So how's the state of Civ 5 these days?

I never understood the "if u have more units in stack" vs "if u have more units in 1upt" is more advantageous. Why is it easier with stacks? and why doesnt it bring an advantage in 1upt?
And isnt it only "player have few units but can win against larger AI", or is it vice versa too?

Btw I think its a common misconception that "More units in civ4=win". Often a VERY small elite force could wipe out an entire civilization, while a HUGE, but less advanced, had no hope whatsoever to take out even a small city. (except if it was spear vs tanks ofcourse )

I agree the concept of tech trading seems.... strange, but I cant find any examples of early research agreements IRL either so...

@JanghanHong

I did try it, long long time ago, when it was just released. It looked like something that came out of a donkeys ass, coz I had an old computer with only 256mb graphics. I couldnt remember if it could be turned off. But I was surprised how muddy, blurred and detailless it looked in the video, and how impossible it was to see if there even WAS a unit on the hexes if the icons were turned off (when tile yields, unit icons, grids AND resource indicators is turned on, it covered so much of the actual terrain graphics, that IMHO it looked "BoardGameIsh" and not "EarthLikeIsh."
So I asked if anyone had made a mod that enlarged or improved the units/resources so it was easy recognizable WITHOUT turning indicators/tags/icons on.

vincentz said:

I never understood the "if u have more units in stack" vs "if u have more units in 1upt" is more advantageous. Why is it easier with stacks? and why doesnt it bring an advantage in 1upt?
And isnt it only "player have few units but can win against larger AI", or is it vice versa too?

Btw I think its a common misconception that "More units in civ4=win". Often a VERY small elite force could wipe out an entire civilization, while a HUGE, but less advanced, had no hope whatsoever to take out even a small city. (except if it was spear vs tanks ofcourse )

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True enough. Its just that it was so much easier to build large stacks. Build many cities and devote a % of them to building units. Production time wasn't an issue, even with smaller cities. Not to say you couldn't do it differently, its just there was no real need to. With 5, that particular strategy is less fruitful as build times are so damn long. This is of course, all qualified by my low level of play. Maybe at the upper levels it was a different story.

I did try it, long long time ago, when it was just released. It looked like something that came out of a donkeys ass, coz I had an old computer with only 256mb graphics. I couldnt remember if it could be turned off. But I was surprised how muddy, blurred and detailless it looked in the video, and how impossible it was to see if there even WAS a unit on the hexes if the icons were turned off (when tile yields, unit icons, grids AND resource indicators is turned on, it covered so much of the actual terrain graphics, that IMHO it looked "BoardGameIsh" and not "EarthLikeIsh."
So I asked if anyone had made a mod that enlarged or improved the units/resources so it was easy recognizable WITHOUT turning indicators/tags/icons on.

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I use an onboard graphics card on my newer system. A 5 year old card on another one. Also use it on a 4 year old mac book. Graphics are fine. Some of the screenshots people have posted are incredible. I don't have the graphics cards to do those things though....

However! If "donkeys ass" and "BoardGameIsh" are your overriding feelings. I'll make it simple. Don't buy a graphics card. Don't upgrade your computer just to play it. This is not the game for you! Check back in after BNW. Won't change the visuals, but maybe there will be enough changes to the gameplay to get you interested.

whyidie said:

... This is not the game for you!

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I'm afraid you are right. I really wanted it to be though. Loved Civ1, crazy about civ2 (ToT), not so much civ3, and really enjoying civ4, hated civ5 when it came out, coz I wanted a Civ4BtS+++ and got PGCiv5.
I was ready for some civ5 now (coz civ4 is played "thin" so to speak) but the more i see/read the more I know I will still be disappointed/irritated over it.
I do like some features though (Ranged (not the archer thing which is silly imho), Limited Resources, and prolly some more I cant remember on top of my head.
What I'm most disappointed over though is that they didnt took it "to the next level", but instead cut a heel and cut a toe (danish expression that most likely wont make any sense, but cant find a good alternative).
It reminded me of The Sims 2 to Sims 3, where tons of expansions made it a decent game, and when they made 3, it was cut to the bone.

vincentz said:

It reminded me of The Sims 2 to Sims 3, where tons of expansions made it a decent game, and when they made 3, it was cut to the bone.

