Civilization 6

[Imperator Knoedel]

My ideal version would be 0% Civ5 for sure. Seriously, I find literally every single mechanic of Civ5 worse than Civ4. A very small number of them may actually be decent ideas, but then they were terribly implemented (like natural wonders or naturally growing borders). The rest are downright awful decisions that I never want to see in a civ game again. Of course I know that my wish won't come to pass...

Would you mind to explain what's so terrible about the religion, culture and social policy mechanics in 5? Also you've got to admit that the music is just beautiful from start to finish.

 

[vincentz]

Its been a while since I tried Civ 5, but iirc my problem with social policies, is that a civ cannot change them at will. Once you go a certain direction, there is no turning back.

What really killed it for me was the missing sliders.

 

[Windsor]

Would you mind to explain what's so terrible about the religion, culture and social policy mechanics in 5? Also you've got to admit that the music is just beautiful from start to finish.

Civ4 music (and sound overall) >> Civ5

Civ4 music is amazing from Baba Yetu to Chairman Dances.

I'd like everyone to start Civ4 (vanilla) and then Civ5. BabaYetu is by far the best title track. Then click "play now". Notice how terrible the "click" sound is in Civ5.

When you click "play" in Civ4 Baba Yetu transitions very well into the Civ1-intro music and you get the story of how the earth was created and life began. When the intro is over you are placed exactly where you expect to, just about to settle down and start a new civilization.

Found your city and start exploring with your warrior. Now I want everyone to notice that THERE IS NO MUSIC. Only ambient sounds. The birds flying from the trees when you enter the forest, the wind. The lack of background music makes you more aware of all the sounds, just like being in the wilderness in the real world. Only when you enter the classical era does the music begin and that's a brilliant move.

Soren Johnson nailed this. He sets the atmosphere of the game perfect.

Contrast this with Civ5. When you start a new game you get the story of the real world civilization (with a rather bad narrator). In my case the game welcomed me as "president George Washington" and told me that I lead the industrious american nation. It also tells me that a civil war almost tore my country apart.

Then the game starts. But there's nothing in the game suggesting that I'm playing as George Washington and my "industrious nation" consist of a settler and a warrior. It's 4000BC and there's never going to be a civil war. The soundtrack playing is far to advanced to fit a 4000BC civilization.

There's no coherency. There's a big disconnect between what the music and sound in the game tells you and what the game actually is.

Civ5 can keep its big budget specially composed music. It will never managed to evoke the same feelings as when the warhorn blows in Civ4.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I liked the religion and culture systems of civ5 to be interesting and fun. At first blush, the social policy systems seems cool like your civilization has a character to it that evolves over the millennia. But after a few games, I have the same opinion as vincentz. Without a way to shift around policies, you end up playing one of three games every time and mix/match social policies is way too inefficient compared to finishing out a policy line. I would like to see something like this represented in Civ6 but a bit more simplified and with less focus so that a civic system can be implemented alongside it. Additionally, commerce system of civ4 is so much more fun than just food = science. The espionage system could've been fun if it was a bit more in depth. At least there were no poison well AI annoyances!

 

[Funky]

Would you mind to explain what's so terrible about the religion, culture and social policy mechanics in 5? Also you've got to admit that the music is just beautiful from start to finish.

Vincentz, Windsor and blitzkrieg have already given excellent answers. I can especially relate to what Windsor said about the music and the general atmosphere of the games.

As for social policies and religion in Civ5, they are basically just further trees next to the techtree, and constitute a collection of bonuses that you collect over time. After a few games there is nothing interesting about the decisions involved, and the systems are historically implausible on top of that. It's just the feeling of collecting a further goody every few rounds, accomplished by a brainless click.
All the interesting and realworld considerations, like that of religious blocks creating the foundation for diplomatic negotiations or animosity, with the options of spreading your religion or fighting religious wars, or the various tradeoffs between civics, the consideration when and what to change to, accompanied by the risk of anarchy, are all non-existent in Civ5.

As for culture, the whole tall vs wide thing is simply absurd by any measure of historical accuracy, however rough. The culture spread of cities had potential to be better than Civ4, but was ruined by its implementation. You can buy extra land, from who exactly? Isn't the land unsettled? And how the hell do you spend gold for land before you have developed currency?

I will grant you that the flaws in the culture and religion systems, despite being rather glaring, don't necessarily stand out quite so much, because other mechanics like 1UPT, global happiness, or expansion being tied to tech rate are so horrendous and evoke even greater shock and abhorrence over so much concentrated incompetence on the side of the developers.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

And how the hell do you spend gold for land before you have developed currency?

