Is it really that bad?

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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.

:lol::lol::lol:

Best quote in the thread. :)
 
:lol::lol::lol:

Best quote in the thread. :)

I hadn't seen that - hahaha, well said Petey. :goodjob:

And really, when you find even the die-hard fans of your latest game saying things like "well, you can find ways to make it fun," or "if I try to play with X mindset, it can be enjoyable," you've got problems. As a player, you shouldn't have to do asinine things to make a game fun somehow. If it's a good game, it's fun out of the box, period. If it's a good game, you have to tear yourself away from it because it's so engrossing - not be reduced to tinkering in a futile effort to scrape some enjoyment together. :sad:
 
I hadn't seen that - hahaha, well said Petey. :goodjob:

You know, I've got to chuckle. Just last page you were saying this:

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!

Of course referencing those dastardly, underhanded people who like the game and snake around the rules of the forum to say bad things about the people who don't like the game. Then one page later you're applauding a guy who subtly insinuates either that liking this game is akin to a three year old enjoying playing with an empty box and a stick, or that the game is just stupidly simple and the people who are enjoying it have childlike minds. Or both, take your pick. Way to rise above it there Jay, and really prove your point about how it's the other side that's subtly manipulating the rules to fling mud :rolleyes:

As for this bit...
Moderator Action: Don't troll back.

And really, when you find even the die-hard fans of your latest game saying things like "well, you can find ways to make it fun," or "if I try to play with X mindset, it can be enjoyable," you've got problems. As a player, you shouldn't have to do asinine things to make a game fun somehow. If it's a good game, it's fun out of the box, period. If it's a good game, you have to tear yourself away from it because it's so engrossing - not be reduced to tinkering in a futile effort to scrape some enjoyment together. :sad:

A lot of us Civ V fans, who I might add have also been playing Civ for years or decades even, are saying no such things. In fact, I see VERY little of this type of talk going around the forum. For many of us, the reason we're actively stepping up in defense of it is because precisely what is bolded is true. No ifs, ands, or buts, I have found the game fun out of the box. Perfect? Heck no - never suggested it, and it needs a lot of polishing and fixing in certain areas. But the game has a lot of good in it in my eyes, and I really can't wait to see where they take - because, even though it came out of the box fun, it has nowhere to go but up.
 
Of course referencing those dastardly, underhanded people who like the game and snake around the rules of the forum to say bad things about the people who don't like the game. Then one page later you're applauding a guy who subtly insinuates either that liking this game is akin to a three year old enjoying playing with an empty box and a stick, or that the game is just stupidly simple and the people who are enjoying it have childlike minds. Or both, take your pick. Way to rise above it there Jay, and really prove your point about how it's the other side that's subtly manipulating the rules to fling mud :rolleyes:

Man, just give it up. Please. You are constantly trying to find ways to start arguments around here and guess what? I don't take any of this all that seriously. If you want to get your undies all in a knot over some forum posts, go for it - there are plenty around here who will rise to your bait, but I'm not one of them. Good try, though. :rolleyes:

FWIW: It's a bit hypersensitive to go from "there are ways to have fun with a stick and cardboard box" to "this guy is saying I have the brain of a three-year-old child!!" I took it as a humorous and facetious comment about the game, nothing at all about the people enjoying it. (And even then, not even about the game in a direct, literal sense.)

Again, if you choose to get so defensive about someone else's joke that you decided to take personally, go for it; it's your time and energy to waste however you please. Me, I think life's a little too short to get too worked up about such things - let alone argue with someone over them. ;)

Moderator Action: If you can't contribute meaningful to a discussion, then it's better you don't post.
 
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.
The other day my 11 month old baby was laughing his little a** off while my wife was simply pulling the digital camera by it's cord, on the sofa, like a little trailer. That's all she was doing, and yet our son was laughing for a good half hour, maybe more. And of course, daddy and mommy were laughing, too, because that baby laughter is so damn contagious! I was quite surprised, because usually to make him laugh, I'd build a little tower and then he'd crash it, and would laugh, but this pulling of the camera around was even simpler and yet so incredibly effective.

