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

[Toady]

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...

If Civ 5 was called Slatbang Walla developed by Clownaxis and published by 3L it wouldn't have lasted more than a month on the selves.

That's judging Civ 5 on it's own merits... take away Civilization as a franchise and Firaxis as a Dev and you have nothing left to keep it standing.

 

[Perfxion]

The game is good. The game does have one more turn. The game stripped a lot of things from BTS because with the new game, they would not make sense.

I am glad they got rid of these micro managing boring task:
* Local happiness management
* Maintenance concept
* Tech trading
* Religion
* Espionage (Not really in Vanilla)
* Corporations (Not in Vanilla)
* 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

The thing with Civ 5. It is a new series. Just like the Sims. The Sims 3 does not carry EVERY expansion pack from the Sims 2 into it. Its a whole new game with a new list of things to do and has to develop to get to the, what feels like, 50 expansion packs. Civ 5 has improved with the new patches and mods. I can play for hours at a time. I am glad I don't have to play the "only can be friends if we share a religion", "waste time of espionage only to have a building destroyed", "waste time on corporations, only to wreck economy". Keep all but 3 cites from rioting and boom, culture victory. And my favorite thing gone: SoD.

 

[LDiCesare]

I disagree with the City-States too.
They are a huge negative for me because they totally break immersion.
I mean, I can talk to England in a certain way, ask them to gift me gold, make research agreements, but they can't give me food. Next I meet Oslo, and I can't ask them the same things but can gift them gold in exchange for food (or random units, or culture).
The fact I can do some things with some cities which I can't do with others is a game-breaker. It's like a blinking 'gamey' sign.
City states should have been what minor civilisations were in Galactic Civilizations: Civs which don't expand on their own, but are otherwise normal civs.
It is also very unabalanced (would you rather ally 1 maritime on its island or 4 military city states scatted around the world?), there's an option to play without them but the game balance gets even worse if you do it (lack of food, many civs special abilities become useless - although from the Ottoman point of view, this may be a balance improvement).

I wouldn't list social policies as a plus either. In my opinion they are strictly worse than civics.

The user interface is good and functional.

No. It hides a lot of things. It also spawns dozens of buttons on the right of the screen when Civ 1 and its 5 city state allies declares war on Civ 2 and its 4 city state allies (30 buttons to click to get rid of when ONE would have been enough). I don't call that good. The diplomacy screen is not as convenient as the Civ3/4 versions. Care to see all the civs standing (war) at a glance? No way...

 

[Toady]

The game is good. The game does have one more turn. The game stripped a lot of things from BTS because with the new game, they would not make sense.

I am glad they got rid of these micro managing boring task:
* Local happiness management (Replaced by Global Happiness that doesn't work as intended)
* Maintenance concept (see Above)
* Tech trading (Replaced by abusable and imbalanced Research Agreement)
* Religion
* Espionage (Not really in Vanilla)
* Corporations (Not in Vanilla)
* Culture assimilation
* No need to have naval transports for embarkation (replaced with a system the AI can't grasp and for the Human is at least twice the effort in micromanagement)
* No need to have a road or river nearby to access resources
* Economy science/gold /culture sliders (By removing any correlation between them they effectively broke the economy and turn it into GOLD > ALL)

The thing with Civ 5. It is a new series. Just like the Sims. The Sims 3 does not carry EVERY expansion pack from the Sims 2 into it. Its a whole new game with a new list of things to do and has to develop to get to the, what feels like, 50 expansion packs. Civ 5 has improved with the new patches and mods. I can play for hours at a time. I am glad I don't have to play the "only can be friends if we share a religion", "waste time of espionage only to have a building destroyed", "waste time on corporations, only to wreck economy". Keep all but 3 cites from rioting and boom, culture victory. And my favorite thing gone: SoD.

The issue at hand isn't wether people want new or more of the same. The main gripe of poeple is that they wanted working concepts - mechanics which is exactly what they DIDN'T get.

On it's own Civ 5 just can't stand. It's core mechanics: 1UPT, Global Happiness, Non Correlation between Gold-Research-Culture... they don't work as intended on their own and in relation to each other.

