Civ 4 vs. Civ 5?

[AlpsStranger]

Personally? Civ5 is an excellent game with BNW. Very good, very much worth the play.

Civ4 is really, really special though. I just have to say that Civ4 is better, push come to shove, but that Civ5 is still more than worth playing in its own right.

 

[Primacide]

Hey thanks for the tip re: traffic jams mod. I'm subscribing right now...

@shakakhan: man those are good points about the drawbacks of 1upt. I think it's the right move for civ, but you are correct - I have played games where I didn't war against a runaway because the time and clicks it takes to laboriously shlepp your army even as little as twenty tiles away is just too much of a headache. I'm not sure who said it first, but it's too bad that the turn after you achieve military victory you have a profound sense of deflation as you look at your units and know that you have to painfully reorganize. It really robs the feeling of accomplishment when you are immediately hit with minutiae.

To all: sorry, I know this is a thread about civ iv vs civ V. I just can't help it.

 

[rschissler]

Hey thanks for the tip re: traffic jams mod. I'm subscribing right now...

@shakakhan: man those are good points about the drawbacks of 1upt. I think it's the right move for civ, but you are correct - I have played games where I didn't war against a runaway because the time and clicks it takes to laboriously shlepp your army even as little as twenty tiles away is just too much of a headache. I'm not sure who said it first, but it's too bad that the turn after you achieve military victory you have a profound sense of deflation as you look at your units and know that you have to painfully reorganize. It really robs the feeling of accomplishment when you are immediately hit with minutiae.

To all: sorry, I know this is a thread about civ iv vs civ V. I just can't help it.

While 1UPT was basically a good idea, it was poorly implemented, due to a map that is too small for it to operate proficiently, and AI that wasn't upgraded to handle it properly. Not to mention, all the side effects from it that affected a lot of the game structure. Also, 1UPT really offers almost nothing that the OP was seeking, for considering Civ V.

 

[meatpardle]

I never played IV and went straight from III to BNW (with a few years in between), but I like 1UPT. It was initially a bit odd not stacking units in a city and frustrating trying to mobilise and move an army, but that's the challenge. It's more realistic having to deal with choosing between funneling a large army through a choke point vs a quicker access for a smaller one.

It is a bit annoying that you can't group them together (even if they are on separate tiles) and set a an overall target for them to move to, and also that you can't link a settler with a military unit for protection while travelling and have to move them separately.

I'm generally a peaceful Civ player anyway so it doesn't really bother me as much as others.

 

[kaspergm]

I never played IV and went straight from III to BNW (with a few years in between), but I like 1UPT. It was initially a bit odd not stacking units in a city and frustrating trying to mobilise and move an army, but that's the challenge. It's more realistic having to deal with choosing between funneling a large army through a choke point vs a quicker access for a smaller one.

It is a bit annoying that you can't group them together (even if they are on separate tiles) and set a an overall target for them to move to, and also that you can't link a settler with a military unit for protection while travelling and have to move them separately.

I'm generally a peaceful Civ player anyway so it doesn't really bother me as much as others.

I agree, I actually think people make too much out of the trouble with 1UPT compared to how much of a problem it is in game. Yes it's combersome when there is a chokepoint, but that's actually a good thing, because that is realistic and means you can actually use terrain to your advantage. Most of the time once you have roads and railroads, army movement will be fairly fluid.

I do agree though, that there should features like group movement for units and definitely also an option to lock a combat unit to a civilian unit or a trade unit, and likewise for embarked and naval units.

 

[miaasma]

it's been a long time since i played civ 4 as often as i currently play civ 5, but i can still remember the striking difference between the two games. other people put it well but civ 4 is far similar to civ 3 IIRC, whereas civ 5 deviates a lot and it'll feel weird or even wrong at first but it's by far my favourite civ game so far

 

[beetle]

@OP, I would recommend 5 over 4, but I think 5 spoils one for 4. So if you think you might want to play both, then 4. Also 4 complete has some fantastic RP scenarios with it.

It was actually the 3 -> 4 that took me the longest to adjust to.

I played civ3 a little too extensively and still think it is an awesome game. Then i got civ4 and after a few tries threw it out of the window.

Could someone remind me why one might have felt the 3 to 4 transition was too rough? In my memory, it was quite incremental!