Not sure where I'm going with this, except perhaps something like: kids are so cool! And: Civ V: boo-hiss-boo. Something to that effect, more or less.
 
FWIW: It's a bit hypersensitive to go from "there are ways to have fun with a stick and cardboard box" to "this guy is saying I have the brain of a three-year-old child!!"
Mwahahahhh... !! No comment - I still have one infraction active :D :lol:
 
Man, just give it up. Please. You are constantly trying to find ways to start arguments around here and guess what? I don't take any of this all that seriously. If you want to get your undies all in a knot over some forum posts, go for it - there are plenty around here who will rise to your bait, but I'm not one of them. Good try, though. :rolleyes:

FWIW: It's a bit hypersensitive to go from "there are ways to have fun with a stick and cardboard box" to "this guy is saying I have the brain of a three-year-old child!!" I took it as a humorous and facetious comment about the game, nothing at all about the people enjoying it. Again, if you choose to get so defensive about someone else's joke that you decided to take personally, go for it. Me, I think life's a little too short to get too worked up about such things - let alone argue with someone over them. ;)

Sorry, it's a bit late to pull the "what he said wasn't THAT bad." What he said was, how did you put it? "Staying within the rules while saying some pretty crappy things to your fellow Civilization fans." The comparison pretty much says "Well, Civ V is like a cardboard box and stick in that it's stupid, simple, and people who know better probably wouldn't enjoy it, but much like my three year old proved, there are ways to enjoy anything." Don't even try and paint that as anything but flinging mud at the people enjoying it. But hey, you applaud now because he's saying what you feel. When guys on the other side, they're just manipulating the rules to sling mud.

And again, sorry, but:

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!

That's a thinly veiled troll. Moderator Action: Accusations of trolling are seen as trolling itself. You say "You (meaning me) are constantly trying to find ways to start arguments around here" just after making a post which has next to no content, just insinuations about how people holding the view you don't hold are speaking a bunch of nonsense and manipulating the rules to sling mud. Who's trying to pick fights again? Oh, sorry, you'll "resist the temptation" to come in and clear up the "nonsense" some of us are throwing around, and rather just come in, make a few disparaging remarks, and say "Hey, don't take it so seriously - I don't!" a few times. Sorry is the guy who just booted the hornets nest a few times with no sign of constructive contribution to the thread saying *I* am trying to start arguments?

If it's not important to you, please leave your troll jobs out of the thread.
 
FWIW: It's a bit hypersensitive to go from "there are ways to have fun with a stick and cardboard box" to "this guy is saying I have the brain of a three-year-old child!!" I took it as a humorous and facetious comment about the game, nothing at all about the people enjoying it. (And even then, not even about the game in a direct, literal sense.)


It's called Inferiority Complex around here.
Moderator Action: And this is called "trolling" around here.
 
civ5 is a great game. However its initial release quality was unacceptably low. There have been enough patches now that the worst of the issues have been fixed. It is still quite flaky in areas though. I'd put its current quality at late stage beta.

I am enjoying playing civ5 MORE than I enjoyed playing civ4 when I first got it. civ4 probably has better long term replayability though (from what I hear).

- I find its depth on par with any other civ game
- the lower resource amounts and higher build times don't bother me (if they do bother you there are good mods that "fix" this)
- I prefer the 1upt combat system (despite ai weakness)
- I like how cities defend themselves
- I like the city states and the social policy system
- I prefer global happiness to the old hapiness system
- I find the increased social policy cost per city and the requirement of one building in each city for a national wonder a little awkward but accept it as part of the design as the tradeoff between small and large empire size
- I don't miss espionage or religion or health or corporations

I usually play civ on the king levels

If you have lower end hardware I'd wait until you upgrade, by which time it will be in a better state and hopefully cheaper
 
I think it's a good game with some mods installed. Just my opinion, though.

