Civilization 5 Announced

[luddite]

Sales numbers define whether or not the game is a commercial success. Whether or not it's a critical success is something else entirely.

sort of, but not entirely. In the long run, the only way for a series to keep selling well is to make quality games. Crappy games with glitzy advertising will do fine in the short term, but people will eventually catch on.

[v8mark]

Sales numbers define whether or not the game is a commercial success. Whether or not it's a critical success is something else entirely.

The problem with a game like Civ is that even a critical success has little bearing on whether it's actually a good game or not.

A reviewer picking the game up, thinking "ooh, this looks shiny", flailing around for four hours when they don't typically play strategy games, then putting it down thinking "OMG, I conquered the world, this game's fun, I'll give it 9/10", doesn't always give the most accurate overall impression to people who consider themselves strategy gamers and will want to spend hundreds of hours playing. During the time they review the game, an IGN (or wherever) reviewer is unlikely to have little appreciation for the overall game, other than at its most superficial level (where Civ5 excels).

[Krill]

Any one here every heard of the Apolyton University mod? I'd be interested in helping out with design of a mod along those lines, but I don't know how to code so am otherwise useless...

[Jowy]

Sales numbers define whether or not the game is a commercial success. Whether or not it's a critical success is something else entirely.

Here I was thinking this was a thread for general Civilization 5 discussion Your post makes it sound like I claimed the sales numbers define the game's critical success, even though I wrote nothing like that!

[SleepingMoogle]

The problem with a game like Civ is that even a critical success has little bearing on whether it's actually a good game or not.

A reviewer picking the game up, thinking "ooh, this looks shiny", flailing around for four hours when they don't typically play strategy games, then putting it down thinking "OMG, I conquered the world, this game's fun, I'll give it 9/10", doesn't always give the most accurate overall impression to people who consider themselves strategy gamers and will want to spend hundreds of hours playing. During the time they review the game, an IGN (or wherever) reviewer is unlikely to have little appreciation for the overall game, other than at its most superficial level (where Civ5 excels).

Maybe I'm too cynical these days, but unless it's obvious the reviewer is at least somewhat familiar with the game, his opinion has little value for me. Same with the opinions of fans and detractors. This thread has been the best review of Civ 5 by far.

Here I was thinking this was a thread for general Civilization 5 discussion Your post makes it sound like I claimed the sales numbers define the game's critical success, even though I wrote nothing like that!

My bad, apologies.

[ForeverAugust]

Actually by idiots I was thinking of fanboys saying that they can't understand why people think C5 is bad...

I was hoping that was the case. My apologies

[Txurce]

With regard to resources, over two games I've found some in short supply. In fact my only game was turned around when a CS sent me iron - there was none anywhere near me, otherwise. I don't think the maps are "balanced" in terms of resources... but purposely so. I recall reading that the designer wanted more wars over resources.

[Krill]

One thing that is really annoying, and I have already said this before the game even got released, is that when the AI decides to cram a city down, CxxC style next to mine that has already been settled for a quite a while, I have absolutely no control over the tiles it grabs in the inner ring, or buys. The only option is to kill the city, or to use an insanely weak Great Artist to grab 2 or 3 tiles...there is no other defense against it short of hte military option, which really spoils the diplomacy.

Plus not being able to direct tiles means yet another reason to have to buy tiles.

Oh goody...

[Txurce]

One thing that is really annoying, and I have already said this before the game even got released, is that when the AI decides to cram a city down, CxxC style next to mine that has already been settled for a quite a while, I have absolutely no control over the tiles it grabs in the inner ring, or buys. The only option is to kill the city, or to use an insanely weak Great Artist to grab 2 or 3 tiles...there is no other defense against it short of hte military option, which really spoils the diplomacy.

Plus not being able to direct tiles means yet another reason to have to buy tiles.

Oh goody...

Focusing on the AI build aspect of your post, isn't that clearly a lebensraum-style aggressive act that reasonably could only be dealt with by war (although culture could work)? In other words, there's nothing wrong with what the AI is doing, as a strategy. If you don't have the strength on paper to resist, it may even be a smart move.

What makes it all seem problematic, in my view, is that you can probably respond by razing the city, and win the subsequent war at least partly due to poor AI combat performance. But this very big problem doesn't make the initial city build flawed as well.

[Txurce]

One thing that is really annoying, and I have already said this before the game even got released, is that when the AI decides to cram a city down, CxxC style next to mine that has already been settled for a quite a while, I have absolutely no control over the tiles it grabs in the inner ring, or buys. The only option is to kill the city, or to use an insanely weak Great Artist to grab 2 or 3 tiles...there is no other defense against it short of hte military option, which really spoils the diplomacy.

Plus not being able to direct tiles means yet another reason to have to buy tiles.

Oh goody...

Speaking of buying tiles, have you noticed that after a while you can't buy them in a certain direction? It seems as if the game wants a more-or-less even circle around a city. I have tried to expand into an adjacent luxury tile from an already well-expanded city, and not been allowed to... but could have bought any number of sea tiles.