Civilization V

[JC]

I'm wondering whether to buy a copy of this and write off the next 3
weeks. Have any of you tried it yet? How is it?
Civilian_Target

I have been playing the game for about a week, as I usually won't play a new
game until the first bug patch comes out. I have some positive and negative
views about the game, and respectfully disagree with some of Marshall's
comments.

First the negative.

The program is a bit of a dog. It takes a long time to load and you have to
change an ini file to turn off the stupid compulsory introductory movie. The
save files also take a long time to load. Of course the graphics are
demanding - that's to be expected in a major release. However, the dx10/11
mode is flakey. I run it on a dx10 system and after a while you get
unresolveable screen corruption. However, this can be avoided by running in
dx9 mode. The graphics aren't as pretty but it seems pretty solid.

The interface is a bit awkward and although you can sometimes use the
keyboard its pretty much a mouse only affair. Many people won't care about
that, but it bothers me a bit.

I note that other people have had really serious performance issues with big
maps, but I haven't experienced that yet.

I also don't like Steam very much, although it does have some advantages -
especially when moving your games from one computer to another.

Now the positive.

I've been playing civ since civ 1. They've all been good, although I didn't
like civ 3 as much as the others. Civ 2 (or possibly 1 - my memory isn't
what it was) had a combat system that discouraged the stack of doom, and
that was a good thing. Civ 5 has a different approach. It basically outlaws
the stack of doom by requiring that two military units cannot end their turn
in the same tile (although they can pass through each other). That's a good
thing, but it radically changes the game and I'm still coming to grips with
it. The biggest impact (for me) was a bit unexpected. In previous civs, you
fought your way to a city then garrisoned it and beat off the enemy
counterattack from within the city walls. That doesn't work in civ 5 as you
can only garrison with one unit and the enemy just takes it back. Instead,
you have to attack past a city and then take if from all sides, while
leaving a screening force on the enemy side of the city. It might sound
clumsy, but I think it makes civ 5 a much better game.

The hex map is better in almost every way. The only downside is it is
sometime harder to see the positional relationship of the tiles and units,
especially near cities. But that's a minor issue, I love the hex map. This
is also the first civ since civ 2 that actually remembers when you turn the
map grid on. That use to drive me crazy in 3 and 4.

Marshall said that the enemy civs are very agressive. I've had the opposite
experience, as they don't often attack a player who has a strong military.

The game mechanics and combat system are great, at least at my early stage
of understanding the game, but remember I've only been playing a week.

The civ happiness system is a big improvement. The social policies seem
pretty good, but I don't fully understand their impact yet.

I though I would miss religions, but I don't. In civ 4 it became a
micromanagement burden and a bit of an exploit.

All in all I think this is the best civ ever, and would thoroughly recommend
it, provided your system is up to it and you can tolerate the performance
issues.

JC

[Marshall]

Post by JC
I have been playing the game for about a week, as I usually won't play a new
game until the first bug patch comes out. I have some positive and negative
views about the game, and respectfully disagree with some of Marshall's
comments.
First the negative.
The program is a bit of a dog.

Yep. I have a pretty high end PC, and I can turn on most of the
pretties and play with decent framerates, but only barely.

Post by JC
However, the dx10/11 mode is flakey. I run it on a dx10 system and after a while you get
unresolveable screen corruption. However, this can be avoided by running in
dx9 mode. The graphics aren't as pretty but it seems pretty solid.

Haven't had that problem in Windows 7 w/dx11 card. Only graphical
glitch is that sometimes a few tiles won't draw correctly, and will
kind of 'shimmer' until you zoom in or out from them.

Post by JC
I note that other people have had really serious performance issues with big
maps, but I haven't experienced that yet.

I can't play the 'huge' map size, because after a certain point, the
save files get so huge that the game freezes up and you're just sunk
and have to delete that game and start a new one. But long before
those games finally freeze up for good, the wait-time between turns
will get incredibly long- up to a minute or more in the worst cases.

