I'm so unhappy with CIV5 that I created an account just to tell you.

[logiboy123]

I have played Civ 3 and 4 and Revolutions so I'm not new to the game. I have loved each of the previous games and didn't even think about whether I should buy Civ5 based on the strength of those previous games. However now I am so disappointed that I will be thoroughly reviewing all the features of Civ6 and playing through on someone elses computer before I commit to buying it.

Why am I so unhappy?

Social Policies:
You have turned the game structure into a frozen talent tree. Civ's cannot change once their policies are in place. As if Civilizations have never changed their stance? Japan used to be a warrior country and in some ways they still are, but now they do battle in economics, not with swords. A game doesn't have to be realistic to be fun, but it does need to be believable.

Religions:
WHAT?!! No religions?! For this reason alone the project manager should be fired, instantly. Religion is a fundamental aspect of a civilization and to remove it from the game is a waste and a shame. You can try to claim that religion isn't important in society and civilization, but you would be wrong and I won't waste my breath explaining why.

Resources:
They are meaningless in this game. Why bother even trying to get something within range? Just go for population and money and win. I understand trying to make Civ more accesable to people. But by dumbing down the game as far as you have, you have alienated the very people that made this franchise a success.

Summing up:
Essentially I feel that a new game should be everything the previous game was and more. Not less. If you hadn't played previous Civ's you probably won't miss or understand the importance of these components. But as far as I'm concerned I have been let down and unless Religions are part of Civ6 I won't be wasting my time buying it or any expansions for Civ5 for that matter.

[headkase]

Am I the only one who likes Civ V? I also like Civ IV and Civ III, and have IV installed (both expansions too) but don't happen to have Civ III complete installed at the moment. Perhaps, play Civ V for what it is and see if any of your suggestions get implemented AND keep playing IV and III?

[lowwizard]

I love it 200 hours clocked. Though right now im burned out on my pc because I can't decide if I want to watch anime or play games so I play games on my ps2.

[Jazzterisk]

I'm sorry. If you haven't played Civ I and II as well your comments really carry little weight here.
Civ V was meant as a throw back to those particular iterations of the series which is why you obviously don't quite 'get it'.
Please try those games and subsequently return with the expected glowing review.

In a more sane response to your post.
I would disagree with you on the social policies and resources. I find the change they made interesting and fun. Civ IV's civic system was very good so it would be difficult for them to improve on things. If they'd just given us civics there would be loads of posts raging about the fact Civ V was really 4.5.
I also think that resources are more important in this game as they are finite and as such acquiring more beneficial whereas in Civ IV if you got iron you could build as many cannons as you wanted.
I have a mixed feeling on the omission of religion. I enjoyed the system in Civ IV but would liked it to have been a little more interesting, that is, the religions having different benefits and weaknesses. I never really build missionaries or actively tried to found a religion so my feelings on its absence are mixed. Technically, in Civ V religion is in the game in the form of the Piety social policy. But I admit it is fairly muted in its role in the game when compared to Civ IV.

[logiboy123]

I'm too busy at the moment playing awesome games like Starcraft 2 and Fallout New Vegas to be bothered playing a game I'm not happy with. Keeping in mind that I finished several small games on Prince with random civs before I came to the conclusion that Civ5 is not what it is meant to be.

The point is that Civ5 should be better then Civ4. It isn't in my opinion and a lot of other people obviously feel the same.

Some of the things that need to be fixed are:

Implement changeable Civics.
Implement religions.
Modify resources so they are better and more useful.

All of these points should have been delt with in the Beta if there was one.

[lowwizard]

Both of the games you mention are exactly the same as their previous games. I beta tested starcraft 2 and own I do love it, and I own fall out three but one look at fall out new vegas and playing at a friends house. Its just fall out 3.

[Jazzterisk]

Some of the things that need to be fixed are:

Implement changeable Civics.
Implement religions.
Modify resources so they are better and more useful.

All of these points should have been delt with in the Beta if there was one.

Well there are many who disagree with you on those points.
We can agree to disagree on SC2 as well. I know a lot of people love it but but I personally don't like it or that style of game for that matter.

[NitroPhantasm]

Both of the games you mention are exactly the same as their previous games. I beta tested starcraft 2 and own I do love it, and I own fall out three but one look at fall out new vegas and playing at a friends house. Its just fall out 3.Cool! Fallout new vegas is the same as fallout 3? Excellent! I wish CIV V was like CIV IV, but with lots of new leaders and techs and units and maps and what else? I would pay... *PAY*... I tell you to have a marvelous expansion pack of CIV IV called CIV V!!!

[Black Gate of Mordor]

I have played Civ 3 and 4 and Revolutions so I'm not new to the game. I have loved each of the previous games and didn't even think about whether I should buy Civ5 based on the strength of those previous games. However now I am so disappointed that I will be thoroughly reviewing all the features of Civ6 and playing through on someone elses computer before I commit to buying it.

Actually, this should mean that you're more angry about it, because you were expecting civ4.5


Religions:
WHAT?!! No religions?! For this reason alone the project manager should be fired, instantly. Religion is a fundamental aspect of a civilization and to remove it from the game is a waste and a shame. You can try to claim that religion isn't important in society and civilization, but you would be wrong and I won't waste my breath explaining why.

They haven't claimed anywhere that religion isn't important in society (it is useless today, but in history, not so). And they were going to have religion, but time restrictions and whatnot meant they didn't complete it. They have a few comments and religions (more then civ4) inamongst the code.

And you said you've played civ3. Oo, guess what! No religions! Why did you play?


Summing up:
Essentially I feel that a new game should be everything the previous game was and more. Not less. If you hadn't played previous Civ's you probably won't miss or understand the importance of these components. But as far as I'm concerned I have been let down and unless Religions are part of Civ6 I won't be wasting my time buying it or any expansions for Civ5 for that matter.

Well, I've only played civrev (other then 5) and I do wish that some of the features of previous games were in this one. But that doesn't mean I'm disappointed with the game! I've got 80 hours, and being a student that's a lot, considering we've got exams as well. My current pay-to-play is just about $1.20 per hour. That's a pretty good amount.

[Wodan11]

The point is that Civ5 should be better then Civ4.

Comparing Civ5 to a game with two full expansions of development is an unreasonable expectation. We need to either compare to Civ4 vanilla when it first came out, or else allow Civ5 to get to the equivalent of two full expansions before we impose our expectation that it must compare favorably.

[Swordfishtrombone]

Resources:
They are meaningless in this game. Why bother even trying to get something within range? Just go for population and money and win. I understand trying to make Civ more accesable to people. But by dumbing down the game as far as you have, you have alienated the very people that made this franchise a success.

I don't know where you got this from - resources are far from meaningless. There are differences from CIV4 in how resources work, but they are still quite valuable. Cows, sheep, deer and fish are no longer considered resources, and I do think the bonuses they give should perhaps be increased a little. But gold, gems, silver, silk, spices, cotton and whale are resources that give happiness in addition to the tile bonuses, and can be used in trading with other civs, either for other resources, or gold. In a tight spot, having extra resources to sell to other civs is quite handy indeed.

Further, the strategic resources give limited yields, meaning that you can't equip a massive army on the back of just one iron mine. I think this is a good change.

I really don't know where you get the idea that resources are meaningless.

As for social policies, having played the game a while now, I really like the way they work. Sure, it makes for a different game than CIV4, but this isn't supposed to be Civ4, version 2, it's supposed to be Civ5.

There are things I don't like about the game, and things Civ4, with all its expansisons had, that I think should be added to it, but remember that Civ4, the vanilla version, when it came out, had quite a lot less in it than it currently, with both the expansions and all the patches has. I would expect Civ5 to grow in a similar fashion.

