My Civ5 Review and my probable goodbye to the game, for now ...

[adamsolo]

After playing so much Civ5 I think it was time to make my review on my blog: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/12/sid-meiers-civilization-5-review/

Feel free to criticise, correct or comment, specially on the section about the changes from Civ4 (what was removed and added, for sure there are many things I could not remember).

I think I will not keep playing, I'll wait for the next patches and then give it another try. As you'll read in my review my biggest complaints go for diplomacy, global happiness and boredom (not too much things to do).

See you around,
Cheers
Adam

 

[Dale]

After playing so much Civ5 I think it was time to make my review on my blog: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/12/sid-meiers-civilization-5-review/

Feel free to criticise, correct or comment, specially on the section about the changes from Civ4 (what was removed and added, for sure there are many things I could not remember).

I think I will not keep playing, I'll wait for the next patches and then give it another try. As you'll read in my review my biggest complaints go for diplomacy, global happiness and boredom (not too much things to do).

See you around,
Cheers
Adam

You should note on your review that most of what was taken out was not in Civ 4 vanilla, but added in later. I think it's a little unfair to compare BtS to Civ 5 vanilla so directly.

Also in the city screen picture, you'd get MUCH better building times if you worked the mountain and horse tiles. It's a compromise, you've got high income from that city, and lower of other things. You can't have high of everything you know.

 

[taylor_cu]

After playing so much Civ5 I think it was time to make my review on my blog: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/12/sid-meiers-civilization-5-review/

Feel free to criticise, correct or comment, specially on the section about the changes from Civ4 (what was removed and added, for sure there are many things I could not remember).

I think I will not keep playing, I'll wait for the next patches and then give it another try. As you'll read in my review my biggest complaints go for diplomacy, global happiness and boredom (not too much things to do).

See you around,
Cheers
Adam

civV really suck

 

[builer680]

I think it's a little unfair to compare BtS to Civ 5 vanilla so directly.

Why? This statement seems like more apologism, if that's even a word.

Civ 5 Vanilla came out after BtS, so it's not an unfair comparison. Gameplay additions and balance considerations learned from all games that came before should become the new baseline for the next game, upon which you expand and improve. If Civ 5 wasn't meant to be a sequel to Civ 4 and its subsequent improvements, then it shouldn't be named Civ 5.

 

[Dralix]

The fact of the gaming industry today is that content is held back so they can add it later in expansions. It's not unique to this title. Not to say that I agree with that philosophy, but I accept the reality of it.

 

[rschissler]

I never got around to buying CivIV BTS--I just played CivIV Vanilla and I've played it a ton. I think I can say that CivIV Vanilla is superior to CivV Vanilla.

CivIV had some serious bugs when it was first released, but the core game itself was solid. It's hard to believe that a few patches or mods will fix CivV.

 

[taylor_cu]

You should note on your review that most of what was taken out was not in Civ 4 vanilla, but added in later. I think it's a little unfair to compare BtS to Civ 5 vanilla so directly.

Also in the city screen picture, you'd get MUCH better building times if you worked the mountain and horse tiles. It's a compromise, you've got high income from that city, and lower of other things. You can't have high of everything you know.

I played Civ IV vanilla tons of time, about 14 months. Then i played civIV Warlords others 14 months and i am still playing BTS (about 3 years and 4 months).... and
I COUND´T PASS ONE WEEK PLAYING CIV V.

 

[jjkrause84]

You should note on your review that most of what was taken out was not in Civ 4 vanilla, but added in later. I think it's a little unfair to compare BtS to Civ 5 vanilla so directly.

Much of the content that was added later had NEVER been in ANY Civ game before (like religion, corporations, etc.). Civ 5 did not have to invent whole concepts and ways for them to work, all they had to do is take what came before and make it better.

 

[cf_nz]

If Civ 5 wasn't meant to be a sequel to Civ 4 and its subsequent improvements, then it shouldn't be named Civ 5.

Why not? The next game in the series after Civ 4 is Civ 5. The fact that it's largely redesigned doesn't make it any less part of the series, it holds core features that make it a Civ game.

 

[Islet]

Why not? The next game in the series after Civ 4 is Civ 5. The fact that it's largely redesigned doesn't make it any less part of the series, it holds core features that make it a Civ game.

A bit like how SimCity: Societies should be named SimCity 5, I suppose...

At least EA had a decent mind to tell longtime fans of SimCity that Societies was going off-tangent from the main SimCity series.

 

[cf_nz]

I don't think Civ V has gone "off-tangent" but that will be an individual assessment based on what features are considered core to the game. I think I was also pretty much aware of what most of the changes being made to the game were before release. All I didn't know was how it would 'play'.

 

[Islet]

No argument from me.

The Civ 5 design team probably had good intentions in trying to uplift the main Civ series but stumbled into something else instead.

The thing that rather annoys me is their lack of apology or discussion of any sort. Just more press releases about "it was meant for casual players!", after they release the game.

 

[Zechnophobe]

You should note on your review that most of what was taken out was not in Civ 4 vanilla, but added in later. I think it's a little unfair to compare BtS to Civ 5 vanilla so directly.

Are you just misunderstanding, or purposefully deceiving because you suspect many won't read the review? here is the list of things he mentions as being taken out:

* Random events ( Not in Vanilla)
* Local happiness management
* Health concept
* Maintenance concept
* Tech trading
* Religion
* Civics
* Espionage (Not really in Vanilla)
* Corporations (Not in Vanilla)
* Foreign trade
* Map trading
* Culture assimilation
* No need to have naval transports for embarkation
* No need to have a road or river nearby to access resources
* Economy science/gold /culture sliders

I have added the parenthetical references to show items he has listed, that were not part of civ 4 Vanilla. They are a very small minority of the items listed.