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You realize that time is a factor, right? Sims 3 with its 8 expansions have much more features now and the mods have been created to expand that even further.

You should be comparing CIV4 Warlords and CIV5 G&K, not CIV4 complete and CIV5 Vanilla.

If you're willing to compare CIV4 Complete and CIV6 vanilla as soon as it comes out, I don't know how good CIV6 will be, but I do know that you'll be disappointed.

Also, if you play CIV5 on specs way below recommended settings, and complain about the graphics, I don't know what else to say.

It looked like something that came out of a donkeys ass, coz I had an old computer with only 256mb graphics

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Well, this is how it looks like with 2 GTX 570 1gb in SLI, DirectX 11, on 1080X1800 resolution.




I think we can all agree, that the past is over.

vincentz said:

I'm afraid you are right. I really wanted it to be though. Loved Civ1, crazy about civ2 (ToT), not so much civ3, and really enjoying civ4, hated civ5 when it came out, coz I wanted a Civ4BtS+++ and got PGCiv5.
I was ready for some civ5 now (coz civ4 is played "thin" so to speak) but the more i see/read the more I know I will still be disappointed/irritated over it.
I do like some features though (Ranged (not the archer thing which is silly imho), Limited Resources, and prolly some more I cant remember on top of my head.
What I'm most disappointed over though is that they didnt took it "to the next level", but instead cut a heel and cut a toe (danish expression that most likely wont make any sense, but cant find a good alternative).
It reminded me of The Sims 2 to Sims 3, where tons of expansions made it a decent game, and when they made 3, it was cut to the bone.

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Played Civ1 years after its release, so I viewed it through a less critical lense. Plus, it was the FIRST of its kind for me. I didn't know of any other games in the genre. It was my introduction. Civ2 is an even fainter memory, it seems all the features I remember about 2 were in 1 or 3!

Civ3 I enjoyed start to finish. Civ4 I left on bad terms. I think it was decades of dealing with similar frustrations. Civ4 was taking on the burden of the mistakes it inherited from not just Civ but many other games of the genre. That left us on sour terms. Of course, I put years into it and did get a lot of enjoyment out of the game, even more than 3, but I have fonder memories of 3.

I'll admit that without GnK, 5 would have been the least played version. The latest expansion is coming at a good time as well. So there is something to be said for having "less to do". Especially if you didn't have a big break between the versions. The differences would have been that much starker. Cut a heel and cut a toe would have been very evident if 4 was still a fresh memory. For me it was neither fresh nor fond. I forgot the good and just remembered the frustrations.

To a certain extent I feel Civ5 was made for me. I needed a reboot with the series, if not the genre. I was suffering from decades of more stuff being layered on. With that being said I can understand how it is a letdown and really don't think G&K added enough for those who felt vanilla was missing too many toes and heels.

JanghanHong said:

Spoiler :

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That is a very nice screenie.

but....

vincentz said:

...Loved Civ1, crazy about civ2 (ToT), not so much civ3, and really enjoying civ4, hated civ5 when it came out, coz I wanted a Civ4BtS+++ and got PGCiv5.
I was ready for some civ5 now (coz civ4 is played "thin" so to speak) but the more i see/read the more I know I will still be disappointed/irritated over it.
I do like some features though (Ranged (not the archer thing which is silly imho), Limited Resources, and prolly some more I cant remember on top of my head.
What I'm most disappointed over though is that they didnt took it "to the next level", but instead cut a heel and cut a toe (danish expression that most likely wont make any sense, but cant find a good alternative)....

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Other than describing yourself as "irritated" with Civ 5, this basically was you reading my mind. I was disappointed with it, but I understand that lots of people like it more and so stick with my older games for the time being.

Lord Silverkey said:

Other than describing yourself as "irritated" with Civ 5, this basically was you reading my mind. I was disappointed with it, but I understand that lots of people like it more and so stick with my older games for the time being.

