Civilization V has been out for quite some time now. It has received mixed reactions from the Civ-fanbase. On Apolyton about half of those who bought the game, have already put it aside. On CivFanatics about 1 out of 3 players rate the game lower then 6/10 while approximately the same number rates it higher then an 8/10. On WePlayCiv veteran civ players claim to 'lose interest' in Civ5 already, while others at the same time enjoy it a lot.


It is clear that we can't say that Civ5 is a failure. Many people enjoy the game a lot and spend a lot of time on it. But it can't also be said that the game is a huge success and satisfying the broad Civilization audience. Perhaps it can best be compared to Civilization III, which was also hated and loved. But we can't claim that Civilization V didn't innovate the series, which was one of the major complaints about Civ3. Not only did Civ5 renewed a lot in the series, like hexes, 1UPT, Ranged Combat and City States, these changes are also loved by the fans. Hexes receive a 4.6/5 from the fans. 1UPT gets 4.1/5 and City States 3.9/5. Those scores are quite good for such dramatic changes.

That leads us to the question: What's up with Civ5? Why do so many people not like it, while it is certainly being enjoyed a lot by many others. Is it just only the number of bugs? (Which Firaxis and 2K are paying a lot of attention to? Or is it more then that?

Some say it has been dumbed down. I doubt that that's what's going on here. The game is certainly not dumbed down in it's entirely. Some concepts defenitely are, but new introduced concepts 'smarted up' the game. Ranged Combat, City States, Social Policies and Tile Purchasing, to name a few, certainly brought some tough new decisions to the game. In the end the game may have been 'smarted up' as much as it has been 'dumbed down'. The game has some flaws, some unbalances, but certainly not more then Civ4 had just after it's release. The re-introduction of ICS can be fixed by a patch. It's more a matter of balancing.

I honestly believe that this all is caused by Civilization 5 having lost a bit too much of the so called 'reward factor'. The game is a tad bit too subtle. Achievements and decisions make too little of a difference. It's not giving enough satisfaction. Building a wonder isn't giving us that much of a mental award because they do not boost us that much in the game. This takes away a bit of the 'one more turn' factor. Not in it's entirely, it's still there. The rewards, the 'one more turn', the coolness factor, it's not completely gone, but it has been 'nerved'.
I want to explain this by giving a couple of examples;

1. Tile bonuses do not reward
Cows, fish, wheat... resources have always been important in Civilization. Having a couple of special resources around your city gives a good feeling. It makes the city special. When they are worked with the right tile improvement, it makes a difference for your city. In civ5 it matters not that much if you have a cow or just a field of grassland. Fish give a nice addition but not too much. Placing your cities carefully is not that much of an issue anymore. In fact every location is quite ok. Even jungles deliver to your city. When we build a special tile improvement, we want to get rewarded a lot more. The city should become more special.

2. Health Resources do not matter
There's no unhealthiness and therefore health-resources like sheep or fish do not matter at all. They do not add to our empire. Building a special tile resource doesn't improve our empire in general. We can't trade surplus resources with our neighbors. Health resources do not matter and therefore they do not award us or satisfy us.

3. No cottages
The cottage improvement gave a lot of satisfaction and rewards. At first it was a tough decision to build one instead of something that would pay off immediately a lot more. But then later when it started to grow, it made us happy to see that our decision was correct. Those towns in the late game that gave us 7 or 8 gold per turns when we used the right civics made us aware that that early decision was a good one. We kept hoovering our mouse over the cottage to see when it would mature to the next level. In civ5 we just build a trading post. When we adopt the right social policy or get the right tech it will automatically improve. But we can as well build it at that very moment. It's never a tough decision to build a Trading Post. We can even temporarily remove it and replace it with a farm to grow the city, and then place the trading post back. The reward is gone. We don't feel good for having this 'commerce city that matured over time'.

4. Wonders don't make that much of a difference
A lot of wonders do not award that much in the game. They're not a lot better then similar city improvements. They're also not very expensive to construct. The Eiffel Tower gives +8 happiness. That's only 2 colosseums. The Notre Dame even only gives +5 happiness. A couple of wonders give a great person or a reward that's simular to a Great Person reward. But great persons are nerved a lot themselves (see #5). Many wonders give a boost in culture or production. But not much more then a new city could have given. You could as well have produced a settler. Some wonders are good, but in general they're too cheap to build and give too little of a satisfaction. Completing a wonder doesn't give that special feeling. And certainly not much of a unique feeling. The bonus you just received is not special, like the Great Wall, Christo Redentor or the Statue of Liberty in Civ4.

