Review of CIV5 for fanatics

[Bibor]

Civilization is a fine franchise that started on Amiga (I subjectively deny the existence of PC gaming until the introduction of "Voodoo 1" graphics card).
It had a brilliant concept which Sid Meier even more brilliantly implemented into all of his games:
1. have a "thing" and make that "thing" able to produce "stuff"
(city in CIV, colony in Pirates, station in Railroad Tycoon)
2. make the player improve "things" by manipulating "stuff"
(dance with Guv'ner's daugher, build a restaurant, make a unit)
3. Give the player a meaning (the "why"); i.e. why is it good to get better "things" by the means of "stuff".
4. have a common "glue" that holds everything together (crew members in Pirates!, money in Railroad Tycoon etc.)

These concepts are simple and brilliant. Sid's games are entertaining and intelligent. I love Sid's games!

A few days ago I watched a 60-minute clip Sid giving a speech on GDC2010 about computer games development. He's not much of an entertainer (although he tries to be forthcoming and funny). He also said some scary things, things like this: "people dislike giving up something to gain something else". Well, that's the dumbest thing I heard in a long time. And may lead to disasters.

Let me comment on Civilization V now.


1. THE MAP

The graphical representation looks nice. The hex grid was also a very good choice, in my opinion. The terrain really looks more organic realistic this way. Actually, it reminds me of a graphically very advanced People's General. Which is a good thing.

The new unit movement speeds and the "one unit per tile" rule were also a good move. I love Panzer General style of strategic gameplay. I finally have the feeling I'm defending (attacking) a country, not a sum of cities.

Resources also got a very good revamp: having an abundance of food and production resources makes much more sense then having 1 wheat resource in an area of 2000 sq. miles, or a single horse found on a tundra hill making you able to build an unlimited number of chariots.

Cultural borders that pop hex by hex was also a very good move. National borders look and feel more organic diverse. This is further strenghened by the fact that cities can now work tiles 3 hexes away, so cities lost their "fat cross" uniformity and can, I don't know, spread along the coast, for example.

To sum it all up, when I play this game I feel the map is fully organic interactive, strategically important and that every single hex in my empire has a meaning.

2. CITIES

In previous CIVs we built cities that (eventually) used all or most of their tiles in the "fat cross". I'm not sure how this will in CIV5, because some city improvements now act as terrain improvements. I guess it will be okay, but can't really comment on this yet (haven't had the chance to test it).

The city screen is simply horrible. When I open the city screen, I get... well... nothing. I mean, it's all there, but isn't. I can see the worked tiles, but I can't. I can see the production, but I have to look twice. Yes, there are buttons for everything (and most of them are really good in functionality), but the city screen itself is unreadable and barren. Why, what was wrong with hammers and coins? Are green/blue/yellow dots really better? NO THEY ARE NOT! Alpha Centauri had perfect icons, go check it out CIV5 developers!

3. THE ECONOMY

Okay, what the hell? Remember the "glue" thing I was talking about? The one thing that holds the whole system together? Well, they killed it. Lets wind the clocks back a year (TM by Joker). In Civ4 we had an economy based on commerce, production based on hammers and population numbers based on food. The economy was the backbone of research, support, culture, espionage and everything not-hammer and not-food. By manipulating the tax slider and by improving, changing and optimizing the economy, people were able to radically change (and thus adapt) their civilization to the current state of affairs (war, peace, golden age, space race etc.).

In civ5 we have research, gold per turn and culture. All separate entities. Which is okay, for a real-time strategy. But this is not an RTS, this is supposed to be a turn-based empire management game. A game in which tax, inflation and allocation of governmental funds should be a given. Even if we can get used to this, I still can't find a good reason to remove the "glue". Ever.
Imagine playing Railroad Tycoon and being forced to pay for railroad tracks in "red dollars", for stations in "blue dollars" and for stocks in "green dollars". Devs, it simply doesn't work. It has been proven over and over again for over three decades now.


4. DIPLOMACY AND CITY STATES

City states were probably the best addition to the Civilization series. The actual implementation might be weird a bit (and will be pobably modified in the future), but it really adds to the game a new dimension, to feel a bit more organic multifaceted and complex. The diplomacy also seems to be going in the right direction, once they re-introduce something that will enable us to get a glimpse of the global diplomatic situation. As things are right now, the diplomacy feels more like CIV1 than CIV4.

5. CONCLUSION

If you're completely new to the Civilization franchise, this game will be awesome. My guess is that this will be the best-selling CIV game of all time. If you like Panzer General style of strategic warfare and are willing to ignore/embrace all the RTS elements they introduced, you'll love it.

