This Game Sucks

[DriXnaK]

That would be a joke. Ozzy was one of the worst players in Civ2 and the only reason he was able to win in Civ4 was for the very reason I hate that game; it equalizes players. All you have to do is look at the mechanics and fundamentals of the game to realize that the game punishes the leading player very harshly which is why you almost never saw any sort of lead form in games unless it was a CTON style of game spanning many turns.

[Jvstin]

I didn't play CIv4 because I didn't like it so why would I wish for it to come back? Obviously I hit a nerve by hitting the only thing you had going for in your life which was your pointless useless strategy postings. You remind me of that Velocir guy or something like that who always used to make long posts too, all of which were mainly geared towards the other little kids still playing against the AI. Also, you're absolutely corny in your postings. I'd love to see a picture of you because right now I get the feeling you are some fat middle aged guy with glasses. Usually a lack of wit combined with this posting style indicates someone who is deficient in real life.

Endlessly slamming Civ >2. That's one thing. I can respect a point of view, even if I don't agree with it.

Ad Hominem attacks. :Shakes head sadly: That's just tasteless.

[asurob]

Seriously how old are you?

You have certainly won the game of board warrior. Pat yourself on the back and scuttle off now.

[rah]

The man believes that II was the Pinnacle for CIV.
That is the fact that he should be judged upon.

[Fidel]

The best thing I could say is that I have been playing the game in various states of development for a long, LONG time, and when I came home last night, the only game I wanted to play was Civ5. That's pretty amazing.

That said, you have identified a few things that I think I could help with as the game continues to mature. First, I would definitely go up in difficulty level. Try Emperor. The next thing I would do is add some more AIs in the mix. Many people have noted that once another civ touches your borders, get ready for war. While this isn't a guarantee (you can, of course, work on diplomacy), it's pretty sure to happen regularly. And on the topic of diplomacy, please keep posting your ideas for improvements. I can tell you that all of us want the best diplomacy possible, and this will mature for sure.

As for the interface, give it a while. Mostly I enjoy things like the notifications. The interface will also develop more!

I tried again. This time it was better.
Still, I reckon the most fundamental difference in the default settings is the vastness of the maps and the slow tempo of filling them out. I feel that the number of civs and minor states should be at least +50% on any setting to have any pressure on borders. I played standard and by 400BC none of us had more than two cities, with vast unclaimed lands inbetween. This is why the 'feel' of previous civs is absent, there is no landgrab and no incentive to go to war over some land. While this was surely exaggerated in some of previous iterations, current default settings are creating 'empty' worlds. This was on King.
So I guess 9 civs on small and 12 on standard might do.
Anyway, thank you for your polite reply. Please tell the guys in Firaxis that having wants/gives resource screen is a must (ala BTS).

[vulture]

Who was it thrashed EoN (he was HappySunshine at the time IIRC) at civ3? My memory says nbarlcay, but I might be wrong. His complaint then was exactly the same - that it wasn't civ2, and that (amazingly) his civ2 strategies didn't work in a completely different game. IIRC he argued at the time that, just like in this thread, he was actually the better player and had better strategies, but the other person one the game by understanding the rules better. Clearly bad game design

I wonder when the civ 5 version of this cyclical story will take place.

[yin26]

I tried again. This time it was better.
Still, I reckon the most fundamental difference in the default settings is the vastness of the maps and the slow tempo of filling them out. I feel that the number of civs and minor states should be at least +50% on any setting to have any pressure on borders. I played standard and by 400BC none of us had more than two cities, with vast unclaimed lands inbetween. This is why the 'feel' of previous civs is absent, there is no landgrab and no incentive to go to war over some land. While this was surely exaggerated in some of previous iterations, current default settings are creating 'empty' worlds. This was on King.
So I guess 9 civs on small and 12 on standard might do.
Anyway, thank you for your polite reply. Please tell the guys in Firaxis that having wants/gives resource screen is a must (ala BTS).

You're on to an important point about the size of maps and when the feeling of pressure kicks in. In the meantime, definitely keep trying different combinations of maps size and CS / Major Civ #s. I have come to enjoy the different pacing of the early game, but I don't like ANY game to go on too long without some serious entanglements. I suspect that as the AI matures, we'll see something less forgiving than what we have at the moment.

I'm also a UI guy and absolutely believe that we need a lot more help figuring out things like wants/gives. Almost certainly we'll see more of those type of screens (based on how things developed to BtS).

[MRT144]

The man believes that II was the Pinnacle for CIV.
That is the fact that he should be judged upon.

