Extreme Tech Review (5. Aug 2010)

[Randall_Flagg]

eegads, we have to have steam to even play the game solo!! this is is the only thing i remember from that review, i have every game sid ever made, this will make me not want to buy civ 5!! wowo now i understand why people are so pissed!! this is frigging outrageous!! I thought steam was only for mp!! wow, i was pupmed and ready for this one, what a damn let down, no mas for civ for me, i will never buy a game that makes me use anothers software to play!! Ever kiss my butt 2k, you lost a customer for ever today.

 

[bjbrains]

eegads, we have to have steam to even play the game solo!! this is is the only thing i remember from that review, i have every game sid ever made, this will make me not want to buy civ 5!! wowo now i understand why people are so pissed!! this is frigging outrageous!! I thought steam was only for mp!! wow, i was pupmed and ready for this one, what a damn let down, no mas for civ for me, i will never buy a game that makes me use anothers software to play!! Ever kiss my butt 2k, you lost a customer for ever today.

I guess you couldn't have bought civ 4 then, as that used securom as third party DRM.

 

[Darth Caesar]

I'm going to scream if I don't play ciV RIGHT NOW!!!

 

[Carver]

This is a much leaner, easier-to-learn Civilization that paints in broad strokes rather than fine details.

There ya have it.

 

[Babri]

Not at all. In fact several people on civfanatics have made the same assumption (perhaps incorrectly).

On the screen when you are ready to attack, it would have said "Major Victory". There's nothing at all obvious about that says "there's probability involved here and you could conceivably lose this battle".

It looks like the attempt to divert attention away from combat odds is only making people more confused than before. Now people are expecting that the predicted (i.e. most likely) outcome is the actual outcome.

If the numbers are gone, I will just make another ACO mod. Removing combat odds, if they can be worked out from info available to the player (highly likely IMO) is leaning towards dumbing the game down or at least removing valuable info from the interface. And yes, this is a complaint and I'm happy to admit it.

Check the picture below.



That is what the reviewer stated about combat odds :

"Civilization V also makes it easier to know what your chances are of winning any given battle. Just position the mouse cursor over a nearby enemy, and a window will pop up in the lower-left corner telling you what sort of outcome you can expect. This isn't always 100 percent accurate—on a couple of occasions, we saw bloody defeats in what we were led to expect would be decisive victories—but it's a big help, especially if you're still learning the ropes of the game."

 

[Calouste]

A rather painful article. It seems that the last time the author actually played Civ was Civ3, and the only thing they saw of Civ4 was a web review.

We're interested to see what else 2K Games will do with Civilization V between now and the final launch, currently rumored to be in late September or early October.

Uhm, it's been confirmed as September 21 for about two months now. Did these people bother to read any of the information 2K send them?

 

[Schuesseled]

eegads, we have to have steam to even play the game solo!! this is is the only thing i remember from that review, i have every game sid ever made, this will make me not want to buy civ 5!! wowo now i understand why people are so pissed!! this is frigging outrageous!! I thought steam was only for mp!! wow, i was pupmed and ready for this one, what a damn let down, no mas for civ for me, i will never buy a game that makes me use anothers software to play!! Ever kiss my butt 2k, you lost a customer for ever today.

steam takes up what like 4 mb's and you only have to use it online once to activate the game, oooooh noooo, woe is me!

 

[Zhahz]

Such as technology trading: It's gone.

This makes me very happy. I've always considered flat out tech trading to be silly in these types of games (and I usually disable tech trading or at least use no tech brokering). This new system as described sounds much cooler and more diplomatic (build relations thru shared tech efforts rather than exploit each other for tech).

I'm liking that it looks like a lot of cheese has been stripped out (victimizing poor AI with lopsided tech deals being one element of cheese).

I don't see the "dumbed down" thing and man, I'm so sick of that phrase. The majority of the time things change, interfaces get better, gameplay is improved, and someone says it's "dumbed down" because the level of misery players endure has been reduced.

I'll have to play it myself before I judge, because these previews do two things - present facts - and present opinion. Saying "tech trading is out" is a fact. Saying the game "feels like a wargame" is opinion.

