It doesn't feel like I'm building a civilization

[Falk]

I'm pretty disappointed with the game, but I didn't want to write yet another rant. So I kept playing and tried to figure out what it is that I dislike about Civ5. Of course there are obvious problems like the combat AI and some UI nuisances, but those can and will be patched so I am not that worried about it.

Here's a disclaimer: I'm just stating my opinion. I'm well aware that many others love the game and I think that's really cool!

I think I can now confidently say that Civ5 does not give me the feeling of building a whole civilization from scratch. I'll try to name some reasons. Let me clarify that I will compare the game to its predecessor because Civ4 was almost perfect in making me think I was the eternal leader of a civilization. I don't mind changes in principle! I'm sure there are many ways to achieve what Civ4 achieved without simply copying that game.

1. Slow expansion
In my current game I'm in the late middle ages and about half of the Pangäa continent is not settled yet. There's nothing to get there and since building new cities comes with harsh disadvantages, no one - me nor AI - feels the incentive to settle new cities.
In Civ4 there were enough incentives to settle more cities. Fast expansion early on, slower at later stages, but the vast majority of land was settled relatively early. It was a race against the AI leaders to grab the best lands. Even small empires were sufficiently large to look like an empire and continent spanning nations were not uncommon.
That's what I want to do! In Civ5 it feels more like I'm playing a confederation of city-states against other confederations of city-states. It's more like NYC against New Jersey than America against Russia.

2. No palace distance maintanance
This change means that settling in all kinds of different places is viable. Well, no, it's not viable of course, because you can't defend such "empires", but the AI will often do it anyway. This makes it look even more like city-state confeds. Many "patches of empire" all around the globe, no empires anywhere!

3. Lack of diversity in the resources system
The arrangement of luxury resources is pretty strange - there are many of them, but only of few different kinds in any given region. This has two effects I both dislike:
a) after settling your first few cities there's still a lot of land left unsettled, but since there are no new luxury resources there you really don't want to go there. This leads to #1, slow expansion.
b) You're in no rush founding new cities. There are so many resources of the same kind near your capital that you will easily be able to grab them later in the game. There's no challenge to get the best spots first because of this. Just relax and take it easy. Everyone does, even the Russians.

In Civ4 city positions were much more important. This is because resources were much more diverse. Early gold would not only increase happiness but also boost your research through the roof. Corn was so much better than rice. Dye was a consolation prize for late-comers, when there were gems in the jungle. Etc.

4. AI leaders are very much identical
I understand the AI was programmed to actually try to win the game. I can see why people like that but for me it's a complete desaster. I do not want to play against "human players" who just happen to look like Montezuma and Catherine. I want to play against Montezuma and Catherine themselves. Gandhi should just be a nice guy not trying to get into my way. Catherine should expand like crazy. Monty should... be crazy. I don't care if they do not stand a chance to win the game. I want to win the game myself in a world full of diverse and characterful leaders.

5. Social Policies are both unrealistic and boring and slow to get (can I say "both" and then name three factors?)
The social policies are basically another tech tree with optional paths, pretty much like RPGs (think WoW) have it. That's not what I want for my civilization. I'm the great leader of my people so I want to be able to change politics and similar things according to my people's needs. I don't want to sit down, think of a good strategy for the next couple of thousands of years and then just look what happens with only minor tweaks possible. It just doesn't feel right.
I also dislike how getting new policies takes forever, especially if you expand (which is what I like to do a lot when I view myself as a great leader!).

6. The tax slider is gone
I understand why this decision was made and I do think that the new mechanic is interesting and can work if balanced well. However, again it doesn't feel right. I can't make my people pay taxes? I can't decide how much resources to use on research? Ok, specialists are still there, but I still fell quite powerless.

7. Production is too slow
Has been mentioned many times and there's already a mod decreasing production cost. But I'll mention it again: I want to build great cities for my people and that includes a lot of great buildings!