That and how he truly believes participating in 1 on 1 games and subsequent victories make his opinion more valid.

[jobe]

He had a week where he appeared in civ4 times and was trying to tell everyone that picking Holy-Rome and rushing for Engineering was unbeatable in an Ancient start duel. He got thrashed a couple of times, whined a lot and disappeared again. I played him as well back then - it´s interesting to see he´s pulling this routine off for years now

[MRT144]

He had a week where he appeared in civ4 times and was trying to tell everyone that picking Holy-Rome and rushing for Machinery was unbeatable in an Ancient start duel. He got thrashed a couple of times, whined a lot and disappeared again. I played him as well back then - it´s interesting to see he´s pulling this routine off for years now

I suspect autism or ocd.

[DriXnaK]

Who was it thrashed EoN (he was HappySunshine at the time IIRC) at civ3? My memory says nbarlcay, but I might be wrong. His complaint then was exactly the same - that it wasn't civ2, and that (amazingly) his civ2 strategies didn't work in a completely different game. IIRC he argued at the time that, just like in this thread, he was actually the better player and had better strategies, but the other person one the game by understanding the rules better. Clearly bad game design

I wonder when the civ 5 version of this cyclical story will take place.

Too bad I never played Civ3 Mp. My experience with CIv3 MP was PTW release and I saw they didn't have a working chat, so I went right back to AOC. I completely skipped Civ3 and went for Civ4.

He had a week where he appeared in civ4 times and was trying to tell everyone that picking Holy-Rome and rushing for Engineering was unbeatable in an Ancient start duel. He got thrashed a couple of times, whined a lot and disappeared again. I played him as well back then - it´s interesting to see he´s pulling this routine off for years now

That was after I got tired of winning with Rome. Sorry, but Civ4 is boring to begin with and spamming out praetorians and **** is even more boring. Also, we played Jobe and you managed to take a city USING ROME BTW but somehow you sucked so bad that you lost your entire stack in the process and allowed me to get fully upgraded landschneckts with forges in my cities. LOL NICE JOB LOSER! Then you quit the game and said you had to leave because you were going out with your girlfriend, which everyone knows you don't have one. I go out into lobby and there you are already joining another game. You later claimed that the game was just no worth your time because you had it so won. You suck, and everyone in Civ4 knows it.

[AEdwild]

LOL NICE JOB LOSER! Then you quit the game and said you had to leave because you were going out with your girlfriend, which everyone knows you don't have one. I go out into lobby and there you are already joining another game. You later claimed that the game was just no worth your time because you had it so won. You suck, and everyone in Civ4 knows it.

Why is this person even allowed on this site? This kind of talk is more reminiscent of high school geek squad than any worthwhile Civ discussion.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Civfanatics is the commie site which bans on sight (and thus have a lot of activity too, as newbies feel more accepted), approach here is more liberal, and for me more fun. After all EoN is just out in force as usual and some of us are enjoying it (I am sure I'm not the only one )

btw historically, it was a bit of an event when he lost, fun to read all the excuses and the gloating from all involved sides.

[Grandpa Troll]

Im tickled to death with the game thus far, soon headed hom for a good 5-7 hours worth if nothing comes up!!

Im sorry ole EoN doesnt enjoy but I do, just as game ships

[Atomation]

Honestly, all these years of work and this is what you came up with? The hex tiles are nice, and maybe a few changes to the battle system are interesting, but what do we really have here? This is basically Civ4 with some stuff taken out, which is terrible since I thought Civ4 was a game made for 5 year olds. Basically all the maintenance system has been boiled down to happiness. Somehow, they even managed to make it more repressive than the maintenance system in Civ4. I just love how my size 1 cities are angry on king level with 3 cities total. Yes, 3 cities total and my cities are unhappy the minute I build it. Even Civ4 had less of a repressive system than this.

Do you just want to turn this into OCC? Is this what we're moving towards? Each ****ing game you put out you somehow get it in your head that there's jut TOO MANY GOD DAMN cities on the map! You even have a ****ing trait for India that actually discourages buildings cities. What? Are you ****ing insane? I won't even get started on the civ traits because...well, obviously you didn't think things through very well. The barbarian bonuses as civ traits is just laugh out loud stupid. I mean I realize you only put MP in the game because you were forced to in order to get good reviews and sell it, but this? Seriously?

