Civ 5 + expansion

[SyntaxError]

You would probably enjoy it only if you purchased them at a noticible discount.

 

[Dr.Null]

- They added religion and espionage to the vanilla version with the last expansion. They were already there in civ IV. If they are good why did they remove them in the vanilla version? If they are not good why did they add back and sell it again under the name of an expansion?

You know that Espionage was added to Civ 4 in an expansion, right? (Two different versions were added: one in Warlords, and a better one in BTS.)

I like Civ 4, but I don't think this is a valid basis for comparison.

 

[mrt309]

You know that Espionage was added to Civ 4 in an expansion, right? (Two different versions were added: one in Warlords, and a better one in BTS.)

I like Civ 4, but I don't think this is a valid basis for comparison.

Yes of course i know but you didn't understand me. I meant Civ IV BTS was released before Civ V and there was Espionage.

 

[Ambidexter]

Having had some serious problems with Steam on another game, I don't trust them so I won't be buying Civ V. Besides, I like Civ IV and don't see any reason to stop playing it.

 

[Dr.Null]

Yes of course i know but you didn't understand me. I meant Civ IV BTS was released before Civ V and there was Espionage.

At the time Civ 4 was released, there was no Espionage in Civ 4, even though there was Espionage in Civ 3, Civ 2, and Civ 1.

At the time Civ 5 was released, there was no Espionage in Civ 5, even though there was Espionage in Civ 4, 3, 2, and 1.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference here. Are you saying Civ 4 sucks because Civ 3 had Espionage when Civ 4 was released?

 

[gps]

You know that Espionage was added to Civ 4 in an expansion, right? (Two different versions were added: one in Warlords, and a better one in BTS.)

Really? I am not aware of any significant changes in how spies work in Vanilla and Warlords.

I like Civ 4, but I don't think this is a valid basis for comparison.

I am with you on that one. Not everyone liked and was happy with how espionage worked in BTS. So I can live with Firaxis dropping it for V Vanilla, focusing on other topics and changing the base game mechanics. The big problem with V is that they did not even get those base mechanics right. If the base game is a solid and stable platform then it makes sense to add layers of advanced stuff in game add ons. Worked quite well for both III and IV...

 

[Dr.Null]

Really? I am not aware of any significant changes in how spies work in Vanilla and Warlords.

It's possible that I'm wrong about Vanilla. The part that I'm sure of is that the version of Espionage which I consider working didn't show up until BTS.

Regarding V... I'm hopeful that after another few expansions it'll become playable, and then I'll have both BTS and V.

 

[mrt309]

At the time Civ 4 was released, there was no Espionage in Civ 4, even though there was Espionage in Civ 3, Civ 2, and Civ 1.

At the time Civ 5 was released, there was no Espionage in Civ 5, even though there was Espionage in Civ 4, 3, 2, and 1.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference here. Are you saying Civ 4 sucks because Civ 3 had Espionage when Civ 4 was released?

No, i am not saying that. I mentioned of 4-5 points which were explaining my opinions about why Civ V is not good enough or why civ IV is better. The topic is about if civ V is worth buying for someone who played Civ IV many hours.

The thing i say is the producers removed espionage although it was a part of Civ IV BTS and it didn't take place in Civ V vanilla. Is this correct? Then they added it back by an expansion. Right? I just criticize this. They should have improved it in my opinion.

We can talk about differences between Civ IV and the older civ games in another topic.

 

[Dr.Null]

No, i am not saying that. I mentioned of 4-5 points which were explaining my opinions about why Civ V is not good enough or why civ IV is better. The topic is about if civ V is worth buying for someone who played Civ IV many hours.

Right, and my point is that Civ 4 didn't have adequate Espionage until an expansion (specifically BTS). So, if Civ 5 lacks Espionage until an expansion, this isn't particularly a bad thing.

I won't play Civ 4 without BTS; so IMHO there's no reason to judge Civ 5 without its expansions.

