Civilization V- Might actually be good now. Stay tuned.

[Luxor]

Hopefully they put Mankrik's wife in as one of the natural wonders :P

[JWIV]

Damn it nerds, go back to raiding and get the fuck out of my strategy game.

[Lantyssa]

And people wonder why some have such hatred for WoW.  It's because it's become it's own meme.

[dusematic]

http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/21/jon-shafer-leaves-firaxis/


Jon Schafer (lead designer on Civ 5) fired.  I guess that's what happens when you're an incompetent fuck who ruins a AAA franchise. 

[Malakili]

http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/21/jon-shafer-leaves-firaxis/


Jon Schafer (lead designer on Civ 5) fired.  I guess that's what happens when you're an incompetent fuck who ruins a AAA franchise. 

I still think Civ 5 is a good game, but I haven't felt super compelled to play it since the first month I have to admit. 

[dusematic]

http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2010/12/21/jon-shafer-leaves-firaxis/


Jon Schafer (lead designer on Civ 5) fired.  I guess that's what happens when you're an incompetent fuck who ruins a AAA franchise. 

I still think Civ 5 is a good game, but I haven't felt super compelled to play it since the first month I have to admit. 

One day you'll look back on this moment as the day you came to terms with your grief.

[Reg]

Civ 5 killed my enthusiasm for the entire franchise. This is the first time in literally years that I haven't had a Civ game installed on my PC.  If I ever get the urge to play again I'll reinstall Civ 4 and its expansions.

[bhodi]

I feel the same. Civ 5, for a variety of reasons, failed to capture my attention in the slightest. It was a terrible purchase and I shouldn't have broken my personal rule and bought it on the day of release before I heard people's opinions on it.

I suspect that the API won't ever get released now, so you can forget about the mod community on it, too.

[Reg]

My buyers regret for my Civ 5 purchase was so high that I ran out and bought Elemental on release day to make up for it.

[Tebonas]

Yesterday I seriously contemplated deinstalling Civ5 and reinstalling Civ4 instead, but I still hold out hope for the modder community. The hope is dwindling, though.

[Paelos]

I've played a total of two games. I realized how stupid the AI was, and how overpowered certain Civ abilities are. It's a shame we can't get the Civ 4 gameplay with the "one unit per tile" mechanic.

[Tarami]

It's a shame we can't get the Civ 4 gameplay with the "one unit per tile" mechanic.

This, a million, trilion times this.

[Lantyssa]

I wonder how hard it is to mod.  With a few tweaks I think it'd be fine.  I was planning on trying, but then life got in the way.

[Sky]

I haven't played any Civ since a few days after the civ V launch, but my next intention toward the franchise is uninstalling Civ V and playing some more FFH2. Because honestly, I stopped liking Civ a looong time ago. The CivIII Complete is the last time I played a lot of vanilla civ.

I had some buyer's remorse out of Civ IV, but at least Kael came along and made it well worth the initial purchase (+ expansions). Civ V, last Civ I'll buy at launch, breaking a tradition that's spanned the entire franchise.

Hell, I still don't see why they went 3D. Civ IV was ass ugly, Civ V is decent-looking, but a resource hog. If they had stuck with 2D, it would be mind-blowing by this iteration, and run on anything.

[shiznitz]

I haven't been to this thread in a while and - wow - I am not crazy.  I cannot explain why Civ 5 doesn't work for me, but I have played once to about 1,00BC and I have absolutely no desire to ever play again.  I cannot explain it.

[dusematic]

I played the first week after launch and desperately made two points highlighting fundamental core problems with game mechanics on the official forums (something I never do) one of which is still on the front page of the multiplayer subforum with like 8k views.  And that's just the multiplayer issues. 

There are so many problems with this game it's not even worth talking about.  But keep on releasing civ/map packs for $7.49 for a game nobody cares about 2k.  YOU'RE ON TO SOMETHING BIG HERE GUYS.  Also, brilliant fucking idea to make bonus civs unplayable online.  I guess we have to chalk that one up to sheer incompetence since we know it cannot be a balance issue as there are only 4 or 5 civs that are competitive online.

