Is civ 5 a step in the right direction or the wrong direction.

[mtrein]

A lot of Civ5 haters don't access the Civ5 forums by now, so I think polls like these are not really valid.

Moderator Action: Please refrain from using the term "haters" - it is an inflammatory term. Thanks.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Save_Ferris]

A lot of Civ5 haters don't access the Civ5 forums by now, so I think polls like these are not really valid.

Yes, but the polls would be in favor of "step in right direction" if the casual gamers voted, who don't usually visit forums for this and enjoy the simpler attitude.

 

[Kerosene31]

Too early to tell.

Give Civ V the same time to develop with expansions and more patches as Civ 4 before making this decision.

 

[Agent Cooper]

The Good:
- the hex map works really well
- 1upt combined with the terrain demand better tactical skills of the player on harder levels. That was pretty much non-existent in Civ4.
- more diverse Civs and the addition of city states
- in general some very good ideas implemented poorly/unsatisfactory as others suggest.
- I like how I can choose what content I would like to buy online for expansion instead of buying a complete add-on. You only pay for what you want.

The Bad:
- the AI is poor whether we are talking diplomacy or combat ->
- diplomacy: A swarm of AI's might denounce and declare war on you if you declare war on 1-2 AI's almost by automation (on harder levels - don't know about sub-emperor). Several of those might be AI's you have only met via scouts = no reason for warfare. Overall the diplomacy system seems very rigid with few choices.
- combat: The AI in general uses units and the tactical system poorly. Why develop and implement it if the AI can't use it? There's no tactical improvement in the AI's play while playing deity/immortal when compared to prince/king. Only more units. That sucks.
- while Social Policies are a nice addition, you choose for the remainder of the game which makes it a very rigid system. Lacks flexibility. Civ4's system might have been to easy to change numerous times during the game, but Civ5's system is not the answer.
- cultural victory seems broken to me. You basically have to design the game from start to end to achieve it and even when winning a relatively early cultural victory, it's score completely blows compared to a domination win. All cultural victory games I've played are very similar which means it gets boring very fast.
- I really, really miss a transport for moving land units over sea tiles as one unit.

Overall a step forward in design but a step backwards in implementation.

 

[mtrein]

Yes, but the polls would be in favor of "step in right direction" if the casual gamers voted, who don't usually visit forums for this and enjoy the simpler attitude.

Well pointed out, but I am taking into account the Civ4 players. Casual players tend to lose interest after a while.

Still, your comment makes sense.

 

[mtrein]

(..)

- I like how I can choose what content I would like to buy online for expansion instead of buying a complete add-on. You only pay for what you want.

(..)

I agree with everything you said, except for this. This would be true if the retail price didn't cost as much as a normal game does.

And it's sad that, for me, the game is still unfinished after all this time.

 

[Lyoncet]

The game was released with just as many civs as Civ IV, for roughly the same price. And the things that were unfinished get fixed in (free) patches, not (paid) DLC. I hear a lot of people complain about them releasing paid DLC, but now that they removed the problem where people doing multiplayer all had to have the exact same DLC, that complaint really doesn't make sense any longer. Your game experience isn't degraded at all from them adding more things that you don't have (yet).

 

[MoonFlare]

Civ5 is a massive failure at this point.It's not even finished yet.It needs at least 1-2 more years of regular patching.Balance,optimization,new features...
Hexes are nice,1UPT is not that good with that type of AI.If the AI was good - 1UPT is good.
Global happiness is an abomination that needs to be burned alive.Diplomacy is nearly non-existent.Combat AI is stupid but gets better with every patch.Diplomacy AI was always bad.That stupid gimmick "it plays for the win like a real human player" ruins it.MP is broken...and Civilopedia is bad.Now that's a bad omen.
By the way - you have to pay for roads so they won't create "road spaghetti".They nerfed roads so we could look at those fancy graphics.How cute.Too bad that there are other tile improvements.And you need a lot of them.I hope they get skinned alive for that logic.

 

[Kamino]

Good direction :
- hexes, 1upt attempt, city expanding tile per tile, barbs camps


Wrong direction :
- greed : too early release, paid DLC, poor content (squander one of the best licence ever)
- poor epic feeling, boring
- 1upt & AI implementation (just don't work)
- puppet cities
- global hapiness
- commercial roads, religion, spy
- civilopedia


I am back to Civ4 BTS with the lovely mod Realism Invictus

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Right for a very simple reason; the wheel was invented in the past and now, we put tires on cars. Or *ANY* innovations create a sense of time passing by too fast. Some fear about having to dismiss all previous knowledge and habits or losing a familiar addiction to control.

But as usual, such polls are *asking* for conflictual opinions. Only the method is changing.

 

[mtrein]

The game was released with just as many civs as Civ IV, for roughly the same price.

I see. In that line of thinking, if they had released Civ 5 with 40 Civs then they could charge, say, 100 USD for it?

And the things that were unfinished get fixed in (free) patches, not (paid) DLC.

I should not have to wait for anything to be finished when I buy a game. I expect to buy it finished the first time I dosh out the money. Another point we disagree on, it seems.

I hear a lot of people complain about them releasing paid DLC, but now that they removed the problem where people doing multiplayer all had to have the exact same DLC, that complaint really doesn't make sense any longer.

I agree with you here. It feels cheap, though, having all this DLC released and people paying for it when so much of the game is still broken (and I doubt will ever get completely fixed, to be honest).

Your game experience isn't degraded at all from them adding more things that you don't have (yet).

This is moot, Lyoncet. My game experience is degraded if the game is unfinished. And after all this time, the game is still unfinished. Don't make me list all the broken stuff in Civ 5, please.

