Is it really that bad?

[ZheGerman]

I started with Civ II, I know, I am practically a noob. I really liked BTS, but the added espionage and religion were rather annoying to me as well, especially when still tied into the culture and science pool.
I like that they changed that, and the new combat system would be fine if the AI wasn't using like a 5 year old kid that didn't take its Ritalin! I do not like that:

- it hardly matters where you place your cities anymore (resource discussions here)
- the diplomacy feels like you are playing with a bunch of mentally ******** drama queens
- you cannot conquer huge empires anymore!!! One of the best features of Civ IV was getting rid of the empire size as a hugely limiting factor! Now, I go to war once or twice, kick the AI around and then you have to stop or your citizens will eat you for breakfast!

 

[aatami]

- it hardly matters where you place your cities anymore (resource discussions here)

May I dissagree.

 

[Solo4114]

May I dissagree.

No, I'm sorry. There isn't time.

 

[Deussu]

I'm a little curious over this "it doesn't matter where you place your city" claim. I find it to matter a whole lot.

Riverside hills with farms & civil service are abundant and very good. 2 /2 /1 . It's basically double the amount you can get compared to an unimproved tile.

 

[Misotu]

I don't think Civ5 offers much military strategy either, but when we speak about strategy, we usually mean overall game strategy that includes settling, building, diplo, researching etc., not just military strategy. There are much much less of that kind of strategy in Civ5 than there is in Civ4.

This, this and this a million times over. It is absolutely dead on - and was, of course, completely ignored.

So I'm bumping it

 

[esemjay]

This, this and this a million times over. It is absolutely dead on - and was, of course, completely ignored.

So I'm bumping it

*Ahem*

I agree in that the Strategy is different in 5 vs 4. I'm not going to say that it's nonexistent, because there ARE strategies to win Cultural and Scientific victories.

Generally, it's easier to win a Cultural victory when you employ a military... but the same can be said historically. I can't think of many cultures that were spread without the aid of a military; especially in distant history. The Greeks, Romans, English, Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, and many other civilizations and religions (At least all of the Abrahamic Religions, though I'm sure it's not limited to these) were spread largely due to warfare. The player's goal is to win, and the game's goal is to prevent that. If you don't present a military threat, the game will try to eliminate you with a military.

Diplomacy also requires a military, which is a large reason that the UN isn't as effective as it "should" be in real life. When it comes to relations, words can be cheap- what really counts is your ability to enforce your words. What happens when there is law, and there are no police to enforce it? The incentive to respect a word suddenly decreases when the benefit of disregarding it outweighs the punishment.

The game is definitely lacking in some areas when compared to BtS, and even more so when compared to Legends of Revolution and such... but it is not unplayable by any means. The strategies are just different from what a lot of people are used to... what it really boils down to is that war is the EASIEST strategy to complete. The Scientific/Cultural/Diplomatic victories just aren't as forgiving. If you lose four cities in the beginning of the game, you're still good if you have your capital. If you miss 2/4 cultural wonders, you may as well quit trying to win a cultural victory.

If anything, I hope they make other types of victory more forgiving in patches and expansions; but I wouldn't say that the game is only functional as a Military Conquest game.

 

[Saarud]

I really like Civ 5 and I think some brave design decisions were made which atleast to me makes the game better than an unmodded Civ4 game (even with the expansions). I hate conservative minds and the whole saying "if it's ain't broken, don't fix it" is a saying I really dislike. The world are evolving and so is CIV and I bet that with some expansions most of the critics will change their mind (not just because of the eventually expansion but more because they get "used" to CIV 5).

While the design is great I think they really fumbled releasing the game in the terrible state as it was. The AI is really bad and there are some balancing issues that makes the game seem dumbed down.

So my advice is to buy the game, now if you have the money or atleast later when they have released a few more ptaches/expansions.

 

[Misotu]

@esemjay: Ah ok, was that older post actually your response? Sorry, I thought in that post you were just reiterating, pretty much, what you had already said In all honesty, I still don't think you are getting what I am trying to say (and what I thought MkLh was saying) so perhaps we have mutually crossed wires but still ...

I think a lot of the frustration comes from the fact that you and others are not understanding the point of view of Civ players who like to play peacefully, and for whom an "overall game strategy that includes settling, building, diplo, researching etc., not just military strategy" is absolutely key to enjoyment of the game.