Right now, the things that bug me the most are the late game stability issues in the largest maps, and rather poor graphical performance. If these are properly addressed, I'll be a lot happier with the game than I am currently.

[BN420]

Am I the only one who likes Civ V?

Nope I love Civ V.....

Having played 3 and 4 I always found their was loads of stuff I just never used or enjoyed using ie Religions was one of the main ones it made the game more boring IMO and added nothing to the game if you ask me!

[funyuns]

Actually, this should mean that you're more angry about it, because you were expecting civ4.5



They haven't claimed anywhere that religion isn't important in society (it is useless today, but in history, not so). And they were going to have religion, but time restrictions and whatnot meant they didn't complete it. They have a few comments and religions (more then civ4) inamongst the code.

And you said you've played civ3. Oo, guess what! No religions! Why did you play?



Well, I've only played civrev (other then 5) and I do wish that some of the features of previous games were in this one. But that doesn't mean I'm disappointed with the game! I've got 80 hours, and being a student that's a lot, considering we've got exams as well. My current pay-to-play is just about $1.20 per hour. That's a pretty good amount.

Really? religion isnt important in society today? even though the largest power in the world is fighting against a jihad that has been somewhat effective?

And just because its in the code doesnt mean it was gonna be in there, they just rebuilt the civ 4 engine and it contains alot of unused remnants... if i remember correctly they always stated they wanted to move away from religion because of predictability, which i disagree with, a little predictability isnt bad now and again...

Overall Im very glad you like your purchase but obviously alot of people dislike some features and hes throwing in his 2 cents

[funyuns]

Why am I so unhappy?

Social Policies:

Religions:

Resources:


I completely agree with your comments on social policy and religion, I think they should add religion and change the policy system personally

as for resources I much prefer this system, I know you can buy them but you can also sell them, and factor into military campaigns,a quick strike against a foe can be devastating, so it does add some maneuvering and complexity

[shozum]

I have played Civ 3 and 4 and Revolutions so I'm not new to the game. I have loved each of the previous games and didn't even think about whether I should buy Civ5 based on the strength of those previous games. However now I am so disappointed that I will be thoroughly reviewing all the features of Civ6 and playing through on someone elses computer before I commit to buying it.

Why am I so unhappy?

Social Policies:
You have turned the game structure into a frozen talent tree. Civ's cannot change once their policies are in place. As if Civilizations have never changed their stance? Japan used to be a warrior country and in some ways they still are, but now they do battle in economics, not with swords. A game doesn't have to be realistic to be fun, but it does need to be believable.You do know you can switch active policy trees (complete with anarchy and all) just like IV right?

Religions:
WHAT?!! No religions?! For this reason alone the project manager should be fired, instantly. Religion is a fundamental aspect of a civilization and to remove it from the game is a waste and a shame. You can try to claim that religion isn't important in society and civilization, but you would be wrong and I won't waste my breath explaining why.I wouldn't be suprised at all if religions and corporations made their way back into CiV again given time. Same with espionage.

Resources:
They are meaningless in this game. Why bother even trying to get something within range? Just go for population and money and win. I understand trying to make Civ more accesable to people. But by dumbing down the game as far as you have, you have alienated the very people that made this franchise a success.Underpowered resources means less disparity between player starts and expansions. I also recently had a start with a source of marble, 3 sources of silver, and 2 sources of wine IN ADDITION TO a forked river w/some forest. Talk about ridiculous! Yeah cows and wheat and deer aren't nearly as useful anymore, but a luxury is still a huge bonus

Summing up:
Essentially I feel that a new game should be everything the previous game was and more. Not less. If you hadn't played previous Civ's you probably won't miss or understand the importance of these components. But as far as I'm concerned I have been let down and unless Religions are part of Civ6 I won't be wasting my time buying it or any expansions for Civ5 for that matter.Some of us didn't want another Civ BtS. I love BtS, it's still on my hard drive and should I ever get the urge to become a christian and start a holy war with my stacks o doom I'll load it up. I wanted something new, a dynamic twist upon the Civ franchise that had bold new ideas and could offer new concepts to the series so that it continued to grow and evolve.

Now if you want to complain about something complain about the bugs, the horrible state of multiplayer, the balance issues, or the fact that our DLC and mods aren't allowed in multiplayer. Someone will mod CiV into BtS given time, since it is such a loved entry into the series. Right now though, I want 2K and Firaxis to work on fixing CiV as they intended it to be played.

[slowtarget]

Keeping in mind that I finished several small games on Prince with random civs before I came to the conclusion that Civ5 is not what it is meant to be.

You mean: "not what I wanted it to be"


The point is that Civ5 should be better then Civ4. It isn't in my opinion and a lot of other people obviously feel the same.

You're (all) entitled to your opinions.


Some of the things that need to be fixed are:

You have a strange definition of "fixed". You seem to be using it as if it is a synonym for "added".


Implement changeable Civics.

While I'd like to see something like this as well, I'm not really bothered by the loss of the civics system. It seems that the people who are complaining about it being gone have ignored the fact that most people used a very predictable progression of Civics choices. Sure, there were choices and more choices are "always better", but it's not really a useful choice to put in the game when your decision is predictable 95% of the time.

From what I've gathered, the vast majority of multiplayer players would jump to communism as soon as they had the chance. Some civics were rendered useless by technologies or wonders and were routinely avoided. Others were so obviously inferior to other civics that you would only use them when you didn't have the tech for the better civic. When people started talking about the civics they actually used, there was a shocking lack of variety being shown.

The Policy trees achieve a similar result, but force players to actually commit to the result they want, rather than leaving them a mechanism to game the mechanic to achieve some particular result. Example: Switching to Police State/Theocracy for a decade to build an army, then returning to Universal Suffrage/Free Religion to actually fight the war since it bumps happiness and lets you buy production.... because that is a totally realistic governmental change.


Implement religions.

While Religions were nice, they needed an overhaul anyway. While they seemed to add "flavor", they didn't do so in a reasonable manner. Religion in Civ 4 became the primary instigator of war. That's just nonsensical to anyone who actually studies history. It should have been a major source of culture and trade but... that aspect ended up being fairly weak.

More importantly: They weren't in any other Civ except Civ 4 (and Rev?).


Modify resources so they are better and more useful.

If you've played any of the mods that change resources, you can see why they were set up as they were. It takes a bit of balancing to work everything out. Civ 4 had similar issues at launch. Civ 5 took a conservative approach by flattening the bonuses out. Slowly, the community is figuring out which resources can be improved.

However, as far as "useful" goes, Civ 5 fixes one of the issues with Civ 3 and 4 where a single oil field could fuel an entire empire worth of tanks and destroyers. Civ 5's resource model fixes that.

[porky]

I have played Civ 3 and 4 and Revolutions so I'm not new to the game. I have loved each of the previous games and didn't even think about whether I should buy Civ5 based on the strength of those previous games. However now I am so disappointed that I will be thoroughly reviewing all the features of Civ6 and playing through on someone elses computer before I commit to buying it.

Why am I so unhappy?

Social Policies:
You have turned the game structure into a frozen talent tree. Civ's cannot change once their policies are in place. As if Civilizations have never changed their stance? Japan used to be a warrior country and in some ways they still are, but now they do battle in economics, not with swords. A game doesn't have to be realistic to be fun, but it does need to be believable.

Religions:
WHAT?!! No religions?! For this reason alone the project manager should be fired, instantly. Religion is a fundamental aspect of a civilization and to remove it from the game is a waste and a shame. You can try to claim that religion isn't important in society and civilization, but you would be wrong and I won't waste my breath explaining why.

