[BNW] What do you think of BNW replay value?

[Pawelec123456]

I don't think Civ5 is very replayable. Mods don't help much, in fact both Vox Populi and NQMod made the game even more repetitive for me (the "balancing" they do is in fact done the bulldozer way - make all the civs and policies flat).
After 128 hours of playing I think I can tell why the game is so repetitive.

1. Tall race for World Wonders is way OP
The only things players race for are good city locations, World Wonders and, later on, City State allies, sometimes it is also important to convert citizens to your Religion, but it's negligible. Penalties for having many cities are so severe that they penalise any form of further expansion. Once you discover how OP the World Wonders are and that you can grind even more Culture when you go for Aesthetics to unlock policies even faster (my last Siam game on Emperor: in the mid-game I was 6 Social Policies ahead of the remaining civs because of the boni from Aesthetics branch) you realise no matter what, you need to funnel Production towards World Wonders.

2. Civs barely differ (and that's why Venice is so much fun)
Shared technology tree, social policies, buildings, units, beliefs... B-O-R-I-N-G. The only fun civ to play is Venice as it is really different in playstyle, but can be easily mastered.

3. Snowballing
The only way to stop you is to wage war against you to enforce training military units, and even this may fail if you're wealthy enough. Otherwise you'll grind that Culture or Science continuously, because the same resource is spent on making collecting it faster. Exponential growth is a serious problem.

4. Boring City States
Except taking up good map spots and providing World Congress votes they are absolutely useless. A great example of unnecessary complexity in game design.

The worst thing is I haven't heard nor read that any of these have changed in Civ6 and I have no intention of purchasing a game with exactly the same flaws. Either I find out there's a mod I've been missing on for almost a year or I'll switch to a different title.

And what do you think?

 

[mmmbacon914]

It sounds like the reason you're getting bored is because you're playing on a difficulty that is too easy for you. If you're able to beat the AI to wonders and snowball easily without having to make use of stuff like city states and religion it might be time to bump up the difficulty to a point where you have to get more creative.

I just finished my first Deity game and I had to deal with the fact that I wasn't going to be able to get many wonders and would be consistently outgunned by the AI. City states ended up being a huge part of my strategy because the ones between my biggest rival and I loved to pump out naval units (I was playing archipelago), so I could declare war, and even though his military was bigger than mine he would get so weakened by my CS allies I could use my Ottoman UA to swoop in, steal a bunch of his ships, and really turn the tide. And even with that, some religious play, a lot of bribery, and micromanaging of great person generation, it was a super close game. I also had to deal with the fact that I had no access to coal which had never happened before...

So I'd say try bumping up the difficulty before you give up on it.

 

[Pawelec123456]

I've been playing strategy games since I remember, so after the tutorial I jumped straight into King difficulty, diplo-won as Rome, then I got like 4 games at the Emperor and moved on to Deity, last week I completed my Deity tour and won at least one Deity match with every civ. I was hoping every civ would have been different to play but they hadn't been. Even hotseat with my friends who are way better than the Deity AI got repetitive. We've even coined a term 'wonderballing'. Firaxis should rethink their approach to the most recent Civilization releases as Paradox casts a huge shadow over them with their grand strategies.

 

[phillipwyllie]

....After 128 hours of playing....

....last week I completed my Deity tour and won at least one Deity match with every civ...

According to the wiki there is 43 civs to choose from so that means every game took less than 3hours. There are 5 victory conditions and certain civs offer a unique way to win. Polynesia for example can win a CV without generating any art. I would say you really haven't experienced civ5 in it's entirety. Granted the strategy part is lacking but pure strategy is boring and I would argue that the majority of the 9,405,304 players would agree.

 

[Redaxe]

The replay value is probably better than the earlier civilisation games.

I think people expect more now so the benchmark is much higher.

You are far from the first to make those observations about BNW - there are some problems inherent. A civ with a few large cities tends to do better than a civ with lots of smaller cities.
However this is largely because standard maps just don't have enough space for Liberty to be truly viable and science favors large cities - a larger map does alleviate some of these issues.

Its also because people are that good at Civ 5 that they can regularly get a science victory at turn 250. If the tech cost was increased a bit and the national college toned down that would probably fix things because a wide civ could have a bit more time to catch up.

 

[danaphanous]

the replay value is only boring if you play the same way every time in my opinion. Like all games you have to be proactive and try to do things differently each time. I like to struggle so in the end when even Deity became easy with the best strategies I started playing challenge scenarios. Also, there are 5 victory conditions (really 4), you talk like there is only two? Anyway, I realize this game isn't for everyone but if it gets boring to you when you learn to play well a certain way, the answer seems simple to me: play in a different way. And civ5 BNW is a very good game for allowing that. There are hundreds of unique strategies and paths to victory.

Here's an example: religious war. Religion has tons of practically unused tenets that can help you war. Challenge yourself to conquer an entire large map on a high difficulty level and also convert the world as you go. Try to craft a religion that works with that strategy using beliefs most players wouldn't usually value

 

[Pawelec123456]

You all assume I didn't try to experiment. Scientific victory with Venice on Deity was probably the most interesting of all the games I had (and the AI sucks at utilising the religion, I always pay a lot of attention to it), I tried various things, mostly strange (Diplo with Babylon, Cultural with Mongols etc.). What I think could solve the problem? Civ uniqueness. Unique wonders, buildings, units, policies, beliefs, technology trees... The gameplay is to similar on a global scale, if civs were more tailored it would be a ton better.