What happend with "Not dumbing down the game"?

[Mrluga]

I've been reading through the massive Manual (Not even all the way through, going through units now)

And i'm seeing, there is no more bronze to worry about, or elephants you need to make units with elephants.

Apparently from the tech tree as well ,it's pretty easy to get things right away, you dont need to research anything other then sailing(The same you get to do fishing) to get whales, dont even have a transport unit now, units just magically create a boat.

How is this not dumbing it down? :-/
My issue here is more about them saying that, just saying that they are more "Hidden", but.. That's not the case, it's removed.

I'm not too happy with this. I dont mind things being made to look more streamlined and smooth/easy to understand, but when you remove things it's.. Kind of irking me.

Hopefully something is going to be done with this?

[Turukano]

So you havent played the game yet? Thanks for your uninformed opinion.

[Arrowhead2010]

It's not dumbed down, it's streamlined!

[Targon]

I agree with you across the board, Mrluga. From the tech tree being toned down to "console game" levels, to resources meaning so little(Resources are EVERYWHERE, so there is no reason to go to war over resources), and the number of military units feeling like it is down to 25 percent of the number we had in Civ 4(a drop of 75 percent), I feel like I want Civ 4 with the Civ 5 rendering engine(graphics). Civ 5 needs more depth!

[zellfaze]

Some things were removed yes, and in some ways the game was "dumbed down," but at the same time many of the changes add a lot to the game.

For example, embarking. No longer having to create transport really changes the strategy of the entire game. It also makes naval combat much more prevalent.

I do agree that the tech tree could be a bit expanded though.

[Targon]

It's not dumbed down, it's streamlined!

It is very much dumbed down. There is no real decision making that needs to be done for the tech tree, and diplomacy just leaves me feeling like there is no point.

[zellfaze]

I also agree with the diplomacy being dumbed down.

That particular aspect really irks me actually... :/

[Targon]

Oh, if you don't understand the difference between streamlined and "dumbed down", here is the difference....


Streamlined implies that there are some rough edges that need to be smoothed out. So if you go from one tech to another to another with no branching, you could merge some of the techs. Biology and Medicine for example could be merged if you look at the Civ 4 tech tree. Merging the two together wouldn't change anything in the rest of the tree, so that would streamline it.


But, Civ 5 did more than this. It killed the variety of different paths you could take, giving what, 4 choices at each stage? At any time in Civ 4, you had the sea faring techs, religion, science, and military paths, and while there was a bit of a tie-in between these, you had to choose with each new technology, which way do you want to go. In Civ 5, we have a lot of things just mashed together, with no logic behind why pottery should lead to sailing.

For technology, Civ 4 made sense with two approaches:

1) Technologies that lead to new technologies. So you need fishing to get to sailing, and you need sailing to go on to deep sea units(with optics to lose sight of the shore).

2) Technologies that require other technologies but are not a direct result of the previous technology. You might need metal casting to make some things, but by itself does not hint at that technology.


Civ 5 does not use method 1 at all, and just makes the progression simple in practice, and lacking in any sense. I would rather see sailing require pottery than see pottery LEADING to sailing for example.

[FoxURA]

One thing that doesn't make sense to me is that Animal Husbandry comes before Trapping, which is essentially hunting.

Why on earth would people need to learn how to raise animals before they can make traps or go out and hunt them for food? Wouldn't raising animals come after learning how to hunt and trap them so that animals could be domesticated?

As to the last post... How is getting the progression of techs backwards a symptom of playing the game on a lower difficulty level? None of the things that have been mentioned are dependent on the difficulty level of the game. I'm a Civ veteran and have been playing the game for years. I love playing obscenely long marathon games on noble and I still say the game is horribly dumbed down.

[Mrluga]

I'm glad im not the only one then, im still planning on getting it, with hope more depth will be added with patch/expansions.

