Is it really that bad?

[jtb1127]

No it isn't that bad

 

[MkLh]

A million times this.

Actually 1UPT makes a lot of sense in order to make a game strategically interesting. Most of classical board games (chess, checkers, go..) are based on 1UPT and offer wonderful strategical variety. There are good examples in computer gaming too, like Panzer General series. It just was implemented badly, the incompetent AI is obviously the main problem. But 1UPT is still almost the only feature in Civ5 that has potential. Things like research agreements and AI playing for win are just silly ideas, they won't be good no matter how much they are developed further, but 1UPT is different.

 

[Sonereal]

It isn't that bad. Not as good as Civ4 BTS yet, but not bad.

 

[lschnarch]

From what I have seen, the complaints about the 1UPT system is that you actually have to think about how you are going to move troops around, instead of just showing up with 7 million soldiers in one tile and throwing your human wall at them.

Actually, this is not true.

People complaining about 1upt complain mainly about two things:
a) it makes troop movement a hassle within your own borders (neutral scouts sitting in the way, anybody?)
b) it makes the incompetence of the AI even more obvious

The second point is most probably the one, why there are still fans for 1upt in the Civ scale.
Suddenly people who never were able to keep an invasion going in previous Civ games are successful (military-wise).
In Civ4, as a rule of thumb, you only needed around 1/4 of the invader's strength to stop him - if you did it in the right way. As attacker, you needed around 1/2 of the enemy's strength to be successful - in a war which was not about only taking this ONE city, but to keep your invasion ongoing.

Many people lacked the necessary skills for doing so.
And now they praise a game in which you can kill opponents which are both, numerically favoured AND one era ahead.
The weakness of the AI compensates for their own lacking, so the concept HAS to be good.

What kind of "tactics", "operational skills" or "strategic decisions" are required to do so?
Tactics: Bombard first, move one or two units forward for the "flanking bonus", attack with mounted units which can retreat to make way for the final blow of the melee units.
Operational: Don't expose your ranged units to enemy melee units, have melee units in the first line, ranged weapons behind and mounted at the sides.
Strategic: Have units.

Actually, this concept is easily grasped by a six-year-old one.
Quite some people are proud to have finally mastered these "skills", too.

 

[sketch162000]

Actually 1UPT makes a lot of sense in order to make a game strategically interesting. Most of classical board games (chess, checkers, go..) are based on 1UPT and offer wonderful strategical variety. There are good examples in computer gaming too, like Panzer General series. It just was implemented badly, the incompetent AI is obviously the main problem. But 1UPT is still almost the only feature in Civ5 that has potential. Things like research agreements and AI playing for win are just silly ideas, they won't be good no matter how much they are developed further, but 1UPT is different.

I'm not questioning the merits of 1upt as a game mechanic, but the decision to include it in Civilization. As far as I can see, 1upt is not better than stacking by any objective means in that regard, at best. At worst, it creates many problems that did not occur when we were allowed to have multiple units on a tile.

I have shared Solo's opinion on the genesis of 1upt for a while now. To be honest, I don't think that the strategic value of a 1upt system was the main impetus behind including it in Civ V. For that matter, I don't even think you could call it a "system" as much as a "rule." Given the implementation of the mechanic,it seems as though the thinking was less, "Let's put 1upt into Civ," and more "Let's get rid of stacking."

This theory comes with a host of other circumstantial evidence, to boot, when you consider that many of the other features that were "streamlined" such as religion (diplomacy exploit) and the change from civics to SP's (too easy to switch civics) were, like the Stack o' Doom, the more often criticized parts of Civ IV. I fear that the design strategy in Civ V had less to do with what would work in a Civ game, and more to do with what "hardcore" players complained about in IV. But, I digress....

I would wholeheartedly disagree that 1upt is the only thing in Civ V with potential. In fact I would argue the opposite--that it is the only thing WITHOUT potential. I really like the idea of SP's, i just disagree with the idea that of including government in such a rigidly permanent system. I think that city states are very gimmicky, but with less spam and a more meaningful effect on diplomacy, there are possibilities. I see a lot of potential for modders with City-States. On the other hand, 1upt...man, I just don't see it how you could have it work without seriously restructuring the way Civ V works. Maybe adding a battlefield map like in the Total War series would be an option. More importantly, I just don't think shoehorning 1upt into Civ is worth the chance to have tactical battles, or "operational planning." 1upt is not the only battle mechanic, and it's probably not the best, so why cling to it?

