Civilization 5 Announced

[regoarrarr]

Another thing I can't figure out is how to tell if someone is mad at me or what I can do about it. I get on the Diplomacy overview where sometimes it tells me someone is "Hostile" or when they make snide remarks when I talk with them, but I miss the ol plus and minus from Civ 4

[Adlain]

i can see a Bug like mod tuning up soon to address that (we could always nag ol Ruff Hi)

[pindicator]

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.

Yeah, I'm hoping the Aztec culture scales with the power of the unit killed... maybe POWER / 2 -- but i've killed barbarian corsairs & archers as well. Even in that case, the culture doesn't go towards a city expansion like it does for France; it just goes into your social policy pool.

[haphazard1]

Have not been able to play yet (computer issues), but I am not liking a lot of what I am hearing.

I had worried that city states would be "magic fountains" producing far more benefit than a human player could get from the same land/city directly -- this appears confirmed, and in fact worse than I thought.

AI is stupid...not unexpected, despite all the hype about the multi-level organization of the new AI, etc. But still disappointing, especially that the AI is having so much trouble with one of the most hyped aspects of the new game: 1UPT. One might think this is a sign that Civ V is focused on multi-player, but that is most definitely not the case from what the MP folks are reporting.

Documentation is not good -- the manual was riddled with errors and bad info, so we were told to wait for the Civilopedia. Now we hear the Civilopedia is seriously lacking. In-game info is also hard to access or not present in some areas.

Difficulty levels...related to the AI problems, but may also be a balance issue. Reports that a given level of difficulty seems to be easier than the same difficulty in Civ IV -- despite no experience at all with Civ V compared to years of strategy development and experience with Civ IV...this is just not good. Yes, we are talking about players who are already good at Civ games and 4X games in general. But it sounds like decently strong players are going to be stomping Deity as soon as a couple weeks of play has worked out the new game mechanics. Unless the top levels give the AI truly ridiculous bonus boosts...which has obvious problems of its own.

On the positive side of the ledger, most reports have indicated people are having fun. This is very good news. But I am quite concerned that once the "new wears off" that Civ V will not hold people's interest like Civ IV did. A lot of discussion is already happening about fixes and mods, but the base game has to be good enough to start with for the mod possibilities to really make a difference.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

"No easy way to see how much of a luxury resource you have without opening diplo talks."

I am glad it wasn't just me who was crazy frustrated by this. I always found the Civ IV resource screen to be cluttered and confusing, but at least it was there. I wasted so much time clicking on each leader to see what trading possibilities existed.

As for those who weren't running enough gold surplus to rush buy, outside of GAs, I never did either. But I did make a fortune selling off excess luxury resources. Japan was always willing to pay me 300 straight up for 30 turns of luxury use (definitely do this before declaring war, since it doesn't have to be a per/turn trade) and China was always willing to pay 270 gold. Between the AI, I was probably getting a 1000+ gold every 30 turns, which works out to 30-40 gold/turn. I used that to fund allied status with maritime city-states. I also went allied with a military city-state when my happiness got low just for the gifted whale resource.

One thing that is totally broken: if the AI has only one version of a luxury resource, they won't trade it for 2 or even 3 of your excess luxury resources, even if they don't have them. They value their own resource so highly that they are willing to pass up the extra 10 happiness you could provide to hold onto it. This is just dumb and makes the "We Love the King Day" more frustrating to obtain than it should be. I would gladly trade any of my resources away for 2-3 I don't have, but the AI will never offer that either.

I still couldn't believe how gamey the Diplo victory mechanics seem to be. I never once thought about winning that way, built the UN on a whim, and cash rushed myself to victory one turn before the vote. Broken! I could easily see someone burning through the Patronage policies, saving up 6000 or so gold, and just buying an unbeatable ally status with 6-8 city-states.

[Krill]

This was 100% my impression too, Serdoa. I did have fun experiencing the demo of Civ5. But I also felt that the fun was more from the newness of the experience than from the inherent value of Civ5 itself.

Kinda think this is my opinion as well, after considering the game today.

I'd also toy with the idea of starting up a new game balance mod after the next patch gets released, kind of along the same lines as the Apolyton University mod, increasing strategic choices and improving AI gameplay.

[T-hawk]

But still disappointing, especially that the AI is having so much trouble with one of the most hyped aspects of the new game: 1UPT. One might think this is a sign that Civ V is focused on multi-player

If Civ 5 isn't focused on either SP or MP, where is it? I think the casual and dilettante gamer. You know, the type that plays about three games, losing interest in the third, then shelves it as done with and goes on to their next preorder from Gamestop. 1UPT is the one new mechanic they'll notice, just enough to draw them in as different from Civ 4. For these players, it doesn't really matter what kind of balance or challenge or long-term depth is present. They've bought the game and that's all Firaxis needs to know.