Resources:
They are meaningless in this game. Why bother even trying to get something within range? Just go for population and money and win. I understand trying to make Civ more accesable to people. But by dumbing down the game as far as you have, you have alienated the very people that made this franchise a success.

Summing up:
Essentially I feel that a new game should be everything the previous game was and more. Not less. If you hadn't played previous Civ's you probably won't miss or understand the importance of these components. But as far as I'm concerned I have been let down and unless Religions are part of Civ6 I won't be wasting my time buying it or any expansions for Civ5 for that matter.

First off, let me say that I had some of the same feelings you have until I did some research on exactly how the other Civ games came out and until I played at higher levels. All in all it's probably a good thing there are about 5 years worth of updates that could be done to this game before 6 comes out. Maybe things will change enough for you to change your stance by then.

I wonder if you are aware that when Civ IV vanilla shipped it had no religion, colonies or espionage. As far as I understand, all of those things were added in through Expansion Packs. If some of these missing concepts bother you I would try to wait it out a bit as I THINK some of these concepts will be added back in at a future time through expansion packs.

If you think resources don't matter I might suggest playing on a harder level. I think if you played on the Immortal level you would see more importantance put on luxerys for happy happy or strategic resources for units.

And I apologize but I absolutely love the new social policies and how you gain them using culture. So yea, you can't switch back and forth between civs every 5 turns but I find this to make for a much more 'real' feel to the game. Yes, governments change their policies frequently sometimes, but I don't think any government has ever changed their policies every 5 turns (10-50 years.) In Civ Iv, especially with a Philisophical Leader you could change civics at a very unreasonable rate.

In review, I guess I am just trying to say try to keep your head up and I am sure this game will be getting much better in the coming days, weeks, months and years. Hopefully we will find it much more to our liking then.

[shozum]

I mentioned it in another thread I think that Civ has almost always followed the same pattern. Vanilla, 1rst expansion, Gold version, 2nd expansion, Complete version. I don't know if they will break from this mold now that DLC is so hot though. Guess we'll wait and see.

[Fantasy]

Comparing Civ5 to a game with two full expansions of development is an unreasonable expectation. We need to either compare to Civ4 vanilla when it first came out, or else allow Civ5 to get to the equivalent of two full expansions before we impose our expectation that it must compare favorably.
Civ IV vanilla is much better than Civ V.

Civ V: worst Civilization game ever - and Civ IV vanilla one of the best. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=393893) The only Civilization game that came close to the low ratings of Civilization V is Civilization Revolutions.


Another poll with similar results. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=396111)

[funyuns]

Switch Policy Trees/anarchy.

Really? how can you switch policies?

[I Love Pies]

Lots of discontent with the game here. I have to admit that I myself was also a bit disappointed with the game mechanics. I knew that this was Civ 5, so the mechanics will be different, but not like this.

Comment on religion: I don't think it is absolutely necessary to have it, but I did enjoy the aspect of it in Civ 4. It wasn't 100% enjoyable game mechanics though, because sometimes religion was just another way to create tension and needless wars.

My main gripe with the game personally are the technical issues. Game does slow down, likes to crash a bit too often, and seems to be a major resource hog. I could have lived with Civ 4 graphics to be honest with you. I am also playing Galactic Civilizations 2 Twilight of the Arnor, and even though the graphics is nothing to boast about, it is one fine 4x turn-based strategy game.

[NitroPhantasm]

Lots of discontent with the game here. I have to admit that I myself was also a bit disappointed with the game mechanics. I knew that this was Civ 5, so the mechanics will be different, but not like this.

Comment on religion: I don't think it is absolutely necessary to have it, but I did enjoy the aspect of it in Civ 4. It wasn't 100% enjoyable game mechanics though, because sometimes religion was just another way to create tension and needless wars.

My main gripe with the game personally are the technical issues. Game does slow down, likes to crash a bit too often, and seems to be a major resource hog. I could have lived with Civ 4 graphics to be honest with you. I am also playing Galactic Civilizations 2 Twilight of the Arnor, and even though the graphics is nothing to boast about, it is one fine 4x turn-based strategy game.The beauty of CIV IV graphics is that they were not demanding. What is enthralling about the CIV 4 game is the *action*! You get so caught up in the action the cartoons look real enough! The unfolding drama pulling you into the game beats out the reality of the graphics because the graphics end up losing their effect after familiarization. Its the action that pulls you in. The thinking, the plotting, the wide range of intelligent options- these are what made CIV IV especially with BTS engaging, enveloping, enthralling. Every game was so different that there was no upper cap on how much enjoyment you could get.

[Dan85]

I enjoyed the system in Civ IV but would liked it to have been a little more interesting, that is, the religions having different benefits and weaknesses. I never really build missionaries or actively tried to found a religion so my feelings on its absence are mixed..

Must have never been a good Civ IV player then, having a religion gave you huge income in Civ IV.

I agree with the comments about the lack of Religion, I think Corporations were a awesome addition as well to Civ IV that should have remained in the game. Have to see where they go with expansions I guess.

[Crespire]

Really? religion isnt important in society today? even though the largest power in the world is fighting against a jihad that has been somewhat effective?

I think it has more to do with cultural encroachment, rather than straight up religious ideology. They just like to use religion as an easy excuse.

[Varus2319]

You mean: "not what I wanted it to be"



You're (all) entitled to your opinions.



You have a strange definition of "fixed". You seem to be using it as if it is a synonym for "added".



While I'd like to see something like this as well, I'm not really bothered by the loss of the civics system. It seems that the people who are complaining about it being gone have ignored the fact that most people used a very predictable progression of Civics choices. Sure, there were choices and more choices are "always better", but it's not really a useful choice to put in the game when your decision is predictable 95% of the time.

From what I've gathered, the vast majority of multiplayer players would jump to communism as soon as they had the chance. Some civics were rendered useless by technologies or wonders and were routinely avoided. Others were so obviously inferior to other civics that you would only use them when you didn't have the tech for the better civic. When people started talking about the civics they actually used, there was a shocking lack of variety being shown.

The Policy trees achieve a similar result, but force players to actually commit to the result they want, rather than leaving them a mechanism to game the mechanic to achieve some particular result. Example: Switching to Police State/Theocracy for a decade to build an army, then returning to Universal Suffrage/Free Religion to actually fight the war since it bumps happiness and lets you buy production.... because that is a totally realistic governmental change.



While Religions were nice, they needed an overhaul anyway. While they seemed to add "flavor", they didn't do so in a reasonable manner. Religion in Civ 4 became the primary instigator of war. That's just nonsensical to anyone who actually studies history. It should have been a major source of culture and trade but... that aspect ended up being fairly weak.

More importantly: They weren't in any other Civ except Civ 4 (and Rev?).



If you've played any of the mods that change resources, you can see why they were set up as they were. It takes a bit of balancing to work everything out. Civ 4 had similar issues at launch. Civ 5 took a conservative approach by flattening the bonuses out. Slowly, the community is figuring out which resources can be improved.

However, as far as "useful" goes, Civ 5 fixes one of the issues with Civ 3 and 4 where a single oil field could fuel an entire empire worth of tanks and destroyers. Civ 5's resource model fixes that.

This is one of my favorite characterizations of the defense of some controversial civ V changes. I really do like the way you've framed all this.

[NitroPhantasm]

This is one of my favorite characterizations of the defense of some controversial civ V changes. I really do like the way you've framed all this.I agree. This is a good summary. It was nice to bounce around in civics but actually the course of a civilization is far less opportunistic and fleeting.

[shozum]

Really? how can you switch policies?

Take policies from conflicting trees and the path you seek should open before you.

[logiboy123]

Interesting responses, thank you for taking the time to add your comments.

