Civilization V, how is it now?

[Kristijonas]

Sounds painful. What if we don't swing that way...?

This was a question about Shogun 2. To answer - Shogun 2 needs analyzing, but even if you don't like it, you can start playing right away, because the basics are simple. By analyzing, I meant all the types of units, buildings trees, technology trees, family trees, all those personal traits, possessions, retainers etc. It's a very complex if you dig deep. If you don't - it's all the same well playable.

 

[Sulaco]

This was a question about Shogun 2. To answer - Shogun 2 needs analyzing, but even if you don't like it, you can start playing right away, because the basics are simple. By analyzing, I meant all the types of units, buildings trees, technology trees, family trees, all those personal traits, possessions, retainers etc. It's a very complex if you dig deep. If you don't - it's all the same well playable.

I was kidding, jokingly making reference to "analising" instead of "analyzying".

I have about 80 hours or so in Shogun 2 now, and thousands more in all the previous TW games.
Just a bit of fun.

 

[Kristijonas]

Ahh, I see So, what's your opinion about Shogun 2? I've only spent ~3 hours in it, playing as Shimazu (I think) and I think it's a great game. Almost conquered the whole southern island already. The thing I like most is that no battles were too easy. Even against smaller clans. Only my warlike ways (which provided me with unit experience) saved me from defeat.
Also, sorry about the off topic. Figured no one likes talking about Civ5 anyway

 

[GoodRevrnd]

1UPT, hex tiles, flow of gameplay, city states, stronger economic balance.

Did we play the same game? It's funny that those are the issues most prominently being addressed by patches and community balance mods...

 

[Munky]

IMO, the patches for Civ 5 only exacerbate everything I disliked about it. The game is fundamentally flawed in that it penalizes you for developing and maintainig a large, powerful empire, with annoying mechanics, such as:
- No gold/science/culture slider. Ran out of cash? Too bad, we're disbanding a unit and there's nothing you can do about it.
- Horrible penalties for conquering cities. It's far more efficient to raze captured cities and found new ones instead of trying to salvage the old ones.
- The happiness cap and high cost/benefit ratio for buildings make it much more worthwhile to have many small, underdeveloped, tightly-spaced cities rather than fewer larger cities.
- You can't trade techs, and rather than going broke from research agreements with the AI, you're better off spending the money upgrading your units and taking over the land.

So once you figure out that the most practical Civ5 strategy is good old Civ3-style ICS, they release a bunch of patches that neff whatever worked well before. Increase unhappiness from number of cities. Decrease benefits of certain buildings and resources. Decrease effectiveness of certain units.

The AI being dumb is actually a good thing, considering how much the game seems to work against you in every possible way. It's dumbed down, taking away a large degree of strategy and gameplay options, and makes "winning" a small consolation prize for having to put with a challege that's annoying and irritating, as opposed to fun and rewarding.

 

[Gibsons]

For the civ vets out there, how would you have responded if they took Civ4 and:

Switched to a hex map
juiced up the graphics
put together a new but similar tech tree
add a mild nerf to stacks of doom (smaller stacks, more/better/cheaper artillery, whatever you can think of)

I think I'd be playing it right now. I still don't have civ 5.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Currently have the Russians down to one city and one unit. I have about 50+ units.

I ask for peace plus open borders and I'm told to go away.

Diplomacy is beyond crap. :thumbsdown:

 

[mk]

For the civ vets out there, how would you have responded if they took Civ4 and:

Switched to a hex map
juiced up the graphics
put together a new but similar tech tree
add a mild nerf to stacks of doom (smaller stacks, more/better/cheaper artillery, whatever you can think of)

I think I'd be playing it right now. I still don't have civ 5.

Add improved tactical and strategic AI, a little streamlining and I'd love it.

 

[Munky]

For the civ vets out there, how would you have responded if they took Civ4 and:

Switched to a hex map
juiced up the graphics
put together a new but similar tech tree
add a mild nerf to stacks of doom (smaller stacks, more/better/cheaper artillery, whatever you can think of)

I think I'd be playing it right now. I still don't have civ 5.

They could have just added 4 things to Civ 4 and I'd be happy.
- Better graphics
- Hex grid
- City states - don't know why everyone hates them, they can be beneficial if used correctly, or even exploited
- Limited units per resource - I thought of this a long time ago. Wanna field a modern superpower army? Better stock up on oil and aluminum.