8. City-states feel somewhat unnecessary
I'm not talking about the feature itself which I like. But I think just having two buttons "buy culture" and "buy food" would have accomplished the same. The only difference is that you can't conquer buttons but can conquer city-states. Ok, so add a button "buy new city with buildings and improvements". This idea had a lot of potential in terms of making players feel like actual leaders of a civ, but at least for me it doesn't work at all.

9. Wonders don't do much
I built a bloody wonder! So what? Most wonders are pretty boring and not that powerful in Civ5. It works well in terms of gameplay, but it feels wrong.

10. Religion is gone
I know that many did not like how religion was implemented in Civ4 (I disagree but that's not the point). But religion added an entirely new layer to the game. Now there wasn't just Aztecs and Russians, but also Buddhists and Confucianists. That just felt right!

I could probably think of a dozen more things, but I'll stop right here. I hope I have made my point clear: what I dislike is not that Civ5 is different and not that it's "too simple" (simplicity can be a good thing!) or the mere fact that some feature I like is missing. What I dislike is that Civilization 5 does not make me feel like guiding a civilization through the ages. It's more like an overly complex Settlers of Catan.

My question is: do you have the same problem with the game? And if you don't what gives you the feeling of being a great leader of an entire people?
I'm curious!

 

[Matth3w]

So play Civilization IV.

Some of your points are just stupid.

If production is too slow, get more hammers either by improvements or building upgrades.

You talk about not being able to choose religion in the same breath as saying the leaders aren't behaving correctly. So you want the "crazy Montezuma" but you want the option to be able to have his civilization be Christian.

You say you can't control how much is spent on resources...sure you can. you can build a building that increases science.

You don't need to sit down and think of a tech tree path. You can do it on the fly if you want. That's what I do. I pick whatever will benefit my civilization the most at that specific point in time, just like real politics.

You go on and on about resources not being in one area etc but also again you wanted realistic...not all resources are readily available in every area in real life.

Cliff notes: quit whining

Moderator Action: Flaming
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[charon2112]

For me, most of these things you list are reasons i like Civ V.

I'm pretty disappointed with the game, but I didn't want to write yet another rant. So I kept playing and tried to figure out what it is that I dislike about Civ5. Of course there are obvious problems like the combat AI and some UI nuisances, but those can and will be patched so I am not that worried about it.

Here's a disclaimer: I'm just stating my opinion. I'm well aware that many others love the game and I think that's really cool!

I think I can now confidently say that Civ5 does not give me the feeling of building a whole civilization from scratch. I'll try to name some reasons. Let me clarify that I will compare the game to its predecessor because Civ4 was almost perfect in making me think I was the eternal leader of a civilization. I don't mind changes in principle! I'm sure there are many ways to achieve what Civ4 achieved without simply copying that game.

1. Slow expansion
In my current game I'm in the late middle ages and about half of the Pangäa continent is not settled yet. There's nothing to get there and since building new cities comes with harsh disadvantages, no one - me nor AI - feels the incentive to settle new cities.
In Civ4 there were enough incentives to settle more cities. Fast expansion early on, slower at later stages, but the vast majority of land was settled relatively early. It was a race against the AI leaders to grab the best lands. Even small empires were sufficiently large to look like an empire and continent spanning nations were not uncommon.
That's what I want to do! In Civ5 it feels more like I'm playing a confederation of city-states against other confederations of city-states. It's more like NYC against New Jersey than America against Russia.

2. No palace distance maintanance
This change means that settling in all kinds of different places is viable. Well, no, it's not viable of course, because you can't defend such "empires", but the AI will often do it anyway. This makes it look even more like city-state confeds. Many "patches of empire" all around the globe, no empires anywhere!

