Be honest! Who currently still prefers Civ IV?

On day one of Civ V I felt like there was a real mix of things I liked better than IV and things I liked less.

Social policies and their links to culture are awesome, city-states are pretty good (religion was good in theory but since you could never afford to take the "religious path" on higher difficulties it was rather limited), decoupling gold from science is great and of course there is combat.

On the other hand Diplo is a nightmare, the interface is extremely unpolished and I just don't like the look as much. But I was hopeful that the first two issues would be solved by patches/mods.

After my second day with Civ V though, I've found that the little things come together to make it a really soul-crushing experience for me. From the moment Baba Yetu started playing Civ IV felt upbeat, exciting, and bright. Key techs, wonders, and land with specials nearby all had a feeling of great importance to them. None of these things have the same shine in V. Wonders are far less powerful. Land is all pretty much the same other than finding a happiness resource you don't have. I'm sure there will be people of an opposing opinion about tech but I look through the tree and I don't see nearly as much interesting stuff as there was in IV. Also as one person mentioned, there is the constant feeling of never having enough production.

I am shocked to say it but I think I will be putting V on the shelf for awhile.
 
I purchased BtS only a few months ago (a very late adopter?) so I'm definitely not bored by it yet. And my PC is over 5 years old, so... there's some hardware to be acquired.

How sluggish do you see Civ 5? Civ 4 is the worst memory hog I've encountered... (easily 1 gig in lategame) and I play a lot of different games.
 
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.

A bunch of people saying this, but I find it the thought process behind this rather illogical. Why 5 should be a sequel only to 4 and not 4 with expansions? Why the new things in 4's expansions should be ignored when comparing these two games? They've aready once made those features the expansions brought, it's not like they somehow have forgot those things while developing Civ 5. Civ 5's expansion should bring completely new features, the way I see it. Or are you saying the expansion should re-implement the same features, such as religion?
 
I purchased BtS only a few months ago (a very late adopter?) so I'm definitely not bored by it yet. And my PC is over 5 years old, so... there's some hardware to be acquired.

How sluggish do you see Civ 5? Civ 4 is the worst memory hog I've encountered... (easily 1 gig in lategame) and I play a lot of different games.

all I can say to that is that the demo is almost 4GB - THE DEMO!!!!! with 3 of 6 civs and only 100-150 turns possible......

and I'm also kind of a late adopter to BTS. I've had it for two years now and in the meantime i've bought quite a few other games... eventually i got bored with all of them EXCEPT this wonderful, exciting, challenging Civ IV!!! :) I may be exaggerating, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was still playing this game in like 10 - 20 years down the road (assuming there's not gonna be another FANTASTIC CIV version) and everybody's gonna think I'm way too old-fashioned :D

since you're a late adopter, look around for some mods on here that are just gonna make it more fun... :)


A bunch of people saying this, but I find it the thought process behind this rather illogical. Why 5 should be a sequel only to 4 and not 4 with expansions? Why the new things in 4's expansions should be ignored when comparing these two games? They've aready once made those features the expansions brought, it's not like they somehow have forgot those things while developing Civ 5. Civ 5's expansion should bring completely new features, the way I see it. Or are you saying the expansion should re-implement the same features, such as religion?

I agree! if they actually DO re-implement known Civ IV features (like religion or espionage) then that to me is just a sign of indecisiveness... (if this is not proper english, cut me some slack :D ) A new version to me is supposed to build upon the previous version, ESPECIALLY if it was such a tremendous success like IV... I'm not saying it needs to be another expansion, I'll be very happy to see some completely new features - just like the previous versions did compared to their predecessors - but a (with some exceptions what looks like) complete reset of the franchise is not gonna work...
 
a bunch of people saying this, but i find it the thought process behind this rather illogical. Why 5 should be a sequel only to 4 and not 4 with expansions? Why the new things in 4's expansions should be ignored when comparing these two games? They've aready once made those features the expansions brought, it's not like they somehow have forgot those things while developing civ 5. Civ 5's expansion should bring completely new features, the way i see it. Or are you saying the expansion should re-implement the same features, such as religion?


this.
 
Think about how bad civ4 vanilla was compared to BTS. I think the same goes for civV too, so i see no reason to migrate at the moment (not that my computer could run the game anyway). I also think that many who have purchased civV feels obliged to speak good about the game no matter of the gaming experience.
 
I prefer Civ IV still right now. There is a lack of information given to the player in Civ 5 and it makes the game very unenjoyable to have to play it on guess work.

In the Gameplay options menu theres a slider to set the delay for "extended pointer info" or something like that. The default is 2 seconds which is waay too long. Put it on 0.1 or 0.2 seconds. Now if hover over a unit you see how much HP it has. Hover over a worker and you see how close it is to completing its improvement.
 