It simply isn't the case that my complaint (and, I suspect, the complaint of others) is that war is the "easiest" strategy to complete. It isn't. Cultural is pretty easy actually, I don't know if you've tried it? I see your comment on it, but I don't bother building much military ... what for? "Diplomacy", frankly, is a breeze (I confess I haven't tried Deity on this but ... how hard can it be, really?). The problem is not ease, or even viability, for me. The problem is that when I play for - and win - cultural or "diplomatic" or science victories, even on higher difficulty levels, there is so little to do for most of the time that the game has no interest. There is no real complexity to it, no breadth of options and little depth. Once I've made up my mind what I'm going to do, and built the few units I require to stave off the inevitable and poorly organised AI assaults (5 units generally suffices - in fact, I suspect a couple would do the trick but I always feel I ought to have more somehow ), it's largely a question of clicking end-turn over and over again and then waiting forever for my building of choice to complete and, each turn, for the game to grind through whatever it is it's doing and present me with my next opportunity to click end turn. Generally, inbetween turns, I pop off and do a small household task or make a cuppa - and this may sound facetious, but I am telling you that sometimes the turn still hasn't ended when I get back Aarggh. If I were not a Time victory veteran from IV (which makes me a sad git, yes I know ), I really wouldn't have the patience for all this!

I think you will find that's what people mean when they are talking about the lack of options and depth - it's not whether or not there are options per se, it's that, if you play peacefully, there's almost nothing to do from the mid-game on other than that endless, tedious manipulation of research agreements and occasionally choosing a new building. As a friend of mine said "I intend to go for a peaceful cultural win, but I end up declaring war just to relieve the tedium ... "

Now, how can that be right? It's a real shame, honestly, given how interesting previous iterations of Civ could be for peaceful players.

I think that was what the poster was trying to say (and apologies to him if I've got him wrong). But at the very least, it's definitely what I'm trying to say. And I think that's why I really didn't regard the post you have so helpfully repeated as a response

PS I've just re-read your post, which to me seemed to be an explanation of why Civ V is a war game, but apologies if I have misunderstood. What I will take issue with, however, is your suggestion that "If you miss 2/4 cultural wonders, you may as well quit trying to win a cultural victory". I find this baffling, and it was this statement that made me wonder whether you had actually played many - or any? - peaceful victories. The wonders in V are really fairly poor and I don't think I usually build more than one or two (except to relieve the boredom!) I certainly wouldn't regard wonders as essential for a cultural victory - they make it easier of course but essential? No.

 

[esemjay]

Misotu, you definitely have a point with that statement... I've been trying to win a diplomatic victory, and while I have met all the conditions and am currently building the UN... it is taking effort to not just invade my neighbors and TAKE what I need from them. It's not impossible, but it definitely requires a different mindset.

 

[sketch162000]

SOD's aren't brainless lumping of meatshields and calling it an army. It's the most effective way of winning in UUPT systems. I would like to see the ability to stack units, but with some kind of combat penalty for doing so.

For example, decreasing the effective strength of the unit based on how many units it shares the tile with- but only being able to defeat one unit at a time; giving an incentive to utilize 1UPT, without taking away the mobility and storage utility that people had in the previous title.

I agree wholeheartedly, and I'm glad that you said that because I think most of the people arguing have many more ideas in common then they know.

What irks me on this level is that the devs took such an extreme and reactionary approach to SoDs, when ordinary fans seem to be able to come up with much more nuanced, subtle solution. Where was the meta-thinking during development? I consider the apparent lack of holistic thinking to be one of the main problems across the board with Civ V's design.

To point number two, the specific memory that comes to mind was playing on a "Huge" size map, and having conquered every civilization on a continent that took up 5/6ths of the land mass of the map, and about 75% of the map during a Marathon game. I literally got confused, and thought it was a bug that I hadn't won, but I hadn't developed a navy because.. well... I didn't need it.

I sat there with all of my cities cranking out military units because I didn't care about happiness or famine or anything, because (frankly) eff'em. I had too many cities to worry about that crap. Then, after a while, I finally started building boats (Finally caught on that they weren't colocated on the continent with me). I then poured across the ocean in search of enemies.

I didn't even try to bombard the Spanish when I found them. I unloaded, literally, hundreds of units into a single tile to take over a city. Marines, Tanks, Helicopters, Mechanized Infantry... a warmonger's wet dream. The most advanced unit they had was medieval infantry. I ended up splitting my SOD's up into miniature SOD's to get the job done faster, and each SOD still had between 30 and 40 units in them. And I was STILL pouring units into transports because it took them too long to get across the continent.

When I think of reasons to dislike SOD's, that game is why I don't want to go back. It just wasn't fair to anyone.

