List of good and bad changes to Civ5

[Sporally]

After playing the demo and finding that Civ5, in my opinion, was a generally good game, i bought it a couple of days ago, and here's what i think are plusses and minuses in the game so far.

From reading a bit on the forum I found http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=381961"]KingYosef’s post[/URL] with a poll whatever Civ5 has dumped, as we speak saying that 762 think it has dumped and 632 say ‘Nay’.

In general I can partly agree with the 762, but I’ll have to give it around 8 out of 10 for its improvements compared with Civ4.

Here’s a list of what has been improved and minuses for what was better in Civ4. It is a list I’ve made from my couple of days (plus demo-playing gives a total of 3-4 days of playing) on what I think is good and bad with Civ5.

YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO COMMENT ON THIS AND ADD MORE!

For those of you who are still considering whether to buy this game or what I hope you’ll do it since this site is only for those who call themselves CivFanatics, and who can claim to be a CivFanatic if you don’t go buy it In my opinion I would give it 8 out of 10 - 8+ if you want to know if I was closer to a 9 than a 7… Don’t mind the huge number of minuses, sometimes it is easier to point out of the flaws rather than the improvements.

I’ve set it up more or less in order of how big I think the chance has been.

BTW: Has anyone counted the number of non-unique buildings/units/discoveries there are in the game? My first estimate says there are more, but haven’t counted so far.

Improvements
- Graphics (in general): Besides the general graphic improvements, the diplomatic animations in Civ5 are great (though I barely remember who they worked in Civ4 …)
- Hexa tiles: also graphics, but also better from a gameplay point-of-view.
- Leader’s uniques: now all leaders get two uniques, either one unit + one building or two units. I consider this better than Civ4 - why give a civilization one unit and one building if they historically were more famous for two unique units and no buildings.
- One unit per tile: Gives very interesting strategic battles, though battles have been few from my part up until now, since I been a pacifist for working on domestic tactics for later play.
- City states: Great feature that gives you missions and you can interact with.
- Land aquiring: Gives huge areas of open land which I believe are great for army clashes with two armies like the Napolian wars - maybe someone can add to this view since I haven’t exploited this part of the game.
- Auto defence: Realistic as citizens in history always have drawn to arms once they were threaded. Gamewise we get don’t have to always build soldiers for every city, and we don’t need to have a single ‘superfluous’ unit to defend it. One thing I don’t like about this - arrow defence before archery. I think they should just defend the city from melee attacks. This would also make the archery tech better.
- Limited resources: A maximum of horsemen, iron-based units and more. I think this will give more battles for resources since one tile of iron/horses/uranium isn’t enough.
- News overview: Really like that. I Civ4 you got a lot of things going on when you entered the next turn, and your units could be attacked while my very inefficient city would take my attention away to ask me what to build next. Now you can control the order of what to do, and a next bar will keep reminding you until you have time to pay attention to it.
- Embark units: Nice feature which I believe will increase the sea battles. The previous Civs never managed to take full use of the sea to my big regret. I believe this could be the reason for sea battles. However, I still think transport ships should have their job to do in this game. Though I know soldiers throughout time have built their ships themselves, I’m pretty sure they didn’t start chopping down lumber to build their fleet when they in the 1940’s were transported from America to England before entering Normandy in 1944.
- AI spots attack plans: I was really positively surprised when the AI took me to the diplomatic screen to tell me I didn’t have to pretend we were friends if I was planning to attack his civilization with my soldiers near his borders.
- City demands: Fine little ‘event’ occurring when the cities tell me they want spices/wine/gold or something else. Gives you further jobs to do (and further reason to continue playing another half an hour though you have to go to bed and work tomorrow …)
- Camps in forest: I like this one! - Very realistic.
- Consultants: Like in Civ3, thank you for that!

