Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[Bad Brett]

My only hope for Civilization 5 is the source code. Supposedly it will get released some time in 2012. Perhaps modders can save the game where the developers and greedy 2K Games failed.

In my opinion, this discussion isn't really about Civ 5... It's more about the future of the gaming industry.

The Internet was originally about freedom. Thanks to Napster etc., record companies could no longer control the market like they used to. They could no longer just dress up a hot 18 year old chick in sluttly clothes and let her sing a few crappy tunes, because people started to find music on their own. The downloaded what other people enjoyed listening to, not what the record companies told them to listen to.

I was pretty sure that things would change for the better. I though that this new technology would force the companies to actually listen to what he customers wanted, not treating them as cattle. I thought that this would lead to better products.

Boy was I wrong.

First off, even though the Internet offers endless possibilities, almost ALL traffic go through Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook. These sites will keep track on your activities, for example, if you send an email in which you write "I love Civilization IV", don't be surprised if an ad pops up, saying something like "Civilization V on SALE!". In other words, though there are millions of web pages, it's easier than ever to do heavy marketing.

The big software companies will "bribe" the gaming magazines, by sending out early copies of the games, which forces them to give higher grades than the games actually deserves. This is then collected in "Metacritics". Civ V has 90%, Spore has 84%, which may very well give you the impression that these are high quality games.

As this wasn't enough, they began with the consolization. They want to keep track off their users, they want to know when and how you play their games. They want to have the ability to shut down your account if you misbehave. And the strange thing is that many people actually seem to welcome these changes.

I think it all boils down to human psychology. We like McDonalds, because we know what we get. If you were from out of town and wanted a hamburger, where would you got? To "Don's Hamburgers", "Peterman's Chicken and Hamburgers" or "McDonalds"? Most people would probably go to McDonalds without even looking at the menu. Because we (humans) don't like to make choices.

We want Hollywood to tell us what movies we should like, we want record companies to decide what music we should listen to... and we want to be told what games we should enjoy. So no matter how many times we "break free", it will always end up the same. A small group of people will have complete control over the masses, because the majority of the consumers are willing to give them this power (even though they'll probably never admit it to themselves).

 

[Bandobras Took]

I think it all boils down to human psychology. We like McDonalds, because we know what we get. If you were from out of town and wanted a hamburger, where would you got? To "Don's Hamburgers", "Peterman's Chicken and Hamburgers" or "McDonalds"? Most people would probably go to McDonalds without even looking at the menu. Because we (humans) don't like to make choices.

This is inaccurate. When confronted with choices, most people will go with a choice wherein they have previous experience. If you offer me a choice between some nice Swiss Raclette and some dish with lots of vegetables I've never tried before, I'm likely to choose the Raclette, simply because:

1) I know I like Raclette; and
2) I've had a lot of unfortunate experience with vegetable dishes in the past.

It's not evading the choice or even abdicating it when you go to McDonald's. If you know McDonalds will give you food, you choose to go with what you know rather than risk bad food. This is even more sensible if you're in a strange town. When I'm at my home, I'll go to the nice Crepe place a couple of blocks away because I have had both the time and the inclination to investigate previously.

Or to take the CD example . . . even if the music sucks, you'll at least have the picture of a sluttily dressed teenage girl, so you walk away with something. I'm personally more inclined to use the radio for my music research, as it's fairly easy to get pictures of sluttily dressed teenagers on the internet, anyway.

Let's hear it for freedom.

 

[Bad Brett]

This is inaccurate. When confronted with choices, most people will go with a choice wherein they have previous experience.

Yeah, but the previous experience can be that you've heard about it, but never actually tried it. This is why there are commercials. I've never tried KFC, but I'm pretty sure I would choose it anyway if was going to try fried chicken fast food and even though I have friends who hate it.

 

[Tabarnak]

Yeah, but the previous experience can be that you've heard about it, but never actually tried it. This is why there are commercials. I've never tried KFC, but I'm pretty sure I would choose it anyway if was going to try fried chicken fast food and even though I have friends who hate it.

Everyone that tries KFC is already in great danger...

 

[Archbob]

This whole "archer swimming across ocean" thing is pretty ********. Civ 5 really just feels like they tried to make "Civ 4 for dummies".

 

[Bandobras Took]

I've never tried KFC, but I'm pretty sure I would choose it anyway if was going to try fried chicken fast food and even though I have friends who hate it.

Whereas if I had friends who hate it, that would be for me a compelling reason to not try it, regardless of what the TV says.