This was one of the worst parts of Civ5 for me. Just the idea that you can purchase anything from tiles to buildings to units from turn 1 is abhorrent IMO. The way rush-buying was implemented in Civ4 was near flawless. Also, the concept of slavery is totally missing and just replaced with this rush-buy anything at any time mechanic. Bleh!

If they had taken the religious mechanics that they began with and expanded it to allow for religious blocs (that are more regulated than Civ4 so you don't always have Hindu/Buddhist/Jewish blocs) and diplomatic maneuvering, it would have been great. I actually liked the idea of molding your civ's religion towards what the land provided or the type of game you planned to play with the bonuses. I just sucks that you are basically always at odds with everyone else on the map since they all basically found their own religions. Hey Firaxis, take note for Civ6 will ya!

 

[Tatran]

After a few games there is nothing interesting about the decisions involved,

You're right.
I've only finished games the first week after I bought civ5 BNW.
I've tried different paths/policies in the begining of a game, but instead of untying yourself from all restrictions,
you keep on struggling for more happiness, gold, culture, etc.
Because the very low culture output by cities through the whole game, picking a pantheon which generates more culture is always the best choice.
There aren't much meaningful decisions to make in civ5; city placement, picking the right pantheon and timing the right policies.
It's the same over and over again.

I've played most civ iterations games as a builder, spaceman + diplomat, but civ5 seems only give the player some fun in the always war mode.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Civ4 music (and sound overall) >> Civ5

Civ4 music is amazing from Baba Yetu to Chairman Dances.

I'd like everyone to start Civ4 (vanilla) and then Civ5. BabaYetu is by far the best title track. Then click "play now". Notice how terrible the "click" sound is in Civ5.

When you click "play" in Civ4 Baba Yetu transitions very well into the Civ1-intro music and you get the story of how the earth was created and life began. When the intro is over you are placed exactly where you expect to, just about to settle down and start a new civilization.

Found your city and start exploring with your warrior. Now I want everyone to notice that THERE IS NO MUSIC. Only ambient sounds. The birds flying from the trees when you enter the forest, the wind. The lack of background music makes you more aware of all the sounds, just like being in the wilderness in the real world. Only when you enter the classical era does the music begin and that's a brilliant move.

Soren Johnson nailed this. He sets the atmosphere of the game perfect.

Contrast this with Civ5. When you start a new game you get the story of the real world civilization (with a rather bad narrator). In my case the game welcomed me as "president George Washington" and told me that I lead the industrious american nation. It also tells me that a civil war almost tore my country apart.

Then the game starts. But there's nothing in the game suggesting that I'm playing as George Washington and my "industrious nation" consist of a settler and a warrior. It's 4000BC and there's never going to be a civil war. The soundtrack playing is far to advanced to fit a 4000BC civilization.

There's no coherency. There's a big disconnect between what the music and sound in the game tells you and what the game actually is.

Civ5 can keep its big budget specially composed music. It will never managed to evoke the same feelings as when the warhorn blows in Civ4.

Regarding music, well I guess that's a matter of taste. Frankly I don't like these ambient sounds in the Ancient Age and can't stand the Medieval music, the rest is okay and gets progressively better with every age. Since all music of 5 is on about the same level and that level is about the same as 4's Industrial and Modern, that is its highest and best, 5 pulls slightly ahead here imo. Also I really like how you sometimes still hear diplo music after talking to someone and how it switches between war and peace.

Also don't you think you are taking this a little too serious? The click sound, really?

Point taken with the history of your real civ instead of that of the world, that would fit so much better for something like RFC but not the default game.

Also some of the music in 5 is reused from 4 IIRC, but that's neither here nor there.

Vincentz, Windsor and blitzkrieg have already given excellent answers. I can especially relate to what Windsor said about the music and the general atmosphere of the games.

As for social policies and religion in Civ5, they are basically just further trees next to the techtree, and constitute a collection of bonuses that you collect over time. After a few games there is nothing interesting about the decisions involved, and the systems are historically implausible on top of that. It's just the feeling of collecting a further goody every few rounds, accomplished by a brainless click.
All the interesting and realworld considerations, like that of religious blocks creating the foundation for diplomatic negotiations or animosity, with the options of spreading your religion or fighting religious wars, or the various tradeoffs between civics, the consideration when and what to change to, accompanied by the risk of anarchy, are all non-existent in Civ5.

