Civ 5, what will be taken away from Civ 4

[Tk1]

Hi folks,

I just want to know concisely, what we currently have in Civ4 will no longer be there in Civ5, can anyone help?

Thanks!

Tk1

[Willowmound]

Religion, the SoD, civics, corporations, multiple leaders...what else?

[Auncien]

Espionage, health mechanic, war weariness, ability to raze capital cities (presumably), a plethora of units and barbarian animals (which is the most grievous of all!)

[Cilpot]

The only thing I know I'll miss is cottage->hamlet->village->town

[Aussie_Lurker]

Far, far too much. Its weird how the defenders of Civ5 declare that anyone who wants the good things from Civ4 retained is merely asking for a new Civ4 expansion-but that's such a childish argument. There were many good things from Civ3 that got incorporated into Civ4 (even if they didn't work perfectly in Civ3) such as culture, individualized civilizations, golden ages & resources-the stuff that got removed (like corruption & pollution) were removed because they increased MM for no benefit. Yet I feel that there are things from Civ4, that were really good, that have been dropped from in Civ5 for no other reason than to simplify the game. Yet there is such a thing as oversimplification-& this time I feel that this is the path they've taken!

Aussie.

[Schuesseled]

It's a lot easier to make a good game by removing features and starting again than it is to just cram more stuff into in a civ 4 clone.

@OP I think the most important thing to remember is that this is supposed to be adifferent game to civ 4, so you can't treat these things as missing.

[Aussie_Lurker]

Originally Posted by Schuesseled

It's a lot easier to make a good game by removing features and starting again than it is to just cram more stuff into in a civ 4 clone.

@OP I think the most important thing to remember is that this is supposed to be adifferent game to civ 4, so you can't treat these things as missing.

I'm not asking for a Civ4 clone, any more than I wanted a Civ3 clone in Civ4. Civ4 was still a very different game from Civ3, with only a few key changes (tile improvements, civics, religion & city maintenance mostly). I also think that Civ4 was *better* than *all* its predecessors by adding extra complexity (Civics were much more complex than the governments of Civ1 to Civ3; tile improvements were more complex than the Mines & Farms of Civ1 to Civ3; health was-in some ways-more complex than the pollution mechanic of Civ1 to Civ3). Yet in Civ5 I feel that they believe that it can be made better by making things much more simple than its predecessors & by removing far more than was removed in the transition from Civ3 to Civ4. Indeed, I really feel at the moment that this game breaks the 1/3rd new, 1/3rd removed, 1/3rd improved rule that used to be a major design philosophy!

[Emstinson]

The biggest worry of mine in that line of thinking Aussie is that the 1/3rd new is "new" stuff from Civ Revolutions.. Which I fondly enjoyed but is no where near the level of the computer titles. And I'm sure that got beaten around these forums a bunch already so no reason to go into details. I hope I like the less roads concept, it seems like with 1 upt it would be better to have more roads and maintain the extra cost to invading armies on their movement points. But I'm sure the overall direction of the game required it to add some "strategy" via roads... lol funny to say, lets hope it's atleast true! Oh and the only thing I was going to add on to missing stuff is my favorite unit from civ 4 bts, the airship... man I loved racing to physics so I could see those slow frigate/galleon SOD's coming from off the shore 2 turns early...

[AlpsStranger]

Originally Posted by Aussie_Lurker

I'm not asking for a Civ4 clone, any more than I wanted a Civ3 clone in Civ4. Civ4 was still a very different game from Civ3, with only a few key changes (tile improvements, civics, religion & city maintenance mostly). I also think that Civ4 was *better* than *all* its predecessors by adding extra complexity (Civics were much more complex than the governments of Civ1 to Civ3; tile improvements were more complex than the Mines & Farms of Civ1 to Civ3; health was-in some ways-more complex than the pollution mechanic of Civ1 to Civ3). Yet in Civ5 I feel that they believe that it can be made better by making things much more simple than its predecessors & by removing far more than was removed in the transition from Civ3 to Civ4. Indeed, I really feel at the moment that this game breaks the 1/3rd new, 1/3rd removed, 1/3rd improved rule that used to be a major design philosophy!

I think Civ5 is a slash and burn game, and I actually think this is a good idea. In the absence of this sort of approach a series will eventually stagnate. This is far more of a "Warcraft 3" sort of sequel than a "Starcraft 2" sequel.

I can see why it freaks everyone out, but I think Shafer will be vindicated when the dust settles. Time will tell.

[Wolle68]

Originally Posted by Emstinson

The biggest worry of mine in that line of thinking Aussie is that the 1/3rd new is "new" stuff from Civ Revolutions..

Seems to me that the major new stuff in Civ 5 is:

• Hexes
• 1upt
• Ranged combat
• City states
• Social Policies
• Revamped culture victory
• Revamped conquest victory

Of all these things, only the last is from CivRev. Why do people keep insisting on this when it's so obviously wrong?

[bjbrains]

Originally Posted by Wolle68

Seems to me that the major new stuff in Civ 5 is:

• Hexes
• 1upt
• Ranged combat
• City states
• Social Policies
• Revamped culture victory
• Revamped conquest victory

Of all these things, only the last is from CivRev. Why do people keep insisting on this when it's so obviously wrong?

Don't forget:
New strategic resource system
Revamped unit maintenence
Increased uniqueness between Civs

Of these, Civ Rev only had unique civs, and the Civ 5 system is nothing like the Civ Rev ability system.

