CiV (Demo) is out

[MetalCraze]

-ZoC are a retarded concept implemented only as a poor mans logisitcs. IRL armies often missed each other, there were raiders and commandos, whole warfare before the times of mass conscription was devoid of frontlines.

So IRL armies missed each other by walking through each other? Why don't you complain that this one isn't realistic in Civ? (not mentioning that complaining that Civ has something not realistic is beyond retarded)

Another +, no sane ruler would allow military access to someone who is not his ally. Wanna cross = declare war is very realistic considering the devastation that armies brought.

You mean like the small squad of scouts? What if I'm a ruler and just want to grant a passage for 3 turns?
Or do you mean that all city state rulers are insane because they have no problem with me passing through their territory? It also isn't about rulers - it's the game forcing you to declare the war, not rulers declaring war on you.

Econoy in Civ was always dumb as a brick so nothign changed here.

Except it is even more dumber now (and dumbed down - other cities can now work tiles 3 tiles away near other cities). So basically you are happy that they dumb down stuff and OK with them not making economy more complex? Because you don't even need to care about economy now.

- Easier diplomacy = less exploitation of thew dumb AI. Seems reasonable.

So instead of improving AI you are happy that they kept it as dumb but made diplomacy dumb too?

- Smaller tech tree means longer research for each tech? If yes then another +, I was sick and tired of my units becoming obsolete on the way to enemy. Besides most of old techs made no sense.

Smaller tech tree means that everyone is forced more into having the same shit (also say bye bye to tech trading), research times are actually the same and no your units didn't become obsolete fast in previous Civs.

Besides most of old techs made no sense.

Which are?

- Combat outcome was always predicted for You only with element of randomness.

No it wasn't. Here you get a huge fucking message telling you how it will go.

- Strenght as one stat for everything is perfectly fine and reasonable, division with 50% of its force wont fight as effectively as one with 100%. Different untis are made different with max strenght, reasonable too. Having attacka nd defence stats was retarded.

Retarded how? F.e. artillery has huge damage but can't defend themselves for shit. It was reflected. Archers sucked in melee but had stronger ranged attack, and had a shitty defence against melee for obvious reasons. It was reflected too. Also among other stats there also was armour and health. Strength is actually retarded and is a dumbing down because now your melee units can't even wipe out archers in one go if archers have a higher strength (I guess all of them are very good at point blank shots!).

- I dont really understand, diplomacy in SMAC was as retarded as in other Civs.

Have you played SMAC or just talk out of your ass?
It wasn't just a boring trading table, nations used bribes, nations disliked or supported your policies and just had general character. Here it's "trade A for B" and nothing else.

Actually limiting options is very sensible since they were anyway nearly useless.

So as I take it previous Civs were just too complex for you and you are happy that they dumb them down by cutting all good stuff from them instead of improving it and adding more options?

The only really good thing in Civ5 so far is that strategic resources are in.

Well, gotta admit that from what Skyway wrote, this looks a bit :bland: :crappy: :dull:

Do yourself a favor and try no to base your opinion of a game - any game - around what Skyway writes.

Yeah because I'm just making shit up here. Funny to hear it from you when you were defending AP from my criticisms only to flip flop a month later.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

I only use automated workers in LAN-games to accelerate, and there's an agreement among the players that it's compulsory, so how good it works doesn't really affect me

But if Skyway isn't just doing his usual bitching I'm a sad panda. I played through the demo one and besides the tech-tree I didn't really see all the dumbing down he did.

Half his reasons are retarded but IMO there are some legitimate complaints in there... Of course, I have only played the unlimited turns demo like you have but my complaints would be:

- City states interaction is as bland as he says, and I'll bet all my codex creds that maritime city states will soon be regarded as OP.
- Trade is dumbed down, you no longer get any bonus from having trade routes with people far away like in Civ 4 - in fact your cities cannot trade with other civs, which reduces your incentive to interact with them considerably. Also you don't need a road to them to trade, which cripples the entire "roads will be important" idea since there now won't be any roads to any other civ.
- Economy is down to slightly below civ 3 level, all tiles produce two hammers or food or one of each with + 1 commerce with river, and almost all bonus resources give just +1 F/P/C. Massive decline after civ 4, which made the economy so much more complex...

Still cannot comment on the combat or the new system for happy/ unhappy faces though. I also dislike the UI but that might just be that I'm so unused to it.