5. Great People aren't that Great.
Well... Great Scientists are quite great because they give you a free tech. But the tech tree misses some rewards (see #6) so that's not that exciting either. But apart from Golden Ages (#7) Great People are not much more then tile improvements. And not very good tile improvements unfortunately. The Great Engineer can rush a building, but no building or wonder is that satisfying (see #4). The culture bomb of a Great Artist isn't that enjoyable either b/c cultural wars are gone (see #8). There are no Great Prophets because there's no religion.

6. The Tech Tree is too balanced.
Techs are quite easy to get. A couple of turns. Never much more then 12-15 turns. There are a few techs that can be gotten mostly within 3-6 turns, and a few of them that need a bit more effort. But it's not as if there's a tech that requires 40 turns. In Civ4 certain techs require a lot of investments but do in return offer a lot for the player that gets first to it. What about Code of Laws of Civil Service? These are techs that are available quite early in civ4, but often too expensive to go for. Then suddenly a Great Person can grab it, or the Oracle Wonder. It was possible to try a slingshot. Research Code of Laws and finish the Oracle, so that you can jump to Philosophy at once while your neighbors are still in the stone age. It's a bit risk. What if someone beats you to it? But this risk is gone in civ5 and so is the satisfaction reward. Getting a tech is just getting another tech.

7. Getting a Golden Age is too easy
Every Great Person can give us a golden age. These ages just get shorter and shorter. That last is quite a good idea, but it makes Golden Ages less special. Instead of having to make more and more of an effort to get to a Golden Age of identical value, in civ5 it's easy to get another Golden Age of decreased value. The reward is gone. You get another Great Person so you get another Golden Age. So what? Even the happiness route to a Golden Age (which is again quite a brilliant concept) is getting less and less satisfying. While it's getting more and more difficult to get one that way, the Golden Ages are getting less and less interesting.

8. No cultural tension
The tile-by-tile expansion of a city in civ5 is another great concept. It's also a sign that the game has not been dumbed down. But the reward is gone. Instead of getting more then 9 tiles at once, you only get one. It's not sending shivers down yours spine. And when you get a tile, your neighbor can increase it's cultural output as much as he wants, he's not going to get it from you. No need to invest a lot in culture to get that special tile resource from him. You'd better send a lot of soldiers to burn his city down. Using culture for social policies is just another excellent concept. But unfortunately it comes at the cost of taking away cultural border tension. Culture now is just another saving mechanism. Save gold to buy stuff, save science to get techs, save happiness to get a Golden Age, save culture to get a Social Policy. It's too much of the same and it removes too much instant satisfaction.

9. Social Policies are unlocked too late
The idea of having Social Policies based on cultural output is one of those many very interesting innovations. It shows that civ5 is not just some kind of an expansion pack to civ4. It's a complete new game. Unfortunately though the implementation of Social Policies is yet again to unsatisfying. It must be admitted, everytime that your culture reaches the next level it gives excitement. Because it takes quite some time it's a lot more rewarding then getting to the next technology or getting the next Golden Age. Maybe the Social Policies are the single most satisfaction-giving element of the game. And yet I am not satisfied. In the end the social policy tree is too similar to the tech tree. A huge difference could have been made by unlocking all branches from the beginning of the game on, making it something completely different from the Tech Tree. Not time and advancement decide what you can select. No, it's up to you! What direction do you want to take your civilization to? Instead of having only 2 or 3 choices at first, you get 10 of them. And each of these choices is going to make a huge of a difference for the type of game you're going to play. Will you be a warmonger or a City States Friend?

10. Science and Gold should not have been split up
Firaxis did another great thing with money! Money finally has value. In earlier civ-games money was nothing more then the left-overs of your science rate. Only in the late game when units and buildings could be purchased, money got a job. For the rest of the game money was only there to allow you to maintain an as high as possible tech rate. Apart from the upgrading now and then of course. In Civ5 you can use money to purchase units and buildings but also to ally or befriend City States. That's really cool!
But now money finally has value, it comes for free. Would it not have been a lot more interesting to be forced to chose between Science and Money, as in civ1/2/3, with the new dimension that money is important to have? A major decision has been removed and therefore a lot of rewards have been removed. There's now just another source of steady income. There's money, science, culture and happiness. And when you reach a certain tress-hold you get something new. But all these things are barely related to each other. Now imagine that every golden age would get the same length but would cost more effort to get and would give more bonuses. Then you can decide to put your slider on 80% science and get this very special technology in 18 turns instead of 34. But you can also choose to go to 20% science and 80% money. Use the money to buy colosseums in all your cities and get to a new Golden Age in 30 turns. But you can as well buy cultural buildings and get that new social policy in 25 turns which will move your civ into a completely new direction. That's a tough choice. It depends on your relations with your neighbors (because you can also invest your money in armies). It depends on the available City States (because you can also buy their alliance). It depends on your technical level, because if you're far ahead it's a lot easier to skip science for a while then if you are behind already. So many choices, so much reward. But in civ5 there's not much of a choice. You get money and you get science. But you get no reward.

