What pisses me off about Civ5, every day

[Xiao Xiong]

Playing again because I just got G&K, and it's a huge improvement. Much better game!

However, there are still a few really easy to fix, stupid things that piss me off every single time I play Civ5/G&K:

-- Civilian units that choose to walk right up to an enemy unit. Come on. This is easy to fix. If a worker/settler/GP is about to walk up into a tile that is within 2 hex of an enemy unit, just wake up and ask me what you want to do. It's unbelievable this happens, so easy to fix! I replay many whole turns reversing these stupid decisions. I'm not talking about fog of war stuff. I mean, the barbarian camp I already discovered, the enemy unit that's invaded into my territory--don't walk up to it!

-- Units that go backwards because their path is temporarily blocked. If an obstructing unit is friendly, or if it's more than 2-3 hexes away, just ignore it. Wake up when actually blocked. NEVER go backwards because of a blocking unit.

-- Flipping to another unit "mid action", I am not sure exactly when this happens, but sometime it seems a note or something will pop up relating to a unit, the UI highlights that unit, something, then I go to move it, and SOME OTHER unit has been selected to move, but I don't notice. I can't put my finger on what is causing this, but it's another big annoyance. Somehow, the unit I expect to be selected isn't always the one actually selected.

And then there are some things that piss me off a bit less than that, but still:

-- When jumping to the "next" unit, if there is a possible next unit within 2 hexes of the one I just just moved, jump to that one. Why jump all over the map? OK, overall world-ordering would be hard. But if there is a nearby unit that I could give an order to, within 2 hexes--easy to find that--then go there. Much smoother experience.

-- What's with other civ's popping up offers to trade with me, and then when I accept their offer, telling me that they must demand more?! OK, simple bug. But! Really!

-- Can we not have an automate worker command, "improve tiles in nearby city"? I send a worker to a city, there are 3-4 things to improve. Improve 'em and then wake up and ask me what to do.

I don't know if any Civ designers read this forum but the above all seem like easy ones to fix and would make the game SO much better.

 

[Glassmage]

they will fix these bugs soon hopefully. In the mean time, pay attention.

 

[FeiLing]

I expect things like this to be addressed by maybe Civ 12 or 13. For the time being, you'll have to deal with it unfortunately.

 

[Bhoy]

This thread is so tempting...

But I won't, I'll put it in the rant thread. In the mean time I'll continue not playing this game any more while still being casually enraged by the state of it

 

[Jabberwockxeno]

-- What's with other civ's popping up offers to trade with me, and then when I accept their offer, telling me that they must demand more?! OK, simple bug. But! Really!

Most of your complaints are minor stuff relating to automated worker pathfinding, which is an option, you can always do it by hand.

Except for that.

It's actually explained in the wording:

After the end of a trade deal, most of the time the AI will try to renew it. If they feel the deal is no longer valid as is, they'll say that they need it to be re-worked. It's easy to miss.

 

[_invy_]

-- When jumping to the "next" unit, if there is a possible next unit within 2 hexes of the one I just just moved, jump to that one. Why jump all over the map? OK, overall world-ordering would be hard. But if there is a nearby unit that I could give an order to, within 2 hexes--easy to find that--then go there. Much smoother experience.

I h a t e this. So irritating, but this is a bit hard to fix, its situational.

 

[Sonereal]

P
-- Civilian units that choose to walk right up to an enemy unit. Come on. This is easy to fix. If a worker/settler/GP is about to walk up into a tile that is within 2 hex of an enemy unit, just wake up and ask me what you want to do. It's unbelievable this happens, so easy to fix! I replay many whole turns reversing these stupid decisions. I'm not talking about fog of war stuff. I mean, the barbarian camp I already discovered, the enemy unit that's invaded into my territory--don't walk up to it!

Don't automate units

-- Units that go backwards because their path is temporarily blocked. If an obstructing unit is friendly, or if it's more than 2-3 hexes away, just ignore it. Wake up when actually blocked. NEVER go backwards because of a blocking unit.

Don't automate units. I've never seen this problem.

-- Flipping to another unit "mid action", I am not sure exactly when this happens, but sometime it seems a note or something will pop up relating to a unit, the UI highlights that unit, something, then I go to move it, and SOME OTHER unit has been selected to move, but I don't notice. I can't put my finger on what is causing this, but it's another big annoyance. Somehow, the unit I expect to be selected isn't always the one actually selected.

