Civilization V!!

[Scienter]

I really liked the religions in Civ4, I'll miss them. Otherwise, all of these updates sound great! It would be so awesome if they could get Leonard Nimoy to narrate again. I can't wait for this to come out. It makes me want to go play Civ IV.

[Pannonian]

I want Alpha Centauri 2.

[Boohugh]

With release approaching later this month, thought I'd link a couple of articles from one of the esteemed writers at RPS and their thoughts on the game from the build they were allowed to play:

- http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...ivilization-v/
- http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...ts/#more-35637

I'm really looking forward to the improved combat and lack of unit-stacking, as that has probably been my biggest gripe with the Civ series in the past.

[al Roumi]

I want Alpha Centauri 2.

mir auch, but i'll take CIV 5 anyway...

I think there is some contractual issue with SMAC2, I don't think Firaxis own the rights or something like that.

[frogbeastegg]

I find myself long since resolved to wait for a demo for this one.

On the one hand I don't want a game that's too similar to Civ4; I've already got that, still play it, and see no reason to replace it with a hexier (har har) version. On the other hand some of the changes they've made don't immediately strike me as something I'd like. Army management in particular. Warfare has always been my least favourite civ aspect and now it sounds even less appealing; building stacks and relying on dice roll combat was bad enough without needing to shuffle around every single unit by hand sprawled out across a large area.

I'm also kind of concerned they will have continued to evolve in the direction of the Civ 4 expansions, namely the 'everything and the kitchen sink' school of design. All that stuff they added in the expansions detracts from the core gameplay and forces you to track/maintain/manage less interesting and useful aspects, thereby taking resources and time away from the really interesting stuff. My ideal version of Civ 4 would be the vanilla game with the expansion packs' civs and start up options added, nothing else.

[al Roumi]

I find myself long since resolved to wait for a demo for this one.

On the one hand I don't want a game that's too similar to Civ4; I've already got that, still play it, and see no reason to replace it with a hexier (har har) version. On the other hand some of the changes they've made don't immediately strike me as something I'd like. Army management in particular. Warfare has always been my least favourite civ aspect and now it sounds even less appealing; building stacks and relying on dice roll combat was bad enough without needing to shuffle around every single unit by hand sprawled out across a large area.

I'm also kind of concerned they will have continued to evolve in the direction of the Civ 4 expansions, namely the 'everything and the kitchen sink' school of design. All that stuff they added in the expansions detracts from the core gameplay and forces you to track/maintain/manage less interesting and useful aspects, thereby taking resources and time away from the really interesting stuff. My ideal version of Civ 4 would be the vanilla game with the expansion packs' civs and start up options added, nothing else.

Warfare in Civ has always been a bit micro management heavy, to say the least. If they can make it less so in Civ 5, and yet more tactical that should be interesting.

RPS' preview made the interesting point that civ5 is deliberatley not trying to re-do civ4 and going back to basics in some respects, and probably ending up on a different tangent. Civ4 + all the expansions is probably as deep and detailed as any Civ game, civ 5 sounds like it might be a bit more civ "light" -although that may mean civ with a more rounded experience. Let's just hope the city/building side is not civ "casual".

[God Emperor]

I really liked the religions in Civ4, I'll miss them. Otherwise, all of these updates sound great! It would be so awesome if they could get Leonard Nimoy to narrate again. I can't wait for this to come out. It makes me want to go play Civ IV.

The religions were fun, but extreemly bad when game mechanics are taking in concideration. Because the computer requires much less beakers to research a technology, it will always get the starting religions first, unless you are extreemly lucky (they do not pick a religion tech, highly unlikely) or you make npc opponents that does not start with mysticism.
CIV V is going to be great :D

[LeftEyeNine]

N-no religions in Civ 5? Where's that from ?

[frogbeastegg]

Warfare in Civ has always been a bit micro management heavy, to say the least. If they can make it less so in Civ 5, and yet more tactical that should be interesting.

I would really like it if they slowed down the army tech advancement by adding more techs to the tree between each upgrade trigger. Or speed up the construction of units. I often find that by the time I have built my set of unit X it's obsolete because my research unlocked unit Y, so the whole cycle begins again. Upgrading would be a simple one click solution and defuse much of the annoyance, however often it is too expensive to be practical.