It is a known bug that they're gonna fix in next patch, I understand.
Some mistake in coding that makes the savefiles balloon up to
incredible size for no good reason. Programmer screwup.

Post by JC
Now the positive.
It basically outlaws
the stack of doom by requiring that two military units cannot end their turn
in the same tile (although they can pass through each other). That's a good
thing, but it radically changes the game and I'm still coming to grips with
it.

I can't imagine, not having played any of the previous civs, how
screwed up that 'stack of doom' must have been, to try to fight. What
did you have to do, make your own stack of doom, and move it right up
to their SoD, and have a stack-out? Sounds pretty f*cked. No strategy
there, just whoever can make the bigger badder stack and jockey it up
to their opponent's stack... ugh. Stupidness. I really like Civ5's
combat system when compared to that- warts and all.

Post by JC
The biggest impact (for me) was a bit unexpected. In previous civs, you
fought your way to a city then garrisoned it and beat off the enemy
counterattack from within the city walls. That doesn't work in civ 5 as you
can only garrison with one unit and the enemy just takes it back. Instead,
you have to attack past a city and then take if from all sides, while
leaving a screening force on the enemy side of the city. It might sound
clumsy, but I think it makes civ 5 a much better game.

Yes. If you just take their city frontally with a unit, and the
opposing civ still has units close, they will just counterattack and
retake the city the next turn, wiping out your assualt unit in the
process (since any unit occupying a city is automatically annihilated
when that city is taken by your enemy). Lost a few good units before I
figured that one out ;-)

Post by JC
Marshall said that the enemy civs are very agressive. I've had the opposite
experience, as they don't often attack a player who has a strong military.

Yes, that's the key though- you gotta have a strong *late-model*
military, and diligently research the military upgrades as fast as you
can, or you will find yourself in chains herding goats. If you slack
just a bit, before you know it, some famous dictator (or more
humiliatingly, Ghandi...) will pop up and comment on how weak your
military appears, and how you won't have to worry much longer, as
surely somebody will put you out of your wimpy misery soon... heh.

And they will, oh yeah. The times I've gone too strongly into the
non-military research, and focused on city building, farming, wonders,
and the general happiness of my loyal subjects, I always end up in a
situation where i'm staring at walls of mechanized infantry against my
musketmen. Or knights against warriors, which is about the same.

Post by JC
The game mechanics and combat system are great, at least at my early stage
of understanding the game, but remember I've only been playing a week.

They are working on a lot of improvements on AI tactics, as after
playing about a dozen epic-length games (1000-1500 turns), I can say
without reserve that it is usually dumber than crap. Oh, it can still
beat you with sheer numbers if you let them get a couple tech levels
higher than you- the Bradleys vs. Musketeers scenarios... but if you
keep up, and have a decent military, you can always kick their asses
in a faceoff.

The AI does utterly stupid things like shoving their cannons right up
front or using them for melee flanking attacks as if they were not
ranged units... and you slaughter them like dogs. If you pay attention
to where you make your stand, using the forest/hill/marsh tiles to
your benefit, and forcing them into open tiles to fight you, again...
slaughter. Against foes 2 or 3 times as numerous as my army, I can
usually annihilate them all with only the loss of 1 or maybe 3 units,
if I get careless. Whether you or they start the war, doesn't matter.
Just find a good place to dig in, let them rush in, then kill them.
Happens almost every time.

Then, after you've wiped out the flower of their youth on the
battlefield, they will have little left, and you just send your troops
into their territory and mop up their cities like so much spilled
milk. If they do manage to create a few more units as you are mopping
up their country, they always throw them in piecemeal as soon as they
are created, and you smack them down with a sneer and go about your
business. Game AI = total dipshits.

