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[Earthstrike]

so, there is a new patch upcoming:

Interesting.

I like all the changes except for the things they did to happiness.

Essentially, when this game first released ICS (infinite city sprawl) was a huge problem. 2k tried to fix that by making cities have at least 3 tiles between them. Now their next fix is to make cities going happiness positive so incredibly production consuming and crippling the game will slow to a crawl. When you plant a new city, you immediately lose 4 happy faces. If you plant on a luxury resource you gain 1. Every pop increase is an angry face. I look at these changes and think "Wow, they just destroyed the game."

It's fairly frustrating because the solution is actually pretty simple. Players who plant cities crazily at the start of the game, should run the risk of losing those cities to enemies who are actually building militaries. Unfortunately the game is so retardedly defensive that that's pretty much impossible if you have even half a brain (on defense). However, the patches in this game are driven by the sp community, and that means they might actually have to program some aggressive a.i..

So essentially, golden ages seem to be pretty much out of the game (never makes sense to shoot for them), and you are now forced to a low number of cities.

 

[Gaborn]

Interesting.

I like all the changes except for the things they did to happiness.

Essentially, when this game first released ICS (infinite city sprawl) was a huge problem. 2k tried to fix that by making cities have at least 3 tiles between them. Now their next fix is to make cities going happiness positive so incredibly production consuming and crippling the game will slow to a crawl. When you plant a new city, you immediately lose 4 happy faces. If you plant on a luxury resource you gain 1. Every pop increase is an angry face. I look at these changes and think "Wow, they just destroyed the game."

It's fairly frustrating because the solution is actually pretty simple. Players who plant cities crazily at the start of the game, should run the risk of losing those cities to enemies who are actually building militaries. Unfortunately the game is so retardedly defensive that that's pretty much impossible if you have even half a brain (on defense). However, the patches in this game are driven by the sp community, and that means they might actually have to program some aggressive a.i..

So essentially, golden ages seem to be pretty much out of the game (never makes sense to shoot for them), and you are now forced to a low number of cities.

I don't think that's fair. They sound like they've lowered production costs for a bunch of buildings in the early game as well. It's also worth noting possibly the biggest feature in the patch is hot seat which I know the MP community has been demanding from the beginning. This won't destroy the game, it will probably change it though and force players to adapt to new techniques. I think it's particularly interesting that now Honor has been tweaked to give the culture boost for killing barbarians, it makes it MUCH more advantageous to seek and destroy them early on.

 

[InertiaXr]

Interesting.

I like all the changes except for the things they did to happiness.

Essentially, when this game first released ICS (infinite city sprawl) was a huge problem. 2k tried to fix that by making cities have at least 3 tiles between them. Now their next fix is to make cities going happiness positive so incredibly production consuming and crippling the game will slow to a crawl. When you plant a new city, you immediately lose 4 happy faces. If you plant on a luxury resource you gain 1. Every pop increase is an angry face. I look at these changes and think "Wow, they just destroyed the game."

It's fairly frustrating because the solution is actually pretty simple. Players who plant cities crazily at the start of the game, should run the risk of losing those cities to enemies who are actually building militaries. Unfortunately the game is so retardedly defensive that that's pretty much impossible if you have even half a brain (on defense). However, the patches in this game are driven by the sp community, and that means they might actually have to program some aggressive a.i..

So essentially, golden ages seem to be pretty much out of the game (never makes sense to shoot for them), and you are now forced to a low number of cities.

I agree with you on this. It seems like Civ 5 simply punishes you for doing things too often instead of rewarding you more. I wish they had gone about the combat differently. I don't know how this would ultimately work out, but I think the units and combat should of been on a different level than cities and resources. It doesn't make sense to only be able to garrison 1 unit in a city at a time. It doesn't make sense for 1 unit to take up the same hex as a entire resource does, or be the same size as a mountain hex. I think they should of changed the units to operate on a hex map like this. Allow the cities and resources etc to continue to take up an entire hex, but make units travel on subhexes and give them something like 6 movement per turn. You'd be able to station maybe 7 or 8 units in a city, and it'd give you the space to have actual battles outside of cities in open areas. Right now I can defend my 4-5 city civilization on the emperor difficulty setting with no more than 3-4 melee guys and a couple siege units. It just doesn't make sense for me to go through an entire civilization game while never having more than 20 military units at any given time. The combat in this series needs to be shrunk down, not to Total War levels, but if they are going to do 1 unit per hex the combat hexes need to be smaller.

