Realms Beyond Civ 4 AI survivor

[Pat Mustard]

I was going to buy the newer civ games but what put me off is that you don't seem to be able to get very far into the future

The biggest problem with five was that their solution to the 1UPT Carpet of Doom was to break every other mechanic in the game, plus the AI couldn't grok it even at the most basic level. Now, frankly that game was so shit at release, not only did they revisit Civ 3 exploits and loopholes that 4 managed to solve they invented new ones all on their own. Comes from hiring a man who's good at coming up with ideas he's got no clue how to implement as lead designer, and the worst programmer ever to work on a Civ game (Alexman, Alex Mantzaris) as his main sidekick.

6's biggest problem is that while a lot of the bugs of 5 have been ironed out (it's almost as if 5 was 6's alpha test), the AI still doesn't have the first clue what it's doing, and now 2K have gone full DLC on the game, adding a new civ each month each of which are in no way calibrated to how the game plays (they are massively overpowered). 6 is probably a very good multiplayer game (the Realms Beyond site already has the beginnings of a strong PBEM culture), but only if you allow only the Aztecs of the DLC civs.