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

[weeee333]

A lot of the changes you could make in IV were not the kind of changes a Civilization/Country makes without being overthrown by a different Civilization/Country or having some kind of Military Coup from within (which I would argue does change the civilization to a different one). There were a few changes you could make that made sense, but overall many of them were so drastic that it didn't really make sense. For example, you could change from Freedom to Communism in the span of a turn and still be the same society. In reality the only real way that would really happen, without it taking several hundred years of slight policy change from one to the other, would be an overthrown government. And in that case, it would not be the same Civilization anymore.

That's why there's anarchy. And the more changes you make to the civics, the longer the anarchy lasts. I find it very easy to roleplay in my mind that that's what's happening to my civilization. About the timeframe of anarchy: sometimes a turn can be decades, sometimes a turn can be 6 months. So yea, it does kind of break immersion as the game progresses, but it's a fine balance between realism and gameplay (you wouldn't want to be punished by having anarchy last longer towards the endgame just for the sake of realism, right?). I loved the civics system because of this.

I tend to like this way better because a Civilization does grow and build upon itself. A Civilization rarely goes through drastic changes without becoming a different Civilization. I think the way Social Policies are now, it mimics the growth of a Civilization better. This particular game mechanic tends to make you think about what you want your Civilization to be and how you want to play before you get very far into the game. I think it works better because you have to balance all your goals. You can't just change between warmongering policies and peaceful cultural policies in one turn. Granted, the policies could be better though.

I find social policies very unrealistic and it kills my roleplaying experience, despite it being an "RPG device". Why? Because in RPGs where you build up a character (a person) then assume its role, in civ, social policies are used to role play my civilization which is a collection of people. A SOCIETY. And Societies change much more than individual people do. My hero may not unlearn his swordfighting skills in an RPG, but governments and societies change all the time. Having my civ realize it is "honourable", then forcing it to stay like this for thousands of years is neither realistic nor is it fun.

Japan is a civilization that used to treat honour as one of its most important societal values, but after the defeat in WW2 their constitution no longer allows them to militarily interfere in international conflicts that do not involve themselves. I can't do this in-game because once a society decides it's "honourable", you have to be an eternal war-monger to reap the benefits.

What about the USSR, the Third Reich, China and its many civil wars and turmoils? What about Rome and France's revolutions? No society in history picks a policy and stays the same way for eternity.

That's why I HATE social policies. I'm not playing a hero and building a character, I'm playing as a civilization, and not allowing my civilization to change according to world politics (in a game called Civilization, no less!) is just absurd.

 

[ethanyoung66]

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 fact, i like Civ5 better on this. Land grabbing oriented gameplay style is not my taste. I prefer a more resource dependant oriented gameplay style. Bigger is not the only way out anymore.

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 think your point makes sense. send settler everywhere without limit doesn't feel logical, this should be fixed.

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.

I think this is for the balance. If you have multiple kind of resources in one place to begin with, why trade ? I prefer this style of gameplay in Civ5 more.

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!).

I agree with this point. SP is just another tech tree waiting to be unlocked. There should be penalty when switching between policy and a policy's effect should be more dramatic and distinguishable.

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!

I prefer Civ5 way better. Building tons of things is like playing Simcity. Gameplay should not be all about buiding stuff.

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 couldn't agree with you more on this. I think city state is a flaw.

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!

I think the Civ5 game engine itself is good enough to become great. it's just the gameplay style preference is different from people to people. With the mod tool released, some of these points can easily be modded and the gameplay experience can be very different. Put it in another words, i can in fact change the gameplay to the style i prefer, so do everybody else. I think we have a great game fundation which we can build on and get some really good variety of mod game style out.

 

[kaltorak]

I agree with most points and disagree with a few.

This one is the most important:

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.

That point is what bores me more in civ5.

 

[James009]

Frankly, I tend to somewhat agree with the OP. I don't think his statements are "stupid" or too wrong.