[Paelos]

Yeah it looks like the concern over "dumbing it down" and "playing the console crowd" really shot the game in the foot.

Couple that with just stupid design decisions and AI that was slower than molasses in winter, and I got a $50 digital coaster.

[WayAbvPar]

Dammit I saw all the new posts and was hoping you kids were talking about some magic patch that made Civ V worth playing. 

[dusematic]

Dammit I saw all the new posts and was hoping you kids were talking about some magic patch that made Civ V worth playing.  

All you'll find here is seething anger that occasionally bubbles to the surface through a horrifically dense spider web of despair.  Do I want to live in a world where I can't even count on Civilization to be more compelling than Peggle Nights?  No, no I don't.


*edited to more fully convey suicidal despair

[shiznitz]

Peggle Nights? Cool!  Must check it out.

[Sky]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4979.0

[dusematic]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4979.0

I hope your point is that Civ 4 is awesome and everyone immediately fucking knew it?

[Raging Turtle]

There actually was a massive patch recently, anyone test it out?

[dusematic]

There actually was a massive patch recently, anyone test it out?

Yeah.  It was like sprinkling saffron on a terd.

[naum]

There actually was a massive patch recently, anyone test it out?

Yeah.  It was like sprinkling saffron on a terd.

Yes, it was a big DL of stuff, mostly seemed inconsequential or fixes of bugs that should have been eradicated prior to release.

Sorry I bought this, believe my total playtime is less than ~8 hours — probably need to give it another look but while I like the change to hexes, there's little else I like.

And the piecemeal trickling of new civs and content just isn't agreeable either. I reckon that's the drive behind the total Steam buy-in — "micropayment" Civ!

[Tannhauser]

The new patch makes the game a lot better, but this is Civ, it should have been good out of the box.  No way I'm buying any DLC though, next time put a good game out and I might bite.

Like someone said above Civ IV but with one unit per hex.  I miss religion as well.

I don't care if they 'dumbed down' the game as long as there is good strategy to be had.  It's a very attractive game and quite playable now, but it has put me off Firaxis as a Day One purchase for anything. 

[Njal]

Does the new patch make the AI any better?

[Sky]

I hope your point is that Civ 4 is awesome and everyone immediately fucking knew it?

I thought it was a funny read in comparison to this thread. Especially my own bitching about not supporting 16:9 resolutions, which is standard now.

Also, notice the better game has a short thread. F13, we loves us some bitchin'!

[Paelos]

We don't come here to stroke our cocks about how grand life is.

[Daeven]

Does the new patch make the AI any better?

No. I tried it, had a little war with a minor civ and *every* other civilization had declared war on me within three turns. Allies, Neutrals, minor allied civs with whom I was friendly....

Fucking. Joke.

[Margalis]

Can someone summarize the deal with Civ 5 without me having to read the entire thread?

From what I gather most review outlets think it's great and most normal people / civ fans think it isn't very good. What gives?

[Tannhauser]

The game was practically broken at release.  Bad AI, very bad diplomacy.  Dumbed down.  Sid Meir's name dragged through the mud, taken out back, shot in the head, then buried in a shallow grave.

[dusematic]

Can someone summarize the deal with Civ 5 without me having to read the entire thread?

From what I gather most review outlets think it's great and most normal people / civ fans think it isn't very good. What gives?

Civ games break down into a few aspects right?

1.  Tech Tree

The tech tree for Civ 5 is widely panned as being too simplistic.  It has been converted into one long flow chart. Gone are unique paths and routes.  Gone, for the most part, are prerequisite technologies.  You end up with a tech tree that is largely meaningless and easily exploitable via beelines.