Also in the city screen picture, you'd get MUCH better building times if you worked the mountain and horse tiles. It's a compromise, you've got high income from that city, and lower of other things. You can't have high of everything you know.

If you work more hammers, and less other things, yes, you will build faster. He isn't saying you can't modify how fast you build things to emphasize one over the other. However that isn't really the point. The point is that on average, the build times compared to other important 'time' effects in the game are off. They are poorly balanced. You spend far too long building a Windmill than you really should considering its effects.

This, he points out, also has the effect of making a lot of buildings just not worth building. Ever.

 

[joyous_gard]

I quickly read through your review. I agree about the long build times really dragging things down. THat is something I kind of forget about until I get into another game and want to build a lighthouse and the turn count just seems really high, while the techs are whizzing by and Monty is spewing out cities. The opportunity cost of a lighthouse is too high? Come on!! Let me get a quick little lighthouse out.

I disagree with you on the city-states being fun and a nice addition. I thought they would be like barbs on 'roids. Barbs you could talk to and deal with but didn't matter unless you made them matter... Like you could civilize a barb tribe and they would give you stuff for their support, but if you wanted to squash them, it would just be like a barb where nobody cares and you didn't ruin your nation's food supply. They are full-on Civs though and I feel their presence is overly influential. They're in the game though, and you and others enjoy them, so I will just have to get used to it. I've played some games without them and I guess I like Civ V better with city-states on rather than off, but I feel my idea of barbs on roids would have been a better way to go.

Nice article.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

I disagree with you on the city-states being fun and a nice addition. I thought they would be like barbs on 'roids. Barbs you could talk to and deal with but didn't matter unless you made them matter... Like you could civilize a barb tribe and they would give you stuff for their support, but if you wanted to squash them, it would just be like a barb where nobody cares and you didn't ruin your nation's food supply. They are full-on Civs though and I feel their presence is overly influential. They're in the game though, and you and others enjoy them, so I will just have to get used to it. I've played some games without them and I guess I like Civ V better with city-states on rather than off, but I feel my idea of barbs on roids would have been a better way to go.

I too was hoping for something like this. Especially on huge maps with lots of dark corners, I could envisage barbs setting up another Civ, settling down, behaving properly and joining in the game [1] (heck, in Civ4, there have been many sightings of barb infantrymen and suchlike, though I don't think they've ever got to Modern Armour.)

And I really really don't like magic food and culture and all that CS stuff. It breaks the frame and messes up the maths. Parachuting resources into a game seemingly from outer space is a kludge of the highest order in my opinion.

[1] Actually, behaving properly doesn't mean a lot in Civ5. AI Civs are just as psychotic as any barbs.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

You should note on your review that most of what was taken out was not in Civ 4 vanilla, but added in later. I think it's a little unfair to compare BtS to Civ 5 vanilla so directly.

Also in the city screen picture, you'd get MUCH better building times if you worked the mountain and horse tiles. It's a compromise, you've got high income from that city, and lower of other things. You can't have high of everything you know.

The developers should have built off of what they had... Comparing it to BTS simply means that he recognizes that Fraxis took steps backwards in Civ5. I could care less for bugs and balance issues, but if the game does bring improvement to the series as a whole then I would rather the better game.

For instance Civ4 when it released was buggy like all Civ games when they are released. I saw on a recent poll that the majority voted they would rather play Civ3 than Civ4 vanilla on its release, because of bugs of course. Civ4 corrected problems and expanded on things that were featured in Civ3. Civ5 did that at a very minimal level. Religion was taken out for a social policy tree. The city matenince system was removed, sliders were removed, diplomacy was replaced with City States.

Civ5 was just not what many of us wanted. We didn't want an average strategy game, we wanted a Civilization building strategy game. I understand that many things were changed in Civ5 so the game would become more strategy oriented, but when you look at it as a strategy game, its a really weak one. My only argument with Civ5, is that the game needs to turn back into a Civ builder, not a hardcore strategy game wana-be.

 

[charon2112]

After playing so much Civ5 I think it was time to make my review on my blog: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/12/sid-meiers-civilization-5-review/

Feel free to criticise, correct or comment, specially on the section about the changes from Civ4 (what was removed and added, for sure there are many things I could not remember).

I think I will not keep playing, I'll wait for the next patches and then give it another try. As you'll read in my review my biggest complaints go for diplomacy, global happiness and boredom (not too much things to do).

See you around,
Cheers
Adam

To be honest, I'm not that interested in reviews that list the differences from Civ IV, as opposed to reviews that judge the game on it's own merits...

 

[adamsolo]

To be honest, I'm not that interested in reviews that list the differences from Civ IV, as opposed to reviews that judge the game on it's own merits...

I think that it is mandatory for any sequel to be compared with the previous installments, otherwise you should call it Civ something like Civ Rev and not Civ5. However if you give my review a chance you will see that the differences from Civ4 BTS is only a minor part in my review among many other points. In the majority of the review I judge Civ5 by it self and not as a direct comparison with Civ4 BTS.

Believe me, I'm not a Civ4 zealot, I really liked what Civ5 has promised to be (1upt and city-states). That is why I gave it an 8.4 and not less. I give the game the merit for have trying and for the potential it still has to be better.

Cheers

 

[sketch162000]

To be honest, I'm not that interested in reviews that list the differences from Civ IV, as opposed to reviews that judge the game on it's own merits...

So why did you feel the need to post in this thread?

 

[Thormodr]

Quite an even handed review.

Thanks for that.