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Yeah, but look at the two screenshots above. One of them actually almost looks like an aerial photograph, the other is civ4 And while graphics isnt everything, it does have an impact. Also especially the siege weapons which were just really dumb in civ4 seems to have been fixed, and with the dll out, at least some modders could implement if not stacks, then atleast some army system. I reckon its ALOT easier to teach the civ5 AI how to use stacks than it is for civ4 to do 1upt, heck maybe it even improves the AI warfare, which afaicu (asfarasIcanunderstand ) isnt the best.

edit : but then I see something like this, and then its just

JanghanHong said:

Spoiler :

I think we can all agree, that the past is over.

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Do you know what difficulty level that game was played on?

That looks like Immortal to me. Maybe Emperor.

vincentz said:

Yeah, but look at the two screenshots above. One of them actually almost looks like an aerial photograph, the other is civ4 And while graphics isnt everything, it does have an impact.

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More for some people than for others, while I do prefer the graphics in Civ 5 to Civ 4, they are very, very low on my list of things that make me like a game. Game mechanics mean an awful lot more to me.

vincentz said:

Also especially the siege weapons which were just really dumb in civ4 seems to have been fixed, and with the dll out, at least some modders could implement if not stacks, then atleast some army system. I reckon its ALOT easier to teach the civ5 AI how to use stacks than it is for civ4 to do 1upt, heck maybe it even improves the AI warfare, which afaicu (asfarasIcanunderstand ) isnt the best.

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When you say that siege weapons were dumb in Civ 4, are you thinking of the game as a whole? Or just vanilla? Because I actually quite liked how they worked in BTS. And yes, If someone modded Civ 5 to add unit stacks, remove bombarding (because combined with unit stacks you could have, say 20 longbowmen on the same square and obliterate everything that comes within 3 spaces, ) and make cities no longer have the ability to fight, (this one's not so important to me, if they were the only thing that could bombard it wouldn't have balance issues) and actually get the AI to be able to play well with it, I'd definitely give it a go. Just as an afterthought, is anybody actually making something like this? (or has already made it and I'm just ignorant of the fact?)

Windsor said:

Do you know what difficulty level that game was played on?

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Emperor, it is was an overpowered game. I popped a pantheon hut in turn 15 or so and started with 7 nearby wines. I can give you the save game at the moment it pops pantheon hut if you like

I also settled on a marble (just 1 turn used) and could snatch up great library, national college, temple of Artemis, and the hanging gardens by turn 70. You also start next to mentally handicapped ottomans and jungle Persia who refuse to build cities for some reason. I like super powered starts since I like how you feel like an alien race compared to other civs.

I also have emperor save for the Huns that find el dorado and warrior upgrade to ram on turn 8 right next to your nearest rival capital.

JanghanHong said:

Emperor, it is was an overpowered game. I popped a pantheon hut in turn 15 or so and started with 7 nearby wines. I can give you the save game at the moment it pops pantheon hut if you like

I also settled on a marble (just 1 turn used) and could snatch up great library, national college, temple of Artemis, and the hanging gardens by turn 70. You also start next to mentally handicapped ottomans and jungle Persia who refuse to build cities for some reason. I like super powered starts since I like how you feel like an alien race compared to other civs.

I also have emperor save for the Huns that find el dorado and warrior upgrade to ram on turn 8 right next to your nearest rival capital.

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Interesting. So ancient ruins are still in God mode then? No offense, but if I wanted to power game similar to what you mentioned above, I'd just go into world builder.

Reminds me of a couple of games I played in a row on vanilla civ v where Ghandi powered up to rifles just after a couple of pops. Pretty much ruined both games for me, and I haven't really been interested ever since. Looks like G&K hasn't really fixed that issue.

Drakarska said:

Interesting. So ancient ruins are still in God mode then? No offense, but if I wanted to power game similar to what you mentioned above, I'd just go into world builder.