Though honestly im kind of starting to more looking forward with downloading civ4 with all expansion instead for the same price later on when I grow bored of the rather lackluster offering of Civ 5

It's kind of sad it's become that Playing civ 5 first, since it offers less, then swap to Civ4 to get more advanced. Kind of backwards isnt it? <.<

[Prexxus]

I've been reading through the massive Manual (Not even all the way through, going through units now)

And i'm seeing, there is no more bronze to worry about, or elephants you need to make units with elephants.

Apparently from the tech tree as well ,it's pretty easy to get things right away, you dont need to research anything other then sailing(The same you get to do fishing) to get whales, dont even have a transport unit now, units just magically create a boat.

How is this not dumbing it down? :-/
My issue here is more about them saying that, just saying that they are more "Hidden", but.. That's not the case, it's removed.

I'm not too happy with this. I dont mind things being made to look more streamlined and smooth/easy to understand, but when you remove things it's.. Kind of irking me.

Hopefully something is going to be done with this?

The game is not dumbed down, thanks for making another useless post on these forums though!

[Saczva]

I'm glad im not the only one then, im still planning on getting it, with hope more depth will be added with patch/expansions.

Though honestly im kind of starting to more looking forward with downloading civ4 with all expansion instead for the same price later on when I grow bored of the rather lackluster offering of Civ 5

It's kind of sad it's become that Playing civ 5 first, since it offers less, then swap to Civ4 to get more advanced. Kind of backwards isnt it? <.<

enjoy stack warfare and unstrategic resources

[Anthribar]

I don’t think the game has really been dumbed down. If anything its actually quit complex and there is in fact quit a lot of stuff going on all the time. The problem is that the user is not privied to 90% of it. Most of what is actually going on in the game is a mystery.

[Mrluga]

Removal of resources that adds more depth and a tech tree that is so slim it might as well be in a single line isnt dumbed down? :-/

It seems fun enough to play (Why else would I buy it? :P ) It just seems like it will get older faster, then Civ 4 did. I hope the devs will add on expansions/patches faster with civ 5 is all.

I just like.. ALot, in civ games, that's why I love civ games. Seeing the game being slimmed down kind of breaks my heart

[Saczva]

Removal of resources that adds more depth and a tech tree that is so slim it might as well be in a single line isnt dumbed down? :-/

It seems fun enough to play (Why else would I buy it? :P ) It just seems like it will get older faster, then Civ 4 did. I hope the devs will add on expansions/patches faster with civ 5 is all.

I just like.. ALot, in civ games, that's why I love civ games. Seeing the game being slimmed down kind of breaks my heart

resource depth... in CIV4... *Removed by Precarious*

[johnjacob]

Civ 5 does not use method 1 at all, and just makes the progression simple in practice, and lacking in any sense. I would rather see sailing require pottery than see pottery LEADING to sailing for example.

Really? You think the leap from 'making ☺☺☺☺ that holds stuff (pottery)' to 'making ☺☺☺☺ that holds ☺☺☺☺ and floats on water' was a HUGE leap that required some other knowledge?

Seems pretty congruent to me.

[LionelRichie]

to resources meaning so little(Resources are EVERYWHERE, so there is no reason to go to war over resources), and the number of military units feeling like it is down to 25 percent of the number we had in Civ 4(a drop of 75 percent)

Two things:

Resources aren't EVERYWHERE. I've had games where I've been at a severe disadvantage in the iron department. I'm at war with Hiawatha who has access to two different iron deposits that have 3-5 iron each. My one iron deposit has TWO. I am able to field less advanced units than he is. Resources became even MORE important in this game. In Civ4 I just needed ONE thing of iron and boom...millions of swordsmen.

And less units? So? it doesn't take depth away. In fact, in a one-unit-per-tile system, having civ4 numbers in units would make the game unplayable. Why quote Civ4's combat as a good, depth thing? Stacks o' Dooms crashing together? That was depth? This has planning and flanking and importance placed on positioning (civ4's position strat was: defend a hill with a river next to it. That was the MOST complex it got).

Meh. Stop this "ye olden days were so much fairer than the newwww" nonsense. It's clouding your judgment.

