Civ 5, just one more turn...

[Felon]

I must admit, I am a little disappiointed. Some thoughts below:

*I was expecting a cool cut scene when I was going for the Scientific Victory. You only get a stock 'photo' and a bit of an explanation.

*The AI isnt very bright. It seems to have no grasp at all of how to wage battle (not that Im much better).

*City states get very agressive and cocky once you get allies with one and ply them with advanced units (I gave Stockholm a Infantryman and he went bananas attacking the Aztecs)

*I kept getting messages from Ghandi and others 'threatening' me. It didnt seem much like a threat, but It also was not a friendly chat. They were annoyed with my warlike ways.

* While I do like the policy bonus features, I do miss Religon. There is no option for a Crusade! now

*I still think Flying units are just too difficult to make work properly. By the time I have them I still fight my landwars with tanks, infantry and later the Giant Metal Robot . Ive NEVER built a Carrier in any game of CIV I have played.

* I wish there was an option to make units auto attack bandits if they find them while exploring. I lose workers when they set sail to parts of my lands that need attention. The unit destroyed only tells you a unit has been destroyed, it does not tell you WHAT unit was. My Frigate and later destroyers would really benefit from that.

* I was hoping that you would be able to do something with Mountains esp in the later ages. Deep mining? I assumed some future tech might help. On some maps Ive restarted if there are too many mountains.

* Does future tech do anything but boost your final score? If not, this seems a bit wasteful.


Final: I am still finding Civ 4 .. better. I dont know why, that game had some faults also. Civ 5 just seems to lack in certain key areas. Although to be bluntly honest, I realy wanted an Alpha Centauri 2 over a Civ 5.

I agree with a lot of this. Did you play Civilization Revolutions a couple of years back? It had a much more fun presentation, especially with regards to victory. You got to see the spaceship launch, and you got a big closing credits scene where all the people of the world are celebrating your victory. Here, you just get...."Return to Main Menu". That is so very anticlimactic.

Also true is that the AI is very easy to lure into deathtraps. Indeed, I've virtually wiped out entire armies from the comfort of one of my cities.

Late-game combat is set up to be fairly complex, with air, land, and naval units aplenty, but nothing has ever happened at that stage of the game for me. The units just sit around collecting dust if I'm playing peacefully, or they destroy everything in their wake if I'm being warlike. The stuff that cost resources to build--battleships, jet fighters, giant death robots--are pure overkill.

Still, I'm losing plenty of sleep to this game, and have faith that Crichton will prove correct. Maybe we'll even get espionage back.

 

[Felon]

I get the impression that you should be able to save your policy choices until you unlock the later policy trees. I can't seem to figure how to do it, though... I get the little "Choose Policy" button, and I can't end my turn until I pick a policy.

Does anyone know if it can be done, and if so, how?

As with any of the notifications, right-click on the circular icon that accompanies it and it will go away.

 

[John Crichton]

I agree with a lot of this. Did you play Civilization Revolutions a couple of years back? It had a much more fun presentation, especially with regards to victory. You got to see the spaceship launch, and you got a big closing credits scene where all the people of the world are celebrating your victory. Here, you just get...."Return to Main Menu". That is so very anticlimactic.

Totally agree. They really dropped the ball on things like this, world wonder movies and the like. Also, I really dug the "first civ to prove the earth is round" thing. Little things like that should be easy to implement.

The core of a great game is there and I have every confidence that the fans will be heard.

Still, I'm losing plenty of sleep to this game, and have faith that Crichton will prove correct. Maybe we'll even get espionage back.

Ugh. As long as I can shut it off, that's fine. I hated espionage in Civ IV! Blech!

However, I will welcome religion back with open arms!

 

[Pbartender]

Ugh. As long as I can shut it off, that's fine. I hated espionage in Civ IV! Blech!

I always liked the idea of espionage, but practice it was just more trouble than it was worth.

 

[John Crichton]

I always liked the idea of espionage, but practice it was just more trouble than it was worth.

Couldn't agree more. The implementation was awful in Civ IV. I could see how some people could enjoy it but it was too much to pay attention to after a certain point. All in all it was just an annoyance.

 

[LightPhoenix]

*City states get very agressive and cocky once you get allies with one and ply them with advanced units (I gave Stockholm a Infantryman and he went bananas attacking the Aztecs)

Sounds like a nice distraction to me.

*I kept getting messages from Ghandi and others 'threatening' me. It didnt seem much like a threat, but It also was not a friendly chat. They were annoyed with my warlike ways.

This annoys me too, especially late game when wars are common. I was on a Scientific Victory and every turn I'd have three or four civs asking me for various pacts, usually the same ones every turn. Blah.

*I still think Flying units are just too difficult to make work properly. By the time I have them I still fight my landwars with tanks, infantry and later the Giant Metal Robot . Ive NEVER built a Carrier in any game of CIV I have played.

All of my victories (except Scientific, for obvious reasons) have come before aircraft even come into play.

* Does future tech do anything but boost your final score? If not, this seems a bit wasteful.

Nope. Then again, you shouldn't really ever be researching Future Tech unless you've somehow maxed out the tech tree, in which case you should have already gotten a Scientific Victory.

(Personal Rant)

Which, as an aside... Scientific Victories are boring. There's no real reason to ever go on the offensive as there's no scientific advantage to battle. One thing I wish they'd bring back is tech looting. It makes a military/science build viable. Right now you're always better off doing science/commerce and taking advantage of City States and Research Agreements. It doesn't help that the AI is lacking and will heavily avoid pissing off scientifically advanced civs, especially if you have one or two modern units. It's a little better on the higher difficulties, but not by much.

