General question about the gameplay (coming from Civ 4)

Thanks for your comments. Actually I was a bit startled that you find my arguments offensive, maybe it's because I am not a native english speaker?

Whatever, I think I isolated the main reason why I don't like BNW / 5 general as much as 4. I am a "war" kind of guy. And 5 seems very pacifist. It's more about managing your cities, happiness and economy than your armies and the logistics behind that. I still read many comments that pressing Next Turn so many times without doing else is something that not only I find irritating. That is actually not happening in 1, 2 or 4 because you need to manage much more cities and armies (didn't liked 3 btw and just played it for a vers brief time).

Maybe it's the difficulty level... I am only playing Monarch in IV as it is a pretty hard game. ^^ At least if you are not going for cheesy wins (Apo Palace comed to mind). Civ 5 seems way dumbed down in difficulty, maybe I should give Emperor a try.

give emperor a try..., yeah you should
For a an accustomed civ player , the challenge really start around emperor/immortal , at least that s where your early decisions start to count , before that you can do basically whatever you want and still manage to win (that was also the case in IV as far as I remember , only civ IV last level was a tad stupid due to the AI getting so much culture it was a basic race to create your stack of doom before they swallow you)

DocRock said:

Thanks for your comments. Actually I was a bit startled that you find my arguments offensive, maybe it's because I am not a native english speaker?

Whatever, I think I isolated the main reason why I don't like BNW / 5 general as much as 4. I am a "war" kind of guy. And 5 seems very pacifist. It's more about managing your cities, happiness and economy than your armies and the logistics behind that. I still read many comments that pressing Next Turn so many times without doing else is something that not only I find irritating. That is actually not happening in 1, 2 or 4 because you need to manage much more cities and armies (didn't liked 3 btw and just played it for a vers brief time).

Maybe it's the difficulty level... I am only playing Monarch in IV as it is a pretty hard game. ^^ At least if you are not going for cheesy wins (Apo Palace comed to mind). Civ 5 seems way dumbed down in difficulty, maybe I should give Emperor a try.

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No, it's not you. It's just that certain individuals apparently feel the need to be negative towards Civ IV players who ask valid questions in a Civ V thread. And your English is fine, I understood you perfectly.

OT; I also am a MON diff player on IV, and when I started my first few Civ V games, I found them rather bland and boring. Upping the difficulty to EMP proved to be a viable option, as now I am no longer constantly hitting next turn.

I can't speak for BNW expansion, but the G&K expansion has actually improved gameplay for Civ V to where at least I am no longer bored. I also recommend you check out a few mods from the work shop (info addict being the primary one), as they definitely enhance gameplay.

5 is such a giant leap forward in terms of tactical warfare, that even despite its many flaws, it is impossible for me to go back to 4. There is no way that I accept the ramming of stacks now that I have tasted archery and tactical field combat.
I would think that a warmonger would enjoy 5 much more than 4.
The OP contradicts himself when he says he's a warmonger. because he also said he was bored clicking End Turn. He played on Settler level and clicked End Turn until 2050 instead of wiping the map clean of enemies.

Warmonger!? phhhhhhtttttt Warmongers NEVER click End Turn or Next or Whatever the button is called.

OP also stated the he is not a native English speaker, so some context adjustments can be allowed..

@ DocRock; I recommend spending a fair amount of time in the Civ V S&T forums, as you'll find most of the strats used for Civ IV are rather pointless in Civ V.

Im a previous I, II, III & IV player too. I dont want to go back to IV because i played it to death (literally 500 hours or so)..and got up to immortal . I would sometimes warmonger early, sometimes late- and on emp or below id play peaceful

I desperately want to love V, i have G&K.. i am struggling to get into it too i have to admit, there seems less choice for varying how you develop ...all resources seem worth about the same so decisions such as where to settle or starting techs seem to be unimportant...

Mostly though, its the ai...they rush from one stance to another, with reasons that often make no sense...and it feels much more like im playing against a computer program with subroutines than against real opponents..

Does BNW add much, or fix the ai? im tempted to get it, but it isnt cheap in the UK.

paulcarri said:

Im a previous I, II, III & IV player too. I dont want to go back to IV because i played it to death (literally 500 hours or so)..and got up to immortal . I would sometimes warmonger early, sometimes late- and on emp or below id play peaceful

I desperately want to love V, i have G&K.. i am struggling to get into it too i have to admit, there seems less choice for varying how you develop ...all resources seem worth about the same so decisions such as where to settle or starting techs seem to be unimportant...

Mostly though, its the ai...they rush from one stance to another, with reasons that often make no sense...and it feels much more like im playing against a computer program with subroutines than against real opponents..

