Is Civ V finally worthy?

ace0015

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My apologies if this has been brought up before, but I can't seem to find a concise and succinct statement which sums up the state-of-the-game. Specifically I want to know if the patches and upcoming expansion will finally transform Civ V into something worthy of the title "successor to Civ IV". The main reason I didn't buy the game is because there was just so much missing in terms of depth and flow in comparision with IV. I also am aware that the Civ IV we know is what it is because of the BTS expansion (and of course some incredible mods). From what we know of the GaK expansion, and with the patches which have already been released, as well as any outstanding Better Bug Ai-like mods, should I finally make the upgrade from IV to V?

Thanks for providing your opinions!
 
Considering almost 1000 hours have been put into the vanilla version, and the prospects of the GaK expansion, I think it well worth!
 
Modern era is a drag, even on high end systems. The turn times take at least 8 seconds in my experience. As for the game I'd wait till the expansions, I feel the game is half finished and hopefully they'll fix the damn loading times. I'm no Civ 4 veteran, but I sure did enjoy it a lot more then Civ 5. Also with the release of the expansion, maybe Civ 5 will go on sale. If I had known how unoptimized the game was, I would of waited until it was fixed and an expansion came out.
 
Its all just a matter of opinion, I enjoy the game alot but there are plenty of those who dont, my honest advice is wait till the game goes on sale (something that I think happens quite a bit, I dont know I got mine at release) or get the demo and see whether you like it or not, you're the only person that you should trust on whether the game is "worthy" or not.
 
In terms of 'worthy' what I'd like to have actually is a technical appraisal of the features that we loved in IV and were missing in V upon its release, e.g. tile improvements, an intricate trading network, and the like. Have they been re-introduced in patches or is there any talk of them possibly appearing in the expansion?
 
Well, by now I would assume that all of the people who like CiV check these forums regularly, and all of the people who don't, well, don't.

So assume a bias towards liking the game.

I like it much much better than 4, for many reasons. Reasons that haven't changed since the game came out. The things that have changed were not issues for me at any point, so my opinion has not changed. So if you thought it wasn't a good game before, I doubt that the patches would have changed it. At the very least, if it did somehow fix what you didn't like, then I would think that you were disliking it for all the wrong reasons in the first place.

So here are the differences between the games that I can think of, and I'll try and provide a short argument as to why CiV is better than CIV in that regard.

Military
CiV: Hexes, 1UPT, no guaranteed death/battle, unit embarkation, fewer units, limited strategic resources, city HP, ranged combat
CIV: SoD, transports, more units

Unless you like Stacks of Doom, CiV is clearly the winner here. And if you like Stacks of Doom, I don't see how anything else could convince you to play 1UPT. CiV has so much more in the way of tactics, but CIV does have the flavor of more units. Which is just clutter from a gameplay perspective.

The military AI is just as abysmal as in CIV, but the mechanics make it much more painful to watch in CiV. Because 1UPT is harder to maneuver troops in and the AI can't just build a bigger Stack of Doom to win, they get crushed often and hard. Once you get good at the game, play against friends.

Diplomacy
CiV: Research Agreements, AI diplomacy not based off of religion only, City-States
CIV: Tech trading, Apostolic Palace, UN Resolutions, espionage

Tech trading is terrible gameplay-wise. And not particularly appropriate flavor-wise. Research Agreements are better for gameplay because they have an opportunity cost (can't buy other things and can't war with that player). It isn't that much better though, they can still be abused.

The City-State mechanic is a great idea, but not at its full potential. It will be much better after G&K, as CS will have more and better quests, influence will be about fulfilling these quests (and being a true ally/friend) instead of only about money, and there will be more types of CS to help more playstyles.

As for the UN, in CiV it is there ONLY for the victory condition. Which actually works with human players. The resolutions were fun and flavorful, and I do miss that. But I thought the civic system was stupid, so those resolutions were meh.

Espionage will be added in G&K, and I thought CIVs espionage system sucked. It can only get better.

The thing people complain a lot about in CiV is the diplomacy AI. As a competitive multiplay player, I appreciate having an AI that is just as ruthless as I am. Though it may seem like they attack you "out of the blue", imagine what you would have done in its place. I certainly wouldn't let on that I am about to declare war. And I would try to convince as many people as possible that the player in first place needs to be ganged up on. Since you pick the difficulty you can usually win on, that person is usually the player, you. So I like the diplomacy AI.

Economy/Culture/Tech
CiV: social policies, road/building maintenance, fewer superfluous techs, global happiness
CIV: civic system, local happiness (and health), many techs with many items, corporations, religion

Again, CIV has CiV beat out in flavor, with more content in the tech tree, a civic system that correlates directly to real-world governments, local happiness, corporations, religion, and a health system. But again, I think with simplicity lies elegance.

