Is civ5 worth buying it?

LDiCesare said:

Well, the OP goes:

So, strictly, not answering whether it's better than Civ 4 or not if off-topic.

Click to expand...

Oops, got my "is it worth buying?" threads mixed up. Easy to do when there are so many of them...

Buy civ 5?

Honestly? No - if you really want it wait until it's on sale along with the expansion. It definitely is not a finished product yet, and although mechanics may improve, until there is a significant fix to the abysmal AI I cannot recommend this game in good conscience except at a significant discount.

I began with Civ Rev on the PS3. I tried Civ IV a few times but it was too advanced for me, too slow in pace and the graphics are old and the music in the early eras too annoying so I couldn't really get into it.

Civ 5 is amazing for me. Bear in mind I have not played the vanilla though. I have only played it with G&K. Aside from the wonky diplomacy and lack of Economical victory I give it a 10/10 for sounds, graphics, civs, combat (1UPT) and replayablility.

A must buy (with G&K at least).
easily my favourite turn based strategy game of all time right now.

If you had asked this a year ago, yes. But you can probably wait a bit and get it hugely discounted.

Darkfeather said:

If you had asked this a year ago, yes. But you can probably wait a bit and get it hugely discounted.

Click to expand...

True. But a year ago the game was barely playable. Now it's nothing short of amazing.

wazzzuup said:

Is civ5 worth buying it? say why or why not!
is it better than civ4 why or why not.

Thanks

Click to expand...

It's worth buying if you like to experience a game worse than one released 21 years ago.

Seriously if you want to stay within the Civ series stick with Civ 4 or one if its mods. If you want a strong, in-depth strategy game that hasn't sold out which has come out this year, I reccomend CK 2.

LDiCesare said:

People who like to cruise through their game and builders may find it more interesting.

Click to expand...

Actually builders will find it an extremely frustrating game. The one right strategy is to build the few early era direct effect buildings (everything else being too dear, too weak or probably both), spam cities, and abuse the GScis and RAs.

At higher levels it gets even more exploitative, as the AI will buy resources they need off you for the money they can't otherwise spend, giving you Deity AI levels of income against an AI algorithm that doesn't have near your capability to exploit that kind of advantage.

With GK, GOTY and at the lower price (and if you can tolerate interfering Steam) then I think it`s worth it.

However, if Civ4 was remade with the new Leader animations and the no-stacking system then Civ4 would win by a mile. Even without that, Civ 4 is still a better, more mature and involving game, so it will never leave my collection, especially since I never know when i`ll lose the internet and then `NO CIV5 BECAUSE WE CAN`T CONNECT YOU!`

At least with Civ4 Complete I know i`ll still be playing that in years to come installed on or offline.

Socratatus said:

With GK, GOTY and at the lower price (and if you can tolerate interfering Steam) then I think it`s worth it.

However, if Civ4 was remade with the new Leader animations and the no-stacking system then Civ4 would win by a mile. Even without that, Civ 4 is still a better, more mature and involving game, so it will never leave my collection, especially since I never know when i`ll lose the internet and then `NO CIV5 BECAUSE WE CAN`T CONNECT YOU!`

At least with Civ4 Complete I know i`ll still be playing that in years to come installed on or offline.

Click to expand...

What are you talking about you don't need Internet to play ciV. you can play off line

I think that IV > V but V + GnK >>> IV + BtS.

Personally as soon as I read the new stuff I couldn't play cIV anymore.
The stack seems so limited. 1 upt wars are fun, and really reflect techno changes (knights change everything, then musket then Gatling then artillery then flight then battleship then tanks then NB). It's always new and play accordingly!

- religion polarized diplo is so one dimensional. The new religious system is so versatile and rich, i feel like i barely started to scratch the surfave. all the belief seems so good! might need some tweaking but it is on the way.

- the diplo is at last logical and interesting. It was simple: just needed to implement a friend of my friend are my friend kind of logic and tweak it a bit. International gets often polarized between two groups of friends who hate each other, and a bunch of war criminal. You can really influence the opinion the AI got of you by denouncing or declaring friendship. Before it used to be that you could do anything as soon as you shared religion, but If it wasn't the case they would hate you even if it was detrimental to them.