You can find mods that improve the AI, and if you don't like 1UPT, you can install the Legions mod which eliminates it.
 
looks like this thread has devolved into a mudslinging contest. In a feeble attempt to get us back on track, I'll mention that civ5 is currently rated 2.3 on amazon right now. that sounds terrible until you consider that it was 1.9 a few months ago, then last month when i checked it (after being challenged to prove that the ratings have improved) it was up to 2.1, now it's 2.3. Why is that? because so many of were so impressed with bts and expected civ5 to be better, the game got trashed when it first came out by many "fanatics". Since then people have played the demo and decided for themselves if they liked it or not. plus, a couple of very good patches have come out, so recent buyers have been happier.

I don't have any statistics on this other than just judging by what people have said since civ5's launch, but I think that people who were playing high level hardcore civ4 mods (and basically never put civ4 down) have been by far the most disappointed group. those who played it off and on after the first few months of civ4 and each expansion seem to have been generally more impressed with civ5; maybe not casual gamers per se but at least casual CIV gamers. I never thought of myself as one of those "casuals" until coming here and reading all the crazy strategies/fanboyisms/great mods/etc etc etc, but I definitely think that now.
 
looks like this thread has devolved into a mudslinging contest. In a feeble attempt to get us back on track, I'll mention that civ5 is currently rated 2.3 on amazon right now. that sounds terrible until you consider that it was 1.9 a few months ago, then last month when i checked it (after being challenged to prove that the ratings have improved) it was up to 2.1, now it's 2.3. Why is that?
That is because we posted a link to the Amazon entry and mentioned it a couple other times around here, and a lot of Civ V fans felt compelled to drop in a 1-liner "review" with 5 stars. That's what happened, which is very clearly visible by the reviews themselves. The 1 star reviews are long and articulate, and get a lot of helpful points, while the 5-star reviews, ESPECIALLY the newer ones, are very short and get few if any helpful points.

In fact, how about this nice counter-argument: Civ V user score on Metacritic was 7.3 up until 2 months ago (when I last checked) and now it is 7.0. How do you explain that, huh? Huh??

AWWWRite, here's another one for ya: Civ V user score on GameSpot used to be 8.3 up until 3 months ago (when I last checked) and now it is 8.1. How do you explain THAT, huh?


Word is out: Civ V is a pile of festering turd. That's the truth, and the truth can't be kept in a cage for too long. Expect the Amazon reviews to get back to the sub-2 star average in the following months and years.
 
um, ok. so the game has been out around 4 months. going from a 7.3 to a 7.0 over 1/2 that time means that the recent scores have been in the 6's on average most likely, rigtht? and going from 8.3 at 1 month old to 3.0 at 4 months old means that the more recent scores are probably in the 7.8-8.0 range recently. neither of those scores is earth-shattering, but calling it a "pile of festering turd" is probably just a bit harsh.

Go read the amazon reviews, I just went back to jan 9, the avg score since then is 2.65. lots of really short reviews for both good and bad reviews, in fact the only long review was a 5 star. Next time try using facts instead of hyperbole.

Interesting to note that I didn't see a single 3 star and only a couple of 4 stars, vast majority were 1, 2, or 5 stars.

as I've previously mentioned, civ4 vanilla on amazon is only 3 stars, with the more recent ratings significantly higher than the average. will civ5 get up to 3 stars? probably not, but 2.5-2.7 is definitely possible as they release future patches and generally improve the game. the only potential wrench in this will be if shafer's leaving kills future support. poor guy just can't win, if the game improves now the anti-civ5 crowd will say that the game is only better b/c he left, but if the game languishes then it will be his fault for trashing it in the first place...
 
What's interesting is that the ones who actually enjoy the game seem to put more focus on bashing Civ IV (and of course, the people who prefer Civ IV), rather than explaining why Civ V is so good.
 
