Is Civilization V the worst game of the series?

[Zyxpsilon]

Yet, for Civ4 no key component had to be completely changed within three months after release (diplomacy, anybody?).

Rivers?
River mouths?
Forests?
Identifying roads in tiles?
Seperating finished and unfinished improvements like farms from each other?
Even units need an icon of their own to be identifiable.
Texture filling?
The same gfx card which runs a modified over-huge map of Civ4 with large mods like RoM/AND by 70°C goes up to 80°C on an empty map of Civ5.

How anybody can call the graphics better is completely beyond me.


Where he would be in the open and therefore an easy prey.
Actually, the tactical options of Civ4's combat system were at least as much as the ones of Civ5.


Strong argument. STRONG ARGUMENT!

And completely wrong.
I don't think there has ever been a Civilization game for which 33% - 50% expressed dislike within less than six months after release.

ENOUGH.

1) Warlords, Beyond the Sword, Complete Edition, many Mods.
2) Rivers are stock blueishlike or properly diffused as cyanish if modded (by even just me) to mold smoothly within coastal areas.
3) They dump off the coast as they should.
4) Chopped or left as is.
5) Overlayed texturing rather than pixelized sprites ala--80's Pacman arcade stuff.
6) And your point being? Symbolic referencing with a checkmark in boxes should be eliminated as well. What about Civ Logos -- too colorful? Iconed buttons, Notifications... all too much to handle?
7) 3D modeling has its advantages even if modern video_hardware can't keep up with true talent from artists.
8) Any solid card can suffer through 110C+ for months without bulging a single transistor *UNLESS* you let dust clug into cooling fans as anything else on a Mobo.
9) Graphics are either done right or interpreted by someone as being ugly for lack of a better word. Matter of personal taste or not.
10) Tactical options aren't Civ features *only*... they are War driven probabilities rationalized by Centuries worth of reality. Coding that much knowledge and experience would take 1000's++ of Super-Crays and counting.
11) What argument? Mirror, mirror tell me what i'm watching.
12) Here's the true statistical figures: 0 to 100%. Your agenda is clearly aiming to bring it all the way up to 95% and more... with as much illogical gameplay bashings as you can -- regularly, constantly, insistantly, anythingly.

Six months? By that time, i'll still stand at the 0% mark and nothing good or bad, shared or written in posts will ever change that fact.
Playing a better game might put me at 1% (+/- .421). That can only happen with Firaxis patches which i already paid for.

So... long.

 

[501st Legion]

After 100 hours of playtime, I gave up on Civ V. Here was a game I was expecting to play non stop for several months, yet I stopped playing by new year's eve. It really lacked, in my opinion, that "just one more turn" aspect that the previous civ games had, which made it just plain boring. Coupled with other issues such as an "AI playing to win", Civ V went back on the self. Well at least the artwork and music are great; the music especially is great when playing Paradox Games.

Did you play Civ IV when it came out?

If I'm not mistaken the majority of Civ IV's issues were technical - in particular I recall the problem with ATI graphics cards - and not on the gameplay aspect.

 

[DaveGold]

hoover the mouse over the tile and the game tells you what the tile is. please dont blame the game for your poor play.

Please stop making excuses for the poor game. If at any time the user has to act to discover that the information on the graphical display is misleading then the graphics are failing.

If there's an incomplete farm plot then the decision I need to make is to move the worker to the plot and do some work, any work. Any decision based on seeing a farm in the plot is flawed as the farm is not actually there. Therefore the game interface should clearly indicate the plot is incomplete, without having to mouse over every damn hex in an empire.

 

[Necrotaur]

Finished my first game today (at marathon pace, been playing it for the better part of a week) and have been staring at the game setup screen trying to decide who to play next. The problem is, I don't really see any I want to play as, as some of my favorite civilizations have been cut, and the rest seem so lackluster. Also, I don't really like many of the major changes like city-states or policy branches with no consequences.

I think the game is fine on its own, but compared to others in the series it comes up short.

 

[eraofdiversion]

I just quit playing my last game due to the graphics and everything being so slow and cluttered looking....it starts to get tedious trying to manage tile improvements with lots of your units standing all over the place. I really think the graphics in 4 looked much better.

