I'm using an Athlon dual core machine with 2gB ram and WinXP. It's so slow with Civ V that I have to stay on the strategic screen to make it playable, but I'm finding Civ V is more enjoyable than Civ IV because I'm not overwhelmed. I've played through one complete 500 turn game with no crashes.
Civ IV was the ultimate in detail and micromanaging yet I was usually buried with all the choices I had to make.
With V, lots of that has been eliminated which takes away the problem of juggling too many balls at once. I love the way you can embark units without having to build transports with limited capacity. I like the hardening of cities so garrisons aren't required to hold them. I like 1UT that requires deploying an army in a logical arrangement and the fact that you can block with area of control. In fact, there isn't any aspect of the simplification that I believe detracts from gameplay. I think the designers realized they had gone as far as they could with Civ IV and needed a new approach.
IV had much more information available on screen and the mods (Better BUG,etc.) were fantastic aids for analysis. Civilopedia with IV was much easier to use.
But I'm having more fun now. It has become a game again instead of a demanding chore, so I think I'll be more likely to play. It's interesting that V, though it seems simpler, occupies more space on disk than IV did and makes much greater demands on the PC. To me, the 3D graphics are a waste, I'm having a ball using only the strategic screen with the simple icons. It seems the number crunching is what is taking up the processor time, not the graphics. Playing a standard game, when I reach the last turns I find the wait per turn for the PC to do it's thing is about 10 to 15 seconds and that doesn't seem any worse than IV.
Civ IV was the ultimate in detail and micromanaging yet I was usually buried with all the choices I had to make.
With V, lots of that has been eliminated which takes away the problem of juggling too many balls at once. I love the way you can embark units without having to build transports with limited capacity. I like the hardening of cities so garrisons aren't required to hold them. I like 1UT that requires deploying an army in a logical arrangement and the fact that you can block with area of control. In fact, there isn't any aspect of the simplification that I believe detracts from gameplay. I think the designers realized they had gone as far as they could with Civ IV and needed a new approach.
IV had much more information available on screen and the mods (Better BUG,etc.) were fantastic aids for analysis. Civilopedia with IV was much easier to use.
But I'm having more fun now. It has become a game again instead of a demanding chore, so I think I'll be more likely to play. It's interesting that V, though it seems simpler, occupies more space on disk than IV did and makes much greater demands on the PC. To me, the 3D graphics are a waste, I'm having a ball using only the strategic screen with the simple icons. It seems the number crunching is what is taking up the processor time, not the graphics. Playing a standard game, when I reach the last turns I find the wait per turn for the PC to do it's thing is about 10 to 15 seconds and that doesn't seem any worse than IV.
).
As for liking self-sufficient cities that don't require any garrison or any thought other than 'found on hill if possible, and build walls' ... wtf?
