Sullla Posts Civ5 Report

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Those of you who spent the first few days of Civ4's release waiting for installment after installment of Sullla's Civ4 walkthrough will be pleased to know that Sullla has posted the report from one of his first full games of Civ5.

Sullla begins as follows:
It was certainly a different experience this time around, not working with the development team, and not having an insider's view of the whole process. That means I'm back to being a normal gamer again, and getting the experience that everyone else gets when starting up a new game. Let's dive right in and see what there is to find in Civilization 5.

With that said, for an interesting and honest take on Civ5's gameplay (or just to admire the screenshots), be sure to read the full report. If you're just interested in his concluding remarks, here's what he had to say:
Overall, the release of Civ5 reminds me of the release of Civ3. It's a game with serious balance issues, and gameplay holes all over the place. Multiplayer is completely non-functional right now, unplayably full of bugs and crashes. I've been very harsh on Civ5 since it's come out, probably because I'm so disappointed that the game would be released in such a flawed state. Is this a good game right now? Sort of. It's not terrible, but it's very, VERY rough around the edges at present. Will it become a good game in time? Maybe. Hopefully. That depends on what Firaxis chooses to do. After the various fiascos associated with Civ3's release, I didn't think we'd have to go through this again. Apparently we will.

I think it's safe to say that you won't find a more candid review from a more talented player. :)

(To view some discussion of his thoughts on the forums, as well as a follow-up response from Sullla himself, see this thread.)
 
A great report and a honest one, I might not agree with everything but overall it is the way best I have read until now. Loved the Civ 4 walkthrough too :D. Nothing else to expect:king:.
I wonder if the writers of all the others reviews have blindfolded themself or were downright dumb to not see how flawed this game is.

If there is no major improvment I will just go back to playing CIV 4 since after some starting fun with new units, game mechanics and shiny graphic it is just irritating how flawed and bad this game is(for Civ standarts).

I really had my hopes up for this one.
 
After having alot of games in Civ 5 now, I'm starting to see all the glaring issues and I'm beginning to dislike the useless AI in this game, it really isn't fun playing against dumb opponents. I'll be going back to Galactic Civilizations II and Civ 4 and hopefully Firaxis will sort out Civ 5.
A good report which I hope Firaxis take note of, and I'm not really sure why Civ 5 is getting all these great reviews, if Firaxis only take note of these top reviews, I do worry this game won't get many improvements. Hopefully Firaxis will listen to the fans and reports such as these which point out the issues.

Civ 5 isn't a terrible game. it just needs alot of work, and I hope Firaxis will deliver.
 
It's starting to sound like a broken record, but I have to agree that Civ V has been a huge disappointment. This is the Civ 3 fiasco all over again and I am worried that it won't get fixed.

Its fair to say that we will not all agree with what should or should not be in a Civ game and sometimes ideas which are good in theory do not play out well once they come to fruition.

This game has lots of potential, some of the concepts are intriguing to say the least, but the mechanics behind them are so unbalanced its hard to believe that this can be anything but a beta:eek:

Charging $60 or $100 for this game is an abomination. For the majority of the gaming magazines who reviewed this game as it stands now, and gave it 9/10+, did you actually play the game?

The game designers should be ashamed of themselves for putting out an inferior product, especially one with such a reputation as the Civilization. Civ IV was redemption for Civ 3, but Civ V is just an embarrassment.
 
A harsh review but it's rightly so. I can't understand why it get these high review scores *with a few exceptions)? It seems like most reviewers didn't put enough time in the review.
 
A well drawn out synopsis by one of the best guide writers out there. Wasn't planning on buying Civ V because of my bias towards Steam. But after reading this review, I must say that I'm not surprised that it doesn't measure up. Pity really, I was half hoping that I would read something in the review that would make me reconsider. Kudos sir, and my thanks.
 
Good to see Sullla's review again.

I've been a very active Civ3 player. It burned me out so I didn't quite play Civ4 a lot, although I did buy the game. I have not bought Civ5 yet, since I may not have much time playing it, plus it requires STEAM.

But from what I read, it seems there is a new development team behind Civ5 and it tried to appeal to new players more than harcores, by doing things more in the CivRev way. But for a lot of us, the game balance and AI is the ultimate factor in judging a game. Civ4 did a very decent job, but it seems the young people behind Civ5 didn't quite inherit much of the experience and expertise learned by their predecessors.
 
To paraphrase another talented writer, when Sulla writes, I listen.

I will keep watching with a keen eye for developments on CIV 5. And I'm sure I would have a ton of fun playing the game, even with the issues. But I'll let that get sorted out through patches and continue in the meantime having a blast with CIV 4.

I do think it's wrong that the company doesn't hold off on a release until they get virtually all bugs fixed, but at least we know that these developers are in touch with the community and are always working on improving the product.
 
I wonder if the writers of all the others reviews have blindfolded themself or were downright dumb to not see how flawed this game is.
Blinded by the almighty PR-Dollars ;)

Sad thing, what they did with Civ V... if they can repair the damage done? I don´t know, but the way Firaxis/2K Officials seem to ignore critic i´m more and more sceptic :(
 
Elemental and now Civ5. Bummer. Glad I didn't purchase either.

Yeah, there's really no incentive to purchase games at release any more. "Pay us $50 for an unfinished product!"

No thanks, I'll just wait a few years and pick up both games for like $15 a piece. A better gaming experience for a fraction of the price.
 