That's just my opinion, I have no idea how it would work with the rest of the game, or if I am even getting my opinion and idea across. Right now it feels like units just get in the way of each other too often, and you have to fight your own army as much as whoever you are attacking or defending against.

Also, the entire happiness structure does impede your civ's ability to expand. Most of the game when I get to 5-6 cities I feel like I no longer need to expand even if there is open land. The exact opposite of what you would do in any other civ game and what pretty much happens in real life. Sure you wouldn't want to keep expanding into tundra and pure desert, but there are times where myself and the AI will leave open areas of grassland with a river running through it completely undeveloped because there is no reason to do so. With the finite number of luxuries, you can only build so much happiness buildings in cities before the costs of maintaining all that crap becomes too much and you stop expanding, and leave wide open areas between cities and civilizations.

 

[Earthstrike]

I don't think that's fair. They sound like they've lowered production costs for a bunch of buildings in the early game as well. It's also worth noting possibly the biggest feature in the patch is hot seat which I know the MP community has been demanding from the beginning. This won't destroy the game, it will probably change it though and force players to adapt to new techniques. I think it's particularly interesting that now Honor has been tweaked to give the culture boost for killing barbarians, it makes it MUCH more advantageous to seek and destroy them early on.

Well, A bit on reading on civfanatics and people are saying they pretty much have to relearn the game. This in my view means its completely changed.

Yeah I appreciate the reduced production costs, but what has to be factored in is that happiness limits growth meaning there are also additional production tiles you won't be working.

I will give the patch a shot, but let me just say I am not optimistic.

And just as a sidenote, the MP community was never really demanding hotseat. Some single players who meet up in real life to play a game of civ may have demanded it, but MP in the sense of players who actually click multiplayer, join a lobby with players they haven't met before, and then play to win, they are demanding actual military balance in the game. Cities should not be pratically unkillable just because it is high pop and has a walls. Horsemen should not be useless just because spers abused them against the a.i., etc.

 

[Earthstrike]

I agree with you on this. It seems like Civ 5 simply punishes you for doing things too often instead of rewarding you more. I wish they had gone about the combat differently. I don't know how this would ultimately work out, but I think the units and combat should of been on a different level than cities and resources. It doesn't make sense to only be able to garrison 1 unit in a city at a time. It doesn't make sense for 1 unit to take up the same hex as a entire resource does, or be the same size as a mountain hex. I think they should of changed the units to operate on a hex map like this. Allow the cities and resources etc to continue to take up an entire hex, but make units travel on subhexes and give them something like 6 movement per turn. You'd be able to station maybe 7 or 8 units in a city, and it'd give you the space to have actual battles outside of cities in open areas. Right now I can defend my 4-5 city civilization on the emperor difficulty setting with no more than 3-4 melee guys and a couple siege units. It just doesn't make sense for me to go through an entire civilization game while never having more than 20 military units at any given time. The combat in this series needs to be shrunk down, not to Total War levels, but if they are going to do 1 unit per hex the combat hexes need to be smaller.

That's just my opinion, I have no idea how it would work with the rest of the game, or if I am even getting my opinion and idea across. Right now it feels like units just get in the way of each other too often, and you have to fight your own army as much as whoever you are attacking or defending against.

Also, the entire happiness structure does impede your civ's ability to expand. Most of the game when I get to 5-6 cities I feel like I no longer need to expand even if there is open land. The exact opposite of what you would do in any other civ game and what pretty much happens in real life. Sure you wouldn't want to keep expanding into tundra and pure desert, but there are times where myself and the AI will leave open areas of grassland with a river running through it completely undeveloped because there is no reason to do so. With the finite number of luxuries, you can only build so much happiness buildings in cities before the costs of maintaining all that crap becomes too much and you stop expanding, and leave wide open areas between cities and civilizations.

Yeah, I get your combat idea. An interesting approach to be certain.
For me the more fundamental problem is how defensive cities are. 30 health, they get 3 health a turn, they get one attack a turn. Their base defense is already somehwat high and even higher with walls. My prediction is with this next patch reducing the total number of cities, armies are going to become practically useless if you simply have decent intel (from a multiplayer standpoint). This is simply not fun IMO.

