Just made the jump to Civ 5: Impressions

[noto2]

So I played Civ 4 for about 7 years or something... I'll probably regret the thousands of hours invested in it when I'm old and grey, but whatever, it was the best game I ever played.

I finally made the jump to Civ 5... and I'm a little worried. I dabbled and "practiced" a few times, playing about 3 games up to about turn 100 to get a feel for different things in the game, at prince level (or the neutral one, whatever it's called) and then I sat down to have my first "real" game, and played a game at King level. Not only did I win but it seemed too easy. Perhaps I just had a lucky game.

I played Egypt, had a good start I suppose, and was isolated on my own little landmass so I didn't have to worry about an early invasion, which allowed me to just spam wonders everywhere. I got a cultural victory but got it late, in 2007 because I had no idea what I was doing and was figuring out how the tourism thing worked as I went along. I ended the game far ahead in science, with the most land and population (I expanded overseas to get coal and oil) and the largest military, and was allied with every city state in the game.

I did take diplomacy seriously and got Spain as friendly early on..

Anyway, what worries me is that I spent the first 1/2-2/3 of the game without any military at all, and no one attacked me. In Civ 4 it's difficult to pull that off, you can do it but you've really got to understand the mechanics of diplomacy well. I'm brand new to this game, however.

When war finally did come, Indonesia attacked my overseas colonies, I was ahead in tech but had barely any units, and still managed to easily defend myself. Fighting defensive wars in this game is SO MUCH easier than in Civ 4, which is something that I think is a good change, actually, since in Civ 4 there wasn't really any advantage to the defender.

This is NOT a rant thread on Civ 5. I found the game interesting. Some things I really like are the city state system, social policies, religions, and the new tourism system. I really enjoyed getting an alliance of city states going, that was fun.

I've only got 1 game in, so I know it's soon to judge, but I'm worried that the AI seemed really passive and that the huge bonus to the defender in warfare will make it nearly impossible for the AI to pose a serious threat to me. This is very different from Civ4 where the AI could build enormous stacks of units and derail my plans with an invasion, even if I could win the war they could do enough damage to me to knock me out of the running for a win. Another thing the AI did in Civ 4 was fight itself, and win. One civ could quickly amass a bunch of vassal states and become an unstoppable juggernaut, so it was more difficult to play a passive builder game - you couldn't expect to just sit there building wonder after wonder and not be bothered by anyone. Ultimately that made the game fun because I knew the AI, most of the time, wouldn't just stand by and let me win, I had to earn it.

 

[Nick31]

Glad to read your impressions. Skip to Immortal and you'll find it more worthwhile, I think . That's a lot of Civ hours, so don't underestimate yourself.

I personally love the CS factor in my games. It adds to the roleplay realism, they're fun to incorporate into your gameplay, and now that the military CS will give you a UU of a different civ, they can be really fun. It always feels tremendous to find a badass military CS and then work hard/spend hard to become they're ally. When you're playing as the Celts but you're rolling around with Longbows or Winged Hussars, you smile a bit.

 

[wideframehoss]

King is probably too easy for a veteran like yourself.

 

[Mozzington]

Making the jump was like that for all of us mate. CIV4 IMO is the absolute measuring stick of the TBS (for me) and changing was hard but tbh I have not fired 4 up now for a couple of years.

Give it a chance.

 

[Mozzington]

PS. Must admit a few years back I was in a situation where I would still play both but when I fired 5 up I craved for 4 but then I fired 4 up I missed the feel of 5

 

[lietkynes]

Your first impression is correct, Civ5 is easier. Coming from Civ4 you should increase the difficulty level at least by 1 level. In Civ4 I could never beat the game at Deity, in Civ5 I win Deity most of the times.

You are also correct in identifying the reason, Civ5 AI is "not very good" at handling combat. It will occasionally do something right, especially on large Pangea maps, and it will spam units like crazy at high difficulty levels but it is ultimately unable to maneuver and conduct war against a human opponent. There are no K/D stats in Civ5 but in the course of one game you will likely kill hundreds of units and lose maybe a half dozen. Once your ranged units get the double-attack promotion is basically game over. The AI never gets them because it's unable to use melee units to protect its ranged units.

