Small things They should not had reinvented

[duxup]

Tech Tree - Mostly recycling the tech tree is way disappointing. Come up with a new Tech Tree already.

Tech Quotes - Recycling tech quotes, again disappointing / seems lazy. A few quotes per tech would also have been nice.

Wonder Videos - These should be "wonders" the little painting and quote seem awfully underwhelming. Should have tried for something like Civ II.

Game Ending - A game ending event that doesn't make Sins of A Solar Empire's ending look excessive.

 

[mzprox]

I also miss foreign trade routes, and I agree that some kind of connection (road, river ) should be a prerequisite for trading resources.

 

[Maxor127]

Open borders is worthless. It boggles my mind that they didn't add foreign trade routes to this game. Basically, there's no reason to ever offer open borders to a civ, unless you want them to scout out your territory for an inevitable war. I also liked how promoting your unit healed it a little. That's a better system than not healing at all and having a "heal instantly" promotion.

 

[Jelle]

The unit promotions: they are just incredibly powerful compared to civ4. The fully heal can radically turn a fight in your favor, while having ranged units firing twice a turn is just plain imba. As soon as they start kicking more ass you get another range and can shoot any tile within range regardless of terrain.

These units are what....5 times better then an untrained one? It just leaves peaceful civs helpless against warmongering ones that have experienced troops.

 

[Ironmonger69]

The diplomacy screen is a mess right along with diplomacy. For that matter, most of the "report" sections are a mess, the few interactive links, such as on the military screen, are broken.

Also, to beat a zombie horse, the Civilopedia.

..some area of the new game suggest that civ5's programers haven't played civ4 at all.

I have had that exact thought on more than one occasion while playing.

These units are what....5 times better then an untrained one? It just leaves peaceful civs helpless against warmongering ones that have experienced troops.

You mean it mirrors reality...

I find it easiest to enjoy this iteration of the Civ series by convincing myself it's not an iteration of the Civ series; just some cheap knockoff by a low end publisher like ValuSoft trying to cash in on the similarity.

 

[brianshapiro]

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

I miss stealing a technology when you conquer a city, a la Civ1. Also, the best thing about spies was stealing tech.

 

[Ironmonger69]

Air units. The only tweaks they really needed from IV was gaining experience from bombing runs.

-Now, you can't choose to run interdiction operations on infrastructure.
-No airports means no starting experience for your units like land units get.
-The AI apparently is afraid to fly.
-No reconaissance options. The automatic recon they use is okay, but very flawed; unless you give the option to conduct deeper recon missions, the automatic rcon should extend to the edge of the unit's operational range. Further, potential targets that are outside this automatic rcon and beyond your units sight can never be bombed. Before, you could send a unit to perform a flyover for intel, and then bomb. Not a chance, now.
-If auto recon is to be used, it should scale up with the range of the aircraft in questions.
-Bombers conduct recon, too, so why not in Civ5, at least in peacetime?
-The AI apparently is afraid to fly. Get it an airsickness bag and some toast.
-You can no longer use fortifications to establish a forward air base for deep operations.
-Not really a deficit, but I miss seeing the occasional blimp puttering around!

All of these things worked fine in IV, and there was no need to change them to work in the new combat system of 5 (Unlike airlift, which I understand why they didn't use it, but it seems the solution of external air bases as a tile improvement would have been an obvious solution. Hindsight is 20/20, no?)

 

[City Raider]

I really miss the slider.
It really did allow for a variety of strats or flexibility. Unfortunately this is probably a big change. Happiness and Science shouldn't be tied to the population so directly. It should be a function of gold earned giving the player control of his empire. In terms of Civ 5 the slider should have 4 tiers: gold, science, culture, happiness. All empire wide of course. All are pretty self explanatory but the culture slider would be responsible for how you get your social policies so you could never have it at 0%. You also wouldn't necessarily want gold really low and all on science b/c the ability to Rush Buy so early may make gold a need and of course you need happiness so you can't keep that 0%. Ultimately you'll probably end up having all 4 fluctuate between 20-40% but would have the ability to adjust things in a pinch if needed. I just think they missed a golden oppurtunity with this. Also the culture slider wouldn't effect city expansion (that would be done at the city level with buildings or specialists). The slider would just divide up how you use your gold. You could still get additional things by working a specific tile, a specialist, building, wonder, etc.

 

[Lord Parkin]

This thread has many excellent posts... I sure hope Firaxis reads and takes note of a lot of these things. Especially the stuff like "per turn" deal abuse for instant free stuff before war... we're supposed to be moving on from Civ4, not going back to Civ3!