Why didn't like you civ5?

[Dida]

For those of you who have played both games but prefer civ4, why didn't you like civ5? What do you think is the strength and weakness of each game?

 

[Nials]

Global happiness, opaque, meaningless and abusive diplomacy, and 1UPT are my biggest gripes with the game, probably in that order.

There honestly isn't much that I like better about Civ5, probably just the UI improvements.

 

[RD-BH]

1UPT forces the game to be slow and tedious.
AI does not understand tactical combat.
Multiplayer still does not work for my friends and I.
The tech tree lacks interesting choices.
Victory is lame. You win the game and then decide the victory condition.
... Seriously, victory paths need to be more diverse and require difference in play style.

I like the hexmap.

 

[tranx]

Ugly maps, worthless UI, tedious movements, constrained city development, unfathomable diplomacy, slow pace, silly wars, inglorious conquests, boring peacetime, unrewarding victories.

The dynamic in Civ5 is simply broken. Most of the time I boringly push 'Next Turn', waiting for something to happen. Even wars get dull after some time, partly due to the tedious movements, partly to the silly AI placement of troops. No achievement, not even conquest, gives me any sense of satisfaction. Nothing like the excitement felt almost every turn in Civ4. No "one more turn" syndrome.

 

[digitalcraft]

1upt makes the game incredibly tedious.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Huge step back in UI (more inputs to accomplish the same thing) and engine (giving orders and turn rollover both have painful delays on recommended specs).

I actually liked a lot of the design elements...at least enough to give them some hits along with the misses there. But, they failed gameplay 101, and thusly I couldn't support the game no matter what.

 

[SyntaxError]

1UPT + Resource hog for any machine.

 

[Drakarska]

1UPT + Resource hog for any machine.

Similar to this and the above. Mandatory Steam requirement.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

The Unique Idea system I didn't like, city states and no religion (which was a huge part of CIV4).l

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Got to love the old man puttering about in the intro movie.
... I hit escape and 30 seconds later the game glitches to the main menu. SO FAR SO GOOD.

 

[Silverbow]

The fact that it's basically always war no matter what you do, and that the interface makes war extraordinary PITA.

 

[Windsor]

For those of you who have played both games but prefer civ4, why didn't you like civ5? What do you think is the strength and weakness of each game?

Civ4 does the economy very well and in particular the expansion-phase is very interesting. Like so many 4x-games Civ4 snowballs a bit to hard and the end-game(time from when you know you are going to win, until you actually win) becomes to long. The game-engine also struggles in later eras.

Civ5 does a few minor things right, but it gets hard to appreciate them because the game overall is so boring. It's painfully slow and lots of clicks is needed to do what you want to do. Warfare is a grind. The expansion phase lacks the tension and micro from Civ4. The economy isn't interesting at all. Overall the game lacks feedback.

Civ5 also manages to feel extremely punishing and arbitrary. Take national wonders. In Civ4 you need 6 universities to build the oxford. This makes thematically sense and gives the player a goal. As a reward you get the oxford and a noticeable boost in research.

Civ5 choice of "must build X in all cities" makes no sense whatsoever (again, speaking from a theme-PoV). It feels punishing. You just have to work around the strange rule, but it certainly ain't fun.

For Civ5 to work for me the game needs faster pacing, much faster warfare, the idea of "balancing tall vs wide" needs to go and diplomacy needs to get tightened.

 

[SyntaxError]

Similar to this and the above. Mandatory Steam requirement.

A big malus for me. That Steam requirement totally turned me off.

 

[vranasm]

Bad diplomacy (almost to the limit of no diplomacy at all).

Bad design decisions (less interesting tiles, bad production, emphasis on tall instead of wide, 1upt as a whole)

 

[gps]

A big malus for me. That Steam requirement totally turned me off.

Exactly. In the end I am quite happy it is such a bad game. Kept the temptation low to waste money on a buggy and unfinished mess - and as a bonus brought me back to Civ IV for good.

 

[Funky]

Apart from 1UPT and the massive problems it brings and the total lack of any kind of meaningful complexity, I find the the absence of historical plausibility to the extent of utter absurdity most appalling. Social policies, the combat system, global happiness, city states, diplomacy, and even the tech tree no longer depict historical reality or an alternative historical development.
I find it very disturbing when people post threads about how Civ 5 helps them understand history better. Because actually this game has nothing at all to do with history. Empires never changing their government, people not minding war till they are victorious when they get angry, Civs constantly denouncing eachother for vague reasons, the weird city state entity, the economy (e.g. research being tied to population), and the warfare, are just a few of the countless features which make neither sense historically nor from a common sense approach. Prior Civ games were educational. Civ 5 is delusive and misleading.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I get no sense of building an empire.

Instead, I get the sense of playing shuffleboard with units... At a snail's pace.

 

[Pangaea]

I get no sense of building an empire.

Exactly what I was going to mention. Naturally warfare is a strong element in IV too, but what I like about it is that you need a large and functioning empire to effectively wage war, which you can certainly see up through history as well. Building a large is what is fun, and warfare is just one element of that.

Bound to horsehockye was a huge negative. But I was still so intrigued that I threw principles on the boat for a while to check out the demo.

The UI. It's just God-awfully bad. I've been a beta tester for a big game for several years now, and if they make changes that mean what usually took 1 click now takes 2, they hear about it, and loudly so. To then go from the quite excellent (but often misfunctioning) UI of Civ IV to V, was too much to take.

Global happiness and the gold-focus wasn't good either. The game simply has a lot of bad moves. Lags much worse than IV does for me too, although IV gets beyond brutal in the end-game.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I played V for over 600 hours. I got my money's worth, but I found little resemblence to the game 2K promoted. I figure it had potential as a multiplayer game or for modders, but I don't know that 2K/Firaxis ever followed through with support for those aspects.

When a hardware problem caused me to replace my computer, I had no desire to install the game or return to STEAM.

What's great about V. Opening movie, soundtrack, hexes, natural wonders, cities with active defense. Iraquois.

The real issue for me is a subjective one. Whenever I play IV, I feel like the world is my canvas, and I can create an empire upon it. I have so many choices. The civics allow me to suit conditions and intentions. Whenever I play V, I feel as if I am in a cattle chute with no choices from the time the leader is determined. I can control the speed, but if I am Alexander, there is one way to play the entire game.

The civ series has been about making decisions for me. V seems like the opposite.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

With the laughably pathetic engine in civ V, they sort of had to push for tall empires; it's not like you could run wide ones on recommended specs. They even increased min city distances to put fewer cities/calculations on the map.

Balancing tall/wide is one thing, but civ V doesn't balance it. On vanilla release, wide was superior by miles. At this point, tall is instead.