Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[dexters]

Keep in mind roads cost gold upkeep per turn, it can bankrupt you if you build too many roads and too early. They also don't add commerce on tiles with roads, only help you move your units faster and to connect your cities to form those automatic trade routes With 1upt you want your army and slow non-tracked units to be on the roads.

There is I think some historical precedence for that but I can assure you that you definitely don't want to road up your empire like a spider web in Civ5.

There seems to be quite a lot of wrong information being bandied about. I'd invite you to give Civ5 another chance.

 

[Andulias]

I didnt say Civics, I said government system, which was in the 1 - 2 - 3 civs. The civic system was not perfect either, but could of been improved in its balancing as well.

Huh, so you're talking about government types in Civ 1-3, I see... Hmm, I was rather fond of those, but I hardly think they were that deep. But from a role-playing perspective I absolutely agree, they are better than both civics and SPs. In any case, I am strongly against the notion that civics are better than SPs. They are just different systems, each with its own strengths.

The 6 vs 8 movement is not bogus based on a 1upt map of this size. If the army hexes were 1/10 the size, I could see it as an improvement, the AI trying to master the hex 1upt tends to get itself bungled up. I have seem it improve a little, but it was much better at defending units in a stack, but do not let that mislead you in me saying stack was a lot better, as it does have it ups and downs.

It is, what you're talking about is AI, no the actual hexes. AI can be improved upon (and has been considerably in G+K, although it still has quite some way to go). The actual concept of hexes though by itself has done nothing but good IMO.

I do like that bombarding has made a comeback, I didnt care for the archery line ending, and was waiting on a patch to fix it since day one,

I do look forward to the expansion, but as is, not worth 30 bucks for a game I hardly play compared to the other Civs.

Fair enough, it's your choice. I was also extremely disappointed with V at launch, but after G+K I don't see myself playing IV for quite a while. The game has come a long way, although one has to wonder why it took them an year and a half to get there.

Mind you I didnt play Civ 4 as much as I played Civ 2, but I was addicted for that next turn button, didnt care for warlords, BTS, added a lot of the game play I have enjoyed.

On the same boat, I played Civ 2 to death. Maybe because I was just a kid/early teen or it might be because of the simplistic graphics, the throne room, the actual governments, civs being actual civs and not just Leader-heads (e.g. in IV Monty is my neighbour, not the Aztec) and the city view, but Civ 2 was really the only Civ game where I felt like I was really role-playing a civ. Never got that feeling from either 3, 4 or 5 and I really don't understand the people who complain that 4 was much better in that regard than 5. Not in my eyes it wasn't.

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

Dexters: Thats why they are "scarce" I.E. not having the spider web, with stack I can see the change being useful, with 1upt and hex, it makes getting around units harder. I have military unit and a great general, but a worker is in the way, the general would have to get off the road if it ended its turn on the worker, so either I have to move my military unit off to protect him, or keeping them from moving one more hex towards its target, either way, means I lose time in getting to where I need to go, since they cant stack.

Only history I can think of is the reason why the US built the express ways. to get military units from one side of the US to the other if we were ever invaded. Reason why I think it was placed into the game was merely for aesthetics.

I agree with the diagonal problem, but it didnt really give you any advantage, since everyone in game had the same ability to do. Hex is a minor issue, dont really mind it as most people do.

Andulias: I totally agree, with everything you have said, I do like that personalities have been played with adding a bit more variance, civics to some degree did add more to relationships, but I wished it was a bit more generic than specific, such as Isabell love for religeous civic (whatver she had, she wanted you to have, as opposed to, "you must have theocracy" (dont remember if that was exactly what she wanted, but the point is there) Again any of the systems to date, could use balancing.

My last edit for this:

I do play Civ 5, but its not as geared to empire management which I was use too and enjoy in Civ.

Oh I also hate UU's and UA's, but thats really pushing my own style of play, so Im not going to force that issue.

 

[dexters]

Dexters: Thats why they are "scarce" I.E. not having the spider web, with stack I can see the change being useful, with 1upt and hex, it makes getting around units harder. I have military unit and a great general, but a worker is in the way, the general would have to get off the road if it ended its turn on the worker, so either I have to move my military unit off to protect him, or keeping them from moving one more hex towards its target, either way, means I lose time in getting to where I need to go, since they cant stack.

Only history I can think of is the reason why the US built the express ways. to get military units from one side of the US to the other if we were ever invaded. Reason why I think it was placed into the game was merely for aesthetics.

I agree with the diagonal problem, but it didnt really give you any advantage, since everyone in game had the same ability to do.

Andulias: I totally agree, with everything you have said, I do like that personalities have been played with adding a bit more variance, civics to some degree did add more to relationships, but I wished it was a bit more generic than specific, such as Isabell love for religeous civic (whatver she had, she wanted you to have, as opposed to, "you must have theocracy" (dont remember if that was exactly what she wanted, but the point is there) Again any of the systems to date, could use balancing.

My last edit for this:

I do play Civ 5, but its not as geared to empire management which I was use too and enjoy in Civ.

Oh I also hate UU's and UA's, but thats really pushing my own style of play, so Im not going to force that issue.

I read that part, but you suggested that 'with 1upt you want roads to be everywhere'.

