Pulled my first Civ V all-nighter: My biggest gripe with the game.

[RABicle]

Ok so, longtime Civ fans have probably sacrificed a few days off the end of their life by pulling an all too unhealthy 12 hours+ session or two. It's worth it, we know.

Anyway so. This is probably my first real splash with Civ V. I only picked it up during the last Steam sale or so, mostly because of the price but also the ravings that followed it's release on this forum amoung others. People's gripes with the AI, balance, bugs etc. are all well known and repeated ad nauseam. I want to talk about some of the good things before I get onto one aspect that just has to be removed.

So good things. Love hexes, love the size of the maps, love the huge sphere of influence of cities, love the emphasis on population growth. Like the new combat, especially how it feels much less random, I like ranged attacking and competing for physical control of land. I can even handle no longer being about to trade technology.

During my 2pm till 6am sesh I completed a game I had started earlier. Marathon speed, Chieftain difficulty, Huge continents map with default settings. As Ramses II I raped my way to a space race victory, wiping out every Kraut, Spaniard, Viking and Korean on the way. It was a bit too easy on chieftain. My opponents seems to have severe difficulties with expanding while I just rolled in an ever comically expanding pile of money, food and hammers. It didn't bother me that everyone hated me because lol, I was triple their score, they didn't dare wage war.

Time for a new game.

France.
Pangea, all settings set to random (feels like 4 billion years, random resources, high water lever, tropical map)
Huge map
22 AI
24 City Sates.
Marathon speed.

Went in aiming for a cultural victory.

Now right away I know that the settings I did, especially Pangea and max AI/Citystates contributed to this problem but seriously.
Seriously.
Denouncing has got to go.

I think I took some screenshots if anyone cares I'll upload them, but it was not uncommon for a turn to start and 8 AIs to randomly denounce each other. It seems to get worse as the game wore on.

It seemed cool at first. Everyone I met was friendly, everyone wanted to make public declarations of friendship and then compliment each other over what terrific friends they were. Then two people pledged to protect the same city state or something and it was on. People denouncing each other left right and centre, wars fought over who had the most penises etc. etc. A typical turn would begin with 8 or so civs approaching me about going to war with whoever was ranked 3rd or so on the points league. I'd politely decline every offer except a few who'd I'd rebuke. Then there would be the round of spontaneous denunciations over who treated who's pet dog the worst during the last ceremonial visit or whatever the . Then that Ramkhamhaeng would ask me if I want to be his boyfriend. I'd usually accept because he seems nice enough. I'd then get warnings from all his ex boyfriends about how I can't trust him and or informing me that we are no longer friends due to my mate's homosexuality. Next, a handful of drunken soldiers from nations that I'd foolishly signed open boarders agreements with will wage a mindless battle in the jungles of my territory. I'd be interrupted in my spectating of this by Gandhi, who would make some sort of brazen insult about vermin breeding and that he now has to contend with me and Rome, who I guess denounced him 40 years ago after he didn't live up to his word to denounce Catherine on the other side of the continent.

So with this ridiculous system of checks and balances governing the AI, I'm not surprised when enough denunciations go around that Suileman, drunk on the power that comes with being in last place, declares war on me, sends one Pikeman to die and then demands reparations.

Seriously what the . I am really impressed with this game but they need to build up the whole diplomacy system from scratch.

Right now though, playing in a non aggressive way, just holding onto my 4 cities, I don't know if I can be arsed completing the 1 and half mre social polices to get that utopia project.

 

[snarzberry]

On marathon I can imagine you're thinking about not playing on, what a nightmare on a huge map. First tip - huge marathon is for masochists only.

Diplomacy will take a while to get used to but you're right that your settings made it seem much worse. AIs in Civ 5 get angry when there's no room to expand in, when others settle in spots that they wanted to settle and when others settle close to them. If you max out the civs and CSs then there's just going to be a mega throw down about 'hey you're right up in my borders bro WTH!' 'that was my city location, don't settle near me again or else' etc... So they'll all be wanting to DoW and denounce each other and you left, right and center. They're mad, the world of that game is tailor made to make them mad. So you'll probably enjoy a game more with the standard number of civs and CS as the diplo is more balanced.

If you're a civ vet then you should just jump in at prince minimum and move up from there. Cultural victory on a huge map on marathon? I'd rather poke myself in the eye. I guess it could be fun once, but I doubt I'd have the fortitude to go back for a second game.

Try standard speed/settings domination victory, that's where civ 5 is at it's best.

Glad you took a plunge and gave civ 5 a go, we're only one major expansion away from a seriously good game.

 

[FeiLing]

Yeah, being asked for DoF by everyone every 2 turns and/or being denounced by everyone every 2 turns and/or being asked to surrender a war and giving away most of your things although you are actually dominating that war every 2 turns is beyond annoying.

People are pissed since the game is out about this, but developers don't seem to care. Like it was so hard to code them to no longer annoy you for a longer time if you refuse to something twice or trice.