I also need to experience the happiness and similar mechanics changing over a full game to see how I feel about it. I like some micro but it can get tedious keeping track of varying happiness levels in many cities, or dealing with health levels. So, the changes as I've read them sound ok - removing elements of tedium. I don't see this as "dumbed down" - I just see it as different - just like the removal/change in corruption between III and IV. To me, managing happiness at the city level and managing city health can be interesting and it's something to do, but overall they have little to do with your global strategy or expansion - more like constantly messing with it slows down the big picture. So, we'll see.

So, the real question is, if all these outlets essentially have a demo to play with, where's the demo for US to play with? Hmmmmm?

 

[King Jason]

This is a much leaner, easier-to-learn Civilization that paints in broad strokes rather than fine details.

There ya have it.

In his opinion.

 

[MajorDisaster84]

He did mention one thing I'm happy to hear. And I quote

All tiles in Civilization V—including city tiles—are now limited to one unit of any kind (except when units are just "passing through" on one turn to get to another tile).

Not gonna lie, I was worried we would have to manually open a gap in our lines to move units through, that they were going to enforce 1UPT that stringently. This makes things more flexible than I first thought.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

I don't see the "dumbed down" thing and man, I'm so sick of that phrase. The majority of the time things change, interfaces get better, gameplay is improved, and someone says it's "dumbed down" because the level of misery players endure has been reduced.

"Misery"? What "misery"? The only times I've been miserable with Civ IV is when the memory leaks caused it to crash again, and, oh the horror, when I couldn't play the game for weeks. Weeks!

The appeal of the Civ series, at least to me, at least until now, has always been the complexity. This was never a simple game, but it was never supposed to be, and if you didn't like it, you could go play something else. You had to juggle all kinds of effects and variables -- in other words, you really had to think, and because the game was turn-based, you had the time for that, too.

Now in Civ V it looks like they have gotten rid of a lot of that complexity. Stuff is hidden from you. Stuff is done for you. Less complexity means less thinking, which, as a cynic, I would assume means a more appealing game for the masses. So until proved otherwise by the demo, I stand by my verdict that Civ V is "dumbed down".

The reason why you are hearing this phrase a lot is because it is part of a trend in computer games. The companies are going for the casual gamer, who doesn't want to have to think when tending his potatoes during his lunch break at work with FarmVille (or whatever the name is). Also, consoles have ruined the industry -- just look at the changes that Valve made going from L4D1 to L4D2. Retooled for the casual console crowd, more of an arcade game than a survival shooter.

There are some exceptions: As far as I can tell so far, StarCraft 2 is more complex than the first part by far. But I do see a clear trend here. Thank God there will always be NetHack .

 

[the343danny]

I didnt see any mention of any recommended specs at all. I have never seen any game that listed requirements or recommendations as the levels needed to play on the highest graphics levels and resolution without any lag whatsoever. resolution makes a big difference, and he played full screen with the 1900x1000 or whatever it was, so even if you have those specs you can probably play completely fine at 1600x1000. People always seemed to complain that graphics dont matter but now we seem to be complaining that we cant play with the prettiest ones. I care about graphics (adds to gameplay via immersion) but I dont need to play at max settings...

And Civ 4 wasnt complex at all so making it more streamlined wont make things any worse. There wasnt any "fine interactions" with the game either. Well maybe reorganizing tiles and stuff but thats all there in Civ 5. Civ 4 "strokes" were huge, most people seem to wipe out a civilization early on then a few more later each in one or two wars. That doesnt seem like "fine interactions" to me.

Im also glad it seems to have more war in it. They probably put in less gains per war to balance it out, and more war doesnt mean you have to go out of your way to march your men out of your culture spammed cities to go conquer something. If you do that, it is YOU that is forcing the game to be military oriented.

 

[Schuesseled]

Complexity =/= Complicated.
Simplified =/= dumbed down.

Complicated is how hard it is to play the game, complexity is how much the game mechanics are interlinked. I'd much much much rather play a simple game with a high level of complexity than a complicated game which is incredibly high.

Well done my lord you have cracked it.

--

I'd like to itterate further by saying that just because civ 5 will be different from civ 4, is no reason to justify the hunt for complexity or lack there of, sometimes a game can be just different rather than dumbed down or too complicated.

