Civilization 5 Rants Thread

i swear everyones watched that recently...

Classic movie. I loved the first two. :D

Somehow, the sequels after that weren't quite as good for some reason.

New artistic direction or something. Sounds familiar now that I think about it. ;)
 
Civ used to be, and always should have been a God game. You are the God, and are basically getting the thrill from recreating man's alternative history, albeit from a single nation's point of view. This concept seemed to be entirely misunderstood by Civ V's creators.
Someone mentioned the ais going for a particular victory type from the very first turn. This is such a bad idea, even in the most basic concept. Nevermind that most players have no idea what victory they may be persuing for quite a while in a game, that really shouldn't ever be what Civ is about. Chess yes, Formula 1 yes, Football yes, Civ no.

Have ai nations decide on a "victory" path, in what should be a computerised game of life, is as redundant as deciding that your new born son is going to be an NFL QB and absolutely nothing else whatever (unless your family name is Manning ;)) or your 3hr old baby daughter is going to be President of The USA, and nothing else will do....

A game in which your opponent isn't really trying to win is much less fun, IMO.

The main problem with Civ5 is that the computer is theoretically trying to win, but is so incompetent and horrible at it that it doesn't improve things.
 
But does it make any sense that you should have to have a good CPU to run a game of this kind?
Feels to me like the turns are way to slow to account for what the CPU is processing during the AI´s turn.
And pan-ing around the map is quite horrible, for me at least, why should that be so hard?

I´m gonna try to take some AI´s of my standard Earth map to see if it will make any difference. But I thought in the beginning that the number of Civ´s would not be such a big factor, since the size of the map would eventually dictate the number of units on the map.

I´m no computer or programming expert, but from what feed back I´ve gotten from friends of mine, that are, they say that this production is poorly made. Even tho it might becoming better with time, its core might still be a bottleneck.

It would be nice to get an opinion from somebody with experience from programming about this game and its running regardless of computer quality.

Now I´m also getting around 10 errors when I start my Scenario Editor, this started after last patch. Is that a sign of sloppy production. :P

Best regards.
 
Or it's a sign you don't know how to make scenarios.

In any case, this is not a new thing. Both the number of civilizations and the size of the map plays into how the game runs.
 
Here is my CPU specs, for anyone interested.
MS Win XP Pro SP3
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
3Gig RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT
 
Or it's a sign you don't know how to make scenarios.

In any case, this is not a new thing. Both the number of civilizations and the size of the map plays into how the game runs.

I´m not making any scenarios, just opening the program.

I could guess that they both factor into how the games runs, but to what a degree.
 
I don't think you really understand computers.

Here is my CPU specs, for anyone interested.
MS Win XP Pro SP3
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
3Gig RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT

You know the 9400 isn't even supported? I mean it works, I have the same card, but it's under requirements I think.

Crosspost with ori.
 
Here is my CPU specs, for anyone interested.
MS Win XP Pro SP3
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
3Gig RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT

Not to sound too obvious but are you up to date with your graphics card drivers. Maybe write in tech support? I and many others have no problems running the game but I'm on Windows 7 and DivX11. That might be one factor.
 
Perhaps that is the problem.
My XP just supports DirectX 9 and not 10 or 11 like Win 7.
 
New Rant Time

I can understand and forgive the tactical AI not being top-of-the-line yet. After all, it's a new system. What I can't forgive is just how broken the Diplomacy AI is still. There's a difference between playing like a human, like a computer, and like a player. The problem with Civilization V is that the AI tries to be all three at once and fails. The AI is unpredictable which wouldn't be a problem if it could at least be consistent some of the time. It fails to play like a player for obvious reasons. The AI should never play like a player.

And it fails to play like a human unless humans are known to make nothing but mistakes, such as declaring war with a friendly nation four times your strength. This can work sometimes but because the tactical AI isn't up to speed yet, it can't even make short-term gains. I would forgive an AI that declares on a nation four times it strength if it had a set goal and had the means and plan to reach it. For instance, if the goal is to take a lightly-defended city, it should already have the force prepared to swoop in and take the city. The army shouldn't still be in transit or, worst, haven't even mobilized yet.

Half the time, it seems as if the AI is declaring war just because you're doing well and doesn't even come up with a goal to do this.
Ruthless AI

The ultimate challenge. Ruthless AI removes any human aspects from the AI, making them cold, calculating, and cunning. The AI will expand strategically into nearby targets, destroy threats, and use diplomacy to it's advantage. Watch small border conflicts flare up into International conflicts, with the entire world arrayed against you.

This is the Ruthless AI from A New Dawn, a mod made by, of course, a CivIV modder. Ironically, by taking away the pseudo-emotion of the AI, the AI didn't become so much a cold, calculating monster but human-ish or at least, a very decent player. The AI took into account the size of your military and operated with a sense of Realpolitick. The AI hated you when you declared war on a friend which is far different from the CivV AI which hates you for defending yourself. In many ways, the Ruthless AI is what the CivV AI tries to be and it fails in a spectacular fashion.

The AI was smart enough to properly gang up on you and it was smart enough to see when it was better to be a reliable friend. The AI was aggressive but not suicidal. The CivV diplomacy AI just proves just how badly the devs need to release the source to modders.
 
New Rant Time

I can understand and forgive the tactical AI not being top-of-the-line yet. After all, it's a new system. What I can't forgive is just how broken the Diplomacy AI is still. There's a difference between playing like a human, like a computer, and like a player. The problem with Civilization V is that the AI tries to be all three at once and fails. The AI is unpredictable which wouldn't be a problem if it could at least be consistent some of the time. It fails to play like a player for obvious reasons. The AI should never play like a player.