 

[s.bernbaum]

I like Civ IV and don't see any reason to stop playing it.

^This…….

 

[reddishrecue]

Civ V + expansion seems expensive at first but the upset was when I bought civ IV with expansion at full price and then find out later that people got civ IV with expansion at a cheaper price (around 20$) when having the full expansion early costed more. Civ IV is still ok to me.

 

[gps]

Civ V + expansion seems expensive at first but the upset was when I bought civ IV with expansion at full price and then find out later that people got civ IV with expansion at a cheaper price (around 20$) when having the full expansion early costed more.

Not quite sure what your issue is here. It's quite normal (and also quite OK from my point of view) that games get cheaper the older they get - and also that complete editions are offered. It's actually quite common for me to grab one of those butget complete versions for games I really like, for archival purpose, as a backup and to have all the patches included. With a bit of patience you can get any game for a decent price, only question is: are you willing to wait...

 

[Sullla]

I've kept an eye on Civ5 over the last two years, watching first the patches and then the expansion. It hasn't changed. All of the issues with the core mechanics are absolutely unaltered. Don't be fooled by the minor details on the surface: unit stat changes, social policy tweaks, and so on. None of these affect the core gameplay. All five of my central arguments remain equally as valid today as they did when I wrote them in December 2010. That's why I never bothered to write anything else - there's nothing more to say.

Civ5 is a game with great complexity but no depth. Far too often people make the mistake of thinking that complexity (which Civ5 does have, there's a lot going on in the game) equals strategic depth (which is completely lacking). There are a lot of choices to make in Civ5, but it all falls apart because there's only one right path to follow. Connect resources, sell resources for gold, turn gold into whatever you want (city states, research agreements, etc.) Keep doing that until you win. That's the entirety of the game's economy. Do that, then fight the braindead AI in combat, and it's virtually impossible to lose. Sorry, I've tried the game, and there's not much there. The gameplay is fatally flawed by the one unit per tile mechanic. Everything else falls apart as a result.

This is the best recent summary of Civ5 that I've seen posted:

All the strategy in Civ 5 is on a very small level. All my work optimizing the path through the culture policies added up to maybe three turns difference on the ending date. All the work of picking the best city location means maybe one more citizen because the food cost is so brutal and maybe four more hammers because the tile yields are so homogenized and flat. My work on optimizing the payoff of research agreements was a small corner of the fact that buying maximum research agreements is always correct and dominates any other way to spend gold.

There's no big-picture strategy aside from the single branch of win condition. Games of Civ 5 always develop the same way. There are no drastically different approaches like a Pyramids-Representation economy, or Great Lighthouse economy, or deeply beelined slingshots like Lib-Democracy, or crazy Great Person farms with twenty specialists, or Globe Theater drafting, or a workshop-powered State Property empire. Social policies appear to provide branching options (and fool the reviewers into thinking so after their single game), but really just serve to feed your chosen win condition. Culture always wants Piety, space always wants Rationalism, diplomacy always wants Patronage, military always wants Honor. The strategy is illusory.

That single strategic point of win condition captured my attention for about six games, but now I have hardly any desire for more. The one thing left to do was Always War, and I started that, but lost interest after 100 turns since it was playing out just like every other game of Civ 5. I was trying to use the Aztec ability to catapult through some social trees, but the exponential cost of policies means you really can't ever get ahead. Always War itself is surprisingly uninteresting when conquest does you no good, thanks to the happy cap.

There is strategy in Civ 5, but once you've seen it, you're done. It doesn't vary. I enjoyed solving it, but now it's solved.

There's nothing more I can say. I figured the game out in about six weeks, beat it on Deity, and I was done. No point in playing further. I almost envy the less experienced players, who can't see the holes in the gameplay and can get months or years out of the game. But for the expert player, the game is a massive failure.

On the plus side, you can get Civ4 Complete for less than $10 now, which is an incredible price for one of the best strategy games ever.