Civilization V

[Tellus]

How come you got to start in Egypt. In my game as France I'm stuck in Patagonia.

Starting location is random - I actually started on Persia's spot, look for "Paris" as my starting city. I figured the nile valley might be good so I expanded there early.

How good is your computer Tellus and what graphics quality do you have it set to?

Because, aside from the water (which does seem to be the one thing that modern computers/programmes do better, see Red Alert 3) that looks pretty much the same in terms of quality as Civ4.

My computers starting to age a bit; Intel dual core clocked at 3.51, 4go of ram, 9800gtx+. Its still good for most games but Civ 5 is incredibly RAM intensive and since Im still running XP, I had to lower the graphic settings to medium after reaching Renaissance to save on RAM - as it CTDs if I exceed what XP can allocate to it. It has some issues, clearly. It looks a bit better than Civ4 in game, thats for sure, but nothing revolutionary.

 

[joea64]

My computer is also slightly aged (constructed in August 2007), based on an Athlon 64x2 3800+ dual-core CPU with 2GB RAM, running Windows XP Pro, and nVidia GeForce 8500GT (512MB RAM). Will it be able to run Civ 5?

 

[Tellus]

On low settings, yes, should be fine.

But if you have Civ 4 and the expansion, so far, I see no real reason to upgrade. Theres about as many cut features from Warlord as new ones added.

 

[Leo euler]

On low settings, yes, should be fine.

But if you have Civ 4 and the expansion, so far, I see no real reason to upgrade. Theres about as many cut features from Warlord as new ones added.

I played it at my friend's house a couple days ago, and I was disappointed. Actually, I didn't really play, but I looked at the Civilopedia. At first glance, it seemed like it didn't offer as much of an experience as Civ 4. And I was annoyed at the general design.

Maybe if I played a few games it would grow on me. But my initial impression was bad.

 

[Evilprodigy]

I played it at my friend's house a couple days ago, and I was disappointed. Actually, I didn't really play, but I looked at the Civilopedia. At first glance, it seemed like it didn't offer as much of an experience as Civ 4. And I was annoyed at the general design.

Maybe if I played a few games it would grow on me. But my initial impression was bad.

the civilopedia sucks in this game in terms of historical know how since i beleive this game was more intended to expand the audience also and make it more of a game rather then a game with a history textbook

EDIT: if anybody wants i know a good reveiw of this game, it is a video so there is no reading involved

 

[joea64]

On low settings, yes, should be fine.

But if you have Civ 4 and the expansion, so far, I see no real reason to upgrade. Theres about as many cut features from Warlord as new ones added.

Good point. I do have the complete edition of Civ 4 (including Warlords and Beyond the Sword), so yeah, I think I'll wait a bit to see if any serious bugs crop up and how they're patched.

 

[August Akuma]

Civ5 unmodded is pretty unbearable but the worst (and I mean absolute worst) part is what happens on a continent you're not on.

AI is so poor when it comes to defending its a shame which leads to an extreme case of Runaway AI where one AI slowly steamrolls across the continent.

Civ4:BTS with A New Dawn is still much better but some of the early mods for Civ5 are decent, including the beta Improved combat AI mod.

 

[aktarian]

My thoughts:
-no unit stacking
-ranged units
-no usual "city control" squares
-no rush option
-nation-specific units for different ages
-barbarian encamptments appear randomly
-never went far into game but I suspect they kept "can't use enemy roads" option ()
-graphically intense (looks nice but unnecessary and makes game run slow)

Overall opinion: I'll stick to SMAC

 

[Evilprodigy]

no unit stacking is far better, with ranged units having no stacking option is a good thing tacticaly, in Civ4 battles would boild down to massive stacks fighting eachother in a battle with no real strategy that could possibly be used, i agree with your other stuff, but what do you mean by "city control" squares?

 

[aktarian]

no unit stacking is far better, with ranged units having no stacking option is a good thing tacticaly, in Civ4 battles would boild down to massive stacks fighting eachother in a battle with no real strategy that could possibly be used, i agree with your other stuff,

Even in Civ4 it became next to impossible to conduct any serious campaign, even with modern units. You either had to have several huge stacks of units, each targetting one city or one big-ass stack to smash city and move uninjured units on.

Or big airforce to soften defences before ground troops arrived

but what do you mean by "city control" squares?

That area around city that was available for develpment in early games, 2 squares in each direction. Which allowed you to develop square 2 over right away and not wait for ity influence to spread there

 

[Evilprodigy]

Even in Civ4 it became next to impossible to conduct any serious campaign, even with modern units. You either had to have several huge stacks of units, each targetting one city or one big-ass stack to smash city and move uninjured units on.

Or big airforce to soften defences before ground troops arrived



That area around city that was available for develpment in early games, 2 squares in each direction. Which allowed you to develop square 2 over right away and not wait for ity influence to spread there

thats kind of what i mean, it is boring to have just a few massive stacks of units attacking cities

i always hated the civ way of airforce stuff, it was so complicated when the comp did their turn

ahhh i knwo what you mean now, yeah that does suck that it is gone

 

[August Akuma]

Well, the game's been out nearly a month. Is it unplayable? Not in the least but its pretty rough around the edges. Then again, mods alleviate many problems I have with the game except the one involving the -33% defense modifier on open terrain.