I'm not sure that is something I agree with or something that is even true. It needs some getting used to if all you've played is road spammy commerce giving roads from previous games. But once you see them as transportation (with a small downside of costing upkeep) and as a means to connect 2 cities to earn extra gold from trade routes, it's just that. Transportation routes and you want to find the shortest route everywhere as it makes your units travel further and it costs less. Certainly, I can move my troops around just fine parking them at nodal points where the slower unit is right on the road. With the wheeled and cavalry can be off to the side as they can get on the roads after I figure out where I want them.

Things I want to bring up quickly like seige units which cost movement points to setup, or archers who are on foot are on roads as much as possible when not being used so they can be deployed quickly and hopefully get to fire off a shot the same turn.

As for my reference to history, the history of armies and civilization is inextricably tied to road networks and systems and the movement of said armies on roads.

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

I read that part, but you suggested that 'with 1upt you want roads to be everywhere'.

I'm not sure that is something I agree with or something that is even true. It needs some getting used to if all you've played is road spammy commerce giving roads from previous games. But once you see them as transportation (with a small downside of costing upkeep) and as a means to connect 2 cities to earn extra gold from trade routes, it's just that. Transportation routes and you want to find the shortest route everywhere as it makes your units travel further and it costs less. Certainly, I can move my troops around just fine parking them at nodal points where the slower unit is right on the road. With the wheeled and cavalry can be off to the side as they can get on the roads after I figure out where I want them.

Things I want to bring up quickly like seige units which cost movement points to setup, or archers who are on foot are on roads as much as possible when not being used so they can be deployed quickly and hopefully get to fire off a shot the same turn.

As for my reference to history, the history of armies and civilization is inextricably tied to road networks and systems and the movement of said armies on roads.

Id prefer roads everywhere for 1upt style, as it makes moving things a lot easier, specially for the AI side. I exploited that fact in Civ 2 by giving everyone railroads, i could use their improvements against them. I am glad I cant do that now. For military, I could see the hexes being 1/10 it size, more units per hex without the stacking ability and would vastly improve formation/tactics. Keep the hex the current size for cities to work of course, im not sure how the settlers and workers would function in this.

Germany WWII can prove the road system as you have stated as well, plus the way they used the Rail system. I mention the aesthetics because it was always an issue since 2 (possibly 1) with how bad the map looked with the spider webs.

 

[dexters]

Id prefer roads everywhere for 1upt style, as it makes moving things a lot easier, specially for the AI side. I exploited that fact in Civ 2 by giving everyone railroads, i could use their improvements against them. I am glad I cant do that now. For military, I could see the hexes being 1/10 it size, more units per hex without the stacking ability and would vastly improve formation/tactics. Keep the hex the current size for cities to work of course, im not sure how the settlers and workers would function in this.

Germany WWII can prove the road system as you have stated as well, plus the way they used the Rail system. I mention the aesthetics because it was always an issue since 2 (possibly 1) with how bad the map looked with the spider webs.

Ok that's a preference that you stated as a fact.

Anyways, It's not my place to argue with people who have this thread to rant.

Cheers

 

[Funky]

I also don't see how a more tactically oriented combat system automatically means it's no longer an empire building game. I don't see one excluding the other.

Oh but they do. In fact, this is one of the main descrepancies among civ players about civ 5. I expanded on it in my post just a page before yours - for purpose of convience allow me to cite myself:

...

I'm sure there are many more benefits of stacks, but the most important one is:
While stacks involve tactical elements in battles, these are not overstressed. War is usually decided by which civ has the better economy, technology and better production, which are results of strategic empire management. In other words, while war is more than just a simulation of troops fighting (and on high difficulties tactics are in fact very important), at its heart the game stays an empire building game. This is in my opinion why Civ 5 feels so wrong (apart from its many inexcusable flaws in other areas): the entire empire building feeling - the ambition of achieving a functioning and flourishing economy as the backbone of your army - has become totally meaningless. This is because it's not the strategic empire building decisions that will win you wars (or let you prosper in other areas), but the use of tactics in battles. Who cares what buildings you build, or if you make the most out of your economy, if the impact of these decisions on wars is minimal, compared to use of tactics. In quintessence, the soul of the civ series was ripped out (it was always about empire management, with war only being one aspect among many). Of course to make it worse, the game fails terribly at the all-decisive tactical overlayer by employing a horrendous AI.

It's just funny how today civ 5 is defended by pointing to civ 4's supposedly terrible stacks, when there was nothing inherently wrong with them. Frequent comments, which show a serious lack in understanding this entire genre, are things like "you just had to build the bigger stack and steamroll your opponent". Duh, of course we'd like to have the bigger stack but our economy will decide if we are able to pull it off. This is how it should be in an empire building game as opposed to winning by use of superior tactics. Even if the AI wasn't the total desaster that it is in Civ 5, the whole system would still be wrong, as the game is decided by the armies, not by the empires behind them. And as far as I know, the game is still called "Civilization" and not "Armies".

...

Nothing against tactical wargames in general. But to overweigh the tactical combat in a civ game takes away the importance of empire strategy per definition, as poor strategy can be overcome (or good strategy undone) by tactics. Mastering the game means mastering the tactics, which in return dramatically increases the focus on war, both of which should not occur in a strategical empire building game.


Let me just quickly respond to two other things you said.

