Civ4 or Civ5?

[Thormodr]

Thormodr:

What exactly, is the gameplay effect of not being able to have a great artist and a space ship part in the same tile? None. It's an extraneous nonissue.

Not at all. It speaks to the inattention to detail and the sloppy job that the developers put into the game. The game is full of stupid things like that. Like how you can be a theocracy and have free religion at the same time. Teleporting resource trade routes is an other favourite of mine. Believable world my arse.

Why can you stack infinite air units in a city but can't have a great general and a great engineer in the same city? 1UPT but we'll make an exception for aircraft for no apparent reason.

At least cIV was consistent in that regard.

 

[McRoos]

What I don't understand is that many people say that the combat system in CIV V is so much better.
I'm playing as Emperor, and almost never loose a unit.
Am I the new Napoleon, or is the system poorly designed ?

 

[Roxlimn]

Thormodr:

Aircraft stacking is a considerable and powerful strategic advantage in the 1UPT combat game! I can only imagine that you did not think of this because your mind is too biased to think clearly. Aircraft stacking is what gives aircraft their value. Otherwise, they're just crappier artillery.

Civilian units not stacking is important so that Workers will not stack to speed up improvement building. It also matters in that Great Generals cannot be defended on a single stack - especially important in retreat and similar strategic concerns.

It just so happens that it also does not allow Great People and Spaceship part stacking. That detail is inconsequential. Inattention to useless detail is a good thing, not bad.

 

[Roxlimn]

What I don't understand is that many people say that the combat system in CIV V is so much better.
I'm playing as Emperor, and almost never loose a unit.
Am I the new Napoleon, or is the system poorly designed ?

You shouldn't be losing that many units in CivIV, either! Civ V combat is better not because you lose more units, but because it's more interesting than moving two superstacks on adjacent tiles and clicking one on the other.

 

[Akka]

Thormodr:

What exactly, is the gameplay effect of not being able to have a great artist and a space ship part in the same tile? None. It's an extraneous nonissue.

He is talking about things not making sense, and you answer about gameplay effect...
That's probably exactly the problem in Civ5 : only caring about the gameplay gimmicks (and failing at them moreover) while forgetting the immersion, logic and actual concept that sustain the whole serie.

 

[Thormodr]

Thormodr:

Aircraft stacking is a considerable and powerful strategic advantage in the 1UPT combat game! I can only imagine that you did not think of this because your mind is too biased to think clearly. Aircraft stacking is what gives aircraft their value. Otherwise, they're just crappier artillery.

Civilian units not stacking is important so that Workers will not stack to speed up improvement building. It also matters in that Great Generals cannot be defended on a single stack - especially important in retreat and similar strategic concerns.

It just so happens that it also does not allow Great People and Spaceship part stacking. That detail is inconsequential. Inattention to useless detail is a good thing, not bad.

I can understand the strategic value of aircraft. However, you didn't address the question of why you can stack aircraft in a city but not other units. That makes zero sense and arbitrarily breaks the 1UPT rule for no good reason.

Great people stacking could easily be modified so you don't have problems with Great Generals. Stacking workers should be fine. Just don't have them be able to have more than one working in a single tile. Instead they stubbornly stick to the crappy mechanic of 1UPT yet still strangely violate with aircraft for some reason.

After a while, the suspension of disbelief just becomes too much with Civilization 5. I think it was teleporting resources that was the worst offender though.

 

[The_J]

He is talking about things not making sense, and you answer about gameplay effect...
That's probably exactly the problem in Civ5 : only caring about the gameplay gimmicks (and failing at them moreover) while forgetting the immersion, logic and actual concept that sustain the whole serie.

You're still talking about realism the series, in which one omnipotent rules lives for more than 6000 years and rules a world stretching empire all alone?
Yeah, realism...

 

[zuraffo]

1.) stack vs 1upt
As a war MECHANICS, 1upt is more fun, on paper. But when you add in the incompetant A.I. (which is not the fault of CiV... all A.I. as of date are not match for human minds), SoD plays more realistically. Face it, A.I. simply isn't smart enough to handle 1upt. While the mechanic is good on paper, the A.I. will make it a worse choice. I always find war in CiV easier than in CIV, as long as your are not out-tech AND out-number.

Oh, and I don't understand why they don't allow civilian unit stacking. It's just silly when I can block the A.I. expansion with a single worker.

