Civilization V

[LMN8R]

So can someone summarize for me in a non-hyperbolic way just what the fuck is the problem with this game?

I got it as a gift and haven’t had a chance to play it much yet, but it’ll be my first Civ game (gasp!). This has been one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen at unbridled fanboy nerd rage, or at least what it appears to be. Everywhere I go, whether it’s a direct Civ 5 thread, a thread talking about other people who talked about Civ 5, or an Elemental thread, or a Jon Shafer thread, and on and on, it seems like the same 10 people who can’t stop talking about how Jon Shafer totally destroyed the series in a horrible, irrevocable, inexcusable way.

I’ve read a ton about the game - it seems like while certain elements like religion were removed, it’s not that big a deal since religion was extremely superficial in Civ 4 anyway. Other systems have been removed or changed, but just streamlined a bit, not necessarily “dumbed down”. I’ve heard that the AI had severe problems on release, but it recently got a huge patch which drammatically improved it.

So what’s left wrong with the game that’s oh so terrible? Is it really just super high-level gameplay that 99% of people won’t care about? Or is it stuff that affects everyone?

[joefriendgood]

It’s not terrible. Especially if you have not experienced the wondermentedness of Civ IV Complete and the various free, lovely mods. Here’s what I would do, buy Civ IV complete for $6 to $10 dollars and play that and the mods (Fall From Heaven 2, Dune Wars, Planetfall; IN THAT ORDER… or not) for approximately 1.5 years. Then after the expansion packs, mods and AI have caught up to CIV IV levels add a garnish and enjoy CIV V and leave the forgotten, ugly debates on the Civfanatics forum.

[Gus_Smedstad1]

No, the patch really didn’t improve the AI. It still does pretty much the same dumb stuff tactically it did before. Mostly the patch made the game better for the AI by making it much harder to get a huge technical lead via science specialists and a gazillion Great Scientists.

It’s not a super-awful terrible game. I personally don’t like the global unhappiness rule, but it’s not the kind of disaster that Civ III’s runaway corruption was. The global unhappiness rule affects every player, not just the expert ones, but you’re not going to notice its problems if you’ve never played any other version of Civ. The longtime fans bitch about it because Civ IV’s solution to runaway territory expansion was much better than global unhappiness, but the net effect is still a game that’s better than I-III, so in the grand scheme of things that’s good.

There are other problems, like the diplomacy being essentially worthless, but that’s true of a lot of other games as well. Again, if you take Civ V in isolation, it’s a good game. It’s only “bad” because Civ IV did so many things better. Except combat, and that’s a significant step forward that for some reason many people choose to ignore.

[tomchick]

So can someone summarize for me in a non-hyperbolic way just what the fuck is the problem with this game?

Sure thing.

-Tom

[Equisilus]

Just play it and make up your own mind. You aren’t going to get anywhere listening to a bunch of Civ fans debate the pros and cons of the game again if you’ve already read a tonne about it.

[jpinard]

LMN8R - never played Civ? You’ll love it as long as you don’t play large/huge maps with lots of Civs/City-States from 4000 BC.

[Chris_Nahr]

I made another two small Civ5 mods which should be the last for the foreseeable future. One’s for wider city spacing, another for cheaper workers (70 to 30 hammers, same as work boats), and the last one for greater yields from resource tiles, especially bonus resources. These are more important now, and cities grow noticeably faster near them. (Also, wheat farms now provide an extra food bonus, which Firaxis apparently forgot to add to the default rules!)

[Dan_Theman]

FYI to those who were wondering -

A hotfix released yesterday to fix a lot of (undocumented) crash problems. From all reports, you’ll need to start a new game for the changes to take hold - that old saved game that kept crashing on turn xyz won’t be fixed.

[Chris_Nahr]

Patch Notes thread was updated with all recent patches, including yesterday’s hotfix. Here’s what it (hot)fixed:

Update 1.0.1.167 (20 January 2011)

[CRASHES]

• Dead interceptor crash fix (occurred frequently in late-game, usually on the AI turn)
• Movement limit crash fix (occurred when any high-movement unit, a gunship in this case, made use of the railroad bonus and moved beyond the engine visualization limits)
• Crash fix for diplo AI. When the player witnesses an AI leader buy a minor ally, and aggressively purchased them back, the game would eventually crash when the AI leader would correctly try to complain to you about it.
• The following crashes were all discovered via the Steam Crash Reporting system that Civilization V utilizes:
• Crash - pCitizens->GetCityPlotFromIndex(iPlotLoop); is returning NULL in the CvPlayer::DoRevolt loop.
• Crash - Occasionally strange values are sent to the movement cursor code. Wrap and clamp the values before they get to the pathfinder.
• Crash - Fix to divide by zero crash with AI buying plots.
• Crash - In RouteValid, the CvTacticalAnalysisMap cell thinks a plot is claimed, but the plot itself has no owner.
• Crash - Era out of bounds during a reload.
• Crash - During a resync, a crash happens when GameplayUnitCreated calls CvPlot::GetActiveFogOfWarMode apparently because the game’s ActiveTeam is NO_TEAM (-1).