[Mrluga]

resource depth... in CIV4... *Removed by Pre

Wow why such hostility man= :-/ We're just talking here. Try to take some deep breaths

[Davetopia]

I agree with you across the board, Mrluga. From the tech tree being toned down to "console game" levels, to resources meaning so little(Resources are EVERYWHERE, so there is no reason to go to war over resources), and the number of military units feeling like it is down to 25 percent of the number we had in Civ 4(a drop of 75 percent), I feel like I want Civ 4 with the Civ 5 rendering engine(graphics). Civ 5 needs more depth!

Wow, try going past default difficulty... Both games I had to literally 'struggle' to get iron by fighting military city states. If your not playing on prince+, then your on easy mode.

[Anthribar]

If your not playing on prince+, then your on easy mode.

Oh really? Try winning a cultural victory by 2050 on chieftan and let me know how it plays out.

[johnjacob]

Oh really? Try winning a cultural victory by 2050 on chieftan and let me know how it plays out.

Hopefully you're not suggesting that chieftan is difficult for you.

The rules change so much from difficulty to difficulty, if you want to 'learn' the game... start on Prince. Anything below that and you're just tricking yourself.

[Anthribar]

Hopefully you're not suggesting that chieftan is difficult for you.

The rules change so much from difficulty to difficulty, if you want to 'learn' the game... start on Prince. Anything below that and you're just tricking yourself.

Soooo, you were actually able to win a cultural victory on chieftan by 2050?

[Draco]

resource depth... in CIV4... man you're an idiot.

You can disagree with someone with out personally attacking them.

The game is dumb down. There is very little strategy in it. Even on prince, king, and empeor levels just cheat. Create units for the civs and randomly add items to cities.

Was killing off the last of the English. Last stop was a city built about 5 turns ago complete act of desperation. When I took it, it had a harbor, granary, library, and other stuff.

How did it get all that stuff in 5 turns? The game cheated. Cheating does not make the game better, it just means it cheated.

The AI is really stupid. If you flank the AI, they will not fall back, they will just stand there as you route them on the left/right flank, that was on king mode.

So far, my favorite, if you kick the AI of a piece of land, and have them go onto the sea. They will not protect the embarked units. Had a half dozen subs just destroying them. Their response was priceless. Oh look he is attacking my shipping lanes, what will I do? Oh i know I will send him more embarked units.

By all means, if you can get them into a naval war.

[Saczva]

You can disagree with someone with out personally attacking them.

The game is dumb down. There is very little strategy in it. Even on prince, king, and empeor levels just cheat. Create units for the civs and randomly add items to cities.

Was killing off the last of the English. Last stop was a city built about 5 turns ago complete act of desperation. When I took it, it had a harbor, granary, library, and other stuff.

How did it get all that stuff in 5 turns? The game cheated. Cheating does not make the game better, it just means it cheated.

The AI is really stupid. If you flank the AI, they will not fall back, they will just stand there as you route them on the left/right flank, that was on king mode.

So far, my favorite, if you kick the AI of a piece of land, and have them go onto the sea. They will not protect the embarked units. Had a half dozen subs just destroying them. Their response was priceless. Oh look he is attacking my shipping lanes, what will I do? Oh i know I will send him more embarked units.

By all means, if you can get them into a naval war.

thats how the AI has been in harder modes in every civ game

it even tells you they get bonuses and advantages over you... didn't you read?

[Saczva]

Oh really? Try winning a cultural victory by 2050 on chieftan and let me know how it plays out.

no way man im too scared to move off of settler, chieftan is like uber leet pro territory man you must p0wn at civ right?

[Suliz]

Soooo, you were actually able to win a cultural victory on chieftan by 2050?

Actually, I did. After a quick game on settler difficulty (duel sized map), I tried a tiny (4 player, 8 city-state game) on chieftan. I planned to go for cultural victory from the beginning, didn't have any real challenge there. 392 turns it took me.

