Is civ5 worth buying it?

[Rusty Edge]

Whenever I play IV, the world is my canvas. When I played V it felt like I had little choice in playstyle once the civ was determined.

It's been a long time since I played V. I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, and got several hundred hours of gameplay out of it. I never played multi-player, because it wasn't working. I never bought the sequel. I loved the soundtrack. I loved the hexes and the artwork. I got my money's worth. I am planning to purchase V Complete when it comes out.

For a tactical war-game, I thought Sid's Pirates! handled the city attacks better with a mini-map, various ranges for weapons and unit facing. As a wargame, I think the Total War series was better.

As for empire mangement, I never really understood the hype about "Improved Diplomacy", unless they meant it was conducted in foreign languages, because it seemed to me there was less of it.

I didn't like the change from civics to social policies, because it seemed to me that rather than being able to change according to circumstance, with ever increasing options and combinations of options, I felt as if I were being herded down a chute with diminishing options.

 

[S.ilver]

I bought Civ 5 on launch, and to my everlasting embarrassment, it's a game that I'll never play again.

In my opinion, the problem with Civ 5 is it no longer plays like a Civ game. I will echo everyone in this thread by saying it plays far more like a tactical wargame than a strategy title. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you like tactical wargames, but Civ 5 does not do it very well. It also betrays the essence of the series (sort of like how EA has run C&C off a cliff, several times >.<).

Firaxis' change in direction prompted me to look elsewhere, and like Funky, I discovered the unlauded Paradox Interactive. They make some amazingly difficult strategy games, but they're also the publishers of "Warlock: Master of the Arcane". I picked up that game in an Amazon bundle. And you know what? It plays almost exactly like Civ 5 in terms of core gameplay. But that's ok, because it isn't part of a long standing series that is defined by a different type of gameplay.

 

[LeHam]

In retrospect, the 1UPT was a mistake. I can see how it made sense at the time, but once the novelty wears off, it just becomes a headache. The AI doesn't know how to use it very well, and for the player having to move so many units individually, especially on crowded map, is a giant pain in the rear. They thought it would get rid of Stacks of Doom entirely, but now it's just "Carpets of Doom." Besides, as long as you had enough siege in Civ IV, Stacks of Doom were no longer as much of a problem anyway.

It's another case of trying to fix something that isn't actually broken.

In terms of Social Policies, I just wish they had been implemented better. They really helped the immersion factor, but I always felt like I was being forced down a particular path, because once you chose a policy you could never go back.

 

[duckstab]

In retrospect, the 1UPT was a mistake. I can see how it made sense at the time, but once the novelty wears off, it just becomes a headache. The AI doesn't know how to use it very well, and for the player having to move so many units individually, especially on crowded map, is a giant pain in the rear. They thought it would get rid of Stacks of Doom entirely, but now it's just "Carpets of Doom." Besides, as long as you had enough siege in Civ IV, Stacks of Doom were no longer as much of a problem anyway.

It's another case of trying to fix something that isn't actually broken.

Not long ago I started playing Battle for Wesnoth, which was supposedly one of the inspirations for the combat system in Civ5. After trying it out I've come to realize the validity of Sullla's oft-cited core criticism, that it really comes down to unit density. In B4W, the ratio of tiles to units in a scenario seems to be on the order of 20:1 to as high as 50:1. This works just fine because every scenario you get a new map and have to recall or recruit units to occupy it. And you rarely have the resources to field more than 1 or 2 dozen units in a particular battle. With all that space, tactical chokepoints become an interesting challenge rather than a constant hassle.

In theory you could build up a huge army but the fact that you can't deploy them all means they're not occupying space on the map. Thus, where I think Civ5 falls flat: by insisting that tactical battles take place on the same map and on the same scale as everything else.

If Firaxis wants to maintain a tactical focus in Civ6, then they need to do two things. First, worry a lot more about solid combat AI than about flashy visuals. And second, allow combat to be moved onto a battlefield-level map and time scale. For all I care, they could even make detailed tactical battles a DLC add-on. If they did a good job of it, they could make it a first-rate complement to the core empire building and management aspects of Civ, in contrast to the uneasy compromise that is Civ5.

 

[Lord_Herobrine]

I personally havent owned any other Civ game than Civ IV, but judging by the feedback in this topic; I'm probably not going to get Civ V.

 

[wazzzuup]

hey welcome to civfantics of coarse i shouldnt be saying this since i am pretty new

any way welcome to civfantics!!!

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Playing Civ5 is like wearing heels on a tile floor...

Click, click, click, click...

It drove me crazy, and it took forever to build anything. I tried again a couple of weeks ago, and there seems to be less clicking, but the diplomacy seems arbitrary at best.

The 1UPT rule is a killer for me. I can't even stack a settler with a warrior as protection, so that they move together. I have to move them separately. Very annoying.

It also refuses to play nice with a $500 graphics card.

Bottom line, boring, frustrating game.