If they did that, and made shuffling units around less tedious, and ditched the percentage chance “Ooops, you conveniently managed to lose 8 consecutive 99% win chances in a row and now your entire stack is dead, it’s not a fix honest!” combat in favour of something which feels like less of a lottery, warfare in civ might be tolerable.

In fact that's another thing I'd like them to do: focus less on the later ages and add more meat to the pre-industrial ages. The last third of the game (in terms of tech tree) is the least interesting because it's filled with micro and most of your real work is done, yet it tends to take up well over half of my total hours in any game I play. The earlier stages, where you have the most to do and where there's most variety, fly by.

Civ 4 allowed you to influence both of these things to a degree via settings which were introduced after the original launch. They never quite worked satisfactorily IMO as they were a quick bandage rather than a detailed solution.

The religions were fun, but extreemly bad when game mechanics are taking in concideration. Because the computer requires much less beakers to research a technology, it will always get the starting religions first, unless you are extreemly lucky (they do not pick a religion tech, highly unlikely) or you make npc opponents that does not start with mysticism.

If I wanted to play a game where religion was a core part of my strategy and didn't take a civ with mysticism, I often aimed for a later religion, or let the AI develop and spread an early one before conquering their religious centre and making myself head of it.

Or sometimes I'd join a strong religion and not attempt to become head of it, instead letting the AI civ gain the extra gold and becoming close friends with them. I'd then have a stooge to do most of my fighting for me if I played the diplomacy carefully. Ah, nothing like unleashing a gold-hyped Izzy or Monty on an unsuspecting third party that happened to frown at me ...

But I admit I never liked to play on the difficulties where the AI got large bonuses. Playing against a heavy cheater just makes me feel frustrated no matter what. If I win then it feels hollow because the opponent wasn't smarter; if I lose then it feels like it had little to do with my own playing and everything to do with the unfair bonuses.

Hmm, that would be another wish for civ 5: an AI that's better than Civ 4's already good AI, so cheating bonuses aren't as necessary.

[tibilicus]

I think I might wait a bit before buying Civ 5. I only ever really played it modded, in particular, the Rhyes and Fall of Civilizations mod and other historical mods. Also the excellent Fall From Heaven mod.

[frogbeastegg]

There's a really interesting new lecture about the AI in the civ series here. It's by Soren Johnson, the lead designer for civ 4. Definitely recommended if you like civ or have an interest in game AI in general.

[Boohugh]

If they did that, and made shuffling units around less tedious, and ditched the percentage chance “Ooops, you conveniently managed to lose 8 consecutive 99% win chances in a row and now your entire stack is dead, it’s not a fix honest!” combat in favour of something which feels like less of a lottery, warfare in civ might be tolerable.

From what I've read they seem to have slowed unit production down significantly (not sure what effect this will have on research and obsolete units though) with the idea being you have smaller armies that get used more tactically. I believe they have also changed the combat system so that you know who will win each attack beforehand (the old % system infuriated me too), again so that you learn to use your armies effectively rather than brute force through.

[frogbeastegg]

No one posted links to the pair of civ5 live gameplay videos? Gosh.

Part 1
Part 2

After watching them I think I might skip the demo and preorder for release. Lots of good stuff in there, though I'm still not convinced about the new warfare model. That needs to be experienced. The focus on fewer cities is a good move IMO; I liked civ4 when 5 cities was about right for most of the game span. In expansions it became easier and thus more important to have more and more cities.

[Martok]

Well the first reviews are already in. They're so overwhelmingly positive it's almost ridiculous. The average score so far is over 98%!


Not sure where I stand on this one, myself. I'm still really turned off by the Steam requirement, and the whole "ranged units being able to fire at/into adjacent hexes" bit feels like it might stretch even my ability to suspend disbelief. On the other hand, I really like what I've read so far, and all those glowing reviews ain't exactly helping my willpower.

[tibilicus]

Well the first reviews are already in. They're so overwhelmingly positive it's almost ridiculous. The average score so far is over 98%!


Not sure where I stand on this one, myself. I'm still really turned off by the Steam requirement, and the whole "ranged units being able to fire at/into adjacent hexes" bit feels like it might stretch even my ability to suspend disbelief. On the other hand, I really like what I've read so far, and all those glowing reviews ain't exactly helping my willpower.

