Civilization 5 Announced

[Kylearan]

It's true that Firaxis itself didn't invest much in the AI for Civ 4 after the initial release, other than hiring Blake. However, why couldn't they take the same approach for Civ 5? Let the fans do the work - somebody will - and incorporate it into the inevitable expansion packs.

I think we (and Firaxis) have been exceptionally lucky to have someone like Blake in the community for Civ 4. AI coding is hard and very complex, a completely different thing than doing gameplay mods or graphic packs. I doubt you will find someone like Blake very often, who has a deep understanding of the game mechanics, who himself is a good player, and who has both the skills and the persistence to lead such an effort. I really hope this for Civ 5, but I have my doubts.

[Serdoa]

Ok, one other thing I noticed: It seems you do not get "teleported" away if you are within someones borders and declare war against him. Abusable for sure.

[Aretii]

Ok, one other thing I noticed: It seems you do not get "teleported" away if you are within someones borders and declare war against him. Abusable for sure.

I noticed this for city-states. I have not gone from Open Borders --> War with a civilization, but I would be very shocked if ROP rape were back in the game.

[Serdoa]

I rechecked in my game. I had agreed to open borders for 30 turns on turn 216 and on turn 238 (from where my save is) my troops are all around his cap and at war - I only got the message that the open borders deal was no longer valid. So I guess it is back.

[TheArchduke]

Actually I could not care less about slavery.

Am I seriously all alone liking some of the new mechanics?

I like the strategic choices it provides early on. Instead of: "Duh, slavery!"
Social Policies:
Tradition (Slow buildup/Wonders)
Liberty (Expansion)
Honor (Warfare)

Food ressources are a bonus but not a must for city placement.

Happiness as an expansion-restriction is actually a nice idea. And if you try to be small and efficient you get golden ages that way. That Culture is poured into Social Policies is imo a good change.

Now I am not sure why citystates get so much dislike, but I have yet to see them overpowered. I managed to get perhaps 3 allied CS but maritimes seem to appear non often enough so my growth is irrelevant.

I LOVE one unit per tyle. I like that cities can now defend themselves and be supported by a unit.

The AI is subpar, but CIV IV was that brillant?
The traits of the Civilizations are moronic.

Barbaric Corsairs? against +2 culture per city. Hello?

But all in all I like this game more the more I play it, sorry.

[Whosit]

Open survey question about "Pact of Secrecy" and "Pact of Cooperation"

Are these elements undocumented?
or unimplemented?
or unintended?

I had expected to find something more than text in the XML assets.

I was wondering about that myself (noticed the lack of documentation in the the Civilopedia). According to here: http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/19299...of-secrecy (Yes, very non-official thread), pact of Cooperation make the AI like you more, and Pacts of Secrecy makes the AI like the target less. And I guess breaking those agreements would have penalties of some sort.

Real interesting to continue reading everyone's opinions on the game. The Diplo abuse is something I realized early. I must be playing the game "wrong," though, since I rarely have a lot of excess gold. Of course, only have the demo, and I tend to buy all the tiles I want that the governor doesn't prioritize. But I found it hard to afford units often. Maybe I should be building more trappers?

[Yazilliclick]

Actually I could not care less about slavery.

Am I seriously all alone liking some of the new mechanics?

Definitely not the only one I like a lot of things with the new game though there are a lot of areas that need polishing and outright fixing. I think overall it's a good step forward. I think a lot of the 'complaints' come from it not being civ4 and/or people just not knowing how to play it that well yet. Typically takes months for people to learn the ins and outs of a game for some advanced play and strategy and typically people who like those advanced strategies moan at the start about how it's too simplistic compared to the game they've been playing for years. Starcraft2 is a good recent example of it.

Things I like atm:
- Single unit stacks. Makes for much more interesting battlefields. I think in multiplayer it will lead to some rather complex maneuvers
- Hex map, this was long overdue change
- The many uses for gold. Love the number of options it opens up and the decisions it forces.
- Seems that different aspects of play are more balanced than civ4 though may just be because I haven't played much and I'm sure there are tweaks that could be made. I mean that difference between laying down lot of cities vs a few and building them up, building infrastructure, workers, science vs food vs hammers vs gold etc... All doesn't seem quite as one sided.
- City states. I don't agree with the opinion that they're just another random goody hut since they are not a one off bonus for first to find them. I think they open up a lot more strategic options though perhaps their quests don't really fit for multiplayer. To me they seem more like another resource to fight over or try and deprive the other of.
- Graphics. Especially liking the strategic overview hex map dealio.