3. Lack of diversity in the resources system
The arrangement of luxury resources is pretty strange - there are many of them, but only of few different kinds in any given region. This has two effects I both dislike:
a) after settling your first few cities there's still a lot of land left unsettled, but since there are no new luxury resources there you really don't want to go there. This leads to #1, slow expansion.
b) You're in no rush founding new cities. There are so many resources of the same kind near your capital that you will easily be able to grab them later in the game. There's no challenge to get the best spots first because of this. Just relax and take it easy. Everyone does, even the Russians.

In Civ4 city positions were much more important. This is because resources were much more diverse. Early gold would not only increase happiness but also boost your research through the roof. Corn was so much better than rice. Dye was a consolation prize for late-comers, when there were gems in the jungle. Etc.

4. AI leaders are very much identical
I understand the AI was programmed to actually try to win the game. I can see why people like that but for me it's a complete desaster. I do not want to play against "human players" who just happen to look like Montezuma and Catherine. I want to play against Montezuma and Catherine themselves. Gandhi should just be a nice guy not trying to get into my way. Catherine should expand like crazy. Monty should... be crazy. I don't care if they do not stand a chance to win the game. I want to win the game myself in a world full of diverse and characterful leaders.

5. Social Policies are both unrealistic and boring and slow to get (can I say "both" and then name three factors?)
The social policies are basically another tech tree with optional paths, pretty much like RPGs (think WoW) have it. That's not what I want for my civilization. I'm the great leader of my people so I want to be able to change politics and similar things according to my people's needs. I don't want to sit down, think of a good strategy for the next couple of thousands of years and then just look what happens with only minor tweaks possible. It just doesn't feel right.
I also dislike how getting new policies takes forever, especially if you expand (which is what I like to do a lot when I view myself as a great leader!).

6. The tax slider is gone
I understand why this decision was made and I do think that the new mechanic is interesting and can work if balanced well. However, again it doesn't feel right. I can't make my people pay taxes? I can't decide how much resources to use on research? Ok, specialists are still there, but I still fell quite powerless.

7. Production is too slow
Has been mentioned many times and there's already a mod decreasing production cost. But I'll mention it again: I want to build great cities for my people and that includes a lot of great buildings!

8. City-states feel somewhat unnecessary
I'm not talking about the feature itself which I like. But I think just having two buttons "buy culture" and "buy food" would have accomplished the same. The only difference is that you can't conquer buttons but can conquer city-states. Ok, so add a button "buy new city with buildings and improvements". This idea had a lot of potential in terms of making players feel like actual leaders of a civ, but at least for me it doesn't work at all.

9. Wonders don't do much
I built a bloody wonder! So what? Most wonders are pretty boring and not that powerful in Civ5. It works well in terms of gameplay, but it feels wrong.

10. Religion is gone
I know that many did not like how religion was implemented in Civ4 (I disagree but that's not the point). But religion added an entirely new layer to the game. Now there wasn't just Aztecs and Russians, but also Buddhists and Confucianists. That just felt right!

I could probably think of a dozen more things, but I'll stop right here. I hope I have made my point clear: what I dislike is not that Civ5 is different and not that it's "too simple" (simplicity can be a good thing!) or the mere fact that some feature I like is missing. What I dislike is that Civilization 5 does not make me feel like guiding a civilization through the ages. It's more like an overly complex Settlers of Catan.

My question is: do you have the same problem with the game? And if you don't what gives you the feeling of being a great leader of an entire people?
I'm curious!

 

[Zaimejs]

The best comment in here is the unchanging tech tree... you are right. Nailed it on the head. One leader planning your entire social policy for the rest of time... part of the joy of being a leader is that you can change the direction of your country. We're warlike! Now we like science!

This should be an easy patch. Just allow changing social policies for a cultural penalty each time you do it.

Bah. Humbug. Taxes are good too... but we can pretend that choosing different tiles to work is like taxes.

How do I see how much infrastructure is costing? And can I control that?

 

[Buccaneer]

I want to play against Montezuma and Catherine themselves. Gandhi should just be a nice guy not trying to get into my way. Catherine should expand like crazy. Monty should... be crazy. I

Then you would get a more predicable AI. I have always felt like they were simply the blue or purple or yellow civ...and that's perfectly fine with me. I just want each of them to be good and challenging (which they weren't in Civ4 either).