 

[Agent Cooper]

I agree with everything you said, except for this. This would be true if the retail price didn't cost as much as a normal game does.

And it's sad that, for me, the game is still unfinished after all this time.

Well, if you want it all I guess you have a point. But me for instance, I've only bought the Viking and Babylon Civ DLCs so it's fairly cheap for me to get the content I want. It would have been 8-10 times more expensive for me to buy an addon pack with the full content. The Polynesian Civ might be another future purchase, but that's it for me so far.

Agree with your second point - Civ5 seems like a half-finished game, more so than Civ4 vanilla ever did.

Another bad thing not mentioned so far:
- in Civ4, powerful and influential nations (especially in recent times) such as USA, Russia, England, Germany and France had some pretty decent Civ features, traits, units etc. In Civ5 I feel that all of them got severely shortchanged. None of them range on my personal top 10 list of the best Civs. What's up with that? Why are they so bland?

 

[Lyoncet]

I feel like I was pretty clear that I was talking about content (like maps and civs) and not patches. Your gripe was that the game felt unfinished*, and since you'd already paid full retail price, you don't like having to pay to get the polished product. My point was that you don't pay more to get the fixes you're talking about; you're conflating paid DLC with free patches, which muddles the issue and is an inaccurate representation.

*I'm assuming that when you say "unfinished" you're talking about fixing things that are broken based on that last line.

 

[Disraeli]

Absolutely the wrong direction. I hate 1upt, hexes are good but not necessary, I hate global happiness, and I dislike social policies. I also hate the emphasis on removing "bad" features instead of improving them.

That's why I don't think Civ5 will ever be better than Civ4, even after a ton of patches and a few expansions. The core features are fundamentally bad. My opinion of course.

 

[mtrein]

I feel like I was pretty clear that I was talking about content (like maps and civs) and not patches. Your gripe was that the game felt unfinished*, and since you'd already paid full retail price, you don't like having to pay to get the polished product. My point was that you don't pay more to get the fixes you're talking about; you're conflating paid DLC with free patches, which muddles the issue and is an inaccurate representation.

*I'm assuming that when you say "unfinished" you're talking about fixing things that are broken based on that last line.

Yes, you were pretty clear. I decided to mix things and base an overall opinion. Although I lose accuracy as you stated, I can convey my overall feelings better

And yes, I don't pay extra to get the game fixed. But the game is not fixed, and never will be (I say this based on development progress - on everything that has been fixed from release date 'till now). So I feel very much frustrated.

 

[Lyoncet]

Ah, well now we're on the same page.

I agree that the game will probably never be fixed in its entirety, but at least for me it's to the point where I can really enjoy it (Baldur's Gate 1 is one of my favorite games ever, and it's still one of the buggiest games I've ever played). But I'm still really disappointed in 2K for pushing the project through way before it was finished, so I agree with you on that one.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ah, well now we're on the same page.

I agree that the game will probably never be fixed in its entirety, but at least for me it's to the point where I can really enjoy it (Baldur's Gate 1 is one of my favorite games ever, and it's still one of the buggiest games I've ever played). But I'm still really disappointed in 2K for pushing the project through way before it was finished, so I agree with you on that one.

Civ IV is very strong evidence that V will never be finished in its entirety:

1. Skeleton UN code (say hello to picking resolutions at total random and voting yes even when it is ludicrously obvious doing so is detrimental to the yes voter)
2. Vassal state nonsense like having a vassal makes your enemies think they're stronger
3. Tech trades balanced against other empire output features (oxford + library university is a 150% capitol multiplier and 50% elsewhere; tech trading with 3 AI is a 200-300% multiplier in all cities). Note that this joke tradition is continued with RA where gold is multiplied into beakers at 3:1 or more (there is no other way to come close to those returns on gold by investing it elsewhere, ever).
4. The Apostolic Palace auto-win minority religion
5. Unit selection hotkeys. Stack management hotkeys. UI disgraces are neither new nor unique with V.
6. Random event balance is a mess and has ruined competitions
7. Bugged overflow (that was known after a patch and never patched)

and more. Note that all of the above are 3.19 bts issues, not vanilla issues. Some of them are gameplay 101 failures, others allow players to break the game for autowins, others are simply poor design that probably shouldn't have seen vanilla. Some of V's mechanical issues will eventually be addressed in patches or DLC, but if history is any indicator to us, we'll be having control/UI/design issues with civ V 5-6 years from now, or forever.

 

[Thander]

It's a step in the right direction because 1upt is the future. It's too bad Civ 5 is not up to par, but it's the first game in the series like this. Once Firaxis has had time to make good AI, the AI should be just as good as Civ 4. The other problems with Civ 5 I pretty much attribute to the game being rushed. Civ 6 should be better. If it's not any better, only then could I maybe say it's the wrong direction. But then it could just be that Firaxis is incapable of the job and maybe another developer can handle it. Too many variables.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Another thing comes to mind - the game crashes much more often than Civ4 did. It's not a problem with my machine, hardware, software (Vista), settings etc. I have a laptop as well with Windows 7 and the problem is exactly the same.

I don't know whether the problem is caused by the game or Windows or both, so it's hard to address the blame but never the less, it's frustrating.

And - production is generally to weak. There are several buildings/units, especially in the late game not worth the hammers by a long shot.

 

[unfairlane]

A lot of Civ5 haters don't access the Civ5 forums by now, so I think polls like these are not really valid.

Not haters. A lot of Civ-gamers simply do not find Civ5 worth spending their time.