 

[Sutekh]

For some reason Ive always tended to go for Scientific Victories. I guess i just love researching tech. I just wanted a nice small movie to make it so

In Civ 5 Ive noticed I tend to attack the city States while leaving the other nations alone. The city states tend to build up a lot faster than the nations.

 

[Felon]

Ugh. As long as I can shut it off, that's fine. I hated espionage in Civ IV! Blech!

I always liked the idea of espionage, but practice it was just more trouble than it was worth.

It's very easy to implement espionage incorrectly. It often feels very all-or-nothing in terms of investment, meaning that if you didn't go out of your way to be good at it, then you really suck at it and wind up at the mercy of anyone who did specialize in it.

It's also annoying that spies in these games tend to be little invisible imps that can runrampant with impunity, and that they can destroy 20 or 30 rounds worth of work in a suicide run.

I think that espionage should be overhauled. Essentially, a spy should be a worker that can build things in enemy city territory. That's how spies work, by establishing themselves in a specific territory, setting up safehouses and making local connections. Then you give them the spy equivalent of hit points, which represent a threshhold of risk-taking. Now whenver they try to get away with theft or sabotage, they lose risk points. Players can deter enemy spies with not just specialized counter-expionage stuff, but also with things that already exist for other purposes--walls, castles, garrisons, etc. can all result in greater risk for the spy.

So, let's say you set up a black market. that can allow you spend gold to steal a nearby resource from a city, but only if the target civ has more than one of that resource (black markets re-route surplus, not main supply lines). That's beneficial to the espionage player, but not devastating to the target.

The reason to have espionage is that it gives a way to push against a player that has gained a lead that can't otherwise be overtaken--particularly a military lead.

 

[John Crichton]

It's very easy to implement espionage incorrectly. It often feels very all-or-nothing in terms of investment, meaning that if you didn't go out of your way to be good at it, then you really suck at it and wind up at the mercy of anyone who did specialize in it.

It always turned into a thing where just about all the AI Civs would have their spies "beating me up" at a certain point. And that's just not fun especially if there is no way to know how to actively combat it.

It's also annoying that spies in these games tend to be little invisible imps that can runrampant with impunity, and that they can destroy 20 or 30 rounds worth of work in a suicide run.

Yeah, that's no fun either.

I think that espionage should be overhauled. Essentially, a spy should be a worker that can build things in enemy city territory. That's how spies work, by establishing themselves in a specific territory, setting up safehouses and making local connections. Then you give them the spy equivalent of hit points, which represent a threshhold of risk-taking. Now whenver they try to get away with theft or sabotage, they lose risk points. Players can deter enemy spies with not just specialized counter-expionage stuff, but also with things that already exist for other purposes--walls, castles, garrisons, etc. can all result in greater risk for the spy.

So, let's say you set up a black market. that can allow you spend gold to steal a nearby resource from a city, but only if the target civ has more than one of that resource (black markets re-route surplus, not main supply lines). That's beneficial to the espionage player, but not devastating to the target.

The reason to have espionage is that it gives a way to push against a player that has gained a lead that can't otherwise be overtaken--particularly a military lead.

See, that sounds reasonable as opposed to the clusterflark of Civ IV's espionage. A system that is actually a real system that's easy to see and figure out what's going on is what I'd want if it were to be brought into Civ V.

 

[Felon]

This annoys me too, especially late game when wars are common. I was on a Scientific Victory and every turn I'd have three or four civs asking me for various pacts, usually the same ones every turn. Blah.

Sounds oddly different from my experiences. Civs taunt, but I've never had them propose a defensive pact. They propose research agreements early in the game, but in the late game most civs are seriously broke. I also don't see them proposing trades, just one-sided requests for handouts (when they have nothing to offer in return). And war in the late game? They definitely steer clear of me.

Nope. Then again, you shouldn't really ever be researching Future Tech unless you've somehow maxed out the tech tree, in which case you should have already gotten a Scientific Victory.

Again, this piques my curiosity as it doesn't jibe with my experiences. It takes long enough to get all the spaceship parts constructed that a science juggernaut can have many rounds of future tech research, even if I've switched everyone into production and gold mode.

(Personal Rant)

Which, as an aside... Scientific Victories are boring. There's no real reason to ever go on the offensive as there's no scientific advantage to battle. One thing I wish they'd bring back is tech looting. It makes a military/science build viable. Right now you're always better off doing science/commerce and taking advantage of City States and Research Agreements. It doesn't help that the AI is lacking and will heavily avoid pissing off scientifically advanced civs, especially if you have one or two modern units. It's a little better on the higher difficulties, but not by much.

Well, if you define a bloodless victory as "boring", then building a techno-utopia is definitely ho-hum. I do miss the tech-looting. In Civ V it certainly feels as if you are expected to acquire all technologies on your own eventually, rather than acquire them from other Civs.

As to the AI being gun-shy, there does seem to be a trick to getting them to attack. I've been attacked three times by other Civs, and nearly attacked a few other times, and I've gathered that the AI has a decided preference for sneak attacks by overwhelming forces. There was one time I pulled my scout off the hilltop on a strip of land separating me and Greece. Sure enough, Alexander sent a bunch of Hoplites and archers ona long, one-move-per-turn trek across the tundra forests and hills to take my flegling city. Alexander and Nobunaga are both insanely belligerent (which makes Greece's special seem rather misplaced).

On another occasion, I was cruising around in my brand new caravel when I bumped into a sizable army of Iroqois from a neighboring island disembarking onto a section of unsettled desert land I had neglected. The result was hilarious to me at the time. Realizing the jig was up, they jumped back in their canoes and sailed away as fast as their little paddles would carry them. Invasion averted just like that.

So, if the goal is to provoke an attack by AI, my observation is that the player has to leave an opening--or at least appear to leave one. If you have a road, it is pretty easy to pull back far enough that they can't see your units, but still be able to rush in once they declare war.