Haven't played in 4 months.

[Civ4Brains]

Diplomacy might be slightly improved, but it still has no real depth.. and doesn't change the fact that the current game basicly forces you to warmonger.

I can honestly say I have never been forced to warmonger (post-patch) and again there have been enough AAR's that recount "peaceful" strategies to testify as such. Now if I start a game, with the intention of maintaining peace because I want to spend most of my time developing infrastructure and building an empire, diplomacy is the tool I use to enable me to do so.

Thats a heck of a lot more depth than it was before. The same criticism could basically be leveled at cIV except diplomacy in that game went completely the other way - establish a religious bloc, sit back and do nothing. It promoted such a passive form of diplomacy that comparatively you could say that system lacked dynamism and depth.

 

[Tatran]

Thats a heck of a lot more depth than it was before.

Civ5 has never been designed to have any depth.
Nothing more than some very light entertainment, like a bad movie with a lot of B-actors.
The player has been degraded to a spectator with his finger on the next turn button.

Btw, you should rename your nick.

 

[Sonereal]

Diplomacy might be slightly improved, but it still has no real depth.. and doesn't change the fact that the current game basicly forces you to warmonger.

Clearly, you have not played CivV with any patches lately. It's fully possible to play peacefully. And you're comparing this to what? CivIV? HAHAHAHAHA! Civ4's diplomacy didn't have any depth until I started playing A New Dawn's Ruthless AI setting.

 

[bryanw1995]

Haha, good to see that the names have changed, but the game is still the same...

FWIW, the biggest change that I've noticed in the most recent patch is that playing as a builder (my favorite mode in civ4) is actually a viable strategy again. Not quite a completely different game from November, but certainly a LOT better overall.

 

[Civ4Brains]

Civ5 has never been designed to have any depth.
Nothing more than some very light entertainment, like a bad movie with a lot of B-actors.
The player has been degraded to a spectator with his finger on the next turn button.

colourful yet inaccurate and vague descriptions with cryptic comments like:

Btw, you should rename your nick.

come off as arrogant and insulting.

If you can't come up with anything concrete there is no value to the discussion since it just revolves around your gut reaction.

 

[jtb1127]

see for yourself but keep that alcohol near, you may need it.

 

[Tatran]

If you can't come up with anything concrete...

Let's see if your civ5brains can solve this simple riddle coming from a tedious civ5 gameplay mechanic.

Turn 76
Human player becomes friends with Stockholm, because of the returning CS worker.
Turn 77
Human player allies with the same neutral city state and buys culture for 250 gold.

Now, see picture.

Spoiler :

The next turn the Stockholm warrior kills the barbarian archer.

How much was that barb archer worth after returning every turn the CS worker?

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: just to remind everyone: please discuss the topic and keep it civil.

 

[Pojman]

I purchased Civ V on its release date, and I was absolutely appalled at how bad it was...

So, after several months - Is it still horrible?

 

[bhavv]

It wasnt ever bad or horrible, not even on release.

It just wasnt as good as or as addictive as Civ IV.

I've never found Civ V to be as bad as you describe, but at the same time I've barely played it as much as I played Civ II and IV within my first few months.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

 

[eric_]

Anyone who still bashes diplo I can only assume has yet to figure out how to use it properly and its a shame because you are actually missing out on an important and interesting part of the game.

Totally agree.

 

[Horizons]

Wow, some of you guys are totally crazy. Enjoy your wonderful diplomacy system. Peace out, chill.

 

[seasnake]

Let's see if your civ5brains can solve this simple riddle coming from a tedious civ5 gameplay mechanic.

Turn 76
Human player becomes friends with Stockholm, because of the returning CS worker.
Turn 77
Human player allies with the same neutral city state and buys culture for 250 gold.

Now, see picture.

Spoiler :

The next turn the Stockholm warrior kills the barbarian archer.

How much was that barb archer worth after returning every turn the CS worker?

Don't understand what you are asking. First of all Stockholm is Maritime, so how are you getting culture from it? Second, you got brownie points for returning a worker you could have kept yourself and then gave a gift. Thus they like you and are giving you a food bonus. Nothing difficult or tedious about it.

 

[Drawmeus]

Let's see if your civ5brains can solve this simple riddle coming from a tedious civ5 gameplay mechanic.

Turn 76
Human player becomes friends with Stockholm, because of the returning CS worker.
Turn 77
Human player allies with the same neutral city state and buys culture for 250 gold.

Now, see picture.

Spoiler :

The next turn the Stockholm warrior kills the barbarian archer.

How much was that barb archer worth after returning every turn the CS worker?

I don't understand. Were you abusing game mechanics by watching the archer take the worker, then taking it back and liberating it every turn?