Civics vs. Social policies. Civics sucked. It was easy to switch to whatever civic you wanted, there was little to no opportunity cost, and even less planning. With civics, you were never making a single, important decision. You could always edit-undo, but with a small penalty. With CiVs culture system, bonuses stay for the whole game, and you not only have opportunity costs within the system (as did Civics), but within the game as a whole because you need culture yields to get policies. Flavor-wise, social policies don't make as much sense unless you view them as cultural traditions. Most people tend to think of them as government forms, which the Civic system better represented.

Buildings and roads have maintenance costs, creating even more opportunity costs (cant use money for other things if you use it for these) than there were in CIV (not enough hammers/time/workers to build all of them).

Superfluous techs have been removed, which removes a lot of the flavorful content from CIV, but makes the game more concise and less fluff. Each decision is important, and there are not so many decisions that they are unexciting.

Global Happiness may not be particularly realistic, but it again creates interesting decisions. Do I have fewer cities but not have to worry about their happiness (and thus grow them), or do I expand and try to balance things perfectly (which involves keeping population moderate)?

Religion was fun in 4, but looks like it will be much better in G&K for 5. Corporations were religions with a modernist flavor. Eh.

The health system is wholly unnecessary. I am glad it is gone.



Essentially, I would say that CiV is much better for gameplay, whereas CIV is better if you want something along the lines of SimCity (not that SimCity isn't great for gameplay or anything, that just has to be the type of gameplay you want). CIV was much more "this happened in history, let's make a game mechanic to fit it" and CiV is much more "this is a good game mechanic, where can we give it flavor?"

EDIT: In the time I wrote this, there were 4 posts! One from the OP, who reminded me of 2 things that I always forget are missing from CiV because they are there enough.

In base Civ4, many of those tile improvements that were missing in 5 were not there either! And besides, not giving you every option creates important decisions, again. Since on hills I can't choose to build a windmill for food (only farms for food in Civ5), should I found my city in all these hills? I could found 2 small cities, or find a hill with rivers (because you can build farms on those), etc. So no, they haven't been added, and yes, I'm glad they haven't.

As for trade routes, they have always been in CiV? I don't understand. They bring money, movement, cost money (so sometimes they aren't worth it), and give other bonuses depending on your civ/policies.
 
Thanks for the detailed overview GamerKG. I guess the best thing would be to just purchase, play and compare. That's the only way I'll know if I've been making the right decision sticking with IV. BTW, I've heard there are problems getting the multiplayer to function correctly in V. Has this been resolved?
 
Good post GamerKG, well constructed and thought out :)

I guess the best thing would be to just purchase, play and compare. That's the only way I'll know if I've been making the right decision sticking with IV.

This would seem to be the best way forward, ultimately, you have to be the judge and jury.

BTW, I've heard there are problems getting the multiplayer to function correctly in V. Has this been resolved?

There was an update some months back which fixed a lot of multiplayer problems. It now works fairly well, but it's by no means perfect. It's entirely possible that the release of G & K will again improve it, and there is supposed to be a general game update/fix at about the same time.

Overall, V is a different game from IV, and mostly, comparisons are difficult, it's not an update (to treat it as such is not helpful). Getting a few games under your belt will help you to see more into how it ticks.

Good luck, and I hope you really like it.
 
I really don't want to get this into another flame war and also made my decision regarding IV vs. V. So just a few comments:

Tech trading is terrible gameplay-wise. And not particularly appropriate flavor-wise. Research Agreements are better for gameplay because they have an opportunity cost (can't buy other things and can't war with that player).

Why is it terrible game-play wise? We are playing a historic strategy game. And in real world history people exchanged knowledge, if they got along to the advantage of both sides. They did not make research agreements. Simple as that. So the new mechanic feels quite artificial, sureal and forced upon the game concept.

The City-State mechanic is a great idea, but not at its full potential.

Same as with research agreements. City states in real life history were hardly ever an important factor. Per definition restricting an acting entity in the game to a single city and never allow them to grow or to conquer feels artificial, sureal and forced upon. It's also broken - as city states are able to conquer other cities if the are stupid (or lucky) enough to actually take a capital.

Civics vs. Social policies. Civics sucked. It was easy to switch to whatever civic you wanted, there was little to no opportunity cost, and even less planning.

As long as you're not spiritual every switch costs quite a lot and every civic has advantages and disadvantages which help or hinder certain aspects of your individual gameplay. So it's not easy to switch, requires quit a bit of planning (what tech requirement to research when and when to switch) and is basically one opportunity of important and interesting decision making - which always was and should always be a core element of Civ gameplay.
 
