5081

Hit F2 for the Economic info and there is a tab for Resource info.

The info for Diplomacy stuff is terrible. I would like a quick summary listing of my current active deals all in one spot.

Question: Once you give a unit a multi-turn movement order, is there any way to go back and view their current pathing? I think in Civ4 just clicking on the unit again would show its future moves.

5082

how would you make it different from the tab in the diplomacy overview? I agree it’s not a very well done tab, but I haven’t come up with a way to make it better (I was looking into modding, although I can’t make heads or tails of how to change the UI).

Question: Once you give a unit a multi-turn movement order, is there any way to go back and view their current pathing? I think in Civ4 just clicking on the unit again would show its future moves.
I’m pretty sure you’re right in regards to Civ IV, but I don’t think that functionality is in Civ V. It SHOULD be, but I don’t think it is.

5083

Not that I can see.

So far my take on Civilization 5 is that I actually like the gameplay changes - the new Happiness/Golden Age mechanic is a lot more fun and less micromanagey, while capturing the same basic idea. I absolutely love the embarking feature; micromanaging ship loading and unloading was horrid. I’m not familiar enough to make a conclusion on the AI yet.

  • By contrast, the interface is an exasperating giant step backwards. What the fuck were they thinking? In addition to the complaints presented in the thread so far:

  • You can’t queue up commands; any keyboard input “between animations” is ignored. In Civ 4 you could move a worker, hit I to irrigate, and hit W to move to the next worker in under a half second.

  • You can’t turn off movement animations.

  • Disabling combat animations is hidden in the advanced game setup screen.

  • The F1-F8 menu zoom functions regularly stop working, or don’t in the first place; I can’t tell.

  • The F1-F8 menu hotkeys regularly stop functioning.

  • Units blend into the landscape; it’s somehow far more difficult to get a grasp on what units you have in an area and which can still be moved.

Individually none of interface limitations are a big deal, but combined they make a constant series of minor irritations. It’s particularly annoying because until this sequel the series was always really good at this.

5084

Never bothered me personally. You have a hell of a lot fewer units to deal with, though, so there’s that.

  • The F1-F8 menu zoom functions regularly stop working, or don’t in the first place; I can’t tell.
  • The F1-F8 menu hotkeys regularly stop functioning.
    I have never had this problem in hundreds of hours of Civ V.
  • Units blend into the landscape; it’s somehow far more difficult to get a grasp on what units you have in an area and which can still be moved.
    What? This one I truly don’t understand. The shields pop quite well for me, and the fade after they act is real obvious. Is this a colorblindness thing? I am in that lucky portion of the male population that has pretty much no issue with red/green.
5085

Never had a problem or noticed this.

  • The F1-F8 menu zoom functions regularly stop working, or don’t in the first place; I can’t tell.
  • The F1-F8 menu hotkeys regularly stop functioning.

Like Adam, I never had a problem in over 100 hours of gameplay with the function keys not working.

  • Units blend into the landscape; it’s somehow far more difficult to get a grasp on what units you have in an area and which can still be moved.

I think it’s far easier in Civ V to see who has moved than in Civ IV.

5086

Really, you’ve never seen the menus stop opening? Interesting; I can’t imagine what about my box would cause it specifically.

5087

I’m amazed that anyone would want command queuing in Civ5. It’s a turn-based game, not an RTS, you don’t win by clicking faster. :) Was this feature actually in previous Civ games?

Never had any issues picking out units from the background, either. They stand out clearly to me, including their indicator shields.

5088

FWIW, I haven’t experienced that particular problem either. That said, I don’t often use the function keys so maybe it’s just luck of the draw. Then again, I’ve also played for over 100 hours. Could it possibly be an issue with the keyboard? (I doubt it, but you never know)

5089

Maybe it’s just my OCDness, but after playing for a while I just want to get to the interesting stuff, not watch the same boring thing over and over. “Command queueing” my not be the best description, but I swear the input system ignores keyboard input until it decides its fine and ready.