Go read the amazon reviews, I just went back to jan 9, the avg score since then is 2.65. lots of really short reviews for both good and bad reviews, in fact the only long review was a 5 star. Next time try using facts instead of hyperbole.
Ohhhh, ok, sorry. I'll use facts next time, and not hyperbole. My bad!

That'll learn me!

But still, if I may, I must correct you slightly: the longest reviews are definitely the critical ones. In fact, probably the longest review is a 2-star, which got the most helpful votes (628 at the moment).

For the sake of pedantic precision, let me mention that the Civ V average score at the moment is 2.282 stars.


And also let me mention that you were "interestingly" selective when you mentioned that Civ IV has 3 stars on Amazon. There are various editions of Civ IV, and they have anywhere from 4 to 4.5 stars, but you chose the only one that has about 3 stars (actually, 3.119), the Game of the Year edition.

Interesting to note, about that edition of Civ IV with the lowest average: the number of 5-star reviews is 121 out of 387. Now compare that to 85 out of 577 that Civ V got, and you see just what an abysmal failure Civ V really is.

But to drive the point a bit more home, let's see the other Civ IV editions, the ones you'd rather not see or mention:

Sid Meier's Civilization IV Complete: 3.897
Sid Meier's Civilization IV Gold Edition: 4.051
Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword: 4.343


Does Civ V start to look like that festering pile of turd I mentioned earlier?
 
I don't have any statistics on this other than just judging by what people have said since civ5's launch, but I think that people who were playing high level hardcore civ4 mods (and basically never put civ4 down) have been by far the most disappointed group. those who played it off and on after the first few months of civ4 and each expansion seem to have been generally more impressed with civ5; maybe not casual gamers per se but at least casual CIV gamers. I never thought of myself as one of those "casuals" until coming here and reading all the crazy strategies/fanboyisms/great mods/etc etc etc, but I definitely think that now.

I've actually been thinking it's the opposite...that those who played Civ IV at a high level and knew all of the exploits are happiest. From what I can tell, Civ V fans are the ones who are happy with all that was omitted from IV precisely because they share the opinion with high-level strategists that those features are exploits or useless "fluff." Think about fans' comments on religion (diplo exploit,) civics (too easy to switch,) espionage (useless fluff,) and stacking (too easy to roflstomp everyone with a big enough SoD...) If you read my earlier discussion with esemjay, his frustration with SoDs came down to the fact that he can play so well as to create a mega-stack that nullifies the rest of the game. No one but a high-level player would be able to do that.

Anyway, given your post, there's likely a mix of several types of players in either camp.

What's interesting is that the ones who actually enjoy the game seem to put more focus on bashing Civ IV (and of course, the people who prefer Civ IV), rather than explaining why Civ V is so good.

I've noticed this as well. I think (hope) that most of us would agree on a middle ground between the extremes of Civs IV and V. Not unlimited stacking, but not strict 1upt either; not the ability to change civics at the drop of a hat, but not permanent governments either; Not min-maxing but not awkward global happiness either.

Civ V fans are free to correct me, but I suspect that many who enjoy Civ V are more relieved to be free of some of the major annoyances from IV, rather than really being in full, unbridled support of designs from V. 1upt is not the best idea, but it's better (in their opinion) than those annoying SoDs; SP's are not the best idea, but they are better (in their opinion) than the willy-nilly civic swapping in IV.

What people need to understand, I think, is that most of us (those disappointed in Civ V) recognize that Civ IV wasn't perfect, but we did not expect the devs to go to the absolute extremes in order to counter some of the issues. More importantly, we didn't expect those solutions to make the game damn near unplayable for us. From what I've been reading, the people more critical of Civ IV were pretty annoyed at some of the flaws in that game, at worst, but they were still able to enjoy it to some degree. Understand that several of the Civ V detractors, OTOH, can't stand Civ V at all. We are falling asleep at the keyboard, booting it up before simply closing the window in visceral disgust, forcing ourselves to play in the vain hope that we will discover that "just...one more turn" feeling. And that's why we are still here, just trying to figure out what went wrong.

