Hello? Civ V is Civ I/II reborn...

[man-erg]

It may actually wake you up when you start realizing its Civ I/II but with hexes, city states, 1upt, and a few other goods thrown in and nice graphics.

I get your point, but I would still say those changes alone are *more* of a radical departure from Civ 1/II than upgrades and religion was in Civ 4. City states alone have totally unbalanced the 'traditional' game system.

After all, Warcraft is just Civ 1 in a fantasy setting, with more fighting, no cities and in real time.

Also, remember, we are talking Civ V alone, with no expansions, many people compare BTS with Civ V, another thing that makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense to compare a new release with the previous release. And the previous release, the one that the vast majority were playing till 2 weeks ago, is BTS. If Fireaxis had said, honestly, that "5 can only be compared with 4 on release, not BTS", I'd have known to avoid it like the plague! If they'd said "Better than 4 (but not BTS because that had an extra 3 years development and it's unfair to compare)", I'd have respected them for their honesty. But no, they said "best YET". The key word "yet" clearly includes BTS.

So if the first expansion for V contains Religion, >1 Unit per hex, espionage, happiness per city and an end game replay, those of you happy with V wouldn't buy it as it would be a return to the bad old days? I doubt it! That expansion would become a "must have", because apologists aside, we all know that despite the improvements, they have been at the expense of too many good features.

I mean how can anyone possibly judge ANY big strategy games (especially a civ game) after having it for ONLY one full day?

I agree totally. It's a pity that about 90% of the reviewers don't, though. Seriously, the overflowing praise of the reviewers motivated me to pre-order the day before release. The first (and last) time I've ever done that. Talking about comparison with BTS, I should have waited 3 years till the expansions were out, the bugs were fixed, the game was balanced and a PC that can run it without slow AI turns is affordable.

I would think more people would have already noticed how similar Civ V is to I/II, I seen a few mention it but not as I have here.

I logged 100's of hours into I and II, and I struggle to see the connection! V seems like a sub-branch of the main series, like Col. It is based on Rev and probably aimed ultimately at console markets.

One last thing, if someone don't like Civ V, they can go away, play their Civ IV with its mods.

True, and until various issues are fixed in V, that's what I'll be doing. And that is after playing every day since release, so I've given it a fair trial. Right now I'd like to sell my copy. But thanks to Steam ...we can't, can we?

If anyone learns ONE thing from what I wrote, let that be THEY WENT BACK TO THE CORE DESIGN so before you're quick to say its been DUMBED DOWN,

They may well have done that. The point is that 2, 3 and 4 all IMPROVED on that core design in various ways! So why throw away all those improvements? That's what some of us are thinking, which does agree with your point, but says that it was detrimental to the overall design. Civ 1 had some really irritating flaws, much more so than 4, so why use the weaker version as your base?

 

[Durnan]

In no case Civ V is on the same branch than civ 1+2, it has some common elements with civ 3 and 4 (xp-based units, cultural boundaries, ...), so the "back to the roots" doesn't even justify the lack of depth and features of this 5th opus.

It's not a civ 5, it's a civ 0.5 ...

The 4.5 we are still missing will be available through DLC though... Don't worry, you will have to pay 30 or 40 more €/$ to get your full featured Civ 5. (How much will he have to pay to get one or two new civilizations already ? Then how much for an "AI pack" ? and for a "Civ IV-like pack" to suit the fans ? )

I've been abused by game reviews websites who gave this game a 9 or 10 without actually testing it.
I've been robbed by 2k/firaxis who sold me a Civ 5 (as in Civ 4+1=5, not as in CivRev+1=Civ 5)...

I can understand 2k needs some money badly, we all do. I'll keep mine next time.

 

[kazapp]

It may actually wake you up when you start realizing its Civ I/II but with hexes, city states, 1upt, and a few other goods thrown in and nice graphics. That is what Civ V is, its NOT a Civ III or IV but a Civ I/II on steriods for today's time. That is NOT a bad thing especially for the ones, who after Civ IV came out, were still claiming Civ II was best. Well you now have your Civ II again but this time with a steriod injection, just take off your blind fold.

I disagree.

If you are right, and Civ 5 is indeed "a Civ I/II on steroids", then that is very bad.

