aware of a mod that completely overhauls the civilopedia I'd be grateful.

Well, There is a mod called Enchanced User Interface. It doesn't change the Civilopedia, but it gives a lot more of in-game info, and makes the overall interface so much better.

Link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=512263

 

[hippo_surprise]

...nowhere near enough hyperlinks in the pedia. Alot of the time when I need to find something I have to use the search box. That brings me to the search box which is terribly designed too. It doesn't select-all when you click it, which would be the most obvious thing to do for a search box, or even just clear it. No, you have to hold down backspace for a few seconds everytime you want to use it. ugh

It has not changed substantially for years. Since Civ the original, the 'pedia has been garbage. It always seems to require one more step than should be needed.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Well, There is a mod called Enchanced User Interface. It doesn't change the Civilopedia, but it gives a lot more of in-game info, and makes the overall interface so much better.

Link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=512263

Thanks for the help, I do already use that mod though. It's the only one I use in fact.

hippo_surprise, maybe I've just got rose-coloured glasses but from what I remember of at least Civ3 and Civ4's pedia the hyperlinks were often fairly well placed.

 

[beetle]

Tradition is like the slavery civic from civ4.

I don't actually think that is a fair comparison at all. Yes, Tradition is stronger than the other SP trees, but not broken like the slavery mechanic.

Actually, does V any exploits that are on a similar order of magnitude?

Sulla makes the fair observation that every game the player should DoW one and only one CS. But it's not necessary to win. I thought his characterization of V being passive was odd about when was working his pathfinders so hard! I also thought it was a good observation about tile improvements being relatively weak, as compared to others in the series.

 

[Thormodr]

I don't actually think that is a fair comparison at all. Yes, Tradition is stronger than the other SP trees, but not broken like the slavery mechanic.

Actually, does V any exploits that are on a similar order of magnitude?

Sulla makes the fair observation that every game the player should DoW one and only one CS. But it's not necessary to win. I thought his characterization of V being passive was odd about when was working his pathfinders so hard! I also thought it was a good observation about tile improvements being relatively weak, as compared to others in the series.

I have found that in the you tube videos that I have watched that 90 to 95% of the time the people pick and finish the tradition tree and 5 to 10% of the time take and finish Liberty. Sounds pretty broken to me as Tradition is almost always the correct choice. It's dull to watch Pottery, Scout, Tradition time after time after time.

At least with Slavery there was a period of anarchy before taking it and a bit of a tradeoff when using it. Tradition is just free stuff.inc.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I don't actually think that is a fair comparison at all. Yes, Tradition is stronger than the other SP trees, but not broken like the slavery mechanic.

I agree it's not a fair comparison - Slavery is nowhere near as broken as Tradition! At least with Slavery, as has been said, you need a revolution to move into it. Caste is a viable alternative with real benefits and in the end game you either have to adopt Emancipation or suffer the consequences.

 

[beetle]

Wow, people defending the Civ IV slavery exploit as not being broken. Makes it kind of hard to have a honest dialog!

So, what we can agree on?

Opening the same tree and the same early build order each game is kind of boring. But I am pretty sure that early turns in every series was like that, at least if you were playing at a difficulty level that was challenging. Please remind me if this was not the case!

I also concur that it is weakness that SP in V don't have more of an opportunity cost. I liked the tension that came with switching civics in III and IV. But I thought the Social Engineering matrix in SMAC was even better! SE was better by design because (1) taking the most advanced option was often not best choice, and (2) strong benefits came with significant penalties.

I brought a lot of skeptical prejudices with me to my judging of SP in V. What, no bad choices? How lame is that? Having 100+ perks available makes up for it IMHO, especially since they are all cumulative. There are a lot of different, good, and interesting way to stack things -- even for the folks that open and fill out Tradition first every single game.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Wow, people defending the Civ IV slavery exploit as not being broken.

Don't see anyone saying that, my argument was it's not as broken as Tradition.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Lost a reply. That's annoying.

But I'd certainly defend that. Slavery being such an integral part of the game was not intentional on the part of the devs, but it was not broken. They would have patched it upon realizing this if it was, but in the end they left it in. Why?

Because it promoted a very rich and strategic gameplay. Slavery may be the one right choice for a large section of the game, but that doesn't matter because the real tradeoff is whether or not to slave, with there being a tradeoff every time you do so. It isn't a exploit, it is an integral part of the game, and one which makes it a more interesting game to play.

