The Final Analysis?

[lschnarch]

Since I haven't gotten a response elsewhere, I'll pose this here...

Do the civ V AIs in anyway appear to play for a certain victory condition? In other words... do they play as if they had a goal of winning the game in a particular way?

I haven't observend anything like a consistent approach towards any victory condition yet.
And frankly, I think claiming the AI "playing to win" is just a plain lie.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. If you're trying something completely new you may not be able to solve things they way they were solved in previous iterations, without simply copying what worked before. If you do reintroduce problems that's bad, but to say: "just do what they did before" stifles creativity and change. THAT kind of argument is going down the Civ 4.5 road. (And I believe this is what causes people to accuse others of wanting Civ 4.5, I think it's unproductive to compare Civ 5 with previous games.

If you try to be innovative and produce the game with new features you may need to solve old problems within the context of your new model. To expect developers to completely avoid them because they had been solved before is unfair because those were solved WITHIN the context of the previous model. Whenever you change things you run the risk of running into old problems and creating new ones. But you still have to solve them within your new game engine.

If I change something, I should be sure that the result constitutes an improvement.
If I am not sure, I should have a fall-back strategy.

I haven't paid for something which may or may not at a certain point of time in the far and distant future become better.
Then they should have asked us to pay later, too.

 

[lschnarch]

I just don't see why settlers shouldn't cost more every time you make 1. Ie, production/gold cost doubles each time. I pulling "doubles" out of a hat, the actual number would be subject to actual gameplay balance.

Well, then we could as well play Monopoly.
There, you have an artificial rule making hotels more expansive. Why do you need 4 houses to build a hotel? Because it is a game rule.

"Gamey" things we find in Shafer_5 over and over. We really don't need even more of this stuff.

 

[gingerbill]

oh its the mighty Sulla again!! WoW


everything he says is just spot on..... bow before his knowledge....




no sorry, he is just another internet reviewer to me.

have to agree . His comments are far to silly and biased to take serious .

I think the people who sit on the forums all day too bad mouth a game they hate think the game is officially bad because they say so . Yet they still keep playing and posting about this game .

The game sold well and loads of people rate it highly and it got good reviews and is regarded as a great game .

Let the " they dont make games like they used too" crowd carry on moaning amongst there little group while the rest of us play the game and have fun.

 

[Islet]

Until Firaxis releases the SDK, modders can only do so much right? But if the modders come up with a more coherent game than the present CiV, I might as well pay the modders for their hard work instead, why bother paying 2K their salaries?

In many ways, the design direction of Civilization V very much mirror SimCity: Societies, might start my own thread on that.

 

[rschissler]

One of the way to solve 1UPT problem is to have happiness cost attached to the unit. i.e. each military unit cost happiness to maintain, and when your happiness fall into the negative, the unit will just go into revolt (either disband or worse, turn against you). That way, player will have to limit both their cities and number of units.

I don't like this solution, it's crude, and it runs contrary to the concept of an empire building game, but if you take CiV as a tactical game, this might prove to be an effective solution.

If you REALLY want to limit the number of units and cities, make the happiness cost for cities and units grow exponentially.

So how does that help the AI? That's the one thing you forgot, the AI doesn't know what to do with 1UPT except send units out on suicide missions.

 

[Xiao Xiong]

Well, then we could as well play Monopoly.
There, you have an artificial rule making hotels more expansive. Why do you need 4 houses to build a hotel? Because it is a game rule.

"Gamey" things we find in Shafer_5 over and over. We really don't need even more of this stuff.

But Monopoly was a fun game...

 

[Atwork]

His comments are far to silly and biased to take serious

Uhhhh, silly? Not to be taken seriously? Which comments are you referring to exactly?

Sulla highlights valid issues. A person could argue that the issues aren't serious, but the issues clearly exist nonetheless.

 

[Dralix]

Well, i'm struggling on my current game because of broken happiness mechanism (getting cities from the AI is crippling me? that's quite a reward for winning the war)

I will give a chance to civ V for some more games because i still enjoy it now

If you truly want to give the game another chance, then learn from your experience, and adapt your play accordingly. Specifically, you are not punished for succeeding in war, but there are consequences to growing too much without sufficient happiness. It makes no difference whether the growth comes organically, or from conquest. If you don't have sufficient happiness to absorb the population, you have to pay the price. How you choose to deal with this is up to you.

 

[trivilization]

In many ways, the design direction of Civilization V very much mirror SimCity: Societies, might start my own thread on that.

At least EA had the mind to call it Societies and not 5. It was clear from the start that it was going to be a casualized title, and not a true sequel though. Most likely done as a test to see if the SC brand still had enough pull to cash in with cheap development. Not sure about sales figures, I'm pretty sure they made out well, but obviously the game was crap.

With CiV they tried to straddle the line and hope to draw in casual players with the new design, but only keep a modicum of what was learnt in past Civs. But that was enough of a carrot on a stick to lure the old fans in. Bunny is not pleased.

 

[JBConquests]

Uhhhh, silly? Not to be taken seriously? Which comments are you referring to exactly?