CIV was a great game, but i played it for years. Now i want something new, not just a CIV expansion pack. They did well and the game would be better in some week. In a few years, with the depth added by expansion packs it would be the greatest. The structure it's there, i'm happy it's not just a "colonization"
 
LOL. I was gonna raise MOO3 too. Perhaps it isn't quite that bad. At least Civ5 works as designed mostly.
 
LOL. I was gonna raise MOO3 too. Perhaps it isn't quite that bad. At least Civ5 works as designed mostly.

And MOO2 wasn't as good as MOO1. I hated the idea of having to build improvements on your planets like Civ. (Yeah, I love Civ, but it didn't work in a space game.) The MOO1 sliders let you focus on the more interesting stuff.

if someone would just come out with a MOO1 clone that ran on Windows and had a quality AI, I'd run to buy it.
 
I'm not a Civ5 hater, by any means. I appreciate change provided it is the right kind of change.

That being said, I'm not sold on it yet. I understand the direction with eliminating sliders for culture/science/gold, but I really feel I lack control over these things now. They just sort of...happen. If I need more gold vs more culture vs more science it is actually more difficult in my opinion to make that happen. Changing them involves me reallocating workers by city. I may prefer the ability to just direct a change empire wide via sliders. Same ambivalence toward global maintenance, happiness. It may be better and I may see that in the long run. But not yet, not yet.

The other stuff I can't fathom why they stripped it out altogether. There's a difference in my mind between making something more accessible by papering over micromanaging mechanics with set up options and just gouging them out totally. Civ IV had plenty of options in game setup. The ability to have advanced worker commands or not, tech trading, etc. This version seems to have regressed in that regard. I'm not yet convinced the game is "better" without at least the option to micromanage cities or experience things like espionage, advanced diplomacy (why oh why can't I diplomatically demand foreign troops leave my soil!), religion, corporations, etc.

It definitely isn't Civ 4.5. I'm not sure yet whether that's a good thing. I think I was hoping for evolution of the series and instead got a revolution.
 
I'm not a Civ5 hater, by any means. I appreciate change provided it is the right kind of change.

That being said, I'm not sold on it yet. I understand the direction with eliminating sliders for culture/science/gold, but I really feel I lack control over these things now. They just sort of...happen. If I need more gold vs more culture vs more science it is actually more difficult in my opinion to make that happen. Changing them involves me reallocating workers by city. I may prefer the ability to just direct a change empire wide via sliders. Same ambivalence toward global maintenance, happiness. It may be better and I may see that in the long run. But not yet, not yet.

(snip)

It definitely isn't Civ 4.5. I'm not sure yet whether that's a good thing. I think I was hoping for evolution of the series and instead got a revolution.
I suppose the challenge for the designiers was whether to make "Civ 4 plus", or to make "Civ New" in designing Civ 5. I think they picked Civ new, and if you wanted that you are happy, and if you wanted Civ 4 plus, you are unhappy. For the unhappy group, not a matter of someone changing your mind ... that is unlikely. But the question for the unhappy group is whether to try to embrace the differences in Civ 5 or just keep playing Civ 4.

I was just a Civ dabbler in II and III, and never very good at them, but really got into Civ IV. So I don't recall how much complaining there was about how much different 4 was from 3. Do folks think that 5 is more radically different from 4 than 4 was from 3?

Been thinking about the slider, and maybe that has really been a crutch all along? ctiberius says that now it is more difficult to get science, culture or gold when needed without the slider. He has to change citizen allocations. I would add, that he needs to carefully plan his building mixes, and potentially has to pay even more attention to city specialization. In a way, having no slider adds depth and complexity, but takes away convenience. Whether you like the change depends on which of these you value. Which of course, is a matter of opinion ... so no one on either side is right or wrong. A lot may depend on were your sweet spot is in the interplay between ease of play, depth and micromanagement, and tedium.

Regarding global maintenence and happiness ... I rember in Civ II sending caravans to other cities to drop off hammers for wonders. I have often wished I could send food from one city to another ... silly that the only comodity that can't be dispersed is food. So to me, globalizing some of these features is fine. Not better or worse ... different.

It could well be that Civ 5 has fewer options for variety (this is different from the core gameplay mechanics) than BTS, and potentially these could be added over time to CIv 5. Gamplay features from Civ 4 perhaps can be added to Civ 5 as well, if there is enough demand. Firaxis went in a new direction and perhaps took a risk ... all inovation involves some risk of failure. I don't think the final chapter in the Civ 5 story has been written yet.

dV
 
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