Civ community euphoric about Civ5?

[Zoetstofzoetje]

that's not a good business idea.

a good business idea is to incrementally add to existing products and charging premiums for each addition.

once you offer the customer a product that s/he'll be happy with for a decade, you won't see that customer for a decade. patches, upgrades, new versions: we fall for it.

[Brael]

Yet, a large portion of civ 5's sales are a direct result of civ 4 being so good. Also, if the game is good more people are going to keep playing it, and as such more people will buy addon's like DLC as it improves the games replay value. When the game is bad, microtransaction sales will also be far less than they can potentially be.

[Ming]

What's really disturbing is that they have gone into total turtle mode. The only contact with the fans seems to be through hyped press releases and not where it should be... which is in the fan community. When Civ IV was launched, and the problems were popping up right away, they were out in the community... helping people with their problems, discussing the issues... listening to the fans. They weren't hiding behind silly and unbelievable press releases and friendly interviews. The fans could feel the energy they were putting into the game, and could see that they were trying to fix it so that we would have a better game.

With Civ V... they rarely respond to emails... aren't active in forums or the community... and we get interviews where they are putting words in the fans mouths... like that we like the game. They don't even want to admit that there are problems...

This does not bode well for the future of Civ V.

[jobe]

It is nonsense to call BTS the final evolution of a specific civ branch, which cannot be developed fiurther and has to be substituted with "new ideas" otherwise people wouldn´t want it anymore since they are constantly looking for the next kick. I assume that´s why no one plays Starcraft2 and why that game is meaningless in the gaming and MP communities since it´s essentially Starcraft1 with some tweaks and - yes - some totally meaningless new graphics? .

It is also nonsense to ask for or judge specific singular features out of context like "everyone" does here and everywhere especially including Firaxis. It borders on the silly to name one feature and call it good or bad, to ask for one feature and declare it an asset for a potential civ itteration. That´s how they made this game, that´s how they promoted the game and that´s how the game is: a dumbed down, totally random collection of game mechanics which at no point have been planned based on a vision/system/goal with interactions in mind, but rather assembled arbitrarily ("I like Panzer General, let´s do 1UPT."; "We need something to promote the game with, let´s do hexes ´cause that will make waves in the civ forums and show how real we are about starting the next age of civ" etc.)

[Handel]

("I like Panzer General, let´s do 1UPT."; "We need something to promote the game with, let´s do hexes ´cause that will make waves in the civ forums and show how real we are about starting the next age of civ" etc.)

The problem with the combat is Panzer General is a game with totally different victory conditions. A PG game rarely has more then 7-8 turns and practically never last more then 10 turns. You just need to put a ground unit on the victory hex and you win the game. That's why you battle against scripted and usually overwhelming enemies and the point of the game is simply to "smuggle" somehow an unit into the victory hex. Quite obviously this cannot work in a Civ game.

[earnulf]

Civ V has a major problem with gameplay from the standpoint that after the first ten turns or so, the game suddenly slows down. During midstages of the game, it can take five minutes to complete a single turn including the AI. The characterizations of this game as "well-recieved" and a big hit obviously came from initial looks and not from players who have become frustrated with the steam connection as well as the game itself.

Having never played CIV before, I looked forward to V when given to me. Although I enjoy the premise, the actual gameplay (the slowness, I get through maybe 10 turns in an hour and yes, I do exceed the minimums for the game) is frustrating and allows way too much time for other pursuits and distractions, thus lowering the enjoyability of the game.

Unexplained Slowness on turns is a major turnoff. I don't know what PR firm is doing the job for 2K, but they are sure filtering out the complaints and tinting the windows a beautiful rosy color.

[Aeronomer]

I've never had any Steam/performance issues with the game at all. Except when they broke the mod browser back in December. Don't know if they've fixed it cuz I haven't fired up the game since.

The real problem with this game, as others have said, is that it's BORING.

I still fire up Civ IV vanilla at lunch sometimes because it's all my crappy work computer can handle and it's 1000 times more interesting and enjoyable than Civ V.

I have yet to play a single game to the end because I find it so incredibly BORING. City-states are stupid, most buildings and improvements have no discernible effect, diplomacy is ridiculous, the AI is stupid, combat is retarded.

Civ V sucks and without a major overhaul in gameplay mechanics I can't see ever being interested in this garbage.

