I can’t wait until the computer game makers get into the car making business.

[Catt_Ironheart]

So my opinion after the first week is that the game should not have been released, but then again what's new in the gaming business. Ship the POS, and fix it later. Tell me of another industry that can get away with that (aside from the military). There are good points of course such as:

1. One unit per tile (although these Armies must be large because we are talking about miles and miles of land)
2. More Strategic fighting. For the first time ever I feel archers have their place in Civ.
3. Nice enough graphics & sound
4. Seems a lot less memory hogging than Civ 4.
5. Civilization leaders don't look like they come out of an Asterix & Obelix book.
6. Cities are no longer the same box size. It is nice to see a city able to sprawl down a valley.
7. No espionage. I understand the need for it, but in the last series when it was brought it was way overblown. Thankfully it was able to be disabled.

The bads:

1. Unhappiness

I can understand happiness coming from conquered cities, but I totally disagree with a universally empire wide happiness. How does building a city full of happiness buildings make the rest of the empire happy? Happiness should be on the cities, or at least regional I can go with. For instance, Hawaii was so nice and no matter what went on I would say, “Hey, I am in Hawaii, love the beaches and the jungles, hiking swimming …” now I am in New Jersey and yeah the happiness is not there. So now if they build a new resort in Hawaii, how is that making me happy now?

Other thing to be said about happiness.. why doesn’t the fact that I have more than one of a luxury help with happiness? It could always give me half of the initial one or something. I see it as if I have a beer in the fridge I am happy. If I have more than one I am more happy, because I know that once the other beer is gone then I don’t have to worry because there is another one.

The current happiness system has actually made me into a warmonger. I have tried to build cities with large populations, only to become in debt (will speak on this later) I understand how large populations can become unhappier than smaller ones (again look at New Jersey) but where I used to look at my big cities with pride, now I just want them all to stay tiny; more like the Jeffersonian utopia .. except there are ugly trading posts everywhere!

So as I said I now warmonger. They are unhappy, screw them. My new goal is for the whole world to be as unhappy as my people; and heck they can’t rebel or anything. So once the Army is built/bought then let slip the dogs of war … and they never stop.

2. Production

Production for me is not so fun. Buildings cost way too much, and building them takes eons. So build/buy the few ones I need for money and that is it. Big population from conquest will make it so my research grows, who needs libraries or schools? I found buying to be the most economical and quickest route. Set the cities to make only wealth and ignore them. I even annex every city I conquer because it makes more money than having them as puppets … and since happiness doesn’t matter who cares?

3. AI

This is a big problem. I know many have spoken on this topic, but really it is awful. Position your troops and siege warfare and then declare war. Let them bring all they have at you in your nice defensive positions and then all their units are gone the entire conquest of their empire can commence. Oh, and then now and again you get that peace request where they offer you all of their cities, minus the capital. I actually had to take a double-take the first time .. what he is offering me 20 of his cities. Um ok.

4. Diplomacy

Is there any of this? I don’t seem to see any coherent reason behind their actions. Having something like 40 cities and a massive army, and all of a sudden the one empire I have been nice to by trading and selling all my luxury items (again because I don’t need them) decides to go to war with me. And with the two or three cities and tiny Army it would be like Estonia declaring war on Russia.

5. Trade

Where is city trade? I see trade to capital, but do they not trade amongst themselves? How about with their foreign neighbor which just happens to be a few tiles away? Trade is what makes civilizations from ancient times to modern times. Even when countries are at war there is still some kind of trading going on.

6. Maintenance

Maintenance is way too expensive. I can not believe that in the modern age my cities will generally only have a marketplace, bank, and stock exchange. Thieves, merchants, and soldiers, and peasants are the only jobs we provide. Check out some of the maintenance fees; colosseum is three, and a courthouse is four (which I may add a courthouse is only built in occupied cities … because other cities don’t need law). This at least is fixable with a few file modifications.

Along with this is unit maintenance. How much exactly does a unit cost? I am still looking forward to units maintenance being different according to what it is. A stealth bomber, or battleship is more costly to upkeep than artillery or infantry. How much does a worker cost? I can tell you the TCN’s in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan don’t cost us too much. (TCN = Third Country National .. basically foreign workers for the government, but mainly our contractors).

7. Options menu

Where are all the in-game options? See tiles, automated workers, stop auto-cycling to the next unit (pisses me off). And the many other options that have been improved through the entire Civ series.

8. Reports

They sure are pretty, but like many PowerPoint slides they don’t really tell me too much. Also is it me or when I go to the unit list and click the unit it doesn’t get selected.. does anyone else have this issue?

9. Tech Tree

Why do I have to research horseback riding if I don’t have horses, or I just don’t care about it? There were certain techs that you didn’t have to follow, but that is no longer the case. Also the tech tree seems so much shorter… did George Washington chop it down?