 

[CivFanaticMan]

My analysis:

Fraxis turned Civ5 into a strategy game with a historic theme. Nothing special. I don't get that feeling like I did with Civ3 and Civ4. Those games I felt like I was actually creating a civilization, and watching my own games have a unique history. Thats always beens something thats made Civ special to me. Civ5 takes that away. It's no longer about building a Civilization, its about playing a regular old strategy game, and trying to win. I can't feel immersed in my games at all.

Honestly, I am convinced that the only thing that keeps people entertained with this game is tactical combat. Thats the only immersive thing in this game. Its the only thing I found fun. And you'll read many reviews saying how its one of the games biggest design flaws. Heck, combat wasn't even Civ4's biggest problem.

Never have I been more let down than this. Not angry, just disappointed. I expected something special, I got something completely ordinary.

 

[moscaverde]

Perfectly analisys CivFanatocMan, it's how I feel too.
Someone said that Civ4 were like chess etc, I believe it's more like:

Civ5 = chess
Civ4 = Simcity

 

[Aristos]

Perfectly analisys CivFanatocMan, it's how I feel too.
Someone said that Civ4 were like chess etc, I believe it's more like:

Civ5 = chess
Civ4 = Simcity

Complete Nonsense.

Civ 5 = TicTacToe
Civ 4 = Civ 4.

 

[Mutineer]

Well, indication how deep and engaging CivV is - currently there is only 1(one) succession game active in Civ 5. I believe Civ4 have many more still.

 

[Nares]

Quite some people are proud to have finally mastered these "skills", too.

As opposed to the singular skill of suicide cats which dominated CIV?

 

[Atranox]

No, it's not that bad.

People have always complained about sequels "sucking" ever since entertainment has been around. The same happened with Civ 4. Lots and lots of negativity at first. When Warlords came out, it too sucked. BTS was finally when the game was considered to be awesome.

Here are some quotes taken from this forum (and others) regarding Civ 4's initial release. Everyone seems to forget this.

Not worthy of the name "Civilization". It is sad to see.

The unit graphics look like they are from one of those bargain bin games that we've all passed over. They are downright awful.

Gameplay is the real problem. Button clicks feel clunky. Unit and combat animations are uneeded, and really look poor. The health bar has been eliminated, so you have to look at the poor units to get the information. The computer now "advises" on so many issues, that you feel more like a viewer than a player on many issues.

The game is to simplistic for a Civ game, to much neat little graphic icons without text. It seems that the game has been made for kids in the age of 10-15, no offence intended, and prepared for console editions where the keyboard and normal civ fanatic has his day of glory. If Firaxis does do something very soon, I am almost positive that we have seen the last civ game since the fans will not embrace this game as they have the 3 previous versions.

I do get to play a little before the inevitable crash hits. That little is fun. So the game, if fixed, could be quite good. But I am rating the game that came out of the box not the one that might be someday. Sadly Sid Meier’s Civ4 is the only game in my inventory which has managed to reliably and consistently crash my system.
These are just my major issues. A quick search of game forums yields a host of other problems people are having. This is especially disappointing coming from a franchise I always saw a hallmark of quality.

I was looking forward to this game becasue I'm a big fan of Sid Meier and because the last Civ was such a great game, but this time i was overwhelmed with dissappointments. I played it for many hours even though it kept crashing every 10minutes, I even tried to FORCE myself to like the game, but at the end i gave up! I'm uninstalling Civ4 and reinstalling Civ3. I guess i'll be playing Civ3 until they get it right with Civ5.

It is just is not holding me.

What made Civ3 (and earlier versions) great, is simply missing here. This is certainly not a game that I would lose myself in. It just seems harder to work the interface and the graphics actually seem to take away from the game. It is more difficult to move around and moves too fast at all settings. You are not immersed as you were in previous versions.

the most telling factor to me is that I won't be playing this a year from now. Perhaps the expectation was too high, but I was hoping for a better Civ3

Civilzation 4 is not a bad game, but it is also not an improvement over previous versions. By itself it is a decent game, but lets face it - few people are going to play this game that have not been part of the Civ world already.

