What went wrong with this game? (score 8.3 by users on gamespot)

[Saurus the Second]

There has been much discussion around the forum regarding the game not beeing fun.

While I would not go quite that far, I do have to admit, that Civ V is a dissapointment and it's replay value is low. For a short period of time, I thought I was addicted to the game. But that addiction is gone now.

But..
Ther problem is, I'm far from beeing the only one feeling this way.
For the first time ever, the user score at gamespot is closer to 8 than 9. (8.3 and dropping, to be more precise)

Thus, the game is closer to a mere "good" rather than "superb" - for the first time in CIV history. Even the somewhat infameous civ III have a significaly higher user score. (8.9) with Civ IV having the highest score (9.1) which is a very high score when based purely on user ratings.

And yet CIV V could have been a masterpiece.

How did it end up like this? I would LOVE to hear Gregs opinnion about the matter.


But here is my theory. First of:


The technology tree.

With so many features removed from the game compared to the earlier version, there is of course no need for as many technologies. I can live with less technologies. But the technology tree is just way too streamlined - that I cannot live with. Civilization have always been a game were you are supposed to make choises. But this time, this does not work that way.

How fun is it, when you are asked to choose a techonology for reasearh, and there is only one tech to choose from?

Another problem with the techology tree is, that beside beeing strealined, it is ... plain boring. First we have Theology which gives wonders and a culture building, then come Acoustics, which gives wonders and a culture building, then we have Archeology, which gives wonders and and yet another culture building ... etc, etc ... do this over, and over again. Fun? No.

Well, If I don't want that culture and those wonders? Why do I just not skip them?

Well, I can't. Because of course it is obvious that you need Theology and Archeology in order to invent combustion, right?

The exact same pattern goes with the happiness buildings. Just becouse the buildings have different names, does not mean they truly are different other than slight differencies in how much they cost in upkeep and how much happiness they bring in. Different icons for each building on the screen is not enough, to differentiate the a buildings from another, if its function is the same. Sorry.

Its like building the same building over, and over again, only that the icon is different. Not very refreshing.

But the, by far, biggest problem with the technology tree is, that becaouse of it is so very streamlined. You cannot really win one type of victory (exept a conquest victory, which you can do whenever you please. My favcorite is to do this with 2 longswordmen standing side my side crushing all that is comming in their way... this works at least up to the Emperor difficulty, so combat - yes, it's broken too). Have not done this after the patch, though, to be honest.

But back to the main point....since you can't skip the Cultural techs, when aiming for a Scientific victory, and you can't really skip the scientific techs when going for a utopia victory you might recognice, that after a couple of games, you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again.

When you are close to one victory type, you will quite automaticaly be close to those other victory types as well.

Feel free to try different arpoarches - but after each game you will watch at the clock, and see it's 6.00 AM and hearing the "I've got you babe" playing in the radio.

I'm of course drawing a correlation between Civ V and the awesome movie called "groundhog day" were a single human is forced to repeat a single day over and over again until he truly learns to care about others.
Sadly, such an escape is not available in Civ V.

You try different aproaches, and realizes that there are none available.

The diplomatic victory is another story - I think that's the most moronic victory condition that has been included in ANY civ.
I mean, Just BRIBE enough minor states one turn before the vote and that's it. Nothing more needs to be said regarding that victory condition. How this passed beta-testing is to me a mystery.


Then lets move on to the nex topic.

Many of you are familiar with the term ICS. (Infinite city sprawl)
(if not, please search the forum, there are threads about the topic)
It has actually made a COMEBACK in Civ V. (ally with some Maritime city states, keep happiness up with coloseums, allow the cities to stay small, or you need to build more expensive buildings. And then just build thousands of cities). You win. If it makes anyone happy, it should be possible to fix this one, but that means maritime city states should either be removed from the game or changed to give a different bonus.


On to the next one: Resources.

While the luxury & strategic cocept is working somewhat well IMHO, the bonus resource concept is a mystery to me.

A cattle is actually a downgrade of the tile, since it cannot be upgraded while a farm is upgraded automaticaly once the correct tech is researched. A cattle on a grassland for instance is therefore a "downgrade" of the tile - not an upgrade.

Sheeps thriwing in abudance in desserts? Come on!!

And while the "Fish" resource actually have been made quite effective, once you have the right buildings in place - what happened to the crabs and the calms? (the same goes for the luxury and strategic resources as well... why was so very many of them removed?) This just adds to the feeling of the game that this is some kind of Civ V "lite", with the full version still beeing there somewere...

Resources & Improvements & map terrain in general are simplified too much.


Misc.

I will only say very little about about steam here. As that has nothing to do with the game itself (other than selling bonuses to steam customers, which is unusable in multiplayer as a "bonus" while theese customers will miss the disc and the big&beautiful spreadsheet that came with the box, is just pitiful. + for most Europeans the box was MUCH cheaper. The faceboook-page "Don't buy Civ V from steam", is still up and I urge you to visit the page and give our Australian friends some support. Unfair treatment should not be forgotten.

OK, enough said. I've already received a warning for digging too deep into this issue so now I will shut up :rolleyes:


Then what about the positives?

I like the new road model ... they cost upkeep and they won't just spawn everywere. The railroadspider is dead. That is good.

The Social policy concept? I like that too. It's just that this does not save the game from beeing extreamly shallow and half-finished.

The new combat model? Well, the same rule apply. If it would work well, and the A.I would use it efficency, I would be a heavy supporter of the new battle model. Sadly, the A.I don't do very well with it.


My major concern is, I truly do not know how the game can be made better even with expansion packs as the biggeset problems as I see it are the streamlined tech tree and the way middle and end game is aproached. The tech tree issue is such, that it would almost need compleatly ovewhaul from scratch and the different structures producing happiness & culture should somehow be made UNIQUE. Not just beeing cheap copies of each other.

How the devs will manage to do this, is a good question indeed. This time around, ading a bunch of leaders, adding a new feature or a few technologies won't be enough. Perhaps it could be possible to make a mod, a mod good enough to make it the official expansion ragarding the tech tree?

I would love to have some comments. Spesifically considering the tech tree.
For now, the fact that fans has only given the game 8.3 at gamespot - a score that have been dropping lower all the time, is a signal that devs should take seriously.

(my apologies for many spelling grammar errors) It's far past midnight here in Finland so there might in fact be plenty of them. Time for some sleep.

Cheers :)

[Hormagaunt]

Nothing went wrong. The game plays exactly as intended. The problem is with your expectations. *You* are wrong.

The Computer is your friend.

[Lightzy]

I don't think anything went wrong really.

Civ5s target audience was meant to include people up to 50% stupider than civ4s target audience.
And in that, it has been a resounding success.

Note of course that the majority of civ forumers in every civ community detest the way civ5 is designed. Not to mention more or less every pro civ4 player.
A sad byproduct of the designers decision, but seeing as civ5 is something of a financial success, that's all just sad little statistics which are pretty much meaningless to the suits.


And whenever you're in doubt wether the retardification of civ was premeditated or not, remember that the team green lit "people who like shiny things the most!"

[Akerzork]

And while the "Fish" resource actually have been made quite effective, once you have the right buildings in place - what happened to the crabs and the calms? (the same goes for the luxury and strategic resources as well... why was so very many of them removed?) This just adds to the feeling of the game that this is some kind of Civ V "lite", with the full version still beeing there somewere...


Mhm, You get the impression that this is pretty much a Demo where not eveything is yet released for your use.

And now something completely diffrent

Why is people generally so stupid? Jesus stupid people makes the money hunry companies destroy excellent game series... It Happened to WOW...please please please Don't let the plague spread to Civ.... nothing good will ever come of it! create a dumbed down game but don't turn Civ into said dumb game. Let civ be advanced, complex and everything what you community wants. What you are doing right now is pretty much being a politician and giving his party the finger...political suicide....


Firaxis! Don't abandon your Core Supporters!

[Swordfishtrombone]

Good post OP, and though I'm not yet at the point of boredom myself, I can definitely see where you're coming from.

The tech tree is quite disappointing. Though I do think that the early techs are actually better than in Civ4 - I think the way the early units are tied to the techs is very good; you actually end up using most types of units early on. It's just the mid-game to late techs that are a bit.... meh.

In Civ4, you had several techs that gave you some bonus or benefit (from great people, to founding a religion, to receiving a free tech) if you were the first to discover that tech - add that to a wider selection in the tech tree, and you've got an interresting tech development aspect to the game.

Civ5 doesn't give ANY "first to discover" bonuses for any techs - add to that to a cropped down, narrower tech tree, and you've got... diminished replay value.

Probably just adding the bonuses would not help, when the tech tree is too narrow though.

The one additional thing that they did better in Civ5 in the tech department than in Civ4 was that in Civ4, discovering the scientific method actually retarded your research, if you had lots of religions and monasteries in your empire, as discovering the scientific method ended the research bonus for these buildings, AND obsoleted the great library to boot.

In Civ5, I think they should have given something like a bonus tech to the one that discovers the scientific method first, to drive home the point of the actual importance of this discovery in real life.

But on the whole, I agree with the OP's criticisms.

[legacy_programmer]

Good post OP, and though I'm not yet at the point of boredom myself, I can definitely see where you're coming from.

The tech tree is quite disappointing. Though I do think that the early techs are actually better than in Civ4 - I think the way the early units are tied to the techs is very good; you actually end up using most types of units early on. It's just the mid-game to late techs that are a bit.... meh.


I second both points. The tech tree starts out ok, but there's really nothing compelling late game. I don't see any techs where I feel "that's a must have", or which contribute to any particular strategy. Most modern techs are geared toward space ship construction. Do I really need rocket artillery, SAMs, modern armor, jets, stealth, or satellites or the techs that provide them? Not really, at least not in single player. Maybe someday if the AI really starts kicking a@@ I may build some of those things for an edge on the battlefield, but otherwise I feel like I'm burning research points just for the sake of it.

[Gyrate]

http://fightclubua.net/images/civwtf.jpg

It's 1320 BC. Your people do not have the skills for animal husbandry, horseback riding, or even bronze working. Welcome to the Medieval Era!

[Davor]

Nothing went wrong. The game plays exactly as intended. The problem is with your expectations. *You* are wrong.

The Computer is your friend.

Ah it's the persons fault, not the game eh? :rolleyes: So for people who are not happy with the game, it's their fault then?


I don't think anything went wrong really.

Civ5s target audience was meant to include people up to 50% stupider than civ4s target audience.
And in that, it has been a resounding success.

A sad byproduct of the designers decision, but seeing as civ5 is something of a financial success, that's all just sad little statistics which are pretty much meaningless to the suits.


I wouldn't say it's a success. A finacial success? I don't think so either. They might be doing well or even great right now, but to see if it's a success, that would have to wait. We will have to see how the DLC and expansion packs sell. If they sell well, then Civ V is a success. If they don't sell well, then Civ V is a failure because how they planned to sell it failed. Then we will see how Civ VI will be. Then we will see if Civ V is a success or a failure.

If DLC sells well and expansions pack sell well, then Civ V is a success. If DLC and or expansion packs don't sell, then Civ V is a failure because how they marketed it, and how they planned to stage the releases failed.

[Fearlessgoat]

I don't think anything went wrong really.

Civ5s target audience was meant to include people up to 50% stupider than civ4s target audience.
And in that, it has been a resounding success.

Note of course that the majority of civ forumers in every civ community detest the way civ5 is designed. Not to mention more or less every pro civ4 player.
A sad byproduct of the designers decision, but seeing as civ5 is something of a financial success, that's all just sad little statistics which are pretty much meaningless to the suits.


And whenever you're in doubt wether the retardification of civ was premeditated or not, remember that the team green lit "people who like shiny things the most!"

Civ 5 may be a success in sales but I know for a fact I am not buying a single dlc or expansion for this and for the first time i sure as hell wont jump into buying a civ 6 right away. I bought civ 5 simply because of civ 4 being so good.

[Hamhawk]

Civ 5 may be a success in sales but I know for a fact I am not buying a single dlc or expansion for this and for the first time i sure as hell wont jump into buying a civ 6 right away. I bought civ 5 simply because of civ 4 being so good.

Agreed. The only way 2k can guarantee my continued support if their franchise is by releasing a massive multiplayer patch on the 2nd of November that includes hot seat support. 6 weeks since release is more than ample time fir such a fix. If it comes too much later than that my disappointment will move from just cancelling my preorders (as I already have done fir Bioshock Infinite) to an outright boycott of all 2k and Firaxis games.

[Syanis]

One also has to admit part of the problem is just the Civilization series in itself being the problem. Now I'm a player been playing for years off and on since Civ 1 and loved Civ 1-4 in there ways. However looking at each what really changed. Graphics got better. AI got better, trees, units, basically everything would get an upgrade from the previous game in a way. However in the end its the same core game with just a new fancy box which does add new appeal in ways. However this does eventually start getting boring without a new concept way of playing. Maybe things like letting you play well into the future with new future techs for advanced weaponry. Going into further unit cohesion where right now someone will usually build 2-3 unit types in the conquest phase or defend phase and the majority remain untouched (depends which units by the persons playstyle).

In a sense the game just needs something actually new shiny feeling vs a polished up something old. Now don't get me wrong not saying I like the game but this is why in part I feel more are getting bored with Civ 5 quickly along with other reasons. Also maybe allowing for a marathon type research playstyle that doesn't take ages for everything else just research. As I often find myself caught up in the research and build rush and as with old Civ games I'd find myself gaps to actually build militaries without stopping building and research production putting you behind in buildings or research at times.

One thing I could see helping is changing how production is done. Take a tip from some other Civ like games and have a seperate unit and building production line. Increase costs accordingly if need to but allow more then just building a worker or a wonder... after all one would think it doesn't take the entire production pop of a city to make just 1 worker or combat unit. Would let people imerse themselves a bit more in a larger aspect of the game instead of feeling they must set up a game to play a very specific way for victory and then in ways forget everything else. Also maybe slowing down the research esp at further levels w/o nessarily slowing down the rest of the game also.

[Answulf]

Nothing went wrong. The game plays exactly as intended. The problem is with your expectations. *You* are wrong.

The Computer is your friend.

What is your security clearance please?

Good post OP. I think a good 75% of the problem can be traced back to the tech tree in one way or another.

[Saurus the Second]

Gyrate: "It's 1320 BC. Your people do not have the skills for animal husbandry, horseback riding, or even bronze working. Welcome to the Medieval Era!"

You missed my point compleatly. There is always flexibility early on in a game like this. The late game is the problem, were you MUST reserach pretty much everything, even those techs you have absolutely no use for.
The questions is: Why do I have to spend research points on Archeology or Acoustics in order to win a diplomatic victory?
Play some games with CIV IV and take a look how the late game tech tree was constructed. You can win a diplomatic and cultural victory in the late game lacking several techs from the middle ages. As far as I remember you could win a cultural victory whitout even having discovered steam power or rifling. It might even have been, that you could win a spacerace game whitout gunpowder (I don't remember if that was needed for sciethific method). The key issue here was - we had choises all the way though the game and that's a key issue when discussing replaybility of the game.

Akerzork: Mhm, You get the impression that this is pretty much a Demo where not eveything is yet released for your use.

Nah .. I would not go quite that far :) I still prefer quality over quantity. And I can live with the fact that the bonus resource cattle is a tile "downgrade" and I don't lose sleep becouse of sheeps living in abudance in deserts. They digest sand - so what. It's just a game anyway. I don't like it, but theese are minor issues. The biggest worry IS the Tech Tree IMHO and I would really hope someone from 2K would comment on that matter - if there is plans to do anything about it in upcoming Exp.packs. I would also like to have comment from the 2K community about how they have reacted by the low-grades given from users. Expecially the low grade given by users on gamespot compared to other civ games.

I don't blame the major gaming sites for giving the game an excellent grade (even though even here the grade is slighly lower than for earlier civs)

This is because the problems are not instantly obvious.
I an earlier post, I think I myself said this was the best civ ever! :o

But now that that most critical bugs have made the game playable (in a techical way) for many of us, and one start to realize the shallowness of the game, it is clear that this is not a very good game.

One point I like though, however did forget to mention earlier. I think the reserach agreement is better than the earlier "tech trade" from earlier civs.

[Swordfishtrombone]

One point I like though, however did forget to mention earlier. I think the reserach agreement is better than the earlier "tech trade" from earlier civs.

Agreed! I hated it in Civ 4 to have the other civs repeatedly beg me for techs when I was ahead, and give me diplomacy negatives for failing to hand them over. The research agreements are actually a good improvement.

[Liberal]

It has always been the nature of every Civ release that the early game is exciting and full of choices but the late game is tedious and boring.

[wingednosering]

Something I posted on another thread. I believe it still applies. The game is great. All they need is some AI and balance changes.


Honestly, I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I'm saying it anyway:

The devs did a great job in several areas, and people just need to cool down and enjoy the game as is until the patches they desire arrive.

-Strategic Resources that you need to trade for or resort to conquest to obtain

-10x better combat system

-Mostly well done leader profiles (as in the animations, settings, etc; )

-Good graphics, with a stylized feel

-Hex system works really well

-Simplified interface...while I agree that they went a little TOO far on this and need to rectify that...I know when I first played a civ game (no expansions Civ 4) I was totally overwhelmed by all the numbers and values everywhere that I didn't understand the prupose of. Civ 4 never did an admirable job of explaining everything either...which is why I only actually started understanding the game after looking up its gameplay basics online. Civ 5s interface is great for beginning and with just a little tweaking, can provide just as much info for experienced users

-City States. I know the balance on the maritimes one is a little screwy right now, but otherwise they're a great addition..far preferable to the lame pop up text messages regarding natural disasters in BtS.

-Realistic victory conditions. In civ 4, unless you wanted to raze every city you came across, Domination was impossible on decent sized maps. The culture victory should have been called 'Great Person Spamming' and the Diplomatic Victory was kinda stupid since every civ voted for itself unless you forced others to vote for you.

-Customized play. The terrain/nearby resources play a much larger role in gameplay now. The different civs are much more unique, providing a wider range of strategies. Better basis for maintenance costs (and more realistic too) allows you to build a massive empire or a small, clustered one...whatever you want, you can do.
-Cities that can defend themselves (more opinion than a factual job well done, and kinda links with combat, but it still belongs here, because it's implemented just fine)

-Slower culture spread and ability to purchase tiles

-More uses for money and the ability to purchase things right away without a policy or equivalent

What did they do wrong/need to improve?

-AI and foreign trading

-Concealing too much information and having inconsistent bonuses listed throughout the game vs the Civilopedia

-Performance issues later in the game (had these in Civ 4 too, so it doesn't bother me much)

-Inconsistent balancing. The balance in Civ 4 was never quite proper either, but it was less noticable with the stack system

Finally, I think Policies vs Civics could fall under either category. Personally, I like them more than Civics, but would like them to rebalance them a bit. I'm sure a lot of people prefer the old way though.


However, I can't comment on your opinion of the tech tree. I, personally, see nothing wrong with it. This game seems significantly better than civ 4 to me...

As for the techs always giving the same bonuses time after time...didn't civ 4 do that too? In Civ 4, I always felt that the early eras' techs were really crucial and you wanted them all so quickly that you had trouble deciding which one to get first. They were all absolutely central to the game and needed to be researched ASAP.