First about civics:

It's not about civics having negative effects, is about the trade-offs they offer and the evaluation of which aspects of various civics favor you more in a given situation. The flexibility that civ 4 offers adds another strategical layer to the game, based on your aims and needs in a certain period, wether you expect or are leading a long war, wether you want to improve diplomatic relations, what kind of economy is present, wether you're spiritual or can afford anarchy or not, if you want to roleplay etc etc).
Not to mention the immersion effect that you "feel" more like controlling a monarchy and theocracy for example. In civ 5 you read the effect of a policy and click it if it sounds useful. The label, be it "monarchy" or anything else, is meaningless and you forget it after few turns if you even noticed it at all.


And about user reviews vs "professional" reviews:

Of course you can single out ******** user reviews. There are tons of them, on both ends of the rating spectrum. That's why we look at averages! The "hater" and "fanboy" reviews usually more or less even eachother out while the rest can determine with great accuracy wether a game is good or bad, much more than a professional review can (even leavin aside the fact that most reviews are bought, reviewers simply don't have nor can they have the know-how about a game that fans of a series do).
Also, user reviews are actually critical about aspects of a game. The last magazine reviews I read were all raving reports, with a grain of criticism at most. User reviews, the good ones at least, are much more insightful in weighing out pros and cons, spotting flaws, or mentioning well implemented features.

 

[Bad Brett]

I blame the Internet for much this. When I played games such as Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, Settlers I & II, SimCity, I could sit there for hours watching how my empire slowly grew more powerful. Building a castle in Settlers took forever and I'm pretty sure that 99% of all gamers today would quit in frustration before it was completed.

Age of Empires II was undoubtly one of the best RTS games ever, but I don't think it would have been nearly as popular today, because it takes way too long before the real action begins.

I get the feeling that many fans of Civ IV actually never got into the "real" game, at least not on a higher level. Instead they got addicted to mods where they had armies from the beginning, where the obvious goal was to conquer a certain enemy. For them, the empire management part was just busy work and the real fun was to simulate a world war with a mix of interesting units.

 

[Andulias]

@ Funky You make some fine points, but my statement still stands. I'm not in the mood for a long post, so I'll try to keep it short (edit: I failed). There was was a fair amount of tactics in CIV as well to the point where a civ with a significantly lower production can win a fight against a much bigger, even more advanced foe. It was a different kind of tactics, the emphasis was on what to put in your stack, in what composition and how many of each type of units. I have seen small under-performing civs win against much bigger ones precisely because of stack composition, terrain advantages and other variables. The big difference between IV and V in that regard is that stack composition has been replaced with formations and more emphasis has been put on unit placement. Does that make combat more complex? Maybe, but does it mean that a civ that has 4 longswordmen, 2 archers and 2 catapults will lose against a civ with only 2 longswordmen and an archer? Only if the attacker is a complete and utter moron, which also goes for CIV, otherwise the one with the more efficient economy will prevail in the end, which renders CiV an empire management game with a tactical combat component. The Empire building is almost as deep as it used to be, the only thing it's missing is a local health system IMO, not stacks. While deeper, CiV combat hardly is as complex as that of a real war-game, and tactics go only so far. In the end of the day the civ with the better production that knows how to use its units almost always wins. Just like in any Civ game ever made.

About civics - having a +1 happiness for every unit hardly made me feel like a king, to me all the civics are and will always be just a list of interchangeable bonuses. Like I mentioned in a previous post, role-playing for me was already dead in CIV.

They do have depth, choosing the right one at the right moment, favouring in the anarchy and different combinations was definitely rewarding and deep. So are the SPs in a different way. It's not just about choosing the right one, but also in the right order, because the SPs branch out. You chose Liberty, great, but are going to get Collective Rule or Citizenship? How exactly are you going to navigate it? Or maybe you should first just unlock Honor and after that focus on Liberty? This choice will have an impact in your game, and the different ways of navigating the trees make the system more compelling than it appears.

They can't be switched? I agree, it's off-putting at first until you realize what kind of choices they present. Are you going for a tall (Tradition), a wide (Liberty) or a warmongering (Honor) empire? And do note, these still don't set in stone the VC you are going for, as many seem to think. It's a choice that I've been making for years in CIV as well, it's one that we all make at the beginning of every game. The later SP trees meanwhile are a bit more focused on a specific VC and they come in at a a point where you already know if you have a tech lead and you'll be going for the spaceship, or you would rather focus on culture, war or commerce.

You can't switch them just like that? Yes, but getting the right one out of a much wider range of choices still makes the system deep enough in my eyes. Not to mention it has an influence on other aspects of your game as well. If you settle more cities, the price for SPs goes up, whereas wonders and culture-generating buildings will get you there faster. So actually getting SPs is is a little mini-game in itself.

From a RP perspective neither system is that good IMO, but the SP system is slightly different. It's not really about the type of government your civ adopts, but rather the paths it has taken and the choices it has made, and those never go away. Japan for instance was a very warlike nation for centuries, but nowadays they are some of the most peaceful people in the world. The implications of being a warmongering nation for hundreds of years though has a profound impact on their culture and life-style to this day. So put in such a perspective, I find SPs just as good/bad as civics.

On reviews: the simple notion that the "fanboy" and "hater" reviews cancel each other out I find ludicrous, and that's putting it in a nice way. If you count on that, well, good luck! And do note I didn't just single out ******** reviews, I singled out retarted SCORES, whole freaking scores. User reviews are unreliable and dubious at best, I've already listed plenty of reasons why. I've also said why most professional reviews are so pathetically glowing. The whole system is ugly, and I hope one day things change for the better, but having pathetically positive reviews doesn't render the sea of idiotic user ramblings on Metacritic automatically any better than what they are. SOo in the end, like I said, I trust certain reviewers for certain types of games, but mostly I rely on my gut.