That is different from having multiple streams and only one of them being an appropriate one to take.

 

[tootallbob]

What annoys me the most is how the technologies do not match up with actual world events. When I play the game I do not get to stealth bomber until will into the 21st almost the 22nd centuries. I world on the Stealth Bomber in the 1980s. We have had satellites since the 60s
I worked on Keyhole imagery in the early 70s. The B-17 was a WWII bomber not the end of the 20th century. The techline is all wrong and it pisses me off when I play the game.

 

[wideframehoss]

What annoys me the most is how the technologies do not match up with actual world events. When I play the game I do not get to stealth bomber until will into the 21st almost the 22nd centuries. I world on the Stealth Bomber in the 1980s. We have had satellites since the 60s
I worked on Keyhole imagery in the early 70s. The B-17 was a WWII bomber not the end of the 20th century. The techline is all wrong and it pisses me off when I play the game.

That depends on your game pace and how much science you're doing per turn.

 

[Browd]

Some are equally irritated about stealth bombers and spaceship launches before 1700.

 

[Thormodr]

Some are equally irritated about stealth bombers and spaceship launches before 1700.

A valid point. I was never a big fan of that but usually it was just expect players who micromanaged every detail and played near flawlessly to get such a result. I am not that type of player. If I ever finished early, it was in the late 1800s at best.

I suppose that would still be anachronistic, though.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Some are equally irritated about stealth bombers and spaceship launches before 1700.

This amuses me because I am playing a vs the barbs game (Deity, empty map with raging barbarians) and upon saving it realised that it is in the 1700s and I have 4 cities and have yet to reach Longbows.

Things can, after all, go both ways.

 

[CivAddict2013]

I used to love Civilization V and Brave New World. Heck, it's in the name; I've got 2700 or so hours into Civilization V and it's expansions. However; lately I've found that it's just lost it's charm for me. Whatever it was that made me come back to it; is just gone.

Maybe it's the fact that I don't like re-rolling 50 times to get a decent spot; when the AI gets a decent spot every time. I've noticed that for me, I have to re-roll at least 50-100 times to get Gems or Gold. But then there's another problem based on that problem...

So you re-roll 50-100 times; you finally get that resource you want...

Then you find out you have to re-roll again because you're next to Shaka, Montezuma or some other super aggressive "Oh I'm just going to build units all day" Civ. By the time you've found the perfect spot where you're not next to an aggressive Civ, you've re-rolled 200-300 times. So maybe it's that factor; that keeps me from going back.

But there's another factor that I think contributes.

Whenever I play; no matter if I go wide or small, the AI hates my guts. If I build 8 cities; the AI hates me because I settled too many cities. If I build 3 cities; the AI hates me because my empire is small. Whether certain Civs like or hate you; seems to be completely random.

One time as Germany I wiped out half the continent and Pocatello wants to be friends! But I played as Brazil, settled 3 cities and my 2 neighbors hate my guts. When I did a 3 city opener with France; both my neighbors Alexander and China hate me for no logical reason. Diplomacy certainly needs some work and is one of the things keeping me from going back.

Another problem is gold seems to RELY on trade routes. I've had games where I adopted commerce, had a market in every city and still had gold problems because I had no trade routes. This is especially annoying when your neighbor keeps declaring war on you.

And finally, the last problem; is war. In this game; you can way out tech the AI in military, but their cities can 2 shot your more advanced units. I've had this happen before. I was playing Germany then rushed Composite Bows and Swordsman. But Egypt with a city and 2 chariots made short work of my Swordsmen despite not having researched Iron Working.

It's just unrealistic for civilizations to do so well against more advanced armies. Could you imagine a medieval city fighting off Cannons and Muskets? No way. But that's how it is in this game.

So yeah; I think those are the elements keeping me from coming back to Civilization V.

I did like Beyond Earth though; so I might try that out.

 

[phillipwyllie]

I'm only 1000 hours in and I'm not playing civ5 as much as I used too, but that's not due to civ5 loosing it's luster. I play the diplomacy game and it is that that has lost it's luster. If I can turn myself into a warmonger then I've got another 1000 hours. Unless you've played every play-style to death then I suggest trying another and sticking with it.

I never re-roll except when there is lot of jungle around as I hate jungle. I suggest you don't re-roll and use what you have been given you might get some excitement back. If you play on Deity then perhaps try the deity challenges as these usually have good starts.