 

[sketch162000]

There are enough of these threads, you're not offering some fresh perspective or anything...post in an already existing thread. Every disappointed person or malcontent feels the need to tell everyone how he feels in a new thread. Plenty of people like the game, but they don't go making a new thread every time the thought pops into their head.

It's obnoxious and a crappy trend in about every game forum these days...

Something tells me that if the Civ V board was stuffed with positive threads we would not hear the same kind of complaints out of some people.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Did you play Civ IV when it came out? It was a great step forward from Civ III and introduced several new concepts (Great People, Specialists, Civics, etc.), but had countless bugs and balance issues (everybody and his brother played the Inca, the Quechua rush and the Ind/Fin made them unstoppable) and extremely dumb AI. I remember playing it, and then spending another year playing Civ III gold, it was just a more fun experience. It took them a long time to get Civ IV to where it is today with the patches and BTS.

Inca were not ind/fin when Civ IV came out.

 

[ruskyandrei]

Something tells me that if the Civ V board was stuffed with positive threads we would not hear the same kind of complaints out of some people.

Your insight is truly legendary.

There are issues with CiV5 but it's a good game and I enjoy playing it occasionally (modded or not). I also feel the patches are steps forward making the game better and am looking forward to any expansions.

It does get tiring opening the forums to see what people are talking about and seeing a veritable SPAM of threads like these. Please stop.

 

[sketch162000]

Your insight is truly legendary.

There are issues with CiV5 but it's a good game and I enjoy playing it occasionally (modded or not). I also feel the patches are steps forward making the game better and am looking forward to any expansions.

It does get tiring opening the forums to see what people are talking about and seeing a veritable SPAM of threads like these. Please stop.

At the risk of infraction, I'll tell you the thing, though. People are disappointed with the game. You want to know what people are talking about? That's it. That's the reality. Maybe you disagree with the opinions stated here and in other threads and that's fine. But like it or not, people are complaining about the game right now. And it's not like the same three or four members who are starting rant threads everyday. Apparently, the OP hasn't been here for a while and decided to open a thread. I'll admit, there have been a lot of similar threads by lurkers, and absent members who have come back to open negative threads. But that just shows that the discontent is buzzing now. Maybe it's a coping mechanism. Maybe it will die down, soon. I don't know.

In the OP's defense, people are basically coming in here and scolding him for not talking about what *they* want, even though it's his thread and he's not breaking any rules. There's a beauty to forums. If the conversation doesn't interest you, go elsewhere. Here's a thought--open your own thread. Instead of doing that, some people feel the need to post in threads that they fundamentally are annoyed with and start an argument.

The elephant in the room is that this is not an isolated thing. For months now, it seems like every time somebody makes a negative thread, a Civ V fan feels the need to jump in and tell him to shut his face about it already. This makes no sense in the first place since the reply will bump the thread, but even more, it's just begs the question of why someone who claims to be tired of the criticism would even step into an obviously critical thread? Why? Just because you feel like being contradictory? Hell, at least fans have a new game to play. I'm here all the time because it's more fun than Civ V, IMO. What's your (not you in particular, rusky) excuse?

This thread, for one, becomes even more ridiculous when you realize that it's not inherently negative. "Is Civilization V the worst game of the series?" is a yes or no question--an inflammatory one, but still. For some reason, post number ten derails it when the writer decides to lump it in with "rant" threads. Cue the argument that I am shamelessly participating in now. Ai-ya...

To counter callahan's observation, I see an "obnoxious and a crappy trend in about every game forum these days," where people feel the need to whine about the whiners.

Look, I'm not telling people to stay out of complaining threads and to leave complainers alone. By all means, engage, debate, disagree, and discuss the topic. I'm just saying, take a little responsibility, yeah? Don't read a negative thread and then complain about reading negative threads. That's like skipping work and then complaining that you don't have any money. Rolling in toxic waste and then complaining about the cancer. I'm sure everyone here is smart enough to know what they are getting into when they click on the title and especially when they are about to post.

Sheesh, now I'm whining about the people whining about the whiners. I'm like post-whine at this poiint.

