No Mom, just one more turn... (Civ V)

[Eejit]

Yeah I think Bismark has the 'big douche' personality. Might be an option to 'randomise' those though, there was in Civ4.

 

[Matorbogl]

Played the demo for Civ5 yesterday, have to say, as a newcomer to the series it really hooked me. It's very visually appealing in a way not many games really are, it just felt good to play, bit of a time sink though but I don't think that's a bad thing.

 

[Mr. Djees]

Did Zara Yaqob have the "retard" personality in Civ4?

I'm curious as to why he thought I would give him uranium for sheep.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Yeah I think Bismark has the 'big douche' personality. Might be an option to 'randomise' those though, there was in Civ4.

That said, if theres someone I want to "downsize", I can generally rely on him as an ally. He just loves to go to war, the annoying part is when he does it to me.

 

[kupocake]

as a newcomer to the series it really hooked me.

Good for you.

Almost surprised people have never played a Civ game before though. 'Being young' would hardly be an excuse, because it always used to be precisely the kind of series - vaguely educational, not violent - that younger PC gaming types got introduced to.

I'm curious as to why he thought I would give him uranium for sheep.

He's AI. Electric Sheep are the stuff of dreams.

 

[Letters]

Piece of crap keeps crashing on me over and over and over... annoying as ****! I've got it set to autosave every 5 turns now but even that's not seeming like enough.

 

[kupocake]

Waiting for my dispatch notice, I've trawled a couple of Civilization forums. People trolling about Civ IV > V, Steam integration and the included Civilizations (in a completely fubar chronology of world leaders... uh-huh?). Oh, Internet, you never disappoint.

Just to be a complete hypocrite, I feel I must complain about the Final Fantasy 'rule of 3' finding its way into the series. Though apparently someone already modded Boudicea in, she has massive ****ing cheek-bones.

 

[Wanted Bob]

I did the same kupo. Civfanatics was the worst by far. People saying "oh its so dumbed down, you betrayed me Firaxis" and "you took all the depth out of it by getting rid of religion and government".

I think this was a great step forward in the series, because instead of adding onto what they had, they went back and IMPROVED fundamental parts of the game (in my opinion for the better).

Did I ever care about army placement in Civ 3 and 4? Hell no, it always came down to who had the most guys in a stack. Did I ever care about culture, instead of just building military/scientific structures? Absolutely not.

Civ 5 has made paying attention to ALL the core mechanics vital in order to win a game, and thats made it a far more rewarding experience to me than before.

 

[StarBob]

I did the same kupo. Civfanatics was the worst by far. People saying "oh its so dumbed down, you betrayed me Firaxis" and "you took all the depth out of it by getting rid of religion and government".

I think this was a great step forward in the series, because instead of adding onto what they had, they went back and IMPROVED fundamental parts of the game (in my opinion for the better).

Did I ever care about army placement in Civ 3 and 4? Hell no, it always came down to who had the most guys in a stack. Did I ever care about culture, instead of just building military/scientific structures? Absolutely not.

Civ 5 has made paying attention to ALL the core mechanics vital in order to win a game, and thats made it a far more rewarding experience to me than before.

In addition to this, I think something that's been understated in reviews I've seen is how much the unit upgrades and combat has changed. You upgrade a lot less and there are fewer little in-between upgrades that take up your gold and don't offer much. It makes a lot more sense too. They simplified the actual unit to unit combat and added other more entertaining and dynamic complexities. Instead of getting your ass handed to you by a random number generator that managed to have a lucky streak where you lose a tank to an archer, you can really reap the benefits of being teched well ahead more readily. The strategic resource requirement of stronger units is an awesome addition as well.

What it boils down to is that what needed to be simplified was simplified and what needed improved upon was improved upon. My only complaint after like 10+ hours of play is that it slows down so much on my computer once everything is cranking. I gotta lower some settings so I can maintain a solid framerate. Switching to DX9 helped a bit but I have to take it a few steps further.


edit: Oh I have one more complaint - the lack of videos. Even though Civ 4s videos weren't the best quality - I'd like to at LEAST see victory videos
The wonder images are fine since I never really cared about that little video animation from 4, but the ending videos were like a prize. I chose to do a space race victory specifically to see what that video would be like.

 

[Krynn72]

edit: Oh I have one more complaint - the lack of videos. Even though Civ 4s videos weren't the best quality - I'd like to at LEAST see victory videos
The wonder images are fine since I never really cared about that little video animation from 4, but the ending videos were like a prize. I chose to do a space race victory specifically to see what that video would be like.

Yeah, that would be cool. Especially after seeing the intro video... holy shit that was a great cinematic. If they did videos half as good as that one, I'd stop playing Germans every time, just to see the different cinematics.

 

[Eejit]

Yeah I'm pretty hyped to play it. The removal of religion looks great, it totally screwed up diplomacy and economics in Civ4.

 

[Hazar]

you guys can actually see the full intro video? Before I disabled it, it would always just stop a few seconds in.

 

[StarBob]

you guys can actually see the full intro video? Before I disabled it, it would always just stop a few seconds in.

