Civ Fuehrer
Drifting through space, lost
Afforess, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one, I just hope that 2K/Firaxis takes this thread into a huge consideration for the next patch/expansion.
I agree with all of your points, except the game is way more fun than 60%. Subjective, of course.
Workers can be set to not replace improvements in an ini file. Not disputing your point though, this should be an option in the game.
Here is my unbiased review:
Everything stinks.
Thanks for reading!
PS By everything. I mean everything. Like real life stuff too. Everything sucks, everything is terrible. The world is a vampire.
I'm sure you'l have developed well-thought arguments to counter any pre-conceived points and biases you think I (correctly, or incorrectly) have in the time it took to scroll here.
Afforess, you pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one, I just hope that 2K/Firaxis takes this thread into a huge consideration for the next patch/expansion.
Wow. Maybe one of the best reviews I've read of Civ 5 yet. Agree with absolutely every point. And to top that, the suggestions are brilliant.
Well done! You make reviews faaaar better than any of the more "official" reviews I've seen. I hope the developers consider the changes you've proposed!
Afforess said:Play a couple more games. I had a rush of excitement after the first game. After 5 games, I am barely motivated to go back. It's sad and funny, because I WANT to like this game. I really really want to like it - but I barely played it at all this weekend.
Great review. A few points of contention and inquiry:
- The AI in my game performs equally poorly on offense and defense. In one Earth map game I made a push on one civ through North Africa coast and through the Middle East. Instead of pushing their reserve forces to the front lines they just stayed back near their capital. So I fought them in groups of 2-3 instead of one large army. On offense, the AI made a great a push through one choke point but failed to follow it up offensively. If an attack works, don't stop!
- What you really needed to point out is that AI is even WORSE when it comes to navy. It has no idea WTF to do with the ocean. With Civ 5's chokepoints this puts them at a huge disadvantage.
- I can understand the issue you have with building speed being that you don't do anything on a turn except press 'next turn'. However, I like that a city doesn't have time to build everything on it's own. I found it lame that several cities in Civ 4 would max out on buildings and I ended up producing research/culture/wealth or units for the hell of it. No strategic thinking mid-late and late game. So I like the research to building pace.
- I have had no problems distinguishing terrain or units. Is this a common complaint? I play on max settings with DX11 so maybe that's why?
- I don't think there are OP wonders. They should be awesome. There are definitely UP wonders like the Eiffel Tower though (which could be easily tweaked). Would be nice to have seen another wonder per age though.
- I agree with all recommendations except that I'm not sure about 'barbarians should always give XP' and 'trebs shouldn't need iron, cannons should'. The only reason I'm not sure is for balance purposes. Barbarians can be easy to farm on certain maps with navies, especially because the AI can't do it. Trebs are a bigger jump from cats than cannons are from trebs. Making iron needed seems more important for trebs than cannons. There's a lot of realism not being a factor here and if it's best for gameplay then I would say leave as is. Do you feel there is a balance reason to make this change?
- Add a recommendation 'make puppet states build only things related to culture, happiness, growth, research, and gold'. Running up maintenance costs by them producing barracks and armories is idiotic.
Tomorrow, I was planning on writing up some "A Week Later: CiV Review" detailing my thoughts about the game. Instead, I'll just post here agreeing with most of what you said. Well said.
In particular, I love your idea of 'immigration' as a result of unhappiness - that's an idea that I wouldn't have considered and I think it would make an excellent addition/change to the game. Would unhappy citizens of one civ join another? If so, a leader would need the ability to close/open his country for immigration as the situation required.
I have a few points of my own to add, and since this thread seems genuinely thoughtful, I might as well stick them here.
First is Great People. While the 'tile improvement' idea is a cool one in theory, I'm not sure I like it in practice. It seems like it hurts as much as it helps - taking the Great Artist's 'Landmark' improvement as an example, I'd typically rather take 2 extra gold from a trading post or 2 extra hammers from a lumber mill than the +4 culture from a landmark - especially since gold and production can be easily boosted by easy-to-obtain buildings, while culture usually requires wonders. A Great Scientist's Academy is nice - +5 science and boostable by libraries, etc. - but it doesn't compare to using a few GS's to slingshot two ages forward for new policies/city-state benefits up to 50 turns in advance. Ditto the Great Engineer - the +3 production improvement pales in comparison to a rushed wonder, even if said wonders are unimaginative in this game (+3 production is only 1 more than a Steam Power Lumber Mill, anyway). So, while the tile improvements are a good idea, I just don't think they're typically worth it in most cases - Great People are almost always put to better use with their other abilities (Great Merchants are really the only exception).
I've gotten 5-6 crashes myself, but didn't feel like bashing them for that. I hope it will be ironed out soon.I would like to mention the crashes that I've experienced. While they don't limit my enjoyment of the game as soon as I get started - I've yet to have a crash actually affect a game in progress - they're a pain in the ass when starting up. Interrupting the opening movie seems to cause the problem. I can avoid the issue by letting the movie play out, but that's a waste of time.
Also, the problems with the AI can't be mentioned enough. It's basically just bad in general - it has no idea how to make war, the pathfinding is bad, and automating anything is a horrible idea. Everybody seems to have a story about how they learned not to use worker AI. I turned automation on, founded a new city about 20 hexes away for iron and luxuries, and my entire workforce decided to take a cross-country trip that included a scenic stop right next to a barb camp that I hadn't gotten around to crushing yet. I don't expect the AI to do things the same way I'd do them, but I would appreciate it if it would act more intelligent than an autistic 6-year-old.