Now, I feel that way about EVERY tech up to the industrial age. Every single tech gives a very significant bonus, whereas civ 4's techs gave minimal bonuses, or even none at all. Plus, the lack of tech trading in V makes them all the more valuable. If I quickly rush to get a certain wonder that I want and another player rushes to swordsmen, we each have massive advantages over one another until we can make up the slack in the other's tree. It makes technology much more competitive and central.

Beyond the industrial age, it does seme that the techs get more shallow, but as the above poster said, that's hardly a new problem this game has introduced.

Having said all that, I 100% adding more 'branches' to the tech tree. It can't possibly be a bad thing and I believe it could add more replayability (though I'm addicted enough as it is).

Also, I don't want this to be presented int he wrong way, but how the heck are you able to defend a city indefinitely with only two swordsmen :O? I've had massive armies before and still been wiped out. Enemies do use ranged units, you know :P.

[Veshta]

It was unCivilized to a point where people have a hard time even recognizing it as the flagship title in the franchise, too much Revolutions - not enough Civilization.

Plus buyers of the game expect extreme replay value and countless sleepless nights for months or even years, but after the first few full games C5 has nothing else to offer. Variety and player choice is minuscule compared to earlier versions and higher difficulties removes what little choice there is by making ICS the one and only "working" strategy for all victory conditions (unless playing on Archipelago/S.Continent maps).

In short: C5 smells a lot like a rush job. Most of the base mechanic have funky ways of interacting and some just boggle the mind with the level of not having been thought through.

[zoney]

I think Civ V brings plenty of innovation and nice ideas to the party, but we won't have a good game until Civ VI (if they do it right) where they take Civ IV (and indeed any useful ideas from pre-decessors, although I think Civ IV does that) and combine it with the new concepts from Civ V.

The game is actually nice to play in some ways (I like not having as much micro-management) but aspects like ending up with the same playstyle always and so little variation in terrain benefits (could that be patched?) make it very boring and monotonous. Buildings take too long (OK it can be just a bit too long if you focus on production in a city, but even then you are waiting a long time). Cities grow too slowly. The advantages of "ICS" are too great (I'm a fan of settling like mad, nice to be able to do it, but you should get less of a benefit from the number of cities you have - not necessarily any penalty though - even with ICS you need happiness as it is).

I've been playing Civ IV again, and unfortunately Civ V is good enough in some ways to now make Civ IV unsatisfactory. On my new system, Civ V does look fantastic. Civ IV needs a lot of clicking all over the place, and Civ V's interface could still be used for the increased complexity in Civ IV. I never liked Stack of Dooms, so even at one unit per tile, I think I prefer the Civ V restriction.

So, is Civ V the Vista of Civilization series? Or maybe Civ III is a better comparison (I feel Civ IV took some of the better concepts from that and refined everything across the Civ series). In any case, surely there's a *LOT* that can be learnt from and Civ VI could be nearly a "Civ IV in Civ V trappings".

[Jazzterisk]

I can't really argue with any of your points OP. I have enjoyed the game but just today I've found myself getting a little bored as all games end up the same: I build up peacefully --> one computer AI on the continent I'm on builds 30 cities overrunning everyone else --> I get fed up and attack and push the AI back --> continue the game by pressing end turn as no other real resistance is encountered because the computer only knows how to win by conquest. So I can relax because I'm one of the most powerful civs on the planet.

Perhaps I will find things change on higher levels but from what other users have said it doesn't get much different but just more frustrating because of the cheats the AI is using (negative gold and gross unhappiness). I prefer the more hidden cheats from Civ IV. I knew the computer got them but it wasn't glaring me right in the face.

With regards to the Gamespot user scores being so low. It is interesting that the reviewer score is so much higher. I read and posted on a thread the other day which discussed gaming sites being paid to give good reviews. Given the gross discrepancy between what the reviewers are giving and actual users are giving Civ V I begin to wonder if there is a little underhandedness going on between the game companies and the gaming sites.
I usually put a lot of stock into Gamespot reviews but recently I've become a little disenchanted with them. I thought IGN was good but I've heard they're no better.
I will try to stick to user reviews from now on.

The question is, would I have bought Civ V based on user reviews? Yes, because I pretty buy anything civ. But at least I'd know what to expect.
Civ V isn't a 9+/10 game its a mid to low 8/10 game. Good but not great.

[Liberal]

With regards to the Gamespot user scores being so low. It is interesting that the reviewer score is so much higher. I read and posted on a thread the other day which discussed gaming sites being paid to give good reviews. Given the gross discrepancy between what the reviewers are giving and actual users are giving Civ V I begin to wonder if there is a little underhandedness going on between the game companies and the gaming sites.
I usually put a lot of stock into Gamespot reviews but recently I've become a little disenchanted with them. I thought IGN was good but I've heard they're no better.
I will try to stick to user reviews from now on.And for good reason. Even if there is no direct cash kickback, which would constitute bribery and fraud, there is still the fact that, as a publication, you want to maintain good relations with those whose products will be your principle features.

One could test this hypothesis scientifically (using Kahn methodology) by comparing the ratio of reviewer scores to player scores in the context of the size, influence, and/or reputation of the producers. If large influential studios tend to receive high reviewer scores while more than half the time receiving low player scores while at the same time small indy studios receive lower reviewer scores with more than half the player scores being equal or better, then one can logically deduce (via modus ponens) that reviewers are favoring large and influential producers.

For whatever reason. Determing that would entail a bit more work.

[Hormagaunt]

Nothing went wrong. The game plays exactly as intended. The problem is with your expectations. *You* are wrong.

The Computer is your friend.

Ah it's the persons fault, not the game eh? :rolleyes: So for people who are not happy with the game, it's their fault then?

The Computer is always right. To disagree with the Computer is to be wrong. Being wrong is treason. Please report to Laser Testing Station 3, enter through the door marked Target Acquisition. Remember to place all goods, including clothing, in the bin marked "Recycle" before entering.

The Computer is your friend.

[aeligos]

. First we have Theology which gives wonders and a culture building, then come Acoustics, which gives wonders and a culture building, then we have Archeology, which gives wonders and and yet another culture building ... etc, etc ... do this over, and over again. Fun? No.

Well, If I don't want that culture and those wonders? Why do I just not skip them?

Well, I can't. Because of course it is obvious that you need Theology and Archeology in order to invent combustion, right?



:mad:

I just had to stop right here and not read any further....

What seems funny to me is that we're conditioned into thinking that 'theology' is separate from science. Archeology is directly related to theology because the ecclesiastical enterprise dictates which of the archeological findings will be introduced into the public domain. Bare in mind, the academe establishment is a jesuit enterprise, so it is perfectly fitting for "combustion" to be founded after theo/archeo.....because the 'technological know-how' had existed in past civilizations (that is not to say "ancient" civilizations"). There is much we are not supposed to know.

I know this may sound strange to the lot of you, but in today's technological world, we actually know very little compared to what had been known here millions of years ago....and in a few million years everything will reset again.

Albert Einstein:


"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
CIV V is actually pointing out the huge relevance of 'god'. The "freethinking" atheist/agnostic/intellectual/mind-worshipper might be really uneasy about the integration of this concept into a masterpiece of a game. What blurs the entire concept is the workings of "Theology" which is a human concept designed to materialize the notion of 'god' -- to make it what they will for their own ruling benefit. Thus, more restless would be the religious folk if they would sit down to really think about that.

-.-

[Davor]

The Computer is always right. To disagree with the Computer is to be wrong. Being wrong is treason. Please report to Laser Testing Station 3, enter through the door marked Target Acquisition. Remember to place all goods, including clothing, in the bin marked "Recycle" before entering.

The Computer is your friend.

LOL :p

I agree with people who say they go by user reviews now instead of the actual gaming site reviews. Again I will say, there is no way in hell, or the Maple Leafs have just won the Stanely Cup, that Civ V deserves a 9.0 score. Maybe a 7.5 or I will say 8 being generous but NOT 9.0+.

I said it before, if the name didn't have Sid Mier on it, the score would be 7.5. Because the name Sid Mier is on it, I would actually give it a lower score, but I reviewed the game as it is. So name non the less, the score is 7+. A good game, not a great game, and not even close to an awsome game at all. I still believe the score should be lower than 8.3.

How Fallout New Vegas can be lamblasted for bugs and Civ V get away with it and have a higher score, I will never understand. Maybe Gamespot has been caught, shown how they have been "bought" and is now trying to actually do better reivews now and become legit. I don't know.

After 40 of playing the game now, the game has gotten stale. Boring as some people have said. For this to happen, there is no way it can be considered a great game.

[wingednosering]

People need to keep in mind, that just because they grow disenchanted with the game after a very short period of time, not everybody will. And likewise, just because they've seen bugs, not everybody has.

I've only ever seen one non-aesthetic bug in Civ 5, which isn't even comparable to New Vegas. Have you PLAYED NV? It's a great game, but it's buggy to the nth degree.

I've played Civ 5 a ton since I got it (first day it was available) and I'm still completely addicted to it.

[Davor]

People need to keep in mind, that just because they grow disenchanted with the game after a very short period of time, not everybody will. And likewise, just because they've seen bugs, not everybody has.

I've only ever seen one non-aesthetic bug in Civ 5, which isn't even comparable to New Vegas. Have you PLAYED NV? It's a great game, but it's buggy to the nth degree.

I've played Civ 5 a ton since I got it (first day it was available) and I'm still completely addicted to it.

You are so correct. that we need to keep in mind that because some of us have grown disenchanted with the game, others have not. You also have to remember to respect our opnions as well.

Time will tell if Firaxis/2K was correct in going in the direction against the people who were disenchanted. Just because it worked for Oblivion, doesn't mean it will work for Civ V. If anything Civ Revolution proves this. I loved the game. But I think it's a failure since it didn't get that many people into the genre. Why they think what they did with Civ V will get more people into the genre on the PC I have no idea.

While they may have gotten there Hundreds of thousands of sales now, if they don't come back later, is it really a success then?

[toyboy]

I can't understand all that whinig that's going on nowadays in game forums. If you liked Civ 4 so much why don't you just go on playing it and forget about the 'sunk cost trap' called Civ 5. Aren't there hundreds of posts like this already? I found a good article which describes my feelings and thoughts about that very good.
And remember, you can always play civ 4, what's wrong about that? Ahhhhhhhh, i know, you need something new and shiny ;)


original at: http://www.gamezone.com/editorials/item/gamers_are_spoiled/

Gamers are Spoiled
By Michael Knutson

There is a little 'brat' in all of us

Even though you are halfway across the store, you can still hear it. It is a sound that grates on everyone’s nerves: a whiney and spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum. If the children do not get a particular item, they will throw a fit making sure everyone around can hear their plea. You look around and see people starting to cover their ears trying to avoid the shrieking cries from the child while praying that their ear drums will not burst. You are starting to reach your breaking point, and about to purchase the item for the child to shut them up, it suddenly becomes silent. You being to wonder if the parents caved in, the child received much needed discipline, or they just left the store.

We have all been that spoiled brat in the past and will swear that we are not that way anymore. The funny thing is that if we take a moment to reflect, we will find that deep down we all have still have that “inner spoiled brat” inside of us. Recently this has become apparent in two aspects of the gaming world: achievements points and online play.

When Microsoft unveiled the Xbox 360, they spouted off all of various new features, including achievement points. Many people thought this was a good idea, but the majority shrugged it off as being too gimmicky. While developers were creating the first batch of games, they really didn’t know what to do with them, so they just put in the required amount, to ensure this new feature was incorporated, and didn’t think much about it.


Two down, ten to go

The minute gamers put their first 360 game in, and they heard the “achievement pop” sound and screen, a weird feeling from the pit of their stomach triggered two thoughts: “I can play games and get rewarded for it?” and “I must get more!” Overnight this little feature of achievement points became a status symbol for gamers everywhere. There are numerous forums discussing how to get more, the games that are the easiest for obtaining them, tips, and more. Gamers now had additional bragging rights that they not only beat the game, but also have all of the achievement points to back it up.

Personally I never realized how addicting these points can be until I was playing a game on the PlayStation 3 and thought: if I had this game on the Xbox 360 I would have earned at least 600 points by now. Who would have thought that such a little thing as achievements would have been such a huge success and status symbol in gaming?


Gaming made better with more players

One of the worst ways gamers are now spoiled is by online multiplayer. Recently I picked up a game, and saw that it was “Wi-Fi” compatible on the box. Thinking that this meant I would get to race against people from around the world, I was extremely disappointed to find out that the only “online racing” that I would get to participate in would be downloading a “ghost” of a racer and trying to beat their time. I was ticked off by the “misleading” marketing on the package, and very disappointed at the same time.

It was at that moment I was thinking of that “inner spoiled brat” crying over not getting a piece of candy at a store. Just a couple of years ago gamers would have salivated at the thought of getting to connect to the Internet, downloading a “ghost” of the best racer, and trying to beat it. Now if the game does that it is seen as antiquated and people are crying because it doesn’t have true online play.

The point of all of this is that in just a few short years, developers have added many new features in games that are hard to live without. Gamers have gotten spoiled with these new advances and moan when something is not included in their favorite game. We just all have to remember what happened when we were little. Sometimes we get what we want, and other times we have to wait for it. Going back to the illustration of the spoiled brat, do you find yourself whining when a certain feature that this generation of gaming is known for is absent? That is a question only you can answer, and it might surprise yourself with the answer.

[wingednosering]

I do respect your opinions. You find the game boring. That's fine, we all get it. But this forum is being needlessly spammed with the same topics over and over again.

You are entitled to an opinion, but it's not right that so many people are labeling it "a bad game." you can say YOU don't care for it, that doesn't make it bad. Similarly, the attacks against the Devs are completely uncalled for. I see many threads (on all gaming forums, really) accusing the devs of ripping people off, taking money for 'rushed' products, and not giving the game design any thought. How much of their lives have been used up now, to make this game for us? They've worked on it for years and after a mere month, people are insulting them for not patching it to perfection.

Give it time. The company who funded the project wants more money and the devs who made the project want their hard work to be appreciated and for the game to be as fun as it can be.

[Edit]: Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting this topic is a 'troll topic' or 'needless spam'. This topic has a perfectly legit conversation at the heart of it. The OPs thoughts on the tech tree are fine. I don't agree with them, but at least he tried to get a discussion going there.

[Simkill]

More thread regurgitation please.

[zoney]

I can't understand all that whinig that's going on nowadays in game forums. If you liked Civ 4 so much why don't you just go on playing it and forget about the 'sunk cost trap' called Civ 5. Aren't there hundreds of posts like this already? I found a good article which describes my feelings and thoughts about that very good.
And remember, you can always play civ 4, what's wrong about that? Ahhhhhhhh, i know, you need something new and shiny ;)

Lol - if you can get Civ 4 to work on your new system! Was caught out by the DVD check on Civ 4 vanilla on Win 7 (trying to do multiplayer and other person had Steam version and hadn't downloaded expansions yet as they are gigabytes). Yay for DRM! (strangely only BTS has the DVD check patched out).

Wryly humorous after my trials with Civ V on my old desktop system (my old laptop could barely manage Civ IV, hence why I was trying to run it on my new laptop).

Anyway, as I pointed out earlier, Civ V does bring plenty of great stuff to the party even if it is overall somewhat lacking. And unfortunately as a result, I do find enjoyment of Civ IV is now diminished a little bit, as one would like some Civ V aspects in it.

[Saurus the Second]

:mad:

I just had to stop right here and not read any further....

What seems funny to me is that we're conditioned into thinking that 'theology' is separate from science. Archeology is directly related to theology because the ecclesiastical enterprise dictates which of the archeological findings will be introduced into the public domain. Bare in mind, the academe establishment is a jesuit enterprise, so it is perfectly fitting for "combustion" to be founded after theo/archeo.....because the 'technological know-how' had existed in past civilizations (that is not to say "ancient" civilizations"). There is much we are not supposed to know.

I know this may sound strange to the lot of you, but in today's technological world, we actually know very little compared to what had been known here millions of years ago....and in a few million years everything will reset again.

Albert Einstein:


CIV V is actually pointing out the huge relevance of 'god'. The "freethinking" atheist/agnostic/intellectual/mind-worshipper might be really uneasy about the integration of this concept into a masterpiece of a game. What blurs the entire concept is the workings of "Theology" which is a human concept designed to materialize the notion of 'god' -- to make it what they will for their own ruling benefit. Thus, more restless would be the religious folk if they would sit down to really think about that.

-.-

It seems to be that you took my typing a bit too personally. If that is so, allow me to express my apology.

However, to be short (and blunt), there exsits TWO SEPARATE victory conditions in civ V. One is Science - the other is Cultural. They are in this game considered as SEPARATE victory conditions and as such they should be aproached differently, otherwise they merge and we have only one victory condition instead of theese two.




CIV V is actually pointing out the huge relevance of 'god'



It is not.

Besides this is all off topic...but anyway...
I stopped fuming about religious matters after an incidence were a Dannish priest pointed out to me, that I hade become so skilled dabting, that I could debate about almost everyting sucsessfully regardless if I agreed with the subject I was defending or not. That's the easy path in life. The difficult one, is to make decissions.

Thus I'm not going to discuss religion or god here on an open forum on any level.
However, If you do have an open mind, and actually is intrested to discuss the matter, feel free to send me a private message.

Lastly, while it not was your point, if you wan't to play a civ-game were a religious victory-option actually is available, then play civ IV were religion in fact was a MAJOR part of the game. Even the indroducing music "Baba Yetu" (Our father in heaven, performed in Swahili) is legendary. I still often listen to it :)

[toyboy]

Lol - if you can get Civ 4 to work on your new system!

If you really try get it running on your new system it will happen. You'll see! :)

[aeligos]

=Saurus the Second;1262133

No apology necessary.

I am actually very anti-religious.

And theology in my opinion is the seed of corruption.

-.-

[Saurus the Second]

I do respect your opinions. You find the game boring. That's fine, we all get it. But this forum is being needlessly spammed with the same topics over and over again.

I think I am the first one who actually brought in some evidence as well.
I also tried to clrearly point out why so many people are getting tedious so quickly and do so in a polite manner, what is wrong, and why.

Most threads were someone are blaming the game are not well written, domumented or linked to evidence.

That's becouse theese people are in a state of rage or extreme frustration when they are typing. Thus, in many cases a valid point, becomes a trolling post.

I have learned, to try to avoid typing anything when angry (it's still difficult sometimes ;) ) But I was in a calm mood when starting this thread. I think I was able to pretty well point out the problems. I was sarcastic regarding some issues, which under certain cirumstances can be counterproductive.

However, this post is still at the top of the list of posts right now. Has been there for a while and it has 4 stars. That should speak for itself.

Most trolling posts are not getting any attention from the Devs at all, nor do they deserve it.

What I wan't is to simply get some answears

1) Are the devs aware, that this game have gotten the lowest score of any civ game? (yes/no)

2) Are there any plans to change the streamlined tech tree to a more flexible one?

3) Are there any plans to actually make bonus resources usefull?

4) Are there any plans to enchance the replay value of the game?

I would accept any answear. Or if they just could visit the thread and give it a note that they have read my concern, that would be fine too.

I'm not saying nobody likes the game.
I have never dissalowed anyone from enjoying playing this game.

The main point was simply (I type it here once more) that this time around this ammount of players why think this is a superb game is fewer that has been the case with earlier civs. (backed up with evidence)

This is not trolling.