You WILL buy it. Just like the rest of us. Before you know it, the hours will slip away, and then the days. None can resist that sweet Civ addiction.. Just one.. more... turn...

[Monk]

Suddenly this thread is ten times more interesting to me.

No one posted links to the pair of civ5 live gameplay videos? Gosh

I was never a big fan of Civ games and so Civ 5 hasn't been anywhere close to being on my radar until now. Watching the recorded stream it looks like nearly every gripe I had with C4 has been ironed out and polished to the point that the series looks like fun for once. I remember playing the demo for Civ4 and thinking "So when does this get fun" the entire time, looking at Civ5 in action it's almost night and day. I like pretty much every change they've made, form interface to automation options, looks like it could be a winner.

As to the steam requirement for those on the fence, allow me to say this. Not every game on Steam has the kind of integration that ETW had, most of them actually work seamlessly with the platform.

[frogbeastegg]

Not sure where I stand on this one, myself. I'm still really turned off by the Steam requirement, and the whole "ranged units being able to fire at/into adjacent hexes" bit feels like it might stretch even my ability to suspend disbelief. On the other hand, I really like what I've read so far, and all those glowing reviews ain't exactly helping my willpower.

Check the videos I posted. The glowing reviews are a given - the name alone secures adoration. Seeing the game in action with commentary does a far better job of showing what is what and allows you to make a better judgement on whether it's likely to appeal. Each video is around an hour long; the first shows the early game and the second shows the mid-game with emphasis on warfare.

I do wish it didn't come with steam. The launch will be a mess, it always is for anything remotely popular and often for less well known games too. I've been involved in two steam launches: ETW's launch was the worst thing I've experienced in a decade and a half of PC usage, and yesterday's King's Bounty Armoured Princess: Crossworlds was a mess. Granted, with the Crossworlds launch they did honour the massive misprice which let me buy the game for a total pittance and credit to them for that. But the actual experience of downloading, installing and unlocking, gah! It's been an entire week of mess up after mess up, and they still haven't got it right.

Steam is ok for super cheap games. I'll give them that. Grudgingly. Their big sales can be great. I don't like having anything that cost more than £7-£8 on there and I don't want my retail games tied to it. And I'm still waiting for the 1.2 patch for 'For the Glory' over a month later. Paradox say it was submitted to steam ages ago; steam say they don't have it.

I was never a big fan of Civ games and so Civ 5 hasn't been anywhere close to being on my radar until now. Watching the recorded stream it looks like nearly every gripe I had with C4 has been ironed out and polished to the point that the series looks like fun for once.

That's me and civ4. I played but didn't much like civ 2 test of time, civ 3, call to power 1 and call to power 2. I played and loved Alpha Centauri; that's why I kept on trying the series. Civ 4 changed everything. It threw out many of the things I disliked in the earlier entries, stole most of AC's best ideas, and added a load of refinement which improved the game to the power of ten. I liked Civilisation: Revolution too; it was very good at what it wanted to do.

[Beskar]

I do wish it didn't come with steam. The launch will be a mess, it always is for anything remotely popular and often for less well known games too. I've been involved in two steam launches: ETW's launch was the worst thing I've experienced in a decade and a half of PC usage.

Not fair to blame Steam on CA's fault.

Dragon Age and Mass Effect were released flawlessly on Steam. The reason why? Bioware are worth their weight in gold compared to other companies on game release.

[frogbeastegg]

Not fair to blame Steam on CA's fault.

The problems I had were all entirely, fully and completely steam's fault. Entirely.

I'm not referring to the bugs or anything like that. I'm referring to being locked out of my game for days. To not being unable to unlock it when I should have been able to, for many hours. To getting shoddy service and enforced waits because my IP address isn't an American one. To having it refuse to install from the discs when I selected the option to install from the disc(!) and try to download the game repeatedly, download 20GB it didn't need to from an overloaded server when I'm on a bandwidth cap and have a disc. To installing on the wrong drive because the program doesn't explain itself decently and lacks the basic 'where do you want to install your stuff?' functionality most other programs have had for years. To it deciding that there was a patch and refusing to let me play even though the server was so overloaded it couldn't download the patch. To it giving me sub-dialup modem speeds to download every single patch, every single last accursed one. And more, lots more. It was hands down the single worst user experience I have ever had in computing. Rage does not begin to describe it. What made it worse was that the game was a gift. How was I meant to explain why I wasn't playing and having fun to the computer illiterate person who gave it me without making them feel bad?