 

[azzedar]

with some of your reasons i agree while others are things i actually like about civ5.

for example, while i also miss the sliders, i absolutely like the slow expansion. in civ4 you had maintenance, important city-positioning and so on and still (as you said) the whole map was settles within the middle ages at least.
i hate that. i hated it so much that expansion still feels to fast to me in civ5. i want to care about leading and building my civilization, not about worrying to push settlers like a madman to grab myself enough land till the real game starts. that totally destroyed gameplay atmosphere.
furthermore, i think its a great job done that it goes so slow in civ5 despite that there actually almost no more punishments for having many cities.

for the social policies: i hope they reduce the penalty for cities. +30%pC is hard. i never got more than about 1-2 trees completed (or the equivalent in number of policy points divided in several trees...) before the game ended the one or the other way. its okay you can specialize your civ now, but it has no impact on you unless you go for a cultural victory.
yet while i, basically, like them, i feel with many of the players who say its not a valid refund for the civics. going to anticipate the day someone adds or mods them back in.

 

[Generals3]

So play Civilization IV.

Some of your points are just stupid.

If production is too slow, get more hammers either by improvements or building upgrades.

You talk about not being able to choose religion in the same breath as saying the leaders aren't behaving correctly. So you want the "crazy Montezuma" but you want the option to be able to have his civilization be Christian.

You say you can't control how much is spent on resources...sure you can. you can build a building that increases science.

You don't need to sit down and think of a tech tree path. You can do it on the fly if you want. That's what I do. I pick whatever will benefit my civilization the most at that specific point in time, just like real politics.

You go on and on about resources not being in one area etc but also again you wanted realistic...not all resources are readily available in every area in real life.

Cliff notes: quit whining

Even with improvements and all you can do to maximize your production it is extremely slow. I am currently playing a game with a mod which increases the yield of resources and so on , so my production and growth are already beefed up and even with that and in cities with all the production buffing improvements it takes me twice as long to build a modern armor than researching a tech. I'm sorry but something is definitely wrong .

What i propose to fix this is to split science and production into two different speed modes so everyone can play what he prefer (i personally prefer fast prod and slow science)

And the problem with the social policy system you describe is that what is good once might not be all the time and you often end up with lots of "wasted" policies . The social policy system is just too static (to my opinion at least) .

 

[backspace4353]

I feel the same. I'm not allowed to drive my civ in the direction I wish. I try and expand and I get hit with unhappy. I try and build building for happy and I go bankrupt. I can't even sell outdated buildings or at least destroy them so the cost goes down. Civ 5 has been a big disappointment.

 

[boredatwork]

My question is: do you have the same problem with the game?

Yes.

5char

 

[automator]

Lunch break! Can I address your complaints and add my two cents?

1. I very much like the slower expansion. Previous games always felt very decided by the medival era, as everyone rushed to expand out as quickly as possible, and the idea of finding open land around 1200 AD (give or take) was completely out of this world (except maybe for some crappy tundra spot with no resources). So to me it feels like building an empire, rather than quickly plopping cities down willy nilly.

2. I'm kind of with you in this. Today America chose to settle a city in the middle of a landmass, surrounded by my empire and Persia's empire ... and not for any resource based reason, either.

3. Lack of diversity in resources nearby also encourages trade (or war). Why would I bother trading with Siam for ivory, when there's some right next door? But when I have three silver and four wines and nothing else, it is in my interest to seek out trade partners (or someone to roll over in war).

4. Can't actually comment on this, as I haven't played enough full games to really see how the AIs act.

5. Not perfect, but a heck of a lot better than Civ4's weird civics system.

6. After being sooo used to the slider, this is taking a lot of getting used to. But Civ4's tax slider was pretty stupid, if you really think about it.

