Brave New World is fun

[Sava]

Since Civ5 came out, I've been critical of it. I felt this release was a step backwards for the series. However, I've recently installed Brave New World and found the experience to be fun. There are still a lot of flaws with Civ5. The finished product isn't as good as Civ4 (BTS+mods). But it's fun.

I'm nearly 150 turns into my first BNW game. The additions of trade and tourism compliment the "new" features of G&K quite well. 1UPT isn't as much of terrible thing for me. I don't like it, but it doesn't ruin the game. So far, I've only battled barbarians. I'm enjoying a more peaceful game at the moment.

This Civ5 experience does a lot of things well. Each civ feels very distinct. There are a lot of customization options that allow me to pick bonuses suited to my situation. In this game, I'm leaning towards a cultural victory. I'm playing the Earth map as the Byzantines. I started in South America.

There is one city state to the south. I just recently found the Aztec home city in North America where Chicago is located.

Despite the lack of enjoyment Civ5 has brought to me, BNW offers a good experience. It completes the game. Some of you will find it hard to look past Civ5's inherent failings. I've been in that camp, for the most part. For me, BNW+G&K adds enough to the game to make it worthwhile.

I still think Civ4 (BTS+mods) is king of the series. Civ3 is the worst, IMO. With these DLC, I might rank Civ5 as the second best game in the series... though 1 and 2 still have a special place in my heart.

So here it is. I'm going to recommend you try Brave New World.

[Brutus66]

I pretty much agree with Sava's assessment. Playing BNW, I find myself enjoying Civ5 for the first time.

The reasons I didn't like Civ5 were many, but the draconian 1UPT was number one on the list (why not at least 2UPT?) I also never liked the fact that all you have to do is march a unit into the sea and, viola, transports! But that's an argument for another thread.

Gods and Kings was a big improvement, but the fun factor still wasn't quite there for me.

BNW doesn't really fix the fundamental flaws of the game, but I found that, at least for the first half of the game, I was too busy enjoying the planning and decision-making to notice them. What path to victory should I pursue? What kind of religion to found? Where to deploy agents and diplomats, what kind of policies to adopt....

It wasn't until later, when I had to mobilize my army, that the mess of 1UPT reared its head. The same old ridiculous, annoying traffic jams are still there.

BNW is very immersive, and with the religious tenets, social policies and ideology choices, you create a very unique nation every time you play. There are new units that are fun to play with, I like what they have done with the great artists, and I love the new archaeology concept.

This expansion gives Civ5 a nice degree of polish, but it reminds me of a flawed diamond. It glitters and shines, but at its core is a lump of carbon that is ultimately hard to ignore. Let's hope this is the final chapter of this version of Civilization and Firaxis begins to move on to Civ6.

[Sava]

I haven't yet fought a war in my current game. Unless the AI becomes stupid and attacks me, I likely won't. I'm on my way to a cultural victory.

I'm sure the 1UPT will piss me off much the same if I go for a military solution at some point... in this game or the next.

I like the unit transport system. I found transport units a little annoying in previous titles. At some point, I might have to deal with a war I wasn't prepared for. Either I didn't already build ships or they were out exploring somewhere. It sucked having a large land force stuck waiting around for coastal cities to build a transport or two. In general, I prefer my cities to be building improvements and wonders, not military units.

Combat in Civ games can be fun. But there was never much strategy involved. Just research technology. Get better units. Build a bunch. Throw them at the AI. In Civ5 with BNW, the option to be a builder and go for a non-military victory condition is much more fulfilling.

I do enjoy the tactical aspect of 1UPT combat more than the stacks of doom. IMO, 1UPT works marvelously on a smaller scale. But on large maps with lots of enemy units and cities, it can be a bit annoying. I don't like the traffic jams.

I think a better solution overall for future Civ games might be to put combat in an entirely different dimension of sorts. Have units function more like armies... where you add manpower and weapons... perhaps have different formation options or tactical behaviors based on the makeup of units. Armies could operate in tiles rather than occupy them. Combat would occur when two hostile parties are operating in the same tile. But instead of a single battle, the player controls the level of hostilities. Consider jungle combat in Vietnam. You could have stealthy guerilla units harassing a more advanced force asymmetrically. The goal wouldn't be outright annihilation of the more advanced unit, but rather the costs associated with battles of attrition.

But this is more of a discussion best had in a brainstorming thread... just an idea though.

[Brutus66]

I know I'm in the minority on the transports, but it bugs the crap out of me. It just feels so gamey and simplistic, I feel like I'm playing a Rise of Nations knock-off every time I ship a unit over water. An instant transport navy- Xerxes or Agamemnon would have loved that convenience. I'm sure the Brits at Dunkirk or the Germans escaping from Sicily would have appreciated it. You don't have to worry about being driven into the sea when you can simply sail away in magic boats. Logistics is really the heart of warfare. There's a saying that "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." I don't expect Civ to make players maintain lines of supply to their units (though that would be cool), but removing transports just makes things ridiculous.

As I go on in my present game, I find I love the new content but can't help noticing that some of the flaws from the original vanilla still have not been addressed. Denunciations are over-used and fly endlessly in the late game. AI civs have absurd expectations when it comes to trading. 2-1 trades are considered insulting, and I haven't done anything to make them angry (yet). Some air units (esp. Gothas and triplanes) are often useless because their range is too short to make the hops to get from my factories to the front. These things aren't deal-breakers, but they are annoying.

One of the Civ series inherent problems is the arbitrary scaling. There's no clue what a tank unit represents or the size of a map hex. I think until that changes, they are going to continually rub up against certain problems in simulating an empire.