Does BNW add much, or fix the ai? im tempted to get it, but it isnt cheap in the UK.

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I ve played civ IV to death , loved it , but now I can't stand how the game was centered around no brain strategies like the stack of doom + a poor implementation of espionnage.
When I started civ V I remembered it felt a bit empty since I already knew a lot of things (religions , espionnage , corpos) wouldn t be in there.
Yet after playing a bit it felt so much cleaner.
I litteraly don t understand people who talks about 'dumber'. Civ IV now just feel like a big bazaar , where everything was experienced , nothing was balanced out , and at the end strategies ended up the same. PLugging so many new things on the model of civ I just created too many flaws and the system had to evolve. CiV V just took this heritage and made it coherent. Adding the 1upt was the best decision ever btw. No more stack of doom , no more 20 spearmen rushing your tank to death oO
Again , don t get me wrong , I loved civIV to the point where I learned to accept it s flaws for it s apparent complexity ...it s only when V went out that I realised how much of an immature mess it was. The way things are going ,I m pretty sure I ll feel the same about Civ V once VI is out.

So I guess, my point would be play more of V , take your time playing GnK , get BnW after you have experienced enough of the religion and war , then move to the global world of BnW. They all have flavour , the complement each other well but it s better to experiment with GnK first , get a hang of it ,and a sense of it s flaw too before going for the last part . But maybe that s just me.but yes BnW is very good.

Karmah said:

I ve played civ IV to death , loved it , but now I can't stand how the game was centered around no brain strategies like the stack of doom + a poor implementation of espionnage.
When I started civ V I remembered it felt a bit empty since I already knew a lot of things (religions , espionnage , corpos) wouldn t be in there.
Yet after playing a bit it felt so much cleaner.
I litteraly don t understand people who talks about 'dumber'. Civ IV now just feel like a big bazaar , where everything was experienced , nothing was balanced out , and at the end strategies ended up the same. PLugging so many new things on the model of civ I just created too many flaws and the system had to evolve. CiV V just took this heritage and made it coherent. Adding the 1upt was the best decision ever btw. No more stack of doom , no more 20 spearmen rushing your tank to death oO
Again , don t get me wrong , I loved civIV to the point where I learned to accept it s flaws for it s apparent complexity ...it s only when V went out that I realised how much of an immature mess it was. The way things are going ,I m pretty sure I ll feel the same about Civ V once VI is out.

So I guess, my point would be play more of V , take your time playing GnK , get BnW after you have experienced enough of the religion and war , then move to the global world of BnW. They all have flavour , the complement each other well but it s better to experiment with GnK first , get a hang of it ,and a sense of it s flaw too before going for the last part . But maybe that s just me.but yes BnW is very good.

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Thanks, ill keep playing, im scared to say there are aspects of the game i dont like on here, in case i cause a wave of 'go away then' or something

I think if you play any game long enough you see its exploits and flaws perhaps?

Also i do agree SOD was annoying at times.. the thing was though the ai handled it well? and it kept you on your toes

But yes i was incredulous on bts when i lost an industrial city defended by FIVE infantry to a naval invasion of tonnes of monty jaguars that attacked amphibiously..i kept trying to picture the scene in my mind but couldnt manage it ;-)

Karmah said:

I litteraly don t understand people who talks about 'dumber'. Civ IV now just feel like a big bazaar , where everything was experienced , nothing was balanced out , and at the end strategies ended up the same. PLugging so many new things on the model of civ I just created too many flaws and the system had to evolve. CiV V just took this heritage and made it coherent. Adding the 1upt was the best decision ever btw. No more stack of doom , no more 20 spearmen rushing your tank to death oO
Again , don t get me wrong , I loved civIV to the point where I learned to accept it s flaws for it s apparent complexity ...it s only when V went out that I realised how much of an immature mess it was. The way things are going ,I m pretty sure I ll feel the same about Civ V once VI is out.

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Don't get me wrong, you're completely entiteled to have this opinion, and if you were talking about Civ III instead of IV I would applaud and agree - allthough I still consider it a really great game, just like all it's predecessors. But as far as I can judge Civ IV has been fine tuned and updated over six years in intense exchange with the fan base. And almost every feature it included was not new, but was taken over and enhanced from what was added in III (cultural borders, city flipping, enhanced diplomacy options, stacking, ressources, etc). So I don't really get your statement about "nothing balanced out - hasty plugged on so many things". Especially if you compare it to a title that had been stripped of all those features for more streamlined gamepaly and easier accessability - and then got most of them brought back because of the huge fan base backlash that actually missed all those unbalanced and plugged on features that were in IV. A title that still has severe issues with the AI beeing unable to cope with it's most prominent addition called 1UPT - and that obviously still needs a lot a balancing of all the new stuff that was plugged on in it's most recent add on called Brave New World... ; )

DocRock said:

I'm 4 hours into a new game – and I have nothing to do but pressing „next turn“.

