Trying to be constructive.

[PoliticalPro]

Hi, I've been playing Civ since ever, and I love this game to the point it influenced my college degree of choice (International Affaires) . I'm creating this thread to do some constructive criticism on the latest instalment of the game.
A lot has been discussed about how Diplomatic AI and how it feels it's a squizo. It is a matter of perception. On the first Civs AIs diplomacy was based on a numerical calculation and dice rolls, even in Civ4 where additional variables were added but the principle remained the same. In Civ5 the intention of the devs was to give the AI an Agenda of it's own. Although this intent (both the programmer's & the programmed AI's one) was pretty clear to me, the average player had to deal with what he perceived as an "obscure" AI which caused a lot of complaints. On the other hand there were true glitches or exploits such as the resource trade/DoW one. The latter is the easiest one to fix, but the perception problem forces to rework the whole diplomacy interface, because the current one makes it really hard to interact with an AI with an Agenda of it's own. This leads to the second problem : Failure to execute. The AI cannot currently execute it's own agenda effectively. 1upt and 2MP requires a much more complex AI than the stacks of death one and this issue has been perceived by the players since day one. This problem has two different "legs", the first one is the lack of a complex AI as I have stated before, the second problem is the lack of maneuvering capability for 2 reasons. First, maps are too small and secondly the choice of the hexagon which limits your maneuvering capability even further. This leads directly to frontal confrontations every time which is boring as hell.
Another issue related to the "failure to execute" problem is that the AI also fails to execute non militaristic actions such as expanding or controlling the world's resources and choosing policies. The way they were coded was not optimal.
And finally, the 3rd problem I encountered was the Policy system. IT has no check&balance. Once the policy was adopted, it stays there forever. In addition with no slides for science luxuries and taxes, it turns out as a shallow game mechanic. The perfect solution for this problem, would be a similar system like Civ2 forms of goverment , every goverment with it's pros and cons. It's equally simplistic but not as shallow.

I have to say that the intentions of the developers were clear from the start of the game. It's a game designed not as an improvement of Civ4 (which is really hard to improve because it's the best game of the saga) but as an entirely new game that should create an entirely new saga. It has great pros like upt but as any first instalment, it has deficiencies that will be fixed in expansions, and most probably in Civ6.

Thx for reading my wall of text, and pardon my not so perfect english

 

[Sonereal]

Your English is fine.

The whole time, kept trying to find something to disagree with (and I usually nitpick some disagreement in a long post) but I pretty much agree here. I guess my own problem with Civics versus Social Policies is that Civics felt "cheap" in the sense you can change often with little penalty unless you're playing A New Dawn on Eternal (seriously, 32 turns of anarchy?). SPs makes it feel like you're guiding the nation's culture but it tries to act like a government at the same time.

I would prefer they bring back civics but not get rid of SPs outright. I think both systems work.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The problem (from an IR standpoint) is that this AI would horrify Waltz, Keohane and Bueno de Mesquita equally. It neither balances, nor looks for positive opportunities for interaction (primarily because they are so limited), nor thinks more than one move ahead into the future.

Instead, we've got an AI that bandwagons to a degree that I don't think even Stephen Walt could support. If international relations worked the way that players interact in this game, we'd certainly have a single world state by now.

The unrealistic behavior is the primary reason for all the criticism. The Civ 4 AI was much more realistic in the sense that states had distinct personalities, sought to advance the associated interests, and didn't have quite so many "WTH?" grand strategy moments. You've definitely hit on a lot of the reasons why the AI plays poorly on a tactical level; that's a distinct problem from the fact that the AIs are bland and don't execute genuine grand strategy.

 

[Misterboy]

I don't know. I feel like every game in the series has plenty of weaknesses that can be pointed out. I appreciate that you're discussing them in the hopes of leading to better balances and fixes, however. It's nice to see a constructive view of things rather than pointless bashing.

I guess I've always been in the minority that felt that Civ 4 had a lot of major problems that made it too predictable. Maybe I just played it too much. In any case, it got a lot better over the years. I expect that Civ 5 will as well. I voiced this a lot when the game was new and got shouted down a lot... but I'm happy to see that I was right and the devs are diligently working on it.

As others have pointed out, they're still making money off of Civ 5, mostly due to DLC, I think. So that means they're invested in making it better. Despite the DLC, I personally expect to see at least one expansion as well. I figure we have a 50/50 chance for this game to be as highly regarded as Civ 4 one day.

I tend to disagree about SPs though. I rather like them and they're accumulative effect. Being able to totally change your government and suddenly have completely different effects always felt "gamey" to me. The way it works now, encourages you to work through a strategy while having some flexibility.

 

[Strategist83]

I think 5 has made considerable advancements over 4 in a large number of key areas. It is simultaneously true that it advances so much it almost feels like a different game.

Firaxis actually did an outstanding job of creating a revolutionary Civ game which succeeds in so many areas. The problem is they didn't finish what they started - and I certainly hope whoever was responsible for beta testing (if any!) worked for free. There are too many loose ends, too many things that weren't thought through (yet are immediately obvious to a skilled player, even with minimal actual game experience) and worst of all, an utterly dysfunctional AI in a game that is completely reliant on a strong AI. So, we have a game with massive potential but riddled with the most insane kind of problems that simply should not be there in a 'flagship' title. Problems that, while blatantly obvious, are either being ignored or worked on by a support team that takes faaaar too long to get the slightest done.

There are a lot of things for Firaxis to learn from Civ5. One of them is to have an open beta even early in development so all these enormous problems don't make it into the final release version again. That's trying to be optimistic - cynicists would say there is no possible way they could have overlooked issues this large and simply went ahead and released it unfinished for the $$$. I do remember seeing a video a few weeks before game release, though, and the genuine enthusiasm and pride of the team showcasing the game convinced me they really weren't aware of how large problems the game had and has.

 

[Camikaze]

Instead, we've got an AI that bandwagons to a degree that I don't think even Stephen Walt could support. If international relations worked the way that players interact in this game, we'd certainly have a single world state by now.

This is true, but I'm not sure Civ should be attempting to provide some sort of realistic representation. It's a game, and as such would be forced to take a completely realist perspective. There's no room for liberalism in a game. The object is simply to win. As it is, there is that very realist take on it the game in that you do what is in your interests, but unless you are going to make the AI completely aware of the 'game' that they are looking to win, then they can't do the same. Perhaps the attempt to make them act in a more 'realistic' fashion within the parameters of that game just warps their interests. Instead of doing what is in their interest, they are doing what would be in their interest if only the game were designed like the real world. That there is no real room for interdependence, for example, means that whilst they might be 'realistically' focusing on trade partnerships, that produces no entanglement in the game, kinda undercutting what would be the realistic purpose.

I don't know what the solution to this is.