One thing you didn't mention I do love about the game is the effort they made to make every civ unique. Each has a playstyle that is more or less uniquely its own. The Aztecs stay at war with the world and try to kill everything that walks for culture points, the Iroquois have perhaps the highest production potential of any civ and make great builders, Egyptians want to hoard wonders, Persia wants to stay in chain Golden Ages to overrun the world, etc. I love this - I think it's what they've tried to do since Civ 3, and while I did like the traits from the last two games I think they finally got it right. Babylon was also a worthy addition in my opinion and went a long way toward convincing me to consider future DLC civs.
The turns still take forever too.
There has to be a happy medium though. You've just described two ends of the spectrum. In the middle exists perfection.
*Cough* Statue of Liberty *Cough* Forbidden Palace *Cough*.
Capping at 30 xp is ridiculous. Basically, the game is saying that my units will never ever learn anything from combat with barbarians, even if it's barbarians who are just as strong as me, or stronger. I hated this in Civ4 too - so much so that I developed a dynamic XP gain system for my Civ4 mod, where units gain XP between 0.25 and 6XP a battle, depending on the odds they had, and the outcome of the battle.
Gameplay > Realism only works when it's not completely ridiculous. The trebuchet in Civ5 looks like it's made of wood, is animated like it's made of wood, and fights like it's made of wood. So why does it require Iron? Likewise, the Cannon looks like it's made of Iron, is animated like it uses iron cannonballs, and fights like a beast made of Iron. So what is it really made of? A super secret wood alloy?
[*]Increase Barbarian spawn rate for normal game, and raging barbarians
AGREE
[*]Require Pact of Cooperation for Research Agreements, Open Borders, Defensive Pacts
[*]If you have a pact of Cooperation, you can not declare war.
[*]f you cancel a pact of Cooperation, it takes a 5 turns (normal speed) cool down time before you can declare war.
[*]Pact of Secrecy Disallows trading with the victim player. If trade occurs, pact of Secrecy is broken (with diplomatic repercussions to the offending player)
AGREE COMPLETELY
[*]Better breakdown of unit maintenance costs in the Economic Advisor panel (unit by unit costs)
AGREE
[*]Allow City States to hold onto captured cities (instead of auto-razing them)
THEY WILL HOLD ONTO CAPITALS I THINK, BUT YEAH
[*]Increase Influence from Gifting Units (ATM, I can gift a unit costing 500 hurry gold, and get a measly 4 influence... WTF?)
AGREE, 1/4 AS EFFECTIVE AS STRAIGHT GOLD GIFTS? (Don't want to encourage exploits)
[*]AI seems to be terrible at defensive wars
[*]If The AI loses more units in the first 5 turns of a war, move to defensive positions
[*]The AI needs to learn the concept of reserve forces. It seems to put every unit at the front, which leaves none for defending if things go sour
TO BE FAIR PLAYERS GENERALLY DON"T HAVE A BACKUP PLAN EITHER IN MY EXPERIENCE, BUT AI DOES NEED TO GO INTO PANIC MODE MORE QUICKLY IF IT IS LOSING, START UNIT SPAM.
[*]AI needs to learn how to position and properly defend artillery.
HAHA, HAVE YOU PLAYED A GAME THAT DOES THIS?
[*]City Build Queue Hover for Units should display the additional unit maintenance you have to pay after youve trained the unit, just like it already displays the additional gold maintenance.
AGREE
[*]Trebuchets should not require iron
[*]Cannons should require Iron
AN ODD PAIRING, AGREE
[*]The AI likes building Harbors too much, even when their city is hooked up to their capital. (25% naval production is useless compared to the 3 maintenance it costs for the building)Harbors should give 50% Naval production - its worthless ATM. Maintenance is too high.
EXCELLENT IDEA
[*]If A unit movement path is blocked unexpectedly, Id prefer the unit to stop and ask for new orders than to try and find a path around it, especially since that path is usually stupid
ABSOLUTELY
[*]Auto-Exploring units should not be allowed to enter neutral city state territory. I have to manually explore now, out of fear of angering city states.
AGREE, (change to *should not be allowed to stop*, not "enter")
[*]Clicking on a unit should show its current path
AGREE
[*]AI Should not be embarking units when ranged or naval enemies are nearby
HAVE FUN TEACHING AN AI THIS, ALSO KNOW OF NO STRATEGY GAMES THAT GET THIS RIGHT
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[*]AI Should not be embarking units when ranged or naval enemies are nearby
HAVE FUN TEACHING AN AI THIS, ALSO KNOW OF NO STRATEGY GAMES THAT GET THIS RIGHT
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Play a couple more games. I had a rush of excitement after the first game. After 5 games, I am barely motivated to go back. It's sad and funny, because I WANT to like this game. I really really want to like it - but I barely played it at all this weekend. Watching House reruns was more exciting.
What bothers me is that the terrain and units can easily become indistinguishable. Unless you have 20/20 vision, and a eidetic memory, youre going to need to glance two or three times to figure out what unit that is. It doesnt matter that the unit is now rendered in 5000 polygons with state-of-the-art trifactoring, I want to see the unit. Instead of fixing the artwork - Firaxis opted to add a strategic view, which does technically fix the problem. I now understand why 2kGreg said he has played entire games in the strategic view - because the normal view just doesnt cut it. Strike for Firaxis.
Play a couple more games. I had a rush of excitement after the first game. After 5 games, I am barely motivated to go back.
That only treats the symptom, not the problem.