It doesn't matter that the game is new or different than Civ 4 BTS... it's still crap. Of course the fact that it's predecessor is regarded so highly and praised for the stuff it did well only serves to make the flaws of Civ 5 look all the more worse.

 

[Haig]

* No need to have naval transports for embarkation

First I thought that this was a good bit of streamlining, but in fact it's just another thing in my opinion that makes it more boring and takes off some strategy.

In Civ IV you had to sacrifice production and hammers to build them, so I think it gave more strategy into it, when you're building galleons you're not building something else instead, and you/your enemy might have a strong army in an island but to get them anywhere' you'll need boats.. in Civ V you just walk them into water.

Using embarkation in Civ V took away some epicness/immersion in my opinion, on my current Civ IV game it was actually a big satisfaction to build a big invading fleet of galleons and frigates and send them loaded with my troops. It took time to build the transports but it really felt like I used effort into making the fleet.
Too bad that my enemy has more advanced ships so crossing the sea has it's risks..

 

[Rssarr]

I am a sad and sorry Civ fan. Fact is I've spent so much time playing these games over the years I've only gotten on here and bothered to post 3 times, and all of them this morning. That means I'm sitting on here, at my computer while the wife is visiting in-laws and I can be in my boxers quietly playing my favorite series all day and night for at least a day or two...AND I'M NOT!

When I first saw the game I nearly creamed my shorts. It is so visually stunning that I was like holy crap will the wonders ever cease. I hadn't even heard it was coming out. I'd been busy playing Civ4. I've played this game heavily for the last 4 days, and I'm already burned out?! I'm an addict and they broke my addiction by slipping in fake crack...I actually got bored of it tonight and thats why I got on here.

I started off looking for mods and ended up finding all the bad press, and plenty of mods designed to fix basic design flaws in the game. There is a tremendous effort underway in the community to FIX a supposedly finished product. The developers are using you guys for design and beta testing! And they got people to pay THEM to do it for them...it sounds like this game has actually been a phenomenal success, at least for someone...

Okay, so about the review I agree with a great deal of it, excepting that you need to proof read (and I do the same thing and probably have a dozen errors in this post, so it really is the pot calling the kettle black, but its why I don't write reviews). And I mean that in jest, so please don't get too mad. But that aside The visuals and the hex system which I love, the 1UTP system, which I kinda like, and the city-states, which I think SHOULD be more like barbs on roids to quote another, are good selling points. But what this game seems to lack, at this point at least, is real DEPTH. Its true it took them quite a bit of time to develop Civ4 to what some would call its completeness. But this really does seem an unfinished product, more like a Beta test to me. I do miss religions and espionage. I really miss random events and the little mini quests the game would throw up. The quests of the city states are fairly shallow and unimaginative. Much of the content feels that way, so far at least.

I do expect however they will begin to fix many of these elements. The change in leadership (I am sure lead dude was politely told to step down, or already had plans to leave, and pushed the product early, least they lose the whole project). Much of the work will be done for them by modders and then incorporated. I'm willing to give it time. I still like the game, but at this point, it seems like an engine overhaul without a car body...

 

[LDiCesare]

I am glad they got rid of these micro managing boring task:
* Local happiness management
* Maintenance concept
* Tech trading
* Religion
* Espionage (Not really in Vanilla)
* Corporations (Not in Vanilla)
* 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

Micromanagement boring tasks? Are you serious?

