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

[charon2112]

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

Me too. Love Civ V and I NEVER go for a domination victory.

 

[cembandit]

I agree that the different civs don't feel that different. They need a little more predictability and personality.

 

[Balerune]

here, here.


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[Maxor127]

I agree, it doesn't feel like I'm building a civilization, and I have no sense of wear I am in relation to the game or the eras. The game just kind of meanders on, and punishes you if you build too much.

 

[Balerune]

I agree totally with your comments, to me CIV 5 looks and feels dull and not inspire me at all to build a empire. Beside all your comments, one of the major issue's i have with CIV 5 is the lack of demographic info, how well you are performing vs the others etc.

And while the no stacking units seems valid, it's stupid at the same time, a hex looks to me like a massive piece of land, where, to my logic you can put a whole army into. But, instead of improving the stacking option, they choose to scrap it entirely. For me this a huge mistake and does make CIV 5 more arcade gaming then anything else.

Why didn't they implement something, like they did with the TW series; to me that's a far better solution to tackle the stavking issue; assembling/merging and splitting ARMIES!
With a FLAG and a bar which shows you the strenght of that Army. But no, why do something that is so sophistacated. You now what, lets make it really simple and unrealistic: one silly unit per tile....bah

Multiple units per tile was never worked out well in previous CIV's (but atleast it could be done), but instead to pick up the better ideas from others (TW) they dediced to do what they have done now and i dislike it utterly. And before someone say: why do you hate....listen, it doesn't have anything to with hate, but ALL with expectations and disappointment.

City states at 5000/2000BC ? gimmie a break, the first homo sapiens where leaving the caves at that time.....

here, here

(see above, hit the wrong button)

 

[mrt144]

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.

In Civ4 you couldn't mindlessly build every building because it simply wasn't efficient for you to do so and it totally could make or break your game.

 

[charon2112]

In Civ4 you couldn't mindlessly build every building because it simply wasn't efficient for you to do so and it totally could make or break your game.

actually, the exact opposite is true. in IV I regularly had every building built in every city. with slower production in V, you can't even come close...so you have to think more about what you build.

 

[Hrundi]

As it stands, right now, I don't feel like I'm punished for mistakes sufficiently, and thus I don't feel like I'm being rewarded for knowing how to play.
The AI is a neanderthal in the colloquial sense, and some of the fine tuning one had to do to adapt to ones environment and situation is missing right now. There's potential here, but right now, it remains unrealized.

 

[Buccaneer]

As it stands, right now, I don't feel like I'm punished for mistakes sufficiently,

I think that is a great quip. Having consequences of action is the hallmark of decision making. So far, I don't think I have made any wrong decisions that caused any significant problems. Was this the way the game was intended to be played?

 

[ohioastronomy]

I think that is a great quip. Having consequences of action is the hallmark of decision making. So far, I don't think I have made any wrong decisions that caused any significant problems. Was this the way the game was intended to be played?

You are, however, punished for things that you have no control over. Oops, that puppet state used up my coal: no factory for you! Why is my maintenance so high? That rascal puppet!

 

[ElephantRider]

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.

Japan still holds honor in high regard in their culture. As for the USSR, it's not the USSR anymore, it's the Russian Federation.

Alas, I think I may have not exactly said what I was trying to. I never had a problem with the way policies were in Civ IV. I don't have a problem with the way they are in Civ V, except that some of them are kind of meaningless.

Then one negative to Civ IV, to me, was that you could just willy nilly change everything constantly with not much consequence. You had one turn of anarchy. That's it. Then back to normal. No gold loss, culture loss, science loss or anything. It should have been more detrimental I think.

And back to my original thought about this feeling like it works better. You touched on what my point completely missed. Societies go through drastic change, yes, but what I was trying to get at that I explained poorly was that societies don't really go through those drastic changes under one leader.

When you play a game of Civ, you have the same leader for the whole game. I think this way of social policies fits the Civ mold better. One leader will build upon his/her policies over the course of their reign. In Civ's case, that reign seems to be until the Civilization is wiped out. This is why I like the social policy the way it is. You accumulate culture which allows you to change social policy. Kind of like if the people like you, you can change things. You build upon your policies, improving them as you go. Since a new leader never takes over, there's never really a massive change to social policy. Anytime a society has gone through massive policy change like that, there is generally a new leader and the old one is ousted. Basically I'm just saying it fits the one leader thing well. This game is more like you're playing the leader and not the Civilization. Which may or may not be a good thing...

 

[AdamMorva]

Spoiler :

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!

Quoted for truth. I pretty much agree with you on most points. Civ5 was the greatest disappointment of the last few years.

 

[Meester_henk]

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.

I think war has always been the easiest way to win the game from Civ 1 to this day. That's why I avoid wars to make game more exciting. AI will always be better in building than warring.

I like to play war games like War in the Pacific admirals edition. Civilization has never satisfied me as a wargame. Too simple and unrealistic.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

Then one negative to Civ IV, to me, was that you could just willy nilly change everything constantly with not much consequence.

Yes. This is more like "make your choices and live with them" which you have to think a lot harder about, and plan ahead more. This, the hex system and the general principles of combat are a definite win with Civ V.

 

[Falk]

Yes. This is more like "make your choices and live with them" which you have to think a lot harder about, and plan ahead more.

That's a bad thing in my book. You really only have to think hard at the beginning of the game and then that's it! In my current game I have 6 cities in the middle ages and adopted 4(!) social policies. I did not neglect culture but did all I could to generate more of it. +1 culture/city policy, early monument in every city, city-state culture. As I play Arabia and focus on money I wanted to unlock the Commerce tree, but that won't happen before the renaissance and the game will probably be over when I have 3 policies from that tree. Not adopting those 3 policies wouldn't hurt my game at all. It just doesn't matter anymore.

You choose a victory condition to pursure, then choose a civ accordingly, then view your surroundings and decide what social policies to get during the first turns of the game. Then carry out your plan.
Making me think harder about the policies in the beginning is a good thing but not if it means I can stop thinking about them completely for the rest of the game.

 

[Jediron]

Yes. This is more like "make your choices and live with them" which you have to think a lot harder about, and plan ahead more. This, the hex system and the general principles of combat are a definite win with Civ V.

The hex system is fine, thrue. But don't tell me that the principles of combat are superb, the way they have done it; it sucks in my opinion:

How stupid can it be ?

Take a archer-unit, walk two, or what the heck, next to a barbs camp en fire him in two/three turns dead. Done this several timens, they never attacked the archers, even not standing next to them. My idea of it ? boring! City artillery, another time consumer without any fun and imagination; Barb unit come close to city, you get a nice warning, directed to your city, fire your never builded arty (all-in exclusieve, right ..lol) the barb gets hit, walks to the forest, and then you need another four or five turns to finish them off. Really, is that your idea of fun ? Or a good implatation of war tactics ?

Most of the time you are following direction, of the floating messages, walk around for 2000 years, kill countless barbs in the same, boring fashion; buy some terrain, buy some influance and
that's pretty much it, beside the scouting and your "war efforts" with the humble amount of a hadfull of units you mangaged to produce in the way.

I am not leading a empire, i am following orders, because there is pretty much nothing else you can do sub zero Before Christ. No micromangement, they killed that also. What they also killed, is the grapgical presentation of your City and it's development. Instead of making it prettier, they scrapped the whole "zoom in" also; atleast; what you see now is not much more, then you already see in de campaign mode. Where are my building, how do they look ? None of that.

Hopefully there will come some great mods, because sofar i am not amused at all; by far :-/