Edit: I'll add one more: Your melee units have a grand total of two improvements to choose between on start: Attack bonus vs open terrain or attack bonus vs rough terrain (hills, forests). This sort of sucks... Later on they get "cover" and some other crap but again compared to civ 4 there are fewer of them and they just feel less logical.

 

[MetalCraze]

Looks like happiness/unhappiness was dumbed down too. Now instead of it affecting each city separately making you to treat each city in a more or less unique way it affects the whole nation. Meaning that all you need to do now about it is just get lots of +1s to happiness overall and don't care about how each city fares. The penalties? Slower city growth.

Support buildings were also dumbed down too (as a part of dumbed down economy). F.e. granary now gives a constant +2 to food instead of just stockpiling 50% of food after the city grew. It goes for all other buildings in the city. They are just +1/+2 to something and nothing else.

Basically they've turned Civ into a turn-based "RTS" where primitive combat, primitive economy (as it's all about just building stuff to get more resources now) and primitive diplomacy and trade rule.

 

[Trash]

The retarded "declare war to move into the territory of another country" is still there

Countries generally love to see armed units of other nations march through their territory. Anyway, looking forward to try this.

 

[MetalCraze]

Countries generally love to see armed units of other nations march through their territory.

Have you read the rest of the sentence?

 

[Trash]

Yeah, I just couldn't resist.

Anyway, gave it a try and am deeply underwhelmed. Amazing how the first civ is still the most fun to play.

 

[Grunker]

upport buildings were also dumbed down too (as a part of dumbed down economy). F.e. granary now gives a constant +2 to food instead of just stockpiling 50% of food after the city grew. It goes for all other buildings in the city. They are just +1/+2 to something and nothing else.

This does really sound extremely bad.

 

[Lyesmith]

- Yea, mercenaries, ever heard of them? You know those gusy that won wars up to XIX century? Finally in.

Mostly arguable.
I doubt mercenaries would stand a chance against that:

Besides, I don't think realism and/or historical accuracy is top priority/what makes game, bearing Civilization name, good.

Anyways, can't wait to play it.

 

[Silellak]

Funny to hear it from you when you were defending AP from my criticisms only to flip flop a month later.

Yeah, it's almost like I held back on criticizing AP until after I'd played it, or something. I also don't recall "defending it" so much as "not shitting on it".

Yeah because I'm just making shit up here.

I don't think you're "making shit up". I've played the game too - I just don't consider the things in your list to be as game-breaking as you're making them out to be.

 

[Black]

Butthurt.

 

[MetalCraze]

I don't think you're "making shit up". I've played the game too - I just don't consider the things in your list to be as game-breaking as you're making them out to be.

When the only thing you do all the time is gather gold and churn out attacking units for conquests (after capturing a few strategic resources which is one of the few things I really like about this game) - yeah I consider such gameplay very boring. Economics suck as they don't really require your input, diplomacy is meh, no need to defend cities unless enemy has a really big and/or fairly more advanced army, city structures are just +1 to resource - yeah it's very bad. In older Civs (even Civ4) every branch required the same attention. Here only combat really does as civil happiness is ultraprimitive now too (just capture luxuries and you are set for some golden ages because happiness is per empire, not per city and it's enough to just keep the happiness counter above 0 as there is no requirement of no unhappy citizens - as citizen management is simply not there).

So in the end main question for me was - what's the point in playing this when I can just install older, superior Civ?

 

[Darth Roxor]

After playing the demo, I have to agree with Skyway on some points:

First, the 'pay to get stuff instantly' is horribly dumbed down, not to mention it doesn't make an awful lot of sense (especially for buildings). Second, the city-states mechanic is not advanced enough, and seems like nothing but a money sink (although they have an influence-giving objective every now and then, but these are rare). Third, cities having garrisons and barraging stuff from distances even without any units inside is dumb. Fourth, dumbed down economic buildings (when I saw what happened to granary, I was shocked). And fifth, the streamlined hex characteristics (hammers/food can't go past +2 is meh, so are sucky improvements giving barely +1).

On the plus side, though, the introduction of hexes is neat, I also like the 'ancient ruins', which seem more useful than tribal villages of Civ IV, the introduction of natural wonders is also fun. The social policies... on one hand are a little more interesting than civics, since there's more of them, but I don't like how they're flawless. Making culture a resource is another interesting move. And in general, it still plays pretty much like Civilization, despite all the streamlining, so whatev. But somehow, I think I'll be returning to Civ IV more often than to this, although the demo doesn't show 'enough' to completely judge yet, but still.

Also, it was strangely appropriate when I discovered Brussels, and it was classified as 'irrational'...