This is pretty damn annoying.

-- When jumping to the "next" unit, if there is a possible next unit within 2 hexes of the one I just just moved, jump to that one. Why jump all over the map? OK, overall world-ordering would be hard. But if there is a nearby unit that I could give an order to, within 2 hexes--easy to find that--then go there. Much smoother experience.

I never quite got the system for this. It would seem like getting it so that it jumps to the nearest awake unit would be simple.

-- What's with other civ's popping up offers to trade with me, and then when I accept their offer, telling me that they must demand more?! OK, simple bug. But! Really!

I don't think that's a "bug". That happened in Civilization IV sometimes where the AI offers you a trade, you accept, and you take a relationship hit because the AI feels cheated. The reason I say it isn't a bug is because I didn't expect any better from the CivV AI.

Unless its how Jabber is explaining it, in which case, it makes sense.

-- Can we not have an automate worker command, "improve tiles in nearby city"? I send a worker to a city, there are 3-4 things to improve. Improve 'em and then wake up and ask me what to do.

Don't automate workers.

Ever.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

Concerning issues with automated workers... I suggest not automating them. Or perhaps automating a few, but keeping the rest under manual control when you want specific tiles improved. The computer has no way of knowing the order or method in which you need tiles improved, only you do.

Concerning unit selection jumping, that's something you can turn off in Options. Jump to Next Unit, I think it is called, or something similar. However at the start of each turn, even with this disabled, it will still randomly select a unit to begin with even if you had a different one selected. So watch out for that.

I'm with you on the units going back, though, when blocked. That just intentionally wastes turns. I understand that the pathing is trying to find a new route, but come on. The unit should stop and request new orders if the original pathing is interrupted like that. Currently the unit only stops and wakes up when there is NO path to the destination, not just if the path takes it the opposite away around the world.

Because of this I've gotten into the habit of manually moving all my units each turn to where I want them to go. It's a little extra hassle but saves you from the WTH moments that can really mess you up.

 

[budweiser]

-- Flipping to another unit "mid action", I am not sure exactly when this happens, but sometime it seems a note or something will pop up relating to a unit, the UI highlights that unit, something, then I go to move it, and SOME OTHER unit has been selected to move, but I don't notice. I can't put my finger on what is causing this, but it's another big annoyance. Somehow, the unit I expect to be selected isn't always the one actually selected.


I don't know if any Civ designers read this forum but the above all seem like easy ones to fix and would make the game SO much better.

This is a big problem, it should get put into the bugs section. I've had military units leave the scene of battle because of this, causing delays and the loss of other units because of it. I've had artillery wlak right out in the open only to dies the next turn. I'm glad someone brought this up.

 

[Naokaukodem]

The thing that annoys me greater is the fact that when you choose to move a range of close units step by step manually, next turn will not remember the order. I will have to re-select the "front" unit ad eternam.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

they will fix these bugs soon hopefully. In the mean time, pay attention.

The firaxis folks have been poking around the bugs section lately. Expect a patch soon.
BTW -

A big, huge thank you to all of the guys and gals at Firaxis for making a great game AND taking the time to listen to our whinning.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

-- Units that go backwards because their path is temporarily blocked. If an obstructing unit is friendly, or if it's more than 2-3 hexes away, just ignore it. Wake up when actually blocked. NEVER go backwards because of a blocking unit.

Don't automate units. I've never seen this problem.

I believe he is talking about pathfinding, not automation. Often when you send a unit across the globe, it will back track when another unit steps in the path. Which is annoying.

What's even more annoying, IMO, is when another unit ends its turn in the destination tile of one of your units. Your unit then has a complete psychological breakdown and just stops. It doesn't just keep moving to that tile that's half way around the world and will probably be unoccupied by the time it gets there. It doesn't even bother to remind you with a path outline of where it was trying to go - you just have to guess or hopefully remember the spot. I've started memorizing landmarks in game for just this reason.

Edit: @KillingMeSoftly, the suggested fix in your third paragraph will greatly exacerbate the problem I just mentioned in the above paragraph.

 

[stripe7]

The jumping all over the screen to get to the next unit is the one that pisses me off the most about the game. How hard would it be to code the program to check your screen position then parse the list of next active units for one whose coordinates match/come close to what you are looking at? How about giving us a choice of in selection of next units, quick or nearest unit?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

-- Units that go backwards because their path is temporarily blocked. If an obstructing unit is friendly, or if it's more than 2-3 hexes away, just ignore it. Wake up when actually blocked. NEVER go backwards because of a blocking unit.

