Civ 5 compared to Civ 4

First off, aethetics of cIV that I like:

Leonard Nimoy for technology, it really gave the game an epic feeling
Mini map looks better in cIV
The research progress bar makes the game feel more epic and gives you a sense of accomplishment when you complete a tech
Sounds effects bring game alive. Just the sound of the walking, commands, animals etc
Rivers and cottages look better
Wonder movies bring game alive
City Screen vastly better
Diplomacy better to navigate / more options. The negotiation screen makes you feel like you are forming part of history because it takes up the whole screen along the sides. Having all the text crammed at the bottom like in ciV highlights the lack of diplo in the game

Gamepay –
Tech and production rate feels more balanced and natural. In civ 5 teching is too fast and production far too slow to compensate for the congestion from 1UPT. In civ 4, it is almost perfectly balanced and you never wait that long
Food resources are actually beneficial. In ciV usually they are worse than a normal tile. Such a terrible design decision.
Wonders and far funner to build. They are more powerful yet only the AP was OP, and the movies make you feel like something has been accomplished.
Speed is good – civ 5 speed is unacceptably slow. It takes so long to load a game or end a turn
Maintinance penalty far superior than global happiness as expansion nerf
Screen when making deals feels more epic, larger
Information far superior – graphs bring a sense of accomplishment
In-game worlbuilder is good for more light-hearted games
In 5, city specialisation doesn’t really work, in 4 it is a very useful strategy
You can have more than one trade route, in 5 you can only have one going to the capital
Great person special buildings are better and more powerful that in 5 where they are almost useless
Civ 4 has war weariness, Civ 5 has no war weariness, which would serve as a far better detterent that the terrible and boring puppet system and the massive happiness penalties.
Diplo victory isn't just a 'who has the most money'
The UN actually does something in civ 4
Civics represent the government more than SPs
Religion adds a lot of depth to the game
So do corporations
Diplomacy works, unlike in civ 5

Civ 5 that I like –

Everything graphic – wise not mentioned is better

Exploration is better, in civ 4 1-move units were very tedious, in 5 base moves are two, meaning that terrain as a movement hindrance matters more, meaning it is more tactical
Workers don't hinder growth when you construct them, which makes early game a lot funner
1 UPT altogether better. But it should be 1 UPTPC (per civ) and civilians should have no limit.
Producing science with population better and more logical than producing with gold. In civ 4, cottage spamming was a very OP tactic, it would give you a great economy and massive science, but in 5, science relies on population so it is more important to grow your cities, yet keep your economy going and get good production for science buildings.
In Civ 4 exploration units die too easily, in 5 units can be attacked and survive, making exploration far better and less frustrating.
Units not dying in combat vastly superior
Bonus to barbarians is useful
Combat odds better, I like to see the likelihood of me winning, and all the odds are presented far better
Encampments better than barbarians having cities, barbarian empires were always very silly
Unit stops after passing over lake – better and more realistic
Terrain matters far more, making the game more tactical and fun
Limited strategic resources funner and more realistic
The economy makes more sense – in civ 4 you could visibly change the amount of gold worked by a city and it would have no impact on net income
Mechanics are easier to understand. In civ 4, for example, I had no idea how trade routes work for a very long time but in 5 it is obvious.
Trade routes scale with city size – better and more realistic
I like global happiness
Great generals are better
In civ 4, apostolic palace ruins diplomatic victory
Instaheal is great for tactics.
Social policies add a progressive feeling to the game.
City-states are a great new feature that adds a lot of depth to the game
1UPT is fun
Ranged bombardment has been needed for years
The ability for cities to defend themselves is realistic and makes cities harder to conquer, in civ 4 they were very easy

I have probably missed a lot out.

So what do I draw from this? civ 5, altogether, looks far better and has a lot of good concepts that people seem to miss. But it fails on the really important bits, like balance between tech and research, diplomacy etc.

a few comments:

1. ranged bombardment was alive and well with civ 4 bombers and civ 3 artillery/bombers. maybe you meant "early game" ranged bombardment?
2. civ 4 cities, esp larger ones, were truly fortresses. they were enormously more difficult to take than in civ5, they just required a garrison instead of a catapult for defense.
3. I really liked nimoy, but the new guy has really grown on me. they're both excellent imho.

overall a nice analysis though.

civnoob13 said:

Diplomacy works, unlike in civ 5

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Diplomacy works in Civ 5, you just need to know how to work it.

Leonard Nimoy for technology/Wonder movies - each to their own. I'm one on those players that watched/listened to them all once and then disabled them. They got repetitive.

Religion adds a lot of depth to the game/So do corporations - to me these were both largely money making options. I don't miss them. Religion was annoying in that it often pre-determined relations with people you'd never met but good in that it fortified friendships.

Dale said:

Diplomacy works in Civ 5, you just need to know how to work it.

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Perhaps a better phrasing of Civ 5's diplomacy dilemma is that it requires the player to sacrifice too much to maintain good terms with anyone. In Civ 4 one could have a city's culture pushing against an allied city's culture without losing the ally in the end. Civ 5 requires you to keep your borders away from their borders completely or you'll lose that ally eventually.