7. I like the build speed.

8. Kind of on the fence with this one. Your "buy food/culture/unit" analogy is almost right on, but city states also bring in other issues. Do you actively help them, passively help them? Do you crush them and face potential reputation hits? If Ragusa wants to look at your great scientist, do you waste a few turns walking him over before using him?

9. I like this because wonders in Civ4 felt waaaaay to strong.

10. I really liked religion, but I'll also admit that it was very poorly done, for example, religions should have waxed and waned sort of like mixed populations in the city (e.g. a city starts with 0% reglion, then once, say, Buddhism is introduced, Buddhism slowly grows as a percentage of the population as followers -- buildings and civics/policies affecting growth rate. additional reglions grow in the same way, though if religions present in a city are "controlled" by opposing empires, then they are at odds with each other, etc.) If it were introduced to Civ5 in a future patch or expansion, I hope they do it better than in civ4.

 

[vandyr]

I don't understand these building speed comments...my first game it was slow, but after I learned what I was doing, it feels almost exactly the same as Civ 4 did. Starts slow and quickly speeds up. I crank out units, wonders and buildings just as fast as I could in Civ 4.

 

[Methos]

Moderator Action: The flamewar stops now. If it continues, then you each will be banned until you can calm down. The discussion should be regarding the topic, not each others experience.

I've deleted the offensive posts. Please continue this conversation in a civil manner.

 

[zonk]

I clearly stated that I gave only my personal opinion. It's cool have different views. No need to get personal.

It's people like you who ruin every thread on this board at the moment, not the percieved "whiners".

Edited out the flame contributions... just thought this was a perfectly reasonable critique and flames to the post were one-sided.

One of the reviews - gamespy, I think - mentioned Civ V almost seems to have an RPG element. The more I play, the more I agree (and in fact, think it's morphing INTO an RPG).

Now... I'm not "anti-RPG" -- but it's just not my cup of tea. Don't care for them, don't play them. Civilization isn't supposed to be an RPG.

You never really commanded a Civilization "as" Elizabeth or Genghis Khan - except maybe in the abstract - because, obviously, no human being directs every city building project, worker action, unit movement, etc... you were an omniscient deity directly a civilization at the micro level.

It's gone too RPG because with everything so boiled up to the macro level, you "feel" more like the individual leader than that omniscient deity...

To me -- there's a clear line in the sand between RPG and 4X strategy. If Take2/Firaxis wanted to break new ground and cross that line, I feel like they should have developed a new and different title to do it --- not used the Civilization series to experiment. Civ is 4X and 4X is Civ -- it's just not something I wanted to see morph into a different type of game.

 

[Dizzy75]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But here are some (hopefully) relatively objective responses to some things:

1. Slow expansion
In my current game I'm in the late middle ages and about half of the Pangäa continent is not settled yet. There's nothing to get there and since building new cities comes with harsh disadvantages, no one - me nor AI - feels the incentive to settle new cities.
In Civ4 there were enough incentives to settle more cities. Fast expansion early on, slower at later stages, but the vast majority of land was settled relatively early. It was a race against the AI leaders to grab the best lands. Even small empires were sufficiently large to look like an empire and continent spanning nations were not uncommon.
That's what I want to do! In Civ5 it feels more like I'm playing a confederation of city-states against other confederations of city-states. It's more like NYC against New Jersey than America against Russia.

In Civ IV, with the exception of some early rush strategies, the early land-grab essentially made it a dominant strategy to rush a settler very early using chopping or whipping. When most players HAVE to do a more-or-less set sequence of moves at the beginning of the game in order to survive, it constrains the strategic options available.

It seems so far that Civ5 is more geared toward reacting to your initial surroundings, so that there are many viable options in the early game. This isn't to say that we won't develop a fairly set build order at some point, but it isn't obvious right now. That expands the set of viable strategies available to each player.

