Not Impressed So Far

[Dinner]

Also the stupid **** who made the background for Gandhi needs to be shot as well. I mean, seriously, that doesn't even remotely look like any coast in India, maybe California or Spain or something, but the dry grassland doesn't look anything like tropical India not even in Gujarat near the Pakistan border. With all the Sammies working in the programing business they should have known this.

[Thoth]

Indeed. It is so dumbed down it might as well be CivRev II. Honestly, WTF isn't there a slider to control science/culture/espionage/money like there has been in every other civ game even the rotten Civ3? That way the player could stop researching and stock pile cash to fund upgrades when he wanted too but that just isn't possible in Civ 5. It's just the same old boring **** with no user control and less interest. I'm positive this game was designed for 10 year old ADD kids instead of anyone who has ever played Civ before. Even the graphics suck yet for some reason it has these ungodly high system requirements which no turn based strategy game should ever have.

"Civ 5: Now with even fewer options than ever before. "

Because a good game shouldn't be a series of interesting decisions.

[Boracks]

So far not impressed with the graphics. Too many times I've had a unit stop short because it wasn't clear terrain and its hard to tell. Also hard to tell what terrain cities ate built on. It all seems more crayon-ish than done with a fine brush.

And Civ is about making decisions, and that means information. Where is the readily available information? Maybe its there but its not obvious yet what info is available.

Overall, I like it but its not grabbing me the way Civ4 did, but then Civ4 didn't really take off until after BtS, which had a fair amount of input from the community. CivV has a lot of room for improvement, let's hope they use that room.

[Aro]

The game is good, but is crude... It's like Civ IV simplified, and this isn't so bad, in fact. I miss Religions, for example, excellent way to get some happiness... But some of the IV stuff were boring, so much micromanagement. I like the way you can do this now, and combat is waaaaay better. Now, choose a city location is a matter of strategic more than ever, and how you move your troops are real decisions. Another good thing: The connection between resources and units is great.
But the graphics... And I have a computer build to play, all is set to maximum levels, and still. Something is missing. I agree, the color palette is... Ugly. Too "pastel". The advisers graphics are REALLY poor, but you can change this easily. I really hope they do it...

Playing my first game (demo games weren't real games), and I like, so far. The wonders seem to have less power... Or is it just my impression?

Oh, yeah... The AI is pretty much dumb as always. I like that.

Ok, the game needs to be finished, but is good. After done, will be, probably, the best of the series... The recent ones, I'm not talking about the holly Civ II...

[GodSpawn]

Wow, Oerdin is really throwing his toys out of the pram!

[Thoth]

Wow, Oerdin is really throwing his toys out of the pram!

He's a Yank, and probably doesn't understand what a "pram" is.

[Brutus66]

Thanks for the info on the opening video, guys. As with all such things, seeing it once was impressive, twice = OK, three times = tedious.

[pdxsean]

It is so dumbed down it might as well be CivRev II. Honestly, WTF isn't there a slider to control science/culture/espionage/money like there has been in every other civ game even the rotten Civ3?

I would suggest that two sentences contradict themselves. The control over science/culture/money has to be planned far in advance and is controlled through building decisions and improvements, as well as specialists. In a sense, the slider was dumbed-down and they've made it much more complex. IMO this has added a lot of depth to the planning involved in the game, it takes a lot of thinking ahead to have a solid economy in the industrial era.

[timbrom]

I just started a new thread, but should have read this first. To answer my own question (Is CIV V not really very good?) it seems the answer is "No, it isn't." I wondered if it was just me, but clearly not.

[timbrom]

And since we have some savvy folks on this thread, why have Firaxis ditched the old save game conventions, or is it just because I have the game on a different drive from the Save Game files?

[MxM]

I have to say, after paying $59.95, my thought has been "how much do they charge for fun"? They've dumbed this down so much it has become retarded. WTF isn't there an option to trade maps?

As a gameplay aspect, I always felt that trading maps is "cheating". That reduces value of exploring and free border agreements. I personally like that both this and ESPECIALLY technology trading are gone. In any case, even if you liked it, I do not believe that this is big issue for anyone.

WTF is the auto explore pathing AI ALWAYS trespassing?

Not a problem anymore with the small patch they released yesterday (or is it because I restarted as Greece?)

WTF can't the AI ever attack with more then two units at a time?

Fair criticism. But notice, this is not about gameplay mechanics but about AI fine tuning. It will get better. Do you remember Civ IV upon release?

WTF did they remove the money/culture/espionage slider? That was one of the fun direct controls we had over our Civ.

I think removing slider makes game more difficult, not easier. It is easy when you can fine tune your empire by just slider move. Now it is harder, because you have to understand game quite well in order to find the equivalent ways to adjust those "sliders". But it is good that it is harder now, isn't it?
And espionage was removed because it has problems both in multiplayer games, and in single-player games.

They said it was to avoid complexity and to simplify the system but then they gave us this abortion of a game system where science and culture are both set in stone and can only be changed by building buildings.

I think the game overall is as deep if not deeper than Civ 4. It is just easy to understand, but mastering it is not easy. The controls are much less obvious and more difficult and have reaction only in a long term. If you want simple and very obviously controlled game just have a game with a single button "win" and done with it.

It's retarded. Give me back Civ4!

Nobody took Civ4 from you. If you want to play civ4 - here is a novel idea - play it. If you want different game, then Civ 5 is good. What would be the point of making Civ 5 nearly identical to Civ 4? What they made is great! It is quite new game with very fresh ideas. Is it ideal? No. But Civ IV was in much worse state than Civ V upon release. Overall the game mechanics is much improved, they just need to improve interface to give more info to us.

[dregor]

Wow, this is the same uproarious bull**** people said when Civ4 came out. Adapt, there's a deep game in here once you see past your biases. Not a perfect game by far, but then Civ4 vanilla was a different beast than BTS.

[pdxsean]

MxM, +1 to almost everything you said.

And dregor, +1 to you as well. To be honest, I was among those who didn't like Civ IV when it came out... I had trouble adapting my Civ III strategy, but obviously today I count IV as one of the greatest games ever made.

Civ V went in a lot of new directions. You have to be ready to throw out everything you know about Civilization. Some things are the same, some are completely different... but you have to figure out which is which.

[timbrom]

It isn't the same as last time. Civ IV had all sorts of innovations that people didn't immediately take to. No-one could deny that it added heaps to Civ III. What has Civ V "added" to the canon? As far as I can see, the only new thing is the city states. Maybe they'll turn out to be as useful as the Indian villages in Colonization. Maybe they'll just be used as cannon fodder. Aside from that, Civ V really does look dumbed down for the newcomer or the console kids.

[MxM]

It isn't the same as last time. Civ IV had all sorts of innovations that people didn't immediately take to. No-one could deny that it added heaps to Civ III. What has Civ V "added" to the canon?

Are you kidding? Civ V is the MOST innovating game in the cerisies. The jump from Civ II to Civ IV is probably smaller than IV - V. Hexes along with 1upt takes game in very different direction. No road mess. Economic model is quite different. HAPPINESS AND RESOURCES are dominating game now. And what about the way city grow now? And yeah, civics. Yes, quite a lot things were removed, but it is good to remove less interesting things and add more interesting ones.