[GAMEPLAY]

• Fix to Golden Age length (for Reformation policy with both the Persian trait and Chichen Itza)
• Corrected duration of golden ages generated from Taj Mahal and when a Persian player has Chichen Itza (Before the multiple 50% additions were “compounded” rather than added together into a 100% bonus.)

[UI]

• Fix to blank science victory details screen

[Octonoo]

My Steam updated with the new hotfix and I started a new game with the Americans.

Crashed to desktop on turn 2.

Restarted and crashed again on turn 2.

Restarted and picked the Chinese and no problems after an hour of play and save.

Started a new game with the Americans and crashed at turn 2.

Restarted and loaded my Chinese game and things seem fine.

I actually never had a single CTD prior to this hotfix and only one lockup in the Mod Library Menu when the game first came out.

Strange…

[Dan_Theman]

Yep - my son was playing with mods and CTD a couple of times on the new hotfix. I had him start a vanilla game (to his chagrin) and it seems to be working okay thus far, although he only got to turn 150 or so before it got too late last night.

[Hans_Lauring]

After the last patch I started getting CTD’s when playing huge maps - it could have happened earlier, because I hadn’t played huge maps for quite a while - wondering if that’s fixed now.

[Dan_Theman]

My son rolled off another 75 or so turns this morning with no crashes, and he’s using a huge map (he always does). No proof that it’s all cleared up minus any issues with mods, but it’s looking so in his vanilla run-through.

[olaf]

I have not played this in a while but since the most recent Steam update, my sound stutters like a motherfucker. I cant find anything about it on the 2k forums, and their image capture shit sucks so badly I can not manage to register an account to post. Any ideas?

[Dan_Theman]

Do you have onboard sound or a card? Either way, I suspect you have to update drivers (MB or card, that is). It could also be a memory management issue with an outdated (not precisely OS-supported) card, in which case I’d suggest going with onboard.

I haven’t heard such a problem with other people and the patch, so unfortunately I don’t think there’s an established workaround.

[jpinard]

Olaf - try turning off the steam “in-game” community feature. Steam has been causing me a lot of problems lately. I suspect it’s not an actual sound problem, but is stuttering because of a video driver setting or STEAM because I’ve had the same thing in Portal.

[olaf]

I am getting old. After reading those two responses I updated my VIA onboard sound driver and the Nvidia drivers and my problem went away. I should have thought of that on my own, I dont do a whole lot of PC gaming these days and the last time I played it was fine so I assumed it was something in-game.

Thanks!

[Chris_Nahr]

Ginormous balance patch incoming by end of February!

ENGINE

* Significant turn time improvements.
* Invisible Rivers now display correctly. This caused many issues because the player could not see some rivers, like fresh water showing up in strange places, unit movement suddenly shortened, etc.. Basically, there were certain rivers that did not display where forks occurred, etc.

USER INTERFACE

* Add combat summary when a city bombards a unit
* Add a new diplomatic status "Denouncing" that displays on the turn that an AI civ is denouncing the player
* Embarked units no longer look like they have 500 strength
* User warned if about to declare war on a city state that is under protection of a major power

GAMEPLAY

* Taper off benefit of excess food when building settlers
* City-States now recognize when a road is connected for their road-connection quest.
* Golden Ages now provide +20% production per city rather than +1 hammer per tile

STRATEGIC AI

* Prevent AI from building too many AA units
* Don't allow CSs to build Manhattan Project
* AI calculation of enemy military might are tweaked based on size of enemy gold reserve
* AI calculation of enemy power now takes into account promotions

DIPLOMATIC AI

* Avoid cascades of denunciations against a single player. AI now uses its own current friendliness level with a given power to determine how much weight to place on a denunciation against that power.
* Denunciations expire after 50 turns
* Declarations of Friendship expire after 50 turns

MODDING

* Added support for policies that provide culture from kills
* Added support for policies that provide extra culture from cultural improvements
* Added support for policies that provide extra embarked movement
* Added support for policies that provide free Great People
* Online Panel now displays TOTAL downloads for a mod and not just the downloads for that specific version.
* When you click on a mod in the online browser, you may now use a dropdown to select a previous version.
* Added Line Control for modders to use when creating graphs, etc.