2) Civ4 vs Civ5
I play Civ5, quite a bit, to kill time. Civ5 has come a long way from its release. But can we not kid ourselves by comparing the two? It's like, I don't know, comparing Beethoven with your piano teacher, whom I am sure play just fine.

I would rather the Civ5 fans dispense with all these comparisons and get on with discussing the games in its own merit.

3) The problem with Civ5 is evident in a lot of franchise. It is a systemic problem, and sometimes, I think I just have to accept that my generation of gamers and our associated philosophy is already a thing of the past. Perhaps we should just learn to adapt to this new generation.

4) I am just responding to a post that says, Civ5 is about big decisions... Actually, it boils down to just 3:
- When do you build your army (Once you have your core elite troops, say 8~15, you may never need to build a single military units for the rest of the game)
- When do you expand (actually, this one is easy... as soon as you have the happiness for it. there's no downside to expansion)
- When do you stop and build-up (usually when you filled your continent)
So, yes, I find Civ5 incredibly linear.

 

[Roxlimn]

Akka:

Civ IV is not that much better at immersion and logic, either. Players who prefer Civ IV are apt to overlook its defects, so they think it's more immersive and logical, but it really isn't.

For example, what about the Pyramids induces people to adopt a Representative government, or to be able to choose whichever style of future, unknown governance that they so choose?

Why is it that Spiritual Civs get to avoid anarchy between large, frequent, and frankly unbelievable social changes within their populations? Is believing in the supernatural apt to make you that insane, and in that specific way?

In what way does building the Cristo Redentor makes it better to be insane in the manner of Spiritual Civs, and how does it allow you to change official state religions without causing mass anarchy, whereas doing the same otherwise will?

For that matter, how does it make sense that a Civ could adopt Islam as its national religion and not cause anarchy in its naturally 95% highly Spiritual Christians, but a less Spiritual Civ could face anarchy changing to its own majority religion officially, among a people who are not as Spiritual?

How does building a largely ornamental Eiffel Tower allow a Civ to no longer require building functional Broadcast Towers?

Of course, these are just the Wonders related inconsistencies and illogics. Civ IV is a game more than it is a simulation, and that has always been one of the strengths of the Civ series. Bagging on Civ V for small details like that when Civ has always been like that is just plainly silly.

 

[Ravellion]

I'll present you a game. It's called civ V also known as Carpets of Doom I. The game involves AI and players both spamming troops but because the troops can't cross the same tiles there are huge traffic jams just trying to get to war.

If you would call the current Civ5 way of troop deployment "carpets", I don't want to see what I must conclude is your sorry excuse for a living room.

 

[Roxlimn]

Thormodr:

I already told you explicitly that stacking is the entire point of having aircraft. That is their claim to fame, their very strategic value. That is the reason why it's good to use them. How is it that you steadily say "no good reason," when I just explicitly told you what the reason was?

Great people stacking could easily be modified so you don't have problems with Great Generals. Stacking workers should be fine. Just don't have them be able to have more than one working in a single tile. Instead they stubbornly stick to the crappy mechanic of 1UPT yet still strangely violate with aircraft for some reason.

The reason is that they choose to except aircraft to give them that strategic value. Being able to stack in a 1UPT is of strategic value. How can you not see this?

 

[jtb1127]

If you would call the current Civ5 way of troop deployment "carpets", I don't want to see what I must conclude is your sorry excuse for a living room.

It certainly isn't as hideous as the average ciV army during preparation for war.

 

[spider1]

Realism and game play in Civ are two different things. It is, after all, a game and not a simulation of history. I can't tell you how many times in Civ IV I played as the Arabs and spread Judaism throughout the world.

 

[zuraffo]

Thormodr:

Aircraft stacking is a considerable and powerful strategic advantage in the 1UPT combat game! I can only imagine that you did not think of this because your mind is too biased to think clearly. Aircraft stacking is what gives aircraft their value. Otherwise, they're just crappier artillery.

Actually, no. Gameplay wise, even if you can only have one aircraft per city, it is still considerably more useful than the artillery.

The reason the developers break the 1upt rules for aircraft is because aircraft simply doesn't "make sense" with 1upt. it just boggles the mind, and the suspension of disbelief thingy t-something was talking about.

 

[Roxlimn]

It shouldn't be. Detractors of 1UPT, it seems to me, just don't understand it whatsoever. The AI coding might not as well, if it continues to build carpets, though I don't see that on the more normative difficulty settings.