The actual game? I liked ETW 1.0 and most of my recorded playtime comes from there. I'm probably the only person on the planet who did; I think I got the one copy in the world which wasn't riddled with bugs and half complete. The 1.0 I played had some flaws and a few bugs but was a solid game. The versions after 1.0, that's a different story. The first patch broke my game, later ones introdued problems I never had before, and the final patch still hadn't managed to restore things to the working, enjoyable state of 1.0. I liked 1.0 so much I wanted to go back to it; steam will never let me because it has decided that it knows what I want to play better than I do, all in the name of ensuring I'm compatable for an MP mode I have never once touched and never will, and this is a primarily SP game anyway. So thanks to steam a game I might play is turned into a game I will not waste HD space on. Thanks, steam.

I do not have a single good word to say about steam as it relates to ETW. Not so much as a single good letter out of a word.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I think it was after ETW, but with the updated steam you can tell steam not to update your games.

[frogbeastegg]

Civ 5's manual is now available on the official site. 233 pages long! Reading it has given me this terrible civ craving :eyes civ 4 icon on desktop:

I think it was after ETW, but with the updated steam you can tell steam not to update your games.

It's misleading. It won't update the game automatically, but nor will it let you play it until you have updated. As long as steam knows there's a patch for ETW you are forced to have it if you want the game to boot up; it always knows there's a patch because it checks that out during the install process. Placing steam in offline mode has the same effect. I tried a few times to find a way around to no avail. In the end I deleted the game and that's that, won't go back.

[Beskar]

It's misleading. It won't update the game automatically, but nor will it let you play it until you have updated. As long as steam knows there's a patch for ETW you are forced to have it if you want the game to boot up; it always knows there's a patch because it checks that out during the install process. Placing steam in offline mode has the same effect. I tried a few times to find a way around to no avail. In the end I deleted the game and that's that, won't go back.

Updates were enforced by CA, that was the reason there. As for having to download 20 gigs when you have the CD? That was CA again,because they didn't ship the correct version on the disks. There are differences between games as the publisher has quite a lot of say with what happens on Steam, unfortunately, I learnt from experience that buying a game pre-order unless you can really trust the publisher (such as Bioware or even Blizzard) is a really bad idea.

Then again, I like the fact it auto-updates my games. So I don't mind that much. It is also very good for getting rid of mods and doing 'factory conditions' with ease. It is also cheaper than its competitors (gamersgate roughly charges you £5 more and doesn't have any of the steam advantages and a dodgy down loader too) and Impulse is like Steam but completely worse, with hidden charges, unable to even maintain a connection, even when I was at my other place, it wouldn't even connect due to the bad software (while Steam had zero issues). Also Impulse kept installing nonsense all over my computer which I couldn't get rid of. At least with Steam, it is all contained within the Steam folder, which I have in my "D:\Games\" section.

While you had issues with E:TW which made you have a negative opinion of Steam, it was misdirected, as it was CA's fault for the whole mess.

[frogbeastegg]

Huh. The tables at the end of the manual are very stat happy. It's nice to form some ideas ready to try out when the game/demo arrives. Some policies look very strong when paired with certain civs, or for certain play styles. -50% food consumption by specialists, mmmm, perfect for a specialist economy. I can see that one getting nerfed unless there have already been some changes to how specialists work.

Not sure which civ to try out first now I've seen a detailed breakdown of the unique traits, buildings and units. There isn't one which immediately stands out and calls to me. There are a bunch which have nice attributes plus one I don't like, and others which have a set of ok but not so appealing attributes. I like a 'research everyone into the dust while being filthy rich' civ

Tutorial options look decent. There's a bunch of dedicated tutorials on specific subjects, and an open tutorial mode which seems to function a lot like civ4's settler mode with full advice toggled on. If the civlopedia is half as good as it sounds this should be the easiest PC civ game to pick and up play.