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No offense, but if I played both civ 4 AND civ 5. I would know that the random events in civ4 was much more game breaking than lucky re-rolling combined with min/maxing a civ (byz) that underperforms 9/10 times but can get a lucky break based on good geography and careful planning. I specifically tailored the game to see what the Byzantines are capable of if the stars aligned.


I posted it to show off a beautiful vineyard river valley to show how pleasant it could look in civ5. And the best thing you could tell me was that I should stop cheating. As if winning a single player game gave you some trophies.


I am a fan of civ 3,4 and 5. I played non-stop ever since, but I am starting to dislike people like you who think that people who play civ5 was born last Tuesday and are actively trying to wrest away your precious birthright franchise from your cold, shriveled fingers.

Y'know, people are allowed to dislike the current version as well as to like it.

Seriously, the saving grace of the Civ series is that they don't just tweak different versions. Civ 5 is, by far, my least favorite (I don't count Civ Rev as a serious entry.) But I will see what happens with Civ 6. In particular, I'd rather see them fix what I view as the generic problems with the series rather than recreating prior entries.

For me, the #1 problem is that I can rarely actually complete the game - since there are simply too many hours between "I have this won" and the actual end.

People also do an amazing variety of things with Civ, and again Civ 5 leaned so heavily towards the wargame style it made the series a lot less fun for those of us who don't like that aspect. Again, in my view there are many games that do the war side better than Civ ever has. Especially since the AI here, as in most computer games, is terrible at the sort of tactics the design emphasizes.

The empire building aspects, by contrast, I liked. If you like a tactical wargame you'd feel different, and I'm glad that you enjoy this outing. I'll continue to lobby for a new entry that suits my style better.

JanghanHong said:

No offense, but if I played both civ 4 AND civ 5. I would know that the random events in civ4 was much more game breaking than lucky re-rolling combined with min/maxing a civ (byz) that underperforms 9/10 times but can get a lucky break based on good geography and careful planning. I specifically tailored the game to see what the Byzantines are capable of if the stars aligned.


I posted it to show off a beautiful vineyard river valley to show how pleasant it could look in civ5. And the best thing you could tell me was that I should stop cheating. As if winning a single player game gave you some trophies.


I am a fan of civ 3,4 and 5. I played non-stop ever since, but I am starting to dislike people like you who think that people who play civ5 was born last Tuesday and are actively trying to wrest away your precious birthright franchise from your cold, shriveled fingers.

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Wow bro, on tilt much? it was merely an observation based on my opinion from your post. Since I play modded BTS primarily as opposed to vanilla BTS, I haven't really observed any game breaking mechanics in any of the mods that I play. As for the eye candy your touting as if it was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, I'm just not a fan ( it is supposed to be an opinion after all).
Similarly, the pc spec req's to get that glossy pic is IMO way unnecessary. My son has a brand new mid-rng HP laptop, and all the settings have to be on low, or else the game is slow as hell. On my PC ( which is also a HP), I can have all the settings on high, but I still have to tweek the amount of civ's and city states or else it begins slow down during the ME. Thus making playing huge maps pointless ( which it is anyway, as there is going to be a lot of unused land that just sits there looking lonely ). Compare that to BTS RI mod, huge map, all settings maxed, and I have absolutely no long turn times, slow down, or graphic issues. Hell, even the rivers look prettier .
just a recommendation, you might want to turn down the rage knob a couple of notches, as I am actually not trying to trash your beloved game. Although, if you are indeed that insulted over a harmless observation, then of course your more then welcome to take your toys out of the sandbox and go home

Moderator Action: Just a warning, the arguments in this thread are starting to become personal, if this continues the thread will be closed
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I started with Civ2, added Fanstastic Worlds, and was hooked. Civ3 whetted my appetite, and added features (like armies, cultural borders, and the end of "stack death") that I just loved. Like another person who posted in this thread, I found that most Civ3 civs played the same. If one had an early UU, one had to be more careful about accidentally starting the (one and only ) golden age too early. But Civ3 let you build an empire, with specialized cities, upgraded units and resources that had to be hooked up. These features formed the base of the franchise for several years, including 2 expansion packs (BTW and C3C). N.B. the military victory conditions were two: conquest, where you conquered every city of every other player, or domination, where you controlled a set percentage of the land, and of the population.

