Good evening everybody. I am sitting here in front of my computer this warm night after finishing a very long conversation with my best friend regarding our beloved strategy game, Civilization. After numerous hours wasted (and not spent) on the 5th sequel of this game, I’ve come to a number of results which led me to a dramatic decision to actually delete the damn thing from my hard disk drive and never give a damn about it unless major changes occur.

First things first, in both minds there was just one question, how on earth the game developers managed to go from a fantastic game as presented in Beyond the Sword to a poorly coded, boring game in form of Civilization V. The modifications made it a little more bearable but the fact that the game was badly developed in the first place is simply a factor that cannot be overruned.

During my trip so far, I was able to familiarize myself with all those new features that the developers introduced to the game, happiness system, policies, tiles improvement, city improvements and so on. To be honest when I first installed it I had good feelings, the UI was a bit better than the previous Civil and quite a few ideas were simply innovate  but somehow they manged to fuck up the game fundamental elements. All the years, in every Civil the general idea was pretty much the same, starting with a settler you make the best empire the world ever seen by expanding that first city to the point you can make new settlers and cover a landmass. Because Empires throughout history possess land. Soon after that you make contact with another civilization with which you could be friends, allies or enemies depending on factors that you will determine.  As years passing by, more cities will be built, more improvements will be constructed along with wonders that always gave you something in return for the time and shields that you had invested for building them and as you are exploring the map and new technologies will become available you are looking how to acquire more strategic resources to solidify your position against the AI. Unexpected events might occur, the breaking of an alliance, a swift in the original plans on how you are going to win the game, a military technological advantage against a weaker opponent or maybe an expanding warmongering neighbor that you have to deal with.

All those things kept the game interesting , us on edge because in next turn that Carthaginian son of a bitch could easily invade us on the part which was less defended or because we just happened to be the first ones with the modern armor at our disposal and then sky (or probably sea) was the limit. That was the game the way we used to play it and like it. That was all before Firaxis decided to prevent Sid Meier from getting anywhere near that development of the newest game. I won’t start to tell all the little annoyances or the bugs of the game because that would be pointless, time consuming and most of all with a simple google search you can get most of them. What concerns me the most is the fact that the current developers used to be community members. I simply can’t understand what sort of games they were playing because they certainly didn’t touch any of the previous Civilizations. If they had, they would know that the game presented as Civilization V is day and night with its precedents, it doesnt have the feeling of a Civil, it cannot be played as a Civil and it certainly wont last in time as a Civil.

Probably the only solution would be to bring Sid Meier back. I doubt that this concept can be saved. It has fundamental issues and in order to fix them you have to literally make a new game. I don’t think the company can afford for such a thing to happen so I am predicting that all we can hope for would be addons fixing problems like happiness, policies etc. It feels not enough for me. I want my fun back, I want to start a game on Friday night and finish it on Monday or Tuesday not Saturday morning. I want my Empire to be 20 cities large and rock the world not 4-5 cities with an enormous land acquired via culture. I want the fucking city-states to be gone because they hag my PC for nothing. I want my diplomacy to gain me advantages and be able to make alliances with friends not to get denounced for attacking a rival Empire by every single Empire. I want to be able to stack my units in order to protect them and not deploying my archer next to my might Legion and my Horseman next that. That’s not an army but a fucking parade. I want to be able to select my government type and not stupid policies. I want to build Stonehenge and get back a free monument in every city and the map centered, not give me 8 cultural points. I care less about specialists and all those things that AI abuses and exploits in order to get 40 size cities during Middle Ages while I am stuck at 14.  I want my Apostolic Palace back or the UN. That’s real life things that matter in game. Bring back the game I loved and take away that game that you call Civil V.