Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[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.

 

[Funky]

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

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.

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.

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

Edit: Andulias, he is right though about the distinction of strategy and tactics. And, for that matter, about civics too, which in civ 4 have very characteristic features. I won't go through the list now, but every civic effect is logical and what you would expect from it, and about as far from "interchangable" (as you said further up) as it gets.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Reminder, this is NOT a discussion thread. Everyone who wants to discuss about any of the rants in here should do this elsewhere and open a thread about it.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Edit: Andulias, he is right though about the distinction of strategy and tactics.

No he isn't. Tactic and strategy are synonymous. They are the same. It's only here on Civfanatics that some make the distinction. But I know what you talk about here. However, you can talk equally of strategy when speaking about units placements, and use the term tactic when talking about gran scale decisions.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Reminder, this is NOT a discussion thread. Everyone who wants to discuss about any of the rants in here should do this elsewhere and open a thread about it.

Moderator Action: 3 posts deleted, because they didn't follow this warning.

 

[Lone Wolf]

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.

They usually splitted in two when their capital was captured. As simple as that.

 

[Ataleimas]

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

My pleasure ,

Just to point out this was just a rant and origanal topic started was about how confussing and long a thread like this would become.

Yes im English, plz check profile
Yes i own all Sid-Meir stuff plz check profile

The fact was based on the original topic and don't see why anyone would dig any further then 20 pages to see that this is just a rant thread. So don't get down on me for not digging through 97 pages of complaints and griefs or try to have anyone expect to find any real value in them. Just FYI. Plus this thread has special rules, the adding to my rant might be a way around it but who knows, its scary just posting this that doesn't seem like a rant which i will turn into another one cont. the other

Why point out why im wrong when there is no arguing facts which i clearly defined as false marketing and information given to consumers for the newer Civ-V. It should have come with a warning stating, your machine WILL melt if you try to run it below THESE specs.

End of story.

There are major reasons why 4X games run what they do and it begins with massive calculations and adding this much graphical content and saying it is ready for public release is just down right rushed There are grey area's when software is released and thats what determines the specifications to run it and its false. Running the game without problems is one thing.

Civ-V barly running using the recommended and with many crash's and problems is another.

This is with Medium settings, and who wants a game they cant really see or play unless they do something to it, which im not going into details of what i had to do to just get the game running at medium settings, which is still slow in some parts and with AI crash's well, nuff said.
That should be labeled on the box as well, AI will sometimes crash and burn forcing restart but i found non of this information when looking to get the game and by the time anyone finds a forum like this, its too late. Abandon-ware all the way.

Didn't see you add anything to DL Content , or how bad it is, and messed up it is when they force unspecified patch's that change half the game/software package.

Civ-V gets a for making go through this and a BIG THUMBS DOWN

 

[Drakarska]

My pleasure ,

Just to point out this was just a rant and origanal topic started was about how confussing and long a thread like this would become.

Yes im English, plz check profile
Yes i own all Sid-Meir stuff plz check profile

The fact was based on the original topic and don't see why anyone would dig any further then 20 pages to see that this is just a rant thread. So don't get down on me for not digging through 97 pages of complaints and griefs or try to have anyone expect to find any real value in them. Just FYI. Plus this thread has special rules, the adding to my rant might be a way around it but who knows, its scary just posting this that doesn't seem like a rant

Not a problem, and your correct. I should have checked your profile first before making the english hypothosis that I previously did. However, at least to me, your grammer and syntax was a bit confusing, but I do apologize.
I am not getting down on you for digging through these pages, I am merely suggesting instead of you blindly dismissing this thread as lacking any value, that you actually take the time and peruse these these pages and perhaps allow that there is some value to them.
Rant: The overall flavor and feel of Civ V, even with the expansion of G&K has basically left me with an overall glaring disappointment that borders on outright hate. The fact that I can actually go to a forum and state this openly without having it deleted or outright banned, gives me some small hope for us little guys who actually have a sense of ethics.

 

[Jayman1000]

This is a Civ V rants thread. We are allowed to rant about Civ V. But are we not allowed to discuss the actual rants here? If not, we must then open a new thread to discuss the rant itself there? Will that not totally undermine the purpose of this whole thread, to keep the Civ V rants in one thread?

 

[Jayman1000]

No he isn't. Tactic and strategy are synonymous. They are the same. It's only here on Civfanatics that some make the distinction. But I know what you talk about here. However, you can talk equally of strategy when speaking about units placements, and use the term tactic when talking about gran scale decisions.