[Liberal]

Have you tried email support?

[Liberal]

No apology necessary.

I am actually very anti-religious.

And theology in my opinion is the seed of corruption.

-.-It's an unexpected and unprecedented privilege to meet an incorruptible man.

[Shiav]

No apology necessary.

I am actually very anti-religious.

And theology in my opinion is the seed of corruption.

-.-

corruption is bred out of inequality, inequality is bred out of life, life is bred out of ☺☺☺☺. get used to it.

PS so far the ayes have it on religion
PSS anti which religion?

[slightjunky]

I think the "failure" of CIV V is all down to it's lack of depth. The lack of religion, the claiming of dumbing down, poor re-playability all come down to that.

I think the devs are guilty of trying to make a game appeal to more people by making more accessible - and by bringing it down the scale of strategy complexity they hoped to achieve it. More fans means more money after all.

By taking a simpler and a political-neutral approach they can aim the game at younger gamers, and the (well designed I have to admit) UI screams "this game was built with the console in mind" - Time will tell on that one, but I fully expect to see CIV 5 or it's engine on consoles one day.

but, in doing so they managed to alienate alot of the hardcore fan base. A scroll of the forums will tell you this is not as popular as CIV4. To further the point, since CIV 5 came out (I pre-ordered btw on the merits of CIV IV) I have 300 hours on CIV IV and only 70h on CIV V.


I hate to say this, it sounds cruel and hateful - but I want to see a failure for CIV V. I want it to flop and become more unpopular with time. Forgotten. So that when they are brainstorming CIV VI they look at what fan-base they have and not at what fan-base they want.

[harmonic42]

Some folks are here simply to pad their post counts. There's really no reason to post if all you have to say is "lol stop whining."

The "gamers are spoiled" article certainly rings true in several respects. However, after having hopped back into an epic game of Civ4 BTS online this weekend, the sentiments the OP suggested are ever clearer to me.

Civ5 is not exclusively to blame for regressive, un-fun streamlining. If anyone has played World of Warcraft throughout its various iterations, and really paid attention to the way the devs assign characteristics of equipment, they'll notice the following. (I am not one of those "BC sucks/LK sucks" spammers. Gimme a chance here:

In Vanilla, much of the higher-quality and rarer equipment was not specific to any class. Sure, if you analyzed the loot a little bit, you could come to a consensus on to whom that weapon/armor belongs. However, very few pieces of equipment were actually class-restricted. Even the tier 0 equipment could be worn by anyone with the proficiency. Fewer cookie-cutter equipment sets. Same with the talent builds. They took some figuring out, really. And that's the fun in it. Testing new strategies, figuring out how to optimally function in your group.

Nowadays, while they have improved many aspects of gameplay, I feel as though nothing is left to be figured out. Most loot is class (and even talent tree) specific. Talent trees were recently updated so that they're almost exclusively role-specific!

The civ5 tech trees are very similar. As well as the strategies for pursuing the various victory types. In the developers' efforts to ease the learning curve of turn-based strategy, they have inadvertently taken away the intrigue and ongoing challenge of figuring things out. The situation is not insalvagable, and the game does exhibit a great deal of excellent ideas. Just needs some trimming around the edges.

[Liberal]

The civ5 tech trees are very similar. As well as the strategies for pursuing the various victory types. In the developers' efforts to ease the learning curve of turn-based strategy, they have inadvertently taken away the intrigue and ongoing challenge of figuring things out. The situation is not insalvagable, and the game does exhibit a great deal of excellent ideas. Just needs some trimming around the edges.Well stated. On many occasions, I've quoted Sid Meier from an old interview in which he said that what makes for a great TBS game is the ability to make decisions that have consequences.

It's that simple. If you remove the decision making and the consequences, you ruin the game. And that's according the the master himself — which lends some credibility to the suspicion that he had only a minor figure-head role, granting a consultation or two, in this iteration of the game. The tech tree is fixable. And frankly, fairly easily fixable compared to some of the other actual bugs. It's just a matter of tweaking the branches (linked lists), and then making abilities, improvements, and units consequences (conditionals) of those choices.

[rgndrock]

I think the point where my and the rest of my Ventrilo channel thought something may be about to go horribly wrong was when we were all watching a dev/gameplay vid from Fileplanet and we heard a dev utter the words, "We have learned a lot from our console release that we intend to use on Civ5."

Imagine Bobby Flay eating at McDonald's and uttering the words, "I am going to start serving the Big Mac at the Mesa Grill." Those customers may very well like that Big Mac but I assure you that is not why they are going to that establishment.

I think what has happened is the typical gaming industry move of a company trying to play both sides of the gaming market when they are incompetent to do so. PC Gamers loathe the console feel in their games and console gamers can't handle the PC appearance being there.

And I think I may even be a bit let discerning than some of you. I don't hate the tech tree. I don't hate the gameplay. I hate the standard optionless feel that they gave this game. This optionless feel is typical of consoles. Game creation used to have a ton of customizations. Now we have 5 basic dropdowns and 10 check boxes. Heck, there even used to be settings that governed how our automated workers act. Now we just have 1 option to automate them.

[harmonic42]

I am digging the big mac analogy.

I mean... it's gotta be better, since everyone eats big macs, right? :confused:

[Saurus the Second]

It has always been the nature of every Civ release that the early game is exciting and full of choices but the late game is tedious and boring.

Untrue.

In Civ IV there was plenty of options and paths to choose from all the way to the end. End-games in civ IV could sometimes be just supremely fun to play.
Even the military-path alone, had several side options ...

One civ could dominate compleatly on the ground with Modern Armors and marines ... while the other only having riflemen and Cavalries BUT, at the same time could have complete control over the skies.

A defensive player (wanting to win a cultural victory) often chose "Flight" just for this reasons and then headed on the path toward Mass-Media were the important wonders regarding culture was.

If in a hurry, the Defensive player could skip the airplanes too and head stright for the path for mass media. But that made your military very weak. You had to truly play well on the diplomacy side here, to deflect military threats.

But it worked, and I thought if was great fun.


However, I agree with you on one point. Expecially that the endgame in Civ 3 was horrible. Don't quite remember how it was in Civ 1 and 2, not quite as bad if i remeber correctly. But I think most people agree that Civ IV had the best endgame, so far.

[Liberal]

To be fair, talk about the console game centered around the user interface almost exclusively. And I really have to say that that part is much improved in Civ V.

[Fantasy]

And theology in my opinion is the seed of corruption.
The seed of corruption are psychopaths, and a given culture is its enabler. The latter can be changed.

Religion, as all other human activities (I use the word "activity" in the sense of the transactional analysis by E. Berne) (I am not a religious person, as you can see) and interests, are neutral for corruption, but can be corrupted. In fact, any organization or assemblage can be corrupted, as long as there is enough force to do that.

Take, for instance, a software company with good reputation and a franchise with a vast and loyal following. They release games that are, generally attractive to this fan base, stable and attention-grabbing. The one day, some executives (who tend to be psychopaths nowadays, because it is the most lucrative position, the one that allows for the most lucrative corruption) decide to make a quick grab and forget about the long term; they release a game that only superficially looks interesting. They also release a demo that allows only 100 turns, so that the game can only be tried superficially.

They push the developers to finish the game quickly, without the necessary QA, without the necessary stability fixes and without features the fan base was used to, in previous iterations (replay, power graphs etc.). They even fire a number of engineers in order to buff up the profits.

They force the developers to devote time to work on eye candy instead of from what makes the game original and unique (gameplay), because first impressions is all they bank on.

These and a few other moves, are aimed to increase profits in the short term - because that's how psychopathic corporate executives function. They do not care about the long term viability of companies they lead, because they won't be around when these experience problems.

These executives find jobs in another organization, thanks to other corrupted executives (who, likewise, do not have the best interest of such organization at their heart), and the cycle is repeated. Usually this organisation is another publicly traded company, but it can also be a political organization. It doesn't matter, as long as it allows for the psychopath to abuse for their own personal profit.

[Saurus the Second]

S

Also, I don't want this to be presented int he wrong way, but how the heck are you able to defend a city indefinitely with only two swordsmen :O? I've had massive armies before and still been wiped out. Enemies do use ranged units, you know :P.

I do not defend, I Attack. So there is no need to defend that city (unless I get dogpiled, in which case I die regardless if I have more units or not)
But playing the cards right here, there should only be barbarians to fear.

Mainly, the other civs never knows what hit them, before they are gone or begging for mercy. One by one. Capturing a city is so easy, it only take 2-4 strikes from a longswordman to destroy. Add to this the right social policy-choises and the promotions, and you basically cannot lose those units.

Have not tried this after the patch, though, as I admitted earlier.
Also, what map you are playing on certainly affect if the strategy I used in fact is usable.

[aarskever]

There has been much discussion around the forum regarding the game not beeing fun.

While I would not go quite that far, I do have to admit, that Civ V is a dissapointment and it's replay value is low. For a short period of time, I thought I was addicted to the game. But that addiction is gone now.

How did it end up like this? I would LOVE to hear Gregs opinnion about the matter.

But here is my theory. First off:

The technology tree.
With so many features removed from the game compared to the earlier version, there is of course no need for as many technologies. I can live with less technologies. But the technology tree is just way too streamlined - that I cannot live with. Civilization have always been a game were you are supposed to make choices. But this time, this does not work that way.
How fun is it, when you are asked to choose a technology for research, and there is only one tech to choose from?

Another problem with the technology tree is, that beside being streamlined, it is ... plain boring. First we have Theology which gives wonders and a culture building, then come Acoustics, which gives wonders and a culture building, then we have Archeology, which gives wonders and and yet another culture building ... etc, etc ... do this over, and over again. Fun? No.
Well, If I don't want that culture and those wonders? Why do I just not skip them? I can't. Because of course it is obvious that you need Theology and Archeology in order to invent combustion, right?

The exact same pattern goes with the happiness buildings. Just because the buildings have different names, does not mean they truly are different other than slight differences in how much they cost in upkeep and how much happiness they bring in. Different icons for each building on the screen is not enough, to differentiate the a buildings from another, if its function is the same. Sorry.

Its like building the same building over, and over again, only that the icon is different. Not very refreshing.

But the, by far, biggest problem with the technology tree is, that because of it is so very streamlined. You cannot really win one type of victory (except a conquest victory, which you can do whenever you please. My favorite is to do this with 2 longswordmen standing side my side crushing all that is coming in their way... this works at least up to the Emperor difficulty, so combat - yes, it's broken too). Have not done this after the patch, though, to be honest.

But back to the main point....since you can't skip the Cultural techs, when aiming for a Scientific victory, and you can't really skip the scientific techs when going for a utopia victory you might recognize, that after a couple of games, you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again.

When you are close to one victory type, you will quite automatically be close to those other victory types as well.

Feel free to try different approaches - but after each game you will watch at the clock, and see it's 6.00 AM and hearing the "I've got you babe" playing in the radio.

I'm of course drawing a correlation between Civ V and the awesome movie called "groundhog day" were a single human is forced to repeat a single day over and over again until he truly learns to care about others.
Sadly, such an escape is not available in Civ V.

You try different approaches, and realizes that there are none available.

The diplomatic victory is another story - I think that's the most moronic victory condition that has been included in ANY civ.
I mean, Just BRIBE enough minor states one turn before the vote and that's it. Nothing more needs to be said regarding that victory condition. How this passed beta-testing is to me a mystery.


Then lets move on to the next topic.

Many of you are familiar with the term ICS. (Infinite city sprawl)
(if not, please search the forum, there are threads about the topic)
It has actually made a COMEBACK in Civ V. (ally with some Maritime city states, keep happiness up with coliseums, allow the cities to stay small, or you need to build more expensive buildings. And then just build thousands of cities). You win. If it makes anyone happy, it should be possible to fix this one, but that means maritime city states should either be removed from the game or changed to give a different bonus.


On to the next one: Resources.

While the luxury & strategic concept is working somewhat well IMHO, the bonus resource concept is a mystery to me.

A cattle is actually a downgrade of the tile, since it cannot be upgraded while a farm is upgraded automatically once the correct tech is researched. A cattle on a grassland for instance is therefore a "downgrade" of the tile - not an upgrade.

Sheep thriving in abundance in desserts? Come on!!

And while the "Fish" resource actually have been made quite effective, once you have the right buildings in place - what happened to the crabs and the calms? (the same goes for the luxury and strategic resources as well... why was so very many of them removed?) This just adds to the feeling of the game that this is some kind of Civ V "lite", with the full version still being there somewhere...

Resources & Improvements & map terrain in general are simplified too much.

Misc.
I will only say very little about about steam here. As that has nothing to do with the game itself (other than selling bonuses to steam customers, which is unusable in multiplayer as a "bonus" while these customers will miss the disc and the big&beautiful spreadsheet that came with the box, is just pitiful. + for most Europeans the box was MUCH cheaper. The Facebook-page "Don't buy Civ V from steam", is still up and I urge you to visit the page and give our Australian friends some support. Unfair treatment should not be forgotten.

OK, enough said. I've already received a warning for digging too deep into this issue so now I will shut up :rolleyes:


Then what about the positives?

I like the new road model ... they cost upkeep and they won't just spawn everywere. The railroadspider is dead. That is good.

The Social policy concept? I like that too. It's just that this does not save the game from beeing extreamly shallow and half-finished.

The new combat model? Well, the same rule apply. If it would work well, and the A.I would use it efficency, I would be a heavy supporter of the new battle model. Sadly, the A.I don't do very well with it.


My major concern is, I truly do not know how the game can be made better even with expansion packs as the biggest problems as I see it are the streamlined tech tree and the way middle and end game is approached. The tech tree issue is such, that it would almost need completely overhaul from scratch and the different structures producing happiness & culture should somehow be made UNIQUE. Not just being cheap copies of each other.

How the devs will manage to do this, is a good question indeed. This time around, adding a bunch of leaders, adding a new feature or a few technologies won't be enough. Perhaps it could be possible to make a mod, a mod good enough to make it the official expansion regarding the tech tree?

I would love to have some comments. Specifically considering the tech tree.
For now, the fact that fans has only given the game 8.3 at GameSpot - a score that have been dropping lower all the time, is a signal that devs should take seriously.

(my apologies for many spelling grammar errors) It's far past midnight here in Finland so there might in fact be plenty of them. Time for some sleep.

Cheers :)

I agree wholeheartedly.. Tech tree, tile yields, resources, and more demanding requirements for some units (war chariot -> archery+wheel, etc.) would be wonderful when improved.

[Civilization5isF_kinBroke]

Dude. Just do what I did.

First, uninstall this pathetic excuse of 'finished' software out of your system. You and I both know you are better off without it.

Then you have a choice. The game disc can see its final end at the end of a hammer, or you can be creative like me because I wanted test the disc adherence to the tires of my Escalade. Looks like I found some common ground. The disc likes the bottom of my tires just as much as it likes running on my computer.

[Ghostflame]

I'm just afraid I'll have to wait and pay for a couple of expansions before Civ V becomes as entertaining as it's prequels (well...Civ Rev excluded).

[Liberal]

The game disc can see its final end at the end of a hammer, or you can be creative like me because I wanted test the disc adherence to the tires of my Escalade. Looks like I found some common ground. The disc likes the bottom of my tires just as much as it likes running on my computer.But did you think to run over the activation code?

[Finite]

The one unit per tile change likely means that this civ version will never become a great empire building game with many equal ways of victory. It is just impossible to balance it against AI who is at too big a disadvantage in tactical warfare. It also means we have to balance around fewer units causing all sorts of compromises elsewhere (have to prevent people from building too many units).

It still doesn't mean this can't be a good game especially for casual gamers. They just need to balance the gameplay to prevent most obviously overpowered paths and make other options more tempting. The issues with monotonous research tree were mentioned here, that could surely do with some tweaks but I am not expecting too much to be done to it since there is just not enough techs to branch it out much more.

To mention some obvious fix needs (balance):
- resources need to be better to have city position mean something
- trade posts need to be worse, mines better
- AI needs to value things better to prevent sales exploits
- AI needs to use city states more diplomatically
- Maritime food needs to be worse, culture maybe too
- teching needs to take more time especially end game
- units need to build faster, maybe balance with more unit costs to prevent oversized armies (gets better with better mines)
- great scientists should just grant a bulb amount (increasing with ages) isntead of outright tech grant. research agreements likewise

And to counter the dominating strategy of city spamming:
- make bigger cities grant more research
- make it easier to grow big cities by lowering the food limits
- make some buildings provide bigger bonuses based on city population

And to fix overall gameplay (this is the technically hardest part):
- Make tactical combat AI more capable (it is horrid now)
- Make diplomacy better (now feels near random with no meaningful options)
- Add demographics, retiring option and replay to get more depth and reward for completing a game
- Make more information available overall to help managing an empire
- Fix multiplayer issues
- Make modding easier (to whatever extent the engine allows)

Similar lists exist all over - I hope Firaxis is willing to finish the game development before trying to make more money out of it. I really want to like this game and I think that the more tactical hex map, city states and policies are good innovations. I actually like the global happiness too =)

[Liberal]

Untrue.Respectfully, I believe you misspelled "I disagree".

I played Civ IV in a particular way. Having an honest to goodness real life medical diagnosis of OCD, there was no question but that I had to play in that particular way. I would bother to explain my method of play, but it likely wouldn't interest you other than to inform me of how horrible it is, in your view, as a way to play the game.

Suffice it to say that my goal was high score, and that I used the world builder to fashion for myself a world in which my scores would go ever higher. My endgame, therefore, was tedious indeed, involving nothing more than clicking "Next Turn" while monitoring a dilapidated, tiny opponent stuck on a tundra tile surrounded by ice and no fish.

Now speaking of Civ III (as you have), the tedium there involved the arbitrary but necessary chore of pollution clean up. One had to maintain a goodly number of workers assigned to that ridiculous task.

[Lightzy]

"People who like to smile the most"

[Ingolenuru]

I have been wondering what was wrong with the game. I have played almost 400 hours(not all were online) and I keep coming to the same end. I love the game because of how much better the start is with the wasted techs being taken out of the early game. I didn't realize it was the complexity of the industrial and later stages that was missing because I wasn't comparing it to Civ IV, just trying to base my opinion on the game as it is. The way the tech tree stays so streamlined makes the game feel constricted and repetitive even if you try different victory paths. This is the biggest failing followed closely by the stupidity of the AI military and the absence of any diplomacy worth noting.

Great patch but the epic fail on fixing diplomacy is IMO unforgivable. It went from totally to generous to unfailingly greedy putting it mildly. The military and worker AI got better but not as much as it needed. I wish someone had mentioned the tech tree problem sooner to see if they would change it while they were still talking to us. I hate console games Civ V in its current state is nothing more than a glorified console game. Is it too late to fire Jon Shaffer?!

Obviously they did a great job with the early stages of the game. If they hadn't I wouldn't have been playing like an addict. I love the hexes, 1 unit per hex, policies, city growth style and look of the game. They did enough right for the early game and as most everyone is saying the middle and end game are massively broken. The OP has it dead to rights and the oft repeated list in the post a bit above nails down the details. These things NEED to be fixed and someone needs to tell us what is being done or not done.

