The Civilization V Thread

The Oatman said:
I love the game and have already played more hours than I care to admit to but I am somewhat surprised by the poor performance I am experiencing. I am running a slightly long in the tooth, but very OCd Q6600 and 8800GT (w/ 2gb ram). Not sure where the problem is, but I definitely get much better performance if I run on DX9 mode, except that it crashes after a few minutes of play in this mode.

DX10/11 mode runs very awkwardly, it is sometimes smooth and then gets very slow as if it's loading stuff in the back ground, whenever a leader wants to talk there is a long delay as it loads their avatar. I have not been able to find where the bottleneck is, or which setting could be turned down to improve things.

I was able to run Crysis very well on this machine, got better FPS than most with similar hardware, but this game is kicking my ass. Any ideas?
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Well I've experimented some more (and played WAYYY too many hours despite the performance issues) and here is what I've found for anyone that likes figuring this stuff out. I still have not been able to get DX9 mode not to crash, that is today's project. DX10/11 mode will get dark red crapped out textures over the terrain unless BOTH tessellation and terrain detail are set to at least medium. I loaded my save game with everything turned lowest for testing purposes and it was smooth but the terrain was messed up, as soon as I managed to get BOTH of these simultaneously to at least medium, it worked but got choppy when scrolling around (despite everything else being set to low). Now, as I understood it, DX11's hallmark feature was tessellation, and there is no strictly DX10 mode in the game, so this may be part of the problem. Ideas?
 
Ghandi allied with the Arabs and attacked me for no reason. They make it so obvious that they are going to attack you. They keep telling you how much you suck, and you see their units moving along your borders. I held off the attack and recovered. Then Ghandi used Great Artists or something and stole land from me so that city started to struggle, and he started taunting me again. I built up a force of musketeers and a cannon and took out Delhi, then the rest of his cities. He said I should be happy for taking out a peaceful nation, whatever dude.

Now I'm built up to take out the Arabs. I'm paying for the units, might as well use them. Plus I have 3 cannons now.
 
I'm feeling the same thing from napoleon. After we took out Wu zetian he's been placing a lot of units along my border and asking for open boarders. Sadly I hadn't been able to attack him earlier as he was the only person with iron. Now I get it from Siam so once I have a second seige weapon I'm going after him.
 
The Oatman said:
I love the game and have already played more hours than I care to admit to but I am somewhat surprised by the poor performance I am experiencing. I am running a slightly long in the tooth, but very OCd Q6600 and 8800GT (w/ 2gb ram). Not sure where the problem is
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Probably your video card. Rec Specs are basically a Q6600 and a 4800 series GPU. Probably wouldn't hurt you to have more RAM though too. I'm running a Q6600 (stock) with a 4870 (512MB version) and 4GB of RAM with no problems at 1920x1200.
 
KatalDT said:
Does Civ 5 take advantage of hyperthreading? If not, then there's really no reason to go beyond an i5 750 right now. I might clock it up a bit and see if it makes a difference.
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I don't know, but it seems too freakin' slow. The wait for opponents is killing me.
 
I too have notice some slow downs last night. I also notice graphical glitch where like things like ships and cities get "stuck" on the screen as I'm scrolling, it goes away after I end turn but am wondering if anyone is getting that. I'm running a 920 with a HD5850.
 
ashmelev75 said:
I don't know, but it seems too freakin' slow. The wait for opponents is killing me.
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Welcome to Civilization. Every version gets slow as the world opens up. Play a huge map with 18 civs on Civ 4 and tell me how slow it is. Lots going on in the background, takes time to process.
 
I am running it on a Q6600 @ 3.2 with a 5870 at stock speeds, DX10/11 mode under Windows 7 x64 and have experienced the same graphic glitch, kledar586. Also, while the turn resolution did get slower as time went on it was never that long.

Finished my first go through on Settler to test the changes. So far I am loving it. There are a few things I wouldn't mind seeing back in like espionage and pollution. The combat system is much better in my view.
 
Downloading demo now. Time to remind myself how much I suck at these kinds of games.
 