1) Features
Many of you are quite right, I actually didn't get Civ4 until Beyond the Sword had come out. I was a bit busy at that time in my life becoming a dad. However when Civ5 came out I naturally expected all the features in the collective Civ4 series to be there. After all the developers didn't need to reinvent the wheel as it were, they just needed to recode it. Developing, testing and balancing a new feature is a lot of work, code rewrites of a feature that you already know about isn't. I'm hoping that future expansions will include more features that I personally enjoyed.

2) Policies
I haven't seen many good responses around social policies. The reality is that we all should be able to change our "tech tree". Sure there should probably be a penalty for this like a "revolution" but the facility should be there none the less. The focus of a civilization can and does change over time.

3) Resources
Okay. Be patient and hope for balances over time. I still feel a proper beta would have done this. I was part of the Starcraft2 beta and launch day was awesome with all races winning fairly evenly at first until exploits were found. Once they were found however patching was furious and effective.

[Black Gate of Mordor]

3) Resources
Okay. Be patient and hope for balances over time. I still feel a proper beta would have done this. I was part of the Starcraft2 beta and launch day was awesome with all races winning fairly evenly at first until exploits were found. Once they were found however patching was furious and effective.

You're using SC2 as an example? SC2 was just a prettying of the original starcraft's graphics and the intro/removal of a few units. Combine that with the fact that there are only three groups in it, compared to twenty in civ5 (currently), a civ5/SC2 comparison is void.

[snake509]

What about the resources bothers you? You've kept saying this and that about them, but no details.

[slowtarget]

Many of you are quite right, I actually didn't get Civ4 until Beyond the Sword had come out. I was a bit busy at that time in my life becoming a dad. However when Civ5 came out I naturally expected all the features in the collective Civ4 series to be there. After all the developers didn't need to reinvent the wheel as it were, they just needed to recode it. Developing, testing and balancing a new feature is a lot of work, code rewrites of a feature that you already know about isn't.

I mean no offense, but I've seen a number of people say this and it really just highlights the fact that they don't know much at all about how software is made. You might be able to do a quick-and-dirty conversion to use hexes, but if you want to support mods where "mod" comes from "module" not just "modification", then you've got to get down to the guts of the game and redesign the fundamental game engine. The moment you do that, you've got to redesign and re-code all of the major systems.

And then, there is the issue of advancing the game technology. Whether you realized it or not, Civ IV had reached its maximum performance. Faster processors didn't change the experience much. The AI in Civ IV was not terribly complex (relatively). There were a number of people who tried to improve the AI, and they found that it began to add a lot of turn time. Civ V is a simpler game on the surface, but it forces the AI to be more complex. If you want to expand the AI, you need to allow it to utilize a modern computer. Contrary to popular opinion, it's not trivial to convert a single-threaded application to a (well designed) multi-threaded application. If you do that, then you're pretty much committed to redesigning the entire game.


I haven't seen many good responses around social policies. The reality is that we all should be able to change our "tech tree". Sure there should probably be a penalty for this like a "revolution" but the facility should be there none the less. The focus of a civilization can and does change over time.

While I have nothing really against this, I'd almost rather see it with another "government" mechanic that focuses more on immediate abilities than long-term bonuses.

From a game point of view, I always felt that the government selection in Civ IV (and probably II and III) was abused by the min/max players who basically exploited the system to optimize outcomes at the expense of believability, and give them an almost unfair advantage over an AI that was coded to act like a sane player.

From a historical point of view, while history is filled with the stories of civilizations changing their governments, it tends to form a stream of changes over time. Revolutions occur, but there aren't many civilizations which bounce between governments. Economic models change even less. In this respect, the policy mechanism seems to better model history than the discrete choices of the civic mechanism.


Okay. Be patient and hope for balances over time. I still feel a proper beta would have done this.

Understand the primary purpose of beta testing isn't to balance the game, but to chase down feature and UI bugs (example of one that got through: on release, sorting by tech output in the city listing actually sorted by name). Trying to perfectly balance a game is pretty much impossible while this is happening. Even once most of the feature/UI bugs are gone, balancing takes a lot of time.


I was part of the Starcraft2 beta and launch day was awesome with all races winning fairly evenly at first until exploits were found. Once they were found however patching was furious and effective.

First: the primary goal of the Starcraft II beta was not to test SC2, but to test Battle.net 2. I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating: In general, public betas are almost useless for tracking down bugs. In almost all cases, smaller beta groups of higher quality testers can find more bugs and point out the major balance issues. What public betas are good for is testing a system under load.

Second: It's pointless to compare SC2 and Civ V. SC2 barely changes anything in the balance set up by StarCraft. The major game update was to the display technology, not the game mechanics. Also, as a problem for balancing, SC2 is a couple orders of magnitude easier than Civ V. The reason why SC2 is much more aggressively balanced is the fact that it has a nearly rabid multiplayer community and even subtle imbalances are quickly used to players advantage. Civ V simply doesn't live in that sort of environment.

[leliel]

I mean no offense, but I've seen a number of people say this and it really just highlights the fact that they don't know much at all about how software is made. You might be able to do a quick-and-dirty conversion to use hexes, but if you want to support mods where "mod" comes from "module" not just "modification", then you've got to get down to the guts of the game and redesign the fundamental game engine. The moment you do that, you've got to redesign and re-code all of the major systems.
Sure, but I think the key-point here is that somebody has underestimated the amount of work and the game got released under-developed. It contains bugs (major!), glitches, feels unfinished, smells like some features were cut-off last minute and on top of that it's unbalanced.

I agree to what you say. I know how difficult it could be to re-write the code, even when you have an experience and a code base to back you up. Starting a new project from scratch is a real challenge. Especially when they tried so many new things and (as advertised) changed the way the software works, for example by introducing several levels of AI scripts that take care of various things in the game. However it's hardly an excuse. They promised something (aggressive marketing campaign is a sort of a promise) and did not deliver it. Most of the people playing the game aren't developers nor managers of such business. Why should they actually care about that, especially when told how marvelous the game will be.

I do not want to flame here. No point in that. I actually try to support the game by adding some value to this forum and post ideas; if that helps fixing the game then fine. The bottom-line stays, though. It was either the estimates that failed or intended planning. Customers have right to complain, and compare. It's a free market. Game was advertised to increase sales. Why suddenly people can not compare games on the market and draw conclusions. Technically this might be misleading as you say, but from the marketing point of view, it has a significant impact.


I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating
I'll do the same. When you buy a software nowadays you buy essentially two things. A product and a service (or a couple of these). Civ V is a fail in terms of a product (for some people I does not even work correctly). They try to make that up with a service they offer (i.e. patching). But these two things are different, to be honest. So it really isn't wrong for people to complain about the product on the release data. Including proper testing beforehand. It was not anywhere written "you will need to extensively use the service provided to play the stable game and enhance the user experience to eventually reach the level mentioned in commercials".

[Crezth]

Am I the only one who likes Civ V? I also like Civ IV and Civ III, and have IV installed (both expansions too) but don't happen to have Civ III complete installed at the moment. Perhaps, play Civ V for what it is and see if any of your suggestions get implemented AND keep playing IV and III?

Hear, hear. Been an avid Civ player since II.

[Akar]

We dont care.

[eobet]

I never realized how different Civ 5 was, because the previous Civ game I played was Civ 2. I just downloaded the demo of Civ 4 and was very impressed. The cities have health, and you seem to always start out as a native tribe, finding and absorbing other villages, and settlers seem quick to produce. That is a lot more logical both from a historical and immersive gameplay point of view, than the strange situation in Civ 5 where you start out as an empire, yet only get to have one city every first thousand years, and you're always surrounded by barbarians (rather racist and imperialist, imo... when I saw that the "barbarians" in Civ 4 were wild animals, that almost made me buy it right then and there).