If this company doesn't start doing a better job then I will not buy the expansions and wait at least a year before buying Civ VI if at all. I bought the box set with the figures and spent more than I ever had for any game. What I got was not worth half that amount. They owe us big time for having zero mid to late game QA. They owe us massively for resources that devalue tiles and other huge mistakes that could not possibly have been missed by anyone who knows anything about Civ games. Part of the anger about the lack of information and response is because the quality was completely inexcusable. There is no explanation for how poor the QA on this game was that can mitigate the disappointment it caused. They failed completely. No questions asked, end of discussion. These threads need to be continued until someone somewhere apologizes for their failures and starts letting us know what they are doing to fix it and when it might be done.

[Darkpriest667]

And for good reason. Even if there is no direct cash kickback, which would constitute bribery and fraud, there is still the fact that, as a publication, you want to maintain good relations with those whose products will be your principle features.

One could test this hypothesis scientifically (using Kahn methodology) by comparing the ratio of reviewer scores to player scores in the context of the size, influence, and/or reputation of the producers. If large influential studios tend to receive high reviewer scores while more than half the time receiving low player scores while at the same time small indy studios receive lower reviewer scores with more than half the player scores being equal or better, then one can logically deduce (via modus ponens) that reviewers are favoring large and influential producers.

For whatever reason. Determing that would entail a bit more work.



No but the hypothesis is probably spot on my friend. My friends and I have been very hard core gamers for the likes of almost 20 years in computers. going back to the days of GOOD strategy games like Master of Orion and others(Civ 1 anyone?)

We have not read a game review in a decade because, frankly, when you see a game review followed by an ad for the game on the next page you know they've been bought off. It doesnt take a scientifically deduced theory to prove that. Although, someone could take the time to do all the work and probably still come to the same conclusion.

I bought this game via steam with the extra leader and civ (which I did not receive btw) and I have to say it will be the first time I did not buy a Civ expansion pack the day it comes out. I won't be buying any of the DLC or expansions for this game. It's too many steps backwards in too many categories.

[Liberal]

I do feel your pain. But if I may, as an aside, I was a bit whiplashed by the phrase "scientific deduction". I know what you meant, and I know you understand what I'm about to explain, but for the benefit of some who might not know, I think some clarification is called for. So, apologies if I seem to condescend as that is not my intention.

But deduction is analytic, not empirical. Science is an empirical epistemology. Logic (both deduction and induction) is an analytic epistemology. That is to say, science attempts to falsify an hypothesis; whereas logic attempts to prove an assertion. All science can show is that something is not false. Logic is required to show that something is true.

You might argue that if something is not false, then it must be true, but that's the case only in narrowly defined cases of bivalence — i.e., some system with a law of excluded middle (p v ~p). FOPL logic is bivalent, but many logical systems are not. And certainly, falsification is not. Falsification isn't even, well, falsifiable.

[lemmy101]

I love how 8.3 seems to be considered 'it all going wrong' for some reason... is it the new 5/10 or something? Doesn't 8.3 mean that the vast majority of gamers like it? Especially considering most people only vote 1 or 10 on those things.

[Saurus the Second]

I love how 8.3 seems to be considered 'it all going wrong' for some reason... is it the new 5/10 or something? Doesn't 8.3 mean that the vast majority of gamers like it? Especially considering most people only vote 1 or 10 on those things.

I'm not sure anyone in this thread has claimed all went wrong?
The topic is "What went wrong with this game".

Don't confuse the issue. The topic remains.

Would you have read my first post (which you probably did not do), then you would have realized that 8.2 (yes, it keeps on dropping)
is a very low score for a game in the civ serie.

[Saurus the Second]

Respectfully, I believe you misspelled "I disagree".


Misspelled is perhaps not the right word, but Indeed, "I disagree" is closer to what I meant yes. I cannot claim the game experience is the same for everyone. Thus I cannot bring forth a claim, that your opinnion is "Untrue"





I played Civ IV in a particular way. Having an honest to goodness real life medical diagnosis of OCD, there was no question but that I had to play in that particular way. I would bother to explain my method of play, but it likely wouldn't interest you other than to inform me of how horrible it is, in your view, as a way to play the game.

Suffice it to say that my goal was high score, and that I used the world builder to fashion for myself a world in which my scores would go ever higher. My endgame, therefore, was tedious indeed, involving nothing more than clicking "Next Turn" while monitoring a dilapidated, tiny opponent stuck on a tundra tile surrounded by ice and no fish.

Now speaking of Civ III (as you have), the tedium there involved the arbitrary but necessary chore of pollution clean up. One had to maintain a goodly number of workers assigned to that ridiculous task.

But if this is the case, did you not kinda cause the boring endgame yourself?
Then again, we all have our preferences.

For instance, I used to play Civ IV on a pangea, at king or emperor dif.
All victory conditions available. Raging barbarians. Agressive A.I.
There were so many options, so many ways of aproaching, that the game just never stopped giving.

My memory of CIV III is that thre simply was nothing to do during endgame. I'm mainly a peaceful builder, but there were barely any buildings durings endgame, there were barely any technologies during endgame, out of which some of few that was, gave you nothing. The only thing one could do was to build another tank or destroyer, in all cities, turn after turn. The way you then won the game in the end, was cosmetic while in other civs, expecially in civ IV, the endgame was dictated by your choises earlier in the game, and the extra fun part was, that other civs actually sometimes forced you to modify your aproach toward victory.

For instance in one game, Vilhem Van Oranje was heading for cultural victory.
Attacking him though would have meant, going to war with his allies too, one of which was providing me with important resources to be able to build an functional army anyway.

Should I go to war? Or try to get someone else, go to war with him?
Germany was aiming for a space race victory, so it was a tricky situation. I could not afford choosing to many army related techs, as that would slow down my own aproach for victory.

All if this depth was missing in both Civ III and Civ V, yet ironically, the devs have said that the wanted to create an A.I that actually is trying to win this time around.

On that I cannot comment too much. My experience is that A.I takes no action at all in order to prevent me from winning during late game.

I must play some more in order to indetify if the A.I actually IS trying to prevent others from winning, but at this point, it don't look promising.

And yet, that was the oficcial reason given, for why so many aspects of the diplomacy was removed from the game.

[Trueno33]

I find your points about the tech tree very interesting. I really enjoy this game though. It has many good new concepts in it. But I see what you mean, and other fans who are very dissappointed. I think the problem with the game is that it has been conceived as a multiplayer game for the first time in the civ series.
Multiplayer gaming is overwhelming nowadays and I think that devs have had this in mind when working on this one. Personally I prefer single player but a good friend of mine who is a devout fan of total war multiplaying is pretty excited about playing civ 5 multi. And may be even myself shall join him in a game.
And the people who ask for hotseat, which year do they live in?

[VaeliusNoctu]

1)
Nothing went wrong. The game plays exactly as intended. The problem is with your expectations. *You* are wrong.

The Computer is your friend.

2)
I don't think anything went wrong really.

Civ5s target audience was meant to include people up to 50% stupider than civ4s target audience.
And in that, it has been a resounding success.

Yes, and here (1) we have it (people up to 50% stupider than civ4s target audience), I agree with Sauron. Civilization at the beginning makes a lot of fun, mainly because the new military system and the social policies. But the game lacks that certain something that Civ has always had (and alpha Centauri ^ ^). The only tradition preserved the remains are the same old bugs. ^ ^

[lemmy101]

I'm not sure anyone in this thread has claimed all went wrong?
The topic is "What went wrong with this game".

Don't confuse the issue. The topic remains.

Would you have read my first post (which you probably did not do), then you would have realized that 8.2 (yes, it keeps on dropping)
is a very low score for a game in the civ serie.

No, 2.0 is a very low score for a civ serie. > 8 is by its very nature a good score, that's why it's 8 and not 5 or 6 or 1.

[Fantasy]

No, 2.0 is a very low score for a civ serie. > 8 is by its very nature a good score, that's why it's 8 and not 5 or 6 or 1.

How about 2.5 out of 5? Would you call that a low score? Because that's how the patrons of this very site rated Civilization V. Or how about 2 out of 5? That's the score Civilization V earned from Amazon's patrons.

[davka0107]

I agree with that repetitive gameplay. But overall, the changes made in Civ5 are somewhat new experience than previous Civ4. If you wanna import all your favorite things from Civ4 to Civ5, then why don't you play the Civ4 instead of Civ5? The core of this series is to make you feel the same concept but different experience than the previous Civ game.

[Liberal]

Misspelled is perhaps not the right word, but Indeed, "I disagree" is closer to what I meant yes. I cannot claim the game experience is the same for everyone. Thus I cannot bring forth a claim, that your opinnion is "Untrue"Thank you. You are an intellectually honest gentleman.


But if this is the case, did you not kinda cause the boring endgame yourself?
Then again, we all have our preferences.Yes, I did. But those scores! When I saw them, I felt a sudden rush, and then residual tingling from head to toe. You know, as though I were ready for a cigarette and then a nap.

[OniaPL]

All this debate is comletely useless! We shall decide this for once and for all right here, right now!
You can see the result here (http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Civilization+IV&word2=Civilization+V)!
Ha! :p

[jacypr]

The Computer is always right. To disagree with the Computer is to be wrong. Being wrong is treason. Please report to Laser Testing Station 3, enter through the door marked Target Acquisition. Remember to place all goods, including clothing, in the bin marked "Recycle" before entering.

The Computer is your friend.

LOOOOL

Paranoia, right? I love that game! :p


How Fallout New Vegas can be lamblasted for bugs and Civ V get away with it and have a higher score, I will never understand. Maybe Gamespot has been caught, shown how they have been "bought" and is now trying to actually do better reivews now and become legit. I don't know.

Gamespot is a major soldout. That's the conclusion I've had after reading the Starcraft 2 review and see they praising the game on things they usually heavily criticize, like lack of inovation, weak and short single player campaign. Hell, they even have "bad emblems" for those. Instead, the lack of inovation became "a fresh jorney back to the good old days" and the weak and short single player campaign was praised for its "replay value" because there's 2 of the, I don't know, 27 "half-hour-missions", where you can choose something different than you did last time you've played, and that doesn't even matter in the end of the campaign. Chrono Trigger, from 1995 for SNES has more choices than this and the choices has also more impact. It's ridiculous.

But hey, what other company poured so much money on publicity like Blizzard did? How much money do you think they've got?

As for the OP, I agree with almost anything posted. Not only the tech tree, but also the whole scientific discovery system could have a major overhaul, and it would be much appreciated. The buildings being all the same is also annoying. I just disagree about it being a "major problem" with the game right now.

The thing that got me stagnant (I don't play the game since the first 2 weeks, when I played a lot of games and posted a lot of bug and gameplay feedback on CivFanatics forum, but then got really tired of playing the same game always, no matter what Civ I choose) is the lack of AI. AI stands for Artificial Inteligence, and there's definitely no "inteligence" in the CPU players right now. It's very frustrating considering how much I had to bust my ass to succeed in Civ 4 when I made my move towards Monarch dificulty, and then again to Emperor, where I finally reached my limit. Never quite made it in Immortal or Deity.

But in Civ 5, after playing the first game on Emperor, I just moved towards Deity and the only difference is that some games are ruined with the CPU player declaring war on you before 10 game turns cos your (non-existant) military sucks and they have tons of free start units. Nice! But if you endure enough to build 3 warriors before they declare war on you, then you're safe for the rest of the game.

It's very frustrating. I think I'll try the World War X MOD to play the game as a war game for now, untill a major patch with better AI arrives.

[Saurus the Second]

I'm just afraid I'll have to wait and pay for a couple of expansions before Civ V becomes as entertaining as it's prequels (well...Civ Rev excluded).

I share this fear, as additional game features are seldomly added in free patches. Patches fixes bugs, balance issues and missing/broken features.
In the main, this is the pattern.

However, my fear is, that no expansion pack will change the underlying shallowness of the game.

[Davetopia]

Some folks are here simply to pad their post counts. There's really no reason to post if all you have to say is "lol stop whining."

The "gamers are spoiled" article certainly rings true in several respects. However, after having hopped back into an epic game of Civ4 BTS online this weekend, the sentiments the OP suggested are ever clearer to me.

Civ5 is not exclusively to blame for regressive, un-fun streamlining. If anyone has played World of Warcraft throughout its various iterations, and really paid attention to the way the devs assign characteristics of equipment, they'll notice the following. (I am not one of those "BC sucks/LK sucks" spammers. Gimme a chance here:

In Vanilla, much of the higher-quality and rarer equipment was not specific to any class. Sure, if you analyzed the loot a little bit, you could come to a consensus on to whom that weapon/armor belongs. However, very few pieces of equipment were actually class-restricted. Even the tier 0 equipment could be worn by anyone with the proficiency. Fewer cookie-cutter equipment sets. Same with the talent builds. They took some figuring out, really. And that's the fun in it. Testing new strategies, figuring out how to optimally function in your group.

Nowadays, while they have improved many aspects of gameplay, I feel as though nothing is left to be figured out. Most loot is class (and even talent tree) specific. Talent trees were recently updated so that they're almost exclusively role-specific!

The civ5 tech trees are very similar. As well as the strategies for pursuing the various victory types. In the developers' efforts to ease the learning curve of turn-based strategy, they have inadvertently taken away the intrigue and ongoing challenge of figuring things out. The situation is not insalvagable, and the game does exhibit a great deal of excellent ideas. Just needs some trimming around the edges.


I personally feel that the root of the problem you describe is this:

Your damned if you do and damned if you don't...

Through the life of MMO's there has been unrest towards the balance of players online. The few get to enjoy high end while the vast majority are LFG and can't find a healer or a tank.... So gaming companies go for more of a direct route to counter this... Makes sense, to much data humbling things up, bring it to it's core to find the answers.

Now you find people saying it's dumbed down... When for all intensive purpose it is actually dumbed up. Either way, ya can't win... One could say WoW has won with 11 million plus subscribers... Truly epic numbers for a monthly subscription plan. However, general feeling (like on these forums) in game is that people don't like the game they are playing. They nit pick at any problem they can.... Some to pad numbers, win debates, point out short-comings, help improve, fight the system, etc...


The problem is definitely us.... The players... On so many levels...

Were all trolls on the Internet...

[Saurus the Second]

No, 2.0 is a very low score for a civ serie. > 8 is by its very nature a good score, that's why it's 8 and not 5 or 6 or 1.

As pure numbers, 8/10 is definied as a somewhat good game, true indeed. Nothing a spectacular game, but a decent game experience.

However:

"It is the direction you are coming from, that determines which kind of neighborhood you are driving through." (sorry, dont remember who said this)

We, the civ players are used to always get the best.
This time, an unusually high number of us did not quite get what we wanted.

Thus, in a bizarre way, the creators of Civilization V is punished for having always delivered us such awesome gaming experiences.

For a civ game a 8/10 is a total let down.

[Liberal]

I think what he's trying to say is that the trend is downward.

[toyboy]

I personally feel that the root of the problem you describe is this:

Your damned if you do and damned if you don't...
.......

The problem is definitely us.... The players... On so many levels...

Were all trolls on the Internet...

So true, remember the old guys saying "In the past, everything was better."
Today everything is created to have biggest audience possible, this means:
not too hard - not too soft
not too cold - not too hot
not too spicy - not too stale
not too tricky - not too shallow
and of course it has to be shiny, sexy, cool - and the newest: giving the feeling to do something good to the ones to suffer all over the world (or something healthy for nature) by buying the product
etc...

But we NEED the newest, the coolest, the shiniest. If only not so many people had bought the game so early after release and instead had waited a bit and read the forums or test-results of their choice... But they HAD to buy the game, they have to buy everything to make them feel good about themselves. That's why industry is doing like they do, that is why McDonalds is so big. That's why culture is going down and consumption is the most important thing in life.

I think to change this trend there has to be a change in the mind of the majority of society. As long as advertising gets cleverer and omnipresent and people don't start to get interested in anything else than consumption this trend will be continued. But that's a problem as old as mankind itself.

But these are only words, ☺☺☺☺ - i'm a troll too... well, at least i don't blame anybody for beeing unhappy with a product i bought and don't essentially need for living.

[Rylan]

http://news.bigdownload.com/tag/civilization-v

Civilization v in top 10 Steam games since release.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30597/Saling_The_World_Halo_Reach_Civilization_V_Top_US_ Charts.php

Civilization V tops US charts.

Oh dear Firaxis, where did it all go wrong?

[Davor]

http://news.bigdownload.com/tag/civilization-v

Civilization v in top 10 Steam games since release.

Well, it's pretty shamefull then, that a game that came out last year, is still out selling a game that just came out. So while Civ V is the number 3 game being sold, it is less than a game that came out last year.


http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30597/Saling_The_World_Halo_Reach_Civilization_V_Top_US_ Charts.php

Civilization V tops US charts.

Oh dear Firaxis, where did it all go wrong?

That is last months figures. Tell us now how it is currently selling.

[Hormagaunt]

1)

Nothing went wrong. The game plays exactly as intended. The problem is with your expectations. *You* are wrong.

The Computer is your friend.

Yes, and here (1) we have it (people up to 50% stupider than civ4s target audience)...

I suggest you look up the phrase "The Computer is your friend". Get back to me once you've done so.

By the way, are you, or have you ever been, a commie, a mutant, or a member of a secret society? Speak clearly into the microphone, don't concern yourself with the weapons blisters; they are above your security clearance.

[I Love Pies]

Back from a long break, I've been trying out Civ5 for a while now.

It seems to me that the developers spent more time and resources trying to make this game pretty, rather than on core game mechanics. This doesn't mean that there are no improvements on game mechanics, mind you.

The graphics, when run with very powerful machine, is quite beautiful. Actually, even the lowest settings look pretty on machines at the lower end of the spectrum, though this game is a huge resource hog. By the time there are throngs of units and cities in the later stages, and especially in bigger maps, the game slows down considerably.

Actually, this isn't entirely true because there seems to be some sort of memory leak that doesn't seem to utilize the CPU to its full capacity, yet the game does slow down. I don't know what's going on here, but Civ 4, if I remember correctly, ran flawlessly on my machines back then when they met the recommended system spec.

I don't mind a lot of the changes in the game, and some I even prefer over what we had in Civ4. This is a different game, not Civ 4.5, so obviously it is nice to see differences in gameplay mechanics, but I am disappointed by my observation that tech tree seems way too simplified and that I don't feel as if I am getting as many options and choices as I was used to in Civ 4.

But the biggest disappointment, by far, is the AI that doesn't utilize the new combat system well and doesn't know a thing about diplomacy. I think almost all of the AIs that I played against ended up being quite the same psychopathic warmongers. Gone are the days like in Civ 4 where each ruler behaved uniquely different from others. I hate to say this, but Civ 5's diplomacy feels a lot like simplified diplomacy that I've seen in Civ Rev. And what's up with AI ranged units engaging my melee units in hand-to-hand combat?

The -33% defense penalty on flat lands. It just doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Like others have pointed out, we get a funny situation where I still get advantages while attacking an AI unit that is placed on flat lands across the river. This just isn't right.

One last thing... civics in Civ 4 were flexible enough that we could change in and out of them at any time, but in Civ 5, once we are committed to spending our culture points to tradition or piety or freedom or etc, we are forever stuck. It is not a bad design by any means, but I miss the flexibility nonetheless.

[Fantasy]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30597/Saling_The_World_Halo_Reach_Civilization_V_Top_US_ Charts.php

Civilization V tops US charts.
That's from September 24th - well before people noticed all the crashing bugs in later part of the game.