I'm happy to see caravans make a comeback. Makes me nostalgic for CivII. The last time I heard the word caravansary was from Paul Theroux, and I have to keep a dictionary handy when reading his stuff.

I'm not sure what you're driving at with your idea for combat- something like Total War, where you have a separation of the tactical-level maps and the strategic?

[Dinner]

The design flaws are still present as always, the pace is ungodly slow, there is very little production compared to all the other versions of civ, and it is impossible to play a decent multiplayer game compared to Civ4 which was designed for MP from the start. The game is still a turd but it is no long the extremely shallow turd and is now a turd with a bit of depth. In the end you can only polish a turd so much though.

[Dinner]

1UPT isn't as much of terrible thing for me. I don't like it, but it doesn't ruin the game.

1UPT is the source of everything which is terrible about Civ5. They had to nerf production so that the game is an endless series of hitting "next turn" because if they didn't you'd get the carpet of doom where units cover all available land. Thus the slow down production to prevent that but then you end up with a boring game where little happens. Sure, the expansions fixed the shallowness of the game where there was a darth of things to build, now there is too much to build and you'll never build half of it before you run out of time, but that just highlights how rushed and poor the game was on release. Don't even get me started about how absurd it is to be doing tactical moves in a strategic game.

The designer should be shot, even if he used to post here before he produced this turd & got fired over how terrible it is, and the fact that there is no MP ladders (which is the thing which has kept Civ4 alive and active long after it was past its prime) shows what a terrible design the game really is.

[Brutus66]

This is kind of sad. I had hoped that a new release in the Civ series would have sparked a bit more activity on ol' Poly, but I guess we're the last of the old faithful. We could hold a reunion in a VW bug.

[Dinner]

The OTF still gets lots of posts but the on topic is more than a bit slow. Honestly, I see this as damning evidence that the game sucks and just isn't that popular.

[mkorin]

Diner, have you even played the game or are you talking out of your *** as usual. Don't give me your usual arguement that you know crack is bad for you without trying it.

I like a lot of the changes of the game, especially caravans. Tourism is goofy but fun. My biggest problem is I like playing as a warlord and Faraxis in it's everlasting desire to PC history makes it very hard to win through war. The happiness penalty and the corresponding GP penalty means you really can't go on a run taking a lot of cities in a row. Also, they nerfed some of ways to get happiness, but I did manage two conquest wins at Prince level so far.

Mike

[mkorin]

Dinner, I read your other post and I owe you an apology. If you played it and hate it, that's your opinion. I still question why you waste time on a forum for the game.

As to the game I have to say I dislike the World Congress. It seems like every resolution that passes is to embargo one of my luxury items.

Mike

[Sava]

I feel like I'm playing a Rise of Nations knock-off every time I ship a unit over water.

RoN is probably the best pure RTS game ever made... perhaps along with AoE3 and SC1.

I'm not sure what you're driving at with your idea for combat- something like Total War, where you have a separation of the tactical-level maps and the strategic?

Yeah, I'm not sure either. Forgive my random tangent.

[Sava]

1UPT is the source of everything which is terrible about Civ5. They had to nerf production so that the game is an endless series of hitting "next turn" because if they didn't you'd get the carpet of doom where units cover all available land. Thus the slow down production to prevent that but then you end up with a boring game where little happens. Sure, the expansions fixed the shallowness of the game where there was a darth of things to build, now there is too much to build and you'll never build half of it before you run out of time, but that just highlights how rushed and poor the game was on release. Don't even get me started about how absurd it is to be doing tactical moves in a strategic game.

The designer should be shot, even if he used to post here before he produced this turd & got fired over how terrible it is, and the fact that there is no MP ladders (which is the thing which has kept Civ4 alive and active long after it was past its prime) shows what a terrible design the game really is.

Meh. I don't mind it so much. I like that every game doesn't have to be about conquering. That takes a lot of the sting out of any possible aggravations 1UPT gives me.

I'm still on my first BNW game. I'm not noticing any carpets of doom. It seems the AI has been improved, at least diplomatically. I'm not getting any random mood-swings from them. I've noticed England is aggressively spreading their religion. That's making things interesting. Usually I dominate the religious game. It's nice to have some competition in that regard.

You should probably pick it up so your complaints can be a bit more... educated. A lot of your issues don't really apply anymore.

Or continue to be butthurt about it. Whatever. If you don't enjoy the game because of 1UPT that much... then perhaps BNW isn't going to be fun for you.

Mods kept Civ4 alive. Not MP ladders. Nobody gives a **** about ladders.

[Dinner]

I've played twice as many BNW games as you have so if I'm uneducated about the game what does that make you?

[Brutus66]

The OTF still gets lots of posts but the on topic is more than a bit slow. Honestly, I see this as damning evidence that the game sucks and just isn't that popular.

Huh. How about that. I remember back in the day the off-topic was like an epistolary napalm-infused cage match. Now it seems mostly civil over there. It must have mellowed over the years.

Regardless of the game's suckitude, it doesn't seem to have slowed things down for Apolyton's competition. I've never bothered to get an account over there with the fanatics, but that site looks busier than a one armed bricklayer in Bagdhad.

[Wiglaf]

I plan on writing a review soon but I agree that this is not as bad as the catastrophe that was Gods and Kings. I still have no idea what the point of denunciations are sometimes. Instead of just a vague text bit like "We don't like you," they should make it more clear: "We are condemning you because you built a city near us, and therefore all of our allies, like France, will also view you more negatively."

The new culture screen is pretty cool:



I think they toned down the AI's military aggressiveness, maaybe to hide its inability to really understand 1UPT, because I still haven't fought more than one war.