Civilization V Impressions

Vorret · Post by **Vorret** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 12:47 pm

I hate you all.
When I get home I have to paint some stupid shelves and it's going to take me a good hour.

Grrrr

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 12:50 pm

Smoove_B wrote:At least you're not faced with maintaining the safety and welfare of a preschooler -or- playing Civ 5.

Also: I'm pretty sure two Benadryl tablets are too much; I'm going to stick with one.

Definitely one, with a little red wine to help wash it down.

JonathanStrange · Post by **JonathanStrange** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 12:57 pm

What I like is the overall invigorating total effect that minor to major changes (like the new animations and gameplay mechanics like combat) are having on my love of Civ which had become more of a strong "just friends" relationship these last couple of years. So I know I'll be leaving work an hour early - and may call in sick tomorrow.

My first day one purchase (of a major game) in at least six years looks good for me...

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:11 pm

My 5 1/2 year old is happily sitting next to me and learning about the world of Civ 5.

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:11 pm

Butterknife wrote:
malichai11 wrote:My only disappointment so far is that random seeds seem to be locked for "goodie huts." In every version of Civ ever, I always had the option to waste as much time as I wanted, saving/reloading to get a cool result.

In Civ IV, you had the option to turn off this option. There is no option I can find in Civ V to do so.

Bummer.
There's an option to change this in the advanced settings when you start up your game.

No no no no no!

So I have to start my game all over to use this option?!?!

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:14 pm

I think Chieftain is far too easy. I am on a continent with China and they have one city while I have three cities. They look like they would be easy to roll over. Normal map size. I like this map a lot but I need to restart at Prince I think.

Bakhtosh · Post by **Bakhtosh** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:15 pm

It may be an option in the .ini file - in was there in IV.

Butterknife · Post by **Butterknife** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:16 pm

I just got permission to take a half-day off here at work, and all day tomorrow. I talked to my wife about it too -- she was unhappy, but she knows me well enough not to argue about not really seeing me for the next 24 hours. I feel like a teenager again, and that is worth all the trouble!

It is a perfect storm. One hour to go. Of course, I've got Civ 5 running in a window behind Visual Studio here at work. Good thing I work for a game company, they are more understanding.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:18 pm

Was wondering if folks with the game could post their system specs along with how the game performs and graphics settings? After reading about the supposed beefy system specs I was a little concerned but I thought my rig was comfortably above the minimum even though I don't have a fancy pants quad core. Surprisingly the "can you run it" website failed my computer due to clock speed but I think they were somewhat mistaken. Also, I had already bought the darned game before reading about the system requirements so it's running it no matter what!

My specs are as follows...

Processor: Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz
RAM: 4 GB
Video Card: GTS 250
Operating System: Win 7 64-bit

Thanks! I figure I can live vicariously through your Civ V experience while I wait to go home and try the game out for myself.

MythicalMino · Post by **MythicalMino** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:25 pm

bought my copy at Gamestop....traded in some console games and didn't have to pay anything.

Then, I thought, maybe I could "upgrade" to the digital deluxe...add to cart...but the option to purchase for myself is gone, as steam tells me that I already purchased it (??)

Odd, as even if I could not upgrade to the deluxe, I cannot even buy it now, since Civ 5 is set to my account....

Vorret · Post by **Vorret** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:31 pm

$iljanus wrote:Was wondering if folks with the game could post their system specs along with how the game performs and graphics settings? After reading about the supposed beefy system specs I was a little concerned but I thought my rig was comfortably above the minimum even though I don't have a fancy pants quad core. Surprisingly the "can you run it" website failed my computer due to clock speed but I think they were somewhat mistaken. Also, I had already bought the darned game before reading about the system requirements so it's running it no matter what!

My specs are as follows...

Processor: Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.0 Ghz
RAM: 4 GB
Video Card: GTS 250
Operating System: Win 7 64-bit

Thanks! I figure I can live vicariously through your Civ V experience while I wait to go home and try the game out for myself.

Seriously if you can't run it properly there's a major problem.