What? Tactic and strategy are not the same... In short it can be said that tactics are the actions that leads to the strategy being executed.

 

[The_J]

It's okay if you want to trash the stuff further, else not.

 

[Ataleimas]

This is a Civ V rants thread. We are allowed to rant about Civ V. But are we not allowed to discuss the actual rants here? If not, we must then open a new thread to discuss the rant itself there? Will that not totally undermine the purpose of this whole thread, to keep the Civ V rants in one thread?

Your right Jayman100, the mods should clarify on more on if this is just a complaint thread or an actual thread used to keep lists of whats wrong and arguments but ya,

It sounds like in order to keep the rants going someone would have to open a new thread about the rant thus creating what cant be created according to the forum rule of this thread.

very confusing, ill try adding in new posts but it might be better to just keep editing the first rant a user posted, but here goes.

My main market comment towards RTS referring to civilization was aimed at saying this is why they created Civ-V to operate the way it does, in order to compete with multiplayer games and actually gain a player base Civ-V need to revamp the whole system , which leads to my next rant which is what i had meant previously just didn't want to write a book!

Multi-player The fact it is almost completely broken, and with no hot-seat in game

(they've claimed since launch it will be patched in eventually, I've heard that one before)
Your only left to face off against the AI who has no idea how to tactically use the new 1upt system.

The 1upt system A major staple in this series which people disliked but never spent time in a actual multiplayer environment would see that ever since multiplayer was (officially) introduced to the series, it has incorporated simultaneous playing. While the game is TBS at heart, for multiplayer there are only a very few die-hard fans who prefer to play that way. That was my real point is only die hard fans played hotseat/ multiplayer and few know the impacts and SoD isn't as bad as its made out and SoD is gone and so is any hope of Civ_V ever becoming a great multiplayer game.

Because against a real opponent the whole SoD tactics used to state its bad wont work or come close to winning and a player just wont plain throw most the army in one area half way around the world. We had promotions that increased collateral damage and a simple artillery stack promoted correctly handled any stack.

Since Civ2 the "stack of doom" has been haunting the series. While the original Civilization had the most effective way to deal with this problem (When the first unit of the stack got attacked, and lost, all units of the stack were gone, unless they were in a fortress). Despite the collateral damage introduced with Civ4, stacks of doom remained of major importance.

Suddenly it matters how you line up your army! You need a mix of everything in the right formation Meaning someone mentioned the feel of the game is gone and this is found in about every post , so the change can make moving large numbers of units feel more like playing an elaborate slide puzzle than executing a tactical offensive. Theres that answer units are blocked in and not saying anymore about having a blocked/sacrificed army because they cant move out the way or even walk through each other. Something Civ-2 fixed preventing whole army loss, now you can just loss your whole army to being blocked in CONGRATS ON THAT ONE, Anyways. Next.

Spy- Elimination of spy's also gone also prevented poor SoD choices and brought the real need for a warlord / great general in play. Especially knowing that your against a real opponent that knows how to use espionage and is checking cities, not like the AI which made poor choices a lot.

I can imagine the troubles this new combat system will introduce for multiplaying. While for the usual single player game the strategical options will be increased, multiplaying may turnout more then ever to be about speed clicking. Who attacks what unit first, but Alas multiplayer is totally broken, the system req's are through the roof and finding a player of equal computing power to play with is <NULL>

 

[The QC]

no hot-seat in game

The Hot Seat option definitely exists now. I don't know if it works very well (I haven't tried it), but it's there.

 

[arcolithe]

automate, automate, automate.

So many times did it try to turn all the farms around my capitals into trading posts, while I was already +260 gpt and Food Focus enabled.

 

[Drakarska]

This is a Civ V rants thread. We are allowed to rant about Civ V. But are we not allowed to discuss the actual rants here? If not, we must then open a new thread to discuss the rant itself there? Will that not totally undermine the purpose of this whole thread, to keep the Civ V rants in one thread?

A little confused myself. Can we get some clarification please? Don't want to overstep any rules here.

 

[Bad Brett]

Something Civ-2 fixed preventing whole army loss, now you can just loss your whole army to being blocked in CONGRATS ON THAT ONE, Anyways. Next.

I'm pretty sure you lost the entire stack in one shot in Civ II, unless the stack was placed in a fort (or a city). This is why you only used mounted units that could be placed out of reach and then use enemy roads to wipe out all defensive forces before they could strike back.