2. No palace distance maintanance
This change means that settling in all kinds of different places is viable. Well, no, it's not viable of course, because you can't defend such "empires", but the AI will often do it anyway. This makes it look even more like city-state confeds. Many "patches of empire" all around the globe, no empires anywhere!

I'll just note that the British Empire fit the "patches of empire all around the globe" description pretty nicely.

3. Lack of diversity in the resources system
The arrangement of luxury resources is pretty strange - there are many of them, but only of few different kinds in any given region. This has two effects I both dislike:
a) after settling your first few cities there's still a lot of land left unsettled, but since there are no new luxury resources there you really don't want to go there. This leads to #1, slow expansion.
b) You're in no rush founding new cities. There are so many resources of the same kind near your capital that you will easily be able to grab them later in the game. There's no challenge to get the best spots first because of this. Just relax and take it easy. Everyone does, even the Russians.

This encourages more interactions between civilizations/city-states than in Civ IV. Remember various monopolies or near-monopolies that had a huge impact on international relations in the colonial era - tea from China, sugar and tobacco from the New World, etc.

Because luxuries are "clustered" more in Civ5, if your region is rich in gems, there's a good chance that other continents won't have gems, but will be rich in something else. If you allow an AI to settle near gems on your continent, they won't be desirable to him when you want to trade; if you control all of the gems, you can get literally thousands of gold from each AI civ. It adds yet another strategic element to the game.

5. Social Policies are both unrealistic and boring and slow to get (can I say "both" and then name three factors?)
The social policies are basically another tech tree with optional paths, pretty much like RPGs (think WoW) have it. That's not what I want for my civilization. I'm the great leader of my people so I want to be able to change politics and similar things according to my people's needs. I don't want to sit down, think of a good strategy for the next couple of thousands of years and then just look what happens with only minor tweaks possible. It just doesn't feel right.
I also dislike how getting new policies takes forever, especially if you expand (which is what I like to do a lot when I view myself as a great leader!).

It probably doesn't feel "right" because you're used to civics, but civics are even less realistic than SPs (no nation is capable of changing from a communist state to a free democracy overnight, or a slave state to an emancipated one and back again within 5-10 years), and they also involve no real long-term trade-offs. Opportunity costs are much more prevalent in Civ5, making thoughtful long-term planning (i.e., "strategy") that much more important.

6. The tax slider is gone
I understand why this decision was made and I do think that the new mechanic is interesting and can work if balanced well. However, again it doesn't feel right. I can't make my people pay taxes? I can't decide how much resources to use on research? Ok, specialists are still there, but I still fell quite powerless.

You can do all of that, with switching of trading posts vs. farms etc., because you don't fill your city with citizens nearly as fast as before. It's just not as extreme as before.

7. Production is too slow
Has been mentioned many times and there's already a mod decreasing production cost. But I'll mention it again: I want to build great cities for my people and that includes a lot of great buildings!

Another way of saying "production is too slow" is that investments in production are much more important. Production and maintenance costs mean you can't mindlessly build every major building in every major city anymore. Again, opportunity costs are much higher now.

8. City-states feel somewhat unnecessary
I'm not talking about the feature itself which I like. But I think just having two buttons "buy culture" and "buy food" would have accomplished the same. The only difference is that you can't conquer buttons but can conquer city-states. Ok, so add a button "buy new city with buildings and improvements". This idea had a lot of potential in terms of making players feel like actual leaders of a civ, but at least for me it doesn't work at all.

I assume this means you haven't yet run into situations where two or more city-states that you depend on want to kill each other, or when a powerful AI civ attacks one of your key city-states without actually declaring war on you. They feel much less like "buttons" when that happens.

9. Wonders don't do much
I built a bloody wonder! So what? Most wonders are pretty boring and not that powerful in Civ5. It works well in terms of gameplay, but it feels wrong.

I have read other people saying Stonehenge is so powerful that it should be nerfed, and various other similar things. If at least some people can use them in a way that gives them a tremendous advantage, then clearly "they're not that powerful" cannot be universally true.

