Did Sid just pull a George Lucas on us?

[drachasor]

"Pointlessly sleek and sparse" is a really weird criticism. The opposite of "sleek and sparse" would be "clunky and overcrowded." That's what you want?

I take it by calling it "pointlessly sparse" you mean there is information not available to you easily in civ V that would have been easily available in Civ 4. Can you give me some examples?

The guy above you gave an example. Unit promotions on enemy units can't be seen. The best you can do is get some idea of what they are by mousing an attack over that unit and seeing the current modifiers in combat they get (that's of SOME use, but doesn't tell you a lot).

You can't easily tell how many free resources you have without going into a trade window. So that's another.

 

[DagHammarskjol]

You can't easily tell how many free resources you have without going into a trade window. So that's another.

Free strategic resources are listed at the top of the screen. You might be right about luxury resources though, though I'm pretty sure you can find out about them in the economic overview.

 

[isotone]

Totally agree with OP, just registered to say so (and the mods on 2k forums are becoming rather patronising to say the least).

Literally the only time I've wanted my money back on a game (I'm 30)

I am sad, and annoyed at all the good press it has got. Thankfully the truth is alive and well in the amazon reviews. That is the only thing that makes me think they will fix it to a point where the modding community can save it, maybe.

 

[Drazil69]

I must say this is one of the most civilized (no pun intended) discussion forums out here. Having read through the thread, the principal feeling seems to be not anger, b****ing or flaming but rather a sadness and disappointment. Something most of us seem to love passionately has been dumbed down and generally dragged through the mud.

What's not been discussed very much is the diplomacy or rather the absence of it. What do these "pacts" actually do? Why remove trading technology for tech or gold? Why can't we see the world market at a glance anymore to find that luxury resource we need? And why, oh why does that neighboring civ hate me so much, what did I do? Can I trade with the Chinese without angering the Aztecs? And I fear that diplomacy is not a feature modders can fix.

 

[DagHammarskjol]

Free strategic resources are listed at the top of the screen. You might be right about luxury resources though, though I'm pretty sure you can find out about them in the economic overview.

On the other hand I just realized I've had the hardest time figuring out what the civs' unique units and unique buildings actually do. Nothing in any mouseover that I can find helps with that info. Makes it hard to actually choose a civ at the outset...

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

I knew what they did in about ten minutes.

 

[DagHammarskjol]

I knew what they did in about ten minutes.

Did you know easily using in-game-available information before actually choosing a civ to begin as?

 

[JonoLith]

I'm really let-down by Civ V.

Knee jerk reaction thread.

Civ 4 still exists. You're welcome to keep playing it.

 

[jdog2050]

Ah, I see. So it's a knee-jerk reaction to expect a game to be fairly decent out the box AND THEN improve with age? And not the other way around?

I already said that Civ V has some really good things going for it, but there's a WHOLE lot that is simply holding it back right now.

Frankly, I can't see this game being good without a total overhaul of some of it's aspects.

On the subject of "going back to Civ 4", I find it unfortunate that you even have to make this comment. I bought this game because it is Civ 5, and because it had a lot of things that sounded like they'd be interesting.

I had faith in the 1UPT concept...until I found that pathfinding is awful and the A.I. can't handle the concept.

I had faith in the streamlining...until I found that to streamline the game they butchered the usefulnees of buildings, the uniqueness of resources, etc, etc.

I had faith in Firaxis to make a playable game. It's 2 weeks later and I still can't play full-screen. Admittedly my graphics cards is old, but it runs SC2 just fine.

According to Steam I had 20 hour played already. That's a "knee-jerk" reaction? It took me 1 hour of playing SC2 to realize it was awesome. It took THE INTRO of Mass Effect 2 for me to love it.

I'm sorry but after 20 hours of Civ5, I've found it to be a boring, broken mess that shouldn't have been released for at least another 6 months.

 

[CountChocula]

I agree with the OP. Something's missing from this version of Civ. Is it the lack of depth? If I had known it'd be this way I wouldn't have bought it. This is not to say it's a bad game, it's not. But IMHO it's just an OK game. Certainly not "great" and certainly not worthy of some of the gushing reviews I'd read beforehand.

 

[gazius]

In fact, Episode 2 and 3 are both pretty awesome movies if you're not blinded by some fanboy rage.

They toss Darth Vader, Anikin?, into the lava, burn his hair and skin, and yet he kept his eyebrows. (And lots of other crap that drove me nuts but that was the crowning achievement) There is nothing redeeming about 3.

 

[DiabolicX]

Good review, agreed with everything. Just do something else in the meantime while Firaxis uses us as beta testers to continue to improve the game.

I agree. Does it not feel like they just gave us the platform and expect the modders to make the game we want?