MULTIPLAYER

* Can now use DLC civilizations in multiplayer
* Added Ring, Skirmish and Ancient Lake maps to MP.

BUG FIXES

* Clear up cases where diplomatic status could show as "Friendly" even after that AI power has denounced the player.
* Fix situations where AI demeanor and verbiage didn't match friendliness level shown in diplomatic status string.
* Additional bug fixes and tweaks.

BALANCE CHANGES

Game Rules

* Cities must now have three or more tiles in between them (1 more tile than before), unless separated by a sea/coast tile.
* Cities now only get 1 free production and 0 free gold (1 less in both cases)
* Trade routes get bonus gold based on population of capital; formula changed a bit so minimal gold received for hooking up very small cities
* Bonus production from excess food (used when building settlers) tapers off if excess is 3 or more.
* Allied maritime city states provide 3 food per turn to the capital, not 4
* Balance pass on production and maintenance costs throughout the game.

Buildings

* Aqueduct added (entirely new building). 40% of Food is carried over after a new Citizen is born.
* Palace boosted to 3 gold and 3 production
* Granary gives bonus 1 food for Wheat/Banana Deer; cost reduced
* Market and Bazaar provide 2 gold (as well as +25%)
* Workshop provides 2 production (bonus reduced to +15% but affects ALL production); cost increased
* Windmill now has a +15% production modifier (for buildings only) and provides 2 production
* Stable gives bonus 1 production for Sheep/Cattle/Horse and can be built with Sheep or Cattle; cost reduced
* Lighthouse gives bonus 1 food for Fish; cost reduced
* Ironworks dropped to 8 production (but earlier in tech tree now)
* Factory requires Workshop; add 3 production but boost now just 25%; has 1 more specialist slot (now 2)
* Nuclear and Solar Plants now require Factory but increase to production is now 35% and provide 4 production themselves; these two now mutually exclusive
* Hospital adds 5 food (but no longer retains food), requires Aqueduct
* Forge adds +1 production to each source of Iron
* Reduced Armory maintenance to 2 gold
* Reduced Colosseum happiness to 3, and reduced maintenance to 2 gold
* Reduced Theatre happiness to 4
* Reduced Monastery maintenance to 0 gold
* Reduced Garden maintenance to 1 gold
* Reduced Observatory maintenance to 0 gold
* Reduced Opera House culture to 4, and reduced maintenance to 2 gold
* Removed the Great Person Point from Public School

Specialist Adjustments

* Temple -1 Artist
* Mud Pyramid Mosque -1 Artist
* Opera House +1 Artist
* Bank -1 Merchant
* Satraps Court -1 Merchant
* Stock Exchange +1 Merchant
* Observatory -1 Scientist
* University +1 Scientist
* Garden -1 Artist
* Laboratory -1 Scientist
* Public School +1 Scientist

Improvements/Routes

* Production bonus from Railroads reduced to 25%
* Removed 1 extra gold from Mine on Gems, Gold, Silver, Marble.
* Fishing Boats give 1 food, not gold.
* Fishing Boats give 1 gold with Compass.
* Camps on Deer give production instead of food .
* Remove 1 extra food from Sugar plantations.
* Trading Post gold reduced from 2 to 1 (increases back to 2 when hit Economics).
* Trading Post & Camp gold increases by 1 with Economics.
* Lumbermill production increases by 1 with Scientific Theory (moved up from Steam Power).
* Mine & Quarry production increases by 1 with Chemistry.
* Plantation & Pasture food increases by 1 with Fertilizer.
* Well & Offshore Platform boosted to 3 production (from 1).
* Academy increased to 6 Science.
* Landmark increased to 6 Culture.
* Manufactory increased to 4 Production.

