So what exactly is the beef with Civ V?

[Al B. Sure!]

I bought it (even though Oerdin is supposed to have paid for my copy, lying SOB ) with Gods and Kings and I'm not understanding what the hate is about. The flaws in the game are flaws in the Civ series in general. The customization of social policies and religion is well beyond what was in previous iterations of Civ and makes the Civs more unique from game to game than previously. For the first time in Civ, one unit per tile actually makes formations relevant and offers the possibility for terrain chokepoints, although having to move garrisoned units out when building a new unit and some silly logjams with allied or non-hostile units can make this feature annoying.

Really, aside from one unit per tile which is a mixed bag with the negatives really being just minor nuisances, Civ V is pretty much still Civ.

All of you got your panties in wads cause of what exactly? Typical negative fanboy freak outs over the smallest changes?

[gribbler]

This is not the Civ 5 forum.

[Hauldren Collider]

The game is ****ing broken, Alby. Here's an in depth reason why: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/whatwentwrong.html

These are not minor gripes. These are game breaking flaws.

[gribbler]

Yeah, the AI is a real game killer. At least with the "stacks of doom" in previous versions of civ the AI could sometimes threaten a city.

[Hauldren Collider]

It's not just the AI, it's the return of infinite city spam, horrible balance and nonexistant multiplayer.

[Wiglaf]

I think there are six fundamental flaws:

1) There are numerous very gay gameplay mechanics, and they all have very gay names. Intrigue and social policies are especially gay, gay all the way, as has been noted at length by the New York Times in their infamous article, "For Civilization Fans, New Sequel Brings Gay Game Mechanics, Even Faggier Social Policies."

2) The AI poses no tactical threat because it cannot understand 1UPT, meaning you are never in any military risk. What is cute about this is the strategic AI does not realize the tactical AI is incompetent, so the strategic AI still bullies you and declares war as if this will intimidate you. Jon Shafer, noted idiot, went ahead with 1UPT anyway because Panzer General. If you have any questions, the answer is always Panzer General.

3) The multiplayer does not work very often, and many features, including map DLCs and Espionage, are simply absent even if you manage to get it to function. It is as if the designers realized at 8 PM the night before the game was due that they forgot to add a multiplayer component, so they copy/pasted the multiplayer code from Panzer General, which must be imitated when all else fails, because Panzer General.

4) Global happiness makes it too easy to expand, as noted in that link above, since there is now no more unhealthiness and there are tons of happiness city states, religious features, and buildings that make it easy to raise your global empire happiness. No effort was made to balance any of these numerous ways to increase global happiness. Additionally, in another nod by Firaxis to incoherence and incomprehensibility, for some inexplicable reason, your entire empire is either happy, or it is not. Your border city that has been ravaged by rape, war, incest, Racism, Judaism, Islam, the Mongols, and barbarians is always going to be just as happy --- no more, no less --- as your pristine capital full of stadiums and pornography, because Panzer General.

5) The game is boring.

6) Economy and land management are non-factors, when they were all important in Civ4. It is almost always the right play to build endless trading posts, spam cities everywhere, and abuse maritime city states for food. They are nerfed in a patch but not much.

[SlowwHand]

It's not Civ II MP, just improved. All Civ II needed was tweaks and better graphics as they evolved. Instead, they decided to just screw it all up.
Civ II was mostly just Civ I, but with MP capabilities and scenarios. They had a winner and gave it up.

[Dinner]

All they had to do was update the graphics for Civ4 BTS and maybe tinker with a few minor things but, nope, they had to throw out the whole history of civ and replace it with a poorly functioning turd because shafer likes Panzer General more than Civ. It's like the dumb **** really wanted to make a Panzer General 2 but they wouldn't let him so he decided to screw up civ instead.

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't know what Trip was thinking using Panzer General as the model for Civ. Hell, Civ2 is much more fun than Civ5, and the AI is at least competent. Why didn't they look to MOO2, or even, heck, entrepreneur.

[Wiglaf]

All they had to do was update the graphics for Civ4 BTS and maybe tinker with a few minor things but, nope, they had to throw out the whole history of civ and replace it with a poorly functioning turd because shafer likes Panzer General more than Civ. It's like the dumb **** really wanted to make a Panzer General 2 but they wouldn't let him so he decided to screw up civ instead.