Derangel said:
Set the focus of the cities to different things instead of balanced. You can also convert gold into research and stuff. You can also use the gold to buy buildings and units instead of just waiting for them to be built.
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Yeah I've been setting the focus, but I didn't know you could use the gold to rush completion. Wasn't that the slavery civic in Civ 4?
 
krameriffic said:
Yeah I've been setting the focus, but I didn't know you could use the gold to rush completion. Wasn't that the slavery civic in Civ 4?
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I don't think you can rush existing projects with gold (though I haven't tried buying a building I'm already working on, so maybe it gives a discount), you just buy it outright.
Slavery let you sacrifice population to complete a project, but yes there was a civic in Civ IV that allowed you to spend gold to rush the current project.

The other thing to do with excess gold is buy the loyalty of city states. Maritime city-states give a good sized boost to your food production so you can really ramp up your empire's population, and cultured city-states give some nice city expansion potential as well.
 
I have to wait another 7 hours to play this. And these are 7 hours with absolutely no work, chores or engagements, UNFAIR!!!! Damn, I cant wait for this after playing the demo.

One question though. My demo only ran in DX9, was not allowed to even select the DX10 version, even though I have a DX10 card and Win7 64. Is this the norm for the demo or I am missing a crucial update to my OS?
 
Note you can't buy wonders so having a decent amount of production capability is important. I can't imagine producing enough gold to buy everything single unit you'd need.
 
My Roman empire was pretty productive and I could purchase a ton of stuff but nowhere near everything.
 
nakedhand said:
I have to wait another 7 hours to play this. And these are 7 hours with absolutely no work, chores or engagements, UNFAIR!!!! Damn, I cant wait for this after playing the demo.

One question though. My demo only ran in DX9, was not allowed to even select the DX10 version, even though I have a DX10 card and Win7 64. Is this the norm for the demo or I am missing a crucial update to my OS?
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The demo did that to me and so does retail. Not sure why. 8800GT with Windows 7 x64.
 
No issues with my PII 940 and GTX 470 in the demo using Direct X 11 everything maxed, v-sync and 8AA enable all from the in-game menu.
 
the demo had a DX10/11 option.

Can't wait to crack this game open. Also looking forward to seeing how far I can advance in difficulty. I plateaued at Emperor haven't taken a leap since.

Looking forward to the Earth map too.
 
Question about difficulty levels past Prince (i.e. normal) - even for older Civ games, but especially Civ V.... Does AI cheating look obvious and silly absurd? In Rome Total War, high skill levels would give the AI unlimited gold. And in the hardest difficulty level, they could insta-spawn armies,city structures, and populations. It was too cheesy. Just wondering how cheesy hard skill levels get in Civ.
 
canon.tk said:
The demo did that to me and so does retail. Not sure why. 8800GT with Windows 7 x64.
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Hmm unsatisfactory! Well seems like we have a problem to solve.

squall78 said:
the demo had a DX10/11 option.
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It certainly did, but it was ghosted, unable to click that option.

With 3 hours left I thought I would go ahead and prepurchase the deluxe version, but Steams offer up a bunch of NO CONNECTION. Perfect timing, I am feeling it. GRRR!!! I want to play this tonight! :D
 
nakedhand said:
It certainly did, but it was ghosted, unable to click that option.

With 3 hours left I thought I would go ahead and prepurchase the deluxe version, but Steams offer up a bunch of NO CONNECTION. Perfect timing, I am feeling it. GRRR!!! I want to play this tonight! :D
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Option worked for me on the demo.
 
Civilization series is like the black hole. You will never be able to come out from this black hole. 24 hour sitting of playing is the norm. Please beware.
 
is global warming in civ 5? I always hated global warming taking away my farm when I nuke someone in civ 4
 
I did not encounter any pollution or global warming in my first playthrough. In retrospect, one facet that I am loving is the limited strategic resources. No more horde of stealth bombers flying around. You really have to be judicious in your building.
 
i finished the demo on wednesday and tried to hold off purchase until at least sunday to see if BB/Walmart or someone puts it on sale, but I couldnt do it :D first steam game I've purchased in months and I just knew the DL would take all evening...but no, just over an hour for the full game to come down and was ready to play.

is there a screen that shows me which rival leaders have surplus reseouces for trade without having to engage in a diplomatic trade screen to see them one by one? I guess its there somewhere...maybe I'll read the manual a bit
 
is there a screen that shows me which rival leaders have surplus reseouces for trade without having to engage in a diplomatic trade screen to see them one by one? I guess its there somewhere...maybe I'll read the manual a bit
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I don't have the game open right now, but like in the upper right corner, there's a diplomacy screen, then there's a diplomacy overview button that shows all the civs you have contacts with, their resources, etc. that you can trade for.
 