Colonization was actually the first game that included SoD's.

 

[Jayman1000]

I'm pretty sure you lost the entire stack in one shot in Civ II, unless the stack was placed in a fort (or a city). This is why you only used mounted units that could be placed out of reach and then use enemy roads to wipe out all defensive forces before they could strike back.

Colonization was actually the first game that included SoD's.

Colonization, I still remember loading it for the first time on my Amiga... hearing that wonderful title music for the first time. Then immersing my self in the game... ahh those were the days Then I found out you could cheat and edit a lot of stuff. I found out a way I could change player colony country, go into cities and press space to advance the cities production 1 turn, without actually advancing the games turn; thereby making fortresses for all the powers as a special scenario. It now kinda reminds of using the Civ IV Worldbuilder, just in a very early sense.

 

[boredatwork]

Tried giving the game another chance today - for the first time in 6 months. Quickly remembered why I disliked it and decided to uninstall.

IMO Firaxis really missed the boat - 1UPT strategy and Civ could have been brilliant together **IF** they were **both** redesigned from the ground up to complement each other. Instead it seems the game was a result of a half assed copy/paste of a badly butchered PG system into Civ followed by butchering the latter to try and make the former fit. Seriously - you double unit movement, give units ranged bombardment, and tip stacks on their side with 1UPT and it didn't occur to anyone at Firaxis that you would need to increase map tiles relative to the number of cities or the map would be too congested, nullifying much of the rational for switching to 1UPT in the first place?


Here's hoping when Civ6 rolls around they completely ditch Civ5 either do a better job in preliminary design at integrating 1UPT OR if they have neither the time or the talent to do so then go back to the "easy" Civ4.5 option.

In the meantime Firaxis don't count on getting my $30 for Gods and Kings.

 

[gaiko]

They should just ditch 1UPT altogether and bring in limited combined arms stack AND stacked movement ( 1 click stack movement) in any Civ6. That can't possibly be too much to ask in this day and age.

Said as much on another thread on G&K gatling guns:

The existence of Gats is an admission by the G&K developers that the original 1UPT design concept was a mistake. A Gat is basically a 36 strength melee unit stacked with a range unit with the range unit using the melee's strength instead of its own, and with range cut to 1 because you don't need to "shoot over" an intervening hex just because everything is arbitrarily limited to 1UPT. But the range unit (in the Gat case) is definitely "shooting from behind" the melee unit, because it is using the melee unit's strength to defend in the hex it occupies.

The fact that now you can stack 3 different units in a sea hex is another admission of the failure of this design.

Now if they had only effing though of that in the first place! Along with STACKED MOVEMENT, so we can also be done with the tedium of M1UAAT (move one unit at a time). Still gotta move those sea stacks M1UAAT!



Limited stacks. Moving stacks as a single unit. What ingenious concepts!

 

[Bad Brett]

Like I've said over and over again: A game should be about possibilities, not limits.

Were stacks really the problem? I don't think so. I think the problem was that the number of units always exploed in the industrial era. With railroads everywhere, tons of enemy units could show up from seemingly nowhere. The best way to counter this, was probably to build tanks in every single city. Factors such as military upkeep and war weariness weren't problematic in the later eras, which basically turned the game into the infamous dick measuring contest aka "I've got a bigger stack than you".

What's ironic is that while the mechanics have changed, and while the goal was to get rid of the SoD problem, Civ V actually reminds me a lot of the boring modern era wars in Civ IV: Everybody hates everybody, you don't really care about your cities anymore, you don't have to worry about war weariness or the economy and most of the gameplay revolves around moving units.

Great Success! Haha.

Everyone seems to like the idea with limited stacks, but I really dislike these kinds of "rules". When the number of units grow bigger, the problem is still there. Eventually everyone would produce three unit stacks and move them around as a single unit. Sure, you would have the option to switch units, but I somehow believe that would make late era combat even more tedious.

There are so many ways to solve this "problem" without "Shafer limitations".

- Make units more expensive
- Decrease the defense bonus if more than one unit occupies a tile
- Increase colleteral and flanking damage

Instead of setting up these kinds of rules, let there be interesting trade-offs. Maybe you can allow SoD's so you can use them when moving troops around or when you want to protect an important unit, but at the same time, reduce the defensive bonus so that the units in the stack gets weaker. There are tons of interesting options here, but this is basically what I consider good game design. Instead of forcing the player to play a certain way, give him/her several options that can be good or bad depending on the situation.