 

[sdlufkin]

Complexity =/= Complicated.
Simplified =/= dumbed down.

Complicated is how hard it is to play the game, complexity is how much the game mechanics are interlinked. I'd much much much rather play a simple game with a high level of complexity than a complicated game which is incredibly high.

Agreed, as a HUGE fan of Civ IV and the previous Civ's before it, V feels like an outstanding direction to take in terms of playability and scale. I think the interface is so incredible the game may feel less complicated, while being yet more complex.

I am for one glad to not have to have my late game bogged down with things like pollution, to not have to feel like I must be the first to research at least ONE religion, to not have to worry about some of the minute details that (to me) actually just slowed the late game down while not adding anything except maybe "realism" - this new version seems like it will be an even better experience, at least for me personally.

 

[Thormodr]

I must agree that the game does give me a feeling that it's "dumbed down". Sort of in a "Everyone gets a medal", we are all winners sort of way that this generation seems to be pushing on society. You aren't punished severely for incompetent play. It's like Civ on fricking training wheels.

Now, I could be wrong but that's the impression I'm getting as I see more and more of the game. There is a lot that I do like however, such as the beautiful graphics, city states, 1UPT, natural wonders, etc. It just seems that this game is being marketed at soccer moms who want their precious little darlings to play something besides First Person Shooters figuring ciV looks somewhat educational.

I must concur with the "painting with broad strokes" quote. Hopefully mods will correct this. A cIV mod with many of the new additions would be fantastic.

Hope I'm wrong...

 

[Calouste]

I must agree that the game does give me a feeling that it's "dumbed down". Sort of in a "Everyone gets a medal", we are all winners sort of way that this generation seems to be pushing on society. You aren't punished severely for incompetent play. It's like Civ on fricking training wheels.

Now, I could be wrong but that's the impression I'm getting as I see more and more of the game. There is a lot that I do like however, such as the beautiful graphics, city states, 1UPT, natural wonders, etc. It just seems that this game is being marketed at soccer moms who want their precious little darlings to play something besides First Person Shooters figuring ciV looks somewhat educational.

I must concur with the "painting with broad strokes" quote. Hopefully mods will correct this. A cIV mod with many of the new additions would be fantastic.

Hope I'm wrong...

Care to go into specifics? Keep in mind that more micromanagement and rules doesn't necessarily make for a more challenging game. Go has one piece that has one move and about three other rules, and no one calls that an easy game.

 

[seasnake]

Geez, in another reviewer it's said that civ hasn't been dumbed down at all, it merely has less decisions but more important decisions to make. Look at a game like Go, you merely pick where to place one stone at a time. Yet it's possibly the most complex game ever. You can learn to play it in an hour, you can spend a lifetime trying to master it.

Civ V will probably be the most cerebral civ experience yet, based on the diplomacy, city states, strategic resource caps, and 1UPT. It won't be as hard to do stuff but what you do and when you do it will be extremely important.

 

[bhavv]

This is just my 2 cents on the graphics / performance issues:

It was mentioned in the artice that the maps use tesselation, which is very demanding even for the current DX 11 cards. Early on in the game with very little map explored, there wouldnt be so many tesselated surfaces being rendered, so performance would be fine. However, later on when much of the map is explored, if everything is being rendered in real time with all the tesselated surfaces, this could be exactly what was causing the choked performance that the review mentioned.

The current problem with tesselation on the HD 5000 series cards is that every HD 5000 card, from the lowest end 5450 (might even be lower ones but I'm not sure), up to the flagship 5870 all have the same fixed tesselator function on the GPU. This is one major flaw with the HD 5000 series, that causes tesselation performance not to improve with the higher specced cards.

There were some tests that were carried out using Uniengines DX 11 Heaven benchmark on some enthusiast forums that I participated in, to try and determine whether the fixed tesselation function was a limitation or not - under the assumption that two HD 5000s in crossfire mode would have twice the tesselation power, they asked for users with single and dual HD 5000 setups to run the benchmark with the extreme tesselation setting, and they were comparing the low minimum frame rates which were believed to have been caused in parts of the demo where the most tesselation was being used.