They have no strategy or tactics whatsoever, beyond rushing in
willy-nilly, whether they are on offense or defense. Although you
can't really use the word 'defense' for anything the AI does... about
the only vaguely defensive thing I've seen their forces do, is post a
unit in a besieged city to boost it a bit. As far as placing groups of
units outside of cities in the best defensible spots, and trying to
hold those spots against your forces... never seen it happen. Ever.
Period. All they know is the suicide rush. Some of those more
obviously stupid behaviors are being worked on in the next patch,
remains to be seen if they raise the AI IQ above the amoeba level or
not, though. I'd settle for woodchuck... maybe even gecko.

One caveat- the enemy AI is good at one thing... and VERY good at it.
The second, the very second you slip up and leave a wounded unit in a
vulnerable plains/grassland (open, no cover) tile within reach of one
or more of their units, as soon as their turn comes, your unit is
dead. I've seen the AI send up to 3-4 of its units in mass assault on
one wounded unit in that situation, numerous times, just cuz it knows
it can 100% kill it, without a doubt. The AI sucks at real strategy
and tactics, but it is one very excellent buzzard/scavenger. Doesn't
matter if their buzzard-attack left all of their units also vulnerable
to annihilation, the AI just sits back and congratulates itself on
making that kill of one helpless unit. Heh.

Oh, and if you want to draw one or more enemy units into a trap, just
put one of your worker units in a handy tile up front of your line...
one of their guys just won't be able to resist going up and capturing
it, and thus getting themselves killed by my cannons 2+ tiles back.
Love that one.

Post by JC
The civ happiness system is a big improvement. The social policies seem
pretty good, but I don't fully understand their impact yet.

As others on the forums have pointed out, the happiness mechanic in
Civ5 makes no logical sense whatsoever, from a reality standpoint- it
is purely a fixed mechanic put in to prevent too-rapid expansion by
the player. Doesn't seem to have any affect on AI civs, though. I've
been conquered more than once by civs with the lowest happiness out of
10 or 12 of them. The best conquering AI's in the game almost always
have non-existent happiness. Cuz they cheat :-)

But really, if it was based on anything resembling a smidge of
reality, why would, for instance, Rome conquering all of Persia and
it's wealth, make roman citizens hugely unhappy? But, that is how Civ5
works. It was purely a matter of 'we want the player to do this, so we
will use this completely unrealistic formula to make them do what we
want so the game works'. It mostly does what it's supposed to, but it
is based on complete silliness from a reality POV.

The social policies are simply a supermarket shelf of bonuses and
upgrades for your cities and units. While everybody enjoys extra
bennies for your side, this system really has no feeling whatsoever of
supporting the idea of a living, breathing civilization where you
carefully make choices for the betterment of your people, and pretend
to be a great leader making grand, risky choices with potential
downsides as well as upsides. None of that- just "um, cereal, yes, the
kids will like that. and, uh... milk, and cheese..." Emotionless stat
shopping.

I really should go play Civ4 I guess, as a lot of what I was expecting
to see in Civ5, with the famous Sid Meier name attached to it, was
indepth civilization building with all the 'pretend' stuff that made
you think of your civ as yours, your people, and you their great
leader making difficult choices from a broad, rich palette of
socio-economic-cultural-diplomatic-andyesmilitarytoo options. This has
little feeling of that at all. It is mostly a turn-based combat game,
with a semi-complex bit of building attached to give you something to
do in the brief periods between wars (if any).

But, if you accept it for what it is, a fighting game more than a
classic civ game, then it is pretty good at what it does. I like
combat games too, so I'm in.

Post by JC
All in all I think this is the best civ ever, and would thoroughly recommend
it, provided your system is up to it and you can tolerate the performance
issues.