Essential strategy -
1. Only had 3 cities, plus a couple of puppets for the entire game. (4 is probably ok, but after that diminishing returns apply)
2. Went tradition, piety, patronage, liberty and commerce.
3. Befriended Cultured city-states as much as possible (tried to keep them all as allies)

Suliz

PS Moved on to Warlord difficultly, small map, aiming for science this time. From there to Prince next!

[Anthribar]

Actually, I did. After a quick game on settler difficulty (duel sized map), I tried a tiny (4 player, 8 city-state game) on chieftan. I planned to go for cultural victory from the beginning, didn't have any real challenge there. 392 turns it took me.

Essential strategy -
1. Only had 3 cities, plus a couple of puppets for the entire game. (4 is probably ok, but after that diminishing returns apply)
2. Went tradition, piety, patronage, liberty and commerce.
3. Befriended Cultured city-states as much as possible (tried to keep them all as allies)

Suliz

PS Moved on to Warlord difficultly, small map, aiming for science this time. From there to Prince next!

Number of cities seems to be a real issue - too many seems to hurt (it actually warns of this somewhere to!). First game I had 8 and lost, second game I had 6 and won.

Used Piety, Tradition, Commerce, Order, and Autocracy. Set for chieftan, 8 civs, no city states on standard map with cold climate.

Its harder without city states to give culture boosts. Also, more civs means less wonders to go around.

[MoistPancake]

Play the game for more that and hour and you'll realize most of the Civ IV mechanics are still in Civ V


I actually made a list of the things in Civ IV vs Civ V and the lists were pretty damn close.

[MoistPancake]

Number of cities seems to be a real issue - too many seems to hurt (it actually warns of this somewhere to!). First game I had 8 and lost, second game I had 6 and won.

Used Piety, Tradition, Commerce, Order, and Autocracy. Set for chieftan, 8 civs, no city states on standard map with cold climate.

Its harder without city states to give culture boosts. Also, more civs means less wonders to go around.

That's what really makes this game fun. In Civ IV, in most cases, the more cities you have the better. I think it's much more fun to tweak social policies to affect how you play and the size of your civ.


In one game I had 15 cities and, with a good combo of SP's, I won pretty well.

The benefits of a huge civ is you can monopolize resources but the downers are the managment, gold, and happiness.


Civ V is a lot more varied and complex when it comes to civ size.

[Mythdracon]

Frankly, though limited strategic resources are cool (i.e. patches of 2 horses v patches of 4 horses) the other resources aren't as valuable or useful. A common problem people have pointed out before is that resources like wheat and cattle don't get cumulative bonuses with improvements on top of them. A farm with wheat is the same as a wheat patch within cultural border--+1 food. Sad. Bananas and ivory in Civ IV at least had great value and were rewarding to develop. It felt *rewarding* to get up to +5 food from them with improvements.

[MoistPancake]

Frankly, though limited strategic resources are cool (i.e. patches of 2 horses v patches of 4 horses) the other resources aren't as valuable or useful. A common problem people have pointed out before is that resources like wheat and cattle don't get cumulative bonuses with improvements on top of them. A farm with wheat is the same as a wheat patch within cultural border--+1 food. Sad. Bananas and ivory in Civ IV at least had great value and were rewarding to develop. It felt *rewarding* to get up to +5 food from them with improvements.

This was my really only complaint about the game. (And the AI) I really hope they address this.

But ya know, if enough people don't like it, I think they'll do something about it. (hopfully)

[Tempus]

Agree with the above poster - things are actually more complex in many cases, despite all the ranting and raving. Do a proper count and analysis with quantitative data, and not just your feelings, and you will see the shortcomings are not in the game mechanics, but in the UI and AI. And the really buggy crashes all the time.


I have played three full games. (and a few part games with < 25 turns just to test things)


The first was on chieftan, standard map size, 4 computers. I won easily with a cultural victory just in the modern era with France. I did not have a chance to use much military, since I expanded so fast and there was too much space, so the game was peaceful.


