4581

Spain might have had a weak military and were feeling a little cowed by your awesomeness. Who knows? Maybe it was just them being stupid.

From what I can tell, it was to both encourage more aggressive growth by the AI and also to reduce the number of city states that would occasionally pop up as settlers because they didn’t have space to situate themselves on some maps.

4582

Beat the New World scenario as Monty this morning on Prince (what can I say, I wanted an easy game for my first shot at the scenario). It’s a neat setup – I dig the tech restrictions and the short (100 turn) timeframe – with one huge flaw.

You win by hitting 1,000 points. The primary vector for accumulating points is by returning treasures to your capital – each one is worth 50 (and 100 gold, which ain’t nothing). You get these two ways: sailing to China in a caravel (basically the western edge of the map) or razing cities.

Thing is, razing cities generates one treasure every turn that a city is on fire.

Yeah, I took three enemy cities from the invading Europeans and handily won the game with 20-some turns to spare.

I am more convinced than ever that the Aztec UA is terrible. On the other hand, the UB is incredible while the UU is pretty meh. Not my favorite civ, but I didn’t hate my time on top of the temple.

4583

So, I think I’m in this situation where Prince is too easy and King is too hard. I’m more of a builder type, but it seems like you can’t sit back and build for very long at King difficulty because the AI will out tech/build you every time. Any advice besides being militaristic?

4584

Try the following:

  1. Scout–>Worker --> Library

  2. Get the National College up, with Tradition or Liberty. National College capitals give you vast amounts of science.

  3. Finish the College, send out settlers to settle good resources, and do whatever it is you want to do. Save up some gold for rush-buying.

  4. For more help (if you can handle the whining), visit the CivFanatics forum.

4585

Thanks Ryusei. Maybe my problem is research since I tend to emphasize economy over it most of the time.

4586

I won a three-city King game with a diplo-victory using basically Ryusei’s strategy (which I’d seen on Civfanatics), I never built more than a handful of military units, and I never got into any wars. So yeah, the National College -> peaceful development path is very feasible.

4587

Also you should get as many Research Agreements going as you can. If you’re falling behind in tech, everytime you get enough cash for a Research Agreement, check around and see if you can get one of the AI players to agree to a Research Agreement.

4588

OK, how are you guys thrashing the AI on emperor (post-patch)? I just tried out emperor as Elizabeth on a continents map, Renaissance start. Went for the national college first, then three cities (including my capital). Held off the first enemy invasion… only to be steamrolled by waves upon waves of artillery, screened by infantry. Would going for Castle -> Military Base have helped much?

4589

Sulla wrote up an excellent article on what went wrong with Civ V and I agree with nearly all his points. Other beta testers are also starting to voice their opinions and though clamped by the NDA it’s easy to tell they were very frustrated with many design elements and were helpless to get much changed. Probably because they were brought in way too late in the development process or just flat-out ignored.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/whatwentwrong.html

Dale (prolific modder and beta tester) also says:

I think you would be VERY surprised just how many Frankenstein testers either:
a) dropped out
b) don’t play (given up)
c) hate on Civ 5
d) play, but highly frustrated

I’ve also seen more quotes from Solver - one of the brightest minds in Civ, being exceptionally frustrated with Civ V and people at Firaxis or Take2.

Tough betas can be norm for many games, but I don’t think this level of dissatisfaction was around during Civ IV. For myself, until they increase the immersion factor by adding graphs or end-game replays I won’t be purchasing any additional content. I hope Firaxis understands the need to add back some basic Civ game elements that added cohesion to the game. Otherwise it’s not worth the time when a win feels so meaningless and other games (and other time sinks) are calling. To that end Children of the Nile EE & Tropico 3 are much more rewarding games to play with better immersion and greater feeling of accomplishment than Civ V. It is weird to say that about one of my fav series of all-time.

4590

NPD states that Civ 5 did 350,000 at US retail in its launch month:

Obviously worldwide sales + digital sales would easily double, if not triple that, in the launch month alone. The game is probably at 1-2 million easily by now.

If you look at concurrent Steam player numbers now and especially at the time of release, those were on par with Valve’s games and even surpassing them most of the time - it’s the #3 game right now. That means that it’s competitive in concurrent numbers with games that we know sold millions of copies. (Civ 5 is Steamworks which means every online player is counted on Steam stats)

4591

Ok that qualifies as the most depressing thing I’ve read all year. I still like the game and have fun playing it, but I have to admit every time I try and argue the game has ‘potential’, I am believing myself less and less.

The worse thing is one of my best friend who has been stuck in rut playing Everquest forever 7 or 8 or years, got Civ V for Xmas. He is enjoying it, and it is literally the first serious game he has played in years and we were both excited about playing it MP. However after reading Sulla’s description along with the howls of other MP players I realize this won’t really happen.