Considering it's the only one I've ever played, I'll have to agree ;-)
I don't think a 7.5 (8-9 once patched, hopefully) is any kind of knock
against it. From what I've heard, none of the previous civs was
exactly 'perfect out of the box', either ;-) But the devs do seem
quite determined to fix it up proper, so I have high hopes it will
turn out to be something I can keep playing long into the future. It
is fun even as it is now, but has huge potential to be in my all-time
top-5 games if they get some of the sloppier and poorly implemented
stuff fixed up right.
Marshall

[JC]

Post by Marshall
As others on the forums have pointed out, the happiness mechanic in
Civ5 makes no logical sense whatsoever, from a reality standpoint- it
is purely a fixed mechanic put in to prevent too-rapid expansion by
the player. Doesn't seem to have any affect on AI civs, though. I've
been conquered more than once by civs with the lowest happiness out of
10 or 12 of them. The best conquering AI's in the game almost always
have non-existent happiness. Cuz they cheat :-)
But really, if it was based on anything resembling a smidge of
reality, why would, for instance, Rome conquering all of Persia and
it's wealth, make roman citizens hugely unhappy? But, that is how Civ5
works. It was purely a matter of 'we want the player to do this, so we
will use this completely unrealistic formula to make them do what we
want so the game works'. It mostly does what it's supposed to, but it
is based on complete silliness from a reality POV.

I agree with most of your comments. But the original corruption/happiness
rules in civ were meant to make it harder for a big civilisation to just
steamroll the remaining civs. Its not realistic, its a gameplay thing. I
think that's a good thing in gameplay terms, and I think the civ 5 version
is better than the previous versions. Its certainly better than in civ 3,
where corruption just meant that extra cities just didn't produce anything.
I'm pretty happy with the civ 5 rules, although there is an income vs
happiness tradeoff that I still need to come to terms with.

I appreciated your other comments. I think you are further along in
understanding the game than I am.

JC

[><(((°>]

Post by JC

Post by Marshall
As others on the forums have pointed out, the happiness mechanic in
Civ5 makes no logical sense whatsoever, from a reality standpoint- it
is purely a fixed mechanic put in to prevent too-rapid expansion by
the player. Doesn't seem to have any affect on AI civs, though. I've
been conquered more than once by civs with the lowest happiness out of
10 or 12 of them. The best conquering AI's in the game almost always
have non-existent happiness. Cuz they cheat :-)
But really, if it was based on anything resembling a smidge of
reality, why would, for instance, Rome conquering all of Persia and
it's wealth, make roman citizens hugely unhappy? But, that is how Civ5
works. It was purely a matter of 'we want the player to do this, so we
will use this completely unrealistic formula to make them do what we
want so the game works'. It mostly does what it's supposed to, but it
is based on complete silliness from a reality POV.

I agree with most of your comments. But the original
corruption/happiness rules in civ were meant to make it harder for a big
civilisation to just steamroll the remaining civs. Its not realistic,
its a gameplay thing. I think that's a good thing in gameplay terms, and
I think the civ 5 version is better than the previous versions. Its
certainly better than in civ 3, where corruption just meant that extra
cities just didn't produce anything. I'm pretty happy with the civ 5
rules, although there is an income vs happiness tradeoff that I still
need to come to terms with.
I appreciated your other comments. I think you are further along in
understanding the game than I am.
JC

The unhappiness with expansion is a real issue.
When you capture a rivals city and to stop the unhappiness it takes 20+
turns to build a courthouse, I can see little sense in keeping that city.
Raising the city seems the only sensible option unless there is a
worthwhile wonder there.

Of course with City States you can't raise them so I don't usually capture
them unless they have been previously captured.
If so, I liberate them and keep them as an ally.

When at war I generally keep a settler or two handy and raise enemy cities
and straight away rebuild if there is a luxury resource there.

Overall I consider the game is way to military biased.
Most buildings cost money to upkeep so I tend to just build units.
Furthermore, I find if you're not attacking the AI then they'll be
attacking you.

The only thing strategic in this game for me is how you position your
units for and during an attack.
The rest of the game is just waiting an age for anything to get built or
waiting an eternity at end turn time.

I want a game that keeps me constantly thinking about strategy options at
all levels.
Instead it's more click wait - click wait - oh I'm bored, let's start a
war!