 

[jjkrause84]

There's a spectrum between historical simulation (realism) and game balance, and ciV probably lies closer to game balance in that spectrum. I can assure you that playing disadvantaged sides with realistic notions of supply, economic management, and dozens of other rule complexities that ciV does not include really do drain fun factor and historical nostalgia at light speed for most people. Heck, look at the complaints over 1upt (historically, armies had to either forage or arrange supply transport; in ciV, you can support a certain number of units regardless of location, ie behind enemy lines, or local available infrastructure). Firaxis/2K has its target audience, and as a result, some of the "gameplay," err historical simulation, that you may have been seeking simply had to be cut in their opinion (and in the opinions of other civ gamers). There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah. I totally understand the decision to make enemy leaders pretend to be human players....I just don't agree with it (and think it takes one more immersive element out of the game).

On a nit-picking sidenote:

Armies would frequently forage AND have a supply train. Even small-ish raiding armies in the Middle Ages had supply trains (afterall, you can't effectively forage replacement weapons, ammunition, etc.). This often gave them great flexibility. If your supply train had both ovens/mills AND lots of biscuits then you could continue to use lots of locally sourced grain which was a pretty efficient way of going about it (1.039kg of grain could be baked into 1.385kg of bread, for example). If, however, a large enemy army was approachign you could abandon your ovens and mills and high-tail it without starving.

What is often overlooked in the discussion of foraging is not only how difficult and risky it is (you are spreading an army out pretty thinly) but the fact that if the enemy has an army in the region it become all but impossible. Several invading English armies during the 100 Years War dealt suffered from this. If the French were in the area they couldn't forage and thus the English army that fought at Crécy were practically starving by the time the battle was fought.


I could go on (I swoon over pre-industrial age logistics....don't ask me why) but I'm sure I've got quite far enough off topic.

 

[Von Salza]

Three things are absolutely clear for me...

1 - The game needs more work, shouldn't have been released like this.

2 - The game is this form is not as thrilling/addictive as should be, thus many ppl say they are bored and this makes a comparison with IV, unfair.

3 - There is not a new feature that has the WOW factor.

 

[Windsor]

2 - The game is this form is not as thrilling/addictive as should be, thus many ppl say they are bored and this makes a comparison with IV, unfair.

Why is comparison with Civ4 unfair?

 

[Von Salza]

@Windsor

Civ IV patched and with both expansion packs will be very hard to top, it will be a reference like UFO, Planescape Torment, Doom or Kings Quest.

Civilization IV was/is a hell of a game, it's a masterpiece. The involvement of the community is terms of mods or simply an presence in the forums webwide was extreme.

Civ V even if released complete/polished and with a couple of extraordinary features/improvements that honestly I haven't seen yet, would have a very hard time getting to Civ IV level.

Civ V can only aspire to be the next best thing to CIV IV, and that would great indeed, but it was not a very good start....

 

[Jediron]

Wait what? Wow, you're way way off.

For example, look up Sidon or Damascus. Or on a completely separate note, the earliest writings dating back to 3100 BC described the Sumerians and Akkadians who dominated Mesopotamia

You are right, Sidon goes was back to 4000BC, perhaps more. Oh well, makes no difference how the game playes for me....

 

[Penwa]

I would like it if you could create a colony like in civ IV; perhaps making them pupet states. Very annoying having such a large empire over the seas.

 

[BjoernLars]

I agree with you on some points here, but they aren't anything that would want me to quit the game.


I think AI personality would be nice. I think that they should try to win the game, but I think the AI should have pre-planned ways to win the game choosen at random at the beginning of the game. Perhaps Gandhi would go for the Diplomatic, Napoleon for the cultural and Monty for the domination win. If one player is trying to go for the domination win, I think that the other Civs would most likely band together to prevent that win to preserve their method to win.


I think between the Medieval and Renessiance eras that most of the map should be filled up. I can't remember which poster who said it, but the rule of thumb is to increase the Civs and City-State by 50% seems to be a good way to counter that problem.