 

[Gaborn]

Well, A bit on reading on civfanatics and people are saying they pretty much have to relearn the game. This in my view means its completely changed.

Yeah I appreciate the reduced production costs, but what has to be factored in is that happiness limits growth meaning there are also additional production tiles you won't be working.

I will give the patch a shot, but let me just say I am not optimistic.

And just as a sidenote, the MP community was never really demanding hotseat. Some single players who meet up in real life to play a game of civ may have demanded it, but MP in the sense of players who actually click multiplayer, join a lobby with players they haven't met before, and then play to win, they are demanding actual military balance in the game. Cities should not be pratically unkillable just because it is high pop and has a walls. Horsemen should not be useless just because spers abused them against the a.i., etc.

GOOD. Frankly, I think gamers tend to become far, far far too locked in on one specific strategy and then do it ad infinitum. I like that people will actually have to rethink things and try new strategies to see if there is a more optimal way.

 

[InertiaXr]

Yeah, I get your combat idea. An interesting approach to be certain.
For me the more fundamental problem is how defensive cities are. 30 health, they get 3 health a turn, they get one attack a turn. Their base defense is already somehwat high and even higher with walls. My prediction is with this next patch reducing the total number of cities, armies are going to become practically useless if you simply have decent intel (from a multiplayer standpoint). This is simply not fun IMO.

Yes, I agree. It's been nearly impossible for me to take Rome in my current game even with 2 crossbowmen and 2 Longswordsmen going at it, because it's situated with a small lake on one side and a mountain tile on the other. The city and the xbowmen inside the city, along with the rest of Rome's army, are able to poke at my troops long enough to make me have to retreat and cycle in new rested dudes, but by that time the city is nearly back up to full health and I leave. :/ Even a city with only 1 ranged unit inside of it can withstand a pretty significant threat for a decent amount of time because they heal so damn quickly.

 

[Gaborn]

Yes, I agree. It's been nearly impossible for me to take Rome in my current game even with 2 crossbowmen and 2 Longswordsmen going at it, because it's situated with a small lake on one side and a mountain tile on the other. The city and the xbowmen inside the city, along with the rest of Rome's army, are able to poke at my troops long enough to make me have to retreat and cycle in new rested dudes, but by that time the city is nearly back up to full health and I leave. :/ Even a city with only 1 ranged unit inside of it can withstand a pretty significant threat for a decent amount of time because they heal so damn quickly.

That's why cannon are good.

 

[Sibylus]

I'm with Gaborn in this. Pretty happy that the devs aren't tip-toeing around big changes and big balancing efforts. If it doesn't work, it can be revised and tweaked. If it makes the game better, we all win.

And I like that cities are hard targets, makes operation planning and proper support materiel vital to the effort. I still can take cities without siege weapons, but I need a lot of infantry and I pay for it by weakening that force significantly. As it should be.

 

[InertiaXr]

That's why cannon are good.

But what if I don't have cannons yet? What if I am still at

2 crossbowmen and 2 Longswordsmen

I agree that cannons are dope for taking cities with, but before you get to that point it's just painful to try and take any city that's not in open grassland, even if you are surrounding it with units. Perhaps that is historically accurate; I could see how trying to take a castle before real civilization had gunpowder would be astronomically difficult. But still, I play video games for fun and any war in Civ 5 before that point is an exercise in futility.

 

[balddemon]

But what if I don't have cannons yet? What if I am still at
I agree that cannons are dope for taking cities with, but before you get to that point it's just painful to try and take any city that's not in open grassland, even if you are surrounding it with units. Perhaps that is historically accurate; I could see how trying to take a castle before real civilization had gunpowder would be astronomically difficult. But still, I play video games for fun and any war in Civ 5 before that point is an exercise in futility.

you could always use capatults!

really though, i've never needed to use siege weapons on a city. although that could, and probably is, because i haven't ever fought a war on anything higher than Prince.

 

[Gaborn]

you could always use capatults!

Yup. And if you can't take that specific city? Either move on, set up a blockade, or sue for peace.

 

[Sibylus]

And you could also swoop in with some units and pillage tiles around the trouble city, get a little compensation for the effort and disrupt the enemy's resources.

 

[Deku]

I'm glad there is a patch, but a little worried we haven't heard a peep of an expansion.

