Civilization V

Woolen_Horde · 2012-06-18T11:10:36.000Z

Alex over at GiantBomb loves it, based on his FB post this morning. Says the only thing stopping him from finishing the review is having to stop playing the game. And I never took him for a TBS guy.

Miramon · 2012-06-18T11:23:02.000Z

KevinC:

Had you tried that .ini tweak previously, Miramon? Did it have any effect for you or was it still sluggish either way? Just curious!

I’ll try it next time, thanks. Edit: No noticeable change.

Miramon · 2012-06-18T11:32:34.000Z

I still don’t see why the AI couldn’t be fixed, at least a little bit. Keeping generals stacked is not rocket science, nor is not declaring war when you can’t path to the target.

A stretch goal like actually being able to take a city defended by 2 archers with a force of 2 catapults, 2 swordsmen, and 4 pikemen would be icing on the cake, certainly, but why not at least start with a step up from “godawful” to “terrible”?

I predict the next major Civ game will have single-unit armies to which elements like offense, defense, range, and siege capabilities are added as features, and that civs will have a maximum limit of 1 such army per 3 cities. Then perhaps they will manage to build AI that can handle the most trivial combat strategies.

Giaddon · 2012-06-18T11:36:54.000Z

I am looking forward to this expansion very much, but I am disappointed to hear that happiness, the only major limiting factor in Civ V, is pretty much a non-issue now. I’ll just have to see how it plays, myself.

Dejin · 2012-06-18T11:47:12.000Z

Giaddon:

I am looking forward to this expansion very much, but I am disappointed to hear that happiness, the only major limiting factor in Civ V, is pretty much a non-issue now. I’ll just have to see how it plays, myself.

Is that because religion unbalances everything?

Giaddon · 2012-06-18T11:48:11.000Z

Religion, plus the new luxuries, from what I am reading.

“Unbalances everything” is probably too strong, though.

Janster · 2012-06-18T11:51:22.000Z

The Ai issues are so grave reviews gotta start punishing this or nothing will change

Giaddon · 2012-06-18T11:54:34.000Z

The question of what kind of AI Civilization is supposed to have is an interesting and open ended one. Only 6.4% of players who own the game have beat it on King difficulty, for example. (Source is the Steam achievements page)

KevinC · 2012-06-18T11:56:31.000Z

Giaddon:

The question of what kind of AI Civilization is supposed to have is an interesting and open ended one.

I think “competent at the basics of the game” is a good place to start, which was something that was never addressed in Civ5 vanilla.

McKnight · 2012-06-18T12:10:09.000Z

Giaddon:

The question of what kind of AI Civilization is supposed to have is an interesting and open ended one. Only 6.4% of players who own the game have beat it on King difficulty, for example. (Source is the Steam achievements page)

Careful there, you can’t judge by steam achievements for this game. You dont get them for custom/modded games (including the real time clock and other stuff firaxis included at launch). In addition the majority of Civ games aren’t played to conclusion, rather until victory is inevitable.

Dejin · 2012-06-18T12:12:45.000Z

Giaddon:

Lots more reviews coming in. Pretty even spread from 90 (XGN) to 40 (Tom)

Those generally look quite positive except for a certain 40 score (plus Gamebeat, which I’ve never heard of).

Of course the scores for the original Civ V were quite positive and ignored such minor details as the fact that the AI never, ever built airplanes and couldn’t conduct a halfway decent naval invasion to save it’s kingdom.

TheWombat · 2012-06-18T12:21:12.000Z

Eh, I’ve still not beaten Civ V…ever. On any difficulty level. True, I haven’t finished many games, either, and the few I’ve actually played to full conclusion I, um, lost, often badly. The numerous AI flaws are apparent to me, but never really affected me in the sense of making the game too easy. They sometimes made the game feel a bit cheesy or silly, but not unbearably so. I guess I just don’t play it very “seriously” so the (apparently quite real) flaws just haven’t been that big a deal. That being said, I’ve played Civ V only a small fraction of the amount I played Civ IV, which probably tells you something…

Dejin · 2012-06-18T12:27:49.000Z

TheWombat:

Eh, I’ve still not beaten Civ V…ever. On any difficulty level. True, I haven’t finished many games, either, and the few I’ve actually played to full conclusion I, um, lost, often badly. The numerous AI flaws are apparent to me, but never really affected me in the sense of making the game too easy. They sometimes made the game feel a bit cheesy or silly, but not unbearably so. I guess I just don’t play it very “seriously” so the (apparently quite real) flaws just haven’t been that big a deal. That being said, I’ve played Civ V only a small fraction of the amount I played Civ IV, which probably tells you something…

Well the inability of the AI to produce airplanes wasn’t an issue of being able to or not being able to beat the AI. It was more that a whole set of game mechanics (interception) and units (anti-aircraft) were essentially useless when the game came out. Realizing that all this crap I had just built was useless certainly reduced my enjoyment of the game.

The AI has since been patched to build airplanes, but the game shouldn’t have been released with a whole set of features that were essentially not working.

Nephrinn · 2012-06-18T13:39:31.000Z

BleedTheFreak:

Community Manager 2K Greg is playing the game live on Twitch.TV for two hours later today.

http://www.2kgames.com/blog/let-s-play-civilization-v-gods-amp-kings-live

He’s going to take his decisions and strategy from the community. I’m most interesting in watching him play to see if he comments or reacts to potential AI weaknesses/foolishness or other bugs that might pop up during the game.

I’m honestly hoping nothing like that happens of course, and in actuallity hope that the fact this is happening is an indication of their belief in the product as a whole, but if something does happen, I would be interested in the “official” reaction.

They’re still having problems with this, but the stream should be starting shortly for those interested.

Piemax2 · 2012-06-18T13:48:47.000Z

This thread got me to launch Civ5 for the first time in quite a while. I applied the patch (“converting assets”) and found I couldn’t select units so the game was unplayable, both in DX9 mode and in DX 10/11. Quit the game, did other stuff, computer was sluggish. Found that the civ5 process was eating up 50% of CPU even after I’d quit the game. :( and editing the config file to turn off multithreading didn’t help.

Dan_Theman · 2012-06-18T14:51:26.000Z

Nephrinn:

They’re still having problems with this, but the stream should be starting shortly for those interested.

Following the game a bit, and I haven’t noticed any stupidity yet (well, except for the crowdsourced part which Greg is following). No clue who the other person is with him. Thus far it plays like … well, Civ V. I saw him start up his religion (Gregism), and there seems to be some interesting gameplay decisions with that. Looking forward to tomorrow’s release.

KevinC · 2012-06-18T15:18:29.000Z

She’s a brand new community rep, apparently.

I see the AI is as bloodthirsty as ever, as the Incas are storming his cities. So far it’s a pretty decent attack with the melee up front and catapult behind… so that’s something at least. I’m curious if the AI is competent enough to take the city, though.

KevinC · 2012-06-18T15:37:29.000Z

… and the AI just unloaded an undefended great general right in front of the enemy’s front lines, despite the fact that there was an adjacent friendly unit he could have been protected under.

wilykat · 2012-06-18T15:49:43.000Z

did they say anything about that?

Scotch_Lufkin · 2012-06-18T15:50:32.000Z

That’s a pretty dumb move, I didn’t even catch it. I suppose I don’t want an AI that NEVER makes a mistake, but that’s a pretty bone headed mistake to make.