Hehe, many people have been saying the Roman leader is Julius Caesar. It's not, it's Augustus. I guess that's what happens when you drop a Roman leader in and simply refer to him as Caesar.

Really not sure what I think of the art style for things like unit icons. It's something I wasn't keen on in the screenshots, and the manual gives a better look at them. I don't think I like the style; it's terribly 'chunky cartoon' and doesn't fit the more realistic terrain and leader throne room graphics.

I can't believe it. Giant death robots are real units. I thought they were a joke.

I begin to worry about how this will perform on my machine. I've seen reviewers chatting on forums and complaining about poor performance with PCs that are stronger than mine. Looks like my processor (core2duo E6600 at 2.4ghz) might hold things back a lot as it's a very CPU intensive game. Definitely got to try the demo - there's no point in playing civ if you have to stick to tiny maps and few AIs.

As for having to download 20 gigs when you have the CD? That was CA again,because they didn't ship the correct version on the disks.

Not true - I kept refusing to download the game because I had the CD, so if the CD version was bad I'd never have played the game. It installed without issue a second time from the disc when I brought a new hard drive and had to reinstall my games. It installed fine from disc without an internet connection the third time, when I attempted to lock the game into 1.0, only to fail at that goal because it detected the patch when validating the game.

It took a bunch of attempts and deleting global settings files from steam before it would install from the disc at release. I wasn't the only one with that problem; I found the solution on our ETW forum. Not had to do that in subsequent installs so evidentally the problem was fixed in one of the many client updates.

It is also cheaper than its competitors (gamersgate roughly charges you £5 more and doesn't have any of the steam advantages and a dodgy down loader too)

Not in my experience except in a few sale related cases, and I've had no problems whatsoever with gamersgate after 27 purchases compared to 2 problem launches and one missing patch out of half that number on steam.

Impulse is like Steam but completely worse

If there's a word for Impulse that word is disappointing. It started out as a decent idea but very unfinished. IMO it hasn't progressed from that, and also lacks games. It gets beaten to the punch on all sales too; other sites offer the same cheaper, or sooner, or with extras, or a combination of those. I used to use it a little bit, now not in a long time.

While you had issues with E:TW which made you have a negative opinion of Steam, it was misdirected, as it was CA's fault for the whole mess.

Not true. All of the problems listed above belong to steam, except possibly the forced updates if you're correct about CA insisting on that. I haven't seen any mention of that anywhere else at all, while I know it's one of steam's most vaunted aspects. Some of them are problems repeated in the Crossworlds launch I just sat through, including messing up people's access to the game. It's not the developer who enables access to the game, it's Valve. It's not the developer who owns the servers, it's Valve. It's not the developer who programs steam, it's Valve. It's not Paradox who lost the FtG patch, it's Valve. And it's definitely not the developer who was responsible for any part of the Crossworlds mess, that was all Valve once again. In fact I watched the developers working overtime talking to Valve in an effort to find out what was happening, and talking to customers where Valve's people only ignored them.

If steam always works fine for you, great. It does for a lot of other people too or I'd never have considered giving it a second go. It hasn't always for me, and it hasn't for lots of other people out there. If the civ 5 demo works ok on my machine I'll be preordering for release and we'll see how the stats fall out: will it be 1/3 good launches, or 0/3. Time will tell ... hopefully. :burns chips in honour of the god of CPUs in the hope he will look favourably on a frog's efforts to run Civ5 with medium+ maps and 4+ AI:

[Beskar]

Some of them are problems repeated in the Crossworlds launch I just sat through, including messing up people's access to the game. It's not the developer who enables access to the game, it's Valve. It's not the developer who owns the servers, it's Valve. It's not the developer who programs steam, it's Valve. It's not Paradox who lost the FtG patch, it's Valve. And it's definitely not the developer who was responsible for any part of the Crossworlds mess, that was all Valve once again. In fact I watched the developers working overtime talking to Valve in an effort to find out what was happening, and talking to customers where Valve's people only ignored them.

Yeah, I know they have 'funny' unlocking time. Sometimes it is Steam related, other time it is Publisher related (ie: Assassin Creed 2 UK release), so I am not going to disagree with you on that and infact agree with you on it.