I blame the Internet for much this. When I played games such as Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, Settlers I & II, SimCity, I could sit there for hours watching how my empire slowly grew more powerful. Building a castle in Settlers took forever and I'm pretty sure that 99% of all gamers today would quit in frustration before it was completed.

Age of Empires II was undoubtly one of the best RTS games ever, but I don't think it would have been nearly as popular today, because it takes way too long before the real action begins.

I get the feeling that many fans of Civ IV actually never got into the "real" game, at least not on a higher level. Instead they got addicted to mods where they had armies from the beginning, where the obvious goal was to conquer a certain enemy. For them, the empire management part was just busy work and the real fun was to simulate a world war with a mix of interesting units.

Uhuh. I bet MineCraft is so popular exactly because of aaaaaaall the crazy action. And I know why the ANNO series, that still is a complex city-building game, has been selling so well, while the Settlers series, which has been focused more on war for too many years, hasn't been doing so well lately. Or why Dragon Age: Origins sold more than twice as many copies as Dragon Age 2, even though it was a new IP. Or why PI games sell more and more every year. Or why CiV is consistently in the top 10 most played games on Steam, CIV never leaves the top 100, but Warlock, a game that's much more combat focused than any Civ, isn't even on the list, even though it came out only a couple of months ago.

I can go on, but I think this post sums up rather nicely what I'm trying to say here and what reading this whole thread makes me think.

 

[ohioastronomy]

It's a matter of personal opinion, not an actual design flaw. I prefer the new system even if just because it's not luck-based. Losing 98.5% sometimes just made me want to quit out of frustration. I also don't see how a more tactically oriented combat system automatically means it's no longer an empire building game. I don't see one excluding the other.

25 civics. 2 of them had ANY kind of a negative effect, and since those civics were incredibly powerful, the trade-off was necessary. That's 8% of all civics. I am sorry if I feel like laughing when you say that they all have a positive and a negative effect. They don't.

True enough. Cities couldn't revolt until BTS though, don't forget that.

You are repeating yourself. Neither do almost all of the civics.

Agreed, the tech tree was terrible in vanilla. This is one aspect of the game that was much improved in G+K. Beelining is nowhere near as easy as it used to be, and it's generally more complex and branching out. Is it better or worse than the one in 4 now? I don't know, but it certainly is a huge improvement over vanilla. The vanilla tree made me quit the game. The new one made me come back.

You repeat an argument yet again. Hexes are by default better than squares, your 6 vs 8 comparison is completely bogus. The way diagonals were always the best way to move when exploring was idiotic and most certainly not deep, and now strategic placement of troops on the map has a much bigger influence because of hexes. It's done the game nothing but good, even most CiV naysayers agree about that. Unit stacking I can hardly regard as "deep". Both systems have their ups and downs, and while nothing beats building a well balanced and thought-out stack, the tactical combat system in CiV is in fact very deep and rewarding, with correct unit placement, tactical formations, zones of control etc.

No, it doesn't. The only thing you came up with is Anarchy, that's it. You also repeated two of your arguments twice, which makes me question how long that list of yours is.

EDIT: The funny thing is I CAN come up with several arguments that CiV has been "dumbed down" and I was honestly waiting for someone to come up with them. No luck so far And for the record, i can also come up with several arguments that support the notion that CiV is NOT dumbed down, some things that it better than 4.

Your arrogance is galling. There have been numerous, long thread where people with many years of experience detailed the problems with Civ 5. The scale is wrong for tactical combat; it distorted the production system; and the AI is objectively terrible at dealing with it. Furthermore, all of these things were completely predictable. Games with "good" tactical AI tend to have systems with little terrain or maps that they are hard-coded to perform well on. There are many ways of dealing with a system that has too many military units, like Civ 4: you can make maintaining large armies very expensive; you can introduce manpower limits; you can have limited stacks (which is a popular genre of solutions and lends itself better to AIs.) Instead the game design is built around a dogmatic concept - no stacking - even in a game on a grand strategic scale.

The game system had a series of "peaceful" victory conditions that Civ 5 wrecked - the joke of the current diplomatic system, or the way that people declare war on you when they think you're "trying to win in the same way that they are", or if you're too close to building a spaceship, or whatever. This utterly warps the entire purpose of these alternatives - and points to how the designer obviously wanted a wargame. They could have designed clever ways to make a pure space race competitive without warfare. Or they could have added actually important things, like valuable foreign trade, and war weariness - both of which were cut because, in the words of the designer, they "weren't fun." Nope.

Now if you really want to walk down that particular garden path, there were numerous threads on release detailing all of these problems, and more. Explain why Tom Chick, and Sullla, and numerous other detailed critiques of the game were wrong and you know better. Most of us simply abandoned the forums when it was obvious that the game was a failure, and we're looking to see if they redeem themselves in a future version. But your assertions don't stand up against either my own experience or that of people with a lot of standing in this forum and whose opinions I respect.