 

[Aristos]

This whole "archer swimming across ocean" thing is pretty ********. Civ 5 really just feels like they tried to make "Civ 4 for dummies".

tried?

 

[Shmike]

I think the terrains art style and the UI suck. Civ 4s terrain was more appealing, even civ revs terrain is better looking than civ 5s.

 

[bitula]

I think the terrains art style and the UI suck. Civ 4s terrain was more appealing, even civ revs terrain is better looking than civ 5s.

I actually fail to see how is Civ5 graphically superior. Can someone explain? For example, do models in tiles or tiles themself have a better resolution or better texture? All I see is that because of the lack of idle animations and low amount of static details tiles are less vivid and the zoom levels are constrained (you cant zoom in to a level which was possible in Civ4). I understand that leader animations are better, but the game is played on the map. So can someone explain me what are the advantages of the new graphical engine? Why was it so important to redo it from scratch? Just asking... I have no idea...

 

[cuc]

1) Their effects are too boring: buildings that enhance the same attribute all function in the same way.

I'm not asking for them to be as complex as Civ4's - while all those modifiers in Civ4 are cool, they do make the game appear more intimidating to beginners, so "making the game more accessible and streamlined" is an acceptable reason for not following the Civ4 example. However in all previous Civ games including SMAC, even when several buildings serve the same function, the ways they work tend to vary, adding "design wrinkles".


2) The long building progression lines such as the Monument line or the Library line are new to Civ.

In previous Civs, only a few buildings require other buildings, and the progression doesn't go deeper than 2 layers (A -> B). Civ5 introduced longer lines of 3, 4 or even 5 layers, and the buildings in a line, as discussed, function using the same formula, with the only exception of the line.

Library -> University -> Public School -> Research Lab
Monument -> Temple -> Opera House -> Museum -> Broadcast Tower
Colosseum -> Theatre -> Stadium
Market -> Bank -> Stock Exchange
Workshop -> Factory -> Solar Plant / Nuclear Plant
Hospital -> Medical Lab
Barracks -> Armory -> Military Academy
Walls -> Castle -> Arsenal -> Military Base


As a result, they - that is to say, the majority of buildings in Civ5 - seriously lack flavour, and may as well be called something like "Science Lv. 1" "City Defense Lv. 2" and so on, since that's in fact what they are, with nothing else interesting about them.


3) Of course there're a lot of details to easily make fun of:

The progressions often make no sense;
Granary and Hospital generate while Aqueduct and Medical Lab preserve ;
For the first time in Civ history there are 3 power plant buildings yet only 2 of them (Solar Plant and Nuclear Plant) follow the same rule while the other (Hydro Plant) follows an entire other rule;
and so on.

Such haphazard building naming and design harm more than the game's fiction and atmosphere; they also dressed what's actually a simple system in unintuitive terminology and run contrary to the goal of making the game more accessible.

Moderator Action: Merged with the Rants thread.

 

[Bandobras Took]

1) Their effects are too boring: buildings that enhance the same attribute all function in the same way.

Library: +1 science for every 2 Citizens, no % bonus
University: %bonus, +1 science from Jungle tiles
Public School: Base science from building and +1 science for every 2 citizens
Research Lab: Base science from building and % bonus

No two of these building function in the same way; the closest are the library and the Public School, but even then, the Public School can generate scientists where the library cannot.

I'm not asking for them to be as complex as Civ4's - while all those modifiers in Civ4 are cool, they do make the game appear more intimidating to beginners,

What do you mean, "all those modifiers?"

Library: +25% science
University: +25% science
Observatory: +25% science
Laboratory: +25% science

Tell me, did you perhaps confuse your games?

so "making the game more accessible and streamlined" is an acceptable reason for not following the Civ4 example. However in all previous Civ games including SMAC, even when several buildings serve the same function, the ways they work tend to vary, adding "design wrinkles".

See above example.

2) The long building progression lines such as the Monument line or the Library line are new to Civ.

In previous Civs, only a few buildings require other buildings, and the progression doesn't go deeper than 2 layers (A -> B). Civ5 introduced longer lines of 3, 4 or even 5 layers, and the buildings in a line, as discussed, function using the same formula, with the only exception of the line.

Library -> University -> Public School -> Research Lab
Monument -> Temple -> Opera House -> Museum -> Broadcast Tower
Colosseum -> Theatre -> Stadium
Market -> Bank -> Stock Exchange
Workshop -> Factory -> Solar Plant / Nuclear Plant
Hospital -> Medical Lab
Barracks -> Armory -> Military Academy
Walls -> Castle -> Arsenal -> Military Base


As a result, they - that is to say, the majority of buildings in Civ5 - seriously lack flavour, and may as well be called something like "Science Lv. 1" "City Defense Lv. 2" and so on, since that's in fact what they are, with nothing else interesting about them.