I will probably buy Civ 4 with the expansions and play them until Civ 5 have similar expansions and patches.

[slowtarget]

Sure, but I think the key-point here is that somebody has underestimated the amount of work and the game got released under-developed.

For what we can see, there's nothing to suggest that the game is code incomplete. I know people try to convince themselves that the reason why there is no Civ-IV-style religion or espionage is that the developers ran out of time. That's just not realistic. From what I can see, it looks more like espionage and religion were removed because they were decided to be outside the scope of the the initial release. There are even quotes from developers saying that they had a prototype of a religion system and removed it not because they were short on time, but because they didn't like how it played. This tells me that the main run of development was not rushed and that it was driven by actual design instead of "how much can we complete?"

[leliel]

For what we can see, there's nothing to suggest that the game is code incomplete.

Unfortunately I disagree. I do not speak about religion or other things that might as well not ever be implemented in Civ V. Honestly, have a look at the list of changes for diplomacy. Missing attitude tool-tips, indications of what is actually going on under the diplomacy hood, useful diplo screens. These things are essential for the game, they have always been. I do not believe they overlooked that, this would be just silly.What is more, they add it now, I'm grateful for that, but it still does feel like somebody has not finished something or simply cut off on the features to release the game in time. There were also bugs so obvious that not knowing about them sounds close to impossible.

Then comes the whole AI topic. If they have spent so much effort developing a brand new system, why does it not do its well-advertised job? Either it's broken and would not make its way from the start, which is very hard to believe. Or it isn't finished. They prepared the framework but the actual logic behind it was left in the pre-mature state. We will know soon enough. If they gonna reach the state when they won't be able to improve AI that would (most likely) seem the engine is poor and the whole situation is hopeless. However if they gonna make a significant improvement over AI, constantly, that would mean they had lots of potential there and released the game in a pre-mature state.

Again, either they ran out of time or the whole thing was planned from the beginning and now, since they have some feedback, they fix things that aren't good enough. Of course some bugs could have slipped through a QA and testing, but bugs itself are the "code incomplete" state. If bugs are numerous then we have a clear indication that the game code is vastly incomplete.

[shozum]

I never realized how different Civ 5 was, because the previous Civ game I played was Civ 2. I just downloaded the demo of Civ 4 and was very impressed. The cities have health, and you seem to always start out as a native tribe, finding and absorbing other villages, and settlers seem quick to produce. That is a lot more logical both from a historical and immersive gameplay point of view, than the strange situation in Civ 5 where you start out as an empire, yet only get to have one city every first thousand years, and you're always surrounded by barbarians (rather racist and imperialist, imo... when I saw that the "barbarians" in Civ 4 were wild animals, that almost made me buy it right then and there).

I will probably buy Civ 4 with the expansions and play them until Civ 5 have similar expansions and patches.

I miss the bears...Da Bears! They always eated meh scouts :)

[wingednosering]

I love Civ 5 too, although I haven't been playing it recently...other stuff has been going on. Hoping I can get in some quality playtime after the new patch hits (hopefully soon!)

Resources are alot more meaningful now than they were in Civ 4...In Civ 4 you could get one resource and be set for life, which often encouraged people to simply reload the map over and over again until they had two or three different resources within range of their capital. Now you actually need to hunt down those resources and (for the most part) more of them is better.

The Policy tree is really a matter of opinion...I found that in Civ 4, I always just rushed to get my favourite civic in each category and never changed it.

They never said religion wasn't important. However, in civ 4 religion was TOO influential. I understand that it is realistic, but good, fun gameplay and realism rarely go hand in hand. Religion in Civ 4 made you feel like alot of the things that happened were inevitable, and you had absolutely no say in diplomacy, who you were allied with, etc. Religion IS represented in this game by the Piety tree. The only boost provided (or negative effect bestowed) by religion in Civ 4 was a dimplomatic one and a slight happiness bonus. What they did was lessen the negative effects that prevent you from playing the way you want to play and INCREASED its effect over your society.

You may say that 'Piety' is too generic to replace the old religion system with, but consider this: this way we have more bonuses from religion. To do this any other way would either a) take control away from the user (always a bad idea) and/or b) insinuate that one civilization is better than another, or even worse, use stereotypes or something that would get people pissed off with the developers.

I've seen people that claim the game is promoting communism, since Order is so powerful. Can you imagine how people would react if, say, Islam gave you the ability to repress women? I know that's a bad example, but I'm simply showing you that every religion needed to provide the same boosts since its such a culturally sensitive topic. There is no other way I can think of to represent religion as an option, yet give it a static boost that all players can share, without limiting the players' options for foreign diplomacy or causing gameplay imbalances.

[Morthis]

Civ IV vanilla is much better than Civ V.

Civ V: worst Civilization game ever - and Civ IV vanilla one of the best. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=393893) The only Civilization game that came close to the low ratings of Civilization V is Civilization Revolutions.


Another poll with similar results. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=396111)

Sadly, this information is completely useless because of bias. It's natural human nature to see past events as more positive than they actually were, and this is even more true here because people judge Civ IV based on it's current incarnation, which many consider to be incredibly good. The only way for a poll like this to work would be to look at the time when Civ IV was first released, and look at polls like rate Civ IV on a scale of 1-10, and compare it to Civ V's results. That still wouldn't be perfect, but it'd give you a rough idea. The poll you linked is about as useful as me writing random numbers on a piece of paper and calling it a poll.

[shozum]

Here is my made up poll numbers

84% of people who only played Civ IV BtS before Civ V fill the need to complain and threaten Firaxis with lawsuits.
13% of posts in this forum are actually duplicate accounts created by the above mentioned individuals.
0% will actually succeed in a lawsuit against Firaxis/2K because of Civ V

79% of all Civ V players NEVER visit these forums.
11% of all Civ V players will eventually read this thread.
3% will actually chuckle aloud while reading this post.

95% of Firaxis/2K employees working on Civ V actually care about the state of the game.
4% of Firaxis/2K employees care about the state of MP.
1% of Firaxis/2K employees have been replicated by alien pods and are working to subvert the entire human race.

33% of all Civ V players have experienced technical difficulties running the game at launch
15% of all Civ V players are still having difficulties.
5% of all Civ V players will have difficulties running the game after this next patch.
24% of all Civ V players are trying to run the game on less than the recommended specs.

51% of Civ V players hate Steam
8% of these individuals believe that Steam is monitoring their web traffic and scanning their HDD for bad things.
76% of these individuals have reasons to worry about Steam reporting them to federal agencies.
2% of these individuals believe that Steam is an incarnation of the anti-christ or a mechanism of satanic influence.

TA DA!

[EvilScotsman]

Here is my made up poll numbers

84% of people who only played Civ IV BtS before Civ V fill the need to complain and threaten Firaxis with lawsuits.
13% of posts in this forum are actually duplicate accounts created by the above mentioned individuals.
0% will actually succeed in a lawsuit against Firaxis/2K because of Civ V

79% of all Civ V players NEVER visit these forums.
11% of all Civ V players will eventually read this thread.
3% will actually chuckle aloud while reading this post.

95% of Firaxis/2K employees working on Civ V actually care about the state of the game.
4% of Firaxis/2K employees care about the state of MP.
1% of Firaxis/2K employees have been replicated by alien pods and are working to subvert the entire human race.

33% of all Civ V players have experienced technical difficulties running the game at launch
15% of all Civ V players are still having difficulties.
5% of all Civ V players will have difficulties running the game after this next patch.
24% of all Civ V players are trying to run the game on less than the recommended specs.