2. City Management

A lot of the strategy in Civ games comes from managing cities.  What tile improvements do you build? Where?  In what order?  How do you allocate citizens to those tiles?  What about specialist citizens (i.e. scientists, engineers)?  Do you run a specialist economy?  Do you specialize by city (i.e. a production city, a science city, etc.)?  In Civ 5, tile yields are dramatically simplified and "samey."  Take floodplains.  In Civ 4, a floodplain yielded 3 food and 2 gold whereas a grassland yielded 2 food and 1 gold (on a river).  In Civ 5, they are the same. This seems like a small change, but there are a lot of them, and they add up in a major way. They make the game less compelling by diminishing the amount of real choices or variety a player has/encounters.  Another example would be that there are no cottages anymore.  Instead, you can only build trading posts which generate a fixed +1 gold per tile/improvement.

Buildings are gimped.  Most are worthless to build.  In Civ 4 most cities would have, say, a granary and a barracks.  In Civ 5, ost of your cities will just have a monument for culture, and then gold generating buildings (since gold is the only ting that matters in this game).  The benefits provided are usually small and out of whack, the time to build is outrageous, and each building adds to the upkeep and drains gold upply.

3.  Combat

The idea of 1 unit per hex is reminiscent of war games like Panzer General and thus sounds really good to a lot of people.  It sounds more strategic or realistic. As implemented, it is less strategic and much worse.  This is a controversial topic, as there are many who, if they like anything about Civ 5, it is 1 unit per tile.  Generally however, these are not "serious" Civ players, in that they do not play online or at the hardest difficulty settings.  One unit per hex has a lot of problems. It really puts a spotlight on the paper, rock, scissors element of Civ.  They tried to ameliorate this by offering less unit types (eg: gone are anti melee units (axemen/macemen).  Think about it, there is only one unit per tile, thus there must necessarily be less units and smaller armies.  Thus, the cost of each unit necessarily goes up. Thus, the loss of a unit is a bigger deal, and thus all units must become more "samey" based primarily on a single combat value because the last thing you want is a situation where half your army is wiped out in one turn (although this still happens quite easily, at least in online play and with mounted units that move 3, 4, and even 5 tiles).

The one unit per tile thing also dramatically screwed up the A.I.  The A.I. isn't and never will be able to adequately manage this system.  Hell, it's a chore for a human to marshal a sizable force in a narrow corridor.  Doable perhaps, but a chore.



Conclusion:

Hard to sum up why a game like Civ 5 sucks.  I think there is a demo now, so you should play it.  Also, it depends what sort of player you are. But even most casuals in this thread have reported that there is no addictive "one more turn" aspect to this game.   Ididn't bring up many things.  The government system and the unique civ trait systems are both epically botched/unbalanced.  I'm just tired of typing.  Really just death by a thousand flushes.  They flushed little bits here and there down the toilet that didn't seem altogether that important, but what you're left with is something that just isn't compelling in any way.

[Paelos]

Civ 4 was originally compared to vanilla ice cream in it's blandness.

This game is cottage cheese that's slightly turned. You take a couple of bites and it doesn't taste bad, but it's not really awesome either. You put it down and think that you'll throw some fruit into it later and see how it goes. A day and half later you get a rampant case of diarrhea, but you don't connect it with the cottage cheese immediately. Two weeks later when you see it's still in the fridge, and think, "Holy shit I totally forgot I had that cottage cheese in there. I wonder if that's what gave me the shits? It probably was now that I think about it. Man that fucking sucks!"

Then, you get pissed off, blame all the people in charge for ever letting this dairy product get to your doorstep, and never eat cottage cheese again. You also tell all your friends that cottage cheese sucks and laugh when it comes up on sale at the grocery store circular during the holidays. Poor fools, you think. They will soon see how terrible cottage cheese is if they are dumb enough to fall for that trap after I've fully blogged about it.

[Tebonas]

My problem with Civ5?

I guess it is the fact that Fall From Heaven exists. I suspect it wouldn't look quite as bad compared with Vanilla Civ4, but compared with FFH it is a joke.