5090

I don’t really want command queuing so much as I want the turn to end now instead of waiting another 10 seconds for some stupid combat animation to finally resolve. In the early game it’s irritating as hell to attack some barbarian with your last move and then wait 10 seconds to finish the turn. it’s not over until “2 XP” finally pops up from that archer. And sometimes for some bizarre reason it gets locked into an extra random 5 seconds of combat animation when it can’t maneuver one of those little guys properly in the hex somehow. Sigh. Yeah, I could turn off all combat animation, but they’re generally an acceptable little frill, except when I’m waiting for the goddamn turn to finish.

5091

I agree with that, I’d love a hotkey to instantly finish combat animations so I don’t have to turn them off entirely.

5092

I just noticed there’s no resign/surrender option like previous games. Boo, that was always an interesting way to quit an untenable game.

5093

Yeah, I’m pretty much loving Civ V these days, but I really, really miss that feature. I want the option to bow out but have my score register.

5094

I think I’m just going to shelve the game; it’s too sloppy. Turns on a large map in the classical age take 10 seconds for no reason. I spend most of the game irritated and I can’t quite put my finger on why, other than the slow-motion annoying UI.

Also, is it just me, or did they remove every single fun trick from the game? No more strange going timing sequences of wonders, technologies, and civs; just upgrading in the culture, tech, and production catagories.

5095

Someone many pages back said something along the lines of playing Civ5 is like having a nagging developer stand over your shoulder slapping your wrist whenever you try to play the game ‘wrong’. I felt like the game was always trying to force me down the rails rather than giving me piles of options and letting me try to piece them all together. In Sid’s terms, I felt I had fewer interesting decisions to make.

As an example, playing Civ5 on huge maps, there never feels like there’s any competition for land. Mostly the land remains fallow throughout the game, which eliminates one of my favorite periods of a Civ game: the land rush. Having to take decisions on what location to prioritize over others, what resources are going to be needed, how quickly I should be shooting for settlers vs. military units and structures, how far I could try to expand without overextending myself militarily or economically.

Another thing is the lack of features like Health and Religion. There were times in Civ4 where I’d have a materially poor start, but was able to have a rip-roaring economy due to being able to focus on religious techs, founding a few religions, and carefully spreading those to my neighbors to keep them off my neck long enough for me to establish myself. In terms of Health, while it was minor, I still miss it. I miss starting in a “Nile” type region, where the abundance of flood plains was going to mean big population gains but massive health problems. It gave me another interesting decision, in that I prioritized trading for (or expanding to) additional sources of food for health, or shooting for techs I otherwise might not in order to get health under control. Nowadays I start in that same Nile type scenario and… well, it’s not really much different than any other location with a river.

It plays like a much more streamlined game with a fairly set path to take rather than a sandbox. That’s what always led to my particular frustration. I love the Civ franchise, and Civ5 certainly brings some interesting ideas to the table, but it’s just not there yet. I’m really hoping for a true expansion to the game, with some re-working of some systems (I like the concept of 1UPT in terms of removing SODs, but the current implementation needs work), addition of new mechanics, and some polishing in terms of AI/MP, this game still has the potential to be really good.

5096

Can someone explain puppet states to me? I thought I understood them, but something just happened that I didn’t expect or understand. I thought a puppet state was somewhat autonomous, didn’t count as cities owned or even population, but just gave you some of its gold. This is the method to take over the world, to use puppet states instead of actually owning all the cities. Or so I thought.

I just put the beat down on Alexander and he surrended all his cities but one to me. Maybe 15 in all. I chose puppet state for them all and now I am at 75 unhappyness. I was not expecting that. How do I get out from under this problem? If I raze the cities (which will take a while ) The other AIs will just go crazy re-colonizing the world again.

Any advice?

5097

Yeah, you misunderstood. Puppet states do give you unhappiness, just much less than a fully controlled city gives. That’s one of the issues with a mass surrender like that, it often leaves you in a very bad situation, happiness-wise. (And during the turn-over, you aren’t really given a chance to inspect the cities to determine whether or not to keep them.) But with 15 more cities and, what, another 100 population? You’ll be taking a big hit on the happiness.

5098

Give some of the cities away until things are back under control.

5099

So I guess I need to burn down the cities then, the ones I do not want. Though I have some big ones that still will take another 10 turns just to become proper puppets. Also the turn after I got those cities two other empires I was “friendly” with suddenly denounced me and declared war.

5100

I wouldn’t burn them, but rather give them to weaker opponents, which can help offset them wanting to attack you for being so far ahead.