As for culture, the whole tall vs wide thing is simply absurd by any measure of historical accuracy, however rough. The culture spread of cities had potential to be better than Civ4, but was ruined by its implementation. You can buy extra land, from who exactly? Isn't the land unsettled? And how the hell do you spend gold for land before you have developed currency?

I will grant you that the flaws in the culture and religion systems, despite being rather glaring, don't necessarily stand out quite so much, because other mechanics like 1UPT, global happiness, or expansion being tied to tech rate are so horrendous and evoke even greater shock and abhorrence over so much concentrated incompetence on the side of the developers.

Well I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree about the music and atmosphere then. I actually think the atmosphere and presentation of 5 is its biggest strength, how else did it manage to make game reviewers overlook all the glaring flaws in actual gameplay back in the day? :lol

One can argue about the details and the practical implementation of social policies all day long, but I still think the idea itself, that is splitting the mechanic of how your society works from the tech tree and instead making it dependent on accumulation of civ wide culture, is brilliant. You simply can't deny that culture in 4 is practically useless for anything but the first border pop, while in 5 it's much more important due to this and your culture expanding from hex to hex. Also it's not as if 4 was perfect in the civic department either. (Slavery/Bureaucracy versus the likes of Serfdom/Environmentalism anyone?)

Yes, because Hindu-Buddha blocs for thousands of years are so much more fun and realistic.

How so? If anything 5 is the first entry in the franchise which got the whole tall vs wide thing somewhat right with regards to historicity and realism. The problem with that is that it's terribly unfun for gameplay.

Yes yes suboptimal implementation blabla, the idea itself is sound. Maybe when I said I want 20% of 5 in 6 I should have said I meant basic principles, not necessarily the present practical implementation.
Also you could just pay people to settle somewhere specific, why not? It's not exactly unprecedented in history.

I've played most civ iterations games as a builder, spaceman + diplomat, but civ5 seems only give the player some fun in the always war mode.

Huh, I actually have the opposite impression: War in Civ5 is 10% fighting and 90% resolving traffic jams. 1 UPT has got to be the single most stupid mechanic in any Civilization game ever. Warmongering in 5 is just tedious. Like I mentioned above (or at least I think I did) 4 is better than 5 in almost every way. Doesn't mean we have to put down the few areas it did well in though.

 

[Lexicus]

I agree with this, I would actually like to return to the SoD mechanics with some adjustments, not because I think 1UPT is necessarily stupid but because it just doesn't fit in a Civ game. I've never played Panzer General, but I still play Advance Wars 2 which is 1UPT.

Civ is supposed to be a game at the level of grand strategy--you're dealing with a whole civilization. 1UPT in a civ game is like crudely pasting a tactical war sim onto an empire building game. It just doesn't feel right.

SoD mechanics is better, plus the AI actually can understand how to fight (they build a big enough stack and it's going to be a challenge). If they kept SoD mechanics but added a logistics system to penalize you for stacking too many units, I think that would be a happy medium.

 

[Zacar]

Soren Johnson nailed this. He sets the atmosphere of the game perfect.

Actually when compared to earlier Civ games I felt and feel that Civ IV lacks in atmosphere. It has been a long time since I played the earlier games (that do have inferior gameplay), so it is a bit difficult to point out why. It's more that earlier Civ games had a great atmosphere though, instead of Civ IV being worse than games in general. But Civ IV feels a bit more clinical.

The biggest issue I can point out is the use of civ/leader-based theme music. It's the best music in the game, but I can only hear it (that of the opponents) in diplomacy and when zooming very close to a city. And when starting the game, in the initial start screen. Just try playing as Mao and stop at the initial start window to listen. I recall earlier civ games had this sort of music as BGM?

 

[plasmacannon]

A thumbs up to Windsor who is exactly right about the music, transition and atmosphere.
I have never played Civ5 and have no desire to. I watched someone else play it twice, iirc.
I don't want to buy any game that forces me to do any step online as well, regardless of how 'good' Steam might be, it should Not be a requirement. Starcraft2 didn't get my dollars as well.
I agree 50 units in a stack in Civ4 needed to be curbed, but the hatchet job down to 1UPT was too extreme. 12-15 sounds optimal, perhaps 20 max would have been an acceptable reduction.
Seeing units move into the water whenever they want to avoid combat or get around obstacles is absurd.
I do prefer the Lat & Long lines of Civ4 as more realistic Earth style system of measurement.
Hex maps would be fine if used on a more zoomed in optional tactical map setting (check box during game setup).

Civ5 reminds me of the pretty girl with a whole lot of problems that ones instinct screams 'Runaway from this one!" and I did.
If Firaxis wants to win me back to the Civ world, they'll have to do better than Civ5.