Eh, Civ 5's just a okay..

Pros, No more stack of dooms.

Cons, No governments, Too small tech tree, Too few unit types, Too few terrain type, lack of involvement in diplomacy, Headless Chicken armies, too few luxuries and resource types, no money to be made from trade therefore if you want to get richer you must kill enemy nations, Far shorter custom civilization name compared to civ 4 in fact its a downgrade, no marines, no more being an absolute monarchy, i miss being the king. :(

NO GUERILLAS!

Barbarians is an pushover.

Maps feel smaller compared to civ 4 and I always play on huge. I swear it's really smaller compared to what I played as usual.

No random events D=
 
Specifically I want to know if the patches and upcoming expansion will finally transform Civ V into something worthy of the title "successor to Civ IV".

I'm probably not the person to ask because I thought it was worthy of the title "successor to Civ IV" way back when I got it not long after launch. Granted, I've gotten so fed up with the AI and other issues from time to time that I ended up going back to IV, but then after playing that game I'd just remember what I hated about it and go back to V.
 
I love it, but I only play multiplayer with no quitters in the Steam No Quitters group. That of course brings an extra dimension to the game.
 
Thanks for the detailed overview GamerKG. I guess the best thing would be to just purchase, play and compare. That's the only way I'll know if I've been making the right decision sticking with IV. BTW, I've heard there are problems getting the multiplayer to function correctly in V. Has this been resolved?

There was a patch specifically targeted at this. I've played a few multiplayer games since, and where the game would constantly crash and reload before, this is now much less of an issue. It can happen occasionally, but now I can get through entire Civ V multiplayer games without crashes or bugs - so yes, this has been resolved.

The biggest problem with Civ5 is how frustratingly stupid the AI is.

Normally, yes. However, don't underestimate it - it can get surprisingly cunning when desperate. See for instance my game description here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=460327&page=2

Certainly I could have played the war better, and I could have had more units to begin with, but the AI simply demonstrated abilities in this game that I had no idea it was capable of. If I'd had a bigger and better army, and/or used it better and so defended my cities, that wouldn't change the fact that in this game the AI used naval invasions and embarked forces appropriately, appeared to understand effective use of air power, successfully coordinated the different unit types available in the modern era, and perhaps for the first time I can remember with a Civ AI (not just a Civ V AI) coordinated attacks from two AI allies against individual human targets.
 
A lot of the mentioned above are the reasons why i'm still hesitant to buy Civ5 even with G&K:

For one, the modding community needs to get that .dll to get the AI back in shape. This hasn't happened yet and it could possibly be a 2-for-1 included in the xpak (xpak features plus .dll unleashed).

The modders like Thal and others will really mold this game like clay once they get the code for it. We'll all be better for it.

Another issue is the terrible drag on resources, esp. late game. I don't know if buying more cores in your cpu or having a higher ram will really solve the issue. It might be a matter of coding.

I mean, i've held out this long. I might as well wait for the next xpak that introduces politics, civil war, grand alliance diplomacy or something cool like that. Probably the performance would likely improve since the next-gen processors (8 & 12 cores respectively) will be able to handle civ5's unwieldy performance issues.

Of course, all prices (from the game, to the dlcs, to the computers) will drop by the time the next xpak comes around so no need to umm... rush...

Oh who am I kidding, I'll buy a brand spankin' new computer for civ5 and g&k once it comes out, i'll buy civ5 + g&k, plus I'll buy all the dlc's (except spain). What can i say? I'm an addict. :yumyum:. I think this is a cry for :help: rather than a reply. Somebody stop me! :lol:
 
Considering almost 1000 hours have been put into the vanilla version, and the prospects of the GaK expansion, I think it well worth!

This. The patches have improved the game a lot, plus, it is fairly cheap to buy anywhere by now, so it's well worth it.
 
As it sits now the base game is about the same for me, as far as the big picture goes. Sure patches here and there have smoothed out this or shored up that but the games bones themselves are the same as at release. It is still just a decent wargame for me.

The new expansion looks like it might give the game real depth. I am hoping it brings back real diplomacy. From what I have heard from others on this site and researched myself it looks like a 50/50 shot that its gonna work.

That being said my beef with the game is that the AI plays it like a game. Some of that is being phased out like the negative hit you get from "trying to win the same way we are" bs. Personally I feel burned by the vanilla game itself so I wont be buying the xpac until some of the people I trust here have got it and reviewed it. That's a first for a Civ game for me.
 