I have always deeply skeptically of the global happiness as good mechanism for limiting city sprawl. However, I disagree with Sulla about building maintenance. I think done right you could really encourage players to have specialized cities; science, military, culture, wonders etc. which I think would make the game more interesting. I also disagree with him about Diplomacy. It seems me in reality there are tons of things that nation do that piss off other nations, and very few things, provide aid/gifts, or defend them from nasty neighbors that make them happy. Anyway, I view Civ V diplomacy as step forward from Civ IV. Countries do crazy things in real just like Civ V

That said, Sulla’s thoughtful analysis of 1UPT is really depressing I really really wanted it to work. However even if they could get the AI to play well, he has convinced me that it just is a very bad concept to introduce into a builder game like Civ So many of the problems with Civ V, like the absurdly slow build rate for army units are direct result of the 1UPT which in turn is due to the need to keep unit densities down.

Give credit to Jon for taking a lots of risk and for Firaxis for supporting a young designer. The UI for the game really is terrific (and it makes playing other strategy games really painful). However, I think Firaxis should start working on Alpha Centuri or another 4x, because I don’t think Civ V will ever be a Civ that will stand the test of time.

4592

Sulla makes a few good points, and for all I know multiplayer may still be broken, but that article is hardly the definitive judgment on Civ5.

To begin with, many of his complaints are related to silly exploits used to win at high difficulty levels, and that’s not so much a serious problem with the game as the common “doctor, it hurts when I hit myself with a hammer” syndrome that obsessively competitive gamers seem to suffer from. Yes, the rules have peculiar loopholes that let you ruin your own fun if you use them. Solution? Don’t use them. Such complaints are really only relevant for multiplayer games between very competitive opponents, and Civ5 was never intended to replace Starcraft 2 in that role.

Then there are the contradictions. First he complains that there are no downsides to building lots of cities, then he complains that building lots of cities gives you fewer policies and golden ages! Gee, I’d think that counts as a downside. He whines that he can’t build roads everywhere (a weird complaint in itself!) because they cost money, and that this makes moving units to their intended positions more difficult. Has it not occurred to him that the game doesn’t want you to build roads everywhere precisely because moving units into position over difficult terrain is part of the challenge in the new combat system, as in any wargame?

He is also oddly willing to forgive the fact, which he admits himself, that AI leaders in Civ4 were easily “gamed” in diplomacy – but also completely psychotic if you treated them in a more realistic fashion. In my experience, if you simply pick the apparently sensible options in diplomacy, AI leaders in Civ5 are at least as reasonable and cooperative (or not) as in Civ4. Even the “don’t settle near us” complaint that he brings up repeatedly was present in Civ4 – the AI always tried to sneak its cities close to or even past your borders, and then used its own settlement policy as a casus belli.

Some criticisms are justified; I do think that city states should be fleshed out more, and that bonus hexes don’t give enough of a bonus. Overall, though, the real issues (again, aside from multiplayer) are dwarfed by complaints about Civ5 simply being different from Civ4.

4593

Er, maybe you should just have fun playing game then, instead of trying to argue about its potential? :)

That said, Sulla’s thoughtful analysis of 1UPT is really depressing I really really wanted it to work. However even if they could get the AI to play well, he has convinced me that it just is a very bad concept to introduce into a builder game like Civ So many of the problems with Civ V, like the absurdly slow build rate for army units are direct result of the 1UPT which in turn is due to the need to keep unit densities down.

Not really. All that’s needed to keep unit densities down is to impose a fairly hard cap on total unit count, relative to number of cities. The upkeep mechanism already does that in the late game, and there’s this whole mysterious supply system that is apparently unused but if ever made to work should serve the same purpose.

I’m not really seeing any other downsides to the new unit system at all… well, except that the AI isn’t very good at using it.

4594

Going to a bigger map might be a way to solve a lot of problems. As I recall, you could get some pretty big traffic jams in Panzer General too, especially at the start of each battle.

EDIT: that is to say, redesigning the entire game to use a larger base scale, not simply playing Civ 5 on a huge map.

4595

I also feel that the majority of criticisms seem unfounded and based mostly on rose coloured Civ 4 opinions.
Sure, there are still some important issues that are frustrating and not fun. But most points people make in those long rants seem random and contradictory to me.

4596

Personally, I’ve come to accept that Civ V isn’t the game for me at the moment. I’ll rejudge if another expansion comes along, but to be honest, Civ IV still has me spoilt for choice. My own epithany with Civ V was in my last game where I was bored playing it. No challenge, nothing to propel me into the world stage, and no reason to do so. I’m as much at fault as the game of course. After all, I have some control over how it pans out, and if I went to war, or aggresively expanded, it might have been fun. Sulla probably has to recognise that himself, and go back to Civ IV rather than waste time writing about how easy it is to exploit Civ V, what he wants in a Civ game.

The steam stats pretty well say that there is a target audience which this iteration of steam has clearly opened up to, or at least appeals to - peaking at 32,000 players is pretty damn good, and nearly 18,000 current players when I just checked, beating TF2 and L4D2.

4597

It is fun in figure out the puzzle sort of way like tower defense, but not in challenging way. Namely that I fear the AI will kick my butt if I don’t keep an decent size army in place, like I had in Civ IV. Moving up to immortal doesn’t seem to add that much, although I have not tried post patch.