Things I don't like
- AI doesn't really know how to fight it seems. Something I was worried about as combat is a bit more advanced strategically now and it didn't do an amazing job before either. Admittedly I haven't been playing higher difficulties though so perhaps the cheating makes up for it. Probably not good practice for doing against a player.
- Interface design in areas is pretty horrible for presenting info. City screen doesn't bother me all that much but isn't great and is certainly clunky for assigning work tiles. Diplo overview screen seems pretty horrible.
- Missing documentation and inconsistent tooltips. Pact of Secrecy and cooperation being good examples of both these. If you go to diplo window yourself with somebody you don't have those for you can mouse over them for a description (though vague). When somebody puts them on the table for you you get no tooltip though. Plus things like that need to be a bit more clear as to what they are and the ramifications. People will figure it out eventually so there's no point to purposefully being vague.
- I'm getting some graphics glitches but may be simply due to my crappy laptop.
- No easy way to see how much of a luxury resource you have without opening diplo talks.
- Certain missing game options.
- Missing multiplayer options (PBEM, sequential turns etc...)


Things I'm on the fence about:
- Civ traits. The one you mention is a good example. By civ4 standards barbary corasairs is absolutely horrible. In civ5 I'm not 100% certain. I'm sure they have tweaking that needs doing but using this one as an example I've noticed that barbarians seem to be present much more in my games than in civ4 which means more opportunities to use this. Also gold is much much more useful and can actually be easily converted to culture. Besides that you could be getting free naval units as well. Can't forget that +2 culture in a city is a lot less than what it was in civ4 as well. I'm not saying they are necessarily equal but I don't think it's quite as obvious as it seems coming from civ4.
- Victory conditions. Haven't played enough to test whether any are much too easy or two hard compared to the others.
- Tech trading or lack thereof. Leaning towards not liking it as it's just blind chance to what you get and don't want to see multiplayer games decided like that. I do understand why they were experimenting with stuff like it though.
- Faster unit movements. At first glance I liked it but as the map gets more built it up it makes for a lot more thought to try and figure all that could occur and easy to be surprised or caught off guard.

[pindicator]

Played a bit with the aztecs last night. Jaguars feel like an underpowered UU, but that's nothing new They get +2 HP when they kill a unit, which I'm sure will help with warrior rushes.

The Unique Ability grants 3 culture whenever an enemy unit is killed. Yet I relapsed to my builder ways and didn't take advantage of this much, so I can't say just how great or under-inspiring that amount is. But next time I start a game with aztecs i will make a steady stream of jaguars and try to unlock along the honor tree.

I really like the UB - floating gardens. +15% food coupled with maritime city states has got me constantly pushing against the happy cap, and any lakes in a city with the UB become just as good as farmed riverside grassland after civil service -- all this in a building that is available after getting the Wheel tech.

I never seem to have enough gold to do any type of rush-buying, so I need to find ways to raise some funds. Will have to explore the diplomacy aspects more to see what can be done there.

All-in-all, i am having fun learning the new mechanics. Can't wait to get off work and play some more

[darrelljs]

Yeah, its going to be some time before we know if the choices Civ 5 asks of us are as compelling as the ones Civ 4 asks of us. Half the fun is figuring that out, and I'll certainly get my money's worth trying to do so. The only reason right now that I wouldn't immediately recommend the game, is that the AI is just so god awful .

Darrell

[TheArchduke]

On the civ traits. I remember them being exchanged once or twice on the CIV V site. What annoys me is that they really did not do any balancing at all with those in contrast to CIV IV. (Well Vanilla at least. Protective? Eck..)

They range from insanely good: America, Russia and Japan
To so-so: Germany (and only if you get lucky and then barb jump an opponent) and Rome
To terrible: Ottoman Empire as far as I see, have no tried them, but I see 1-2 Pirates at most till the Renaissance. Aztec Empire, yep the culture is neglible when compared to France.

What I also like right now is building 3 core cities with libraries to get the National Wonder and leave my outer ring as vassals as they do not count to the National Wonder requirement. Not a bad idea.