-Local happiness management is back with buildings affecting your global happiness only if the city is big enough. But then you have no clear way in the interface to know it.
-Maintenance. Uh? Units cost maintenance, and so do buildings. What's been removed here? Where was the micro? Units outside your territory is about all I can agree with, but now you maintain your horse units with horses, and may want to disband a catapult in order to build a longswordsman, or to make your longswordsmen more efficient because you were short on resources, so I'd rather say there is more micromanagement with strategic resources no longer unlimited.
-Tech trading has been replaced by Research agreements, which require micromanagement and no thought at all (you have to have the money, and sometimes to lend it in order to be able to make the RA).
-Religion/espionage/corporations indeed are gone. I agree with less MM, but didn't find them boring (but then I miss Civ/Civ 2 caravans).
-Culture assimilation is replaced by buying a courthouse and replaced by puppet states. I can't see how the former was any kind of micromanagement.
-Naval transport yes indeed, this is less micro-ing.
-Road/river, yes indeed, this is less micro-ing. It also removces the ability to effectively pillage roads to block cities from building units which may not be so nice.
-Sliders: Come on, sliders removed micromanagement. Now you have to reassign citizens in every city in order to achieve the same result.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

First I thought that this was a good bit of streamlining, but in fact it's just another thing in my opinion that makes it more boring and takes off some strategy.

In Civ IV you had to sacrifice production and hammers to build them, so I think it gave more strategy into it, when you're building galleons you're not building something else instead, and you/your enemy might have a strong army in an island but to get them anywhere' you'll need boats.. in Civ V you just walk them into water.

Using embarkation in Civ V took away some epicness/immersion in my opinion, on my current Civ IV game it was actually a big satisfaction to build a big invading fleet of galleons and frigates and send them loaded with my troops. It took time to build the transports but it really felt like I used effort into making the fleet.
Too bad that my enemy has more advanced ships so crossing the sea has it's risks..

Funny, isn't it? When I first played the game, embarkation was one of the few bits of streamlining I too thought was a great idea. But now, indeed, I have the same feeling about it as you, just doesn't feel right. (Trading one kind of immersion for another, I guess.) It's even worse than that, though.

Firstly, it's not something the AI should be let loose with, like all things naval it just doesn't get it, even less so than the Civ4 AI. As far as I can see, from the one game I played after the recent patch, the AI still thinks embarked troops are cheap naval units - hilarious when it tries to blockade your destroyers with a flock of obsolete ground units in little boats.

Secondly (and that's more relevant to what you're saying), it tends to negate the importance of land-based choke points. It's too easy to bypass them by water in Civ5. Sure, amphibious operations have done just that in RL but they're usually not casual undertakings (well, there's Dieppe, but look what happened there...).

 

[Rssarr]

-Local happiness management is back with buildings affecting your global happiness only if the city is big enough. But then you have no clear way in the interface to know it.
-Maintenance. Uh? Units cost maintenance, and so do buildings. What's been removed here? Where was the micro? Units outside your territory is about all I can agree with, but now you maintain your horse units with horses, and may want to disband a catapult in order to build a longswordsman, or to make your longswordsmen more efficient because you were short on resources, so I'd rather say there is more micromanagement with strategic resources no longer unlimited.
-Tech trading has been replaced by Research agreements, which require micromanagement and no thought at all (you have to have the money, and sometimes to lend it in order to be able to make the RA).
-Religion/espionage/corporations indeed are gone. I agree with less MM, but didn't find them boring (but then I miss Civ/Civ 2 caravans).
-Culture assimilation is replaced by buying a courthouse and replaced by puppet states. I can't see how the former was any kind of micromanagement.
-Naval transport yes indeed, this is less micro-ing.
-Road/river, yes indeed, this is less micro-ing. It also removces the ability to effectively pillage roads to block cities from building units which may not be so nice.
-Sliders: Come on, sliders removed micromanagement. Now you have to reassign citizens in every city in order to achieve the same result.

Well you'll probably flame my post, but I agree with you on all points. I had forgotten about cultural assimilation, or even just taking over another players tiles with culture, which made total sense, and is very much missing here. Don't want to ramble much more, already have another post I'd like to write, a sort of wish list if you will. But I agree with you and the game is definitely more strategic now and you seem to be intended to manage cities more closely and generally limit your growth in favor of it. I find I micro manage my citizens FAR FAR more than I ever felt the need to in any other Civ game, because the game encourages you to specialize.

And really with 1UPT, resource management makes sense in this game as it is, roads and all. Its a functional mechanic for the system they've devised. And it does make more sense, given real world conditions because why would Oil matter the least bit after I got the first little bit, except maybe to feed a corp that used it for more gold in Civ 4, but here I find it matters, AND I have an easier time trading excess off because someone else might actually USE them...