But as many others pointed out the boredom tedium factor seems to come quicker in Civ V than Civ IV, cause there just isn’t a lot to do. It is also my complaint about Victoria II.

Not really. All that’s needed to keep unit densities down is to impose a fairly hard cap on total unit count, relative to number of cities. The upkeep mechanism already does that in the late game, and there’s this whole mysterious supply system that is apparently unused but if ever made to work should serve the same purpose.

I’m not really seeing any other downsides to the new unit system at all… well, except that the AI isn’t very good at using it.
Well the bad AI in using 1UPT is certainly a severe problem. Truth be told a better AI probably would mitigate many but no means all of the complaints.

Civ V already has very effective means keeping unit densities down. They make everything ridiculously long to build even any cities with decent production (e.g. factories+railroads.) I basically never build units, I just buy them with gold. It is a pretty absurd design that you start building a rifleman and you can almost always complete researching infantry by the time the first rifleman finishes, or infantry to mech in my last game.

I do actually build buildings with hammers, although there are those that just advocate putting up tradeposts and farms everywhere. However, it is foolish to build units so you end up buying them. In my case virtually my whole army is bought in the one city that has barrack, armory, military college. This makes a whole class of buildings, forge, stable, arsenal useless because of the inefficiency of producing units.

After the patch it is no longer easy to take over the world with 4 horseman and general. Still I haven’t found it really ever necessary to have more than a dozen or so military units to defend or attack the AI. Fundamentally the game just doesn’t feel epic in nature when you’ve got more pieces on chess board than in your whole army.

I don’t actually agree with several of Sulla points either. For instance roads, the defense already has huge advantage making free road everywhere would just increase the advantage. So actually I find myself considering should I build a road to increase my military capabilities in a border cities or save money. It is a modestly interesting trade off but hardly strategic in nature.

As I’ve said before on it is own Civ V is good game, it just isn’t superior to Civ IV. The game industry hasn’t reached that stage that movie industry has where you are pleasantly surprised with sequel/remake is better than the original.

In the game industry, the new game is suppose to be superior to the old. I look at Fallout series and I have zero desire to go back and play the old ones in the series. I might as well uninstall FO3, cause New Vegas is better game. You don’t hear a lot (any?) of people saying they like Starcraft 1 better than 2.

Civ V for me is 5 steps forward, and 4 steps back on someday’s and the opposite on others. I think even the games biggest fans 't find a number of things they like better in Civ IV.

I think Sulla contribution to the Civ V debate is making a pretty compelling case that several of Civ V key design decisions, 1UPT, global happiness, and ineffective means of prevent ICS, are going to keep the game from every being clearly superior than Civ IV.

4598

My main complaints with Civ5 remain the same after the latest patch - the AI cannot properly play the game and ICS still trumps everything, regardless of their changes to attempt to counter-balance this.

About 1UPT, I think hong made the most important point there.
A proper game with 1UPT needs varied movement ratios, from unit to unit, from terrain type to terrain type etc.
There were “traffic jams” in PG, but they usually only occured in scenarios where you had a lot of units and started on very limited staging areas.
In Civ5, you have a lot of units which can move 2 tiles, and that’s it.

The freeware PG remake, PG Forever, comes with a WW1 scenario.
In this scenario, cavalry is basically the only remotely maneuverable unit, and you have tons of slow moving foot-infantry, horse pulled artillery - even the tanks are slow. And - oh wonder - scenarios have a lot of problems with traffic jams, and slowly crawling troops towards their objectives is very annoying at times.

I reinstalled and played around a bit with Civ4 over the holidays, and I have to say while Civ5 tried to addressed a few issues that remain with Civ4 even after patches and expansions, it has largely failed to meet this objective and Civ4 is the superior game by far.
In Civ5, ICS still trumps everything, cities fall relatively too easily without stacks of defenders in them, and many of the efforts to address Civ4 weaknesses suck fun out of the base game - such as making build-times so ridiculously long. And as I wrote above, it doesn’t help that the AI cannot play the game properly.

I also have to add that it sucks how little support for the modding community Firaxis is offering. The modding tools are partly weaksauce and partly not working, the scripting is too limited and partly broken, yet they even patched out important parts because they figured no one was using them. Yeah, I know they hotpatched them back in, but still.

rezaf

4599

Some criticisms are justified; I do think that city states should be fleshed out more, and that bonus hexes don’t give enough of a bonus. Overall, though, the real issues (again, aside from multiplayer) are dwarfed by complaints about Civ5 simply being different from Civ4.

Hit the nail on the head. A lot of people can’t except change after how “perfect” Civ4 was. Civ5 attempted to give the series another breath of fresh air and I think it was successful in doing that. Personally, I’m still having a blast with it and is easily my game of 2010.

4600

Most of the complaints directed towards Civ5 are about a useless AI that seems unable to handle the game rules. I suppose you could call that a breath of fresh air if you want, but don’t expect very many to agree with you.