So what exactly is the beef with Civ V?

[Wiglaf]

If you get sick of Liberty or Freedom later in the game, you can switch to Autocracy.

No competent player would ever do this.

[Al B. Sure!]

You don't lose the benefits you've had with Freedom... you had those benefits all those turns up until you switched. Not understanding what the problem is. Does the system discourage switching? Yes. But it should. Willy-nilly switching between Democracy and Communism was a joke in Civ.

Think of social policies more like technologies and cultural shifts than forms of government. You need to develop Militarism, a Police State, and Fascism, just as with Liberty where you develop Citizenship, a Meritocracy, etc.


Actually, I take back Liberty and Autocracy being mutually exclusive. I'm not sure that they are. They might have changed that in a patch. I don't have a game with Liberty in the industrial era for me to test it. But if they aren't mutually exclusive, that's probably an allusion to the Roman Empire which maintained the trappings of Republicanism into the Empire. Note again that the sub-concepts in Liberty weren't mutually exclusive to an Autocracy the way that Freedom's Free Speech, Democracy, Universal Suffrage, etc. is.

[Wiglaf]

They were probably separate policy trees to distinguish classical freedoms (like Athens and Republican Rome) with modern (America). Note the parts of the Freedom tree are of more recent significance (Constitution, Democracy, Free Speech, Universal Suffrage) whereas the Liberty tree has Collective Rule (whatever that is), Citizenship, and Meritocracy, stuff that's older than Freedom's stuff and not necessarily exclusive to modern democracies.

This is REALLY REALLY stupid. What a STUPID system for STUPID people.

"Republican Rome" became the "Roman Empire," which I guess Civ 5 would describe as an ordered autocracy, after about 500 years. Hitler converted the chancellorship to a dictatorship in what, two months? Jonestown went from an autonomous collective to a mass grave flooded with koolaid literally overnight.

But no, in Civ 5, once you get ideas of meritocracy and citizenship, you're sticking with it throughout ~4000 years of history.

[Wiglaf]

You don't lose the benefits you've had with Freedom... you had those benefits all those turns up until you switched. Not understanding what the problem is. Does the system discourage switching? Yes. But it should. Willy-nilly switching between Democracy and Communism was a joke in Civ.

Yeah, you lose the exclusive benefit of completing the entire tree, the starting bonus for beginning the tree, and each of the tree attributes, effective immediately. Of course it's not retroactive, though that would be hilarious.

This does more than "discourage" switching. For anyone with a reasonable IQ playing in good faith, the marginal benefits of switching to adapt to a changed circumstance are always more than outweighed by losing thousands of spent culture points.

As for Civ 4, which douchebags like you really should not be allowed to reference in the same post as Civ 5, government switches were discouraged through anarchy. No one would switch for the fun of it, but in response to a change of circumstance and in return for at least a turn of complete empire-wide stagnation. And you can't switch more than, what, once every 10 turns?

Think of social policies more like technologies and cultural shifts than forms of government. You need to develop Militarism, a Police State, and Fascism.

Then the game doesn't model governance at all? What?

Like I've said all along, this game is just fundamentally gay. Modelling 'cultural shifts' rather than forms of government is just so faggy. Why not have a fashion policy screen too, where you get to mix and match colors and summer fashions?

[giblets]

I don't understand why you would even want autocracy. If you're a warmongerer, by the industrial era your empire should be huge and happiness benefits matter more than anything else. Makes more sense to adopt order so you can finish global conquest without some stupid empire-wide happiness penalty causing barbarians to randomly pop up in your territory.

[Wiglaf]

I don't understand why you would even want autocracy. If you're a warmongerer

Don't be a haterer.

[rah]

Well then you should be glad that they got rid of Religion in Civ V if it offends you so much.

Actually they didn't get rid of it. The just chose not to activate/test the code that was programmed in the game originally, but then did so for the newest expansion.

[Al B. Sure!]

I don't get it. I've played like 7 hours. The game is fine. It feels like a variation of Civ IV.

[giblets]

How many games have you finished?

[Al B. Sure!]

How many games have you finished?

None. I played a little as the Mayans to get an understanding of the game then played as the Arabs. I'm in the modern era now.

The game makes my graphics card get really hot (up to 91C. I checked) but it's easy on the CPU, I think, because the waiting for turns is a lot less on Civ V than on Civ IV with mods. I bring that up because I complained in another thread about how long Civ IV takes between turns when you get to the modern era.

In fact, I never finished a game of Civ IV before for just that reason.

[Elok]

Okay, since nobody answered my semi-sarcastic question in the Civ5 forum, I looked it up: yes, The Great Firewall is actually a wonder in G&K. I would laugh at a pathetic policy blunder being a wonder, but it's no sillier than the Sydney Opera House or Big Ben. The next expansion will no doubt continue this trend with the Fallingwater wonder (artists produce +2 culture, may become uncontrollable megalomaniacs) or possibly the Gateway Arch (must be built near river, river gains +5 purtiness).

In all fairness, Cristo Redentor prolly shouldn't have been a wonder either...

[BlackCat]

What about a MacD wonder ? It could give +3 on food and -5 on health

[giblets]

There's no health in Civ5. Because giving people a reason to not chop down all of the forests would be dumb.

[Wiglaf]

I suspect people who don't see the big deal with Civ 5 never played Civ 4 at a meaningful level. The game was really about careful (obsessive) worker/specialist management and the tradeoffs inherent in all the improvements --- e.g. do I work the cottage, which will grow long-term, or do I go for the short-term farm; do I chop the forest, giving long-term unhealthiness in return for short-term hammer overflow; etc.; do I whip the settler or let it finish naturally, etc. Players like the thread starter tend to just let their workers do their thing and maybe occasionally check the "emphasize production" box to feel smart. Well, I'm sorry to be the one to have to break this to you, but you're not smart, and you are a closeted homosexual.

All of those strategic decisions are just gone in Civ 5. The careful management of food and worker/settler actions is meaningless now that they have eliminated or neutered many worker improvements (including cottages/towns/villages) and given you Maritime city states+Liberty to supply insane amounts of food. I suppose the game occasionally gives you the choice of building an improvement like a mine (+ hammer) or a farm (+ food), but eventually you will learn to spam trading posts and use that money to buy off city states to provide everything else, including a diplomatic victory

On the subject of "diplomatic" victory, get this. The AI post-patch learned to buy off all city states (if it has the gold) just before the UN vote, ebay sniper style. This actually encourages a player who has bought off all the city states and who is seeking a diplomatic victory to declare war against every civilization in the world the turn before the UN vote, to prevent the AI from buying off his city states at the last minute. Because voting is not based on population and city states get an equal vote to other civs, the player will still win the UN vote for "uniting the world in peace with diplomacy and cunning" overwhelmingly even after declaring war against the entire world. Broken game mechanics

The AI has never been strong in Civ, that is true, but militarily it did pose a threat. Now that it doesn't even do that, and now that they've removed the complexity and nuance to the builder game and the diplo victory, what decisions are left for the player?

And no, to finish the discussion above, Liberty and Autocracy are not mutually exclusive in the retarded and nonsensical social policy tree. This was one of many things they abruptly changed in a patch after they realized how terrible the game is, along with the unique abilities of half the civs, the entire diplomacy mechanic, the way happiness building works, etc.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

to sum it up, I have started a game of Civ IV today... what a great game and I only wish that game was multithreaded... waiting a minute per turn AD 100 with admiteddly old but not so bad Q9550 is a pain... makes me want to upgrade to latest and greatest + look for a 5ghz OC capable cooling to cut on waiting...

Realism Invictus - world map...