So basically your only options to stop unhappiness in the early game is resources. Of course the whole resource idea was flawed from the beginning anyway, but lets just put EVEN MORE emphasis on resources because that's the way they roll at Firaxis. Take something broken and emphasize it, pure genius at work. They even "simplified" the buildings available down to almost nothing. Everywhere I look I see "simplification" which is code for "we think you're too stupid to handle this so we're going to take some more stuff out of the game." Now your only real way to fix unhappiness is in classical age and you have to build a ****ing circus. Yes, I am not kidding here. Unless of course you're egypt, then you can build a burial chamber, which is just slightly overpowered I would think.

Honestly, I can't think of a reason to play this game at this point. They took everything bad about civ4 and took it up a notch. The game is designed for people that only want to build like maybe 5 cities at most. In fact, the game FORCES you to do that. What ****ing game can you think of that pretty much forces players to play a certain way and puts so many constraints on what can be done? God, I knew not to get my hopes up, but I really thought it would at least be better than this.

I think there are plenty of options for getting lots of cities, and I only played the demo. I had no trouble building 7 happy cities by 1AD on the hardest difficulties. You need to use piety and go for techs that give you your luxuries first, not to mention actually build happy buildings.

[Atomation]

I am not aware that I've admitted to anything damning. I'm also not aware of ever denying that I play single player, which is the dominant form of the game. Multiplayer is not a priority in the civ franchise. You are in the vast minority, here. Therefore... Is SP not the most valid way to play the game? It is what the game was designed for, thus your MP fetish is just that, fetish. Go play your bastardized game.

Your ignorant proclamation that the game sucks (made after, apparently, 10 minutes of playing the demo and looking at the pedia!) is not an MP matter. Had you added the words "for MP", than sure. But as it is, no. You have no goddamn idea of what you are talking about, as you have not played the damn game, and your threads do no more than misinform people who are looking for actual info on the game. In short, you are a troll.


Disclaimer: I really have nothing against MP. I have not played MP simply because Civ4 bored me; I played exclusively mods, and they were harder to get MP games going. With Civ5, I plan to get a few friends involved for an MP game.

Naturally, that game will be quite fun, regardless of what the moron above me believes.

To say that civ has a vast majority single-player base is like saying that china has mostly chinese people in its borders. The majority of the player base is a biproduct of the game design, not vice versa. IF the game had better multiplayer support, it would be a very strong multiplayer game, and frankly the multiplayer gaming community in general is extremely large and devotes much more time to gaming than single player casuals. Not to mention that a well balanced multiplayer game would still be as fun for singleplayer, while the opposite is not true in any way.

[Atomation]

Oh god, Ozzy why is it not surprising to me that you find Civ5 a complex game? You who find tying your shoes a complexity. Anyone who uses the word complex in the same sentence when referring to the game Civilization should not be allowed to leave their house without adult supervision.

It's very difficult to see the complexities until you have mastered the basics and can see with a keener eye. This is true of everything, and civ5 is no different. Whether or not those complexities are legitimate and thought provoking is another matter.

[DriXnaK]

Atomation...who are you? Why is there this lone voice of reason in a sea of fanboy insanity? It's lost though because the reality is that as long as Sid Meier is at the helm you will have each release more simplified than the last with more problems than the last as Comrade Sid thinks people want simple games with no multiplayer. As someone said on civfanatics, the real genius behind civ was Brian Reynolds.

[yin26]

Actually, a number of MP considerations simply don't work in SP, either. Think of Diplomacy as an obvious example, and certain strategies or play styles from MP, even if "ported" perfectly in the SP AI simply wouldn't appeal to a lot of SP people. Not because MP is somehow "better" - but because the very nature of competitive human to human play is its own world. I used to play RTS's competitively as part of a clan, and I love it! I don't want or need that with my Civ games, but that's just me.

The point is that there are enough points of serious convergence that doing EITHER one very well takes a tremendous commitment of time and resources. Doing BOTH well - and imagining that a person could go in and out of SP/MP somehow seamlessly - is an order of magnitude more difficult. Perhaps impossible.

[Krill]

Actually, a number of MP considerations simply don't work in SP, either. Think of Diplomacy as an obvious example, and certain strategies or play styles from MP, even if "ported" perfectly in the SP AI simply wouldn't appeal to a lot of SP people. Not because MP is somehow "better" - but because the very nature of competitive human to human play is its own world. I used to play RTS's competitively as part of a clan, and I love it! I don't want or need that with my Civ games, but that's just me.

Diplomacy is a bad example, because MP diplomacy is exactly what you'd get in SP if the AI understand game theory.

