Civilization V

[Syraxis]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

After doing some research I decided to take Hurlshot's recommendation and as I type this; downloading V from steam.

 

Once I spend some time and get a feel for the mechanics, I'll give Alpha Centauri a shot.

 

After going back to Civ4 with the 2 XP's I think you are missing out. The more I play civ4 and more I see civ5 short comings and lack of ability to hold my attention for the same lenght of time. I would also suggest you give civ4 a try as well. You will see civ5 simply is dumbed down and lacks the depth and challenge of 4.

 

Yeah I've read that Civ V has been simplified in a few ways. But since I've never played a game like the Civ series before (IIRC); I'll take the simplified version to get a feel for the overall type of game it is. Then I'll switch over to the hardcore

[Malcador]

I did mention the nitpicky veterans

 

 

How was anyone nitpicking, heh. Those changes mentioned were pretty significant ones, after all. Then again a nitpick is subjective, heh.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Malcador

[Calax]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

After doing some research I decided to take Hurlshot's recommendation and as I type this; downloading V from steam.

 

Once I spend some time and get a feel for the mechanics, I'll give Alpha Centauri a shot.

 

After going back to Civ4 with the 2 XP's I think you are missing out. The more I play civ4 and more I see civ5 short comings and lack of ability to hold my attention for the same lenght of time. I would also suggest you give civ4 a try as well. You will see civ5 simply is dumbed down and lacks the depth and challenge of 4.

 

Yeah I've read that Civ V has been simplified in a few ways. But since I've never played a game like the Civ series before (IIRC); I'll take the simplified version to get a feel for the overall type of game it is. Then I'll switch over to the hardcore

[Thorton_AP]

I have never really understood when people have serious nitpicks regarding realism since the franchise has always had liberties with realism.

 

OUPT may not be realistic, but the system is 100x better than stacking up 100 units on top of one another.

 

Where did I or anyone else argue in favor of giant stacks of doom? Really makes me wonder if some folks here actually read what they reply to or just make up something up in their head and reply to that.

 

 

I'm arguing in favor of OUPT. I like the system a whole heck of a lot more in spite of it not being "realistic."

 

I never said you were arguing in favor of giant stacks of doom. Not sure why you are getting all defensive about a comment that isn't even directed to you.

 

 

I do not see it as going "from one extreme to another" but rather an improvement on the old stack of doom mechanic. Hence my comment. If it was going from one extreme to the other, then I'd perceive it as a lateral move. All I know is that OUPT is a significant improvement over the stacks of doom. Could it be improved upon? Sure. Never said otherwise. That doesn't discount that it was a huge improvement to the combat system of the game (unfortunately the AI sucks, but the combat system makes for some fantastic MP games IMO).

 

 

Learning to play Civ V doesn't give you a big leg up in playing Civ IV, and vise versa.

 

It will help get a user more familiar with how production, city growth, working tiles, and so forth. A friend of mine was overwhelmed by Civ4, but he enjoyed playing Civ5. Now he's keen on trying out some Civ4 which is good news for me too

Edited November 8, 2010 by Thorton_AP

[Malcador]

It will help get a user more familiar with how production, city growth, working tiles, and so forth. A friend of mine was overwhelmed by Civ4, but he enjoyed playing Civ5. Now he's keen on trying out some Civ4 which is good news for me too

 

 

Ah hah, proof it was dumbed down!

[TheHarlequin]

It will help get a user more familiar with how production, city growth, working tiles, and so forth. A friend of mine was overwhelmed by Civ4, but he enjoyed playing Civ5. Now he's keen on trying out some Civ4 which is good news for me too

 

 

Ah hah, proof it was dumbed down!

 

I was thinking the same thing! LOL

[TheHarlequin]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

After doing some research I decided to take Hurlshot's recommendation and as I type this; downloading V from steam.

 

Once I spend some time and get a feel for the mechanics, I'll give Alpha Centauri a shot.

 

After going back to Civ4 with the 2 XP's I think you are missing out. The more I play civ4 and more I see civ5 short comings and lack of ability to hold my attention for the same lenght of time. I would also suggest you give civ4 a try as well. You will see civ5 simply is dumbed down and lacks the depth and challenge of 4.

 

Yeah I've read that Civ V has been simplified in a few ways. But since I've never played a game like the Civ series before (IIRC); I'll take the simplified version to get a feel for the overall type of game it is. Then I'll switch over to the hardcore

[Guest Slinky]

I got the biggest itch to play civilization, but I'm torn between IV and V. Could someone clarify couple things about Civ 5 for me:

 

- Combat and diplomacy AI has been bashed what I've read, are they really that bad? I can live with bad combat AI, but wonky diplomacy doesn't sound nice.

 

- Is it no longer possible to move borders further by pumping culture, and cause revolts in other cities and make them join me?

 

- The hexes otherwise seem great, but does the one unit per hex cause much trouble with unit movement?

[Tale]

I can't really speak to the AI. They revamped the AI between last time I played it and today. Besides, I could never figure out Diplomacy in IV either. Though, at least prior to the revamp, all Civs played to win. They wouldn't want to be your buddy in the long run because they knew they had to get rid of you.

 

It's harder to pump culture for borders. It's possible, but not as easy in IV.

 

I had no problem with unit movement. I absolutely adore the 1UT.

[Calax]

I got the biggest itch to play civilization, but I'm torn between IV and V. Could someone clarify couple things about Civ 5 for me:

 

- Combat and diplomacy AI has been bashed what I've read, are they really that bad? I can live with bad combat AI, but wonky diplomacy doesn't sound nice.