I can empathize with your experience, although I can't say that I've ever experienced it. I'm just not that good of a player, honesty. I doubt that the grand majority of players had such absurd success except maybe at the lowest difficulty. That's the point I was trying to make--that with UUPT the brokenness isn't obvious until you are godsmacking the game around, anyway. I mean, at that point, you are just too good for the difficulty level you are on. Maybe there are too many exploits. Maybe it was too easy to get beakers and hammers, maybe the economy was too easy to wrangle in. Maybe start locations and city siting was too easy on you. But for whatever reason(s,) the fact that you are even capable of such a game-breaking stack just means that you are beyond the difficulty of the game. It's like you are upset at the game for not somehow curtailing your utter mastery over it, like a rich guy complaining that the economy is broken because he found out a way to earn millions. Could the game design address runaway success like this better? Sure, but to pinpoint a lack of stacking restrictions as the primary reason that you are roflstomping everyone is a bit disingenuous, IMO.

OTOH, the breaks in immersion/strategy problems with 1upt are apparent from the outset, no matter how well or poorly you play.

**EDIT** I was referring to singleplayer. If this is happening in regularly in MP, then you have a point, of course. But nothing that rule tweaks couldn't eliminate, I think.

 

[Deussu]

Eh, I supports a peaceful approach. And I like Civ5. I find it to support that playstyle just as well as in Civ4. However I cannot neglect the fact that invading other countries *will* make your nation greater. But that, I think, is merely logical. Throughout history have some of the most important inventions been invented during wartime, like the radar.

 

[Misotu]

Misotu, you definitely have a point with that statement... I've been trying to win a diplomatic victory, and while I have met all the conditions and am currently building the UN... it is taking effort to not just invade my neighbors and TAKE what I need from them. It's not impossible, but it definitely requires a different mindset.

Yeah ... thanks for this. Made me smile.

 

[petey]

I would say that Civ 5 is not worth buying and have recommended that to those who've asked me about it. I got it, played it for a couple of weeks and went back to Civ 4 while waiting for an expansion pack or two to come out and make it an enjoyable game.

Without rehashing all the issues, I think that the 1UPT was the worst change for all the reasons which have been listed a hundred times. I understand the rationale behind it in that the SoD thing is the worst part of Civ 4 and a fix for it was warranted. However, they had another fix for this by putting resource limitations on units, so you had a cap on what you could build anyways. It's unecessary to have the two of them together. When you combine that with the fact that everything in the game except declaring war is pointless and dull and you don't have so many roads because they cost money so your units keep bumping into each other and spend half their time wandering about in the wilderness while you're trying to move them up to the front, then it's really more frustrating than enjoyable to play the game.

It has potential, but it's half finished at best. There are ways to enjoy playing it but, as my three year old demonstrates, there are ways to enjoy playing with an empty box and a stick. It's not anywhere close to the playability of Civ 4, so if you have that it's not worth the trouble to "upgrade" to the next version at this point. The development has not yet reached the point where it's up to par with the rest of the series.

 

[Misotu]

Eh, I supports a peaceful approach. And I like Civ5. I find it to support that playstyle just as well as in Civ4. However I cannot neglect the fact that invading other countries *will* make your nation greater. But that, I think, is merely logical. Throughout history have some of the most important inventions been invented during wartime, like the radar.

I am not complaining that nations who fight do better than nations who don't. That was *always* true in Civ I'm complaining that the only people who get an interesting game are the ones who fight.

I agree that it is possible to play peacefully in Civ V. But the key question is: is it as interesting playing peacefully in V as it was in IV? Is it, in fact, interesting to play peacefully in V at all? Or do you, in the end, say "dammit, this is just too dull", research longswords or rifles or tanks (depending on your irritation threshold) and invade?

Now this is Civ V, not Musclemania V with the Testosterone Expansion Pack.

So I expected something a bit more subtle, a bit more complex, and slightly better balanced in terms of gameplay interest between nuking the hell out of your neighbour and assimilating them, culturally speaking.

Just my opinion, but there it is. I would be very sorry if this were the final Civilization offering. Very sorry indeed.

 

[ImperialGuard]

I have played the Civ series since the original game, which I played at school on a 386. Civ4 was my favourite as it was the one I felt best combined complexity and features with playability, and the graphics were great, which always helps.

I am sort of arriving late to the launch hype surrounding Civ5 as I have been playing an MMO pretty much exclusively the past couple of years. Went to Amazon intent on buying Civ5, and took a peek at the reviews. To my surprise on a rating 1-5, 1 is the most common! And these aren't just short 'hate reviews' but many are well explained and from people who played all the other Civ games and loved them.