51% of Civ V players hate Steam
8% of these individuals believe that Steam is monitoring their web traffic and scanning their HDD for bad things.
76% of these individuals have reasons to worry about Steam reporting them to federal agencies.
2% of these individuals believe that Steam is an incarnation of the anti-christ or a mechanism of satanic influence.

TA DA!

24% of all Civ V players are trying to run the game on less than the recommended specs.
well i have done it but no longer as for the rest the bolded ones are true for me

[tfordp]

24% of all Civ V players are trying to run the game on less than the recommended specs.
well i have done it but no longer as for the rest the bolded ones are true for me

99% of players will have a better experience playing one-on-one with the AI starting in the modern era and never making peace, with nukes *AND* GDRs, killing arabs.

[shozum]

99% of players will have a better experience playing one-on-one with the AI starting in the modern era and never making peace, with nukes *AND* GDRs, killing arabs.

I do love me some GDRs! I might have to play a SP game like this just so I can see their animations :D

[I Love Pies]

The beauty of CIV IV graphics is that they were not demanding. What is enthralling about the CIV 4 game is the *action*! You get so caught up in the action the cartoons look real enough! The unfolding drama pulling you into the game beats out the reality of the graphics because the graphics end up losing their effect after familiarization. Its the action that pulls you in. The thinking, the plotting, the wide range of intelligent options- these are what made CIV IV especially with BTS engaging, enveloping, enthralling. Every game was so different that there was no upper cap on how much enjoyment you could get.

Civ 4's graphics, even to this day, is pretty in my eyes. And you are right... we do get used to any pretty graphics relatively fast and it loses its luster eventually. Hence, I would have been more than satisfied with Civ 4 graphics in Civ 5, as long as the game performed as smoothly as it did for me with Civ 4, even to the earliest days of Vanilla.

And yes indeed, every game was different in Civ 4... not that I am saying it isn't the case for Civ 5... but, I am rather more disappointed with diplomacy and AI leader behavior than anything else.

I think my time with Civ games are evened out at 50-50 between Civ 4 and Civ 5 at the moment, though Galactic Civilization 2: Twilight of the Arnor is eating up more of my time than both of the Civ games. Playing both games side by side, I can definitely feel the difference. I still think Civ 4 Vanilla was a better experience for me than Civ 5 Vanilla as it stands right now, but there is plenty of time to change that.

[NitroPhantasm]

Civ 4's graphics, even to this day, is pretty in my eyes. And you are right... we do get used to any pretty graphics relatively fast and it loses its luster eventually. Hence, I would have been more than satisfied with Civ 4 graphics in Civ 5, as long as the game performed as smoothly as it did for me with Civ 4, even to the earliest days of Vanilla.

And yes indeed, every game was different in Civ 4... not that I am saying it isn't the case for Civ 5... but, I am rather more disappointed with diplomacy and AI leader behavior than anything else.

I think my time with Civ games are evened out at 50-50 between Civ 4 and Civ 5 at the moment, though Galactic Civilization 2: Twilight of the Arnor is eating up more of my time than both of the Civ games. Playing both games side by side, I can definitely feel the difference. I still think Civ 4 Vanilla was a better experience for me than Civ 5 Vanilla as it stands right now, but there is plenty of time to change that.I completely agree with you! CIV 5 has potential especially if they can figure out how to make it not sap resources (even at lowest computer settings). I thought your comment about the workers sapping energy was interesting. I wonder why that is.

[Jazzterisk]

Here is my made up poll numbers

84% of people who only played Civ IV BtS before Civ V fill the need to complain and threaten Firaxis with lawsuits.
13% of posts in this forum are actually duplicate accounts created by the above mentioned individuals.
0% will actually succeed in a lawsuit against Firaxis/2K because of Civ V

79% of all Civ V players NEVER visit these forums.
11% of all Civ V players will eventually read this thread.
3% will actually chuckle aloud while reading this post.

95% of Firaxis/2K employees working on Civ V actually care about the state of the game.
4% of Firaxis/2K employees care about the state of MP.
1% of Firaxis/2K employees have been replicated by alien pods and are working to subvert the entire human race.

33% of all Civ V players have experienced technical difficulties running the game at launch
15% of all Civ V players are still having difficulties.
5% of all Civ V players will have difficulties running the game after this next patch.
24% of all Civ V players are trying to run the game on less than the recommended specs.

51% of Civ V players hate Steam
8% of these individuals believe that Steam is monitoring their web traffic and scanning their HDD for bad things.
76% of these individuals have reasons to worry about Steam reporting them to federal agencies.
2% of these individuals believe that Steam is an incarnation of the anti-christ or a mechanism of satanic influence.

TA DA!

A few more little known pieces of civilization statistical heaven:
95% of all Civ I players have at one point soiled themselves to some degree whilst playing the game.
35% actually have used an adult incontinence product to avoid washroom breaks.
1 person was actually reported to have stood up his bride (former that is) at the altar because he was trying to finish his first space race victory in on deity in Civ II.

[Fantasy]

^^Pretty sure there is no deity in Civ II. I played it recently.

Other than that, Jazzterisk, your stats are spot-on. I've seen the study published in Archives of General Psychiatry.

[I Love Pies]

I completely agree with you! CIV 5 has potential especially if they can figure out how to make it not sap resources (even at lowest computer settings). I thought your comment about the workers sapping energy was interesting. I wonder why that is.

As long as Civ 5 gets tweaked out a little for more efficient resource usage, I think it will be great. The gameplay elements in doubt among many people's minds will eventually be tweaked over time, as it has been with previous titles, so I am not too worried about that. But these tweaks need to happen soon, especially the atrocious diplomacy and AI behaviors, as well as the game being extremely unfriendly to large and huge maps. Civ 4 did have issues of its own upon launch in its Vanilla days, but not to this scale.

I also came to the conclusion that Civ 5's return to the old economic model of paying maintenance costs for city buildings is something I really could live without.

[NitroPhantasm]

As long as Civ 5 gets tweaked out a little for more efficient resource usage, I think it will be great. The gameplay elements in doubt among many people's minds will eventually be tweaked over time, as it has been with previous titles, so I am not too worried about that. But these tweaks need to happen soon, especially the atrocious diplomacy and AI behaviors, as well as the game being extremely unfriendly to large and huge maps. Civ 4 did have issues of its own upon launch in its Vanilla days, but not to this scale.

I also came to the conclusion that Civ 5's return to the old economic model of paying maintenance costs for city buildings is something I really could live without.Was that an old CIV idea? I don't like it either. It makes the game more tedious and our response (every one is noting this) is to make trading posts galore and ignore hunger. I like a complex game, but not a tedious one. Just as an example off the top of my head: Spies add color, a new dimension, and complexity to the game. The ongoing need to make trading posts to stay in the black (even with specialized cities) adds complexity without color and is more tedious. Hunger and health were better than hunger and maintenance - I think. I see a distinction.

[slowtarget]

The beauty of CIV IV graphics is that they were not demanding.

Whoa... I'm really late on this, but I was reading back and stumbled across this gem.

Apparently we've gotten to the point where we have forgot that when Civ IV was released, people were complaining about the game not working on their graphics cards, making their laptops overheat, and that only the upper tiers of nVidia cards were able to play the game into the late game without crashing.

Saying that the graphics in Civ IV weren't demanding is like reminiscing about how much happier people were in the 50's.

It requires a either a short memory or a lot of sarcasm.

