Should I buy Civ5?

[Hail]

@blasto

Well, it is complex, be sure of that. But IMHO a lot of the perceived complexity is to understand what of the plentiful intel the UI gives is important for you at the moment. If you learn that ( a big if ), the rest of the mechanics is quite simple: it resumes into having enough stability, armies and goodwill of the neighbours and in good use of your diplomats, merchants, etc while not getting into badboy terrain ( when you get there it becomes similar to what happens when you capture too much CS in Civ V )

do not know about EU3, but Vic2 is a game about twenty sliders.
not my idea of fun. for me there is no feeling of achievement.

 

[JohnnyW]

do not know about EU3, but Vic2 is a game about twenty sliders.
not my idea of fun. for me there is no feeling of achievement.

EU3 has 5 sliders for research, 1 for stability, and 1 for how much of your monthly income to mint. It's very manageable. There's also 6(?) sliders that you can only move once (one of those) every 10+ years, so I don't count those. And I've never played Vic2.

 

[Yesod]

@blasto

Well, it is complex, be sure of that. But IMHO a lot of the perceived complexity is to understand what of the plentiful intel the UI gives is important for you at the moment. If you learn that ( a big if ), the rest of the mechanics is quite simple: it resumes into having enough stability, armies and goodwill of the neighbours and in good use of your diplomats, merchants, etc while not getting into badboy terrain ( when you get there it becomes similar to what happens when you capture too much CS in Civ V )

Yeah, I just got my copy last week and I think I'm finally ready to start a game. Watching other people's games, it doesn't seem near as complex as Civ, just complex in a different manner.

If you break these problems down into Strategy, Tactics, and Logistics, I'd say EU III is played entirely on a Strategy level. Civ is almost entirely a game of micromanaging and logistics. After being exposed to EU III, I see now that the problems I had with Civ were due to the fact that it's rooted in the click-a-tile type of gameplay that inspired RTS games like Warcraft and Starcraft. You could almost call it a extreme mod of Command & Conquer. The fact that this Civ V game revolved around 1UPT is case and point. Personally I'm more of a higher level thinker so the realization that Civ really isnt a true "grand strategy game" was huge. I stil love it, though maybe a regression to it's RTS unit combat origins was inevitable.

On another note, looking back at Civ V I'm beginning to acknowledge the massive amount of improvements they've made. I think they even trumped BTS as far as positive improvements go. City States (once done right), barbarian encampments, hexagonal tiles, more diversification (extra UU's and UB's), are just a few. I think there's a possibility that Civ VI (Civ V can't possible be fixed; they should just port it to the consoles and start a new branch) could roll these changes in and present a game that's along the lines of the regular Civ series with a lot of improvements. It's sad that we're gonna have to wait another 5 years for it, though.

I think the real impetus for all this was that video game consoles are leaving PC's in the dust as far as gaming market share goes. Gone are the days that the PC version had 10x better graphics. You knew they wanted to dumb the game down for a console port when that Civ:Revolution came out. This Civ V actually has a lot of those interface changes. It's like they deserted us to tailor the game to people dumb enough to buy a strategy game for X-Box...

 

[vsipinen]

I like to play Civilization 5 and I think that if you want to play another Civilization game after the previous ones, you should by it. There are many people complaining about severall issues and there are definitely problems in the game. I have not encountered any crash bugs ever, but I think some improvements are needed (for example in diplomacy which indeed is very poor). However in my opinion the Civilization 5 is good game (not perfect).

 

[Ricci]

...
If you break these problems down into Strategy, Tactics, and Logistics, I'd say EU III is played entirely on a Strategy level. Civ is almost entirely a game of micromanaging and logistics.
...

I can't entirely get what are you trying to say here. Micromanaging is just a mean to achieve, in due time, certain strategy, or get closer to it. And logistics might take a part in a strategic course for instance. So, being civ a game heavy in logistics and micromanagement (micro actually goes to the extent the player chooses to) doesn't exclude the strategy from it, not a bit.
The strategic design in civ games is huge, planning an entire empire/game from scratch; even so in Shafer's five which, though made more shallow overall, has been taken away specially many tactical elements, making it more strategical than tactical compared to previous installments.

EUIII ought to be a purely strategical game for what I hear, having no tactical features (i.e for the moment) and where every decision you make has mediate to long term repercusions and responds to a foreseen plan. On the other hand a game like DOOM is purely tactical, almost every move and click you make has an immediate purpose.

 

[Brian Shanahan]

I like to play Civilization 5 and I think that if you want to play another Civilization game after the previous ones, you should by it. There are many people complaining about severall issues and there are definitely problems in the game. I have not encountered any crash bugs ever, but I think some improvements are needed (for example in diplomacy which indeed is very poor). However in my opinion the Civilization 5 is good game (not perfect).

