It crashes for me on nearly every game, on medium maps even. There is also a known crash bug for all that run DX10 & 11, which is aknowledged by Firaxis.

You can defend your purchase, and Firaxis, all you want. But get your facts straight before insulting other people.

They are? Let's see how really different they are?

1. They both start out with a unit to settle the first city? yep sure do sovereign in Ele and Settler in Civ

2. They both build settler/pioneer type units to create new cities? yep sure do.

3. They both research new technologies to increase their power? yep sure do.

4. They both build new structures based on new technologies and discoveries? yep sure do.

5. They both have a conquer the world victory condition? yep sure do.

6. They both have other conditions to win the game? yep sure do.

7. They both build combat units to go out and take over other nations and factions? yep sure do.

8. They both have several factions that the ai can play against you with? yep sure do.

9. They both have diplomacy in the game? yep sure do.

10. They both have GOODIE huts to explore and discover? yep sure do.

11. They both have raging non-faction npc's and/or barbarians to deal with? yep sure do.

And there are many more things that make Elemental and Civilization series quite comparable yes even Civ 5 has most if not all of these aspects listed above.

So to say they are too different to compare is really stupid.

Lookie! I can play that game too!

1. Elemental has a real sovereign character, Civ 5 does not

2. Civ 5 has workers, Elemental does not

3. Elemental has customizable units, Civ 5 does not

4. Elemental has magic that can be imbued upon recruitable heroes and used on the world and in combat, Civ 5 does not

5. Elemental has micro-level tactical battles, Civ 5 does not

6. Elemental has Quests, Civ 5 does not

7. Elemental has deep customization for your individual champions, including a shop you can buy from, Civ 5 does not

8. Elemental has marriage, offspring, and dynasties, Civ 5 does not

9. Elemental has spacial city design and placement, Civ 5 does not

10. Elemental has an in-game modding workshop for nearly all facets of the game, Civ 5 does not.

11. Elemental has an in-game mod download system, Civ 5 does not.

12. Elemental is based in a fantasy world, Civ 5 is not.

And there are many more things that make Elemental and Civilization series quite incomparable yes Civ 5 has barely any if none at all of these aspects listed above.

So to say they are similar enough to compare is really stupid.

Sounds like an objective assessment from what I'm sure is a wealth of usable data.

At this point, I don't think anyone is taking your word for it when it comes to these games.

So says the guy claiming the only reason Civ V has a 91% metacritic score is because it has Sid Meier on the box. Presumably the players are afraid of him too, since the metacritic user score is 81%.

Civilization V has plenty of issues. But real issues aren't getting discussed here; it just descends into a flame war. A few specific individuals who stopped playing Civ long ago seem to insist on turning every Civ thread into a Civ vs Elemental thread, as if Civ has to “lose” for Elemental to “win”. Naturally, many of the folk here are Civ players and this generates a disproportionately large negative attitude towards Elemental by those people and things get ugly. It's silly, but every game seems to have its religious group, who rarely make “Ideas” or “Suggestions” posts, but are ready to jump on anyone who criticises the game or makes suggestions on how it could improve by taking concepts from other successful games.

Anyway, on to Civ V, the problems are very different to what Elemental had due to their very different starting conditions. Civ V's technical issues have been par for the course with new releases. There's always compatibility issues and such, which affect some customers and those get patched pretty quickly. Considering Civ V's been topping Steam's stats for “users concurrently playing” quite regularly the last few days (which is quite significant, that a 4X game can outdo the usual FPS/RTS games in audience), I think most people are getting the game to run just fine. Performance between turns was an issue on release for Civ IV as well and Firaxis have a reputation for not getting performance right till after a few patches.

Elemental's technical problems were due to SD creating a whole new engine in house which is a mammoth task with today's hardware and software variety. But now they know what kind of QA effort is required to get HW compatibility right.

Those of us complaining about Civ V on Civfanatics though, have very different complaints. We are complaining because we think it doesn't improve on Civ IV. Gameplay wise, Civ V does what it's meant to do. It's solid and doesn't have game breaking bugs. According to the polls, it appears the majority of players on the forum like it better than Civ IV. This is the issue – many of us think it's not better than Civ IV. I feel it's 1 step forward, 3 steps backwards. It doesn't feel like a Civilization game any more – they've gone a very different route. Many features and mechanics have been “streamlined” as they call it because they were too complicated... and I thought it was complexity that made Civ what it was.

It seems many people didn't like the 100 turns dash at the start of Civ IV games, where on high difficulties, every decision you had to make every turn was was crucial - and if you get it wrong it may mean the losing the game. Incorrectly choosing whether to beeline for Iron Working or Archery first, or not figuring out the best time and place to found your second city could stunt your growth terminally. Only experience could tell you how to choose based on the map and surroundings. Then there was the constant decision making as your empire expands and the way the game changed as new technologies introduced new combat classes, civics, tile improvements, etc. Sure there was micromanagement, but on the whole you felt like you were running an empire.

The problem with Civ V is it doesn't have this feel any more. The starting game is far more relaxed and there is no mad rush for land. You're not really competing against a world that's trying to kill you at every turn; the game is a lot more relaxing and slow paced. Everything complex about Civ IV seems to be reduced to a few numbers now – numbers that tell you either “Something's wrong and here's how to fix it” or “Everything's fine, just keep hitting End Turn”. There's no real stress any more and critical decisions are few and far between.

