Should I get the game now?

Lord Tirian said:

FfH is better. That's not a slight against Faerun (which is decent and fun enough) but the depth of FfH is immense. As a result, it feels like a different game while Faerun still feels like Civ5 with some fantasy-flavoured changes.

Even as a big Civ5 fan (I like Civ5 BNW more than Civ4 BtS), Civ4 is still better for mods and total conversions (also see Dune Wars and Planetfall). If you like mods, snapping up Civ4 for cheap is definitely worth it.

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Thanks, i might do that then. Honestly I'm not really interested in playing Civ 4 (as I really feel like Civ 5 satisifies my civilization experience but for a good fantasy mod I like the sound of it.)

Do you recommend Fall from Heaven 1 or 2? I guess 2 is the better one, it seems newer and more dynamic?

For some reason I find dealing with barbarians in Civ5 much more difficult than 4. In 4 they basically never interrupted me, even on high level play. In this game I'm having difficulty preventing the 4 movement mounted barbarians from stealing workers and pillaging tiles...

noto2 said:

For some reason I find dealing with barbarians in Civ5 much more difficult than 4. In 4 they basically never interrupted me, even on high level play. In this game I'm having difficulty preventing the 4 movement mounted barbarians from stealing workers and pillaging tiles...

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Hmmm I thought everyone said they were worse in 4. All you need for barbs is to keep 1 or 2 military units with your workers.
You should have scouts out searching for citystates and to continue exploring, keep your starting warrior around your worker.
If you see horsemen around then a spearmen is the best counter for that,

In Civ 4, they may not have been a problem if you built a Great Wall - also there were no such thing as "camps" that served as the "source/node" for barb spawns. Barbarian galleys/triremes spawning 3 squares outside your borders and pillaging fishing boats were extremely annoying however (since anything floating before caravels are generally and preferably ignored).

Redaxe said:

Do you recommend Fall from Heaven 1 or 2? I guess 2 is the better one, it seems newer and more dynamic?

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FfH 2. FfH 1 was the mod for Civ4 vanilla and when BtS came out, they decided to, more or less, start over, incorporate the lessons learned and so on. Hence, the mod became FfH 2 and is strictly superior.

Redaxe said:

Thanks. You haven't by any chance played Fallen Enchantress- Legendary Heroes have you? If so how do your experiences compare with that or with other fantasy 4X games.

FE:LH is the only fantasy 4x I have right now and while it's evolved to become a pretty decent game it still imo needs another expansion before it reaches its full potential so I'd be interested to try Fall from Heaven

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IMHO, although I do like FE:LH (it's a pretty good game), FFH is better.

As far as Fantasy 4X goes, I don't play that many of the games as I prefer historical. However, MoM was still super fun back in the day. Well, I bought a copy on Good old Games and actually, it's still fun. ^^

I played Age of Wonders I and II a lot. I am not really sure if AOW III is good or not, though as I haven't played it.

noto2 said:

For some reason I find dealing with barbarians in Civ5 much more difficult than 4. In 4 they basically never interrupted me, even on high level play. In this game I'm having difficulty preventing the 4 movement mounted barbarians from stealing workers and pillaging tiles...

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"Fogbusting" is used in high level play normally, as barbarian camps can't spawn where you can see. If you can afford it, place scouts on top of hills around your area, so that the camps don't spawn so close. This works better as Washington, actually, as he has +1 sight.

Not specific to barbarians, but ranged units have a fundamental unbalance in Civ 5. They deal good damage, but they don't take any; whereas melee units must take damage to deal it. Most people will use mostly range units, with a much smaller number of melee units to stop the ranged units getting attacked and to take cities.

I think you should.. firaxis has come out with beyond earth already so civilization 5 is much cheaper now than it used to be.

OP,

Wars before industrial or later era is counter productive most of the time. Also, you cannot have large empires like in Civ IV, you have to keep your civ limited to around 5 or less cities , or else you will be very inefficient. Basically you are playing Sim City for the first half of the game. Warfare in comparison to Civ IV is pretty bad, but some parts like religion is way more advanced in comparison

I recommend you read this, from Jon Shafer, who helped design the game, he points out where he made mistakes

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts/404789

Javiar said:

OP,

Wars before industrial or later era is counter productive most of the time. Also, you cannot have large empires like in Civ IV, you have to keep your civ limited to around 5 or less cities , or else you will be very inefficient. Basically you are playing Sim City for the first half of the game. Warfare in comparison to Civ IV is pretty bad, but some parts like religion is way more advanced in comparison

I recommend you read this, from Jon Shafer, who helped design the game, he points out where he made mistakes

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonshafer/jon-shafers-at-the-gates/posts/404789

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War can definitely be productive before the Industrial; I would argue it is required to win domination in a timely manner. It also depends on the map - if it's Continents you can get most of the continent before the other one finds you, then they have no warmongering penalties, and so you're set.