 

[GAGA Extrem]

If you prefer Storytelling I'd recommend to play CIV4 with the "Fall From Heaven 2" mod. It's a fantastic mod (actually one of the best mods for *any* game I have ever played) with a great setting, diverse factions and quite dynamic ingame events.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

dont tell me this is another forum without delete button

 

[WackenOpenAir]

@OP, I would recommend 5 over 4, but I think 5 spoils one for 4. So if you think you might want to play both, then 4. Also 4 complete has some fantastic RP scenarios with it.





Could someone remind me why one might have felt the 3 to 4 transition was too rough? In my memory, it was quite incremental!

Its mostly because when you are used to something and things change, that it sucks. Espescially if you were good at something and all of a sudden you suck.

What i think put me down though was that it turned around my view of strategy games. Strategy games in their basic form are about exponential growth and more is better. In civ3 this was very strongly true. You could not have enough cities or units. Sure, new cities you built have corruption and dont perform as well, but they are in no way detrimental to the empire you already have. Similarly, when you capture enemy cities they might be resisting and totally corrupt, but they were in no way bad for your empire as a whole. That was what i was used to and what i new to exploit to the max in civ3.

Then came civ4. I dont know much details anymore, i didnt try it for long. I do remember that all of a sudden more cities and conquering cities could actually be detrimental to your civ. It turned my whole world upside down, the basics of all strategy games were no longer true in their simple form.

It is for the same reason that i thought warcraft 3 sucked after being a 6 year full time starcraft veteran. The unit upkeep levels in warcraft 3 in my eyes were simply a punishment for playing well. (the difference is, i still think warcraft 3 sucks, but civ5 has taken me over)

That was the most important part, i dont remember but i also think there was something i didnt like about combat, something that was very unline civ3s stacks of 20 horsemen owning everything.

Now, many years later, i started playing civ5, obviously the same is true in civ5. But now i have changed as a gamer. I became more of a casual gamer, didnt expect to use my civ3 skills to own civ5, instead just started playing to see a pretty game with nice world wonders to build like every noob (sure, i have already lost several nights of sleep and not playing so casual anymore, but that was not my intention )

 

[Olodune]

@beetle

1) There was the conversion from pre-rendered 2D graphics to 3D. Along with health bars that were less clean looking this made the game seem hollow, initially. I think the UI was less responsive as well. I'm still not convinced 4 actually looks better

2) Small empires! It seems funny now when we have Civ 5, but Civ 4 was the first step in that direction.

3) Strength instead of Attack/Defense stats. This made strong units (Riflemen) good everywhere. Overall the military system seemed simpler (no armies or mobilization).

4) No more small population-pump cities. In Civ 3 you could grow very quickly by having 2 types of cities: Large productive cities; Small cities that fed the large cities with population. This seemed like a micro nerf.

5) Civ 3 had what I think were the best scenarios of any Civ iteration. That Japan scenario was epic.

6) No more city view. Maybe not a big deal, but it was nice to see a city full of wonders.

7) Removal of difficulty levels. Demigod and Sid bracketed Deity nicely.

Those are the ones that I can recall.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Yeah lack of city view was a big disappointment when I started V years ago

 

[rschissler]

What i think put me down though was that it turned around my view of strategy games. Strategy games in their basic form are about exponential growth and more is better. In civ3 this was very strongly true. You could not have enough cities or units. Sure, new cities you built have corruption and dont perform as well, but they are in no way detrimental to the empire you already have. Similarly, when you capture enemy cities they might be resisting and totally corrupt, but they were in no way bad for your empire as a whole. That was what i was used to and what i new to exploit to the max in civ3.

Then came civ4. I dont know much details anymore, i didnt try it for long. I do remember that all of a sudden more cities and conquering cities could actually be detrimental to your civ. It turned my whole world upside down, the basics of all strategy games were no longer true in their simple form.

Since the OP is coming from Civ III, I'll respond to this, as it might be helpful for him.

This is true in the beginning parts of games in III and IV, but not in the latter stages. In Civ IV you don't want to grow (more cities) to fast, otherwise you will find your research down to 10% or so. That's why it is important to get those cottages going early. As they progress, you can take on more and more cities without detriment. And these later cities can be just as useful as your earlier cities. This is a huge difference and improvement over Civ III.

In Civ III, when you reach a certain number of cities, corruption is like 99% and they are totally worthless having, unless they are linked to a luxury. If conquest is your goal, you are better off razing them and leaving the space open. Of course, the AI loves to expand and will keep doing so regardless.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Since the OP is coming from Civ III, I'll respond to this, as it might be helpful for him.