10. Religion is gone
I know that many did not like how religion was implemented in Civ4 (I disagree but that's not the point). But religion added an entirely new layer to the game. Now there wasn't just Aztecs and Russians, but also Buddhists and Confucianists. That just felt right!

Clearly removing religion did remove one strategic aspect of the game, but most people don't seem to miss it, so it can't have been a crucial part of the experience. Besides, it didn't even exist until IV.

Again, I realize it's ok to have whatever reaction you want to the major changes. But I wanted to present what appear to have been the rationales behind them.

 

[zonk]

Even with improvements and all you can do to maximize your production it is extremely slow. I am currently playing a game with a mod which increases the yield of resources and so on , so my production and growth are already beefed up and even with that and in cities with all the production buffing improvements it takes me twice as long to build a modern armor than researching a tech. I'm sorry but something is definitely wrong .

What i propose to fix this is to split science and production into two different speed modes so everyone can play what he prefer (i personally prefer fast prod and slow science)

And the problem with the social policy system you describe is that what is good once might not be all the time and you often end up with lots of "wasted" policies . The social policy system is just too static (to my opinion at least) .

I'm with you on fast prod/slow science...

Trying to remember back, but that might have been one of the big issues in III? You'd research a tech - start building a unit/building, but you'd have already obsoleted it by the time you built (m)any.

This is one thing RoM/AND did, I think, really, really well... They accomplished it by tossing a ton of unit types, building types, and techs at you -- but they had tiny increments when it came to effects.

The net result was that I never felt like "great - that army I just built is now obsolete" -- units and buildings seem to exist and degrade in perfect correlation to tech advancement... I'd get some use out of them - but not too much use - before it was time to either upgrade or build the next "thing".

Degradation into obsolescence should be smoother.... I just really hate the fact that I cannot seem to get more than MAYBE a single library built before it's time to look at Universities.

I'm shying away from buildings right now... but - when I do, I find myself 'buying' them, not building them. It gets a little better late game when I've got RR bonuses, wonders, etc -- but by then, who really cares about buildings? You're either finishing up a conquest, focusing on winning the UN vote, or specifically focused on whatever other VC.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

9 and 10 I agree with... the rest are things I like

Some Wonders are underpowered

Religions would be good to add.

However, I think it was a good idea for them to work on the basic game, and then work on some way to add Religion in instead of a rushed concept.

 

[Brawndo]

The global happiness concept vastly limits how the game can be played. I understand keeping empires small in the beginning half of the game, but the huge colonial empires of history cannot be built in this game unless you want non-stop unhappiness.

When I go to war, I find it better to raze every single city than deal with the triple hit to happiness: +1 city, more population, and the occupied city penalty.

 

[zonk]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. But here are some (hopefully) relatively objective responses to some things:



In Civ IV, with the exception of some early rush strategies, the early land-grab essentially made it a dominant strategy to rush a settler very early using chopping or whipping. When most players HAVE to do a more-or-less set sequence of moves at the beginning of the game in order to survive, it constrains the strategic options available.

It seems so far that Civ5 is more geared toward reacting to your initial surroundings, so that there are many viable options in the early game. This isn't to say that we won't develop a fairly set build order at some point, but it isn't obvious right now. That expands the set of viable strategies available to each player.

Hmmm... I've found the exact opposite to be true. Civ IV severely limited my tendency to city spam early because of the high cost of doing so (and man, the revolutions mod REALLY stopped early city spamming dead in its tracks... they borrowed so much of V from modders -- I really wish they had grabbed that idea, too).

Anyway - I spam settlers like crazy in V. I get the sense that the slow building times and limited yields were intended to be V's ploy to limit city spamming (I guess that's one thing V has in common with its predecessors... they all try to limit city spamming!).

However, what it does is encourage me to build MORE cities, but make them LESS useful.