The problem with your analysis, though, is that those of us who have played previous installments and liked them, are more likely to not like the current game than those who are new to it. It may be a good place to start, especially if you have no experience of 4X TBS, but it is definitely not an improvement on any of the versions of Civ 4 (except graphically, and I'd gladly go back to Civ 3 graphics if it came with an improved on civ 4 game).

 

[Yesod]

I can't entirely get what are you trying to say here. Micromanaging is just a mean to achieve, in due time, certain strategy, or get closer to it. And logistics might take a part in a strategic course for instance. So, being civ a game heavy in logistics and micromanagement (micro actually goes to the extent the player chooses to) doesn't exclude the strategy from it, not a bit.
The strategic design in civ games is huge, planning an entire empire/game from scratch; even so in Shafer's five which, though made more shallow overall, has been taken away specially many tactical elements, making it more strategical than tactical compared to previous installments.

EUIII ought to be a purely strategical game for what I hear, having no tactical features (i.e for the moment) and where every decision you make has mediate to long term repercusions and responds to a foreseen plan. On the other hand a game like DOOM is purely tactical, almost every move and click you make has an immediate purpose.

You just said what I was saying; sorry if it was vague.The micromanaging in Civ does take away from the grand strategy, though. If you go to the higher difficulties you can see that the key is maximizing efficiency and planning everything to occur on just the right turn. It's almost purely micro in scope. The only macro is really the pre-determined bulbing path to nationalism/rifling that you use ever single game, anyway. The higher levels of Civ, I think, are left there so that people who learn exploits can still have a challenge. But if you want any variety on a strategic level, you're gonna have to turn down the difficulty and purposely handicap yourself. Not the worst thing in the world; I still have fun doing it.

Both games have their own niche.

 

[Yesod]

Try watching a "Let's Play" of Europa Universalis and you'll see what I mean.

 

[davetaylor]

in short dont buy civ 5 if you liked civ 4 if you like tic tac toe games then buy it.

 

[Ricci]

You just said what I was saying; sorry if it was vague.The micromanaging in Civ does take away from the grand strategy, though. If you go to the higher difficulties you can see that the key is maximizing efficiency and planning everything to occur on just the right turn. It's almost purely micro in scope. The only macro is really the pre-determined bulbing path to nationalism/rifling that you use ever single game, anyway. The higher levels of Civ, I think, are left there so that people who learn exploits can still have a challenge. But if you want any variety on a strategic level, you're gonna have to turn down the difficulty and purposely handicap yourself. Not the worst thing in the world; I still have fun doing it.

Both games have their own niche.

Absolutely certain, I ended up playing solely Emperor to have the wide strategic spectrum and play the game in so many different ways once and again. Nevertheless Yesod, swelling micromanagement and reduced strategical choice are both consequences of the highest difficulty level demand, but separate consequences. They may seem (and be) correlated in this picture, still they don't depend on each other (not necessarily correlated in every game situation).

Edit: oh, I will surely try the game itself some time.

 

[Saarud]

in short dont buy civ 5 if you liked civ 4 if you like tic tac toe games then buy it.

That is offending. I like Civ 4 and I love Civ 5. And no I don't like Tic Tac Toe though I love Chess. So yes you can really love Civ 5 if you like Civ 4.

My advice for anyone that is thinking about buying Civ 5 is that you first try the demo and also read reviews and opinions especially from people here on Civfanatics. There is a reason why many people are not happy with the game.

 

[PAnz3r]

dont buy it

my 2 zwanzig

 

[Iranon]

The designers of Civ5 made major concessions to get the game they wanted, even if the desired changes were almost impossible to implement well. Many changes addressed common complaints, but the end result is a lot less robust. If you play hard, you will break the game in a way that renders any of the clever bits moot. Add that the AI struggles with the game rules and you have a game that requires you to hold back to get the full experience. In this way at least, the comparison with Tic Tac Toe is extreme but appropriate.

The games' problems have no easy fix because they're natural consequences of the underlying design choices. If you 'just' want a good 4x game and don't care how this is achieved... then there are MANY better candidates.
If stacks of doom, clutter (both interface and features) or micromanagement of Civ4 would be totally unacceptable, maybe it's the right game for you. If the answer to the question 'Civ is awesome. Panzer General is awesome. Why not mix the two?' is more important to you than a game that works well, it may also be for you.
If you loved a previous Civ title and there is not enough beer in the world to make it look fresh and pretty, you're out of luck. Personally, I like that Civ games change enough that you don't simply replace an older with a newer version.