Simply put, since Civilization 4 is not as good as Civilivation 3, why bother when you can still play Civ 3?

Worst Firaxis Game out there. This game is so terrible it is even unplayable and everything in that game is screwed up coding,programming, 90% of game's coding is messed up and all mixed up it shouldn't have been released early it should have contiuned with the regular release date...Perhaps Firaxis no longer care about it's fanbase.

Read www.civfanatics.com is the truth to everything related to CIV4 also a avid fanbase for CIV3, CIV2, and the original CIV.

Overall, you cannot help but feel that this game was rushed out the door. And that's a shame. Considering the time, research and advertisement that went into this game, many people were hoping that this game would be great. So, I write this review in hopes that I may keep at least one person from plunking down $50 like I did. It's not worth it.

I have been a huge Civillization fan since the inception of the series, and Civ III is my all time most played game, even more than solitaire. I'm so far disappointed in Civ 4 as it seems poorly thought out, esp in regards to ease of control, and in some details.

It's just not there yet. I'd recommend waiting until the patches comes out to see if any of these issues get cleared up. That or stick to Civ 3.

I expected to be immediately impressed, taken away as in previous versions, but I didn't get the reaction I thought I would get. Initially, I am a little disappointed in this version. It really sucks that I have to make this initial observation, but its just facts.

Unfortunatly its the worst Civ ever since no other game with Sid Myers name has ever been shoved out the door in such an unfinished state.

I've played Civilization since it first came out. It is my all-time favorite computer game. Civ was great, Civ 2 better, Civ 3 even better,but Civ 4....well it was disppointing.

Heck, if I removed the Civ 3 & 4 references from the quotes...you might actually assume this were copy/pasted from recent threads regarding Civ 5.

Do these quotes look familiar? Of course they do...because this is the same thing everyone says about essentially any sequel. Game is "unfinished". Game is "dumbed down". Game "isn't as good as the last one". Etc. When Civ 4 came out, 3 was the holy grail of games and Civ 4 was rushed, simplistic, and not worth buying. Now that 5 is out, 4 is now the holy grail of games and 5 is rushed, simplistic, and not worth buying.

Quite frankly, it's a Civ game. You pick a civilization, build cities, build improvements, research techs, negotiate diplomacy, wage wars, and ultimately try to win. With all of the other Civ games, a lot has changed between version. But - most of it hasn't.

It's a bit buggy. The game needs some patches. Some of the new features are fantastic...and some aren't. But this is no different than any previous version. It's a fun game and quite simply, a pretty good one. It doesn't have the polish or charm of 4 quite yet...but it will with time. Worth $50? In my opinion, yes.

 

[AfterShafter]

Well, indication how deep and engaging CivV is - currently there is only 1(one) succession game active in Civ 5. I believe Civ4 have many more still.

Could also have something to do with save files being invalidated by snap patches which sometimes don't have overwhelming warning (such as the hotfix). But hey, yeah, it must be that the game is horrifically shallow.

 

[AfterShafter]

An excellent post

You know, I've mentioned this more than a few times, but I've never actually went back and tracked down quotes from the period to back it up. Excellent post - I think a lot of people need to see this type of stuff.

 

[Atranox]

You know, I've mentioned this more than a few times, but I've never actually went back and tracked down quotes from the period to back it up. Excellent post - I think a lot of people need to see this type of stuff.

Thanks - and I'm amazed that people don't remember this. I recall it so well because I had a few friends who wouldn't even buy the game due to how much negativity was going around. I still recall a huge thread at other forums about how Civ 4 was going to be the end of the series because of how bad it was

Right now it's quite obvious that Civ 4 is the better game having received years of polish, patching, balance, and community building. Civ 5 is still very good. In a couple years, we'll be talking about how great of a successor Civ 5 was and how crappy Civ 6 is.

 

[AfterShafter]

Yeah, those are my thoughts too. I used to lurk around this forum a bit while I was playing Civ III, and I originally joined because Civ IV was crashing the heck out of my computer (easily above specs at the time) and I was having a terrible time getting multiplayer to run, and I was asking for help. Literally, it was because Civ IV was so bloody buggy that I originally joined this forum. I remember, in those early days, hosts of complaints. They'd made it so much smaller, faster, tiny empires, and terms like "streamlined," "dumbed down," and the now damning "consolized" were thrown at the game. This wasn't even mentioning the types of technical issues that I never actually got away from with Civ IV - I've actually had to roll back to the second last patch because the last one broke my multiplayer.