Policies

* Tradition: Culture border expansion discount in cities placed on Tradition branch opener. Discount increases over the course of the game. Also grants +3 Culture in the capital.
* Aristocracy: Wonder bonus reduced by 5% to 20%.
* Legalism: Provides a free Culture building in your first 4 cities.
* Oligarchy: Garrisoned units cost no maintenance, and cities with a garrison gain +100% ranged combat strength.
* Landed Elite: +15% Growth, and +2 Food per city.
* Monarchy: +1 Gold and -1 Unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in your capital.
* Liberty: +1 culture per turn in every city.
* Collective Rule: Settler production increased by 50%, and a free Settler appears near the capital.
* Citizenship: Worker construction rate increased by 25%, and a free Worker appears near the capital.
* Representation: Each city you found will increase the cost of your next Policy by 33% less. Also starts a Golden Age.
* Order: Reduce Order production bonus to 15%.
* Meritocracy: +0.5 Happiness for each city connected to the capital, and a free Great Person of your choice appears near the capital.

Resources

* Fish reduced to 1 food (but can be boosted back to 2 with Lighthouse)
* Marble boosts wonder production by 20%, down from 25%

Technologies

* Scaled up tech costs throughout the game (slight change for early eras; close to double for Modern)
* Move Lumbermills up to Construction
* Move Bridge Building back to Engineering
* Move Ironworks to Machinery

Units

* Workboat cost increased
* Settler cost increased by 25%

Wonders

* Colossus no longer goes obsolete
* Angkor Wat now provides a 25% discount for the costs (both culture and gold) to gain plots empire-wide.

Civ Unique Bonuses

* Reduce Chu-ko-nu from 10 to 9 ranged strength
* Doubled culture from kills for Aztecs
* Krepost now provides a 25% discount for the costs (both culture and gold) to gain plots in the city.
* Paper Maker only provides 2 gold but no longer requires any building maintenance

Map Generation Changes

* Increased Oil quantity per resource.
* Minimum Uranium is now 2.
* Cut Deer Appearance in Arctic regions.
* Adjusted Sheep placement so it is more spread out.
* Decreased Wheat appearance in Plains.
* Increases Cow appearance overall, including adding up to 2 Cow tiles to heavy grass start positions.

This patch pretty much obsoletes my own little balance mods. Greater city distance, more productive special resources, and a greater differentiation of buildings are just what I wanted. Also!

I have your answer! The manual is in the process of being updated with all of the latest changes. It might not release with this patch but we should have an updated version before long.

The Civilopedia is being updated as we work on the game. It’s not in the patch notes because it’s a series of tiny fixes and changes as reported by QA, but it definitely has been updated.

[Chris_Nahr]

There was also an introduction to the patch notes that didn’t fit into the 10k characters post limit:

Along with these notes, I have an introduction from Dennis, the Civilization V producer at Firaxis. We wanted to give you a little insight in to the thought process behind this patch’s changes, so be sure to give it a read before diving in to the changes themselves:

The upcoming patch will contain some significant balance adjustments to Civ V. We thought it would be a good idea to give everyone a quick run-down on our thoughts behind these changes and a look at what further balance work lies ahead….

This February patch comes at a great time for making balance changes; The five months since Civ V’s release has given us time to analyze reports of dominant strategies and implement and test deeper changes that will better balance the game in several key areas.

Working with our “Frankenstein” gameplay test group, we have been looking closely at the tradeoffs between building a Wide empire (one with lots of smaller cities sprawling across the map) and a Tall empire (one with just a few highly populous, highly productive cities). With this patch you’ll see a number of changes to the economic side of the game to bring these two play styles in closer balance with each other. City spacing, building effects and the Liberty and Tradition policy trees are where the most extensive changes have occurred. We’re now seeing games where a Tall empire can match or even exceed a Wide one in production and science output even deep into the game.

We wanted to improve the effectiveness of buildings. We also wanted to improve how cities interact with the map. Adjustments to terrain have increased production, while buildings that modify production have been adjusted in tune with these changes. You’ll find many buildings to be easier to build, with extra benefits, especially if you’ve settled near beneficial terrain and resources. We’ve continued to make improvements to pacing, diplomacy, turn times, the AI, and other aspects of the game.

With future patches we’ll continue to iterate through Civ V systems and fine tune the balance of each one. So far we’ve already identified combat, multiplayer, late-game policies, wonders and civilization-unique bonuses as additional areas that will benefit from this sort of attention. And as this journey progresses we promise to keep an ear to the ground for other areas the Civilization community may want us to address. Continued collaboration between community, our gameplay testers, and the development team will be nothing but a win for Civ V.

[Mind_Elemental]

This sounds really encouraging. I’m glad to hear Firaxis is cracking down on ICS - I’m one of the folks who prefers compact, but highly developed, empires.

On a more trivial note, hah, I knew AA was being overproduced in my last Modern Age game…