That intro video hides the loading screen for the main menu - which is why you can't skip it immediately. Mine would stop before too until I changed my refresh rate from the default 75 to 60 and took off the default vsync. That game has the strangest default settings.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Yeah, try to fix that issue if you can Hazar, because the intro to this game is superb, far better than Civ 3 and 4 in my opinion. The sentimental dialogue between the father and the son with the slow orchestral music just pulls at the heartstrings.

Also, thats too bad that there are no victory videos. Just as well about the wonders though, the videos never worked for me for some reason.

 

[Bad^Hat]

The sentimental dialogue between the father and the son

You mean the sentimental dialogue from the father? I'm pretty sure the son says all of two words, if that. "Hey yo I'm giving you control of our tribe and the power to shape your own destiny!" *silent, pokerfaced acceptance*

 

[StarBob]

You mean the sentimental dialogue from the father? I'm pretty sure the son says all of two words, if that. "Hey yo I'm giving you control of our tribe and the power to shape your own destiny!" *silent, pokerfaced acceptance*

Can't read my can't read my no he can't read my poker faaaaace.

 

[Wanted Bob]

You mean the sentimental dialogue from the father? I'm pretty sure the son says all of two words, if that. "Hey yo I'm giving you control of our tribe and the power to shape your own destiny!" *silent, pokerfaced acceptance*

You're right, it should be the dialogue from the father to the son

 

[Leviathan]

Picked the game up on release day and sleep has gone down dramatically. I've played Civ III but still feel like a total dweeb - I basically set my workers to auto and research anything my advisors want.

I had a pretty epic war that lasted for about a hundred turns - I fought tooth and nail against Greece (as England) until we stalemate'd across a tiny isthmus where only one troop could pass at a time. I had some good ranking longbowmen annihilate anything that tried to cross - which lasted a good 40 turns before I made a push into his continent with the help of about 5 Ship of the Line's (wasted a good chunk of gold doing that quickly). He soon surrendered and offered me a shitton of resources for peace.

Going to play a lot of quick duel games so I can get better at early game setups, then extend into harder difficulties and longer games.

Any advice for a newbie?

 

[StarBob]

Doing what the advisors say isn't generally that bad, especially early on, but sometimes they'll want you to build retarded things that are unnecessary and you'll have to slap them around. From what I've seen automation of workers isn't too terrible either.

 

[Eejit]

Er, embark your units instead of getting stuck at an isthmus?

 

[Krynn72]

Doing what the advisors say isn't generally that bad, especially early on, but sometimes they'll want you to build retarded things that are unnecessary and you'll have to slap them around. From what I've seen automation of workers isn't too terrible either.

Yeah, the advisors after the first couple of turns offer really bad suggestions on things to build next. There was one point where I had six workers make improvements on every tile in all four of my cities, and in all four of my cities they recommended I build workers. :|

I really need to work on my diplomacy/researching skills. Both games I've played so far I focused almost solely on military, and in the last game which I played on harder difficulty, I had a very unhappy populace, and was shitass broke the entire time. Plus I was about two eras behind everybody (even though I was kicking ass militarily).

 

[StarBob]

Yeah, the advisors after the first couple of turns offer really bad suggestions on things to build next. There was one point where I had six workers make improvements on every tile in all four of my cities, and in all four of my cities they recommended I build workers. :|

I really need to work on my diplomacy/researching skills. Both games I've played so far I focused almost solely on military, and in the last game which I played on harder difficulty, I had a very unhappy populace, and was shitass broke the entire time. Plus I was about two eras behind everybody (even though I was kicking ass militarily).

Yeah the economic advisor or whatever pretty much always suggests settlers even when there's not a single inch of room to build a city left on the map and everone hates me for having too many cities.

I've found that staying fairly neutral and researching faster will put you in a good position all around. If you focus on military and you get behind on research you get killed by more advanced units. That's kind of how it's always been for Civ though, it just seems more important in 5.

 

[Eejit]

The lack of happy/money/science slider in Civ5 means you need to plan each of those individual aspects rather than adjust them on the fly, with knock-on consequences for your military and its upkeep.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Yeah, the advisors after the first couple of turns offer really bad suggestions on things to build next. There was one point where I had six workers make improvements on every tile in all four of my cities, and in all four of my cities they recommended I build workers. :|

Advisors really like workers. Just played another demo round and I had 3 of 4 advisors suggesting I build one when I already had 3 workers standing around doing nothing as I'd already built improvements on all my available spaces.

Can't wait for this to arrive tomorrow. Like I said before, there's something much more accessible about this one, even though it doesn't seem like they've gutted much of the complexity. The way they've kept the interface clean and simple and then tucked all of the minutiae beneath the surface is brilliant. It's there when you need it, but it's not staring you in the face and demanding your attention every turn. Thanks to this, I'm actually looking forward to learning all of the incidental stuff, something that never concerned me too much in IV.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Yeah, I absolutely love the UI in this civ. They never force you to do anything until you are ready. My only complaint is that they force you to read all the city state messages, which normally is a pain since most of them I dont care about.

Also love that I'm able to move around and look at other things when its not my turn.

