Be honest! Who currently still prefers Civ IV?

If the Civ V patches and expansions add as much to the game as the Civ IV patches/expansions, Civ V will end up being the better game. At this point it's just not a fair comparison.

It may still be early, but I'm confident that my Civ IV days are behind me. I've been playing a marathon game on a huge map for about 6 hours. I'm absolutely wrapped up in it. I'd have played all night if I didn't have to be at work. I see these posts suggesting that Civ V was made for consoles or is another Civ Rev and I have to wonder if they've even played a single turn of the game. Civ V feels like a Civ game. It looks amazing on my machine as well. Rivers and oceans lap against the shore. The sun shines and glistens on the surface. All of the tile resources are animated with great detail. The clouds that make up the fog of war are beautifully rendered. I honestly think a lot of these posts are knee-jerk reactions or even lame troll attempts.

In 338 turns I've had a lot of great experiences that really make me enjoy the game. City-state interaction has been one of the most interesting. It adds a much needed layer to diplomacy. My capital started with almost no food producing resources. I had marble and spices in the vicinity, but nothing further. Because of that I befriended two maritime city-states I met while exploring who provided Washington with much needed food. Throughout the game other civilizations were announcing their protection or allegiance with other city-states. At one point a friendly city-state of mine asked me to eliminate one of it's rivals. However that particular state was under the protection of Montezuma. From previous interactions it was clear he was not the friendliest of leaders. He already had a second city up and I didn't feel like the risk was worth the influence I'd gain with my friendly city-state. There are many diplomatic decisions that will come about because of this addition. I loved the added complexity.

Speaking of diplomacy, I didn't find a need for the old +/- system of Civ IV. It was very clear to me how a civilization felt. Not long after meeting Alexander of Greece he made it clear to me how he felt when he came to my attention and apologized for confusing me with the barbarian scum he'd been wiping out. Point taken. You don't care for me. Catherine of Russia made it perfectly clear that she did not appreciate me becoming allies with a city state near her area of influence. It was obvious it spoiled our relationship. As I was moving my army north to eliminate Montezuma I had to pass by Chinese territory. Their leader came to me immediately and made it clear that she did not appreciate the show of force near her borders. I had to appease her and let her know I meant no harm. I signed open borders with her to show my respect and later she came to me with a research agreement. The interactions with civ leaders are perfectly obvious to human players. They will let you know where you stand.

Combat has been infinitely more fun than Civ IV. Using terrain to your advantage, positioning your units correctly, maximizing your promotions, it's all been thoroughly enjoyable. While attacking Montezuma I made sure to protect my archery units with spearmen at the front lines. I'd have additional spearmen just off to the side behind forests or hills to protect them from bombardment, then switch them out with a frontline spearmen after he took a few rounds' beating. I whittled away at their units and defenses until my spears could make a head on attack. After taking his first city the most direct route to his second was across open ground. His unique jaguar units would have eaten me alive. So having just discovered Optics I used a lake adjacent to his cities to flank the second city from the northwest where several forests and hills were available for cover. Again positioning my archers on the hills to fire over the forests into the city and using my spears as frontline defense, I was able to take over yet another city. I had to think about my positioning, when to swap frontline units, when to use promotions or quick heals, which of his units to dispense first. It was very refreshing compared to taking a stack of 6 tebuchets and 10 rifleman to decimate the city in one turn.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, just wanted to share my experiences so far. I doubt many will read it, but I've enjoyed every minute of the 5+ hours I played. I can't wait to get home tonight and continue the journey.

squadbroken said:

Sure doesn't seem that way. 99% of the complaints I've read boil down to people upset that it's not close enough to Civ 4.

Wah, I can't see diplomacy modifiers!
Wah, religion is gone!
Wah, no slider!

I've seen this sort of thing countless times before. Popular Game comes out with a sequal, and a bunch of self-styled hardcore fans pitch a fit because it isn't just a glorified expansion pack. So they kick their feet while and scream while everyone else enjoys the new game.

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Mis-characterizing the people who disagree with you as whiny, tantrum-throwing children does not make your opinion any more valid. It only serves to show how petulant you are.