[Monk]

I was hoping this thread wouldn't devolve into steam discussion. Haven't we beaten that horse into the ground enough? It's fair to say no one is going to change their minds about the platform this late. I'll say this though, i've never had ONE problem with steam that caused playing my games a chore, even with big name releases. Impulse on the other hand gave me an invalid CD key for Dragon Age Origins. We've all had different experiences with the different platforms, i'm willing to agree to disagreeing.

That's me and civ4. I played but didn't much like civ 2 test of time, civ 3, call to power 1 and call to power 2. I played and loved Alpha Centauri; that's why I kept on trying the series. Civ 4 changed everything. It threw out many of the things I disliked in the earlier entries, stole most of AC's best ideas, and added a load of refinement which improved the game to the power of ten. I liked Civilisation: Revolution too; it was very good at what it wanted to do.

Yeah Civ4 seemed like a nice game but it just nagged me to death with every little thing that I didn't like about it. I finally just gave up. Watching civ 5 in action though, I tell you, it's very tempting to give it another chance.

Civ 5's manual is now available on the official site. 233 pages long! Reading it has given me this terrible civ craving :eyes civ 4 icon on desktop:

233 pages, good god. I wonder if they are including a printed version with the boxed game, I might break my habit of ordering through digital distribution and order from Amazon if that was the case.

[frogbeastegg]

Watching civ 5 in action though, I tell you, it's very tempting to give it another chance.

Demo is due on Tuesday, which is also the US launch day. Why not give it a go?

Europeans have to wait until Friday for the release but still get the demo on Tuesday, in case anyone was wondering.

233 pages, good god. I wonder if they are including a printed version with the boxed game, I might break my habit of ordering through digital distribution and order from Amazon if that was the case.

Nope. They're being cheap enviromentally friendly. No paper documentation at all in any version. They have said that they will update the manual PDF so it's always accurate if patches or extra content change anything. That should be good.

If you're looking at a download version, direct2drive currently has the best deal. Same price as on steam but with the first DLC pack for free when it arrives and a free copy of Civ 3 complete (dubious merit). Simply take the CD key they give you, plug it into steam, and sit back as you preload. The DLC pack contains two new civs and one scenario according to the description; nothing further is known except that there will be a month or two delay between launch and DLC. Again, a keycode will be emailed out to you for use in steam. If you're in America there's a $5 off voucher, PAX2010. It doesn't work for the rest of the world :sad froggy:

[Lemur]

You know what's sad? I am going to get this game, but at the moment I can't justify $50. Budget is going to force me to wait, and I know darn well there won't be a sale for the first year. (Heck, Modern Warfare 2 is still going for $60, all these months later.)

So I will either wait until my self-imposed budget allows the expense, or I'll break down like a girly-man and buy it anyway.

(Am I the only person who glanced at the title of this thread and mistook the exclamation marks for II? I did a real double-take seeing you all were going on about Civilization 7.)

[Monk]

Nope. They're being cheap enviromentally friendly. No paper documentation at all in any version. They have said that they will update the manual PDF so it's always accurate if patches or extra content change anything. That should be good.

That...

Wonderful. The one time i consider buying a boxed copy and the publisher decides that manuals aren't eco friendly cost effective. Bah!

You know what's sad? I am going to get this game, but at the moment I can't justify $50. Budget is going to force me to wait, and I know darn well there won't be a sale for the first year. (Heck, Modern Warfare 2 is still going for $60, all these months later.)

You can blame Activision for that. Fortunately, 2k Games isn't that bad, as most of their games get the annual price drop most other places do. Borderlands was at $50 for quite a while, but eventually saw the price drop and is now a comfortable $30

[naut]

As much as I want to get this. Steam only = no.

[Beskar]

You know what's sad? I am going to get this game, but at the moment I can't justify $50. Budget is going to force me to wait, and I know darn well there won't be a sale for the first year. (Heck, Modern Warfare 2 is still going for $60, all these months later.)

So I will either wait until my self-imposed budget allows the expense, or I'll break down like a girly-man and buy it anyway.

Buy it from Amazon, it is usually significantly cheaper. Thanks to Steamworks, the code from Amazon works in Steam. I hope this is a start of a beautiful trend.