I build up a little empire on a continent map. Build it up to 5-6 cities, then I ran out of space because of 2 other civs and 6 city-states (!). I had 6-7 workers who finished all available constructions pretty fast. I only needed 3 military units, because seriously 1 unit of Archers is enough to annihilate armies of Barbarian (they simply do not close in) and 1-2 Spearmen just for safety reasons.

So that's the situation: I couldn't attack any civs because the city defenses are really strong and prevent any early Axemen-rush like I am used to. Workers did their job, waiting idle. Building? Nearly got all stuff I needed, more is not useful because of maintenance costs. Diplomacy? Not much to do either... attacking city states? Guess they are much more useful if fed with money. Army? Why.. the AI is no serious threat at all. Even if they are more aggressive, 3-4 units are enough I guess.

In Civ 4, I would be really busy until 0 AD hits. I need to plan Axemen/Swordsmen/Catapults rushes, build fogbusters to secure against barbarian assaults (that are deadly... opposed to the ones in 5), researching beeline techs like Code of Laws or Lib, build up a road structure with a bunch of workers, spread my religion, build a bigger army, try to push wonders by cutting downs trees, building up my empire of 20+ cities, securing the whole continent.

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The only time I ever find myself repeatedly hitting next turn is at the very beginning if i have all my units fortifying, or once in a while if I'm playing peacefully and my military has nothing to do. But neither of those last very long. As for the workers, 6-7 seems like a lot, and have you connected all your cities with roads?

As for Barbarians they can't usually be taken down with 1 unit, at least with how i do it. There are probably less for you since you are in a spot with 2 other civs and 6 CS and you ran out of room.

You can still attack cities, it just takes a different approach than axe men/swordsmen/catapults would. You need more ranged units to bombard the city, especially archers/composite bowmen/xbows. For buildings, I usually build everything I can, and if there aren't any left to build, I work on wonders, and if there aren't any of those to build I make settlers to expand or build up my military.If there's really nothing you want to build, you can convert your hammers to gold or science. Also, the AI can be a threat. They're not very good strategically, but they make up for that by building a lot of units, and 3-4 definitely won't be enough unless you get lucky and do an incredible job with strategy.

The next paragraph confuses me, because most of that stuff you can do in civ 5 too. You can still build an army and plan attacks, if you want really deadly barbarian attacks turn on raging barbs, you can still beeline techs, build roads, spread your religion (G+K), build a bigger army, you can still get a +20 production bonuses from chopping down trees and try to rush wonders, and there's no rule against getting a 20+ city empire and securing the whole continent.

The man with the most correct interpretation of the two games (Civ 4 and Civ 5) is the guy who has played each for many years, thousands of hours on each.
So the Civ 5 noobies really cannot win this argument.
You will never convince me of anything regarding Civ 4 vs Civ 5 - I know both games inside and out.

Moderator Action: If you know them inside and out, please further the discussion by helpful the opening poster with some useful information. This is not about helping, it seems more about what others have said and so does not further the conversation.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Lay_Lay said:

5 is such a giant leap forward in terms of tactical warfare, that even despite its many flaws, it is impossible for me to go back to 4. There is no way that I accept the ramming of stacks now that I have tasted archery and tactical field combat.

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Lay_Lay said:

You will never convince me of anything regarding Civ 4 vs Civ 5 - I know both games inside and out.

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If you know the games so in and out then you should know that the focus of the Civ series never was on tactical field combat. Civ started and always was intended as a strategic game about long term (6.000 years of) empire building, not a tactical wargame. If I want to play tactical field combat I prefer the Total War series...

People keep saying civ v is a massive tactical move forward, but is it really?

Yes iv had SOD, but- at least the AI could handle SOD, and you had to consider what to put in the stack etc.

Based on my experiences of V (admittedly vanilla and g&k only).. the system has the potential to be a massive move forward, but in reality the ai uses its military so badly that it means that people who would not normally be able to do certain difficulties now can, simply by taking advantage of ai incompetence.

Maybee this changed in BNW?

paulcarri said:

People keep saying civ v is a massive tactical move forward, but is it really?

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Well, if you add a major tactical component to a game that in its earlier incarnations never really had a focus on tactical combat - I guess you could call this a "massive tactical move forward". Because even tactics with a totally uncapable AI is more tactics than no tactics at all. If that's what people call a major improvement - who are we to change their mind? Me, if I have the choice between a badly implemented feature or the omission of the feature, I chose the omission any day - especially if it's a feature I never really missed or wanted in the game anyway...