Civ V is a dumbed-down version of the series, which became popular by not being a dumbed-down game. The only innovative ideas in V are city states, the change to Hexagons and only allowing one unit per tile. Everything else is either exactly the same, or reduced to insignificance. All of the interactivity, functionality & decision making which made the previous versions of the game so enjoyable were tossed out the window, so it is perfectly understandable for the fans of a series which thrived on those principles along with managing (note: not micro-managing) an empire to be underwhelmed.

People are not upset because it's not a re-skin of previous versions. They are upset because the foundation of what made the game great, is gone. Civ has changed from a game where you needed to manage & grow an empire into a simple war game. It's depth, which is what made the game so appealing to so many, is very weak now. Some questions or conflicts we as players used to ask/face were: Do I focus on research, or commerce? Do I give patronage to this AI so that they will like me enough to trade with them? Should I research this tech and use it to trade for another, or should I rely upon pointy-stick research? All of those choices are gone and Civ is now relegated to building structures without regard to an individual city's need and building military units for conquest. Very slow conquest, mind you.

They don't have to replicate every feature from each previous game, but when they replace one feature with another or change how those features are implemented, the very least they could do is make the changes interactive for the player. They didn't, and that is why Civ V fails to meet people's expectations.

put civ5's graphics and hex system into civ4 and that is what I would prefer. Many of the new "features" or lack there of are obviously inferior to Civ4 BTS. Its still coming along, expect hundreds of DLC's in attempt to make it better. Oh and speaking of anybody look at the MP server!! HAHA what a joke, there was like 5 games hosted when i logged in, in civ4 there are probably more than that going atm. They have killed off multiplayer I'm afraid.

Aegis said:

Mis-characterizing the people who disagree with you as whiny, tantrum-throwing children does not make your opinion any more valid. It only serves to show how petulant you are.

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Except it's true, so it's hardly a mischaracterization.

Civ V is a dumbed-down version of the series, which became popular by not being a dumbed-down game. The only innovative ideas in V are city states, the change to Hexagons and only allowing one unit per tile. Everything else is either exactly the same, or reduced to insignificance. All of the interactivity, functionality & decision making which made the previous versions of the game so enjoyable were tossed out the window, so it is perfectly understandable for the fans of a series which thrived on those principles along with managing (note: not micro-managing) an empire to be underwhelmed.

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Civ has never been complex or hardcore and you're delusional if you think otherwise. It has always been the strategy game for casuals.

People are not upset because it's not a re-skin of previous versions. They are upset because the foundation of what made the game great, is gone. Civ has changed from a game where you needed to manage & grow an empire into a simple war game. It's depth, which is what made the game so appealing to so many, is very weak now. All Civ is now is building structures without regard to an individual city's need and building military units for conquest. Very slow conquest, mind you.

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What exactly is this foundation that is missing?

They don't have to replicate every feature from each previous game, but when they replace one feature with another or change how those features are implemented, the very least they could do is make the changes interactive for the player. They didn't, and that is why Civ V fails to meet people's expectations.

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On the contrary, Civ 5 apparently has exceeded many peoples expectations, if we are to go by reviews (from both professionals and users). Most of the whining is from a bunch of die-hards who loathe change. As I mentioned before, it's the same thing I've seen on dozens of message boards whenever a sequel for a game comes out and it's not identical to the previous one.

edit: see the post above mine for proof.

Of course CivIV is going to seem better. It's patched to the gills and has 2 expansions in it. Also will runs fast as hell on today's hardware.

That's the one thing I miss, with my 4 year old computer (but damned beefy for 4 years old, 4gb RAM, 64 bit, 3ghz dualcore), Civ5 turns are hourglass-fests even in the BC years. I'm at 1000AD and dreading establishing anymore colonies...

But, it's pretty much to be expected. Just gotta give it some time, and get used to how the game plays first. It's frustrating going from playing Monarch and higher levels to being a Chieftain noob again...

squadbroken said:

Except it's true, so it's hardly a mischaracterization.

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The only person being overly dramatic & theatrical is you and your characterization of people who dislike the game.

Civ has never been complex or hardcore and you're delusional if you think otherwise. It has always been the strategy game for casuals.

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Please point out where I said that it was complex or hardcore.

It's okay. I'll wait.

What exactly is this foundation that is missing?

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You quoted it. The fundamental philosophy of the game has changed.

edit: see the post above mine for proof.

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Proof sans the throwing of a fit, screaming and the kicking/stamping of the feet, you mean.