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Upon reflection, the single dumbest thing about it is that one citizen = one science. Until libraries, which allows you to make two citizens into scientists, this will be your only source of science... And even then they will be your largest source by far. I've seen several people on the civfanatics boards compare this to RTS gameplay in that we have a one-dimensional "gather more minerals citizens" focus rather than the traditional civ gameplay where you have to carefully balance your commerce/science/production (again this was done best by C4.)

 

[asper]

So... any hope modders will fix it? Damn, the game isn't out yet and I already have to ask this question

 

[Malakal]

Mostly arguable.
I doubt mercenaries would stand a chance against that:

Besides, I don't think realism and/or historical accuracy is top priority/what makes game, bearing Civilization name, good.

Anyways, can't wait to play it.

Not arguable at all, mercenaries were a dominant force in warfare since antiquity (with notable exceptions of greek and roman citizen armies or hordes, but one care argue that romans employed professional mercs) up to the times of national armies. And right now they are reeemerging as 'contractors' working for governments. Italian wars or Spanish-French wars were fought with mercenary armies, so was for the large part 30 years war and other conflicts of renaissance.

And its a good thing to implement since IRL money = might and this was not present i Civ. Instead we had this dumb favoring of production, like if state planned economies were dominant.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Don't get me wrong, Skyway, I think Civ II and IV are both superior to this, but I also don't think this is a bad game, and some of the things they've added have been improvements. Honestly, I doubt I'm going to jump right into it again, just because I like Civ, but I don't love it (and I'd rather play Vicky 2 or EU3 right now).

Anyway, this is one of those times where I do think there is room somewhere between total shit and totally amazing.

 

[Malakal]

So IRL armies missed each other by walking through each other? Why don't you complain that this one isn't realistic in Civ? (not mentioning that complaining that Civ has something not realistic is beyond retarded)

Uhm yes? Yes they did miss each other? They were chasing each other all over the place, burning vilages and often avoiding general battle? What never heard of it? How big is one hex again? Its damn enough to miss a small or even medium army.

You mean like the small squad of scouts? What if I'm a ruler and just want to grant a passage for 3 turns?
Or do you mean that all city state rulers are insane because they have no problem with me passing through their territory? It also isn't about rulers - it's the game forcing you to declare the war, not rulers declaring war on you.

Want passage then negotiate it. Squads of scouts are already abstracted as revealing terrain with moving units. Why do You think this happens, armies 'see' over hexes? Those are scouts.
Its about game forcing YOU to force Your way through. It could be as well equal to autodeclaration of war from enemy but then random wars (as in oh sorry wrong move) could happen. Now You get a popup.

Except it is even more dumber now (and dumbed down - other cities can now work tiles 3 tiles away near other cities). So basically you are happy that they dumb down stuff and OK with them not making economy more complex? Because you don't even need to care about economy now.

Soo 3 tiles away is better/worse than whatever the number was before? How exactly IS economy dumbed down exactly? You miss spamming cottages everywhere but on resources? Or going for specialst economy instead (then farms everywhere)? Gee a lot of dumbing down there. Or perhaps building that make sense now are dumbed down? Granary storing 50% of food for a 50 million people city build in 2600BC great idea. I hope that now advanced improvements render those older ones almost useless.

So instead of improving AI you are happy that they kept it as dumb but made diplomacy dumb too?

No, improving the AI should be a first priority. But it probably wasnt and wont be so why be dellusional?

Smaller tech tree means that everyone is forced more into having the same shit (also say bye bye to tech trading), research times are actually the same and no your units didn't become obsolete fast in previous Civs.

Yes, units were obsolete as fast as one-two techs in previous civs. For example crossbowmen in Civ 4. Also there wasnt really any focus in tech, there were must have techs and useless techs. Making a smaller ammount but all viable number of techs could be a great improvement.

Which are?

Techs not making sense? A lot, but for example divine right (like what?), fascism and communism, ecology (thats a tech?) and others that I wont mention cause it was some time now since I played.

No it wasn't. Here you get a huge fucking message telling you how it will go.

WTF? In civ 4 You had PERCENTAGES of victory chance.

Retarded how? F.e. artillery has huge damage but can't defend themselves for shit. It was reflected. Archers sucked in melee but had stronger ranged attack, and had a shitty defence against melee for obvious reasons. It was reflected too. Also among other stats there also was armour and health. Strength is actually retarded and is a dumbing down because now your melee units can't even wipe out archers in one go if archers have a higher strength (I guess all of them are very good at point blank shots!).