And it fails to play like a human unless humans are known to make nothing but mistakes, such as declaring war with a friendly nation four times your strength. This can work sometimes but because the tactical AI isn't up to speed yet, it can't even make short-term gains. I would forgive an AI that declares on a nation four times it strength if it had a set goal and had the means and plan to reach it. For instance, if the goal is to take a lightly-defended city, it should already have the force prepared to swoop in and take the city. The army shouldn't still be in transit or, worst, haven't even mobilized yet.

Half the time, it seems as if the AI is declaring war just because you're doing well and doesn't even come up with a goal to do this.


This is the Ruthless AI from A New Dawn, a mod made by, of course, a CivIV modder. Ironically, by taking away the pseudo-emotion of the AI, the AI didn't become so much a cold, calculating monster but human-ish or at least, a very decent player. The AI took into account the size of your military and operated with a sense of Realpolitick. The AI hated you when you declared war on a friend which is far different from the CivV AI which hates you for defending yourself. In many ways, the Ruthless AI is what the CivV AI tries to be and it fails in a spectacular fashion.

The AI was smart enough to properly gang up on you and it was smart enough to see when it was better to be a reliable friend. The AI was aggressive but not suicidal. The CivV diplomacy AI just proves just how badly the devs need to release the source to modders.

Good post. :goodjob:

The truly sad thing is that Soren Johnson had to fight tooth and nail with 2k Games in order to get the code released for cIV. 2K Games said there were legal issues.

So, I highly, highly doubt that they'll be able to do it this time. 2K Games and Firaxis want to cash in on DLC and releasing the code would put a huge dent in that.

Looks like we are at the whim of Firaxis and 2K Games. :sad:
 
Oh my, I remember clashes with you Sonereal shortly after release, you were alongside Charon battling us disappointed farts :D

The saddest thing is that I don't really care anymore. At all. Didn't even start a new game after the latest patch release. I'm reading books (Game Of Thrones atm), re-playing Fallout 2 (had a great game on Emperor in Civ4 too recently) and occasionally drop here to read few random threads.

I'm too old it seems. But it always baffles me how come that there's noone out there in the gaming market aiming for the old gamer audience. I know that we're an ungrateful bunch that's not eating cheap pile of crap so willingly as the youth but come on, anyone?
 
Oh my, I remember clashes with you Sonereal shortly after release, you were alongside Charon battling us disappointed farts :D
Funny how, after time, he seems to be on the other side of the fence, isn't it?

How is this junk game after the latest patch?
 
The saddest thing is that I don't really care anymore. At all. Didn't even start a new game after the latest patch release. I'm reading books (Game Of Thrones atm), re-playing Fallout 2 (had a great game on Emperor in Civ4 too recently) and occasionally drop here to read few random threads.

I'm too old it seems. But it always baffles me how come that there's noone out there in the gaming market aiming for the old gamer audience. I know that we're an ungrateful bunch that's not eating cheap pile of crap so willingly as the youth but come on, anyone?

This ^^^^^

This is exactly how I feel today and not just with Civilization V. Well put, Sir. :)
 
Funny how, after time, he seems to be on the other side of the fence, isn't it?

How is this junk game after the latest patch?

IMO it's worse now. The second latest patch was a major improvement, but with the latest patch they took a wrong direction again. Happiness is now PITA, AI is more aggressive while it was too aggressive already before the patch, strange changes to wonders (some have been made overpowered, some nerfed to useless), fewer starting options thanks to nerfed wonders/SP/Happiness and overaggressive AI...
 
IMO it's worse now. The second latest patch was a major improvement, but with the latest patch they took a wrong direction again. Happiness is now PITA, AI is more aggressive while it was too aggressive already before the patch, strange changes to wonders (some have been made overpowered, some nerfed to useless), fewer starting options thanks to nerfed wonders/SP/Happiness and overaggressive AI...


Who really is in charge of Civilization 5 now? Since Jon Shafer left, have they promoted anyone to be lead designer or is it design by committee?

It just feels like a rudderless ship. :sad:
 
Who really is in charge of Civilization 5 now? Since Jon Shafer left, have they promoted anyone to be lead designer or is it design by committee?

It just feels like a rudderless ship. :sad:

All good Civ designers end up in casual land of facebook. Reynolds is there, Sid is there... Don't know about Soren Johnson. Maybe he could save this sinking ship. But i highly doubt he would return to Firaxis.
 
All good Civ designers end up in casual land of facebook. Reynolds is there, Sid is there... Don't know about Soren Johnson. Maybe he could save this sinking ship. But i highly doubt he would return to Firaxis.

Soren Johnson seems to be doing the same sort of thing unfortunately. :sad:
My current game, Dragon Age Legends, was released last month. I wrote the following post as designer notes on the upcoming guild system.

One of the design goals of Dragon Age Legends is to have meaningful social mechanics. Many social game are social only in the sense that they use the player’s social graph to help spread the game virally through her network – by encouraging the player to invite her friends as neighbors to grow her farm, for example, or trading items with one another through the gifting system to finish a building. While these mechanics help grow a social game’s visibility, they don’t necessarily make the actual experience of playing the game more fun.

http://www.designer-notes.com/
 
As much as I hate to admit there will probably in the future ... in the next 5-10 years or less

1: Console Games
2: Mobile Games
3: Social Network Games

PC Games will be reduced to a niche market, if not already.

OOC: So what I might do is buy the best video card I can for my PC, upgrade the RAM to 24 GB and the CPU to a core i7 970 and make my PC last as long as possible.
 
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