That being said my beef with the game is that the AI plays it like a game. Some of that is being phased out like the negative hit you get from "trying to win the same way we are" bs. Personally I feel burned by the vanilla game itself so I wont be buying the xpac until some of the people I trust here have got it and reviewed it. That's a first for a Civ game for me.

If its any consolation, Ed Beach (or was it Dennis?) stated that that "win the game" negative trait is removed in the xpac, among many other changes to diplomacy.
 
Why is it terrible game-play wise? We are playing a historic strategy game. And in real world history people exchanged knowledge, if they got along to the advantage of both sides. They did not make research agreements. Simple as that. So the new mechanic feels quite artificial, sureal and forced upon the game concept.

Gameplay, I said gameplay. You are talking about flavor. Research agreements are no better in terms of flavor, as they were certainly not a thing in history. But neither was tech trading. The PEOPLE traded technology and knowledge, not their leaders. Leaders rarely decided what to focus research on because they didn't know it existed yet (that's the whole point.) Leaders often didn't choose their government form, there were groups who held power and cultural traditions that held or didn't, and government evolved. Leaders didn't control their armies' every move.

Gameplay-wise, tech trading only has one downside: the other person gets tech. Which is a good downside! It makes you think about whether or not you should trade it. But it has no opportunity cost at all, as in you don't have to give anything else up for it. You never decide between tech trading and anything else, making this game mechanic exist in its own bubble and the decisions involving it are entirely contained. Lame.

But yes, RAs are slightly forced, but so is uh, 1UPT, and naval embarkation, and social policies, and everything else. Game mechanic, then find some flavor.


Same as with research agreements. City states in real life history were hardly ever an important factor. Per definition restricting an acting entity in the game to a single city and never allow them to grow or to conquer feels artificial, sureal and forced upon. It's also broken - as city states are able to conquer other cities if the are stupid (or lucky) enough to actually take a capital.

The smaller nations in history had a lot of effect and were often important factors. Were they timeless? No, and that is why they are not Civs (though one could argue some of the civs are not timeless either, but they represent later empires with different names that were essentially revivals)

If you are going to use CS to represent smaller nations, then those nations are clearly culturally significant enough to each get their own city-state title, right? What did Venice control in history? Nothing significant enough that it was ever NOT called Venice (Croatia, Crete, Corfu). What about Lisbon? Again, historically it was always part of Portugal (Brazil, Goa, Macao) and its only significance was BEING a part of Portugal! So flavor-wise, it is entirely appropriate that they can only expand through actual conquest.

Gameplay is improved because of the existence of CS, and will be even better once G&K comes out. There are small civs that cannot win, but who are still important to the influential civs' victories. You can develop entire strategies around CS. Conquer them, protect them from others, ally them, mix&match. Once they fit into more types of victories, there will be more ways to mix&match.


As long as you're not spiritual every switch costs quite a lot and every civic has advantages and disadvantages which help or hinder certain aspects of your individual gameplay. So it's not easy to switch, requires quit a bit of planning (what tech requirement to research when and when to switch) and is basically one opportunity of important and interesting decision making - which always was and should always be a core element of Civ gameplay.

I completely disagree. Once again, this system may have opportunity costs within itself, but not outside of the system! You never had to give up civics to get something else. And the advantages and disadvantages were straight up % bonuses and maluses. No interesting game mechanics to strategize around. Furthermore, it was always pretty obvious which civic you wanted when as there was only 1 per playstyle (in each category, so you didn't even have to choose in what way you should alter your playstyle). One thing people enjoy is that civics blatantly represented government. Again this is flavor, and I already said that if you want flavor go ahead and play Civ4.

Social policies still have flavor, but most people try to think of it in terms of the civic system. No, they do not represent governments. They represent culture. Traditions, national values, that kind of thing. And the game mechanic is so much better. You have to decide if you want policies, how many you want, which ones you want (you can't get them all and there are multiple per playstyle, so there are always important decisions to make), which ones you want now vs which ones you want later, etc.

Thanks for the detailed overview GamerKG. I guess the best thing would be to just purchase, play and compare. That's the only way I'll know if I've been making the right decision sticking with IV. BTW, I've heard there are problems getting the multiplayer to function correctly in V. Has this been resolved?

I like to play multiplayer, and there are many stupid bugs that weren't around in Civ4BTS. I am sure they will be fixed. Furthermore, CiV is a much better game to play multiplayer than CIV, as the game design was based around good game mechanics rather than flavor. CIV was a better movie to watch, so that players could enjoy the epic feel of their civilization developing through the ages (with other players perhaps). Now if you want to experience growth of nations with your friends, then you want to stick with 4. Unless you can be satisfied with 5s flavor, of course.
 
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