You know, we started using computers to play these kinds of games to get away from the limitations of board wargames.
And if you want more proof that Civilization IV is still the pinnacle of the series, here it is. Warning, strong but hilarious language.
As for Civilization Facebook (which, yes, I know, is technically called Civilization Network)…I have no problem with it. I probably won’t play it, but I don’t think it’s a travesty that craps on the good name of the series like some people do.
So, if I’m reading between the lines on this, you’re saying you like Civ 4 better than Civ 5? Because Civ 5 removes the stack of doom?For these reasons, I say that Civ 5 is better than Civ 4.
And as someone who has played some of the most complicated board games to win German board game awards for complexity and quality, I have to say that Civ 5 is still way too complicated to be effectively rendered in a board game.
Yeah, playing Civilization V is just not as much fun as I thought it would be. 🙁
It also feels like the most distant, soul-less release of the franchise so far.
Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by games like EU:III where there’s more strategy and individuality to the different nations and deeper diplomacy between them.
It’s not like I’ve become bored of the Civ formula (I play the iPhone version most days whilst waiting for the bus), it’s just that Civ V doesn’t feel as ‘immediate’ as Civ IV, etc.
OH… and they should never have taken Fundamentalism away after Civ II. I used to have great fun throwing my zero-support-requiring religious Fanatics at the walls of cities. I sense political correctness was the reason that avenue of pleasure was closed… :[
I have to comment, if only to say that the posted vid is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on Youtube.
As for Civ, meh. It never did much for me. I got caught up in the hype and bought Civ 4 (my first and only Civ game) and, aside from truly awesome Leonard Nimoy voice overs, the game offered me nothing.
I think the first Civ was the pinacle of the series. Ever since things have gone south. Although I wish they could take some of the micro management out of it. When I play Civ one turn consist of first moving countless hoards of units, mostly settlers or workers working on improving each and every square, and then the second part of the turn is iterating through the cities and deciding who should work on what square. I have a new moto for Civ “Figure out what square to work on yourself, I got stuff to do!” Yeah, Damn right! I have a good mind to go tell these Civ people that I’m not concerned about the nitty gritty petty detail of their everyday lifes, gimme a break just because I got a big Civ doesn’t mean that I want to tell thousands of sprites where to be all the time. So it should be more like a simulation or something. Another thing, the units move too damn slow, if you want to get somewhere it can take like 20 turns. Movement allowances should be higher, like in Warlords. Possibly with zones of control or something. Yeah a mix between Sim and Warlords, I’d call it “SimCiv”.
Another thing that’s bad with Civ is that it’s too “technical”. I like playing Civ at the hardest difficulty level, and I take advantage of the AI’s flaws. There are lots of exploits in the Civ games and you can sort of cheat your way to victory. For instance lets say you and the enemy both have a catapult (ADM – 6,1,1), now all you have to do is wait for the enemy to take one step closer ot you, and then attack him. That kinda broken, you win just because it was your turn and you attacked. It sort of makes Civ a really complicated chess game, that’s not fun and the AI sucks anyway it can’t play the chess. In Warlords on the other hand stacks had to fight it out the hard way. Defense bonuses and zones of control are OK.
Btw, how can anyone say anything good about Civ 4, I mean I like the gameplay but it’s almost impossible to play the game. The first few turn are OK, but the longer you play the slower it gets. Saving and restarting doesn’t solve the problem. I have to wait like minutes just to open a city subscreen, DAMN! The city subscreen is made of halftransparent sprites, in Java I could have opened up a city subscreen in less than no time, but in native application Civ 4 it somehow has to take minutes to open it up. Also how long it takes depends on what turn it is! Don’t buy Civ 4 or any other game made by the same company, they got no respect for people! Seriously how long time should it take to for instance move a unit, or scroll the map?!? Civ 4 is way too slow, I hate it it’s taken too much of my time. It’s trangely adictive so I can’t stop just because it’s slow. My “record” on Civ 4 is playing on the hardest difficulty (I always do) and managing to monopolize building wonders and founding religions! That’s right, I was financial and philisophical English against Mao and he didn’t even manage to build a single wonder or found a religion and this was on a fair random generated map and all.