"I've got a bad feeling about this"

[goodgimp]

Anyone else have some trepidation about the launch of G&K? I find myself kind of cringing at the thought of what other booby traps Firaxis has set for MP. I had high hopes for Civ 5 since Civ 4 was one of my favorite games, so I was completely caught off guard by the half-finished MP functionality that has languished for nearly two years (unstable, no mods, no animations, no AI diplomacy).

So here I am, reading about the G&K expansion and I see they threaded out animations/network from the main thread, so now we have working animations and hopefully a more stable MP environment. That's good news, but now I'm just kind of anxiously expecting the other shoe to drop (I've already heard the Intrigue was disabled even more AI civs in MP... I think that's what really set off the alarm bells).

Anyone else feel that way, or are you all pretty optimistic about what the expansion will bring?

EDIT: Just want to get this in before the usual "Why would you want AI in MP" brigade - I respect that you play Civ5 competitively. I play a lot of games competitively, but not TBS as I don't enjoy how the format plays out. For Civ5, I like stacking obscene amounts of AI against a good friend or two and have a nice game continuing over a couple weeks. So that's why I care, although I realize YMMV.

[Gomer_Pyle]

I am just like you. I want a mixed MP game with my friend vs AI. (Yes my only friend that play CiV) And against an actual AI that is there. There are a few people out here that actually like playing coop vs the AI. A sad fact is that most of the people I know who knows what CiV is hate the game and won't spend another $ on civ franchise. I find that very sad!

But like you say some bells are ringing, atleast for me. I am gonna wait and see what we get before I buy atleast. They wont get my money if they don't fix that diplomacy "missing in action" in MP. What is worse is that the representatives for the game on here does not answer any questions regarding MP. So it is clear to me that they don't intend to deliver.

[Securion]

I completely agree. I mostly play this game together with my wife over LAN, and its a real game breaker that the AI cant interact with you.

[Decker]

Totally agree with you here. I loved to play Civ 3 and 4 as a coop game with my friend, in Civ 5 it is impossible. I don't understand why Firaxis didn't fix the MP AI problems since release. All my hopes lie in G&K, but I have a distinct feeling, that they don't giva a damn about coop players. I mean, it took them forever to fix competitive mp close to somewhat you may call "playable".

I don't believe they're working on coop mp anymore, maybe because they think it's unimportant. But I know lots of people who loved cooperative Civ games, unfortunately they aren't forums-people. They play in silence and don't rant over forums like most of competitive players if something doesnt work they way they want. But believe me Firaxis, there are lots of coop gamers out there and they demand support for their beloved game series!!!

[porky]

Nope, not at all! While this game so far might not have met anyone's standards for what they have come to expect from a Civilization franchise game my friend and I have probably played 500-750 hours of multiplayer so far and enjoyed most of them! While the game play hasn't been refined to quite what it was in Civ IV Beyond the Sword I realize that BTS was the second or third Expansion for Civ IV?? Considering every patch the developers have put out for Civ V has taken this game one step closer to a Great Civilization game I can't wait to see how much better it will be with the upcoming expansion!

Sure, there might be stuff they still need to work on after this but they are changing at least a couple HUGE parts to the combat side of things, 100 HPs per unit instead of 10 and Naval Melee Units, (and that doesn't even count adding in the religions and espionage) so future balancing being needed should probably just be expected.

Considering animations were just added into multiplayer, I can't think of anything that has been screamed about more on these boards since the games release, I think it is quite obvious the developer's definitely do understand the importance of making the multiplayer community happy. Now if they could just tweak the AI some and get it to contact humans in multi I think Civ V would very well be on it's way to being the best Civilization game ever!

I'm guessing adding the multiplayer animations in was their "big" update to multiplayer this time. Because of that I don't really expect many tweaks to the AI at this point. But if the AI wasn't touched this time then I would also expect that to specifically be addressed in one of the next couple patches.

[Lotharr51]

Wow, that's one bizarre way to see it, but I guess to each their own.....

[pontrjagin]

I'm not buying G&K until I see some positive evidence that playing MP has been made enjoyable (which is why I came to the forums tonight).