[Nikolai]

earnulf, it sounds like you have an old computer. What is your specs? I don't need to wait more than perhaps 30-40 sec even in action filled parts of the modern age, and my computer is 3 years old and on the graphics side just barely exceed the recommended specs.

[ElDonReal]

I don't think it's all that bad. They did a lot to improve gameplay with their patches, especially those that target gameplay. I did enjoy the rule changes regarding city spacing and the improvements of the social policies and buildings with regard to wide vs tall empires. As their next patch will be another gameplay related patch I'm looking into a brighter future for Civ5 than some of you like to portray it.

Certainly though Civ5 was missing a lot of features when they released it and it was playtested only briefly and likely only to search showstoppers.

I'm only worried about the AI. It takes a pretty clever person to write a good AI, especially for such a complex game. There are not many people in the world that can do this.

[sparkyal]

I know that I have only played two games of CIV V (which in the month that I have had it is a pretty good rate for me) but I do have a couple of things to say. I think the game is a good one, but so radically different than the excellent CIV IV BTS (honestly CIV IV was only good with the Warlords and BTS releases...otherwise it was pretty boring too). I think the game has to be played with a different mindset than the last game. for example, France gives you a pretty good shot at winning a cultural victory. so if you want to try a cultural victory, go with that empire. Then, once you get good, go fora cultural victory with a civ that does not do it so well, like maybe Japan.

Now, for them to say that we, the fans, all love it...well, that is just blindness. It has so many deficiencies that it is almost laughable. We, the fans, are simply giving them the benefit of the doubt that they will fix these problems and get on with the game that we know they can make. At this point, it is incomplete. and I, for one, do not plan on spending ANY more money on it until they have some type of expansion that really fixes the issues in diplomacy, AI warfare, and fills in some of these holes that are everywhere in the game.

[rah]

Certainly though Civ5 was missing a lot of features when they released it and it was playtested only briefly and likely only to search showstoppers.

The problem was NOT the amount of play testing. It was the allocation and availability of resources to fix what was discovered during the play testing.

[Nikolai]

Certainly though Civ5 was missing a lot of features when they released it and it was playtested only briefly and likely only to search showstoppers.

This is simply not true.

[Kardalan1907]

Thank you very much

[Handel]

I worked for several years writing reviews for the games and had a lot of problems to write reviews for the bad game of some advertiser OR for some much waited title from a big name. Remember a long time ago wrote a review for the other Civilization (Civilization Call to Power - not the Hasbro Civilization) and put 40% but the chief editor got a heart attack "How a civilization game can get only 40%" so he changed it to 65% - which took it from "garbage" and put it in "playable" category.

[ElDonReal]

This is simply not true.

Then the testing didn't have much effect on the development. But such basic bugs as the minuteman road bug don't give the impression of proper play testing. What about the newest air unit rebase bug (read over at CFC)? Last game I had a unit in a city and razed that city. When the city was gone the unit disappeared as well. I don't even bother to report them anymore. None of the other Civ titles ever had such grave bugs as disappearing units or failure to implement the game rules correctly.

[Handel]

Testing is expensive (if you don't give it to the chinese and a sane person will not do it). Much cheaper is the force the customers to pay and to serve as free testers. And this is to a big extend due to the net. Before this the devs had to copy the patches on diskettes and to mail them to customers which required them. The 1st Civ is sold in 8 mil copies - you can easily calculate how much will costs to mail 8 mil diskettes - and this is only for 1 patch. So the devs were forced to make extensive testing; most games didn't need patches at all and just one patch was the most. Now they simply don't care. And maybe Firaxis became too arrogant.

[sparkyal]

Wow....well, that certainly makes sense. I think the same about the testing, not enough done about it. but, this is why i waited so long before buying the game. I remember buying CIV IV the same month it came out and it was DOA because of the missing dll. and then it still had problems. It took them some time to really get it going. I think this goes back to one thing i said before. They put the game out to get some monry in the door after all the time spent putting it together, and they will actually make it the game we want it to be in an expansion or two. Really, the game has excellent potential.

[Dr Strangelove]

How far have you gotten on the huge map? I believe you said you had to turn the graphics down to a minimum? Wait until you get into the 200 to 300th turn and the game freezes so often that you're forced to play using strategic view. Yeah it feels really great to have spent $60 on a game only to be forced to turn it down to graphics that went out of style back when America On Line was the darling of Wall Street. But that's OK, because after a few dozen turns more even strategic view will lock up. No, my computer isn't ancient. It's a Quad core 2.6 ghz with nVidia 9800GT and 8 gigs of RAM. I checked on their website, that more than meets the recommended specs. When the game was tested they didn't bother finding out how much memeory it chewed up in the later stages using the larger map settings.

