Ive played Civ 1 a lot, civ 2 a lot on playstation, civ 3 quite a lot on pc, and have sim 4 but couldn't get into it.
I have the 'vanilla' version of Civ5 that is the standalone version, so maybe there is a fix out there to help this game!
Here is the bad first with Civ5, which is an 'old' game now that i just started, mostly with AI and design:
1. Military units have to be micromanaged individually, very time consuming to command 5,10, 20 units attacking multiple AI opponents
2. Military units not stacking turns 'hex grid' into a game of checkers
3. Military units are too complex with the experience system giving players too much to think about when conducting what should be simple wars, instead the player is given too many options to promote units through unit experience and cultural policy, the game has never been about 'chasing the best weapons' or being a military society unless you chose that through government and ruler.
4. A 'bug' in the game requires constantly asks to re-affirm orders every turn for building tile improvements over the military tile improvements
5. AI makes questionable moves, like constantly asking for 'open border passage' which can always be taken as a prelude to invasion, but as a player you have no way knowing what the ramifications for travel inside your own borders, or 'unit flipping' in what appears to be the AI finding ways to 'stack' their military by flipping them in and out with greater ease than any player would.
6. Technological advances are inconsequential, with the greatest emphasis on a baked-in cultural 'caste' system that effectively replaces National attributes and government selection that were in past civ games and corrupts the low-key role that culture played in previous versions
7. Automated workers often put themselves in the middle of war-zones and knowing that units have been captured or killed often go un-noticed because of bad camera panning and bad fast-combat animations
8. The AI diplomacy process has been politicized to the point that the only thing that can be achieved between the player and the AI through diplomacy is all out war or petty power grab issues like 'tile buying' and 'border war micro-aggression', the programmed responses leave the me thinking 'huh' and since when did the computer find making even trades the worst thing they can do? its baffling to this long time player especially when the new resource system puts big emphasis on zone control that only exited in very few instances, now its everywhere but seemingly done without reason.
9. Annoying side notifications during other player turns, and the constant drone of city-state bickering and enemy demand letters
10. bad unit command card, its small and too standardized but is constantly shifting between units you must constantly guess what each button does.
11. viewing the city screen has become a mess, with the city stats like food and production represented by decimal points and small colored globes to represent tile values, what the hell is a bar of gold do? in what should be fractions there are decimals everywhere. just think of how much easier fractions would be to read compared to a mass of decimal numbers.
if your zoomed in too closely it becomes difficult to see or understand what tiles actually do on the city screen. the growth vs stagnation isnt as easy to comprehend as the old 'shortage starvation' granary style that also allowed shifting of city tile workings, i get the display issues may have do to with resolution but what do specialists even do?
12. the whole golden age idea has been tainted as much like the culture system has, how does a golden age produce no greater happy-ness only more money or science?
GA's are so frequent so they feel less important.
13. The computer constantly shifts the goal posts with every move the player makes, sometimes rewarding the player by playing to the computer standards of trying to do everything at once. the player must learn how the computer likes to play, like where to build cities, in a pre-programmed method, and what your advisors think you should do. and research agreements? Has anything ever been so vague? what happened to luck?
14. the whole tech tree is a mess now, with 'wonders' producing bureaucratic cultural enhancements instead of cold hard advantages. the one wonder that has its own advantage, The UN, has been vastly over-valued now. its just too easy to win that way and too lazy to let players do that. its too easy to move up the tech ladder, the days of conquering vast but puny civilization 1000 years behind the times or facing a technologically advanced but small civilization seem to be gone.
15. the music is sub-par and tends to sound too over-dramatic
16. the clouds show too much 'white space' that can be overwhelming, and the map screen seems inconsistent with proportions, its hard to tell where you are in relation to everyone else and who they are.
Theres a lot to make me not want to think what happened with parts of Civ5, but theres a few things Civ5 has done that none of the other games have done so well
1. Feeling that your civilization is unique, vast and isolated while also being part of the global scene
2. the sprawling cities art is pretty good, along with the GUI, while a little overdone for "touchscreens", is still an improvement
3. the overall feel for the game is excellent, aesthetically, and really brings the player into the experience of forming a destiny for a civilization
4. like number 3, the game as a big 'uncharted' aspect that is mysterious and nothing like older civ games.
5. the realism of eras in the game is very good, sometimes you wish you could stay at a particular era of the game and never leave. this is probably the thing that civ5 has the most going for it, that the historical nature of your civilization becomes known.
on the whole, sometimes the game quickly fades into a overcrowded war zone, probably the thing i miss about older civ games, your great eras never seemed to end while civ5 has the rapidly more predictable 'end game' already cooked up.
