2701

Well okay so it’s regressed so much that instead of picking from a list of colorful icons you have to click again and scroll down a list (maybe). Ouch. And, BTW, if you click on the production/unit icon on the city banner, it brings you straight to the production display.

Of all the things to be complaining about… this might be #1,305.

— Alan

2702

I have played all the Civs but my interest dies out before all of the expansion packs so I missed most/all of those for Civ4. I think I bought one, never really fucked with it.

So. My last 4x game was probably Civ4. Then Elemental. Now Civ5. The UI is awesome from where I am standing.

Also all the complaints about the AI, man what games are you guys playing where the AI fucks you up without cheating? I just dont understand how this game could already be without challenge for 99% of the playerbase.

2703

I haven’t gotten to the Modern Age yet, but from what I’ve seen so far the overriding design concern with Civ 5 was cleaning up the endgame so that you aren’t micromanaging a million cities and units. Hence fewer cities, fewer structures worth building in a given city, fewer roads, less need for workers etc. etc.

And yes, micromanaging all that stuff in the endgame was tedious. But by putting the entire game on an austerity program I wonder whether they may have saved the endgame at the expense of some of the opulent abundance of previous Civs that made the opening game more fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Civ 5. I’m enjoying it. But it feels rather … dry. It’s like someone took away my doughnut and gave me a nice green salad instead. Yes, intellectually I understand that the green salad will be better for me over the long haul. But right now, dammit, I want my doughnut!

2704

Reldan, thanks for the tip, I’ll go assemble that pig right now.

And I’m not quite clear on which moment it took place in, but at some point my rail network on the other continent started allocating the 50% as well. I think once I had a harbor on both sides of the ocean instead of just the far side? I’m not sure.

Also, city states will ask you for a road when you’ve already built a railroad to them, then realize it a turn later and thank you for it. I wish the networking bonuses were more consistent, as I would like a more reliable way to work with city states than bribery. Patronage is fine but it’s a lot to ask.

Also, one thing I remember from Civ 2: being called a warmonger is on totally bullshit grounds. It’s like being addressed by North Korean propaganda, no matter who you are talking to. Guy whose city you just liberated, no more than a turn after you gave him back a city? WHAT YOU WANT, BLOODTHIRSTY MONSTER? Well, I guess I want to take the parking brake off my tank and conquer your lousy city again via rolling downhill, you ingrate.

2705

It’s still pretty fiddly, if that was their goal. Why isn’t queuing the default state for production selection? Why can’t I just buy without going into a separate dialog box? Why do I have no idea when I am hitting diminishing returns on decisions until turns later when my income suddenly rises astronomically or gets cut into a tenth of what it used to be? The endgame is even more full of mysteries than the first half.

2706

That’s what can save a lot of gold: Harbors function as both trade routes and railroad connections.

Cities connected by Harbors get both the 50% railroad production bonus, as well as the trade route gold bonus; there is never any need to lay any road or track at all for cities on the coast. The game really works hard at discouraging those road/railway lines. A tad ironic, given Firaxis’ other games…

The other oddity with the railroad production bonus is that your capital never gets it – it’s given to all your other connected cities, but never to the capital, best I can tell.

2707

I bumped up the difficulty level and tried playing a new game. After quickly expanding, I messed up my happiness and then Siam attacked me. It only took them a few turns to capture a couple of my cities, and the AI’s tactics seemed sound - grunts up front and archers behind. My spearmen were getting mauled (though the happiness penalty was a big part of that.). I certainly didn’t come away thinking the AI was clueless.

2708

Ok time for a partial reversal!

I’ve put about 20 hours in now, enjoying it more as I figured out what was getting in the way of the fun… and it really is the interface. There is important information needed that the game just won’t give you. This means you’re making decisions blindly and my irritation was thinking maybe Firaxis did this on purpose - to force a person to replay over and over, whereas the previous Civs we had all that information to make the game easier to understand. The same can be said for the “Talent Tree”… errr Social Policies. I made that conclusion because Firaxis went on and on about how “accessible” they want it to be. I can’t understand “accessible” when any newbie will lose and never find the information as to why.

The city screen. Iappreciate what they’re trying to do, force us to look at the city for the detail, but it is not fun or easy to work with. In previous civs you had a good idea of how each city was doing relative to the rest of your empire. Now we have bland numbers which remind me of a header in Excel. It doens’t convery the information in a meaninglful way to help you decide which city should be building what… or researching, or monetizing, etc. Those few bland numbers don’t give you any sense of scale either. Worse, when you’re choosing an item to construct the categories don’t line up. You have research on the far left (up top) then in the production window it’s in the middle. So your eyes are darting back and forth trying to make the analysis.