 

[Teperi Blaze]

CIV1 will always be the best, it started it all.

When I walked from the shopping-centre with the box almost 20 years ago, I never would think what it would do to me. You, who grabbed the box first time, you know the feeling?

Civ2 and SMAC was fun, almost brilliant, but at that time I found RPG's and missed out a little of the feelings.

Civ3 gave us the succession games era, UNBEATABLE FUN!!!! Crush your enemy on Deity with tinkering of every resource you have, in your 3 city empire. So wonderfully fun even beating the AI on SID, with some of the best players on the board. I used a different name back then and played with the best and was one of the better. Even Sid Meyer mentioned one of my crazy games in an article. So just for feeling, civ3 is just love.

Civ4 original stumped my interest for a good 2 years, but it is a good game and I play it now and again, but I just hate the stumpy movements of my troops now, compared to 5. Fantastic , but a fair few bugs was never sorted out. Great game anyways.

Civ5 is a game with visions, but not good at this moment. I've clocked 500 hrs nearly. so don't diss me for not being dedicated!

What I fear the most, is that they won't get rid of the boredom aspect in the game.

If that doesn't happen, I'm gone too.

 

[squadbroken]

Is this game worth playing again yet?
51% saying no.

Do you think that the expansion will really improve this game?
60% saying no, at least not the fundamental flaws.

Refined Poll: your standing with the game
49% disliking the game.

And that are just the recent polls. All of them were publicly available, so you have been asked.

Right, because a handful of polls on a board that has turned into a cesspit of negativity and whining are really indicative of the entire playerbase.

 

[lschnarch]

Right, because a handful of polls on a board that has turned into a cesspit of negativity and whining are really indicative of the entire playerbase.

You may want to have a look at the Amazon critics, too.
Or even the 2K forum, where >50% state to have not played anymore for more than a month and 47% being unsatisfied.

And finally, what may be the reasons for a Civ *Fanatics* forum to turn into a "cesspit of negativity"?

It's the game's poor quality in almost each and every aspect.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

So your chief complaint is that Civ V is easier to beat than Civ IV. And you are saying 1UPT is bad because it makes the combat more like Chess, the gold standard for meaningful combat that geniuses spend 50 years to master? .....

Chess is the gold standard for "meaningful combat" now? I wonder why no war games look like chess at all then? Just failure to execute?

Chess is an excellent game. As a combat simulation it leaves a lot to be desired. I'd rather play a hand of poker to simulate combat, it would be just as realistic and would be over a lot more quickly.

 

[Saarud]

I've been a chess player for 30 years now and to me chess represents the ultimate strategy game. However as I do want variation I play other strategy games as well including the games of the Civilization series. From my point of view I belevie that Civilization 5 really stepped up as a strategy game (and took a hit as an immersive simulator game) from earlier iterations. This put more demand on a good AI which Civilization series always has been very bad at from Civ 1 to Civ 4. A bad AI and a streamlined design makes the game seemed dumbed down.

Back to OP question. I think Civilization 3 was the worst. The reason for that was that I were frustrated that the developers didn't develop Civ 3 as a new game and instead built it on Civ 2.

 

[Cilpot]

Having played all Civ games through the years I have to say that V is the first one that felt like a step backwards.

 

[Bandobras Took]

After 100 hours of playtime, I gave up on Civ V. Here was a game I was expecting to play non stop for several months, yet I stopped playing by new year's eve. It really lacked, in my opinion, that "just one more turn" aspect that the previous civ games had, which made it just plain boring. Coupled with other issues such as an "AI playing to win", Civ V went back on the self.

Yes, but this happened with Civ 3 after playing Alpha Centauri, so Civ 5 can't be the worst.

If I'm not mistaken the majority of Civ IV's issues were technical - in particular I recall the problem with ATI graphics cards - and not on the gameplay aspect.

Actually, you are mistaken. There was no point in building anything but siege units, there was a tremendous disparity between the strength of Financial and Expansive, you could vault far ahead in the tech tree by blocking key techs, Slavery was broken and overpowered (that one was never fixed, by the way), Riflemen came later than their counter, and Catapults upgraded to Cannon with no "in-between" unit, to name a few.