This is true in the beginning parts of games in III and IV, but not in the latter stages. In Civ IV you don't want to grow (more cities) to fast, otherwise you will find your research down to 10% or so. That's why it is important to get those cottages going early. As they progress, you can take on more and more cities without detriment. And these later cities can be just as useful as your earlier cities. This is a huge difference and improvement over Civ III.

In Civ III, when you reach a certain number of cities, corruption is like 99% and they are totally worthless having, unless they are linked to a luxury. If conquest is your goal, you are better off razing them and leaving the space open. Of course, the AI loves to expand and will keep doing so regardless.

For civ3: place cities as close together as possible (3 workable tiles per city) get 2 or 3 scientists in every city.
As long as science matters, no razing. Only when science doesnt matter i usually razed cities out of lazyness. (because you researched knights and you want to win by conquest victory. But ye, I always won by conquest victory because i was too lazy to ICS the whole map for different victory types)

I agree now that civ5 is better. I think my posts explained a bit what was the problem for me and that it was not because 4 or 5 were a worse game than 3. I actually intended with that to also indirectly make clear what, most likely, are the underlying reasons people say 4 is better than 5. And they will say 5 is better than 6 etc etc etc.

 

[Breezin]

Despite the disappointing diplomacy in Civ V (it's quite a bit better in Civ IV) I still say V is the superior game.

It's tremendously enjoyable. I hope they really beef up diplomacy for Civ VI.

 

[Naokaukodem]

They are both as much awful as the other. Just wait for Civ6.

 

[YungPtolemy666]

Wow there are a ton of responses in here now.

I'm still not sold on the 1UPT thing. I see a lot of people saying that's realistic, but I'm prone to disagree. At least if they are 1UPT are they modeled to represent more than a couple of Warriors / Soldiers / Etc.?

Diplomacy definitely needs to be expanded. Of the 2 which would you say has the stronger diplomatic system?

 

[beetle]

Its mostly because when you are used to something and things change, that it sucks. Espescially if you were good at something and all of a sudden you suck.

Wow, thanks for being so candid and insightful!

...Those are the ones that I can recall.

Thanks, I appreciate the reminders. I will avoid the temptation to revisit them point-by-point! (Been there, done that.)

I'm still not sold on the 1UPT thing. I see a lot of people saying that's realistic, but I'm prone to disagree.

Who is saying that 1UPT is more realistic? I think people say 1UPT is more like traditional board games. It is very much an abstraction in any case, but yes each unit is representing a significant number of troops. My main argument in support of 1UPT is that the tactical game mechanics are more coherent than with previous civ iterations. (That said, there are still a few head-scratchers, but it all works out well enough.)

Of the 2 which would you say has the stronger diplomatic system?

I very much miss the vassal system, but otherwise I don’t recall 4 having much diplomacy at all. There was a bit with having the same government pick, but frankly it did not come into play sufficiently in my opinion, especially as compared with Ideologies in 5 which very much influence relations.

I'm more interested by the storytelling, how lush the world I'm creating feels. Which one would you say is more absorbing on a narrative level??

On these points, I don’t see how 4 can compete with 5 at all.

 

[shaglio]

As others have said, check out some LPs to see how the game looks/feels.

Also, I'm pretty sure the free demo is still available so you can try it out for yourself. Just remember it's still a demo of the Vanilla game, not BNW, but it should give you some hands on experience of the 1UPT system (albeit with 10hp units instead of 100hp).

 

[Bloodstone]

Ease of Mods between the two has been a big difference for me. I'm not tech savvy, other than to run some games and do my online stuff. My learning curve on getting Civ IV Mods to work was steep. Don't get me wrong, all of the info and needed stuff is readily available, but some of it can require alot of work.

At one point I switched computers and even though I had the IV game on CD wound up having to buy it again to get it to load Mods properly, it was kind of crazy. Civ V is a vastly different creature and makes loading Mods easy for the most part. I still love IV, and play it occasionally, especially Mod's like The Rev series and FFH. Still working out 1UPT and War, along with the other changes as I just recently picked up V, but the beauty of it and the whole series is you can spend years crafting different play styles and victories. I never dreamed of a Culture Victory in IV but it was my first win on Prince when I started.

I would start with IV and just have fun. Load up the Blue Marble and BUG Mods for a good base game, and when you finish up with V eventually, VI will be available!