The point is that there are enough points of serious convergence that doing EITHER one very well takes a tremendous commitment of time and resources. Doing BOTH well - and imagining that a person could go in and out of SP/MP somehow seamlessly - is an order of magnitude more difficult. Perhaps impossible.

The good players can do that...but again, that comes down to the AI being a bundle of subroutines instead of a fully cognitive mind.

Still, when a game is released and you are saying that you need to increase the difficulty, you have done something that is at the very least different to the last great release that was CIV, where everyone had to decrease difficulty, and people still aren;t consistently beating diety after 5 years.

[DriXnaK]

Civ2 was able to do it just fine. Then again, that was Brian Reynold's creation. Face it, Sid Meier is a fraud undeserving of his reputation. As soon as he took the helm and Brian Reynolds left the game was completely down hill from there.

[Modo44]

IMO PBEM is a fun MP port of SP gameplay. But it requires heaps of patience even in scenarios, so it's not for everyone.

[Ming]

Still in the Anger phase. This is normal. Don't beat yourself over it. You have found here in Poly a loving community, and we accept you as you are and hope to hold your hand throughout this journey.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!

[DriXnaK]

You've apparently lost your sense of wit over the years Ming if you find that to be funny. Not surprising since I must question the sanity of someone who would voluntarily live in Chicago anyway and become a moderator on a forum.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

Ming, can you explain to this guy that Chicago is overflowing with young beautiful women?

[yin26]

Diplomacy is a bad example, because MP diplomacy is exactly what you'd get in SP if the AI understand game theory.

Which it never will, of course (not in our lifetimes, anyway). I love the idea, though.

The good players can do that...but again, that comes down to the AI being a bundle of subroutines instead of a fully cognitive mind.

Sorry, I meant the developers, not the players. Of course many players go in and out of MP/SP. Sadly on the development side, it's simply a false comfort to think that a great SP game just magically becomes a great MP game or that a great MP game by definition makes for a great SP game. Just not reality, at least in a Civ context. Both SP and MP can and should offer something that utilizes the best aspects of those different environments. I suspect that if Firaxis decided to make a dedicated MP game from the ground up, built by MPers for MPers, it would rock. But it also will never happen if history is any judge.

[yin26]

Still, when a game is released and you are saying that you need to increase the difficulty, you have done something that is at the very least different to the last great release that was CIV, where everyone had to decrease difficulty, and people still aren;t consistently beating diety after 5 years.

No argument here. There is work to be done for sure. I don't recall where Civ4 vanilla was in this regard, though. I know we made a LOT of progress post vanilla, and that will obviously hold true here, too.

[Jvstin]

You've apparently lost your sense of wit over the years Ming if you find that to be funny. Not surprising since I must question the sanity of someone who would voluntarily live in Chicago anyway and become a moderator on a forum.

Trying to provoke negative attention from people, by insulting them as you have taken to doing, is not psychologically healthy. You were on better ground when you were slamming Civ 3,4 and 5 rather than trying to slam fellow board members here. (Or trying to slam Mr. Meier, either).

[Dinner]

Well, I see two old posters who are credited as beta testers, Nikolai and Yin. Now that the game is out, please do tell whether you actually enjoy playing its final version?
This was the first Civ ever I thought sucked big time. Graphics are a step back, granted, diplomacy is a joke (even more than in the previous incarnation). 1UP is good. But the game is BORING. Nothing happens for ages. No one attacks me, we are just pushing a couple of units around, waiting for something to be built. And nothing ever is. I have no idea what is going on. The level is Prince, right out of the box, and I was not even trying to get a grasp on what was going on...
Epic fail, IMHO.
By the way, a special raspberry award goes to the 'streamlined interface'. So much for the jabs at Soren and Civ4. He did a MUCH better job even in vanilla version. This is worse than Civ3. The worst Civ in the series so far.

I have to agree. It's just boring with nothing engaging or interesting happening. I know they dumbed it down so that retards and 5 year olds can play the game without having to ever think about anything but the result is just uninteresting and the UI would never work in MP. It's like they took everything good out of Civ4 and then only put the bad aspects into Civ5.

[Krill]

C4 vanilla was actually pretty crap with the AI...but it was a step up from C3. I still remember the communal "D'oh" moment when someone massively abused the fact that horses were always visible at hte start of the game. I don't think C5 has a whole quite that large , but it still seems to have all of these nigly small ones that just seem worse than C4 did at the start. Sure, they can get ironed out, but I think you have further to go than C4 did to being polished...