[shozum]

Also remember that espionage was fully implemented in BtS, not vanilla IV. It's been something where it's mechanic changes drastically in each version (I,II,III,IV) but the end results are generally similar. You used to be able to buy opposing civs units with your diplomats or plant a nuclear devise inside of a city as an example. In earlier versions it was just an amount of money needed to perform said action and the luck of the dice so to speak while in later versions they pulled out an 'espionage pool' and weight system. Again, same results in that both systems allowed you to view cities or start revolts but drastically different implementations.

[NitroPhantasm]

It requires a either a short memory or a lot of sarcasm.Neither door number 1 nor door number 2. I began playing CIV IV with my son long after those problems were resolved apparently. I take it that you forecast a brighter future for CIV V. That would be a gem :)

[shozum]

Neither door number 1 nor door number 2. I began playing CIV IV with my son long after those problems were resolved apparently. I take it that you forecast a brighter future for CIV V. That would be a gem :)

Civ IV BtS has been out for some time so it should suprise no one that many people are not familiar with earlier versions of Civ or even Civ IV.

[NitroPhantasm]

Civ IV BtS has been out for some time so it should suprise no one that many people are not familiar with earlier versions of Civ or even Civ IV.Yes it has. My 10 year old son now knows many major historical leaders, knows about many world wonders, knows many of the major religions, understands what can be called technology, learned different kinds of technology, understands how to use strategy better than ever. He even wrote a paper for his 4th grade class on Genghis Khan, got an A and impressed the teacher so much she gushed. All of this and much more... because of CIV IV and BTS upgrade.

I truly love sharing the game with my son and using CIV IV in mentoring him.

[Hanokh1967]

I'm sorry. If you haven't played Civ I and II as well your comments really carry little weight here.
Civ V was meant as a throw back to those particular iterations of the series which is why you obviously don't quite 'get it'.
Please try those games and subsequently return with the expected glowing review.

In a more sane response to your post.
I would disagree with you on the social policies and resources. I find the change they made interesting and fun. Civ IV's civic system was very good so it would be difficult for them to improve on things. If they'd just given us civics there would be loads of posts raging about the fact Civ V was really 4.5.
I also think that resources are more important in this game as they are finite and as such acquiring more beneficial whereas in Civ IV if you got iron you could build as many cannons as you wanted.
I have a mixed feeling on the omission of religion. I enjoyed the system in Civ IV but would liked it to have been a little more interesting, that is, the religions having different benefits and weaknesses. I never really build missionaries or actively tried to found a religion so my feelings on its absence are mixed. Technically, in Civ V religion is in the game in the form of the Piety social policy. But I admit it is fairly muted in its role in the game when compared to Civ IV.

Well, I created an account just to respond to this ridiculously arrogant post. If someone hasn't played Civilization 1 or 2, then their opinion is meaningless? You have got to be kidding me! I started playing Civ 1 on the Amiga, so I hope my humble opinion has some purchase here.

I wouldn't play this game if 2K Firaxis payed me to play it. From the decision to use Steam, to the awful gameplay mechanics, to everything that was gutted from previous versions of Civ, to the months long wait for a meaningful patch, to the stream of DLC appearing when many people still can't play the game is insulting to me as a consumer.

I started playing Sid Meier games on the Commodore 64 in the 1980's. I have never once been disappointed with anything with his name on it until now.

2K/Firaxis has a lot of work to do to regain me as a customer. I am sure that I am not alone.

[Fantasy]

I have never once been disappointed with anything with his name on it until now.How did you feel about Civ Rev?

[Jazzterisk]

Well, I created an account just to respond to this ridiculously arrogant post. If someone hasn't played Civilization 1 or 2, then their opinion is meaningless? You have got to be kidding me! I started playing Civ 1 on the Amiga, so I hope my humble opinion has some purchase here.

I wouldn't play this game if 2K Firaxis payed me to play it. From the decision to use Steam, to the awful gameplay mechanics, to everything that was gutted from previous versions of Civ, to the months long wait for a meaningful patch, to the stream of DLC appearing when many people still can't play the game is insulting to me as a consumer.

I started playing Sid Meier games on the Commodore 64 in the 1980's. I have never once been disappointed with anything with his name on it until now.

2K/Firaxis has a lot of work to do to regain me as a customer. I am sure that I am not alone.

I'm sorry but Amiga doesn't count. You have to be a PC civer to count!!!

Actually, I was just being silly with the above line and the first paragraph of the post to which you took offense. I guess I should have put a :D after that paragraph.
Sorry if you were offended by my attempt at wiseguydome!

Actually, I started playing Civ I on an Amiga too.

Peace.

[shozum]

How did you feel about Civ Rev?

It's a TRAP!

[wandmdave]

Social Policies:
You have turned the game structure into a frozen talent tree. Civ's cannot change once their policies are in place. As if Civilizations have never changed their stance? Japan used to be a warrior country and in some ways they still are, but now they do battle in economics, not with swords. A game doesn't have to be realistic to be fun, but it does need to be believable.

Strongly disagree here. This is one of my favorite aspects of Civ5. Not saying I disliked civics in Civ4 but I certainly am enjoying this new take greatly.



Religions:
WHAT?!! No religions?! For this reason alone the project manager should be fired, instantly. Religion is a fundamental aspect of a civilization and to remove it from the game is a waste and a shame. You can try to claim that religion isn't important in society and civilization, but you would be wrong and I won't waste my breath explaining why.

I was neutral on religions. There were nice aspects like the wonders that gave you taxes and the civics tie ins. That said I never used missionaries except I'd attempt to get one city with each religion with a monastery so I could spam missionaries after everything else had been built and put each religion in every city. On the flip side its impacts on diplomacy were at best annoying. I don't know if it is historically accurate or not but either way religion choice ended up basically being the only factor that would determine who was friend and foe. Don't really miss it.



Resources:
They are meaningless in this game. Why bother even trying to get something within range? Just go for population and money and win. I understand trying to make Civ more accesable to people. But by dumbing down the game as far as you have, you have alienated the very people that made this franchise a success.

Half agree. Strategic resources are more important and I like that. That said the rest are underpowered atm. The imminent patch should help the luxury resources by nerfing ICS a bit but the food resources need help. More differences in the output of all the terrain would be nice imo but that would just be icing as long as food resources become worth while.



Summing up:
Essentially I feel that a new game should be everything the previous game was and more. Not less. If you hadn't played previous Civ's you probably won't miss or understand the importance of these components. But as far as I'm concerned I have been let down and unless Religions are part of Civ6 I won't be wasting my time buying it or any expansions for Civ5 for that matter.
Disagree. You need to keep the spirit of the franchise but if you don't make enough changes to make it a stand alone version rather than an expansion pack then it better be priced accordingly ($10-20 instead of $50). Civ5 ditched some of the experiments of Civ4 (which some people liked and some people disliked) and went in a new direction. That is what a new game should do imo. Is it as polished as Civ4 is now at this moment? No, but I have every confidence it will get there. If religions are core to what you want more power to you, you shouldn't buy the expansions unless they are included.

[I Love Pies]

Was that an old CIV idea? I don't like it either. It makes the game more tedious and our response (every one is noting this) is to make trading posts galore and ignore hunger. I like a complex game, but not a tedious one. Just as an example off the top of my head: Spies add color, a new dimension, and complexity to the game. The ongoing need to make trading posts to stay in the black (even with specialized cities) adds complexity without color and is more tedious. Hunger and health were better than hunger and maintenance - I think. I see a distinction.

Personally, I loved almost all of the changes that Civ 4 brought about to the series, especially in how health worked in cities by replacing the old pollution factor, how the economic spending wasn't dominated by paying maintenance cost per every buildings in cities, and unit maintenance not through shields but through the treasury. Basically, the economic model in Civ 4, at the time, was a huge change, but I really liked it.