The second was a 2v2 game in multiplayer, with me and a friend against 2 AIs on King. We won handily by military victory, in the modern era.


The latest was a 2v3 game as above, but the 3 comps were as immortals, and with raging barbarians, and the game speed was quick. We caught up by the industrial age, and surpassed them by the modern age, using a combination of approaches. We continued military wise since there was no room for any more peaceable expansion by this time, and were well on our way to a military victory, until we noticed the year was 2025, I converted six of my cities to production cities, and all the rest of mine and his to research, and with the help of a fortuitously saved great person golden age we achieved a space victory in a mere 13 turns, escaping to space over the dead backs of our starving citizens. All techs building SS modules but one were researched in that time, luckily the Apollo project had already been built a few turns earlier.


Neither of us our experts, and though the game was challenging, we intend to try 2v3 deity next, or perhaps 1v1v1v1. Anything with more than 6 players seems too long for multiplayer for us. We need something we can beat in 24 hours. The game certainly is not lacking in complexity, but the AI could definitely use some improvement.



Pro tip: Assemble troops, line up on border, attack without warning, crush one city completely, sue for peace (for money, if you can, but never give anything), then build up and repeat. Do it sparingly, fighting on as few fronts as possible, and using city-state alliances to your advantage as both shields and distractions. Following the above strategy, anyone can see how simply beaten the AI is militarily.


Is the game dumbed-down or less complex? No.
Is the AI still in it’s infancy? Yes.
Is the UI lacking in certain aspects? Yes.

[MoistPancake]

Agree with the above poster - things are actually more complex in many cases, despite all the ranting and raving. Do a proper count and analysis with quantitative data, and not just your feelings, and you will see the shortcomings are not in the game mechanics, but in the UI and AI. And the really buggy crashes all the time.


I have played three full games. (and a few part games with < 25 turns just to test things)


The first was on chieftan, standard map size, 4 computers. I won easily with a cultural victory just in the modern era with France. I did not have a chance to use much military, since I expanded so fast and there was too much space, so the game was peaceful.


The second was a 2v2 game in multiplayer, with me and a friend against 2 AIs on King. We won handily by military victory, in the modern era.


The latest was a 2v3 game as above, but the 3 comps were as immortals, and with raging barbarians, and the game speed was quick. We caught up by the industrial age, and surpassed them by the modern age, using a combination of approaches. We continued military wise since there was no room for any more peaceable expansion by this time, and were well on our way to a military victory, until we noticed the year was 2025, I converted six of my cities to production cities, and all the rest of mine and his to research, and with the help of a fortuitously saved great person golden age we achieved a space victory in a mere 13 turns, escaping to space over the dead backs of our starving citizens. All techs building SS modules but one were researched in that time, luckily the Apollo project had already been built a few turns earlier.


Neither of us our experts, and though the game was challenging, we intend to try 2v3 deity next, or perhaps 1v1v1v1. Anything with more than 6 players seems too long for multiplayer for us. We need something we can beat in 24 hours. The game certainly is not lacking in complexity, but the AI could definitely use some improvement.



Pro tip: Assemble troops, line up on border, attack without warning, crush one city completely, sue for peace (for money, if you can, but never give anything), then build up and repeat. Do it sparingly, fighting on as few fronts as possible, and using city-state alliances to your advantage as both shields and distractions. Following the above strategy, anyone can see how simply beaten the AI is militarily.


Is the game dumbed-down or less complex? No.
Is the AI still in it’s infancy? Yes.
Is the UI lacking in certain aspects? Yes.

The AI really needs work, with agression and workers.

You don't know how many times workers would abandon my cities to work tiles near cities that are about to be razed ON AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONTINENT.


I'm pretty sure they'll patch this issues. These are just post-release jitters.

[Bonitasniper]

Could we all just wait for the next few updates? Its not like they cant update.

[Mrluga]

Well that's kind of what im hoping on. That the company will be active with patching and creating expansions for the game to add more to it

[Mionface]

People will whine about anything.

Some things have been removed, some things have been added. Deal with it.