 

[damerell]

Playing Civ5 is like wearing heels on a tile floor... It drove me crazy, and it took forever to build anything. I tried again a couple of weeks ago, and there seems to be less clicking, but the diplomacy seems arbitrary at best.

As I understand it, part of the trouble there is that the AI tries to detect incoming sneak attacks... but that's a hard, hard problem. Remember how the MOO1 AI would tell you off for massing on its borders, normally quite at random?

It also refuses to play nice with a $500 graphics card.

Hm. My graphics card wasn't worth USD500 when I bought it five years ago. Perhaps Civ V is out.

 

[Nials]

In terms of Social Policies, I just wish they had been implemented better. They really helped the immersion factor, but I always felt like I was being forced down a particular path, because once you chose a policy you could never go back.

That's a very good point. Often, once you pick a policy tree, you know you're going to finish it if the finishing bonus is good enough. That really takes away planning and evaluation of each specific choice.
I'm not sure if Civ IV was better in all regards with its civics, but at least you had a choice to make for each and every civic. You had to weigh up the pros and cons of the civics you were switching from against the civics you were switching to. In Civ V it's more a case of "Oh, I'm going for a science victory, so I will need to fill out the Rationalism tree", so you're pretty much going to do that each and every time.
Not very exciting in terms of planning and playing out the map given to you.

Hm. My graphics card wasn't worth USD500 when I bought it five years ago. Perhaps Civ V is out.

V isn't -that- heavy on system requirements. Sure, it needs a beefier machine than IV, but there's also a timespan difference of about five years between their release dates.
A $100 entry-level video card of today should run it like butter and less will most likely do fine as well (I'm using an HD 5770 and the game runs fine at 1920x1080. That card is pretty low end by today's standard).

 

[Rusty Edge]

Playing Civ5 is like wearing heels on a tile floor...

Click, click, click, click....

Somehow you make that sound so fun and sexy, like practicing a dance with my wife.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Somehow you make that sound so fun and sexy, like practicing a dance with my wife.

I would have thought "romantic" instead. Dancing with the wife? Everyone needs a little romance in their life.

I'm jealous.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I would have thought "romantic" instead. Dancing with the wife? Everyone needs a little romance in their life.

I'm jealous.

Well, romantic, too.

Ballroom dancing lessons can be fun, especially when you can screw up and laugh about not knowing your left from your right. Tango in particular can be silly and sexy at the same time, and you can practice at home in the kitchen, a hallway, or other narrow spaces, which is romantic.
We took a ballroom class one winter, and then had some private lessons to prepare for our wedding... which really confused our photographer because he was expecting us to stand in the middle of the dance floor and sway, and we used all of it !

Don't be too jealous at the present, we're in a knee-replacement process.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Don't be too jealous at the present, we're in a knee-replacement process.

Still am. I'm in a partner replacing process, and I sure won't meet her by dancing. I have two left feet.

 

[pspboy7]

I like both Civ 4 and Civ 5 but they are not the same types of games by any stretch. Civ 4 is more about building an empire and has far superior AI and diplomacy mechanics. The AI in Civ 5 was inadequate at handling diplomatic situations and were completely imbalanced in building decent empires. If you want to just war, war some more, and then war again, play Civ 5. If you want a challenge and feel immersed in creating an actual empire with all the trimmings of meeting other civilizations, trading, diplomacy, intrigue, and specialization, play Civ 4. I think we see where this is going...

 

[vincentz]

I think most have been mentioned, but as a Civ I, II, III and IV player this :

For me Civ 5 was the biggest video game dissapointment i ever experienced

 

[el_hidalgo]

Not worth buying, IMO. Which is why I didn't buy it. I read a lot about it, spent a lot of time in the V forums, and it just didn't seem interesting or appealing. So why bother since I'm not bored with IV?

One thing in particular, it doesn't seem as mod-friendly as IV. Take leaderheads, for example. I'm sure it's not easy to make them in IV, but some talented modders rose to the occasion and put out a great many very high quality lh's that are at least as good as if not better than the in-game lh's.

But look at the mod lh's for V. They are basically just static images. I hesitate to put anything past the excellent crew of modders here on CF, but it seems almost impossible to replicate the style of the in-game lh's. Or at least not worth the trouble. And then add the foreign language greetings too? Forget it. And what does all that eye and ear candy really add to the game? I would prefer it if they made the lh's a little less fancy so modders would have a chance to equal them.

 

[Iranon]

1 upt was a terrible idea. It works elsewhere, but implemented as is in an open-ended empire simulator it lead to a combat system that's micromanagement-intensive, incomprehensible to the AI and fragile.

The last requied seriously odd pacing to prevent gridlocks and deliberately limiting the effect of nontrivial player decisions (any clever play would break the game -> make sure there is no meaningful cleverness).

It's actually quite amazing how close they came to make something fundamentally broken almost playable, provided you don't think about it. Being actually good was never in the cards.