Building production... yes... not very well balanced. I am keeping an eye for how it improves.


Wonders, yes... most of them are underwhelming.

 

[Ikael]

It seems that in the end, it all boils down to a "builders VS warmongers" type of debate, with Civ IV being the best game for people that love to build an empire VS Civ V being the best game for people that love to build, hum, armies.

I do know that turn based wargames can be awesome (I am a huge fan of Advance Wars, for instance), but the civilization series was the only game in the market that made you feel as if you were building an empire. Now we have losted a unique experience and got in return, yet another wargame (because we were running short of those!). Horray for genre diversity.

 

[zonk]

Re: Social Policies

I think they're a refreshing change from the Civ IV system.

I'm growing to like SPs -- but I still don't like them as a replacement. Rather, they should have been a modifier and/or limiter to civics/government.

The big problem most people who prefer SPs to civics point to is the constant civic change, virtually on a dime, sometimes really radical -- with, at worst -- a few turns of anarchy.

The solution - and why I think they would have worked so well with SPs - would be to link the two....

Rather than different SP trees locking out other trees, certain civics could lock out SPs (or conversely, unlocking a certain SP either locks out a civic or makes it cost a lot more). Or - drop the anarchy-4-civ-change penalty and instead, penalize culture points when you change civics... provide culture bonuses if you stick with the same civics longer.

With everything so top down in CiV -- I think it's imperative that the game provide MORE "top down" options... MORE modifiers... MORE ways to tweak at the empire level -- a lot of the "so many boring next turn complaints" would be ameliorated if there was more to do and think about in those gaps between SPs or wars -- and having a civic-SP synergy to think about would help some of that.

 

[zonk]

It seems that in the end, it all boils down to a "builders VS warmongers" type of debate, with Civ IV being the best game for people that love to build an empire VS Civ V being the best game for people that love to build, hum, armies.

I do know that turn based wargames can be awesome (I am a huge fan of Advance Wars, for instance), but the civilization series was the only game in the market that made you feel as if you were building an empire. Now we have losted a unique experience and got in return, yet another wargame (because we were running short of those!). Horray for genre diversity.

Ironically -- as someone that was a very peaceful (or tried to be a very peaceful) "builder" in IV, I find V a heck of a lot easier. I like IV (to be fair, I like BTS w/ the RoM/AND mod) more than V -- but I'm a heck of lot "better", in terms of 'winning', in V than IV.

I don't disagree with you -- I agree, IV is a lot more fun for "empire builders" who like to chase each and every wonder, who love to specialize cities and farm gold, hammers, science, etc in specific cities... but in IV, I really never got to the point where I could beat harder levels consistently.

A lot of this was because, as a non-warmonger, my army was generally among the smallest... I rarely built much more than necessary to garrison my cities. Consequently - the minute an AI decided I was to be eaten, my games went downhill fast... unless I was strong enough diplomatically to turn other civs on the attacker, etc.

In V -- this doesn't hurt me in the least. I can get units from militaristic city states and you don't want army bloat in V anyway. Take that together with city defense, and V is actually an easier game for a builder.... unfortunately, easier doesn't correlate to "more fun". Maybe a part of that is the challenge aspect.

 

[milk_milk]

Well... Im disappointed.

When i went to buy Civ 5 i expected a better/improved version of Civ4. Civ4 was worked out pretty well already, maybe some features change, some new features added. BUT NOW CUT OUT HALF OF THE GAME! I feel like playing a demo version. Why is that? They wanna sell 2 Add-ons?....


Ofc change is interesting... but its just boring compared to civ 4. I want strategies, flexbiliy, the feeling of building up an empire and leading it, making my decisions important. Now it just feels kinda, i dont know... dumb? If i wanna play war i buy an rts... Civ 4 had a rly great mix. And why not just introduce a flexible war system and leave the well working economy system alone (or improve it), but not cripple it thx...

