Is it just me, or is CIV V not really very good?

[Myrddin]

But it's much easier to program the AI when you can have SODs. Brute force is much easier when you don't have to worry about multiple units. ZOC, etc. The logic is much harder to do with 1up and much work still needs to be done.

This is my biggest concern as I don't believe it will be easy to fix.

AI combat is about setting priorities for action and getting enough units to the right place. In previous versions the AI's targets were cities, it just had to find 1 path (along the best defensive terrain) to get the SoD to its chosen target and any shortfall in analysis was made up by using more units.

CTP had a unit limit which caused the AI great problems eg how to move armies around cities with a garrison, and how to deal with the chosen path being temporarily blocked. Part of the solution was to increase roadbuilding to ensure there were enough paths.

Civ V's declared philosophy of moving combat away from cities, minimising road-building, making combat more terrain dependent, including zones of control and having 1UPT sounds great BUT they are all choices which make a reasonable combat AI much harder to achieve.

[Proteus_MST]

Might fit to the topic (AI in Civ)
A lecture of Soren Johnson about the AI in the Civ series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

[MxM]

This is the first Civ game I did not run out and buy on release. The threads I've been reading make me think that was a wise descision. Makes me sad panda.

Each release of Civ had such threads. III, IV, I do not remember I and II, because at that time I was not familiar with such thinks as "forum" on internet. But I would guess that it would be the same for Civ I and II if there were internet as common as today. Better look at any poll if people thing that this game is better than Civ IV. The dominating majority thinks yes. And that says something.

[Brael]

I wish I waited to buy the game. When it came out I downloaded the demo and waited for some reviews from friends of mine. They all felt that civ 4 was a better game because it had more depth. I played the demo a three times and saw that the game could be fun, but it certainly felt more simplistic. Anyways, simply because I like the franchise so much I decided to buy the game rather than because I was impressed with 5 itself. My very first game was the other day, at this point I had read nothing of strategies from others so I was going into it blind beyond that minor demo experience. I picked deity for the difficulty and played as Japan. I won with some minor difficulty. Had I known some game rules in advance, understood the tech tree more, and had a little more experience with the game it would have been trivial. Needless to say, I've found myself very disappointed with it. I don't even have an urge to replay it and try another civ or victory type since the highest difficulty just felt average. A game shouldn't feel that way after the first playthrough.

I will say that the game has a solid base and has the potential to surpass civ 4 but it's going to need a lot of work still. I imagine that by the time the game has two expansions, countless patches, and some well done UI mods it will be the best civ game out there. Right now though 4 seems to be the better game as it has more depth, and more challenge.

Better look at any poll if people thing that this game is better than Civ IV. The dominating majority thinks yes. And that says something.

Graphics alone will win civ 5 those polls. The demographic of player who's opinion I really care about isn't well represented in those polls anyways. It certainly says something about the playerbase overall but I've played civ 4 a few times a week since the day it came out (and 3 before that... I even liked the game, and 2 before that), I'm not really interested in what people who will play the game for a couple of months think about it. The opinions I care about are other players who will play it for years, and do so at what would be considered extreme settings for the majority of the playerbase. From what I've read here so far (and briefly on the other boards, though I don't really follow those ones) from players that do fit that category, for now the game is lacking. Coincidentally enough, that's the same as my own opinion.

[Baptito]

I finished my first Civ 5 game last night , Played on Prince Level. I have been playing faithfully since Civ2. I was enjoying my game as the Romans ( I prefer building to warfare ) after about 250 turns and around 1810, 6 of the 7 other cultures all declared war on me at one time for what seemed like no reason, needless to say although I thought I was well defended I was wiped out in about 15 turns. Just wondering I have never had this happen anyone else experienced this.

[Proteus_MST]

Maybe you had the weakest army compared to all other civs.
They seem to like to gang up on civs they consider weak

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Might fit to the topic (AI in Civ)
A lecture of Soren Johnson about the AI in the Civ series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI

thanks for the link, great one hour vid

time for Sid to find another Blake somewhere, as this time the AI challenge on land is probably harder to code for than the naval combat was in the past...

If AI code gets published again, that may make the game a LOT better this time around, when modders sort it out. Sorens AI in Civ IV was already competent, even though I always played with Blakes in BTS...

[Lambiorix_be]

I do not know why people are complaining about Civ V being simpler. If anything it is HARDER. I think this is actually why people are complaing - they try a game on prince or king level of difficulty and they get their ass kicked because there is no such easy options like wealth/research sliders - you have to balance everything in advance - I am having difficulties myself as well, but I like it, because Civ V is truly the game "easy to understand, difficult to master".

I agree it is harder, although different would probably be a better description. It seems so difficult to earn money and I keep looking if there is no way I can balance my research for wealth via the good old sliders. I played and won now a game on chieftain and instead of being enormously rich and lightyears ahead of the competition in research I kept having problems with my finances. I build markets, banks and stock exchanges everywhere but still it I could not amass a big surplus except during the golden ages (this really saved the day for me). I even converted several cities to wealth (but that did not make the difference either)

I have a feeling that the costs are not balanced against the potential revenue. Buildings are expensive (and you need to build several of them in every city in order to build some of the wonders). When I saw my financial troubles I decided not to wage war on anybody and cut down on the military too in the hope to avoid to go bankrupt. But that made the game less fun to be honest.

I supported only 3 city states but my god that cost a lot of money too, maybe supporting 3 city states during the whole game is too much.

I was a bit disappointed that my space race victory just ended with a picture instead of a cut-scene but that's trivial off course

So in the end I am not yet in awe of the new game but will play a few games to see if I will get the hang of it later on

[rah]

I supported only 3 city states but my god that cost a lot of money too, maybe supporting 3 city states during the whole game is too much.

Supporting only three is usually trivial. By the midgame I'm usually supporting all of them.

[pdxsean]

Supporting only three is usually trivial. By the midgame I'm usually supporting all of them.

And just as an issue of balanced options, I've never supported more than one or two, and that generally stops in the Industrial era as their support costs ramp steeply.

[rah]

If there are 16 CSs in the game, my game length investment will exceed 20K. But It's worth every penny.

[Lambiorix_be]

Supporting only three is usually trivial. By the midgame I'm usually supporting all of them.

and you can afford that? So I must being doing something wrong

[rah]

Can you imagine, as a game designer, looking that this finished product, then looking at CivIV and thinking that you had done a good job? Somewhere some serious sacrifices were made and it really shows. I am very disappointed and will probably go back to IV soon. I have a feeling that IV will remain the pinnacle of strategy gaming for at least another generation. Even with exploits fixed, it just seems a little empty in comparison. I wish more companies were like Blizzard and actually waited until they had a finished product before releasing it.

Another revisionist I see. Do you actually remember how bad IV was when it first game out? It took them a few years to get it to where it is now. I expect the same will happen here.

[Ming]

True enough... Vanilla Civ IV wasn't all that good. It had a lot of bugs, a dumb AI, and a lot of inbalance.
Warlords was a step up, and then BTS came out. A few patches later, and we finally had a great game.

While there are some problems with Civ V now, it has the potential to be a great game.

[Thoth]

This is the first Civ game I did not run out and buy on release. The threads I've been reading make me think that was a wise descision. Makes me sad panda.

Damnitt. Now you've gone and made me agree with you.


Seriously, WTF were the the playtesters and Firaxis thinking with this turkey?