It also took me this long to see what they were trying to do with a lot of stuff including the graphics. I can totally appreciate an all encompassing art-style even if I don’t care for it (I’m not one for post-modern art-deco). In fact, while hunting for different bits of information I didn’t even realize the giant circular picture in the lower left was the unit you’ve selected! I thought it was a random artsy picture. It looks so disimilar I ignored it and it became “art”. Now that I see it it’s pretty neat.

Also, I have very shaky hands (adrenaline type breathing treatments), and trying to hover my mouse over the happiness icon is frustrating. Why can’t you click the icon and have a full-screen data sheet?

So Paulus - that’s what I’m talking about. I am enjoying the game a lot more for what it is. I appreciate what Jon Shafer’s design logic and a ton of it was spot-on.

2709

Civ IV. I lost 80% of my games on Normal (Prince difficulty). Civ V - I’ve won every game on Normal - easily.

However one thing I never thought of… is it possible the AI truly is good, and I just got a lot smarter in the last year?

2710

Loving my plays so far, but a couple cheap tactics need to be patched or ironed out. Things like oh I don’t know being able to choose Renaissance or Industrial age social policy before 1AD.

Early ships should not get the range +1 upgrade ever, if you can get 2 or 3 ships with this you can take every costal city with a single land unit.

A bunch of the unique advantages (UA) need to be ironed out. A few are worth way more than any other.

Some top ones:

Babylon (easiest to cheese into Renaissance super duper early)
Egypt (get marble its over) just wonder whore one city and buy everything else
France (cultural pimps)
Russia (industry pimps)

Overall I’m really enjoying the 1unit per tile change, makes unit choice and placement matter so much more. I like the idea of social policy trees but feel they are implemented poorly. Each step should not cost the same culture regardless of how powerful they are. I’m glad civics are gone - was way to easy to change from cultural researcher to warmonger in one turn.

A solution for social policies might be allowing you to “sell off” the adopted ones at half price to more quickly change to another.

2711

I can beat Civ IV on Prince, but Civ 5 is weirdly kicking my ass. Not sure what everyone else is doing, but sometimes I have this weird feeling like the AI is working for me and no one else.

I did just win on Warlord as the English. Napoleon had taken over most of my continent while I turtled up, but when all other opposition was wiped out he turned his huge army on me. I had technological superiority so it was a whole tone of French muskateers and cannons against a handful of English Infantry. It got dicey for a moment, but I got a great general and had him put his Citadel on a key strategic point, at which point I survived the war of attrition and wiped out most of his force. I took one of his cities and created a puppet, and Napoleon was willing to talk peace.

The peace lasted quite a while–long enough for me to recover and tech up again. Upgraded my army to Mech Infantry and Napoleon built up his army, but he didn’t tech up. So it was fun watching him try to assault my line of Mech Infantry, dug into hills behind a freaking river. I also had a ton of the social policies that gave me all sorts of homefield advantages. After I wiped out most of his units, I took four Mech Infantry divisions and just rolled up through his territory, taking a couple of cities and paving the way to Paris. Then Paris fell, Napoleon offered me just about everything he had to negotiate a peace, and, literally, the next turn I hit 2050 and suddenly I get the Time Victory screen.

Definitely a lot of fun, though the Victory Screens just come out of nowhere. It feels sort of like a Neal Stephenson novel. You’re rocking and rolling and having a great time, AND THEN IT SUDDENLY ENDS.

The pacing definitely takes a while getting used to, but I can’t help but feel the gold situation is messed up somehow. I think one of the problems is that Civ 5 suffers a bit from what Elemental did. The buildings essentially give you percentage bonuses, but if your base is just 1, it takes a shitload of structures and social policies for those bonuses to finally stack up and amount to something meaningful.

2712

Diplomacy needs a lot of work. It seems almost random now what happens. I had a few civs all declare on me at once which I had thought I was on friendly terms with. One even declared that had just suggested a research pact, another declared a turn or two after exchanging open borders and me giving them back a unit from the barbs. Makes no sense. The only thing I did was build cities somewhat near their borders but I don’t see why in the early game that would be a big trigger. One civ sent units at me in small groups and I defeated him easily but then put my army to work versus the other two civs at war with me. Eventually I was fighting just the strongest civ while the other two which I was ignoring more or less caved for peace after a while. They offered many cities + gold for peace despite me not conquering them. It does make sense for a civ to offer you a lot in a longer conflict you are clearly going to win but it needs to be smarter about it.

The only other thing which is annoying is Civ 5 seems to perform badly and not look much if any better than Civ 4 (playing DX9 version). It actually looks washed out to me where as Civ 4 is crisp graphics. With 8 civs turns take a long time despite many of the civs having fairly small low unit empires. Just seems like there is a lot less going on in Civ 5 but turns take a lot longer. I think with patches and/or expansions this could be one of the best Civs but as it is I’m not sure how long it’ll hold my attention.