 

[Andulias]

Your arrogance is galling. There have been numerous, long thread where people with many years of experience detailed the problems with Civ 5. The scale is wrong for tactical combat; it distorted the production system; and the AI is objectively terrible at dealing with it. Furthermore, all of these things were completely predictable. Games with "good" tactical AI tend to have systems with little terrain or maps that they are hard-coded to perform well on. There are many ways of dealing with a system that has too many military units, like Civ 4: you can make maintaining large armies very expensive; you can introduce manpower limits; you can have limited stacks (which is a popular genre of solutions and lends itself better to AIs.) Instead the game design is built around a dogmatic concept - no stacking - even in a game on a grand strategic scale.

The game system had a series of "peaceful" victory conditions that Civ 5 wrecked - the joke of the current diplomatic system, or the way that people declare war on you when they think you're "trying to win in the same way that they are", or if you're too close to building a spaceship, or whatever. This utterly warps the entire purpose of these alternatives - and points to how the designer obviously wanted a wargame. They could have designed clever ways to make a pure space race competitive without warfare. Or they could have added actually important things, like valuable foreign trade, and war weariness - both of which were cut because, in the words of the designer, they "weren't fun." Nope.

Now if you really want to walk down that particular garden path, there were numerous threads on release detailing all of these problems, and more. Explain why Tom Chick, and Sullla, and numerous other detailed critiques of the game were wrong and you know better. Most of us simply abandoned the forums when it was obvious that the game was a failure, and we're looking to see if they redeem themselves in a future version. But your assertions don't stand up against either my own experience or that of people with a lot of standing in this forum and whose opinions I respect.

I really don't want to write another long post, so I'm just going to say this.

1. I was disappointed with CiV at launch as well.
2. Almost everything you said isn't valid as of now. There isn't any "trying to win in the same way that they are" modifier, the actual current diplomatic system is pretty good in my opinion, and it is in fact maybe even too easy to make friends; the "distortion" of the production system (I am assuming you are talking about what Sulla said in his post) is long gone, with production now sped up while research has been slowed down; the growth algorithm has been changed; the AI has been noticeably improved and actually knows how to position its units (melee upfront, archer on the back). The scale is a matter of a personal opinion - some people don't mind the way it is now, some do, it's NOT an actual design issue, it's personal taste. I personally feel more excited when I see a carpet of doom than a single unit, which when moused over reveals it's in fact a SOD, but that's just me.

Sorry if I came across as arrogant (and you come across as if you want to strangle me), but this is precisely what I was talking about - people either go on about 1UPT and scale (which is a matter of taste, not a flaw), or they come up with issues the game had an year and a half ago. Yes, at launch V had every problem you just listed. At launch.

But you can keep dismissing my opinion of course, since I haven't had an active account for a decade and haven't worked on CIV, so I obviously am a moron who has never played any other Civ game. You can keep waiting for a magical CIVI that will make all your dreams come true. Meanwhile, a lot of people who were disappointed with V at launch have been coming back and seem to be rather happy with the expansion. But of course, this is the rants thread, you can just ignore the expansion and keep ranting

EDIT 1: I do wish foreign trade routes and war weariness were in the game though. Not much of a big deal, but still.
EDIT 2: Tom Chick is a moron. I read his review of G+K, criticized it in the comments about ignoring a lot of the changes, he responded with "that sounds very interesting, too bad it's not that transparent" (?!), and never replied again. But then again, what do you expect from a guy who complains about CiV having "big, messy numbers", unlike the elegant tight numbers in 4 (note: I am at the end of a CIV game right now, I'm hardly a pro, but my capital alone is making 615 beakers per turn at Emperor). So you keep quoting that guy, seemingly one of the 7 people on Earth who hate Deus Ex. Because of technical issues... And a bad main plot

 

[Buttercup]

Why isn't this thread a sticky?

I think it's earned the right...

 

[Esoteric Arcane]

First off my hatred for uu and UA is personal taste, hex vs square far less care between the two, still feel it was throwing a bone to hex players.

The 1upt vs size of a world map AND removing the spider web roads. Flaw.

On another flaw of the game. Civ2 Civ3 there was a balance between war and peace. Democracy, you basically had to play peaceful til later techs, but you got a boost in economy and tech. Fundementalism was a warmongers perfect government. But huge slowdown on tech. Communism was a bit between. Civics in 4 tried (failed mind) to give more of a tweak to the empire while keeping the balance. Civ 5, your empire will get stronger units the more you fight. No amount of peace will protect you green units from a carpet experienced steam roll. No negative effect for continous war in game, to date. Perhaps a balance would of been the longer your at peace, the faster your able to research techs. Who knows, but the policy system was a strange way to go away from classic Civ.

 

[Lone Wolf]

forcing anarchy, between government types, which means your cities might revolt and leave your empire.

True enough. Cities couldn't revolt until BTS though, don't forget that.

Cities revolted and flipped in Civ Vanilla and BTS. Their flips didn't have much to do with the relatively few turns of anarchy you spend in each game. They were cultural flips.

In Civ 1-2 your cities didn't revolt and leave your empire. In civ3, they did, but again, they were cultural flips that had nothing to do with anarchy.