I have the 'vanilla' version of Civ5 that is the standalone version, so maybe there is a fix out there to help this game!
Here is the bad first with Civ5, which is an 'old' game now that i just started, mostly with AI and design:
1. Military units have to be micromanaged individually, very time consuming to command 5,10, 20 units attacking multiple AI opponents
2. Military units not stacking turns 'hex grid' into a game of checkers
3. Military units are too complex with the experience system giving players too much to think about when conducting what should be simple wars, instead the player is given too many options to promote units through unit experience and cultural policy, the game has never been about 'chasing the best weapons' or being a military society unless you chose that through government and ruler.
4. A 'bug' in the game requires constantly asks to re-affirm orders every turn for building tile improvements over the military tile improvements
5. AI makes questionable moves, like constantly asking for 'open border passage' which can always be taken as a prelude to invasion, but as a player you have no way knowing what the ramifications for travel inside your own borders, or 'unit flipping' in what appears to be the AI finding ways to 'stack' their military by flipping them in and out with greater ease than any player would.
6. Technological advances are inconsequential, with the greatest emphasis on a baked-in cultural 'caste' system that effectively replaces National attributes and government selection that were in past civ games and corrupts the low-key role that culture played in previous versions
7. Automated workers often put themselves in the middle of war-zones and knowing that units have been captured or killed often go un-noticed because of bad camera panning and bad fast-combat animations
8. The AI diplomacy process has been politicized to the point that the only thing that can be achieved between the player and the AI through diplomacy is all out war or petty power grab issues like 'tile buying' and 'border war micro-aggression', the programmed responses leave the me thinking 'huh' and since when did the computer find making even trades the worst thing they can do? its baffling to this long time player especially when the new resource system puts big emphasis on zone control that only exited in very few instances, now its everywhere but seemingly done without reason.
9. Annoying side notifications during other player turns, and the constant drone of city-state bickering and enemy demand letters
10. bad unit command card, its small and too standardized but is constantly shifting between units you must constantly guess what each button does.
11. viewing the city screen has become a mess, with the city stats like food and production represented by decimal points and small colored globes to represent tile values, what the hell is a bar of gold do? in what should be fractions there are decimals everywhere. just think of how much easier fractions would be to read compared to a mass of decimal numbers.
if your zoomed in too closely it becomes difficult to see or understand what tiles actually do on the city screen. the growth vs stagnation isnt as easy to comprehend as the old 'shortage starvation' granary style that also allowed shifting of city tile workings, i get the display issues may have do to with resolution but what do specialists even do?
12. the whole golden age idea has been tainted as much like the culture system has, how does a golden age produce no greater happy-ness only more money or science?
GA's are so frequent so they feel less important.
13. The computer constantly shifts the goal posts with every move the player makes, sometimes rewarding the player by playing to the computer standards of trying to do everything at once. the player must learn how the computer likes to play, like where to build cities, in a pre-programmed method, and what your advisors think you should do. and research agreements? Has anything ever been so vague? what happened to luck?
14. the whole tech tree is a mess now, with 'wonders' producing bureaucratic cultural enhancements instead of cold hard advantages. the one wonder that has its own advantage, The UN, has been vastly over-valued now. its just too easy to win that way and too lazy to let players do that. its too easy to move up the tech ladder, the days of conquering vast but puny civilization 1000 years behind the times or facing a technologically advanced but small civilization seem to be gone.
15. the music is sub-par and tends to sound too over-dramatic
16. the clouds show too much 'white space' that can be overwhelming, and the map screen seems inconsistent with proportions, its hard to tell where you are in relation to everyone else and who they are.
Theres a lot to make me not want to think what happened with parts of Civ5, but theres a few things Civ5 has done that none of the other games have done so well
1. Feeling that your civilization is unique, vast and isolated while also being part of the global scene
2. the sprawling cities art is pretty good, along with the GUI, while a little overdone for "touchscreens", is still an improvement
3. the overall feel for the game is excellent, aesthetically, and really brings the player into the experience of forming a destiny for a civilization
4. like number 3, the game as a big 'uncharted' aspect that is mysterious and nothing like older civ games.
5. the realism of eras in the game is very good, sometimes you wish you could stay at a particular era of the game and never leave. this is probably the thing that civ5 has the most going for it, that the historical nature of your civilization becomes known.
on the whole, sometimes the game quickly fades into a overcrowded war zone, probably the thing i miss about older civ games, your great eras never seemed to end while civ5 has the rapidly more predictable 'end game' already cooked up.