Zurai · Post by **Zurai** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:35 pm

OK, OK. I broke down and kinda-sorta-not-really broke my "I won't pay full price for Civ 5" vow. While I did "pay" full price, it was all in store credit I got for trading in a bunch of Wii games for my broken Wii. $120 of credit for 7 games ain't bad, and I didn't actually spend a penny on Civ 5. Hey, it's a fig leaf and I know it, but I'm installing now.

Unfortunately it won't be finished installing until it's time for me to head off to work. Fortunately, I'm only working a couple hours today.

Jag · Post by **Jag** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:36 pm

Can you still capture cities by culture? One of the things I hated was when a small city was placed inside my borders and the only way to get rid of it was through war.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:45 pm

Butterknife wrote:Of course, I've got Civ 5 running in a window behind Visual Studio here at work. Good thing I work for a game company, they are more understanding.

You gotta keep tabs on the competition. That's just smart business.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 1:59 pm

Jag wrote:Can you still capture cities by culture? One of the things I hated was when a small city was placed inside my borders and the only way to get rid of it was through war.

No. Culture bombs flip tiles, not cities.

Dramatist · Post by **Dramatist** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:03 pm

I played for awhile during my lunch. My machine is near the minimum requirements and I didn't tweak any settings but it looks good and is fairly smooth, the intro movie was a little choppy.

I'm playing as Washington on the beginner level. Things seem a little slower than Civ 4, but maybe that's just me. I've found two city states (Helsinki and Monaco) and have only encountered one computer player (out of 5). I just founded my second city and think I will try to attack the three barbarian camps I see on my map.

I'm spending alot of time just mousing over stuff on the screen and squealling with glee over the info presented. I can't wait to get home and fiddle around with the game more.

I got two achievements while playing, those could be fun too.

Stuie · Post by **Stuie** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:10 pm

I almost spit water all over my keyboard when Alexander road up on his horse! What a poofter!

Game is running smooth for me so far. Still getting used to the UI. Playing Babylon standard map - I've already met Caesar, Bismark and pretty boy on his horse along with several city-states. Rome is guaranteeing one of them. I guess I should check my score vs. the AIs to see how I'm doing.

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:12 pm

I tried the demo. And strangely, I didn't like it. It reminds me a lot of a boardgame, from the look of the graphics and the way the screens are set up. Which is something I should love about it, but I didn't.

The way the game plays reminded me of Revolutions on the Xbox. Which is another strike against it in my opinion. I didn't like the focus on small empires and lots of combat in that game, and I don't think I like it in Civ 5 either.

Also, I did not like at all that the demo limits me to a small map to play on. At least let me see how a medium size map will run on my computer. I never play on anything less than the largest map size if I can help it when I am playing Civ games, which can sometimes be a problem. I remember when Civ 4 first came out, it was a bit choppy on the largest maps on my old computer.

I guess I am now officially an old fuddy-duddy. I do not like Civ 5. They changed too much of it for me. I didn't even get to the parts of the game that sounded bad to me, like the huge ocean size armies (instead of stacks of doom). Or the limit on how many units can be built using one resource (aren't horses a renewable resource? If we give some to the cavalry, can we not breed more to make another cavalry unit?).

Oh well. Maybe I'll like it later, after they add some expansions. Or maybe not. Who knows? Not I.

Mandeville · Post by **Mandeville** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:14 pm

I stopped home for lunch and my release day delivery from Amazon was on my doorstep. It comes in a DVD case with a tech tree poster. I stared at the poster for a while before pulling myself away and getting back to work. I should have brought it to work.

My wife is in graduate school and has class tonight so I can't play until the kids are in bed at 8:00.

You know, with all this hot and cold weather we are getting here in New England I think I am coming down with a cold.

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:24 pm

How's everyone's performance? Mine sucks.

Intel i7 Quad 2.8
8G Ram
5850 1G ATI Video Card
Win 7 - 64 bit
Latest drivers, etc.

It takes about 35 seconds to save a game, about 40 seconds to load a game, and it's 20-30 seconds between turns in the Ancient Age. I've also had 3 CTDs in the past hour while loading a game.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:27 pm

jeebus...it should be loaded before you hit START with those specs.

