Some things I think Civ V does right

[Danei]

I know there are already some positive threads about civ V, but I'm going to list my thoughts about some of the ways in which I believe it improves upon Civ IV.



AI that "plays to win"

In theory, that is. In practice, the AI doesn't currently play to win, because you don't win by suicide-charging all your support units at the front and embarking and disembarking your melee units over and over while they get plinked to death by cities.

I like the idea of AI civs that want to win the game in ways other than the space race, even if they love you.

I don't really like the implementation of diplomacy. It could do with a lot more transparency and a lot less city-state-related awkwardness.

But, and I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, I like the effort they made toward making them more like human players. You don't know what a human player is thinking, but you can be sure they'll only work with you if they believe it's in their best interest, and they'll work against you as soon as they believe that's the best thing they can do. I want the AI players to be like that, as much as possible, rather than blind fools I send some gifts to and watch them do whatever I want.



Great People

I like the way different types of great people are on different meters, and I like the way they build improvements instead of buildings. It creates strategic choices by forcing a tradeoff.

I also always thought settling them in cities was kind of boring compared to all of the other cool things they could do, even if it was the best option for me at the time.



Golden Ages

Transparent, tied to happiness, and strategically useful.




Global Happiness

I think this idea has a lot of merit. The old happiness system was the main growth factor early on, which never made much sense to me (how can it possibly be "too crowded" when you live on the plains in a tribe of 2500 people?) and after a point, it became almost completely irrelevant, being replaced by health as the growth factor du jour.

I don't like the way they implemented it, with arbitrary non-scaling values, nor do I like the fact that you can literally just ignore it and still have massive technological and financial advantages, but I think those problems can be patched or modded away rather trivially.



Hexes

They just look better, compared to squares.

Note that I'm not lumping 1upt in with this. I have my opinions about that, but they're too mixed to include here.



City-states

As a concept, they're awesome. There are a lot of balance, diplomacy and AI problems associated with them in the current implementation, but they're a cool idea with potential for adding strategic and diplomatic depth.



Embarkment
(thanks man-erg)

In addition to reducing unnecessary micro, it also increases the feasibility of long-range intercontinental wars.



I'll add more if/as I think of them.

 

[CandleJack]

I agree with the statements above. Civ 5 is great, even though some things (like AI) need to be fixed.

 

[Raider]

So basically, every thing that should be cool is broken in some way due to incomplete or poor implementation. I have to agree with you there.

 

[Danei]

So basically, every thing that should be cool is broken in some way due to incomplete or poor implementation. I have to agree with you there.

Well, if you want to get technical about it, exactly half of the things I mentioned are like that, in my opinion.

Aside from the AI's (in)ability to fight wars, those things shouldn't be difficult to fix. This thread is mainly about concepts, not implementation.

To be fair, calling them "things" was pretty vague of me.

 

[Earthling]

AI that "plays to win"

In theory, that is. In practice, the AI doesn't currently play to win, because you don't win by suicide-charging all your support units at the front and embarking and disembarking your melee units over and over while they get plinked to death by cities.

I like the idea of AI civs that want to win the game in ways other than the space race, even if they love you.

I don't really like the implementation of diplomacy. It could do with a lot more transparency and a lot less city-state-related awkwardness.

But, and I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, I like the effort they made toward making them more like human players. You don't know what a human player is thinking, but you can be sure they'll only work with you if they believe it's in their best interest, and they'll work against you as soon as they believe that's the best thing they can do. I want the AI players to be like that, as much as possible, rather than blind fools I send some gifts to and watch them do whatever I want.

This is still contributing to the fundamental misconception of what an AI that "plays to win" is. Whether the AI sucks at combat or not doesn't mean it isn't playing to win. It could be good at combat or bad at combat and still play to win - that's not a failing of that intention in other words. In order to "play to win" the AI should have much stricter auto-war conditions across the board and be far more aggressive - though you hint on that in the second part. And even overall, the AI probably SHOULD seek space or culture as that's easier to achieve anyway especially given AI bonuses - so again, the AI seeking other victories can sometimes be basically contradictory to "playing to win"

 

[EmpireOfCats]

You forgot Strategic View. I'm getting to love it more and more.