In 1UPT, a bigger army is NOT better, so it makes no sense to build a carpet of units if only 25% of that carpet will ever be in combat at any one time. If you're a Civ V player and you're making carpets of doom, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Becomedeath]

1.) stack vs 1upt
As a war MECHANICS, 1upt is more fun, on paper. But when you add in the incompetant A.I. (which is not the fault of CiV... all A.I. as of date are not match for human minds), SoD plays more realistically. Face it, A.I. simply isn't smart enough to handle 1upt.

Well it's not going to get smarter without having people play against it and then research why it's not working as intended.

People keep giving Civ a hard time about this feature but quite frankly I think this flagship feature of Civ 5 is where most of it's improvement lies.

Yes, the AI is at present too clunky to handle it with any finesse. But I would bet heavily on the fact that the lessons being learned from it will make it's next incarnation highly superior.

This is not the first time in the series where a questionable mechanic has been improved upon and refined to produce an ultimately outstanding result.

The point to remember is that Civ 5 is a completely different game. I read a lot here about balance and fixes that when it boils down to it, are simply asking for Civ 5 to behave like Civ 4. So play Civ 4 if it means that much.

Civ has never, in my opinion, been a planet simulator, so quite why people are expecting it to be is rather confusing. It's a strategy game, one of the most complex and best on the market.

While there are issues to be resolved, you'd be hard pushed to find anything on the market these days that doesn't have some. Friaxis pushed the boat out further than they could handle it, but I salute them for that. While there are mistakes made and lessons to be learned, better to have the balls to find out than to play it safe and produce yet another mindless game which is a carbon copy of it's predecessor.

The world does not need one of the best games produced in the past 20 years to suddenly start playing it safe.

 

[Roxlimn]

Actually, no. Gameplay wise, even if you can only have one aircraft per city, it is still considerably more useful than the artillery.

The reason the developers break the 1upt rules for aircraft is because aircraft simply doesn't "make sense" with 1upt. it just boggles the mind, and the suspension of disbelief thingy t-something was talking about.

I highly contest that. Even with 1 UPT, I have zero problems concentrating the fire of five artillery on a single target consistently. With only 1 aircraft per city, I'll need five cities within reach of my target city to be able to effect the same, and it'll only get harder the deeper into enemy territory I go, especially if I'm razing cities along the way. Forget about intercontinental landings. No city of yours is going to reach that far, let alone five.

 

[chazzycat]

I fully agree with the previous two posts. 1UPT is the way to go, it'll only get better going forward. Planes would suck big time if they were limited to 1 per city.

 

[zuraffo]

I highly contest that. Even with 1 UPT, I have zero problems concentrating the fire of five artillery on a single target consistently. With only 1 aircraft per city, I'll need five cities within reach of my target city to be able to effect the same, and it'll only get harder the deeper into enemy territory I go, especially if I'm razing cities along the way. Forget about intercontinental landings. No city of yours is going to reach that far, let alone five.

Well, that's sort of my point, and Thormodr's as well, if I understand her correctly.

the original rationale of having 1upt was so that we can avoid infinite military power in one tile, so WHY break the rule for aircraft? The aircraft doesn't need stacking to have a strategic value. It's already have longer range (stealth bomber has 20 range, any idea how far that is?), and higher firepower and can travel a large distance in a turn. By breaking the rule on aircraft, you essentially make it the game breaker. Idk if there's a stacking limit to aircraft, since I seldom need more than 5 in a city, but if there isn't a stacking limit, what is stopping my from stacking, say, 20 aircraft in a city to make it unassailable? IF there is a stacking limit, why can't the same mechanics apply to other units?

The glaring question here is, why create an exception for aircraft when there is no compelling gameplay reason to? The answer is of course, it simply "make sense". A certain dose of realism is required, even in a game.

 

[Roxlimn]

zuraffo:

You will need to reflect a greater familiarity with late game Civ V combat for us to take this any further. Bombers are not game breakers. Rocket Artillery, even with 1UPT, are still better units than Bombers, though Stealth Bombers are the most powerful ranged unit in the game, as befits their ultimate unit status.

20 aircraft in a city does not make it unassailable. Not at all. If anything, it makes that city a seriously juicy target.

The glaring question here is, why create an exception for aircraft when there is no compelling gameplay reason to? The answer is of course, it simply "make sense". A certain dose of realism is required, even in a game.

Nope. Not at all. I'd have had no problems with 1 UPT aircraft, but that would make them extremely like to artillery, so it's not as strategically interesting. Stacking makes aircraft interesting, without making them game breaking.