That said, the game is very good and the AI has huge bonuses at high levels to compensate for its lack of tactical skill.

 

[Acken]

You're mostly right about your worries.

The two points you have raised:
-AI being too easy to defend against or too passive
-Game being easier than Civ4 (on equal difficulty)
are some of the flaws I also have with the game no matter how much I love it.

If I were you I'd just accept it as facts and just appreciate the other qualities of the game. And jump up straight in difficulty to Immortal or Deity if you want some AI pressure. Once you beat the game steadily on Deity you may find some fun in challenging other players for speed in GotM or deity challenge.

 

[noto2]

Thanks for the responses. I should be fair and note that the Civ 4 BTS AI was also quite terrible and I eventually started playing with the Better BTS mod and later on Kmod, which drastically improved the AI. Perhaps soon such better AI mods will begin to emerge for Civ 5. In the meantime, I'll bump up the difficulty level.

 

[Redaxe]

The only AIs that might really threaten you if you neglect your military is Attilla and Shaka

 

[Illianor123]

There are better AI mods for CiV. These mods do improve there combat ability

 

[mrocz]

I played Egypt, had a good start I suppose, and was isolated on my own little landmass so I didn't have to worry about an early invasion

Anyway, what worries me is that I spent the first 1/2-2/3 of the game without any military at all, and no one attacked me

Low-ish difficulty and starting away from everyone makes for dull games if you don't take the role of leading warmonger.
If you want more exciting games - pick Alexander, Shaka and Catherine as your neighbours.

 

[Funky]

Sullla's recent sample game and his resulting article about Civ5 and its expansions offer an excellent overview of Civ5 in its current state. He identifies many of the game's problems and describes why so many Civ4 veterans find it so difficult to be engaged in the game. If you want to pinpoint the scource of your worries and observations, I can highly recommend the read.

 

[Fried Egg]

Sullla's recent sample game and his resulting article about Civ5 and its expansions offer an excellent overview of Civ5 in its current state. He identifies many of the game's problems and describes why so many Civ4 veterans find it so difficult to be engaged in the game. If you want to pinpoint the scource of your worries and observations, I can highly recommend the read.

Oh, that article is so infuriating. It makes many fair points but the ending was down right insulting. Basically explaining await Civ V's popularity as being down to people mainly unfamiliar with the Civ franchise or strategy games in general. I've played Civ since II and the worse version for me was IV. I've also played a lot of strategy games in my life and still enjoy Civ V.

 

[bouncymischa]

If you want more exciting games - pick Alexander, Shaka and Catherine as your neighbours.

It's one of the things I find interesting when people complain about the relative peacefulness or passivity of the game. Lately I've been setting up "warmongermania" games, where I take as many warmongers as I can and stuff them into a game. (With mods, I can take quite a few.) The end result has been a rather constant supply of wars and conflicts, with people constantly beating up on other people. In my last game, Montezuma was crushing the Mongols, the Oni had overrun Greece, and Attila decided to attack me after I marched my army off to beat up on Shaka in revenge for him razing one of Cirno's cities.

So I do wonder if the issue of peaceful games is not so much that the AI isn't aggressive enough, but that there's so many more peaceful civs than there are aggressive civs.

Oh, that article is so infuriating. It makes many fair points but the ending was down right insulting. Basically explaining await Civ V's popularity as being down to people mainly unfamiliar with the Civ franchise or strategy games in general. I've played Civ since II and the worse version for me was IV. I've also played a lot of strategy games in my life and still enjoy Civ V.

I took a quick look at the article -- admittedly, I didn't bother to read the main content, and simply skipped to the end to see why the end was potentially insulting. In the end, I'm not sure I found it insulting, myself, as he was arguably accurate in his assessment. The game may well be aimed at the more "casual" gaming audience that is not nearly as much into the micromanagement and optimization side of the game as the "hardcore" gamers.

I'll even count myself as one of those casual gamers -- I hardly played any Civ IV, and what I did play of it was generally irksome. I spent hours upon hours playing hotseat games with my brother in Civ III, making sprawling empires and conquering our way across the world, but by the time Civ IV came around, I suspect I was somewhat burnt out on strategy games. My brother played a lot of Civ IV, but I never really felt the urge until the Touhou Epic mod came out. But when I started that up, I found out that Civ IV was rather brutal to play, and I rarely felt the capability to build the sprawling empires and massive armies I did in Civ III. Instead, I was typically constrained to four cities even on the largest maps, barely able to keep my populace from stagnating.

