Who else agrees that Civ 5 has been dumbed down?

[da_Vinci]

you know this would've been a great title on the consoles. why don't they move this game onto consoles and re-do civ5 for PC?

Maybe Civilemon 5 is the common ancestor for two evolutionary lines ... a console line and a PC line? They smarten it up for the PC, and dumb it down more for the consoles?

dV

 

[ohioastronomy]

Perhaps we should ask 2K Greg over at the 2K forums if they plan to release console versions of Civ 5. It would be interesting to find out if it is in the works or not. Of course, a thread of that nature over there would probably get the thread closed, and your account banned permanently.

There is no other way in which the interface makes sense. You wouldn't design a PC interface, streamlined or no, with huge oversized icons like that. They're meant to be used on a TV set that you're not close to.

 

[Kadath]

Really, again, no doubt this incarnation of civ is extremely disappointing on several things. There's hardly any serious argument to counter that undeniable fact.

However, guys, per se it's not such a bad game. When mentioning "unfinished, bug ridden, broken product", maybe you should look at Elemental, the real MAJOR flop from this season. A game that doesn't work for almost everyone, and for those who at least it does work without crashing every 5 minutes still it is ridden with game breaking bugs and a broken engine slowing to a crawl even on the most powerful rigs despite the amateurish graphics, plus a woeful lack of features that were on the other hand advertised, as the game is nothing like what was written on the box.

This civ is underwhelming, clearly streamlined to cater to a wider market (something which usually backfires in this gaming genre), and it has several bugs and issues with the AI, undisputable. But on comparison these are relatively minor issues: the engine works and is quite stable (and really, already not so badly optimized), most of the complaints come from balance and AI issues that are definitely fixable, not from the design itself. That they will be able to fix those things or not, well, this has to be seen, scepticism isn't without reasons, but a broken game is a whole different sort of product.
Venting and criticizing such an unsatisfying release is wholly justified, but keep it real dudes

 

[Charvel1]

Really, again, no doubt this incarnation of civ is extremely disappointing on several things. There's hardly any serious argument to counter that undeniable fact.

Actually, I can counter that undeniable opinion.

This incarnation of CIV has flaws which will eventually be worked out but even right now is an extremely satisfying game.

There, see? I countered your opinion with my own.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

So you're countering a statement based on the present with a statement about a possible future? It is like the the promises of politicians: you are not so good now, but i promise you that you'll sure be better in the future! I'm right now very good, so you will be either!

Be honest is an option, not opinion of course...

 

[Charvel1]

So you're countering a statement based on the present with a statement about a possible future? It is like the the promises of politicians: we are not so good now, but i promise you that we'll sure be better in the future! I'm right now very good, so you will be either!

Be honest is an option, not opinion of course...

Nope, did you see where I said 'but even right now is an extremely satisfying game'? That's a counter.

Also, just giving ANY opinion (no matter how fantastical or realistic) will counter anyone else's opinion.

 

[JerichoHill]

I disagree that CIV5 is less complicated. I think those who believe so haven't taken to really thinking about the choices this game has made more complex. Social policy choices matter for the whole game (in CIV4, civics could be changed on whim). Big empires are more costly. War now depends on proper unit alignment. Counters matter. Terrain actually matters.

There are flaws, but there were flaws when CIV4 first came out. And CIV3. AND CIV2

I feel most people who are upset at CIV5 are those who have not been playing through the entire series. If you have, you'd know that patches do come out to fix things that the developers didn't foresee. I trust that a few patches will make CIV5 really interesting and fix obvious AI exploits.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

Nope, did you see where I said 'but even right now is an extremely satisfying game'? That's a counter.

Also, just giving ANY opinion (no matter how fantastical or realistic) will counter anyone else's opinion.

Excuse my but is a fact that the AI is a big problem to the mechanics of the game.

So you are satisfied with a game with dumb AI? And don't sell me that you have difficulties, because i'm winning on emperor, and i'm not a good palyer myself, so or are you a total novice, and your statement is invalidated by your inexperience, or you are experienced but lying for some obscure reasons, but because i think that lying is something that i can't presume of no one, expecially if i don't know who i'm talking to, i will presume you are a novice.

 

[Psyringe]

I feel most people who are upset at CIV5 are those who have not been playing through the entire series. If you have, you'd know that patches do come out to fix things that the developers didn't foresee.