 

[Gath]

I know there are already some positive threads about civ V, but I'm going to list my thoughts about some of the ways in which I believe it improves upon Civ IV.



AI that "plays to win"

In theory, that is. In practice, the AI doesn't currently play to win, because you don't win by suicide-charging all your support units at the front and embarking and disembarking your melee units over and over while they get plinked to death by cities.

I like the idea of AI civs that want to win the game in ways other than the space race, even if they love you.

I don't really like the implementation of diplomacy. It could do with a lot more transparency and a lot less city-state-related awkwardness.

But, and I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, I like the effort they made toward making them more like human players. You don't know what a human player is thinking, but you can be sure they'll only work with you if they believe it's in their best interest, and they'll work against you as soon as they believe that's the best thing they can do. I want the AI players to be like that, as much as possible, rather than blind fools I send some gifts to and watch them do whatever I want.

I miss the AI that I felt like was a neighboring nation. The AI that remembered when I had his back against Shaka during the great war of the Impis. If I wanted to play starcraft, I'd go play starcraft. But thats just me. I finished maybe 15% of the games of Civ I've played over the years. Not because I wasn't winning, but because winning isn't why I play. I still want an AI who is fighting to win, I just would rather he didn't come outside the fourth wall to do it.

Great People

I like the way different types of great people are on different meters, and I like the way they build improvements instead of buildings. It creates strategic choices by forcing a tradeoff.

I also always thought settling them in cities was kind of boring compared to all of the other cool things they could do, even if it was the best option for me at the time.

Meh. I don't mind this change. It actually makes some sense.

Golden Ages

Transparent, tied to happiness, and strategically useful.




Global Happiness

I think this idea has a lot of merit. The old happiness system was the main growth factor early on, which never made much sense to me (how can it possibly be "too crowded" when you live on the plains in a tribe of 2500 people?) and after a point, it became almost completely irrelevant, being replaced by health as the growth factor du jour.

I don't like the way they implemented it, with arbitrary non-scaling values, nor do I like the fact that you can literally just ignore it and still have massive technological and financial advantages, but I think those problems can be patched or modded away rather trivially.

Global happiness is STUPID. When I conquer my pathetic neighbors and grind them under the roman heel, the roman citizenry is going to be thrilled. They aren't going to be working at 50% efficiency because their new neighbors are sad. I hate this change.

Hexes

They just look better, compared to squares.

Note that I'm not lumping 1upt in with this. I have my opinions about that, but they're too mixed to include here.

Do not care. i do care that firaxis didn't care enough to animate the working tiles though.

City-states

As a concept, they're awesome. There are a lot of balance, diplomacy and AI problems associated with them in the current implementation, but they're a cool idea with potential for adding strategic and diplomatic depth.


I'll add more if/as I think of them.

I don't understand whats so cool about city states. They give stupid little quests or I bribe them with gold. They are one dimensional. The only reason any of us care about them is because at least we know why they like / don't like us. Unlike the obtuse diplomacy.

 

[Civsuccess]

City-states

As a concept, they're awesome. There are a lot of balance, diplomacy and AI problems associated with them in the current implementation, but they're a cool idea with potential for adding strategic and diplomatic depth.

I think Sid team does not get the city state concept correctly.

City states are nothing more than states that split off from an empire due to mismanagement.

Therefore, there need to be a way to start a civil war!!!! In real life, throne accession, city allegiance, civil order, corruptions were the reasons why a city rebel.

I think Civ series need a throne, lineage micromanagement. You can manage who you pass your throne. His success will be determine by his intelligence and education. You can also manage each city's allegiance or opinion to your prince in succession. If you choose the wrong successor, each of your cities will be independent upon the death of your original leader. This insures a civil war which you control your designated successor and you have to take back the lost cities either by diplomacy or conquest.