Is there a way to permanently view the resources available in each node like in Civ4? I dont like having to scroll over and waiting ~1.5 seconds each time I want to do this.
 
Parmenides said:
Question about difficulty levels past Prince (i.e. normal) - even for older Civ games, but especially Civ V.... Does AI cheating look obvious and silly absurd? In Rome Total War, high skill levels would give the AI unlimited gold. And in the hardest difficulty level, they could insta-spawn armies,city structures, and populations. It was too cheesy. Just wondering how cheesy hard skill levels get in Civ.
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It's much more sublime than in TW games I think. On king or emperor (two above prince) if you look carefully at their cities and tile improvements, you'll notice that they seem to be building things and teching faster than they should be, but it's not ridiculous. It's nothing like In TW games, where since the first medieval the hardest difficulties meant that a pack of peasants would route your sword wielding veterans and the map would be flooded with full stacks. Maybe if you're a super hardcore min/max civ player you won't agree, but if you're just having some casual fun civ5 plenty good.
 
hhara said:
Is there a way to permanently view the resources available in each node like in Civ4? I dont like having to scroll over and waiting ~1.5 seconds each time I want to do this.
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Press 'R' -> I hated it when I couldn't find it in the menus like 4, but accidently stumbled across it. I'm sure its in the manual as well, but who reads that when you could be playing the game?
 
darkpaw said:
Press 'R' -> I hated it when I couldn't find it in the menus like 4, but accidently stumbled across it. I'm sure its in the manual as well, but who reads that when you could be playing the game?
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I think it's actually one of the buttons right next to the mini-map (same as in Civ 4 I believe).
 
You're probably right. I hadn't played 4 in a while so I could have sworn it was in the options but mini-map buttons does make perfect sense. Either way, thats required info for me even if it does clutter up the view a bit.
 
darkpaw said:
You're probably right. I hadn't played 4 in a while so I could have sworn it was in the options but mini-map buttons does make perfect sense. Either way, thats required info for me even if it does clutter up the view a bit.
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Toggling back and forth between strategic and map views will show you all resources. Another thing I like to do, especially in combat, is to show hexagons. Helps to make sure that unit orders won't get cut off by trying to move into the same tile, and also helps to make sure ranged units are within range of their targets. I wish ranges were more clearly indicated on the unit info panels or tooltips though. And don't forget to setup the catapults before trying to fire them! Flummoxed me for a little while this morning when the unit kept moving into the line of fire instead of firing on the enemy city.

Another change I would make is making it easier to see if units have moves left or not. Often when you hit "end turn" it just takes you to a unit who has movement points left, but sometimes, especially if a long move order got cancelled (an obstacle or whatever), units will just sit there without doing anything.
 
I just completed my first game, winning in the end with the space race. I was not too impressed with the game overall, however.

Good:
1. Graphics are nice for this style game and it seems well optimized
This I am comparing to other turn based games of this nature (Galciv, totalwar, etc.). Whereas these games would have incredible amounts of lag, making it virtually unplayable after the early stages, Civ5 was mostly lag free and seamlessly transitioned from one turn to the next.

Bad:
1. AI is just as terrible as previous turn based strategy games and diplomacy made no sense whatsoever. (This is based on medium difficulty, could be different on harder difficulty, I have no idea)

Some examples off the top of my head:

China wanted to form a pact of cooperation with me and a pact of secrecy against another civ. During the next turn China declared war on me even though there was an extensive relationship of trading and research agreements and the aforementioned pacts.

Second, after declaring war on Napoleon, his entire armed forces continued to just patrol the environment, making no concerted effort to ward off attacks or make counterattacks.