Ever since Civ3, the expansion has been announced in the E3 following the vanilla's release the previous fall.

I've shelled out money for the expansion Civs so far too...

 

[Corky]

I just rebought Civ 5 goty edition two days ago, my first copy was tied to a steam account that I gave away to a gaffer. Anywhoooo...

I have not touched the game since early in its release so I was very much looking forward to playing it. I picked random civ across the board, continents map type, standard size map ( 8 civs ? ) with 8 civs and like 16 or so city states. The pace was epic I believe, the one just before marathon and the difficulty prince. I got to play as Genghis Khan.




I love this game.

I tried not to opt for a military victory but after seeing the other civs rally outside my borders and become more and more unfriendly towards me I had no other option than to attack the nearest and hostile nation, persia. I kid you not after conquering them pretty much all other civs declared war on me, and since I had so few city states on my continent the other city states had already allied themselves with the other nations so the icing on the cake was the war declarations from the remaining city states.

This was quite early in the game, maybe like 100 turns in, perhaps even fewer. So I thought I'd simply chicken out and restart the game, especially since the demographics showed me being virtually the worst nation across the board. My advisors were all " I urge you to seek peace with, Japan, Spain, Germany, Polonesyia etc etc etc ", " they can wipe us off the planet ". Suddenly I got a " Screw it, I'm going to go balls out ".

And so I did, nation after nation fell under my early tactics of managing the Kensk horse archers and fucking people up at an early state. After I conquered the continent for myself I focused on the economics since I knew the other nations weren't advanced enough to have advanced ships and all that. And the rest is history.

In the end, 16 hours, 700 or so turns later I was victorious.
I consider myself as much of an amature as one can get in civ, but damnit if I didn't feel like the most badass dude ever.




I do have problems though.

1) The first hundred or so turns I take my time and think out everything take my own decisions, but the more I reach end game the more I rely on my advisors and sometimes just building random buildings just for the sake of it and sadly increasing by building maintenance. How do I keep control of an evergrowing empire? When is a good time to not build anything more in a city?

2) The tech-tree, is it just me or do you HAVE to fill it out? I mean it feels like you literally cant skip certain things to reach others, so it's more of a level bar than a tech tree with different paths that are sustainable by themselves.

3) Automated workers.... I know I know sacrilege, but how on earth is it possible to have any sense of control of like 25 workers in the endgame, also how many workers should one have? Is there a formula? Because I only build them when my advisors suggest it. Sometimes it feels like I have too many workers and some of them just seem to idle in the cities.

 

[Fitz]

1) I think the important thing to keep in mind is what purpose each city has, for example, is this a high production city? Am I trying to grow my cities quickly for the extra science? Are they just filler cities? Etc, when I get to the point where I have no real goal for a city and things start to get bogged down in the late game with a large empire, I pretty much just make sure a city has the essentials like money/happiness buildings and then leave them on wealth/research until I find a use for it.

2) Depends what point you're at, but yeah you do. I mean you can do some pretty awesome slingshots with technologies early on allowing you to get into the late Medieval Era in no time, but it all becomes entwined as you come to the Industrial Era as you can't get more than 1 tech in without Steam Power, but then it really opens up again, like how you can have Mech Infantry before Riflemen. Then it all compacts again right at the end for Future Tech.

3) I always have a similar problem, they're so vital early on, but especially if you're being aggressive and capture more workers and already improved cities it's easy to end up with too many, after a while I always end up just automating my workers, of course I make sure they can't replace improvements I've placed manually so that I can still ensure certain cities stay growth/gold/production focused. I find automation mostly good until I've got railroads connecting all of my cities, after that point I usually find it good to start deleting excess workers.

 

[Earthstrike]

Yup. And if you can't take that specific city? Either move on, set up a blockade, or sue for peace.

Just to be clear, I'm sure this patch will greatly improve SP, but almost all opinions I give are from the viewpoint of cometitive online MP. There really is no moving on to another city in an online game because your opponent will be getting def bonuses for his army and making you take damage from his cities intelligently. Blockades won't really work insofar as your opponent having the ability to snipe your units off with intelligent attacks.

 

[Corky]

s.

Thanks mate, I really love games that are so multifaceted, like the civ-series. Deep and fun.

