Final Verdict: We want our stack back and other great cIV features!

[Olaf_The_Great]

I agree with everything except the stacks and the hexes.

I want to be able to use SOME stacking, but the "Oh god how did the AI build that in 10 turns" stacks that I saw constantly in Civ4. Hexes are really really neat, and they almost made the game for me.

I play Fall From Heaven, Rhye's mod, and all their submods...and Civ5 looks, feels, and plays like crap compared to them, heck I think I prefer vanilla civ3 to civ5(Though I will admit I still like Civ3's feel to Civ4's, I miss it's artstyle). Of course, Civ5's basically in beta, and won't be playable until a few patches in. A lot of the features removed in Civ5 make a lot of mods unworkable in the new game, especially religion with FFH.

 

[h0sti1e17]

Some of the things I can understand, but don't necessarily agree wtih.

1-Stacks, I hated them. I would like to see and easier way to move large armies, maybe the ability to create a group and move the group (each is still on their own hex) and be able to move land units and use a boat as an escort without having to move it each turn (if my boat moves faster, I don't have protection when going over seas if I auto move)

2-I like how you get a limited number of horse, or iron or whatever. Somethings like horses should replenish after a certain number of turns, but once and iron mine is depleted it is depleted. An tech that allows for better mining could work where you get the tech your mine value is say doubles, so if you had 4 iron used all 4 you now get 4 more. Or if you used only 2 you now have 6. Something like that

3-The sliders made it too easy to just crank it one way, get a ton of money, then slide it back.

4-A combo would work, sometimes you just forget about a city now there is consequence. Your unhappy people in a city could sour cities nearby, making it sort of civ wide, but still effecting each city.

5-I agree, purchasing is dumb, I like the idea of speeding up production.

6-Religion is good if deeper. I should be as simple as "we have the same religion we are friends, yay!" Or religion could have little or no bearing on diplomacy, just internal. A more religious nation (regardless of which) would have certain benefits while one that is less religious would have other benefits (sort of like social policies).

7-The graphics are great, the look better than 4, and overall look nice.

8-No way, the hexes are great. It creates a deeper though process on setting up armies and cities. Plus it makes for less "square" borders which is nice.


My 2 biggest complaints are
1-social policies, there should either be more conflicts (right now only one or two conflict) forcing you to think ahead more, or make you finish the tree before starting a new one.
2-I would like to see some sort of espionage. Not necessarily like before, but where you can go into a city and leech some of their science or gold, cause slight unrest. You send a spy into a city, you can for example get a percentage of their science, say 10%, your spy is stealing a little of their research. Same with gold, you steal a little from a city, or your spy causes one extra unhappy person. Maybe he can slow production by 10%. Things like that, nothing that would give you a unit or free tech, but can slowly cause them problems and slowly help you.

 

[kuukkeli]

1. We want our stack back

Yes please, but limit the maximum size of the stack by some sort of logistics system.

2. We want the old strategic resource system back

No thanks, limited resources are good way to give more value to additional sources and trading.

3. We want our slider back

Undecided on this one. I don't think the old slider was perfect by any means.

4. We want local happiness back

I agree to some degree.

5. No more purchasing units/buildings plz

Indifferent to me. Hasting the production works just as well as buying.

6. We want religion back

Yes! This one got my vote.

7. Bring back the graphics of cIV

I don't really mind the graphics in this kind of games but I agree that IV ones did better job. In V it's at times hard to spot the roads, hills and stuff like that.

8. We want the old map grid back

Initially I thought that hexes would be great but really they don't offer that much. On minus side there are things like hard to figure out the areas cities can eventually work (old fat crosses were much easier to visualize). I guess I'd rather have squares but this isn't any big deal.

 

[the343danny]

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 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. These features are so essential to the whole Civ experience that I am not sure why Firaxis removed them in this generation.

1. We want our stack back: 1UPT makes moving units around so tedious and it's hard to get into formations in battle.

I definitely dont. It was quite terrible. IMO it was harder to use stacks

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.

If you think that in the game one iron mine= 1 swordsmen then you havent played the game. I hated the unlimited resources from the start

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.

I like the sliders too, but it would need tweaking with all the rush buying

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.

Uh no, it doesnt make the game shallower. Its Civ 4 thats closer to the game for 10 year olds by catering their needs to try to go on stupid conquering sprees without any repercussions. Happiness hardly mattered in Civ 4 once you got past the first few turns. It replaces the maintenance system which tried to discourage all out war all the time, but since money problems are easily fixable just by using the sliders and researching currency/getting courthouses, there really was nothing keeping the player from attempting to destroy everything except the fact that he might be outnumbered by the enemy.

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.

I dont really like it too, but there should be a use for spare gold, like a production boost. Kind of like chrono boosting in Starcraft if you've ever played it

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?

? Religion was hardly deep. It was simple, and made diplomacy even simpler

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.

No, nobody ever ever said the Civ V graphics were terrible. They either said they didnt like the rivers, not up to par with the current capabilities of graphics, or that they prefer Civ 4 graphics. I like them, except the non animated trees and the rivers

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.

Again, Im not so sure why you indicate that we all agree with you, but most people seem to love them, and I do too. Its better for strategy, looks nicer, and fixes movement. Not complicated at all

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.

Comments in bold. Many people do not agree with any of these things, and most people who agreed agree on only a few things. Im pretty sure you are the underwhelming minority when it comes to wanting to have Civ V truly like Civ 4 (as opposed to those who are labeled as Civ 4.1 supporters by mentioning something they preferred in 4 over 5)

 

[Kaedan94]

No offense to NobleJms, but you aren't speaking for the majority.

