RFC players' first impression of Civ 5

[Elenhil]

BTW, lookie-lookie: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385112
Here's a way to check whether the approx. 2x scale is actually playable.

I personally began to have doubts whether it would be feasible to further increase distances to accommodate for 1upt without speeding up movement and border expansion. And even then, wouldn't the gameworld be just too large? Wouldn't logistics become an even greater pain in the backside and military excursions completely tedious?

 

[blizzrd]

How did you play on a real world map with each civ to his historical place????

If you had read this thread, I posted the answer earlier. The maps are called True Start Location Earth Maps, accessible via the MODS section of the main menu. They come in various sizes from small to huge.

I recommend.

 

[Leoreth]

@Elenhil:
RFC5 would become awesome if we could play on a world map that has Europe at the scale this map has. I mean look at that Italy! And there's Vienna and Budapest!

 

[Elenhil]

But will it be fun to have to manually move your army a hundred hexes or more one unit at a time to attack, say, China?

 

[Leoreth]

No, 1upt is still poorly thought-out crap that has no place in global strategy.

 

[admtanaka]

No, 1upt is still poorly thought-out crap that has no place in global strategy.

I don't have a problem with 1upt in theory, but wow, it doesn't look like the AI can handle it all. I laughed out loud today reading the Civ 5 S&T forum - there's a thread with deity screenshots where literally every AI tile has a unit on it and no one can move!

 

[KMRblue1027]

I still like Civ2 style stacking it was very dangerous but possible. Limited stacking would have worked too.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I don't have a problem with 1upt in theory, but wow, it doesn't look like the AI can handle it all. I laughed out loud today reading the Civ 5 S&T forum - there's a thread with deity screenshots where literally every AI tile has a unit on it and no one can move!

Like a brawl in a bar--everybody should fight the person next to them.

 

[Rhye]

I've tried the true startling locations Earth map.
Needless to say, it's unplayable. Too many choke points, and too small Europe (Italy is 1 tile wide).
Looks like we'll have to wait not only the release of modding tools, but also
some optimization, because 1UPT is supposed to work well with large maps. I thought that dual core optimization came made possible larger maps, but this wasn't the case. It's a shame, because I like the generic idea of 1UPT.

I don't have a problem with 1upt in theory, but wow, it doesn't look like the AI can handle it all. I laughed out loud today reading the Civ 5 S&T forum - there's a thread with deity screenshots where literally every AI tile has a unit on it and no one can move!

That's the same exact result of the 1UPT mod I made for RFC.

Sigh, why didn't they hire Rhye?

Actually, hiring Pacifist would have been more useful. Or not actually hiring. You can see in the manual that many testers from Apolyton and CFC were used once again. Pacifist would have been brought some very useful comments, as a tester.

 

[blizzrd]

I've tried the true startling locations Earth map. Needless to say, it's unplayable. Too many choke points, and too small Europe (Italy is 1 tile wide).

I played as Russia and it worked fine for me. Europe has too many Mountains though, I agree it is too small.

 

[admtanaka]

In reading some of the angst in the forums, I wonder if Firaxis even bothered listening to playtesters. Examples:

How simple would it be to allow worker stacking?

Or to prevent rival units in your territory through OB agreements from blockading you?

Or to have bulbing priorities for GSs that prevents you from saving 4 for use at the same time. S&T forum has a thread with a guide to 1500BC riflemen. This is particularly frustrating because obviously someone thought of this while making Civ 4!

Or from allowing multiple upgrades to a single unit from city ruins. There's another thread with a 3500BC (!!) cho-ku-no. If you see that guy in multiplayer, I think a "gg" is in order.

I can't imagine these things were not reported. Or perhaps, what else was broken that took their attention?

 

[Dargoth]

I've tried the true startling locations Earth map.
Needless to say, it's unplayable. Too many choke points, and too small Europe (Italy is 1 tile wide).
Looks like we'll have to wait not only the release of modding tools, but also
some optimization, because 1UPT is supposed to work well with large maps. I thought that dual core optimization came made possible larger maps, but this wasn't the case. It's a shame, because I like the generic idea of 1UPT.




That's the same exact result of the 1UPT mod I made for RFC.



Actually, hiring Pacifist would have been more useful. Or not actually hiring. You can see in the manual that many testers from Apolyton and CFC were used once again. Pacifist would have been brought some very useful comments, as a tester.

Hey Rhye

Was just playing around with the world builder and found a few things out

1) You can import the map you used for Rhyes of Civilization (Civ4) into Civ5 (Im in the process of setting the map up with correct starting cities for all civs and city states

2) You can create pocket empires with City states! I found this out by accident if you use the same City state in the city drop down menu then those cites are linked. For example I used Almaty as the basis for 3 city states I created Madrid, Lisbon and Carthage and when I loaded up the game all 3 cities got angry with me when I trespassed near Lisbon. The only problem I could see is that it keeps the original city name for the "Civilizations name" ie I was warned that I was trespassing near the Almaty city of Lisbon

 

[SalmonSoil]

I would recommend an enlarged europe and something to allow unit stacking outside of combat. Like you could stack units but they all suffer the same damage that the 'head' unit suffers when the stack is attacked, so you want to seperate them for warfare. But maybe a mechanic which isn't so succeptible to ambushes would be better.