 

[dream]

1) I think the important thing to keep in mind is what purpose each city has, for example, is this a high production city? Am I trying to grow my cities quickly for the extra science? Are they just filler cities? Etc, when I get to the point where I have no real goal for a city and things start to get bogged down in the late game with a large empire, I pretty much just make sure a city has the essentials like money/happiness buildings and then leave them on wealth/research until I find a use for it.

Wait, I haven't really played Civ 5 since it first came out. Does this mean the game is now at the point where city specialization is important again? Cause the biggest problem I had going from BTS to Civ 5 was the game not really requiring city specialization.

Well, that and no specialist economy. :/

edit: I've also become much stupider since Civ 4.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

I pretty much stopped playing this game after launch. have they added animations to multiplayer yet?

 

[Crazymoogle]

Gotta agree, I love the sweeping change patches they're doing. Sure, it's risky, but the approach in terms of making things more special works a hell of a lot better than nerfing things to be the same. Hell of a game to try and balance, though.

Also, I get the impression we won't see an expansion pack, as the dozen DLC + massive patches seems to accomplish more or less the same thing.

 

[ismaboof]

I'm very excited to get my new Macbook Pro with the 6750M and 8 gigs of ram. I'm upgrading from an iMac with Radeon 2600 and 2 gigs. Plus I'm jumping from bootcamping XP to Win7 and a 20" screen to a 24" external monitor. Civ 5 will jump from running like crap to a dream.

 

[Fitz]

Wait, I haven't really played Civ 5 since it first came out. Does this mean the game is now at the point where city specialization is important again? Cause the biggest problem I had going from BTS to Civ 5 was the game not really requiring city specialization.

Well, that and no specialist economy. :/

edit: I've also become much stupider since Civ 4.

No doubt. To my understanding at least, you want a few large high production cities for building military and such with lots of mines/lumber mills. With the rest mostly just acting as filler cities with lots of trading posts to maximize income for purchasing.

 

[erpg]

I pretty much stopped playing this game after launch. have they added animations to multiplayer yet?

Yikes, why would you want this?

 

[HBroward]

I'm very excited to get my new Macbook Pro with the 6750M and 8 gigs of ram. I'm upgrading from an iMac with Radeon 2600 and 2 gigs. Plus I'm jumping from bootcamping XP to Win7 and a 20" screen to a 24" external monitor. Civ 5 will jump from running like crap to a dream.

I run it on a 17" with those specs, and I can attest to the fact it will run like a dream!

 

[ElectricBlue187]

Friendship and Open Borders expiring has to be the most annoying Change from 4. It makes going for diplomatic victory annoying. Also the UN downgrade was a big disappointment

 

[man/man]

So is this game ever gonna get an expansion or what? I'd like to see spies and religion.

 

[PROOP]

@ man/man

There are a bunch of full-conversion mods that you can download that add religion and more techs to the game. Check out the civfanatics forums, like this one http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=395. There aren't a lot of polished ones out there for Civ 5 yet, but there are awesome ones for Civ 4, especially Rise of Mankind 2 and Fall from Heaven II.

btw, I can't wait for hot seat to come out.

 

[Meus Renaissance]

I got my ass handed to me. Within 30mins, Germany declared war on me unprovoked. They had 5 archer units surrounding my capital within 3 turns. Seriously, at least me have more than 200 Gold and a few workers. Just researched Masonry before this had happened.

 

[Salsa]

Update is live. Just downloaded for me.

 

[Forkball]

Hopefully this patch somehow fixed one of my games freezing at a certain year. The world doesn't end at 1824!

 

[Fragamemnon]

Nice, I just bought the game this morning and wasn't looking forward to learning a game pre-patch and post-patch. I am an insane Civ4 BTS player (consistent wins on Immortal, half split on Deity) and am sort of looking forward to playing a Civ game on a bit easier settings after a few rough weeks of work.

 

[Meus Renaissance]

It'd be nice to play Gaffers on this game. My Steam ID is Starfleets

 

[Superimposer]

So this will probably expose my naivety but...

I know very little of the Civ games, but I have nothing to do for a few weeks, I don't want to get too bogged down and not understand stuff, so am I better jumping in with this or Civ IV? I mean, this one's supposed to be slightly dumbed down, but IV is supposed to be better right?

 

[PoweredBySoy]

So this will probably expose my naivety but...

