Is the economy in Civ V to simplified?

[Bad Brett]

Many people seem to think that the economy in new game lacks the depth that it had in previous releases, other claim that it's actually more complex and harder to master now. I'm think it would be interesting to see if there's any pattern between how long you've been into to Civ and what you think about the new model.

What do you think?

 

[moopoo]

i think you forgot to put the poll part there

 

[Bad Brett]

i think you forgot to put the poll part there

Whooops! Don't know why the thread was posted anyway... It's fixed now.

 

[Tomice]

Congrats for making a meaningful poll with useful choices. Maybe you should have asked rather how intensive they've played previous titles*, but overall it's a good poll.


*played:

- only Civ4 casually
- Civ4 and older titles casually
- only Civ4 professionally
- multiple titles profesionally
- didn't play civ before
- only played the older titles

 

[moopoo]

unfortunately my opinion is uninformed by the full game until friday, but from everything i've seen, the move from sliders to independent commerce and research, at the very least, maintains previous complexity. you're essentially managing multiple incomes now, and the only thing that's actually been left out is health. but then, in civ4 health worked the same way (just managed by different resources/buildings) and in civ3 health was an annoying hard cap.

 

[Purpureus]

I think it is early to tell.
The economy seems complex enough in some cases, but in some given conditions it appears to be kind of simple (a near-perfect starting location will launch you up there)... I have not played yet on highest diff levels, though.

One still has to have resources, the yield of the tiles (bare tiles) is slightly less than before. So one has to work hard the terrain.
There are ways now to make your life easier by expanding the city preferentially, tile aquisition, etc.

There are different approaches in many areas, so a certain adaptive attitude will help get the best out of this game. Then it will be time for evaluation.

 

[Bad Brett]

No patterns yet. Interesting...

 

[bob_d]

Civ 5 doesn't seem to require you to make any tough choices between science, money, culture, and spying, like Civ 4 required. In civ 5, it's just dependent on the tiles around the city. You just build farms everywhere.

Or maybe I'm missing something. After all, I only played Civ 5 for two hours.

 

[Stalingrad]

its too simplified and specialists dont seem to be a big factor like they were in civ 4

 

[edmund22]

Civ 5 doesn't seem to require you to make any tough choices You just build farms everywhere.

I only build as many as I need, the rest trade posts, which are overpowered imo. I get massive amounts of gold this way. And just like real world, you can buy almost anything with that

 

[MkLh]

The economy is more complex than it was in Civ4.

It's the diplomacy that worries me.

 

[Stalingrad]

how is the economy more copmlex? everything seems very basic to me build workers, work land, dont assign specialists, build several wonders maybe thats it

civ 4 you had more wonders, you had religion that could aid your economy, you could ajust your resarch level as you wanted everything was just, RIGHT!

 

[InterAl]

The economy is more complex than it was in Civ4.

It's the diplomacy that worries me.

The diplo always sucked.

 

[ICNP]

I'd like to see the slider return, it was an integral part to deciding what to do focus on in your empire, especially now, with the ability to freeze research, and then just spend gold on units like crazy, you could put together a more daring rush. But that's just me.

4 yr long player of Civ.

 

[digitalcraft]

The economy is not more complex, that's silly. Or maybe I'm missing where you make the decision between cottage farms for a democratic paradise or workshops and watermills for a communist utopia? Did I skip the setting to enable the option of going nationalist/fascist/theocratic at the expensive of economy to have less but legendary tough units? Is there an option to whip production at the expense of later population to work your cottages? Did you even play Civ4?

 

[naturalmwa]

I agree that the game is more simplified, I think that was a goal from the beginning. The game plays very fast, no menus or screens to look at each turn, just a handy to-do-list that steps you through all that requires your attention that turn. This isn't my favorite part of the game either, but the designers did accomplish what they set out to do, which I feel was to make a game to attract new people to the franchize.

Complexity can be added latter, and it will be by the modding community. The specialists, religion and health will all likely make a return after the modding community gets some time with it. It would be very hard to release a game that is both more inviting to new players and also more complex and challenging for vets who have played CIV for 17 years in my case or more.

For now I'm just enjoying a very brisk game where turns speed by and I don't have to remember to check anything, because there is nothing to check and the game reminds me to do everything. I could see some sort of i-phone app to run this game, epecially if you are a builder type.

 

[PawelS]

I think it's more complex (this answer is missing in the poll), because in Civ1-4 it was too easy to change your economical focus in one turn using sliders. Now you have to use gold for more interesting things than setting the slider and converting it to science. Also in Civ4 there were too many specialist slots, now individual specialists count.

 

[padlock]

I'm not sure if I'd got as far at to call Civ V's economy more complex, but my early impression is that it feels deeper.

In Civ 4, you basically had a binary choice between specialist or cottage economies. Cottage economonies consisted pretty much of cottage spam. Specialist economies had a few more meaningful decision, but not many.

Civ 5 may have less absolute number of choices, but the choices it does present seem to be far less obvious.

So far, I'm really enjoying it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't see how anybody could possibly have a TRUE answer to this only a day into the release.

 

[tom2050]

No possible way it is more complex. You are in essence stuck with whatever you have, and to make a difference you have to wait a long time while you very slowly build the improvements to make an impact. Sure, it makes you think ahead, but all Civ games make you think ahead in the same way.

Because of it, there are less early options.