We don't need a new Civ I/II in 2010 - we are justified in hoping for much, much more.

 

[Zogar]

I disagree.

If you are right, and Civ 5 is indeed "a Civ I/II on steroids", then that is very bad.

We don't need a new Civ I/II in 2010 - we are justified in hoping for much, much more.

You didn't play Civ 1/2 apparently (probably the OP never did as well for saying such crazy stuff, and I'm amazed people don't react more to this claim), but I will tell you this : Civ5 has fewer things in common with Civ 1/2 than with Civ 4.

And I would have prefered a Civ 2 on steroids than what they made with Civ 5.

 

[mmmfloorpie]

Core design never had religion, espionage, corporations, unit promotions, civics, and what else am I leaving out? Maybe a current Civ II player can help here? I will admit its been a very long time since I have played Civ II but I have played it a lot back in the days. So Civ V removes the first 3, then adds in more promotions and changes civics to social policy's. After playing Civ V, I started thinking, it reminds me of the older games for reasons I mention. That is when I remembered they said they would go back to the core design.

Maybe those things were omitted in earlier Civs because of the limitations of technology at the time? It also takes generations of sequels in order to fine tune things and add improvements. That's how life is. You build off of previous experiences.

I think that the reason people are so angry with Civ 5 is because as Civ fans, we have come to expect evolutionary changes from Civ title to Civ title. We expect that the next Civ will have tweaked the annoyances from previous titles, plus add much more content/complexity and improve the graphics and gameplay and user interface.

The people that are angry (including myself) feel like they took 2 steps back from Civ 4 instead of advancing the game.

And I'm sorry, but the reason Firaxis did this was to increase sales through future portability to consoles. Thanks!

 

[Warspite2]

I truely love how some of you say "we" and speak for the entire community. Hey speak for yourself and regardless if anyone gets the point or not, fact is more people like CiV then do not like it so say "I" instead of we. Not sure how someone can not know what the core game is? The original game came out over 2 decades ago and we been playing this series for over 20 years, do I really have to explain the "core gameplay"? Well ok I will, lets first read this wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(video_game). Then another option is to pickup and old box of civ I or II and read the game description. I will shed even more light below...

Civilization's core was first built in Civ I where it all began and it is build up all around that. Its the core gameplay, where everything was born from and where all sequels eventually evolved from, the very start. Think of it like the center of the earth, all our land mass is build on a foundation, a core and formed into one huge orb. Wonder what would happen if earth was shaved down to its very core and allowed to reform back into a huge world, would it be the exact same? No of course not.

Civilization at core is back to the bare bones and a rebuild effort. A random map, a single settler, and a world to build a civ on and explore while eventually expanding and maintaining your country. Fighting wars and using diplomacy actions to deal with other nations, researching techs and moving into future times. Thats it, that is the core gameplay. That is what was went back to work on and Firaxis said this was the direction for CiV. Some people can't seem to see it this way, instead they claim it as dumbed down even though it is more then what the original two games ever were. Sure, compared to BTS, it can appear that way but look at the improvements and changes that went in CiV. All of this added stuff in BTS is not part of the classic core game which is exactly why some of it is not there in the game yet! Maybe it will return in an expansion after the new foundation is built upon with CiV. Maybe they are working on balancing out the game and fine tuning the AI so that major things like the hexes and 1upt all end up improved along the way. Then move on and add to this new core that is based upon the classic gameplay. That being the few major changes that went into CiV.

Oh and since I was flamed for using caps with a few words, here we go I am CAPS LESS since it was such a problem. Look, I been around here in this forum for a very long time, I don't need my character insulted for such lame non-sense as CAP words.

At last and off subject...anyone still play Civ II ToT? Back then I had wrote a fully illustrated unit creation guide for the game which I hosted on my website. I don't know what ever happened to that. May have got lost in system restores at one point.

 

[logintime]

Sure, compared to BTS, it can appear that way but look at the improvements and changes that went in CiV. All of this added stuff in BTS is not part of the classic core game which is exactly why some of it is not there in the game yet! Maybe it will return in an expansion after the new foundation is built upon with CiV.

Yes! Improvements and changes! Like the inability to cancel open borders! Or conduct Diplomacy in general. But Diplomacy was clearly never part of the classic core game!