But anyway let me go write my wishlist so it can get flamed, or I'll end up doing it here...

 

[Ankh]

The game is good. The game does have one more turn. The game stripped a lot of things from BTS because with the new game, they would not make sense.

I am glad they got rid of these micro managing boring task:
* Local happiness management
* Maintenance concept
* Tech trading
* Religion
* Espionage (Not really in Vanilla)
* Corporations (Not in Vanilla)
* 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

The thing with Civ 5. It is a new series. Just like the Sims. The Sims 3 does not carry EVERY expansion pack from the Sims 2 into it. Its a whole new game with a new list of things to do and has to develop to get to the, what feels like, 50 expansion packs. Civ 5 has improved with the new patches and mods. I can play for hours at a time. I am glad I don't have to play the "only can be friends if we share a religion", "waste time of espionage only to have a building destroyed", "waste time on corporations, only to wreck economy". Keep all but 3 cites from rioting and boom, culture victory. And my favorite thing gone: SoD.

This is a good post and I feel almost exactly the same way. Strange though this is one of the few fansites that if you post that you like this game in question you get jumped by people correcting you with all its flaws?

Its like if I would head over to warseer and post "Hey I like playing Warhammer" people would immediately response, telling me all kind of flaws with the game and why I should stop playing and hate it instead, But no they wont, because they hang on the site because they like the game not because they hate it.

 

[adamsolo]

Okay, so about the review I agree with a great deal of it, excepting that you need to proof read (and I do the same thing and probably have a dozen errors in this post, so it really is the pot calling the kettle black, but its why I don't write reviews). And I mean that in jest, so please don't get too mad.

I use wordpress spellchecker to fix errors since English is not my mother tongue. I re-checked the review just now and found 3 or 4 more errors. Thanks for letting me know about that.

 

[Toady]

This is a good post and I feel almost exactly the same way. Strange though this is one of the few fansites that if you post that you like this game in question you get jumped by people correcting you with all its flaws?

Its like if I would head over to warseer and post "Hey I like playing Warhammer" people would immediately response, telling me all kind of flaws with the game and why I should stop playing and hate it instead, But no they wont, because they hang on the site because they like the game not because they hate it.

You kind of missed the fact that he posted in a review thread starting his comment with the following opening statement.

"The game is good"

One is free to like or dislike whatever he wants... however that doesn't change facts.

Wether someone likes global happiness doesn't magically make it work. Wether people like 1UPT doesn't change the fact that the AI can't use it and that it affects the entire economy adversely.

As for the last paragraph of yours... that's borderline fantasy there... i haven't seen anyone demand or try to get others to stop playing or hate the game. Infact if you open your eyes a bit you will notice it's the other way around it. People voicing concerns with the broken aspects of the game are getting responces in the style of the afforementioned post...

- "The game is good - I like it".

- "Ok... you can like all you want but don't you agree that X core feature doesnt work because it causes X,Y,Z?"

- "It's a new feature, i like it"

- "Yes it's new ... but it doesn't work as intended"

- "Stop comparing it to the old version, change is good"

- "Change is good when it improves...the new changes don't work well with each other and ruin the game!"

- "X mechanic/concept/feature is gone .... i hated it."

- "Oh jesus i give up"

 

[SuperJay]

If Civ 5 was called Slatbang Walla developed by Clownaxis and published by 3L it wouldn't have lasted more than a month on the selves.

That's judging Civ 5 on it's own merits... take away Civilization as a franchise and Firaxis as a Dev and you have nothing left to keep it standing.

This, one thousand times over.

For all the "it's a new game, stop comparing it to Civ 4!!!11!1" complaints, people seem to miss that if it was NOT a Civilization game, it looks even worse. It would have been completely slammed and turned into a commercial flop. As it stands, the success its had in sales are likely due in large part to the Civilization brand.