- The global happiness system is interesting because it forces you to choose between tall and wide, and the solution is not always to build a bunch of cities and stop their growth after a fixed number, and if you forgot well sucks for you. Winning with one city is no longer a tribute of the AI ineptitude to run an empire, but a tribute to the power of a tall empire.

- the AI, if sometimes quite poor with its troop feel reactive and will pursue victory. I find myself finishing most of my game for the first time in the series.

But I'll give you that vanilla, with all those good idea wasn't really enjoyable due to balance issue. But after gnk it is awesome and I'm having my best civ moments ever (fan since II).

Go buy it man!

Socratatus said:

especially since I never know when i`ll lose the internet and then `NO CIV5 BECAUSE WE CAN`T CONNECT YOU!`

At least with Civ4 Complete I know i`ll still be playing that in years to come installed on or offline.

Click to expand...

Is this a PC issue? I got mine off the mac store and it plays offline. Not a prob.

Denounced said:

Is this a PC issue? I got mine off the mac store and it plays offline. Not a prob.

Click to expand...

You made a wise choice. The Mac version has no Steam.

Unfortunately, I`ll have to save and buy a whole Mac in my case.

Socratatus said:

You made a wise choice. The Mac version has no Steam.

Unfortunately, I`ll have to save and buy a whole Mac in my case.

Click to expand...

There are two Mac versions: the one from the App Store has no Steam, while the one from Steam (unsurprisingly) and the boxed version use Steam. Yes, I am going to get myself a MacBook Pro.

@PhilBowles

Well, not really since science was the be-all and end-all... Gold wasn't much use for anything past city maintenance, so as long as you either had a stockpile to sustain negative income or your income was at least 0, you mainly just wanted to maximise science. Adding espionage to the slider was a nice touch, but I rarely found a need for it since Great Spies gave you such a huge boost.

Click to expand...

I know you like to critique every contrary view in the light of your infintie wisdom ...
... but this is just BS.

Science is the be-all/end-all of ONE style of play.
I have played many, many games where the slider is on 0% science.
How many times going to war ...
... the player's first reaction is zeroing science and increasing culture and espionage.
... ... 1) fights war weariness
... ... 2) funds city security breaches allowing nonsiege attacks against citys
... ... 3) increases wartime intel on enemy
... ... 4) terror campaign against enemy (poison,unhappy,etc)

Religious culture games go 0% science and 100% culture after liberalism.
Production culture games either don't use science slider after classical era or zero it after Eiffel/Broadway/Rock-n-Roll/Hollywood.
Just because you have a myopic style of play ...
... don't claim it is the ONLY way the game is played.

The truth is, the slider is a barter system for trade commerce.
It adds complexity in a way completely lacking in Civ 5.
If you don't understand that simple fact, then Civ 5 is probably the right game for you.

RD-BH said:

Just because you have a myopic style of play ...
... don't claim it is the ONLY way the game is played.

Click to expand...

Interestingly, this congnitive oversimplifying of civ 4 mechanics has been undertaken repeatedly by people who never understood the depth of civ 4 and therefore have claimed that it is not such a deep game either compared to civ 5. The most classic example is the "build the larger stack and win" mantra, which is supposed to defend the 1UPT concept and show that it is strategically rich compared to the stacking system. Of course the parole may have been true on difficulties up to warlord, but totally ignores the issues related to it on higher difficulties, like maintenance, stack composition, enemy collateral damage, dealing with chokepoints, war weariness and more. Another is what was mentioned here, the slider system, aka "You always put as much research as possible without losing gold", which once again totally neglects the many other ways of playing, as well as slider micromanagement in certain styles. Yet a third is the civics system, where the mantra goes "You never changed your civics anyway once you got the best ones". These people apparently have not realized that there are no "best" civics, or better that they totally depend on the situation and how you play. They don't know of the globe theatre/draft strategy for nationalism, or when mercantilism or free market are more beneficial, and never used vassalage/theocracy to gain that decisive little advantage over their opponent.

