Small things They should not had reinvented

M

mzprox

Prince
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Jan 21, 2003
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There are big changes to previous civ games and those require other changes in game mechanism. I don't want to talk about these "big" things like hexes, 1upt, embarked units etc, and those necessary changes which came with the new gameplay. But there are things which are (at least seemingly) independent from the core system, they got it right in civ4, but they felt the need to change it after all, to the worse..

Here are few from me, you can add yours:

-Open border trade: Now they last for fixed turns, you can't cancel them, and you can sell the opening of your border for lump sum.. all bad..

-"per turn" trades for immediate gain. They got it right for civ4-by disabling these kind of trades- I just can't get why they had to change it..some area of the new game suggest that civ5's programers haven't played civ4 at all.

-Unit maintenance. It was simple and logical, You got some free support (modified by civics, number of cities) and you payed for the rest. Military and non-military units counted different, and military unit outside of your territory cost more. In Civ5 we have some obscure system, no one could figure out yet, sometimes only every odd number of unit cost something, military-non military the same, doesnt matter where they are, no free support (it helped smaller civs to have bigger military compared to their size)

-Tech tree Every civ game had different tech tree, but I think civ 4 allowed more strategic decisions, long term goals. They should not had stepped back to civ1-3 style.

-Promotions-I liked them more in civ4- why my only choice is that I have to decide where I want my troops fight in the future.. plains or in hills.. oh and that stupidly broken heal instantly thing.

-Lack of adaptation to different circumstances..this is not a small thing actually, but I really miss it. either by changing civics, changing the slider.. there is nothing which can make you adapt to certain needs. You can't just turn off your science buildings to save soem cash when you really need it, If your people once were traditionist you can't just have a revolution and evolve to something else-as it happened to real civilizations..

anyway, what's yours?
 
Not being epic.

No building of a huge empire, of an impressive territorial state.
No "rewards" for having succeeded. Is there any victory movie? Is there the replay? No.
The game's just over. Yuk.
 
blizzrd said:
Diplomacy.

Trading technologies.

Rush-purchasing the remainder of construction.
Click to expand...

Diplomacy is a big flaw, tech trades-I always played without it so can't really say I miss them, research agreements are broken , exploitable..
Yeah, no reason why we can't rush-purchase current production
 
totally agree with the open borders, why do they have a limited duration at all, makes no sense. also, although i have never done so, isnt it possible to have a one-sided open borders agreement ? and selling your open borders agreement is just silly...

promotions, i liked the civ 4 way better with the first choice of promotion only. the first promotion a unit should be able to recieve should be 'veteran', it makes sense - and after that you can specialise them into whatever you want them to be.
i do not, however, want the same series of generic +10% strength promotions - they were often the best long term choice in civ 4 and thus made the specialised promotions less desirable.
instant heal is somewhat broken, but you do sacrifise a permanent promotion for a one-time heal, so maybe its fine actually. i often see the AI use it when i bombard them, and that might annoy me, but i know they sort of waste the exp that way.

unit maintenance is borked atm, i would really like some way to know exactly how much my next unit is going to cost in upkeep - and where did my 'free' units go ? i recently tried doing the cultural win with gandhi achievement (max 3 cities) and struggled throughout the game with the amount of units/buildings vs income. i had a combined population of 50+ in the late game (delhi was 21 :cool:) but couldnt support more than 10 units (including 4 workers)...
 
With limited experience of the game, I'll share my thoughts too:

The AI. It has no tactical sense and does not understand how to deploy on hexes. I'll admit that the "SoD" approach wasn't exactly optimal either but considering the fact that the AI simply does not know how to wage war makes this game have little replay value. I've been proving this point to myself with ridiculously small armies (2 companions or 3 horsemen) taking out entire continents of 4 AIs. This is on Marathon but in the big picture game speed should not affect the way the game plays out. The AI is just bad.

On that point, preceeding every declaration of war I just simply asked the AI for all its gold for some gpt/resource deals. They complied, I declared war as an immediate result and I am easily 1000 richer per conquered nation. The forced peace from civ4 served against this and all in all it's silly that you can trade resources and what have you for a lump sum of money because while the human obviously knows how to abuse this, the AI doesn't. Further on diplomacy: It doesn't seem like diplomacy in the sense you would expect it to be. You have no way of knowing how much an AI likes or dislikes you other than judging what they say which should really not be the case. Civ4 had numbers and was easy to interpret and was easily one of the better things in that game. What's with the pacts? Yeah, Diplomacy as a whole is just horribly bad and serves no purpose other than for quick merit without any threats or shortcomings. Also, the point of diplomatic win via simply funneling gold to city states... I mean, come on?

Killing traditional rex. So, here I am. Playing a large size map continents. I have a continent that would easily fit 30 cities but because the logic of the game is set against sprawling, I opt to have just 5 instead to claim resources and have the rest come from city states. Forcing a theoretical limit to empire size (no. of cities/people) via an artificial hard cap that comes from happiness and also making it detrimental to expand should you wish to attain policies in any reasonable time is just a bad mechanic. So, in theory I have the settings to be a large and glorious empire but instead I'm playing in a tiny corner of my continent while the barbarians are left to rule the rest. Obviously one could expand but this game really methodically forces you to play a small empire - if you're looking for a socially developed, happy, cultural and scientific nation.

Maritime states are too powerful. 17 food from my capital city tile in the BC's. This, all the while regular terrain is just bad. Farms aren't worth it because the CS food is so good and cheap and it's just better to pave everything over with trading posts. On topic of terrain improvements as a whole, they're just bad. Special resources aren't special and stuff like cows and sheep are nothing but a joke. That said, since terrain improvements are so bad, living on a river is a 50% increase to your gold output or a hard +1 food making it pretty useless living anywhere else - again because you're better off with fewer cities.