Maybe this week's sales charts would be more interesting?

[wayninja]

That's from September 24th - well before people noticed all the crashing bugs in later part of the game.

Maybe this week's sales charts would be more interesting?

I still haven't noticed all the crashing bugs in the later part of the game. I've completed games by every victory type across 4 map sizes.

Maybe this problem isn't happening to everyone? Nah, that's not possible...

[Fantasy]

I still haven't noticed all the crashing bugs in the later part of the game. I've completed games by every victory type across 4 map sizes.

Maybe this problem isn't happening to everyone? Nah, that's not possible...
Whatever.

I can only reiterate what I said in my previous post: a sales chart from this week would be probably more interesting. The news of the game being prone to crashes for some people, will have spread by now. The 1-star reviews on Amazon will go some way to ensure that.

Hey, you know what I just noticed? The number of 1-star reviews on Amazon is larger than all 5, 4 and 3-star reviews combined! Wow! Doesn't that suggest that there's some buyer's remorse?

[Rylan]

Whatever.

I can only reiterate what I said in my previous post: a sales chart from this week would be probably more interesting. The news of the game being prone to crashes for some people, will have spread by now. The 1-star reviews on Amazon will go some way to ensure that.

Hey, you know what I just noticed? The number of 1-star reviews on Amazon is larger than all 5, 4 and 3-star reviews combined! Wow! Doesn't that suggest that there's some buyer's remorse?

When the figures for this month are published I'll post them. It's just that this post reminds me of the story of a hotel porter who caught George Best drunk in a five star penthouse hotel with a top british model and said to him "George....where did it all go wrong?"

If this "went all wrong" I wish all my failures were like this. I suspect it's still selling very well.

Now, as for your Amazon ratings, my attitude is that it's irrelevant. It does suggest some buyer remorse but name me a product where every purchaser is happy and I'll buy shares.

Firstly, and it's a huge thing. Anyone can do an Amazon review whether they bought it from Amazon or not. The sad truth is that there are people who do not own this game who will be reviewing it, for better or worse.

Secondly, you're looking at a voluntary rating system. The simple fact is that people who have a grievance regarding a product are more likely to write a review than those that don't have a grievance. It's like suggesting that because everyone posting on a technical support forum reports a technical problem, 100% of purchasers have technical problems. It simply isn't true.

[Ingolenuru]

I still haven't noticed all the crashing bugs in the later part of the game. I've completed games by every victory type across 4 map sizes.

Maybe this problem isn't happening to everyone? Nah, that's not possible...

The majority of the large and huge game map players have been having these problems. Did you(and Rylan) read the insane list of bugs that were fixed on the first patch? Did you see the word 'crash' mentioned in that list? Did you see how large the fix was and then see that there was another patch done less than a week later. YES Virginia this game did come out totally screwed up.

At least one 'fix'(diplomacy) left what it was supposed to fix as bad or worse than it was before the patch. The game is so far below the standards set for all other Civ games it is not even funny.(minus Civ Rev of course) The fact that you are not having a problem does not mean that most people were not having it. If the crashes were not a big problem then they would not have been on the list for the huge first patch. They had so much to fix only the most necessary things were in that patch. Therefore by Firaxis own actions the crash problems were defined as being serious. The game is no where near the previous Civ standards and it is getting really old watching you(and Rylan) try to say it is.

[CoreDave]

The majority of the large and huge game map players have been having these problems.

Says who? You have some magical way of knowing who is having problems and who isn't?

The amount of "facts" that are getting pulled from whence the sun shines not on these forums is reaching absurd levels.

[wayninja]

The majority of the large and huge game map players have been having these problems. Did you(and Rylan) read the insane list of bugs that were fixed on the first patch? Did you see the word 'crash' mentioned in that list? Did you see how large the fix was and then see that there was another patch done less than a week later. YES Virginia this game did come out totally screwed up.

Oh, I stand corrected then. Your aggressive and undocumented claims cannot be refuted!

I did read the list of bugs fixed in the first patch and maybe this is your first game experience or something, but I'd hardly call the patch list 'huge' or 'insane'.

Meh, maybe I'm just more tolerant than you, but please don't pretend like this is unprecedented in the industry or something, it just makes your argument look naive.


At least one 'fix'(diplomacy) left what it was supposed to fix as bad or worse than it was before the patch. The game is so far below the standards set for all other Civ games it is not even funny.(minus Civ Rev of course) The fact that you are not having a problem does not mean that most people were not having it. If the crashes were not a big problem then they would not have been on the list for the huge first patch. They had so much to fix only the most necessary things were in that patch. Therefore by Firaxis own actions the crash problems were defined as being serious. The game is no where near the previous Civ standards and it is getting really old watching you(and Rylan) try to say it is.

The fact that I'm not having a problem with it proves that not all people are. Which is all I was trying to prove in the first place. You can argue majorities all you want but have absolutely nothing to back it up with. You can claim 'it's not up to standards' all you want. Doesn't make it true. Maybe you just aren't remembering the list of bugs, amount of patches/expansions necessary to make Civ IV a good game?

Sorry you('re) don't like/can't play/giving up/dissapointed with/disenchanted with/insert adjective here. I suggest you move on then instead of throwing a tantrum.

At the end of the day the only thing important will be the money. I think it's clear already that money has been made. That may make you sad or angry, but it's the only beacon the developer and publisher will set their sails to. Get aggro about it if you must, but after the cleansing, find some peace.

[Davetopia]

The majority of the large and huge game map players have been having these problems. Did you(and Rylan) read the insane list of bugs that were fixed on the first patch? Did you see the word 'crash' mentioned in that list? Did you see how large the fix was and then see that there was another patch done less than a week later. YES Virginia this game did come out totally screwed up.

At least one 'fix'(diplomacy) left what it was supposed to fix as bad or worse than it was before the patch. The game is so far below the standards set for all other Civ games it is not even funny.(minus Civ Rev of course) The fact that you are not having a problem does not mean that most people were not having it. If the crashes were not a big problem then they would not have been on the list for the huge first patch. They had so much to fix only the most necessary things were in that patch. Therefore by Firaxis own actions the crash problems were defined as being serious. The game is no where near the previous Civ standards and it is getting really old watching you(and Rylan) try to say it is.

I have yet to crash once... About 270 hours of play time in Civ V.

I did see the patch, read it carefully... I personally love the new AI priority list in combat... MUCH smarter AI (still want to see it improve).

There were fixxes for crashing... But I do believe a lot of that was per hardware or a few hard to repeat game bugs. Again, I have not crashed once... I have yet to even WANT to try and collect 70 cities, that just seems foolish in a game like this... But, big deal... We know our limits until a patch cures it or frees it.

The game is very much playable... Just as complex as the previous civ vanillas out there. But again, it's all based on perspectives and opinions. 30-70k play at any given time while maybe 15 to 20 "haters" log into the forums at any given time... nothing new here. Mind the iPhone typo's and auto spells :)

[sonicon]

Stupid AI, Poor diplomacy, Imbalanced gameplay/victory conditions, Bugs, Slow turns, No Scenarios, No Bonus features like palace building or leader costumes, Weaker soundtrack, and plenty of other bad design choices. It's still a good game, just feels like Civ5 should have been more than what we were given.

[Ingolenuru]

Oh, I stand corrected then. Your aggressive and undocumented claims cannot be refuted!

I did read the list of bugs fixed in the first patch and maybe this is your first game experience or something, but I'd hardly call the patch list 'huge' or 'insane'.

Meh, maybe I'm just more tolerant than you, but please don't pretend like this is unprecedented in the industry or something, it just makes your argument look naive.

It is not unprecedented in the industry and some might even say it is prevalent in the industry. It is unprecedented for a Sid Meier's Civ game. Plain and simple no Civ game has come out this bad. Period. This one having the lowest review scores ever by the people who play it along with the size of the patch is proof of that.

The fact that I'm not having a problem with it proves that not all people are. Which is all I was trying to prove in the first place. You can argue majorities all you want but have absolutely nothing to back it up with. You can claim 'it's not up to standards' all you want. Doesn't make it true. Maybe you just aren't remembering the list of bugs, amount of patches/expansions necessary to make Civ IV a good game?

I remember how long it took for Civ IV to be good. I have been playing Civilization since the Avalon Hill board game days let alone the Civ I Sid Meier version and no as per reviews and the sizes of the patches none of the previous installations had this many huge problems.

Sorry you('re) don't like/can't play/giving up/dissapointed with/disenchanted with/insert adjective here. I suggest you move on then instead of throwing a tantrum.

I do like the game in the early stages and never said I didn't. That seems to be something everyone can agree on. You had to play long enough for the bugs, crashes and completely idiotic AI trade and combat routines became apparent before becoming disenchanted with the game. Well that is if you could get it to start at all. There is an expectation of return on investment that is reasonable and given the quality of games given in the past with this series Civ V does not make the cut. The patch makes it playable but there is still a lot that has to be fixed to make it a good game.

At the end of the day the only thing important will be the money. I think it's clear already that money has been made. That may make you sad or angry, but it's the only beacon the developer and publisher will set their sails to. Get aggro about it if you must, but after the cleansing, find some peace.

Claiming that money has been made is completely ignorant. Movies can make huge amounts of money on their opening weekend just like games can. No one says the movies or games are successful because of opening weekends that are based on previous iterations. It is what happens after everyone finds out whether or not the movie or game is actually any good that makes it a success or not. So far the game has huge flaws that need to be fixed and they are much worse than those of previous vanilla iterations. The lowest reviews ever by the audience indicate this and soon we will have the drop off in sales to prove it too. The first patch means it will not be as bad as it could have been but it just will not be anywhere near as good as it could have been.

[Ingolenuru]

I have yet to crash once... About 270 hours of play time in Civ V.

I did see the patch, read it carefully... I personally love the new AI priority list in combat... MUCH smarter AI (still want to see it improve).

There were fixxes for crashing... But I do believe a lot of that was per hardware or a few hard to repeat game bugs. Again, I have not crashed once... I have yet to even WANT to try and collect 70 cities, that just seems foolish in a game like this... But, big deal... We know our limits until a patch cures it or frees it.

So what if your style of game play does not make the game crash. That does not make it a good game. It just means it doesn't crash with your style of play. Your opinion that having 70 cities is a foolish way to play the game shows that your opinion is massively biased since you do not concern yourself at all about the actual quality of the game. No one is saying it is foolish to play the game the way you do. I just don't see how you can attack someones personal preference on game play and keep any credibility.

The game is very much playable... Just as complex as the previous civ vanillas out there. But again, it's all based on perspectives and opinions. 30-70k play at any given time while maybe 15 to 20 "haters" log into the forums at any given time... nothing new here. Mind the iPhone typo's and auto spells :)

If you read the forums at all you would see there are far more than 15 to 20 people complaining. Your dismissal of these people without even bothering to peruse the threads with complaints show you choose to remain ignorant of the size of the discontent with the game intentionally. Definitely a fanboy mentality. Yes there are a lot of people playing and especially after the patch. There has to be a lot of people playing because if there isn't then no one will figure out what the patch did right and what it did wrong and what still needs to be fixed. Your logic is specious.

[Djsalt]

Civ 5 may be a success in sales but I know for a fact I am not buying a single dlc or expansion for this and for the first time i sure as hell wont jump into buying a civ 6 right away. I bought civ 5 simply because of civ 4 being so good.

If many gamers feel this way. Only way to force change on to the company. Atm I feel exactly the same but I didn't play other Civ games. But knew friends played Civ 4. I intend to do the same thing and simply stop supporting them with money as well as others from word of mouth.

I wonder how many loyalist will continue to support them even after this disaster of a multi-player? (Meat of Many RTS & TB games) Will it be enough?

I blame the Website Reviewer-ers(Not tackling or Mentioning MP at all and assuming it would be patched rapidly) and CIV 5 Developers. (For being extremely lazy game designers with multi-player.)

Speak with ya Money.

[Fantasy]

I have yet to even WANT to try and collect 70 cities, that just seems foolish in a game like this...
What a brilliant argument.


Civilization V: the reality distortion field is strong around this baby.

[sketch162000]

I do respect your opinions. You find the game boring. That's fine, we all get it. But this forum is being needlessly spammed with the same topics over and over again.

You are entitled to an opinion, but it's not right that so many people are labeling it "a bad game." you can say YOU don't care for it, that doesn't make it bad. Similarly, the attacks against the Devs are completely uncalled for. I see many threads (on all gaming forums, really) accusing the devs of ripping people off, taking money for 'rushed' products, and not giving the game design any thought. How much of their lives have been used up now, to make this game for us? They've worked on it for years and after a mere month, people are insulting them for not patching it to perfection.

Give it time. The company who funded the project wants more money and the devs who made the project want their hard work to be appreciated and for the game to be as fun as it can be.

[Edit]: Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting this topic is a 'troll topic' or 'needless spam'. This topic has a perfectly legit conversation at the heart of it. The OPs thoughts on the tech tree are fine. I don't agree with them, but at least he tried to get a discussion going there.

Might I ask what you consider to be the characteristics of a "bad" game, then?

[wayninja]

Claiming that money has been made is completely ignorant. Movies can make huge amounts of money on their opening weekend just like games can. No one says the movies or games are successful because of opening weekends that are based on previous iterations. It is what happens after everyone finds out whether or not the movie or game is actually any good that makes it a success or not. So far the game has huge flaws that need to be fixed and they are much worse than those of previous vanilla iterations. The lowest reviews ever by the audience indicate this and soon we will have the drop off in sales to prove it too. The first patch means it will not be as bad as it could have been but it just will not be anywhere near as good as it could have been.

Claiming money has been made is ignorant of what?

Movies are usually called successes if they make money and are critically acclaimed. Both which seems the case with Civ 5. You seem to conveniently ignore this fact.

I disagree with the huge flaws that are much worse than previous iterations. I could not play most map sizes at all when Civ IV first came out. There were slowdown problems that make anything I've seen in Civ 5 seem like a blink of an eye by comparison and there were massive memory issues.

The 'lowest reviews ever' by an audience is not really proof of anything. If you want to do some statistical analysis of how many 'users' reviewed previous iterations compared to this one and form a conclusion you may have something, but that statement, backed by nothing, is fairly meaningless. Even if you had such a statistical sample, it would be worthless next to sales figures.

The fact that you are predicting future events to try to prove your point kinda shows your bias on the subject.

[phlirthead]

Claiming money has been made is ignorant of what?

Movies are usually called successes if they make money and are critically acclaimed. Both which seems the case with Civ 5. You seem to conveniently ignore this fact.

I disagree with the huge flaws that are much worse than previous iterations. I could not play most map sizes at all when Civ IV first came out. There were slowdown problems that make anything I've seen in Civ 5 seem like a blink of an eye by comparison and there were massive memory issues.

The 'lowest reviews ever' by an audience is not really proof of anything. If you want to do some statistical analysis of how many 'users' reviewed previous iterations compared to this one and form a conclusion you may have something, but that statement, backed by nothing, is fairly meaningless. Even if you had such a statistical sample, it would be worthless next to sales figures.

The fact that you are predicting future events to try to prove your point kinda shows your bias on the subject.


I always read posts clearly and ensure that I double check them before replying. I recommend you do the same.

Kronoz states in his post that a full revision of the core game mechanics are required and I'm stating that this is his own opinion and he should not claim to represent anyone other than himself. Nor should you.

I have full confidence that Firaxis has registered that some users are unhappy with the game. I'm also very confident that they have identified ways to improve the game and we've already seen some of those in patches. However, it's a huge leap from there - a leap with no basis in fact - to suggest that Firaxis accept that a change to the core mechanics of the game is required. To do that, without a majority, is commercial suicide. Kronoz doesn't use the word majority but you'd have to be an idiot to assume it was not implied.

You'd also have to be an idiot to make changes based on two posters use of the word "many".

Before they change any core mechanics they will have to determine;

a) If we change the core mechanics of this game, will we be doing it for the majority of purchasers. In short, will we annoy more people than we make happy.
b) Is it cost effective to make such fundamental change to the product.

I think you will find the answer to both questions is a resounding No. However, that doesn't meet with Kronoz' opinion and it doesn't meet with your agenda either so you won't consider that.

I'm not suggesting that a 51% majority is required to make changes but it would be required before they could make the sort of changes being talked of here. They can fix bugs and minor tweaks and they continue to do so in patches but you are going to be sorely dissapointed if you think that DLC or an expansion pack for Civilization V is going to regress design changes made between Civilization IV and Civilization V.




You're right, I don't know but then again I'm only the one asking for figures, not the one suggesting major changes without research and you're no better clued up on the numbers than I am. You clearly don't understand much about business because the first step in any process is researching these numbers you fling around so wildly.

5% of the total players does not represent a large part of the community but the biggest flaw in your post, of which there are many, is that you actually use the word "community", i.e. the people posting here or on other forums. Firaxis, and in fact any major company, are not interested in the community - they are interested in their customers as a whole, not just those that post on a forum. When you understand that you'll see why your use of the word "many" isn't important.....to anyone.




Dont be rediculous. The proof that "many" do not find this game "uninteresting and boring" is the thousands of players Steam reports as actively playing the game. Well documented and completely contrary to everything you and Kronoz have said.





In an ideal world this might be the case but sadly Jassterisk that won't work. It takes effort to come to these forums and post and it's human nature that people who are enjoying a product will do just that. They'll quietly enjoy the game never bothering with this forum.

There's also the fact that most people who are happy with the game got bored of this forum three weeks ago when any post to the positive was met with accusations of fanboyism. Sorry but this forum is no indication at all of postive v negative and never can be.

are you serious? have you even seen the type of negativity this is getting from user feedback? just about anyone who is a user and is willing to actually type (a small minority of ppl) is giving this a negative review

see my thread
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98026
and check those amazon links if u want. but there are many other forums and webpages similar to those, amazon is probabaly the biggest tho.

NOW PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THE FOLLOWING-
in any game community only a small number of the ppl will bother to get online and say or do anything either positive or negative, and among those who DO the sampling is a fairly accurate representation of the whole. if you look at the reviews on well-liked games you will find the VAST majority of them are positive, if you look at crap games, it will be reversed. games with less following have less reviews, and so-so games have mixed reviews.

if you look at the reviews for doom 3 (lets say on amazon again since it's a really great site for users to post their reviews in an organized and collective fashion) you will find that they are overwhelmingly postive. but there are less than 1000 reviews! surely many more ppl played the game than that! indeed. but here you have a representation from among that group.

in general you will find that reviews reflect the opinions of the community well, and i think you have no more right than that to ask for a way to see how people view a game, and that people view THIS game as broken/crappy/boring/not worthy of being a "civilization" game.

now apologize to the OP

[Fantasy]

are you serious? have you even seen the type of negativity this is getting from user feedback? just about anyone who is a user and is willing to actually type (a small minority of ppl) is giving this a negative review

see my thread
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98026
and check those amazon links if u want. but there are many other forums and webpages similar to those, amazon is probabaly the biggest tho.