 

[rezaf]

Wasn't there some sort of revolt mechanic all the way back in Civ1, though?
Iirc it only happened on the higher difficulties, but civilizations facing a longer period of turmoil could actually split in half, forming a new Civ from the revolters.
This only worked if there were less than seven players in the game and could have somewhat silly results (the german revolters could end up as the Zulu, for example), but it was there.
_____
rezaf

 

[Ataleimas]

Hello new member to forums,

Since this is the most current thread i saw and knowing my reasoning for looking through i saw no info what i was looking for and should point out im new to Civ-V but not new to the topic. Instead of trying to discuss what someone would be looking for here which would be info on Civ-V problems/deterrents of why a player would chose one version over another most the posts about the topic are so long and off base that im leaving my comment to just a rant

lol, from what i read is most the rants are about civ-v being bad for unknown reasoning where people point out whats missing and the news is a lot if you compare the versions next to each other but looking outside the box one person mentioned internet, hes probably right since that's how i see civ-v turned out to be aimed at multi-player to compete but (omg) however is discussing such games like Oblivion,mine-craft etc is way off.

Not even turned based games, like civilization pioneered and is only TBS on the market so ill start there, its a good place to start saying and defining whats missing and what civilization is /(now) was.

Im all about turn based games and growing up in the 1980's guessing i have some experience which reminds me of someone mentioning simcity, still not even close to this genre, still his point was sitting hours and days building ,

(keep in mind building only not conquering or competing with todays fast paced RTS games which rule the market) and not seeing the depth. What depth in any of these examples and other non-TBS games have to do with a TBS game!

Finally getting to where i say whats missing from civilization is a lot and need to try comparing civilization to its predecessors . I will start the discussion there with everything above and more of what i didnt read because im not digging through 97 pages of mis-guided information as a forum wardrobe malfunction

so nuke that noise like the icon says

ill give 1 example to state my thought and that is

Romance Series. RoTTK ( romance of the three kingdoms) is a line of games that isnt dead an i dont care how long out of circulation a person is cant miss it if you actually bought civilization .... (dot) any of them!

Look at it and every other TBS like ill go way back Genghis Khan or nobunaga's ambition oh ya! if you clicked the link let me point out the box cover, scary and intimidating isn't it.

Both those games and many other i didn't mention carry whats missing and there is way to much to say but this, they all carry border wars, the player must allocate resources to raise a capable military force, provide a productive economy to support both military and civilian expansion, Diplomatic and get this when you battle which is all civilization is as a whole game is hex map battles, most is diplomatic
. These example and where they lead walk a fine line until you realize and research the 2010+ versions and look at the added city builders and what Koie did, yes all costs money and food except, have to say a way better system of managing it nad i dont have to wait to get a great general

Not to say the added generals and warlords where bad in fact i loved how the worked and non of the content was ment to be fact based like a lot of people in this thread like to throw around as a civilization mechanic that dosnt make senese. Its a game, get over it its not fact just uses known pieces of history.

Never hear any compliants about other games like, "that games lame no one can spider jump 4 buildings and live. Thats just unreal" ... (dot) nuke that noise too.

New version of RoTTK 15 took me 2 months just to learn and allows buildings in a stand alone city builder,

Im just a fan of those series lines but for what anyone looking to say they need a closer exaple its simple to just link the origins HERE 4X games

but what comes to mind is command and conquer boo! How about this community tried Dune

How about Dune II
i know those are RTS's ok how about FreeCol that one free OS(open sourced)
OK, that one is a clone, hmm uh oh how about

Master of Orion I,II, or III carry all the elements of civilization, but saying civilization is alone, think not. But those carry what civilization does or try's to do.

here is something lacking in civilization Barricades - Forts and defensive structures loss functionality soon as enemy goes around them easy to avoid and limited to 1 choice, how about some traps or even better ambush's or HIDDEN units like spy's in civ-4

But just looking at my stand point of the competitors that someone says dont exsist or civilization is in its own genre are mistaken big time

Civ-5 is Way to graphical for TBS , the taxing system requirements and eating 8GB out of 12GB says so , almost through trying to make civ-5 a game i will play honestly.

The question shouldn't be whats wrong, it should be what isn't wrong for being a TBS which even 30 years ago people knew a TBS couldn't look as good as said (button masher) games, but here it is and i think here it lays to rest.

The 4X link is key, thinking the game is getting dumb down as said shouldn't be the thought, im just glad i was educated in a much simpler time where need information about a subject isn't lost or garbled . A lot is aimed at what the company wants a person to see and that's just not what its about its about the 4X engine platform these games are run on.

Shouldn't be a matter of looking at whats been taken out an added, what should be looked at is could the game even perform what people wanted and that should answer a lot of why's to what been taken out because its all to much for this type game to run if looking for a answer to something is different. There is a lot company's don't mention , its falsely marketed as plain as the recommended sys req's on the side of the box and its hard to return DL down loadable content but that's not news to me, people already want DL content to go an i agree, i say let company's go under and become Abandonware and lets keep the running list going i say.

Hope i have enlightened someone an some of this information helps and believe me if the games slow now, it will take what its always took for games pushing like this to run correctly , and thats years before the public can afford it. Anyways thats my rant on this one so far.

Feel free to add to it

 

[Songkok]

There was was a fair amount of tactics in CIV as well to the point where a civ with a significantly lower production can win a fight against a much bigger, even more advanced foe. It was a different kind of tactics, the emphasis was on what to put in your stack, in what composition and how many of each type of units. I have seen small under-performing civs win against much bigger ones precisely because of stack composition,

That is what is called STRATEGY. Not TACTICS.

terrain advantages and other variables.

-> TACTICS.

The big difference between IV and V in that regard is that stack composition

-> STRATEGY

has been replaced with formations and more emphasis has been put on unit placement. Does that make combat more complex?

