Why didn't like you civ5?

[gps]

Does anyone think this look good?

No, completely agree with you here. While not everything is pretty and perfect in Civ IV grafics, the only time the Civ V map really looks good is when it's empty. As soon as there's stuff built on it and troops around, it turns into a confusing mess. This is partly due to hexes and partly due to the indistinct way the troops are presented. Although IV looks kind of blocky - it's clear and well-arranged. And you don't need a magnifier and extra icons to see what troops are around.

 

[Civking5]

After browsing the Civ5 forums a bit, one thing that actually annoys the crap out of me.. the graphics. And especially those bloody unit icons (what's the point in fancy unit graphics when you need a big ugly unit icon?)

Does anyone think this look good?

Spoiler :

What is wrong with it? Lol. It really looks beautiful in my eyes. There is a good feeling of board games in it.

 

[Pisskop]

At first I liked ciV. It was new, shiny enough, and fun enough to win. By that I mean war was easy and you could get creative with the conquering. But then the patches came. The nerfing came. And I realized just how much this game was a beta. I promised to try it again later, and I suppose I'll wing it again. But don't count on me rating it higher than 2.5 stars of 4.

 

[Pangaea]

After browsing the Civ5 forums a bit, one thing that actually annoys the crap out of me.. the graphics. And especially those bloody unit icons (what's the point in fancy unit graphics when you need a big ugly unit icon?)

Does anyone think this look good?

Spoiler :

This is just a subjective opinion of course, but I don't like it either. It looks kind of cartoony and childish, and thus further strengthens the feeling the game is dumbed down and simplified to reach a larger segment of the gaming market.

Just to take one example that really grated me, that huge unit info box in the bottom left. Well, BOTTOM left is being kind, it almost takes up a fourth of the screen (or at least feels that way). And what info does it contain? Unit movement and strength. The info box of IV had that too, but it didn't use a unseemly part of the screen to do it.

Maybe Nicol summed it up best: It doesn't feel like a Civ game.

 

[Civking5]

And civ4 is not cartoonish? Now that I think of it, civ3 looked really good, especially with some modes it looked like a map that you see in the books.

 

[oryx]

Steam

 

[MilesBeyond]

I think my fundamental problem, and likely many other's problem, with CiV is this:

It tries to compromise between a 4X gameplay style and a tactical wargame style, and ends up being mediocre on both fronts.

 

[RD-BH]

And civ4 is not cartoonish? ...

I've played with Blue Marble so long I'd forgotten how cartoonish the original terrain was.

 

[Camikaze]

For the record, I respect Sullla but he and I do not see things the same way. Had you read his article carefully and compared his primary complaints with my primary complaints about civ V, you would notice that they are not comparable at all. He talks about depth and AIs and the intro and all kinds of crap I don't care about. I want a game that runs properly. That's very low on his list. It wasn't even a month ago I chewed him out (with a pretty amusing no-response for such an eloquent writer) on this very subforum for...

Saying he was "fine" with civ IV and civ V UI and engine! Not only are you using a logical fallacy, but you're explicitly wrong with it too! Pretty sad.

There are 2 core issues here:

1. The majority of firaxis target market does not care about engine coding/movement, because most of them can not and/or do not give movement orders at RTS rates. If you don't give orders faster than one per 5 second anyway, you won't notice a 5 second delay between moving units for example. Same thing if you want to think a while before ending turn. Firaxis cut corners here and alienated a minority portion of their market. I happen to be in that minority, and it of course will annoy me.

2. A very high quality computer will help, however mine has recommended specs (or in some cases better) so in theory it shouldn't struggle.

To cover old territory, these are important points, in that they show that, even amongst notable Civ5 detractors, let alone gamers in general, dislike for Civ5, or for any game really, is very much a matter of priorities. One person doesn't like the game because of X, another because of Y. The first person might not mind Y, and second might be perfectly okay with X. There might be someone who doesn't mind either X or Y, and remembering that the game is also made up of A, B, C and D, this person isn't really all that different from either of the other two. They simply disagree on X and Y, to the extent that the former two don't enjoy the game, and the latter one does. The third person might even agree about X and Y, but simply not particularly care enough for it to impact significantly on their game playing experience.

I don't know that anyone who has put some decent thought into it would disagree with TMIT's assessment of the UI/engine, which really is just a presentation of facts; everyone knows that some things take more clicks, and that the game runs pretty slow. But it's the weight attached to that that determines whether it detracts from a given person's game playing experience. Some people may not at all care about having to click more often; some people might even prefer the UI, finding it more intuitive.