NOW PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THE FOLLOWING-
in any game community only a small number of the ppl will bother to get online and say or do anything either positive or negative, and among those who DO the sampling is a fairly accurate representation of the whole. if you look at the reviews on well-liked games you will find the VAST majority of them are positive, if you look at crap games, it will be reversed. games with less following have less reviews, and so-so games have mixed reviews.

if you look at the reviews for doom 3 (lets say on amazon again since it's a really great site for users to post their reviews in an organized and collective fashion) you will find that they are overwhelmingly postive. but there are less than 1000 reviews! surely many more ppl played the game than that! indeed. but here you have a representation from among that group.

in general you will find that reviews reflect the opinions of the community well, and i think you have no more right than that to ask for a way to see how people view a game, and that people view THIS game as broken/crappy/boring/not worthy of being a "civilization" game.

now apologize to the OP

Hey phlirthead, I was just reading your excellent post in the support forum, when it was promptly locked by a moderator. I think that's a shame because you were arguing your point exceedingly well.

But I guess that's the very reason the thread was locked.

[wayninja]

are you serious? have you even seen the type of negativity this is getting from user feedback? just about anyone who is a user and is willing to actually type (a small minority of ppl) is giving this a negative review

I remain unimpressed. This forum isn't anywhere near as bad as I've seen in my days. It's got very high critic scores from a wide range of critics and seems to be doing well commercially. The rest is unsubstantiated vitriol.


see my thread
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98026
and check those amazon links if u want. but there are many other forums and webpages similar to those, amazon is probabaly the biggest tho.

I take all user reviews with a grain of salt. Anyone rating this game a 1 out 10 simply has an axe to grind IMHO. I'm sure there are some that for some technical reason can't play the game at all and that's why the scores are so low, but there's plenty of '1' scores from users who can play and simply don't like it. To me, there is no planet on which you could seriously, objectively give this game a 1. So bad apples spoil the bunch. That's why there are professional critics in the first place.


NOW PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THE FOLLOWING-
in any game community only a small number of the ppl will bother to get online and say or do anything either positive or negative, and among those who DO the sampling is a fairly accurate representation of the whole.

It is? I have no idea how you could honestly believe this assertion. You have nothing with which to back it and common sense says that not all game communities will be represented in such an even way.


if you look at the reviews on well-liked games you will find the VAST majority of them are positive, if you look at crap games, it will be reversed. games with less following have less reviews, and so-so games have mixed reviews.

No idea what you are trying to say here, but I highly doubt any meaningful correlation could be proven by such a cursory observation.


in general you will find that reviews reflect the opinions of the community well, and i think you have no more right than that to ask for a way to see how people view a game, and that people view THIS game as broken/crappy/boring/not worthy of being a "civilization" game.

now apologize to the OP

Your sweeping generalizations and obvious bias aren't really worth responding to. So take this as null response.

[phlirthead]

really? you must think a lot of ppl on this forum are trolls then. and actually i am a very positive person with a generally high level of happiness in regards to my gaming. and my experience with communities in gaming and how they operate in as regards to posting reviews and opinions is based on 20+ years of gaming, and i'm certain those with 40+ would agree with me as well.

bias? what bias? i wanted this game to be awesome more than anyone. (well not true, there might have been others who wanted it to b awesome more than me, but you get the point.)




if you look at the reviews on well-liked games you will find the VAST majority of them are positive, if you look at crap games, it will be reversed. games with less following have less reviews, and so-so games have mixed reviews.

No idea what you are trying to say here, but I highly doubt any meaningful correlation could be proven by such a cursory observation.
really? you really cant figure out the point i am trying to make here?

huh. now i'm the one who is unsure how to respond.

[Davetopia]

What a brilliant argument.


Civilization V: the reality distortion field is strong around this baby.

I'm not trying to argue. Just stating my opinions. I choose to enjoy my time with civ v.

And I can hardly read the dark green text on iPhone, so gonna wait till I'm home to read it.

[Davor]

I take all user reviews with a grain of salt. Anyone rating this game a 1 out 10 simply has an axe to grind IMHO. I'm sure there are some that for some technical reason can't play the game at all and that's why the scores are so low, but there's plenty of '1' scores from users who can play and simply don't like it. To me, there is no planet on which you could seriously, objectively give this game a 1. So bad apples spoil the bunch. That's why there are professional critics in the first place.


I sort of agree with you here. Any score of 1 out of 10 should in almost all cases be ignored. Just like any score of 10 out of 10 should be ignored as well.

Also you can say, there is no place on earth that Civ V at release time deserves a score of 9+ as well, so that would mean professional critics can't be taken serious either.

[Fantasy]

Let's see the other Civilization games' ratings on Amazon.com:

Civilization II

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-II-Pc/dp/B000FPM8OG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900695&sr=8-1
5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-Jewel-Case-Pc/dp/B00004VXAZ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900695&sr=8-2
Significantly above 4.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-II-Multiplayer-Gold-Pc/dp/B00002SVBV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900695&sr=8-3
Significantly above 4.5 stars


Civilization III

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-III-Complete-Pc/dp/B00029QR7O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900934&sr=8-1
4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-3-Pc/dp/B00005JC8D/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900980&sr=8-2
3.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-3-Complete-Mac/dp/B000BWYK26/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900980&sr=8-3
3.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-3-Gold-Pc/dp/B00009THMU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900980&sr=8-4
4 stars


Civilization IV

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-IV-Complete-Pc/dp/B000W2FICG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901125&sr=8-1
4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-IV-Complete-Pc/dp/B0026EGO3A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901173&sr=8-2
3.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-IV-Gold-Pc/dp/B000RHFZTM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901173&sr=8-4
4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-Beyond-Sword-Pc/dp/B000PCLBE2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901173&sr=8-5
4.5 stars



Civilization V

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-V-Pc/dp/B0038TT8QM/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288901418&sr=1-1
2.5 stars


...QED

[wayninja]

I sort of agree with you here. Any score of 1 out of 10 should in almost all cases be ignored. Just like any score of 10 out of 10 should be ignored as well.

Also you can say, there is no place on earth that Civ V at release time deserves a score of 9+ as well, so that would mean professional critics can't be taken serious either.

I don't see how you inferred that from my comment.

A score of 9+ for this software seems well more within the reason of sanity than a 1. It's definitely not polar opposites and I'm not advocating anything other than a 5 as being 'radical'.

[phlirthead]

Let's see the other Civilization games' ratings on Amazon.com:

Civilization II

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-II-Pc/dp/B000FPM8OG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900695&sr=8-1
5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-Jewel-Case-Pc/dp/B00004VXAZ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900695&sr=8-2
Significantly above 4.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-II-Multiplayer-Gold-Pc/dp/B00002SVBV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900695&sr=8-3
Significantly above 4.5 stars


Civilization III

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-III-Complete-Pc/dp/B00029QR7O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900934&sr=8-1
4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-3-Pc/dp/B00005JC8D/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900980&sr=8-2
3.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-3-Complete-Mac/dp/B000BWYK26/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900980&sr=8-3
3.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Civilization-3-Gold-Pc/dp/B00009THMU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1288900980&sr=8-4
4 stars


Civilization IV

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-IV-Complete-Pc/dp/B000W2FICG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901125&sr=8-1
4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-IV-Complete-Pc/dp/B0026EGO3A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901173&sr=8-2
3.5 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-IV-Gold-Pc/dp/B000RHFZTM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901173&sr=8-4
4 stars

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-Beyond-Sword-Pc/dp/B000PCLBE2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1288901173&sr=8-5
4.5 stars



Civilization V

http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-V-Pc/dp/B0038TT8QM/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1288901418&sr=1-1
2.5 stars


...QED

well done. good post

[wayninja]

Let's see the other Civilization games' ratings on Amazon.com:

I stand corrected. Clearly you cherry picking a few reviews proves... something!

[Fantasy]

I stand corrected. Clearly you cherry picking a few reviews proves... something!

I did not cherry pick a damn thing. Civilization V got hundreds of reviews.

And yes, this does prove that Civilization V is a dud, because I compared Amazon.com vs. Amazon.com reviews of various editions of Civilization. It's an apples-to-apples comparison. Davetopia said that the Amazon reviews are biased towards the negative - well then, why have the other Civilization games gotten higher or even significantly higher scores on the same site? That's a rhetorical question, we all know why, just some of us here won't admit it.


Ah, the Civilization V distortion field. What other phenomena will we witness?

[wayninja]

LOL, ok. The critics and consumers are wrong. A few hundred amazon buyers have spoken! You win. Now go do something else.

But thanks for the link... reading some of those 1 star reviews are hilarious:
"After playing around 30 hours, I am completely fed up. Actually there is one problem with this game, that is, there is just no fun. "

LMAO

[Davor]

I don't see how you inferred that from my comment.

A score of 9+ for this software seems well more within the reason of sanity than a 1. It's definitely not polar opposites and I'm not advocating anything other than a 5 as being 'radical'.

So you saying the proffesional critics are correct giving Civ V a score of 9+?


And yes, this does prove that Civilization V is a dud,

It all depends on what success or dud is? For 2K and Firaxis, it's not a 'dud' because Civ V sold lots of copies. I don't think they could care less if the game is fun or not as long as it makes money. So in that way, Civ V is not a dud.

But you are correct if by going by the review scores for the other Civ V games, how come they have higher scores than Civ V?

[IUSED2LOVECIV]

ANYONE OUT THERE WHO IS DEFENDING THIS GAME MUST BE BRAIN DEAD!!!

I am extremely disappointed. I am one of the few people that actually pre ordered this game I was that excited about it. I'm now furious I even paid for it. It's not civilisation as we know it. There is very little action it's just boring boring boring. Less civs, less units and less techs. I get no competition from AI. IT'S JUST POINTLESS TO PLAY! BTS is far far better and im going to reinstall it tomorrow but then again Civ5 is so bad im not even sure I like Civ anymore and it's always been my favourite game. I have tried to make it more exciting with mods but already its flooded with crap mods and I don't have time to search forums to find good ones. Someone need to tell Sid that he's gonna need one hell of an expansion to make this game playable because it SHOCKING!!! I could go on all day slating every aspect of this game but I'm sure you guys already know how crap this game really is!!!

Is this the end of civilisation??? I think its definately the end of civ 5.

Bring on Civ 6 and make it fast because right now I have no need for my new i7 system because my favourite game the only one I've ever played religiously through out the years has just been ruined. WHOEVER DID THIS SHOULD BE SHOT!!!:mad:

[wayninja]

So you saying the proffesional critics are correct giving Civ V a score of 9+?


Well, I'm not sure how anyone can be correct, but if you are talking about opinion then yes. I think a score of 8-9 is reasonable. Over 9 seems high to me, but it's nowhere as unreasonable as a 1.



It all depends on what success or dud is? For 2K and Firaxis, it's not a 'dud' because Civ V sold lots of copies. I don't think they could care less if the game is fun or not as long as it makes money. So in that way, Civ V is not a dud.

But you are correct if by going by the review scores for the other Civ V games, how come they have higher scores than Civ V?

Comparing user reviews for fully patched, fully expanded games vs a game with 1 major patch that came out about 6 weeks or so ago just isn't apples to apples, sorry. A ton of the reviews there are giving it 1 because they can't play it, and a ton more clearly are just upset that its' not Civ 4.5 so they go as low as they can. Which is just not objective. And why I don't care abou user scores too much unless I personally know the user. More to the point, aren't we posting in a thread where the title is that the user score is 8.3 at gamespot? And that's based on thousands of reviews, not hundreds. So why the wild disparity from amazon? What does it mean or prove? Nothing.

[Ingolenuru]

Claiming money has been made is ignorant of what?

Movies are usually called successes if they make money and are critically acclaimed. Both which seems the case with Civ 5. You seem to conveniently ignore this fact.

My apologies there should have been a comma there. Claiming that money has been made, is ignorant. Sequels and series get people to buy things simply on the trust that is gained from the quality of the first iteration. There have been innumerable books, movies, games etc.. that did not live up to expectations. Some of these items made significant income based on purchases made by people trusting the content based on prior experience and turned out to be miserable failures which were ridiculed when their true content was revealed. You cannot base any decision on money made after such a short period of time.

I disagree with the huge flaws that are much worse than previous iterations. I could not play most map sizes at all when Civ IV first came out. There were slowdown problems that make anything I've seen in Civ 5 seem like a blink of an eye by comparison and there were massive memory issues.

Civ IV was better received by the community than Civ V. You may have had your issues with it but in no way did the discontent from Civ IV match that of Civ V. There was a huge problem with the video and a patch was available within 2 days of the game being out. The first major patch was a month after that and not as comprehensive as this one. It didn't fix everything and it did break some saves but that got fixed quickly just like it did for this one. Then it didn't need another major patch until 1.52 which wasn't released until 12/23/2005. Two months after the game was released. We have one patch released and we needed a bigger one. We another one immediately. They do not even have hot seat working and so many other things for multi-player. This game was published unfinished or untested or both and that is why there are so many complaints. No one is whining. This game simply didn't deserve to get published.

The 'lowest reviews ever' by an audience is not really proof of anything. If you want to do some statistical analysis of how many 'users' reviewed previous iterations compared to this one and form a conclusion you may have something, but that statement, backed by nothing, is fairly meaningless. Even if you had such a statistical sample, it would be worthless next to sales figures.

Sales figures would have to be adjusted based on the changes in price point for games and so the amount of money made as it stands is irrelevant without adjustment for inflation on previous games. Number of units sold is a more accurate assessment but still not a fair comparison because people went out and bought Civ V because Civ IV was so good. The excitement for Civ IV coming out was nothing compared to Civ V because Civ IV was mostly just and improvement of Civ III. Customer reviews on the other hand are more easily quantified. Customer reviews are the only reliable available measurement of the game content.


The fact that you are predicting future events to try to prove your point kinda shows your bias on the subject.

I was reading the forums when the games came out. I know this is the worst reception ever and most people do not even bother to try and argue that point. My point cannot be made yet because the evidence of my case has yet to be published. I have want to have Civ V turn into a much better game. I do not want it to be abandoned. My posts say that the game needs help not that it should be thrown out. Try accepting your own bias before you start talking about anyone else. It is obvious there is more wrong with Civ V than there was with Civ IV. The proof is in the size of the patches and how much is still left missing or broken.

[IUSED2LOVECIV]

Comparing user reviews for fully patched, fully expanded games vs a game with 1 major patch that came out about 6 weeks or so ago just isn't apples to apples, sorry.

Some of us want to play this game now. Not wait for 6 months to a year hoping that they bring out and expasion that makes the game more in depth or checking steam every day for a patch that sorts out the serious inbalance in gold and resources. Every other civ (from civ2 for me as thats when I got hooked. It was the firs one I ever played) has been addictive straight out of the box. This one is a serious turn off. It has less features than ever. The new features are dull.

[Ingolenuru]

Well, I'm not sure how anyone can be correct, but if you are talking about opinion then yes. I think a score of 8-9 is reasonable. Over 9 seems high to me, but it's nowhere as unreasonable as a 1.

I absolutely agree that 8-9 is more reasonable unless you bought it for multi-player and especially hot seat in which case the 1 would be much deserved. By the time I finished my first game I would have given it a 5 at best and that is without the multi-player issue since I only play solo. The patch brings it up to almost an 8 though and no one should be rating it anywhere near 9 who has played it long enough. Especially for those considering entire content including the multi-player problems.


Comparing user reviews for fully patched, fully expanded games vs a game with 1 major patch that came out about 6 weeks or so ago just isn't apples to apples, sorry. A ton of the reviews there are giving it 1 because they can't play it, and a ton more clearly are just upset that its' not Civ 4.5 so they go as low as they can. Which is just not objective. And why I don't care abou user scores too much unless I personally know the user. More to the point, aren't we posting in a thread where the title is that the user score is 8.3 at gamespot? And that's based on thousands of reviews, not hundreds. So why the wild disparity from amazon? What does it mean or prove? Nothing.

The first major patch for Civ IV came out in 4 weeks not 5. The next major patch came out after 8 weeks. The first patch for Civ V wasn't until 10/22 and that was even though so much more was wrong with Civ V and the patch still left out entire parts of game play like hot seat. September 21st is the release date for Civ V. We are almost only 2 weeks from 2 months from the release date so to catch up the next major update needs to be by the 21st of this month and we here zero about the next update. Civ IV was a much better job and much better received because of it.

[wayninja]

My apologies there should have been a comma there. Claiming that money has been made, is ignorant.

Ok... same question though. Ignorant of what?


Sequels and series get people to buy things simply on the trust that is gained from the quality of the first iteration. There have been innumerable books, movies, games etc.. that did not live up to expectations. Some of these items made significant income based on purchases made by people trusting the content based on prior experience and turned out to be miserable failures which were ridiculed when their true content was revealed. You cannot base any decision on money made after such a short period of time.

I agree with this, but take issue with your implication that Civ 5 is being 'ridiculed' not that it's 'true content' is revealed. This nothing more than your opinion and the majority (that I can tell) of people who's opinion is paid for, disagrees with you.


Civ IV was better received by the community than Civ V. You may have had your issues with it but in no way did the discontent from Civ IV match that of Civ V.

Funny, that's exactly the argument I'd use against you. Neither of us has anything but our experience to back it up with.


There was a huge problem with the video and a patch was available within 2 days of the game being out. The first major patch was a month after that and not as comprehensive as this one. It didn't fix everything and it did break some saves but that got fixed quickly just like it did for this one. Then it didn't need another major patch until 1.52 which wasn't released until 12/23/2005. Two months after the game was released. We have one patch released and we needed a bigger one. We another one immediately. They do not even have hot seat working and so many other things for multi-player.

This all seems slanted from your perspective. I remember the opposite. I don't think Civ IV was really 'playable' for me in terms of slowdowns and late game crashes until 1.8 something if I recall... might not have been 'fixed' until BTS in fact.


This game was published unfinished or untested or both and that is why there are so many complaints. No one is whining. This game simply didn't deserve to get published.

That's just dead wrong. Tons of people are whining. I'm not going to argue that the game has bugs, but saying that it was untested is just more biased hyperbole.


Sales figures would have to be adjusted based on the changes in price point for games and so the amount of money made as it stands is irrelevant without adjustment for inflation on previous games.

No it's not. The amount of money made is basically only yardstick by which the publishers and designers will measure the success of the game. That's life in a free market.


Number of units sold is a more accurate assessment but still not a fair comparison because people went out and bought Civ V because Civ IV was so good.

Another assumption with no basis in fact. There was a demo for this game. There was not for Civ IV and you are ignoring that. I'm actually getting a bit tired of you ignoring anything that doesn't seem to fit your argument.


The excitement for Civ IV coming out was nothing compared to Civ V because Civ IV was mostly just and improvement of Civ III. Customer reviews on the other hand are more easily quantified. Customer reviews are the only reliable available measurement of the game content.

This is just getting silly. When customer reviews range from 10's to 1's and everything in between I have no idea how you consider that 'reliable'. Taking average or some other aggregate of flawed-in-the-first-place scores does not get you a reliable number.



I was reading the forums when the games came out. I know this is the worst reception ever and most people do not even bother to try and argue that point.

I will argue that point. I really don't see much difference between the whining for this and the whining for Civ IV. Not in any measurable way. And lets not forget that the difference between Civ IV and Civ V is MUCH larger than the difference between Civ III and Civ IV, which almost necessitates, in and of itself, a certain amount of doom and gloom.


My point cannot be made yet because the evidence of my case has yet to be published.

If that's not proof of confirmation bias, I don't know what possibly could be. You've already come to a conclusion and are just hunting for evidence to support it.


I have want to have Civ V turn into a much better game. I do not want it to be abandoned.