You most certainly CAN have large empires. They're much better in the long run, they just have a longer build time. If you're not worried about winning quickly, you can easily do 15-20 cities on Deity, although you do rarely get that much land to peacefully build them on. It's more difficult to make large empires, and in multiplayer they are worse because people can win more quickly in a tall empire, but they will be more powerful in the long run, which is not what you're making it sound like

Warfare is much better, the battle AI is much worse If you're into multiplayer, the warfare is much, much better with 1 unit per tile. If you're into single player, the AI does pose less of a militaristic threat as before, due to shoddy AI.

Jon Shafer only designed Civ 5, BNW and G&K were both done by others, he wasn't involved in them.

Arcaian said:

War can definitely be productive before the Industrial; I would argue it is required to win domination in a timely manner. It also depends on the map - if it's Continents you can get most of the continent before the other one finds you, then they have no warmongering penalties, and so you're set.

You most certainly CAN have large empires. They're much better in the long run, they just have a longer build time. If you're not worried about winning quickly, you can easily do 15-20 cities on Deity, although you do rarely get that much land to peacefully build them on. It's more difficult to make large empires, and in multiplayer they are worse because people can win more quickly in a tall empire, but they will be more powerful in the long run, which is not what you're making it sound like

Warfare is much better, the battle AI is much worse If you're into multiplayer, the warfare is much, much better with 1 unit per tile. If you're into single player, the AI does pose less of a militaristic threat as before, due to shoddy AI.

Jon Shafer only designed Civ 5, BNW and G&K were both done by others, he wasn't involved in them.

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Jon Shafer built the foundation (a rather bad one) and the 2 expansions built on that foundation. They didn't significantly alter the foundation so the same problems are still there as of now. They may have helped mask some of the problems and deficiencies with duct tape and bailing wire but they are still there.

Thormodr said:

IMHO, although I do like FE:LH (it's a pretty good game), FFH is better.

As far as Fantasy 4X goes, I don't play that many of the games as I prefer historical. However, MoM was still super fun back in the day. Well, I bought a copy on Good old Games and actually, it's still fun. ^^

I played Age of Wonders I and II a lot. I am not really sure if AOW III is good or not, though as I haven't played it.

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Hehe yeah I just actually installed civ 4 and FfH2 the other day. I must say its exceedingly well done just a shame it doesnt quite have the nicer terrain animations that civ 5 introduced.
Agree on FE:LH - it's by no means bad and I credit Stardock for continuing to patch it but I feel like it really needs an expansion before its worthy of being a timeless experience - the civ side of the game is weak & the heroes don't have a lot of diversity.

Javiar said:

I recommend you read this, from Jon Shafer, who helped design the game, he points out where he made mistakes

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It is a very interesting article, but I didn't feel like Shafer provided any insights to his mistakes, so I have no confidence he will be able to fix them.

How does that article help OP? Maybe warn him not to expect too much from diplomacy?

Thormodr said:

Jon Shafer built the foundation (a rather bad one) and the 2 expansions built on that foundation. They didn't significantly alter the foundation so the same problems are still there as of now. They may have helped mask some of the problems and deficiencies with duct tape and bailing wire but they are still there.

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I am actually quite impressed how much that foundation supported new features. I find it remarkable how fundamental Espionage, Religion, and Tourism are to the game, and how well integrated they are, when there was no hint of them when vanilla was released. I would very curious to know of their road map! I think probably Espionage and Religion were on the drawing board when vanilla shipped. But Ideologies and Tourism? So I think that for most aspects of the game, Shafer actually provided a rather robust foundation.

The game mechanic that was ill conceived, and is still disappointing, is the traits/flavors/bias. I guess I think it a neat idea conceptually, but I just can’t imagine how 50+ factors can lead to distinguishable personalities, especially when most are in the middle ranges.