I don't want to come off sounding like a whiner but man...

[Carver]

The interesting thing about the OP is, as said, he is the target audience, and he is unhappy.

I don't think that casual game players are going to be interested in a Civ style game, even if it is simplified.

I think Firaxis is trying to target a nonexistent audience.
Even a simplified Civ is too much for a casual game audience.

They already had the casual market covered with Civ Rev.
They should have made a Civ Rev for PC and made Civ 5 a true Civ game.

Only time will tell, but I sense a large mistake here.

+1

Nail hit on head.

 

[Thormodr]

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...

That's a huge generalization and you can't back it up.

I and many other people don't want ciV to be cIV.5. I want it to be a great game on its own. Not some bug riddled game with serious issues with game balance, brain dead AI and questionable game design.

Take your rose coloured glasses off please.

 

[charon2112]

That's a huge generalization and you can't back it up.

I and many other people don't want ciV to be cIV.5. I want it to be a great game on its own. Not some bug riddled game with serious issues with game balance, brain dead AI and questionable game design.

Take your rose coloured glasses off please.

It's what I believe to be true. Civ V IS a great game on it's own right if one takes the time to learn the game. balance is good, design is fabulous, AI is...ok.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

It's what I believe to be true. Civ V IS a great game on it's own right if one takes the time to learn the game. balance is good, design is fabulous, AI is...ok.

So are you claiming that people who are complaining have not taken time to learn the game and have not unlocked its deep complexities?

 

[Shmike]

I think that's what so many people, including myself, have found disappointing. Once you get past the gloss and the hexagonal goodness, there's really not much there at all.

Amen to that. I know I'm new to Civ series but I'm not that casual gamer, gaming is what I do, I don't play the cheesy casual games I play the real games that require skill, but you don't see too many of those games now and that's why I'm worried for the future of gaming, the developers will cater to casual gamers to make more money leaving us real gamers in the dust, e.g Civ 5.

 

[falconne]

For one (of many), in Civ IV by the late game, because production was fast you would have every building built in every city. There was not much strategy to that. In V, building is slower and you can't build everything everywhere. You need to think long and hard about what you want a city to accomplish and build buildings accordingly.

No, there's not more strategy here. There's a reason why I could waltz through this game on Immortal on my third game when Civ 4 is still a struggle for me on Emperor. And I'm not even an avid Civ player. Although you can build fewer buildings, they made it painfully obvious which buildings you should build. There's fewer buildings available and most only give one kind of benefit and generally the only penalty is maintenance. You may be able to build faster in Civ 4, but there's lots more buildings available so you're building nearly all the time. Many buildings have multiple benefits and penalties and until the end game, it takes a lot of skill to figure out which one to choose. Even two science specialised cities in Civ 4 could have taken very different build paths as was needed, but in Civ 5 the build queue for each kind of specialisation is so obvious you may as well save the queue for each. And there's fewer specialisations required because of the game's much simpler mechanics.

Furthermore, the wider city radius and the lack of growing cottages means you no longer need to specialise tile improvements. The city will not use anywhere near its capacity, so you mine the hills and spam TPs everywhere else and simply switch priority to production or gold as the need arises. Every city thus has high production capability, so all you really need to decide is, "If this city is a science specialist and there's science buildings available, build one. Else, if there's economic buildings available, build one. Else, if their's happiness buildings available, build one. Else, build a workshop" and so on. It's not hard at all.

With Civ 5 having taken away so many mechanics and reducing the number of variables considerably, a lot more players are able to see a clear strategy to victory. I think this is where the argument by many who like it better come from, that Civ 5 feels more strategic. I know it sounds patronising, but I think many of them played Civ 4 like a simulation instead of a strategy game, because there were too many variables and the game felt too organic. There was a lot more strategy in Civ 4, but you have to spend a lot of effort on it to figure it out.

Civ 5 is a lot easier to "solve". The variables have been reduced to a handful of numbers which are your "dashboard". Very much boardgame like. They tell you how things are going - if one number gets too low, it's obvious what to do about it. Everything is much more loosely coupled than before, so you can adjust one aspect of your empire without affecting others. The only shared variable is money, so just spam TPs. If all the numbers are good, then just keep pressing End Turn. Once you've figured out the few simple rules to optimise the game, it really just plays itself.

 

[Andoo]

It confuses me how missing some features directly leads to a conclusion that it's a civ for children. Chess is a 'real game' while being simple and easy to learn, you know. I'm not saying civ 5 is as complete of a game as Chess but just implementing simplicity doesn't automatically mean rubbish.

 

[Slecht]

It confuses me how missing some features directly leads to a conclusion that it's a civ for children. Chess is a 'real game' while being simple and easy to learn, you know. I'm not saying civ 5 is as complete of a game as Chess but just implementing simplicity doesn't automatically mean rubbish.

Chess isn't that easy but everyone can play it yes. So if comparing with chess, I would say, it's chess with less pieces. More simple / less thinking. But yes it can be still great fun and challenging.

 

[tinstaafl]

Also, charon, you are saying (as admittedly so many others do) that you would build every building in civ4 just because there was no upkeep. Well consider this. Opportunity cost was still to be considered for every building and if you built all buildings in every city, you simply weren't playing very efficiently. Yes, you could do that in civ4, but normally you really really shouldn't.
Upkeep/no upkeep, aren't fundamentally all that different, it's just somewhat harder to compute what investment is best if there is upkeep.

 

[pennjersey83]

The ONLY 2 things I dislike about CIV 5 is the wait between turns, and that the satellite tech doesn't reveal the map....If they could patch those 2 things in I would be completely satisfied. I don't miss religion, sliders, stacks of doom, or espionage in the slightest.