A rather accurate review/playthrough, but I find the game is actually much more fun than Sulla's text suggests. Advanced players often seem to ruin the game for themselves by going "straight for the flaws" and spotting and using right away every unbalanced mechanic that can help them winning.

Sometimes if I go too deep in analysing the game mechanics I feel like I'm playing a spreadsheet and that makes me quit. For instance without the forums I wouldn't have realized before a while that maritime city-states are unbalanced, and I'm not sure I'm better off knowing it right away.

(A somewhat similar story is the "level-scaling" in TES:Oblivion that caused so much outcry: I was annoyed by it right away, but it seems that a lot of people were having fun with the game and not realizing the existence of that mechanism. Then they all went "omg it's horrible" when it was described in detail by some forum members, and it probably drove some players away from the game who wouldn't have cared.)

So yeah, I hope Firaxis fixes those issues, but I don't think they automatically make the game a failure.
 
A rather accurate review/playthrough, but I find the game is actually much more fun than Sulla's text suggests. Advanced players often seem to ruin the game for themselves by going "straight for the flaws" and spotting and using right away every unbalanced mechanic that can help them winning.

So yeah, I hope Firaxis fixes those issues, but I don't think they automatically make the game a failure.
Exactly. I rather like Civ 5, and I don't see what the outcry is about. Sure, I hate Steam as much as every other DRM-fearing person, but a game so full of bugs and imbalance it's unplayable? Wha-? Have we been playing the same game?

Most of all, let's be honest: A man cannot live on Civ 1 alone.
 
A very well-written review. While I could tell from the demo that Civ5 certainly has promise, I did get the sense that the AI was pretty weak, at least early on, and it's rather horrifying that it's still so weak even at Emperor (and it seemed like the AI was weak because it was really weak, not because Sulla had Sid-level skills at Civ5 in his second game played). Maybe I'll have to try the demo again at Diety ;).

Reading through, the biggest user experience flaw seemed to be having to decide what to do with Japan's cities with no idea what they contained. On second thought, I'm used to occasionally receiving a city or two for which I have no idea where it's located if I'm destroying an enemy in Civ3 and have poor map knowledge (and I think this possible in Civ4 too). But I can abandon it in Civ3 (albeit not Vanilla Civ3) if I later decide it's a totally pointless city or horrible placed (not utilizing some of those useful cows/wheat right outside its borders or something of that sort). I'm not sure what a puppet state does, so I can't tell how crucial that decision is.

I didn't buy Civ3 at release, not knowing about the series, and it was patched to version 1.07 when I bought it, so perhaps I missed some of its most crucial bugs and mechanical issues - or, as isitanos suggests, simply wasn't aware they were bugs or mechanical issues. With Civ4, the performance issues were overhwhelming with version 1.00, which I had for almost 9 months (yay for no broadband!), and I think that did adversely affect my enjoyment, even after I got patches 1.51 and 1.62 (by 1.74 most major things were already fixed). I have the feeling that waiting until Firaxis releases a bunch of patches might make the difference between me being a big fan of Civ5 and finding it similarly disappointing to (how I saw) Civ4.
 
I feel Sullla is a bit down on Civ V. Exploiting every weakness he can find and not being able to enjoy the fun changes. Glad I'm not such an able player I guess :D

I'm having fun with it so far and yes there are some flaws (quite the shocker with all other games being 100% polished these days:rolleyes:) but I'm sure it will improve with time. Civ 4 also wasn't a rose-garden when it came out. But if you work for so long on a game you tend to ignore/be blind for some of its problems.

Just back off for a few months, if you can't enjoy it now, with a few patches it might be better. It worked for Civ 4 (which in all its BTS, patched up, BAT/BUG-ness still is a joy to play by the way :goodjob: ).
 
I need a new PC to play Civ V anyway so Im going to wait till next year now, should be some fixes by then I think!

Ive stopped playing Civ IV now. Ive played it to death but got very annoyed at the constant crashing in my last game - im sure it was down to too many units for it to cope with (all patches and the latest unofficial patch installed).

Ive also stopped playing Civ IV because of having to play a certain way etc in order to succeed which is a bit off-putting. I was hoping that Civ V doesnt fall into that trap...we shall see! :)
 
Ive also stopped playing Civ IV because of having to play a certain way etc in order to succeed which is a bit off-putting. I was hoping that Civ V doesnt fall into that trap...we shall see! :)

I'm not sure I understand your context in this. There are a variety of ways to play IV, so i'm a little confused here. Also, have you tried any of the great mods? FFH, ROM, Rhys? just to name a few. just curious bro.
 
I didn't buy Civ3 at release, not knowing about the series, and it was patched to version 1.07 when I bought it, so perhaps I missed some of its most crucial bugs and mechanical issues - or, as isitanos suggests, simply wasn't aware they were bugs or mechanical issues. With Civ4, the performance issues were overhwhelming with version 1.00, which I had for almost 9 months (yay for no broadband!), and I think that did adversely affect my enjoyment, even after I got patches 1.51 and 1.62 (by 1.74 most major things were already fixed). I have the feeling that waiting until Firaxis releases a bunch of patches might make the difference between me being a big fan of Civ5 and finding it similarly disappointing to (how I saw) Civ4.

yeah, I was not a big fan of steam when civ 5 came out, but I had to install civ iv on a computer the other day and all the patches were an enormous pita.
 
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