I just finished my first full game of Civilization 5, and I was disappointed by this new version. After playing, I came here to the Civilization Fanatics' Forum, and I see that many people feel the same way I do. I don't want to pile on with complaints, and I don't want to offer suggestions for Firaxis, since I certainly don't know how to write a video game. However, I would like to describe my first impression of the game, if only to get it off my chest.
My game started well. The map looked great, and I loved the exploration phase. Once I started accumulating cities and units, however, the user interface seemed inefficient and clunky. Near the end, it crashed a lot. The game took a long time to play, but not much happened during that time. Early on, I was attacked by China. I wasn't prepared for battle and I should have lost, but instead I won easily without losing a single unit. After defeating China, I was at peace for about 2000 years until I launched the spaceship and won the game. During that time, the only real challenge was keeping my happiness and income up. I ignored the city states. I gave orders manually to my workers. I patrolled my coastline with warships until I realized it wasn't worth the effort. When I discovered uranium, the only place I could get it was on a deserted antarctic island, so I put a city there. I purchased extra tiles, then used a culture bomb to extend my territory so that same city could get oil -- that whole process seemed very gimmicky. When I won, I was shocked to see no victory review screens. After winning, I played a few extra turns and went belligerent, conquering a few of my neighbors. Every war was just one battle, then a walk through the enemy cities. Arabia surprised me with a brilliant defense in a narrow mountain pass, forcing a retreat. I think that was just a fluke, however, because instead of holding its strong position, it inexplicably moved its units into the open where my reserves slaughtered them easily. I played the game as France, but I don't feel its unique characteristics influenced me in any way. Usually, at the end of a Civilization game, my civilization has an epic story to tell of discovery, conquest, friendship, betrayal, and strife. In this case, however, I feel there isn't much of a story to tell. In retrospect, I'm glad Firaxis is bold enough to make big changes to its flagship product, but I'm baffled why they think the switch to hex tiles and the addition of city states was more important than, say, improving the AI or creating a better user interface. I feel that someone got distracted by game mechanics and took their eye off the all-important, yet elusive quality of gameplay. I'm not eager to start another game.
-TC
My game started well. The map looked great, and I loved the exploration phase. Once I started accumulating cities and units, however, the user interface seemed inefficient and clunky. Near the end, it crashed a lot. The game took a long time to play, but not much happened during that time. Early on, I was attacked by China. I wasn't prepared for battle and I should have lost, but instead I won easily without losing a single unit. After defeating China, I was at peace for about 2000 years until I launched the spaceship and won the game. During that time, the only real challenge was keeping my happiness and income up. I ignored the city states. I gave orders manually to my workers. I patrolled my coastline with warships until I realized it wasn't worth the effort. When I discovered uranium, the only place I could get it was on a deserted antarctic island, so I put a city there. I purchased extra tiles, then used a culture bomb to extend my territory so that same city could get oil -- that whole process seemed very gimmicky. When I won, I was shocked to see no victory review screens. After winning, I played a few extra turns and went belligerent, conquering a few of my neighbors. Every war was just one battle, then a walk through the enemy cities. Arabia surprised me with a brilliant defense in a narrow mountain pass, forcing a retreat. I think that was just a fluke, however, because instead of holding its strong position, it inexplicably moved its units into the open where my reserves slaughtered them easily. I played the game as France, but I don't feel its unique characteristics influenced me in any way. Usually, at the end of a Civilization game, my civilization has an epic story to tell of discovery, conquest, friendship, betrayal, and strife. In this case, however, I feel there isn't much of a story to tell. In retrospect, I'm glad Firaxis is bold enough to make big changes to its flagship product, but I'm baffled why they think the switch to hex tiles and the addition of city states was more important than, say, improving the AI or creating a better user interface. I feel that someone got distracted by game mechanics and took their eye off the all-important, yet elusive quality of gameplay. I'm not eager to start another game.
-TC