And a game like civ needs expansion, over... i dont like having 7 cities and done. Whats the point?

Even this policy system, interesting, flexible... IF U COULD CHANGE THOSE. Great, i plan my whole policy system 6000 years ahead, hooray... Im wondering, they made civ4, they played it, they noticed people loved it... and then they go and make civ5?... They didnt test it or what? Didnt they notice anything?...

And btw.. more options for games, similar to civ 4?... ^^


Im hoping for some really good mods


How is it possible to go 3 steps back with a fifth episode of a game...

 

[Packers]

I am late to the game. I bought Civ4 only after the Mac version came out, so that kind of dates me. When I get a chance to play to the game, I will waste the weekend (which does not make the wife too happy). I normally win on Nobel, but that is the extent of my ability.

This is a long winded way to ask: I was not around when Civ4 came out. Was there this much consternation about it compared to Civ3? Are the concerns about Civ5 similar to concerns raised way back about Civ4?

 

[Falk]

It seems that in the end, it all boils down to a "builders VS warmongers" type of debate, with Civ IV being the best game for people that love to build an empire VS Civ V being the best game for people that love to build, hum, armies.

The only thing I really like a lot about Civ5 is the new combat system. Aside from the combat AI being rubbish, it's much more fun to invade another civ now than it was in Civ4. So yeah, if you play the game as a wargame, it sure has its merits.

And why not just introduce a flexible war system and leave the well working economy system alone (or improve it)

While I actually like the new happiness system I do agree that a Civ4 with 5's combat mechanics would be vastly superior to both Civ4 and 5.

This is a long winded way to ask: I was not around when Civ4 came out. Was there this much consternation about it compared to Civ3? Are the concerns about Civ5 similar to concerns raised way back about Civ4?

There were many concerns and much criticism but it was very different to what's going on now. For me the major problem was that Civ4 was not running on my graphics card so I had it shelved for many weeks...

Obviously when you change things there are always people who are not going to like it. Not because people are "afraid of change" which is more of an excuse than an argument, but because different people like different things. Civ5 changed much more than Civ4 did, so naturally more people disagree with the path Firaxis has taken.

For me this is the first Civ game (including Alpha Centauri) that feels like a simple little boardgame, the first Civ game that does not make me feel like the great leader of a civilization. So that's a huge change and thus I have much more to complain about than was the case with Civ4 when it was released. That game did not change the feel of the game much, if at all.

 

[Iberian]

CiV is war game now. Mostly because it doesn't pay to build an empire on your own. The easiest way to win is to go to war.

This can change drastically though as balance changes are made. More production/more buildings/less cultural penalty for building citys/cheaper courthouses/better producing tiles.

Just tweaking those I think would make the game a lot more fun. Plus allowing you to respec your SP's for 10% the current SP cost would be cool.

I know people say you can't just mindlessly build every building but as it is now you just mindlessly build military units because building more than 3 buildings is stupid. I like playing the builder style, don't make it very hard to do just make it another viable option in the list of a lot of options.

Lots of potential in this game. Just kind of boring now because of the slow pace of playing a builder civ. My warring Rome/Builder civ was fun but that became tedious towards the end, just like every civ game has been since the first release. Once the game is won it is going to be tedious. This was actually less so since I conquered just a couple of cities and their capital of the last civ instead of their whole empire.

 

[Mathochism]

It seems that in the end, it all boils down to a "builders VS warmongers" type of debate, with Civ IV being the best game for people that love to build an empire VS Civ V being the best game for people that love to build, hum, armies.

Unfortunately, that argument doesn't hold since I prefer Civ V despite almost always going for a non-domination victory.

 

[Buccaneer]

I am liking Social Policies better than Civics. The reason is that I have more choices and more decisions to make. In Civ4, 90% of the time I would simply park on a specific civic in each branch and just leave it there. Not much decision-making there.