‘Flaws’
- Religion: Why has this been removed? - The biggest step back from Civ4. I was in general really happy with the way religion worked in Civ4, and although a few things could be better with religion, I am very unhappy to see it totally removed. Besides the ‘flaws’ listed below, this was the only thing that made me consider voting ‘Yah’ in KingYosef’s poll. However, I’m afraid this is too big a change for an expansion pack to handle, will not be back before Civ6, if that it will be back then at all.
Does anyone know for what reason they have removed it? Desire from gamers, ethical problems or something other?
- Number of civilizations: 18 leaders are just too few. Civ4 has 52 leaders (started out at 26 leaders, so I guess we’ll see more than 18 in upcoming expansions, but not too happy to see less than the 26 from the original Civ4). To stay optimistic, Civilipedia says ‘Leaders’ (plural) and have slots for up to three leaders per civilization - like they have planned to add more leaders to the same civilizations.
- Health: Where did it go?
- Culture takeover: Though I like the way you acquire land, I believe you should still be able to conquer areas using culture like the percent changes to your advantage when you have the best culture in the area. The ‘Culture bomb’ is unrealistic and plain stupid if you ask me.
- Unit bonus overview: We aren’t informed the same way as in Civ4 about what the soldiers are good at. Pikemen good against horses, yes, but not until I stand before a horde of horses are the win percentages calculated.
- Copper/stone: Now that you fight for a limited amount of resources, which is an improvement in my eyes, I think it is sad, and unreasonable, that copper and stone has been removed.
- Towns: Towns replaced by markets, but I definitely don’t like this. In Civ4 you could build towns to improve your income, now they have been replaced by markets. Why don’t have both? - Markets to give 2 or 3 coins, towns as an investment if you have time to develop it. Then the player could choose which he liked the best (in the given situation). And don’t say it will be too easy to make money - you could always regulate the expenses of the game.
- Relationship: Another thing I don’t really understand why this hasn’t got its place in the game - maybe for realism reasons, and that should be the only approved reason for skipping this. Why not let us know how well the other civilizations like us?
- Animal barbarians: Liked this one. Maybe it is so that there aren’t too many barbarians, but I would still have hoped to see animal barbarians.
- Hall of Fame: No specification about the game. Before, you could click on the game and see the entire history unfold.
- Regulation of income: Now you can’t decide how much to spend on science, treasure, culture and espionage.
- Espionage: Honestly, I never used espionage myself, but I like the option - which could be turned off before the start of the game.
- Conquest Victory-option: Yes, I know the Domination Victory has changed, but I liked the total Conquest Victory-option from before. But I guess I can survive this one.
- Can’t restart map.

Changes i can't estimate
- Civics / Social policies: Civics are gone but now we have social policies - more policies, great - but I’m not all satisfied with how it works. You partly need technologies to change social policies, but now the culture is more important. In general quite ok, but I think there should be different culture prices dependant on which social policy you want to change. Right now it works like Great People - you get culture for every round, but the prices just keep going up instead of having different prices on them.
What I like about this change the least is that you don’t have to choose between things like democracy and communism. Now you can adapt democracy while having communism, in short, you will always want to adapt communism since there are only advantages. Only a very few social policies conflict.
- Happiness: Never had problems with an uprising, but I would have voted for a combination - a general happiness of the people and happiness in each city. This new way is unrealistic.
- Wonders animation: Has been removed, but now with sound just like when you make a discovery.
- No need for roads regarding resources: I think it adds to the realism if roads were necessary, and you could destroy a road to stop the supply of resources to your enemy.

So feel free to comment on the above stated, or even better - add some things I forgot!

 

[Deep_Blue]

Are great people gone in CIV5?

 

[Gath]

Are great people gone in CIV5?

No, they still have artists, engineers, merchants, generals, and scientists. They can't join cities as super specialists anymore however, instead they can turn into a tile improvement.

 

[Kruelgor]

- Religion: Why has this been removed?

Why do people keep saying religion was removed when religion does indeed exist in Civ5? Relgious buildings, wonders, and piety social policies.

There has been more bloodshed between those of the same broad religion than not, so to me it makes absolutely no sense to give a diplomatic bonus for having the same broad religion.

 

[Gath]

Why do people keep saying religion was removed when religion does indeed exist in Civ5? Relgious buildings, wonders, and piety social policies.

Because thats not what they're talking about? Obviously they're talking about the actual religions and the complexity they offered to culture, city management, diplomacy, and victory conditions.

The stuff in civ 5 isn't the same at all.

There has been more bloodshed between those of the same broad religion than not, so to me it makes absolutely no sense to give a diplomatic bonus for having the same broad religion.

Its not just about the exact stats that religion added, its the complexity and depth that it brought to the game.

 

[Abremms]

the problem is any changes (i.e. things that aren't bugs, but conscious gameplay descisions) may be positives for one person and negatives for another, its all subjective. We can argue about it all day, but in the end it comes down to personal preference.

you see the removal of religion as a negative, I see it as a positive. now diplomacy isn't wholey dictated by which civ prays to which god. religion is still in the game through buildings and social policies, but its more nebulous and vague, and most importantly: doesn't effect diplomacy. it may not reflect real life, but it makes for (potentialy) better game play (you know... once they fix diplomacy).

 

[LegionSteve]

you see the removal of religion as a negative, I see it as a positive. now diplomacy isn't wholey dictated by which civ prays to which god. religion is still in the game through buildings and social policies, but its more nebulous and vague, and most importantly: doesn't effect diplomacy. it may not reflect real life, but it makes for (potentialy) better game play (you know... once they fix diplomacy).