And that's the thing. CIV5 is a computer game. CIV4 was more than that. To beat CIV4 on anything but the lowest levels (and especially at Deity) you had to hack the game. You had to look into the code, for Christ's sakes. People ran statistics, made diagrams, curves, mathematical explanations speading over hundreds of posts. Learning how to beat CIV4 on Deity was like learning for a hard exam.

Oh yes, sure, I agree with Sid Meier. His games became too sophisticated for six figure sales. But maybe that's why they were played for years and years, instead of being deinstalled after 2 months. Guess he did "give up something to gain something else" after all, didn't he? Oh wait, people playing computer games (research has shown) have special mental, emotional and cognitive responses while in a virtual environment. LOL!

 

[geebo]

Couldn't agree more. Its Civ but it's not… it just doesn't seem to difficult to me atleast concerning the economics. In Civ IV it was difficult to keep your economy booming. In 5 its simple gaining surplus money and happiness. I am enjoying my first 100s of turns. But its deff missing something. Oh yep it's that glue thing!

 

[smackthewise]

I am with you on all these points, I'm only 23 so I am no old schooler per-say but I am not in favour of the way in which the game has moved, especially in regard to Diplomacy.

I will wait till I give the full game a good run through before making up my full opinion but I was hoping they would have taken a page from the B.U.G mod for Civ IV, the method in which it laid out exactly what you need to know and where to find it was brilliant.

I've got my fingers crossed my many concerns will be ironed out in patches/expansions or such, but it may just be that I am no longer the Civ target audience.

 

[PawelS]

In civ5 we have research, gold per turn and culture. All separate entities. Which is okay, for a real-time strategy. But this is not an RTS, this is supposed to be a turn-based empire management game. A game in which tax, inflation and allocation of governmental funds should be a given. Even if we can get used to this, I still can't find a good reason to remove the "glue". Ever.
Imagine playing Railroad Tycoon and being forced to pay for railroad tracks in "red dollars", for stations in "blue dollars" and for stocks in "green dollars". Devs, it simply doesn't work. It has been proven over and over again for over three decades now.

I don't understand what it has to do with being an RTS or not. It's a design decision that makes the game more interesting in my opinion, because it forces you to plan ahead, and increases the complexity. In Civ4 it doesn't really matter if your cities are good at producing gold or science, because you can exchange one for the other by manipulating the slider. In Civ5 if you need more gold, you have to build gold-producing buildings and improvements, and if you need more science - build some libraries or universities. It's good that you can't switch from a gold-specialized economy to a scientific superpower in one turn. Also you can "exchange" gold to culture by buying tiles, but it doesn't affect the social policies, which is a good thing for me too.

 

[Bibor]

I don't understand what it has to do with being an RTS or not. It's a design decision that makes the game more interesting in my opinion, because it forces you to plan ahead, and makes the game more complex. In Civ4 it doesn't really matter if your cities are good at producing gold or science, because you can exchange one for the other by manipulating the slider. In Civ5 if you need more gold, you have to build gold-producing buildings and improvements, and if you need more science - build some libraries or universities. It's good that you can't switch from a gold-specialized economy to a scientific superpower in one turn. Also you can "exchange" gold to culture by buying tiles, but it doesn't affect the social policies, which is a good thing for me too.

Every civilization "plans ahead", that I agree upon. Say, you plan ahead for 100 turns. You build libraries, universities etc. Science is booming, commerce generates surpuls, people are entertained etc. And then war happens. Improvements get ruined, resources cut off, maybe you were a bit backward in military techs etc. The economy shifts to fuel the war.

Yes, the biggest tech advances happened in the 20th century happened from 1940 to 1945. Yes, countries were never that bankrupt as after WW2. Yes, production was never stronger than during WW2. Yes, the recovery was never as fast as after WW2. All this is mimicked in CIV4 by switching to Communism or Theocracy, shifting the slider to tech etc. What am I going to switch in CIV5? Worked tiles from trading camps to mines? Hm...

I call it an RTS element because in RTS-es there are "separate resources" that need to be combined for an effect and there's no "universal currency" or "glue" as I call it. In majority of other games there is (from WOW gold to SMAC energy).

 

[12agnar0k]

I don't think beating diety will be any easier this time around, I played a diety game on the demo, and they expanded 2 too 3 cities and had armies in the 10's before my lonely scout saw their base.

I mean I was a little surprised no one attacked me, they ignored my puny 1 city I was hiding in and busied themselfs with each other, by the time I had 4 techs researched they all had over 8 ^>^.

Diety will again be mathematical precision to win.

 

[Silv Something]

I believe CiV will be a great game (I don't have it yet) and that the how much more organic balanced it is is a great improvement. I count on many hours of fun. The graphics also look so much more organic natural.

 

[Technoviking]

I've just started playing, but I must admit that I feel a bit lost in the whole diplomacy department. At first glance it seems very hard to figure out who hates whom, without someone just walking up to you and asking you whether you want to ally against someone else in particular.