For many of us, that critical decision making was what made the Civ series what it was. Now they've changed it and most of the fans on the forums seem to actually like it. This has raised quite an uproar from those of us who thought we were getting an improvement to Civ IV, not a whole different direction.

So this is how it is. The reviews scored the game high because Civ V succeeds in what it set out to achieve. If Civ IV didn't exist and Civ V was the sequel to Civ III, everyone would love it. It's a good game on it's own strength. But Civ IV and it's expansions took the game to far deeper levels of immersive gameplay and empire building. So many of us on the forums feel we've been shortchanged and hence all the negativity.

We don't know if Firaxis plan to keep the streamlined approach, or mean to add complexity back with DLCs and expansions. The silver lining is, much of the SDK, the scripting and a Visual Studio based IDE have already been released and the C++ shouldn't be too far away. Just like with Civ IV and the plethora of mods it produced, people will be tearing the game apart, improving the AI, adding more complexity and in general creating total conversion mods to make it more like how they feel a Civ game should be. If it's one thing Civfanataics is good for, it's generating huge lists of well thought out ideas, as well as modders and programmers who know what they're doing.

You keep cherry-picking the forum posts from Civ forums that suit your argument.

Like I said before, there's no objective method you are using to gauge the user reaction so the entire point you are making is completely unreliable.

I'm a member of Civfanatics and nothing of the sort is happening. In fact, it was much worse when Civ IV was released. Again, that's my opinion, and my opinion is that what you refer to as the "general consensus" couldn't be further from the truth.

You see angry posts (which every new release has) and you think they are the majority opinion. The perfect example is the fact that you mention V is like Civilization Revolution, which is just a clichéd thread on the Civfanatics forum and most people just make fun of people that make them.

EDIT: There's no "double standard". Civ is significantly more playable than Elemental was at release. But that's irrelevant, stop comparing the two games and stop making up the "general consensus" that doesn't exist.

The mere fact that you give any credence at all to Amazon tech-related product reviews just tells me how informed your opinion is.

Have you read the reviews? There's a 1-star review protest because of Steam. The same was true for Elemental, just tons of 1-star reviews from people that never even bothered to play the game.

Pft... Civ 5 doesn't even run. It crashes every few turns and is unplayable here. Elemental at least worked when it was released, however buggy.

It's the same as saying Sid Meier's name on a box gives a game an unfair advantage in reviews. And yes, there's denial - you refuse to accept the scores are deserved based on your unfounded opinion. This despite the fact that most reviews started with how excited they were when they heard Stardock were making a spiritual successor to MoM and most of them ended with a conclusion along the lines of "we'll be a bit lenient with the scoring because this is Stardock and we know they'll fix it". Major reviewers even publicly stated they are delaying their review, to give SD some time to address the most significant issues. There is no indie developer that had this much credit limit to call on from the industry and playing the underdog card just reinforces the notion you're struggling to justify a preconceived conclusion.

You also ignored the entire rest of my post which explains the reaction to Civ V. On it's own, it's a fine game and according to the polls on the forums, the majority prefer it over Civ IV. It works, it's stable, it's got all the bits fitting together in the right way and polished... not Blizzard polished, but typical 4X game on release polished. If you bother to read the high scoring reviews, this is what they are basing the score on, as to how well Civ V stands on its own as a game. But there's a significant percentage of us who feel it's not as good as Civ IV and that it's going in the wrong direction. That's why we are complaining and scoring it low - we don't religiously accept whatever Firaxis gives us; this is an established series and we know what we want. If they listen, they will add more complexity in future expansions, which is all we want - more stuff to tax your brain while playing.

For those of us who've played both games the complaints are widely different. Civ V for many of us didn't live up to our expectations of complexity and needs more of it added in the future. Elemental didn't have a legacy to live up to, it's problem was that the gameplay just didn't fit together - it felt like many different mechanics loosely cobbled together - the game just doesn't work as a whole. With Elemental, the expansions are radically changing the game mechanics to address this and after a couple of expansions will be quite the different game. Civ V doesn't need to radically change it's mechanics and will, at its core, be the same through it's life; what it needs is more content and complexity - evolutionary changes, not revolutionary ones.

Civ IV had a much worse reaction on release than Civ V, but back then the issues were technical, not gameplay. The vast majority preferred the gameplay changes over Civ III. It's very much because the Civ fans get this worked up about the game that it continues to sell - because Firaxis get to hear just what's wrong with it and they fix it. There was no adoring love that you speak of, when Civ IV was released 5 years ago. That's exactly the wrong sort of religious fandom that a game shouldn't have - because then it would never improve and only satisfy a small cult. The admiration you mention was for Civ IV with expansions, which were the response to all that criticism. It's criticism that improves a game and the Civfanatics forum especially has always been harsh - Elemental forums are a walk in the park compared to what you will see there.

When did I say they don't have a right to post 1-star reviews? And when did I say that not liking Steam is not a legitimate opinion?

I'm just saying it discredits the entire review system when people give blanket 1-star reviews without trying out the product. It is well-known that the game is a Steamworks title, so why go out of your way to protest that with a 1-star review on Amazon?

Like I said, read the reviews, the vast majority of the reviews that give it a 1-star rating don't read like this: "I purchased the game, but I don't like Steam because of X, Y, Z"

but rather like this: "The game uses Steam. I will never buy the product!"