Is it really that bad? Is it worth the cash or should I just reinstall Civ4 and be better off?

So Alex53 .... one sincere question and 8 pages of opinions, flaming, and strategic side discussions later ....

what did you decide ?

 

[blind biker]

I think a lot of the frustration comes from the fact that you and others are not understanding the point of view of Civ players who like to play peacefully, and for whom an "overall game strategy that includes settling, building, diplo, researching etc., not just military strategy" is absolutely key to enjoyment of the game.

It simply isn't the case that my complaint (and, I suspect, the complaint of others) is that war is the "easiest" strategy to complete. It isn't. Cultural is pretty easy actually, I don't know if you've tried it? I see your comment on it, but I don't bother building much military ... what for? "Diplomacy", frankly, is a breeze (I confess I haven't tried Deity on this but ... how hard can it be, really?). The problem is not ease, or even viability, for me. The problem is that when I play for - and win - cultural or "diplomatic" or science victories, even on higher difficulty levels, there is so little to do for most of the time that the game has no interest. There is no real complexity to it, no breadth of options and little depth. Once I've made up my mind what I'm going to do, and built the few units I require to stave off the inevitable and poorly organised AI assaults (5 units generally suffices - in fact, I suspect a couple would do the trick but I always feel I ought to have more somehow ), it's largely a question of clicking end-turn over and over again and then waiting forever for my building of choice to complete and, each turn, for the game to grind through whatever it is it's doing and present me with my next opportunity to click end turn. Generally, inbetween turns, I pop off and do a small household task or make a cuppa - and this may sound facetious, but I am telling you that sometimes the turn still hasn't ended when I get back Aarggh. If I were not a Time victory veteran from IV (which makes me a sad git, yes I know ), I really wouldn't have the patience for all this!

I think you will find that's what people mean when they are talking about the lack of options and depth - it's not whether or not there are options per se, it's that, if you play peacefully, there's almost nothing to do from the mid-game on other than that endless, tedious manipulation of research agreements and occasionally choosing a new building. As a friend of mine said "I intend to go for a peaceful cultural win, but I end up declaring war just to relieve the tedium ... "

Now, how can that be right? It's a real shame, honestly, given how interesting previous iterations of Civ could be for peaceful players.

I think that was what the poster was trying to say (and apologies to him if I've got him wrong). But at the very least, it's definitely what I'm trying to say. And I think that's why I really didn't regard the post you have so helpfully repeated as a response

PS I've just re-read your post, which to me seemed to be an explanation of why Civ V is a war game, but apologies if I have misunderstood. What I will take issue with, however, is your suggestion that "If you miss 2/4 cultural wonders, you may as well quit trying to win a cultural victory". I find this baffling, and it was this statement that made me wonder whether you had actually played many - or any? - peaceful victories. The wonders in V are really fairly poor and I don't think I usually build more than one or two (except to relieve the boredom!) I certainly wouldn't regard wonders as essential for a cultural victory - they make it easier of course but essential? No.

Great post, Misotu. May a thousand pleasant things go your way.

 

[SuperJay]

Dang, still no update from Alex53??

And boy oh boy, is it tempting to wade into this mess again given all the repetitive nonsense from various Civ 5 fans (the "Civ4 got the same reaction" posts, and the "haters are just whining" remarks, and the "GTFO if you don't like Civ 5" etc), but I'll resist the temptation for now.

You guys are really good at staying within the rules while saying some pretty crappy things to your fellow Civilization fans, though. Kudos for that!
Moderator Action: Please don't troll other people.

 

[blind biker]

Dang, still no update from Alex53??

And boy oh boy, is it tempting to wade into this mess again given all the repetitive nonsense from various Civ 5 fans (the "Civ4 got the same reaction" posts, and the "haters are just whining" remarks, and the "GTFO if you don't like Civ 5" etc), but I'll resist the temptation for now.

You guys are really good at staying within the rules while saying some pretty crappy things to your fellow Civilization fans, though. Kudos for that!

So true, on all counts! And when one, finally, loses his/her patience and calls them out as dummkopf, he/she gets sanctioned.

Did it cross your mind that Alex53 was just pulling off a very smart troll on us all, and is now ROFLHAO? It did mine!
Moderator Action: Accusations of trolling are seen as trolling itself.

 

[Solo4114]

Doesn't really matter to me. On the whole, I'd say this has been a pretty good conversation.

 

[cman2010]

Doesn't really matter to me. On the whole, I'd say this has been a pretty good conversation.

not really