But yeah, I'm at the super-newbie level right now, so maybe I'm missing something.

 

[PawelS]

I think changing production in cities from "civilian" buildings to military units and buildings, and setting the research to war-related techs is enough to simulate "shifting the economy to the war mode" with the (low) level of realism that Civ games have.

The "separate resources" are found in some TBS games, for example the HoMM series. I don't play RTS games these times, but I remember some of them where there is only one resource (Spice in Dune 2, IIRC).

 

[Bibor]

Diety will again be mathematical precision to win.

The question is can you min/max (hack) your game in such a fashion that you get those "great leaps forward" that people used to beat deity (tech trading, bribing for war, espionage, liberalism slingshot, abusing poor AI handling of stacks)?

 

[Gorey]

The city screen is simply horrible. When I open the city screen, I get... well... nothing. I mean, it's all there, but isn't. I can see the worked tiles, but I can't. I can see the production, but I have to look twice. Yes, there are buttons for everything (and most of them are really good in functionality), but the city screen itself is unreadable and barren. Why, what was wrong with hammers and coins? Are green/blue/yellow dots really better? NO THEY ARE NOT! Alpha Centauri had perfect icons, go check it out CIV5 developers!

Amen, the city screen is horrible.

And the tile yield icons are obtrusive and idiotic. In fact.. ALL of the icons are crappy. Why does everything have to be squished into a colored circle? Even most of the tech icons are hard to figure out with a quick glance. They all just look like circles with random colors in them. Atleast with squares you get more pixel area to draw in.

I want my green beakers, money bags, blue hammers, and bread icons back thank you. Hopefully someone mods them back in. I used to be able to play an entire game without ever turning yield icons off.. now i can't stand to have them on.

 

[Buccaneer]

Your first post brought back great memories as I spent years in the 1990s playing Sid's games, esp. Pirates! Gold and RRT1.

 

[digitalcraft]

I definitely have to agree. This is civilization for non fanatics. Its not as lobotomized as the 360 Civ game ways, but it feels like so much is missing. The things that made Civilization what it was were taken out in order to appeal to a casual audience.

Isn't the standard game sequel model these days to take out half the content, slap some pretty graphics on it and call it an 'upgrade though'?

Honestly, in the end, it's not a bad game. It's pretty, has some fun gameplay and some new concepts, it's just that I feel thy took it the wrong direction. It's not the game I'm going to be tinkering with for 4 years to come, trying new quirky ways of surviving and coming out on top.

By the way, how is the mod support for Civ5? Did they do the whole python back end, we'll help you make additions, thing? I sure hope so. If it had great mod support, that's something that could make this game survive the test of time, i.e. this game just as the core language for people to express their unique content.

 

[Tylerryan79]

Amen on the city screen! I too always played with icons on, now I have it so only when civilians are selected they appear, it works. The city screen is a mess though, plus I have to shift the screen around 50 times just so I can see everything!

 

[Unionfield]

Honestly, in the end, it's not a bad game. It's pretty, has some fun gameplay and some new concepts, it's just that I feel thy took it the wrong direction. It's not the game I'm going to be tinkering with for 4 years to come, trying new quirky ways of surviving and coming out on top.

QFT.

r/

 

[goodolarchie]

I found it funny you used organic so much, that's exactly the way had described in a long thread I was writing when my video crashed

I think it's still a bit too early to tell. It feels very different from Civ IV which I personally wasn't prepared for and may place it in a harsh light. I'm still trying to figure out most of the changes. As a 50/50 Deity IV player I feel like an idiot in Prince, but all of the old strategies are gone. No more oracle/Lib slingshots or drafting/whipping rushes... rush buy now permanent.


Coming from Normal/Epic in Civ 4 -> Epic in Civ 5: costs have since skyrocketed, so now constructing buildings feels like making a national wonder, and wonders (50 turns in my best Prod city? Ouch). Units take about 4 times as long too. Without tech trades or espionage there are only a few ways of gauging the enemy's progress.

I really get annoyed at some of the stupid GUI extras, like the notification bubbles / turn order bar on the right. I don't like not being able to adjust a tech slider either. The closest you can get to that is moving a citizen from a *cough* commerce tile to being a scientist specialist.

I'm still not sure if I prefer civics vs Social Policies. I do like that culture accumulation accumulates to significant bonuses (similar to leader traits in IV), but my concern is that there will be one or two specific paths that are greatly better than the others, so you will almost certainly not deviate from them in order to win Deity (not cheating, just cheap). Plus, having them accumulate or unlock just feels like an RTS than a turn-based game.

I think after a few months of modding or perhaps an expansion, the new features will outweigh the deprecated ones that I currently miss.

Long intro video sucks when it keeps crashing too.