 

[bernlin2000]

I agree completely with all your points, except one . The "play to win AI" (theoretically speaking, since the AI is currently quite broken) is not nearly as fun as an AI that randomly makes mistakes on purpose. It's Chess AI vs. Fun AI, and I like an AI who wins because of a general failure on my part (weak infrastructure, not enough military units, etc.) rather than because they were able to find my serious flaw and exploit the hell out of it (which would be something a chess AI would do). All that does is make me angry and sullen, and then you feel somewhat hopeless, because sometimes you're going to miss something. If the AI knows all the strategies for every situation and executes them with computer-like perfection, then I'll rarely have a chance. Fortunately, the AI at the moment doesn't even seem to know how to protect it's settlers, so it's more of a discussion on design then something actually in the game

 

[Rince]

I don't understand whats so cool about city states. They give stupid little quests or I bribe them with gold. They are one dimensional. The only reason any of us care about them is because at least we know why they like / don't like us. Unlike the obtuse diplomacy.

Care to elaborate what you find stupid about the quests? THEY (and not the gold) are the main diplomatic tool which enables you to play out one city-state against another and drag them into wars against other civs. Sounds pretty amazing to me and worked like a charm in my game.

 

[Tutkarz]

I dont agree with global happines too. In civ IV when my country was all happy and rich and i settled new city, i was trying to bring it in line to rest of my people. So i was building roads to connect it, so they get resources and they could grow more, funding religion to them so it was like a little child i had to take care of. Righ now when i settle new city its just like it: done. Yes i have to set up some production and buildings but its not that depth like in civ IV. I really miss that. And sure, i have to connect it with road but if i dont do this, then nothing happend since cost of the road is almost as high as i get money from trade so its really not important.
And new concqered cities should revolt and not the whole country because of one city.

 

[KAuss]

The AI don't need to "play to win" there should be wolf and sheep... The AI however should play to not let someone else win...

So the AI can play like a suck bag if they wanted, however if they notice Monty is on a kill spree and he's just got his AC-130 perk, then he should get together with all the other suck bags and put an end to it... Even if it means throw all your warriors at his tanks together... Hell enough skeletons in his path should at least stop the tracks right?

However the AI does not do this... The AI are all suck bags, and when they finally figure out they're suck bags, they all of a sudden lose the ability to do simple maths... If I research trade with lead civ, I should get advantage = win!

If player defensive pact me = reject because big bad AI civ is going to war him, and I can't win against AI civ... Cause player is evil, AI is .... (before sentence is finished, AI steam rolled his spears with longswords...)

The AI all "think" they're doing something to win, however they're just sheeps feeding the one wolf... Yet, they all think you're the wolf, and everyone else is the wolf... Hell, sometimes they even think they themselves are wolves because when they surrender to a lost war, they REALLY surrender... Taking themselves out of the game entirely...

I love the Hex maps, I love the 1UPT, hell I can even say I love the new culture spread!

What I don't like is happiness, and how population control is horrific... There should be a box where I can enter how many people I want to allow to have sex to make babies... No reason why I can't drop a 3rd city down without them going overboard to drop my happy...

Then again, unhappy means slow growth... So whatever...

 

[man-erg]

The biggest inprovement must surely be units that turn into boats. All that fiddy micromanagement removed!

 

[KAuss]

the biggest inprovement must surely be units that turn into boats. All that fiddy micromanagement removed!

qfttbbq!

 

[Danei]

This is still contributing to the fundamental misconception of what an AI that "plays to win" is. Whether the AI sucks at combat or not doesn't mean it isn't playing to win. It could be good at combat or bad at combat and still play to win - that's not a failing of that intention in other words. In order to "play to win" the AI should have much stricter auto-war conditions across the board and be far more aggressive - though you hint on that in the second part. And even overall, the AI probably SHOULD seek space or culture as that's easier to achieve anyway especially given AI bonuses - so again, the AI seeking other victories can sometimes be basically contradictory to "playing to win"

I was mostly being facetious with the first part. But yeah, being bad at winning doesn't mean the AI isn't trying to win. Mainly, what I mean by "playing to win" is the reduction of the disparity between AI civs and human ones.

In Civ IV, the AIs were trying to win, too. They could even win by diplomacy. But what they couldn't do was cause you (the player) to vote for them for diplomatic victory (for example). Or, if Shaka had the same religion as you, or gave you gifts, that didn't make you less likely to crush him later, if you wanted to. There will always be fundamental differences between AIs and human players, but personally, I don't like to see those differences being core game mechanics, ala Civ IV diplomatic modifiers.