I've long felt that Firaxis's the major failing in the development of Civ V was that they couldn't identify a large segment of the fanbase. Here's hoping that Civ VI comes out more even-handed.
 
Sketch kinda nailed it for me. 1UPT, despite its flaws, it still better than SoD. Of course, it's starting to look to me that Civ5 went off the deep end for some things. Hexes, changing the way culture works, 1UPT, great.

Global Happiness. Faulty Diplomacy. The Economic (Diplomacy) Victory. Bad.

More and more, it seems like they weren't aiming to please the base but to create a new base and failed miserably. Sure, Civ5 isn't what I would call a bad game but it isn't great either. There was no reason, at all, to completely scrap Civics in favor of just Social Policies because we all know how France remained a Constitutional Monarchy....oh wait, no we don't.

I guess I'm what some would call a Builder who likes to beat the crap out of neighbors every once in a while and Civ5 Vanilla (mods help out greatly) is definitely not builder's game. There's not much to do on the homefront besides produce units or buildings which gets bad when you don't want either.
 
That''s an interesting point Sonereal. At one level I think that some backlash was inevitable. They very explicitly were aiming at a mass market and at simplifying the game mechanics. Strategy gamers who favor slower and more complex puzzles are finding fewer and fewer outlets, and the computer gaming market is strongly trending to very simple and repetitive approaches. I play a lot of board games, and as time has marched on I've migrated towards well-designed shorter ones with simpler rules and interesting strategic variety.

Civ 5 did slash a lot of complexity out of the picture, but I think that they ended up with something that worked well for neither the old audience nor the mass audience. Quite simply, they didn't understand what either group wanted. Empire builders wanted a rich city / tech / trade / civilization building set of options, with enough variety to support replay. The mass audience is all about easy wins, quick play, and instant gratification.

Civ 5 has a lot of opaque features and deeply counter-intuitive aspects. Plop a bunch of cities down and your empire grinds to a halt. Build a lot of buildings in your cities and get choked on maintenance. Ditto for building roads. Capture a lot of cities in a successful war and your economy chokes. Pieces move in odd ways; turns are slow for the video generation. It doesn't have the instant "click" of a FarmVille, or even a Bejeweled or Bookworm.

For the vets it's not just the loss of familiar features. There are a lot of cases where the designers seemed to just pick an arbitrary feature and stick with it, even when it had a lot of problems. The various parts don't mesh well together. My clearest example is switching to a new combat mode - where roads would be really, really useful - and simultaneously making design choices where roads become costly and rare. If they had just left in the old road system things would be easier to move around, a lot of the logistics would be less awkward, and it would work better as a game. That's a big price to pay for aesthetics. Another good example is buildings in cities: given the maintenance hit, was it really necessary to also make them slow to construct? By all appearances they were just tossing edicts around and not stopping to say "is this fun"? Does this part play nicely with that one? Does this work on big maps?

Finally, I think that they had too small of a subset of the folks who enjoy Civ involved in the design. Civ 1-4 were successful because people enjoyed them in a variety of ways. If you make the builder game boring, or the diplomacy random, or the wargame easy...well, you appeal to a smaller and smaller subset of the audience. I suspect that they would have caught a lot of the issues with a broader-based beta.
 
That''s an interesting point Sonereal. At one level I think that some backlash was inevitable. They very explicitly were aiming at a mass market and at simplifying the game mechanics. Strategy gamers who favor slower and more complex puzzles are finding fewer and fewer outlets, and the computer gaming market is strongly trending to very simple and repetitive approaches. I play a lot of board games, and as time has marched on I've migrated towards well-designed shorter ones with simpler rules and interesting strategic variety.