Only a fraction of the fans would have bought this game if it didn't say "Firaxis," "Sid Meier" and "Civilization" on the cover. Of those, even fewer would still be playing it. Even fewer would remain on the forums clinging to this idea that the game simply has to be good because it says "Civilization" on the front, and getting so incredibly upset with people for pointing out its flaws.

It's okay that Firaxis made a bad Civ game. Life will go on. They might even make better games in the future, but this one's a dud for now, and that's alright. Everyone makes mistakes. This one isn't a lost cause, but it could turn into one if Firaxis doesn't fix the problems inherent in the game.

 

[LDiCesare]

This is a good post and I feel almost exactly the same way. Strange though this is one of the few fansites that if you post that you like this game in question you get jumped by people correcting you with all its flaws?

Its like if I would head over to warseer and post "Hey I like playing Warhammer" people would immediately response, telling me all kind of flaws with the game and why I should stop playing and hate it instead, But no they wont, because they hang on the site because they like the game not because they hate it.

The post was 'this is less MM/boring than Civ IV' and most points are just wrong.
It's not a matter on jumping on the poster because he likes Civ V, but jumping on lies.
When one says tech trading is removed and the accompanying MM, I'd like to have them explain me how Civ V tech trading (aka Research Agreement) is less micromanagement when, in order to do it effectively, you have to:
-make sure you have the money on a given turn (30 turns advance warning)
-make sure your partner will have the money or you can lend him the money
-make sure that the tech you get is the most expensive possible one by starting research in the appropriate cheap techs.
The last part is MM, and probably an exploit, but if you pretend there was MM in Civ IV tech trading (which mostly amounted to looking at the other civs research when you had finished your own), then you wanted to MM, and you didn't even have to trade tech in IV, so if one felt it was MM/boring, and still played with the option, that person better not say it's better in V when it's not.

 

[Vegetius7]

I'm inclined to agree that this latest installment of the Civ series does not progress the game any more than Civ4 did. In some areas of the game I think it has progessed, while in others it has gone backwards.

For example the vanillia balancing is just horrible, long build times and very fast research. That takes away from the game entirely. True you can add in some mods to adjust those settings, so in that regard I don't really mind.

The AI diplomacy is just horrible, as was the AI battle settings. Again there are some mods to adjust this, but even then I find that crushing the AI isn't all that hard. At one point while playing the japenese in the medevil time frame I owned around 12 cities, compared to the germans who owned around 45 cities (on the same landmass). My Samurai (supported by crossbowmen and siege weapons) tore through thier landschrect (sp) like nothing lol.

I don't much mind the city state additions as well as the policy trees. I am actually sort of fond of the policy editions (although I've downloaded some mods to adjust them) but am Indifferent to the city states. I find the only city states to be of use are the culture city states, other than that the rest are fair game.

I am sure tho, that with time there will be new additions out, either fraxis released, or mod'd that make the game even better. I was an avid player of RoM for civ 4 BTS, so looking forward to something like that in the future. Although there is a few things that puzzle me in regard to the tech tree...take for instance the "Bomber" unit requires the modern era to research?? Seriously? I would have thought that the research of the "Radio" technology would unlock the bomber unit in the industrial age. I wish someone would realize that and mod a change...I myself am no modder, or I would do it myself lol.

 

[Atwork]

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...

It isn't as though the game sprang into existence inside a vacuum.

Considering C5 is heir to the CIV legacy, it is only natural to compare C5 to its predecessors. The comparison of C5 to C4 is one consideration by which the merits of C5 can be judged. Comparing C5 to other strategy games/empire building games/etc. is another. Comparing C5 to one's own ideas, desires, and expectations is still another. In short, there are many valid considerations by which the merits of C5 can be, and should be, judged.

I think it is legitimately perplexing how C5 could fail in areas where C4 succeeded. C4 handed the C5 devs a blueprint for success in particular areas -- Zechnophobe lists a few of those above. It should have been easy to accept that blueprint and proceed to resolve the problem areas.

Can't understand the kinds of decisions that broke things that already worked well -- examples: city screen, build queue, mouse-over info pop-ups, a complete event list that also informed the player WHERE things were built, the ability to zoom out to see a full globe, the ability to place labels on the map, not having to go to multiple screens to get complete info, complete and accurate info in the civilopedia, etc.