I hit the Liberty tree 1st for the settler price break, then just start cranking them out like crazy.... Add the fact that a settled city no longer needs protection AND the lack of distance from capital penalties -- and lord help the poor AI civ stuck on a continent with me. I'm building everywhere - and every far flung resource falls under my domain pretty quickly.

The only penalty you get is the city number unhappiness - but it's actually the population unhappiness that's the killer... and there's an easy way around that -- a lot of my cities never grow past 2 pop. I simply set them to "emphasize production" - then don't build a single thing in them... rather - I either set them to produce science or produce gold. In effect, I'm almost using settlers as if they were GPs -- rather than a science or merchant tile -- I settle a city and that's what it becomes (in addition to snagging resources).

The only real price I pay is connecting them to trade networks, but I basically just wait until I open the commerce tree and snag the road/RR bonuses.

 

[charon2112]

You're describing an exploit. Why would you play like that? It doesn't sound like much fun.

Hmmm... I've found the exact opposite to be true. Civ IV severely limited my tendency to city spam early because of the high cost of doing so (and man, the revolutions mod REALLY stopped early city spamming dead in its tracks... they borrowed so much of V from modders -- I really wish they had grabbed that idea, too).

Anyway - I spam settlers like crazy in V. I get the sense that the slow building times and limited yields were intended to be V's ploy to limit city spamming (I guess that's one thing V has in common with its predecessors... they all try to limit city spamming!).

However, what it does is encourage me to build MORE cities, but make them LESS useful.

I hit the Liberty tree 1st for the settler price break, then just start cranking them out like crazy.... Add the fact that a settled city no longer needs protection AND the lack of distance from capital penalties -- and lord help the poor AI civ stuck on a continent with me. I'm building everywhere - and every far flung resource falls under my domain pretty quickly.

The only penalty you get is the city number unhappiness - but it's actually the population unhappiness that's the killer... and there's an easy way around that -- a lot of my cities never grow past 2 pop. I simply set them to "emphasize production" - then don't build a single thing in them... rather - I either set them to produce science or produce gold. In effect, I'm almost using settlers as if they were GPs -- rather than a science or merchant tile -- I settle a city and that's what it becomes (in addition to snagging resources).

The only real price I pay is connecting them to trade networks, but I basically just wait until I open the commerce tree and snag the road/RR bonuses.

 

[Dizzy75]

Hmmm... I've found the exact opposite to be true. Civ IV severely limited my tendency to city spam early because of the high cost of doing so (and man, the revolutions mod REALLY stopped early city spamming dead in its tracks... they borrowed so much of V from modders -- I really wish they had grabbed that idea, too).

Anyway - I spam settlers like crazy in V. I get the sense that the slow building times and limited yields were intended to be V's ploy to limit city spamming (I guess that's one thing V has in common with its predecessors... they all try to limit city spamming!).

However, what it does is encourage me to build MORE cities, but make them LESS useful.

I hit the Liberty tree 1st for the settler price break, then just start cranking them out like crazy.... Add the fact that a settled city no longer needs protection AND the lack of distance from capital penalties -- and lord help the poor AI civ stuck on a continent with me. I'm building everywhere - and every far flung resource falls under my domain pretty quickly.

The only penalty you get is the city number unhappiness - but it's actually the population unhappiness that's the killer... and there's an easy way around that -- a lot of my cities never grow past 2 pop. I simply set them to "emphasize production" - then don't build a single thing in them... rather - I either set them to produce science or produce gold. In effect, I'm almost using settlers as if they were GPs -- rather than a science or merchant tile -- I settle a city and that's what it becomes (in addition to snagging resources).

The only real price I pay is connecting them to trade networks, but I basically just wait until I open the commerce tree and snag the road/RR bonuses.

Doesn't that severely stunt your Social Policy progression? Again, I don't think we have a great sense of how to optimize the early game yet, but it seems to me that that would be extremely harmful in the later stages. Additionally, since maritime bonuses apply to every city, and cities grow faster when they're smaller, there's potential for some extreme unhappiness problems if you go that route...