When Civ V came out, however, it seemed to fit right into my playstyle. I could actually build empires with a dozen cities without the painstaking micromanagement Civ IV demanded. I never really grokked the "Stack of Doom" concept, either -- even in Civ III I'd spread my armies out to cover ground, so Civ V's 1UPT suited me better than trying to micromanage stacks. For me, Civ V's provided a far more enjoyable experience than trying to headache my way through Civ IV ever did.

In the end, Sulla may have a point that Civ IV is the better designed game, the kind that comes once in a generation and isn't seen again. But at the same time, it does kind of make me wonder if those sorts of games aren't really the best. Much like fine art or a well-made arthouse film only appeals to the cognoscenti, those high-quality hardcore games might really only ever appeal to a small portion of the gaming fanbase. Is a work of fine art that only a handful of people ever see and appreciate a "success"? Or the popcorn blockbuster film that will never qualify as being high quality, but still rakes in millions? Sulla does take care to point out that Civ V isn't a particularly bad game -- as he says, it ends up being average, and there isn't anything particularly wrong with a game being average. Not everything can be the best, for all the internet tries to clamor and complain about it.

 

[ThorHammerz]

So I do wonder if the issue of peaceful games is not so much that the AI isn't aggressive enough, but that there's so many more peaceful civs than there are aggressive civs.

Lack of "aggressive AI" advanced game option, along with a low warmonger flavors, low (or at least, effectively low) competitiveness flavor for victories/city states, and low military AI leader flavors leads to many civs playing "sim city". The AI sucks at warfare (tactically and strategically), which doesn't really help either....

Also the fact that the game punishes you rather harshly for even warmongering in an efficient way (i.e. steamrolling empires in a swift consecutive manner; capturing city states with mouth-watering luxury placements) with the warmonger penalty (good luck getting trade partners if the rest of the civs have zero tolerance for them, or in the case of CS, good luck getting future CS allies if you swallowed up more than 1-2 of them).

 

[noto2]

I read Sulla's article before I bought Civ 5, and I have to agree with him that there are different kinds of games and possibly even different kinds of gamers.

Think about games like Spore, or even Diablo, or Sim City. I put those games into one group. Then think about something like chess, Civ 4, Dota. I put those into another.

The first group are games that, while you might die and have to do certain things over again, you don't lose. In fact, in the case of Sim City you can't even win. You play them, and you have fun. With Diablo... (I guess I'm leaving harcore mode out of this discussion), you can go through all 3 difficulty levels without dying I suppose, but it doesn't matter. In non hardcore mode, it doesn't matter how many times you die, you will eventually win the game. The same goes for Spore. There isn't really a way to lose, just a death that might force you to repeat something.

In competitive games, however, like Dota, there definitely are winners and losers. You can't just take your time in dota, fighting creeps and levelling up and enjoying watching battles, you have to be actively doing things to win the game at all times.

I'm not saying one type of game is better than the other, they're just different. I enjoyed Spore and Sim City, but I also enjoyed dota and Civ 4. For me, when it comes to a 4x strategy game, I need to know that there's a very real possibility for me to lose (and indeed lose many games) so that the wins feel like an accomplishment.

Personally, I don't see the point of making a 4x game like Civilization non-competitive, but perhaps that's just me. I like the AI when it mimics what a very cunning human player would do, and I know a lot of people hate that, so I guess I'm in the minority on that opinion.

Anyway, I'll move up to emperor difficulty now and see how that goes.

Oh yeah and one more thing - 1 UPT in Civ 5 is worse than the combat in Civ 4, and Civ 4's combat wasn't really all that good. I think Galactic Civ 2 does 4x combat well and I think Civilization should steal their idea. It's streamlined and simple enough that it doesn't distract from the main game, and allows the AI to be competitive, and yet it offers enough choice to give the player the ability to plan ahead and make decisions about army composition that will lead to victory on the battlefield.