PS: Having to renew Open Borders and Lux Trades every 30 turns is also annoying. Especially since you need to click on gold, then the number, then entering the value you know they pay at most and if they won't pay that much, you have to click once further for them to lower the offer, thereby often adding something from your side like open borders which you need to remove again, before asking them again for what they want until you finally get the amount of money from them they are willing to pay.
Why can't it just put 50 or 43 gold in there automatically (depending on their mood/status) when I want to trade them Open Borders for gold? Developers need to learn to stop wasting people's time by useless and boring all over the place and time endlessly repeating dumb tasks/actions.

 

[pxpdoo]

(One of the) biggest peeves I have with diplo is the Civ attitudes for / against me change very rapidly, pretty often. I have had Bismark (for example) threaten me / insult me / tell me to keep my borders away from him, and I tell him to suck rocks; his attitude could be Guarded or Furious or something - and then, like four or five turns later, with me not placating him in any way, he's Friendly toward me.

I've even experienced someone Furiously denouncing me, and - same thing - they're suddenly Friendly again. Even while their denouncement is still in effect! WTH?

Anyway, I concur. Diplo needs some housekeeping.

 

[snarzberry]

Why can't it just put 50 or 43 gold in there automatically (depending on their mood/status) when I want to trade them Open Borders for gold? Developers need to learn to stop wasting people's time by useless and boring all over the place and time endlessly repeating dumb tasks/actions.

Just put open borders on your side as an offer, then click their gold and ask 'what will you give me for this?' and 50 or 43 comes up right away. Thank me later.

 

[FeiLing]

Yeah I already learned today from a LP that I can hit that button and they will not just accept the standard 30 gold which were put in automatically but instead give me as much as they're supposed to. However they still might add in my open borders, horses/irons etc (more likely in lux trades) where I do have to repeat it at least once.
And it's still an unnecessary step in the first place.

 

[snarzberry]

they'll only add those horses and/or iron if they are valueless in their eyes. i.e. when they wouldn't pay you anything for them. I agree that is annoying when that happens, but they always agree to the deal without those extras anyway.

edit - what I mean is, if they ask you for open borders and gpt and resources etc, then they were never going to buy open borders from you in the first place. But if when you ask how much they'll pay for open borders they say 50 gold but you give me open borders and 4 horses, then they will agree to the deal sans horses, this only happens when they view the horses as having no value.

 

[Stealth Bumbler]

The more you play, the more the diplomacy makes "sense," insomuch as you learn the specifics of each leader's mental derangement. Ramkhamhaeng will screw up the diplomacy of any game that he is in; seriously the guy is way worse than Genghis Khan, Alexander, Bismark, or any other schizophrenic warmonger. At least with them you know where you stand; Ramkhamhaeng is a cold-blooded sociopath. He will ally every CS and DoF every other civ, then stab you in the back and make everyone think it was all your fault. You are correct that the denounce mechanic needs work, but it isn't quite as bad when Ramkhamhaeng isn't in the game.

 

[snarzberry]

Rammy is notable as he has the highest warmonger hate flavour in the game. This leads to him denouncing and plain disliking you earlier than the other civs if you generate war monger diplo penalties. He's often first to denounce and yeah he is a pain in the butt.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

Funny thing was how the somewhat silly pacts of secrecy actually created more manageable diplo scenario's, at least if someone you where friends with denounced you for whatever stupid reason the rest of the Civs would not hate you because you got denounced by a friend, the fixed x turns of friedship is also a problem as you can't get out of a souring friendship.

And yeah Rammy is a pretty big pain, I prefer to just murder him ASAP and be done with it, he tends to get some wonders so taking his cities can often be a pretty big boost, not to mention that he seldom has more then 3 cities total.

 

[FeiLing]

And yeah Rammy is a pretty big pain, I prefer to just murder him ASAP and be done with it, he tends to get some wonders so taking his cities can often be a pretty big boost, not to mention that he seldom has more then 3 cities total.

Interesting. In my games Siam is usually by far the civ with the most cities. Maybe I should just murder him early from now on too

 

[Derpy Hooves]

When you're dealing with Ramkamheanghang (or whatever his name is) murder is usually the best option, when I started playing I would usually turn on random personalities in the mistaken belief that the AI would do better if I didn't know from the start what their playbook was, perhaps that's where he went for tall turtling, in my last game he had about 5 cities, but I murdered him pretty fast and usually do so I rarely see a 'fullgrown' Siamese empire.
As far as flavors go, the diplomatic AI's can often be the most dangerous at the high levels, and often a bad idea to let live until the late game, when their strength (otherwise known as absurd amounts of gold) really shines, altough very little can withstand rocket artillery and nukes.
Warmongers are easy enough to deal with, they'll often forget tech and after the medieval period are no longer a threat.

 

[Rupe]

I seriously think that since the games AI was built from the ground up to play to win ( or so I have read) its working as intended. What could be harder to win then a game with constant random wars breaking out all over? With no stability you are always on guard.