Third, in the industrial\modern era, no civs had upgraded their forces from primitive units to modern equivalents, which made it incredibly easy to take over the game.

2. Some of the gameplay mechanics are silly
Example: There is no reason to befriend minor civilizations because the only way to keep them happy is to give them thousands of gold (giving gifts or performing missions for them marginally affects the relationship status), which is better spent on other things, and even if they are allies they tend to do little to nothing at all to actually help you out. The only reason to even involve yourself with them is to conquer them all.

Example 2: While no one enjoyed stacks of doom, they went a little too far in the other direction I think and that kills the realism. I played my game on the earth map, and it is just ridiculous to have your entire army bottle-necked by one hex the size of the state of Florida. They should have compromised on this issue and limited the size of troops per hex to 3-5 at least, for instance stacking a few ground troops with ranged artillery. That said, if I had to choose between stacks of 50 units or the current system I would choose the latter.

3. The menu system seems unusually cumbersome for a civ game and ultimately lacking in information. It was a bit too dumbed down for my tastes, particularly how to display diplomatic information, military forces, etc. and it just was not as customizable as I would have liked it to be.


None of these things are surprising to me anymore as most games have similar issues. It still disappoints me every time though.
 
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This game needs a 200+ page manual. It's only right. Was a bit disappointed with the 4 page brochure. The tech map was a nice bonus though.
 
jbauer2485 said:
I just completed my first game, winning in the end with the space race. I was not too impressed with the game overall, however.

Good:
1. Graphics are nice for this style game and it seems well optimized
This I am comparing to other turn based games of this nature (Galciv, totalwar, etc.). Whereas these games would have incredible amounts of lag, making it virtually unplayable after the early stages, Civ5 was mostly lag free and seamlessly transitioned from one turn to the next.

Bad:
1. AI is just as terrible as previous turn based strategy games and diplomacy made no sense whatsoever. (This is based on medium difficulty, could be different on harder difficulty, I have no idea)

Some examples of the top of my head:

China wanted to form a pact of cooperation with me and a pact of secrecy against another civ. During the next turn China declared war on me even though there was an extensive relationship of trading and research agreements and the aforementioned pacts.

Second, after declaring war on Napoleon, his entire armed forces continued to just patrol the environment, making no concerted effort to ward off attacks or make counterattacks.

Third, in the industrial\modern era, no civs had upgraded their forces from primitive units to modern equivalents, which made it incredibly easy to take over the game.

2. Some of the gameplay mechanics are silly
Example: There is no reason to befriend minor civilizations because the only way to keep them happy is to give them thousands of gold (giving gifts or performing missions for them marginally affects the relationship status), which is better spent on other things, and even if they are allies they tend to do little to nothing at all to actually help you out. The only reason to even involve yourself with them is to conquer them all.

Example 2: While no one enjoyed stacks of doom, they went a little too far in the other direction I think and that kills the realism. I played my game on the earth map, and it is just ridiculous to have your entire army bottle-necked by one hex the size of the state of Florida. They should have compromised on this issue and limited the size of troops per hex to 3-5 at least, for instance stacking a few ground troops with ranged artillery. That said, if I had to choose between stacks of 50 units or the current system I would choose the latter.

3. The menu system seems unusually cumbersome for a civ game and ultimately lacking in information. It was a bit too dumbed down for my tastes, particularly how to display diplomatic information, military forces, etc. and it just was not as customizable as I would have liked it to be.


None of these things are surprising to me anymore as most games have similar same issues. It still disappoints me every time though.
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Thanks, very informative.
 
Well I've run into my first issue with the game. I've been staring at "PLEASE WAIT" for the last hour after clicking "NEXT TURN" in 1933. I've tried reloading a few save games and it keeps happening every time in 1933. The game itself doesn't freeze, I can access menus and purchase tiles or structures but I'm stuck in 1933.

It's pretty disappointing as I have put a lot of hours into the game at this point and it looks like I'll be starting over.
 
squall78 said:
This game needs a 200+ page manual. It's only right. Was a bit disappointed with the 4 page brochure. The tech map was a nice bonus though.
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There is actually a 233 page manual (right click on the game in your library and view manual)
 
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