Bought Civ5 -- what an interesting game but..

[Shuri]

I randomly bought Civ5 friday night; the Mac OSX port at that, to see what it was all about. I never ever tried those games before, but I was really looking for a deep, micromanaging experience with games that can last forever.. But hmm..

The game's presentation is very nice; the music is great, units are well animated; there is nothing really wrong to say about this. The problems come with the gameplay part. I did a tutorial mission that shows the rope, you get lots of informatives popups that explain everything, and to be honest, this was pretty damn cool -- the messages were very informative and explained the basics of the gameplay to a noob like me completely fine. After playing for 2-3 hours on this map, I decided to start a new game from scratch to see how I would handle things all by myself.

I went animu and selected the great nippon people as my starting race. And huhh.. Well the game went exactly the same way than the tutorial mission did. I kept buying archers and catapults to grind down other cities; other leaders would randomly offer me pitiful deals to stop the madness but I would decline them all; what was the point? I went with a separate path when it comes to my politics; and it didnt change much... I was quickly super rich and unstoppable. The gameplay quickly turned so repetitive. There would be not point in accepting cease-fire deals; I would just kill and rape my way through the world, taking everything for me. The world was going to be mine

It's kind of a letdown; because I was REALLY REALLY into my first game, I couldnt believe how amazing it was, but the second world really showed how limited and linear the whole experience is. I had so many workers that would just spam farms and other stuff everywhere; racking in more money and ressource.. It was out of control; it felt like I was playing with cheats on (i was using the default average skill level). Maybe I need to try at a harder level?

I know its a well respected franchise, so I can't really take a dump on it, but it really feels very limited. I saw screenshots of a game called EMPIRE III that looked really interesting too, i'll check it out!

[Van Cruncheon]

try a real ai setting

[Stoney Mason]

Many people prefer Civ 4 to Civ 5 although I'm fine with Civ 5.

Also it does depend on the difficulty level you are on. The lower difficulty levels cheat in favor of you. The higher difficulty levels cheat in favor of the CPU.

[pilonv1]

Maybe I need to try at a harder level?

Yes.

Although Civ 4 has better tactical AI, the AI in Civ 5 just cant seem to get it's head around the 1 unit 1 tile thing with a decent sized army. At least they know how to defend now thanks to patches, out of the box it was horrible.

[Tasty]

Oddly enough I've been spending the last hour looking up stuff for Alpha Centauri. Lost my disc, but GOG has it at $3 and guaranteed Windows 7x64 compatibility... too good to pass up.

Alpha Centauri

[chronovore]

Oddly enough I've been spending the last hour looking up stuff for Alpha Centauri. Lost my disc, but GOG has it at $3 and guaranteed Windows 7x64 compatibility... too good to pass up.

Alpha Centauri

I've got the GURPS books for Alpha Centauri. Not sure how to run a full campaign which would likely take place in the space between Tech Trees, but it was clearly an inspiring setting for the authors.

[Tasty]

I looked those up on Amazon but they have outrageous prices.

[chronovore]

Mine was ¥300 at a clearance sale in Nipponbashi. Some store was unloading all its RPGs, and they had a surprising number of English-language books. I also picked up the Steampunk/Horror crossover book, and the sourcebook for Gene Wolfe's New Sun world for ¥300 each.

[ToxicAdam]

Yea, you definitely need to play around with the difficulty levels.  Map settings can also play a big role on how much of a challenge you are in for.

Also, you don't really want a challenge early on. If you get locked into a shitfest with a civ early on, you will lose in the endgame. So, it's feasible in a decent game you won't meet any serious resistance until  1000-1400 AD.