Jon Shafer's Critique of Civilization 5; My Thoughts

[civ54lyfe]

I'll agree with a sentiment sort of expressed somewhere at the beginning of thread: global happiness is OP, and/or the algorithm between culture/happy/expansion needs to be tweaked.

 

[Ikael]

1UPT's only problem comes in the late eras, when different terrain becames a diffuse mass of "land vs sea", but I agree with its fundamental idea: limiting unit placement is great for tactics. A more cap on unit number, or a little tad of flexibility regarding unit placement would work wonders, me thinks. For example:

- Make it possible for two allied civilizations to share 1 hex. Not only it will easier to help your allies, but it will also make military alliances a big part of your war machine due to mini-stacks (as it happens on real life too)

- Or limit the number of units per terrain type. Say, you can stack up to 3 units on a flat terrain, 2 ona forested / jungle, and just one on hills, creating far more interesting chokepoints scenarios and a true difference of battling in the open VS rough terrain

or the third. People romanticize previous Civ games if they think the current one is the worst (IMO).

Anyhow, this is a very brave article for Jon to write, and I have to give him a lot of credit. I'm sure part of comes from him wanting to convince people to get his new game, but that's fine.

Believe it or not, one can have legitimate criticism about CivV without having to do with nostalgia googles. In fact, almost every single grievance that I have with the game is based on fundamental game design and addressed by Shafer himelf on this very article. Also, civ 3 introduced cultural mechanics, borders, strategic resources and differentciation between civs <3 <3 <3

 

[civ54lyfe]

I like the alliance-stack-only tactical change.

Also there's the issue with settlers/workers that needs fixing.

 

[Bechhold]

Believing that Civ V(with G+K) has more features that IV BtS is laughable at best it has less the expansion may or may not bring it to equal that. The problem seems to be that since Sid and other talent left the series seems to be going in circle of stagnation which 2k is dictating.

 

[2metraninja]

I stopped reading at

Civ 5 was a great success both critically and financially

. The main part of the Civ community still playing Civ4 after Civ5 is out for few years already speaks for itself. Civ5's lead designer being "released" (politically correct word for "fired"?) just after the game went out sounds not very convincing either.