Because the difference between building a University to boost science and building and Observatory to boost science in Civ 4 was so profound? Or the difference between building a Market/Bank/Stock Exchange (oops, there's a 3-building line!) in C3C was that profound?

3) Of course there're a lot of details to easily make fun of:

Just as there were with any previous games.

In Civ 4, Jewish people needed to build many Temples in order to build one Synagogue -- how many Jewish Synagogues are there in the world as opposed to fully functional Jewish Temples?

Such haphazard building naming and design harm more than the game's fiction and atmosphere; they also dressed what's actually a simple system in unintuitive terminology and run contrary to the goal of making the game more accessible.

See above.

Also, remember building aqueducts in Civ 3 in a city in the middle of a 20-square desert?

You seem to be idealizing past games.

 

[thecaesar]

I can't really describe why I dislike Civ V. It feels... slower somehow. Like, it drags on. It may possibly be the fact that I feel like the military units have no diversity, but that's not really true. It may be that I feel like the buildings have no diversity, but that's not true. Maybe it seems like the AIs all team on you, or maybe it's that you can't see why they're angry at you, so it's just you. I don't know.

I just know that I like Civ IV better. The AIs have more personality, and it's (to me) fairly simple. The civics are simpler. The diplomacy is simpler. The map is simpler.

And about making fun of games: every game has things wrong with it. Like for example, how a forge somehow increases the production of a Modern Armor in Civ IV, or how in Civ V, adopting Citizenship or whatever increases production. You have to give a game a certain amount of slack before you call it horrible, even if you don't like it. Because there is a difference between fact and opinion, a really big one.

 

[cuc]

Or the difference between building a Market/Bank/Stock Exchange (oops, there's a 3-building line!) in C3C was that profound?

You seem to be idealizing past games.

Ha, I knew I should have actually spent time doublechecking before writing that post. I was surprised when someone on this forum said "Civ5 wonders are boring, unlike Civ4", yet went on to make the same mistake.

I stand corrected.

What do you mean, "all those modifiers?"

Library: +25% science
University: +25% science
Observatory: +25% science
Laboratory: +25% science

Tell me, did you perhaps confuse your games?

Perhaps the word should be "attribute" rather than "modifier". Using your example of science buildings:

Library: +2 , synergy w/ Creative
University: +3 , synergy w/ Philosophical
Laboratory: +1

And then there are things like Forge (+25% , +1 , from resources, synergy w/ Industrious) and Factory (works w/ power, +1 , +2 from coal and oil, synergy w/ Organized).


EDIT:
So does my complain boil down to Civ5 removing whole systems like and traits, yet didn't add enough interesting new systems (so naturally there wouldn't be buildings that make use of the new systems)? Maybe.

 

[bweenie]

Such haphazard building naming and design harm more than the game's fiction and atmosphere; they also dressed what's actually a simple system in unintuitive terminology and run contrary to the goal of making the game more accessible.

I agree with this a lot. In the first four Civs, the Granary was what you built in order to preserve food upon growth. Now, that has been switched with the aqueduct, and the granary has a completely new function while the old "traditional" function of the aqueduct has been eliminated.

I don't have a problem with eliminating the function of allowing city growth past a certain point or of adding the function of a building which provides food.

But, it seems very awkward to me to switch the functions of the buildings like that. It's cognitively difficult to get used to.

Perhaps they just felt that the abilities that they assigned to the granary and the aqueduct should t be available at the points that the techs are available, and there isn't anyway around it.

I'm having a hard time articulating why this bothers me, but the general thrust of my complaint is that, in general, similar things should have similar functions across the various incarnations of the game.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Perhaps the word should be "attribute" rather than "modifier". Using your example of science buildings:

Library: +2 , synergy w/ Creative
University: +3 , synergy w/ Philosophical
Laboratory: +1

And then there are things like Forge (+25% , +1 , from resources, synergy w/ Industrious) and Factory (works w/ power, +1 , +2 from coal and oil, synergy w/ Organized).


EDIT:
So does my complain boil down to Civ5 removing whole systems like and traits, yet didn't add enough interesting new systems (so naturally there wouldn't be buildings that make use of the new systems)? Maybe.