As soon as Pitboss is released, anyone up for a WW1/Diplomacy game? There are already scenarios being released but I think the WW1 is contained, detailed, and simple enough to get started with. France, Italy, England, Ottoman Empire, Russia, and Germany are all playable and there are several city-states/neutrals that we can influence. For instance, Austria-Hungary. Playing with other players would probably be infinitely better diplomacy-wise.

 

[The Wandering Poet]

The games not unplayable it's just that it's really slow (for me) on any graphics mode higher than low.

As for a multiplayer game, I'd see wht the mods like before I say yae or nae!

 

[Susano]

no unit stacking is far better, with ranged units having no stacking option is a good thing tacticaly, in Civ4 battles would boild down to massive stacks fighting eachother in a battle with no real strategy that could possibly be used,

Nonsense. That strategy already happened when you built up the cities. Civ is supposed to be on the extreme end of "macro-ing" and avoid "micro-ing" elements. As Ive said in another thread, this is Civ, not StarCraft!

 

[crackersncheese]

Nonsense. That strategy already happened when you built up the cities. Civ is supposed to be on the extreme end of "macro-ing" and avoid "micro-ing" elements. As Ive said in another thread, this is Civ, not StarCraft!

This is very, very true. And the thing that bugs me most is that they could have easily gotten around the "meatgrinder effect" (by the way, after talking to Calbear I realized that modern combat on cities is the most realistic but unintentional thing in Civ 4) by simply making artillery have a ranged bombard while still allowing stacks instead of the utterly retarded suicide cannon mechanic. Thats what happened in Civ 3, and I really don't recall such carnage in that game.

 

[Susano]

This is very, very true. And the thing that bugs me most is that they could have easily gotten around the "meatgrinder effect" (by the way, after talking to Calbear I realized that modern combat on cities is the most realistic but unintentional thing in Civ 4) by simply making artillery have a ranged bombard while still allowing stacks instead of the utterly retarded suicide cannon mechanic. Thats what happened in Civ 3, and I really don't recall such carnage in that game.

Well, there would be, but only due to AI weaknesses. The AI had a tendencies to form stacks of death with dozens of units moving through the territory, which was also quite an annoyance when in the opponents turn you had to watch them all walk by... but as said, that was just AI silliness.

 

[August Akuma]

The games not unplayable it's just that it's really slow (for me) on any graphics mode higher than low.

As for a multiplayer game, I'd see wht the mods like before I say yae or nae!

I'm using quite a few mods. One adds in ICBMs. Another lowers unit maintenance and increases production, making the AI competent at war. Another mod is pretty much a patch for the game. Etc. Oh, one makes the AI better at war.

As for unplayable. Its because of the AI worker code which is sooooo filled with fail. Each worker the AI owns does a check on every single tile inside the nation's border checking for unimproved tiles and then decides if the tile needs it.

There was a test where two identical scenarios were created. One had 175 fighter units for the AI and the other had 175 worker. Turn time was between 2 and 5 seconds for the former while the latter saw times starting at 20 seconds and working its way up from there.

This is very, very true. And the thing that bugs me most is that they could have easily gotten around the "meatgrinder effect" (by the way, after talking to Calbear I realized that modern combat on cities is the most realistic but unintentional thing in Civ 4) by simply making artillery have a ranged bombard while still allowing stacks instead of the utterly retarded suicide cannon mechanic. Thats what happened in Civ 3, and I really don't recall such carnage in that game.

There were several mods that did this. Ran into the issue of the AI still building huge stacks that can be ripped to shreds by artillery fire but from afar.

I would say the largest difference between Civ4 and Civ5 is that in Civ4, you just parked a stack on the border and said War and there wasn't much left for the AI to do while in 5, you end up having to make actual plans of actions so there isn't a major logistics headache on your end.

Oh, and aircraft carriers and city-states. Since ICBMs are either out (or expensive to build in the mod I'm using), nuclear subs and aircraft carriers rule and since units don't stack, Diplomacy MP games will be interesting when player-created treaties start coming out of the woodwork.

 

[Joseph K.]

Nonsense. That strategy already happened when you built up the cities. Civ is supposed to be on the extreme end of "macro-ing" and avoid "micro-ing" elements. As Ive said in another thread, this is Civ, not StarCraft!

Meh, each person has their view and I don't think you can simply state: The Game is Meant to be This Way and I think there's enough people who hold opposite views that you can't make a generalized statement like that. The fact that it was always individual units fighting as opposed to grouping them all into "armies" (like in Call to Power, which I think is the right direction) would seem to indicate they expected some kind of tactical involvement but continuously failed in making a game that allowed for any. Also, I would argue that if they wanted to design a game that was focused only on city building they made one with severely inadequate systems for things like infastructure, trade/communications networks, economics, etc...

 

[August Akuma]

Meh, each person has their view and I don't think you can simply state: The Game is Meant to be This Way and I think there's enough people who hold opposite views that you can't make a generalized statement like that. The fact that it was always individual units fighting as opposed to grouping them all into "armies" (like in Call to Power, which I think is the right direction) would seem to indicate they expected some kind of tactical involvement but continuously failed in making a game that allowed for any. Also, I would argue that if they wanted to design a game that was focused only on city building they made one with severely inadequate systems for things like infastructure, trade/communications networks, economics, etc...

Its a mixture of both pretty much.

 

[Questerr]

-no rush option

What do you mean "no rush option"? You start the game with the ability to purchase units and buildings.