I've read with interest people's opinions in this thread. I can see where people are coming from, on both sides of the argument. My experience has been one of enjoyment. I've clocked up 200 hours thus far. I loved Civ BTS and I played countless hours. But I was a poor player (Warlord diff.) as I'd neglect my military. (I really don't miss those ****** stacks of doom.) Civ V forces you to look at your military and I like this, because I never did before. Yes, it is too easy at the moment. I can finish it on Deity without too much difficulty. Maritime CS are ridiculously overpowered. The AI is pathetically stupid. But in spite of these things, I feel that the overall balance and gameplay will be improved with patches and expansion packs. Look at the difference b/w Civ IV vanilla and BTS for example. And these days, it's just how the software world works. Developers release sub-standard, buggy, crashy products and let their massive user community identify those problems so they can fix them. It happens across all sorts of software. This will be no different. If this practice bothers you, then you shouldn't be using fresh software. Give it time to mature before you jump in. In the meantime, crank up the difficulty to Emp or Deity and see how you go. It can be a lot of fun.
I have had every Civ (1 to 5) and the best has been Civ2. I try to play 2 at times but the graphics are rather dated. I would love the next Civ to be like 2 with the superb graphics of Civ5 I read all the letters of this post with much interest. This Civ takes some getting used to.
I think this may be the single best post I've seen on this forum; it mirrors my own feelings almost exactly.
mannn do any of you guys never stop for a moment and think that its not the game, its YOU. You have changed. maybe your attention cant be held so easily or whatever. youve got older whatever. depressing threads, the likes of this one are.
No, it's the new direction that Firaxis has took in order to get more money, not me. Target audience has changed this time, so if I would've changed then I could probably like it with the rest of the ppl loving the game. But I haven't. I've tried Civ4 recently and had a blast - I could start telling you story about it - that's how immersive it was. Then I've tried another game of Civ5 and it was boring and broken.
Although I really miss some of the former Civ 4 features such as religion etc. I really like the new combat system and the other new ideas. Would be awesome if they have just added the new civ features. But altogether I have to say playing Civ 5 is acutally quite fun!
And this is why civ5 is a success. It attracts players who are used to games only lasting them a few days. Civ 5 is fun for a few weeks, so it musst be great. But civ fanatics want civ games to last 5 years, not 5 weeks
Sorry you missed the tongue-in-cheek there. I've logged well over 100 hours into Civ5, by the way. It's potential and longevity is readily apparent to me. I am sorry if you fail to see that or if you feel differently. No one is able to release a game that pleases everyone inclusively.
What Thorite wrote very much mirrors my feelings towards Civ5. I am more of a builder type than a warmonger, so I was actually excited by losing the stack of doom, and being an old hex-game player, I also looked forward to this change. Regrettably, as a builder what totally puts me off is that it matters fk all where you actually build things. City placement, which was an integral part of making Civ4 so much fun for me, is all but gone. The effects of buildings and wonders are so cut down as to make them all but irrelevant. And being able to buy things from the get go, but not rushing something, how silly is that? To me, the current Civ5 feels more like Battle Isle 2010 than an actual Civilization game. I see a lot of potential in the groundwork laid out in this game. I fully support the introduction of 1upt and hexes, and I don't even mind losing religions and civics. And as ridiculous as they may be, I can even forgive (given enough time) the major bugs and balance issues in the release. But unless they do some serious polishing to make all resources (not just strategic ones) more important again, to make city placement seriously matter, to make buildings and wonders be actually important or even crucial to success, I am afraid I will have wasted my money for good. And anything resembling trust I might have had in Firaxis is rather nonexistant after they actually did two of the things I hate most in the gaming industry: dumbed down a game to cater to the masses instead of the fans (I realize this is economically desireable, but that doesn't mean I have to like it...), and tried to reinvent the wheel instead of just tweaking it. All I have left is hope that I am wrong in my assessment of them as unscrupulous moneygrubbers with some detached form of vision.
I mostly agree with Thorite, the game is boring... but there are parts of Civ V I like. 1UPT, Hex tiles, range units actually being able to kill things from a distance, I can't remember any ranged units attacking from a distance or even nukes being able to kill units in Civ 4 (this is from memory I could be wrong). If modding the game wasn't beyond my ability, I would make a Civ 4 version of 1 Combat Per Tile, (I like stacking my workers for speedy improvements and have all my Great people on 1 tile eg-capital, so I know where they are) disable diaginal movement, grant all units double movement points and give archers and other ranged unit like Siege, the ability to do ranged damage and see how the game balance would work out. The combat would be similar to advance wars on the DS i guess, but there's still the problem of friendly units blocking your army, I once had an AI unit that i wasn't at war with block my army from attacking another AI that I was at war with.... :S
True Blue, I'll admit that my expectations might have changed, but like other people have posted BTS still retains their interest. Also, Chess boards and pieces are still being made around the world. Strategy games are good because you need new strategies to get better and better - this is what makes them interesting. While starting Civ4 I tried to build too many cities, rushed to get a religion, build missionaries, built temples...doomed myself to bad economy and alot of enemies. I then adapted to fewer cities, financial leaders for more commerce and pursued less religion. Some runaway, vassal dominating civ beat me up for having too little production. Strategies adapted again - more production, less commerce for the win! Then switched out of financial leaders and had to adapt again. Next game(s) I went back to trying to win WITH religion without the feeling that I'm intentionally NOT playing to win (like turning away CS military units or not pursuing maritime CS). Civ5 you just can't say this. Produce units, produce cities, go to/stay at war. Done. That's what we're lamenting here.
Civ 4 was probably my least favorite of the entire franchise. Different strokes all around, Civ 2 being my all time favorite and Civ 3 a close second, until Civ 5, which is my favorite yet.
It has been more than 3 weeks since I have even turned CiV on. I haven't even tried the patch yet. I also find it extremely boring. I view the game as a choice between warring with every other CiV for conquest victory, or grinding though 4-5 hours of mid-late game "next turn" clicking for the other victory types. The problem is that the AI is awful in battle, so a conquest victory is easy and thus boring. So I have a choice between 2 boring victory paths. My reward? A picture and a couple sentences. No thanks.
I suggest you reinstall Civ4 from scratch, with no patches and no expansions and see if you can relive the initial release moments again. It was a while ago and I can't remeber specifics myself, but I know I was less than impressed with the initial release. As they patched it and added expansions, Civ4 become much more engaging and enjoyable for me. I'm hoping Civ5 can eventually get there. I'm going to give it some time to settle in and develop before making any final judgements on the game.