Civ IV had *much* worse AI out the gate than it has now - many, many improvements were taken from the modding community. Civ IV was much smaller than Civ III, the game wasn't as long, and it was more cartoony. It caught hell initially, and people have all but glossed that over in the face of what is now an absolutely top tier game - after years of patches and expansions.

And that's not even saying Civ IV was bad coming out, or as problematic or polarizing as Civ V is now - it's just, it WAS hounded, it DID have significant problems, and hosts of people disliked it and vastly favoured Civ III for a good long time.

When I did a bunch of posting arguing more or less what you've actually gone so far as to get old posts to back you up, my eventual conclusion to the argument was "this game will be viewed differently in a year or two." I still maintain that. It has nowhere to go but up, and where it is isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

So yeah, hat is off to you for a grounding look back to other turbulent days.

 

[Arsenic Steel]

So Civ5 is going to get better to the point of being the new civ game, eventually, and civ6 is going to get hated on because it is now because of some old quotes?
Right. Anyway.
Is there any place I can find those posts other than this thread. I try to google them but get pointed back here.

 

[JohnnyW]

When I did a bunch of posting arguing more or less what you've actually gone so far as to get old posts to back you up, my eventual conclusion to the argument was "this game will be viewed differently in a year or two." I still maintain that. It has nowhere to go but up, and where it is isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Well, like I've said previously, I wasn't involved in any civ communities til recently (see my join date), but if this is true I find it really sad that this is a standard practice of Firaxis to release Civ games in such a poor state. I didn't know that it was commonplace in their franchise history to release unfinished games and rely on the modding community for free development. This is really sad and makes me regret spending my money on this beta version.

 

[Sofar Sogood]

I kinda think that the assumption here is that, as opposed to Civ 4, Civ 5 had design decisions that were fundamentally flawed. Stuff that could be traced back to the developers saying, "All right, let's make Civ like that."

Thus, instead of it being a matter of tweaking some of the mechanics and AI coding so as to fix an improperly tuned system, salvaging Civ 5 might mean that the people who made it admit that they made bad decisions in the basic structure. Stuff like how the AI thinks on the macro scale -- trying to emulate a human.

It's spectacularly bad at emulating a human, by the way. It needs to realize that it's AI.

But then, that's up to the developers. If the assertion that there are fundamental flaws in Civ 5 holds true (which I'd bet you'd debate, but that's what I'm working on), then it doesn't matter how much tweaking is done. The problem is then the mindset of the person coding, not the code.

 

[AfterShafter]

I didn't know that it was commonplace in their franchise history to release unfinished games and rely on the modding community for free development.

Actually, I've often heard this hailed as a bit of the genius of Civ IV. Unfortunately, Firaxis releases buggy, poorly balanced games - this is nothing new. But, giving the community such tremendous ability to edit their games... Bhruic and Solver's unofficial patches were often as big a deal in here as the official Civ IV patches were - and they often did as much work to improve the game. The way it usually went was... Civ IV patch came out, Bhruic/Solver released a patch fixing what that messed up and making a lot of community suggested balance change/bug fixes, that was the gold-standard of Civ for a few months, and then the next official patch came out making many of the Bhruic/Solver changes "official." This happened for multiple major patch cycles, and to date, Civ IV is the only game in my library which has the dubious honour of being the only game I actually stuck with that had me relying on unofficial patches for long periods of time.

They seem to have made mods/unofficial changes make multiplayer not work in Civ V though, which is a *huge* problem since unofficial patches and mods really brought their games up a few notches. I hope they get this problem solved soon.

 

[AfterShafter]

But then, that's up to the developers. If the assertion that there are fundamental flaws in Civ 5 holds true (which I'd bet you'd debate, but that's what I'm working on), then it doesn't matter how much tweaking is done. The problem is then the mindset of the person coding, not the code.

I'm not even close to convinced of this yet, but it could be true. Time will tell. I'd say the jury is still out, and it'll be the first expansion or a few more major patches before we know for sure.