I completely agree

 

[Deep_Blue]

If u want historical accuracy religions strongly interfered with politics throughout the known history up to the industrial age, so from my point of view CIV IV relegious system would have been more accurate if relegions influence ends at the beggining of industrial era. if that was taken in consideration (plus some nerf on relegion effect on money/culture/diplomacy) it will be a valid model for any new civ game.

 

[Sporally]

the problem is any changes (i.e. things that aren't bugs, but conscious gameplay descisions) may be positives for one person and negatives for another, its all subjective. We can argue about it all day, but in the end it comes down to personal preference.

Very true, but as i said, this was MY point of view You can discuss if religion was perfect or not in Civ4, but in my option, a total removal of the religion worked in Civ4 (religious spreading and in diplomacy) was very bad (IN MY EYES).. Maybe there would be a solution to make most people agree it could work...

The best solution, that no one can have anything to say anything about would be to implement religion (in the way it was in Civ4) but make it an option - of course this would be very difficult to balance out, but possible

Any further comments on other things?

 

[Sporally]

No further comments?

 

[ArtVanDelay1975]

When people talk about the complexity that religion/corporations brings to the table, they seem to forget about the role of city states--they really take up the slack with the loss of religion and corporations. You get cultural and indirect financial benefit from allied city-states.

 

[jam3]

Why do people keep saying religion was removed when religion does indeed exist in Civ5? Relgious buildings, wonders, and piety social policies.

There has been more bloodshed between those of the same broad religion than not, so to me it makes absolutely no sense to give a diplomatic bonus for having the same broad religion.

Explain to me exactly how even modern diplomatic arrangements don't fall along religious lines. This has to be the worst argument against religion and its not just a few people its the civ 5 main deisgners as well.

Religion isn't everything in diplomacy and maybe those numbers should be tweaked from civ 4 but good lord there is no denying that it has an effect.

 

[Roxlimn]

American and Israel do not share the same official or unofficial religion. Neither do America and Japan. Iran and Iraq have the same religion. They held each other in check and were mutually hostile.

 

[Tee Kay]

Iran and Iraq have the same religion. They held each other in check and were mutually hostile.

No they don't.

 

[Roxlimn]

Oh? I was under the impression that they were both Islamic. It appears I was mistaken. Which of the 7 broad religions in Civ IV does Iran have?

 

[Tee Kay]

Oh? I was under the impression that they were both Islamic. It appears I was mistaken. Which of the 7 broad religions in Civ IV does Iran have?

They are both Islamic, but Baathist Iraq was ruled by Sunnis and Iran is Shia.

 

[Roxlimn]

taillesskangaru:

So you mean that they have religious differences whose granularity is too small to ever have been represented in a Civ game?

According to Civ IV mechanics, these guys should be fast friends. Instead, they are mortal enemies. The only reason they even have an opinion about America and Western countries is because the West decided to butt into their local politics. I'm quite sure that left to themselves, they'd still be viewing each other as the worst villains in the world.

 

[Tee Kay]

So you mean that they have religious differences whose granularity is too small to ever have been represented in a Civ game?

Only because Civ4 only limited itself to seven religions for balance.

 

[Roxlimn]

I don't see how that's relevant to the argument that Civ IV's religious mechanics didn't actually make it more historically immersive or accurate.

I mean, sure, Sunni and Shiites have hated each other famously for millenia, but that's on this small little area where they were crowded cheek to butt. What's Iran's or Iraq's take on Indonesian Islamic practices, and how are they prosecuting war or friendly relations?

Spain is Catholic. England is Protestant. Irish are Catholic. For a long time, until very recently, in fact, England has had a problem with Irish Catholic terrorists. I don't see the same modern dynamic happening with England or Spain, or England and, say, the Philippines, which is also Catholic.

American is Protestant. Israel is Jewish. They aren't even different variations on the same religion - their differences are represented in Civ IV. Shouldn't they be at war? Shouldn't America and Japan be still at war? After all, Japan hasn't converted even after all this time.

What about China? It's Confucian and nearly no other country on the planet is. Shouldn't it be, like, the pariah of the modern world?

 

[Tee Kay]

I don't see how that's relevant to the argument that Civ IV's religious mechanics didn't actually make it more historically immersive or accurate.

It does, actually. Religious conflicts play a major role in history and Civ4's religion feature reflects that. The modern era saw nations becoming more secular and the religious divides between them blurring and becoming less relevant in diplomacy; Civ4 also takes this into account with the Free Religion civic.

The problem is that the religion system not in-depth enough as some people would like and only had seven religions which is not enough to simulate the complexity of real world religions. But then we're not trying to accurate simulate that anyway. Civ is not a history simulator. Civ4's religion system nicely balances gameplay and complexity and IMO is just right for a Civ game. I suggest people go play games like Europa Universalis if they want more complex, historically accurate religion mechanics.