Civilization V

[Mark_L]

I personally think Tom is the only reviewer critical ENOUGH of AI in strategy games. If you want to see why, check out the reviews for Empire: Total War. How many of them noted that the AI didn’t put troops on boats? I don’t see how you can review a single player strategy game without putting the AI under intense scrutiny.

[TurinTur]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/20/civilisation-v-review/

[Lorini]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/20/civilisation-v-review/

Sorry but I would take Tom’s word over PC Gamers any day of the week, basically because Tom is independent. PCGamer has blown too many reviews for my taste, I don’t even read them any more.

NOTE: Many many if not most times I disagree with Tom’s reviews. I just would give them more credence than anything from PC Gamer.

[Paulus]

Sorry but I would take Tom’s word over Dan Stapleton’s any day of the week, basically because Tom is independent and Dan is affiliated with PCGamer. PCGamer has blown too many reviews for my taste, I don’t even read them any more.

NOTE: Many many if not most times I disagree with Tom’s reviews. I just would give them more credence than anything from PC Gamer.

Lorini,

Would it not be wiser to evaluate each review (and reviewer) on its own merits instead of painting the whole publication with a broad negative brush? For example, I believe Troy Goodfellow writes for PC Gamer now, and I have enjoyed his writing for many years.

[Telefrog]

Having to move each unit individually rather than in stacked groups makes moving a large force around pretty tedious.

This was a worry of mine when the single-unit-per-hex detail was first announced.

[Rock8man]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/20/civilisation-v-review/

Come on. You’ve got nothing to say about the link at all Naeblis? Why so lazy?

Anyway, the review is a good indicator at the problem Tom probably has with the AI:

A bigger problem is the AI, which can’t grasp the subtleties—it has a bad habit of wheeling its long-range artillery directly up to my melee units. On higher difficulty levels the AI simply gets a resource boost to overwhelm you with numbers, rather than any more tactical smarts.

…

That’s not to say it’s easy to tackle—at this point any difficulty level higher than the “normal” Prince level beats me up and takes my national lunch money —but some victories felt undeserved.

…

In some ways, though, the AI impressed me. Leaders are perceptive enough to pop up and inform me that they’re not going to stand for my massing armies on their borders. That said, diplomacy could stand to be a little more transparent—sudden declarations of war caught me totally off guard, like when, after a long period of peace and mutually beneficial trade relations with Gandhi’s India, the little bald jerk allied with Japan to invade my Roman Empire without provocation. Think about that for a second: I was attacked by Gandhi. It’s hard not to take that personally.

[Lorini]

I just deleted my post because it failed the stupidity test. Oh well. At any rate, Troy is an independent reviewer who submits articles to a variety of publications including PC Gamer, AFAIK. Dan Stapleton is affiliated with PC Gamer and I have not seen him write anywhere else.

[MikeJ]

. A bigger problem is the AI, which can’t grasp the subtleties—it has a bad habit of wheeling its long-range artillery directly up to my melee units. On higher difficulty levels the AI simply gets a resource boost to overwhelm you with numbers, rather than any more tactical smarts.

Well, that doesn’t sound so great.

Edit: Maybe they should get the guy who developed the Panzer-General remake to work on this. I’ve heard he was (rather too) effective…

[mtkafka]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/20/civilisation-v-review/

this from the review —

“A bigger problem is the AI, which can’t grasp the subtleties—it has a bad habit of wheeling its long-range artillery directly up to my melee units.”

eh, stuff like this can make exploiting the AI easy! but a pretty much positive review.

[Equisilus]

Quick questions on Social Policies: there are some that are mutually exclusive (like Freedom/Liberty and Autocracy). If you choose Liberty, for instance, and later want to choose Autocracy are you not allowed or does it deactivate Liberty and any bonuses to your civ that its policies provided? If you switch back to Liberty, will you have the policies you chose before still there? Can you do either of these without penalty at any time or is there something similar to “Anarchy” from Civ4?

Just got through the Social Policy section of the manual, which is why it’s on my mind. It states that some policies can’t be “unlocked and active” at the same time but I’m not sure that means they can be unlocked and inactive (or inactivated later).