It's pretty clear from your own poll that the current majority is pretty happy with the changes for the most part, but would like to maybe see a couple of things change.


Oh, and the thing that made me look at this thread: Please please PLEASE do not even think about bringing stacks back. IMO, it made Civ4 a joke. I like the 1upt much better and it makes a lot more sense both strategically and realistically.

It was pretty lame to just steamroll everyone with a stack of Doom or be shutdown by a billion units in one city.

 

[Surgeon]

LOL a one sided poll absolutely thrashed by the silent majority.

 

[tsotha]

Stacks? Horrible.

I would like to see religion brought back, and I'd like to see more complexity to the diplomacy system.

 

[Neuro]

It seems to me that the OP just wants Civ5 to be Civ4. So why not just play Civ4? It's still the same game you enjoyed for years.

 

[ElephantRider]

Less than 6% voted for the stack. You should edit the title of this thread.

 

[Sock Bramson]

Yeah, the title makes me wonder if this is actually a sophisticated troll-thread the likes of which is rarely seen.

Remember kids, stacks is wacks. (took me 37 hours to come up with that gem; enjoy )

 

[Strategy Master]

1-Stacks, I hated them. I would like to see and easier way to move large armies, maybe the ability to create a group and move the group (each is still on their own hex) and be able to move land units and use a boat as an escort without having to move it each turn (if my boat moves faster, I don't have protection when going over seas if I auto move)

Yes please, but limit the maximum size of the stack by some sort of logistics system.

I still think my stack suggestion (see below) solves all the problems of allowing a stack. It keeps manoverability but removes any combat advantages to stacking. It actually becomes a disadvantage to stack in combat.

If we had a stack it should have no combat advantages. I.e. on attack you choose unit in the stack to attack or only one unit in a stack can attack in a turn or something like that. That would make us prefer to seperate our troops in battle but would also allow us to group them all up for easy manoverability.

 

[Lebowski89]

Who is we? Stacks are horrible and made combat in civ4 a joke.

 

[troytheface]

agree, the poll's premise precluded me from responding

stacks were really bad

 

[kuukkeli]

I still think my stack suggestion (see below) solves all the problems of allowing a stack. It keeps manoverability but removes any combat advantages to stacking. It actually becomes a disadvantage to stack in combat.

That's not really stack combat. I'd much rather have a limited size stack that fights as a whole. How to divide damage and other specifics would depend on the contents of opposing stacks. That would practically remove SoD, allow AI to compete on more equal terms than 1UPT and it would have far more army like feel to it (I hate how 1UPT spreads your army far too wide considering the scale of the game).

That system could still have stuff people like in 1UPT such as flanking (make another high speed stack to flank the enemy) and maybe siege engines could still shoot over one tile to prevent them from taking space from the actual fighting stack (and give defending flankers something to target). Most importantly (IMO at least) it would allow the game to be less about actual combat because the big decisions would be made in empire management instead of the battlefield.

 

[TLF]

That's not really stack combat. I'd much rather have a limited size stack that fights as a whole. How to divide damage and other specifics would depend on the contents of opposing stacks. That would practically remove SoD, allow AI to compete on more equal terms than 1UPT and it would have far more army like feel to it (I hate how 1UPT spreads your army far too wide considering the scale of the game).

That system could still have stuff people like in 1UPT such as flanking (make another high speed stack to flank the enemy) and maybe siege engines could still shoot over one tile to prevent them from taking space from the actual fighting stack (and give defending flankers something to target). Most importantly (IMO at least) it would allow the game to be less about actual combat because the big decisions would be made in empire management instead of the battlefield.

This is what I would like to see. I'd want to combine a unit like swords with spears so the spears could defend against horses, etc.

I don't want unlimited stacks brought back.

 

[Humakty]

Stacks were really a totally dumb thing in the first place. There were no incentive of doing anything else than just pilling up infinite numbers of units without any penalty. Limited stacking could be interesting though.

As for happiness, I could have a city with very low happiness (for whatever reason), and it had no impact on the nation as a whole. At least now we have the impression of playing an empire, not a bunch of city states sharing apparently nothing with their neighbours.

As for buying units with gold : anyone heard of mercenaries before ? I mean, when you've got the cash, you're nether short on killers !
It's more debatable regarding buildings, rapid construction usually needs some workforce sacrifice....

Sliders : just having ten gold mines, and 100 % research shouldn't allow me to totally ignore research buildings. Now you have to make some choices, and you need to build research infrastructure.

 

[klokwerk]

I believe I can speak for the majority of the Civ players here regarding features that absolutely must be brought back to Civ V

No you can't. You can't talk for them obviously, since 40 % just told you in this poll that they love Civ 5 the way it is, and most of the rest just want one or two small features changed according to the polls.

Civ 5 is fine, change is good, everything will be fine.

It was the same thing with every Civ release, from Civ 2 to Civ 5.

Just adapt to changes, let them surprise you, amuse you, enrich you.

 

[TLF]

In what alternate universe would unhappiness in Chicago, drag down the happiness of the entire US?

Happiness and economic strength are local. If the condition develops in enough localities then the nation starts to suffer as a whole.

Would an entire nation refuse to fight or work because the people in one city were unhappy?

 

[Humakty]

Hex map : square maps allows for moving faster using diagonal => completely unrealistic.
Hex are a standard in most wargames....

 

[Humakty]

In what alternate universe would unhappiness in Chicago, drag down the happiness of the entire US?

Happiness and economic strength are local. If the condition develops in enough localities then the nation starts to suffer as a whole.

Would an entire nation refuse to fight or work because the people in one city were unhappy?

Well, if I whip till death half of Chicago population, to build a library, I bet it would have some consequences on national happiness. Anyone having relatives in another city than his own around here ?