I've seen a few reviews on non-gamer sites that like it a lot. Dumbing down the city screen is a positive. Fewer units and cities is a positive. Shiny graphics is a big positive. Challengeless AI is a positive, nobody wants to lose. Goody-spewing city-states is a positive. Orienting the economy around money (like almost every other strategy game) is a positive, instead of the nonintuitive tradeoff between tech and cash.

Civ 5 seems to have hit its market very well. Many of these elements hit mainstream game reviewers squarely too. Most of them simply want to finish each game as quickly as possible, in order to be first out with the review and move on to another game. Make that easy and quick for them, as Civ 5 has done, and they will speak well.

One thing that is totally broken: if the AI has only one version of a luxury resource, they won't trade it for 2 or even 3 of your excess luxury resources, even if they don't have them.

That was always true in Civ 3 and 4 as well. The AI never thought deeply enough to make that trade; they always kept their last instance of any resource.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

See, I understood in Civ IV, because most of the resources had a secondary effect to them that made them useful beyond just mechanically having a different name. Most luxury resources in Civ V are completely interchangeable.

Also, in Civ IV, the resources you only had one of were almost always grayed out. You couldn't trade them. But in this game, you can trade something you only have one of. So it is far more glaring.

[Ruff_Hi]

i can see a Bug like mod tuning up soon to address that (we could always nag ol Ruff Hi)

The BUG team asked for a pre-release version so that a Civ V version of BUG would be [strike]ready[/strike] started but we never got one. Also, it won't be me working on it - I'm not getting Civ V ... I lost so much of my life to Civ IV that I cannot afford to repeat it with Civ V.

[Txurce]

If Civ 5 isn't focused on either SP or MP, where is it? I think the casual and dilettante gamer. You know, the type that plays about three games, losing interest in the third, then shelves it as done with and goes on to their next preorder from Gamestop.

By your logic, the game will open big, lose the dilettantes quickly, and then crash with bad word of mouth from the long-time fans. That seems like a foolish tack for an established strategy game to consciously take - although they wouldn't be the first company to make a foolish move. My own sense is that it's focused on SP, trying to make entry simpler for newcomers while maintaining a similar (but different) level of depth. They probably figured that MP fans are much fewer in number, and serious enough to mod around issues.

I've seen a few reviews on non-gamer sites that like it a lot. Dumbing down the city screen is a positive. Fewer units and cities is a positive. Shiny graphics is a big positive. Challengeless AI is a positive, nobody wants to lose. Goody-spewing city-states is a positive. Orienting the economy around money (like almost every other strategy game) is a positive, instead of the nonintuitive tradeoff between tech and cash.

I didn't differentiate between gamer and non-gamer sites, because pretty much every review I've read has been positive. (Check Metacritic.) I would interpret such multi-cultural near-unanimity less cynically than you. I'll be crious if you feel quite so negatively about city-states and gold after you play the game.

Focusing only on SP, I am mostly on the same page as Yazilliclick. I particularly like:

• 1upt/increased movement: this is a radical improvement in strategy and complexity – how often does that happen?

• no tech trading: I always found this “gamey” and a joint AI/human exploit – a bad trifecta.

• happiness caps: I’m glad to have the ICS rut broken. It also makes competing for city-state favors a key option.

Those four changes make Civ V a different game. I much prefer it in principle – maybe because I’ve played the old strategies for so long - but will see whether it stands the test of time.

On a much-discussed point, I’m happy the old diplo screen is gone, because I found the numerical ratings “gamey.” I believe that the new system is readable, given that the AI is now playing against you like a human (as opposed to city-states). But I can see how others view it as impenetrable and therefore random.

With the giant proviso that reproducible exploits will be patched – easy diplo victories, apparently - my main dislike the difficulty in manually working the city screen. So far I’m fine choosing between food an production, etc. – but if I choose to go manual, it should have been simpler. Like the exploits, I assume the Civilopedia will be improved – but there is no good excuse for not having it in better shape.

I have a different interpretation than some regarding:

The combat AI: while I expect it to have a harder time given 1upt, the designers explained that it makes less sub-optimal moves at higher difficulties. At higher levels I think it will hold its own against average players. Good tacticians will kick butt until some mods arrive, but that seems par for the course to me. The AI sucked, period, in all earlier versions.

City-states: diplomacy here is no more simple than in the past, but much more rational. Positive gestures are rewarded, negligence and negative gestures punished. It’s what we wanted in earlier versions. That there are three different types, and if the AI actively competes for their favors, all sounds good to me.

On a side note, city-states give more than a single city would because… they’re not cities! They are minor powers, if you will – sovereign states not interested in building empires.

Intuitively, I don’t think a player should be able to direct culture growth. If you want a particular tile, buying it is usually easy enough, so it’s not a tragedy even if you disagree.