Jag · Post by **Jag** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:31 pm

tgb wrote:
Jag wrote:Can you still capture cities by culture? One of the things I hated was when a small city was placed inside my borders and the only way to get rid of it was through war.
No. Culture bombs flip tiles, not cities.

So there is no other way to get cities other than war.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:35 pm

Jag wrote:
tgb wrote:
Jag wrote:Can you still capture cities by culture? One of the things I hated was when a small city was placed inside my borders and the only way to get rid of it was through war.
No. Culture bombs flip tiles, not cities.
So there is no other way to get cities other than war.

I'm pretty sure you can trade/demand them, but in Civ4 that usually only worked if you were already at war and the other Civ was desperate for peace.

Vorret · Post by **Vorret** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:36 pm

Jag wrote:
tgb wrote:
Jag wrote:Can you still capture cities by culture? One of the things I hated was when a small city was placed inside my borders and the only way to get rid of it was through war.
No. Culture bombs flip tiles, not cities.
So there is no other way to get cities other than war.

Persuation.
Give me your cities or I'll kill everyone in your empire.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:39 pm

So far the game gets the thumbs up from me. It feels like a very refined version of CIV. I love that leader traits have been made much more unique this time around. As I was looking through the list I saw one who can use forest for roads and had a pleasant flash back to the Gaians from Alpha Centauri. I always hated how generic all the races felt in CIV4.

City states are fun; I somehow managed to start on an island with four city states with one other faction. So far Napoleon and I have been fighting over their favor.

My favorite new feature though is the revised culture system. The branching system allows you to really customize your faction to play the way you want as opposed to having something forced upon you.

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:40 pm

hepcat wrote:jeebus...it should be loaded before you hit START with those specs.

Sorry, I edited my post with updated system specs after you posted. I went to look up my actual specs after posting and then realized I was wrong about a few things.

Just had ANOTHER CTD while loading a game.

Initial impressions for stability and speed are that this is on Elemental: War of Magic levels of suckitude. Actually, for me at least, it's even slower and more unstable than Elemental over the first few hours of play.

edit - F THIS!

It now CTDs EVERY TIME I load a save from within the game. EXACTLY like Elemental did on release. Except at least with Elemental, it only took about 10 seconds to start the game from scratch and load a game, while it takes me over a minute to do the same with Civ 5.

Daveman · Post by **Daveman** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:45 pm

As I posted earlier I dove in with a normal game, screw the tutorials

I haven't honestly played Civ since Civ3 and have been looking forward to getting back into this style of game. Please note I haven't been in the loop with this game and really didn't know anything about it going in. Well, after about 3 hours so far on the default difficulty (not the easiest, one up from that, Chieftain?) with a small? map (4 civs, including me), normal continents... I've just hit 1 AD as the Romans. Game thus far has been...

Mostly peaceful expansion and development. I've explored my entire continent that looks to be about 1/3 the globe. England is here with me along with 4 city states. The city states haven't done much, besides occasionally ask for help with barbarians. The barbarians have actually been the only real trouble thus far. Knocking out a fortified camp with the usual lone warrior has been iffy at best. One camp on hill I waited till I had another warrior nearby for the flanking bonus. England hasn't done anything besides occasionally speak to me, warning me not to expand too much. She's had a lone warrior roaming around in my backfield where I haven't expanded my borders all the way yet and that annoys the heck out of me.

Mainly for something to do, I decided I'd take out a city-state (Venice) that was isolated from everyone else. Taking it wasn't too hard... I had a Ballista, 2 Legions (all Roman-only units) and an archer move up to attack the city that had walls and a warrior inside it. The Ballista hit the city hard, while the archer didn't do anything in it's attack. I kept the legions on hold as it looked like I'd have to weaken the city further before sending them in without loosing one. To my surprise, the city counter-attacked by attacking the archer. Each hit from the city took about 1/3 of his life. Not sure why they went for him and not the Ballista... perhaps it's sturdier and would take less damage? Anyway, 2 turns of ballista fire later it was weak enough it looked like a legion could finish it off and not die in the process... so huzzah, no more Venice.