I also can't understand why good ideas from the modding community weren't incorporated into C5. One quick and obvious example: the BUG mod, which provided abundant and easily accessed info -- AND allowed the player to set pop-up reminders.

Sigh.

 

[Atwork]

For all the "it's a new game, stop comparing it to Civ 4!!!11!1" complaints, people seem to miss that if it was NOT a Civilization game, it looks even worse.....Only a fraction of the fans would have bought this game if it didn't say "Firaxis," "Sid Meier" and "Civilization" on the cover.....even fewer would still be playing it. Even fewer would remain on the forums....

Also, "if it was NOT a Civilization game," there would not be so many people determined to find and expose C5's flaws and passionately advocate to have those flaws fixed. Even fewer would be so trusting that: if the flaws are exposed and articulated, that the devs will be equally determined to fix the flaws.

Personally, I have played C5 for the first week it was out and then for a few days after the last big patch, but I've shelved the game. I remain engaged though because of my trust in the CIV community of players, modders, and designers -- I trust that we all have a common interest in obtaining the best CIV game possible, which entails rooting out the exploits, bad designs, and bugs -- exposing them, offering a better solution, and then demanding fixes.

What concerns me is the developers' blatant admission that C5 was intended to hook the casual gamer. Casual gamers are less likely to identify and exploit C5's design flaws; therefore, casual gamers are less likely to care as much about the issues that non-casual players expose. So, while non-casual players make impassioned arguments about the need for fundamental fixes, the casual players are more likely to shrug their shoulders -- or even turn against the non-casual players for being buzz-kills. This brings me to another concern.

It concerns me when I read players slamming other players simply because they give honest feedback that exposes flaws and demonstrates exploits. The players who are skilled and intelligent enough to find and expose design flaws should not be attacked, they should be celebrated because their feedback, if listened to, will ultimately spur the positive development of the game as the developers strive to fix the flaws so exposed. My hope is that the devs are interested in making a game not only for casual players and will harness, rather than ignore, the passion and experience of long-time CIV players.

Ultimately, we all want the same thing -- the best possible game of C5. But, I'm no casual fan of CIV and I don't want to see the legacy of the series, and the potential of C5, wasted on the complacency of the casual player.

 

[SuperJay]

Ultimately, we all want the same thing -- the best possible game of C5. But, I'm no casual fan of CIV and I don't want to see the legacy of the series, and the potential of C5, wasted on the complacency of the casual player.

Good points all. This is part of what bothers me when I'm told "you're just here to ruin our fun, you're a hater, stop trolling the forums and leave if you hate Civ5 so much" and it happens regularly around here. We're all on the same team, whether we like this latest iteration or not; we all still want the same thing in the end, IMO.

I'm also concerned about the attempt to hook casual players, as you mentioned. I think that's a bad long-term strategy, because your casual drive-by Civ players aren't likely to keep coming back for years, to follow the series for decades, and to support Firaxis and the franchise as long as they deliver quality products. It seems more like an attempt to get some short-term success in initial sales and DLC offerings, and then move on to other projects.

 

[manu-fan]

My view on 1 Upt.

For battles, I think it's great. Maneuvering to get an advantage is great and brings a different aspect to the game.

For traveling any distances though, it's horrible. Have you tried moving a force of 7 or 8 troops across a map? Yuck.

On Naval Embarkation, I have to agree that it's lost its appeal. Here's another issue. You have to make sure the water is entirely clear of enemy and bard vessels before going on a long trip across water. So, if you want to move an army, you need to do it one turn at a time, and keep all naval offensive vehicles scouting and surrounding as you go. There was no - sudden barb caravel appears and kills my transport in Civ 4.

Cheers.

 

[civ-wrecked]

I use wordpress spellchecker to fix errors since English is not my mother tongue. I re-checked the review just now and found 3 or 4 more errors. Thanks for letting me know about that.

You have "one unit per turn" in the caption instead of "per tile".