 

[The Green Bean]

I bought Civ 5 when it came out but I just can't get into it. I've played less than a couple of hours so it's not enough to judge by any means. I've played 200+ hours of Civ 4 but starting 5 was annoying. I met two civs in 10 turns and straight away they both denounced me and one even threatened war. WTF? How dumb is the AI? Shogun 2 has been much for fun.

 

[xboxist]

My roommate hopped on my computer yesterday and played Civ V from noon to 9pm. She got up once to pee, I think. Afterward she proclaimed, "Holy fuck that's addicting."

It doesn't suck for all, it would seem.

 

[Schadenfroh]

It doesn't suck for all, it would seem.

She play the previous games in the series (minus III)?

I just downloaded Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn mod for Civ IV, going to see if that mod can hold me over till they fix Civ 5.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Patch is out.

 

[Sulaco]

My roommate hopped on my computer yesterday and played Civ V from noon to 9pm. She got up once to pee, I think. Afterward she proclaimed, "Holy fuck that's addicting."

It doesn't suck for all, it would seem.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, and doesn't say anything everyone hasn't already said.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Patch is out.

It's destroyed my current game. I've gone from 1 unhappiness to 17 unhappiness. D:

OH well, I have about 11k gold. Guess I'll be buying up on Stadiums and Theaters.

 

[xboxist]

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, and doesn't say anything everyone hasn't already said.

I missed the part earlier in the thread apparently where everyone says that the game is fun and engaging enough that an entire day can fly by without blinking. My bad.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I was kidding, jokingly making reference to "analising" instead of "analyzying".

I have about 80 hours or so in Shogun 2 now, and thousands more in all the previous TW games.
Just a bit of fun.

493 hours played on shogun 2 D: had no idea I played it that much your post made me curious lol. I imagine at least some of that was just leaving the game running while I was out though.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Well, my RoM AND failed to launch, just hangs.

Might try to reinstall after my thesis is finished.

How is this new patch? Did it fix many of the shortcomings? People online seem to proclaim it as a major overhaul, but the patch notes do not seem that impressive.

I really want to like Civ V...

 

[GoodRevrnd]

It's subtle but major. It mostly evens out the viability of wide and tall empires, and evens out victory conditions somewhat. I'll still be using Thal's Balance Mod and City State Diplomacy once they're updated.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I still like Civ 5 and don't really agree with the complaints about the economy. I like the tradeoff between gold and happiness while juggling empire size. It puts a lot of focus on luxuries, which makes specific parts of the map very worth fighting over. And if you can't take the happiness hit you can always puppet states, which is a great way to get a strong income without killing your social policy generation rate.

Sure the AI is stupid, but the AI has always been stupid.

 

[Acanthus]

Patch is live.

The AI seems to be relatively smarter now.

Although in my most recent game Togukawa wardecced everyone and got owned... (no one declared on him)

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Patch is live.

The AI seems to be relatively smarter now.

Although in my most recent game Togukawa wardecced everyone and got owned... (no one declared on him)

Some people think when the AI decides it can't win the way it was planning to it will go suicide mode and just try to damage everyone else.

 

[KaOTiK]

My roommate hopped on my computer yesterday and played Civ V from noon to 9pm. She got up once to pee, I think. Afterward she proclaimed, "Holy fuck that's addicting."

It doesn't suck for all, it would seem.

pics of roommate?

 

[shortylickens]

So is Civ 4 still considered the good one?

 

[QuantumPion]

So is Civ 4 still considered the good one?

Yes, Civ4 is TBS perfection, the best of its kind period. It has very few flaws.

Pros:
-Graphics are cartoonyish so they never seem dated.
-AI is predictable and consistent. Play at a difficulty matching your ability and you will always be challenged.
-Great game balance mechanics (resources,happiness,health,strategic,culture,sliders,religion,espionage,great people,corporations,trade,world & national wonders,civics)
-Mechanics offer varying rewards, player is not punished for making tradeoffs (e.g. no building maintenance, civics can be switched freely and give different benefits but almost no negatives,etc)

Cons:
-Interface can be buggy at times
-modern warfare becomes tedious
-AI predictability can be exploited (e.g. luring defenders out of cities)