I could go on, there are many more examples. If civ 4 was really such a simple game like so many civ 5 players claim, it wouldn't hold the interest of still countless fans who play the game again and again. It wouldn't, after seven years, be way more popular than its successor, inviting players who have spent literally 10.000's of hours with the game to try yet new strategies and concepts. The war academy wouldn't be filled with numerous articles, some which include graphs and statistics and delve deep into the subtleties of the game's mechanics.

No, civ 5 players, the problem wasn't civ 4, it was you. If you never got passed noble difficulty, that is fine. But don't pretend you can judge how simple or deep civ 4 is based on your limited understanding of the game by repeating the same mantras again and again. That civ 5 is a lot simpler than its predecessor is not opinion it is fact. Why does this have to be so fanatically disputed? Just because you like a simple game doesn't mean you are stupid or or anything. Hey, I play Crysis occasionally, that doesn't make me a drooling idiot! Just accept it lol.

haroon said:

honestly no, I hardly enjoy it, I play civilization since dos and I never been so dissapoint like this. I hardly enjoy it really, the graphic seem so dull, there is no diplomacy they all just crazy cyborg that end up always in world war, there are no clear alliances, no politic, nothing. But the battle is awesome, that is the only things, call me weird I even don't like the hex system, not to mention about the goverment system it is so childish. For me, a real civilization is, civilization 4 with combat system like civ 5, oh really, if everybody can mention me a mod that meet my fantasy for civilization 4 combat system it will be splendid.

Click to expand...

Basically concur here. If I could get Civ 4 with Civ 5's combat system and no Steam i'd pay perhaps 70 bucks.
The only other really positive thing is the strategic resource change. I always thought it was stupid that one plot of oil could give you endless oil for all your troops. Perhaps in the future you will not only need oil to build but oil to supply your units. Perhaps 1 oil patch could supply 10 tanks.

I also like the city states although they are badly implemented.

Funky said:

No, civ 5 players, the problem wasn't civ 4, it was you. If you never got passed noble difficulty, that is fine. But don't pretend you can judge how simple or deep civ 4 is based on your limited understanding of the game by repeating the same mantras again and again. That civ 5 is a lot simpler than its predecessor is not opinion it is fact. Why does this have to be so fanatically disputed? Just because you like a simple game doesn't mean you are stupid or or anything. Hey, I play Crysis occasionally, that doesn't make me a drooling idiot! Just accept it lol.

Click to expand...

Simple and deep are not opposites.

Civ4 is not simple. It is quite complex, and it's fairly deep too.

Civ5 is both simpler and deeper, however.

Civ5 simplified the sliders removing them and replacing them with building maintenance. Your new "sliders" are what you build in a city and spend your gpt on. CHoosing what to build in a city is deeper than Civ4, where you could building spam without a drawback except for...

Health was removed but it was a needless complexity adder. You got less food in an unhealthy city...meh. Any city that needed to be bigger could build health buildings, but those buildings were only needed to counteract unhealthiness, and unhealthiness was only added to restrict big cities, but there was always...

Happiness on a city level is just added complexity. In Civ5 you still counteract unhappiness on a city level (local happiness) but at the same time you have to worry about your whole empire. It's a much simpler system, but with the varying levels of unhappiness from slight (which I consider normal though most or all of the game) to extreme (almost no production, no growth, no ability to found cities, and barbarians spawning in your lands), it's less of a task of spinning plates on 20 different poles and deciding what, if any, unhappiness is acceptable given the current situation.

One unit per hex is deeper, period. In fact, the reason the AI can't handle it as well as the stack of doom is exactly because it's deeper.

Bonuses are both more complex and deeper. Getting 2 traits from a leader isn't nearly as game changing as any one UA.

I could make a civ knockoff where you have cities of 10,000,000+ people late game and have to make every individual person hapy or they won't go to work and cut your money and production, where every solider must be armed, fed, and given medical attention every turn and training would have to be done manually. You have to play WHERE to put every building in your city and decide what it will do. The Goal of the game will be to have more population than anyone else by December 21, 2012, and in each case of battle, the army with more strength wins, period.