As others have noted, the UI is very nice and I like how you're prompted for certain things, or how things nicely pop up into view when needed, like the estimated combat result window when you have a unit selected and then mouse over an enemy. It is certainly an estimate though, some situations where it showed a stalemate have wound up being more of a loss for me on occasion.

Back in Civ and Civ2 I always liked improving the land, and while it looks like they've done a good job with automating that stuff I've been doing it all by hand thus far. Two things caught me by surprise...

- I researched Iron Working and some iron deposits appeared. I built a mine and a road to one and figured I was good, bring on the Legions and Ballistae. Then I discovered that the deposit I mined "provided" 2 units of iron... enough for only 2 such units. Interesting... I had to grab another one to build more such units.

- At one point Rome started "demanding" a supply of gems. I had 2 such deposits in my area, one close to Rome, another farther away near another city. As it happened I could mine and build a road closer to the other city first, but they were all connected by roads so I figured that would work, but I still got the "Rome wants Gems" message until I had mined the gems close to Rome.

Thus far, this guy who's been away from Civ a looong time is happy. I expected a little more aggression from England by this point, but it is still a fairly easy difficulty. Looking forward to sending my Venitian force against her next.

Oh, as an update to how it performed on my system, I've had plenty of units on the map at one time and it's still running smooth with medium/low settings. It looks great to me but I never expect a lot, especially out of turn-based strategy games. I have noticed that as I pan the view around, some terrain will be a little "pixely" for a moment or two before cleaning up, but that's a very small point to me.

Stuie · Post by **Stuie** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:48 pm

malichai11 wrote:
hepcat wrote:jeebus...it should be loaded before you hit START with those specs.
Sorry, I edited my post with updated system specs after you posted. I went to look up my actual specs after posting and then realized I was wrong about a few things.

Just had ANOTHER CTD while loading a game.

Initial impressions for stability and speed are that this is on Elemental: War of Magic levels of suckitude. Actually, for me at least, it's even slower and more unstable than Elemental over the first few hours of play.

Ouch - what do you have the video settings on? I'm running all medium (no AA because it's grayed out???) and haven't had any of the problems/slowdowns you're seeing except about 10 seconds between turns in the ancient age. Specs:

XP SP3
AMD 2.9ghz quad processor
4GB RAM
GeForce 9800 GTX+

You should be blowing me out of the water with your specs!

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:52 pm

malichai11 wrote:
edit - F THIS!

It now CTDs EVERY TIME I load a save from within the game. EXACTLY like Elemental did on release. Except at least with Elemental, it only took about 10 seconds to start the game from scratch and load a game, while it takes me over a minute to do the same with Civ 5.

Honestly, it sounds like the issue is your system. I've been perusing the forums at Steam in a jealous frenzy as I can't play until after work, and I'm not seeing anyone with the level of trouble you're having.

Have you run a defrag lately? A full virus scan with a good antivirus program? Try looking at your installed program list and see if there's something in there that doesn't look like it belongs.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:53 pm

Sweet mother...*blink* there goes an hour. Good luck to anyone that thinks you're just going to play for a little while tonight after work.

My system specs (I think) are on the lower end of tolerable (according to the game requirements)

WinXP
2 GB of RAM
E8400 @ 3.0 GHz
ATI HD 4870 w/ 512 MB of RAM

I'm only ~70 turns in (1120 B.C.) and the pacing doesn't seem hindered, but I fully realize that mid to late game I might need to adjust my settings. I set the game resolution to match my monitor (1680x1050), put terrain on high detail but lowered water to medium and shadows to low. No AA is on. Animations and map scrolling are smooth. The game really looks great. The new UI is definitely slick but it's going to take some time to get used to how they've re-arranged things. Me? I wouldn't have buried the "automate unit" option, but that's probably just my weird preference. Without question it's streamlined.