In that case, I would note that making buildings with multiple attributes is something they moved to Social Policies -- Factories can boost research, Universities can make you happy, Temples increase gold, etc.

 

[PhilBowles]

This whole "archer swimming across ocean" thing is pretty ********. Civ 5 really just feels like they tried to make "Civ 4 for dummies".

Really? Think of what units in any Civ game represent - no unit can survive without supply for years (let alone centuries in early turns). The units represent an army dominated by, e.g., archers, complete with retainers, fletchers, bowyers to replace worn out weapons, field surgeons, supply carts and the like, and so why not shipwrights? Given the game timescale involved it's "pretty ********" that they have to wait on a transport fleet that takes years to produce and are completely incapable of fashioning some form of boat of their own. Not to mention that eight armies of the scale needed to function independently can fit aboard one counter's worth of transport ships...

Okay, the Civ V version isn't amazingly logical - rudimentary ocean-going boats are just about within the ability of an army to produce, industrial-era transport ships are not - but be fair, the earlier versions weren't amazingly logical either. They just didn't make sense in a different way - take the example given a while back of razing cities, for example. It's intuitively wrong that you can't destroy London by burning it, for instance - however it's also historically accurate. And while it may make sense that you can destroy Colchester by razing it, once again that's not what happened in reality; cities survive being razed or raided, while in earlier Civ games (and for non-capitals in Civ 5) this is impossible unless you build another city on the same spot and give it the exact same name (and even then you won't be able to salvage any of its buildings).

I agree with this a lot. In the first four Civs, the Granary was what you built in order to preserve food upon growth. Now, that has been switched with the aqueduct, and the granary has a completely new function while the old "traditional" function of the aqueduct has been eliminated.

I don't have a problem with eliminating the function of allowing city growth past a certain point or of adding the function of a building which provides food.

But, it seems very awkward to me to switch the functions of the buildings like that. It's cognitively difficult to get used to.

Perhaps they just felt that the abilities that they assigned to the granary and the aqueduct should t be available at the points that the techs are available, and there isn't anyway around it.

I've assumed that's exactly what the point is, and I also think that it's generally a good thing - I think it makes harvesting food a bit too easy in conjunction with the new 'you can work every tile' system, but if that were restricted it would be an improvement, since it (a) makes the granary optional and dependent on the context of the city you've built (much more important in a production-heavy area than for a city set in grassland) rather than something fundamental to the growth of any city and so an auto-build, and (b) allows you the option of going for specialists earlier if you want to adopt a specialist-heavy strategy - you don't need a granary in a food-producing city, but having one can give you that extra early engineer to hurry an important early Wonder, say. And simply letting cities grow faster earlier smooths gameplay, I feel, since it's a slow and dull process to grow cities when you're restricted to 2-3 surplus food in the first few turns.

I'm having a hard time articulating why this bothers me, but the general thrust of my complaint is that, in general, similar things should have similar functions across the various incarnations of the game.

To be honest, this bothered me a lot more in Civ IV with the drastic changes to the Wonders - and at least I can see how the granary change was warranted, while I struggle to see why the Great Library shouldn't give you free technologies.

 

[thecaesar]

And the Oracle does.

 

[Bad Brett]

In that case, I would note that making buildings with multiple attributes is something they moved to Social Policies -- Factories can boost research, Universities can make you happy, Temples increase gold, etc.

The only real problem I have with the Civ V buildings is the fact that they replaced many of the percentage modifiers with simple bonuses (e.g that the Library gives you +1 for every two citizens instead of the +25% bonus. It may not seem such a big deal, but it removes a lot of the strategy.

In all previous iterations of Civ, a library was basically useless in cities without commerce. One of the big differences between an experienced player and a rookie, was that the experienced player carefully estimated whether it would be worth building a library in a certain city, while the rookie would just spam libraries everywhere.

Now it doesn't really matter. Well of course, it's better to build a library in a big city than a small city, but that's basically it.

I'm pretty sure this is another attempt to "streamline" things. A lot of kids don't understand percentage works. Therefore things like sliders and +25% buildings are confusing. 1+1 is much easier.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

It strikes me that when I played Civ 4 I spent alot of time planning and managing my cities.
In Civ 5 I spend my time planning and managing my army.

One makes me feel like I am building an empire, the other feels like a game.

 

[thecaesar]

It strikes me that when I played Civ 4 I spent alot of time planning and managing my cities.
In Civ 5 I spend my time planning and managing my army.

One makes me feel like I am building an empire, the other feels like a game.

Thank you. You have just described my exact sentiments.