The wait between turns needs to be fixed asap tho

 

[Cap'nCanuck]

After several expansions, some great modding from this community and a couple patches Civ V will be a great game.

Until then, despite the appeal of 1UPT, city-states and hex-tiles I'm just going to stick with Civ IV. Civ V is too bare for me, and the full game feels more like a fun prep demo for something better than it actually does a real $50 purchase. Nonetheless, vanilla Civ IV was only marginally better to how I felt it compared to Civ III. There were plenty of people (although less comparatively I think) who were frustrated with Civ IV, though it sucked and stuck with Civ III.

These things take time.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It's true that any time someone claims that in civ4 they simply built every building in each city, they are revealing they were not playing a difficulty level very challenging to them.

At Deity in civ4 bts, if you build every building, you're dead meat. Simple as that.

 

[tom2050]

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...

Do you also tell every single person that has a valid complaint about Civ 4 to get over it because it's Civ 4, and not Civ 3.5? With the logic you are applying, it would only make sense to do that also.

 

[klokwerk]

I agree with Charon. Civ 5 is a great game. It's deeper and less tedious than Civ 4 in nearly every way.

It only lacks 2 things which will be patched or modded soon :

- a layer of polish : end game replays, some more screens like military support, or demographics graph...

- AI fixes / improvements : less gifts to players in peace treaty, building more units, more navy, improving a bit AI war logic (tactical AI). This last point is by far the most difficult.

Overall, Civ 5 >> Civ 4 in nearly every way. It's not Civ 4.5. If that's whay you want, then go play Civ 4.

People whined the same way about Civ 3 and Civ 4 when they were launched. We're generally afraid of changes, and some people need more time to adapt.

 

[Akka]

I say it, because it's true. Most people who hate this game are upset because it isn't Civ IV with better graphics...

It's not "true", it's just the overly cliché answer that you can apply to everything.
Everybody is aware that Civ5 is a new game.
Everybody with half a brain is also aware that if it's "Civ5", it's NORMAL to have expectation of a game built on the general principle of the others in the serie.

Stop handwaving any criticism by re-using the same old line, it's tiring and just reek of raw fanboyism.

 

[Bandit17]

Long time Civ player here and I fell into that early trap of expecting Civ V to be similar to Civ IV. After a few games I realized I had to play it totally different. The new open human like diplomacy has it's holes but I think it has a lot of promise. The 1upt system is also promising but due to poor pathfinding and an inept ai we have yet to see what can be fully achieved here.

My point is, is that Civ V has a lot of promise but that it is still in beta form. It is incomplete. It took Civ III to get to Civ IV so we are once again asked to help beta test a "finished" product. Sadly this is the computer gaming world we live in today.

When a dev team says: "It'll be released when it's finished." please jump up and support them!!

 

[TLF]

It confuses me how missing some features directly leads to a conclusion that it's a civ for children. Chess is a 'real game' while being simple and easy to learn, you know. I'm not saying civ 5 is as complete of a game as Chess but just implementing simplicity doesn't automatically mean rubbish.

It's not confusing.

People who have difficulty beating Civ4 on middle difficulties are beating Civ5 on hard settings.

It would seem to be an easier game.

Whether you want to call it dumbed down or simpler or streamlined or whatever, it is much easier to beat according to many people.
Even fairly new players are beating it on harder settings.

So, where do they go from there? Once it's easy to win on the hard setting then it's not much of a challenge to continue playing.

 

[Kid R]

This build-every-building argument baffles me, for two reasons:

1.
Who ever has enough production in every city in Civ 4 to do that? In a powerful production-specialized city you might just about build everything but the others have to pick and choose. A cottage city might be lucky if it manages to build a library and bank.

2.
I don't see build times being that long in Civ 5 anyway. Plus you can buy the buildings immediately if you want.

It's a complaint about something that isn't an issue, countered with an argument that makes no sense.

(Wow, that felt good! I actually stood up for Civ 5 instead of 90% of the time bashing at the moment )

 

[dannythefool]

People who have difficulty beating Civ4 on middle difficulties are beating Civ5 on hard settings.

It would seem to be an easier game.

They are beating it on hard difficulty because the AI is incapable of defending itself properly against a human in too many cases. At least that's why I win on hard difficulty The difference is very noticeable compared to Civ IV, where the simpler but less transparent combat system gave an advantage to the AI.

I have some doubts as to how many people are winning on deity without beating every other civ into a pulp.

 

[falconne]

They are beating it on hard difficulty because the AI is incapable of defending itself properly against a human in too many cases. At least that's why I win on hard difficulty The difference is very noticeable compared to Civ IV, where the simpler but less transparent combat system gave an advantage to the AI.

I have some doubts as to how many people are winning on deity without beating every other civ into a pulp.

That may be true, but the AI in Civ 4 is not what you'd call sharp. The main point is, it took a long time for people to figure out the best way to play Civ 4 because of the number of interconnected variables in it. With Civ 5, you pretty much “get it” after one game. It's got very few variables so it's much easier to get it all into your head and there's very little to do, so it's easier to figure out the best path. It may have emergent complexity, but very little inherent complexity.

The problem I see is, when the community gets a hold of the AI, they can actually make it quite brutal, simply because less complexity gives the AI more chances to use brute force to optimise its game. Also, with many clean cut strategies already being discovered, the AI can be coded to use them, instead of trying the holistic approach required in Civ 4. The gameplay won't feel like an epic romp through history, but a giant game of battle chess.