The game set me up on a desolate isthmus to start and didn't really give me any good place to expand. I picked the Iroquois nation because they're tailored to exploration (bonus to moving through jungle and forest squareshexes.) I wasn't really doing anything but trying to explore and get a feel for how it was going to work but my initial impression on a standard sized map (which I think is 8 civilizations) is that the city states are going to be a HUGE part of the game play. I couldn't swing a dead cat without being involved in them and the AI seemed to enter (quite frequently) into pacts with various city states at any given time. I'm not quite sold on just funneling them gold to keep them happy (which seems to be what they want), but there you go.

The AI was also doing the same thing from Civ games past where I'd ask them for [X] (like a pact of cooperation) and they'd refuse. Then on the next turn they'd ask me for the exact same thing. For the life of me, I can't tell what changed between our discussion and "next turn" but it's annoying.

I defaulted to the starting difficulty and the AI didn't seem too bad, particularly considering they dropped Montezuma and Rome pretty close to me. The Persians are far to the north but Washington and Gandhi are close by. Without question having my Scout unlock the secret of Archery within the first few turns was critical. I was able to creep around the map and outclass barbarian hordes with ease. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with Archery even now; the other Civilizations are still rolling around with Spearmen, though that could be a function of the difficulty level.

Having cities with automatic ranged defense is fantastic; being able to harass both naval and ground barbarian units directly from the city is a welcome change.

I'm hoping to get more time in, but I *really* need to get work done tonight as well. Blargh!

Stuie · Post by **Stuie** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:54 pm

tgb wrote: Did your Archers retain the movement bonuses of Scouts? I don't think mine did.

Mine upgraded to Bowmen (playing Babylonia) and they DID in fact retain the movement bonus. Pretty cool having a Scout/Bowman.

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 2:55 pm

I defrag'd today, after installing the game. I have NO32 AV and keep careful watch of my system.

Is anyone else here running with the Reseed upon reload on? The game was far more stable and ran much smoother before I started a new game with the reseed/reload on.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:04 pm

I'm so curious to hear what you guys think about the late game. I tended to never finish Civ III and IV games just because of the late game drag. Plus, my favorite part of the whole game is the start pretty much. There was so much strategy in picking spots, what to build when, etc. That fun completely diminished of course by the time the whole world had been explored.

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:10 pm

Update:

I can start a new game (I tested with and without the reseed checked), and saving happens practically instantly.

I'm certain the problem comes from doing a lot of saving/reloading within the game.

Anyone else play for a few hours and do extensive saving/reloading at goodie huts?

malichai11 · Post by **malichai11** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:20 pm

I've uploaded my save game file with the hopes that some of you fine gentlemen would download it and see if you can load it successfully, so that I know how borked I am (and can also pass that info along to Firaxis).

http://rapidshare.com/files/420413618/20.Civ5Save" target="_blank

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:28 pm

Stuie wrote:
tgb wrote: Did your Archers retain the movement bonuses of Scouts? I don't think mine did.
Mine upgraded to Bowmen (playing Babylonia) and they DID in fact retain the movement bonus. Pretty cool having a Scout/Bowman.

Yeah, I went back to see that my Archers have their movement bonuses. Nice.

I have almost the exact same setup as you, except running 32-bit Vista, and my AA options are grayed out as well. I wonder if it has something to do with the 9800.

Lagom Lite · Post by **Lagom Lite** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:53 pm

Damn. You. All.

2 more days.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 3:59 pm

I'm in the middle of migrating 200 people to a new phone system this week, busy as hell. I've decided that sleep is a sign of weakness.

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 4:14 pm

No impressions from me yet (still at work) but supposedly the procedure below will disable the intro movie. I haven't had a chance to test it - I just copied and pasted from the SA Civ5 thread.

SA wrote:Go to C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5 (For Vista/Win7) and load UserSettings. Search for SkipIntroVideo and change it to 1. SkipIntroVideo = 1

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 21, 2010 4:15 pm

That's a helpful tip. Seeing it once was fine. Not being able to disable it (or the other intro animations) upon subsequent uses of the game seemed rather 1998-ish.