I know very little of the Civ games, but I have nothing to do for a few weeks, I don't want to get too bogged down and not understand stuff, so am I better jumping in with this or Civ IV? I mean, this one's supposed to be slightly dumbed down, but IV is supposed to be better right?

Civ IV was a far better game by the time it hit Beyond The Sword. And yes, there is some complexity of IV that I do miss in V - but I would still get V. It's definitely improving with each patch and there are some really nice changes they've made from IV, especially with the interface and combat.

As far as not understanding stuff, if this is your first Civ game then there will definitely be a learning curve for you, despite V being slightly more accessible. But if you have a little patience and you like the world building aspects, once it gets its hooks in you you'll start to see the hours melt away.

 

[RealMeat]

Did the new patch improve turn time at all? For me it was getting unplayable on a large map late in the game.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

I'm kind of bummed they've given culture for Barbarian kills with the Honor opener. I always thought that was such a creative unique ability for Montezuma, but pffft, now anybody can get it.

 

[Meus Renaissance]

I just got bulled on the multiplayer. Guy shot my workers with arrows because I was cutting trees in my own tiles. He said "Nooo, I like trees". Fucking pissed me off. He had a massive military so I just disconnected.

 

[Fitz]

I'm kind of bummed they've given culture for Barbarian kills with the Honor opener. I always thought that was such a creative unique ability for Montezuma, but pffft, now anybody can get it.

The Aztec bonus works with units belonging to other Civs. Maybe not entirely unique anymore but definitely superior to the Honor opener.

 

[Houston3000]

So this will probably expose my naivety but...

I know very little of the Civ games, but I have nothing to do for a few weeks, I don't want to get too bogged down and not understand stuff, so am I better jumping in with this or Civ IV? I mean, this one's supposed to be slightly dumbed down, but IV is supposed to be better right?

Civ 5 is not really dumbed down. They removed Religion but expanded the way Culture works with the social policies and they introduced City States - if anything some aspects of the game are more complex than Civ 4. The largest difference between Civ 4 and Civ 5 besides Religion is the tile system - Civ 4 is on a square grid and units can stack on top of each other on the same square, while Civ 5 is a hex grid where units can't stack (Ranged units like Archers and Catapults actually fire from range though instead of having to be in melee range like in Civ 4). So in combat Civ 5's strategy comes from unit placement while in Civ 4 strategy comes in the form of how many units can you stack into one pile.

I absolutely love Civ 4, I actually liked the Religion system (with temples, prophets, early races to be the founder, etc.) but it became obsolete so early in the game. The expansion introduced Corporations which kind of took the place of Relgions late-game but I didn't care too much for how they were implemented. I would go with Civilization V for sure, but Civ 4 is still relevant on it's own.

 

[MjFrancis]

Rather than being dumbed-down, Civ V has struck me as a sidestep without any definitive advancement or regression of the series. Especially post-patch(es).

 

[mAcOdIn]

Even after all of the patches I have yet to finish a single game on Civ 5, I just do not like it near as much as 4. I would recommend 4, you get so much content for the money as you should be able to get a bundle with all the expansion packs.

But I would not say 5 is dumbed down, in my opinion diplomacy has always been somewhat broken, it's just hard to do good AI on that front even in the past games, the combat's not really dumbed down as you are presented with some neat battles from time to time with the hex system and the civics were changed to kinda more affect the not everything fitting into a perfect mold so so it's not dumber but also kinda less absolute if that makes sense.

But frankly as of the current patch I just do not like Civ 5.

 

[Sibylus]

Really digging the changes in this patch, especially the Social Policies overhaul.

- The bonus for completing policies in particular is a clear step forward, now there are more interesting decisions to be made about whether to complete a policy or spread out.

- New Stone resource and Stone Works building enable players to smooth the "production gap" one can often run into in more fertile and flattened terrain.

- Great Person buildings are now buffed by related technologies, and the Freedom policy finisher doubles their tile value. Loving these changes, makes resource centers even more viable and should definitely add some flavor to the choices made in combat.

The Aztec bonus works with units belonging to other Civs. Maybe not entirely unique anymore but definitely superior to the Honor opener.

In addition:

Aztec Culture from kills now stacks with new Honor Policy branch opener for double Culture killing barbarians.

Aztecs still king of battle culture.