-> TACTICS.

About civics - having a +1 happiness for every unit hardly made me feel like a king, to me all the civics are and will always be just a list of interchangeable bonuses. Like I mentioned in a previous post, role-playing for me was already dead in CIV.

It is more like the Monarch is using Armies to suppress angry population. If you cant work this out, i guess you NEVER role-played at all.

They do have depth ... So put in such a perspective, I find SPs just as good/bad as civics.

Social Policies are accumulative benefits. It is a tech/skill tree of starcraft/diablo. and have about the same depth.

On reviews: ... but mostly I rely on my gut.

You are right on this. each person should decides for themselves what they like or dun like.

Uhuh. I bet MineCraft is so popular exactly because of aaaaaaall the crazy action. And I know why the ANNO series, that still is a complex city-building game, has been selling so well, while the Settlers series, which has been focused more on war for too many years, hasn't been doing so well lately. Or why Dragon Age: Origins sold more than twice as many copies as Dragon Age 2, even though it was a new IP. Or why PI games sell more and more every year. Or why CiV is consistently in the top 10 most played games on Steam, CIV never leaves the top 100, but Warlock, a game that's much more combat focused than any Civ, isn't even on the list, even though it came out only a couple of months ago.

I believe the Most POPULAR game is FARMVILLE. GO FIGURES.

 

[Drakarska]

Hello new member to forums,

Welcome to the forums. I'm guessing English is not your native language, so please don't take the following replies as insults.

Since this is the most current thread i saw and knowing my reasoning for looking through i saw no info what i was looking for and should point out im new to Civ-V but not new to the topic

Perhaps if you mentioned what you were looking for, some of us may be able to assist you?

Instead of trying to discuss what someone would be looking for here which would be info on Civ-V problems/deterrents of why a player would chose one version over another most the posts about the topic are so long and off base that im leaving my comment to just a rant

Um, for the most part, it's not about choosing one over the other, it's about what's irritating us about Civ V. As for being long and off base, maybe you should read some of the pages that you've casually dismissed and find out that there are quite a few valid arguements.

lol, from what i read is most the rants are about civ-v being bad for unknown reasoning where people point out whats missing and the news is a lot if you compare the versions next to each other but looking outside the box one person mentioned internet, hes probably right since that's how i see civ-v turned out to be aimed at multi-player to compete but (omg) however is discussing such games like Oblivion,mine-craft etc is way off.

Incorrect. A lot of the reasons are know, and well stated in this very thread.

Not even turned based games, like civilization pioneered and is only TBS on the market so ill start there, its a good place to start saying and defining whats missing and what civilization is /(now) was.

Interesting assertation. However, Civ is not the only TBS on the market. There are actually quite a few TBS games currently on the market, and some of them are even discussed in this very thread

Im all about turn based games and growing up in the 1980's guessing i have some experience which reminds me of someone mentioning simcity, still not even close to this genre, still his point was sitting hours and days building ,

Agreed, the 1 more turn syndrome was of epic proportions. Thank the gods for Civ Anonymos!

(keep in mind building only not conquering or competing with todays fast paced RTS games which rule the market) and not seeing the depth. What depth in any of these examples and other non-TBS games have to do with a TBS game!

Not exactly sure what your trying to say here. RTS and TBS are different systems, although the basic premise is the same.

Finally getting to where i say whats missing from civilization is a lot and need to try comparing civilization to its predecessors . I will start the discussion there with everything above and more of what i didnt read because im not digging through 97 pages of mis-guided information as a forum wardrobe malfunction

Again, perhaps digging through these 97 pgs may assist you with your current quandry. As for mis-guided information, perhaps you could substantiate your thesis with some facts? Oh, and I happen to like my duck slippers, so leave my wardrobe out of this

so nuke that noise like the icon says

ill give 1 example to state my thought and that is

Romance Series. RoTTK ( romance of the three kingdoms) is a line of games that isnt dead an i dont care how long out of circulation a person is cant miss it if you actually bought civilization .... (dot) any of them!

Great series, love some better than others, but still great.

Look at it and every other TBS like ill go way back Genghis Khan or nobunaga's ambition oh ya! if you clicked the link let me point out the box cover, scary and intimidating isn't it.

Again, good games.

Both those games and many other i didn't mention carry whats missing and there is way to much to say but this, they all carry border wars, the player must allocate resources to raise a capable military force, provide a productive economy to support both military and civilian expansion, Diplomatic and get this when you battle which is all civilization is as a whole game is hex map battles, most is diplomatic
. These example and where they lead walk a fine line until you realize and research the 2010+ versions and look at the added city builders and what Koie did, yes all costs money and food except, have to say a way better system of managing it nad i dont have to wait to get a great general

All of which Civ V blew chunks at, hence the 97 page rant thread.

Not to say the added generals and warlords where bad in fact i loved how the worked and non of the content was ment to be fact based like a lot of people in this thread like to throw around as a civilization mechanic that dosnt make senese. Its a game, get over it its not fact just uses known pieces of history.

I'm a bit confused here. Are you saying people who've spent a great deal of time and research, perfecting there games and posting reviews to assist other civ fanatics, all of a sudden don't know anything and should just get over it? A little clarification would be appreciated please.

Never hear any compliants about other games like, "that games lame no one can spider jump 4 buildings and live. Thats just unreal" ... (dot) nuke that noise too.

