A day after my highly dissatisfying first experience with Civ5 (see three posts above) I suddenly felt that I may have been too critical of the game and that perhaps I was too negatively biased to enjoy it. Also, I had only seen the beginning stages. So I decided to give it another shot and try to finish one playthrough so I can at least speak about the whole game.
I started a new game (sort of my first real game after my two rather short test games the previous day) and, as in the test games, set the difficulty to emperor (epic speed). This time I played Egypt and went wonder-hogging.
I can't deny that during the game there were some interesting moments. At times I thought that the game isn't all that bad. Without doubt by far the worst civ game ever made, but as a standalone game not compared to other games of the series it seemed sort of decentish. Unfortunately, this feeling died about halfway through.
There were basically three phases. In the first phase I built a few cities and every wonder available (in fact, in the whole game I got every wonder except for one or maybe two. Ok, I had Egypt, but every wonder? On emperor?). The second phase consisted of a big war. Well, I should say big for my opponent, Siam. We both had pretty large empires, however I only produced units in two cities the entire game. My other cities didn't even have barracks. Why? Because it was more than enough. I had already been aware of the terrible AI, but this was just ridiculous. It totally lies beyond my comprehension how anyone in their right mind can enjoy this game with an AI so completely ******** as this one. You know it is simply impossible to lose. Can it be so hard to program the AI so it doesnt move any random unit without support right next to an enemy city, be it a trebuchet, a worker, or a great general? I was shocked at this desastrous AI. And I read that it has been greatly improved by the last patches. WTH? I don't want to know how it was like when the game was released.
So after fending off a a few waves of enemy units without any effort at all, I started to conquer one city after the other, using a handful of units. I could have produced more and beaten him quicker, but the combat was already so tedious and boring. At the end of the war I couldn't stand fighting anymore. Combat was supposed to be one the great improvements over Civ4. Whoever made that claim must have a strange sense of what is fun. It is always the same process: advance units, watch enemy move up next to you, destroy his units, bombard city, conquer city, buy courthouse, move on and repeat. Admittedly, the AI wasn't very good in Civ4 either and the combat process was similar. But at least it could build SoD's when attacking (and thereby actually create a threat), and when defending it would make use of siege weapons to soften up the attacking stack, and all in all it fought in a way that required you to at least think a little about where you put your units.
Anyway, finally the war was won. That's when the third phase started, which was very short. I had double the points of the civ on second place, was leading every graph (except military where I was last), and had seven city states as allies (my AI opponents, despite all having 5.000+ gold, had one at the most). In other words, victory was already mine, after half the game, in my first real game, on emperor. I was clicking through my cities in the next rounds, getting new meaningless buildings and wonders. In this stage I had to force myself to keep playing. I could have gone into a new war, but again a few hours of this tedious AI
<snip>? No thank you. So I built a few more buildings before I finally couldn't take the boredom anymore and quit.
Now to be fair, the game is not unplayable. It is not the most horrible game ever. And during my game there were a few situations where I even had a very slight feeling of the "just one more turn" notion which we all know from the previous Civs. But there is much to much wrong with it to even be able to compare it with other Civs. Building feels meaningless, perhaps because the buildings don't do very much. Same for wonders; I got almost every one but I didn't really care (except maybe for the hanging gardens, which for me seemed the only notable wonder in the game). I suppose buildings
can't do too much, or players would potentially get Carpets of Doom. Not that so many units are needed anyway against the crap AI.
But if building is meaningless, and war is ridiculous, what does that leave us with? Seeing that the game apparently has pretty many fans, I just wonder what in the world all these people get out of the game. Obviously taste varies, but that the AI is broken has nothing to do with taste and is for me reason enough to discard the game after one playthrough. Oh well, I guess I won't find an answer in this thread.
Edit:
@Krepps: Good observations. While my post emphasized the AI, you are spot on with the meaningless decisions. In previous Civs, most decisions felt very important. This was the case for issues like where to found cities, which buildings to build in which cities, how to lead diplomacy and, of course, war. I believe you are right that this, and not the AI (despite being stupid beyond words), is the reason that the game just feels so dull and boring.
Moderator Action: Inappropriate language removed.
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