That game would be hugely complex, but quite simple with only one obvious goal and combat reduced to a simple judgement of which number is bigger. Civ5 is simpler, but deeper as well.

I was never a deity player on Civ 4 - but immortal I could handle (But apparently I can't "pass noble" - Face it Sulla dinosaurs Civ 5 has changed and a good portion of the base has mvoed onto the simple yet deep Civ 5). I still play Civ 4 occasionaly - I just can't play it for long anymore. Why? Because while I enjoyed having spammable cities and managing large empires - I just can't enjoy the style of play anymore. I played multi in Civ 4 and multi in Civ 5 - and there jsut is no comparison (excluding bugs and crashes). Civ 5 tactically is more deep than stacks of death - just being brutal here. Adjusting sliders during war/focuses to manage percentages isn't "more deep" than Civ 5, sorry to break it you. I always had fun with civ 4 religion blocks despite it probably not being good for actual gameplay... but the point is that it feels more involved and like it actually means something in Civ 5.
---

There aren't enough negative choices yet - but players/consumers in general don't want too many of those. But there are plenty of choices on what you want to do and how you want to play to make civ 5 entertaining to play continually. AI has been improved to a degree - but its still nothing like that of a human - and with multiplayer the actual system of Civ 5, is more deep, more complex, less liable to fall to luck rather than overall wit than Civ 4 ever was.

Civ V comes for free in Steam if you buy XCOM.

It's a bargain.

I have to admit that I have spent about $100 on CiV, but it was definitely worth it. Every DLC and expansion just adds that much more detail and playability.

If you prefer the older style of Civ, you can get all of the CIV and expansions for around $20. But it's not as good as the current CiV with all the expansions and DLC.

RD-BH said:

@PhilBowles


I know you like to critique every contrary view in the light of your infintie wisdom ...
... but this is just BS.

Science is the be-all/end-all of ONE style of play.

Click to expand...

Granted, the above was something of a pastiche responding to a claim that "gold is the be-all and end-all" in Civ V - you can play Civ IV in ways that don't emphasise science above all, but in exactly the same way you can play Civ V in ways that don't focus on gold production or trading (and I typically do). If there's an error, it's the failure to recognise in both cases that the games are both given to sandboxing of this sort.

However, Civ games are inherently games which have specific optimal strategies, and if your key goal is to win rather than to sandbox, there is a 'best way' to do so in Civ IV and that tends to involve maximising science. Your own examples below are mostly not of cases that actively improve your prospects of winning the game by cleverly adapting to the game situations you're presented with; they're just ways of doing things a certain way because you can - in a word, sandboxing. Sandboxing is not depth. I've made this distinction before - Go is a more complex game than chess because it has many more possible moves and hence strategies. It is not in any way a deeper game because, once you've settled on a strategy, the decision-making involved is no more complicated, and indeed is extremely similar. What defines a strong strategist is not how many options they have to reject, but how effectively they execute the one option they accept and how they adapt it to accommodate changing situations. Civ IV is no deeper in this regard than Civ V.

In Civ terms, Civ IV has many more improvement types than Civ V. But given certain terrain and a specific focus for your city, the decisions you make will be the same in both cases - if you have a production city, you want a mine on a hill in Civ IV. You want a mine on a hill in Civ V. The fact that you could instead have built a windmill in Civ IV but not Civ V does not add any extra depth to the decision-making process in that game.

I have played many, many games where the slider is on 0% science.
How many times going to war ...
... the player's first reaction is zeroing science and increasing culture and espionage.

Click to expand...

Not often; my first reaction was typically to adopt Hereditary Rule, the default war weariness counter, since my cities need garrisons anyway, war weariness isn't much of an issue until the war's gone on for a while (and so all that time you're not producing science when you don't need the happiness boost is wasted), and see my previous comment on espionage.

I'll concede the others as I rarely played cultural games. But that comes back to the above - sure, for sandbox variety Civ IV beats Civ V every time. That's unrelated to the relative depth in either game.