 

[PoweredBySoy]

The Aztec bonus works with units belonging to other Civs. Maybe not entirely unique anymore but definitely superior to the Honor opener.

Yeah, I realize Montezuma's bonus is more powerful, but I was always impressed with the context of the bonus in regard to 'sacrifices'. It was that sort of flavor that made the Aztecs unique and fun to play. Giving the culture bonus for the Honor tree doesn't make much sense at all, other than the fact they thought the opener needed a buff of some sort.

Thank god for the Germany and Ottoman buffs though.

 

[Sibylus]

Rather than being dumbed-down, Civ V has struck me as a sidestep without any definitive advancement or regression of the series. Especially post-patch(es).

The improvements made to the combat and UI are readily apparent. My memory of diplomacy in IV isn't great, but I've been very pleased at the additions V has made (many of them in patches). Economy really comes down to taste.

Combat: Uberstacks that couldn't be countered by anything other than your own uberstacks ruined the late game of Civ III and IV for me, it was just terribly one-note and exhausting. Combat depth is more to be found in V than in prior entries, given that forces actually possess volume and terrain and maneuvers thus become paramount. Oh, and this comes down to personal preference, but I much prefer the combat aesthetics of V to IV. The latter's particles are quite "muddy", and the unit aesthetic borrows more from the imagined than the real world. Much prefer V and its more grounded look.

UI: It's so much of a step up from IV that virtually no one will bother arguing in favor of it, it's far more elegant and polished in V. Better documentation of features and free-flowing tips too.

Economy/Culture/Diplo: Scarcity with strategic resources is something I really like, it introduces an element of balancing supply with the troop composition you need or desire. It also increases the viability of denying resources to the enemy, and has an added benefit of decreasing enemy unit combat strength when the needed resource is in short supply. That sort of depth is something sorely lacking in past games. I like what Civ V has done with Social Policies in that it allows me to tailor a playstyle and shape strengths and weaknesses for my civilization. The only things I particularly miss from past Civs are flexible borders, where a powerful culture could creep on a lesser one, and spying, either with units or as a civ ability. Religion, while neat, didn't inspire a sense of loss in me, it wasn't much other than a unique sticker on your civilization and something others would like or be pissed off at. The diplomatic modifiers in V tend to be far less arbitrary and more related to actual events and actions between civilizations. Relations are a lot less muddy, unless your partner's decided to be duplicitous and has a betrayal in mind (they'll make that clear in time if it's to their advantage).

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Religion, while neat, didn't inspire a sense of loss in me, it wasn't much other than a unique sticker on your civilization and something others would like or be pissed off at.

Agree. I liked the concept of religion in IV, but overall it was just too powerful in regard to early relations. While that may be historically accurate, it lended to some frustrating gameplay. Unless you wanted to go to war with your neighbors you had to adopt their religion. Sure, you could found your own religion and spread it to their lands, but that didn't always work, and it required a huge production commitment on your part. In 99% of my games I ignored founding a religion, focused on tech and just ended up adopting that of who I didn't want to go to war with.

 

[Fitz]

Thank god for the Germany and Ottoman buffs though.

Definitely, I've been meaning to play a game as the Ottomans for a while, got some incentive to try them out now.

 

[BigJonsson]

They should add natural disasters to Civ........could destroy cities, provoke religious war/blame, bring civs together.........

Different leaders would react depending on what era they are in

 

[MjFrancis]

UI: It's so much of a step up from IV that virtually no one will bother arguing in favor of it, it's far more elegant and polished in V. Better documentation of features and free-flowing tips too.

Sorry for cutting the rest of your arguments (they're really good), but this alone shows definitive progression in the series. I can't believe I didn't recall such a thing when I posted earlier. Aside from the dramatic combat changes (partially through adoption of hexes, as you point out), which I like though have been derided by some, the UI is the biggest change.

This was the best adaptation of CivRev mechanics to the main series: a user-friendly interface. I forgot how freaking awesome Civ V was at this since I've abandoned IV in the meantime.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

They should add natural disasters to Civ........could destroy cities, provoke religious war/blame, bring civs together.........

Different leaders would react depending on what era they are in

I believe in at least one iteration you could have spontaneous volcano eruptions that would contaminate tiles/kill units much like a nuclear blast, however I don't think there was much more than that. Events like flooding near rivers or other bodies of water or earthquakes which could destroy tile improvements would be interesting though.