There's also the issue of DoF giving you a relations bonus at the expense of constant one-way requests from the ally, unlike in Civ 4 where a close ally would pop up with actual trade offers that you could benefit from and got better deals through (although they were usually just offering some low-level naval research that you had skipped because you're on a lakes map). An ally in Civ 4 brought with them the opportunity for greater economic growth on both sides. In Civ 5, an ally just ends up requesting your only copy of Spices or 1/3 of your net gold income per turn and gets hissy if you decline. We have in Civ 5 a very good and clear reason to engage in regular trade with the AI: excess luxury resources. We gain something and they gain something with neither party having to sacrifice a part of their own strength to do so (as opposed to, say, a pigs for diamonds trade in Civ 4). But even though maintaining such a trade would be beneficial to the AI, it does not include fair trades in its ally calculations, only whether or not you fulfill its demands, regardless of the strain doing so might put on your empire.

Maintaining an alliance should be doable through actions that benefit both parties, such as fair trades of excess resources or declaring war on a mutually disliked third party. But the former yields no benefit at all and the latter eventually gets you branded a warmonger and the loss of the ally. You can certainly make the right maneuvers to maintain an ally, and the December patch was a big first step in that regard, but there's still some changes that need to be made for alliances to feel more natural.

The thing about diplomacy in civ 5 is that it is almost entirely based on flavours

For anyone who doesn't know, flavours determine an AI liking of civilizations. If they have a strong cultural flavour and a weak military flavour, they will like people with lots of culture, people with a weak military, and hate people with a weak culture or strong military. It has very little with what you actually do.

Also, with the new patch, we can actually see what the AI are thinking. It is very hard to build a meaningful relationship like in civ 4 simply due to the lack of positive modifiers. Being at peace for hundreds of years means nothing. Open borders means nothing. Similar social policies mean nothing. Fair deals mean nothing. A civ's likening or hatred of you is first based on flavours, then almost entirely on who is friends with who and who denounced who.

@cf_nz
I think that religion did alter diplomatic relations too much, but it is better than having no religions at all.

@ bryanw1995

1) yes, that's what I meant
2) I would call them fortresses. They just were tiles that were a little harder to take over. I think that civ 5 should allow multiple units in cities though.

Dunno, what would people write, if CiV were CIV (i.e. released earlier) and vice versa...

cf_nz said:

Religion adds a lot of depth to the game/So do corporations - 1 to me these were both largely money making options. I don't miss them. 2 Religion was annoying in that it often pre-determined relations with people you'd never met but good in that it fortified friendships.

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1 Corporations is, ofcourse, about moneymaking, but to avoid it became completely about money, they had yield boni too. Religions... oh those greedy bastards. Both Jesus and Buddha didnt care about money, but somehow greedy old men turned it around for themselves. There is nothing humble over the buddhist temples nor christian cathedrals.

2 A little bit like in real life you mean? Religion is one of the biggest factors of "Us and Them" in the world. Not so much now as before, but still enough (to much IMO)

A major part of why I play Civ games is how closely it models the real world. I get a chance to control the fate of a civilization throughout history and make decisions that leaders of that civ made.

After playing both Civ V and Civ IV, it feels like Civ IV is closer to reality.

Religion is a huge part of Civ IV, I like it since it's true in the real world. Historically, wars has been fought base on religious differences. In reality, different civilization views religion differently and that's closely modelled by the behavior of different AIs. Diplomacy base on flavors is not real. When is the last time a country declared war because it's neighbor doesn't focus in culture?

Science base on commerce is also realistic. In reality, major technological advances happen through government funded research. A more educated population is also a major factor in science. A poor country with a huge uneducated population generally doesn't have good tech.

Global Happiness in Civ V just isn't real. Why should a city become happy all of a sudden if a circus is build in a city far away? Why should a city in a warring empire become unhappy once the empire invaded a rival city? I see why the invaded city wouldn't be happy, but I don't think home cities should be affected negatively.

I do agree that Civ V introduced some good ideas.

Unit having 2 base movement improves game play. I think Civ 4 should have 2 base movement for infantries and 4 base movement for Calvary. With Mountains, Rivers, and Forest reducing movement by half. I never understood why it takes a promotion for you to use enemy road. In reality, if you are being invaded, you can either destroy the road so no one can use it, or everyone should be able to use the road.

One Unit per tile is also a good concept since it adds more strategic elements to the game. But having a archer attack two tiles away doesn't scale. A tile in game fits a city, it's unreal for any archery units to shoot an arrow across a city!!! I think Civ IV should be modified have a unit cap of 4 military units per tile. You will still be allowed to lay siege to a city with 32 units (8 attacking point for each city). Think about what that will do to game play -- 1. a city is easier to defend if it boarders a impassible mountain as enemy can not attack from that direction (although city will have limited tiles to work on) 2. a city is easier to defend if it boards a river as units attacking across river gets penalized unless the attacker has Amphibious promotion 3. 4 units per tile creates different army corps which requires a defender to defend the mini stack. 4. Specialized military units are more important than ever as you will be required to attack across river or defend from hill. Outnumbering your opponent will still be the main ways to archive victory similar to wars in real world. Strategies in war will become much more important.

Any thoughts?

Monopoly said:

Any thoughts?

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[1] Was it really necessary to necro a thread that is almost two years old?
[2] If you're trying to get a meaningful discussion at this point, you at least have to look at G&K, not vanilla Civ5, which includes religion.