There are TBS games from say 1991 that do this already. Civ though? Nope.

Civilian units that choose to walk right up to an enemy unit. Come on.

Sadly, this keeps cropping up too.

-- Flipping to another unit "mid action", I am not sure exactly when this happens, but sometime it seems a note or something will pop up relating to a unit, the UI highlights that unit, something, then I go to move it, and SOME OTHER unit has been selected to move, but I don't notice. I can't put my finger on what is causing this, but it's another big annoyance. Somehow, the unit I expect to be selected isn't always the one actually selected.

Sigh. More civ IV problems carrying over into V .

Most of your complaints are minor stuff relating to automated worker pathfinding, which is an option, you can always do it by hand.

Wrong? Some of it is basic UI stuff. That games 20 years prior got right. Hmm.

they will fix these bugs soon hopefully. In the mean time, pay attention.

I wouldn't hold your breath. Civ IV 3.19 still has flagrant bugs with unit selection hotkeys (control, shift, alt-click confirmed not to work), units automatically moving despite attempts to stop them from moving, and broken pathing that auto-reroutes when something unseen comes up.

What makes you think they'll "fix UI bugs" in civ V, ever, with such precedent? The aforementioned bugs in civ IV were known years before the final patch 3.19. Indeed, some of these civ V UI bugs are once again known well over a year. What do they do in that period of time? Release DLC, release expansion content, patch out strategies that seem "too good", and once again flagrantly ignore basic gameplay 101 concepts like "working title that runs decently" and "UI that actually does what is ordered consistently."

Civ IV and V aren't as different as people like to claim. They are ASTOUNDINGLY similar with the crappy coding between turns, miserable UI, and nonsensical pathing logic that a couple guys two decades ago could beat.

Believe it or not, there *ARE* TBS games where every time you press a keyboard hotkey, it does what the game claims that hotkey will do. When was the last time civ did that? Civ III? II? It's been so long.

 

[GreedysMaximus]

And the reward for the most annoying bug goes to this one: Sully pops up and wants to renew an old luxurie trade, ok. I check if i have any surplus in the diplomacy window - it shows i have 2 units of that resource. Trade done - 4 unhappiness hit and a luxurie gone - HURRAAAYY(would say Mel Gibson).

 

[gozpel]

It's sad a settler or another unit can't have a sense of danger, while my workers stops working every turn, if there is a barbarcher within 10 tiles. Or maybe just 5, but still.

 

[joncnunn]

Sadly multi turn path-finding was broken as a side effect of the 1 UPT rule. Its just not a good idea to give any multi turn movement orders.

 

[Brichals]

-- What's with other civ's popping up offers to trade with me, and then when I accept their offer, telling me that they must demand more?! OK, simple bug. But! Really!

Thats not a bug it's a feature and it's a good one. Civs come back to you now when deals are over. I like it. If you are doing better (or relatioships have gone bad) they will ask for a better deal. It's an improvement over a few patches ago.

-- Can we not have an automate worker command, "improve tiles in nearby city"? I send a worker to a city, there are 3-4 things to improve. Improve 'em and then wake up and ask me what to do.

Couldn't agree more. Mid game microing workers gets tedious. However I think that the pathing issues aren't that bad, you shouldn't be automating or making paths into the fog. I do it and it also pisses me off (especially with auto attack on barb camps from scouts etc). But I don't think its a major priority to fix. Just I tell myself I have to pay more attention, but I have rage quit over it, it's my own fault.

 

[Grendeldef]

This has potential for a long list but on top would be selecting & moving units in various form. The logic behind this is on intellectual equivalent of amoeba. Bugs are one thing but these are things not properly dealt with.


a) swapping unit with unused movement point(s) is plain stupid and especially so with logistics unit between hits.
b) after selecting city defense a logical choice for next unit would be one within city radius
c) when moving several units to same general direction why does the auto select always the last moved unit ? Since there's no stacking units have to be moved in same order every turn
d) selecting an after turn pop up should activate the unit/city.

few other things

e) invisible units - it's stupid to reload just to see every AI unit in range. (bug I assume)
f) lack of combat log - it shouldn't be too hard to keep a log of activities at least one turn.
g) the turn of DoF is not visible on trades
h) unlockable tiles on city screen

G