 

[Panzeh]

I don't know, the idea of gold as 'glue' seems to take it out of the game as something disposable, the mortar you can put in between your bricks. It's more directly usable, not just part of a slider. You accumulate gold as a matter of fact, and not merely as part of a gimmick. The decision point is how you use this gold. I do agree that it seems like a lot more tightly designed, it's tougher to get a break away lead or use the AI's foibles to win high difficulty settings, but we haven't really seen the game in and out to see what the foibles are or the loose ends of the system are yet.

 

[Bibor]

I don't know, the idea of gold as 'glue' seems to take it out of the game as something disposable, the mortar you can put in between your bricks. It's more directly usable, not just part of a slider. You accumulate gold as a matter of fact, and not merely as part of a gimmick. The decision point is how you use this gold. I do agree that it seems like a lot more tightly designed, it's tougher to get a break away lead or use the AI's foibles to win high difficulty settings, but we haven't really seen the game in and out to see what the foibles are or the loose ends of the system are yet.

No, culture and gold in CIV5 are not gimmicks. Far from it. But you cannot sacrifice them for the most important thing: tech pace. And you cannot replace them either. Both of these "traits" of gold are bad.

To rephrase my point: There should always be an universal value that can be traded (in cases of emergency) for everything else, even if the use-value you get out of the trade it is not good. Or to be precise, yes, maybe your commerce buildings aren't worth a dime during your 100% research periods, but you are in a hurry. Or to use a real life example: Sometimes buying the Unreal 3 engine is better than spending 5 years and a bunch of resources just to develop it yourself.

 

[Lancor]

Yes, the biggest tech advances happened in the 20th century happened from 1940 to 1945.

Not true and a common misunderstanding.

Science only was forced to invent practical applications for their already existant theories. Only a hand full of projects were forced with massive investment of money and ressources.
The actual advancement in the war mongering countries were set back heavily during the war.

Peace is the time when science prospers. During peace you got a much higher overall investment in science and thus more overall advancement, not just a few technologies with practical applications.

Yes, countries were never that bankrupt as after WW2. Yes, production was never stronger than during WW2. Yes, the recovery was never as fast as after WW2. All this is mimicked in CIV4 by switching to Communism or Theocracy, shifting the slider to tech etc. What am I going to switch in CIV5? Worked tiles from trading camps to mines? Hm...

You spend your peace earned money in buying these units and barracks you now need -> your country goes bankrupt.
You did not save some money? Well, poor you. What did you do with it, when there was no war? <,<

3. THE ECONOMY

Okay, what the hell? Remember the "glue" thing I was talking about? The one thing that holds the whole system together? Well, they killed it. Lets wind the clocks back a year (TM by Joker). In Civ4 we had an economy based on commerce, production based on hammers and population numbers based on food. The economy was the backbone of research, support, culture, espionage and everything not-hammer and not-food. By manipulating the tax slider and by improving, changing and optimizing the economy, people were able to radically change (and thus adapt) their civilization to the current state of affairs (war, peace, golden age, space race etc.).

In civ5 we have research, gold per turn and culture. All separate entities. Which is okay, for a real-time strategy. But this is not an RTS, this is supposed to be a turn-based empire management game. A game in which tax, inflation and allocation of governmental funds should be a given. Even if we can get used to this, I still can't find a good reason to remove the "glue". Ever.
Imagine playing Railroad Tycoon and being forced to pay for railroad tracks in "red dollars", for stations in "blue dollars" and for stocks in "green dollars". Devs, it simply doesn't work. It has been proven over and over again for over three decades now.

You tried to analyze the fabrics of the game so hard, yet you fail to see, that there is still the glue we had all along back from Civ I to today: your empire, your cities and citizen. They are still there and awaiting your orders to shift along your command. Just because Civ IV created another layer of "glue" which not one of the titles in the series resembles this strong, and this was taken away now, does it mean the "glue" was taken away? No it was only made thinner to be more fragile and unforgiving, more vulnerable to your strategy.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

Every civilization "plans ahead", that I agree upon. Say, you plan ahead for 100 turns. You build libraries, universities etc. Science is booming, commerce generates surpuls, people are entertained etc. And then war happens. Improvements get ruined, resources cut off, maybe you were a bit backward in military techs etc. The economy shifts to fuel the war.

Don't make me laugh.

I dare ya to try convincing me that spending 10 seconds making a few mouse clicks here and there to chance civic policies is suppose to represent some sort of a realistic "shift" from a normal economy to a war economy.

You can mention as many real world examples of countries quickly changing their economy/country as you want, but at the end of the day it still doesn't change the fact that 10-30 seconds worth of mouse clicks isn't any more enjoyable as a gameplay mechanic then whatever Civ 5 is using right now to simulate that.