Most of all I'm sick of "Please Wait" at the end of each turn.

Lastly I fail to see why the game is so demanding in terms of computer
requirements.
The graphics are nothing to write home about, compare them to those in
Ubisoft's Settlers 7 which are superb.
Civ 5 is way, way behind so what else can you assume other than bad
programming.

[Marshall]

Post by JC

Post by Marshall
As others on the forums have pointed out, the happiness mechanic in
Civ5 makes no logical sense whatsoever, from a reality standpoint- it
is purely a fixed mechanic put in to prevent too-rapid expansion by
the player. Doesn't seem to have any affect on AI civs, though. I've
been conquered more than once by civs with the lowest happiness out of
10 or 12 of them. The best conquering AI's in the game almost always
have non-existent happiness. Cuz they cheat :-)
But really, if it was based on anything resembling a smidge of
reality, why would, for instance, Rome conquering all of Persia and
it's wealth, make roman citizens hugely unhappy? But, that is how Civ5
works. It was purely a matter of 'we want the player to do this, so we
will use this completely unrealistic formula to make them do what we
want so the game works'. It mostly does what it's supposed to, but it
is based on complete silliness from a reality POV.

I agree with most of your comments. But the original corruption/happiness
rules in civ were meant to make it harder for a big civilisation to just
steamroll the remaining civs. Its not realistic, its a gameplay thing. I
think that's a good thing in gameplay terms, and I think the civ 5 version
is better than the previous versions. Its certainly better than in civ 3,
where corruption just meant that extra cities just didn't produce anything.
I'm pretty happy with the civ 5 rules, although there is an income vs
happiness tradeoff that I still need to come to terms with.
I appreciated your other comments. I think you are further along in
understanding the game than I am.

I spent most of a month playing it when it came out. And I'll play it
again when the new patch comes out, with high hopes (I'm an
insufferable optimist, despite all evidence to the contrary). Just in
its current state, the gameplay seems to obtuse and single-minded, and
grew stale fast. If diplomacy becomes more realistic and the AI gets
even a bit better, things will be more interesting for me.
Marshall

[Öjevind Lång]

"Marshall" skrev i meddelandet news:***@4ax.com...

[snip]

Post by Marshall
I spent most of a month playing it when it came out. And I'll play it

again when the new patch comes out, with high hopes (I'm an
insufferable optimist, despite all evidence to the contrary). Just in
its current state, the gameplay seems to obtuse and single-minded, and
grew stale fast. If diplomacy becomes more realistic and the AI gets
even a bit better, things will be more interesting for me.

I agree with all the criticism of Civ V here, and yet I enloy it immensdely
and think it has the potential to become a much better game han Civ V. I am
particularly pleased that they have removed the Stack of Doom and reliigion
as a diplomatic factor. That made diplomacy so drearily oredictable. I
wouldn't mind if they reitnrodduced religion as simply a mechanism for
generating happiness and culture and perhaps money.
I'm also (I know this is controversial) happy that the science slider is
finally gone. It was the biggest cheat mechanism of all, but to listen so
some Civvers whose posts I have read in other forums, removing it was
tantamount to raping their mothers.

Öjevind

[r***@lava.net]

Post by JC

I'm wondering whether to buy a copy of this and write off the next 3
weeks. Have any of you tried it yet? How is it?
Civilian_Target

I have been playing the game for about a week, as I usually won't play a new
game until the first bug patch comes out. I have some positive and negative
views about the game, and respectfully disagree with some of Marshall's
comments.
First the negative.
The program is a bit of a dog. It takes a long time to load and you have to
change an ini file to turn off the stupid compulsory introductory movie. The
save files also take a long time to load. Of course the graphics are
demanding - that's to be expected in a major release. However, the dx10/11
mode is flakey. I run it on a dx10 system and after a while you get
unresolveable screen corruption. However, this can be avoided by running in
dx9 mode. The graphics aren't as pretty but it seems pretty solid.

redvet: As I too posted in October, it is a resource hog. All of the
CIV games tended to be cutting edge on graphics when they first came
out. I had system built in last month which overcame all of my orignal
graphics problems as well as the ones you mentioned.

