Money has been tight lately, as most of you can probably understand in our current economic climate. Having always been a TBS fan, I had to make a decision as to which game I would buy this fall. I've been anticipating Civilization 5 and Elemental for quite some time, but I had to go with the latter, and I still don't regret it.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting pretty tired of the Civilization series. It's starting to remind me of Madden: Release the same game, add a few features, and call it the best thing since sliced bread. I've played every one of them, and every spin off since Civ 1 and the whole tour through history bit is getting a bit long in the tooth for me.
So I'm left with Elemental, which kind of feels like the old pick-up truck your dad gave you. It doesn't exactly run all that great, needs a new set of...well, everything, and doesn't impress your friends all that much. So would I rather take the old pick-up truck that can potentially take me to places I've never been before, or do I stick with Civilization, my shiny ten-speed that's always been safe and reliable my whole life?
I've read all the reviews, seen all the crap hit the fan, and even felt a bit of disappointment in the past few weeks. However, there's something about this game that just gets me excited, something unique, and something I don't feel very often with games. Even with all of the bugs and problems this game has, it has something special that I can't quite explain. With Stardock's commitment to improve things, I am giddy with anticipation as to where we will be led in the next few months and years. It's expecting the unexpected with Elemental that is holding my interest. It's hoping that perhaps one day Elemental will defy it's launch in a way that we have never seen before.
I'm sure that Civilization 5 will get reviewed really well, I'm sure it will be everything that everyone has hoped it would be. I'm sure it will be polished, stable, and relatively bug-free. I'm sure, at the core of it all, it will still feel like the Civilization we've grown to love. Unfortunately, this is where I become bored. I'll take the old pickup-truck, but I'm not sure why.
Perhaps Trinity had the answer: Because you have been down there Neo, you know that road, you know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be.
Yep, the city defense did sound cool. I always wanted more of a war game experience in Civ, and this one sounds like it will deliver. As far as the AI goes, it always cheated so bad that I don't doubt it will handle it. Also, not to mention those graphics look pretty impressive for a civ game.
The only drawback I noticed is the typical 2k DLC nick-and-dime to death strategy. An extra $10 for the digital special edition which has the Babylonians. Yea, I don't think so. Missing a few countries that should be there like Spain.
Yeah, not sure if I've specifically said it, but thanks a ton for your work on 1.4 PawelS
the thing is you just can't tell till you get your hands on it sometimes. Take Final Fantasy 14 for example, it looks beautiful graphically, its sounds pretty nice with all the new options for characters and stuff. I've just spent 4 hours on the open beta with it...its pretty boring to play and the UI is god awful, worse ui I have ever dealt with. And don't even get me started on them not letting me play at 1920x1080 in fullscreen...nooooo windowed mode only....fuckers...
That's saying something for FF games
The worst is the moronic spell system imo. It currently has you select a target, then select the spell, then click on the target again to confirm. For some reason they chose to ignore the simple and common mmo convention of select your target, hit you key and it activates. yes its just one extra step to do clicking the foe. (and yes you HAVE to click them...no other way) But when you have to do this repeatedly every fight due just one facet of the clunky ui design it gets annoying after a few hours.
all valid points and I respect your opinion. Luckily I can get both. I do think that Civ V brings more changes--and welcome ones--over previous versions. It's not a minor update at all. I'd get it just for the updated graphics and hexes...
I would choose the Chinese version of Wheel of Fortune over Civ 5.
Have you tried BTS? That puts up a good fight even on Noble where the AI and player are on equal footing. I used to beat Civ on Emperor, but that made Monarch feel like what Immortal used to be.
I choose you, Elemental!
Quick, Elemental, use your Post-Release Support on that wild Civ V!
Well but handling unit formations intelligently is not something you can handle by cheating. If the AI can't keep a solid line with melee in front and archers in back, then it will be pretty obvious and take a lot away from the game. Granted it shouldn't be too horribly complex, so hopefully the AI will deal. But it will require a pretty dramatic AI change from previous versions.
What makes Civilization great is the researching of technologies, the diplomacy, the unique AI personalities, the stealth on land, the stealth in water, the many unique resources, the wandering independents, the randomly generated maps, the enormously huge worlds, the diverse multiplayer options, the game stability and other stuff I can't remember right now.
What's bad in Civilization are the basic battles... unit X bumps into unit Y has math calcuation for results. This was acceptable for when Civilization 2 existed, but to see something so 1990s is frustrating.
I heard it called Panzer General-style combat for Civ5. That's a big, positive change in my book.
My feelings exactly.
And concerning the "defying its launch": Remember MoM? Or the original XCOM? Both ageless classics, yet neither got those laurels on launch day. I suspect Elemental will go the same route.
Op I totally diagree in that there are too many civilization series. I am sorry but I will take what I can get in the 4 x genre or tbs strategy games. Quality games like this are few and far between and there are very few games of this type.
There is a new game in the Civ series every 5 years, I think it's not too often.
Oh hah! Am I the only one who dislikes this new "1 unit/hex" rule?....not that I will buy Civ5...heh. I might buy it, if a decent fantasy mod will be released for it...but I don't think so...EWoM will be THE GAME in the fantasy TBS genre by then.
Knowing myself, I'll probably wait for civ5 to come out, wait for emergency patches, read reviews, ignore bad ones and buy it anyway.
But as someone who will probably have both games, I still know I won't have such a feeling of anticipation from civ5 as much as I had from Elemental.
Not sure why. Maybe it's because in my mind Elemental replaces much older games, maybe because of the time I was reading updates about it, maybe because I'm a fantasy freak and maybe because Elemental shows more promise of being something completely new compared to previous games.
I think CIV IV is the best strategy game ever. I am a bit on the fence with CIV V due to Steam requirement. I will probably await a while and see the feedback before I decide. I have preordred Kings Bounty Crossworlds and bought the THQ bundle, so there is no rush. Must say that I am having some fun with Elemental too, though its weaknesses are apparent.
Well as Civ V dose not exist until Sep 24, I can't really say yet. However the comparison should be with the Civ IV mod Fall From Heaven not Civ IV itself, which is much inferior IMHO. I expect FFH to trump Civ V as well.
If you have not played FFH you should reserve judgement until you have.
As far as my memory goes, Civ IV had a rough release with serious issues. No one remembers that user that made a patch to solve some serious memory issues? No one remember the huge version number that the patch that made the game playable had? (still unplayable in biggers maps though, that was corrected in the next patch)
Maybe I come from an alternate universe where Civ IV was unplayable out of the box.
Game mechanics wise, it was solid though.
You can't be serious. Civ4 combat "system" = bad joke.
I am serious. If you have a suggestion of a better game feel free to offer your insight
EDIT sorry about the double post
I'll go for both, even though I'm not rich
I've bought all the "MoM" likes so far, including Age of wonders series and elemental. There are good mods in civilization for the "fantasy" flavour, but they have gameplay constraints and graphics inheritage that make them somehow awkward, even though there are very good ideas.
I still have high hopes in Elemental because it has so many good ideas and it is dedicated to them, it's not just a mod . It feels a little bit awkward too but it'll improve. I have the feeling it might be the first of a series too Anyway I'm sure the modding tools and the team's work long after release will make last a long time and, hopefuly, time will change it's reputation.
I'll get Civ V too because "real world" flavour is fine too and because there are not so many good quality TBS and, even though it's the fifth in the serie, it's being released YEARS after the previous and I can't wait for it
Both games are not necessarily rivals, above all when they have a common ancestor (MoM was a civ like with a different flavour, just like master of orion)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=374603 this is a good article about Civilization V. I read this text and i think of Civ 5 is the very very great game!
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