Be honest! Who currently still prefers Civ IV?

R0gue said:

Okay after reading this thread about mixed reviews of CIV V, its bad it don't have this or that or the other. The people who are not happy with Civ 5 at this stage. I would like them to do this test. Play CIV IV no expansion/mods, just the basic game. Then decide. This is where Civ V is at, at the moment. Then start adding Civ IV mods and expansion then think about the start of Civ IV to the update CIV IV BTS 3.19. Then you should understand the dilema ppl are having with civ V. Its like the start of CIV IV and proberly 95% of the ppl who is not happy with CIV V will grow to love the game, just like Civ IV.

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starrywisdom said:

There is no manual saving(have to rely on the auto saves) in MP, also there are absolutely no animations in MP whatsoever.

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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.

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mva5580 said:

So I assume you've already played on Deity and won easily considering how "dumbed down" the game is?

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R0gue said:

Okay after reading this thread about mixed reviews of CIV V, its bad it don't have this or that or the other. The people who are not happy with Civ 5 at this stage. I would like them to do this test. Play CIV IV no expansion/mods, just the basic game. Then decide. This is where Civ V is at, at the moment. Then start adding Civ IV mods and expansion then think about the start of Civ IV to the update CIV IV BTS 3.19. Then you should understand the dilema ppl are having with civ V. Its like the start of CIV IV and proberly 95% of the ppl who is not happy with CIV V will grow to love the game, just like Civ IV.

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JoyG said:

I never bought any expansion, so I'm still playing Civ IV vanilla on my old 2006 laptop featuring an old Intel integrated graphic GPU. I enjoyed Civ IV from the start. I was not happy with everything, but it was fun. Now I can't say the same about playing Civ V demo on my family up-to-date desktop PC, that can run Crysis at max detail. I don't care much of the aesthetic and Civ V runs smooth on that PC, but Civ V graphic isn't that good, in particular compared to the system requirements. And I wonder what are for those 4 Gb in the demo. Wonders movie aren't movie, just plain pictures zooming, advisors are just pictures. The ocean is good, resource animals are moving, but everything else looks flat and lifeless compared to Civ IV. Civ IV had too saturated colors and a cartoonish style, but what's important is that units and resources were identifiable at glance: I can't say the same about Civ V. Civ V has not only battles but Panzer General colors too (I watched some screens of PG). And, no, that's not just matter of be used to something: I wasn't used to this new battle system and I love it. The same with city states and social policies. Civ IV health system suked and I won't miss it, but maybe it could have been implemented in a different way instead of just toss it away. Religion system implementation wasn't great, but the idea was good, and I enjoyed it. Religion was (and it is) an important factor in human civilization. The Pope was a powerful and influencing man in the middle ages. In the real world, religion inspired (or was an excuse for) "holy" wars, influenced country relations and crusades were about Christian vs Muslim countries, in some way. Ideologies did almost the same in the XX century with capitalist and communist blocks of countries. So I enjoyed religion in Civ IV and it was fun to try to expand my religion and to influence other civs: it added a little new dimension to the game. Of course it could have done better, without micromanage the missionaries, but I didn't expect its complete removal (OK, not really "complete", since there are still temples and social policies, but... you got it).
Well, I was charmed by the Civ IV's atmosphere. Civ IV vanilla wasn't perfect, were was the building maintenance? (Yes I'm happy to have it back) and other stuff was more streamlined compared to the older Civs. Sure, every new Civ game had its pro and cons, but they are still Civilization. Back in 2005 as you ask, I liked Civ IV more than Civ III. Now I still like Civ IV and I have mixed fellings for Civ V.
I'm not sure if Civ V is less "complex", it has new choices and maybe more variety. What really concern me in Civ V is that until now it looks all about battling. I can almost forget my cities, I don't even have to put my army to garrison them. All the management but building stuff is streamlined now. No sliders, no financial balance (and it was already simplistic. Now how can one be a country that cuts found to research, like cutting founds to the NASA?). It now works indirectly maybe, but it fells like I have less control. Yeah, all is automated so I can only care about war and battles. War in Civ V had a nice improvement, but peace time is quite boring. There is something wrong. This is not Civ, this is Civ General!

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so I'm still playing Civ IV vanilla on

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PiTiFUL said:

Now all that aside... darn it I want the new combat system in my Civ4 so bad now

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smackthewise said:

THIS IS MADDNESSSSS!!!!!!! No BTS? You make an excellent post and I agree wholeheartedly, but........ NO BTS. Good sir you have taken this to far!

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Aravorn said:

Yep

I still like Civ II better

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Venereus said:

Not long ago (a few months), I tried to teach my GF about Civ. Not to get her into the game (I plan to use "streamlined" Civ V for that), but just so she could understand wtf I was talking about when I talked about it. So, on that proverbial occasion I had to go back to vanilla Civ IV, because that's the only version that plays the Tutorial.

Now, I got into Civ IV by the time BTS came out, because up until that point I was only able to play Civ III on my not very well aged old hag PC. This was the only time I had played vanilla Civ IV, and it was the tutorial for Sid's sake! Even the victory conditions were different (i.e. I didn't even know the Domination Victory used to require other percentages)!

What I learned from that shared experience playing vanilla Civ IV with my girlfriend, was that it sucked harder than [M-rated GF related fitting joke]. I don't know if I would love Civ IV as much as I do had I played it from release. This fills me with hope about Civ V.

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