Civ 5 did slash a lot of complexity out of the picture, but I think that they ended up with something that worked well for neither the old audience nor the mass audience. Quite simply, they didn't understand what either group wanted. Empire builders wanted a rich city / tech / trade / civilization building set of options, with enough variety to support replay. The mass audience is all about easy wins, quick play, and instant gratification.

Civ 5 has a lot of opaque features and deeply counter-intuitive aspects. Plop a bunch of cities down and your empire grinds to a halt. Build a lot of buildings in your cities and get choked on maintenance. Ditto for building roads. Capture a lot of cities in a successful war and your economy chokes. Pieces move in odd ways; turns are slow for the video generation. It doesn't have the instant "click" of a FarmVille, or even a Bejeweled or Bookworm.

For the vets it's not just the loss of familiar features. There are a lot of cases where the designers seemed to just pick an arbitrary feature and stick with it, even when it had a lot of problems. The various parts don't mesh well together. My clearest example is switching to a new combat mode - where roads would be really, really useful - and simultaneously making design choices where roads become costly and rare. If they had just left in the old road system things would be easier to move around, a lot of the logistics would be less awkward, and it would work better as a game. That's a big price to pay for aesthetics. Another good example is buildings in cities: given the maintenance hit, was it really necessary to also make them slow to construct? By all appearances they were just tossing edicts around and not stopping to say "is this fun"? Does this part play nicely with that one? Does this work on big maps?

Finally, I think that they had too small of a subset of the folks who enjoy Civ involved in the design. Civ 1-4 were successful because people enjoyed them in a variety of ways. If you make the builder game boring, or the diplomacy random, or the wargame easy...well, you appeal to a smaller and smaller subset of the audience. I suspect that they would have caught a lot of the issues with a broader-based beta.

I really enjoyed this post. I don't know how they tested Civ V but I am a chieftain player from IV. I tried warlord a couple of times but it was too much for me (with worldbuilder I played warlord a couple of times with tons of stone, marble, copper). Settler was for wimps. I never heard of min/maxing til Civ V players said that Civ IV was a terrible crime because of the min/maxing. To me the slider was not a very complicated tool. I would adjust it when I could. If I had the economy, I would ramp the Science, CUlture, and Espionage as much as I could (80-10-10, 80-10-0, with tech lead 50-20-30... nothing really specific). If I didn't have the economy, I would just jack the science as best I could without going broke (60-0-0, 70-0-0, 80-0-0). That's not rocket science for me. Maybe it is min/maxing and I didn't know how bad I had life. I didn't have to get out a mathbook to determine that is what I wanted to do. I automated workers for the first year of gameplay and just had fun with the game. I learned a little about city economies... someone had a use for the National Park... so I tried having my workers build particular things getting to the critical number of city saturation and cottage the rest. Make a forest city that gets turned on at Biology. It was a lot of fun.

In V, I just find myself like angry. I am building a few key cities and getting ready for war and puppeteering. I go to war. The whole world is pissed off at me for being a douche and it blows. If I had an expansion or two in IV, I could get the game back under control somewhat. Some AIs would still hate me, but others, I could turn around over time. Now it's like: "The human player is a douche and he's ruining our game." Well it's not their game. It's my game. I am the player of the game. Not the AI. Not Jon Shafer. It's me who plays the game. I'm stuck playing Prince or King because the game sucks and so I might as well have a tougher time of it. I see tech's like Electronics with one item in it and it's just depressing. Mass Media=Stadium. Wow, how inspiring. There's a lot of tech's like that with one item, maybe two items and the items are absolutely one dimensional. I have to deal with nonsense like an AI giving me 15 cities. So he is quitting the game, but he's taking me down with the ship. It's infantile. It's like the developers are sad I am winning so they make my game a frown factory. "You will beat this AI, but you won't be happy for taking his infantile offer. That's our AI programming."

Well whatever, my post doesn't really relate to your post. But yours was a good post
 
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