Civ4 added more resources, more units, and several new game mechanics. Great People -- which ones to produce, what to do with them. Religion became a factor in diplomacy, and religious units (hearkening back to the economic units of Civ2 which were omitted from Civ3) meant that you had tactical as well as strategic decisions to make. Two expansion packs, and espionage was amped up over Civ3, again hearkening back to the espionage units from Civ2. Combat had a rock-paper-scissors feel to it, which required decisions about what units to build, which ones to keep alive and promote, and which to treat as disposable. The idea of promoting units, and specializing cities, led Civ4 enthusiasts to carry out many small-scale optimizations in the course of building a multi-faceted empire. Conquest and domination (a la Civ3) were still on the table.

To the OP: Civ5 is a different game. I had read Sulla's essay, and some of the anger-filled posts when it came out, and I bought it anyway. I tried to approach it with an open mind, viewing it as a reboot. Think of JJ Abrams new Star Trek movies, compared with The Wrath of Khan or Undiscovered Country. The character is still named Kirk, Scotty or McCoy, but they're not the same.

Yes, there are units which get promotions -- but they move and attack differently. Yes, there are cities which get buildings -- but many times one must build a certain buildings in all cities to build a certain small/national wonder. One has an option to puppet a city which you've conquered, which changes how that city affects the rest of your empire, and the decisions you make about it. Many players perform different terrain improvements around puppets than cities they have founded.

New features in Civ5 that I find compelling: embarkation and city-states. Any unit can swim, if it needs to, after researching the right tech. Back in Civ3, I had to wait until Map Making to even touch a tile across the bay, and would groan when I lost a galleon full of knights (shades of Civ2 stack death!) Now, I can begin exploring with an embarked scout, and can find goody huts/ruins early in the game. City-states are a little like Civ4 vassals, in that they can help you, but they are not trying to win the game.

Features in Civ5 that I find less satisfying: change to domination VC, and the ratchet aspect of social policies. Once adopted, a social policy is forever. In both Civ3 and Civ4, one considered whether to change governments or civics every 10 turns or so. As a person who is accustomed to taking all the land I can get, I miss the Civ3 and Civ4 style of domination (take over the world) vs. the Civ5 style (kill the original capital).

Civ5 represents a new challenge in the genre, and makes me exercise different mental muscles. Consider what aspects of Civ4 you enjoy most, and which Civ4 empires you took the greatest satisfaction in building. Realize that your Civ5 empire will look different, and will be managed/operated differently. If the disconnect is too much, you won't enjoy the game. But since they have been discounting it recently, you may want to make the investment to try for yourself.

whyidie said:

Played Civ1 years after its release, so I viewed it through a less critical lense. Plus, it was the FIRST of its kind for me. I didn't know of any other games in the genre. It was my introduction. Civ2 is an even fainter memory, it seems all the features I remember about 2 were in 1 or 3!

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Civ 1 will always be the 'true' Civ for me - the sequels are good games based on the classic, but just not the same. Of course it's been unplayable due to changes in formats and system specs for many years, and unlike many classic games has never been made available via Good Old Games or Steam, so it is likely to forever remain a nostalgic memory.

Civ3 I enjoyed start to finish.

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I have memories of not much liking 3 compared with the others, but I don't really remember why. It may have been as trivial as the clumping of resources in the landscape - to me Civ was always first and foremost about the exploration, and Civ 3's 'random' maps were just too predictable.

Civ4 I left on bad terms. I think it was decades of dealing with similar frustrations. Civ4 was taking on the burden of the mistakes it inherited from not just Civ but many other games of the genre. That left us on sour terms. Of course, I put years into it and did get a lot of enjoyment out of the game, even more than 3, but I have fonder memories of 3.