Where is all this Civ Rev influence I keep hearing about? Seriously, people always proclaim it, but it doesn't exist.

[PieceOfMind]

Originally Posted by Wolle68

Seems to me that the major new stuff in Civ 5 is:

• Hexes
• 1upt
• Ranged combat
• City states
• Social Policies
• Revamped culture victory
• Revamped conquest victory

Of all these things, only the last is from CivRev. Why do people keep insisting on this when it's so obviously wrong?

Similarities between Civ5 and CivRev that I can think of:

• Shorter and simpler tech tree (prerequisites not as confusing)
• Natural wonders that give some sort of bonus to first to discover.
• Barbarian encampments.
• Ancient ruins - never give something bad
• End of road spaghetti spam
• More intuitive or less complicated combat mechanics
• Cultural victory requires the player to accumulate a certain number of achievements and then build a completing wonder/project.
• Art style
• Streamlined interface (removing cluttered bunches of buttons etc.)
• Conquest victories require player to capture some number of enemy capital cities.
• No commerce and slider system. (There was sort of commerce in CivRev but each city would put it either all into gold or all into science.)

But really we should be talking about the things that are absent in civrev that will be absent in civ5 also. That's usually what people probably mean. For example, people might call the fact that civrev doesn't have workers a "feature". Obviously that's not the case with civ5, but you get the idea. People are critical of CivRev being a guide for what things to "remove" from civ4 for civ5.

There are design concepts being borrowed from civrev, no doubt about it. Almost certainly the design is being more heavily influenced by civ4 - important to remember!

[parabellum9x19]

look at how many things (including units, like paratroopers) were missing from vanilla Civ IV.

[Tk1]

Well then...it doesn't sound good. I'll wait and see before I buy the game.

[Churchdown Yank]

Originally Posted by PieceOfMind

Similarities between Civ5 and CivRev that I can think of:

...snippered...

And almost all of those things are good things. Or at the very least neutral things. I'm not happy about a slightly simplified tech tree, but I can understand why it was streamlined (by like what? 5%?).

You've just blown my mind. I'm not particularly a fan of CivRev (ok - I'm a borderline hater) but maybe some good concepts came out of it?

[iop]

In my opinion, the main thing that will be missing from Civ4 is the mods, patches and expansions - for now, at least.

I can't play Civ4 anymore without the BUG mod, for example, and BtS, to me, is so much better than vanilla (though I almost exclusively play FFH2 now).

Originally Posted by Aussie

Its weird how the defenders of Civ5 declare that anyone who wants the good things from Civ4 retained is merely asking for a new Civ4 expansion-but that's such a childish argument.

I agree with that. Though I think Civ5 brings more complexity. Though let's see what is changing:
- 1upt/Hex: Does away with SOD, makes combat a lot more complex. I like that, because SOD make wars boring to me. Also, I loved Battle Isle.

- Social policies as trees instead of exclusive settings. I see that as an evolution in a good direction: I liked the idea of being able to more carefully choose my civics, but in the end, there were still only a very limited number of combinations I ever used, simply because some of the choices were so much more useful. I don't think I ever adopted environmentalism, for example. The new system is more complex, because you need to accumulate culture to be able to add new civics, and there's a limited amount of civics you'll ever be able to choose. So do you hold off from investing in social policies until you unlock the rationalism tree?

- Tile improvements: We lose windmill/watermill/workshop to buildings and gain the specialist tile improvements. Fortresses get a bit of a boost, which may make them finally useful. Roads costing money makes building them more interesting.

- Religion: I never liked religions very much, because they weren't different at all from each other (FFH2 does an excellent job of fixing that, though), thus adding very little to the game other than making someone pissed at you. It was either rush an early religion and spread it for the money, or wait till there's an established religion. Not much complexity there.

- Units: Maybe I'm just not good enough, but there were plenty of units I hardly ever built. So I don't mind having fewer that I will build. Also, having fewer units means civs get a bit more unique, one thing I loved about FFH2.

[King Jason]

The art styles of civrev and civ5 are not at all similar; they're on complete opposite ends of the spectrum from each other.

[Giant Dwarf]

Originally Posted by Auncien

Espionage, health mechanic, war weariness, ability to raze capital cities (presumably), a plethora of units and barbarian animals (which is the most grievous of all!)

Hold on a second. Did they really get rid of the barbarian animals?

[iop]

Originally Posted by Giant Dwarf

Hold on a second. Did they really get rid of the barbarian animals?

Yes. I think it was in the latest polycast.

Edit: Some more things that will go away:
- Transparency in diplomacy (you won't know what exactly made the others like/dislike you). I'm unhappy about that.
- Ability to rename your cities. Don't care.
- Paying less gold to finish production if your unit is already half-built. Buying units/buildings always costs the same amount, but is no longer tied to civics.
- Tech trading. To get a tech you need to research it yourself (or do a research pact which eventually gives you a random tech). Not sure I like this. Probably I will.


Reading the reports, I'm not worried yet. Playing a new game is like moving to another country. When the first enthusiasm subsides, you notice all the bad things about the new place. It is only later that you learn to appreciate all the new stuff the old place didn't have.

[Aussie_Lurker]

Originally Posted by iop

Yes. I think it was in the latest polycast.
- Ability to rename your cities. Don't care.

Actually, ability to rename cities-& leaders-has been confirmed as being *in*. I know you don't care, but I thought you'd still like to know .

Aussie.