Civ5 is not a perfect game. I don't think I've ever heard of a game that was. For instance, one of the things I'm disliking at the moment with Civ5 is the air unit combat animations, which really are a pain in the amount of time they take, though this has improved greatly since vanilla. But I can stand such flaws as that more than I can stand the flaws in Civ4 (the most grating of which for me was always the vassal exploitation; I'm not sure if that was fixed in BtS, but I only had Warlords anyway), which is why I play Civ5, and not Civ4, which was another game I loved. Similarly, some people have mentioned that there aren't as many interesting choices in Civ5, but I don't find that to be the case. I remember in Civ4 just going through the building list automatically, with little thought; this may not have been playing optimally, but there wasn't all that much that was engaging my attention. I don't do that in Civ5, rather I put much more thought into what I'm going to build, but you're less able to build everything available. Of course, people with different playstyles will have a different opinion, but that's not really because one of the other is objectively more of less interesting, but because I happen to subjectively enjoy the Civ5 system better, whilst others enjoy the Civ4 system better.

Likewise, I don't understand how anyone could possibly prefer Civ4 civics over Civ5 social policies, but some people obviously do, which again goes to show that it's simply a matter of priorities and subjective enjoyability. Same for whether the game 'feels' like a Civ game, or lets you feel like you're building an empire. I think when someone says something is "bad design", they often just mean "I don't like this", which is perfectly valid, of course, but an entirely different thing to poor design.

 

[calibur]

TMIT, before you go off about his saying that someone might find the UI fairly intuitive, it was just an example....
Just trying to prevent a needless, repeated wall of text which I already admit as true.

Sir, I have never played ciV, but you bring up plenty of valid points, and though I could try to refute some, your overall point and tone are positive enough that I will not even try.

 

[Windsor]

What is wrong with it? Lol. It really looks beautiful in my eyes. There is a good feeling of board games in it.

gps put it nicely:
"As soon as there's stuff built on it and troops around, it turns into a confusing mess. This is partly due to hexes and partly due to the indistinct way the troops are presented"

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Camikaze, since you admit some degree of unfamiliarity with the mechanics of Civ4 I will preface my comments by conceding that my own understanding of Civ5 is somewhat limited.

Likewise, I don't understand how anyone could possibly prefer Civ4 civics over Civ5 social policies, but some people obviously do, which again goes to show that it's simply a matter of priorities and subjective enjoyability.

Off the cuff, I can say that my own experience with the Civ4 civics has been positive. I find the choices and (staggering) number of combinations liberating, and surprisingly it all feels intuitive. The different choices you make in each individual column feed into a tapestry of governance, that feels like you are really creating your own policy.

This is contrasted with Civ5, which is much more limiting IMO: the social policies are hierarchical and segregated into the familiar (to RPG fans) style of talent trees. The ever increasing culture thresholds punish city spam, and keep interesting choices at arms length. I come away with the impression that there is a set strategy to employ, in direct accordance with the game designer's philosophy. This creates a disparity between my desire to conquer the game on my own terms and the mechanics, which are set in stone.

Comparing apples and oranges isn't always fruitful (PUN!!) and I think Civ5 might be better judged on its own merits. I do find the Social Policies to be an engaging layer of complexity, although I must confess that some policies seem universally better than others. This forces me to either select undesirable civics so as to not miss out on major benefits when I don't complete a tree of policies; or spend precious culture filling in the gaps, which feels counter productive to the acquisition of later civics. Still there is a good effort at choice and variety, so I don't find the system boring - just lacking in inspiration perhaps.

 

[Civking5]

gps put it nicely:
"As soon as there's stuff built on it and troops around, it turns into a confusing mess. This is partly due to hexes and partly due to the indistinct way the troops are presented"

Well, we have to agree on disagreement on this issue. In my opinion, it is far from confusing mess and it looks really good.

 

[mynystry]

As so many others have said, 1UPT. Civ 5 apologists like to pop up and point out that SoDs aren't a very good system either, but few here are arguing to the contrary. It's just that while SoD was a pretty crappy system, at least it worked within the context of the game

Actually I don't have problems with SoDs, yeah, they may be a little tedious to walk around, but I think the are far more realistic that 1upt, and thus more challenging and thus more fun than Civ5 1UPT.

Why I say is more realistic?, because if you can put in 1 tile a city with 30 million people, obviously in scale, it is completely reasonable that you can place a HUGE army in the same space. I think they could have solved the problem by bringing back and making better the Civ3s armies, but they didn't.

About social policies, I think it was a different face of civics. And regarding City States, I think Rhye's "Independent" cities and his concept of "stability", in which empires divide and there are revolutions and civil wars was much more promising.

I think Civ4, as a turn based strategy game, is far superior in every aspect to Civ5, except the Hexes, which have potential to make the world more geometrically accurate.

I don't know how to mod, but I wish there would be a mod that mixed Civ4BTS, Rhye's Fall of Civilization, Better AI and the improvement in interface of BUG/BAT. That would be the best Civ game ever!

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

After browsing the Civ5 forums a bit, one thing that actually annoys the crap out of me.. the graphics. And especially those bloody unit icons (what's the point in fancy unit graphics when you need a big ugly unit icon?)

Does anyone think this look good?