[mzprox]

I could forgive the bad game mechanism, the bugs-I was able to try the demo after all- But i can't forgive them for lying about the "soon to be implemented" pitboss option. That was the only reason I bought the game and I put the game away after 2 weeks, haven't touched since.
I think this was the last game I've bought from them.

[SpencerH]

None of the other Civ titles ever had such grave bugs as disappearing units or failure to implement the game rules correctly.

CIV3 had quite a number of very serious bugs.

[sparkyal]

Well, i knocked the graphics down one setting, not to min. So, everything that was high before is now medium. Yeah, it does not look as good, but it does run. I am on turn 450 and things are running pretty well for now. But i know what you mean, the specs they have a flat out wrong. I think the game does not "clean up after itself"...if the GPU is running around 98% for a card that is overspec'ed for the game, that is a programming issue.

I still have my ticket open with 2k, it has been there 6days and no one has looked at it yet...very disappointing.

[Dinner]

They never got around to optimizing much of anything in the game. It's just another sign that the game was rushed out and poorly programed.

[chemist]

The weakness of the AI detracts from the game considerably.

[Brael]

Well, I found another negative about the game. Yesterday I hooked a high end computer up to my friends 3d tv and tried to play civ 5. It turns out the game only supports two 3d resolutions on a tv, 1920x1080@24hz and 1280x720@60hz. The 1920x1080 option doesn't work, everything is too choppy due to the frame rate being so poor. The other choice couldn't be set in the video options. As a test, I then tried some newer games (dungeon siege 3, and a couple others, all had 3d support like civ claims), all of them could run a huge variety of 3d compatible resolutions, including 1920x1080@60hz. So, for a game that claims to be cutting edge, being one of the first games out, to be designed specifically for a 3d experience, I'm rather disappointed that it failed this test while several other games, including games that had 3d hastily patched in were able to handle it without a problem.

[Nikolai]

3D support? As in those tvs with glasses required? Civ5 was promised to support that? Huh, news to me.

[Brael]

Yep, it was one of the first games released with actual support for 3d, rather than the graphics driver simply converting stuff to 3d. I've made a post on it here in the past, on a monitor using 3d+max settings it looks good, really good, gorgeous even. I tried it on a 3d TV though thinking it would work equally well and no such luck. The game doesn't support it, every other game out right now that has actual 3d support that I tried (dungeon siege 3, crysis, rift, some others), did support it, so it wasn't an issue of the tv simply being unable to do it. It's just another item in the list of disappointments associated with civ 5.

[Robert Plomp]

Didn't knew that! I have a 3D Tv, I should try that.
How do I configure it?

When I connect my laptop to my TV through HDM 1.4 I get a very bad screen quality where I can hardly read texts anyway.....
But it's not important enough for me to try to figure out.
But playing civ in 3D sounds interesting at least to try once

[Brael]

Connect through HDMI, it probably varies a bit by tv manufacturer, the tv I tried using was a Samsung 8000 it would only work using an HDMI to HDMI cable, DVI should work though, but it didn't in this case. You have to set the tv to be the only screen, just like with a projector. The computer you connect needs to have a 3d capable video card in it, and nvidia one that's a model 260 or later (not sure on where it starts for laptop models) and I think the most recent ati cards will support 3d.

Once everything is connected you might have to enable 3d in the video cards software. After the 3d is set up, start the game and go into options, it should try to start the 3d automatically but if not press ctrl+t (maybe different on ati cards) you'll need to select a compatible resolution if you're not already in one (on the tv I used, the tv had text pop up saying which resolutions would work). Then play the game.

I would suggest against it though based on my experience. It looks great on a 3d monitor (tried it on a 21.6" alienware, not sure of the exact model number) they really put some work into making the game look good in 3d, but when I tried it on a tv it hurt my eyes because the refresh rate was forced into being so low.

[rah]

Just another example of poor development priorities.

[Robert Plomp]

The computer you connect needs to have a 3d capable video card in it

There things go wrong.
Thanks for the explanation.

Just another example of poor development priorities.

indeed.