All in all this game is infuriatingly bad and has next to no replay value. I'm sure it appeals to those who are looking for an easy time and hope to kill a few hours here and there but those who've been with the series and loved it's complexity - hats off to BtS for being the best TBS ever - will find this a disappointing doodle in comparison. Civ4 started out weak and I'm sure this game will get better in a few expansions time, but for now it's just not worth anyones time with so many faulty mechanics and poor designs.
 
@Fleme, those are flaws in the game, but not what I made this topic for. The AI might suck, but it is not something they could had imported from any previous game. City states might be broken, but it is all new feature.. etc
 
mzprox said:
-Lack of adaptation to different circumstances..this is not a small thing actually, but I really miss it. either by changing civics, changing the slider.. there is nothing which can make you adapt to certain needs. You can't just turn off your science buildings to save soem cash when you really need it, If your people once were traditionist you can't just have a revolution and evolve to something else-as it happened to real civilizations..
Click to expand...

Did you know that asking for this is asking for easy mode back?
 
mzprox said:
tech trades-I always played without it so can't really say I miss them
Click to expand...
I preferred no tech brokering in Civ4 myself, where only techs that you had researched for yourself were able to be traded. Complete tech trading wasn't quite right, but this tweak worked for me.
 
They should've kept the old cIV city screen, the new ciV one is a absolute mess.

It gives me a headache trying to get any information from it. So many annoyances, the useless drop down menu's, Icons covering everything, having to zoom in and out to actually see anything, the bad production queue with no shortcuts, etc.

For something that has supposedly been streamlined, it sure is a chore to work through.
 
Fleme said:
Maritime states are too powerful. 17 food from my capital city tile in the BC's. This, all the while regular terrain is just bad. Farms aren't worth it because the CS food is so good and cheap and it's just better to pave everything over with trading posts.
Click to expand...

How much does it cost to maintain the 17 food, how many farms would it have taken to make the 17 food, and how much do you make using those trading posts that you wouldn't have made if you'd built those farms?
 
On marathon all deals including OB last 90 turns :P But i think you get no penalty if you dec war while in open border.

Trade - I am saddened that I can trade with a civ that I have no clue where is located. I miss the road/river/ocean requirement to link with their capital. I think it would have added a fair amount of depth to work with the AI, specially with the road maintenance. Being able to negotiate the building of a road with the AI to trade or something would have been nice. That said I like the road maintenance idea, though i find roads too expensive. Have their costs reduced and require a connection to the other capital would be great. Of course requiring that the resource also has a link to your capital via road or river will be great too.

Happiness - I guess overall happiness is an interesting touch, but would have preferred to have it as an iteration of stability like in Rhye's RFC mod, while still keeping city based happiness to a degree.

Rigid system of government - Total lack of flexibility here. Goes without saying that they reinvented the wheel into a square.

Still game has good things as well, but i can't help but feel the game has detracted from the core base to the casual masses.
 
The AI. Actually, there is no AI in this game and it was never intended.
This game simulates Civilization series, but that's all.
It's more like Pacman, forcing you to chase down barbarians so you can do business with city-states.
Happiness system is totally senseless and limiting in a very unpleasant way. Chasing luxury tiles is practically all you can do to create happiness - the only thing that allows you to expand. That's a very tight leash.
Graphic is made of certain gray, yellow, red/white chessboard layers which are very badly handled and often crash the game.
Road maintenance kills economy - building roads should actually increase your income.
Trade routes are too small a compensation for lack of other concepts. Overseas cities do not connect to your capital through port city harbor, even though they have road to it.
Tech tree is very reduced compared to previous games.
Barbarians are incredibly stupid.
The game is dumbed down as a part of worldwide conspiracy to make people stupid and believe in stupid things like what diplomacy and economy are really about - pay visas to enter my country, give all the money you have for a joint tech research. As soon as I get 750 money, someone pops up with this proposal ;)
Due to this, the game is behaving like an enforcer and preventing creative play.
Civilizations obviously act on a random urge, pointless and senseless, given the small number of choices.
There is no characterization of leaders, nations, flavors, etc. Only simulation of what it should be.
AI cheating is not only due to the chosen level, it happens relative to your successful play in particular game.
The only good thing about this game is a promise - but soon, after initial exploration - you realize it is just that. Playing this game made me go back to Civ IV and Alpha Centaur.
2K rushed this game counting on huge fandom, but they have spent all credits I'm afraid. Previous civs are still very playable.
The only chance this game has is third party modders, but that was openly said by creators of the game - they count on it! Parasitic approach.
 
blizzrd said:
I preferred no tech brokering in Civ4 myself, where only techs that you had researched for yourself were able to be traded. Complete tech trading wasn't quite right, but this tweak worked for me.
Click to expand...

Me too. Loved that option. Tech trading was always a bit of a joke without it. The current research agreements work ok, but I really think they should bring back "deal forces peace" from Civ 4, which itself was a reaction to the same exploits we're seeing now as we got in Civ 3.
 
mzprox said:
-Promotions-I liked them more in civ4- why my only choice is that I have to decide where I want my troops fight in the future.. plains or in hills.. oh and that stupidly broken heal instantly thing.
Click to expand...

In Civ4 "heal instantly" was automatic with all promotions
 
mzprox said:
-"per turn" trades for immediate gain. They got it right for civ4-by disabling these kind of trades- I just can't get why they had to change it..some area of the new game suggest that civ5's programers haven't played civ4 at all.
Click to expand...

This. They didn't play Civ3 for sure. So they made some stone-age game. It's gaming the system all over again.
 
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