Lots of people who are upset at Civ5 have played through the entire series. When I checked user reviews last week, it seemed that every other review started with "I've been a Civ fan since 1991", or 1995, etc. Contrary to your assessment, I think that many oldtimers are especially upset at Civ5 because they feel let down by the franchise for the first time. Not because the game still needs work - here i agree with you, everyone who knows the series would expect that, or at least not be surprised by it -, but because for the first time they have a feeling that a Civ game might be so fundamentally broken that all the fixing won't help.

There also is a poll in the forum where people can state whether they like Civ5 and which of the previous games they like. Last time I checked, there wasn't a clear trend. There was another poll which asked for the voter's age, apparently assuming that younger or older civ fans might see Civ5 diffeently. No trend there either. The 50:50 division of the community seems to go straight through all demographics as far as I can see. I don't think any monocausal explanation will fit.

 

[Jediron]

I disagree that CIV5 is less complicated.

Having more "knobS" you can push on, does not immediatly makes it more complicated.
More so if it doesn not matter much which knob you push; the result is the same : you win.
More knobs only means you have more knobs you choose from. And it that sence, it seems compplicated; because most people find it difficult to choose.

Anyway, go play again. Choose "blindfully" your policies. Play some more. In the end, it's all the same.

 

[zonk]

I disagree that CIV5 is less complicated. I think those who believe so haven't taken to really thinking about the choices this game has made more complex. Social policy choices matter for the whole game (in CIV4, civics could be changed on whim). Big empires are more costly. War now depends on proper unit alignment. Counters matter. Terrain actually matters.

There are flaws, but there were flaws when CIV4 first came out. And CIV3. AND CIV2

I feel most people who are upset at CIV5 are those who have not been playing through the entire series. If you have, you'd know that patches do come out to fix things that the developers didn't foresee. I trust that a few patches will make CIV5 really interesting and fix obvious AI exploits.

But there's a fundamental shift at work here.

To the dove/builder - that shift was a streamlining and simplification of our gameplay options in order to please the warmongers.

I have nothing against unit alignment, counters, and terrain -- bully, good to have them.

However - when you globalize happiness and (95% of the effects) of culture, plus use culture as a secondary, scaling tech tree to replace government/civics, and remove religion (and it's multi-pathed, varied effects on everything science to commerce to diplomacy to culture), eliminate all city-level effects except for growth (which frankly, you might as well globalize too, at this point), gear diplomacy more towards warfare, push the AI in the direction of "declare war if losing" while eliminating any AI proclivity towards friendly/like human civs, nerf ocean exploration and cross-continent settlements basically because warmongers hated building and loading numerous transports for their big armies, make all buildings single-purpose, simplify plot yields....

Well... "dumbed down" is inflammatory to the point of being pointless, but to the non-warmonger -- wouldn't it be fair to say that the builder lost an awful lot of gameplay?

I've reached the point where I'm actually GLAD the military AI is awful... at least until it's fixed, at least the warmongers suffer with the builders... of course, they have hope for improvement -- I don't see it for us.

 

[lschnarch]

I disagree that CIV5 is less complicated. I think those who believe so haven't taken to really thinking about the choices this game has made more complex. Social policy choices matter for the whole game (in CIV4, civics could be changed on whim). Big empires are more costly. War now depends on proper unit alignment. Counters matter. Terrain actually matters.

Social policies may matter for the rest of the game, but the strategic depth of chosing them is comparable with the strategic depth of chosing the next technology to be researched.

When you are confronted with these choices for the first time, you have to option to select goodies for a little empire, for an empire to grow and for stronger military.
These three choices may cause some thinking when playing the game for the first time, but after that it is just aligning them to what you think you want to go for in the rest of the game.
Any re-aligning due to later changes in the game is not possible. I hardly see this as being "strategic" - it is a one-time choice and then trying to make the best out of it, nothing more, nothing less.

War depends on having ranged units and horsemen. With this you can succeed up to the highest levels.
Since the opponent is incapable (although advertised to be highly skilled) I don't see much complexity in this.

Counters have always mattered. Counters matter in chess, they matter in any Civ game so far. Actually, the complexitiy of attacking a SOD (Civ4) is much higher than attacking any group of units in Civ0.V.

Terrain has mattered in Civ4 as well. I don't see any added complexity here. Yet, I see that a defender in open terrain get's disadvantages

There are flaws, but there were flaws when CIV4 first came out. And CIV3. AND CIV2

So you advocate not to get rid of flaws, because they have been present in the past?

I feel most people who are upset at CIV5 are those who have not been playing through the entire series. If you have, you'd know that patches do come out to fix things that the developers didn't foresee. I trust that a few patches will make CIV5 really interesting and fix obvious AI exploits.