May Day 10 said:

the hang-up with me is that I played a lot of Vanilla Civ IV, was never really that good, and eventually moved on. I recently broke it out in my excitement for V. At this point I have researched some awesome strategies and ways to play and am only beginning to really grasp all the awesomeness that is Civ IV. I have played it right up until the 20th. I have finally grasped how to use religions, GPs, production cities, etc...

After playing V last night, to be honest, all I can think about now is playing Civ IV this weekend.


And I havent even really scraped much of the surface of BTS or Warlords yet.

My problem is that Civ IV never had a chance to get stale with me and I feel like every game I play I enjoy it more and more. I am convinced its a near perfect game, and probably the best ever created. It hasnt run its course yet with me.

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I sort of feel the same way. I was still enjoying Civ IV with BTS and the "Better AI" mod. I loaded up Civ V, and after playing two hours, I was BORED.

Yes, I know I need to give Civ V more of a chance.

But I think that Civ IV is a game like chess in that you can play it your whole life.

I also like the Civ IV interface a lot better. When it's time to build something in a city, thebuild menu just pops up. When you need to select something to research, a selection window just pops up. Civ V make me click a bar at the bottom right which is annoying and slows up the game.

The fundamental philosophy has not changed, unless you think twiddling with the slider was the core of it.

Imho: Civ V is easy to learn and hard to master. The learning curve is pretty steep under the shiny surface and ive seen the difference between my first few demo games and the last ones (european *sigh*). You can make a lot of wrong decisions in the first few turns. Reading the map and balance food/happines/social politics/production/special abilities of the leader is more challenging as in Civ4

Alpha centauri is better than both.

If it wasn't for Civ IV's LoR mod not working online, I'd still prefer Civ IV.

But since LoR doesn't work online (properly), Civ V > Civ IV imo.

Ashbery76 said:

Alpha centauri is better than both.

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Can't argue with that, the Alpha Centauri formula was flawless--if it had a graphic/interface/tech upgrade I'd still be playing it daily as opposed to frequently.

Civ has never been complex or hardcore and you're delusional if you think otherwise. It has always been the strategy game for casuals.

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Perhaps but there was always a game for micromanagers. Now much of that is gone or incomplete and what we have left is only a game for casuals.

Buccaneer said:

Perhaps but there was always a game for micromanagers. Now much of that is gone or incomplete and what we have left is only a game for casuals.

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Don't worry, I'm sure someone will eventually make a mod with dozens of sliders you can twiddle with.

Could someone make a mod that has similar rules as Civ 4 and just better graphics? I mean I enjoyed Civ 4 so much, why change such a good model? They did not need to start from scratch, now its too simplistic and we have to wait until someone fixes it.

Schuesseled said:

When a unit gets a level up theres an efdit button underneath the promotions pop up interface. click on that.

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But otherwise you can't edit the name?

I also like the Civ IV interface a lot better. When it's time to build something in a city, thebuild menu just pops up. When you need to select something to research, a selection window just pops up. Civ V make me click a bar at the bottom right which is annoying and slows up the game.

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Agreed.

I just don't understand why the main complaint of Civ V seems to be that it's not Civ IV. Why would you WANT it to be Civ IV? Didn't we just play that for 5 years?

If I'm going to play a sequel, I want it to have fundamental differences from the previous game. I don't want it to have all of the EXACT same features from the previous game with just upgraded graphics. What does it even matter at that point? If all Civ V did was add hexes and 1UPT to the game, can you imagine how many people would be running here crying about how little it's changed?

It's interesting that they took out religion. It's interesting that 1 resource no longer allows you to build 150 Swordsmen. It's interesting that it's now Global Happiness rather than city by city. Whether you think "interesting" equals a good or bad thing, it's all opinion and none of us are truly "right."

But I just don't understand why so many people are looking for Civ V to just be a slightly upgraded Civ IV. I didn't wait 5 years to play an expansion pack, I want to play a game that has a lot of different elements to it. And this game achieves that. And if you think those changes are bad, then I guess you can go back to Civ IV and play that. But honestly, I find the changes welcome and fun to experience. No it's not perfect, yes I have things that I would like to see patches/expansion packs address, but these people who are running here acting like Civ V is garbage are way, way over the top.

No, it's not Civ IV. And I'm glad it isn't. And that's coming from someone who would probably rank Civ IV as the greatest game of all time.