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I remember playing Civ IV a lot at the time, but I've tried going back to it a few times since Civ V came out and there are some elements that just seem a bit too badly-done. The diplomatic system pretty much reached its nadir for me - it's easily-exploitable with passive positive modifiers, there were weaknesses in the presentation (the 'you can only choose these options' interface made it seem tutorial-mode diplomacy, where in previous Civ titles and Civ V you can try offering anything and see what the response is), and while the situations are rare I can't get over the cases where you end up fighting enemies in a neutral civ's cities - just knowing that that can happen is completely immersion-breaking and removes any sense that your rival civs actually have motivations and interests of their own rather than being modifier-based code.

On top of that, coming back to the game you see just how much is unnecessary or even antithetical to strategic play. Why can you produce things so quickly that you soon run out of anything to produce that isn't units? It takes away a lot of the decision-making when you can spam units or improvements, you can change improvement types on a whim because the workers are all on speed, and if you mismanage your population growth or fail to produce a key building in time you can just rush it to completion/kill off surplus people with slavery.

It's been mentioned above that you can have a lot of cities and devote a certain proportion of them to unit production, and end up with a giant mass of units. In practical terms that's identical to a system with smaller numbers of units, smaller numbers of cities, and production times adjusted accordingly. So why would you want a system that requires you to use tedious numbers of cities and units to achieve the same result?

And overall I agree with you that there was just too much cumulative crap piled on in each Civ incarnation. Civ IV trimmed the overburdened Civ III tech tree, but there was an unnecessary excess of nearly everything else. To some extent, Civ is still to me a game of three eras, each with 7 Wonders, and every game since the first has diluted that concept with greater and greater quantities of wonderspam and less and less symmetry between eras. Not only were there not 7 ancient Wonders in Civ IV, it was missing three of the classic Wonders of the World, making the name of the special projects something of a misnomer. Civ V at least re-added the missing three in DLC (but there are still too many Wonders - a number genuinely deserve a place, including Petra and Hubble, but they've been accompanied by an awful lot of random tourist sites).

Drakarska said:

Interesting. So ancient ruins are still in God mode then? No offense, but if I wanted to power game similar to what you mentioned above, I'd just go into world builder.

Reminds me of a couple of games I played in a row on vanilla civ v where Ghandi powered up to rifles just after a couple of pops. Pretty much ruined both games for me, and I haven't really been interested ever since. Looks like G&K hasn't really fixed that issue.

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They fixed that specific one in a pre-G&K patch - you can only get a weapon upgrade once per unit.

Marble is over the top - or, at least, it's over the top that finding and settling marble gives you an intrinsic advantage (on top of buildings/religious selections that use it) and no other resource does. And ruins are I think much too common in the landscape (if they're going to have potentially very strong positive effects, bring back spawning barbarians from ruins as a risk factor. Exploration loses its edge without risk as well as reward, something I found with both Civ IV and Civ V). They should also remove the two 'goodie' Natural Wonders.

I rolled Wu in my latest game so played aggressively - unfortunately one of my rivals was Attila, and that's another issue. Differences in AI personality and behaviour are one thing, but insofar as balancing those differences is possible you should never be in a situation where the particular civs you find yourself sharing the world with make the game substantially easier. Attila has the game's most atrocious combat AI - it still acts as though the battering ram is the spearman it replaces, so Attila will suicide rams on the defensive, try to block units with them, move them through forests and hills, and hold them back from cities instead of attacking. And he'll do so long after they become obsolete technology as well.

Similarly, the pc spec req's to get that glossy pic is IMO way unnecessary. My son has a brand new mid-rng HP laptop, and all the settings have to be on low, or else the game is slow as hell. On my PC ( which is also a HP), I can have all the settings on high, but I still have to tweek the amount of civ's and city states or else it begins slow down during the ME. Thus making playing huge maps pointless ( which it is anyway, as there is going to be a lot of unused land that just sits there looking lonely ).

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I always had that issue with my last laptop, and other recent games (Shogun 2 was worse for it than Civ V), but I replaced mine a couple of weeks ago and both games have been very smooth even in the late game with a lot on the board (aircraft attacks are still somewhat slow, though).