 

[Rhye]

oh I didn't notice the tools are already out.
Good to see that the converter does its job without distorting the map too much. However, the RFC map converted can't be released as it is, although it's better than the standard one.
There are many details to correct and some improvements I'd like to do. Unfortunately, there doesn's seem to be any copy and paste function, and this makes things more annoying

 

[Elenhil]

Now that the tools are there, same question: what is the absolute maximum map size possible? Is it larger than Huge? If it isn't, I fear we'll have to stick with Europe because of 1upt scale demands.

 

[Dargoth]

oh I didn't notice the tools are already out.
Good to see that the converter does its job without distorting the map too much. However, the RFC map converted can't be released as it is, although it's better than the standard one.
There are many details to correct and some improvements I'd like to do. Unfortunately, there doesn's seem to be any copy and paste function, and this makes things more annoying

Civ 5 does a couple of weird things to the map it rubbed out Panama and Costa Rica so Central and South America aren't connected and put a few lakes in some strange places

It also removes all the Copper and Clams as they don't exist in civ5 and the pearl resource has to be added as the civ4 map doesn't have them

 

[travathian]

Now that the tools are there, same question: what is the absolute maximum map size possible? Is it larger than Huge? If it isn't, I fear we'll have to stick with Europe because of 1upt scale demands.

AFAIK there is no map size limit in Civ4 or Civ5. If by a practical limit based on available computing power and player tolerance for thumb twiddling while waiting for their turn, well, who knows at this point. I am really hoping Firaxis does some AI tweaking and code optimization in the next few patches that would give a better idea of this, cause as of right now I can't imagine anything the size of the RFC map in Civ5 being playable.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Or to have bulbing priorities for GSs that prevents you from saving 4 for use at the same time. S&T forum has a thread with a guide to 1500BC riflemen. This is particularly frustrating because obviously someone thought of this while making Civ 4!

I think having multiple prerequisites (like RFC's guilds and compass for optics instead of just compass for optics) would be in order.
What do scientists have to do with aesthetic techs anyway? (Unless you count perspective and rediscovery of the classical style as a "scientific" advance)

 

[MrBanana]

I think that other then the 1UPT rule (which I like but it won't work on the Earth maps), Civ5 is naturally better for RFC. WHen the tools come out, maps can get huge (I've heard there isn't a fixed restriction), culture makes more sense in a historical view (not jst expanding ina circle), encampent improve barbs, city states could (not nessacrily wil) replace independents, and hexagons make a more natural world maps. Plus the incentive for having a small empire are there, so Siam could actually be strong.

I don't really like Civ4's created maps; I ony really played RFC and RFC modmods after a certian point. Civ5 is much more fun when starting in a random map, and it creates more realistic ones too. You know the changes Rhye made to ther mpa script regarding deserts and mountians? Civ5 comes with that. You get hilly areas, plains, big deserts. SOmething I haven't seen a lot of people notice, the map generator is a lot better. ONe game with Greece I started in a plain, with a river. To my immediate west and east was more plain, south was wtlands and the wet INdia, and There was a desert with my river cutting through it. ANother desert was a fair bt east, and North was grassland and mountain.

The game is a bit slow and buggy, I'll admit, but most of the complaints I've seen are just things they added in Civ4 aren't in Civ5, and realism things which I honestly dont care about. The economy is much better: gold is now used for upgrades, diplomacy, purchasing, city staes relations (give them money, they give you stuff), maintence. Reasearch is nnow based on population and buildings.

Complaints about complexity make even more pissed off: complexity doesn't always make a better game. Not to mention Civ5 has much more tactical depth, and culture, gold, and policies are more complex. hey simplified some areas, and made other areas more complex. Plus, other civs war agaist each other better, and you aren't forced to expand to compete in the harder difficulties.

AP, maybe try playing on King or higher, then I'll listen to your complaints about difficulty. CIv5 isn't for everyone, and the people who cliam Firaxis ripped them off are being foolish: they made a new game, different from Civ cottage spam and REX the sword 4. They were very upfront about how the game works.

 

[Úmarth]

Actually, hiring Pacifist would have been more useful. Or not actually hiring. You can see in the manual that many testers from Apolyton and CFC were used once again. Pacifist would have been brought some very useful comments, as a tester.

If you don't mind me asking, were you asked to be a beta tester? I was surprised not to see your name in that list (and a little disappointed, because if you had been we might gotten RFC5 a few weeks earlier than otherwise ).