Spoiler :

this is horrible

japan is starting to get clogged up a bit

 

[gps]

Why I say is more realistic?, because if you can put in 1 tile a city with 30 million people, obviously in scale, it is completely reasonable that you can place a HUGE army in the same space. I think they could have solved the problem by bringing back and making better the Civ3s armies, but they didn't.

I would like to add that the first time in RWH we ever saw fixed and stable front lines dividing whole countries was in WW1. Most other military campaigns in 6.000+ years of documented and researched history it was one huge army marching through the country (e.q. Alexander or Napoleon or Cortes or Rameses II). While the first has many parallels to how warfare is presented in Civ V with its 1upt, the latter for me feels a lot like SoD…

 

[TheMeInTeam]

some people might even prefer the UI, finding it more intuitive.

I agree with you in general, but this is a bit of a reach . The information presented isn't that much different actually, but it's hard to pinpoint any way that civ V could objectively be considered more intuitive. Even subjectively would be hard.

IMO though the worst thing about civ V is how little they did to remove IV's issues from finding their way into it.

I remember in Civ4 just going through the building list automatically, with little thought; this may not have been playing optimally, but there wasn't all that much that was engaging my attention.

"not optimally"? Try "actively playing poorly" . Buildings, while they don't cost in IV, carry a tremendous opportunity cost and the decision of whether to build one at all, and when, is a critical point to doing well vs poorly. "Going through the list" is sufficiently bad that you'd suffer less by automating workers. Seriously. I can win at immortal with auto workers from turn 0. That is not nearly as viable if you just go down the list of buildings.

This is partly due to hexes and partly due to the indistinct way the troops are presented"

And partly due to clutter because they needed to scale city size + hex count + unit movement better.

I come away with the impression that there is a set strategy to employ, in direct accordance with the game designer's philosophy.

There aren't that many competing SP paths in terms of optimal play, and then you get stuck in them.

Actually, as I alluded to earlier, this isn't so different from civ IV, where for most of the game that actually impacts the outcome you are:

1. Running monarchy, unless you build the mids where you're running rep (small nod to PS with mids) --> basically you need a wonder or the decision process in this tree is virtually nil.
2. Running bureaucracy. Switching out of it implies drafting, questionable cottage spam or culture wins usually.
3. Slavery or Caste. Serfdom is complete trash and emancipation is late.
4. Nothing at all. Somewhat comically, good economic civics rarely come before the winner of a single player game is decided. Occasionally, you can meaningfully pick between SP and FM.
5. Religion tree gives you a full set of viable choices.

There isn't much strategy to civics and minimal planning. In a typical game the civic combo to choose is usually painfully obvious to anyone with a little experience, which very much mirrors the civ V SPs, which have the same tendency to center on one set of options/path in the opening and then have it matter increasingly less what you decide to do with them later on.

Actually I don't have problems with SoDs, yeah, they may be a little tedious to walk around

SoD are far less tedious than 1UPT and that isn't debateable. No matter how many units you have, you can group them at the press of a button (in theory) and then move them with a single click. Even moving 3 units in 1UPT rules will take longer, especially with pathing constraints. I do believe stack limits + comp tradeoffs are the best route.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Actually I don't have problems with SoDs, yeah, they may be a little tedious to walk around, but I think the are far more realistic that 1upt, and thus more challenging and thus more fun than Civ5 1UPT.

Why I say is more realistic?, because if you can put in 1 tile a city with 30 million people, obviously in scale, it is completely reasonable that you can place a HUGE army in the same space. I think they could have solved the problem by bringing back and making better the Civ3s armies, but they didn't.

I think SoD is a much better system than 1UPT, but it has a lot of room for improvement, too. What I'm saying is that I don't think SoD is the pinnacle of TBS combat, and I don't believe this would be a controversial statement around here, either.

I actually think CIV was a bit of an accomplishment in that regard, by taking SoD and breathing a lot of tactical depth into it. Still though, it's a system that could use some improvement.

I definitely agree with you on the realism factor, though. SoD is substantially more realistic than 1UPT.

 

[damerell]

Actually I don't have problems with SoDs, yeah, they may be a little tedious to walk around, but I think the are far more realistic that 1upt, and thus more challenging and thus more fun than Civ5 1UPT.

Those "thus"es make no sense. Why does being realistic (which it's not) make it challenging?

 

[TheWilltoAct]

^ Why is that such a sticking point?

mynystry explains his position:

Why I say is more realistic?, because if you can put in 1 tile a city with 30 million people, obviously in scale, it is completely reasonable that you can place a HUGE army in the same space.

Possibly relevant: my own feeling about the 1UPT.

If I could venture to guess at his view of 'challenge' and 'fun', he finds the SoD to be intuitive and that simple fact makes combat intrinsically more enjoyable. We could get into the pros and cons of these different approaches and their implementation. But the abandonment of the SoD is a hard change to swallow when a series fan is exposed to Civ5.