Sure AT and AA cant defend themselves. Oh wait they are meant for defence. All artillery can be used for defence actually (counterfire and stuff). One can argue about bombers but those too serve roles in defence.
Archers perhaps could suck in mellee but no Civ game divided fire and shock/mellee. Ever heard of skirmishers or mounted archers? Well all archers can be used to bait and break enemy formations thus having a viable offensive role, very effective too.
How is armour different than health exactly? Both measure how much damage unit can take before going down. And units being unable to easily defeat STRONGER untis makes sense doesnt it? I mean those strong archers could have really good bows or be trained very well.

Have you played SMAC or just talk out of your ass?
It wasn't just a boring trading table, nations used bribes, nations disliked or supported your policies and just had general character. Here it's "trade A for B" and nothing else.

I did play SMAC and diplo was horrible. 'By our Lord giv tech or vendetta!' or 'Give tech for this useless tech' or 'Vendetta anyway fuck you'. Adding diplo bonuses for civics isnt really advanced too and was present in civ 4. And having hardcoded leader personalities is somethign that was way better in Civ 4 where even Ghandi could win military victory if he had to.

So as I take it previous Civs were just too complex for you and you are happy that they dumb them down by cutting all good stuff from them instead of improving it and adding more options?

Previous civs were as complex as a brick is. Sure it is edgy but its still a brick.

 

[Bruticis]

What about the moronic water walking, err optics research tech? That alone is pretty damn annoying and stupid IMO.

 

[FeelTheRads]

WTF? In civ 4 You had PERCENTAGES of victory chance.

DERP. Percentages means there are chances both ways. Straightforward yes or no can't go another way.

 

[Darth Roxor]

DERP. Percentages means there are chances both ways. Straightforward yes or no can't go another way.

What's the difference between writing '90%' and 'decisive victory' or '50%' and 'stalemate'?

 

[Malakal]

DERP. Percentages means there are chances both ways. Straightforward yes or no can't go another way.

What's the difference between writing '90%' and 'decisive victory' or '50%' and 'stalemate'?

Apparently some people cant read percentages.

 

[Drakron]

Sure AT and AA cant defend themselves. Oh wait they are meant for defence. All artillery can be used for defence actually (counterfire and stuff). One can argue about bombers but those too serve roles in defence.

You are grasping at straws.

Artillery cannot survive a attack, they are long range bombardment left behind your lines as they are SUPPORT.

Same with AA and AT, they are specialized defenses that is useless against anything else, they are not left alone either and I am not even going about bombers as you are saying a B-17 could defend its airbase from a tank assault.

The fact is those units worked because they could stack so you have a AA unit stacking with a Armored unit providing defense against air attacks but since Civ 5 does not allow stacking anymore we end up with stupidity like this, it would be better if we could just build armies instead of units and you decide what units composed the army.

This is just half-assed dumbed down.

 

[FeelTheRads]

What's the difference between writing '90%' and 'decisive victory'

Uh... I would say... 10%?

 

[Elhoim]

I think the main difference is that now units don't have to die in combat. A combat can end with both units damaged, while before combat only ended when one of the units died.

 

[Malakal]

Sure AT and AA cant defend themselves. Oh wait they are meant for defence. All artillery can be used for defence actually (counterfire and stuff). One can argue about bombers but those too serve roles in defence.

You are grasping at straws.

Artillery cannot survive a attack, they are long range bombardment left behind your lines as they are SUPPORT.

Same with AA and AT, they are specialized defenses that is useless against anything else, they are not left alone either and I am not even going about bombers as you are saying a B-17 could defend its airbase from a tank assault.

The fact is those units worked because they could stack so you have a AA unit stacking with a Armored unit providing defense against air attacks but since Civ 5 does not allow stacking anymore we end up with stupidity like this, it would be better if we could just build armies instead of units and you decide what units composed the army.

This is just half-assed dumbed down.

Artillery. Is. Not. Made. Entirely. Of. Guns. Artillery IRL is a NORMAL unit with MORE than usual artillery pieces. ALL modern regiments have regimental artillery. Thus artillery units are better at defence than normal units since they can dig in and respond with fire/use more covering and supressing fire/coordinate their fire more effectively.

B-17 could defend its airbase from tank assault by bombing enemy supply lines going into Your territory and destroying any and all force concentrations. Indirectly, yes, not when tanks actually assault the airfield, but bombers do serve a major role in grand scale defence. And Civ is all about strategic layer of war.