 

[Stefanskantine]

What's not been discussed very much is the diplomacy or rather the absence of it. What do these "pacts" actually do? Why remove trading technology for tech or gold? Why can't we see the world market at a glance anymore to find that luxury resource we need? And why, oh why does that neighboring civ hate me so much, what did I do? Can I trade with the Chinese without angering the Aztecs? And I fear that diplomacy is not a feature modders can fix.

1) research pact gives you a free tech when complete. Also bugged right now, so gives tech on DoW. But I'm sure they will fix.
2) Because tech trading/brokering was horribly unbalanced and exploitive in previous civs, especially 4.
3) You can see what civs have excess resources quite easily in the diplomacy overview.
4) Because you are a rival,, and therefore a threat. Quite realistic actually. Can you think of any examples in history of close neighboring civilizations that aren't rivals?

 

[kaltorak]

The simplification of civ5 is not so easy to spot, but this guy made a good example of just 1 small aspect of the game which I didn't even have thought to be simplified. It's one of the many things civ4 had complex, but that you didn't even think about how complex it was. I think there are many more examples like this one.

Another problem is stuff is so simplified it makes me cry. Lets take happiness buildings for example.

Civ4BtS: Monument gives happiness if you're charismatic. Temple gives happiness but you can build it only if you have religion. You can build more than one if you have more than 1 religion. Also temple can give you a bit of science / money / hammers under appropriate circumstances (University of Sankore, Minaret, AP). Then we have Marketplace which gives happiness only if you have some certain resources. Then there is theater and Colosseum, theater gives happiness if you have dye, Colosseum just gives +2, and both give happiness for culture %. But that's just buildings and I didn't even mention UBs. There were others ways to get happiness. Being charismatic, adjusting % slider, resources ofcourse, even whipping (i.e. reducing population) was a legit way to make unhappiness go away under certain circumstances. Religion but only one of all possible and only if you made it you state religion; unless you have Free Religion civic adopted in which case all religions give +1 happiness each. Do you see how many different interesting stuff we had? How many possible interactions? How many possible ways of playing?

Now what we have in Civ5? A short list of buildings which can only be built subsequently and all of them gives some amount of happiness in exchange for some amount of maintenance, every single building is basically a variation of the same, just maint increases.

 

[GustavBjorklund]

Someone please explain to me how a game in production for 3 years is rushed out because it lacks a victory screen. I'd be more upset if time and money allocated on QA had been spent on creating a victory screen. You people have got to understand the realities of producing a video game. Resources are finite and I don't know what game you are playing, but the Civ5 I am playing is very polished - I've had 3 crashes in 70 hours.

 

[Linoran]

I think the main reason for a lot of people being upset is that unlike other civ games, this is the first time where they actually remove more gameplay elements than introducing new ones. From I-IV the sum of what was added and taken away was always on the + side, but not this time...

 

[GustavBjorklund]

I think the main reason for a lot of people being upset is that unlike other civ games, this is the first time where they actually remove more gameplay elements than introducing new ones. From I-IV the sum of what was added and taken away was always on the + side, but not this time...

I don't think you can quantify gameplay in this way. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

 

[kaltorak]

I don't think you can quantify gameplay in this way. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Yep. But what I hadn't thought about was what CornPlanter said before. We already know what they removed, religion,spionage, civics and such things. We also know what they added, social policies, city states and such.

What I hadn't thought though is the small things they removed like CornPlanter explains with the happines buildings. It's true, that just that little thing had a lot of complexity. Some buildings required resources, others religions, others culture... Now it's just hapiness building A then B then C then D. Each one requires the previous and has 1 more maintentance.

Once I read his post, I started thinking about this small things and I saw much more simplification than just "removing religion and espionage".

 

[jdog2050]

Someone please explain to me how a game in production for 3 years is rushed out because it lacks a victory screen. I'd be more upset if time and money allocated on QA had been spent on creating a victory screen. You people have got to understand the realities of producing a video game. Resources are finite and I don't know what game you are playing, but the Civ5 I am playing is very polished - I've had 3 crashes in 70 hours.

I simply can't abide this comment. Almost every Civ game has had a victory screen--even Civ 1 had the friggin throne room. There is nothing to celebrate your successes in this game. And while, yes, it is a small thing, Civ 4 was a massive success. I find it hard to believe that they didn't have the budget. Not saying it's impossible, just saying I find it very hard to believe.

Not having a victory screen, like I said, is "one more example" of the game being rushed, not the major one. The major ones would be the A.I. and the bug issues.

Also, to say that the game has been in "development" for 3 years isn't rushed is just as possibly misleading as my opinion about the victory screen. Scuttlebutt has it that a bunch of developers were let go from Firaxis right before the game was finished. Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

[jdog2050]

I don't think you can quantify gameplay in this way. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Very true, very true. It's just that in Civ V's case, it seems like a lot of their ideas for streamlining simply work better on paper. 1UPT is great on paper, but there's tons of pathfinding issues and A.I issues in practice. Why they would release the game with these issues still sticking out like a sore thumb is exactly why people are upset.