Perhaps you've haven't really looked that deeply into a lot of game forums. May I suggest you take a peek and revise your statement?

New version of RoTTK 15 took me 2 months just to learn and allows buildings in a stand alone city builder,

Um, just for amusement value and a helpful learning experiance for you, perhaps you should take a quick peek at there forums and find out some interesting tidbits.

Im just a fan of those series lines but for what anyone looking to say they need a closer exaple its simple to just link the origins HERE 4X games

but what comes to mind is command and conquer boo! How about this community tried Dune

you'll find that quite a few members of this community has a vast experiance with a myriad array of games.

How about Dune II
i know those are RTS's ok how about FreeCol that one free OS(open sourced)
OK, that one is a clone, hmm uh oh how about

Good OS game. Try Civ- Evo, it'll make you improve your game big time.

Master of Orion I,II, or III carry all the elements of civilization, but saying civilization is alone, think not. But those carry what civilization does or try's to do.

here is something lacking in civilization Barricades - Forts and defensive structures loss functionality soon as enemy goes around them easy to avoid and limited to 1 choice, how about some traps or even better ambush's or HIDDEN units like spy's in civ-4

Civ III had forts I believe, Civ IV has walls and castles. Several mods do some interesting work as well. I really like your ambush idea though. Reminds me of Partiesians in Civ II.

But just looking at my stand point of the competitors that someone says dont exsist or civilization is in its own genre are mistaken big time

Civ-5 is Way to graphical for TBS , the taxing system requirements and eating 8GB out of 12GB says so , almost through trying to make civ-5 a game i will play honestly.

Agree with you here. Corporate greed at it's finest.


The question shouldn't be whats wrong, it should be what isn't wrong for being a TBS which even 30 years ago people knew a TBS couldn't look as good as said (button masher) games, but here it is and i think here it lays to rest.

A TBS can look great, it just doesn't need mass computer power dedicated to graphics alone. Disagree about it being laid to rest. But hey, it's your rant

The 4X link is key, thinking the game is getting dumb down as said shouldn't be the thought, im just glad i was educated in a much simpler time where need information about a subject isn't lost or garbled . A lot is aimed at what the company wants a person to see and that's just not what its about its about the 4X engine platform these games are run on.

Um, HUH? that's one of the main issues in this thread. As for the company, it cares more about it's profit margin than the customer.

Shouldn't be a matter of looking at whats been taken out an added, what should be looked at is could the game even perform what people wanted and that should answer a lot of why's to what been taken out because its all to much for this type game to run if looking for a answer to something is different. There is a lot company's don't mention , its falsely marketed as plain as the recommended sys req's on the side of the box and its hard to return DL down loadable content but that's not news to me, people already want DL content to go an i agree, i say let company's go under and become Abandonware and lets keep the running list going i say.

Welcome to 2k's sloppy wet kiss to it's fans

Hope i have enlightened someone an some of this information helps and believe me if the games slow now, it will take what its always took for games pushing like this to run correctly , and thats years before the public can afford it. Anyways thats my rant on this one so far.

Feel free to add to it

Appreciate your rant, and thank you for allowing me to add to it.

 

[Andulias]

That is what is called STRATEGY. Not TACTICS.


-> TACTICS.


-> STRATEGY


-> TACTICS.

Randomly screaming TACTICS and STRATEGY doesn't make my arguments go away.

It is more like the Monarch is using Armies to suppress angry population. If you cant work this out, i guess you NEVER role-played at all.

I did in 2. I never do in IV, already said why. A lousy little happiness bonus doesn't make me feel any more of a monarch than the bonus from Representation for instance. Not to mention hardly every monarch needed to suppress the population. If you want to see how different types of governments should influence gameplay, take a look at Civ 2. Those were amazing for role-playing. Just some bonus happiness, while sometimes very important from a gameplay perspective, is NOT.

Social Policies are accumulative benefits. It is a tech/skill tree of starcraft/diablo. and have about the same depth.

What skill tree in StarCraft exactly? I already explained the benefits of SPs, you address none of those. And I could definitely argue that the skill system in Diablo has a lot of depth. Not complexity, but certainly depth.

You are right on this. each person should decides for themselves what they like or dun like.
I believe the Most POPULAR game is FARMVILLE. GO FIGURES.

No, it's Solitaire. You missed my point.

 

[Funky]

@Songkok: Thanks for replying to Andulias on my behalf. You put in a few words what I would have needed several paragraphs for.

Just briefly on the "fanboy" vs "hater" user review topic: If the "haters" generally outnumber the "fanboys" so greatly on user review platforms, as you (Andulias) suggest, then why do games like Crusader Kings 2 (extremely inaccessable at first, seemingly boring to those fond of more action and basically no graphics (= reasons to hate)) get an average of 8.5/10 on metacritic and 4.4/5 on Amazon? Why does Skyrim (that arguably "dumbed down" the Oblivion skill system and as a blockbuster would seem to attract many haters) get an 8.1 and a 4.5, respectively? Perhaps because they are good games? Could the reason that Civ 5 attracts more haters than fanboys (your premise) be that it is simply not good? Just a thought.

Otherwise I agree of course, everyone is different, and ultimately we have to decide on our own if we want to give a game a shot. User reviews can help greatly with the decision-making though. I have found the average ratings to be astonishingly close to my own evaluation of games. But maybe I'm just too much an average guy.