Jon Shafer is a twinky little douche.

[onodera]

And Al, social policies look good on paper, but are terrible. If you country is religious in -3000BC, then by god it will stay religious in 2000AD. I expected something like policies of SMAC, not this bullshit. There was no need to completely scrap the policy system of Civ4.

[Sir Og]

And Al, social policies look good on paper, but are terrible. If you country is religious in -3000BC, then by god it will stay religious in 2000AD. I expected something like policies of SMAC, not this bullshit. There was no need to completely scrap the policy system of Civ4.

QFT!

Also the interface is horrible and inadequate to handle the new stuff that was introduced (e.g 1upt) You are forced to do a **** ton of clicking and command issuing each turn wich drives me mad. It should not be so tedious to play a game.

[MikeH]

The fundamental problem is that all the decisions are boring. Robert Plomp got it right in his review IMO.

I started 2 games, never finished either. (but each time loaded up Civ IV instead, which is still great).

[MOBIUS]

As usual I took the only truly smart course of action and never bought Civ V in the first place.

[Wiglaf]

I bought it (even though Oerdin is supposed to have paid for my copy, lying SOB ) with Gods and Kings and I'm not understanding what the hate is about. The flaws in the game are flaws in the Civ series in general. The customization of social policies and religion is well beyond what was in previous iterations of Civ and makes the Civs more unique from game to game than previously. For the first time in Civ, one unit per tile actually makes formations relevant and offers the possibility for terrain chokepoints, although having to move garrisoned units out when building a new unit and some silly logjams with allied or non-hostile units can make this feature annoying.

Really, aside from one unit per tile which is a mixed bag with the negatives really being just minor nuisances, Civ V is pretty much still Civ.

All of you got your panties in wads cause of what exactly? Typical negative fanboy freak outs over the smallest changes?

YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL HOTEL TOWEL MAIDEN BANK TELLER, A TOTAL DOUCHE, FAILED MARINE, DISASTER RAPPER, MAJOR LEAGUE CLOSET CASE, AND YOU JUST WASTED $30 YOU COULD'VE SPENT ON MORE YELLOW BOARD SHORTS YOU CONDESCENDING FAG!

I'm sorry I just noticed how obnoxious your post was. That will not stand. :Q: Q:Q:Q:Q:

[Al B. Sure!]

It's not Civ II MP, just improved. All Civ II needed was tweaks and better graphics as they evolved. Instead, they decided to just screw it all up.
Civ II was mostly just Civ I, but with MP capabilities and scenarios. They had a winner and gave it up.

You're letting nostalgia get the best of you.

And Al, social policies look good on paper, but are terrible. If you country is religious in -3000BC, then by god it will stay religious in 2000AD. I expected something like policies of SMAC, not this bullshit. There was no need to completely scrap the policy system of Civ4.

As opposed to the old Civ stand-by of switching between Communism and Democracy with a turn of anarchy whenever it's convenient? The current system is no more realistic but it makes your Civ more RPG-like and potentially unique every play-through, especially with the equally RPG-like religion system.

[Elok]

I didn't buy it because Every. Single. Thing. they said they were changing sounded stupid. I guess hexes could go either way (they solve a "problem" I never cared about while removing an axis of movement), but the rest:

1. The whole empire is always equally happy/unhappy. This is silly.
2. The whole empire, for some reason, is made happier by discovering landmarks. This is sillier.
3. The GDR. Silliest.
4. Of all the new elements they could have introduced, they put in city-states. Because we didn't have enough sulky-AI-coddling with actual countries, and we were all just itching to play a game that could simulate San Marino.
5. I'd like to buy a complete game, not half a game followed by eighteen DLC packs on the installment plan.
6. The evolving social policies thing did sound like it would constrain your freedom annoyingly.
7. Instead of each leader getting a unique pair of powerful game-changing traits, each leader now gets a unique silly gimmick. Rome used to build a lot of wonders and crank out great generals and settlers; now they're the guys with a strong incentive to build lots of **** in their capital. Montezuma doesn't have stronger infantry, cheap temples and no anarchy anymore; instead, he gets a little bonus from killing things. This does not sound like an improvement.
8. If you want to make combat tactical, you're wrong, because Civ is a strategy game. But if you go ahead and do it, just make a frigging combat minimap already, instead of awkwardly pasting tactical actions over a world map that can't accommodate it.