Combat requires a lot more brain power now, you can't just stack a variety of strong units and be prepared for any situation with a single tile army. I was impressed when I realised that elevation played a factor in archery range calculation, for example.

Religions are gone but the Policy system makes up for it. It's like Civics were in Civ 4, but more complicated and costly. Much harder to exploit and game, moving back and forth between one policy and another like a yo-yo.

City states, puppet cities, the new method of cultural borders, ALL OF THAT is more complicated than in civ 4. Hell, you even need ALL technologies leading into a new one in order to research it now, like in civ 2.

You'd have to be a serious moron to think "they dumbed down the game" because some previous features are absent. It's Civilization 5, not Civilization 4 v2.

Myself, I'll be playing both Civ 4 and Civ 5, just like I still play 2 and 3.

Edit: I'm not saying there aren't bad game design decisions or issues. Things like the lack of a disposition indicator for AI civs, or the STUPID new method of Open Borders and its ridiculous exploit - leave a unit in a country and even after the treaty expires you'll be able to move your whole army through it freely. All I'm saying is that you don't get to do the trendy thing of crying "oooh it's gone all casual" like people so often do these days when the game clearly hasn't gone in that direction.

[p34nk]

People will whine about anything.

Some things have been removed, some things have been added. Deal with it.

Combat requires a lot more brain power now, you can't just stack a variety of strong units and be prepared for any situation with a single tile army. I was impressed when I realised that elevation played a factor in archery range calculation, for example.

Religions are gone but the Policy system makes up for it. It's like Civics were in Civ 4, but more complicated and costly. Much harder to exploit and game, moving back and forth between one policy and another like a yo-yo.

City states, puppet cities, the new method of cultural borders, ALL OF THAT is more complicated than in civ 4. Hell, you even need ALL technologies leading into a new one in order to research it now, like in civ 2.

You'd have to be a serious moron to think "they dumbed down the game" because some previous features are absent. It's Civilization 5, not Civilization 4 v2.

Myself, I'll be playing both Civ 4 and Civ 5, just like I still play 2 and 3.

Edit: I'm not saying there aren't bad game design decisions or issues. Things like the lack of a disposition indicator for AI civs, or the STUPID new method of Open Borders and its ridiculous exploit - leave a unit in a country and even after the treaty expires you'll be able to move your whole army through it freely. All I'm saying is that you don't get to do the trendy thing of crying "oooh it's gone all casual" like people so often do these days when the game clearly hasn't gone in that direction.

People will COMPLAIN if there are something that does not work right. You want to call it whine? Fine. Just deal with it.

Combat require more brain power? Yeah right. Won my first game yesterday on Prince via Domination. Let me tell you what is going on, and no, I'm not a Civ expert by any means:
- Put one Chu-Ko-Nu on a hill (or forest), with a general and that unit will wipe everything that comes close. Why, you ask? That unit shoots twice, and the "smarter" AI always put the archer first before the warrior. I just put two cheap scouts in the other hexes and I got 2 flanking bonuses, general bonus, terrain bonus, and any other level up bonus that I got. The scout also levels up if they finish off the archer/warrior, and they got medic so even if my Chu-Ko-Nu got injured, they got healed. If you think this is a good strategy, I wiped three civs doing the same exact thing to their cities.
- Late game I attacked with destroyer and a mobile unit. After easily overkilling everyone with my mobile unit (including bombing a city), apparently Alexander has a battleship as well, coming up right next to my battleship. You know what the 'smart' AI does? He kept bombing the city even though he has no land unit so MY BATTLESHIP SUNK HIS BATTLESHIP!
Besides that, do you know what its doing? Sending a work boat from his capital city to work on a tile that is no longer his because its part of the city states that I just liberated. Yep, the work boat sunk in 3 turns getting bombed by the city states that went to war with him.