Yes, there are exploits in the game. There's a far worse and far easier one in taking Liberty and Autocracy policies and switching back and forth between them - each time you switch, you'll get a bit of anarchy, and all of the one-off benefits (golden age, great person, free settler, free worker, potentially 20 turns of massive strength bonus for your entire military). Is that your point?

 

[bhavv]

The diplomacy in Civ V is a joke compared to even the call to power series.

Its so simple, bland and empty compared to other Civ games.

Clearly, you have not played CivV with any patches lately. It's fully possible to play peacefully.

Is it heck possible to play Civ V peacefully, the AI constantly declares war on you, yet its incredibly simple to beat.

In Civ IV you could easily get through a whole game without ever getting into war by picking peaceful civs as opponents.

The AI is pure dumb and useless in Civ V, though it is still an enjoyable game.

 

[Save_Ferris]

I honestly love both CIV and CiV, but I think I like CiV more. Cultural victories are more exciting and challenging, cities can defend themselves, no SoDs, no barbarian cities, and most of all, city-states (which, on one thread, have been proven to be useful in 15 different ways). Diplomacy is bad, but there's a new challenge-keeping everyone happy. If the AI sucks, I could care less, honestly I usually play to win.

 

[Hammurbabble]

Is it heck possible to play Civ V peacefully, the AI constantly declares war on you

I do not find this to be true. I find that when the AI declares war on me, one of the following things has happened:

1) They are an aggressive neighbor and I have a very weak military compared to them.
2) I have made myself thoroughly obnoxious in one of several predictable ways, the most common being that I'm playing that game as a warmonger myself.

If you expand moderately in the early game, then develop your modest empire peacefully, never declaring war on anyone (including city-states) . . . If you either never accept DoFs or, after doing so, always give your friends handouts when they come begging . . . If, despite all this, you keep a strong military with up-to-date tech, on the philosophy of peace through strength . . . then they will leave you alone throughout most, if not all, of the game.

People who complain about the CiV diplomacy system simply don't understand it. I don't fully understand it myself, but I still find it vastly superior to its predecessors.

Subjective viewpoint -- what bhavv said about CiV not being as addictive as Civ IV is not at all true for me. In fact, this is the first game in the series since the original Civ 1 that has had me up until ridiculous hours playing. In many ways, this game has returned to the feel of the original, which was lost for me in the sequels somewhere along the way. Perhaps a part of that is the combat system. While Civ1 allowed stacking just like 2-4 did, only very foolish players would actually do it except to defend cities with, because of the (rather bizarre) rule that if an attack on a stack succeeded, the whole stack died. You tended to spread your attacking units out to keep from losing them all in one lucky/unlucky fight. Whatever the reason, whether it's that or something else, this is by far my favorite in the series.

About the AI being bad at military tactics, that's true, but in fairness it would be a real challenge to develop an AI capable of handling this stuff. When "tactics" meant "compile Stack of Doom and fling it at opponent's city," a game routine could be much more competent than when the system requires actual tactical judgment.

 

[Drawmeus]

The diplomacy in Civ V is a joke compared to even the call to power series.

Its so simple, bland and empty compared to other Civ games.



Is it heck possible to play Civ V peacefully, the AI constantly declares war on you, yet its incredibly simple to beat.

In Civ IV you could easily get through a whole game without ever getting into war by picking peaceful civs as opponents.

The AI is pure dumb and useless in Civ V, though it is still an enjoyable game.

I can consistently get through entire games without having to fight wars regardless of my neighbors in Civ V currently. And doing that has actual advantages for certain victory conditions - more RA partners, better deals selling luxuries.

Getting several of the strongest AI civs on your side is almost trivially easy, though keeping them there will usually require you to fight a war at some point against one of the others. Denounce whoever they denounce, befriend whoever they befriend and they will be your buddy.

Getting everyone on your side is a bit trickier - you need to accede to their demands regularly, and when someone is getting aggressive, you need to bribe someone into a war with them to distract them. And if they're winning the war, you may need to bribe a second civ into the war to keep them from going runaway civ. If you don't expand too much and you agree not to settle near them etc you can usually get through a game without doing any of that, but if you have an aggressive warmonger near your borders (or one becoming a runaway civ elsewhere), you may have to do that.

The diplomacy isn't insane, it's just a little opaque and a lot repetitive.

EDIT: And keep a decent defensive military at every phase of the game. It doesn't need to be huge, but a few strong units and a big gold reserve goes a long way towards making the AI fight someone else.

 

[eric_]

the AI constantly declares war on you

I find it totally feasible to keep the AI off my back for most if not all of a given game. I'm also often able to manipulate the AI civs in and out of war with one another. I love playing puppet master when I'm going for a peaceful victory or during a consolidation phase during a domination attempt, keeping weaker civs alive to use as buffers against stronger civs, etc.