Does anyone else get really bored & quit before the Industrial age?

[El Caballerion]

There's nothing more relaxing and exciting for me than the beginning of a basic continent map, on king difficulty and marathon game in CIV V. Just having one or two cities and slowly exploring the world... ah... it's glorious.

But in after a while, my interest starts to fade. It seems that in every game, one AI will totally dominate all others on their same continent by the Renaissance age, and control like 25+ cities (even Gandhi, who's supposed to have double unhappiness from city numbers!). Plus, they never seem to leave their own continent to launch amphibious invasions, so there's no point to go to war with them (considering how much unhappiness will into play once you take over one of their cities). It seems like I'll have one continent under control, and they have theirs.
Needless to say, I've never really gotten past the industrial age, as by then, I can already seem to predict how the game will end. Armies will grow, AI will never invade. Perhaps this is not true, but it seems to be the case judging by the forum threads. Anyone else excited by the game in the first 300 turns, but slowly bored as it progresses?

 

[Jediron]

Marathon is cripled. Period. Playing longer gametime in Civ V == boring.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Marathon is way too slow for me. Continents map is too boring. Earth and Archipelagos are great! Earth map plays like a Pangea map with a continent across the ocean, but if you're on the "Old World" side then there's no incentive to go to the new world, especially if you start in Asia or Africa. Additionally, there are not enough civs on a Large size or bigger map. So, stick with Standard size or smaller for more fun.

I play in Standard Speed mode. The game seems to be written to Standard Speed and gets wacky at other speeds.

In Archipelago mode, I have suffered invasions and wars over supremacy of my coast line and micro-colonies.

My biggest problem is with the economies in the game all the way from the bonus resources to the maintenance costs of buildings and empire happiness.

My second biggest problem is the AI which does not know how to combine seige units with front line and cavalry/mobile forces. 90% of the time, the AI does not use Catapults, Trebs, Cannons, Artillery. They just come at me with Archers and Front line troops or just Archers or just Front line troops.

My third biggest problem is the puppet city mechanic. The puppet cities build all kinds of buildings that require significant maintenance. They become absorbittently expensive too quickly.

My last real problem is the fact that in order to pursue a Culture win, I have to make do with no more than 6 cities.

 

[KopOut]

I have been doing quick games for a while now, and I have only seen the industrial age once.

I have quit most of my games way before then as it became painfully obvious that I was going to win no matter what.

I actually mentioned to my friend that I wished the game had a mercy rule where after I achieved a certain pattern of dominance the game would ask me if i just wanted to have my win calculated so that I didn't have to sit through the 100 turns or so until the inevitable win happened.

Pretty sad.

 

[Kruelgor]

I find Epic game speed to be just right.

 

[Rashkaar]

Another example at how attack > defense; combat bonuses should make it harder to attack than defend, that would avoid the "one AI takes over an entire continent" problem. It would also limit the same on the human side (albeit possibly to a lesser extent, especially with the CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!!! AI we've got atm).

 

[zonk]

Heh...

Imagine the boredom for the player who doesn't really play for the war aspects...

 

[Gath]

I was playing quick games, and unless I started going to war, yeah, I got bored fast. There's very little worth building, you can't really manipulate your happy cap much on a per turn basis, so there's not much to do as a non-warmonger. During my culture victory game I just started burning people's empire down just for something to do while my social policies grew.

 

[CornPlanter]

Nope, for me actually the game gets more interesting in industrial era and later. Probably because I have more cities, more production, more units, i.e. more stuff to do. The beginning is extremely boring. In Civ4 it was the opposite, very intense beginning and boring endgame once everything's decided.

 

[lschnarch]

You don't have to wait until Industrialism for the game to become boring.

 

[El Caballerion]

Vanilla marathon mode is really loooong and boring.
Instead, I use one of the economy mods, which doubles research rate & halves unit production speed.

 

[SuperJay]

Heck, I get bored and quit before the Ancient Age!!

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

I'm the same way, OP.

In most of the games I have played, I've quit right before the industrial age because I lose interest and because the time it takes between turns becomes so unbearably long.

 

[Becephalus]

How is the game any more or less boring than any other TBS? It seems the same to me.

 

[zonk]

How is the game any more or less boring than any other TBS? It seems the same to me.

If you don't involve yourself in many wars -- it's a whole lot of 'Next Turns' that are little more than tedium until the Social Policy or tech pops... that wasn't true in BTS -- religion, city-specific health and happiness, espionage, and diversified/multi-faceted buildings, and more diversified resources and resource usage meant that the player not at war generally had things to do every turn.

For a peaceful player - the majority of BTS turns involved doing something. In V -- the overwhelming majority of turns are just "click next turn".

 

[avakki]

So far I've won every marathon game before industrial age

 

[Becephalus]

Well you can negotiate treaties with other civs and minor civs, gift them units, explore the map. There is no religion, but was send priest to town x and hit convert really what was keeping the game from being boring?

And personally I thought the espionage system was horrible and a huge waste of time.

 

[greggbert]

I've hit the industrial age once and was destroyed by an AI Civ as soonas they got riflemen. Other than that I have not made it past. But in this game I am ahead by only about 75 points, so it should be exciting, we just got muskets.

 

[teks]

I get bored and quit by industrial age.
The AI's just kill each other until there are only a few left, and then I have to kill them, and forget my peaceful strategy.

 

[Rusty Edge]

More often than not I get a hang or crash around 600 turns. I'm presently playing on default graphics, having worked my way down from high, and hoping to try higher settings on my first post-patch game.

Anyway, it's still one..more..turn at that point.