Civilization 5 Announced

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Yikes! And so on. Would it be that tough to get someone who doesn't suck at the Civ series to write the review?!? I mean, it's not like these are obscure games or something. I would trust anyone on our forums to write something more interesting and insightful than that "95%" fluff piece that praises every single decision the developers made.

I don't want to hate on this game. But I do want to hear from someone who's not getting their salary paid by Take-Two's marketing department. Sadly, "professional" gaming reviews today cannot be trusted.

I actually hesitated to even post those reviews here for all the reasons you point out, but I figure more info is always better than less information.

I go back and forth on game reviews. A site like IGN really does do a pretty good job of giving me a base line for how good a game might be. If a game like Red Dead Redemption gets a 9.7, I pay attention, even if I had no prior interest in the game. And if a game cannot muster an 8.0 on there, it is rarely worth my money. So it helps as a guide for what to spend your money on.

Where those game reviews fail is when you aren't a casual player of a game, like I am with Fallout 3 or GTA IV, but someone who is really an expert on the type of game in question. Those in the community here really aren't looking at the same stuff that the general population cares about when they evaluate a Civilization game. Since I've put in 1000+ hours in COD multiplayer, the same works for me with COD games. World at War got great reviews, but the game was awful to anyone who took competitive online multiplayer seriously. Civilization reviews are almost certainly going to be of dubious value to those on this board.

But I will continue to post them anyway, for people who are excited and want any information available.

[Sullla]

I agree with your points there on devoted fanbase vs typical audience, although not the specific detail the IGN is any better than any other website. I've never trusted them ever since their infamous 9.2 score for Master of Orion 3. Yep, that's what they gave that piece of crap game, along with "Outstanding" rating and "Editor's Choice." Coincidentally, there were many ads for Moo3 prominently displayed on the IGN PC website when the review first was published. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Seriously, please do post information on Civ5. It's sure to be useful and helpful to many of us.

[Jowy]

The six player cap might be just for that particular build. I know one unlucky reviewer got to play a build that didn't have saving in multiplayer. A six player cap would royally suck though, it's exactly what I feared when I heard Civ5 was going to be a Steam game. When Call of Duty jumped the shark and went Steam on PC, the player cap was considerably lower than what people were used to playing in earlier versions. Instead of 50 person battles, you get like 18 max and that's only on one special playlist. Maybe Steam is the problem, or maybe developers just like to control the players and decide what's fun for them instead of letting them choose for themselves, but whatever it is the devs better stop doing that or PC gaming will die.

[Aretii]

Maybe Steam is the problem, or maybe developers just like to control the players and decide what's fun for them instead of letting them choose for themselves, but whatever it is the devs better stop doing that or PC gaming will die.

Since multiple other games manage to connect dozens of players simultaneously via Steam (off the top of my head, TF2 and CS:S), I doubt that Firaxis would be thereby constrained.

I vote for not getting fired up until launch comes and we can see for ourselves what features are included (or not). As has been pointed out in this thread, the reviewers are writing for a different audience than is represented here, and in some cases may not have the first clue what they're talking about.

Of course, if Tuesday rolls around and games are capped at six, some may feel it appropriate to break out the pitchforks and torches, and I would find it very hard to judge them for doing so.

[BCAgamer]

I'm hope a lot of people, myself included, give their own first impression reviews some Tuesday-Wednesday.

[Jowy]

Well, looks like they're showing some Xbox game instead of Civ5 in the Gamespot stream. It's e3 all again!
E: And they're speaking of midget ninjas riding unicorns.
E2: Civ5 is on now. Two guys are blocking the screen though.
E3: Same old shit, if you watched the Firaxis one then this might not be interesting for you.

[Krill]

Quote of the stream?

"You have an AI, helping you out make decisions" - Pete Murray.

To quote Cyneheard, "Shoot me now". The day I rely on an AI to give me strategy advice is the day I give up strategy gaming.

[SpazzMaticus]

Quote of the stream?

"You have an AI, helping you out make decisions" - Pete Murray.

To quote Cyneheard, "Shoot me now". The day I rely on an AI to give me strategy advice is the day I give up strategy gaming.

He did say it's mostly useful for newcomers.
Overall, not a very good nor informative show. It was more like a show off. I was hoping for something similar to that 2h gameplay demo by 2k greg

[Krill]

http://gameinformer.com/games/civilizati...piece.aspx

Civ V's genius lies in the way that Firaxis has aggressively chopped the number of decisions that a player has to make during the course of a game while taking away almost none of the meaningful ones. As a hardcore Civ player, I appreciate some of these ancillary aspects of the design, but the removal of all the fat is unquestionably Civ V's greatest accomplishment.

And the reporter is retarded.

[SevenSpirits]

Confirmation from a 2k rep that Civ V will have limited multiplayer support on release:

- Only supports simultaneous turns.
- No PBEM/hotseat/pitboss.
- Can't turn on combat animations.
- Can't manually save the game (but there are autosaves)


They already said earlier that they'd only support online/lan MP on release and would add support for other modes later, but this confirms they have actually put no effort whatsoever into it so far. They probably haven't even tested sequential turn MP. This means all sequential combat has been against AI, which makes it more likely there's abusable stuff. For example, someone has pointed out that naval combat might be somewhat silly as every unit moves multiple spaces and has a ranged (no return fire) attack, so that could favor the attacker too much. If the AI is bad at that aspect of play, the mechanic could be broken without their knowledge.

Btw, I'm really excited about the game regardless - I think the overall mechanics are very good though the details are unknowable - but it's looking a bit more like they won't have the details right on release. So for it to be a truly excellent game will probably take a couple patches and/or a mod.