On a side note, that Starships game they are creating looks very promising. It looks like their best attempt at a Master's of Orion style of game. I am very hopeful of it's success. Nail it Firaxis. We want it.
Xcom: Enemy Unknown was good too. We have it here on the PS3. I would love to see a remake of it too in another 5 years with some better graphics and more depth to increase replayability.

 

[Tatran]

Warmongering in 5 is just tedious.

Without it, a civ5 game is even more boring.
I only said it, because I really don't like the diplomacy and relationship modifiers in civ5.
Warmonger penalty, stupid nonsense about competing with city-states, wonders you've built, settling too close to an AI capital, etc.
Always war eliminates a whole lot of annoyances, no more AI missionaries or caravans sabotaging your pantheon,
no drama animations when an AI spy has been caugth, etc.
(At least we know now what has been removed at the release of civ5 and why health isn't in the game)
When you're ahead in tech, the AI always manage to steal techs from you, despite having a special agent in your highest research city.
And even in always war, the AI sends out naked settlers and keeps on building wonders in stead of troops.
Like I said before, I trying to find the fun factor in civ5 and I probably won't.

 

[Lexicus]

Oh, I almost forgot to +1 Windsor's post, he is absolutely right about the atmosphere of Civ IV. One thing I would add that I feel is a step down from IV to V is the map UI where in IV you can see what tiles are being worked just by looking. The map is dynamic and "alive," which is emphatically not the case with Civ V's map.

Having said that, I do really enjoy a lot of the music (and even the tech quotes, which I suppose puts me in the minority) of Civ V, I just do agree with Windsor that Civ IV does it better.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

FWIW...another program has led me to temporarily connect to steam, and I had a gift card to burn on Amazon, so I will be trying out Civ V complete. Should arrive some time this week. I expect sympathy.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

One can argue about the details and the practical implementation of social policies all day long, but I still think the idea itself, that is splitting the mechanic of how your society works from the tech tree and instead making it dependent on accumulation of civ wide culture, is brilliant. You simply can't deny that culture in 4 is practically useless for anything but the first border pop, while in 5 it's much more important due to this and your culture expanding from hex to hex. Also it's not as if 4 was perfect in the civic department either. (Slavery/Bureaucracy versus the likes of Serfdom/Environmentalism anyone?)

Yes, because Hindu-Buddha blocs for thousands of years are so much more fun and realistic.

I agree with most of what you have here. I loved the idea of the social policies but like I say in my post, after the first few games, you realize how stale and static the system really is. I am a big fan of the culture spread mechanic in Civ5 (1 hex at a time vs. full on border pop). As for civics, Civ4 may not have been perfect in the civic department, but it has a lot more replay value than the social policy trees in Civ5.

The real problem is that there is a comparison between the two when a combination would work so nicely if implemented properly!

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

FWIW...another program has led me to temporarily connect to steam, and I had a gift card to burn on Amazon, so I will be trying out Civ V complete. Should arrive some time this week. I expect sympathy.

Aw come now, it isn't that bad. I for one was pleasantly surprised that it didn't suck as bad as I thought it would. Then again, if you are going in all pessimistic you can only be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Aw come now, it isn't that bad. I for one was pleasantly surprised that it didn't suck as bad as I thought it would. Then again, if you are going in all pessimistic you can only be pleasantly surprised.

Good point! My expectations are so abysmally low they cannot help but be exceeded. I might be here next week saying I absolutely love it.

 

[elitetroops]

The way rush-buying was implemented in Civ4 was near flawless.

Actually, this is one of the things that always has annoyed me in Civ4. Why would a certain type of government be required for the leader to spend money to speed things up? It would make a lot more sense if the ability to rush-buy things was unlocked by a tech instead of a civic.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Actually, this is one of the things that always has annoyed me in Civ4. Why would a certain type of government be required for the leader to spend money to speed things up? It would make a lot more sense if the ability to rush-buy things was unlocked by a tech instead of a civic.

Possibly. But you are required to have Democracy in order to revolt into US (besides having the 'Mids). Maybe "Free Market" would be a better choice for allowing the government to "buy" things. When I said that, I just meant that Civ4 implemented rush-buying in a way that requires you to reach a certain achievement in the game (a tech or expensive early wonder), and then revolt into a specific civic in order to implement it. I'm less concerned with historical accuracy and more concerned with game design in this case. The ability to buy anything at any time without consequence is downright shabby.

 

[lymond]

I think State Property would be even better, and I like that civic a heck of a lot more than US or Demo for that matter.