I'll indulge.
Like most people here, I have been an avid Civ player since Civ I, and I have to say Civ V is such an abomination compared to cIV BtS expansions, not to mention the worst of the series by far.
I noticed here that you mentioned Civilization V is an abomination compared to Civilization IV
expansions. So I'm assuming that at the very least you're willing to give Civilization V expansions a chance because you obviously don't want to compare Civilization V to Civilization IV vanilla, which means you're already contradicting yourself with your thread's title of 'Final Verdict'. Final means final. You're not giving any second chances. To give this assumption some proof, you then go on and say:
I believe I can speak for the majority of the Civ players here regarding features that absolutely must be brought back to Civ V, hopefully in future patches or expansions.
Thanks for proving my point. See, the way you say it gives us the impression you only wanted to use the words 'Final Verdict' in the thread's title for shock value/grab attention. If you've been around playing the Civilization series since the original title's release like you claim, surely you must be old and mature enough to realize that such posts will not be taken seriously?
The 'majority' you speak of seems to be disproved already by the lack of general support I see thus far in the thread, so I won't get into that. The word 'many', or possibly 'some' would've been probably be more accurate. We have no way of determining the exact statistics of the happy vs the disgruntled, but like how the daily news reports more bad news than good, the amount of opinions offered here doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of the majority.
These features are so essential to the whole Civ experience that I am not sure why Firaxis removed them in this generation.
I'll get to the bold part later.
1. We want our stack back: 1UPT makes moving units around so tedious and it's hard to get into formations in battle.
I'm getting the impression you have no qualms about the unit's battle system itself, and only want 1UPT removed for the sake of convenience between unit movement. On the other hand, if 1UPT is removed, it will destroy the current battle system as it stands, not to mention the AI right now can't handle it (as if it isn't bad enough, as many people say it is, already). To be fair, one can of course could argue my point only reinforces how bad Civilization V is designed, but then again many people can argue that stacks of doom in Civilization IV was equally ridiculous and an example of bad design.
However, since the 1UPT battle system gives terrain, promotions, and unit positions more importance over Civilization IV (Terrain? Who cares? Promotions? Combat I~V all the way! Unit Positions? I have my stacks of doom!), Civilization V's battle system I find has a higher potential for actual planning and strategy, especially so once the AI is improved to the point that it fully understands how it works.
2. We want the old strategic resource system back: who came up with the idea that one iron mine can only generate one swordman? If I have an iron mine, I should be able to put it to use and build as many iron units as I want.
This quote confuses me because you mention realism in point 5. When it comes to strategic resource realism, the current system is highly more realistic than that of Civilization IV in which one resource provided the whole empire limitless amounts of that said resource to build whatever you needed. One coal mine providing power to an entire continent via Factories and enough materials to lay down an entire railroad network is pretty funny when you think about it. Not to mention unrealistic. Then again, it's just a game.
Or perhaps are you referring to the ridiculousness of how one whole iron resource can only support one swordsman - one person? If so you are quite wrong, because that iron resource is supporting one swordsman
unit. On the map you only see only so many people, but in fact the unit represents a whole
army representing much more than that. Don't believe me? Check Demographics and compare. It's been like that in Civilization IV too.
Also, don't forget one mine (or improvement) usually generates more than one strategic resource.
3. We want our slider back: the ability to shift the macro focus of your empire to either wealth/science/happiness is more dynamic than the current system.
While it is true that it is much harder to focus one's empire to concentrate on wealth, science, or happiness (culture) in this game due to the lack of slider, doesn't that also mean it makes a player actually
think about the direction they want to take their empire, thus making it more 'dynamic'? If you add a slider system to this game, it'll just make things easier, and I don't think making things easier turns a game into something more 'dynamic'. As if we don't have enough people complaining how easy this game is already...
4. We want local happiness back: CiV's global happiness system makes the game MUCH shallower, it's like playing a game for 10-year-olds.
I'm going have to question your reasons in thinking why Global Happiness makes the game shallower. Global Happiness, in my opinion, is a change that made the happiness issue easier to
understand, so, to put it in your context, it would be easier for a 10-year-old to understand happiness better than understanding happiness in Civilization IV because it's glaring at you right on top of the screen. But when it comes to
managing happiness? Much, much harder. It is so much easier to slip into unhappiness in Civilization IV than it was in Civilization V, and the consequences of slipping into unhappiness is profoundly harsher in Civilization V because it was turned into a empire-wide concern instead of a local one.
If Civilization IV from the start implemented a happiness system similar to the one introduced in the "Revolutions" modpack, I'd probably be more inclined to side with your opinion because that system was extremely complex.
5. No more purchasing units/buildings plz: it makes no sense to buy a building and it's suddenly there the next turn. Firaxis please remove this feature. Realistically, gold should haste the production process, but not producing things out of thin air.
Now you've really confused me because... correct me if I'm wrong... but hasn't the purchasing units/buildings option been in place since the original Civilization? In fact, Civilization IV had by far the easiest system to rush build units/buildings (Slavery, Universal Suffrage, Nationhood) and you were even able to rush Wonders of the World if one so chooses to (which in this incarnation of Civilization, one cannot). It could be strongly argued that this feature is essential to the whole Civilization experience. So why do you want have
another essential feature removed when you said you weren't sure why Firaxis removed others? (refer to earlier bolded part)
6. We want religion back: religion is what makes cIV a much deeper game than all others in the series, including ciV. Why did they remove religion?