It is turning into a much better game as we speak and it's not going to be abandoned anytime soon. We haven't even had a first expansion announced yet for crying out loud.


My posts say that the game needs help not that it should be thrown out. Try accepting your own bias before you start talking about anyone else.

I'm trying not to be biased, which I know is difficult for anyone, but you continually show your bias over and over. I'm not saying it doesn't need help, I'm refuting that it's a 'dud' and that something is severely wrong with it. Those two things are simply unsubstantiated by all available evidence.


It is obvious there is more wrong with Civ V than there was with Civ IV. The proof is in the size of the patches and how much is still left missing or broken.

Sorry, but that's just not obvious. You are making very large assumptions here. I don't to try to quantify it though since it's an exercise in futility, but can't we agree that Firaxis has a history of releasing problematic games and then subsequently making them great and both be happy?

P.S. The way you are quoting me and responding within the quotes is making it hard to respond to you.

[wayninja]

Some of us want to play this game now. Not wait for 6 months to a year hoping that they bring out and expasion that makes the game more in depth or checking steam every day for a patch that sorts out the serious inbalance in gold and resources. Every other civ (from civ2 for me as thats when I got hooked. It was the firs one I ever played) has been addictive straight out of the box. This one is a serious turn off. It has less features than ever. The new features are dull.

You can play the game now. Go ahead, I don't mind.

The rest has nothing to do with your ability to play. If you don't like it, move on. Simple as that. No need to waste what free time you have railing against something you aren't enjoying.

Personally I find that the .62 patch did much to improve balance, but to each his own.

[Soapy]

No apology necessary.

I am actually very anti-religious.

And theology in my opinion is the seed of corruption.

-.-

I think you mis-spelled The Roman Empire :)

[phlirthead]

You can play the game now. Go ahead, I don't mind.

The rest has nothing to do with your ability to play. If you don't like it, move on. Simple as that. No need to waste what free time you have railing against something you aren't enjoying.

Personally I find that the .62 patch did much to improve balance, but to each his own.

it's funny. the rest of us are posting here because we cant or dont want to play civ.

why are YOU wasting time posting long and passionate posts when "You can play the game now. Go ahead, I don't mind." i have read a lot of your posts and i'm beginning to think the whiny troll is you, in fact.

you don't even bother taking other peoples opinions into account at all, you just spit out the same rhetoric (you and a few others) over and over, while dedicated fans make long and detailed posts explaining clear inferiorities between this game and previous iterations of the series.

and interestingly, you mentioned

"This is just getting silly. When customer reviews range from 10's to 1's and everything in between I have no idea how you consider that 'reliable'. Taking average or some other aggregate of flawed-in-the-first-place scores does not get you a reliable number."
when i am pretty sure most of our country's politics run on that very notion. in fact when you take the average of opinions from a large group of people you DO get a reliable average, because the extremists ALSO average out.

one would wonder why you defend this game with such intensity. do you have a personal stake in the success of this game? or perhaps, are you SUCH a foaming-at-the-mouth fan that it just PAINS you to see it dissed?

enlighten me.

[wayninja]

it's funny. the rest of us are posting here because we cant or dont want to play civ.

Why would you post here if you don't want to play civ? That's one of the weirdest reasons I've heard yet. It's like hating animals but attending PETA meetings.


why are YOU wasting time posting long and passionate posts when "You can play the game now. Go ahead, I don't mind." i have read a lot of your posts and i'm beginning to think the whiny troll is you, in fact.

Work mainly. Can't really play during work, but I can sqeeze in a few minutes here and there post. When I am playing, I play windowed so I can do multiple things. Not sure what your interest is though other than to be snarky. It doesn't really surprise me that you call me a whiny troll. I disagree with and therefore I must be a troll, or so at least the reasoning seems to go.


you don't even bother taking other peoples opinions into account at all, you just spit out the same rhetoric (you and a few others) over and over, while dedicated fans make long and detailed posts explaining clear inferiorities between this game and previous iterations of the series.

There is no rhetoric and I do take facts or insightful opinions into consideration, but no, you are correct. I don't consider opinions at all when the subject is "the game is broken, failure, disaster blah blah" because one persons opinions or even hundreds of them don't dictate whether or not these statements are true.


when i am pretty sure most of our country's politics run on that very notion. in fact when you take the average of opinions from a large group of people you DO get a reliable average, because the extremists ALSO average out.

LOL, if you think politics give you any reliability in anything, then there isn't much to argue here. But lets give you benefit of the doubt. What is your sample size and who is doing your unbiased polling? Yep, that's what I thought.


one would wonder why you defend this game with such intensity. do you have a personal stake in the success of this game? or perhaps, are you SUCH a foaming-at-the-mouth fan that it just PAINS you to see it dissed?

I'm not defending the game, I defending reason. You seem to be a staunch opponent of reason so therefore we are at odds. Dis it all you like and I'll be here to point out the flaws in your vitriol. If anyone is foaming here it seems to be you. To be fair, I would also argue with someone trying to say the game is perfect, but that doesn't fit well with your world view it seems.

[wayninja]

accidental double post

[Liberal]

Follow the logic. When well formed, it will always lead to truth.

[Ingolenuru]

Ok... same question though. Ignorant of what?

Ignorant of reality in the media industry if you think opening day sales makes something a success.

I agree with this, but take issue with your implication that Civ 5 is being 'ridiculed' not that it's 'true content' is revealed. This nothing more than your opinion and the majority (that I can tell) of people who's opinion is paid for, disagrees with you.

Not sure what you mean by people having their opinion paid for by someone means there opinion has greater validity. That usually isn't the case. I did not say it was being ridiculed. It is being discussed in a negative light. The game does not even have hot seat yet. How can you say they did anywhere near as good a job with it as Civ IV?

This all seems slanted from your perspective. I remember the opposite. I don't think Civ IV was really 'playable' for me in terms of slowdowns and late game crashes until 1.8 something if I recall... might not have been 'fixed' until BTS in fact.

I always blamed the late game slow downs on my system because I always played huge maps. In my opinion it didn't take them years to make Civ IV playable. I don't see how anyone can believe that. If it took three years to even be playable it never would have survived. A community as large as ours does not support a game for three years with it being unplayable.

That's just dead wrong. Tons of people are whining. I'm not going to argue that the game has bugs, but saying that it was untested is just more biased hyperbole.

Okay. You are right. Along with all of the valid complaints there is also a massive amount of whining. The game had massive bugs and entire systems did not work and still do not work. No multi-player animations, no hot seat, no working trade, diplomacy is so limited because of trade that it has no effect. The AI was so stupid it basically wasn't even there. Are you saying that all made it through the testing? You could not play the game with 70 cities or more no matter what your system and huge maps made a lot of systems crash. They didn't know about all of this and you say they completely tested the game?

No it's not. The amount of money made is basically only yardstick by which the publishers and designers will measure the success of the game. That's life in a free market.

The amount of money made by expansions and additions is what they will judge it by. If you make a product and it sells well because of past products but then goes belly up based on its own performance you have a failure. That is true no matter how much you made when you first brought out the project because the future of the company depends on people buying then next project and the next project, not just this one.


Another assumption with no basis in fact. There was a demo for this game. There was not for Civ IV and you are ignoring that. I'm actually getting a bit tired of you ignoring anything that doesn't seem to fit your argument.

The demo was for 100 turns. It wasn't multi-player and it had all of the new stuff but was too short to show the ugly buggy truth. I wouldn't even bet money it was the same code as the game. If the demo played like the regular game it would have been a disaster.

This is just getting silly. When customer reviews range from 10's to 1's and everything in between I have no idea how you consider that 'reliable'. Taking average or some other aggregate of flawed-in-the-first-place scores does not get you a reliable number.

The 10s are people who play small and short games that end quickly. The 1s are multi-players who got left out in the cold. The game easily allows reviews across the entire spectrum. If you were paying attention you could see that.


I will argue that point. I really don't see much difference between the whining for this and the whining for Civ IV. Not in any measurable way. And lets not forget that the difference between Civ IV and Civ V is MUCH larger than the difference between Civ III and Civ IV, which almost necessitates, in and of itself, a certain amount of doom and gloom.

Civ III and Civ IV did not get pushed out with features missing. They may have been problematic but at least they were in there. You keep saying this game which was not even complete when published is comparable to a game that had all aspects in the game and running when it was published. It just does not work. Civ IV was handled far better than Civ V and that is not debatable.

If that's not proof of confirmation bias, I don't know what possibly could be. You've already come to a conclusion and are just hunting for evidence to support it.

The conclusion is that Civ V was published with fundamental flaws and parts of the game entirely missing and therefore is the worst job with a Civ game ever. This is correct. They could fix it if they work fast enough but the question is 'Do they even care?', since they allowed it to get published in this condition in the first place.

It is turning into a much better game as we speak and it's not going to be abandoned anytime soon. We haven't even had a first expansion announced yet for crying out loud.

It is so much better because it was so bad to start. No one is talking about expansions because they haven't even completed the game yet!! o.O

I'm trying not to be biased, which I know is difficult for anyone, but you continually show your bias over and over. I'm not saying it doesn't need help, I'm refuting that it's a 'dud' and that something is severely wrong with it. Those two things are simply unsubstantiated by all available evidence.

My 'bias' is an honest assessment of an unfinished game that had huge and obvious problems. There is no way you can say the game was finished. There is no way you can say the errors coded into the game were not obvious. The coding for turns is bad and there are memory leaks just like with Civ IV but it also had non-existent AI and multi-player was missing so many things it was barely there. That is not bias it is an honest assessment of a crappy job of development especially considering the propaganda the publisher put out.

Sorry, but that's just not obvious. You are making very large assumptions here. I don't to try to quantify it though since it's an exercise in futility, but can't we agree that Firaxis has a history of releasing problematic games and then subsequently making them great and both be happy?

You are very correct. Firaxis does an awful job of publishing games and then comes in and fixes things and eventually does make the games great. This is just their worst attempt so far. I am hoping it means that they will do their best job ever in making the game great. Good luck to us all on that one. Cross your fingers.

P.S. The way you are quoting me and responding within the quotes is making it hard to respond to you.

PS You should have put the problem with the quoting inside the quotes at the beginning of your post. I would have worked on fixing it during this post if you had. :)

[wayninja]

Ignorant of reality in the media industry if you think opening day sales makes something a success.

I said nothing of opening day sales. We are 6 weeks past opening day sales.


Not sure what you mean by people having their opinion paid for by someone means there opinion has greater validity. That usually isn't the case. I did not say it was being ridiculed. It is being discussed in a negative light. The game does not even have hot seat yet. How can you say they did anywhere near as good a job with it as Civ IV?

Professional critics have no greater validity that any random, biased hater with an axe to grind or fanboy who's uncle works for firaxis? Almost makes you wonder why there is an industry for it then... strange. You absolutely did imply that this game was being ridiculed. Should I quote your post? If you did not imply that, your point was meaningless since you must have been talking generalities or about something else entirely.

I don't and never have played hotseat, so to me, it makes no difference. I doubt I'm alone in that. It's definitely not a good thing that hotseat is not present yet, but I don't think that defines the entire game. They have promised it's coming, therefore it's coming. I don't see any reason not to believe it.


I always blamed the late game slow downs on my system because I always played huge maps. In my opinion it didn't take them years to make Civ IV playable. I don't see how anyone can believe that. If it took three years to even be playable it never would have survived. A community as large as ours does not support a game for three years with it being unplayable.

As far as I'm aware, the late game slowdown and crashing in Civ 5 are all huge maps. So... how is that different?

The problem with your opinion here is that you are basically trying to suggest that anything outside of it can not be true. I liked Civ IV even though I had massive problems with it. The same is basically true of Civ V. Again, I'm sure I'm not the only one.


Okay. You are right. Along with all of the valid complaints there is also a massive amount of whining. The game had massive bugs and entire systems did not work and still do not work. No multi-player animations, no hot seat, no working trade, diplomacy is so limited because of trade that it has no effect. The AI was so stupid it basically wasn't even there. Are you saying that all made it through the testing? You could not play the game with 70 cities or more no matter what your system and huge maps made a lot of systems crash. They didn't know about all of this and you say they completely tested the game?

Animations? Not going to bother with that one. Most of my friends play strategic mode only because they could care less about animations or graphics. If it's important to you, great, but I feel it's a petty point to make in terms of 'playability' or the overall rating of the game.

As far as I can tell, and I admit having no proof her, hotseat isn't all that popular. And they said it's coming. Are you saying you'd rather have no game at all until it was ready? That seems strange. Be patient and you shall have, not sure why the angst over it. A minor annoyance maybe, the angst is baffling.

I admit diplomacy is lacking. It along with the strength of the AI definitely need work. Again, these things (that they admit they are working on) do not spoil the whole game for me. Maybe I'm just more patient that you, I don't know, but Firaxis has my trust in terms of fixing things that need fixing. They've done it before and until I have reason not to, I trust them to do it again.

I can't speak to entire systems not working. Works on mine and for all my friends. I'm not calling people who can't play liars, just that there's no good way to judge how many are having these issues. Based on steam numbers, I suspect the fraction is low and I don't see any evidence to suggest that Civ IV was measurably different.

As for the bugs they mentioned. I'm not sure you understand the definition of testing. I'm sure some, if not all of these things were found and the powers that be decided to release anyway. Don't mistake testing for fixing, because they are not the same thing. I don't like it that these things were allowed through, but it's naive in the games industry to believe these things don't happen. Companies that don't fix their bugs get bad reps and fall by the wayside. Those that do have customers that may grumble initially but are satisfied in the longrun. This has been Firaxis' MO for a while now and as long as they make good, I'm ok with it.



The amount of money made by expansions and additions is what they will judge it by. If you make a product and it sells well because of past products but then goes belly up based on its own performance you have a failure. That is true no matter how much you made when you first brought out the project because the future of the company depends on people buying then next project and the next project, not just this one.

I'm not sure how your statement about money on expansions and additions contradicts my original position. Yes, it's about money. Apply it to whatever product you want, it's about money. I understand where you are going, but you have not connected the dots between riding past success and failing under own merit. There is no reason to think that Civ 5 can't/won't stand on it's own. It has good sales and good reviews. Those two things heading into the holiday season will mean that it will enjoy healthy sales. Just because you don't like the game it simply does not mean that no one does.


The demo was for 100 turns. It wasn't multi-player and it had all of the new stuff but was too short to show the ugly buggy truth. I wouldn't even bet money it was the same code as the game. If the demo played like the regular game it would have been a disaster.

Ok, now you are changing the argument. Is the game not good or is it just too buggy? They are not the same thing. Your original argument was that number of units sold was an indication of 'good' the game is or is not. Not how buggy it is. In my days, I've played and loved tons of very buggy games. I'm currently playing Fallout New Vegas and enjoying it immensely... it's buggier than anything I've seen since Elemental though.

We can short circuit this though... let's stop arguing about the quality of games based on bugs and assume they all get fixed and talk about the game from that perspective. Will it still be 'ridiculed'? Will it be able to stand on it's own?


The 10s are people who play small and short games that end quickly. The 1s are multi-players who got left out in the cold. The game easily allows reviews across the entire spectrum. If you were paying attention you could see that.

Wow! You went through all the 10's and 1's like that? I'm impressed! And not by you, by the even distribution of scores and reasons! That seems impossible. Oh wait. It is.



Civ III and Civ IV did not get pushed out with features missing. They may have been problematic but at least they were in there. You keep saying this game which was not even complete when published is comparable to a game that had all aspects in the game and running when it was published. It just does not work. Civ IV was handled far better than Civ V and that is not debatable.

Ok, I'll bite. Other than a promised, forthcoming hotseat (which I don't believe was promised at release btw), what features are 'missing'?


The conclusion is that Civ V was published with fundamental flaws and parts of the game entirely missing and therefore is the worst job with a Civ game ever. This is correct. They could fix it if they work fast enough but the question is 'Do they even care?', since they allowed it to get published in this condition in the first place.

Ok, I'm done arguing with you. You've stated your bias so no amount of reason will change your mind. If you feel this is the worst Civ yet, that's fine, but it is your opinion and is not 'correct'. Not any more that my opinion that it's about on par with Civ IV vanilla is 'correct'.


It is so much better because it was so bad to start. No one is talking about expansions because they haven't even completed the game yet!! o.O

I didn't realized Civ IV was released 'finished' and required no patches or got no better.

No one is talking expansions because it's 6 weeks out. If you think/expect Firaxis to be huddled frightened in their office worrying how they are going to 'finish' this game you are delusional.


My 'bias' is an honest assessment of an unfinished game that had huge and obvious problems. There is no way you can say the game was finished. There is no way you can say the errors coded into the game were not obvious. The coding for turns is bad and there are memory leaks just like with Civ IV but it also had non-existent AI and multi-player was missing so many things it was barely there. That is not bias it is an honest assessment of a crappy job of development especially considering the propaganda the publisher put out.

Your term unfinished is biased by your opinion. Since you haven't defined what a finished game is I'm going to assume you mean a game where there is no need for any patching. By that standard, releasing unfinished game is common if not expected practice.


PS You should have put the problem...

Well, it might help our communication if you read what I write BEFORE you respond....:eek:

[Davetopia]

I did not cherry pick a damn thing. Civilization V got hundreds of reviews.

And yes, this does prove that Civilization V is a dud, because I compared Amazon.com vs. Amazon.com reviews of various editions of Civilization. It's an apples-to-apples comparison. Davetopia said that the Amazon reviews are biased towards the negative - well then, why have the other Civilization games gotten higher or even significantly higher scores on the same site? That's a rhetorical question, we all know why, just some of us here won't admit it.


Ah, the Civilization V distortion field. What other phenomena will we witness?

WTF?!? I said what? I haven't mentioned Amazon since college days when I was arguing that we 'save the rainforest"!

And as for that ranking system. The one you look at and smile because it confirms for you what you should think about this title... Are you not going to even think about the other reasons that affect reviews from consumers?

Recession, demographics, or how about the general increase of younger 'i need it now' 'social network' 'text talkin' 'haven't read a book' generation that is taking over...

Stop smokin so much weed man, reality is not cut and dry.

[Fantasy]

WTF?!? I said what? I haven't mentioned Amazon since college days when I was arguing that we 'save the rainforest"!

And as for that ranking system. The one you look at and smile because it confirms for you what you should think about this title... Are you not going to even think about the other reasons that affect reviews from consumers?

Recession, demographics, or how about the general increase of younger 'i need it now' 'social network' 'text talkin' 'haven't read a book' generation that is taking over...

Stop smokin so much weed man, reality is not cut and dry.
First of all, I didn't even talk to you. Second: I am reporting your post for abuse. Third, not only did I not talk to you, from now on, after this strange and aggressive post, I am putting you on my very short ignore list.

[Rylan]

First of all, I didn't even talk to you. Second: I am reporting your post for abuse. Third, not only did I not talk to you, from now on, after this strange and aggressive post, I am putting you on my very short ignore list.

If you believe that post is "strange and agressive" you have no place on the internet. Your post is the equivalent of telling mum and then putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "Ner ner ner I can't hear you".

You've lost the argument, you know it, and it's because you've based everything on the opinion of about 50 people, many of whom are just cross posting the same arguments over and over. Hell, half of the responses on this thread are actually direct copy and pastes of responses to me in the thread "Patches are not enough". I mean, that's pretty sad when your "side" has to resort to reposting tired arguments that got beat down elsewhere.