For the guys that play the game to win and rack up a high score on high settings the game is fine and a dream. I personally like to play in a role play fashion in a sense. Civ 4 allowed this to some extent. This game is for the gamers. I'm more a history strategy guy.

Case in point your point on a weak civ sending in a single weak unit to attack then demanding things from you. That's either broke or by design to throw you off. So its either stupid or brilliant. But I am like you when it comes to settings. Large map marathon turns. Once they change the AI and or diplo to something more my taste I'll give it a crack again.

 

[gozpel]

Huge maps and max civs are not the way of learning the game.

Play casual Prince/King on Fractal, on standard speed to learn the ropes. You don't have to click enter forever and ever, you might just get some action. If you want something for your warriors and archers to do, just click raging barbs or attack a CS but not killing it.

But marathon and huge....must be a pain already just to get the first warrior/worker....too slow.

You can probably finish off 4-5 standard games in the time it takes you finish off one you behemoth games. Just a hint.

 

[steveg700]

Well, I hate to go into length on a topic that is probably only an irrate post or two away from being deemed a rant by a moderator, but...

Bear in that the game calls a Diplomatic Victory is actually an Economic Victory, because you just wind up paying off city-states. Civ's never actually need the goodwill of other civ's except insomuch as they don't want to get stepped on. Unfortunately, the AI will happily invite even that through its obnoxiousness.

In truth, the problem with diplomacy isn't merely that the AI civ's are all playing to win. The problem is that the AI doesn't try to win hard enough. When it shuts down relations with its competitors, that amounts to biting off its nose to spite its face. Just because my neighbors don't like me, that doesn't mean they should reject my gold or resources. Nor does it mean that they should disregard their research and trade agreeements by declaring war willy-nilly.

"Aha! I made that research agreement with you just to force you to lose gold before I declared war!"

"Well, you wated the same exact amount of gold as I did, dummy."

"SO??? What's important that I got you! I got you good!"

In addition to tweaking the AI to being a little more concerned with its own welfare than with the misery of others, something needs to be done about the relative cheapness of buying influence with CS's in the later stages of the game. Maybe the first sopol of the Patronage tree should be the one that causes all other civ's to lose influence more rapidly. Or perhaps buying influence should get more expensive as the game progresses.

 

[FeiLing]

Or perhaps buying influence should get more expensive as the game progresses.

It does
Actually at some point you CAN NOT buy anymore influence - you'll suddenly get 0 influence (game tells you so though). Usually though you'd have won at the point that happens.

I like though your idea of making the first policy decrease other people's influence faster instead of the finisher... as AI's rarely finish their tree's (any time soon). If they did, you'd have to be a lot more careful and actually make choices (instead of just taking them all). Of course then maybe it shouldn't be -33% but maybe like -20% at max for balance reasons.

 

[leckig]

Why can't it just put 50 or 43 gold in there automatically (depending on their mood/status) when I want to trade them Open Borders for gold? Developers need to learn to stop wasting people's time by useless and boring all over the place and time endlessly repeating dumb tasks/actions.[/QUOTE]

I approve this message!!

 

[PieceOfMind]

Why can't it just put 50 or 43 gold in there automatically (depending on their mood/status) when I want to trade them Open Borders for gold? Developers need to learn to stop wasting people's time by useless and boring all over the place and time endlessly repeating dumb tasks/actions.

Agreed. This is why interface and ergonomics improvements are the main things I like to see in patch notes.

 

[Tabarnak]

Just put open borders on your side as an offer, then click their gold and ask 'what will you give me for this?' and 50 or 43 comes up right away. Thank me later.

What is really annoying is when they add some ressurces of your own, that you don't want to include, in the current deal.

 

[TyBoy]

That is something that has been annoying me since Civ3. If there's not going to be any actual negotiations involved in the trade table then pretending there is is just annoying. I know that there is a maximum amount that the computer is willing to give for the things I want to trade. There's no diplomatic/negotiation penalty associated with me lowering my request by 1 gold over and over again until I hit that maximum amount exactly. It's just really annoying to do so and I'd like to speed things along. The button in 5 that evens up the trade is the right idea except it won't always up the payment if the amount I'm asking is less than what the computer is willing to pay and, as you said, the computer is prone to adding things to both sides of the trade, which kind of defeats the point. There should be a check box to lock out an entire side of the trade from being changed along with little check boxes next to each item to keep them from getting added to or removed from the trade. Then there would just be a maximize button that would even the trade as much as possible within the restrictions. Either that or they could just reveal the invisible gold value of every item in the trade window and keep a running total of each side at the bottom.

If they actually wanted to try and make negotiation a part of the game I'd be open to that. I'm not sure a turn based game would be the best place for it, but at least there would be a reason for the randomness and not just a really annoying place to try and add some immersion. I remember way back when I had this game called "Theme Park" and when you had to renegotiate your worker salaries you had a timer and you would extend your hand to meet the other side's hand. The more you extended you were when they met the worse the deal you would get but if they failed to meet at all before the timer ran out then there would be no deal at all until negotiations came up again (in that game it meant your workers went on strike, which really hosed you).