As an avid fan of Civ IV, Fuck Civ IV.
Blips
5342
The combat improvements sound fantastic. It’s the awkward AI, performance issues and other assorted bugs that are keeping me away from the game to be honest.
That’s not what he wrote and what I quoted.
I’m not having any performance issues since some patch fixed the slow late-game AI turns, by the way.
KevinC
5345
For me, playing Civ4 with my friends was a blast. Civ5 MP is still half finished, and that’s not an exaggeration. They still haven’t gotten animations working, they haven’t gotten mods working, the AI wasn’t “working” in the sense that it would never initiate contact with a player (did that change this patch?), and the game is not stable with 8 or so civs. Its a total clustefuck and an embarrassment for a game of this calibre (and budget!).
I know MP isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for a big fan of Civ4 it was a very unexpected slap in the face.
“Slap in the face” always makes the person who posted it sound like a petulant child. Nerdrage. Anyway.
You’re totally right about Civ V multi, heh. It’s pretty crap. Disappointing for fans for sure.
FWIW, the new hotseat mode works perfectly (and it actually has animations, lol).
KevinC
5348
I rarely use the term, Adam, but that was pretty much what it felt like. I mean, I just didn’t expect a title with the pedigree of Civilization to release in that kind of shape, let alone languish that way for almost a year now.
It didn’t help that even the base single player experience was a bit of a mess, but after 10 months of patching they’re finally getting the economy and AI worked out.
On the flip side of that, they DO deserve some kudos for still cranking out patches. Most game developers would have walked away by now, I just hope that they’ll release an actual expansion to “finish” the game (from my perspective)
Oh yeah, and while I want to keep the animations generally working as a nice fluff feature, how hard is it to figure out that if not for the current combat animation, it would be “next turn”, and to let me skip just that last one.
I really hate waiting for this infinitely prolonged combat to play out before I can move on to the next turn, but the only way to avoid it is to turn off all animation.
Sometimes the order of the infinity I have to wait actually goes from Aleph 0 to Aleph 1 because it’s creating the damn things dynamically, and sometimes one of the little guys has trouble pathing around a nearby mountain or somesuch goddamn thing. For heaven’s sake, just let them clip through stuff, it’s not like anyone gives a damn about one guy in one obscure axeman unit not being 100% realistic.
They may well have improved the turn performance with the latest patches, I can’t really tell though. My mid to late game (400+) turns are taking usually 30 seconds or more per, and this is on an i7 930 with 8-12GB RAM and a GTX 460 1GB video card, so it’s not a low-end machine even if it’s not uber fast.
Maniac
5351
Do you play on a huge map size?
Fair enough. I just nerdrage at the phrase. Too much time spent on MMO boards, probably.
Don’t think so, just large maybe? Epic time frame.
I have played tons of MP CIV 5 with a friend, we have zero issues whatsoever. It may be worse when you add more people, I would not know ,but for us two, its perfect.
The animation issue, is a bit of a letdown, but rest assured, you do NOT want a MP game with animations, unless you got a lot of time to waste. I would like to see it optional though.
Turn times over internet is a tad slower sadly, I think this is up and downloading turns issue.
I’m playing on tiny 4-player maps which probably explains why my turns are only a few seconds, on a comparable machine (with animations turned off). Was Civ4 faster on big maps? I like playing on small maps, and Civ5 is definitely faster on those.
Dunno about Civ IV, exactly, but it seemed faster. Of course, it was also less graphically intense. I could try turning off animations, too, as I’ve actually not done that, heh.
And it’s not a deal breaker by any means. I do love larger maps and long games though, as I’m more of a builder than a fighter.
So I fired up Civ V, after skipping the last patch. My what a different game it is now. The AI is still nothing to write home about, but it at least seems competent on defense.
I tried 3 different game as the new buffed Germany. The changes they made to the social policies are terrific. Honor now is a viable alternative tree, but all of the earlier trees have been rebalanced. I can honestly say the all of the social policy now provide interesting choices. For instance in Honor there is now a policy that gives you not only +1 happiness, but +2 culture for a garrison troop, a very nice way to push out the borders of conquered cities. The alternative is 50% more experience also a nice choice.
I love that you now get an additional bonus if you complete a tree. In honor that is gold (6 I think) for any units you kill, very nice perk for the war monger. :)
Anyway I am enjoying Civ V, more so than at any time since the initial release.
Ok, I give, how do you turn off the animations? I didn’t see an option in the options for that. Probably missed it.
Hmn… maybe you can’t?
Try playing a multi-player game with just yourself. Would that work?
Heh, maybe. Actually, I rather like the animations. I was just wondering if turning them off would speed things up. I tend to be impatient. Then again, that’s probably why I lose a lot!