Sulla highlights valid issues. A person could argue that the issues aren't serious, but the issues clearly exist nonetheless.

How About:

Yeah, let's do everything possible to cripple the human player to make up for the fact that the AI has no f-ing clue how to play this game. Gee, that sure sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

In general his comments weren't silly but way over the top. It's really to bad because he had allot of great points. It would have been far more effective if it was toned down and written more professionally. As it is he comes off as someone who loves Civilization 4 and is mad because Civilization V isn't just Civ 4 with new graphics.

The article lacks vision. I can see how Civiliation 5 can be patched or modded to become a fun game following it's original design principles with some work. If firaxis doesn't do it then I know the modding community will.

I really don't want Civilization 4 with new graphics. I want what the designers originally intended and promised but haven't yet delivered.

 

[fcolmenarez]

While I don't think many folks were expecting Civ 4.5 they were probably expecting a Civ of at least equal complexity and depth as Civ 4, and these will be dissapointed no matter what. Those guys who completely dominated 4 will find 5 boring no matter what.

Civ V on it's own still has some major clunkiness to work out. But it's clear that it was meant to take a step back from the major complexity of 4 and try to bring in more casual fans to the table.

 

[jjkrause84]

For me:

Civ 2 < Civ 3 < Civ 4 > Civ 5


That's what makes me and, I would assume, many other people pretty displeased.

 

[fcolmenarez]

Actually I liked 2 better than 3. I always felt that 2 had the better combat model (FINALLY those stupid Phalanx units would NEVER Kill a Battleship in Civ 2). Civ 3 brought back that stupidity of old era units defeating modern units. I guess you could say that I felt that Civ 3 reintroduced a problem that was solved in Civ 2.

 

[Guardian_PL]

have to agree . His comments are far to silly and biased to take serious .

I think the people who sit on the forums all day too bad mouth a game they hate think the game is officially bad because they say so . Yet they still keep playing and posting about this game .

The game sold well and loads of people rate it highly and it got good reviews and is regarded as a great game .

Let the " they dont make games like they used too" crowd carry on moaning amongst there little group while the rest of us play the game and have fun.

It sure is nice and cosy inside your mind, no? You can make up any "facts" about the world you want and nobody disagree...

Sorry to burst your bubble mate but people don't "hate the game". They actually love it but are devastated how brutally it got raped in the name of almighty dollar.

They don't "keep playing". They don't "sit on the forums all day". Civ 5 is not "regarded as great game", check amazon reviews, in nearly every country Civ 5 has bad ratings - people have to be seriously pissed off in order to spend time to make a user review, also seriously concerned about warning others.

Every game nowadays gets good reviews if the publishing company can afford buying reviewers.

The game sold well only because it is next installment of Civ series. Phantom Menace sold well because it was next installment of Star Wars series.

People "badmouthing" Civ5 don't "just say so" - they actually give their opinions supported by plethora of arguments and to them yes, the game is bad.

Keep believing that people unhappy with Civ5 are "little group". Continue to enjoy playing it - but a lot of stuff you've just posted is only in your head. Scary thought, no?

 

[Venereus]

How About:



In general his comments weren't silly but way over the top. It's really to bad because he had allot of great points. It would have been far more effective if it was toned down and written more professionally. As it is he comes off as someone who loves Civilization 4 and is mad because Civilization V isn't just Civ 4 with new graphics.

The article lacks vision. I can see how Civiliation 5 can be patched or modded to become a fun game following it's original design principles with some work. If firaxis doesn't do it then I know the modding community will.

I really don't want Civilization 4 with new graphics. I want what the designers originally intended and promised but haven't yet delivered.

This worries me. No paying customer should ever consider this. It's WRONG. In way too many levels. Just... don't.

 

[aatami]

Until Firaxis releases the SDK, modders can only do so much right?

The SDK was released a long time a go already...

 

[LAnkou]

If you truly want to give the game another chance, then learn from your experience, and adapt your play accordingly. Specifically, you are not punished for succeeding in war, but there are consequences to growing too much without sufficient happiness. It makes no difference whether the growth comes organically, or from conquest. If you don't have sufficient happiness to absorb the population, you have to pay the price. How you choose to deal with this is up to you.

Well, i'm ok with a penalty for outgrowing, but, honestly, i'm not a fan of how it's currently implemented:
-by outgrowing, i'm lacking happiness. My goal is to get happiness
-being far in the unhappiness treshold, i have no growth, fewer production and combat maluses + rebels appearing...
-what are my solutions?

I know people don't like comparison to Civ4, but honestly, that's the only thing i can make.
In Civ4, overexpanding means generally to lower the science rate to support the cities during the time i need to grow them up
In CivV, i need to have new buildings that i can't build (because it's already so long and now i have a penalty + i have no growth so i can't work anymore tile), i need to fight against rebels with a -33% malus, the best thing to do is put all cities on gold focus, connect cities to trade route asap and buy colosseum and courthouse...
Bite me if you want, but it's becoming "buy an empire to stand the test of time"

Thinking about it, the penalty for unhappiness shouldn't be on cities but on the whole empire (like happiness is managed): In civ4, you were adjusting the sliders, so overexpanding had effect on the whole empire, not in all your cities. In Civ5, the growth and production malus is on the cities. You should give instead a penalty on the science or gold output of your empire. from -1 to -10, you need to pay some gold, from -10 to -20, you have malus on science (-X%) and from -21 and under, you can start having rebels, but without any malus on combat against them. Of course, numbers should be worked, but i think it will be felt less painfull than the way it is now...