You guys are spammers. Nothing more.


- Rylan
Hand typing each individual response on the internet since 1996.

[phlirthead]

lol 50 reviews on amazon? there is more like 100's of them, most (but not all) of them contain detailed reasoning behind the rating. i dont know how anyone could not notice how stupid the ai is in this game. that's not a bug. it's not somthing that a dev can say whoops our testers didnt notice that one! here's a patch to make the rain more transparent on graphics card x. it's a fundamental failure. the ai will do the exact same (stupid) things on chieftain and immortal. it's simply stupid (it just cheats more (a LOT more), and even that does not seem to bring the challenge level up all that much). many many people have made this point over and over again.

i personally experienced this when i played. there is a reason so many people consider this a problem and i can understand why. even in the buggy games i played random ai suxed out so hard. in one memorable game japan (who was my ally) randomly declared war on me after conquering china and showed up with........ ARCHERS AND WARRIORS. (this was around turn 200) i had longswordsmen and crossbow guys and trebuchets and ......... lol. i think that was my first clue there was something weird about the ai. also makes me wonder how they conquered china.

there might be a lot of people who just like building up a massive civ with no challenge and enjoy the easy win/braindead ai. that does NOT make it ok. especially when you are offering six+ levels of difficulty to play at, the impossible one should be damn near impossible.


here is another fact, since you love them so much (not that i dont respect that.)

i posted this elsewhere but it bears repeating.
a casual glance at the 2k forums revealed the following info:

Mafia II Technical Support (18 Viewing)
Community support forum for Mafia II.
threads 877
post 9,094

BioShock 2 Technical Support (9 Viewing)
Community support forum for BioShock 2 technical issues.
threads 2,125
posts 21,903

both these games (bishock 2 specifically) have been around a LOT longer than civ 5.

Civilization V Support
Community support forum for Civ 5
threads 2,198
posts 17,908

i am fairly certain that i can say i think the numbers speak for themselves.

[Xevious2001]

lol 50 reviews on amazon? there is more like 100's of them, most (but not all) of them contain detailed reasoning behind the rating. i dont know how anyone could not notice how stupid the ai is in this game. that's not a bug. it's not somthing that a dev can say whoops our testers didnt notice that one! here's a patch to make the rain more transparent on graphics card x. it's a fundamental failure. the ai will do the exact same (stupid) things on chieftain and immortal. it's simply stupid (it just cheats more (a LOT more), and even that does not seem to bring the challenge level up all that much). many many people have made this point over and over again.

Really? The AI has a problem? I had no idea.

As for the cheating, that has always been the primary difference in difficulty levels for all the Civ games. The higher the difficulty, the more they cheat.



Mafia II Technical Support (18 Viewing)
Community support forum for Mafia II.
threads 877
post 9,094

BioShock 2 Technical Support (9 Viewing)
Community support forum for BioShock 2 technical issues.
threads 2,125
posts 21,903

both these games (bishock 2 specifically) have been around a LOT longer than civ 5.

Civilization V Support
Community support forum for Civ 5
threads 2,198
posts 17,908

i am fairly certain that i can say i think the numbers speak for themselves.

I dont know anything about Mafia II...is it as popular a title as BioShock 2 or Civ V?

As far as BioShock 2 goes, I am not surprised. Excellent game, I dont think I had a single issue with it.

Civ 5 is a combo of popular (as in, many people have purchased it) and buggy..which is why you get the numbers that you have posted.

Civ 5 has some serious problems, yep. Do you have a point beyond that?

[Fantasy]

If you believe that post is "strange and agressive" you have no place on the internet. Your post is the equivalent of telling mum and then putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "Ner ner ner I can't hear you".

You've lost the argument, you know it, and it's because you've based everything on the opinion of about 50 people, many of whom are just cross posting the same arguments over and over. Hell, half of the responses on this thread are actually direct copy and pastes of responses to me in the thread "Patches are not enough". I mean, that's pretty sad when your "side" has to resort to reposting tired arguments that got beat down elsewhere.

You guys are spammers. Nothing more.


- Rylan
Hand typing each individual response on the internet since 1996.
As I said, I didn't even have a discussion with davetopia. I have no idea what he was referring to, at all. I had no argument to "lose", as he and I were not engaged in any discussion, and there was no thread of conversation going on between us. His "I said what?" doesn't make any sense to me.

[Ingolenuru]

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It is different for every media. Movies are opening weekends, books are generally the first two weeks, CDs are by the week. Games have a longer opening because they are so complex. The first month compared to second month would be more reasonable for a game and especially a Civ game. It takes time to have enough people to play far enough into the game to find the problems and word of that to spread before it would affect sales.

deleted for space

This game was being completely blasted before the first patch. The multi-player that was promised was not only not functional it was incomplete. The AI was so far beyond stupid as to be irrelevant. The inability to finish games with huge maps was across all systems. The almost perfect 'professional' reviews are what was being ridiculed because they were so blatantly paid for considering the condition the game was released in.

deleted for space

They promised multi-player would be in and working when the game was published. They failed to make good on that promise. No hot seat, no multi-player animations for the start of the list. It is not the entire game but the other faults before the first patch did define the game. It is better now after the patch but as 2K Greg pointed out Firaxis knows the AI and diplomacy still need a major fix and they are working on it. Firaxis says the game does not work right. Why do you say it does?

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There were problems with the coding on turns because the processor resources were not being used more than 25% and the turns were lagging. Civ IV just hogged resources and leaked memory. It used as much of the processor as it could get. This is different because the code won't even use the available processing power.

deleted for space

I like Civ V too. I didn't say I didn't like it. The tech tree is too narrow and limited, the AI and diplomacy are broken and being worked on, the bonus resources hurt more than they help, the multi-player is almost non-existent and yet I still like the direction they took the game. They just need to fix it. It is more broken than Civ IV was but it can still be fixed.

deleted for space

I added that the animations in as an indication that not even the small things were working let alone the big things. It is important to understand that the failure is systemic and not just a spot here and there.

deleted for space

Everything in the first patch should have been in before the game was released. I would have much preferred waiting for that and not wasting my time on the games before that even though I had some fun until the bugs took over and I realized how bad the AI and diplomacy really were. I am patiently waiting for the fixes. I really prefer them to keep us in the loop so we know the fixes are actually on the way. The angst if you see any is not because people are saying be patient it will get fixed. It is from seeing people saying it isn't really that bad so don't be impatient. It is that bad and it does need to be fixed but we all really do need to be patient now that the first fix is in place. I feel bad for the MP crowd who were promised so much and delivered so little but patience is the only option for them as well.

deleted for space

The game was spoiled for me until the first patch and especially since the early part of the game was so fun and interesting. This being the worst job Firaxis has done putting out a game besides Civ Rev when this is the flagship and given so much prerelease build up made me seriously doubt that they were going to end up with the flagship of the franchise being another Civ Rev. The only thing so far that gives me any hope is the continued communication that is coming from 2KGreg. I can begin to say how much I hope you are right about Firaxis pulling it out of the fire again.

deleted for space

I am sure the numbers are worse because Steam is involved. More parts mean more problems and with Steam being on of the parts it goes without saying that there will be more problems than necessary. I can't say how measurably worse it is but I know it is definitely worse by enough to be worth mentioning. The length and breadth of the forum posts if you compared the two are telling in and of itself.

deleted for space

There are companies out there that do not put out massively buggy products. Blizzard doesn't put out stuff they have tested and found to be crap code with a lot of bugs. They can do QA and others do it to. Firaxis made it seem with Civ V they would be too. Instead they lowered standards and put out their worst effort ever. Incomplete based on their promises let alone being massively bug infested and with worthless AI and useless diplomacy. My problem is they said they would do better and they did worse.

deleted for space

Civ V is so different from Civ III and IV that, because the end product of Civ IV was so good, it means the new direction has to be adopted by all of the fans of the previous iterations to be successful. If Civilization I had not been a success there would be no series. If anywhere down the line the Civ flagship game had started out low quality and stayed that way then there would not be a series now either. The continuation of the franchise is based on each iteration being a success. A success means the game is good enough to get people to not only keep playing it but also buying add ons, expansions and looking forward to the next version. The success of Civ 5, to start, is the history of the franchise. The demo did not bring all of these people to the game. It was the franchise history.

deleted for space

How good the game is will be shown over time by how many units are sold and how many expansions et all are purchased. Buggy will get fixed by patches but good is only determined when the game works like it should and people decide whether or not it is enjoyable. Civ V started out not very good if you actually wanted to finish a game. AI so bad it might as well have not been there, trade and diplomacy so screwed up it was not even worth having. An enemy gave me 20 cities(all but the capital) and everything else it owned. The game was just bad as well as buggy. The patch made it okay and hopefully the next patch will bring it up to good. The bugs are no longer game breaking so far, hopefully they can be ignored after the next patch until they all get worked out.

deleted for space

If the game continues in the direction it is headed I think it will be at least as good as Civ IV. If they can really fix all of the problems it will definitely be the best Civ game ever.

deleted for space

Those were reasonable explanations for the scores in question to be given to the game. This was patently obvious from my post. No I did not read all of the reviews to see if everyone was being reasonable about their reviews and do not intend to. You asked how a game could get 10s and also get 1s. I explained it. That simple.

deleted for space

Multi-player was so bugged it was broken. The missing animations all the way up to every facet that kept people from joining games and being able to play multi-player at all. Multi-play as a feature was missing because the bugs made it unplayable. There is a whole list of problems with just the lobby for multi-player and if your lobby does not work then you do no not have multi-player right?

deleted for space

It is not the worst Civ yet. It could be the best. It was the worst released version ever. I think it is better after the first patch than Civ IV was after its first patch actually. It just started off worse than any other so far. The other Civ games did not start out perfect but they were all better as first releases than Civ V was as a first release.

deleted for space

Hmmm perhaps you forgot to read the paragraph where I specifically delineated the most important Civ IV patches. Civ IV didn't get pushed out the door half done like Civ V. The AI was not nearly absent and the trade and diplomacy were not complete failures. The game needed patches as I already mentioned but it was not broken as Civ V was at publication.


deleted for space

Firaxis had two major patches out after two months for Civ IV and the next was a long time in coming so by the time they were six weeks out they may have been talking about what to put in the patch and what to save for an expansion. Civ V on the other hand is no where fixed enough to even begin imagining anything beyond the next patch. As soon as they finish this patch the MP patch will be next. Maybe they will be thinking about expansions by then.

deleted for space

I already posted about assuming being a bad thing. A finished game is one that has promised features that actually work even if they work poorly. The only thing that actually worked the way it should was the demo and that was only because you couldn't play long enough to see how bad the AI, trade and diplomacy really were and how bad the crashes and lag were in huge map games. Blizzard can finish games before they publish them. Why can't Firaxis?

Well, it might help our communication if you read what I write BEFORE you respond....:eek:

It seems we both have a problem with reading something that isn't really there if I have it too. Seeing as how there are more points of agreement now than previously it seems the communication hasn't been all bad.

[caseyws]

I think the main reason Civ 5 received such high critic reviews is because of the short time that these critics had to review it. If I was given the chance to play through Civ 5 one or two times and then review it, I would have given it a 9 or better as well. Fresh into the game, playing for conquest victory, you get these glimpses of really deep gameplay mechanics and get excited about trying them once you become more experienced with the game. You are introduced to the new combat system which feels great because it involves tactics and not just marching a stack of doom around.

However, the more games you play, the more you realize that these gameplay mechanics you glimpsed while learning the game don't actually exist. You start to realize how shallow and unfinished the game really is. All the games essentially play through exactly the same way. Although it's fun playing through an 'everybody hates me' conquest victory a couple times, it gets boring, and CIV 5 by definition should be more than this. Professional reviewers who have a short time to review one game before moving on to the next don't ever hit this realization with CIV 5.

[Davor]

I think the main reason Civ 5 received such high critic reviews is because of the short time that these critics had to review it. If I was given the chance to play through Civ 5 one or two times and then review it, I would have given it a 9 or better as well.

See I am the opposite here. The first 2 games I played, I hated it. I would have given the Civ V a score of 6 or less a 5.5. After two weeks something clicked and I liked the game alot. So I would have given the score of 7.5. After another 4 weeks of playing the game has become stale for me. So now I uninstalled the game. If I had to review it now, my score would be a 6.0.

[Fantasy]

WTF?!? I said what? I haven't mentioned Amazon since college days when I was arguing that we 'save the rainforest"!

And as for that ranking system. The one you look at and smile because it confirms for you what you should think about this title... Are you not going to even think about the other reasons that affect reviews from consumers?

Recession, demographics, or how about the general increase of younger 'i need it now' 'social network' 'text talkin' 'haven't read a book' generation that is taking over...

Stop smokin so much weed man, reality is not cut and dry.
I just realized why you were talking to me even though I wasn't talking to you - I actually was talking to "you", but "you" were using a different account! Ha, sockpuppet! You confused the heck out of me with this outburst, until I connected the dots and realized you and wayninja are the same person!

Dude, if you're going to astroturf here using multiple accounts, at least keep track of your stupid accounts!

[Xevious2001]

I just realized why you were talking to me even though I wasn't talking to you - I actually was talking to "you", but "you" were using a different account! Ha, sockpuppet! You confused the heck out of me with this outburst, until I connected the dots and realized you and wayninja are the same person!

Dude, if you're going to astroturf here using multiple accounts, at least keep track of your stupid accounts!

That is a bit of a leap...I have accidently responded to the wrong person before.

[wayninja]

That is a bit of a leap...I have accidently responded to the wrong person before.

Trolls making leaps? Say it isn't so!

[Shiav]

Trolls making leaps? Say it isn't so!

silly rabbit, trolls cant jump XD

[wayninja]

It seems we both have a problem with reading something that isn't really there if I have it too. Seeing as how there are more points of agreement now than previously it seems the communication hasn't been all bad.

I thought you were going to fix the quoting? I would continue our discussion as it's actually pretty good, but the quoting thing is getting a bit much and the wall of text too long.

I'll leave it at that we seem to have more in common about our view of the game than differences. You feel the start was more unforgivable than I do, but ultimately we feel the same way about what we think the 'finished' game will be.

[wayninja]

I think the main reason Civ 5 received such high critic reviews is because of the short time that these critics had to review it. If I was given the chance to play through Civ 5 one or two times and then review it, I would have given it a 9 or better as well. Fresh into the game, playing for conquest victory, you get these glimpses of really deep gameplay mechanics and get excited about trying them once you become more experienced with the game. You are introduced to the new combat system which feels great because it involves tactics and not just marching a stack of doom around.

However, the more games you play, the more you realize that these gameplay mechanics you glimpsed while learning the game don't actually exist. You start to realize how shallow and unfinished the game really is. All the games essentially play through exactly the same way. Although it's fun playing through an 'everybody hates me' conquest victory a couple times, it gets boring, and CIV 5 by definition should be more than this. Professional reviewers who have a short time to review one game before moving on to the next don't ever hit this realization with CIV 5.


That's a fair analysis of why you think the reviews are where they are at, but considering they give most games the same 'chance' and CIV 5 came out looking good, it's tough to say you don't get your money's worth compared to other games.

If the standard is you should be able to enjoy hundreds or even thousands of hours for the game to get good marks, it's simply not a level playing field with other genres.

[Davetopia]

...It's an apples-to-apples comparison. Davetopia said that the Amazon reviews are biased towards the negative - well then, why...



I cant believe you didn't even read your post... let alone mine.

Anyways, back on topic, troll stomped....

Caseyws, I agree with your first statement 100%. I think that in the first couple days of playing I would have given this game a 9.4 or so. Simply because comparing it to its field of competition... there is not much being released that is turn based.

As time has gone on, for me, I would say the biggest let down is the sheer amount of time it takes to complete one game with end game lag really spiking up.

Diplomacy and AI though.... that's the one part that I believe many critics should have spotted, though they may not have had secondary games to compare it too (or they were blinded to it).

At this stage of the game I would still give it a 8.5 or higher. Simply because I use a sliding method of opinion... if it keeps my interest over all the 1000's of titles available, then it is good. I research games daily, I always look ahead at new games, and until swtor and Diablo 3 come out, this is my favorite game.... for me... thats all a review is... an opinion from a specialist of giving in the field opinions. They may have formulas, gut instincts, etc... Regardless, it is just opinion. And I do believe that many people carry my same opinion (just not on the forums).

[Kevik]

We have seen what other people have rated this game. I have created a poll that will allow us to rate civ5. We have the time to play it and judge fairly (maybe if we get enough votes, it will count for something). It is posted somewhere in the general disscussion area.

[Davetopia]

We have seen what other people have rated this game. I have created a poll that will allow us to rate civ5. We have the time to play it and judge fairly (maybe if we get enough votes, it will count for something). It is posted somewhere in the general disscussion area.

I'm sure I will vote or have already on your poll, but regardless... The main points here:

-the forums are 'most likely' the destination of most of the haters.
-we should pay little attention to what others think if it's based mostly on emotion.
-with the popularity of 'Let's Play' videos on YouTube, we should be capable of finding games that are right for us (go Minecraft!).
-and many other reasons that elude me for now...

[Kevik]

I'm sure I will vote or have already on your poll, but regardless...

You should


-with the popularity of 'Let's Play' videos on YouTube, we should be capable of finding games that are right for us (go Minecraft)

I so want minecraft and plan to get it soon.

[Davetopia]

It's fun, but replay value is not totally there for me. It has that world builder creative thing going, but I enjoy the scary adventuring... So replay...

Replay, that should have a lot of impact on scores.

I have nearly 270 hours on civ V, no idea how much I have with Civ I to civ IV. However, another great game like red dead redemption (though in a different genre) has only about 30 hours of total time from me. I would rate them in a similar way... Both upper 8's, lower 9's.

However, as far as spark, style, polish... Red dead is superior.

So I would say that (for me) the amount of hours a game can take (be it 30, 40, 3000 hours) from our lives (regardless of our emotional outlook) should have some basis on a games score. How you test or measure it to a score, no idea.... Just thinkin out loud.

[Djsalt]

You can play the game now. Go ahead, I don't mind.

The rest has nothing to do with your ability to play. If you don't like it, move on. Simple as that. No need to waste what free time you have railing against something you aren't enjoying.

Personally I find that the .62 patch did much to improve balance, but to each his own.

This is what I mean by a Loyalist. Defend even though massive amounts of people feel cheated out. (Not up for debate, as if people felt as content as you did not as many people would pour into the forums)

But "railing against something" works out perfectly fine. As people who do check the forums of a game before buying it can see how most people feel about the game (Hardcore or Casual Gamer). In essence this is but the start what is known as Gamer Blow Back.

People going apesh!t on forums or sharing his/her opinions about the game. Allowing for others to have insight about the game in process. ( I assumed MP would be 90% complete, I was wrong).

Most PC games have MP don't have this level of unfinished product. (In regards to Caliber of a Franchise)

[OrdoAbChao]

I feel somewhat ripped off as well.

The game has lots of good potential, but I was told "here's a bone, there MP, and its AWESOME!"

I took their word for it since it was on Steam and Steam itself is a good MP hub. However the game itself can barely support 4 player games past 40 turns. This is unacceptable and quite far from 'AWESOME'

You can't break people's trust and expect them to continue to bother with you.