 

[Krynn72]

Is there any way to tell how much people like you? I see sometimes people show as hostile, but I havent seen anything opposite of that. I helped Washington take down Napolean, and we were working together for a long time, and I gave him a lot of stuff, had a pact of secrecy and such, but when we took down Napolean, I offered a Pact of Cooperation and he was all like "**** no you warmongerer!" I don't think I get diplomacy.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Not that I know of. Basically just have to judge it off of what they say, their animations, and what deals they will accept. Sometimes I feel left in the dark as well.

 

[Leviathan]

Ah... and such it is in real international relations

 

[Hazar]

Yeah, I absolutely love the UI in this civ. They never force you to do anything until you are ready. My only complaint is that they force you to read all the city state messages, which normally is a pain since most of them I dont care about.

Also love that I'm able to move around and look at other things when its not my turn.

if you right click on the circle icon for the message it will dismiss it and you won't have to read it.

I get quite a few random glitches while playing though. Some improvements on the map (like horses and pastures) will get stuck on the screen and won't go away for a couple of turns. In multiplayer I've had the glitch where if I select military units out of sequence I won't be able to select any military unit or city at all (clicking the next thing to do above the map has fixed this before). Also in multiplayer I've had the game be stuck on telling me there is a city state message that I have to read even when I've dismissed it and read it a bunch of times and won't let me end my turn. You have to force end your turn with shift-enter to fix that. There's a few more I can't remember right now but I hope they get fixed soon.

In mp as well, I don't like how once you end your turn you can't change anything at all, but the the game will still look like you can change stuff. This leads to having to remember all the tweaks you want to make next turn.

 

[Bad^Hat]

If reviews are to be believed, the diplomacy is the most under-developed part, and the AI will turn on you at the drop of a hat for no conceivable reason.

Speaking of, anyone gonna be [strike]kicking my ass[/strike] playing online over the weekend? Could always set up games in the steam chat since it's all steamworks'd and stuff.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Thank you very much Hazar, one less thing I have to deal with

EDIT: Uh oh, my steam cloud is not synching, all my saves are there D:

 

[Nabobalis]

Why do I have to wait 4 hours to play a game I have in my hand

 

[Wanted Bob]

Goddammit, the steam cloud still hasnt synced. Perhaps because of the server load with all the non-NA players waiting?

Anyone know if it could be something else or how to fix it? I tried changing server locations multiple times... to no avail.

I'll just wait around a bit more I guess (last time I save ONLY to steam cloud :\)

 

[StarBob]

Why do I have to wait 4 hours to play a game I have in my hand

As Einstein has told us, time is relative.

 

[Shakermaker]

Why do I have to wait 4 hours to play a game I have in my hand

I try to not get annoyed by that anymore, but it still happens. :|

 

[Letters]

I did some .ini number playing to get DX9 mode to work, and that doesn't seem to crash anymore. So that's good!

Finished my second game just now... warlord difficulty, 6 players, earth map, playing as Alexander (I like my city states!). It was still way too easy. I could never win by military in Civ 4, but I went for the domination victory yet again here, ending the game in the 1500's just because it took forever to tech up to being able to cross oceans. :x

There's a lot of UI issues that could use improvement still. The units may not stack anymore, but I still had shitload of them, and telling them all to move to various points around the world is a major hassle of scrolling back and forth for each unit, not to mention ****ing confusing. There needs to be a way to display units' current action queues to see where they're going, and some sort of real time display of what path the unit will take BEFORE you right click and they move somewhere insane, wasting their whole turn. When you've got all your guys all jumbled up in a choke point, sometimes units will take like a 5-turn detour around everything when they could just wait like 1 turn for stuff to move out of the god damn way.

I'll withhold any judgment about the AI until I've continued to increase it, but so far it's ****ing terrible. Not only are they just bad, but they're hardly any fun either. Not one time could I ever get one of those stubborn little assholes to give in to a demand, no matter how teeny tiny I made it, when they were very clearly way outmatched. They'd just wait until I was busting down the defenses of their final city and then offer me some sort of lame peace treaty (most of them waiting until they had virtually nothing to give). I could never get any sort of reasonable trade going either... they'd want 3 of my resources for 1 of theirs. Ya, **** you, time to die.

There's some other stuff I'm still a bit lost on, like why most of cities had such a lack of production, even toward the end of my game. 30 turns to build a colosseum in my capital city? Seriously? Mighta been 'cause my cities were too close... at least, I hope so. Everything just seemed to be taking a lot more turns compared to Civ 4.

 

[Bad^Hat]

some sort of real time display of what path the unit will take BEFORE you right click and they move somewhere insane, wasting their whole turn.

Hold down right click.

It would be nice to be able to see where units are moving when you send them somewhere over multiple turns (actually, wasn't this in IV?), but I am thankful they don't perform queued actions until the end of the turn now.

 

[Mr. Djees]

Generally, how do "anachronistic battles" end in V?

The most annoying thing in previous games was to lose your tank to a goddamn spearman.

 

[kupocake]

Lead designer assured that wouldn't happen in Civ V. Not sure if he meant 'cannot happen at all' or 'statistically improbable' though.

 

[Mr. Djees]

I can do fine with "statistically improbable".