 

- Is it no longer possible to move borders further by pumping culture, and cause revolts in other cities and make them join me?

 

- The hexes otherwise seem great, but does the one unit per hex cause much trouble with unit movement?

I'm in about the same boat as tale. IIRC however the culture and borders thing isn't that big a deal in V because the number of cities produced is significantly lower than in IV.

 

Hexes is great, and unit movement is fine.

[Malcador]

There's some serious DLC for this game, heh. Should replay it, first time out I didn't find myself taken with it - some of the changes were pretty bleh. But they've changed a bit no ?

[MrBrown]

The hexes, one unit per hex, and 2 movement points per unit together are enough to make Civ5 a better game than 4 in my book. Warring was really tedious in 4.

[pmp10]

- Combat and diplomacy AI has been bashed what I've read, are they really that bad? I can live with bad combat AI, but wonky diplomacy doesn't sound nice.

It certainly was.

The combat was way to simple for a human and diplomacy simply broken.

And I don't mean it in the "I play to win so it's backstab-time" broken but "Oh look a human player - time to annoy him till he declares war" broken.

 

- Is it no longer possible to move borders further by pumping culture, and cause revolts in other cities and make them join me?

No.

- The hexes otherwise seem great, but does the one unit per hex cause much trouble with unit movement?

It can.

Not sure if they fixed the "no two workers on the same hex" rule but the old stacks of doom have simply turned into carpets and now take eternity to move.

With fleets it can be even worse as protecting a modern naval invasion against respawning barbarian triemes is incredibly frustrating.

[Enoch]

The major rebalancing patch that came out in (IIRC) March made the game much better. If you last played the game before that point, it's worth revisiting. Most of the DLCs have just been additional Civs and/or scenarios.

 

I don't find the barbarian triremes all that annoying-- you just need to have enough ships screening your embarked troops so that you see enemies before they get into striking distance. The naval invasion checklist is: First, sink or disable the bulk of the enemy's naval forces; Second, embark your troops with high-view-distance naval units to screen your approach and to spot and deal with lone opportunists; Third, get there and kick ass.

[Malcador]

I still miss having to build ships. Well, might as well give it a try and see if it catches my fancy. Carpets of Doom, away

Edited June 13, 2011 by Malcador

[Guest Slinky]

All right, thanks guys.

 

I think I'll pick up Civ V from somewhere. I think I'm going to like it just because it doesn't have religions, I hated them in IV.

[pmp10]

The major rebalancing patch that came out in (IIRC) March made the game much better. If you last played the game before that point, it's worth revisiting. Most of the DLCs have just been additional Civs and/or scenarios.

Have they fixed the upkeep/happiness systems?

Because what really killed Civ5 for me is the city spam.

 

I don't find the barbarian triremes all that annoying-- you just need to have enough ships screening your embarked troops so that you see enemies before they get into striking distance.

That's exactly the problem.

A decent invasion force will be around 10-20 embarked units.

Since you cannot stack them you'll need at least half as many war ships to provide protection by forming a ring around them.

And you'll need to do it even if your opponent has no navy as there is bound to be a barbarian village spawning ships somewhere in the arctic.

[Enoch]

Well, late in the game, unless you're on one of the weirder or more islandy map types, there are probably only a couple areas on the map where barbarian camps can spawn. And, if you're smart, you already have a couple naval units watching those sites so that you can farm experience points from them. Otherwise, yes, in order to land a lot of troops at once, you need to have a respectable naval force escorting them.

 

As I recall, upkeep and happiness were quantitatively tweaked, but the core system is the same. Keeping a focused empire of a few larger cities is a solid strategy if city spam bothers you.

[Walsingham]

I'm now thoroughly sick of the ridiculous military system in Civ5. It's utterly ludicrous.

 

Units are clearly strategic/operational, yet you have the produce an ARMY consisting entirely of AT guns? Give me a ****ing break!

 

I've been thinking about this and I think the solution would have been to make your own units in much the same way as you make spaceships in Masters of Orion 2. So you invent components and subcomponents, and different sizes of field army. Then you design your own mixes of same. So yeah, you can build an army with just AT guns as a kind of heavy infantry, but you'be better getting an army with mixed heavy infantry and perhaps some recce and artillery etc etc.

[Tigranes]

Never did end up playing Civ V. I think my reaction was this - one army per unit and hexagon are great improvements, but in the end, they're improvements that directly run up against, and expose, the fundamental limitations of Civ's army/combat system (which, in a word, is ****). It was going to fix some problems, but in doing so it just shows how screwed up the whole thing is and how totally unrelated it is to actual warfare at any level of abstraction.

 

I think one way to fix it without changing Civ too much is to zoom in a lot more. Because they design a map as if it's the entire planet, everything is ridiculously oversized; what if the scale was more like an entire map is a landmass sized something like France? The landscape is more detailed and you actually see important things like mountain passes, bridges, etc (terrain matters in Civ but almost never), army positioning actually makes sense (instead of 6 unnits surrounding an entire city), and then Civ's core citybuilding mechanic of outlying roads, farms, etc really comes to the fore.

 

...Oh, wait, Rise of Nations.

[Calax]

I think Wals has a point. With the change to production you're no longer able to produce an army within a reasonable amount of time. I do think that one thing that might be good for the future would not only be zooming in like Tig was talking about, but also making it so cities can expand beyond one hex as it grows. Then you could start fighting for cities quarter by quarter rather than just winning quick.