I feel that most people defending an assumed "complexity" in Civ0.V didn't have much chances in the previos parts of the series.
Yet, is has been reported that many players went up to the highest levels in Civ0.V immediately and are doing fine (including me).
And that is something of the worst to say about a "strategic game", since it clearly displays, how shallow it is.

Hoping for patches is all good and fine, but it means hoping for something in the future. Which in turn means that you implicitely agree with the criticism of the current state.

 

[IgorS]

I will just say that to me Civ V is better than Civ IV. Hexes, one unit per hex, no religions, city-states, one leader per civ and a unique ability for the CIV and not the leader are really great things! In Civ IV I felt many times that you had to spend too much precious time on building military units only to defend your cities - that was the most annoying thing for me, and then the AI with his stacks of doom really ruined the empire building experience.
I do agree that the game was released too soon, and with too many bugs. But with every update it becomes better, so at least the developers are still working on it. Again, there would be absolutely nothing wrong in delaying the game in order to polish it some more.

 

[Charvel1]

Excuse my but is a fact that the AI is a big problem to the mechanics of the game.

So you are satisfied with a game with dumb AI? And don't sell me that you have difficulties, because i'm winning on emperor, and i'm not a good palyer myself, so or are you a total novice, and your statement is invalidated by your inexperience, or you are experienced but lying for some obscure reasons, but because i think that lying is something that i can't presume of no one, expecially if i don't know who i'm talking to, i will presume you are a novice.

You presume too much. I agree that the AI can be improved. Just like it could be improved in any game. However, that, for me, doesn't take away any of the enjoyment of the game. And the game as a whole is a satisfying activity for me. It's certainly not a broken, unplayable, extremely disappointing game FOR ME.

Your mileage may vary of course. And there are a lot of people upset about the game. But in the end, it's all subjective opinions that are being bantered about here. Not undeniable facts.

 

[lschnarch]

one leader per civ and a unique ability for the CIV and not the leader are really great things!

Would you mind explaining this a bit more?

 

[Achilleslastand]

Maybe Civilemon 5 is the common ancestor for two evolutionary lines ... a console line and a PC line? They smarten it up for the PC, and dumb it down more for the consoles?

dV

I think they mistakenly sold us the nintendo wii version...the pc version will be out next spring.

 

[zonk]

Would you mind explaining this a bit more?

Yeah - I don't get that either.

In IV, I actually played a pretty wide assortment of civilizations solely because -- as a builder -- there were multiple Civs that had an a leader with an industrial bonus.

In V? Well.. I can play as Egypt... and Egypt... and ummm... Egypt.

Though, I believe someone noted that the some of the config files seem to be designed such that they appear tailor-made for the addition of additional leaders. Of course - that doesn't mean additional options -- obviously, I can change "Washington" to "Lincoln" myself and I couldn't care less about the diplomacy display.

 

[Charles Martel]

Just giving ANY opinion (no matter how fantastical or realistic) will counter anyone else's opinion.

ANY opinion whatever? I have always been taught that only justified and well-informed opinions make for valid counter-arguments, whereas misinformed and unwarranted opinions do not. But nah, you're right...let's forget about that "realism-is-better-than-fantasy" obsession. After all who is to say when an opinion is better justified than another, or, for that matter, either true or false, and on what grounds? So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to "opinion relativism"! Yeah folks... believe what you will! Anything goes, and anyone's opinions is just as good as anyone's else. Which gives all of us a powerful universal refutation: "But this is only what you think."

 

[Charvel1]

and anyone's opinions is just as good as anyone's else.

Precisely!

 

[JLoZeppeli]

You presume too much. I agree that the AI can be improved. Just like it could be improved in any game. However, that, for me, doesn't take away any of the enjoyment of the game. And the game as a whole is a satisfying activity for me. It's certainly not a broken, unplayable, extremely disappointing game FOR ME.

Your mileage may vary of course. And there are a lot of people upset about the game. But in the end, it's all subjective opinions that are being bantered about here. Not undeniable facts.

Excuse me but i'm interested to know if you are in troubles with highest levels. Because i think that the most enjoyable part of Civ was the difficut to achieve victory passing to higher levels when you grasp the mechanics of the game and handle them well.
So if you state that the dumb Ai make abyssal mistakes even on highest levels, how can you enjoy the challange?

If Emperor is so easy for me now, when I barely won on the same level after two years on Civ IV, what's enjoyment are we talking about?