I really dislike the return to the old economic model of having to pay maintenance cost for each building.

Cottages were definitely one of the most useful terrain improvements in Civ 4, but it was also very viable to use other terrain improvements. I am not saying that there is a huge problem with trading posts, though I prefer the Civ 4's terrain improvements a bit better.

Espionage, if I recall correctly, got a major boost in BTS. I am not sure if it was as developed in the early Vanilla days of Civ 4 though. I remember the classic Civ 1's diplomat unit way back in 1990... OOH! And that barbarian leader that looked just like a diplomat unit which you can try to capture for ransom (FREE MONEY!). It was hilarious back then because the leader would always spawn with the barbarians, but after you kill off all the barb units, the leader would be running around back and forth on the map for a few turns, and it was quite fun trying to give chase and capture him! :)

Ah.. the good ol days... except that darn building maintenance costs...

[Hanokh1967]

How did you feel about Civ Rev?

I am not even sure what game system I would need to own to play Civ Rev! I should have limited my statement to any C64, Amiga, or PC game with the Sid label.

[florries]

I would also like to add, that the whole "cultural victory" part of the game has become pretty lame. It used to be my favourite strategy. And come on - why turn the Great Artist into just another weapon, in form of "culture bombs" to gain land??? BORING! Why not give them some kind of Great Merchant function, so that they can travel the world and spread culture - leading to more culture points for the civilisation who sends them. One could do it aggressively= keep all extra culture points to yourself, or friendly= give some points to the civ your Great Artist is visiting.

I also really miss the SPIES!!!!

[Fantasy]

And come on - why turn the Great Artist into just another weapon, in form of "culture bombs" to gain land??? BORING! That's part of the dumbing down of the game.

[NitroPhantasm]

I remember the classic Civ 1's diplomat unit way back in 1990... OOH! And that barbarian leader that looked just like a diplomat unit which you can try to capture for ransom (FREE MONEY!). It was hilarious back then because the leader would always spawn with the barbarians, but after you kill off all the barb units, the leader would be running around back and forth on the map for a few turns, and it was quite fun trying to give chase and capture him! :)

Ah.. the good ol days... except that darn building maintenance costs...You make me want to buy CIV 1 just to see that. Sounds too funny! :)

[NitroPhantasm]

That's part of the dumbing down of the game.I don't think it makes sense either. A move towards realism in CIV V in other respects makes the Great Artist out of place. Staying with the format of the current game, I think it would be cool to let the work of a Great Artist (in all senses - music, art, etc) show up as an icon in a city's borders (instead of a monument) or the city itself and then either improve relations with other civs/city states (generally by making your CIV more likeable or specifically to a certain city) or add to progress towards a social policy (which is culture related) or enhance the likelihood a CIV will agree to some action (giving a resource for free for some number of turns (culture adding to the charm of your CIV) or expand a border in a certain direction (like an archer from the distance shoots an arrow; a purple arrow coming from the city moving the border).

[I Love Pies]

You make me want to buy CIV 1 just to see that. Sounds too funny! :)

Civ 1 was a great game for its time. It did have a lot of annoying issues though... how many times have players seen a battleship being sunk by a lowly phalanx unit for example? :) And it was dangerous to stack your units as the best defender defends for the whole stack and if it loses, all of the units stacked in the same square vanished as well.

OH! and how about instant irrigation everywhere? No need for fresh water source! And lastly, my memories of creating legions of caravans at the end game where there was nothing else to build... :)

Some of my memory recollection:

Warrior: Attack 1, Defense 1, Move 1
Phalanx: Attack 1, Defense 2, Move 1
Legion: Attack 3, Defense 1, Move 1
Chariot: Attack 4, Defense 1, Move 1
Cavalry: Attack 2, Defense 1, Move 2
Knight: Attack 4, Defense 2, Move 2
Catapult: Attack 6, Defense 1, Move 1
Musketeer: Attack 1, Defense 3, Move 1
Rifleman: Attack 2, Defense 5, Move 1
Armor: Attack 10, Defense 5, Move 3
Mechanized Infantry: Attack 3?, Defense 6, Move 3

Oh, and something just hit me... Leonardo's Workshop in Civ 2... the most overpowered wonder of all....!! (Instant free upgrades for all your units!) I want that back! :)

[NitroPhantasm]

Oh, and something just hit me... Leonardo's Workshop in Civ 2... the most overpowered wonder of all....!! (Instant free upgrades for all your units!) I want that back!

That's as crazy as a Death Robot. I'd like that too.

[I Love Pies]

If I recall correctly, Leonardo's Workshop worked until it was obsolete. It wasn't just the one-time upgrade thing.. no... it kept on upgrading your units until it was obsolete by some technology. So a viable strategy was to postpone researching that tech until it was absolutely necessary or mandatory to research some other tech that required it as a prerequisite.

Back then, I think unit promotion was as simple as either being a regular unit or a veteran unit with a 50% bonus to attack and defense values. And that was relatively easy to achieve, as building a unit from a city with barracks automatically made them veterans. So it was possible just to research warrior code, build archers, and then end up having them all upgraded to veteran mechanized infantry at the end of the game.

Oh, and no need for "Blitz" promotion... as long as units had movement points left, they can attack as many times as they want to in a turn. Now that I think back on this, Civ games have really improved significantly.

[logiboy123]

I was trying to find a message I wrote about XCOM Enemy Unknown and came across this post I wrote quite some time ago. Having re-read it I thought I would add some comments;

About a year after giving up on Civ5 I thought I would watch some high level play throughs on YouTube. I watched maddjinn and bibor a lot and felt inspired to start trying emporer level plays. Eventually after finishing on that I moved on to Immortal level. Before the expansion pack came out I had clocked up about 600 hours of gameplay. I guess this game was awesome after all. Now that we have religions in the game it feels complete. Thank you to the Devs for an awesome game and I can quite happily say I was wrong.

[Artifex]

Cool.
That did not end how I expected. And a necro thread revival that made sense.

This is too much for me, I need to go lay down.

[slowtarget]

I was all ready to do something and then...

Er...

Nope. That's a totally valid necro, and it's nice to have the update. Not just because its positive, but because its valid and informative.

[headkase]

I'm the first reply in this thread. I was like "I wrote that?!", not because I disagree with what I wrote but just because I haven't even the slightest recollection of writing it.. ;)

[Swordfishtrombone]

I found that I'd posted in this thread too, and glad to find that I agree with myself. :p

I think the expansion did in fact do what I was hoping - make the game feel more complete. With G&K it feels like a worthy successor to Civ4. Though there still are things I'm missing - like the map editor that you could access from within a game. And I'd like to see some effort put into making team games, teaming up with the AI, work just a little better. At the moment any teams you assign just don't work together at all - one denounces a leader the other is friends with, and declares war with someone the other one's just made a research agreement with. A team member isn't willing to trade, much less give a resource to an ally, and you can receive negative influences that make no sense on an ally.

Civ4 wasn't perfect in this, but still did it much better.

[FutureGlory]

Now if you want to complain about something complain about the bugs, the horrible state of multiplayer, the balance issues, or the fact that our DLC and mods aren't allowed in multiplayer. Someone will mod CiV into BtS given time, since it is such a loved entry into the series. Right now though, I want 2K and Firaxis to work on fixing CiV as they intended it to be played.

I am glad there is not religion or anything else to confuse me with. I started with Civ 1 and tossed it do to how slow it was, to bad too because I believed it was a good game. To add more stuff to the game is going to slow the game down sooner or later and that sucks. Lastly did you not see the expansion, Gods & Kings? Yes there are somethings wrong with the game, just like FNV. (Just check the FNV form to see.)

[Olek]

Disregard this.