This is a matter of personal opinion because others have expressed similar concerns, but I didn't find I missed religion so much when I played through my Civilization V experience.
Religion in Civilization IV, in my opinion, added transparent diplomacy because it made it incredibly easy to 'suck up' to an AI by switching to the correct religion, be it by request or by impulse. You basically knew who was going to be your enemy and who was going to be your ally depending on who had what religion. And, typically, religious diplomatic bonuses heavily favored other positive bonuses. I could easily create a new best friend by switching to their religion, and they instantly like me better than my next door neighbor who I've shared open borders with a thousand years only because they have different religions. I'm not saying Religion = Diplomacy in Civilization IV, but it was certainly a large chunk of it. I also didn't like the fact that when I wanted to be aggressive and take land from the AI, I typically had to declare war on a nation of the same religion because of the way religions spread. Not to mention the fact that the later religions hardly played a role in the game. Typically the first three or four did the job.
Again, I will stress this is only my personal opinion. I'm sure many others will disagree with my points and argue how religion made the Civilization IV experience unique and more in-depth, but I won't disagree nor deny the many positive aspects religion brought to the overall Civilization IV experience. So I'm rather neutral on the matter.
And heck, there might be hope for you yet. Some people found evidence of religion in Civilization V's XML code (I think), giving rise to rumors that religion might be released through further content.
7. Bring back the graphics of cIV: as many players have noted since the game's release, ciV's graphics is absolutely terrible. Rivers and trading posts are just plain ugly. It's just about on par with Civ III if you ask me.
First, bringing back the graphics of a previous generation game is typically a bad idea. Each successive incarnation of Civilization brought in different, and often better graphics, and this rule typically applies to all serialized games so I don't see any reason why any game would do such a thing. If they did bring the graphics of Civilization IV into Civilization V, even with all the new features, people would complain and argue that this is Civilization 4.5 and not V. Changes and improvements to graphics in a game is an important step to differentiate itself from its previous generation.
As for the argument that Civilization V's graphics are terrible, I think in the end this comes down to personal taste. Some people say Pablo Picasso art is fantastic, other will say it's garbage. My definition of 'good graphics' is:
'is it pleasing to the eye?', '
can I do that?' and
'can I do better than that'? When I apply that to Civilization V, yes, I think it's pleasing to the eye (while I sort of understand the fuss about rivers, I don't think the huts look
that bad) and given my degree of artistic skills, that answer to the last two questions is no. So I will have to disagree with your opinion.
Personally, I don't think anyone has the right to criticize graphics unless one can match and outperform the criticized one's quality. But again, that's just me. Like they say, everyone's a critic.
8. We want the old map grid back: sure, hexes are interesting at first glance and seems to make the game look complicated (reminds me of a boardgame), but after several games they begin to get on our nerves.
I can't comment much on this issue because you didn't give us the exact reason why it gets on yours nerves - although if I had to guess it'd be because of something like 1UPT or you're simply not used to the idea and therefore don't like it (kind of like how some people like 2D fighting games but don't like 3D fighting games even though 3D is more 'realistic'). However, just because hexes gets on your nerves doesn't translate to you speaking for the 'rest of us'. Giving us your opinion is one thing, but forcing us your opinion is another thing entirely.
Firaxis, please pay more attention to what we the core Civ players really want. Until these problems have been fixed, I'll stick to my cIV.
Looking over at all the previously mentioned 'problems' you've brought us attention to, what you want is Civilization IV and not Civilization V at all. If one were to fully 'implement back' all the features you listed (except point 5), you'll pretty much end up with the exact same thing as Civilization IV, except with better graphics. You could have just installed something like the "Blue Marble" mod pack in Civilization IV and you would've had exactly what you wanted.
Civilization V is not Civilization IV's newest expansion. Civilization V is a Civilization game that takes the basic elements of a 4X game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate) and mold it into the 'Civilization' flavor - an entirely new game built from the ground up, just as it had done four times (plus spinoffs) before. There has never been any Civilization game which had all the same features as its predecessor. What it attempted to do every time was to keep the basic premise the same and instead add entirely new features to give us, the players, an entirely new experience. If they succeed in doing that, well, that's up to the individuals to find out. And while there are people like you out there who are disgruntled with the game, you will have to also realize there are plenty of people who like the game as is as well. And things can only improve from here on end. And that, as strange as it sounds coming from me who had criticized your post as I did, is thanks to people like you. Ultimately it is criticism - feedback - that makes a game better. And given enough time, I'm sure Civilization V will turn into a game many players will agree its fantastic.
But until then, there's always Civilization IV.
nonsense and ruined civ for years
) doesn't mean they won't improve it. This is the first civ release that I have ever been expacting, but I heard that there was lot of bugs in civ 4 too, but civ 3 was too bad so you all got the feeling that civ 4 was better. The same is here. There's enough threads of this type and this is becoming stupid. Critisise it on normal way and put an honest poll where I can say that I like civ 5. And I'm so happy with religion gone, you can't imagine.
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