Some of the more notable parts:

PLEXTOR Black Blu-ray Disc Burner SATA PX-B940SA-11
Creative PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
Series Sound Card
OCZ Vertex 2 Pro OCZSSD2-2VTXP200G 2.5" 200GB SATA II MLC Internal
Solid State Drive (SSD)
SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV02-BW Matte black 0.8mm Steel ATX Full Tower
Computer Case
Logitech G19 Black USB Wired Standard Gaming Keyboard
Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W
Six-Core Desktop Processor BX80613I7980X
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

And it took a system that robust to solve them.

Post by JC
The interface is a bit awkward and although you can sometimes use the
keyboard its pretty much a mouse only affair. Many people won't care about
that, but it bothers me a bit.

redvet: I tend to use the mouse exclusively and I understand the term
"awkward" is very subjective. Perhaps if I used keystrokes I might
have an opinion...but I don't

Post by JC
I note that other people have had really serious performance issues with big
maps, but I haven't experienced that yet.

redvet: Me either after the computer upgrade

Post by JC
I also don't like Steam very much, although it does have some advantages -
especially when moving your games from one computer to another.

redvet: Civ 5 is the second game I put on Steam. (The first was
'Supreme Commander.') My gripe was that if you didn't have Internet
access you couldn't do the initial copy right handshake. With 150
logged hours with CIV5 now I don't have a problem navigating the Steam
site;but do wish it would 'open' at the 'library' menu.

Post by JC
Now the positive.
I've been playing civ since civ 1. They've all been good, although I didn't
like civ 3 as much as the others. Civ 2 (or possibly 1 - my memory isn't
what it was) had a combat system that discouraged the stack of doom, and
that was a good thing. Civ 5 has a different approach.

redvet: I probably played CIV 1 once or twice, Civ 2 more but they
were way to buggy. Looking back now, it was more a problem of lack of
horse power than a bug problem - it did have some eccentricities that
weren't a result of horsepower. As I had played CIV 2 for a while
began to recognize the genius and flexiblity. It was the motivator to
purchase CIV3.

It basically outlaws

Post by JC
the stack of doom by requiring that two military units cannot end their turn
in the same tile (although they can pass through each other). That's a good
thing, but it radically changes the game and I'm still coming to grips with
it. The biggest impact (for me) was a bit unexpected. In previous civs, you
fought your way to a city then garrisoned it and beat off the enemy
counterattack from within the city walls. That doesn't work in civ 5 as you
can only garrison with one unit and the enemy just takes it back. Instead,
you have to attack past a city and then take if from all sides, while
leaving a screening force on the enemy side of the city. It might sound
clumsy, but I think it makes civ 5 a much better game.

redvet: Oh, yeah...it is significanly more complex and requires the
use of planning, tactics and strategy.

Post by JC
The hex map is better in almost every way. The only downside is it is
sometime harder to see the positional relationship of the tiles and units,
especially near cities. But that's a minor issue, I love the hex map. This
is also the first civ since civ 2 that actually remembers when you turn the
map grid on. That use to drive me crazy in 3 and 4.
Marshall said that the enemy civs are very agressive. I've had the opposite
experience, as they don't often attack a player who has a strong military.
The game mechanics and combat system are great, at least at my early stage
of understanding the game, but remember I've only been playing a week.
The civ happiness system is a big improvement. The social policies seem
pretty good, but I don't fully understand their impact yet.
I though I would miss religions, but I don't. In civ 4 it became a
micromanagement burden and a bit of an exploit.
All in all I think this is the best civ ever, and would thoroughly recommend
it, provided your system is up to it and you can tolerate the performance
issues.
JC

redvet: What you said.