 

[Acken]

What the hell...

All the people I know that like Civ5 think the AI should be improved and the game better balanced. Be it Prince players or Deity players. The current outrage about CivBE is proof that player expected improvements there not just "sim city".
And Civ4 is a harder game than Civ5 on the same difficulty level yes. Deity is easier to beat, true. However it's not so easy that everyone does it either. The weird dichotomy you're trying to make to say Civ5 is like simcity because you cannot lose is just silly. As is the attempt to put Civ4 on the level of Dota in competitiveness (are you serious ?).

What holds player in Civ5 are the features of the game, which for them find enough fun to keep playing despite some of the flaws these players recognize. Civ4 lovers just do not enjoy these features enough (or think some of them are flaws) and prefer the difficulty of Civ4 Deity and the better balance of that game (and the features of that game)

Neither of those differences indicates something about the players too.

 

[Vohbo]

There are few problems with Civ 5 that were introduced in BNW that just take away from the game in weird ways.

One of those problems is that the early game, due to removal of gold income, relevance of traderoutes and the additional buildings and on top of that a horrible warmongering penalty, is no longer about war and conflict. In G&K, there used to be early wars all the time, but now peace is the way to go, and often the player will just rush composite bows to take out one neighbour and HAS to be the aggressor.

This is completely the opposite of how history actually is. The further we go back in time, the more armed conflicts we will find, on smaller scales. Because of a lot of factors, that just isn't possible in the game.

In addition, there still is no penalty to being a large empire. Large empires tend to fall apart because of internal conflicts, but they don't exist in Civ 5.
These are problems that are the result of game mechanics, but they are also issues that could be fixed if the company wanted to actually fix them.

 

[reddishrecue]

Civilization 5 is usually traditional wonder whoring in the first few games of most players but if you decide to tryout different victory types such as domination or diplomatic you could try different social policies that lead to different purposes. Cultural victories do take long but so do other victory types. I once had a time victory when I was a turn away from driving into the last capital with a modern armor that was already with no health from the rocket artilleries that had both logistics and range promotions. A victory is a victory whether it is time domination or cultural.

The harder difficulties also make this game a challenge which I like especially when the ai becomes aggressive in the primitive eras and is able to bring more advanced units to you in the later eras.

 

[ThorHammerz]

The weird dichotomy you're trying to make to say Civ5 is like simcity because you cannot lose is just silly. As is the attempt to put Civ4 on the level of Dota in competitiveness (are you serious ?).

There is no simple dichotomy, more like a comparison (i.e. as tall as a tree). For all intents and purposes, when has a Civ 5 AI ever presented a challenge on the battlefield? Maybe if you were being DoW'ed on Deity against Shaka/Alexander/Genghis/Attilla all at once in the ancient/classical era ?

What holds player in Civ5 are the features of the game, which for them find enough fun to keep playing despite some of the flaws these players recognize. Civ4 lovers just do not enjoy these features enough (or think some of them are flaws) and prefer the difficulty of Civ4 Deity and the better balance of that game (and the features of that game).

I think there's a bit of miscommunication we're having here:

Game Features =/= Difficulty (for the most part, and on a lower level of thinking. It is incorporated on the high level of design).

Balance is something that is overarching, so can't really 'compare' that. Many Civ4 players may enjoy the features (i.e. Policies, how religion is now handled, trade routes, etc etc). They may perceive elements to be "imbalanced" at times (which one can easily modify through simple XML/SQL modding, so that point is not a big concern).

As for 1UPT vs. infinite-UPT.... that's another can of worms, but for now we'll just say it was a "overall design feature", so let's not go into that.

However one of the core issues (coming back to the first point) is that the AI is absolutely garbage at using the tools given to them. It's not like we need the AI to "cheat" (i.e. maphack a few tiles out), but that their logic and execution of handling strategies is somewhat lacking, or at the very least, seem to be rather blind to the situation.

We're not looking for the AI to play exactly as a human would play (1. its an AI, 2. computational limitations). Just have them act more like an actual player that is trying to at least half-heartedly win a game with a method other than science/culture/time (since one in theory, will eventually reach one of these victory conditions given enough time), and not act on a level of some generic NPC you'd find in some random MMORPG.