11. Strategic resources just add up
There's this other great invention in civ5. Strategical resources are limited. Unfortunately it's implemented in such a way that trading these resources is not an option. Well, not much of an option. There are never surplus resources. There's never enough because you can always build more armies and buildings with the 'left over' resources. But even if you would trade, a lot of the wow-factor is gone. Not a sudden cheer because now you can build tanks. You can only build more of them. It's not about being able to build swordsmen at all. It's only about building a couple of more of them. It's too subtle. The idea itself is interesting but the implementation takes away some fun.

12. Natural Wonders
Natural Wonders are once again a very very cool addition to the game. When I read about it first I was really impressed. It's a potential very big wow-factor. But unfortunately finding a natural wonder does not too much. It gives some happiness but that's about it. It's not worth it to stretch yourself to build a city next to it. The resource adds some nice fruits to your empire, but just as with the health resources, not too much. Why not give this natural wonder a very big bonus? Much culture output on that tile if you build a city next to it? +10 production output for that city? Why not add a couple of possible tile improvements. Make it a nation park, mine it, protect it. Now it's just nice to find a natural wonder, a bit more then a special resource, but not too much. It's not that satisfactorily, while it potentially could be!

13. City States relations are too simple
City States, a great addition. The game feels a lot more 'real' and adds a lot to the game. The only problem is that it is and feels way too mechanic to get into good relations with a city state. Just send a lot of money and you're done. Why not make it dependent no a couple of factors. Most of those factors are already in the game. It's just that all of them are optional, as long as the number of gold/relation points adds up to a certain amount. Why not require and gold and defensive support in a war and a campaign against another city state and the destruction of a barbarian camp to become friends or allies? Why not give the allied status to that Civilization that did the most of those things for that special City State? Then the enormous bonuses City States give are a lot more well deserved and will satisfy. Being allied with City States becomes more rare but is a lot more valuable. It's not just a matter of spending money. You really have to invest into it.

The conclusion is that, while there are more issues, like multiplayer problems, ICS, AI, exploitable happiness system, exploitable golden ages, the lacks the satisfaction factor most of all. It ruins the replayability factor and the one-more-turn feeling at least partly. Civ5 comes with great innovative options and we can definitely not blame Firaxis for being conservative or too scared to renew. The game needs to be tweaked in it's core on a couple of issues though.
My suggestions would be:

1. Increase the output of special resources. More production output, more food output and more commerce output.
2. Introduce something like a health-system. This is most probably the most difficult thing to get into the game out of this list. It should at least get into an XP in the future.
3. Apply the cottage-system to trading posts.
4. Upscale the effects of wonders. Some wonders must be totally renewed. All of them must at least do something that can't be done by a single other action. (like starting a golden age or getting a tech).
5. Let Great People settle inside a city, like in civ4, and increase the output of a settled Great Person.
6. Rework the Tech Tree. Thicken it. Make some key techs (much) more expensive.
7. Stop decreasing GA lengths, require more GP for each GA.
8. Make it possible in some way to overtake a tile of your neighbor.
9. Unlock all social policies from the beginning. Perhaps some have to be renamed or reworked to be historical more realistic.
10. Introduce commerce again. Rename gold income and science income into commerce income and add it up to each other. Then re-introduce the slider again to split commerce into gold and science.
11. Make strategical resources more rare. Increase the output per resource a lot.
12. Require a couple of conditions to be allied or friends to a City State. Make it possible to 'steal' City State alliances from other civs.
13. Increase the output of National Wonders. Introduce the national park tile improvement, the national mine improvement and a tourist attraction improvement.

All these ideas are fallible. The analysis is also very rough and incomplete. There's more to say about every of these topics and more topics can be introduced. Bottom line is that the game is too subtle. Too much things do too less. It makes the game a bit more boring. But in it's core Civilization V is a very very interesting addition to the franchise. After Civ4 many people thought that the game was 'finished' and could not be improved anymore. Civilization 5 shows that it can be improved. Now it must be polished. Not only the bugs but first of all the Wow-factor. The factor that made us all addicted to Civ. The reason why we want to move our unit one more turn, just to find a possible Natural Wonder. Just to finish a special tile improvement. Just as the new combat system, which is one big wow-factor in itself. Suddenly combat is about gaining tile by tile. It's the prime example of innovation going hand in hand with satisfaction. You can do it Firaxis!