Inca were not ind/fin when Civ IV came out.

Thank you! Most people who claim that vanilla releases were better than civ 5's Vanilla release have actually completely forgotten what the Vanilla releases were like.

Civ2 and SMAC was fun, almost brilliant, but at that time I found RPG's and missed out a little of the feelings.

Civ3 gave us the succession games era, UNBEATABLE FUN!!!!

So Civ2 and SMAC bordered on brilliant, while Civ 3 was only fun if you happened to know that Civfanatics and succession games existed?

So just for feeling, civ3 is just love.

This. I've noticed people complaining when I remarked that Civ 3 was worse that Civ 5, and they fail to bring any valid points to light. Most of them are remembering Civ 3 as a better game because they happened to like it, and not because they're remembering what Civ 3 was like on initial release (and if there was ever a game where patching failed to fix things, it was Civ 3 . . .)

Having played all Civ games through the years I have to say that V is the first one that felt like a step backwards.

Having played Alpha Centauri, Civ 3 was so many steps backwards I still can't understand the people who sing its praises.

Civ 5 is not the worst Civ game ever because the patches are radically shifting gameplay each time. Civ 3 was lousier to start with, and its patches never actually fixed its core problems.

 

[SuperJay]

I'll tell you the thing, though. People are disappointed with the game. You want to know what people are talking about? That's it. That's the reality. Maybe you disagree with the opinions stated here and in other threads and that's fine. But like it or not, people are complaining about the game right now.

Really good point. I see the same handful of people complaining regularly about the fact that other Civ fans express their disappointment in a forum about Civilization games. The underlying theme seems to be this perception that anyone who is disappointed in Civ 5 is just trying to "ruin your fun." (I actually had someone tell me that a while back.) In this very thread we have people complaining that someone else's disappointment is "ruining the party."

Guys, the reality is that Civ 5 left a substantial portion of the fanbase on CFC severely disappointed. It's a legitimate point of view. These forums are intended to discuss our perspectives and experiences with Civ 5, and that's one aspect of many fans' experiences with this game. Until and unless those posts break rules, they're accepted here - and there's no rule that we all must post cheerleading for Civ 5 or be locked. If the existence of threads discussing disappointment really does "ruin your fun," make you upset, or interfere with your ability to enjoy the game, then don't read them.

That said, if you're one of the Civ fans who's disappointed in Civ 5, be reasonable about it. Don't derail threads with your complaints. Don't insult people who DO like it. State your opinions calmly and clearly, and don't attack people who disagree.

Again, we are all Civilization fans here. We're all on the same team. Why is it so hard to actually treat each other accordingly?

 

[vandyr]

Something tells me that if the Civ V board was stuffed with positive threads we would not hear the same kind of complaints out of some people.

I'll be honest with you, you and Isnarch and a couple other people are one of the main reasons I rarely visit this subforum anymore. You guys are in every single thread badmouthing the game, and have been since september.

on topic - Civ 2, 3 and 5 have been my favorites, so 4 vanilla was the worst of the series to me.

Moderator Action: Please don't make negative comments about other posters.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[twansalem]

Possibly, but I can't draw any solid conclusions for two reasons:
1. I never played Civ I.
2. I've only played the demo for Civ V.

Maybe V just takes more time to get interested, but 100 turns of it in no way made me want to purchase the full game. It was slow paced, and the early wonders at least didn't have that "ooh and aah" factor of previous franchises. I'm a builder, and at least from the demo, I didn't get the impression that this was much of a game for builders.

II was great. III may have been flawed, but was still engrossing from the very begining. IV was great once again, and I loved it within under 50 turns. But 100 turns of V was not enough to make me pay for the full game.

 

[Caeserportugal]

Wow so many different perspectives but from what I can see the forum is divides 50-50. With the majority of the older players hating it and the new players to the series licking it. Well for right now I stand by my earlier posts. Will the patch improve CIV V? Should Firaxis just advance on with the series and just release a new CIV to relaunch the series? If they do that I seriously hope someone from Firaxis look at the ideias Sulla gave. In case you haven't seen here it is http://www.bitmob.com/articles/the-bad-sequel-how-the-civilization-series-and-i-grew-apart