There's probably more, but that'll do.

[rah]

For me it was that they removed all the wow out of the game. There are no supper terrain hexes. The wonders were watered down. The traits were watered down. The buildings were watered down. Everything takes too long to build and then costs maint. Yawn. And While I originally liked the idea of 1upt, it was really poorly implemented. And finally, the worst AI EVER. I did like the social policies but they kept screwing that up also.

[Hauldren Collider]

3. The GDR. Silliest.
There's probably more, but that'll do.

This is kind of a silly complaint. The GDR is more expensive than the culture victory building. By the time you build it, you could have already won in other ways. It's really just a gimmick for the endgame if you feel like goofing off.

[MOBIUS]

5. I'd like to buy a complete game, not half a game followed by eighteen DLC packs on the installment plan.

This is why I didn't buy Civ IV until BTS came out.

I didn't even look at Civ III.

[Elok]

This is kind of a silly complaint. The GDR is more expensive than the culture victory building. By the time you build it, you could have already won in other ways. It's really just a gimmick for the endgame if you feel like goofing off.

In case you didn't notice, that complaint was mostly just there to have "silly-sillier-silliest." And there's not much sillier than restive mobs being kept down by the knowledge that Ayers Rock exists. Only the GDR would do.

[Felch]

As opposed to the old Civ stand-by of switching between Communism and Democracy with a turn of anarchy whenever it's convenient? The current system is no more realistic but it makes your Civ more RPG-like and potentially unique every play-through, especially with the equally RPG-like religion system.

No, as opposed to the SMAC model which was ****ing awesome.

[Elok]

You know what would be really RPG-like? If barbarians randomly dropped historically-named weapons, like "Scimitar of Timur" or "Leif Eriksson's Axe." Then you could equip them to Great Generals. Oh, and the GGs would have appropriate perks like the Americans' Gettysburg Crush, which randomly inflicts four score and seven points of damage on critical. And when you take the enemy's capital, you have to storm the palace in a special Diablo-style map that lets you loot priceless artworks to sell for bonus gold. This would add an awesome tactical level to combat and be very interesting and new.

[Asher]

Where's the beef?

[MOBIUS]

You know what would be really RPG-like? If barbarians randomly dropped historically-named weapons, like "Scimitar of Timur" or "Leif Eriksson's Axe." Then you could equip them to Great Generals. Oh, and the GGs would have appropriate perks like the Americans' Gettysburg Crush, which randomly inflicts four score and seven points of damage on critical. And when you take the enemy's capital, you have to storm the palace in a special Diablo-style map that lets you loot priceless artworks to sell for bonus gold. This would add an awesome tactical level to combat and be very interesting and new.

We could call it World of Civcraft.

[Lorizael]

You know what would be really RPG-like? If barbarians randomly dropped historically-named weapons, like "Scimitar of Timur" or "Leif Eriksson's Axe." Then you could equip them to Great Generals. Oh, and the GGs would have appropriate perks like the Americans' Gettysburg Crush, which randomly inflicts four score and seven points of damage on critical. And when you take the enemy's capital, you have to storm the palace in a special Diablo-style map that lets you loot priceless artworks to sell for bonus gold. This would add an awesome tactical level to combat and be very interesting and new.

You're a terrible person.

[MikeH]

It sounds more fun.

[Ming]

Anything would add fun to the game.... they stripped most of the fun out and made it boring.
When ever there was something you could take advantage of and help you to victory, it got watered down... the whole game has been watered down.

Give me BTS. It's still entertaining, and fun for MP.

[dannubis]

I enjoy the SP in CiV more than the slugfest that is CIV BTS.

[kentonio]

I enjoy the SP in CiV more than the slugfest that is CIV BTS.

Why? It's boring as ****. Do you ever even feel vaguely threatened in Civ 5?