10. Civilopedia

This thing is pointless. It tells me as much as my insurance contract. No wait … less. Because at least my contract has numbers and information in it.


There are some more, but I thought I would stop at ten. I realize that many people are totally fawning over this game, much like Pinto and Gremlin owners did back then, but the truth is currently it is a lemon. I also find it interesting when people talk about how that this or that is different from Civ 4, but in truth there are many changes that took away from the core of the Civilization series. Me I am all for this game becoming something greater. I know that 3 and 4 were not the best when they came out and eventually developed into something, but I do believe they were better than this when they were released. I am tired of hearing about how the modders will fix it; when in essence that isn’t their job. I have always loved the modding features since Civ 2 when I made my entire Civ 2 game based off of MechWarrior Mercenaries (anyone remember that old game?) I took screenshots from within the game and made every mech into a unit, even the tanks and planes they had. The terrain was also the same terrain as in the game. It was nice. I wish I still had a copy, but that laptop didn’t survive a deployment to the Balkans.

The point is the Devs had better start doing some major fixes. Modders should add flavor to games, but for select individuals since we all want something different, but the core of the game needs fixing. Why we gamers put up with the sort of release a POS and then patch and make fixes later I will never know. How many times have you been ripped off on a game that was never fixed?

 

[Frank327]

Agreed, the game has a little too many flaws and unbalanced features to really be a proper game at this moment.

I was most surprised by the civilopedia. It's only useful as quick intro information for your first few games. If the text on the topic "merchants" basically comes down to "merchants give gold and points towards a great merchant", then why even bother to write it down in the first place? How hard is it to give an actual number for the gold and great merchant points? Same with for example landmarks. "Landmarks provide loads of culture for a city". "Loads" of culture? It would've been quicker to just give the actual number.

And then, there's zones of control, which has a really big effect on combat in this game. In total, I think there's one or two short sentences about it. So I'm wondering, can you have a zone of control inside an enemy city? Does the zone of control expand forward on the same turn I move? If you lose all your movement points while moving through a zone of control, why can I even move several hexes to attack a unit in one turn? Am I not moving through a zone of control?

 

[Balerune]

I misunderstood your title. I thought this would be about them going towards bankrupcy and being taken over by the government. There is many a fantasy in what would happen then.

But it is the lack of trade I miss the most. Everyone seems to be modding cosmetic stuff. I'd like to see at least the same things as from bts so you could have more choice of how to run an empire; not sure the social tree idea is a good one unless you could change emphasis -- after all in cities and in managing battles you can change emphasis and cultures do that all the time; it is just not an accumulation of "knowledge" that shapes a culture.

 

[jtwood]

I'm gonna go ahead and post this thread in some other forums.

That's a great summary.

 

[jtwood]

I was most surprised by the civilopedia.

Same here. As I was going through my first games, I kept feeling that something wasn't right... And then I tried to look some stuff up in the 'pedia.

That was my "oh scheisse" moment.

 

[Catt_Ironheart]

I misunderstood your title. I thought this would be about them going towards bankrupcy and being taken over by the government. There is many a fantasy in what would happen then.

But it is the lack of trade I miss the most. Everyone seems to be modding cosmetic stuff. I'd like to see at least the same things as from bts so you could have more choice of how to run an empire; not sure the social tree idea is a good one unless you could change emphasis -- after all in cities and in managing battles you can change emphasis and cultures do that all the time; it is just not an accumulation of "knowledge" that shapes a culture.

If only that were true then 3DO would have survived their Heroes of Might and Magic 4 debacle. That killed a series I always enjoyed playing since .. was it the mid nineties? If Firaxis doesn't get this game fixed soon they might go the route of 3DO. The only thing going for them is that Civ V can be fixed by modders.

Yeah trade is a big one. If one could actually have normal city to city trade the city-states would actually win me over, but having to continue paying them money I start to feel less like a great ruler and more like the servant. Kind of funny ... I rule half the world and some little city makes me continue bribing them for their resources. Last game I nuked one because I didn't feel like paying it anymore. Felt very good.

 

[Catt_Ironheart]

Same here. As I was going through my first games, I kept feeling that something wasn't right... And then I tried to look some stuff up in the 'pedia.

That was my "oh scheisse" moment.

My "Oh scheisse" moment came around when I couldn't get two workers on a square to build that quarry faster. Like really? How many workers are we talking about? I wonder if they had this problem when they built the pyramids!

 

[NCC81701]

Yeah trade is a big one. If one could actually have normal city to city trade the city-states would actually win me over, but having to continue paying them money I start to feel less like a great ruler and more like the servant. Kind of funny ... I rule half the world and some little city makes me continue bribing them for their resources. Last game I nuked one because I didn't feel like paying it anymore. Felt very good.

After my 2nd game I just ignore city states completely. There is really no point in bribing them because of diminishing returns and there really isn't another way to maintain a relationship with any one of them over a long period of time.