I do quite enjoy the smaller unit count, one unit per hex, and tactical warfare aspect of the game a lot. Tech seems to play too big a role in war however, artillery is just invincible if no one else can match it or is even worse a tech generation behind. I also like a lot of the other small changes but then again path finding issues, performance, etc just make the game seem like it needs a lot of work still.

2713

Quoted for ultimate truth. I watched the intro, thinking I’d get a rocking outro per victory. First win was space - and nothing aside from a splash of text? Really? Where’s the mechanics madly running around making last-minute adjustments on my space ship? The control room with a tense atmosphere. The ship blasting off into space, leaving a war-ravaged continent behind, the boosters activating in space and nailing it for AC…

Nope. What a crushing disappointment.

2714

I didn’t know that.

What’s the trade route bonus? I thought it just connected the cities so they could trade. Is there another bonus?

2715

I’m starting to think Firaxis ran out of money making Civ V, or maybe a significant portion went to the intro movie at least. They did hint in one point with the Behind the Scenes DVD that they had some sort of idea, but the budget brought them back in line.

Also, I distinctly remember reading during development that the background for the Civ leaders would change. depending on what was going on. For instance, if a Civ took a city, then offered you a peace treaty, the backdrop would change to one of a city razed to the ground, or a battlefield scene, rather than say, the nice serene atmosphere that Harun al-Rashid greets me with each and everytime I see him, even if I just took his capital and burnt those precious gardens down.

2716

What’s the trade route bonus? I thought it just connected the cities so they could trade. Is there another bonus?

It’s a gold bonus – you can see it in the economy screen. Roads aren’t necessary for moving resources around, if that’s what you’re thinking. To hook up a resource, you just have to develop it with a Worker inside your territory.

I didn’t know that harbors functioned like railroads and road-trade-routes, though. That’s nice to hear. I imagine the railroad bonus doesn’t kick in until you research the railroad tech, though?

I’m having a blast with this game, even though I’ve yet to win, always playing on Prince. In my latest effort, I decided to try for a culture win with … Persia. OK, maybe not the best choice for a culture game, although Persia does get extra-long Golden Ages. In my defense, I started alone on an island, so I figured maybe I’d be left alone for a while. I was, but I am still too clueless to play a competent culture game.

I know that I have to keep my empire down to maybe 3 cities, plus a mass of city-state allies. But I wasn’t sure how soon to build city #2 or #3. (Each new city adds 30% or so to the cost of Social Policies, so you want a small empire as a culture civ.) I waited a long time to build #2, probably too long, as my economy wasn’t well-developed enough to fund both city-state alliances and production/military deterrence. Er, I skimped on military, relying instead on Defensive Pacts with everyone but Napoleon (the evil empire of this particular contest). Napoleon was deterred for a while, but eventually he went after me anyway. I had so many allies that his Declaration of War reminded me of a Paradox game like HOI3 or EU, lol. “Copenhagen declares war on France. Brussels declares war on France…etc.”

Anyway, this city-state thing is a whole new way to play a civ game. I like it. :)

2717

Both of these make sense. Firaxis mentioned it that the AI might try to lure you into a research agreement to waste 250 of your gold that you could otherwise spend on buying military or upgrading units. Open borders is even smarter as they can walk right up to your cities before attacking. Also, building near them is of course going to piss them off royally as you’ve now either taken a prime resource spot right next to them or your borders are going to hem them in depending on map type.

2718

I just had to drop in here and tell you all how addicting Civ V is. It is 2:15am as I type, I been playing this darn game all evening. It was so bad at one point I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I been up for 20hrs, worked all day and keep on playing the game. The “just one more turn” is really bad here, really bad. The game has a slower pace and so far better paced then any of the other civ games and I mean ANY of them. I been playing Civ series since the very first one so I am a veteran and I need sleep. Anyone who did not buy yet, just be warned, if you ok with losing sleep then go right ahead and get it. ;)

2719

The AI didn’t walk units up to my cities before declaring war (it mainly sent them in small groups to be slaughtered). If it wastes 250 gold of mine it must also waste the AI’s gold, right? I was a richer civ by far than the one who did this to me, I was pulling in around 50g-100g per turn at this time. My cities were quite a way away from theirs. The closest new cities I founded ones were within 3-5 hexes away and they had room to expand in other areas too. I think you are giving the AI far too much credit. If the AI doesn’t give you good relations for doing various “positive” things for them, especially things the AI players themselves want or the game suggests doing then what is the point of diplomacy?

2720

edit: Pulled out this post into a new thread.