One word: Yayness for combat 'upgrade' and 'requires more brain power'

Policy system complicated? It is a dialog window where you see exactly what you want and just 'fire and forget'. You get the benefit permanently and your civ basically cannot adapt to what the other civ is doing. But then again, the AI is so wonderful, so why bother, right? Culture points to unlock this? Might work with social policy, but combining social policy with goverment policy? Yah, not so cool...

City states is an addition. How is it complex? They are basically like vassal state, which, of course no longer in the game. It adds to the game, yes I agree, and it has basic diplomacy system implemented, but thats about it. Throw them enough money and you'll become good friends. Do 'missions' to keep them happy, or not. Money. Describe to me how that is SOO COMPLEX. Puppet cities is the same. Only difference is you dont manage them. They got annoying because they keep producing workers and some other stupid buildings, at least for me.

So, you dont need to attack someone personally in order to get your points, which is a bit weird considering you said you are a civ fan. Dont know, maybe I'm just wrong. To me, this game does feel dumbed down. Well, streamlined, maybe, but for a bad reason.

I'm sure it can be addressed. Via $10 DLC that will probably add removed contents. You'll see. I will be pleasantly surprised if they fix the game for free now.

And dont get me started on bugs that are very very gamebreaking in this game, let alone performance issues.

[mattlach]

Hmm.

For me, the jury is still out on this one.

I Since downloading the game, I have only gotten about halfway through my first normal speed, normal sized, warlord difficulty game (pesky work and honey-do list...) so I plan on reserving my judgement until I pplay through a epic game on a large map under noble difficulty.

That being said, here is what I have noted to date:

First the positive:

1.) Love the new graphics. Huge improvement over Civ IV

2.) AI seems much improved. Makes much smarter moves in Civ 5. This is a welcome change, as not being a kid anymore, I rarely if ever have the opportunity to dedicate enough time to playing a multiplayer game.

3.) Ranged attacks, hex squares and one unit per square, as well as fewer units per game have greatly benefitted the strategic elements of the game.

4.) The inclusion of City states is pretty cool, but I think they do need to be balanced a bit better. Early in the game they are too expensive to keep as an ally, and late in the game it seems easier to just Annex them.

5.) The new Barbarian camps are a cool addition to the game. They seem a little bit too easy to take out though, and provide a little too small of a reward.

Then the stuff I don't like as much:

1.) There are more than a few UI bugs. Hopefully these will be solved soon enough. Steam certainly helps the developer push out updates, so this - with a little luck - will be solved sooner rather than later.

2.)The game does seem over-simplified compared to Civ IV. One of the things I really loved about Civ IV was the complexity. now with fewer resources to worry about, a simplified technology tree and no health / pollution to worry about much of the wonderful complexity of Civ IV (in my humble opinion the best of the series thus far) is gone. In a way Civ V comes across as being partially designed for consoles. It's almost like a graphically gussied up mix between Civ Revolution and Civ IV (and I HATED Civ Rev.) Hopefully over time we'll see Warlords / BTS style updates that add more of this complexity back in. If it comes back in future expansion packs, Civ V could very well overtake Civ IV on my best of the series list.

3.) I'm really not a fan of the embark/disembark of units without dedicated transports. This completely changes many things in a negative way.

4.) While I love the rendered graphics, the UI look and feel (menus, boxes, etc.) is a little bit awkward. Buttons are too big (even at 1920x1200) and menus take up too much of the screen. It feels a bit console-ish. When I am running the game at high resolution, I want it to feel like high resolution.

Anyway, so there are ups and downs with this game. I'll try to let it grow on me and see how I feel in a few months.

[Mrluga]

The more I play the game now the more.. Irked, I get with the new "smooth" tech tree. I kind of feel like I keep doing the same over and over with it.

Does anyone that has played expansion to Civ4 know if they like, updated tech trees with them?

Becouse im kind of hoping they'll do that with Civ5. And more leaders.. And civs.

And less bugs and glitches, and AI issues.

[Mort_Q]

3.) I'm really not a fan of the embark/disembark of units without dedicated transports. This completely changes many things in a negative way.

How so? I've found it quite liberating. What am I missing?