[TurinTur]

Come on. You’ve got nothing to say about the link at all Naeblis? Why so lazy?

Well, i knew everyone would read the entire review, as is the first review from a big site, so no need to quote it :P. Also, i had to go to make dinner.

[Black_Isis]

Really? Being attacked by Ghandi was a surprise? That guy was always the first one to start trampling all over me in previous Civ games, I’d be more shocked if he wasn’t trying to invade the player all the time.

[Dejin]

… Almost every strategy game has sub-par AI at launch, but as Naeblis said over time it is improved upon and fixed through patches. As long as the AI isn’t brain dead or broken, I’m thinking we will be ok.

Is that true? I seem to recall after CivRev came out there were a number of Firaxis posts saying “tell us what’s wrong and your better strategies so we can incorporate them into the AI”. And then I remember it not being patched for a long, long time … possibly ever.

[razarok]

9.5 from destructoid: http://www.destructoid.com/review-civilization-v-184136.phtml

It even praises the AI.

Civilization V makes huge advances to the series that do nothing but enhance the essential experience. Improvements to the user interface and AI at all levels result in it being more approachable for newcomers without losing any of the strategic depth that long-time fans crave. It vastly improves combat, making the micro-level gameplay both more complex and entertaining. It trims all the fat, leaving only decision-making, strategic planning, and the sheer joy of crushing your enemies. Civ V is the pinnacle of the franchise to date.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/sid-meiers-civilization-v for all the other reviews.

[Woolen_Horde]

Really? Being attacked by Ghandi was a surprise? That guy was always the first one to start trampling all over me in previous Civ games, I’d be more shocked if he wasn’t trying to invade the player all the time.

No shit. Gandhi is a motherfucking warlord in Civ.

[mtkafka]

Really? Being attacked by Ghandi was a surprise? That guy was always the first one to start trampling all over me in previous Civ games, I’d be more shocked if he wasn’t trying to invade the player all the time.

plus i really don’t want an ai thats passive/neutral/aggressive based on personalities of there leaders. there civ traits are more than enough for flavor. the ai should always be trying to win… even if its Gandhi!

and Gandhi did say this…

“Fighting a violent war is better than accepting injustice”

sorta ot, the AI in Distant Worlds does have credible AI in terms of diplomacy and warfare… it seems to play into there species traits. which is kind of cool!

[Alan_Dunkin]

Has been from the start. Getting nuked in Africa on the Civ II Earth map by Gandhi has always been a classic memory.

— Alan

[BigWeather]

At least the moving ranged pieces next to opposing melee should be easy to fix so hopefully we’ll see that tweak at some point soon.

[DeathMonkey]

Quick questions on Social Policies: there are some that are mutually exclusive (like Freedom/Liberty and Autocracy). If you choose Liberty, for instance, and later want to choose Autocracy are you not allowed or does it deactivate Liberty and any bonuses to your civ that its policies provided? If you switch back to Liberty, will you have the policies you chose before still there? Can you do either of these without penalty at any time or is there something similar to “Anarchy” from Civ4?

Only one set of mutually exclusive policies can be active at a time. If you’ve unlocked a number of policies in a specific branch, then choose a tech from a mutually exclusive branch, all of the first branch’s policy benefits will be disabled. If you switch back, you will not lose of your progress in the original branch and all your abilities will be reactivated.

There is Anarchy when you switch between mutually exclusive social policies. It’s not as frequent in Civ5 as it has been in the previous Civ games because you’re usually not switching between major opposing groups frequently during the same game, unlike governments in the earlier Civs.

-Scott-

[tomchick]

I’ll have a full review up on 1up tomorrow, since I’ve asked my editor for extra time so I can see the day-0 patch. I have some additional issues with the press build that will hopefully be addressed when the game goes live tonight (it is tonight, right?).

But the reason the AI issues are particularly noteworthy in Civ 5 is that the new combat system is such an important feature of the game. The AI in Civ 4 was able to brute force its way through combat well enough, for the most part. But the AI in Civ 5 almost makes warfare a non-issue. :(

 -Tom