About the 5 points of Sullla, well, i don't play MP, but if it is non-existant because of really severe issue, well sure it is really problematic...

-Diplomacy: well, there are still some criteria that we don't see that determine friendship, because, how can Bismarck been enthousiast when there are only red criteria on screen? Plus, we need more way to get the AI friendly (make them value positively trading, give more trading options, add a trade route exchange after right of passage), get rid of possibly abusing trade like gold VS gold per turn, and a serious revamp of denounciation. I will make a chart, but on my current game, i think all 8 remaining AI have all denounced each others...How do you get rid of a denounciation in friendship determination?

-Player being punished: it's true i'm not a fan of buildings and road maintenance (especially road and railroad). The goal was to prevent people from building all buildings in all cities. Well, now people build the same buildings in all cities, but not all of them. Since gold is so much more efficient than production, i'm starting to think that i should just put cities on gold focus and sell all production buildings...It's not rewarding to build windmill and workshop just to have the city focusing on gold, honestly. I already explain my point on war reward...

-Global happiness: well, see my point upthere. It's not a bad idea. It's a bad implementation...

-1UPT: well, it can work with the following: better AI, easier movement and authorized stacking for some units with other civ units (especially workers).
I really think part of the AI problem is the fact they can't move well their units (blocking path of each other, etc...) and human boredom comes from that. The AI can't outflank you, they block their own unit easily because of limited movement. Removing the road penalty (and decreasing the trade route income) means road spam all the way, but it will be much more easier to move units and making war even more interesting than it already is. If this make the AI smarter, then it's a good thing... Maybe railroads can keep their maintenance cost, numbers should be worked.
Plus, workers should be able to stack over others civs unit, because i'm fed up of others civ units (especially City states ones) preventing my workers to make improvement and roads, notably in my own territory...

 

[Androrc the Orc]

The SDK was released a long time a go already...

He means a portion of the source code, like in Civ4.

 

[LDiCesare]

If you truly want to give the game another chance, then learn from your experience, and adapt your play accordingly. Specifically, you are not punished for succeeding in war, but there are consequences to growing too much without sufficient happiness. It makes no difference whether the growth comes organically, or from conquest. If you don't have sufficient happiness to absorb the population, you have to pay the price. How you choose to deal with this is up to you.

That's just false.
If you gain population from war, you get either:
-additional unhappiness and need for a courthouse.
-less unhappiness and no increase of your culture(...) costs but no control over what the city does (puppets).
-more unhappiness while you raze the city.

There is a definite difference whether the growth is organic or not.

The article lacks vision. I can see how Civiliation 5 can be patched or modded to become a fun game following it's original design principles with some work. If firaxis doesn't do it then I know the modding community will.

Why? I stopped modding Civ V because I think it's unfun and without access to C++ the game isn't worth playing so I'm not going to waste time modding it until/unless the tools to do so are delivered. Modders may as well look elsewhere if they don't like the base game. And when the C++ code will be available, I'm afraid many will have finished with Civ V.

 

[zuraffo]

In general his comments weren't silly but way over the top. It's really to bad because he had allot of great points. It would have been far more effective if it was toned down and written more professionally.

Who are you to demand that he write more "professionally"? Are you somehow paying him to write more "professionally"? Just for the record, I find his analysis to be incredibly professional, and definitely more honest than the commercial reviewers (who have sold their souls to the devil). Also, I also find his analysis to be very restrained and even-handed, and in no way over the top.

Your reaction OTOH, seemed pretty hysterical to me.

Just so you get a feel of other people's opinion.

As it is he comes off as someone who loves Civilization 4 and is mad because Civilization V isn't just Civ 4 with new graphics.

That is not the way he came off to me.

The article lacks vision.

You are asking a fan article to have vision for a commercial product? Hallo? Are you somehow confusing the developer and the paying customer? Are you having a mental breakdown? (assuming you have a mind to begin with)

I can see how Civiliation 5 can be patched or modded to become a fun game following it's original design principles with some work. If firaxis doesn't do it then I know the modding community will.

This, is the problem we are facing as a game community as a whole. BTW this attitude is plain wrong. When the game community stop holding the developer responsible for their problem and start fixing their problem, we have a major role confusion. And when other players start expected another player to fix problem for them. Then, well, this is the end of the franchise. Because people mod because it is a great product in the first place , and making a good product greater is enjoyable to some. Fixing a broken product however, sounds simply exploitive.

I really don't want Civilization 4 with new graphics. I want what the designers originally intended and promised but haven't yet delivered.

And never will. Mark my word. Don't hold your breath.