I definately remembered that my crossfire 5770s had higher minimum frame rates than a single 5870, and surprisingly had exactly the same minimum frame rate as the 5970, or a dual 5870 setup. While not entirely conclusive, this did seem show that performance on the HD 5000 cards, regardless of how expensive a model you get is crippled when too much tesselation is being used.

My opinion on this is that CIV 5 will play absolutely fine with DX 11 and tesselation disabled, but if set to maximum settings with tesselation, the current series of ATI graphics may be limited as they probably cant render a huge maps worth of tesselation in this game without slowdown. The current hardware doesnt seem very capable for DX 11 and Tesselation use, maybe Nvidias new cards might be better at tesselation, but I havnt looked too much into that, but ATI are believed to be using a fixed limited tesselation unit on all of their current range of cards which cripples / bottlenecks their performance if too much tesselation is being used.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I must agree that the game does give me a feeling that it's "dumbed down". Sort of in a "Everyone gets a medal", we are all winners sort of way that this generation seems to be pushing on society. You aren't punished severely for incompetent play. It's like Civ on fricking training wheels.

I don't know about that. I'd argue that lack of tech trading and lack of ease in changing social policies (unlike Civics in Civ4) make it harder to adjust to mistakes. In that sense, it's less forgiving than Civ4. I don't see anything at all to indicate that you aren't punished for incompetent play.

 

[Intellectus]

This makes me very happy. I've always considered flat out tech trading to be silly in these types of games (and I usually disable tech trading or at least use no tech brokering). This new system as described sounds much cooler and more diplomatic (build relations thru shared tech efforts rather than exploit each other for tech).

I'm liking that it looks like a lot of cheese has been stripped out (victimizing poor AI with lopsided tech deals being one element of cheese).

I don't see the "dumbed down" thing and man, I'm so sick of that phrase. The majority of the time things change, interfaces get better, gameplay is improved, and someone says it's "dumbed down" because the level of misery players endure has been reduced.

I'll have to play it myself before I judge, because these previews do two things - present facts - and present opinion. Saying "tech trading is out" is a fact. Saying the game "feels like a wargame" is opinion.

I also need to experience the happiness and similar mechanics changing over a full game to see how I feel about it. I like some micro but it can get tedious keeping track of varying happiness levels in many cities, or dealing with health levels. So, the changes as I've read them sound ok - removing elements of tedium. I don't see this as "dumbed down" - I just see it as different - just like the removal/change in corruption between III and IV. To me, managing happiness at the city level and managing city health can be interesting and it's something to do, but overall they have little to do with your global strategy or expansion - more like constantly messing with it slows down the big picture. So, we'll see.

So, the real question is, if all these outlets essentially have a demo to play with, where's the demo for US to play with? Hmmmmm?

Competely disagree. Civilization V has been dumbed-down but not to the extent like other games in the past. This is still a big, sprawling game just Civilization 1 was. It is more refined of course but there are two things I abosultely think should have been kept in.

Corruption and Pollution. Corruption was everyone's enemy but it is a natural part of how human states are run. It provided a challenge for players and forced them to take certain actions to combat it. You say that this is tiresome or it gets away from the 'big' picture.

Big picture be damned. I want every city to be indivdual and micromanaged to the microscopic level(Well, a level that is reasonable for a gam not a simulation like simcity 4 with water pipes, crime and aging populations).

Pollution. A part of daily life that cannot be ignored. Pollution in civilization 3 showcased the issues that arose with the industrial revolution. One cannot just build tons of coal power plants forever and expect not for there to be consquences. The player must micromanage and determine which cities benefit from a heavy industrial transition and also determine which ones do not.

One of the nice touches to heavy industrialization was global warming. Now, I don't necessarily agree with all the theories says but the planet is warming and humanity is having some impact. The appearance of tiles turning to desert demonstrated the consquences of the industrial era that the game world just went through.

These two things added much to Civilization 3, a game I never master but enjoyed at warlord(I am pretty bad but I try very hard and I love the complexity). They punished the player and I think that is important in any sort of game. Reward the player yes but make sure you make the failures hurt hard. Just like in chess.